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This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English Teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu.
This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Whether you're selling a little or a lot, Shopify helps you do your thing however you cha-ching. From the launch your online shop stage all the way to the we just hit a million orders stage. No matter what stage you're in, Shopify's there to help you grow. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash special offer all lowercase. That's shopify.com slash special offer.
Hello my beautiful people and welcome back to the moments podcast There's been so many things going on in my life right now. If you listen to the past couple episodes You're pretty much caught up. I think for the most part except for the fact that I have a hundred percent adopted this dog And who would have thought who would have thought i'm just at a very I don't know. I feel Like i'm really growing up this time and i've been saying that since I turned 17 and then 18 and then 19 and then 20 and
And now I'm feeling it at 22. And I'm sure I'm only going to continue to feel more and more grown up as the time goes on. But what life updates do I have for you besides what you already know? I don't know. My brother is having his lacrosse senior night tonight. And that was a whole...
weird thing for me to process like I have to go with my parents and walk with him for senior night But I'm not the senior and I know that sounds crazy. You guys are probably like Lexi It's been five years get over it. You know, you're not in high school anymore It feels so strange for me and I don't know why and I think I've said this before I think part of it is because I didn't graduate from college. So graduating from high school is what my
most recent school education accomplishment was, so it's just weird. It's really weird for me. And I'm like, I'm emotional because there's no way that my little brother is graduating high school. Where did all the time go? But I'm trying not to be so focused on all this nostalgia, and I'm trying to really appreciate the moment because...
When I waste so much of my time thinking about, "Oh my god, I'm not a senior in high school anymore." Like, "Oh my god, Colby's graduating high school." I'm gonna actually lose the moment of him graduating high school. Besides the point, super weird. It's also so funny because the week of prom, my parents were out of town and I threw a party at their house and I told them I was having a few friends over.
I had more than a few friends over. But then this weekend, this past weekend, my parents were out of town again. And it was the week of my little brother's prom. And they threw a party. And I was like, wow, this is crazy.
It just made me miss high school. If you're in high school and you listen to this, please enjoy it. Please enjoy every second of it because it goes away in the blink of an eye. And I never thought in my life I would be one to miss high school. When I was in it, I was like, get me out of here. I can't wait to go to college. Now, I'd say put me right back in high school and never, never let me go to college again. But we're all different. Like there's people who will feel the exact opposite. So it's cool, honestly.
I don't know really what to talk about this week. Lately, with everything going on, I haven't been thinking about the podcast much. I've been thinking about you guys, but...
As I was having this crisis, realizing like, I don't know what to talk about. I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what the next step for the podcast is going to be. I also get myself super stressed out because I have this long running list of different things I want to talk about on the podcast. And I will just leave that list running and I won't talk about a single thing that's on there if I can't make it into a full length episode, which is just so silly, stupid and dumb because first of all,
Since this is my podcast and I'm really the only one who makes the decisions for it, each episode doesn't have to be 40 minutes or 30 minutes long. I could sit here and record a 10-minute episode and call it a day, and I wouldn't have to put so much pressure on myself and be so hard on myself. And I also wouldn't have to study each of these topics in depth to talk about them for 40 minutes. Like, I can really just come on here and we can just chat. Kind of what I'm going to do here, I want to talk about why it's so important to keep an open mind, and I want to talk about...
The difference between wanting validation and needing validation. These were two thoughts that came through my head the other night. I started reading a book. Well, actually, the validation one came through my head while I was sitting on the toilet at the mall. How? I don't know where it came from, but maybe that's a sure sign that it needs to be discussed and we need to chat about it. But here is why. Oh, also, I got my hair dyed. Super fun, super fresh. I always feel...
Crazy. I go through an imposter syndrome moment when my hair is freshly blown out. And especially now because I'm in this adult-like outfit to go to my brother's senior night so I don't blend in with the high school. Anyways, Lexi, shut up. Get to the point. Why is it important to keep an open mind? So the book I'm reading, I got it the other day. It's called... Ooh. What's it called? I'll post it on my Instagram story. It's probably... If you go to the Reads highlight on my Instagram story, it's in there. But I can't remember for the life of me what it's called and I'm not walking to my room to check it. But...
This book basically goes chapter by chapter in a way that is really easy to read and understand. And I love self-help books. I buy books...
I buy multiple books a week. That being said, I finish probably one book every two months because I'll start books and then one, I either can't comprehend what I'm reading, two, I just get distracted, three, I find a different book that I like better. But with all due time, I think I'll get through all my books and I'll read them when I'm supposed to be reading them. I also don't have a problem buying books because it's a way of manifesting that eventually I'm going to have a house with a huge library.
You know, I'm going to throw this out there while we get into this topic because it's important. I think a huge reason I keep an open mind and I do things like this where I say like, oh, me buying books is manifesting this or me doing this is putting this, speaking this into existence or creating a path for it to come in my life somewhere along the future. Like I have watched in my life since I was in high school, all of these things come to fruition and that's why I'm so big on manifesting. And if
Say your religion doesn't like the word manifesting another word you can use for manifesting is just speaking things into existence It's just believing that things are gonna happen and they're going to they're going to come to life and you just have to be patient and you just have to let time catch up and when you think like this and you genuinely believe that good things are going to happen to you you're going to watch good things happen to you and you're also going to become more aware and more appreciative of things when they do happen to you and
All of this kind of just ties into the book that I'm reading. And the book did a chapter all about the importance of keeping an open mind. And for me, I tell everyone to keep an open mind. I have been a very closed minded person in the past. If you would have asked me in high school, I'm thinking freshman, sophomore year.
What I wanted to do with my future where I wanted to live I would have told you I never wanted to leave the city that I grew up in I wanted to have kids there. I wanted to have a family there I wanted my kids to go to the same high school that I went to And it wasn't just like oh because I appreciated it and because I loved it. It's because I was so cocky not cocky Just I don't know. I didn't want to know what else was out there. I was just so set in my ways and
I do still think that I want to stay in my hometown and have my kids maybe go to the same high school that I did. I say that now, having experienced other places and other locations, and I kept an open enough mind to allow room for trial and error in other places, if that makes any sense. Where was I going with that exactly? Okay, in high school I was closed-minded. You also, this is like...
so embarrassing for me to even say my sophomore year of high school for some reason I just had this negative outlook on people who wanted to be vegan and I don't know why it's so immature and childish even when I say it now I'm I'm I feel bad like I feel disgusted by the fact that this is the way that my mind used to work because I know I'm I'm just I don't want to offend anybody this is not who I am now I've changed I've grown like so much about me has evolved but
Besides the point, I didn't mess with vegans. I was like, just because one person stops eating meat, it doesn't mean the whole world's going to stop eating meat. And it just triggered me for some reason. Like, I don't know what my problem was. And when I look back on that version of me in high school, because I'm sure that there were other things that I was just like believing and thinking that were just unnecessary and not cool or not nice. Like, I don't think I was ever a mean girl in high school, but I definitely had a closed mind and I did not...
care to listen to other people's opinions. And when I look back on that version of myself, grossed out by her. And I'm so glad I've changed a lot. But I think back to me in high school, and I realize that there's a lot of people in this world who are still like that out there. And if you would have tried to come to me and have a real adult, informational, educational conversation with me about the benefits of going vegan and eating plant-based,
I would have not physically spit in your face, but I would have not listened to a single word that came out of that person's mouth. Just because I didn't even understand what the frick an open mind was. And that point in high school too was, it was odd because I had been doing yoga, you know, since I was 13. And at that point in my life, I was super open-minded. Probably the most open-minded I had ever been. I had grown up completely Christian. And when I went to my yoga teacher training, I had to learn about Hinduism. So...
Honestly, at first my dad and some other family members of mine were like, I don't like you learning about these other religions. And just because, I don't know, they were set in their ways. And it wasn't in a negative way. It wasn't because they had anything against another religion. It's just, I don't know. They just questioned me learning about other religions when I'm supposed to be so committed to mine. And since I was so young, I didn't really know any better. And then I eventually found Hinduism to be fascinating. And it was cool because...
it didn't have to change the religion that I was. You know, I could learn about Hinduism and still be Christian and there was no problem with that. And there is no problem with that. And I think that that's a piece of information that so many people are missing. They think that just because they understand both sides of something means they have to be okay with both sides of something or accepting of both sides of something. Moving on. That's how my mind worked when I was 13, 14. Um,
Doing yoga, let's call that eighth grade and freshman year of high school sophomore year and junior year of high school I just wanted to be cool and popular and we've discussed this on other episodes So we don't need to get into it But that was probably a time in my life where I fell the most out of touch with yoga I wasn't really going to yoga I was just soaking up the whole high school thing and then senior year I came a little bit back to my senses. I hope point is I didn't have an open mind. I wasn't willing to listen and I think that if everyone in this world is
could open their mind a little bit more it would be a happier a safer and a more loving and accepting world and i'm confident about that this episode of the moments podcast is sponsored by better help
Quick little intermission, you guys. We all know how important it is to prioritize the right things in our life. And maybe for you, that's prioritizing doing leg day at the gym or making sure you go for your hot girl walk. But how often are you prioritizing your mental health and making sure that therapy is a part of your weekly routine? If it's something that you've been open to, if it's something that you've been considering, I highly recommend BetterHelp. And thank you so much to BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode.
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Not sure of anyone's political stance or hot take on this. Like, this is, again, just my personal opinion. Can you guys, Florida just passed, Ron DeSantis just passed a law to allow people to carry guns with no permit. Nothing. Nothing needed at all. And it is just mind-blowing to me because, you know, it's one thing to say you don't support gun control and you don't want to take people's guns away.
don't agree with it, I understand it. I, again, have an open mind. But who in their right mind thinks it's a good idea to make guns more accessible with everything going on in the world? I just think that's crazy. And I just, little news update if you didn't know that that happened in Florida, but it did. Now, where the heck, where did I even, how do I start that? I don't know how I got to this topic. I hate when I do this. Give me one second. Okay, I remember now.
I was gonna go into how everything in the world right now... Now, I don't want to say the world. I want to say the US because this is a US problem. If you're listening in a different country, consider yourself lucky because I want to appreciate where I live. Anyways, point here. We are at the highest levels of political polarization that we have ever, ever, ever been and it is only beginning to get worse. There is a lot less men in the middle.
And when I say that, I mean there's a lot less people open to understanding both sides and making logical decisions based on their true morals and values. And there's a lot more people who are so far, so dedicated to each side that even if the other side had a valid point, they wouldn't be willing to listen or change anything. It just turns into a fight, an argument, a problem.
And the situation that they were trying to discuss only becomes bigger. Like, at this point, people don't even care about what the problem is. They just care about being right. And that's all that matters. I feel no one cares about change right now. And I don't really feel the need to state my political opinions, but I'm probably going to without even realizing it. So I'm just going to tell you right now, like, I am...
very much on the left. My morals and values sit with liberals. And I, it's crazy for me because I grew up very conservative, not very conservative. Like I just, let me backtrack that. I thought that I was a Republican because my mom was a Republican. My dad was a Republican until Obama. Then we kind of started making our way, whatever. It doesn't really matter what my family did. It's kind of what I'm doing now. The point is I,
for a little was so you know set on this this this this this that if I don't know even if a conservative Republican whatever you want to call it came up to me and tried to explain something to me a situation to me I would have been like I don't care I'm not even going to listen
And, yeah, in a lot of cases I still feel like that. I still want to say that. But I'm trying to teach myself to have an open enough mind that I'm willing to see where someone is coming from. And at that point, do I decide whether I agree or disagree? And I think that that is a huge problem with both sides. And I don't even know. I just think that we have – we're all so out to get each other right now.
And that's all that matters, that people are forgetting about the actual problems. It's just a big fat competition to see who's going to win. And it's just scary. It makes me start thinking, like, what if we go into a freaking civil war or something? That's terrifying. We have to just, like, get off all of our high horses and just be willing to figure out the root problem. And I want to give an example. I posted on my Instagram story the other day. Maybe it was yesterday.
Some stuff about gun control and just some like informational posts and how Ron DeSantis passed this and how I was upset that he did because why are we giving more people more access to guns when whatever. And I get a bunch of nasty, hateful DMs that are like, the guns aren't the problem. It's an inanimate object. No, no, no, no, no. It's people who are psychopaths in the brain. And I'm like, okay, you're right. It's both. It's not just one thing here. Like it's not just...
the gun and it's not just the mental health problems and when people say that I'll kind of respond back and be like okay you're right but but you're like they don't that side doesn't want to do anything about either of the problems and honestly that side contributes to a lot of mental health problems because they are disgusted by people who want to love someone of the same sex or participate in drag or do what makes them happy
And they are deemed as disgusting and, I don't know, cut off by their families in a lot of cases. No wonder their mental health is not good. No wonder things escalate. And no wonder people get angry and upset enough to commit disgusting crimes. It's all a problem. It's not one thing or another. And...
This is just getting slightly off track, but I have been thinking about this a lot, so it never hurts to talk about it. It all does go to what I'm trying to tell you in this podcast episode is to have an open mind. So if you don't agree with the things that I'm saying right now, that's okay. But just listen to them before you shut them down, you know? I just, I want to give another example. In an Uber in Arizona, and this guy starts talking a bunch of mumbo jumbo saying...
COVID was fake. They're trying to do a mass extinction of the human population. And another girl that was in the car was like, can we not talk about this? And I was like, okay, I mean, respect. We don't have to talk about that, whatever. But I was willing to, I wanted to see where this guy was coming from. I wanted to hear why he thought the way that he did. And
Not necessarily shut him down, but ask questions. Make someone think in a sense that's not disrespectful and not I'm better than you and not I know more than you because there is not one of us that knows more than another. We all know about different things. We have different strengths, different weaknesses, different thought processes, and of course...
We live in a country where we have the freedom of voting. Like we live in a democracy. We're not all going to agree. That's the point of having two different parties or however many parties there actually are. You get what I'm saying? I just think that if we all listen to each other a little bit more, we might see some changes. And it's just my thoughts. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Whether you're selling a little or a lot.
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Open mind. Back to the open mind. If you keep an open mind, you'll start to notice that some of the things people say, they aren't always completely crazy. Some of them, yeah, they are. But just listen before you think. Or think before... whatever. You get the point. Now, the real reason, the more spiritual thing that I wanted to talk about when it comes to keeping an open mind was the book I'm reading, like I said, talks about it in the sense that if our brains are constantly full...
There's no room for messages to come through, whether you consider those to be messages from God or messages from spirit guides or messages from the universe. Again, whatever it is that you believe in, whatever higher power, even if you don't believe in a higher power, like if our brains are constantly thinking about the situation that's making us anxious, the thing that doesn't even matter until five years from now, the
the homework assignment that you haven't done yet if you are constantly just filling your mind with that so stuffed that it's already so overwhelmed up there there is no room for anything new to come through any new ideas any new creative outlets any new hobbies there is no room for any of that if you keep your mind full of so many things and of course i understand that it feels really out of our control 99 of the time to clear our mind
What I took away from this chapter of the book was that we have to, and I say this often, so this isn't going to come across as a surprise. We have to stay in touch with our inner child because when we think back to when we were little kids, our brains had so much more room for things to come in. You know, we didn't, we didn't have to participate in the adult world yet. We were just little kids. So when we watch someone do something, we would learn from them and we
Yada, yada, yada. And then we get to a point where we've learned enough things that we just kind of close off the brain and we don't take anything else in. And a lot of us are just conditioned to be that way. And that's another reason we keep our minds so closed off because we don't think there's room for anything more. And we don't think that we need to allow anything else in.
But kids don't do that. They keep a part of their mind open and they're always curious and they're always wondering and they're always in awe of nature and of new things and of meeting new people. And the older we get, the more we shut that off. So the chapter essentially says this.
Think back to being a child. Make time to be young and to feel young and make space in your mind for messages to come through. Messages that can inspire you to take the next leap in your life or to adventure on a new journey like this.
don't know how to explain it guys but when I am at the most peaceful states of my life like when I really am at peace in my mind and in my body and I give myself time to be alone and to adventure by myself and just enjoy free time and I play that is when God comes through and tells me like this is something that you should do this is something that's when he gives me ideas if that makes sense and I
I don't want to sound like stupid and crazy when I say these things. And I know that I don't need to justify any of the things that I say because these are all things I've experienced in my life. And whether they work in everyone else's life or not doesn't really matter so much. And I want to share them for anyone who does want to listen. Anyways, I just, I want you to know that this stuff works and the little things really make a difference. And if you are willing to be open to learning from everyone around you,
You are going to notice a really big difference in your life. You don't know how many things you can learn from other people until you start listening to people and you start talking to people. And instead of waiting for your turn to speak, you're actually listening. And I think that that was something I didn't do for a really long time in my life. Not intentionally, not on purpose, not because I didn't want to listen to people. Like my mind was just going and going, going, going so much that
When I would be having an in-depth conversation with someone, one, I'd probably be thinking about what else it is I need to do and how I was going to get out of the conversation, especially if it just happens to be some stranger. Or if I'm in a rush, I'm thinking about where I need to go, what I need to do. Or I would just be sitting there waiting for my turn to talk unintentionally, subconsciously.
once I became aware of the fact that I wasn't actually listening to people I made it a goal of mine to start listening deeper to what people are saying and then
It just makes you appreciate conversation more and it just makes you get more in tune with the mindsets of other people and less locked into the way that you think. Because the reality is that we can learn something from each individual around us. We can learn something from the 95-year-old grandma that you meet at the grocery store and you can learn something from the 3-year-old who's in a stroller who just smiled at you.
There is little reminders and little signs and little lessons all around us. And the only way you're going to be open to finding them and seeing them is if you open your mind, if you create space. And when I say create space, I want you to evaluate the things that you prioritize in your life. What is important? What helps you clear your mind? What makes you anxious? What fills your mind with stress and overwhelm and anxiety?
In a lot of cases, sometimes this is work and school and these aren't things you can delete from your life. But think deeper than that. Like think when are you scrolling so much on TikTok that it's making you anxious? You know, how can you create more time? No phone, no screen time, just nature, just yourself. Even if you're not outside by yourself, no phone, your mind will begin to clear and things will talk to you.
the universe, through God, through whatever it is. And even if it's not, even if you think that me saying, you know, God's going to talk to you or the universe is going to talk to you, if you think that's psycho, that's okay. But you could choose to believe it anyways. Like you could be hopeful and you could be faithful. And when you put hope into the world, the world is going to give you hope back. And I mean that. I genuinely, I mean it from, I seriously, seriously, I'm not lying. I just, anyways, what I have next is
You know, I don't even know if I want to get into the whole validation thing because I do actually want to do research on that and I want to talk about it a little more. I'll give you the quick brief of it. Basically, I have this realization that it's okay for you to want validation from whether it's a friendship or a relationship or a person. Like, it's okay to want someone to tell you you look beautiful or that they love you, but it's not okay to need that. You know, you should be able to fill that void by yourself and we'll deep dive into it next time we chat.
But I guess I just wanted to tell you guys in this episode to keep your mind open. Listen to what God, what the universe is trying to tell you. Listen to people that you have once deemed as crazy. And maybe it'll give you an opportunity to evaluate why they're crazy. Maybe it'll justify exactly what you thought about them. But at least you listened. And at least you took the information that they were saying and you tried to understand it. And then at that point, if it still doesn't align with your morals...
then it's okay to disagree. It's not okay to disagree before you've even given someone a chance to speak. And I live by that now. I never used to. And it's just cool. I feel like I've gotten to a point where none of these words could have ever come out of my mouth when you asked me my sophomore year of high school. So it's cool. It's growth. We're always evolving. We're always changing. And I say that constantly too. But just listen to people, okay? And don't be...
Yeah. You get the point. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go walk with my brother down senior night and just keep getting older, I guess. That's scary. But it's a good thing. It's a fun thing. We're gonna enjoy it. We're gonna embrace it. And I love it. And I love you guys. And I can't wait to see what the future holds for us. I'm creating space in my mind for God to tell me what we're gonna do next. But, oh!
This is something that I want to tell you. I, if you're a South Florida girl, we are having a sunrise beach cleanup and we're raising money for turtle rescues. So you can go to the link in my bio if you want to come.
It's going to be in Boca Raton, where at the same place the animal shelter event was. And the thing is for this event, it's limited on the number of people we can have. So you have to RSVP and you have to buy a swag bag. And the swag bag is $100. I know it sounds like a big number, but 100% of those profits are going towards the turtle rescues. And we just have to do that because the event has to be limited. And in the swag bag, you'll get a towel, a t-shirt, a sticker pack, a bumper sticker, whatever.
What else? A water bottle. I'm trying to get some samples from Sunbum or something cool like that.
But you'll get plenty of stuff and you'll be able to come do a free meditation. We'll clean up the beach, hang out. And I'm super excited for it. So if you're interested in that, please go buy a swag bag. But if you can't come and you want to support still, we have bracelets for sale, t-shirts for sale, the towel is for sale. You can order any of it and not come to the event. And you're still making a huge difference for the oceans and for our beautiful little turtles. And I'm really excited. I'm liking this whole event thing that we're doing.
And last but not least, it's almost getting to the point where I can tell you about my top secret project that I was working on in California. Get ready for summer. Don't buy any bathing suits in the next month or so because I got something coming. Something is brewing. And that's just about all my updates. Also, if you're one of the people who know the podcast secret and you've kept my secret on TikTok, I love you. You guys are real ones. Seriously, my best friends. When I posted...
that TikTok like kind of hinting at a soft launch but not actually soft launching uh you guys were like the girls who know now and they're like what happens in the podcast stays in the podcast and I said yep that's my fam that's my squad right there okay I love you guys I'm gonna go have the best day ever