Dark and Light: Why Embracing Dark Thoughts is Key to Not Dwelling Among the Walking Dead

Hi friends, and welcome to another episode of Regarding Consciousness. We are here today with my newfound soul sister, Melissa Bernstein, co-founder and creative genius behind Melissa and Doug, as well as the creator of Lifelines, which is how Melissa and I really connected heart to heart a couple of months ago. Melissa, it— we started talking before the show. It was so juicy and so good. I I think it jumped on because when we had our first conversation a month or so ago, you shared with me the journey that led you to create Lifelines. And I was sharing I had my own existential crisis a couple of weeks ago. So why don't we start maybe, Melissa, for the people who don't know you and the amazing journey of creating— being a co-founder of Melissa and Doug and then creating Lifelines— perhaps start by sharing a little bit about your journey, and then we can dive into our mutual existential crises.

Absolutely. I think the reason, Jennifer, you and I connected to such an extent is we're both deep feelers.

Hmm.

I was definitely born feeling like I didn't belong in this world, you know, and I think there's so many of us that just feel so profoundly and deeply and think so intensely. It's almost as if, if we had a tuning knob, like, it's turned so high that like the world is just too much for us. And I always was so acutely, uh, aware of and sensitive to stimuli that I felt like I was in, uh, the wrong place, I think, from the moment I was born.

Me too. I'm like, no, I'm like, get me out of here. This does not feel good.

Exactly. My mother said literally like I cried 24/7 for the first year of my life. And I think I was Really saying, like, why am I here? Why did you bring me here? I was having an existential meaning crisis, truly, from my very first breath. I know. And, um, that's a lot in a world that doesn't really dignify deep feelers.

Yeah, my mom always tells me I came out breech, butt first. So I told the whole world, I was like, I was not coming out. I was like, they had to pull me out into the world.

Exactly. So you— so we're, we're kindred spirits there. And I think, you know, when I started to show people this deep, um, this, this depth of thinking that was sort of like pondering the higher realities of existence from an early age, like basically, why am I here? What's the meaning of life if we're all going to die? And what am I supposed to do during my brief time here? And those are questions that like were running through my head probably at age 2. Um, and obviously nobody wanted to hear them in a little child. Um, and nobody wanted to see this sense of, of darkness that really seemed to, um, suffuse me. So I got this message really early on that it wasn't okay to be who I was. And, you know, even simple things like Like, why are you asking such questions? You're a little child. Like, you're not supposed to be thinking about things like that. Go out and play. Put on a happy face. Like, basically the message was hide it from the world. Nobody wants to see it, and we don't even know how to answer it, so please don't go there. Hmm. So basically I had to adopt other measures of being accepted because we all crave belonging. And we all, like, part of our physiological need is to be accepted and be loved and be cherished. So I had to resort to, I would say, 2 methods that I feel like a lot of women tend to fall into, which ended up becoming pleasing and perfectionism. The 2 Ps. Or you could add performance too, but that's part of perfectionism. Yeah. Basically, I became a good girl that, like, didn't want to ever do anything wrong and step out of the box. And then I would be, like, patted as, you know, you're a good girl. Wow, you're, you're, you're helping, you're serving, you know, you're, you're kind, hiding, you know, putting on that, that smile that everything was great. Yep. And then the achievement became the very essence of who I was and sort of fell into I would say, um, 3 different categories. Being perfect looks-wise,

I

had to look like the most beautiful people I could, which I didn't. So that already was futile. Um, my behavior had to be this effortless social, like, aplomb where I could just be conversational and witty, which I wasn't. I'm like a petty, introverted, I'm a person who has really a hard time with group settings, and it takes me a while to feel comfortable with people. So that was also— I was going to be ultimately imperfect. And then my performance in everything I did, that was the easiest at the beginning, right? Mm-hmm. Because I was academic and I could sort of play to the teachers and the coaches and all that. And, you know, my performance. But for me it was very black or white. 100% was okay. 99% was like, you're gonna, you're gonna be punished. So by myself, by the way. So this, this became sort of a self, a self-motivated behavior. And that really took me through my life into, you know, my career and this idea that through my performance, through external achievements, including, by the way, creating toys, creating children. I mean, I became like, the more the better, the more I— and sort of this, I call it a futile race, right? The more I can channel this existential crisis, this meaning, because I didn't know why I was here. I couldn't express all the darkness I felt. And I think one of my first my first mind stories was, I am darkness. Like, I can't do anything with this. It's going to overtake me. So I think— and I sort of knew I was creative, but I didn't believe that the creativity could channel into light. I just thought the creativity was darkness that could only channel into darkness, because early on I created incessantly. I wrote music. I wrote, I drew, I wrote these verses, which were rhyming verses, but they were all super dark. They were in minor keys. They were really sad. And I couldn't share them with anyone to impact others because they were so dark that I thought people would think I was even stranger than I was. So that's sort of a brief, not so brief overview.

I so resonate with everything you're saying, Melissa. And I can feel that a lot of our audience resonates with that as well. It, it's It's like this soul-crushing, what is the meaning of life? Why can't I use the word normal? I've been having so many calls with friends saying, oh, wouldn't it be nice just to be normal, whatever that even means? And you know, it's funny you sharing about the creativity thing, because I see every time we speak, I see so much of myself reflected back to me in your stories. And I forgot until this moment that you just shared that, Melissa, when I was a young girl, I too used to write very, very, very dark, dark poetry. Poetry and stories, and I would also draw a lot. Like I had this dream and vision of like I would draw dresses and stuff. And the other night I actually had a dream of these beautiful, beautiful dresses, and I'm telling my husband about it. He's like, "Well, why don't you sketch them?" And I kid you not, I had not sketched a dress probably since I was 12 or 13 years old. And it was just until you shared that, I never got that I had said that my creativity is darkness. So I suppressed it and became more logical and linear because that was safe. not to be judged of, uh-oh, we gotta look at Jen. She's writing some scary stuff in those poems.

How many adults have told me that counselors have come to them because their kids have written, you know, dark, macabre stories in English, and they've said something's wrong with your child when, like, how about Stephen King or Edgar Allan Poe? Like, that's part of our emotional spectrum, and living in fantasy is part of who we are. So yes, when you repress a part of yourself that is, is longing to break free, you deny your truth. And ultimately, that leads to depression.

You are— oh my gosh, it's all coming back to me in a flood right now. This is wild having this happen live while we're recording this. I wrote a story when I was 12 years old. I was very precocious. And like you, I had like these big questions. And it was back in the day. Some of you out there listening may not be able to relate to this, but we actually had encyclopedias. That's where you would go out and research stuff. And I wrote this entire book called Bloody Roses that was about a man who had DID, dissociative identity disorder, also known as multiple personality disorder. And the whole story was about this cop who was chasing this killer who would inject strychnine into roses, pluck, kill the victim with the roses that had strychnine, who were these women. And he's chasing the bad guy, and he is the bad guy. He had taken on the person personality of this bad guy who had killed his father, who was a cop, and he was the one he was chasing. I wrote that when I was 12 years old.

But that's incredible. By the way, you're channeling something through doing that. You're channeling these fears that you have, and through doing that, you're actually making sense of them and coming to terms with them. That is a very healthy process that, like, We should be able to do. But of course you too, right? You felt, you felt stifled in your ability to share your true feelings.

Yeah. Because you share that as a 12-year-old and your parents are going, oh my God, we need to send her to a therapist. So tell me, Melissa, I mean, you have done this so beautifully, elegantly, well building Melissa and Doug, everything you're now doing with Lifelines. How do you channel that creativity, that darkness into creativity, and allow it to be, to become really light, like you've done with all the toys?

It's an amazing question. And it was actually just an accident. Because I truly believed my, my first truth was I am darkness. And I truly thought that all I could ever do was be darkness. And in that state was my darkest state, you know, I wanted to and tried to end my life because I thought, if I'm just darkness, what's the point in being here? But when by accident, you know, we— I met Doug and we were just dating and we were miserable in what we were doing and thought, there's got to be something better, right? We've got to have a reason to get up each day. And we happened on children and toys because we love children. And we thought, what better a thing to do than have the potential to unleash a child's imagination? When we did that, I found one day I was just sort of— we were brainstorming, and I was like, oh my gosh, I can see these toys in my head. And suddenly I started to have these ideas for toys, and it was almost as if a breathing tube had been inserted into my trachea for the very first time, and I had been drowning my whole life. And I finally knew what it meant to breathe fresh air, because I suddenly had this metaphor for creativity, at least my own, which was my creativity is a faucet running through me. And for my entire life, the light side of the faucet was turned off and the dark side of the faucet was turned on, and it just channeled through me into darkness. And that's all I thought the faucet was. I thought it was a— I could channel it. But when you channel it into darkness, it never goes anywhere. It festers, right? Mm-hmm. Because everybody, everybody needs to serve humanity to truly find meaning in their lives. A meaning crisis means you haven't found the appropriate way to serve humanity, in my opinion. So, but when I started to make toys, it was as if someone suddenly turned off the dark faucet, turned on the light faucet, and suddenly that very same anguish— my, my creativity is forged out of despair. It's forged out of the biggest, darkest questions, that sense of my own fallibility and mortality and all those questions I'll never really answer. But that same darkness could actually just as easily channel into light. It was almost like I could just like wink my eye and like direct it, um, into another avenue. And suddenly I realized, oh my goodness, I can actually impact children, no less, like the lightest, brightest, you know, area of humanity with the most potential with this same darkness. And that was a true lifeline that was giving me a reason to be here.

It's so powerful that out of harnessing and channeling your own imagination and creativity in a, in a productive way, in a light-giving way, as you said, turning on this light faucet, you were able to instill and inspire this imagination in children. And it's funny, the other day I was listening to a book several people had recommended to me called The Master Key System, and it was written in like the 1920s. And they actually talk about, say for example, Nikola Tesla, who is one of the greatest inventors of all time. Like you were saying, you know, you could see and build the toys in your mind's eye. We stopped doing that after childhood. He said so many of us— in the book he talks about how so many of us might, for example, we might come up with, we might daydream, for example, we might daydream, but we're not actively channeling that imagination, right? We're not actually utilizing it to put in our mind's eye, oh, what would it look like if I could build this toy? And I loved that the invitation in the book was to spend time in imagination every day, not daydreaming, but actually actively participating, whether it's imagining a dress you might want to create, a toy, imagining something that you want to create. And then instead, it's like this beautiful energy that you have becomes the clay with which you can create anything.

Yes, I believe it's called divergent thinking in your imagination. And it's not seeing something as it is, it's seeing something with all the potential of what it can be. And that's exactly what I do. You know, I see things in their simplest form and just distill them down to their simplest form and then figure out what's wrong with them, what's wrong with the user experience, and how it can be improved in a way that it becomes magical.

So, so let's talk about that, because here you are, you've built this Melissa and Doug company, you've done incredible things, brought light and creativity to millions, if not hundreds of millions of children around the world. And yet you then have another crisis that leads you to create Lifelines. Tell us about that.

So it's, it's the metaphor still continues, because basically what I had done, if you remember, is I had turned off the dark faucet, just turned on the light. But the truth is, I'm both dark and light. So what I did is I turned off completely that darkness. I just channeled light, I just was light superficially, right? The smiling, everything's great. And I believed that, by the way. The persona I created was who I was. I was so disassociated from that darkness because I believed that if I allowed it in, it would overtake me and it would cause me to want to, you know, not be here. Um, and I was so scared of that darkness. But what started to happen, and I think this is why It's called a midlife crisis. Because in your 20s, I think of it as, again, everything in my head you'll see is a metaphor because I visualize it. I visualize things in my head. I think about it as like you have your emotions, right? Your full spectrum of emotions, which, by the way, half of them are ugly and dark and mean. But, you know, in my world, I had one emotion, which was I'm great. I'm fine. Everything's awesome. That was the only emotion I had ever shown my entire life. So it's like there's a dam in your, in your teens and 20s. You're able to barricade those dark emotions out, right? You put up the dam. It's strong. And, and your 20s too. It's really through your 20s. It's, it's strong.

It's alcohol, by the way. That's an alcohol-induced dam. I'm just teasing.

That keeps those, those emotions out, any sort of distraction. Um, and mine was to keep moving. Like, my futile race was like, if I keep moving, if I keep doing, if I keep producing, I keep producing products, if I keep producing children, like, it'll keep out the darkness. My 30s, I was still pretty effective keeping it out, but something started to happen as I got into my 40s, and it was basically that My dam was weakening. I was becoming exhausted because suppressing who you truly are, you know, suppressing the cry of your authentic soul to be seen is exhausting. It's using so much cellular activity because you're hiding your authenticity. And I felt myself starting to become like— I felt this itch, and it was like, you're not being true to yourself. It was this cry. That, like, this isn't who you are. You're showing this one part. It was part of who I was, definitely part, and it was the best part of who I wanted to be, but it wasn't allowing my truest emotions to surface. So I started to feel really inauthentic, and at first it was just a little cry. It was like, hello, I'm in here. Like, you know, So is it here? And I would be like, you know, repressing it because I was good at repressing. But that dam started to have some cracks in it, and it got louder and louder, and I started to literally feel like an inauthentic fool who was trying to pretend I was something. I didn't even know what I really was, but I knew something was wrong because I started listening to podcasts of people who had come out, so to speak, and shared their story and And I— it was like innately I was trying to get the courage to do the same thing, even though unconsciously and subconsciously I didn't even realize what was happening. So I finally had been listening to this podcast that was like my favorite podcast, and it had all these people who shared their truths, and they were beautifully received. And I had this whim on— I had this On a whim one day, I decided to write the host of the podcast and ask if I could share my story because I had started to connect a bunch of dots prior to this. And one of them was in reading this incredible book, Man's Search for Meaning.

Of course.

And at the end of the book, he talks about after he survived Auschwitz and the 3 concentration camps and lost everything but still found hope and a reason to live and found meaning. He discovered this school of existential psychotherapy called logotherapy, which was healing through meaning. And I suddenly had this epiphany that I had this affliction through my life called an existential meaning crisis, and my despair, my depression wasn't even pathological. It was actually a physical— a philosophical spiritual condition that many people experience. And that was such a revelation to me that I wanted to share it with the world. Because one other thing I'll add is, as I started to research existential angst, existential depression, It became apparent that those who experience it also have what are called hypersensitivities or overexcitabilities that make their central nervous system more highly sensitive to stimuli. And it can show up in 5 areas. And it turned out that I was like a 10 in all 5 areas. And that those qualities are very conducive to creativity. In fact, if you have all of them, you almost by definition will be a creative. And suddenly I saw these qualities that I had tried to kill and wanted to expunge my entire life as the very reason I was able to be what I call a white space creative and see things in my head. So that I actually didn't just have a curse, which I believed, you know, one of the words I used in my writings from the time I was little is cursed. I'm cursed. But actually, I had what I now call a blurse, which is the combination of a blessing and a curse. And my curse is my blessing, and my blessing is my curse.

It's so powerful. I think so many of us can resonate with your story. You know, we're human, right? And not feeling like we have a tribe, not feeling like we fit in and trying to make sense of it all. And as you say, being hypersensitive, it just feels overwhelming. Like sometimes I've told my husband in the time we've been together, like, honey, I just can't do this. Like being human is just too damn hard. And, you know, you really shared something beautiful with me on one of our last calls about this idea of you saw yourself as being like one of the toys in the box, right? Like it's perfectly packaged. It's sitting around on the shelf, it has just the right lighting. And I think so many of us, maybe up until our 40s, maybe if we're lucky, we, you know, have a cataclysmic event or catalyst that helps us to move through it quicker. But we spend our whole lives trying to look good, trying to fit in, trying to be shiny and normal and whatever that looks like. And yet at our core, we're like this diamond, as one of my friends, Mary Jo, likes to say, we have all of these beautiful facets. Yes, the one facet of you is the part that is upbeat and outgoing. The other facet is creative. You have the dark facet. You have all of these beautiful, the spectrum of emotions. That would really be my recommendation to anybody listening in right now or watching us, is to understand you have permission to feel and be all of the ways. I think that's where a lot of our health ailments come from, Is suppressing and repressing. Oh, being angry is bad. I've been through that myself. I'm like, I'm spiritual. People look at me as a spiritual thought leader and they say, oh, well, Jennifer probably never gets angry. I'm going to tell you right now, I get angry all the time. I'm going to share with you a little funny anecdote. As I was getting ready to come on to this interview, you know, we had this carpet thing rolled out here. My husband was just here with some of his business partners and he just kind of threw everything in a pile in the dining room. And I had these plans and I was like, this shouldn't be this way. He needs to put his coffee cups away and put the carpet back where it belongs. And then all of a sudden I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna allow myself to be angry and then move through it. And then you allow yourself to be angry for that 90 seconds instead of suppressing it. And then you just allow it to flow out and then the anger leaves and it's so powerful or the depression or this, the, the whatever it is. Emotions take about 90 seconds to process, and if we give ourselves permission rather than suppressing or repressing, that's freedom.

Yeah, but society tells us that that is not acceptable.

Bad. Wrong. I got

the message loud and clear, like, you just show that everything's good, you put up the armor, and you don't allow anything else in. And that ultimately was a big tangled mess of emotion stuck inside me. I was literally probably 50 years old just a couple years ago that I said for the very first time in my life, I feel sad.

Hmm.

Sadness was not an emotion I was allowed to feel, and I never felt sad because I never allowed myself to feel it. So It was really powerful. My work became, you know, going from being that shiny package on a shelf, right, with the bright logo in bright light, to like bearing it all, ripping off the mask. And it was literally a coming out for me. It was like, I'm ripping off the guise, I'm stepping out as my authentic self. And the great news about it being in midlife Is, I think, by the time I did it, you know, sometimes people say, like, how did it feel? Like, were you, were you scared? Nope. By the time I did it, I had waited so long, and I knew I had no choice. Like, if I was going to, you know, live the rest of my life, it needed to be authentically. And I just had— I threw caution to the wind, and I was like, I'm doing it. And It's okay what people think because I do not care. And the real irony about it was I really had no close friends my entire life because I was a shell of a person. Like, I was not a real person. When you have one emotion and you share nothing, I would never share anything real about myself because I was basically like a sounding board for others to bounce their ideas off, and I couldn't do any wrong, and I was always giving advice and and sort of that type of person. But there was no give on my part other than being that shoulder to lean on. Like, I didn't give anything real of my true self. So I never had relationships that mattered to me. But when I finally shared my truth, which is, hey, I'm a mess, like so many of us, but it's a beautiful mess, right? And I had the courage to turn on both faucets. Because I realized that I'm not all darkness. I'm actually a combination. And some days I'm darker than others. There's more hot water than cold water, I guess, if hot is dark. But I'm everything, and so is everybody. But I had so many people come out of the woodwork and basically ask me to be their friends. You know, here I thought being my true self would make it so no one would like me. But the irony is that it's only now, sadly, in middle age that I have more friends than I even know what to do with, like beautiful people who are authentic with me and willing to share their authenticity. And we have just this beautiful mutual give and take.

It is incredible. I know I remember being so lonely in my 20s and early 30s as well because You just have these vapid relationships that are meaningless because, like you said, you're just kind of like a, a one-dimensional version of yourself, just kind of going through the ro— the robotic monotony of life. Like, hi, I am Jennifer, I am happy, look at me, you know. But the more you get— I think you said something, it's a beautiful mess. I think that is so eloquently put. We're all a beautiful mess. And now when we share that rawness, that emotion, it gives others permission, just as you did on our first call. That's why we connected, I think, so deeply and beautifully. It— being raw, being ugly, crying, just laying it all out on the table— you're being authentic, gives me permission to be authentic, gives us permission to be authentic. And so kudos to you, Melissa, for all of the people who you have given permission now to be authentic, by sharing your true beautiful mess that is your story?

Oh, well, I think you're doing the same thing. So it's going to take a lot of us because the message is really loud out there. And the more people, you know, every day I'll tell people that it's not that the emotions and the feelings and the ugliness, the mess goes away. It's just our relationship to it changes. Right? And we're able, as you said, to give ourselves permission to feel the jealousy, to feel the competition, to feel even hatred sometimes, and know that if we allow ourselves to feel it, as you said, 90 seconds later it actually moves through you and you can go back to your, your homeostasis. Uh, and I think when you're scared to allow yourself to feel it, it actually stays in you. And festers, and then it leads to real bitterness and resentment and a lot of other, you know, more negative emotions.

So powerful, Melissa. We're gonna have to have you on for another show. We could obviously talk for hours, and I'm sure we will. So tell our listeners, our viewers, is there anything that I didn't get to ask you today, or any, any pearl of wisdom or takeaway that you'd love to leave the audience with today?

Wow. That's, um, I mean, so many things.

I know, that's why we're gonna have to have you on for another episode, clearly.

You know, right now I think there's a crisis in our society of meaning. There are lots of folks that are sort of going through the motions. I call them the walking dead, but not really feeling that they have a reason to live and a reason to get out of bed each day. So I would say, you know, authenticity starts with self-awareness. So if you can make 2023 a year in which you're going to allow yourself to sort of look a little bit at your inner self and ask yourself, am I hiding? my truth? Like, is there something in me that's always been desperate to come out and, and shine its light on the world? And if there is, you know, begin to imagine it in your head. Go through the divergent thinking and think like, okay, I've always wanted to— as you said, I've always wanted to be a novelist, or I've always wanted to draw, sketch dresses and be a designer. You know, it— you don't have to do it for your vocation. You can do it just to let it out. So start noodling with what might be hidden in you, your authentic self that you're not bringing out. And I think I talk with lots of folks about how to bring that authenticity out, and it starts with really self-awareness that we're hiding something. And then ultimately you marry that with action. to, to bring it out, uh, to the world. So, um, and, and, uh, you know, I wrote a verse about it, I think, when I was very little, because I knew that I did have this meaning crisis and I didn't know why I was here. And it was, what is that thing you love to do that makes your heart ring loud and true and lets your spirit come alive, awash in time and space to thrive? What latent gem has always been intent to rise up from within? That wondrous gift that sets you free to greet the world authentically.

Oh, bravo! Standing ovation.

That question, sort of, what is that thing you love to do that makes your heart ring loud and true? If we can answer that, we will rise above our despair, our, our meaning crisis, and we will transcend ourselves and sort of find that light.

Yeah, so beautiful. Really incredible, Melissa. And where can people connect with you? We'll include it in the show notes as well, but is it the Lifelines website? Is that the best place to go?

It is. I'm melissa@lifelines.com, and I meet with individuals every single day to talk about meaning. And I I don't have— I'm not a professional, but I've certainly been on my own journey, and I'm happy to share experiences and strategies that have worked for me. So melissa@lifelines.com.

Beautiful, my friend. And I'm also going to throw out a website my friend Deepak Chopra has in case, God forbid, somebody is struggling with suicidal tendencies or depression. I've been there myself. Deepak has a website called neveralone.love that has AI that speak with called Peewee that it's completely private. And you can ask questions and get support there. I think Peewee's helped tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. And there are resources out there, suicide helplines. So please, if you are struggling with an existential crisis or depression, get the help you need. It's, it's important to know that we all have help. And that's actually one of the dreams we have with our new company, Optimal Match. is to make sure everybody in the world who needs the right therapist, coach, mentor finds it. So that's why we created om.app, which matches people. It's an algorithm that matches people with the right therapist, the right practitioner. And I'm just so grateful that my intention is, having been somebody who was suicidal and struggled with bulimia and depression from 16 to 25, and then on and off just struggling with anxiety and depression lot of my adult life. I intend that each and every one of you out there listening knows you are loved, you are safe, you do belong, and you do fit in. And that even if it does feel challenging, just give yourself permission to cry, to feel, and ask for help, whether that's Melissa, Deepak's site, reaching out to us, however we can be of service. Just know you are not alone. And that there is help out there if you need it. So thank you for being here with us. Thank you, Melissa, and deep gratitude for being able to have this conversation and share it with the world. Thank you.

I'm so honored to be here. Thank you.