Listen up if you’d like to know the secret of being really, truly, deeply alive. This episode, with non-profit founder and podcast host Ned Buskirk, is an emotional, joyful exploration of how rich life can be when we don’t look away from death.
Listen up if you’d like to know the secret of being really, truly, deeply alive. This episode, with non-profit founder and podcast host Ned Buskirk, is an emotional, joyful exploration of how rich life can be when we don’t look away from death.
Ned Buskirk is the Founder, Podcast Host, Facilitator, and Executive Director for You’re Going to Die [YG2D] – a 501(c)3 nonprofit bringing diverse communities creatively into the conversation of death and dying, inspiring life by unabashedly sourcing our shared mortality.
www.yg2d.com
https://www.instagram.com/yergoing2die/
https://www.facebook.com/yergoingtodie/
https://twitter.com/yergoing2die
Eva's instagram: @iamevaliao
Book a discovery call with Eva
Kyley's Instagram: @kyleycaldwell
audioNed[he_him]-YG2D31532706153 + 2-1
Kyley: [00:00:00] Hello, my loves. Welcome back to Hello Universe. Uh, this is Kyley with a solo intro and we have been saving this episode since the summer, like all summer. Um, even I recorded this guest interview before we went on summer break and I have been giddy with anticipation now for months to share this episode with you.
Um. And so be prepared to just fall madly in love with today's guest in this episode. [00:01:00] But before I get to that, I have other things for you to be madly in love with. Namely, uh, our, my co host, your fave, Eva Liao, has one spot open for a one on one client right now. And let's just be real. If you were listening to this podcast, you would...
Be obsessed with the experience of being Eva's client. Um, I'm lucky enough to have been her client many years ago, that's how we met. And this experience of being a spiritual seeker is, I think, sometimes really unnerving. And there's many times where I think we feel a little like we're being split in two.
Um, and we can feel that there's an opportunity to become a more expanded, lighter, more generous version of ourselves. And sometimes we just really [00:02:00] need someone to make the safe space for us to... Choose that to follow the seemingly impossible choice of more and Softer and more exposed to being a creature of love in the world And Ava will do that in all of the mystical ways in all of the stretchy Esoteric ways and also with profound down to earth magic so If you're in the middle of being stretched in two and you want that to be a graceful and gracious experience, uh, hit up Eva for this one last spot.
And then as for me, well, my loves, I have a new workshop, you know, I love a good free workshop and this one is a juicy one. It's called more, a money [00:03:00] masterclass, um, because let's be real. We are hungry for more, more of everything, right? If you listen to this podcast, you are someone who is hungry for more of life and more of being alive.
And a lot of us want more money and Are both afraid of that desire and don't know what to do with that desire and feel deeply disappointed by that desire. And your very hunger for more around money is an opportunity to fall through that portal into the more of all of being alive, right? Uh, we make money wrong and we make it really conflicted and It's actually such a ripe portal place for some of the richest spiritual experience that I've ever had.
Um, so if you want to be more alive and you're curious about [00:04:00] how your relationship with money can be a place to give you that, come to this workshop. If you will notice, I am not explicitly saying come to this workshop and make more money. Although perhaps you will, what I am saying is that Your relationship and dynamic and hunger and complexity around money is a ripe place for you to step into deeper richness with yourself, with money, with care, with love, all of being alive.
And so if that is appealing to you, 1024. It is a free workshop. The link is here in the bio. You can also find me on Instagram and grab the link there. I am teaching it with my bestie, Liz Simpson, who, if I'm not talking to Eva, I'm talking to Liz 99 percent of the time. Um, it's gonna be great. It's going to be bonkers.
Come sign up onto today's show. [00:05:00] This week's guest, Ned Buskirk, is the founder and podcast co host and facilitator of his non profit, uh, called You're Going to Die. Great name. And as the name suggests, he Dives deep into grief, into, um, actually grappling with and looking in the face at our own mortality. A thing that I think most of us are constantly turning away from, uh, in various ways.
And as a result, Ned is one of the people who is so alive. I have thought of this interview many, many times since we first recorded it a couple of months ago. And...
I find Ned to be an incredibly moving person [00:06:00] because he's in it. And I think that's really the gift that death offers us, right? It reminds us that all of this is temporary. And so pick what you care about. And Ned is clearly someone who has chosen to be in The living of life, um, you'll notice, perhaps you'll notice, I've noticed how willing he is to cry in a really, really love filled way, like, he's just alive, he's just fucking alive, and Uh, I think that is the thing that all of us are looking for and why we are spiritual seekers to begin with.
And I have not been able to stop thinking about the fact that perhaps it is in really inviting death into our lives and allowing ourselves to be present with it, that We are given the blessing of being [00:07:00] most alive. Um, I highly recommend listening all the way to the end because Ned reads a really, really, really beautiful poem at the end.
I mean, all three of us were crying. Spoiler alert. Um, so enjoy this podcast. Check out Ned's other work. He has a podcast called You're Going to Die. Um, and yeah, shoot us a message and let us know what stands out to you because, um, this is an especially rich one.
Ned, we're so jazzed. Welcome to the show. Uh,
Ned: Thanks for having me.
Kyley: Yeah, absolutely. So we will jump right into it with, uh, what is life teaching you right now?
Ned: Oh my gosh. Uh, it's a good question. Let's see. Hmm. think probably the thing I, I sort of shared before we really dove in here is a pretty big [00:08:00] one, which is what it means to do the dark and still have a good balance of light. And I think there's a lot of different conversations that land in the midst of that for me around like self pity and, and victimhood and heartbreak and what it means to make a lot of room for that, but still come back to a deep, sincere love of life.
And Joy and, and connectedness and laughter. And I would say it's a day where I feel a pretty good balance of that. But I think the teaching is what does it take to really hold that balance? Well, right now for me, what kind of self care, what kind of like catharsis, connectedness.[00:09:00]
Unplugging, you know, that's the lesson probably right now. If I don't do a lot of that, holding that balance of light and dark gets really, really tricky being someone who's super sensitive and who holds a lot of grief, not just my own, but for others. And So I, I feel like that's an ongoing lesson. It is what life is teaching me right now.
And it is what life will probably continue to be teaching me on and on and on for the rest of my life.
Kyley: Yeah, it's not one of those temporary lessons. It's just
Ned: Yeah. Right. Just this week, y'all. I just, it's a Monday through Friday thing. I should have it all figured out in a couple of days. It will be, it will be, it will be ongoing. However, I will say maybe to just a little add on to that is that I think I'm learning. It's like something teaching you isn't doesn't [00:10:00] mean anybody's learning.
I mean, you'd be in a classroom where someone's teaching a whole bunch and there could be a big group of human beings that aren't getting shit out of it, um, for whatever reason. But I would say I am needing to get the lesson right now. You know, I am needing to learn. And that feels unique right now, for sure.
Kyley: Yeah. Can I ask, I really love that distinction of like actually learning and I love those moments too, where you're like, Oh, Hey, old me and current me have two different reactions to
the same circumstance. Like great
job. Um, ask what. Um, there are, if there have been tangible things in the learning of like, Oh, you know, this is the boundary that I know that I need, or this is the, the action or the ritual that, um,
has made the most difference
and maybe not, maybe they're too ephemeral.
Ned: This is great. It should be solid and it should be [00:11:00] listable. Uh, I'm thinking though, just as you asked that, I'm thinking of a Gwyneth Paltrow interview I saw recently where some guy's asking her what she does to take care of herself. And she's like, I eat bone broth three times a day and four pieces of quinoa, you know, whatever.
I don't know her list. And, and I, someone made like a new reel or meme out of it. I don't even know why, but it's them put it, you know, this, these apps that make your face like things. So it's like a lemon talking
Eva: Oh yeah.
Ned: Okay. And this woman's like, mother fucker, Gwyneth Paltrow. You're talking about starving yourself, you know, like just angry at Gwyneth.
And, and so I think reason why I'm bringing that up is because it made me laugh. Like, Heartily every time I watch it, it does. And I, I, I just don't want to risk the okay. Listeners heads up, get out your pen, your pen and paper. I'm going to list all my
Eva: Mm hmm.
Ned: but it's my inclination is to say, Hey, fuck, like waking up and going [00:12:00] exercising at six in the morning, every morning of the week, you know, uh, finding that 10 minutes to sit down and be quiet and meditate.
Um, the like, don't eat a ton of sugar at the end of the day when I'm watching Vin Diesel's next like great action film, you know, and I mean that to like the media content, you know, and I just feel like the listener out there is like, oh my gosh, I wanted to get into this episode because Ned might have wisdom and it's like, no, it's just the usual shit of what am I, what am I doing, uh, with bone broth soup and, uh, You know, the exercise and stuff like, I, I really, but I really mean it.
It's like, it's simple and for sure. I haven't done all that stuff with a strong commitment. And I think right now my, my life in a way, I'm so grateful for everything I get to do, like getting to talk to y'all and your hearts, you know, expressing excitement about having a conversation about the things I care about more than anything, [00:13:00] like this is a dream come true.
And the thing I asked for is like. Okay, you said you wanted this, but I have, I'm asking you something, you know, I'm just getting emotional about it, you know, Oh, so it's a lot like this beginning of a week is dense with being with cancer patients and. Going into prison and I mean, I just left a grief release.
You know, we're doing one every week now on Zoom for free for an hour. And to just jump from that and come in to be with all you feeling what got shared there and also relief to laugh and joke and feel some lightning, you know, holding both. Boy, it takes some real like intention.
Kyley: Yeah.
Eva: Yeah.
Kyley: Thank you
for bringing up.
Ned: Sure.
Eva: And it's actually beautiful to witness you [00:14:00] in
this process, you know, like this is so real. It's
like,
Ned: Mm.
Eva: I want to go back to what you were saying about, I want to speak to this, this emotion, but also really quickly, just so we don't skip over it, this piece of like self care. Thank you. Being simple. It's actually very heartening for me to hear you say like, it's this, it's like not eating sugar at a certain time of night because it is the simple things like I can do these little things.
Like if I go to sleep, if I don't stay up all night and I get like I know go to sleep at a certain time. I just know I will be a better human being. So it doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be one of the Paltrow level
Ned: Yeah, I mean hers, I would say hers is like ridiculously absurdly simple on on the spectrum, but I understand your point. Yeah, you're right. Yeah.
Eva: But Yeah. I mean, what you do though, what you do this, this, I think specifically in your line of work, the holding of the, [00:15:00] of the light feels very important because you're also holding a lot of the dark.
Ned: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and, and I think I have a natural inclination to, um, hold that and, and find levity and, and love making people laugh, love laughing with people, you know, and, and I think the light to represents for me. More than ever, what does it mean to come back from this darkness and say, it's worth facing it.
And here's why, like, here's the meaning. Here's a life of meaning. Here's my, like, openness expanding. Um. And I don't, I don't want to get too lofty about all that, but I, I do come just as an example yesterday, I spent like five hours in San Quentin and the, the musicians I went in with, we had dinner afterwards and we're talking about that experience and the uniqueness of being with that community in particular.
And I think it is a little bit of being witnessed by people who have [00:16:00] been through so much hell, so much darkness and suffering so much loss, so much shame and guilt. By likely things they did that led to them being there and worth mentioning things they did because often they live in a country in a, in a, in a world where this, the, the odds are stacked against them, you know, but that they have made a choice to show up in the spaces we get honored to hold with them.
And I think stand confidently. With, with, with solid sureness, you know, like about that, they're still here and that they're alive and, and that they're wise or knowing or understanding, or just that they're an example of a human that can come back from all that and stand like that before you vulnerably, but powerfully, you know, and wanting to be that, you know, I want to be that and I want to, I want to make room for people to consider the possibility.
[00:17:00] Because so often, like I mentioned, coming out of a grief release, which is just like, tell me, tell me how you're broken, like, tell me how it hurts, tell me how you're, you're leveled, tell me how you're falling apart. We need that. And I think we need spaces and acknowledgement for that kind of human experience more than ever, maybe, and certainly out of maybe generations and decades of just not getting.
Much of that at all, at least in my experience and coming from my parents and my lineage,
Eva: Yeah.
Ned: and I don't want to stay
Eva: about this. So many
Ned: And I don't want to stay there. Right.
Eva: Okay. So I want to ask questions about a grief release, but also I don't want to know the second thing I want to know when you were sharing so openly about balancing of the light and the dark is that, and I feel like you might, you know, I feel like this is something people might say in passing, but I wonder if you maybe know it more deeply than most people, but the fact that in [00:18:00] some way there, you can't have.
The light without the dark and you can't have the dark without the light. I'm wondering, you know, when you must see the complimentary miss of it in some ways, it
probably fucks with you. And it's probably also very enlightening in other ways.
Ned: hmm. Mm hmm.
Eva: I just, you know, it is, I think so much of this life is about holding the paradox.
We talk about this on the show all the time. Everything is just It's both and, it's never either or, and I think it takes great capacity to hold that truth because black and white is easier, right? Like
Ned: Mm hmm.
Eva: it's simple, but colors is complicated.
Ned: Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, forgive me. I'm like trying to kind of access this, this quote that's like emerging right now. It's a version of what I said already, but it came out of a book that I just finished for one of the guests on my show [00:19:00] and it's by B. J. Miller. And I don't know if, you know, B. J. Miller and his work, but he at college age was out with some friends on a, A train yard and got up on one of the cars and grabbed the wiring above and it turned out it was like lit.
It was, it was active and he got electrocuted and he lost his arms and one of his legs. And now he's, like, uh, created a life of meaning, helping others, doing a lot of work at end of life, grief, palliative care, um, but this notion of somehow giving ourselves enough room to grieve fully and, like, he didn't think he actually did enough back then.
Because we're so like, let's get to it. Let's get to the light. Let's get to the meaning. Um, that it's more complicated and nuanced than that. I think holding that balance between the two. I think also what comes up hearing you, you're reminding me that maybe it isn't like dark is as much the issue, but it might be that like getting consumed by it or having [00:20:00] part of us deadened by it or numbed, you know, I think I worry that there's part of me that's like, could shut down or get covered by anger or something else unhealthy in my relationship with being alive because I'm not doing the work I need to do regularly to kind of come back enough so that the light is in equal balance to the dark.
I don't know if that makes sense, but you're helping me kind of start processing some stuff.
Kyley: Well, and honestly, that's, you would ask the question before we hit record and I was like, wait, I'll tell you this later. You'd ask, you know, why we wanted you to have come on the show. And this is exactly it. Right. It's a show about spirituality. Even I, you know, love nothing more than to talk about things that don't exist outside of language. And I think so much of our lives. Death and grief [00:21:00] are the like looming specter of our lived experience. And
also it's the thing that we, and I myself, I'm a thousand percent guilty of this. That is the thing that we are always not looking at, right?
We are really, really, really interested in pretending that things that there isn't darkness or looking away or pushing path, you know, to, to the story about BJ Miller, like pushing things down and
away, you know, whether it's. Death specifically, or other aspects of, you know, what here we're saying, the dark, it's, it's, it's, I'm, when I found you on the internet, I was immediately so drawn in because I think You know, my experience is when the, when painful things are dark, darkness has become so loud. It's like not an option to not look at it.
Ned: Mm hmm.
Kyley: Um, and I, and then I find, and then that becomes liberating. Right. Every
time I go in and then it creates space and I go in and it
creates [00:22:00] space and. I think I'm just so, um, intrigued that you have kind of like committed to looking
right. Uh, in a way that I think most of us
don't. And I, um, yeah, I'm eager to just, you know, I think in some ways, uh, find out what makes you tick.
Right. Because it's like, you know, everyone's like, I talked to my, another friend of mine and I'll say like. Why did we pick this medicine, right? The, like, going into the dark and getting, why didn't we
pick, like, something, something that felt, like, easier? Like,
why did we pick this really
Ned: Yeah.
Eva: Yeah. Why am I not in finance? You
know
Kyley: right.
Ned: That's right, Ava. I was like, I joke about that all the time. It's like, gosh, living in the Bay Area. Why don't I just fucking get a job at Twitter and, and make, you know, six figures plus Um, yeah, it's a good [00:23:00] question. I mean, I think for me personally, there's that piece where it's like, I don't have any choice, you know, I mean, I it's funny to talk about these things in terms of what we want to engage, let's say, with our work with with my nonprofit to give people a place to maybe make that choice.
Also. Maybe it's as simple as to give people the space that just are inclined that way already, and so then need it made clear when it's available. And I think for me, To answer your question a little bit. Sometimes it feels like the pendulum swing is all that I'm a part of that. I come from parents who didn't do that as much.
And we're, I think grieving constantly. This is another thing. I feel right that we're grieving as an example of like being and dealing with darkness. It's happening constantly in us, but we're just not making room for it on the outside in Potentially the cathartic, healthy ways that it [00:24:00] needs to move it.
And so then when we have it happening and I should say, Abigail Benson on the last episode of our podcast is who reminded me of this. It's that idea that when we do have it held there, it just turns into other junk. You know, it's going to find ways to come out. And I think I lived and grew up in that. I grew up in depression, alcoholism, anger, dysfunction in those ways.
And so my pendulum swing that leads me to be here is the this isn't working. So to start with, I'll just throw tantrums constantly so I can get attention from people with big emotions. And by the way, I don't think that I'm very different now to have the inclination, even with you two already to burst into tears a little bit.
It's not maybe as dramatic as me screaming at you and kicking and, and throwing my fist through the air. But it's a version of like, there's something here, you know, like there's a truth that needs acknowledgement. There's a truth that needs [00:25:00] attention and there's a truth that needs airing out. And so sometimes I think the trajectory of doing this work is that simple, right?
And then accented a course by having a loss at such an early age, you know, my mom dying at 26. That's the, Oh, I don't know why I went to a bereavement group when I was that young. And commonly people don't, when they're young, know to like, seek out that option. But like in that first year of my mom having died, I found a bereavement group somehow for people who had lost their parents.
And most of those people were older than I was. And I'm not even talking about this, like, good for me. It's just somehow built into the mechanisms of my being during that time. And likely maybe even as simple as someone in my life saying, this is a place to go, you should go check in with them. In fact, I'm sure a friend directed me to this center down in L.
A., where I found that group. But knowing that early, I was like, I'm not, this won't just stay here, like [00:26:00] heartbreak and grief. I want to talk, like, I want to talk about, I got to turn this into something else and me being here with all of you is, it goes back to that, you know,
Eva: Mm-hmm.
Kyley: Yes, I do. I have, I have a very, had a very formative, um, conversation with someone really important to me. It was like, kind of sobbing and was like, I have to make what happened to me have meaning. Like, I, I, like, it's one thing, I think, to make peace with our own relationship. You know, grief and pain or the ongoing process of making peace with it.
And then, and then I think for some of us and, and I, I know I, I, I'm one of these people, it also feels like I have to make it mean something. It can't just be that I survived it. I have to make it mean something and that I can feel like propelling me forward, maybe not always with great compassion, right?
Sometimes I think I'm hard on myself
because of that.
Ned: Oh yeah, for sure. [00:27:00] Uh, can I just, can I raise my hand relating over here? Gosh, like a lot of, a lot of, I think even being, being here too is needs acknowledgement of just the demons, you know, like the self hatred and stuff that I think probably is a bit of the lesson now. Right? There's this hunger then to chase, like making meaning and then somehow mattering and making it worthwhile and proving it.
And that's like a insatiable beast. And, and so I want to add an answer to the first question to one of the lessons is how is, how am I enough here? know, and can I make a life and, uh, accept myself in a way here and now as, as an, an enough, a version of enough.
Eva: Yeah,
Ned: And that doesn't require like, what's the next thing I got to figure out and prove and be wise about and make meaning around
Eva: Well, that's the this is like with all things like I see this in [00:28:00] myself. This is like the The booby trap I think of like personal, spiritual, like anything really is that we can take something and I think that actually turning paint into something beautiful is one of the gifts that we have.
It's such
a, it's like, it's, it's, you know, to take something and that was painful and to let it be a catalyst for something good is medicine. And I think it's so much of where the good comes from
in this world. But, but, but then that can get distorted.
Which is tucked. And then, and then, and then we go like way over
Ned: Well, that's good. That's good. That's the piece, right? Because then it's like, what are we chasing in the grief circle? What are we chasing in the grief release? Because I think what you're speaking to, and sorry, Ava
Eva: Eva. Eva. Yeah. Yes. No, thank you for asking.
Ned: that in the email, Eva, I think the risk is that we get hooked on that maybe a little bit too much.
Eva: exactly. Yeah.
Ned: then our identity becomes. I mean, [00:29:00] ideally it
Eva: And our, and our worth, our worth and our worth, Yeah.
Ned: is the, like, I make meaning out of my grief. And that's not a bad thing, I guess, to have end up being who you are in the world. I just think I, I will speak for myself that there's a risk that I get attached to my identity being defined by
Eva: Exactly. And that's, that's the point that I want to make is that it can be really beautiful
until we distort it until we're doing it. Like we have to ask ourselves like who and, or what. In us is doing this. Are we doing this from a place of love? Are we
doing this from a place of fear? And so it's just another way in which we can be more self aware
Ned: You're right.
Eva: because that can just become like another trap, right?
Like all things.
Ned: Yeah. And I think I'm, I'm at risk for that, um, in my work and, and being the person that I am, like, I acknowledge, like, still a version of that kid. Um, I want to revisit being clear in a way that connects here to Eva about that last thing you said about love instead of fear. That's B. [00:30:00] J.
Miller's quote is like that we're loving life, but that somehow we're still loving life. Like that's what defines us that we make enough room for the grief, the heartbreak, the trauma, maybe not just for ourselves, but but maybe for others to and that somehow still we have that experience that we come back to that we're loving life still.
And I want to be that person. And I don't know that I am fully. Um, but I really want to be that person. I sincerely Want to be that person. I feel like that's another, you're like, what's the lessons now? I have like 40. Can I just say also that loving the conversation like this? Cause. There's things I want to acknowledge and just cut me off when I start to just go off on some tangents, but you, you can tell that it's possible that I will do that, but
Kyley: We, we, we are, our whole show is just layers of
Eva: It's just
one tangent after the
Ned: great. As long as I'm not the only one tangent team, cause I think I have that capacity in me to just go off for days, but I want to [00:31:00] say just a couple of things loving life, right? That's the quote BJ Miller coming back from all this grief, all this loss, all this trauma, physically, emotionally. To still somehow make enough room for what it means to grieve and cry, you know, that.
Over all that and still find a love for life. Okay, I also want to say why I love talking with y'all in this way is that there has never been a question that was a So tell us about what you do and how you got here and I'm so down for that way of getting to some of that stuff like to not do that and have a Conversation that just naturally gets to it because this creating Is such a part of what we do, making space for people to creatively express themselves.
The origin of, of the nonprofit and the work I do in the world is. Other than the story I've shared a bit of already is me deciding to do an open mic that made room for us to have these kind of conversations and to share our poetry and our songs and our [00:32:00] stories about these parts of our mortal experience.
And now so much of what we do isn't just that, and we still do that, but even with the podcast, but with cancer patients. In San Quentin with the exoneree community impacted by the prison system, it's this, what is a way to actually engage with each other, even if it is spontaneously sharing, which I think is a fresh, unbelievable form of creative expression to just say the thing you've never said before out loud to strangers, especially, but that, that what you just said, Eva is so essential, I think to so much of what we do and so much of what I, I care about is making room for us to create.
Thank you. I guess in a way, something with others that gives the stuff we've survived and are surviving and getting through meaning and transforms it or gives it perspective or offers it to one another. Like, gosh, there's just nothing better. I mean, [00:33:00] that's really what I'm hungry for, probably continually in these spaces and it makes you disappear a little bit too, by the way.
All this shit that we're talking about, about like dark and light. And am I good enough? And self hatred, like I dissolve in listening to someone do what you described, you know? Yeah.
Kyley: you say more about dissolving? I'm, I'm, I'm here for that.
Eva: Mm-hmm.
Ned: Well, it just happened to you because I just went off on this tangent that I feel is true and connects to so much of what I feel in my heart. And we can be like alleviated and lightened and dissolve is the word because we disappear and maybe like what's happening is a connection, you know, a deeper, like I'm not the only one in this drama.
Suddenly. We're all connected because of what is shared like in a moment [00:34:00] that we're sharing now gives us a chance to step out of that. I'm the center figure in a drama that I am inclined to experience it, you know, in that way, because I'm here in this like head on a stage, this the main character and what a lonely thing.
But boy, what is it like to drop that and let ourselves go into one another? , you know, more.
Kyley: you are giving me such a gift for something that's been loud these past couple of, I don't know, days, weeks, eons, depends how you slice it. But, um, you know, in, in my intention as a host in the pod, in the podcast is the moment where I'm not at all thinking about being responsible for the flow of the
Ned: yeah. Right.
Kyley: right? Like, and it helps to have a super kick ass co host, but also
Ned: I bet. I wish I had one. That's
Kyley: I highly recommend [00:35:00] 10 out of 10. Um, but, um, but also it's very much the project of like ego,
right. Is like, you're not actually like, don't, there's nothing to control. And when I show up to be like the main character, then I like, I can feel this like tension in my body and I can feel myself kind of like worrying and watching and like,
Eva: There's almost something cut off too. You know what I mean?
Kyley: yes, yes.
And in the. And, and so my intention always for, for the show is to like really be in the place of like, well, I don't know where the fuck we're going to go,
Ned: totally.
Kyley: right.
And,
Ned: I think that's right. Yeah.
Kyley: and, and then also like trust, you know, cause sometimes I get up to a tug to like interrupt or, you know, whatever, whatever. So it's not necessarily passive, but it's just this dissolving that you're speaking to. Um, and so I know that for here, this space. But there's been all these other spaces lately where I've been witnessing. Also a desire to dissolve now [00:36:00] that you've given me that language and some real confusion about how and some real anxiety about letting
that happen.
Ned: Mm-hmm.
Kyley: Um, and so, yeah, I'm just feeling this sense of like, okay, well, I can take this.
I can take the warm space of the podcast as my touchstone into these other, um, spots that actually have nothing to do with conversation that are about like my body and, you know, all those other things. So, um, thank you real time. Thanks for helping me.
Ned: Well, I mean, you guys are creating it with me, you know, here. And by the way, I should acknowledge, I was like, you were like, so what does that mean dissolve? And I was like, what I just did to you. And you could be like, you didn't do shit. I'm thinking about my laundry, you know? So just to acknowledge, maybe that's not what it felt like, but I felt it.
You know, and what I think you're describing for this context is the, like, you know, if the world ended in three hours, do we share something where we were just like fully immersed and present and shared something that we really needed together [00:37:00] and didn't depend on production and. And release and getting out in the world and doing all that stuff that we actually had a moment together that was exactly what we wanted, like exactly what we needed.
Um, and I, I understand that life isn't always that way, um, but I think most the spaces and the work that I do, I feel like that's a way to describe it so often to give ourselves that. You know, and I think often it's like to feel more alive. Like I'm feeling right now to, to remember I'm not alone.
Like I'm feeling right now. Probably those two things more than anything, you know?
Eva: I mean, I think that goes back to the question of like, you know, why did we choose this path, right? This is why we're not in finance,
because there's something also here that is, that is good for the soul
Ned: Yeah. Right.
Eva: in. Okay, hold on. I have to, I have to ask. There was, there was something that was brought up earlier, and my, like, organized [00:38:00] brain feels like we have to go back.
Ned: Oh my gosh. I'm holding like five of those things
Eva: I know, I know exactly. I'm the, I will, I will sometimes be the person who like brings us back,
Ned: Good.
Eva: also because I think this is like, to me, this is the hard hitting question. I'm going to kind of put you on the spot because you kind of already talked about how, like, you don't know if you have it all figured out.
But I just want to say, this is also the podcast where we ask questions that don't have answers, right? Like, there is no So, Bye. Bye. Anyway, there may not be, there's not always an answer to every
question, but I, I want to go back to the topic of like, what happens, like, what do we do when life hardens us, like, hardens our heart?
Like, that's what you're really speaking to at some point, like, and correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of this is like, what if you've just been dragged through the fucking shit and, you know, You really go into this dark place where
Ned: Mm hmm.
Eva: it's like, how do we find the will to love life, you know that I
totally agree with you sometimes life is really hard and it's really [00:39:00] sad and it's really scary. And the question and you're right like we are all at risk, but also I think in the work that you do. You know, at risk of like we could get really just angry and
just be like, fuck it. Why,
Ned: hmm. Mm
Eva: why bother being a good person, you know, and I've, you know, I've been there before where something so terrible happened.
I was just like, fuck all y'all. I
was just like, I was so upset and I. This was really, oh, I think I may have talked. Oh, wait. I don't think we talked about some podcast before, but like, I, my brain went into a place where I was like, it was actually really scary, but I was like, I understand why people like murder or do like the worst atrocities in the world.
It was like the, it was in a weird way. My pain gave me compassion for other people's pain. And so I guess there was a gift there, but it was just really dark place where I was like,
I see the darkness and. I [00:40:00] can't even imagine how anyone could just be smiling right now because
Ned: Mm hmm. Mm
Eva: this is just so bleak
Ned: hmm.
Eva: and the question, but I think you're bringing up a good point of like, as a human, we risk that experience. And I think the goal is always to not let ourselves harden to the pain and to
keep our hearts open. And this is the kind of conversation I want to have because every single one of us, like people who are listening to this podcast, like we will experience major grief in our life. And I think that's why I think it's good that we have these conversations, you
Ned: Mm hmm.
Eva: like, let's not turn away and let's see what can we, I don't know, I don't know if what can we do with the right question,
Ned: Mm.
Eva: how do we respond?
Ned: Mm. Yeah.
I just,
I just feel like it's a wild question to answer because [00:41:00] you could answer it from, well, what would I do if I was hardening? And once you start to imagine being in that emotional relationship with reality, which could happen, like you said, anytime with enough trauma or loss.
Part of me just feels what you described, which is compassion for understanding how that would just be what is that you were able to, in your experience of a version of it, see how someone could end up in that state. And so then there's the, well, what, how do you make someone not do that? You know, that's the other answer is how can I answer that question from like, if you're feeling hardened out there, [00:42:00] here's the advice to crack open.
And I mean, that would be the advice, right? I think the advice would be somehow find that place where you could crack open, not just harden. And I think in my experience, that often can happen by offering it to someone else by letting someone in to that place. And I think, like, I imagine, you know, bringing in that.
That gold glowing gem into that dark granite, hard, cold place that the light could maybe bleed a little bit into this and soften other parts of who we are just because we're willing to say to someone what you just said, you know, to go to someone and say, I don't. I don't want to live anymore, you know, let's put it into terms like that, you know, like, can [00:43:00] someone say that in our, in these times in, in the community that they're in, in, in, in the, in the culture we live in, can someone go and say that to someone, um, and be received.
And, and not be told what 1 800 number to call, what 1 800 number to call or what here's the fix or here's the answer. Um, I mean, thanks for the disclaimer that I didn't need to answer this question because I know that I'm not
Eva: But no, but you did. I mean, your answer is bringing like, just emotional. Like, yes, I'm crying behind these glasses. Like the, you said the most beautiful thing, which I think is, I mean, there's probably various ways we can respond, but. Something that rings so true to me is to repeat what you said to let somebody in and into that heart in place.
And I was just so [00:44:00] moved by that because fuck, that's it. Like it's not doing it alone to let people witness your pain and to maybe dissolve some of the shame or the, or whatever, but it just is a confirmation of what I, you know, want to hold close to my heart is that. We can only do this together, like, we have to do it together and isolation. And it's, and it's, that's the tricky piece, right? It's like when we're in that really bleak place, isolation maybe is the default
Ned: for sure. That's really important. I think to acknowledge
Eva: yeah, or, or, or we're just mad. We're just like,
again, the whole like, fuck all y'all. Like, I'm
so angry, you know?
Ned: which is, which is likely usually like hurt underneath, you know, which is like animal reaction is let me go hide in a dark place under the house.
Eva: yeah.
Ned: You know what I mean? How natural.
Kyley: Can I ask a follow up question because I really love what yours are speaking to [00:45:00] which is like the pain is loud Right that anger the grief the the the bleakness is loud I think there's another kind of hardening that happens. That's Easier to ignore, right? That's like, uh, you know, speaking from personal experience.
This is the part for, for me, this is the part of me. Who's like, oh, is future seeking, right? Who's always like, um, not present because there's something to do or something, you know, um, uh, and who just has like, um, I don't know this knee jerk reaction to like, you know, Back away from something intense or, you know, just these like small kind of muscular ways of, um, of a not softening. Um, and I think in some ways there's like, it's, it's, not as, it's not as intensely painful. Right. And also.
Eva: But [00:46:00] probably also just as harmful, like, Thank you.
Kyley: And it's so pervasive and it's like insidious. Right. And I think I'm curious how, maybe because it's entirely selfish. Cause it's, it should feel like the moment I'm at it is I'm
like, Oh, I'm having a
terrible dark
Eva: what is this podcast if not just a place
for us to ask our questions?
Ned: Exactly.
Kyley: tell me how to stay soft in the face of,
Ned: huh.
Kyley: um,
Ned: Yeah.
Kyley: yeah, that feels like that feels like I think another, I guess that's a follow up question.
Ned: Well, yeah, I mean. I just want to acknowledge to, to be, first of all, I think it's really important to acknowledge to be privileged in life in a way that you could go and have resources or lessons or books or the documentary or the community access or the, you know, fill in the blank. Like, I feel like that's really important to just make a moment for.
Thinking about community who in, in whatever part of the world, [00:47:00] not just in our country, but wherever, for whatever many reasons couldn't even like, there's no like talking about this shit, you know, and even like the privilege we have to sit here and be like, let's talk for two hours about hardening and softening.
And so I just want to acknowledge that. I, and I know that's not an answer to any of these questions, but it feels really important to me because I think sometimes I feel that. You know, Gwyneth Paltrow. God, I don't know why I'm just harping on Gwyneth.
Kyley: I know the meme you're talking
about,
Ned: you?
Kyley: I've also seen it, her like
Ned: yes, yes.
Kyley: it. So I have a feeling, but also I'm really glad that you're saying that because I had a softening, even as you said that, because what I, you know, I can run perfectionist, right? And so I can, and you, I think I heard you say a thread of this earlier, right?
It's like the hunger is like.
Incredible, voracious hunger to be fucking alive and also have this drive. That's like, you're not, you're not there yet. [00:48:00] Like you're not, you're not like you could be more present.
Ned: Yeah.
Kyley: Right. And so I love what you're saying,
which is what a fucking gift that you get to. Live out this experience of figuring what the hell it means to be soft. that.
Ned: Yeah.
Kyley: In your, in that answer, I'm also getting the reminder of like, maybe the assignment once again, the reminder, maybe the assignment isn't to nail soft, but it is to like, have this really incredible experience of weaving back and forth and uncovering and
Ned: Mm hmm.
Kyley: doing this.
So, Yeah.
Ned: For sure. Just to be in a moment, just to acknowledge the, what you described that I've been feeling lately too, which is to be in awe and astonishment and fascinated. And, you know, my life has gotten pretty fucked up. So I'm not like, I feel privileged and things have gotten, you know, I don't even want to go into all this stuff, but like, [00:49:00] I'm sure y'all have your version of it, but stuff's gotten real bad, you know?
Um, and so I can say what I'm saying right now to that person back then, they would have been like, fuck you, dude. Like, dude, there is no awe and astonishment here. Um, but anyway, I made it.
Eva: it. You know, you get, you get angry.
Kyley: yes.
Ned: just acknowledging all those like versions of us and, and wanting to be that more. I want to be that now.
I want to be like, wow, this is fascinating. Like my heart is breaking. What a trip. You know, like I do want to feel that way about it, but I want to, I want to stay with your question around softening. I'm feeling this. Share it that I'm bringing out of San Quentin from one guy who I've been in a suicide prevention.
I facilitate a suicide prevention group out there. It's like peer supporting peer, you know, like community supporting other community, um, in crisis and trauma and and ultimately for the [00:50:00] goal to be. Offering support and connectedness long before suicide prevention is even needed, but you can imagine a real need in their born from, uh, mostly broken system that really for a long time and probably still in some places for sure.
You don't go and tell anyone in charge that you're having, you know, suicidal tendencies, right? Because of all the things that the fallout of that. Um, including like it going on your record, like affecting your parole, even I've heard stuff around people getting put in cells, like naked on camera, you know, um, this kind of stuff.
This matters to say, because this guy's taught me so much in the time I'm with him every week and just yesterday, a couple of times getting to hear him share, he's taught me what it means to also need to stay hard sometimes in some ways. And, and I understand this is a [00:51:00] really extreme context. But I'm thinking about you, Kylie, in the ways that I relate during a time of my children's lives, where me getting soft too much really maybe wasn't the way to go to stay in the mode I need to stay in to survive a time of life that was one of the hardest.
Times I've ever lived through. I'm not saying that's what you're going through, but I'm just using your share and where you're coming from as an example of, I do think there's times when it's like, no way. Am I going to agree for lease today? Like I cannot be with that. I can't be with that other people's stuff right now.
Like that is not the answer for me. And this guy talking about what it means to keep your head down. And push forward, put your shoulder to the wheel because that's what's required sometimes in certain contexts. And he's also taught me what it means sometimes to say, I need to name the people that died during COVID.
I need to tell you about them [00:52:00] screaming for help in a cell that was out of my reach during a time when it was like, lock it down and throw the key away. There was no one there, you know. And to have him make a moment to cry and name their names yesterday. He showed me, I think in his way, what it means to like, know when to tap into the loss and tap into the past and make the room to grieve.
And also the balance of doing that and, and feeding the future, you know, like feeding the joy, feeding the purpose, the place to open, to crack open and fall apart and the time when it's like, stay steadfast. You know, stay focused on what's needed right now because softening maybe isn't the thing right now.
I know there's a lot of versions of what I'm, I'm pointing a ton of different things right now, you know, and I absolutely obviously don't mean to equate Kylie your experience or [00:53:00] mine to what it means to be, but these are the lessons, by the way, what's life teaching me like these guys.
Um, so I, I just want to simplify it to, to, again, like acknowledge what you asked, which is, I don't know that it, that all times are, are, are supposed to have a soften, you know?
Eva: I mean, I actually so appreciate you saying that. Yeah, I mean, it's. I don't know. I love practicality. And so my practical brain goes, of course, right? And it's so funny how Kylie and I talk about this all the time. It's like, we make what we're doing wrong. Like, it's always wrong. It's like, if we're not being soft, obviously, I'm wrong.
Like,
Ned: Yeah.
Eva: there's, but it's also funny. It's like, we can give ourselves grace for not being soft, like
right now, just not fucking feeling it. And actually, I just, yeah, head down, you [00:54:00] know, because we know that sometimes Self protection is necessary
in really hard times, and that doesn't mean that we're doing it wrong.
Ned: Mm hmm.
Eva: Do you know what I mean?
Ned: Yeah. And, and, you know, to acknowledge like when we were kids, let's say whatever shit you lived through to get here, that part of us that we've heard so many versions of the things we started doing to survive that don't serve us eventually, you know, like there are times for those things.
And that we're still in that. It's not like that just ends with childhood. Like, I think there are things now we need to survive that we hopefully won't need or probably won't need later, you know,
Kyley: Yeah.
Ned: that could include hardening that could include like self protection versions of it, you know?
Kyley: Well, and I'm also thinking about how I, I've always carry in my pocket. This study, Brene Brown talks about, which is essentially the end result is people with the greatest empathy have the strongest boundary. [00:55:00] And that's also what I'm thinking as you're speaking is like, you know, this, this this person who is your teacher right now, what, what part of what I'm hearing is also the. The way in which hard and soft go together, because hard also makes safe soft, right?
Ned: Mm
Kyley: knowing, knowing that you can
have access to both, um,
Ned: Yeah.
Kyley: mix.
Ned: Mm hmm. Yeah. I really like that. I really like the idea that like, I'm sorry, Kylie, you brought it up. We're working with you right now. Um, you, you, you say like, well, why, why are there times when I don't want to soften? Well, it could be, yeah, you're, you're hardening because you're protecting something soft,
Kyley: Yeah. Yeah.
Ned: that's really sweet.
Yeah, I like that.
Eva: I'm taking notes here.
Ned: Yeah. Are we good? Can we check in? I feel like over the years I get on podcasts and I'm like crying, I'm screaming, I'm talking endlessly. And then [00:56:00] like when the podcast comes out, I don't really hear from the hosts. And I'm wondering like, was that like way too much? So it feels good to be like, Hey, we good.
Are you guys
Kyley: Oh,
Eva: there's no too much on Hello Universe, I don't
think, right?
Kyley: yes.
A thousand percent. We're here for the ramble. Tears are always a
fucking
Eva: and we're here for the really real, you know, we're
here for the really real.
Ned: Hell yeah.
Kyley: And okay, I also had off of what you were just saying, too, I have there's a question that's been kind of pinging around in my mind. So 1 of the things that I think about parenthood a lot is that. Parenthood to me is a study in grief and it's a, it's a study in like the intimate interweaving of love and grief because every fucking day your kid is bigger.
Right. And like the other night, my son is 6. Then I, I put him to bed and I, you know, gave him a kid, did our whole night routine and left his room and realized it was the first time. That I ever put him to bed without singing the [00:57:00] two songs that I always sing when I put her to bed. And I wasn't particularly, like, emotionally blown away by it. But it was this moment of, like, this is the beginning of an ending, right? Because he's only 17, sing, like, Frère Jacques.
Ned: Yeah. Yeah.
Kyley: record, my son is such a little tender
Ned: That's what you sing?
Kyley: We sing Frère Jacques and then I sing I sing, um, you are my sunshine, but my
own lyrics of it, because the original is very creepy and
codependent.
Ned: It's super dark. I love it. But yeah, okay. It makes sense.
Kyley: Um, and also Desi's such a little nugget that the next night I was like, Hey, I realized I didn't sing to you. He goes, I noticed. Will you sing twice tonight?
Eva: Ha
ha
Ned: still in it like
Kyley: He's doing it.
Ned: Yeah, that's
Kyley: like, I mean, he's just, uh, he's yeah. They're, they're so great.
But I think about that all the time with parenting that like. Of all the places that I have this, like, really, my highest anxiety about whether or not I'm present shows up in [00:58:00] parenthood because the stakes feel high and the, the, like, you're going to die time tick feels so, like, it's where it feels loudest to me.
Right? Because. Because everything because this was like, it's a constant setting grief because everything is in the process of ending with them. Even as new things are beginning and the new things are great. And I actually think I enjoy parenthood more like as my kids go older, like I'm a better mom to four and six than like,
you know, one and three.
Like this is more my, you know, and. Uh, I have perhaps less of a question, more of just an observation that I'm
tossing into your lap.
Ned: I dig it. This is mainly how I interview people on my show is I just talk about something and be like, I just want to acknowledge that anything to add. Um, so I have things to add. I'm ready for it. Um, yeah, boy, the, the, the parenting thing. I don't need to go too long on that end. Um, but I, I did want to acknowledge specifically that [00:59:00] piece, right?
Of the rapidity of, Of what's dying, what's falling away from us, you know, how quickly kids represent that both because our heart is outside of us. In the ways we care for them and like how quickly, you know, it's like cheesy to put it as the how quickly they grow up, but like they fucking, you know, like us all hanging out for five years.
We wouldn't notice any changes, but like we it is that way. You're like, Oh my gosh, it happened. We were just seeing the song yesterday. Like we did it every day and it's not and I'm realizing it's not happening anymore. You know, gosh, it's that it's so potent that reminder. And also a good, uh, I want to say thanks for the acknowledgement around getting to be a better parent, uh, now in comparison to say like one to three, I just very much relate to that, you know, chaos of, of the new, like bag of, of human that ends up in [01:00:00] your house that you're dealing with sleep deprived and everything I joke and definitely at this point annoying my wife with this one, but just the, God, it's so wrong, but it's like, can we, is there a place to like, take them for the first year, like a warehouse where someone will take really good care of them?
We'll visit them. We'll do the pheromones thing every now and then.
Eva: I'll do some skin on skin, and
Ned: exactly. But mostly they'll be in that warehouse until one years old. Okay. So all your listeners just got so angry, but, but, uh, okay. Part of, part of, part of how much we love them is living through all that too. You know? Um, what a thing.
And so, yeah, so I wanted to acknowledge that. And the last thing I'll say in response to that, I think is the softening and hardening in that reality, those kinds of realities, I feel like, and worry that I'm [01:01:00] so like, I have such deep anticipatory grief around my own death, you know, and, and, and for them and, and God forbid, you know, if anything would, were to happen to them that I wonder.
If my heart is so full, I can't even handle it, you know, I feel like I definitely, I think I like turn it off because it's too much sometimes and I think sometimes how I turn it off is by hardening a little bit, you know, and I think like maybe even being hard on them or defaulting to some of that kind of interaction because.
I think when we're so in love, so completely in love, we, I, I feel the like risk of just falling to pieces, you know,
Kyley: You know,
Ned: and I'm not justifying staying hard by like being that those other ways. I'm saying it's a conflict. I have conflict about that. You know?
Kyley: So when, [01:02:00] you know, people love to tell the story about, you know, your, your kid gets placed on your chest after labor and like, you know, that they're yours and, you know, and, and it's this really intense experience. And obviously there's plenty of, there's a whole variety of experiences that happen. And for me, with both of my kids. And I actually, this might be a, this might be, this might be catharsis for Carly. So thanks for coming to that show.
But, um, before them, I have a very specific moment with each of my kids when I was in labor, like pretty quickly, like pretty soon before they were born, a feeling like so intensely connected.
And I was crying with my son. I would be like, I gave him a little pep talk, you know, it was like, we're, we're a team, like you and me, we are a team. This has been a long ass labor and like, you're about to be born and like, we
can do this because we are a team. And with my daughter, it was less language, but like a similar energy of just feeling like really fucking connected to
Ned: Hmm.
Kyley: And both [01:03:00] of them, when they were born and they were placed on my chest, I have, I have a sense of feeling a numbness
that
was absolutely a hardening of
Ned: Hmm.
Kyley: what the.
Ned: Yeah.
Kyley: Like it was like, like, and I, I actually carry, which is why I say, I think this is because I carry some real grief about, about that moment because it's like supposed to be this moment of connection.
And it was like, it was like, I was like blown out by how much I could. experience. And so I just like reined, I could, I can see how and where I just like reined the
scope. It's like, uh, no, that is too much to feel. So we're just gonna like,
like, I put this in a size medium.
Ned: Yeah, I mean, the go to description for me and, and the most recent, I know I referenced this already and this is not a plug. I mean, I'm on the show. So I guess it makes sense to talk
Kyley: you're allowed to plug things Yeah.
Ned: okay. Cool. [01:04:00] Uh, but if you know, Abigail banks and the banks are a duo, they're, they're married a couple with, I don't know if they're married.
They're a couple, they have kids and, um, there's been miscarriages and A lot of grief around that. And, um, but anyway, they were on the show and we just had met for the first time, we'd never talked before. And we just, both of us burst into tears, which you're by now you're like, well, you did that with us too.
But, but, but she, she,
Kyley: Special!
Ned: she was crying. I was sobbing. Um, But then we were laughing, you know, cause it was so ridiculous. I'm like, we're just going to, this is all this episode is going to be is 45 minutes of us just going back and forth sobbing and laughing. And, and I said this to her and I say this every now and then in the spaces where this, a lot of that is occurring.
And it's the, if we're really open, open, open, open, open all the time to like that, we're going to die. That [01:05:00] this moment is precious and fleeting and falling away as fastly as, as fast as it's arriving, we would just be that kind of mess constantly. And I think especially for motherhood, it's the like, no, like you need to keep it together.
And I don't mean like, uh, someone authoritative figure saying, so, I mean, like, you need to keep it together. You need to take care of your kid. You need to take care of yourself. Like, and I'd say even more like born from just being an animal on this planet than the context we live in now. Like, it's part of our DNA to be that way.
So, wow, wild for the first time to hear you describe that in a way that it connects to what we were speaking to. Um, That your, your body was like, hold on now. You know, like, this is what's required with this new being, integrating into your life is a little bit of like,
Eva: Yeah. And to add to that, Kylie, I just thank you for sharing that. That's just so beautiful, but [01:06:00] I hope in the context of this conversation, what I mean, what I would like to add is just now that we kind of understand that your experience is like, well, I guess I would just add that, you know, you talked about having grief for that moment. And I think it's about some compassion and forgiveness, you know, for. I don't even know if, you know, I don't know if forgiveness is the right word, maybe you don't have to forgive yours, but some kind of like that response made perfect sense in that
Ned: Yeah. Like, understanding. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Kyley: You, you guys are actually giving me that right in real
time, so thanks again because what I'm also receiving like, I think my story has been See, that was when you were, oh yeah, now I'm going to cry. See, see, that's when you weren't loving your kids enough. Here they were, you're meeting them for the first time
and you can't love them enough to be fully,
Ned: Yeah. That's [01:07:00] wild.
Kyley: to be fully present.
Uh, which is a story that I play all the fucking time. Like, that's my thing. It's like, if you loved your kids more, you would, you
know, be like, it's always comes back to like, if you really loved your kids, you'd be fully present and you are gifting me. Um, in a really big way is like. At the same time that I am desperate to be fully present and show them how much I love them. I need to keep it together because I got to be the one who makes sure they eat on time and that my
daughter like eventually goes pee because she'll wait all fucking day and then
get sick, you know, like,
like, I am, I am trying to hold hard And soft at the exact same time for them. And of course,
I'm fucking confused about how to do it.
And maybe it's
not me. Failing them, but it is me holding both roles, which is,
Ned: Mm-hmm.
Kyley: uh, yeah. Wow. Okay. Thank you.
Eva: Ned, what you Kylie didn't hear, but like, that's love [01:08:00] too, know, making sure that birdie peace
Ned: Mhm.
Eva: like is love
and it's a different kind of love.
And Oh, I just think such. So, you know, to be gracious with ourselves and see it that way, rather than think that it's supposed to, I don't know, be some other way.
Ned: Yeah, I would, I would add because I can, I'm relating to so much of what you're sharing Kylie in terms of the beating myself up because of some of what I already acknowledged by the patterns I fall into, you know, by the way, some of that shit, you know, it's not like I'm not gonna give myself the out of like, well, it's, it's loving when I get super nervous.
Frustrated and annoyed and snap at them, you know, um, sometimes it's like also patterns, uh, of my own, you know, childhood that I, that I can feel like my mom or my dad coming in, you know, but then I like what you said, even just the, like, there is something around compassion and forgiveness and knowing like [01:09:00] my heartbreak about those moments is.
The love I have for them, you know, it represents the love I have for them and, and, you know, my, my, my wife would say probably like how constantly, especially as they get older, what's needed is just to say as much like, oh my gosh, I'm sorry, you know. So sorry, we couldn't do that always right all these years in the beginning But now to be able to take my son aside and be like, I love you so much I'm I'm so sorry that I snapped at you and it's not a big deal and to have that moment Which to be honest like my parents, you know, my dad still my dad still hasn't said that you know Anyway,
Kyley: A thousand percent, because I, I think all the time about how, what I want to model for my kids, I can't act, I want to model for my kids as the people who love you will say that they're sorry.
Ned: mm hmm.
Kyley: Right. And the people who love you, we're all, they're going to fuck up, but I
want my kids to go out into the world and [01:10:00] be in intimate relationships. With people That are worthy of them, meaning that they fucking say, Hey, I screwed up there.
And if I can't, I can't be perfect for them for all that. I obviously expect myself to be,
but I can show them the people who really love you own up to their mistakes.
Ned: Mm
Kyley: And by extension, you have to own up
to your mistakes. And sometimes I have shared this in the podcast before, but every once in a while, my son, I'll be like really pissy at them. And my son will go. Aren't you gonna say sorry, mom?
We are not at that point yet.
Ned: Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. Yeah.
Kyley: You need, I need at least another 20 minutes of sulking in the front
seat and then you get your apology.
Ned: That's good.
Eva: Okay.
Kyley: Yeah.
Eva: Can we pivot for a second now? Okay. Now that we've talked about kids, I would love to talk about parents. Um, And you referenced your, your dad.
So,
Ned: Great. So this is now I'm going to lay on the couch and then you guys be the therapist. All
Eva: no,
Ned: go.[01:11:00]
Eva: no. Uh, well, okay. So, and actually highly my question, I think, um, folds into your earlier question about how we hardened in, in, um, ways when
you were talking about that. I, I feel like. I thought of my dad, who is like very stereotypical traditional Asian male, like, and whatever that might come with.
Um, and I definitely think that he is someone who currently is in a dark place because of years of that subtle
hardening. Um, and then. Your wisdom earlier, Ned, about like, well, how do we, how do we respond to the hardening? And you
said,
Ned: I mean, he's who I was thinking of. Right. My dad.
Eva: yeah, it's like, okay, how do we, it's like, okay, if you're hardening, some medicine is to let someone be in there with you and share what you're, what is going on. And I thought of my dad [01:12:00] and I was like, oh man, that's going to be
tough. Cause yeah, because he's older and set in his
ways and also like. Asian, like, culture, and also oldest, like, oldest, um, brother of three in an Asian family. So, my question really actually is more about, um, it's actually more about, oh yeah, sorry, the width, sorry, let me continue my train of thought.
My train of thought is also I feel so lucky that I am who I am in that, I think, in my darkest times, I will let people in. And I think that's because of my
conditioning as a woman,
Ned: Hmm.
Eva: you know, I've just, you know, women, I, you know, not to
stereotype, but the stereotype is like, it's easier for us to like, go and talk about our feelings and all that stuff.
I'm really curious what your experience is of, um, [01:13:00] Yeah, experiences, experiencing this as a man and like what your perspective is on men being able to feel
grief and let people in and connect and,
and how men are also, you know, victims of the patriarchy, essentially,
Ned: Yeah.
Eva: all
of that.
Ned: thanks. Um, well, first of all, the intuition around that particular part of our conversation connecting to my dad, you're like thinking of your dad when I brought that up. He's who I was thinking of and, and part of where that emotion came from in that moment is just the like, how do you soften someone else?
How do you, how do you offer something to someone else? So they might choose to soften. Um,
Eva: Oh, yes, yes, because I'm always just like, I'm trying and you know, like, I want
to get in there. And sometimes. There's a wall.
Ned: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that with my dad and just to kind of acknowledge that reality before I and I think it's good to because it's part of the story [01:14:00] right of how I'm in the world and how I think I have the capacity to feel and the empathy I, I, I believe is like one of my superpowers and my, my, my ability to express emotion and open up with others.
Um, yeah, he did not teach me that. And I think for him now, it's, it's that like last stretch of life where all that I want to be is, I think I've decided a place of ease and acceptance as he faces the last hardest parts of his life. Because that's what he has before him. Um, and I, and I will try sometimes to say, Hey, like, call me.
Because I know you're going through it a lot of stuff happening with with him and my stepmom and health stuff and like [01:15:00] really serious stuff really and getting him on the phone and just saying isn't it like good to just check in, you know, like to talk and he just just so unwilling to admit. Uh, to the point of it's just hilarious.
I'm just laughing at him, you know, and, and that's good. It's good for me to laugh because me trying to change him now is, is not really time well spent. Um, but I know that there's some like real heartbreak and wounds and demons there that I probably won't really get more into until he's gone I bet. Um.
But to answer your question, I'm not sure if there's much different an answer than what I said earlier, which is I don't know how to say that I'm, I've ended up being a man who's inclined to open and be vulnerable and express my emotion readily and cry visibly. I don't know how to explain that other than that's just how I made.
Um, but I [01:16:00] do wonder a little bit of growing up with. Uh, my mom and my sister and, and really that was our unit. My dad was around, but not in the healthiest of ways, mostly. And, and then ultimately he was not at all around. And so it was just me and my sister, my mom. And so I, sometimes I'm like, is that maybe part of it is that I was just.
But you know, I, and I want to be really fair. It's important to have a disclaimer of like, I love, you know, I love my sister. I love my mom. I love my dad. I I'm not here. I'm not trying to just bag on them, but I don't think of my mom and my sister is like very highly emotionally mature either. And so it's like both like, maybe that's why, and maybe even their lack of being that had me just lean in even more to like, well, I'm going to be that.
You know, that's how I'll get noticed. That's how I'll, um, I mean, that's probably the end of that sentence. [01:17:00] I don't know what I don't think back then. I was like, what's the, well, I'm, I'm five years old thinking like, you know, what's healthfully needed right now? Like a serious level 10 tantrum, you know, like mostly, I think it was like, I needed, like I said earlier, just get it out.
Um, and I, and I think ultimately what's that?
Kyley: record. Just for the record, Ned, I famously smack my, I was having such a bad temper tan when I was five that my aunt was like, just lock her in my bedroom till she's done. And I famously shattered her entire
floor, like mirror
Ned: Yes, that got her attention.
Kyley: yeah.
Ned: You know what it's like? And I think ultimately then I was just looking for places to go where I could do that with other people. And I don't mean the tantrums, but where I could be vulnerable. And, and actually part of that story is that I found that probably with friends a little.
But ultimately in high school, just going to church and, and I'm not involved in that reality anymore and don't need to be. And I don't need to say more about it than that, but I will say that [01:18:00] absolutely what I got out of those few years of time with that community and that youth group and that youth pastor and, and some of my best friends and my first girlfriend, you know, in that context was a lot of practice.
Being able to be in a space that was holy and sacred and where I could cry and I could talk about the things that were upsetting me and be totally accepted and really like so many of our spaces now with my work in our organization, not have someone try to fix it other than, you know, I had to give my life to Jesus Christ, but, um, that was the one thing that was like, well, this will fix it.
But other than that, it's like a lot of just, we'll pray for you, you know, like we'll hold you. We can be with you in this. We can't take that dysfunction away. We can't take away like the brokenness of your home, but like you can be here and you're accepted and you can cry. And by the way, we'll also like do fun shit and laugh and sing together, [01:19:00] you know?
Eva: Do you, but do you find, I'm actually curious about your demographic. Do you find that in these grief circles or you know, in these groups or working with incarcerated folks, that, is it different with men and women?
Ned: Yeah. So when you were bringing up that Perspective on, like, being, you know, identifying as a female and so then maybe being inclined to reach out and connect to community. And the best answer to that question is the, the demographic slice of probably everything, but especially the cancer patient context, you know, I go in just a real, you know, snapshot of that as I go into.
the hospital, uh, on Mondays and I visit patients kind of cold call, just walking into rooms and introducing myself for a program that makes a lot of room for creativity and creative expression. That's a contract that, that I have with, with my nonprofit. Um, and then I do workshops the rest of the week.
Writing workshops often with [01:20:00] music. So I'll facilitate with a musician. We do prompts sometimes that are head on with the cancer context, but also anything else that comes up and a lot of time to check in and share where everybody's at, not just in their medical journey, but personally too. Cause I believe all these things like, you don't need me to talk more about that.
You know, it all connects. And so then there's the container has so much room for all that. And we had to start a men's cancer patient workshop because only women were in those groups.
Eva: Hmm.
Ned: Still a lot of them, and I'm so grateful for this men's group because of the guys that have shown up there and are an example of what it is to be a man and be vulnerable with one another and also like it's different.
And by the way, probably a ton of me projecting because they're all like middle aged father figures and I'm the facilitator. So I'm like, dad, dad, you know, uh, whoops. Um, [01:21:00] but, but also no, it's like, it's also so sweet and so incredible to like be with these guys crying and acknowledging one another and, but 100 percent mostly women, 100 percent or, or I would say like women, uh, people that identify like queer, uh, LGBTQ community, but likes.
Eva: that it's, is it, I, I'm asking this because I'm really. Interested And I care about giving a safe space for men to
Ned: Mm hmm me too. Yeah,
Eva: I'm assuming, or is the assumption, is it safe to assume that it's, I mean, you started a men's group, but it is also because it's easier when it's just men.
Do men feel safer? Do you think?
Ned: I would I would agree that that's part of what gets created I think that's part of why that worked
Eva: Right. Because there's a, there could potentially be, um, or weak. Yeah.
Ned: [01:22:00] for sure. Maybe yeah for sure and also I think that it's such a missing space and I again, you know, I always want to bring it back to me. Like, it's just a missing space that I got to practice a ton in high school with the church context and also with like dear friends who I made that were inclined in those ways too.
But. It's such a missing space in our culture, in
Eva: a, it's such, it's such a missing, it's like, so Kylie and I work, you know, we both do, we're in like the healing arts and whatever, and we both predominantly work with women, right, Kylie? I mean, I have,
Kyley: women and queer folk are my clients. Almost
Eva: yes, and same, though I do actually work very well with men, one on one, but, but, you know, yeah, I don't know, it's this whole thing, you know, it's just like,
Ned: Well, the pendulum swing for me is part of it, right? I mean, the reality is you're right. Men don't have these spaces. Maybe they don't generally, you know, again, I'm, [01:23:00] I don't mean to overgeneralize, but, but say a big percentage of men, especially maybe like the demographic we're talking about with our dads are so.
Unpracticed in that. And then when you start looking for a place to go, by the way, I got a writing workshop that has 25 women registered. Are you going to jump in for your first time in 50, 60, 70 years and choose that as your place to be like, I'm ready to fall apart and cry. No. And so the reason why I think the men's workshop has been so clutch is that it's offered that like, okay, well then how about here?
You know, and there's a little bit of a shift lately into some of the, even those guys trying out some of the other spaces and that's a trippy thing. Actually, you know, it's just wild to actually even see the, the opposite demographic react to that presence. And, uh, so yeah, it's wild. And thank goodness for the guys that show up in some of these contexts at [01:24:00] our events.
Eva: I think they're like, I think you and the people who show up are paving the way for hopefully future generations, because what I want to get at is this idea of like, there's a lot of, you know, anti patriarchy talk, maybe like this idea of, you know, the white man is the problem.
And like, which, you know, is true in many
Ned: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Eva: like, continuingly, you know, canceling them is not the solution.
Ned: But where's it not that? And how many more places can it not be that, you know, and, and I hope that I represent not that. And then you go into San Quentin, by the way, just to acknowledge that context. And the only option for anyone who wants to heal is to do this stuff with other men. And so, boy, what a thing to go in there.
That's probably another reason why it's such a profound experience for me. I go in there and circle up with these guys, like, just yesterday and hear all of them share. They got a chance to introduce [01:25:00] themselves, uh, doesn't really matter why, but they all introduced themselves for this particular event.
And it was this moment of hearing them share a little bit of their story about what led to them wanting to be in the suicide prevention group. And, you know, tears are just running down my face listening to them. And by the way, like, lots of jokes about how much I cry. And, and that's okay.
Eva: great, you
Ned: Yeah, it's great, but I want to bring that up both because it's funny and it's funny to laugh about and it's such a thing, you know?
Like, why are we joking about me crying? I'm not mad. I don't mind. In fact, if it helps, like make people feel a little better, let's laugh about it. I can do that. But why are we needing to do that? And it's because I think we are uncomfortable or it is worth noting. Boy, look at this guy who won't stop and we're in a culture where if a woman cries a ton, something's wrong.
It's abnormal. Pull your shit together, you know?
Eva: Right. We're just not there yet. [01:26:00] And
Ned: Yeah. And who knows what's getting to where we get getting to, you know,
Eva: it would be nice if I could cry like in the middle of an airport and not
Ned: You're right.
Eva: feel like I'm hysterical, you know, like, that's a normal, that's probably a normal human response response to
being a human
Ned: right.
Eva: crying in the airport, you know, crying, crying in public is a normal. response
Ned: Totally normal response. And yeah, I think we need more of that public displays of of emotion like that, you know, and
Eva: people getting freaked out.
Ned: yeah, and also, by the way, like, fuck them, you know, I'm sorry. And, and, you know, someone out there were like, no, I'm not going to be the person to go out and be the, like, token crier in the airport, but we do need more people that are willing to do it unabashedly.
And there's certain people out there that can bear that responsibility. And I believe that that's one of my responsibilities, not because I have any control over the fact that I burst into tears four times talking with you guys, but because like, uh, I'm gonna do it.
Kyley: Yeah.
Ned: there is a piece that I had to, I have had to work through [01:27:00] shame and guilt around that over these years, you know, that open mic, the first thing that led to.
All the nonprofit and all the work we do was a place to name very recently after my mother in law died. My mom died in 2003 and my mother in law died in 2012. My mom's name is Chris and my mother in law's name is Kathy. And the first event after my mother in law died, maybe a month later, I knew the space was for me to talk about them and talk about their lives and their deaths and to cry and how much that's needed, how much I needed that in that space.
To be with community and have that witnessed and know then that it's possible and it's not everybody's thing, you know, and I understand that and it is intense, but in a culture that there's not a lot of room for it, we need more places, not everywhere, but more places where [01:28:00] we can be that way and with community who can do it with us.
Eva: Oh,
Ned: guys
Eva: yes.
Ned: today. Yeah.
Eva: Ned,
Ned: Thanks,
Eva: we could talk to you truly forever. I feel like we're just getting started, but I want to be mindful of time. Um,
Ned: Thank you.
Eva: yeah. And also, gosh, this is just such good medicine. So great. Kylie, I'm so glad that you had this. Kylie was going through a thing where she was really interested in death and then found you and was like,
and so this is a conversation that
Ned: I'm glad you did.
Eva: now we hoped, yeah, hope to continue on the podcast to just
explore more, but, um, We, I want to make time for joy, since that's tradition around here, and it seems like maybe a good place to end,
Kyley: can I share a transition story into into joy? Because
it's about joy,
Eva: Yes.
Kyley: which is just, we've talked a lot about like light and dark and grief and um, and I just keep having [01:29:00] this memory show up when my grandmother died when I was in middle school, which was the first death that I was like, um, like I was like aware or not right when you're like four, it wasn't the same, right?
This was the first one that like, I really felt. And I remember. How much we just fucking laughed, right? Like the kind of like the, the way that you laugh, like at a, at a, like, you know, when you're preparing for a funeral with your family is like a very special, like signature of laughing. Right. That is so just gorgeous.
I remember we had like all my whole family, like a bunch of my cousins and my aunts. We'd like gone out to eat and we were coming back in and my grandmother was like in the hospital at that point. And we're like, Just like in hysterics, like walking down the hospice hallway, like in hysterics, and then we come around, my grandmother had like a really great sense of humor too, and we come around the corner, and there's like the hospital bed with like a sheet pulled up, and it was like, oh, right, like, it wasn't her, but it was also this like [01:30:00] total moment of like, Like just, it was just this, then that was his own hilarious thing.
That was also a terrible thing. Right. And, um, and I keep thinking of that memory because I also just
keep thinking about how like grief and joy are the same fucking thing.
Ned: Mm-hmm.
Kyley: and,
uh, so I am grateful to you, Ned, for like holding the space for us to like publicly cry. So we can also publicly fucking cackle.
Ned: Yeah. You know, I often talk about that moment after my mom died. Just remember like. Rippin cigarettes out on her apartment balcony with my sister and it's November, you know, super, super cloudy and kind of rainy in my hometown in Reading and feeling the like deep grief and shock and,
and [01:31:00] feeling it. Like so wholly and fully, and then the natural transition into just hysterical laughter, you know, talking about her and sharing those stories that only my sister and I know so well about the ridiculousness of, of our lives with her and the ways that she was funny and she did love laughing and the balance of that.
Especially during that time when I was just so unbelievably broken open. This is going to be a cheat you guys. And so I'm going to give you the option for me to cheat or I can talk spontaneously about joy, but I kind of want to read you this piece by David white,
Kyley: Yeah,
man.
Eva: Do it. Do it. It feels good to your soul.
Ned: I've been kind of wanting to read it lately, but I've read it so many times over the years that I've [01:32:00] kind of pulled it out repeatedly at events and been like, okay, it's not quite time, but you want to talk about joy and this piece just. Is so important for me in terms of how it expresses, like, I couldn't better what joy is.
Um, and you know, it's okay if you don't end up using this. And if after I'm done, you're like, we want to talk a little more openly about joy, that's okay. But I do want to just read this to you. Like we're not doing a podcast. Like it's just, just a
Eva: Hmm. I love that.
Ned: joy.
Joy is the meeting place of deep intentionality and self forgetting the bodily. Alchemy of what lies inside us in communion with what formerly seemed outside, but is now neither, but become a living frontier, a voice speaking between us and the world, [01:33:00] dance, laughter, affection, skin, touching skin, singing in the car, music in the kitchen.
The quiet, irreplaceable, and companionable presence of a daughter. The sheer, intoxicating beauty of the world inhabited as an edge between what we previously thought was us and what we thought was other than us. Joy can be made by practiced, hard won achievement as much as by an unlooked for, passing act of grace arriving out of nowhere.
Joy is a measure of our relationship to death. And are living with death. Joy is the act of giving ourselves away before we need to or are asked to. Joy is practice generosity. If joy is a deep [01:34:00] form of love, it is also the raw engagement with the passing seasonality of existence. The fleeting presence of those we love understood as gift, going in and out of our lives.
Faces, voices, memory, of the first spring day or a wood fire in winter, the last breath of a dying parent as they create a rare, raw, beautiful frontier between loving presence and a new and blossoming absence. To feel a full and untrammeled joy is to have become fully generous. To allow ourselves to be joyful is to have walked through the doorway of fear.
The dropping away of the anxious worried self felt like a thankful death itself. [01:35:00] A disappearance, a giving away, overheard in the laughter of friendship. The vulnerability of happiness felt suddenly as a strength, a solace, and a source. The claiming of our place in the living conversation, the sheer privilege of being in the presence of a mountain, a sky, or a well loved, familiar face.
I was here, and you were here, and together, we made a world.
Eva: Wow. Oh, that was something else for listeners. We're, we're like wiping away tears here.
Ned: Oh, thank you for letting me read that, my goodness.
Eva: Oh my goodness. That was, I, I, I'm actually a little speechless to be honest.
Kyley: Yeah.[01:36:00]
Eva: Yeah.
Ned: Um, pieces from a book by David White called Consolations, the solace, meaning and nourishment of everyday words, and I cannot recommend it enough. For like the bedside or the bookshelf like within reach for the moment when you know you need to grab that thing that has just enough words to meet where you're at.
And I probably read that piece more than anything. I love reading poetry and, and excerpts like that at our events when it feels right. And I don't think I've ever read anything more than I read that. It was really nice to read it today from this. This perspective, like where I'm at and in this conversation, I really, really, really needed that.
Thank you guys.
Kyley: Oh,
Eva: goodness. That was such a, that was such a gift. I'm
so moved. And honestly, I mean, you read it beautifully, but I love that you [01:37:00] read it with tears. Like,
we're going to talk about crying. Like, oh, that was. I feel like that really just did something. I mean, Kylie, I'm feeling good with Joy. Like, I feel like that's the mic drop right there.
I don't,
I almost kind of don't want to, I kind of don't want to tarnish that with anything else.
Ned: Good. Because I don't want to talk anymore than, than that about joy. 'cause I just feel like I won't do it. I won't do it better justice than that
Eva: Yeah.
Kyley: were
Ned: really does articulate so much of what I feel, you know?
Kyley: reading that I felt like I could feel myself getting like picked up and reoriented
Ned: Mm, mm-hmm.
Kyley: north.
Ned: Yeah, me too.
Eva: So beautiful.
Ned: And yeah, thanks for the crying acknowledgement. Sometimes I think like, yeah, I transitioned from tantrums to being really good at reading and talking while sobbing and not having it sound just
Eva: Well, I was going to say, I
Ned: totally distracting.
Eva: I was actually really impressed. I'm like, how do you not might have snot? Like I have,
Ned: I [01:38:00]
Eva: I,
Ned: I do. It just wasn't impacting. It wasn't affecting how I was talking. I mean, I'm joking. And I'm telling you, like part of what happens at these events and what happened in St. Quentin and, and even with the cancer patient stuff, you know, there's a little bit of just like, how can you emote a ton, but still communicate
Eva: I think that, I mean, honestly,
Kyley: Special skills.
Eva: that that's got to come from practice because I
think that's, that's, I, I, what I, I wish I could cry and talk better at the
same time.
Ned: Yeah. Thanks. That's my one great skill.
Eva: A worthy one.
Kyley: Ned, uh, where can people, uh, follow your work
Ned: Hmm. Mm hmm.
Kyley: you? What do you have going on for folks?
Ned: Yeah. Well, the best way to get to what I'm up to is through our organization. You're [01:39:00] going to die and just go into the website. Yg2d. com all the social media. Links are there to, um, following on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, whatever. It's all there and most of our events.
Kyley: All the best for, for death memes, if that's your thing.
Ned: Mm hmm. Uh, yeah, definitely. Thanks, Kylie. Uh, enjoying that, by the way, the joy, the humor to, to use the. social media, let's say as a place for a version of what we've been talking about to post a video where I'm crying and also post hilarious memes about dying. Uh, it's so fun to do that and hold that kind of balance with, with that.
But other than that, on the website, all our events and all the podcasts, I'd say that's probably just such a sweet way to be connected and, and feels like the right thing to definitely give a big shout out to in terms of how to stay abreast of all the things I'm up [01:40:00] to. I don't think I've ever used the word abreast of, um, when I've, and I'm not sure I ever will again, but I think I used it correctly.
Eva: I thought that was very smooth.
Ned: Nice. Uh, but yeah, listen to the podcast. So many great conversations and, and feeling like kindred, uh, friends being with y'all here for this kind of conversation. You know, if you like this kind of thing, check out the podcast. And so often we're reminding people of grief workshops coming up. Any events we have mostly in SF Bay area.
Summer is going to be kind of light, but we often will have a couple of things a month. And we do stuff online regularly and haven't stopped since we started doing things during the pandemic. Thing worth noting probably most importantly is the grief release every week, every Wednesday from 5 to 6 p. m pacific on zoom for free.
Always for free, always there. Every Wednesday we'll do it for the whole year. And then it'll be a question like, well, we keep doing this [01:41:00] into the years to come because it's just been such an important space to return to each other. Um, every week community that needs that place. Um, so I think that's all
thanks for asking.
Eva: Yeah.
Ned: Appreciate you guys. This has been really special. My favorite podcast guest appearance to date.
Eva: Oh,
snap.
Ned: Yeah, I
Eva: Ha
Ned: mean it. And I say that to everybody because every time it gets better and better. No, that's not true. I've never said, I've never said it, never said it, never said it. Uh, yeah, no, I'm really feeling grateful for this. Thank you so much for asking me to do this with you.
Kyley: Thank you. Thank you.