Emotionally Drunk: When Old Wounds Hijack New Connections

Angel Grant, co-founder of Death Over Dinner and Drugs Over Dinner, opens up about a rare moment when she broke her own conflict guidelines. A longtime meditation teacher and trauma practitioner influenced by Gabor Maté, Angel describes what it means to be “emotionally drunk," reacting from undigested pain rather than present reality. She explores how old reservoirs of fear, anger, and humiliation hijack our relationships, and why real freedom means expanding our capacity to sit with the sensation before we lash out. In a candid story about defending a loved one during a divorce, Angel wrestles with integrity, self-righteousness, and the seductive power of being the “truth teller.” It’s a vulnerable, rich conversation about body wisdom, detachment, and how to stop repeating the same fight over and over again.

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Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When we disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. More options should make us happier. Right? The psychologist Barry Schwartz discovered the opposite, too many choices can paralyze us, increase regret, and decrease satisfaction.

This paradox of choice explains why people are more stressed in abundance than in scarcity. Sometimes in disagreements, the paradox of choice makes every decision a battlefield with infinite alternatives, making any choice feel potentially wrong or constant FOMO relationships can suffer from this paradox too.

Dating apps offer endless options making commitment feel like closing doors rather than opening them. Every relationship conflict can trigger thoughts of what if, what if there's someone who would've been better, easier, more fun, more compatible. This abundance of alternatives or just the [00:01:00] perception of the abundance of alternatives makes working through the problem seem foolish when you can just swipe right on someone new.

Or swipe right on a different conversation. Even choosing a restaurant becomes fraught when there are hundreds of options in workplace decisions. The paradox of choice can create analysis paralysis. Teams spend months evaluating software options instead of implementing solutions. Committees endlessly debate alternatives without deciding anything, the perfect becomes the enemy of the good and the good becomes the enemy of the done.

More options don't necessarily improve decisions. They can really prevent them. Understanding the paradox of choice offers some relief. Sacrificing, choosing something not good enough or just good enough often leads to more happiness than maximizing. Setting constraints we'll only consider three options can reduce stress and improve outcomes in disagreements about choices.

Recognize that more research won't necessarily always clarify. Sometimes we gotta just [00:02:00] choose and commit, and the best choice is often the one that you stop. Second guessing. I'm Michael Lee, professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Our guest today on When We Disagree is Angel Grant.

Angel is the co-founder of Death Over Dinner and Drugs Over dinner, and she has a relational coaching practice. Angel, tell us an argument story. 

Angel Grant : I try to make a practice out of truly of, of not letting something live rent free in my head. You know, one of the benefits of, I've been meditating for like 25 years and one of the benefits of that is being able to watch.

What is circulating or looping inside, like what thoughts are looping that maybe deplete my energy versus generate energy and then tending to those? And so when you ask that question first, I'm like, well, there's, you know, we talked about it before and there's nothing that lives really like rent free in my head, this depleting.

And however, [00:03:00] when you ask the question two, one. Conflict comes up in my mind that makes me uncomfortable. 

Michael Lee: So there is a sense of you don't necessarily want to have things living rent-free. Part of your practice is non-attachment. Right. 

Angel Grant : In that way. Right. Like living, living in a state of completion. Really, Uhhuh like I've said, everything I needed to say, I've listened.

There's some kind of internal resolution and integrity with myself, 

Michael Lee: Uhhuh Uhhuh. 

Angel Grant : And there's a actually a recent conflict and I don't have many conflicts really in, in my life at large. Mm-hmm. But there was a recent conflict unusually where I. I went outside of my own bounds of integrity with myself.

And and when I say integrity with myself, what I mean is I have agreements with myself and have for years. You know, I taught meditation teacher trainings and yoga teacher trainings and, and have this relational coaching practice. And I worked with Gabor Matee for the love of God, like, you know, doing trauma healing retreats.

And I see all this to laugh 

Michael Lee: mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : At like, looking at, this is [00:04:00] a, a sincere practice I have where I don't, I make a practice of not offgassing onto other people. 

Michael Lee: Say that again. 

Angel Grant : I make a practice of not offgassing onto other people. So when I am emotionally charged, I'm aware that any emotional charge we have as adults at this point it's like, say for example that you're my ex-husband and.

We are communicating right now and you're, I'm perceiving that you are being condescending. 

Michael Lee: Okay. 

Angel Grant : I would not only be agitated or mad that you are being condescending to me in this moment, and not only throughout our marriage, anytime you're condescending to me, but really that would be hitting a reservoir of anything undigested that in my whole life of when someone talked down to me way back to, say, for example, if my dad talked down to me when I was a child, that reservoir of undigested fear and anger and sadness.

Is [00:05:00] living inside me already. And when someone in this moment, it's like pokes that reservoir, then I am actually reacting not only to this moment to, but to that whole backlog. And I find that unfair in present day relationships and, and just not true. And so I make a practice of, of like mm-hmm. Being in relationship with what's inside me and not offgassing and, and.

Kind of pausing in a conflict until I can come from a more. A less like, emotionally drunk place. 

Michael Lee: Hmm. Well, I love that I get to be the, the condescending ex in this hypothetical scenario, so thank you for that. 

Angel Grant : You're welcome. 

Michael Lee: The agreements with self line 

Angel Grant : mm-hmm. 

Michael Lee: Struck me that you just said, and I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.

And then not to bury the lead, I want to hear about this conflict that we're trying to hard to detach from as well. 

Angel Grant : So the agreement with myself is that I don't, one of them is being integrity with myself means that I am tending. [00:06:00] To my undigested stuff when it comes up in the present moment, instead of taking my attention to blame of the other person or to thinking that this other person is completely responsible for the way I feel about this conflict.

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : That make sense? 

Michael Lee: It does, it does. It reminds me of questions like, what about what I'm feeling is about now? Yeah. And what about, what I'm feeling is, as you put it, this reservoir of undigested fear or sadness. What is it about yesterday? 

Angel Grant : Yeah, exactly. 

Michael Lee: What about now versus what is about the past? 

Angel Grant : And, but a lot of people, and I work with.

A lot of people like five days a week. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : There are plenty of people who even if you ask that question, they're like, no, this is about, now this is about my shitty ex-husband, you know, they're really tripled down on that. 

Michael Lee: He sounds great. Well, tell me about this conflict. 

Angel Grant : Okay, so I'm not gonna, I'm gonna be mindful Sure.

Because it's because I wanna respect people involved, but, situation going on with someone who I love a lot in my [00:07:00] family, who is much younger than I am. And I say that because I think there's a protective thing that came out in me 

Michael Lee: mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : For this person, even though this person is a completely capable adult but this person is going through a divorce and the spouse.

With whom they are divorcing. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : Who I've known for 15, 16 years and grew to love because this person loved my person. But we're never super close. We're very different, you know. But anyway, I, basically verbally via text attacked the, the soon to be ex-spouse and I use attack kind of playfully.

I didn't, you know, I didn't say like, you are bad or you are this, or I didn't like, it wasn't to that extent, but it was way outside the bounds of how I usually communicate when I'm upset with someone. And so I've been in in question, this was probably three weeks ago. And I acted so differently [00:08:00] from what I, you know, it's not ever, ever in my life.

And when my twenties, I was kind of, you know, could be hotheaded when I was in a conflict or something. But at 49 i, in these last 15 years, I'd say I have a very mindful practice of conflict. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : And fail sometimes, but not to this degree in my head. And so the, the, I've been in curiosity about what. I'm like, oh, wow.

You know, even 30 minutes after it happened, I was like, I need to repair this in some way. But I was, but I, and I didn't in the way that I normally would. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : And we can talk about that in a second, but the Oh wow. Is like, first I tend to what's inside me, you know, and I'm like, so I'm in curiosity of like, what.

Threshold was crossed, or what trigger was pulled inside me. It was too hot for me to do what I would usually [00:09:00] do, which would be a more connection based conversation. And even as I was, you know, typing mm-hmm. With my head going like, sassy, you know, like, I was, there was a voice inside me that was very grounded, that was saying, angel, you don't really wanna do this.

Like, why don't you pause? That's my, you know, pause. Why don't you pause? Why don't you do this? And I was just like, no, they need, you know, and I'm like, very, and this is the interesting part because when we're emotionally drunk, it's, it's like we can feel so much false power. So much like it can be precise articulation of something we want to say.

It can be very different from like alcohol drunk, where it's like slurry and messy. It can be. That's why I feel so good, is because we feel like we're coming from such a clear and righteous place, and when we're really [00:10:00] like off-gassing a trauma response and, mm-hmm. So I've been in question, you know, about what happened in me and I'm not to a resolution yet about the whole thing.

Yeah. I'm like, I'm clear that some protector, rescuer came up and some sense of like, I can, there were a lot of lies that were told and I am really personally, like from early childhood stuff triggered by untruth, you know? Mm-hmm. And so, but I've known that and I've worked with that for years. But this is the, this is where it goes, where I can take it from the micro to the macro of like, okay, because like, so there was something about the lies were told and like big ones and, and breaches of integrity and betrayal and all this stuff.

But where the, where it comes to like lies. It's like then for me. It [00:11:00] becomes like this loss of, since I don't trust what you're saying, if I don't trust what you're saying. Anyway, 

Michael Lee: yeah. 

Angel Grant : Then, then I watch inside me and I don't, I'm not saying this is the right thing, but I'm just being vulnerable and saying what happened was like, then there was some kind of loss of respect and even in the way that I communicate.

Michael Lee: Okay. 

Angel Grant : And this isn't always the case, but this one got me. You know what I mean? Because there are people who have lied, and I know they're lying that I can still be like connected and, and right diplomatic with, but this one, there was this real sense of like, somebody needs to tell it like it is and somebody needs to acknowledge that I don't believe you and nobody believes you and everybody, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Michael Lee: Right, right. A truth teller. 

Angel Grant : A and it, yeah, but it's this like. When there's self-righteousness in it, it's not actually ultimate truth. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : It's like it's coming from a, from, you know, this is,

I don't like to say anytime or always, or never, but I would say [00:12:00] 99% of the time when we are attempting to dominate another person that's coming from a deep seated insecurity. Mm-hmm. And security just means absence of safety in our own skin. That could have been, you know, when we were five years old and we learned that if we do this dominant thing, then we'll feel safer.

And so that's gonna pop out when some trigger is pulled inside. 

Michael Lee: So if I'm hearing you right, you behaved in a way that felt out of character for you in a moment. But in that moment, some part of you was saying this needs to be told and some other other part of you was saying maybe draw it back a bit or embrace the pause.

Angel Grant : Yeah. Like some other part was saying, 

Michael Lee: and then it stuck with you over time for these three weeks and so. One of the things, as you were talking in the beginning about your practice, meditation in counseling, in coaching, in trauma, work, in healing, et cetera. I've heard of this kind of recent debate is probably the wrong word, but I'm wondering if there's a tension between detachment and [00:13:00] attachment to the stories we tell ourselves into our past experiences.

So in one kind of realm of thought. What we need to do is look in our minds and the stories that we tell ourselves and make less meaning out of them and say no. The mind does what it does. It makes meanings kind of independently. Mm-hmm. And it tells me I'm a bad person, but it would just sort of like smile and watch that thought drift on down the river like a leaf and not get overly invested in it.

Yeah. And say this has a lot of meaning and I should really work on that. 

Angel Grant : Absolutely. 

Michael Lee: But then there was another. Therapeutic practice, perhaps it is like, no, that is an adaptive part. That story comes from an adaptive part, and that the story of that part is very important and you should do deep excavation and archeology on that part.

And where does this come from? And really invest a lot of meaning into it. So as you are thinking about detaching from this or any conflict this or any memory in your life. Which of those paths re really reaches you that path of detachment and the mind does what it does, or the path [00:14:00] of attachment that says, no, this is really serious and I should invest a lot of emotional labor in it.

Angel Grant : I'm more of a middle road on those two because well, because on one hand the detaching in that first way that you talked about can really be a kind of a bypass. And then, and when we bypass in that way of just like then, but we don't tend to the internal wiring that has us do that in the first be that way in the first place, then that internal wiring is gonna keep running on default.

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : And we're not gonna have any agency in that spot. And so that's on one hand. And then on the other hand, as far as like hyper mining something. That tends to hold us in the past versus, you know, I always talk to people about, with trauma, and when I say the word trauma, my definition of trauma is just undigested, sadness, anger, and fear.

And [00:15:00] so a lot of people. Kind of get afraid, like I don't wanna go relive things in the past, and I'm like, neither do I. That is not necessary or often helpful because enough of our present moment interactions and life bring up, bring to the surface. Like anytime we have an emotional charge, there is your gateway to work with somewhere inside that you're not free.

'cause anytime we're in a reaction, we're not free. We're being lived by something old.

Michael Lee: Will you say a little bit more about the, somewhere, somewhere inside ourselves we're not free. In other words, what, what are the conditions of that unfreedom? You're, you're overly attached to a memory or overly attached to a relationship. 

Angel Grant : Not, not consciously, like, not in the front of the mind. What I mean is like, is like let me [00:16:00] think of an example. Okay. Say that say that I had a dominant father. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : Okay. So say that I had a dominant father when I was growing up who talked down, you know, this, I'm just sticking with the example from earlier. Mm-hmm. Kinda the same thread who talked down to me. And, and really anytime somebody is.

Condescending to a child or like yells at a child, a child experiences humiliation. Mm. Like that's just, or an adult, like there's humiliate there, there's a kind of like response of someone at least trying to take your dignity, even though that person who's dominating is really, it's not about you.

It's about them and their insecurities inside themselves. But a child doesn't know that and neither do most adults. So I ha say I have a condescending, and not just condescending, but dominant father who like really kind of squashes my, my me, and then say that I'm 49 years old and I'm driving on [00:17:00] the interstate and someone cuts me off, speeds ahead of me and cuts me off and say that that really like gets under my skin.

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : Why is that does, if that person is rushing to the hospital because their mother's dying and I have no idea. Like, and you know, but I'm making it very personal that they are like, I'm experiencing it as though they are condescending to me. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : They are. It is like an affront that they're doing to me.

That is what I mean by I am not free inside. I am, I am being lived by an experience or experiences that happened throughout my childhood or throughout earlier parts of my life, where now, anytime that stuff gets tapped inside me, I'm reacting to that reservoir, right? That's not freedom to me personally.

Michael Lee: So the weight of the past is propelling a reaction in you of which you are not in control of, nor are conscious of. 

Angel Grant : Right. 

Michael Lee: And that lack of control, lack [00:18:00] of consciousness, you are talking about in the language of, of freedom, if I'm following. 

Angel Grant : Absolutely. Yeah. 

Michael Lee: Right. 

Angel Grant : Yeah. Because as if, if whatever situations can, situations create, you know, emotional charge in me.

And the we're human, it's, I'm not suggesting that we never have emotional charge or that there's a good and a bad or, you know. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : But for me personally, I've been like doing this work inside myself and in, and, and question inquiry about this for like 20 years and watching and kind of using my life as a laboratory.

There are, my internal landscape is wildly different than it was say 15 years ago. And there's a whole lot more freedom. That's an experience word. You know what I mean? I'm not just like mm-hmm. Speaking like theoretically, like I experience way more freedom when I am not just my intellect telling me, but where I'm viscerally aware that what people are doing that seems, that would've earlier seemed like they're doing something to me that's offensive.

What they're doing usually has absolutely [00:19:00] nothing to do with me or this much to do with me. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. So almost, and I've heard this phrase bandied about too, about the kind of assumption of hostile intent as we interact with other people in the world, sort of assuming being cut off in traffic is about me and not them.

Right. And then letting that go in a way of staying not in relationship with. My assumptions about that person, which according to that early kind of false binary schema that I was working up about whether we attach to these things or whether we try to detach from these things. 

Angel Grant : Mm-hmm. 

Michael Lee: Feels like it's more in the detachment category.

Angel Grant : Mm-hmm. And well, and like I wish I could think of another example quickly, but I'm not gonna spend time on it, but it's like. It matters more, it matters less in traffic and more in in interpersonal relationships, like if we're married or if we're, if we're close colleagues or family, 

Michael Lee: right? 

Angel Grant : Then the, [00:20:00] the conflicts or the emotional charge that comes up in these relationships are often.

Like patterns, you know, like they repeat. I have people come to me all the time, like I work with couples sometimes I work with family members, like, 

Parents and adult children. And they, and this is my experience too, like my last long-term partner, it was like we would, every conflict would, would devolve to the same core thing.

And I was just like, oh. And I could see, see it coming and I'd like be like, here, here it comes. It's the one big fight. It's the one big thing. Where he would experience that I was doing one thing and I would experience that he was doing one thing 

Michael Lee: right. 

Angel Grant : And everything always boiled down to that. And it was just like, so in those ways I wasn't free from the thing I always thought he was doing because it really went back to someone in my childhood just, you know, doing this thing to me and his went back to parent and his [00:21:00] childhood.

Sure. Doing that thing to him. And so those are the ways that we are like locked up and those, those lock up our present day relationships. And so in that way I do feel that kind of mining something is valuable, but not to hang out in the mine forever. 

Michael Lee: How do you escape? I wanna get back to your conflict and we'll close there, but.

Since we're on this, the one big fight that couples or brothers and sisters or people in long-term relationships keep having and mm-hmm. Somehow, even if it's an argument about the, the dishes or how to cook or where to go to dinner, it always becomes a, you are always trying to do this, and I'm always trying to do that.

What are some things that you say to people to try to escape these kinds of hamster wheel, Sisyphean conflict patterns where people feel stuck? 

Angel Grant : It becomes about a couple of things. One is. Say that, say that I'm still with my ex. That the, the scenario I just described then for, you [00:22:00] know, for the years that we were together, I would be like, even though I would, I would be able to, the observer in me would know, and the one, like, I always watch patterns, relational patterns.

It's in humans, you know, it's part of my work and 

Michael Lee: uhhuh. 

Angel Grant : So even though I could see it coming like a mile, I'd be like, this is going there. This is there in about 10 minutes, we're gonna be right there. And, and yet. I, most of the time would like I had not yet expanded my capacity inside myself to be with sensation in that way, in that thing where I, like where I felt he was doing this thing that had been done to me before when I was a kid.

The whole thing is like. There's a certain amount, like we feel sensation inside. That's the, the most neutral way I know how to talk about it. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : We feel the sensation builds up anytime right before we like rage out on someone or even shut down or do the things that we do that are stress [00:23:00] responses.

There's sensation that is building and building and building, and then we do the thing to get out of that sensation. And so a lot of the work with yourself becomes about expanding your capacity to be with that sensation without doing the old reaction. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : Right. And so and so that was one part of it.

That's one part of what I teach, really guide people to do a lot and teach, you know, in practices, there are practices you can you do with that just in your daily life. That are lower stakes so that you build up the muscle for the higher stakes ones, right? 

Michael Lee: Yeah. 

Angel Grant : And then there's the one of like this just holding a sober voice of like, we are not in a shared reality right now.

And this kind of does loop back to my original conflict that I was talking about, because as I've been in question about what, what allowed me to disrespect that person because I did, I was disrespectful. And to not really [00:24:00] honor them as a human. Mm-hmm. Which is a big part of what I wanna do with humans, no matter if we disagree.

Was that part of like,

there has to be. You know, our brain works heavily on a reward system and there has to be a, a reward, like not has to be, but it really helps when there's an outcome that would be a re high enough reward that would have me act a certain way inside the conflict. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : And so if it's a relationship that's still current and that, that you don't want to end or you care that it ends with care 

Michael Lee: mm-hmm.

Angel Grant : Then that can be the reward of me acknowledging like. My ex, sometimes I could say, Hey, we're not some version of, like, we're not in a shared reality right now. We're both in like distortion field. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : Can't, like, I think I love you and you love me, and can, we should pause this. Mm-hmm. Take some time. And [00:25:00] so that we can somehow find our way back to a shared reality to even without shared reality, there's no resolution.

And so with this conflict three weeks ago, I think there wasn't, in my mind, a high enough reward for an outcome. Like we're not, I'm not gonna have to see this person often. So like I can get right with myself without getting right with them, and, and. Yeah. Do does that all make sense? 

Michael Lee: It does. I appreciate you sharing that.

As we are close, I have a question about the way that I hear you talk about emotion, memory and conflict, and wanted to get your thoughts on it. Okay. So I noticed that you pretty consistently use. Food and beverage metaphors to talk about drunk emotion drunk. So there's two di two binaries that I'm hearing.

One is a [00:26:00] sober voice versus being emotionally drunk. 

Angel Grant : Yeah. 

Michael Lee: One is digested versus undigested. 

Angel Grant : Oh, interesting. 

Michael Lee: So at least those two, maybe others, yeah. But at least those two when we talk about 

Angel Grant : Yeah. 

Michael Lee: Being blended with apart, perhaps Yes. Being in, as you put a, a distortion field as we relate to conflict. As we relate to emotion.

So is there, what is it that, about the way that you talk about emotion and the kind of somatic sense of how we're feeling that reaches for food and beverage metaphors? 

Angel Grant : I think it is more, I had never thought about it in that way of food and beverage metaphors. I think that it's more of over the years learning to talk to people in ways.

That are more pragmatic. Okay. Because a lot of people don't have somatic. What Gabor My, you know, my mentor, he talks about as like [00:27:00] biological intelligence. I think that with a lot of our religions, which have.

You know, I grew up, grew up hearing the body is bad. 

Michael Lee: Mm. 

Angel Grant : And so in these ways, when and, and. Then I'll use another example of, of a lot of boys, at least ones I grew up with in the deep South, being taught that like feeling is bad, like crying is bad. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : Crying is like peeing, like it's something your body needs to do to release something like crying releases cortisol, which is a stress hormone.

It needs to come out sometimes, like it's silly to be like, don't cry, but all that to say it's like we have these really strong messages that we have been like very heavily programmed with. That have us disconnect from feeling our body and the wisdom that comes through our body. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : And so when I can take it down to something like, you know, a lot of people know what it feels like to be drunk.

A lot of people know what it feels like to digest food versus have food not [00:28:00] digested. And so it's more of a, a pragmatic ground to meet on, probably. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. It sounds like a very pragmatic metaphor to use as an analogy. To take some high level psychological concepts and make them actionable. 

Angel Grant : Yeah. 

Michael Lee: But it also really calls attention to the physical process of moving through emotions, 

Angel Grant : which is Yes, very important.

Which is, it's funny that you say this and we're ending, but one of the things, like I almost talked about your event and something that Trey Gowdy said at the beginning of this. That is completely about this whole topic. And so it was just like, I'll just, Trey said something like I think he was talking, I don't even remember exactly for sure, but I think he was talking about when he's kind of mentoring younger attorneys mm-hmm.

In his firm. And he said he may have taught, been talking about students, I'm not sure. But he was in that. Where he's the teacher and he said, I don't let them say I feel they can [00:29:00] say I think, or I believe, but feeling is unreliable. And I was like, there it is. Like, because during the whole conversation I was like, he's so thoughtful.

How do he and I disagree so strongly about these one or two things that I know we disagree about. And when he said that, I was like, oh, it's the detachment from the felt. 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Angel Grant : Sense. It's the detachment from body wisdom. It's the deta, like our body. That's what allows us to harm other people is a detachment from feeling.

Mm-hmm. Because a person who can feel heals themselves. They a world that can feel heals itself. But when we're cut off from feeling and we think that, that our thoughts aren't distorted, that's bananas. Like, then we're, then we can rationalize hurting other people. But our body, if we're really connected, our body is saying, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Michael Lee: Yeah. And I, and I took that to be in a sense of he was interested in proof. 

Angel Grant : Right. 

Michael Lee: And, and facts. And then Right. What we're talking about is a very different set of [00:30:00] operations. 

Angel Grant : Yes. 

Michael Lee: And it, it seems to me. 

Angel Grant : Yeah, 

Michael Lee: that we're talking about, you know, not the facts as I see them, but the stories that I tell myself about the facts of the world and the importance of acknowledging that within myself and then honoring that in other people, even as we try to figure out what's true and what's false.

Angel Grant : Yeah, I agree and, and it struck me so deeply because for me. Having, like I've gone to the depths of what a visceral feeling so much in myself that it's taken me into many times over the past 20 years. Mm-hmm. It's taken me into actually memories of something traumatic that I did that I was like, wow, that is still in here.

And, and seeing how it informs how I perceive other people and how I perceive what other people mean when and what they're saying. That I'm a huge advocate for. Yeah. Like [00:31:00] increasing your biological intelligence as Gabor calls it, 

Michael Lee: uhhuh. 

Angel Grant : And in the sense that Trey said it, I still stand by what I'm saying.

Michael Lee: Oh yeah. 

Angel Grant : Because our, everything that we think and believe our beliefs are so heavily conditioned and he's saying, I believe is okay. You know, and then this, but. But even our, like the way I perceive the facts are still going to be distorted. Yeah. 

Michael Lee: Angel Grant, thank you so much for being on when we disagree.

Angel Grant : Thank you. 

Michael Lee: When we Disagree is recorded at the College of Charles. With creator and host Michael Lee. Recording and sound engineering by Jesse k and Lance Laidlaw. Reach out to us at When We disagree@gmail.com.