MARIEL HEMINGWAY: EPISODE LINK
THE RETURN OF THE QUEEN: WEBSITE
TRANSCRIPT:
Colleen: Welcome back, everybody. This episode is going to be a special treat. We are thrilled to have Mariel Hemingway on the show. Welcome.
Mariel Hemingway: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s such a pleasure to be here. Colleen: Well, when we heard that you
were going to be able to join us, so many questions popped into my head so much. And as we kind of
went down the researching, gosh, the life you have lived, I wanted us to start with what you’re doing now, which is Return of the Queen. If anyone follows you on
Instagram and if they don’t, they should, you are really like deep into a lot of the philosophy we
talk about, which is aging and finding yourself again. And can you talk about how Return of the
Queen came about?
Mariel Hemingway: Um, how did it come about?
I wasn’t really thinking that I would be doing anything like it ever,
ever in my life. I never thought oh I’m gonna get a bunch of women together
and I’m gonna listen to their stories and yet I think as we get older and we realize in our
own lives, like things that have worked. And I’ve done so many things over the years that I
realized there was many things that I could share with a lot of women that would help them to
really become more in tune with who they actually are, not who they’re behaving like.
I think there are two separate people that we have a survival version of ourselves.
And then we have an authentic version of ourselves that really hasn’t been given permission to run
the show, so to speak. So, yeah, I started doing something called Tea Circle,
which is, you know, a weekly thing I do on Thursdays.
It’s an hour and I talk to women and they tell me part of their stories and I’ve got it
dialed in now so that it’s not about complaining.
It’s about really finding that place in yourself where you’re letting yourself go where you’re not
really honoring who you actually are. We’re honoring a person that we’ve it’s almost an imposter
syndrome. We’ve been playing a role for so long that that’s who we think we are.
But there is a woman inside each and every one of us women and men as well.
But I can only speak for the for my part of the
the genetic code. And there’s a part of us that is so balanced.
She’s balanced. She knows what’s right for her. She really is well-equipped to deal
with whatever comes into her life, right?
We have been playing the role of survivor probably for very good reason,
but you never know if that survival version of ourselves started when you were a child,
you know, started before you were even seven. So we’ve been playing this role of like,
I’ve got to help everybody else and I’m, you know, whatever it is. And, and, and we do that for so
long. And then you get to a certain point in your life where It just doesn’t make sense to do that
anymore. And being your, you know, quote unquote,” authentic self” or the self that you truly are,
she’s confident. She’s got she’s got your number. She just hasn’t been given permission to run your
show yet, if that makes any sense.
Bridgett: Right. It’s exactly it’s like for so long,
so many women, me included, worried about what everybody else thought. Yeah. What everybody thought
of them until you finally reach this point where you’re thinking, I’ve got to be happy with me.
I’ve got to, I’ve got to know what feels right because we all know when something doesn’t feel
quite right, when we feel like we’re trying to be pushed to do something we’re not comfortable
with. It’s like might be really small, but we might be used to it. Just like you said, it could
have started way, way back when we were children.
Mariel Hemingway: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.
And we keep running that program because it worked for a long time.
I mean, the thing is, it was a survival technique that we learned when it was appropriate to use it
for whatever reason. Was there abuse? Was there neglect? Was there whatever?
And then you get into, and then what we do is we find the relationships that support that kind of.
unhealthy communication. Now it’s not unhealthy forever, you know, like it, it served a purpose,
but it, but as we get older. the purpose becomes less and less effective because that’s not who you
actually are. You’re responding to a very small version of yourself that didn’t know what was going
- So we’re in panic, we’re worried, we’re looking over our shoulder, but the person inside of all
of us, and I mean all of us, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re physically well or not well,
there’s a certain… part of us that knows what’s right for you, right? But we question that.
And I only say these things because I did it for years. Everybody knew what was right for me except
- There was a doctor, there was a guru, there was a teacher,
somebody. Everybody outside of me knew what was right for me, but I certainly didn’t have the
answers. It was like, wait a second. And that’s what I think. My whole passion is to really remind
women that they are they are self-sufficient and they can they can really run their lives from
this solid, holistic place in the center of their being. But they have to know you have to you have
to see what you’ve been doing in order to let go of that and get to this place. So I do three
different things. I do something called Rise to Remember, which is,
a beautiful three hour kind of process where you remember the person you
were always meant to be. And it’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful kind of transition into what
you actually see in your mind’s eye, because I guide you there, you get to see who you’ve always
been. And she’s strong and she’s fabulous. And then there’s this tired version that she needs to go
out to pasture. And we’re not mean to her because she served us so well, right? But she’s tired and
it no longer works as well. Do you know what I mean?
So that’s what I was doing. I started doing it online. About a year ago,
and it’s been absolutely amazing. It’s been a real amazing.
So Rise to Remember is the three hour sort of like thing that we do.
I do every two weeks and then Return of the Queen. Once you’ve done Rise and you know who you
are, you’ve seen her, you feel her, you get to experience her because she’s cellularly you.
She’s not a mystery. Then you do the return of the queen, which is an eight-week journey of
implementing certain rituals into your life so that you can make her stay. Because the problem is
we’ve been doing the survival version of ourselves for so long that we actually don’t know how to
function in this new arena. So you have to be given tools. I don’t try to add more.
I actually try to take away. Sometimes we have to add things that enable that version of you to get
stronger so that you don’t have to question whether she’s able to like handle situations because
she can handle anything because she’s not based on a childhood fear or memory or
cellular kind of like disconnect.
Colleen: I was just going to ask you,
what do you say? Because I know that the program talks about finding that kind of centered self
that’s been there. What do you say to women? We get this question so often. Why do I feel invisible
at this stage of life? Like, I just feel like nobody’s paying attention to me.
Mariel Hemingway: Well,
because you’ve actually made a certain part of yourself invisible because you’ve been playing a
person that you actually aren’t anymore. So when you continue to play this person,
it’s like no man’s land, right? You’re in like purgatory,
right? You’re in this, you’re in like, wait, where do I go? Do I go up? Do I go down? Do I go left?
Do I go right? But there’s a version of yourself that is, I say it’s the queen in you. Like she’s solid. She knows what to do.
But there’s this lost person who’s tired. The whole old situation doesn’t work so well anymore.
So that’s the version that I’m like, no, let’s give her time off.
We don’t hate her. She served us very well. But she needs a break.
You can’t live from that place because, you know, too much. So
that’s why at this certain time in life, you feel kind of like lost because it’s like you feel that kind of empty space and it doesn’t feel full and rich.
And you’re like, who am I? What am I doing? You know, like, I don’t know who I am. You know,
our kids have gone off to college or, you know, or they’re married or whatever it is. And you feel
like, oh, my God, I have no purpose anymore. But that was never who you were. Those were just
things that you did. Right. And so we separated from the things that we that we
thought was who we were. And that’s not our soul. Our soul’s purpose is to be present.
And to be excited about the journey every single day and how, you know, like new things.
Like I think of my life, you know, and I’m 60. How old am I? 64.
I don’t know. I’m 64 years old and I feel like I’m at the beginning of something. And I think every
woman needs to feel that. Not like, oh, crap. Kids are, you know, I don’t have a purpose.
What do I do? Where am I? Who am I? You know, but we’re so we we’ve served so many people,
but we haven’t served ourselves oftentimes. And so I think of it as the most exciting
time of your life. It’s like, OK, we’ve already raised the kids. We’ve already had, you know,
we’ve already had. certain kinds of careers maybe we have different careers maybe we start podcasts
you know whatever it is right. We have this ability to do great things now and it doesn’t matter
how old you are because when you come from this place of being present and that’s what the whole
thing is ultimately about if you’re coming from a place of presence everything is new and you
become like a child because you’re like oh my gosh!
You’re curious about everything. And remember, I mean, I’ve got a granddaughter now and that’s how
she is with the world. She just looks around, she’s excited and she’s constantly moving. The
problem with aging and how we’ve sort of embraced it as a culture in many different cultures is
that we think, oh, well, you know. You are in your 60s. You are in your 70s.
It’s time to slow down. Now, there’s a certain amount of that that it’s okay to slow down if
slowing down means I’m becoming more aware. Not because,
oh, I have no more energy and I can’t focus on anything. That’s a different kind of slowing down.
That’s you believing that you are no longer vital. And I just don’t believe that.
I believe that we’re at the beginning of a new like chapter.
Bridgett: I agree with that 100 percent.
And I know when like I went through this whole thing like that, like, where do I belong?
My kids moved out. I missed them terribly. And then I start to realize,
- I’m retired from this. I do the podcast with Colleen,
my husband retired. I’m like, I get to wake up every day and not have to answer to this boss or whatever. And that really, that is something I found that I’ve
embraced. And I know a lot of women out there are still at the workforce and I understand that,
but just waking up every day and thinking, right. Oh my gosh, this is so nice.
And I know, too, that when women come into this stage,
the people that are used to you following that, what the role you always played,
they’re not always real happy about that. You know, they’re not.
Mariel Hemingway: Well, that’s a reconciliation that we all come to because you start you start to see who serves your highest good,
for lack of a better term. Not everybody falls into line with who you become,
right? And you’re never not that person, but you’re allowing yourself to be this life,
like curious, almost like a child. I mean, my kids, when I first met Bobby,
who is my husband now, I’ve been with him for 17 years, but when I first met him and he was like,
he made me laugh and my life just became different, right? And I started to become much more
present. And my kids, they would say to Bobby, oh, she’ll change. She’ll go
back to being, you know, she’s depressed. You’ll see. And because they,
now they love him and they love my life and they love who I’ve become, but they didn’t know that
part of me because that was, I was so in survival mode for most of my life,
you know, for lots of different reasons. I come from a lot of mental health issues and, you know,
like alcoholism, there was all that stuff. Probably everybody comes from something.
I didn’t think I was unique, but it wasn’t until I left that, that I realized there was so much of
me that was like, I’m just, I’m laughing. I’m this, I’m that. And my kids are like, you’re like,
you’re a different person, you know? And I wish I could have been more of that for them. It just
wasn’t the journey. And they probably needed me to be who I was.
You know, I mean, I was a good mom, but I wasn’t, I wasn’t super happy because I was scared. I lived in fear and I don’t live in fear anymore.
They just think, you know, and now I have a granddaughter and it’s like, oh, it’s so great. Cause I
just get to be exactly who I want to be. Which is a gift.
Colleen: It is a gift. And I, you know, you have had such kind of a circuitous journey.
in life. And do you, I heard you say somewhere that from a child to you were 40,
you were depressed every day. Was that more genetics? Was that you trying to chase who you thought you should be?
Was it a combination? Why do you think that was?
Mariel Hemingway: Beautiful question. I think it was a combination.
I think genetically there is some pretty,
daunting, you know, statistics in the family. There’s, you know, seven suicides and,
you know, mental health issues. A sister who’s schizophrenic, bipolar and had secondary suicidal
tendencies. I lost a sister to suicide. You know, I’ve got my,
I think that if my grandfather had been alive during this time,
he would have been diagnosed bipolar.
And so there was a lot of that tremendous amount of alcoholism, all of that.
So I was so afraid. I mean, I was the one that chose the healthy lifestyle,
you know, as a kid. And I think, but it was survival.
I was literally trying to survive what I came from.
And I loved my family. Like it wasn’t that I didn’t love them. In fact, I love them so much that
I thought that I would fix them. I would get so healthy that I’d fix them all. That was
ridiculous, but you know, we try. But I didn’t know that I was depressed until I wasn’t.
I really did. Until I met Bobby, I did something called brainwave technology,
which it, it has you hear your brain in real time so you can actually correct it and balance it
out. I did hundreds of sessions. And I didn’t know that you could be happy every day.
I knew there were days of happiness or moments of happiness. Now,
it wasn’t like I had deep depression. It was like a low-grade fever. I just kind of like…
Didn’t feel great, but I could put on a good show. I was an actress, you know, like I knew
how to act like everything, you know, and I had fun at times, but I mean,
even raising my girls, going back to the girls, I, I didn’t know how to have fun.
I had been such a caretaker for so long. My mother had cancer when I was very,
very young. And I became her primary caregiver. I was driving her to Boise,
Idaho, which was 120 miles from our house. I was driving her at 10 years old because she felt so
sick from the chemotherapy. So she would drive there and I had to drive her back because she
couldn’t drive because she was so sick, right? I took on this role. Now, I thought
that everybody had, you know, a family like mine. And that’s what you did.
I wasn’t complaining about it was just like, that’s who I was. So I was so in fight or flight all
the time. That’s when Bobby introduced me to brainwave technology. It helps balance the brain, the hemispheres of your brain through sound. So you hear your
brain in real time and your brain, once it hears itself, realizes,
oh, wait, that’s out of balance and it will correct itself. That’s a very simplistic version of
what it does. We understand. But it was amazing because I looked at him one day.
And, you know, I had completed this. Right. I’ve done like 100 sessions.
And I think it was like week two. And I woke up and I looked at him and I said,
this is so weird, but I’m happy again. And he goes, what?
And I go, I just don’t understand. I’m like, I woke up happy again.
And he goes, yeah, you’re supposed to. And I was like. Well,
hell, I didn’t know that. And it was like, it was so crazy. So for me to have,
it was like liberating. And then, you know, then I began the journey of really understanding what
presence meant, you know, and I’ve done, I’ve followed every guru,
not every guru, but I’ve followed a lot. And, you know, I’ve done.sweat lodges and chanting and
all of which I’ve gotten something from. I meditate. And I still have a meditation practice.
But I mean, I’ve followed gurus. I’ve done things. I’ve been this person that was always reaching
outside of herself for an answer. And it wasn’t until I really understood,
oh, wait, I’m my teacher. I’m my best guru. Wait,
what? And that’s where the Return of the Queen and Rise to Remember and Tea Circle.
That’s it all comes from the understanding that we’re all, all of us,
the three of us right here and everybody who’s listening, we’re all actually already OK.
We’re already doing great. But there’s a version of us that is
kind of our default mechanism that is running the show.
And so I started Tea Circle to say, hey, nobody has to choose that anymore.
We’ve lived too long. And most of the women that I talk to, like in Tea Circle,
they’ve done so much work. They’ve done the meditation. They’ve done like I did.
They’ve been to meditation groups and this and that. self-help and reading the books and doing the
things. And it’s not that those things don’t help, but if you’re still doing them from the version
of you that is in survival, you’re never going to get there because she’s always going to be
worried that she’s got to survive. But if you realize that the version of you that actually is
thriving, doing fine and no problem, she’s okay, that version of you can become anything she wants.
And I don’t care what decade you’re in. You get to be the version of you that you want to be,
that you actually are. And she’s powerful and she’s happy and she’s confident.
So I do Tea circle,
which is free. And then I do a Rise to Remember, which is, a three hour journey that I do on
Saturdays from, you know, nine Pacific time to 12 noon. And I guide you through this journey. First, you see where you are, because if you don’t see where
you are, you can’t, you can’t know where you, where you need to be or, you know,
where you’re existing now. And then you can’t see the future because it’s clouded. But once you
know where you are and how you feel about yourself in this moment, then the second hour
you get to meet the person that you were always meant to be. And she lives inside of us and she’s
just waiting for you to give her permission to run the show. But the survival version of us has
been running the show for so long and she’s exhausted. Right. And we never say you’re bad.
We’re like, thank you. You did an amazing job. I wouldn’t have existed. I wouldn’t have survived
without you. But when you see when you see the version of yourself that has no issues,
that has energy, that is full of vibrancy and she’s alive and she has childlike curiosity and she’s
present, then that the version of you that’s tired goes, OK,
I’m going to let you run the show. Because I’m literally exhausted because I’ve been doing this too
long. And I think that that’s that thing that happens. So anyway, right. So that’s the second hour
is you meet the first person that you were always meant to be. And the third hour is that the
two of them merge where you say,
thank you to the version that has been running the show. You’re so grateful to her. And you kind of
pass the baton. That’s the first step into what then becomes the Return of the Queen.
And that’s an eight week journey where I’m just a facilitator.
I’m nobody’s guru, but I do help guide you to the next steps of yourself because it’s all about you
realizing how powerful and amazing you already are, right? But sometimes we just need a little bit
of help. Because it’s hard. It’s hard to, you know, once you know her from Rise to Remember,
it’s great. But it’s hard to keep in that space because we’re so used to the habits that we have.
Right. We’ve been surviving for so long. It’s hard to go back. And there’s something awkward.
You kind of feel weird about like, oh, I don’t want to, you know, what will my husband think if I act
or, you know, the kids might. They don’t. They just see you as you are. Actually what’s amazing about
the loved ones in your life is they just they kind of like they don’t they don’t really know.
It’s kind of like when, you know, your husband says you get a haircut and you’re like, oh, my God,
you know, because you’ve changed. Right. And it has nothing to do with your hair. But there’s they
just they think, oh, my gosh, you just seem like more vibrant. Right.
It’s not a telltale sign of anything.
Because you feel differently, everybody in your life responds to you differently.
And, and the people, you know, you were talking about those people that don’t, you know, don’t
Quite (like the new version of you)
And to be honest, and you do it with love. It’s like, it’s okay to let them.
do what they do in their own lives it’s not that you get rid of that it’s just like they have a
place and you’re not (in that place anymore) and that’s okay and it feels okay because when you come from
this strong place in yourself it’s so easy to just you know like let go of relationships that don’t
serve you. And it doesn’t mean that you hate them, it doesn’t mean anything you don’t even
ever have to say anything but, you know, it becomes pretty clear.
Bridgett: Yeah. And I read your book, Out Came the Sun. And there were just different,
situations for you. I know I felt like for you,
you were walking on eggshells. Right. You know, and then also there was a connection because I have
a sibling that is bipolar. And when I was reading your book, when your sister went through that,
I went, that’s what happened to my brother. That’s about the age he was. When all of that happened
and how you just, I could almost see like you were just trying to regulate and get some
normalcy to what, whatever we knew was normal. It’s hard to know. Nothing’s normal.
But yeah, yeah. And I really, you know, I felt for you, but also it’s like, you just,
we just didn’t know what was going to make us happy.
Mariel: We were also a generation that nobody looked
at themselves. You couldn’t talk about it.
My sister was in a mental institution and my parents told me that she went to college and we went
up to visit her. And I was like, I think I was six. And I said, why are there bars on the window?
I mean, it was like. You know, I was like, oh, it’s a special school.
You know, they didn’t talk. I mean, my father probably would have talked about it.
But my mother was like, we don’t talk about that. You know, she was so worried about what with the
neighbors that you know, like, what am I? I was like, it was bizarre. It was just a different time.
Now we’re like, we, you know, we, we have social media thing.
We share it.
Bridgett: Yes. If you don’t have this in your family, then there’s something wrong with you.
Mariel: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Colleen: And I think, you know, you talk, you talk about being okay.
And for a long time that you weren’t okay. And there was a powerful story that you told about
meeting the Dalai Lama in India. And I was wondering if you could share that with the listeners.
Mariel: Oh, absolutely. It actually was kind of part of that story of realizing that I was my own teacher,
but I will, I’ll tell it to you because it is, it is beautiful. So like I’ve been saying,
because I’ve been, I’ve had verbal diarrhea apparently this entire time. I apologize to everybody
out there who says you talk too much, but anyway, so I will tell this story because it is a
powerful story and it really represents who I was and who I am.
And I think I am still becoming right. So I literally,
because of that childhood, because of the. alcoholism, because my mother had cancer, because my
father lived under this huge umbrella of Ernest Hemingway being the most famous writer in the
world. So he had his issues. My mother lost her first husband.
So she had issues, which I never knew about until I was 16.
Again, nobody talked about it. So anyway, I spent an entire lifetime looking for a doctor,
a guru, a exercise system, food system,
something that was going to help me to be okay with myself because I was constantly searching.
And in that search, it was usually a doctor, a guru, a teacher.
somebody, right? It was, they had to be holistic doctors, but they were like, I literally have
done every kind of, you know, I’ve been to India. I’ve done that. I’ve been in sweat lodges. I’ve
chanted, I’ve done primal scream. I’ve done a lot now. And I laugh,
but you know, I got a lot out of everything I did, but I was always searching for a teacher.
Like there’s somebody out there that’s going to fix me, right? There’s somebody out there.
Where is that? Where’s that person? Oh, you know, and then I follow for a while and like,
are you going to fix me? And I’d make all the holistic doctors, my best friend because of,
yeah, I was, I was completely, it was crazy anyway. So there was a time when,
when I was still, I call it spiritual window shopping. So I’ve been to India many times,
but I went this one time and I met His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He lives in Dharamsala,
India, because he can’t live, obviously be in Tibet because of the issues with China and what have
you. So anyway, I had seen him before, but we went to India sometime in the 90s.
Yeah, I think it was 2000. Maybe the early 2000s. Yeah, early 2000s.
Yes, because I was still I was still married, but it was almost not married. So anyway,
so we went as a family. My husband had had cancer and he was like,
I think he wanted to go because I think he thought something horrific was going to happen. Anyway,
we went and we had this trip to India and it was great. And part of it was to go and see his
holiness, the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, which is where he lives in India. And so we get there and
we’re with the most fancy people you’ve ever met in your life. Like they run Viacom and the head of
Vanity Fair. And this person works for the New York Times. And they were all like fancy and super
smart. And I was just like, you’re happy to be there. And all these people are like.
They’d written things. They knew what they were going to ask him because we were all having a
private audience. So private audience means me, my family, and these very fancy people.
These very fancy, smart people that had smart questions to ask his holiness. So anyway,
we go into this little house on a hill in Dharamsala.
And it’s kind of… it like has different levels. It’s not grand, but he does come down like this
stairway. There’s like two staircases, but the very, it’s like literally it wasn’t like grand.
It wasn’t like a fancy place, but his monks are all around him and he comes down these stairs and,
and he, um, he’s about to sit in this overstuffed chair and I’m about to sit in front of him with
my girls. And he looks at me, And he points to the chair next to him.
And I’m like, oh, yeah, OK.
You want me to sit next? No problem. So I sit down. I sit down next to him.
And, you know, and he’s holding court, but not in a like I’m a king kind of a way in a very
humble and beautiful way. Right. And he keeps looking at me periodically. When these fancy people
are talking and he would look at me and he would kind of like grin and giggle. And I would and I
would giggle back because when I’m nervous, I giggle all the time. So he’s giggly.
I’m giggling. I’m thinking, oh, my God, I’m having an unspoken communication with this holiness.
Anyway, all these fancy people are, you know, how do we create peace in the Middle East?
How do we do this? How do we do that? And the one thing that I want to say about watching this man
was
not what he said. It was how he listened. And I was like, there’s something different about this
man. And it reminded me of my grandfather has a quote about listening, “Listen carefully.
Most people never listen.” Because people are always thinking about what they want to say.
That’s it’s human nature. Right. But I watched him listen to these very important American people,
you know, asking their questions. And when somebody was asking him a question,
that was the only person in the room. Right. He would look at them and that was who he was talking
- It’s like that’s who was there. And that was the only person. So I watched this man like really
take a person in, really listen. And those people felt so heard and so understood.
And yeah, because what he said was,
it didn’t even matter what he said. It was how he took them in and made them feel very important
and heard. Like an hour and a half goes by and I’m just fascinated.
I’m just watching him. He looks at me and I’d giggle, he’d giggle, I’d giggle, you know, like it
was great. And then it was like an hour and a half and I could see the monks were coming down the
stairs to like wrap it up. Right. And they had these white sashes that they would put around your
neck. And I started to get up from my chair and his holiness put his hand on my hand and he looked
me in the eye and he said, you’re okay.
And like every time I say it, it makes me cry because it wasn’t a psychic moment.
He was telling me like he could feel the anxiety or something,
my search. And I realized in that moment that I was OK.
And that’s really the derivation of how I have gotten to Return of the Queen and Tea Circle and Rise
to Remember. It’s because every woman that I run through this process of Return of the Queen or,
you know, rise to remember is everybody’s okay. You two are beautiful and okay.
Everybody is strong and amazing and powerful. And yet we’ve been
been running the show in fight or flight from a version of ourselves that probably
started when we were seven years old or earlier. I mean, you don’t know,
whatever, you know, and I get it. Our trauma was real. But if you’re still running your show from
that version of yourself, you’re going to be exhausted and never really feeling at peace.
So when he said, you’re okay, and I realized that I was, that was the beginning of my journey to
realizing I was my best guru. I was my best nutritionist.
I was my best teacher, dietician, whatever. I was my best me,
right? I could guide me. Now, it doesn’t mean we don’t need help. It doesn’t mean that I won’t
learn from you and you’ll learn from me. We’re all learning from each other. I have the last word
in who I am and what I’m going to do with my life and how I will show up in the world.
That’s on me. So how I choose to do that and who I get help from,
that’s my choice. Do you see what I mean? So you become incredibly present.
And it was so beautiful. So, yeah, that’s my His Holiness story.
Colleen: It’s a pretty good story.
Bridgett: It’s a great story. That is incredible. We’ve had somebody else that met the Dalai Lama on.
Was that Alison, the lady from England that wrote the story about her husband that died?
Colleen: I’m not sure. I think she did. She did meet, wasn’t the
Dalai Lama and he’d write her? Wow.
Bridgett: I think Alison Larkin. It was so fascinating.
You know, I was like, what? Like she had lunch with the Dalai Lama and some other people. You’re
right. And I was like, are you kidding me?
I mean, it’s a very special, but it’s those, it’s those higher beings that know that we’re all
very, we’re all connected, right?
Mariel: Yes, he’s, yes, he’s his holiness. But he’s not, he’s not saying, here’s what’s great about him.
He’s not saying he’s better than anybody else. He’s just saying, look. I’ve got this position here
and I, you know, I meditate enough to know that it’s all going to shift.
All the craziness will shift. All of the chaos will shift. Take care of yourself.
Love yourself. Love the people around you. Smile more. You know what I mean?
And it’s just, it’s beautiful. It’s so cool.
Colleen: And I also think,
you know, I also think that even beyond him telling you you’re okay,
which is powerful in and of itself. The fact that you got so much from just watching him.
Mariel: Yes. And that, and I’m so glad you brought that up because that actually for me was far more
impactful because he taught me something about, and you know, here I am,
blah, blah, blah. But you know, when I do Tea circle, It’s almost like an exercise for me to go, remember how he listened so that I
listen and listen, not to speak, listen to hear, you know,
to hear and maybe say nothing. That’s pretty powerful. So thank you for that.
Because that was the most important thing that I learned. And hopefully it’s a lesson.
Bridgett: I think that’s that Allison Larkin said. She said that she kind of was like you sitting quietly. And he turned to her
finally and said something to her because people at her table were asking questions. And it was
kind of like you noticed he noticed you were listening. Yeah. So I think I remember it’s very
similar. It’s almost like he picks up on those cues of the listeners.
That is super cool. Goal. Goal in life. Goal in life.
Colleen: I hear you.
Put that on the bucket list. Yes. Yes. Wow. Totally. You know, one of the things I was wondering,
too, was, you know, you had a lot of critical acclaim when you were much younger. I mean,
we’re talking 13, 14 years old and with Lipstick and Manhattan and stuff. How do you think had this
that acclaim happened as you got older? How do you think it would be different in your response?
Mariel: Well, the good news is, I think coming from a famous family,
it didn’t throw me completely off balance.
And I also watched my sister become a supermodel kind of overnight. And I watched her like I
watched her lose herself. And because I came from that kind of chaotic,
alcoholic family, even though I love them, it was it was a great lesson for me.
But it was, you know, thank God I lived in Idaho. And I didn’t move immediately to like L.A.
or New York, although after Manhattan, I moved to New York at 16 years old.
So I did, you know, get into that world a little bit. But I’ve never I think my survival version of
me was so afraid to end up like my sisters and drink too much and or have a mental illness.
I was so terrified that that was going to happen to me.
I thought it was something that just happened. I didn’t understand genetics. And I didn’t really
understand that. Also, I believe, because I know now, you can change your trajectory in life.
You can be whoever you want to be. I truly believe that. But I didn’t know that at the time.
I thought one day I was going to wake-up and I’ll just be in an insane asylum and I wouldn’t even
know it. I was like, oh, my God. So I lived in this fear of that. So that
probably protected me. But it was a weird thing. You know,
fame at an early age is odd. I think the hardest part for me was I didn’t realize that you had to
audition. You know I thought everybody just got offers,
I thought, oh, she looks nice. You just offer her,
you know, and then the rude awakening happened in my 20s that, you know, like you don’t just get
something, you know, you have to work for it. So that was a little bit I was pissed off.
Colleen: Right. Because your sister got you the role in Lipstick. Yes. Yeah. And then and then I was offered
this TV movie called I Want to Keep My Baby. And then I did Manhattan.
And Woody Allen had seen Lipstick. And he was like, I want her to play,
you know, this young girl. And we won’t get into that. But, you know.
Colleen: Read the book.
Mariel: But it was
also such a great experience. I fell in love with New York.
I loved making that movie. I didn’t realize that not all movies were going to be like
on the streets of New York and you can have lunch in a cafe.
Bridgett: And you’d be Oscar nominated.
Mariel: Yeah. And by the way, when I was Oscar nominated, I had no idea what an Academy Award or an Oscar.
I thought they were two different things. i had no idea! I didn’t even know what it meant. I
think I went there, I was wearing white, I looked like a bride it was ridiculous! Anyway you
know, life lessons.
Colleen: Exactly yeah oh my gosh that we could talk to you forever
We appreciate you taking the time to speak with us. I did have one other question, though. I did
want to ask you one other thing, if you don’t mind. So you post a lot of great
content on your Instagram. And one thing that really hit me and it was so relatable was that you
accept aging and it’s a part of life and it’s wonderful, but you’re not ready to go gray yet. because I feel the same way.
Mariel: Like I’m completely happy.
I’m just not ready. And by the way, yeah. I mean,
one day it’ll probably be like, whatever. I’m just like, I don’t want to color. But I’m not,
it’s not how I see myself yet. I’m just not there yet. And sometimes,
and you know, and then I get these comments because I did post something about wrinkles. You
might’ve seen that one, right? And I was like. And I didn’t think it was a big deal. I mean, I was
just trying to say, oh, you know, but then I get all these comments later. Why did you put a filter
on? Because I’m human. I don’t want to see everything every day.
Bridgett: Yeah, you’re just being. truthful. You’re just being real. You’re just saying,
this is how I feel. And if you want to go gray, good for you. Oh, I mean,
you know, if I could do that silver gray!
Oh, Yeah, I’m going to be that mouse.
Mariel: Yeah, it’s just not going to be good.
Colleen: It’s going to be
streaks of not, not silver fabulous. It’s going to be like, oh, that’s spiky short hair and all the
fabulousness. And they look beautiful. But I think it is like whatever makes you feel good about
yourself.
Mariel: 100%. And to let people be themselves, you know?
Colleen: Yeah. And you talk about. the reflection that it’s not about the aging per se.
It’s just, that’s my reflection in the mirror. That’s who I feel. I see.
Mariel: Yeah, exactly.
And you, you know how it is. You know how you take a, you’re out, you take a selfie, whatever.
And you’re like, I do not look like, that’s not how I feel.
I look right. Right. Because you freeze time and all of a sudden. you’re not alive anymore.
You’re stopped mid whatever. And usually it’s mid shit, but mid chew,
mid. Yeah. Oh man. Well, usually mid chew or laughter is okay.
But it’s like when you try to do something like angle up.
Bridgett: Oh, when you accidentally turn the phone on and you’re like, Oh,
Colleen: And it’s reversed.
Mariel: Or past the reflection of your car. You’re like, oh my God,
who is that wrinkled up person? I mean, like, wait, why does a car reflection look like that?
Bridgett: I don’t know. It’s the car. It’s the car. It has nothing to do with you.
Colleen: It’s just so relatable. So if the listeners are not following you, please do so because it’s just,
you have some wonderful content. And this conversation was wonderful. Thank you. Oh, thank you so
much.
Mariel: Really a pleasure. God bless you both.