Shame Can’t Survive The Light

I'm terrified. I don't want to post this episode. But hiding in the dark never helped me. Neither repression nor denial ever helped anyone. In order to grow, we need to honestly confront our past. Understand it. Then own it. Because you can't save your ass if you're trying to save face. Today I shine a light on an episode of my past that still causes me shame. Because shame can't survive the light. I'm terrified. I feel fragile. I feel vulnerable. And that's why I must post this episode. Because I need to walk my talk. Because embracing vulnerability ultimately leads to strength. Because shame can't survive the light. I can't say I look forward to your thoughts on this one. But go ahead. Post your comments anyway. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:13Speaker 01

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:17Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. What's going on? What's happening? What's the news? How are you feeling? Are you feeling okay? It's gonna be okay, I think. It's Rich Roll here, back on the podcast, your host of the podcast, where I sit down with the outliers, the paradigm breakers, the big forward thinkers across all categories of excellence and positive culture change, to mine the tools, the insights, and the principles that can help all of us unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves. So today, we're back with another episode of Ask Me Anything with the lovely and beautiful Julie Piatt. How are you?

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Hi, Rich. Doing good. Thanks for having me.

• 1:59Rich Roll?

  You ready to answer some listener questions?

• 2:01Speaker 02

  I'm ready to just cut myself open and reveal all, everything inside.

• 2:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, I think I'm gonna be doing that today. I'm a little nervous, actually, about what's to come.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  You are. It's gonna be okay, honey.

• 2:14Rich Roll?

  We're gonna be going deep, and we're gonna be divulging on a new level.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:19Rich Roll?

  So I have some trepidation about it, but I think that's good.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  It's gonna be all right, honey.

• 2:22Rich Roll?

  I think that's an indication that... That this is gonna be an interesting episode, I think. But before we get into it.

• 2:36Rich Roll?

  Okay, what's been going on lately? I've been banging out podcast interviews like crazy.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  You're on fire.

• 2:43Rich Roll?

  Quite a backlog, which is kind of exciting. Just did a very interesting podcast with this guy called Aaron Pearsall a couple of days ago, who, if you don't follow the sport of swimming, if you do, everybody knows who Aaron Pearsall is. He's a three-time Olympian.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Only three times.

• 3:01Rich Roll?

  He's won a whole slew of medals at the Olympics over three different Olympiads. And he absolutely dominated the backstroke events during his career. And he still holds the world record in the 100 back and in the 200 back. Those are world records that he set in 2009, and they still stand like six years later, which is crazy.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  That's incredible.

• 3:22Rich Roll?

  We had an amazing conversation. So there's that to look forward to coming up. I don't know when I'm gonna post that, but it was really cool to connect with him. He's a pretty thoughtful, interesting guy, different from most athletes that you'll meet. A very contemplative, soul surfer type of individual. I definitely bonded with him.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm looking forward to that.

• 3:43Rich Roll?

  Right. So should we get to some questions?

• 3:45Speaker 02

  I guess so.

• 3:46Rich Roll?

  We're gonna launch right into it.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  We're gonna get right in.

• 3:48Rich Roll?

  Are you ready?

• 3:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm ready. Are you ready?

• 3:50Rich Roll?

  I don't know. I'm not sure.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Do you want me to read the question?

• 3:53Rich Roll?

  No. So the first question, and this perhaps might be the only question, depending on how much time we spend on this. But this is from Mike. I'm just gonna use his first name, Mike. "How the hell do you forgive and forget the decisions you made in your past? Backstory super condensed. I met a lady who was married. I was single. It was a powerful meeting and love at first sight. During our relationship, we were discovered by her employer in a way. I chose not to disclose her name, and it caused me my career. I waited for her to be with me, as she said, but it never happened, and I moved on. I can't get over losing the best career I ever had. I think of her all the time. I can't get the resentment, failure, and stupidity off my mind. It's been almost 10 years, and I still have huge regrets and disappointment.

• 4:38Rich Roll?

  I've tried to forget. How can one bury this?" So that's a pretty intense question.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Wow, that's very intense experience.

• 4:45Rich Roll?

  There's a lot packed into this. But essentially, the theme is shame, right? How do you deal with shame? How do you overcome shame? And what revolves around shame? The fear, the self-defeatism, the negative self-esteem, the depression. There's a lot that gets packed into that, right? And I think, you know, what's interesting is how he ended it with, how can one bury this? And so the first thing I would say is that when it comes to shame, the most important thing is to not bury it, right? Shame loves to be alone. It loves isolation. That's where it can fester and grow and really gain a foothold in your consciousness.

• 5:29Rich Roll?

  So the more you bury it, I think the more that it becomes a problem for you. And I think the most powerful thing to do with overcoming shame and working through it is to not bury it, is to bring it out, is to talk about it with other people, to, you know, release it and process it with other human beings and to get to a place where you can own it and be comfortable with it. And I think when you can do that, then the resentment starts to dissipate and all those feelings start to lose their strength.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's beautifully put.

• 6:03Rich Roll?

  What do you think about that?

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's a very, it's a very vast experience that he shared, so I'm just sort of trying to process it on many different levels. But I think that, yeah, it's in the, it's in the owning it and taking responsibility and sort of releasing the victim energy from the experience that one can reclaim their connection to something deeper than really actions. You know, everybody makes mistakes. Everybody makes decision or does things that they regret. That's just the characteristic of a human life. But to sweep it under the rug or act as if it didn't happen or keep it as a secret,

• 6:48Speaker 02

  like you said, causes it to then be Amplified and it's a seed that can, you know, fester and grow and, you know, turn into something much bigger later on down the line than than needed to be. So I think the first step is also is just, you know, claiming the responsibility of it and accepting it, stepping up and holding it.

• 7:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, shame, shame hates company, shame loves, loves, loves to be alone. You know, residing privately in your consciousness where you can feed it and it, and it's almost like that beast, like that evil dark beast that that wants you to keep it to yourself and that lie that you tell yourself that if you do that, that eventually it'll go away, but it doesn't, right? It's the actually the opposite effect and.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  I have something to add to that. Well, and the thing is, is it's like for, the thing is, is that, you know, consciousness, consciousness knows, or the universe knows, or you at a higher level knows, however you relate to a greater force beyond yourself. So you're not really keeping anything secret, you know, you, the personality may think that it's hiding something, but from the universal play and the universal law, you know, every, every action has a reaction, every act is answered at some point. It might not be in this lifetime, it might be in a future lifetime, but it, every action has a reaction. So you're not really, it's an illusion to think that you're hiding it, like you can't

• 8:23Speaker 02

  hide from yourself and you are this vast consciousness.

• 8:28Rich Roll?

  But as, as a human, we play that trick where it's like we, we, it's very like intoxicating and alluring to say like, if I just pretend it didn't happen, like just bury it and move on and time will, you know, in time it will dissipate.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Right, and I mean, and I think there is something to be said about timing. I think it depends on the individual. Sometimes we need moments to process it. Sometimes we're not able to to hold it or to stand up and admit in certain ways. We have to take baby steps along a certain trajectory of, you know, acceptance and and actually, you know, it's a process. It's a transition of becoming, becoming responsible. So, you know, maybe for somebody early on, you know, they couldn't, they couldn't reconcile it within themselves at that point. And to like, you know, to do, to go public or to come out or to, you

• 9:25Speaker 02

  know, confide in somebody would have been, in fact, more crushing, you know, than taking their time and getting to the process. So it's not, you know, again, it's not a black and white thing. It's another gray area of life. And so how do we all, you know, learn how to process shame in a more, in a healthier way and maybe get to the transformation or the clearing of it in a quicker way?

• 9:50Rich Roll?

  Right. So in the interest of that, you know, this question is very apropos to something that's going on in our lives right now. And I think this is an opportune moment to to talk about it in the interest of transparency, you know, which is something we talk about a lot on this podcast. You know, in in recovery, they say, if you, if you, you know, when you get sober and you kind of work the steps and all of that, that you will come to a place where you will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door upon it. And I remember very early on in sobriety, thinking that's impossible. Like, there's no way. Like, I will always, you know, be ashamed of my past and I will always want to pretend

• 10:33Rich Roll?

  that it didn't happen or or, you know, try to keep it private and prevent people from knowing about it. And, you know, it's a very, very, like, as you said, like, a long term, like, gradual process of working through all of that to get comfortable with it. And, you know, when I sat down to write Finding Ultra, I was very cognizant of that. Like, I'd worked through a lot of ...stuff to the point where I was no longer ashamed of it and I no longer desired to shut the door upon it, or I didn't feel the need to. And I realized in writing that book that the, you know, the extent to which it would work and connect with people was directly related to my willingness to, you know, talk about those things that had happened in the past in the hope that people could emotionally

• 11:15Rich Roll?

  connect with it, right? But something happened, uh, something, you know, happened recently which is bringing up new layers of that for me. Mm-hmm. And that is this. So Julie is in the process of writing a book right now and she's in the final stages of putting together a book proposal and creating, um, a chapter, you know, an excerpt of the book, like a sample chapter that will go into this proposal. And last night she said, you know, for the first time, she's like, "I want you to read it." She's been doing this quietly by herself and she's not wanted me to look at it. And for the first time last night, she said, you know, "I want, I need your feedback. Finally, I'm ready for you to look at this. Will you please read it and tell me what you think?"

• 11:59Rich Roll?

  And I did. And I thought it was amazing and wonderful and she's, you know, really developing her voice and there's a very distinct tone in it. And I think that it's gonna be an amazing book. But in the course of this 35-page chapter, she told a story about me. And it was a story about something that I did, uh, that I'm not proud of, that I've never spoken publicly about before. Uh, and it really, it hit me hard, like it hit me like a ton of bricks, like I felt like somebody had sucked all the wind out of me. And in the wake of that experience, it made me reflect, like, "Why am I feeling this way about this story?"

• 12:40Rich Roll?

  And I realized that I still had a lot of shame around it. You know, it's something that my friends know about, but I've never spoken publicly about. And I realize that I'm still holding on to part of it, like there's still a part of this story that I'm deeply ashamed about, like that I've held probably too privately. And we talked about it last night and I told you how, you know, my discomfort with you relating this story in this chapter and you being the one to kind of be open about it before I had a chance to. And we kind of worked through it and, you know, I had a restless night of sleep, kind of struggling with this idea and I've been thinking about it this morning.

• 13:20Rich Roll?

  And I realized that I need to take my own medicine and I need to, you know, walk the walk that I preach. And so when I read this, you know, inquiry from Mike and I'm saying, you know, listen, the best way to work through this, this sense of self shame is to, is to, you know, start to confront it in a more open way. I have to do that myself, right? So, so the story goes, the story relates to something that happened when we were in Hawaii for Ultraman in 2011, right? It was my third Ultraman. It was Ultraman after Epic Five and after the two Ultramans that I relate in Finding Ultra.

• 14:03Rich Roll?

  So this is, this happened after, you know, the story that's told in Finding Ultra. And I had spent an entire year preparing for this race.

• 14:16Rich Roll?

  And I had very, very high expectations, right? I thought that I was primed to, if not win the race, be on the podium. And I was so focused in my training and I showed up in Hawaii Thanksgiving weekend 2011 beyond any level of fitness that I had ever had prior to that. Like all my numbers, my watts, my heart rate, my running pace, everything was way beyond anything that I had ever, you know, experienced in my training, you know, even in 2009 or Epic Five or anything like that. So I went into this race like fully charged and also with a lot of support, like in 2008 and 2009. We were like, you know, shoestring this whole thing together, trying to make it happen.

• 14:59Rich Roll?

  And here we were in 2011, we actually had a lot of crew support. We had a lot of people, you know, helping us out, like we had no excuses, right?

• 15:10Rich Roll?

  And I definitely was feeling the pressure that comes with that. But I was also very excited to unleash my best performance yet. And I got into the water for the 6.2 mile swim. And I got out of the water in first place, ahead of Jonas Colting, who had won Ultraman before. And I clocked two hours and 17 minutes, which was like five minutes faster than I had in 2009. And, you know, many, many, many minutes faster than I had in 2008. Like here I was at, how old was I then, 45? I think I was 45.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Forty five, three years.

• 15:45Rich Roll?

  Forty five, yeah, so I'm 45 years old. And, and, you know, getting faster and faster and faster, 217, one of the fastest recorded swims in the history of that race. Got onto the bike, started pedaling up the first hill. And I immediately knew that like something was very wrong. Like I just couldn't get into my rhythm. My heart was racing. I just didn't, I didn't feel good, you know, I just didn't. I was like, this is not clicking, like something is wrong. And I struggled and I struggled and I struggled to make it through that first day. And I think I finished, I don't know what place I was in at the end of the first day, like fifth or something like that.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  I can't remember.

• 16:21Rich Roll?

  But I didn't win the first day like I had in 2009, like I was having a really hard time. And that evening, I started spitting up blood. And I thought this will just pass, maybe I overexerted myself. Showed up the next day, started the ride and just, it was not happening. And I was spitting up blood all morning long. And about, I don't know, 40 miles into that first day, something like that. I just pulled over to the side of the road and I was like, it's, it's done. Like I can't, I can't breathe, I'm spitting up blood, something is wrong with me. Right? And it was devastating.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Very so.

• 16:54Rich Roll?

  And I have talked about this, I wrote a whole blog post about it. You know, just, just how upsetting that whole thing was to like, put so many eggs in that one basket for that one race. And that's what happens sometimes, you know, like it just doesn't go your way.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Well, and the difference is that you were not a professional athlete. So it's not like you had another race behind this. It's like, this is the race that we had prepared for. And we had all of our resources and finally. Finally, we had support. Finally, we were not, you know, overdrawn in our bank account when you left. We had food on the table. We had an amazing crew. We had, you know, our friend Compton Rambato with us. Like, it was, everything was in place. And here you were, spitting blood. And you'd, I don't know if you remember, but you had night sweats all night, and you'd soak the sheets completely all during the night, and you didn't tell me. And I found out later.

• 17:43Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. And, you know, the other thing that kind of heightened the whole thing was that, you know, I'd sacrificed a lot. Like, I'd put aside a lot to focus on the training. And the family had sacrificed, you know, to support me in this adventure, right? Like, the whole family was behind it. But, you know, everybody had to give up a little bit in order to support this dream of mine. You know, I was shouldering that as well. And, you know, everything that, you know, had to go into, like, making all of this happen. So, the whole thing was very emotionally heightened. And I know, and you've written about this, you know, you wrote about this in your kind of blog post recap of what happened. And then, in this chapter that I read, you know, just how upsetting it was for you to

• 18:25Rich Roll?

  say, "Are you kidding me? Like, you're pulling over, you're pulling out of this race? Like, after everything that we've gone through to get here? Like, get back on your bike and finish. Like, I don't care how you feel. I don't care if you're spitting up blood. Like, act like a professional and get it done."

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Well, I had that moment there. You know, I had a moment, like, what am I supposed to do? Like, as your wife, I wanted to say, "Okay, honey, you don't feel well. Get off." And then I considered my role as your crew captain and, you know, imagined myself screaming at you, like, "Get back on your bike." So, I had that moment, just because it was such a, such a moment to have to throw in the towel, you know, such a moment. But, of course, you know, of course, you were spitting up blood. You know, I snapped back into it. And of course, you needed to go to the hospital. There was, you know, better that you're safe and then finish the race.

• 19:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And we did. We went to the hospital. And, you know, I had like a... Basically, I had a mild respiratory infection, but there wasn't anything that's serious. But when you're pushing your body to that level, like even like the slightest amount of illness in you is going to prevent you from, you know, performing at an elite level. And so I just wasn't able to make my body do the things that I knew it was capable of and that I had trained for. And it was devastating.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  It's extremely disappointing.

• 19:36Rich Roll?

  Incredibly devastating. And I think in retrospect, looking back on that experience and everything that went into like that year of preparation for that race, I'd become, you know, hyper, hyper focused on, on perfecting my fitness and taking everything that I was doing to the next level. And like, this was going to be the thing, right? This was going to be the thing. And as a result of that, I had not attended to other areas of, you know, my overall well being and health to the extent that I should have. And the biggest aspect of that was that I had kind of decelerated my involvement in my own sobriety and recovery,

• 20:18Rich Roll?

  right? Like I, I never questioned that, you know, I always knew that I was an alcoholic. It was never like, I'm not an alcoholic anymore. But I started to be less strident about my meeting attendance and, you know, staying in touch with my sober friends. And, you know, I was so focused on the training that I had deprioritized that very gradually. You know, I never like quit AA or anything like that, or thought like, I don't need this. Like, I knew that I did. I just wasn't putting it first. I wasn't making it a priority.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Well, and for us, it was so gradual that none of us even realized it. Like, none of us even noticed.

• 20:53Rich Roll?

  Right. And so here we are in the wake of this sort of devastating, you know, experience. And we had rented, like, a little farmhouse up in Hawaii, where we were going to stay for a couple of weeks after the race with the whole family. And, and just kind of enjoy some family time as a result of this, in the wake of this race, you know, and spend some time in Hawaii. And a couple of days after the race, we went down, we drove down the coast a little bit to go to a beach. We had the whole family there. And I had, we kind of parked our stuff in front of, like, a fancy hotel resort.

• 21:32Rich Roll?

  And you were with the boys and the girls and playing and like I, I think I said like, I'm gonna go, I need to go to the bathroom and I went up to the hotel to see if there was a restroom that I could use. And I noticed that there was like an outdoor bar, you know, and there's a bunch of people sitting out there on a beautiful day, you know, enjoying a cocktail. And I found myself like looking at that bar and the thought occurred to me out of the blue like, maybe I should have a beer. Like, maybe, maybe a drink wouldn't be such a bad idea. It's been so long, like, I don't know, like, you know, what's the harm? What's the foul? It was nothing more than that. And before I knew it, I had like

• 22:13Rich Roll?

  a beer in my hand. I drank a beer. I noticed the family was down the beach and I thought, I'll have another beer before they come back. And before I could blink, I think I had five beers in me. It happened so fast. It happened so fast. And, and it wasn't like this mental calculus. It was almost this bizarre, impulsive thing where I had forgotten everything. I'd forgotten all the pain and all the hard work that it took to get sober. All the suffering that I had experienced as being, you know, being a drunk and being a drug addict. And suddenly there I was, in the blink of an eye, sitting on a stool

• 22:57Rich Roll?

  in front of an outdoor beach bar in front of a hotel with a buzz on. Just like that. Like, nothing. And I remember, I think, I can't remember exactly what happened, but then I think Mathis came up.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll, I'll help you out. So, um, no, we, you wanted us to sneak into this resort pool, which was, you, you were quite gregarious and of course, none of us were any wiser. This hadn't hit, hadn't even, thought hadn't even entered anywhere in our stratosphere, but. You wanted to go into the hotel to go to the pool, but we were already at the beach. Tyler didn't really want to go, but you really wanted to go. So we all sort of just went along because we were trying to cheer you up after, you know, the race, DNF and all that. And so you had snuck into the pool and we got in. And then Mathis actually told me, I was in the jacuzzi with her and she told me and

• 23:56Speaker 02

  the other people in the jacuzzi that you were drinking beer. And I automatically corrected her and said, "Oh, no, honey. Daddy doesn't drink beer." And she looked at me again and she repeated it a second time. And I corrected her a second time. So then she looked at me again and she said it again. And finally, the light went on and I realized what was happening. And so we, you know, gathered the kids and actually Trapper wasn't even with us. It was just Tyler and the two kids. Trapper had flown back to the mainland to take a test or something. And so we, you know, just from my standpoint of being your partner in this experience,

• 24:38Speaker 02

  it was absolutely mind blowing and devastating beyond anything I've ever experienced because we had suffered and sacrificed for so many years. And finally, we were getting some support. And I could not understand or reconcile your choice in this moment. And so from where I was, I was questioning every single thing about our relationship. I was angry at myself for trusting you, for believing in you. I could not understand how you could humanly choose this at the juncture where we were standing.

• 25:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it defies all logic, you know? And that's the... You know, completely dark, mystifying thing about alcoholism. Like, there's no rationality that comes into play. Mm-hmm. And as soon as, you know, it was clear to all of you what had occurred. I mean, I copped to it. It wasn't like I tried to pretend like I was like- Well, you couldn't. Yeah, I was like, "This is what happened," you know? Mm-hmm. "This is what happened. This is what I did." And, you know, it's a little bit foggy for me, and you probably remember it a little bit more clearly, but the upshot of it was that, you know, I said, "This is what I did. I don't know why I did it."

• 26:06Rich Roll?

  And I can't remember whether I broke down then, or it was a little bit later. But, you know, I ended up going directly to an AA meeting. Tyler took me. Mm-hmm. I completely broke down emotionally in this AA meeting in Kona. And I had to do that humiliating thing of like calling my friends in recovery back in Los Angeles and telling them what had happened, you know, and saying, "Please help me. Like, this is what occurred." And I called the people that I trusted the most, told them what had happened.

• 26:42Rich Roll?

  But the point is that, you know, I went right back to AA. So, when I look back on it, you know, it was like the lamest relapse ever. It was a relapse of like three and a half hours? It was like a three-hour relapse. Like, there was nothing cur- you know, like, nothing, nothing, you know- Thank God, it was nothing, right. It wasn't like I crashed a car or anything like that, but like- You could've. You know, I had like a five-beer relapse after many, many, many years of sobriety and a very long stint in rehab and a zillion hours sitting in AA meetings. Mm-hmm. And immediately went back to the program and have stayed sober ever since then.

• 27:22Rich Roll?

  But it was absolutely horrific in every regard. You know, my kids had never seen me drink. Mm-hmm. And suddenly, they got a glimpse of what that beast is. And I think most interestingly, for me-

• 27:39Rich Roll?

  You know, just to be clear, I'm talking about this thing that happened for the first time in a public forum, but I want everyone to understand that like in recovery, like all my, everybody, yeah, like in recovery, everybody knows, like I've been very open about this in meetings and, and you know, I've shared about it from the podium and I talk about it frequently because I know that it's a cautionary tale that can be helpful for other people that have long-term sobriety that start to coast. But this is the first time that I'm talking about it, you know, in public. And it's an interesting thing, you know, it's made me realize that, well, it's made me realize a couple of things.

• 28:21Rich Roll?

  The first thing is, and I realized this immediately in the aftermath of this thing occurring, was the extent to which my ego was attached to this identity of somebody who had a lot of time in sobriety.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  The time.

• 28:37Rich Roll?

  Right? Like, I can go to, I can go to meetings, or I'm the guy who's been around for quite a while, who, you know, I've got the answers. You know what I mean? And it was very much a right sizing of saying, no, it really is one day at a time. And just because you have all this time and you have all this experience, all that matters is what you're doing today. And that's really all that you have. So in certain respects, it's been crucial in terms of, of right sizing me, of really keeping my ego in check, and helping me to understand that it really is what's happening in the moment. And that,

• 29:19Rich Roll?

  and it's infused me with a great deal of humility about the power of alcoholism and about my knowledge and experience in this field. So I can tell you that, you know, calling up Your friends in sobriety and saying, listen, you know, after, I don't know how many years I had at that point. Thirteen or fourteen. Say like, I just went out. You know, I had five or six beers. I'm in an AA meeting right now, but I relapsed. That's not an easy call to make. And then to return, when we got back to Los Angeles, to go to, you know, the meetings that I go to, and raise my hand and say, I'm a newcomer. This is what happened to me. That's like, not fun. That is a, an assault and an attack

• 30:04Rich Roll?

  on the ego. And it made me realize just how much I really had held on to this idea of like, you know, I'm somebody who has this figured out. I'm somebody who, you know, newcomers can come to and I can help them. And there's, like I said, like an ego attachment and an identity that gets formed around that, that needed to be, in order for me to, to grow, had to be decimated and deconstructed. So that I could, you know, create a more honest foundation about who I am and what I'm dealing with. You know, alcoholism is a freaking beast, you know? And I think that as a result of starting to take my recovery for granted a little bit and thinking, I don't need to go, I don't need to attend to this. Like, I'm training right now.

• 30:50Rich Roll?

  And convincing myself that maybe I was finding answers in that as opposed to in recovery, was a path that led me astray. Right? And I needed to be reminded in a very potent and powerful way that that is not the answer. Right? And I got right sized. And it was devastating, like I said. It was absolutely humiliating to, to kind of be reduced to this person, to have Tyler have to take me to a meeting and see me in that, in that state. Was horrible, you know, and my little girls, you know, it was, it was something I wouldn't wish on anybody.

• 31:31Rich Roll?

  And when I read your account of this experience from your perspective in this chapter that you had written, it just, it hit me so hard. Like I was really upset by it. And that's what made me realize like, I still have a lot of shame about that. Like I'm holding on to it and I'm keeping it private. You know, I'll share about it in AA meetings and I'll talk to people in the program about it because I know that it can be helpful to them. And again, I'm like very open about it in that forum. But to the extent of like being open about it in a public forum, it's terrifying to me because again, it goes back to how heightened everything was. Like when this happened, it was, you know, shortly before Finding Ultra was coming out. And I thought,

• 32:15Rich Roll?

  who am I to write this book that tells my sobriety story when this just happened to me? What do I have to offer anybody? Like this is ridiculous. You know, it was, it was, and, and to this day, like, you know, to think like especially people write in and we talk about sobriety a lot. For me to not be open about this feels disingenuous to me. And it's, I've been holding on to it because I'm afraid, you know, I'm afraid of what people will think and I still have some shame around it. And so when, when Mike writes this story and says, how can I bury this or how can I overcome this? I can't give him advice unless I'm willing to do the same, right? So I have to be open about this and I have to own it. And it's very scary for me to talk about it on the podcast

• 32:59Rich Roll?

  because people are going to form whatever opinion they're going to form about me. And maybe I'll lose credibility, you know, in the conversation about sobriety because I had this slip. You know, but I think it's also, you know, very important for people out there that are listening to this who struggle with sobriety, are trying to get sober, that, you know, relapse is part of sobriety, that, um, you know, people are always like shocked and amazed when somebody who's sober like goes out and uses or drinks. But that's the natural state of the alcoholic or the addict. What's amazing and what's a miracle is when they don't do that, right? And I needed to be reminded of that through a firsthand experience in order to right-size me,

• 33:41Rich Roll?

  in order to shift my priorities and make me truly understand at my core that my first priority every day. Is staying sober and helping another alcoholic to achieve sobriety. That's it. Everything comes after that. You know, my connection with my higher power, my spiritual path, my spiritual life, and how I navigate sobriety in myself and how I communicate it, to communicate about it with other people, is really my first priority, right? And so, in order to serve that as best as I can, the time has come where I needed to be open and honest about this.

• 34:22Rich Roll?

  How many podcast listeners do you think we just lost?

• 34:25Speaker 02

  How about?

• 34:26Rich Roll?

  By not even telling this.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  How about, I don't care. Doesn't matter.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  It was beautifully, beautifully shared, and I think it's amazing. I think, you know, you should be congratulated on having the courage and on, you know, taking the initiative and doing it and sharing and stepping out there. And it's only empowering for you, and it's only empowering for everybody else. And so, you know, I think that, you know, you're an amazing being, and you've done a lot of amazing things to help a lot of people in your life. And you're also very human, and you have a lot of human qualities that are, you know, maybe not as developed or still finding their way to balance. But I commend you and I respect you and I stand by you in this.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  And, you know, I think I would like to sort of shift and talk about, you know, how did we move on from this? And how did we, you know, how did we as a couple then, after this break and after this event happened, how did we move from there? And just to give a little backstory about, you know, how the chapter came about and how... How my writing evolved and resulted in the chapter I gave you yesterday. You know, unlike you, when I write, I don't make an outline. I don't know ahead of time what I'm doing. And so it comes from a meditative place and I simply started to write.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  And as I started to write and craft this first piece that I was going to share with you, the story emerged as part of the true, authentic story of what I was dealing with at that point in the timeline. And so now I'm going to talk about what it means to be the wife of a recovering alcoholic. So I'm going to shift the focus now on me and on the fact that all that's very true and that is a very painful experience for you to go through. And it is equally as painful for your wife and for your children to go through that experience as well. So the level of disappointment that we experienced after having been at that level of pressure,

• 36:45Speaker 02

  financial pressure and just overall pressure in life for such an extended amount of years. When you drank that day, you had me questioning every single time that I believed in you. I just could, I could not believe that this was happening. It was completely out of my vision. I had nowhere to even put it. And I think that we had all taken your sobriety for granted. You had been sober for so long that it was just an afterthought. Like, yes, you were training more and more and your numbers were better and better and you were healthier and healthier and you were, you know, your training times were insane. You were on fire.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Everything was moving in this kind of wave, you know, in the direction that we had been fighting for, for so many years, that I didn't even see it, you know? And neither did any of the kids because we just, and that's why I took Mathis literally three times of telling me literally to my face that you were drinking beer for me to even get it. Because that's how far it was out of my.

• 37:53Rich Roll?

  Why would you? I mean, you had no point of reference. I met you after I got sober and you'd never seen me in that state before. So there was no, there would be no reason for you to, you know, see this coming or expect it because you didn't have any experience with me prior to, you know, me getting sober the first time. So, you know, I don't, you know, I can't, I can't judge you for that. But I can certainly empathize and understand why you would then, you know, sort of question everything.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it was, it was extremely hard to take at that point in the, in the timeline. And then as well, you know, I had been as a, as an individual, as an artist, as a being who needs to express herself and also experience realization in this physical world that we live in. I had taken a backseat to you so that, and that was the natural flow. It was, it was perfect for us. But at this particular time, all eyes were on you and all resources were on you. And I had coming up, just weeks after your race, I finally was going to get to record my music, my album, which was the thing that had kept me alive through all of those dark years.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  The thing that was working for the boys and for me, the thing that we cherish more than anything. We were finally going to get to document that and record it. And so when this happened and it was, you know, jeopardizing the balance, you know, for that, you know, I had some, you know, strong emotions about that and some, a lot of feelings of, you know, the unfairness of it, the unjustness of it, that, that I should have to bear again, like a whole nother ball of, of stimulus, you know, connected to this. And then what happened to go future in the timeline, this was December 2011.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  And actually Tyler reminded me of this recently as we were processing it together.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  We moved all of my recording engineer's gear into the house. We arrived back in LA, we recovered enough to get back to LA and get you into meetings. And I just want to say that I value AA so much and I respect and honor all of your friendships and all of those amazing individuals who came to help you. And without their support, I don't know that our marriage would have survived or that we would have been able to go to the next step. So I want to say that very, very directly right now.

• 40:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there were a group of guys that literally saved me in the wake of that. And without their support and their love, it would have been a very different picture.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, and as life would have it, we didn't really have a lot of time to wallow in all of our emotions about this event. Because just three days after we began recording my album here in my home, Lou Pyatt, the father of my boys, died suddenly in a kayaking accident in Malibu. And he had come here to see us, to, he had never seen us sing. Hold on.

• 41:23Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 41:32Speaker 02

  He had never heard us play or sing together. And so he kind of arrived unannounced. And we set him up with some headphones and he actually listened to us do a few takes of a song that we were recording, actually The New Earth. And it was just extremely sweet moment. And I remember actually my eyes going to his hands and the way that he was holding the boys' hands before he said goodbye. And then he said to me, Julie, it sounds amazing, I love it. And he said, will you email it to me? And I said, Lou, I'll email it to you when it's done.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  And he said, no, email it to me tonight, I want to play it for my girlfriend. And I said, "I'll email it to you when it's done." And he giggled again and he said, "Email it to me tonight. I really, really want to play it for her." And then I said, "I want her to be really impressed, so I'm not emailing it." And he started to laugh. And he laughed really, really hard and long. And the laughter sort of hung in the air as he exited. And none of us knew that that would be the last time that we would see him alive. So after-

• 42:49Rich Roll?

  It was the following day.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  It was two days after, actually, yeah. So, a very surreal, horrific, and spiritually profound experience that we had saying goodbye to him. And the music was a big part of that as well. But you can see that we didn't really have the bandwidth to spend a lot of time on Rich's relapse. Suddenly, we were sort of kicked into a new reality. And you were stepping, you know, up now as the full father of the boys.

• 43:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so what happened was, I mean, essentially, in the wake of his, you know, of his death, was that- And I'm still, you know, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around, like, why did I relapse? And what is going on? And make sense of all of that? And figure out how I'm gonna move forward. Lou suddenly dies. And my relationship with the boys had always been, you know, parental to some extent. I mean, for the most part, they lived with us 90% of the time. You know, they would go to their dads. And Lou is a great guy and an amazing father to these boys. But essentially, they were living with us the great majority of the time.

• 44:04Rich Roll?

  But I was always very conscientious about not stepping on Lou's toes. You know, I would never try to be their father. I was more like, you know, the cool uncle who also had to be a parent at times, but never tried to, you know, sort of assume the role of father. And then suddenly overnight, that all changed. And so I'm grappling- With, you know, the disappointment of Ultraman, what this relapse meant, why did it happen and how am I going to, you know, start fresh and create a better foundation to move forward?

• 44:46Rich Roll?

  And also stepping into, you know, a gigantic new responsibility with respect to the life of the boys and how are they going to navigate this incredible loss? And what does that mean in terms of my relationship with them and how I interact with them and how I, you know, step in to be a full father figure, literally overnight? It was, it was a lot at one moment for all of us.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. And Tyler shared with me recently, he said, yeah, in the same month, I saw Rich relapse and I lost my dad, like within three weeks. So for him, it was a huge moment of realizing that, you know, men who we, who he thought were stable and secure in his life were not that. And, you know, that's okay. That's, that's a condition of life, but it's-

• 45:37Rich Roll?

  But when I read that in your chapter, it just, it just was so painful to read that, you know? It was so painful to read that and it really did make me feel like, you know, that there it is, that shame, you know what I mean? And, and I can't get to the other side of that until I shine light on it, you know? And whatever that means, like by talking about it on this podcast, you know, I have to release my, my need or my desire for people to perceive me in a certain light so that I can do what I need to do to grow personally and to be, you know, a better father and a better, you know, husband and all of these things, you know?

• 46:21Rich Roll?

  It's like I'm a human being and I'm fallible. And I talked about this with Mishka on the podcast last week, you know, where I was telling him-

• 46:30Rich Roll?

  You know, I get all these amazing emails every single day. People are like, "You're an inspiration, you're an inspiration." And how that, that, that, that gives me, you know, as, as, as amazing as that is, and what a beautiful gift that people would take the time to write us and tell us these incredibly personal stories about their challenges, and how the podcast or the books have helped them. But then to kind of end it with like, "You're an inspiration." And I was expressing to him, like, I have discomfort with that. You know, I have discomfort with that because I'm not perfect. Because I have done these things, you know? And this relapse is a big, probably a big part of that discomfort equation for me. It's like, how do I own this mantle of, of saying, you know,

• 47:15Rich Roll?

  "I'm an inspiration for these people," when I've done these things that I haven't talked about? You know? What is that, what does that mean? You know what I mean? Like, like, uh, I try to relate my experiences in hopes that that will be some beacon of light that people can emotionally connect with, that will infuse their journey with perhaps a little bit of additional meaning that can be helpful to them. And in order to do that, I have to talk about these kinds of things that are uncomfortable for me.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I think that that's, um, you know, that's, that gives you the ability to be in a true place of service. And, you know, we are, we've always said, "We're only sharing our experience." That's what, that's what we do. Whatever we share is from our experience. We're not teaching something we read in a book, or some ideology, or some nutrition advice, or really anything. You know, we're, we're sharing our experience in an effort to connect and help, possibly in some small way, someone else who's a little bit, you know, behind us on the path coming up. You know, if-

• 48:35Speaker 02

  By looking at our experience, we can help another couple, another family, another man, another woman, another child, to have a softer landing, you know, or a little easier road, then that's very meaningful. However, do not think that we are perfect individuals. Do not project that we are superhuman, or that we have all the answers, or that, you know, we are better than anyone. We are no better than anyone, and we are no worse than anyone. We simply are human. As I would say, we're spiritual beings, having a human experience. And all of these human experiences are for learning. They're all for evolution and for

• 49:20Speaker 02

  expanding. And so, you know, writing this, I wrote the chapter honestly, and I knew, of course, I gave you editorial right over it. I would never have come out with it without your blessing. And I even rewrote it in the middle of the night and delivered it to you without the relapse in it, the chapter in it.

• 49:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I haven't read that yet.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  And, you know, but no.

• 49:47Rich Roll?

  I'm still processing.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  That's all right.

• 49:49Rich Roll?

  I mean, here's what I want to say. If somebody's listening to this, and they are suffering from drug addiction, or alcoholism, or somebody close to them is, you know, I want people to understand just how powerful this disease is. And if you're listening as somebody who is longtime sober, I can tell you from experience that it is very, very easy to get, very gradually get lulled into this sense that everything is fine, right? That you can kind of coast and cruise on your experience and your laurels. But alcoholism,

• 50:32Rich Roll?

  drug addiction, these are progressive diseases, and they don't sleep. Like, while you're, you know, sort of cruising, they're doing pushups. And that's what you always hear, like, in the rooms, right? They're doing pushups. And if it manifests itself, it doesn't do it casually. It picks up as if you've been drinking the whole time, and it gets dark very, very quickly. And what was amazing about that experience was that the minute it happened, all those feelings of like...

• 51:05Rich Roll?

  Just terrible shame and insecurity and self-defeatism, low self-esteem. Like, all these horrible emotions that I had worked so, so hard to get to the other side of, came crashing down on me like this waterfall. Like, I just felt it immediately again. And it was very dark and despairing, you know? And it was incredible how quickly it happened. And then how difficult it was, you know, despite the fact that I was in an A meeting that night and got right back on it. And again, like, being this super lame relapse, it was incredibly educational in reminding

• 51:49Rich Roll?

  me about how powerful this disease is. And that without vigilance, you know, it will rear its head. I don't know when, or how, or why, but it will, and it wants me dead, you know? And if I don't stay on top of it, I'm gonna end up going out again. And I don't ever wanna have that happen. And the only way to do it is to do it one day at a time. So if you're listening and you've been sober a long time, I understand and empathize with that feeling of being, of it not feeling like it's, you know... Urgent. Urgent, exactly. And something that was expressed in me very early on in my recovery that I think about

• 52:31Rich Roll?

  a lot is this idea that there is no stasis. In every given moment, with every choice that you make and every thought that you entertain, you are either moving more towards recovery, or you're moving towards a relapse. But the idea that you're cruising and everything's fine is a mental fallacy, right? You're either moving towards a drink or away from a drink in every moment. And I have to keep that present in my mind all the time, you know? And I think that my experience of having this relapse really helped hammer home just how crucial that is. And as a result of that, like, my program and my sobriety is stronger than it's ever been.

• 53:17Rich Roll?

  But I had to be deconstructed and dismantled, and I had to be shown the beast in order to be reminded of that. And so, again, it goes to this thing of like, you know, at the time, it was absolutely devastating for you, for everybody, for me. But like most terrible things that have happened in my life, I can look back on it with some level of gratitude because it was able to push me into a different strata of respect for my sobriety and what it means. Not just for me, but the impact of my behavior on the people around me. Right? And so, you know, that's the value of it for me. But again, you know, I am human, and so I'm not free of these feelings of shame.

• 54:02Rich Roll?

  And so, it's incredibly uncomfortable for me to be talking about this on the podcast. Like, I'm terrified of hitting publish on this podcast tonight and sharing this with the world. And it reminds me of something James Altucher said, which is when he writes a blog post, like, he doesn't hit publish unless he's scared.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  Unless he's terrified.

• 54:21Rich Roll?

  He's like, otherwise, it's not meaningful. So, here I am, James, I'm in this position.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  Thanks, James.

• 54:27Rich Roll?

  I'm very scared about sharing this with you guys, and maybe that's a reason why I should share it. I don't know, but time will tell, right?

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's, first of all, it's an integral part of your and my relationship and, you know, working to the next level and working as creative partners. So, I'm very, very proud of you and happy for you, more happy for you, that you came to this and that this is how you're receiving it.

• 54:59Speaker 02

  I wrote that chapter just spontaneously, like I said, and I would have thrown it out if you weren't comfortable with it, as I told you last night. But I think that, you know, in the wake of things like this happening, you know, how do we, how did we move past it? Like, how do we, how do we move on? And I think it's by practicing unconditional forgiveness, unconditional forgetfulness, and about actually cultivating our...

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Skills in being in the present moment and realizing that in every moment you're born again and you're born anew. And from a spiritual standpoint, I felt sort of stale recounting this historic time that was so difficult for us because that's not the energy you and I are living in today. Like this was in 2011, you know, but in order to tell the story, which is, you know, in a memoir, you have to tell the story. So I had to go back into that energy and revisit it, you know, and feel it, but it has nothing to

• 56:10Speaker 02

  do with how we feel now. So I felt a little remorse this morning because from a purely spiritual standpoint, it's like that's living in something that's not even, it's not even, doesn't even exist because we're existing in a different moment. So I would say, how do you get past these situations is by understanding that everybody's human, that we all have the potential to make mistakes that may not be in the highest interest of ourselves or those around us. And the second thing is to be able to forgive and release and move on and understand that it's a choice to be reborn in a new moment and to have

• 56:54Speaker 02

  a different experience. And so I'm not holding you, I'm not thinking of that timeframe and holding you to those actions that happened in 2011. I've moved way on from that. So it was in the course of writing the, you know, the chapter, I mean, as I trust all things, there was a reason that you and I wanted to revisit this and needed to revisit it. So I trust that and I honor that. And thank you for meeting me once again with so much awareness and presence and courage and a willingness to talk about the dark

• 57:34Speaker 02

  so that you and I can experience such an amazing, deep connection in light and in love and in service. And I'm deeply, deeply grateful for that.

• 57:46Rich Roll?

  I appreciate that. I mean, this has been an exercise in trying to take my ego out of the equation. My ego definitely doesn't want me to talk about this publicly. My ego is attached to, you know, people perceiving me in a certain way. You know, that I can, that I have this illusion that I can control. And that's what it is. It's an illusion. So this conversation is about me releasing my ego. And it's about me allowing myself to be vulnerable in a new way, which is frightening. You know, it's terrifying. But I can't tell people that there's power in vulnerability unless I'm willing to do it myself.

• 58:27Rich Roll?

  So this is a new step for me in a, you know, kind of like a new level of vulnerability. And we'll see how it goes, you know? And to the extent that, you know, Mike, who, you know, provoked this question, which happened to come in and coincide with you sharing me that chapter, is indicia that, you know, perhaps this is the right time to talk about this. And Mike, man, you know, your question, you know, you've tried to forget, and how can you bury this? I mean, to speak specifically to that, don't try to forget it and don't try to bury it. Face it, work through it, talk about it, and own it. It's through owning it that you can get over the shame.

• 59:12Rich Roll?

  And you'll be able to look back on it simply as an experience that is informing your journey and perhaps giving you some insight that will help you make better choices in the future. And when you can own your story with all its blemishes and all its darkness and pimples, that's when you can experience freedom. And I think that, you know, my choice to share this episode of my life is me trying to get to a place where I can experience more freedom with respect to my relationship to that event in the past.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think ultimately...

• 59:56Speaker 02

  What we're looking for is integration. So there is no bearing of any experience. We are a sum total of all experiences, whether they're perceived light or dark or somewhere in between on the spectrum. And by allowing all of those, allowing them to exist, we can integrate and connect with something that is beyond all experience.

• 1:00:22Rich Roll?

  I think that's a good place to end it.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:00:26Rich Roll?

  It doesn't feel right to give any postscript. I think we just need to like, say goodbye and end it with one of your songs.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  All right, beautiful.

• 1:00:34Rich Roll?

  What do you want to, what do you want to play?

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

  Inside City.

• 1:00:41Rich Roll?

  Inside City. All right, thanks, you guys. See you in a couple of days. Peace.

• 1:00:49Rich Roll?

  Plants.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  Namaste. Stay.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  Inside city crumbling, actually tumbling, moving no control.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  In the end, suppose waves under.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Beyond the fear, all you can do is watch me.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Just a bug on the road.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Outside, inside, nowhere.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  Afterwards, we were all still here.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  No blood, no love, just looking for my friend.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Oh, you're vast and sad through the rain and the dark and the vast sea and the night and all your love, what you're dying to have

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Oh, you're vast and sad through the rain and the dark and the vast sea and the night and all your love, what you're dying to have

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  Inside, sitting crumbling and she's tumbling moving no control

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  And the winds rose and waves thunder

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  Beyond the fear, all you can do is watch me

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Just a bug on the rug

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  Outside, inside, nowhere

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Afterwards, we were all still here

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  No blood, no blood just looking for my friends