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Oct. 26, 2020 - The Megyn Kelly Show
52:38
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Black Rifle Coffee Company 00:02:56
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.
Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
Today we have Chloe Valdery.
This is a young woman who has looked at the state of race relations in this country and decided to do something about it.
She is the anti-Robin D'Angelo.
She is a woman of color, she is a writer, she is a public speaker, and she created the theory of enchantment.
This is the thing you need to offer to your company when they try to cram critical race theory down your throat.
It is something that is uplifting, it is forgiving, it is kind, it is loving, and it does not assume the worst of humanity.
She's got a lot of interesting thoughts on race, on humanity, on our country, and on where we go from here.
And I know you're going to love her.
But before we get to Chloe, let's talk about coffee.
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And now, Chloe Valderie.
Chloe Valderie, thank you so much for being here.
Transcending Social Media Rage 00:10:48
Thank you for having me, Megan.
I know you're young, especially to have accomplished all you've accomplished.
How young are you?
I'm 27 years old.
You're just, you're a babe.
You have accomplished so much in your 27 years.
You have such a deep and interesting way of thinking about the world, humanity, race relations.
And I want to tell you in the audience that the reason I first noticed you. Was in a sea of vitriol on Twitter in the midst of the riots this summer and the just acrimonious race relations we've been seeing.
There was one beacon of kindness, hope, positivity, love, and a different way of thinking.
And it was you, a Black woman raised in New Orleans who was just sort of urging people to consider coming at it all from a different way.
And I would later learn this is all part of what you teach and travel.
and talk about which is the chloe valdry theory of enchantment can you just give us a line or two On what that is.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, you know, Theory of Enchantment is my startup, and I use it to teach compassionate anti racism to companies primarily, but also to individuals.
And it's based upon social emotional learning, developmental psychology, and this idea that you can't really develop healthy relationships with others unless you first develop a healthy relationship with yourself.
And so it's a 25 lesson course teaching people how to do just that, how to deal with the human condition, how to make peace with themselves.
How to develop a sense of inner contentment and wholeness so that they can then go out in the world and really spread that love and spread that light to others.
As I see it, and I haven't taken the course, but as I read about it, to me, it seems like the opposite of Robin DiAngelo's white fragility.
Like I see her as out there saying, you know, you're all biased, racist, and any denial of that just proves my theory.
And you're just the title, Compassionate Anti Racism.
It's not like you don't admit there's racism in the world.
But you, nor do you demonize entire groups of people, or even if you see a racist act, demonize the individual.
You have a much more holistic and I would say forgiving approach to this problem.
Do I have it right?
Yeah, I think that's right.
I mean, we try to pursue this concept of agape love, which Dr. King famously pursued in a lot of his work.
And we're definitely very, I think, antithetical to the philosophy.
Of Robin D'Angelo, because as you said, we don't believe in dehumanizing even the offender.
And in fact, we believe that a lot of racism comes from this sort of function of overcompensation for insecurity.
And so if you make people feel more insecure, you're actually creating the conditions that make racism and other forms of extremism more likely.
So we don't take that route of dehumanizing people based upon their skin color or assuming we know where they come from because of their.
Of skin color or socioeconomic status, or what have you, we really believe in elevating everyone and elevating the human condition and giving people the tools to, again, make peace with themselves and have that inner sense of contentment so that they don't feel insecure and then go out and overcompensate for that insecurity in problematic ways.
It's funny because I look at some of these young kids, let's say, you know, college age kids who get in trouble for saying something perceived as racist.
And in society, too, it's not just the young kids, but the reaction.
These days is almost universally, you're bad, you're a racist, you're awful.
And I always think to myself, who exactly do they think that's going to convert out of their racism?
Yeah, I mean, we definitely believe in the philosophy of restorative justice in the theory of enchantment, and we teach different elements of that, which of course is very relevant to criminal justice reform.
And we believe in this idea of the interdependence of all human beings.
And so, yeah, we try to create, again, the conditions that.
Make forgiveness ripe and forgiveness more likely.
But also, we don't believe in call out culture, we believe in calling in culture.
So, yeah, I think also you have to remember that unfortunately, there's a lot of incentive just from the perspective of being on social media platforms where our attention as an audience is actually the product.
And there's a lot of incentive to create content that will drive outrage.
And I think that that seeps into the culture where we're constantly being outraged.
And so we have to step back and ask, you know, what our goals are, what our objectives are in terms of creating the conditions for human flourishing and work toward that as opposed to just.
But nobody wants that.
Don't you think?
I look around and I'm like, I don't think that's people's goal, human flourishing.
I think it's like they enjoy being outraged a lot, a lot of folks.
And when these incidents come up, what they want to do is walk away with a scalp, you know, and it somehow makes them feel good.
Yeah, but my sense is that it's not a long term thing, you know, it's like a dopamine rush.
And obviously, one of the things that connects us all as human beings is that we all have the same software in our heads, AKA our brains, and we are dealing with, A sophisticated piece of software in the sense that we have the limbic system, right, which is responsible for fast thinking.
And then we have the prefrontal cortex, which is more prone to slow thinking, to more rational thinking.
But unfortunately, again, I think, especially now that we're constantly on social media all the time, we are incentivized from a media perspective to be outraged.
And so I think it's important to get more voices out there that are speaking about slowing down and, again, encouraging people to think about what their objectives are as opposed to just.
Sort of like acting like a pinball machine and just going, you know, from different outraged piece of content to the next.
Yeah, we have been programmed to do that.
When I was looking into the theory of enchantment, one of the things you talked about in your materials is how you want to give people the tools for resiliency.
And that spoke to me because I really, whenever somebody asks me, how did you get to be this way?
How did you get to be so strong?
You know, something like that, I say, I a lot of bad stuff happened to me and I dealt with it and moved forward, you know, like I wasn't protected from really anything bad things happened.
I dealt with them and here I am.
That's really the sum of it, which is one of the reasons I don't believe in safe spaces.
But today, if you talk about certainly as a white person, if you talk about resiliency to a black person talking about racism, they're going to take that as proof, further proof of your racism.
Right.
Like don't don't tell me I need to be resilient.
You don't understand what I've been through.
You don't know what it's like to deal with what many perceive as a systemically racist country.
And so I wonder if you ever get that as a Black woman talking about this theory and talking about resiliency, does anyone look at you and say, that's just based on such fundamentally flawed assumptions about what Black people are capable of in this country?
Not really.
And we teach a lot of James Baldwin in the actual training, and he famously said, You know, sometimes you can get caught in this trap where you think that you're the only person who's experienced suffering, and then you sort of read and you learn and you live throughout the world and you learn that, you know, suffering is a part of the human condition, and other people experience suffering as well.
And I also think that resiliency is actually a feature of the African American tradition.
Again, we reinforce it by having our students learn from folks like James Baldwin and Dr. Maya Angelou.
Martin Luther King Jr.
So I think it's very difficult for people to make that challenge just because we're coming in a very like educational manner.
How do we get, when I hear you talking about that, I completely agree just on a human level.
I've talked about this when it comes to sexism many times that it's not that you don't experience it.
You may very well, I've experienced it, but I just refuse to stay mired in it and I refuse to allow it to give me a negative world outlook or to make me believe for one second that I'm not capable of anything I want to do.
And when I read your materials, that's how I hear you speaking about.
People of color.
And I, but I wonder because now you see anger in the wake of George Floyd and other cases that the media has. played over and over and over as though it's representative of what's happening day to day on the streets of America.
I see anger.
I see, you know, when you see some of these riots, just uncontrollable rage.
And I think it's going another way.
You know, even reading books like White Fragility and reading Ibram X. Kendi, Kendi, how to be an anti racist, it's not based in we're strong, we're resilient, we can work together, we're all human.
You know, it's coming from a very different place.
Can you speak to that sort of anger and how you see the way forward to get folks out of that?
Yeah, I mean, listen, I would be remiss if I sort of downplayed the challenge that we have to convince people or encourage people to, I think, overcome that rage that you describe or move from rage to reconciliation.
And it is, you know, Theory of Enchantment is certainly positioned as the alternative.
To Ibram Kinney and Robin D'Angelo's model for that reason.
You know, I believe in reminding people of those who have come before us, those wise people who have come before us, who have left us with words of wisdom to teach us how to deal with that rage and to transcend that rage.
And so I am very aware of, you know, sort of like the landscape of what's going on out there.
And this is, you know, a kind of fight that we have to wage, but I just intend to wage it with love because I think that's the only way.
To really overcome some of this rage, you can't really fight rage by being vengeful or rageful yourself.
Modeling Agape Love Online 00:15:14
So I have to do all I can to model agape love, reconciliation on social media and in the things that I do professionally.
And I also have to believe that that will be able to make a difference.
And I do believe that that will make a difference.
I think I've seen that begin, and it's a marathon, it's not a sprint.
And I'm okay with that.
I think that this is a beautiful.
Dare I say it, a fight worth fighting.
And I'm really happy to be in the position that I am in to fight it.
More with Chloe in one minute.
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Now back to Chloe Valder.
You have good role models.
You mentioned Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who's, I think it's sort of nuts how some people are like, don't talk about him.
You know, those days are over.
You know, we're beyond that.
The current situation calls for something else.
But he was, of course, all about nonviolence and even practiced, practiced.
He and other black people in the 1960s, not responding to violence violently.
And morally, it gave them the upper hand to win that fight.
Right.
And it's like we're, we don't seem to be taking the lessons from that.
Or at least, I don't know.
You know, when I see sort of BLM out in the streets flipping people's dinner tables over and like making them raise a fist and say what they want them to say, I think this is exactly the opposite of people who used to, who knew they'd get beaten for eating at the white restaurant, you know, counter and were prepared to emerge with the moral high ground.
Well, I think what's a little bit challenging here is you have BLM, the organization.
Which is a non centralized organization.
And then the majority of people who identify with BLM who know nothing about the organization, which means that the movement itself can actually be co opted.
But that's actually, I think it's an incredible opportunity because to the extent that it can be co opted for bad, it means it also can be co opted for good.
So that's one thing to consider.
But the other thing to consider with this is that I actually don't think most people are intimately familiar with the writings and teachings of Dr. King.
And so, part of what we're trying to do with theory is really get our clients and get the people that we service to actually seriously study their writings.
What a lot of people don't realize is that Dr. King and folks like John Lewis and individuals during the civil rights movement practiced nonviolence because they believed that the oppressor, quote unquote, was also a victim of his own ways of thinking.
And so, they believed that the oppressor was also made in the image of God.
And this is something, this is a very serious.
This is a spiritual foundation that I think is missing.
And this is sort of a crisis of modernity, in a sense.
But the spiritual foundation is missing from a lot of our conversations.
And this is something we also hope to really bring back to the forefront is like the conversation around spirituality and trying to root what we do in a more spiritually grounded approach as opposed to just like a more materialistic approach.
Well, I wanted to ask you about that because I know that I've read what you've said about wokeness, you know, this wokeness craze.
And you said, One of the things you think is driving it is there's sort of a lack of purpose going on for some folks now, and that people, while they may be materially enriched, maybe, maybe not these days, they're spiritually impoverished.
How is spiritual impoverishment leading to wokeness?
Yeah, so I think that there's a great deal of alienation that we're forced to contend with.
And I don't think there's anyone, I don't think anyone is like at fault per se.
Again, I think it's a crisis of modernity.
Timothy P. Carney wrote about this in his book, Alienated America.
And this is a challenge that has really affected everyone in the country from the left to the right.
And what's unfortunately going on, I think, is people on the reactionary right and people on the woke left are suffering from alienation, but are oftentimes implementing policies, implementing solutions that actually perpetuate alienation even more in the name of trying to stop it.
And this includes otherizing people.
And this is something that we as human beings have always done.
This is like, The we tend to think in either or ways of thinking, especially when we.
Think our security or safety is under threat, whether perceived or real.
And so we're prone to start thinking in those very shortcut, reductive ways.
But the challenge here, I think, and this speaks to the spiritual issue, is to create solutions that take away that sense of alienation, that bring back that sense of community, again, that bring back that sense of reconciliation and the beloved community, as Dr. King spoke of.
And this requires that we sort of rewire our brains and rewire our.
How we choose to be in relationship with each other, which to me again begins with being in a healthy relationship with yourself.
And this is even more of an issue because of COVID, because we're neurobiologically wired for connection and we're experiencing long periods of isolation and disconnection.
And so we have to work overtime to really keep ourselves in check and make sure that we take the steps that we can take to foster connection with one another and really try to overcome that.
That's true.
I think everybody's been feeling that, that it's not even.
Not even just the quarantine and the reduced socialization, but even when you are with somebody, you've got the mask on.
There's another layer between the two of you.
There's just a, it's just not as intimate as it used to be.
And I, and I feel like, of course, thanks to the iPhone and the tablets and all that, we're not as intimate as we used to be.
And there's just a, we were socially distanced before we were socially distanced.
And, you know, you can, you can feel us growing apart as a society as opposed to, I mean, growing.
I was, I was looking at the latest Gallup poll and I realized this has to do with a lot more than the iPhone, but it was saying that.
The people's views of race relations right now in the country are lower than they've been in 20 years.
That as recently as 2013, more than 66% of Americans describe race relations as good, pretty good, pretty good, somewhat good, very good.
And today, just 44% say that.
So, I mean, what do you think factors into that?
I mean, I imagine a whole host of things factor in.
I actually think the iPhone does play a role because if If people are constantly exposed to videos of police brutality and this is the only thing that they're exposed to, then perception is reality.
And people will believe that that is the only thing that's going on if that's the only thing that they're exposed to.
So I do think the iPhone plays a role.
And again, like the outrage machine and that being connected to a sense of dopamine plays a role as well.
But also, I think on the other hand, like if you were to look at Critical race theory, which is becoming a bit of a prominent thing in certain institutions, certainly in academia, but slowly but surely creeping into the business world as well.
I think that that is also, I would argue that that also suggests a decrease in good race relations, actually.
So I'm not that surprised that that poll reflects those numbers.
I was reading Jonathan Capehart in the Washington Post, who had read White Fragility.
And he was talking about the tears he had in his eyes at feeling recognized by Robin D'Angelo and lauding the moment that she was about to leave the room.
And I wrote down the quote he wrote, she said to me, I'm going to look at you now and say, on behalf of my people, I apologize.
I want you to know that as long as I'm alive, I will work to wake my people up, to continue my own process, and to see that we can recover.
And at least when I am at the end of my life, I can say I did what I could.
Now, if I said that to my Black friends, Chloe, they would laugh me out of the room.
They'd be like, what?
I'm not your victim, right?
Like that's what they would say to me.
But I do feel like being lectured that you're supposed to begin and end conversations like that, and then having to sit down at your employer and be told that you just have to listen to what a racist you are and how whiteness is equivalent with white supremacy and not say anything, it makes the white people resentful.
Well, it also makes some white people confused because I've heard from people who have said, I've read Robert D'Angelo, and clearly this doesn't make sense.
Any sense, but I don't know what to do because this is popular, you know, it's invoked, so I'm a little confused.
But yeah, I mean, it's a very like narcissistic perspective that like my sense of the richness of life should revolve around this person merely because of her pigmentation.
I should also say though that I think this actually is a byproduct of our hyper consumerist society.
I mean, Ibram Kindi and both Ibram Kindi and Robin D'Angelo, I think, actually see race as a form of capital, which is incredibly.
Dehumanizing, to say the least.
And I think that that plays a role in a lot of these conversations where we're seeing people not as individuals, right, but as sort of like the quote unquote races to which they belong.
And also, a lot of this is just a lot of this is painting a false reality.
The fact of the matter is, as again, Albert Murray pointed out in On the Americans, that America is a very mixed race country, right?
There are very, there are actually very few.
Black Americans in the country that are not also white, and very few white Americans in the country that are not also black.
So there's a lot of confusion.
There's a lot of conflating of race with culture.
There's a lot of confusion around class.
And socioeconomic class.
Exactly, yes.
And also, there's just confusion about misdefining terms is a thing.
So, you know, I think we need to get back to a spiritual foundation and again, really ask, like, what is the vision of the future we're trying to create?
And for me, what do you think?
Like when you hear, because I hear people ask me this all the time, what should I do when somebody, when my employer comes to me and says I have to sit for one of these critical race theory sessions where I'm going to be told my whiteness makes me a white supremacist?
What should they do?
Well, that's a great question.
I get a lot of emails actually of people reporting what's happening in their workplaces.
I would say try to see if you can engage your higher ups on bringing An alternative program.
I mean, I obviously promote and would love for more people to bring the theory of enchantment into their workplace.
So we have a lot of free resources on our website that people can send to their higher ups to check out what we offer.
But also, I think from what I've heard about what happens when these types of other frameworks are brought in, it causes a lot of animosity, it causes a lot of rifts between coworkers.
And quite frankly, it opens up the door for potential liability because.
It actually perpetuates workplace discrimination on some level.
So I think, like, if there are any higher level executives listening to this, like, it's important to be aware of that, like, and to make sure you're not bringing in a program that is actually actively promoting workplace discrimination because you could be held liable for that.
Now, have you had any of the fallout that, you know, people like Glenn Lowry, Coleman Hughes have had where, as a result of your somewhat heterodox views on these issues and how to go about, you know, Improving race relations, you're referred to as the C word, rhymes with boon.
Yeah.
I'm trying to think of a not awful way of.
Communicating it.
I mean, have you had blowback for not sounding more like Kendi and less like Lowry?
No, I mean, I really think it depends on how you define blowback.
Are there like some people on my Twitter who might take offense and insult me?
Yes, but I don't really consider that blowback, you know, especially compared to what other people who have come before us have gone through for standing up for what's right.
Also, I'm aware of the fickle nature of social media and I have actively and Constantly trying to train myself not to respond to every little thing that happens.
I know that if something goes viral today, it's not going to be relevant tomorrow.
So I'm less inclined to pay attention to those things anyway.
And I haven't really seen a lot of that as a response.
On the flip side, I'm going to guess that you, in your 27 years, have experienced racism.
I mean, this is sort of the blowback for not complaining more about racism, but I'm sure you've experienced racism in your 27 years as well.
Depersonalizing Viral Outrage 00:03:30
I mean, definitely.
What has that looked like, and how have you avoided bitterness?
That's a good question.
I mean, it's looked like the typical, you know, sort of use of slurs and certainly the N word toward me, toward my person.
And how did I avoid bitterness?
I think this is why I believe so much in actually engaging with the texts.
Of folks that have come before us because they sort of gave us a roadmap of specifically how to deal with bitterness.
I'm aware that bitterness and rage actually corrupts the person who is sort of stuck in it.
And I don't want to be that person.
I want to always try to transcend and always try to be, try to have that sense of wholeness because I'm aware of the cruel cycle that insecurity can really play in a person's life.
I'm really blessed.
Can I ask you before?
Because I completely agree with this attitude.
And I do think, you know, when you hold that poison inside of you, you're the first one to suffer from it, whatever the reason is that you're being put down or attacked.
But, and if you don't want to talk about this, I understand, but did somebody actually look at you and say the N word to you?
I mean, you were actually called that by another human?
Yeah, definitely.
And some, like, what does it take?
To then not extrapolate, I assume it was a white person.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, what does it take to not extrapolate that to other white people, right?
Like, this is what they think of me.
This is why there is a division between them and me.
Because I feel like right now, as a society, we're going the other way.
You know, I was always raised to think, to be, I was told, you don't stereotype.
You know, if you see a black man doing something illegal, that doesn't mean anything about black people as a whole.
But I feel like right now, all the messaging is exactly the opposite, right?
That your skin color determines everything about you.
Good and bad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think that in that situation, I've recognized that what was going on had nothing to do with me and had everything to do with the person and what state of mind they were in.
I think that we as human beings are always experiencing movies in our heads and projecting certain things that we're experiencing internally on the external world.
And so this individual was projecting something.
That had nothing to do with me.
And so, that ability to depersonalize it, I think, is key.
If you're not able to depersonalize it, you won't, if you're not able to think immediately to yourself, and this is something we train people to do in Theory of Enchantment.
To think to yourself, what internal mechanism, what internal emotions are going on within this person that's informing his behavior?
And then work from there as opposed to saying to yourself, oh, you know, he called me this and, you know, like, and get a sense of, you know, my ego has been shattered because this person called me this.
Like, it has nothing to do with me.
It has absolutely nothing to do with me because I know I'm not that.
Vulnerability Over Cancel Culture 00:17:09
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Okay, and now we want to bring to you a feature that we have here on the show called Real Talk.
This is one where I just want to tell you about something that happened in my life or something real that's going on that I think is worth sharing.
And today I want to tell you about a very special event that I went to last weekend with my pal Janice Dean from Fox News.
She's the meteorologist there.
So let me take you back 10 years ago when I was at Fox and we had, I think it was the death of the Pope.
And we used to use Father Jonathan Morris, a Catholic priest, to come on and talk about pretty much anything that broke.
Involving the Catholic Church.
And I got to know him pretty well.
Super sweet guy.
We were relatively new to New York City, and I didn't have a personal connection to a Catholic priest here yet, even though I am Catholic.
Just wasn't feeling the bond with my local church.
Long story short, he became our priest.
And we wound up having three kids, Doug and I.
He baptized all three of our children.
He became a spiritual advisor to me, in addition to our priest, which happens with a lot of priests.
Well, imagine my surprise.
A year and a half, 18, 24 months ago, when he called me up to tell me he was peace outing from the church.
I was like, What?
He left the priesthood.
So, of course, my first reaction, by the way, he baptized Janice's kids too.
And so Janice and I were like, Is it still legit?
Like, do we have to have them re baptized?
We got to go down that lane again.
And she's like, My kids are never going to sit for it.
But anyway, it turns out that's not necessary.
They're still good.
And one of the reasons why he left was he really wanted to get married and have children.
And you know how the Catholic Church is just so like in the dark ages when it comes to this.
I personally believe they should completely be letting priests get married and have kids.
It's like, it's just so punishing to not allow it.
Whatever, I'm not too old school.
So, Father Jonathan Morris, or FJ as we all call him, Although some of the women at Fox called him Father What a Waste because he was very good looking.
He's a good looking guy.
So FJ, this past weekend, got married.
He got married to Caitlin, who happens to be a TV producer for ABC News.
And JD and I and a bunch of the folks from Fox News went.
And it was beautiful.
It was so fun, first of all, to see him up there on the altar on the other side.
All I could think was like, is he armchair quarterbacking the homily and the vows?
And is he like judging how this guy's doing it versus how he would have done it?
But it's kind of a cool thing to see your priest up there in a tux next to a woman in a white dress holding hands, taking their marital vows.
In the end, it's about love.
And I think Cardinal Dolan let them have it at St. Patrick's Cathedral, which clearly he has the blessing of the church, which was a beautiful sight.
And when I saw them at the reception, those of you who've been following me for years will know that I have a tendency to say the wrong thing if given too much time and silence.
I just feel the need to fill the silence in a way that always comes back to bite me.
What I said to them when I saw them at the reception, because you never know what to say to somebody, right?
It's like, what do you say?
You get like one minute with a bride and groom, and yeah, like it's beautiful, and you look beautiful.
And I don't know, I always feel the need to say something more, which is a bad instinct.
Bad.
And what I said was something like, I can't wait to hear about the honeymoon, and I can't wait to rewatch The Thornbirds this week.
Which is like, yeah, if you grew up in the 70s or 80s, you know about The Thornbirds, about having an affair with a priest.
Which is not what happened in this case.
In any event, I thought you might be interested in hearing my story about now we're going to have to call him formerly FJ, formerly Father Jonathan, and how, you know, like all things in this life, love finds a way.
And now back to Chloe.
When you're trying to help people love themselves, is that possible?
Like, has that ship already sailed by the time they get to you?
You know, if they haven't learned it in childhood and through their formative experiences?
No, I don't think so.
I actually think a lot of us adults.
Are walking around just actually just like young people internally or like children, but like in adult size.
Um, so I don't think it's impossible.
Listen, I actually think that learning to love yourself takes a lifetime, it doesn't start and stop with the theory of enchantment or with your upbringing.
Um, it takes a lifetime, um, because we are, I think, the human being is the most sophisticated being on planet earth, uh, and we are.
You know, both in my opinion, dust and ashes, but made in the image of the divine.
And so, you know, we deal with the human condition.
We have to deal with things like confronting our mortality, insecurity, parental baggage, vulnerability.
These are all things we have to deal with as human beings.
And so, learning to love yourself amidst those things is a lifetime practice.
So, I definitely think it's possible.
What is it about?
Is it about forgiving your own flaws, your quote unquote weaknesses?
Like, what?
What does that daily practice look like?
Because I'm just going to guess it's not like looking in the mirror with, you're good enough, you're smart enough.
But we all have self doubt.
We all have insecurity.
We all have things about ourselves we wish weren't so.
And I think that's what leads to, if not self hatred, then at least bouts of self loathing, which you accurately point out is what leads to one acting out.
When one acts hatefully, it tends to originate with hate or loathing for oneself.
So, what does it look like inside of a person?
And what is the day to day process of Eliminating it or at least controlling it?
Yeah, so I mean, we teach a couple of things in Theory of Enchantment.
We teach first and foremost, folks need to accept the fact that imperfection is a part of life, there's no such thing as perfection.
And that's one of the hard things, I think, for people to really try to practice and internalize the fact that we will always be imperfect just because that is the nature of life.
Another issue is practicing vulnerability because we teach Brene Brown's TED Talk on the power of vulnerability.
I love it.
That's so worth everyone's time.
It's on Google.
Yeah, everyone should check that out.
It's a great TED Talk.
But she talks about how vulnerability is the birthplace of.
You know, feeling sad and feeling down, but it's also the birthplace of joy.
It's also the birthplace of, you know, feeling larger than life.
And so if you numb vulnerability, you numb joy.
And so it's hard to practice vulnerability, but we teach people to do that because otherwise they will remain like paralyzed by fear.
And fear is another issue that we teach people to sort of practice getting over, practice doing things that they fear they would not be good at or.
Or good enough or worthy enough to approach.
And I failed to mention this earlier, but we use a lot of pop culture to teach a lot of these things so that it's memorable and repeatable and people can recall to memory in difficult times.
This is exactly the opposite of cancel culture.
Exactly the opposite.
Right, it is, which causes fear intentionally, which makes no room for humanity and human failings and error, which sizes up an entire person based on one incident or one.
Mistaken fall down, right?
Like, I, the thing I hate most about cancel culture is how it reduces a human being to one bad moment and tries to pretend that that person is all about that moment.
And this is being kind.
This is the charitable version where the person actually did do something bad.
You know, nine times out of 10, they did something totally innocuous that is only bad in the eyes of sort of these far left woke scolds.
But it's, that's what I hate about it because.
Then it doesn't lead to expansion or willingness to be vulnerable.
It leads to contraction and hard shells and the desire to fight.
Right.
So, cancel culture is also a byproduct of our hyper consumerist society.
Even the language of cancel culture is very transactional, right?
It's like canceling a subscription, it's like canceling a human being, which is absurd.
So, we've been conditioned to act in these ways for a very long time.
So, we have to train ourselves.
It's a practice to think differently.
Again, to think about things like restorative justice, which would help.
It's interesting because some people on the woke left claim to be pro criminal justice reform, right?
But then they practice a culture of cancel culture, which is antithetical to criminal justice reform.
You know, I think about this in theory and I think I agree with all of it, all of it.
But then if you say, okay, now apply that to Harvey Weinstein, I get stuck.
I get stuck.
And it's not that I can't understand that he.
May have been a kind father in some ways, or may have, in his own weird way, loved his wife and may have donated millions of dollars to good causes and so on.
So it's not that I'm saying the entire man is bad, but I don't feel restorative when I look at him.
I spent some time in the south side of Chicago interviewing a bunch of moms there whose kids had been sent to prison.
Many of them had been shot.
Their kids had done the shooting as well.
And they're big on restorative justice.
And they talk about trying to raise their boys in this impossible environment where crime is everywhere and it's very tough to pull them out of it and get them to the age of majority without having had any real exposure to criminality and danger, life threatening.
Danger.
So I get it.
In that case, I actually get it more than I get it in somebody like Harvey, who spent a lifetime abusing people.
So, what are your thoughts on somebody like that and how this whole theory would apply to someone like that?
So, that's a great question.
I mean, restorative justice is not about a lack of accountability, right?
And that's sort of a misnomer around restorative justice.
So, it's definitely about accountability, but restorative justice is also about restoring the victim.
And oftentimes in the punitive Punitive system, what happens is the state or whatever institution is sort of has a jurisdiction basically passes down the conviction or the punishment for the crime and the sentence is served.
But the victim is not necessarily centered.
No one comes to the victim and asks them, you know, what do you need in this moment?
So, restorative justice is actually about really restoring, seeking the restoration for the victim.
And that oftentimes In turn, actually restores the soul, so to speak, of the offender.
And in the case of Harvey Weinstein, I mean, in a more restorative justice environment, it isn't like he wouldn't serve time.
It isn't like he wouldn't be held accountable for his actions, but there would be a conversation about how he became what he became and why he did what he did and all of these motivating factors for him.
And I feel like there are.
There would be space to have that conversation.
And if you don't, I feel like if you don't create the space to have that conversation, then as a society, we are less equipped to be able to ask ourselves, well, how do we create conditions in our society so there's not another Harvey Weinstein?
So, like that added piece is, I think, would make justice more sustainable in the long run.
We had, among the women, the moms, they were in like a prayer group circle.
One mom, her son had been killed by another of the mom's sons who was in jail serving time for the murder.
And they were friends and they loved each other.
And the mother of the son who'd been killed had completely forgiven the other mom's son.
And they were talking about that as restorative justice, you know, like that we making that kind of a connection only served the victim and the perpetrator well.
You know, it wasn't in no way painful.
It was.
To the contrary, as hard as it may be, and I feel like you can get past that, you can get past anything.
But can I talk to you a bit about faith?
Because they were women of faith, and um, you know, their prayer group was being run by this heroic nun who we did a story on, um, a couple years ago.
But I know faith has played a role in your own life, it's played a role in my life.
It's, for me, made me a very forgiving person.
I feel like it might be easier to go to forgiveness if you have a faith background or just a if you have God in your life.
Yeah, I think that's probably true.
I mean, I will say that I think that the society that we live in has been shaped by a Judeo Christian ethic.
And so, even if you consider yourself a secular person, the morality of the tradition still seeps into the culture, you know, even if you don't personally identify as someone who is a religious person.
But I definitely agree with you that if you've been raised religious, I was certainly raised religious, and I think probably you're.
Spiritual sensibility, and I'm generalizing here, but your spiritual sensibility is more acutely developed.
And so you would be more likely to see the world through the paradigm of forgiveness and mercy.
But I do think that because the culture, we're seeped in that culture, I do think you could still teach it, even if.
You're in a secular environment.
And there's also not that vacuum that you need to fill with the quote, religion of wokeness or even politics.
Some people treat politics like it's a religion.
All right, can I ask you a couple of personal questions because I don't really know you.
You sound incredibly well read, philosophical, smart.
Like, what does Chloe Valdez do for fun?
Like, you're so erudite.
I can't picture you at a bar slinging drinks, like hanging out.
Like, what do you do for fun?
Tell me about you.
Yeah, I like to dance a lot actually.
Prior to COVID, I would go to a wonderful club in Williamsburg in Brooklyn called Bembe, and I would go there every week to dance for like hours and hours by myself.
So I love to dance.
Dance is like a spiritual practice for me.
I love to produce music.
I love to mix music, both on the vocal side and also on the DJ side.
So that's how I, that's like my, I guess, my artistic outlet for myself.
Now, do you, what does your love life look like?
Is that fulfilling?
Are you dating?
Like, I just feel like you have to be with somebody really smart.
You can't be with a moron.
I haven't found him yet.
So, you let me know if you find him because I haven't found him yet.
But so I am definitely single.
But and I agree with you that I have to be with someone who can challenge me, but also be fulfilling as well and be a real supporter and partner.
I haven't found him yet, but I'm enjoying.
Single life in the meantime, and just trying to spread theory of enchantment as far and wide as possible.
Dating Smart Partners 00:02:26
I think you're going to one day introduce one very special man to it, and he's going to be feeling exactly that when he meets and gets to know you.
Chloe, thank you so much.
Thank you for putting so much goodness out into the world and for trying to tackle such a difficult subject with such goodness.
It's wonderful to meet you.
Thank you, Megan.
Good to meet you too.
All the best.
Our thanks to Chloe Valdery.
So much appreciate her coming on.
Later this week, stay tuned because we're going to have.
Piers Morgan.
I have taken so much crap from my girlfriends for saying that I want to be just like Piers Morgan when I grow up.
It's not because I agree with all of his opinions.
It's because he says whatever the hell he pleases.
He says whatever he wants to say and he is unapologetic for it.
And I love just his freedom.
Like he doesn't, he has zero need to be liked, which explains his approval ratings.
No, I'm definitely kidding.
I love the guy.
I just think he's really brave.
And I'm not the biggest fan of Megan and Harry.
And I I will not miss one of his columns on them.
I'm going to make their like stinking holier than thou attitude.
They're going to lecture everybody on their privilege while they're sitting in their $20 million mansion in California.
All right, I digress.
We're going to get into all of it with Piers when he joins me later this week.
But first, today's episode was brought to you in part by Scoremaster.
See how many points Scoremaster can add to your credit scored visit.
Scoremaster.com slash MKNow.
It really is a service that can essentially pay for itself.
All right, we'll see you later this week.
Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
The Megan Kelly Show is a devil-may-care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.
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