Daralyse Lyons: I'm Mixed

Kelly: Would you like to introduce yourself? 

Daralyse: Absolutely. I am Daralyse Lyons and I am I call myself the transformational storyteller because I believe that how we tell stories has the power to transform how we live our lives. And my pronouns are she her hers.

Aurora: And when did you decide to become a transformational storyteller? 

Daralyse: That’s a great question, Aurora. I think there are certain things we choose and I think there are certain things that are chosen for us. And I believe that I came into this world as a storyteller, a person who has a gift for captivating with words. And so I don’t know, I think it was more making the choice to allow myself to be who I am. 

Aurora: OK, so share with us your beginning. 

Daralyse: Yeah, OK. So I am I’m multi-ethnic. I’m multiracial. My mother is white. My father is Black. And I want to say that really, I came into this world being taught to be proud of who I am and to own all aspects of myself. And so, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t encouraged to be self expressive. I feel like it goes back to the womb, like I feel like I came into this world as a person with a story to tell and things to talk about and, you know, ideas and imagination and thoughts. I remember I started reading at maybe four or five and I and I would be under the covers like reading books with a flashlight late at night. Like I always, I just always had an imagination and a creativity and and and exuberance. I don’t even know a time when it wasn’t that way. 

Aurora: Wow. Where did you grow up? 

Daralyse: I grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. You know interestingly it’s probably one of the least diverse places that there is. Like we were solidly middle to lower middle class. So, you know, it was it was interesting.

Aurora: And so clearly, your parents had an awareness that here we have this little Daralyse and we want her to be all of who she is. 

Daralyse: Well, you know, I have to credit my mom with that. My dad was not in my life growing up. And so, you know, but my name interestingly, his name is Darryl and my name is Daralyse, which is a combination of Darrell and Alison. So my mom really she made the choice even before I came into this world that like, OK, my daughter is going to be proud of all elements of herself and I’m going to do my best to teach her who she is, even if she doesn’t have direct access to certain parts of herself or her history. 

Aurora: That’s amazing.

Daralyse: Yeah.

Aurora: How did she do that? 

Daralyse: Oh, my goodness. So I had a conversation with her prior to coming here today. You know where I was asking her, you know, mom, like, how did you choose? How did you decide? And she goes, “Well, when it comes to the truth, you don’t make a decision. There is one truth.” Oh, yeah. And I thought, oh, OK. She’s like, I just told you the truth about your life and your past and your history, she goes, “Why did people decide otherwise? I don’t get it.” 

Aurora: A I so imagine you as like this bouncy, smiling kid in school.Like, was it was it paralleled in your school environment? In your environment, outside of your home? 

Daralyse: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting, Aurora, I have a little anecdote about that. In, I think it was the second grade, we were all instructed in our class to make papier mâché horses. And I made a paper mâché unicorn and I failed. So, like, I feel like I always just was gonna express what I was going to express. Yeah like that was never – it just was never even an item of consideration for me to not just be uniquely me. 

Kelly: I am so curious. Like being a white mother and a very white, affluent suburb. What that was like for her and you. 

Daralyse: I’m pretty sure that for her it was just like, this is my daughter and I love her and I’m proud of her and she’s beautiful. I think for my mom race was never an issue. And so she sort of refused to allow it to be an issue for other people. Or if it was, she was so clear that that was about them. It wasn’t about her and it wasn’t about me. You know I do a lot of work like with race myself and one of the things that was surprising to me is that many people’s experience, many people who are multi-ethnic would be asked like, “Well, what are you or what is your makeup?” Many people take that to be a very aggressive, very othering. And I always operate and my mom always operated from the space of like, Oh, no, these people don’t know and  –  in retrospect, maybe some people were asking that question from a place of like, oh, you’re different and there’s something wrong with that. But I always took it as like, “I’m curious about you. And so let me ask this to get to know more.” 

Kelly: Yeah. 

Kelly: And was there a time in your life where you wanted to learn more about your Blackness? 

Daralyse: OK. So probably from the day I was – the day I grew hair. And I wanted my mom to know more about my Blackness because she didn’t not know how to do my hair. That is her one major glaring deficiency as a parent. I still don’t have it all together when it comes to my hair. Like, I don’t know. In terms of culture, I think my mom did her best in that regard. She was she was and still is very drawn to elements of African-American and Black culture. So like she joined a Black Books Galore, which is no longer around, but it was an organization about really letting people of color see themselves reflected in literature and creating those opportunities for Blackness to be recognized and celebrated. So, like, you know, she was the one white person in this organization and she’s like on the board of this organization. But it was all about like, well how do we bring empowering black characters to literature. And so I grew up surrounded by just people of color who were powerful and dynamic.

Aurora: Can you share how that unique background – Right. So there is this fusion of what has occurred in the womb. Yeah, there’s this fusion of being in this amazing environment where you are propelled to be. 

Kelly: Yes, there’s a unicorn explosion. 

Aurora: There’s a unicorn explosion. So tell us how how did you choose what you’re doing now? 

Daralyse: The peace of my journey that I love so much is this idea of really owning my own uniqueness and claiming that. The part of my journey that I have a somewhat of a problem with is also owning my uniqueness and claiming that. 

Right?  And and it’s not just in the area of race, but I think I grew up feeling different in some way. And it wasn’t just race. It was also you know, I had a single mom. I mentioned that, you know, we were not wealthy and many of the people that I grew up with were. So like there were ways in which I was other that I had a problem with. I didn’t always feel I could go to people. I didn’t always feel like I could rely on them or like I had a sense of clear belonging. I had a belonging within my family, but I didn’t always a social sense of belonging. And so why I’m sharing that is because for many years I struggled with anorexia and bulimia. I don’t think it had anything to do with my ethnic identity. I think it had to do with just certain traumas that happened in childhood. It had to do with, you know, certain ambivalence about my gender identity because my mom met and married a man who made it very clear – he was super abusive – and he made it very clear that had I been a boy, he wouldn’t have really wanted anything to do with my mom. So I had like all this self-hatred that had nothing to do with with race or ethnicity. But it did often find a target in my body, you know, and my conception of my body. And so I’m sharing that because I think there were these two parallel journeys going on and one of them was this unshakable core sense of self and self-love that I had instilled in me as a child and that never went away. But the other was this layered process of like, “I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy enough, I’m not thin enough, I’m not fill in the ‘blank’ enough.” And so both things were happening simultaneously. As these two things were operating, I was really struggling on the one side, the self-hatred side, like I went into finance. I am not a finance person at all. I mean, I was I was decent at it, but I’m a creative at heart, right. So I just felt like I was trying to put the lid on myself in so many ways. You know, the body image stuff and eating disorder stuff. So all that was going on and it was like I got so far away from my roots of like, no, no, at base, I love myself. And I’m and I’m really grateful to be me. All that that involves and all that that means. And so I took a very long detour. So I would go into eating disorder treatment or, you know, or therapy or whatever to try to kind of deal with the surface level self-hatred and self abuse, and then I would come back to my core and that would express itself in like creativity and dance and music and laughter and comedy – I do comedy improv, right. And like acting and so I would have those glimmers of like, “Oh, yeah, this is this is who I am. This is who I want to be.” And then I would drift away from that and trying to be different and trying to be someone else and and and go back into that cycle of self-abuse. And so finally, in 2009, I got out of my last eating disorder treatment and moved to Philadelphia and left finance and really reclaimed my sense of self. 

And that was, for me, like the beginning of living an unapologetic life which I had lived as a child, divorced myself from, and then sort of come back to as as an adult. 

Aurora: But what I also want to understand is you shared that at one point in 2009 you’re like, “OK, I’m going to tap into that well and I’m going to stay in the well.” What happened? 

Daralyse: I got out of my last treatment facility in 2009, and I just realized that all the things that my self abusive behaviors had once done for me, right. Like that ability to check out of life, that ability to sort of numb out –

Kelly: That white side of yourself. Do you know, I’m like seeing like your whiteness and all of that stuff? 

Daralyse: No. But say more about that. 

Kelly: It’s crazy. Like when you cause that disembodiment – it’s almost like you went to like a disembodied place, which I feel like us as white people and a white culture are disembodied or we wouldn’t if we were in our bodies, we would know how how badly we treat other people or how we’ve just been money hungry through all of this and not really humanity hungry that we’re starving for something, but we keep trying to fill it with dollars. And I just hear like that – it was almost like I could hear you go from like almost one culture to the other of this, like disembodied, unworthy, trying to fill up or empty out with something that you can’t fill up or empty out to this like magical core of this soulful place. And I’m like, oh, my gosh, you almost just like, watch the genetic trauma or something like play out in this dance that. I don’t know is that like so well off base? 

Daralyse: It’s not, but it’s- 

Kelly: But I was like this vision I was seeing. 

Daralyse: Well, I’m sitting here just wanting to wrap my arms around you and give you a hug because my perception is not that it’s whiteness at all. It’s more like it’s a cultural epidemic to be disembodied overall that transcends race in my mind. And I think we all I think there might be different reasons for it. Like for, you know, a disembodied white experience. And there’s also a disembodied Black experience that may look different. You know, there’s a – I’m multi-ethnic – but it’s certainly for me to have a disembodied, multi-ethnic experience. 

I think it’s just the human experience of being a person alive today. And it plays out very differently, maybe, depending on our race. But I don’t I don’t see it as whiteness. I think that it’s just like, wow, this estrangement from self is something that every person struggles with. I don’t want to paint it as like, “well, I made this decision in 2009 that I was never going to be self hating again and 

Kelly: Totally 

Daralyse: I’ve never, ever hated myself since,” because that’s not my experience with my experience. I learned that I could choose love or hatred and I’ve made a pretty consistent choice to choose love since 2009. 

When you spoke about the whiteness, I guess maybe that’s the thing that that could be, there could be a need to grapple with that. Right. Like how does one choose self-love if historically one has been on this side of the oppressors? And I think it’s okay to choose self-love, even if historically you’ve been out of the oppressors.

Aurora: And I think the other thing that I hear you articulating, Kelly, is the conversation that we have around trauma, right. Where the trauma that most people of color have experienced, tends to be a bit more obvious, right? It tends to be more visible. You know, turn on the evening news, you can see the trauma that it’s being perpetuated and inflicted upon people of color. I don’t know that that is as visible or as overtly articulated and discussed the trauma, white trauma. And I think that’s what you’re – I think that’s what you’re pointing at, that in many instances, white trauma shows up differently and maybe in more socially accepted ways. But at its core, it’s still trauma, which is back to this notion that we always talk about, which is: we all have to heal our trauma because it’s the fundamental aspects of our trauma that keep us separated and disconnected to ourselves. That is at the core of keeping us separated from each other. 

Daralyse: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess I’m realizing, too, that I think there’s a distinction between trauma that is visited upon us versus trauma that we visit upon ourselves versus trauma that we visit upon others.

Aurora: Yes. 

Kelly: And collective. Yeah, too. Of of collectively learning and doing and experiencing and not understanding why it’s actually hurting you. 

Daralyse: I think at a very basic level, trauma happens through dehumanization. Right. Like when you don’t see a person as a person. That’s what allows you to really hurt that person. But I think we can dehumanize ourselves. 

Aurora: Absolutely.

Daralyse: And I think that’s what, for me, my eating disorder was. It was like I don’t I’m not a member of the human race. Like, you know. And so let me treat myself in a way that I wouldn’t treat anyone else. And I think that it certainly has elements perhaps and has historically had elements of race layered on to that, but I think at the very at a very basic level, it’s like, oh, no, you’re not making someone else a person, whether it’s someone other than you or yourself. 

And until that happens, until we humanize ourselves and others, there is no like, there might be damage mitigation, but there’s really no healing to be had. 

Kelly: Right. 

Aurora: So I am going to hit pause because I would love you to say that again because we’re hitting on it. That’s the point. Right. And I think that that’s the dehumanization that I don’t know is as obvious when we’re stuck in this binary model of white and black. You said it.

Daralyse: Yeah, well, you know, I think that we started off from a very spiritual place and I’m about to go spiritual now, but yeah.

Aurora: Take us!

Daralyse: Yeah. So, you know, I firmly believe that we’re spiritual beings who are here having a human experience. 

Aurora: Absolutely. 

Daralyse: If we operate from a place that we’re all spiritual beings, there really is only one. There is only one. And then there’s just different differentiations of how that might play out. But we’re all the same and we’re all part of a collective. And if we’re all the same, then harming another human being or dehumanizing them in some way is really harming ourselves. In the moments when I’m able to acknowledge my spirituality, I really don’t care if you know what size jeans I wear, you know, and I really don’t care about the minutia of like, am I this enough or that enough or good enough for what I like.

It’s all irrelevant. I’m this spiritual being and I’m magnificent. 

And then the true me can shine through with all my gifts and talents. And I want other people’s gifts and talents to shine through. I don’t want to block them from that. And there’s no scarcity mindset. Like, I think, I think that the scarcity mindset is oftentimes behind so much of that dehumanization as well, because it’s like, well, I’m going to. You succeeding takes away from me succeeding. So I want what you have. I want to somehow sabotage you or sabotage myself in some way. And what we don’t need to do that. 

Aurora: No, we don’t. Wow. There’s so many things that are bursting through my head right now. So a couple of things. One, I think that it was constructed that way. 

Kelly: I was I was waiting to say that, I was going to say that. Disembodiment is a tool of the empire, disempowerment and shame. So if if white supremacy can keep us out of our bodies- numbing in out, blaming each other then white supremacy train keeps on rolling strong. 

Daralyse: But white supremacy is rooted in fear and self loathing. 

Aurora: Absolutely.

Daralyse: So I guess I would say that even for there to even be white supremacy and for that to even operate like. There has to been an investment in fear and self-hatred and self-loathing that came long before that projection onto others. 

Kelly: Correct

Daralyse: And I want to be very, very clear that like I’m not just a person who wants to, like, you know, sit in my basement chanting ohm. I also do believe in- Someone said the other day, my existence is resistance. You know, like I am a multi-ethnic person.

So, yes, like something does need to be done against these these forces of evil and destruction and dehumanization. But what I can say is that if we’re looking at it from a perspective of like, oh, those people have power and they’re, you know, subjugating other people, that that is one level of truth. There’s also the other level of truth that is, it’s power that comes from hatred- like deep, deep, deep hatred and fear 

Kelly: For themselves

Daralyse: For themselves and others. And a total misconception about the fact that there even is something such as other. 

Aurora: I think you said it at the beginning. And I think it sits at the core of why Kelly and I were having these conversations. And we are trying to unearth and it may sound soft to people. It may sound weak. But the answer is love.

Kelly: Right.

Aurora: The answer is compassion. The answer is understanding. 

Daralyse: See, I think where I am with it, and I want to I want to cry a little bit, is I have loving compassion for people that hate themselves that much because I used to be a person who hated myself. You know, and  luckily, as you said, I had this well of love to draw from. And some people don’t have that. Some people all they’ve ever known as hate. But I think what is challenging for me and painful is is the fact that there is, you know, an arsenal of violence that can sometimes accompany that hatred and that rage. So it’s it’s that navigating that I think is part of what I don’t have answers for. Like, OK, I get where you’re coming from. And I’m so sad that that is your experience. And, I also want to create safety for people who are coming from a place of love, and I don’t I don’t know how we do that, but I think these conversations are an important part of it.

Kelly: Yeah, that was I was just at a weekend with Reverend Angel Kyodo Williams. And that’s actually what she says is, we’re going to a place of an imaginative universe that we have never seen, but that we all come from. And we have to imagine ourselves there. So to add to your list of what you just said that we need. I’m going to add freedom and we need and we have to wish liberation and freedom to to everyone, to everyone, because we can’t get there just by ourselves.

Daralyse: I think that imagination is a huge, huge part of it. You know, when we talk about this notion of liberation, Oftentimes when people who have had no reference point for freedom are given or fight for liberty. There is this this moment of panic that comes up after receiving liberty and freedom. Because it’s this sense of, oh my gosh, I am entering into completely uncharted territory. 

And what does liberty liberty even look like? And I don’t have a reference point for what liberty looks like for someone like me, because I don’t see that modeled anywhere. And so I think, like, just bringing it into the realm of imagination is so critical, because then we get to say, ok, yeah, you might not be able to base it on anything that was but let’s base it on all the possibilities that could be. And I think curiosity is so important because if we can get curious, then we can allow ourselves to make mistakes along the way. Right. Because it’s we’re just figuring it out and we’re figuring it out together. So. 

Kelly: See your imaginative universe, I want to know more about. Because, when I was poking around on your Website, I hit the Amazon link and I was like, oh, this why she has a moniker for her children’s book. 

Daralyse: Yeah. 

Kelly: Tell me more about your imaginative universe of books.

Daralyse: Yeah

Kelly: and writing. 

Daralyse:: Oh, my gosh. Well, I love you. You’re so adorable the way you even phrased that question. You’re so adorable. So I think in my imaginary world, I can go to like incredibly light and beautiful spaces and it can also go to very dark and stormy spaces. Is that what you’re referring to? 

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t get to read any of them yet. But the covers, by the covers, they look very exciting. 

Daralyse: Yes, absolutely. So, you know, I think that one of the things that I try to tap into is this idea that we all have a multitude of of of…I don’t know sides, maybe.

 And so I’ve written and I’ve published 20 books so far. And part of my writing experience, it spans the gamut. Like I’ve written everything from a self healing book about yoga to, you know, dark literary fiction to kids, books about being multi-ethnic and loving and accepting one’s identities to like murder mysteries about a woman who’s married to a serial killer. Like, I just I love being able to kind of let my imagination just go and not censor it. And I think that I do believe that operating from a perspective of love and going through the world that way, like I do want to always be in that highest vibration. Like in my interactions with people and in how I treat myself. But sometimes, like, I just want to let my brain go to some dark, twisted places. And. And for me, writing is an outlet for that. And I think. I think most of us have some level of creativity and and desire to generate something, whether it be writing or music or cooking or, you know, something. So for me, writing takes that form and I let myself go wherever my mind goes. 

Kelly: How do you cultivate that? I’m so curious. 

Daralyse: Yeah. So, you know, I I’m I’m in the presence of women who work hard. I know that. Yeah. Like I talked earlier about how others like  there’s these two parallel tracks and like one of my my tracks is I am this dynamic creative person who’s always has ideas. But then the other is like, I’m just a person who works hard and sits down and forces myself to put pen to paper. And like sometimes it comes out really well. And I write something amazing and sometimes I just write a bunch of drivel. And then I come back the next day and put my butt in the chair and write again. And so I own that, you know, it’s not always inspired, but there is a lot of perspiration that goes into what I do. 

Aurora: Yeah. Yes. And so one of the books out of your 20 books was a book that you wrote for children. I’m mixed.

Daralyse: Yes. And I wrote that under a pseudonym, which Kelly alluded to. I wrote it under the name Maggie Williams because I wanted to keep it separate from my adult literary fiction. But yeah, that book really is a mirror of my of my experiences as a child growing up, being able to own all aspects of myself.  I wanted to give other children a way to see themselves reflected in literature and to also to come out their multi ethnic identity from a place of expansiveness rather than a place of contraction. I feel like I was able to kind of give them an entry point for the conversation that they might not have had access to otherwise. 

Aurora: You know, I’m a big believer that you can’t be what you don’t see. And this is what’s connected to everything we’ve discussed today, which is curiosity, the imagination. There’s two thoughts, one, I believe that we at our core as spiritual beings are amazingly creative. I don’t know that we would have chosen to incarnate and to live the plethora of what this human experience is if we  weren’t created at our core. But what you’re bringing to mixed kids is an opportunity to see themselves reflected. 

Daralyse: Yes, and an opportunity to see themselves reflected, I mean, the first few lines of the book are I will not say that I’m just black. That will make my mom feel bad. I will not say that I’m just white cause that leaves out my dad. And so really, you know, it’s a book about kids being able to see themselves reflected, also to be able to hold their histories. You can hold all these elements of yourself and not feel like you have to pick a side, because I don’t even really believe that there is a side to be chosen, you know.  It is a book about race. But it goes deeper than that, which is it’s a book about being able to be all the things that we are. Which to me also means, you know, if you love athletics, you can also be a good student. You can also be, you know, an artist and a dancer. You can be all the things that you are and not feel like you have to be any one thing to the exclusion of other aspects of yourself. 

Aurora: I love that because I think one of the evolutions that we’re experiencing as humans and within our consciousness is morphing away from the binary. 

Kelly: Yes. 

Aurora: So. Right, wrong, good, bad. Black, white. What most people don’t realize is that multi-ethnic children were not actually legal until 1967. And now we will actually be the most pervasive demographic in the very near future. And there’s a part of me that wonders, do we have an easier time living in the non binary? 

Daralyse: Mm hmm. The fact that we were, you know, illegal at one point does I think create this space of unprecedented possibilities because there is no roadmap for how to live in a multi-ethnic, multiracial identity from a place of like non secrecy, right. Because at one point it would have to be secret, it would have to be hidden it where we could not claim it, we could not own it. And so to be able to really own that and be empowered by it and be proud of it like that in and of itself is something new. But also I do think that if we use multiethnic identity as one example of the ways in which we can live in a non binary space, then yes, 1000 percent. I think it makes us more comfortable in that arena. And yet what I found in my own work oftentimes people who who are multiracial will feel pulled to claim one race to the exclusion of others, which I think can sometimes make them less comfortable in the in a non binary space. So I don’t think I have one answer for you, but I have my answer for you, which is that it’s made me far more comfortable being able to exist in an unknown spaces and in spaces that exist in between extremes. But I don’t think that’s the case for everyone. I think some people can be less comfortable actually, and feel more compelled to choose because that’s what they’ve. I don’t know. That’s been their experience. 

Kelly: We’re talking this season about intergenerational wisdom. 

Daralyse: Oh, yes. 

Kelly: So we’re wondering if you have any intergenerational wisdom that you would impart yet to the next seven generations. 

Daralyse: OK. Well, I’m going to start on a micro level and then go into the macro level. We started off this podcast talking about what my mom imparted to me, which is this idea that I. Children deserve what is true. Right? And and we all deserve what is true. We all deserve access to that. But I think adults maybe hopefully have a little more discernment and a little more access beyond what is given to them. And so, you know, my mother gave me truth throughout my life, but especially in childhood. And I think that when and if I have children, what I want to be able to give them is the truth of their experience and their identity. And the truth of my life as it’s been lived. Right. Like the good, the bad, the ugly. And and then beyond that, I I want to bring that to other people and other generations and generations upon generations. And and people I can’t even imagine, you know, interacting with yet at this point, because they’re not even alive yet. And their kids kids aren’t even alive yet. But but I think really it all starts with with what is in the scope of my control, which is, you know, my own my generation and then the generation after mine. 

Kelly: Do you have an opt in for our listeners? 

Daralyse: Oh, goodness. Yes. So I guess what I would love for them to opt in to is choosing an aspect of themselves to love unapologetically and harness their inner Aurora and let it be messy, but but choose something and it can be, you know, maybe it’s race. Maybe it’s maybe it’s just an element of their personality. Maybe it’s but but I would love for them to stretch maybe outside the boundaries of what is comfortable and choose something that is really true about themselves that feels unshakable, that has always been and will always be there and choose to love and embrace and claim that, because I think that is. 

That’s a beginning place for creating safety for all of us to claim all aspects of ourselves, right. That if we can start with one thing, it will have an untold ripple effect. 

Aurora: Beautiful. What’s next for Daralyse?

Daralyse: My latest book, it’s called Yoga Cocaine. And yeah, it’s about a cocaine addict who comes to yoga as a means of recovery and self love. 

But I’m also very much engaged right now in a project to help demystify diversity. And also, I wrote a series of memoirs. So there’s a lot. Yeah.

Aurora: Wow. There’s a lot. Yeah. Well, we’re excited and we can’t wait to share all of those things.And we couldn’t be more grateful to have had your perspective, your spirit and your love with us here today.

Kelly: Oh, my gosh. Yes. To be part of your imaginative universe for just this amount of time was a gift. Thank you. 

Daralyse: Yeah, and Kelly, you made a point earlier, too, about like you called it the white experience but, like trying to kind of like. To be rid or expunge ourselves of certain things, right, and I think that that dynamic plays out on an individual level when people feel like, oh, it’s not okay for me to be all these things. Then we try to like purge ourselves of the aspects aren’t OK. 

Kelly: Pick and choose.

Daralyse: Right. Right. And that leads to this huge disembodiment and self-alienation. And it also leads to this illusion that, oh, if people knew this about me, then they wouldn’t love me. 

Kelly: Right. 

Daralyse: And so then we try to hide the things about ourselves that we think are 

Kelly: All our shadow side.

Daralyse: Yeah. Have Right. Right. And now I actually try to lead with my shadow side at times now because I’m like, listen, these are the things you’re going to have an issue with me, these are the things that are going to be problematic for you. And what I found is that most like most people are like, oh, thank God you have that, too, oh thank. You know, there’s such a relief that, you know, oh, we all have this light in this dark.

Aurora: As a recovering perfectionist myself, you know, being able to embrace my shadow side, it’s like yeah, I can be assertive, I can be, you know edgy in some areas of my life, and I can also be the biggest softy. 

Daralyse: Well, let me ask, because you describe yourself as a, you know, a recovering perfectionist, like fill in the sentence, right. So if I were perfect, then then what? Like, what’s the what’s the thing that your brain tells you? 

Aurora: Oh, I would be worthy.

Daralyse: Right. 

Aurora: If I were perfect, my parents wouldn’t get in trouble. Right. So so for me having done a lot of the shadow work, it comes back from being the kid of to domestic parents where the consequences of not executing perfectly had very dire results. 

Daralyse: Yes. 

Aurora: And so I just continue to layer upon that as I grew up. 

Daralyse:  Yeah. If the goal is to love your parents better, you know, that is still a phenomenal goal and a phenomenal aspiration. The mechanism by which you get there  is not perfectionism, right? That’s what we tell ourselves as kids. And I’ll these, it’s really interesting when we start to look at why we do the things we do. It sometimes we make decisions at five years old that then drive the rest of our lives, right.

Aurora: Oh. Yes. 

Daralyse: Well, how do we each you know. And I think I think if we look at anything that’s playing out in our lives, that that doesn’t serve us. Like for me, my eating disorder, it was all about like I want to be loved and I want to give love and I want to exert some level of control because I feel powerless and out of control. And so I’ve been able to achieve those things through different mechanisms. I had to throw out the thing that didn’t work to get there. It’s almost like if I tried to row a boat from Connecticut to California on land like that, would it wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t get there. But there’s nothing wrong about wanting to, you know, get to this phenomenal place. 

Aurora: And I think for me also it was like. And so if it’s not if it’s messy, it’s OK. 

Kelly: Yeah. I needed to hear that, too. Yeah. 

Aurora: If every “I” isn’t dotted, if every “T” isn’t crossed, it’s OK. I would spend so much more I would spend so much time creating an environment that was perfect, for example, like, if you would come to dinner or lunch, I would spend so much energy and create so much anxiety for myself and everyone around me in creating sort of that curated perfect experience for you. Until I realized that actually you didn’t really care about all that, I mean, it was nice, but it was more about being connected and sharing time and being together and having our hearts be together than everything else I gave importance to.. 

Daralyse: Right. Yes. Yes. I love that you said gave importance because I think we get to choose what is important to us. And I think that at base, it’s usually those bigger things like worth and love and connection and vulnerability and depth. But, you know, sometimes it’s very easy to get stuck in the superficial realm. And not only because all that stuff, it’s like it feels more controllable, but really it’s just it leaves us feeling so empty and alienated. Yeah. And I know, Kelly, when you and I first met, you had spoken about that, too, about how all the surface stuff often creates even greater sense of separation when the focus is there. 

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. You just get hyper focused on. I don’t know. I even say that I’m like, well. So then you have stuff that you’re worried about your stuff and you have to take care of your stuff. And then you have to you know, it’s like, what? What are we concentrating on? What are we? What are we really doing? 

Daralyse: And then who are we? These deeper existential questions come up. I mean, I think that’s why people have identity crises all the time, is because you’re focused on the stuff. And then there’s either there’s no payoff there at the end of the day or like there’s this sense of if I lose this stuff, I would cease to be me. And for me, you know, I can’t nobody can ever take creativity away from you. They can’t take, you know, education away from you. They can’t take your. Yeah. Your curiosity, your depth, the texture that makes you you you know, nobody can rob us of the things that really matter. You know, aside from things like freedom and liberty and, you know, basic human rights that I that hopefully, you know, we will fight more and more to get more of and have more people have access to those things. But, you know, the the top level surface stuff, it really it can be lost. And and sometimes hyper focusing on it can cause us to lose ourselves. 

Aurora: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Kelly: Thank you. 

Daralyse: Thank you. 

Kelly: Well Daralyse just dropped some magical wisdom

Aurora: Seriously. I felt like she started coaching us.

Kelly: Oh, for sure! And you know I think it was so intriguing about how she interpreted disembodiment. Like my mind immediately goes to whiteness…and I so appreciated her challenging me on that.

Aurora: I think Daralyse speaks to an important nuance as someone who feels like she occupied both Black and white spaces.

Kelly: Exactly!

Aurora: Well definitely more to learn from Daralyse. Pick up one of her books! We’ll include all that information in our show notes.

Aurora: Now it’s your turn. We want to know what’s on your mind. What’s a story that’s shaped your life? What’s a memory from your childhood that speaks to your character? Find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @the opt in.

Kelly: Music for this episode is by Jordan McCree. And the Opt-In is produced by Rachel Ishikawa.

Aurora: Until next week.

Kelly: Bye.