Avoiding the Temptations of the Blame Game (Monthly Solo Episode)

Listen now (40 mins) | I recorded this month’s solo episode from the floor of the hotel room where I stayed for a couple of weeks after the fires broke out in Los Angeles.

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I recorded this month’s solo episode from the floor of the hotel room where I stayed for a couple of weeks after the fires broke out in Los Angeles. There, I met an incredible cast of characters and I started to process what’s happening in our city: Acts of bravery that have stunned me. The incredibly moving ways we have shown up for each other. Other very human responses that have created some dissonance. What I think will change in communities within and outside of LA. Wherever you live, how this all might feel different depending on whether you over or under function. (Toward the end, I also take a detour to answer questions I’ve gotten about my thoughts on what is unfolding in the news regarding Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.)

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

ELISE:

Hi friends. Well by the time you listen to this, I'm hoping to be back home, but for now I am sitting on the floor of my hotel room. I did not expect or plan to be in a hotel room, as you can imagine for almost two weeks. But this is life so much that we can't anticipate or prepare for. And yes, people have very graciously offered us empty bedrooms, but we have three cats and as it were, my oldest got the flu. And so I felt like maybe bringing the chaos to other people wasn't necessarily the right move.

I've learned a lot, I have to say in the past two weeks. First just how scary these types of emergencies are. I think of myself as a courageous person, maybe not brave, but when you see fire on the ridge line, even if it's miles from your house, for me it is panic inducing and just to be present with myself. And that was really interesting. I had an immediate need to flee. I just completely panic. Again, I think this is a reasonable response, but it's interesting because I'm theoretically not in any immediate risk. This started on Tuesday, obviously, and so that Tuesday night I had shared in my newsletter images from the top of our driveway of just Sullivan Canyon, which is two valleys to just lit up with what were probably 50 foot high flames. There's just so much fuel after a very, very wet year last year followed by this year, which has been a drought.

And this particular fuel, it's full of creosote. So these hills haven't burned in this way in 50 years probably. So the fuel was just massive compounded by the wind, and we left that night and got the last well ended up being two rooms that we could find because everyone was similarly fleeing. And I promise you in those moments, particularly when you have animals, you're not necessarily thinking and it's not always so easy to figure out where to go, but hotels have to take your pets and as you've probably learned from watching the news, price gouging is illegal. And so hotels are offering are being really generous even though it is not fun as you can imagine, to pay for a hotel in your hometown. Theoretically that's what insurance is for. But we also live in such a strange time where many of us don't have comprehensive insurance or we have maybe a wrap plan.

And so we've been advised at least not to submit our claim to insurance because we'll likely get dropped. I hope we have insurance reform coming because climate change and disasters, natural disasters, which I'll talk about in a bit, come for all of us regardless of where we live. It's really difficult, as you all know, it's not even difficult. It's impossible to make yourself immune from the world, which was the subject of my conversation with Pico I or a couple of weeks ago. But yeah, many of us who have insurance don't feel like we can prevail on insurance for any expenses, for fear of being dropped. And we're also just incredibly grateful that our neighborhoods are intact, our homes are standing. And so yeah, as you can imagine, to be in the middle of a natural disaster like this and to watch the swirl around us of both news and social media and people's feelings and opinions about it.

And this is certainly one of those disasters that in many ways is theoretically unprecedented. And yet we've had these cataclysmic events throughout time and what we're seeing is, which is a very human instinct, but to reduce these very complex multifactorial situations to binaries and to a very simple blame game and a should have, would've could have scenario. And as it were, I think what we're experiencing here is a domino effect of a lot of things that really didn't work in our favor. And it is not so simple to say it's climate change or it's just the Santa Ana winds or it's just the drought or it's just because of water pressure in the Pacific Palisades or it's just because our water systems desperately need to be upgraded or it's just because the reservoir was empty or it's just because there was a failure of planning and anticipation of what we knew would be a catastrophic wind event.

We just didn't know where it's in variation, all of those things. It's not really political, but it's so tempting particularly at this moment transitional point to want to believe that it is that there are saviors that are going to somehow anticipate and protect us from what it is to be alive on the planet at this moment of time. And so what I've been trying to do is listen, learn, not stay fixed to any position and not react. I'm trying to get under what's happening and then get on top of it simultaneously. Our hotel is full of people. There are people like us who are, we're evacuated and whose neighborhoods and houses are still standing, and then there are people who lost their homes. Then there are people whose homes are still standing but their neighbors are not, and so they likely won't be able to be in for a year.

And even then it's like, do you want to be the only house standing in a toxic land? Which is a whole ‘nother thing, but I'm just trying to stay calm about that too because there's not that much to do at this moment except wear a mask and have common sense. But anyway, so there's that. And then all their animals, it's a bit like White Lotus meets a Christopher Guest movie meets National Lampoon down here. So many amazing characters, incredible families. I have to say, I think that the people when I've talked, everyone in LA is affected in some way, whether it's directly or through friends or their school, et cetera. But talking to people who live alone, I'm so grateful to have done this in community because you get to process in real time, you get to laugh, you get permission to laugh, you get permission to have a full range of human feelings and you get information.

You get to put pressure on other people's information. We'll probably never see each other again, but I've made a million new friends. We see each when we're getting our kids out of the door. We've had a million meals next to each other at this point. And so community is just so important. And if you are listening to this and you are not feeling like you have community, this is a good opportunity to do it. And I wrote a newsletter about this, but get to know your neighbors now. Get on a WhatsApp text chain now that has been vital for staying informed, making sure that our neighbors, many of whom are elderly and live alone are okay and are situated and do they need help cleaning out their fridges and freezers. We were allowed access to our neighborhood. It's locked down by the National Guard, but they're letting us in with id.

We don't have power yet, but just things like washed watering down your house because of ash and cleaning out the fridge and freezer, all the mundane stuff. And that's really what this week I think has been about the balance of the truly mundane and the sacred and how essential both are both getting grounded and the everyday needs and then also getting above and trying to understand what is the good that can come from this. Is there any good? What is it? I'm going to talk about some of the things that I think are good. Some of the guests here are TV reporters who were affected and they've been amazing, really fascinating to talk to a married couple and without naming them, they've covered wildfires throughout their career. They have training, they have all the gear and they stayed and they saved their house and their neighbor's houses with a water hose and watching their videos is when I talk about being scared by fire five miles away on original line.

This footage is bananas of them, but their point is it's actually can be quite slow. And they were just putting out charcoal size embers, just hunting them down in their yard, in their neighbor's yard and putting them out before they slowly catch fire and suddenly the house is inflamed. And he was telling us about how there was a plan in 2008 to train willing residents in high fire zone cities, states in basic firefighting techniques and getting people gear, having fire hoses stashed at various near hydrants and that they abandoned the plan because I think shortly after there was a devastating fire in Australia where a lot of people died. And so we decided we couldn't go through with this, but I have a feeling that this fire will be some sort of turning point where citizens who feel inclined, many do it anyway, but we'll stay back with training and with protective gear and exit plans and whatnot.

I just don't see any other way around it when many of us can't get insurance and your primary asset is your house. I think about this because in some ways that seems insane to me. I would never volunteer. And simultaneously all the stories that we're hearing are of people who saved their houses or obviously firefighters very helpful too, but they just weren't enough completely spread thin or these private firefighting services, which is wild. But if it's a question of paying a service or losing your home, I think we're going to see more of that too. I don't know how to feel about any of this to be fair. And also, it's funny, the first person to tell me about the fires was my mother because she and my dad and brother were on a birdwatching trip in Mexico and a fire chief was with them and he said, get this app. It's the best one around. And so my parents have it, they live in Montana, there are a lot of fires and they'd been with us over Christmas and told us to get it. And yeah, sure enough, that was the first alert was my mom calling and saying, there are two fires near you before they really took off.

So the private citizens are answering the call and I know that we don't, it's wonderful and then we resist it, but it's reality and it's here. And so I think part of what we'll need going forward is more community action and more community planning, at least for my neighborhood and I'm sure for all disaster prone neighborhoods across the country, it's getting to know your neighbors, getting together for brush clearance, getting together for, I'm not sure how it works in flood zones, et cetera, but there's definitely this incredible feeling of community and that community goes way beyond la I have to say it's been so I really need to cry still. I haven't been able to really cry. I'm still, I think in shock and we can talk about embodiment in a minute, but I was driving to pick up my kids yesterday from school. They've been back in school, which has been really great.

Or my youngest, my oldest is sick, but I'm passing just different firetrucks from Albuquerque and Santa Fe and all over. I think there are seven states I think at a minimum who sent trucks and brigades in to help us. Those of you who follow me on social know that I'm from Missoula, Montana and there was the city of Missoula put out a post that four firefighters, they were sending four firefighters, which I know sounds kind of funny, but it's a small town. And I posted it and my friend Kylie was like, that's Byron, one of those is Byron. So I grew up skiing competitively with this kid, Byron Cooper, who I haven't seen since my freshman year of high school, but he dated my best friend and I was friends with his sister, again, small town, and we used to go to ski competitions together and share hotel rooms.

We were like siblings and yeah, Byron and three of his fellow firefighters were at the station house. Apparently I haven't spoken to him and saw what was happening on TV and got in their trucks and drove all night to help us. Mexico sent firefighters, Canada sent firefighters and these incredible planes. I saw that South Africa had sent firefighters. It's just incredible that in moments of crisis, humanity shows up, it doesn't matter, none of it matters. None of the things that people have said about Mexico lately, those things don't matter. We show up for each other and that has been just so incredibly moving and it's really been interesting to watch. And this I'm talking about myself, mind you too, along with all of us, the desire to help is so intense and stunning. And then to fix things for people, and I have that all the time, give advice, fix.

We're so uncomfortable just letting things be terrible or letting things be devastating or letting things be bad without needing to take action almost immediately and I am the same. And so it's been really interesting watching myself and other people be like, I'm going to go shopping for you. The antidote to all of this is stuff. Meanwhile, of course, if the one thing that all these people kind of escaped is all their stuff, but now I'm saying this in judgment of myself, so I don't want to be offensive to anyone. My car is full of stuff for one of my best friends who lost her house in Altadena and I am right there with all of you. I am like, I'm going shopping so you better tell me what you because, but it's just interesting to me. It feels very American that that's our immediate response.

And then obviously the delusion of everyone has all their old goodwill stuff that they've been driving around in their cars for four years and it's like, oh, finally I can get rid of it. Definitely some of that too glut of stuff and it just really, I think comes from the impulse obviously to love people and show them that you care and to take some things off their plate and bring some comfort. And I think for anyone who's looking to do things for families, an organization's cash is always king. Gift cards, cash because there's obviously dignity in being able to buy yourself some your own underwear or choosing carefully what you want to bring back into your life. And I say that again while also being like, Liz, here are a bunch of sweaters and dresses for weddings and blazers and things that are not exactly what she needs in this moment of time, but she said she would take my stuff the same size and then what's going to start happening, which I'll be watching is the codification or coding of different levels of victimhood.

It's already happening. Who is deserving of a GoFundMe? Who is not? Who's the better victim of this circumstance, who's an unworthy victim? That's really interesting to me and something that I am just watching because I've had those instincts too to be like, I don't think that blah. And then I'm like, what do I know? I don't know anyone's needs in this moment. I don't know what feels good to people. I know we all want to sort of wrap each other in a warm hug and try and take care of as many things as possible if we're able. And there's going to be this collective reckoning about who gets help and who doesn't. And some of this of course will be justified, but I hope we can give grace in the same way that people respond to these crises in very different ways. I am thinking of course of Harriet Lerner's work on people who over function and under function.

I'm an over-functioner. I can feel the adrenaline still coursing in my body. I love taking care of things. Again, going to that fixing energy, it's like, tell me what to do. Tell me what you need. I'm going to do it. I don't even need to know what you need to do. I'm still going to do it. Whereas some people just completely fall apart. And I think it's interesting watching too online, people who are directly involved, directly affected, and then people who are not and are tangentially affected but have completely fallen apart and or are under functioning to the point that they, I don't know if it's an empathy overload, but where it's this need to center themselves in the middle of the tragedy or the devastation when even if they're not particularly affected, there's a fair amount of that going on in LA and I think it's because people just feel like they need to be part of the story or relate to the story because of how insidious social media is, and they don't know who they are if they can't center themselves in every event.

I don't think it's conscious. I don't think people realize that that's what they're doing, but that's been really interesting to see and the dissonance that it creates because I'm watching people who haven't lost anything unravel on social media. And meanwhile, I'm with people who literally, their kids don't have schools, they don't have houses, their parents also don't have houses, and they are functional and finding opportunities to laugh, and they also need some Valium, but they're getting things done one day at a time. It's creating a fair amount of dissonance, I have to say, for myself to be watching all of these things simultaneously. And I just also want to say everyone should feel like they have complete permission to move on with their lives if they're not directly affected. I think that there's that panic too that gets triggered and also why the GoFundMe go up like that and the frantic calls for help when I think a lot of people wish that they could be calmer and more considered.

I think what happens is that people know that attention spans are short and that people are caring and looking for however many days before they change the channel and the news cycle moves on. And so I think it creates a lot of anxiety and scarcity and people start freaking for fear of being forgotten. Whereas I think that in time there will be a lot many clearer ways to help our communities rebuild and to help these schools rebuild and to help these families rather than going to h and m and dumping a bunch of flammable shirts on them. But it's hard and I think that that's what fuels it, is this sinking feeling of this is my chance to capitalize on people's goodwill and attention. And I think that maybe that will be one of the things that comes out of this is better ways to respond to these events or more functional ways to respond to these events without trying to be the earliest recipient of people's love and care.

I think about when I know people have Amazon wishlists and whatnot, but this old friend of mine named Charles Best had created, he created that website Donors Choose, which is so brilliant and I wonder if it's still around, but it was early in this space and the premise was brilliant. It was public school teachers who would post and say, I really want to teach this book to my class, or I really need pencils and paper. I mean, it was very basic up to we're studying the opera, I would love to take my kids to a matinee and you could just go in and directly fund these teachers and their appeals. It was so beautiful and so meaningful to give these teachers exactly what they needed, and it was clarifying to recognize, oh, they don't have basic school supplies, or they're buying the stuff out of their own paychecks. So maybe Charles Best if he's listening will come in and help us devise more functional ways to support each other in crises because this is only going to keep happening. And I searching for ways to help people without inundating them or wasting or creating in the context of climate change, creating more waste.

I also did a newsletter with Chris Schumacher who is starting these weekly calls. Many of you have heard her on the podcast. She's doing these monthly calls at the end of the month called Rey, which is this idea of synchronizing spirit, body, mind, and processing things that are happening collectively or to all of us simultaneously. She has themes like psychedelics or abundance, but I can promise you, having worked with Carissa for many years now, that yeah, you can plan and that's a laugh. I'm going to join as many as I can. You can actually sign up if you can't make it. You get the recording. And she did one after the election, which was really helpful. Again, getting above what's happening and staying open to the fact that the mind really wants to know. The mind really wants to control. The mind really hates anything that feels uncertain, but we don't really know.

And certainty is never, it's not a reality, it's not a guarantee. This is the book that Phil Stutz I have coming out. He talks about how you cannot exonerate yourself from these three domains, pain, uncertainty, and the need for constant work. That's what our book is about, this book called True and False Magic that's coming out at the end of March, and it's a book workbook hybrid that has a lot of tools, some of which are part of the tools, the original book that he did with Barry Michaels and some of which you have never heard of. And then it's all positioned within Phil Stutz worldview philosophy. Anyway, I love him. I love his mind. He's the Rudolph Steiner person for those who are familiar with Rudolph Steiner. And it aligns very much with everything that I've ever heard Carissa has to say, and that internal aligns with, if you all listen to the telepathy tapes, it aligns with much of that too in the later episodes.

And so I offer that and these calls in part because they're really good practice for just sitting with what's happening in the world and just saying, is this true for me or is this not? And tapping into the energy or the feeling rather than the fear. And ideally, staying hope isn't the right word. I always go into faith of just, I don't know what's happening. This isn't necessarily according to my preferences. It would be quite entitled for me to think that my preferences should be met at all times and delusional. And I am just going to learn how to be more comfortable with uncertainty, more open to responding to whatever is present in the moment and cognizant of how I need to put my mind on a leash because my mind, of course, will hunt for certainty, even if that certainty is who is bad, who is to blame, who is wrong, who needs to be condemned, and that I just need to sit with the reality of I don't have control over the universe and things aren't always as they seem.

And maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and maybe I'll be devastated and maybe I'll be disappointed, but I cannot guarantee any outcome. And so the best thing I can do in these moments is just try and stay in my body and breathe and trust in the goodness of people. One of the things that I was planning on talking about, although it's an ever unfolding story in this week's episode, and so maybe we'll come to it someday, but a lot of people have asked me about this Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively situation, and I have a lot of thoughts about it. And the one thing I'll say is just nobody is as good or as bad as they profess or claim to be, none of us. And often when you see people who are presenting themselves as this goes to Connie's Wags work, and she talks a lot about any place or any person who professes to be full of light is disavowing their shadow ultimately, and the shadow comes out somewhere.

And so this is, I think one of the greatest teachings of all hold onto those identities a little bit more lightly and acknowledge to yourself and to other people that you could be an incredibly loving, warm, generous person and still be a shit sometimes and still be a jerk to your kids or your partner. And that's, I think, regardless of what's happening, there is no pure victim villain ever, ever. These are binaries that don't exist. And so I think I've always been wary of anyone who's like, I am the hero to all women, or I'm the perfect woman, whatever it is, that's a fragile identity to hold onto. And it's probably a little bit far from the truth. And I think, I don't know what's happening exactly, but I think what we're getting is a masterclass in yeah, everyone's kind of wonderful and kind of terrible, and let's just recognize that rather than professing to be above reproach, none of us are really above reproach.

We're all wonderfully, perfectly very messily human, but it is a really interesting case study and crisis PR, which definitely have thoughts about this, is very present in our world and spinning and whoever has the story out first owns the narrative. This is just basic pr, but I talked about it a bit after Huberman when it seemed like he was getting a crisis comms process together to destroy at least one of the women. And then I think he realized the public sentiment was still in his favor and that people were not deterred at all from loving him. And so he dropped it, but they had started cranking. You could see the story start popping up about one of these women. So this is a tactic and I'm glad that people recognize it more so we can be more aware of it because man, it is very easy to leverage against women. As we saw in this first phase of this Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively. People are just so happy to destroy a woman and assume the worst. So I'll have more to say about that later.

ELISE:

The last thing I want to say, and going back to the fire, sorry for the digression, but I was getting a lot of questions about it, is a lot of people have been very concerned about my kids and about other kids who are impacted. And this is what I will say. We still have our house, so my kids are not impacted. They've spent 10 days in a hotel and we live in a tiny, tiny, tiny house, so we are used to being on top of each other. So it really hasn't been a hardship, even though four of us are in one room with three cats. It's a little intense, but it's not a hardship. Anyway, I knew my kids were going to be fine. Well, my 8-year-old is completely unfazed and he keeps getting picked up for play dates and he's thrilled. And my 11-year-old on the night when it really looked bad for our neighborhood, we live one canyon over from a canyon called Mandeville, and for, I don't know, 16, 24 hours, there was no wind, and they were hitting this fire with just helicopter drop after helicopter drop, and there were firefighters on the ground directing the helicopters.

There's just so much fuel and it was so intense that it just didn't seem possible that they could stop this dragon of a fire. And it consumed a couple of houses, but they kept it out, which was amazing. It did not look like it was going to go in our favor, but it also gives you an idea of how aggressive this fire was, even in the best possible circumstances, resources in town, air strikes, etcetera. But anyway, max and don't judge Max, he's like the sweetest, most empathic, delicious boy. He's 11, and he said, mom, are we going to lose our house? And I said, I don't know, babe. It's looking pretty dicey, but I can promise you that will be terrible and devastating, but we will be okay. It will also be simultaneously. And he looked at me, I was like, what's top of mind for you?

What are you worried about? So this is what he was worried about. Will my PlayStation progress sink to the cloud? So is he going to lose his Roblox progress or whatever, Fortnite. So that's what Max was worried about. And I know that again, his school is still standing and he's not, there are other kids, I'm sure who are more impacted, but watching the kids in this hotel, some of whom have lost their homes or lost access to their homes and lost their schools, I think the kids, I mean, they've already been through a lot and I worry about the disruption after COVID to school and all of that, but they seem to be functioning quite well. In part, they don't have to be on the phone with insurance and worry about not going upside down on their house because their policy isn't enough to cover their mortgage.

All the things that are happening in LA and will continue to happen, but the kids are okay. Alright, thanks for, oh, that was August doing a flying leap. August, my three-legged cat is living his best life. He has really come alive friends during this adventure. He loves this room and he's suddenly cuddly, loving it. Alright, I'll be back on Thursday with a normal episode. I'll be back next month with a solo, and I've been collecting a ton of great questions from you guys and hopefully there's no massive disaster to derail my plan to answer them and stay safe. I'll be back in your ears shortly.

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