Finding Compassion Behind the Wheel: Life Lessons with Connie Warden

“Connie Warden: I think the biggest thing I learned, because I knew I wasn't going to publish a book until I learned how to deal with anger without bypassing it, right? Without stuffing it and bypassing it, only to have it come out somewhere else.”

[OVERVIEW]

Alex Cullimore: Hello, Cristina.

Cristina Amigoni: Hello. I don't know what day it is. Oh, it's Wednesday. Check that out.

Alex Cullimore: We're recording on our release date. I mean, not the day that we are releasing this episode, but on the day of the week.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. That rarely happens.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Usually, a Friday or a day of the week. We got two whole days to get through. I don't know how we're going to do it.

Cristina Amigoni: I don't know either. Yes. I did have a hard time trying to figure out what to say at the end of our conversation to Connie, because I was like, should I say, have a good rest of the week? Is it the rest of the week? Are we done, and should it be, have a good weekend?

Alex Cullimore: Either way, people probably aren't listening to this immediately when it releases anyways. Who's to say? I hope wherever you are in your week, it finds you well.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Alex Cullimore: Which is actually a good intro right into our topic today. We got to talk to Connie, our guest, who is talking a lot about compassion and her book, Speeding to Compassion, which is a great novel on the idea of how to be compassionate, while doing things like driving in the car. A place where we tend to be so less compassionate than perhaps we'd like to be.

Cristina Amigoni: A place where we tend to leave compassion at the door and not bring it into the car.

Alex Cullimore: There's no room for that.

Cristina Amigoni: There's no room for that. It’s like, we are the drivers, and nobody else can take over.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. What we do in our private little bubble, and essentially, angry we get.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes. Great stories of what inspired her to write the book and just how much you get out of what she's talking about in the book and how it's really not about what's happening on the road. But it's a big lesson on putting the mirror up and looking at what's happening inside of us, because it never is about what's happening on the road.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Yeah, it's funny that we have so many mirrors next to us in the car and yet, still.

Cristina Amigoni: That's true.

Alex Cullimore: This is the main here. I suppose those mirrors are all looking at other things.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes. If we look at ourselves in those mirrors too much, we'll get in an accident. So, it's probably not recommended.

Alex Cullimore: Don't look internally all the time. Just reflect on your journey.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. When you're stopped and parked.

Alex Cullimore: Please enjoy this conversation with Connie Warden.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Enjoy.

[INTRODUCTION]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human, where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives.

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that’s with our families, co-workers, or even ourselves.

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni.

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore.

HOSTS: Let's dive in.

Authenticity means freedom.

Authenticity means going with your gut.

Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself. Not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.

Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.

It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.

Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.

It's transparency, relatability, no frills, no makeup, just being.

[EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. Today, Cristina and I are joined by our guest, Connie Warden. Welcome to the podcast, Connie.

Connie Warden: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, we're very excited to have you on. If you would mind giving us a little background, what's your story, so everybody listening knows? What brought you here?

Connie Warden: What brought me here? I have been an acupuncturist and a yoga nut, teach lots of yoga, meditation. How I ended up here with you was because of a book I wrote, because I was a real jerk on the road. I was so astonished at my behavior, especially with what I do. I thought, wow, I need to change something about this. Why can't I use my mindfulness, my kindfulness, my mindful, kindful yoga practices? Then I realized, this was pretty much a universal experience. I sat out for about three years using my practices to be a more mindful, kindful driver. I decided to write a book on it.

Alex Cullimore: I love the idea and I love the inspiration too, because it's very relatable.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, it is. It definitely is.

Connie Warden: As I was writing it and having editors look at it, they would all say, “Oh, you know what you said about red lights? That really helped me the other day. I was going to my baseball game, and there was all these red lights.” I was like, “Oh, you're using the stuff I'm writing about?” It really helped me actually finish the book, because people were getting some good results from – it was just little jewels that each person picks out. Yeah.

Alex Cullimore: That's awesome. Tell us a little bit about the book. What's the title? What's it about?

Connie Warden: The title, I always thought it was going to be How to be a more Mindful, Kindful Driver. But I did have a book coach. She says, “Well, let's just brainstorm.” We ended up with it being called Speeding to Compassion, and the tagline is Life Lessons and Humor to the High Road. That comes. Lots of humor in it.

Cristina Amigoni: Great title.

Alex Cullimore: Speeding to Compassion. It is when I'm speeding that I'm mostly yelling at the other drivers, so that’s a good time.

Cristina Amigoni: So our compassion doesn't get left behind as you speed.

Connie Warden: Yes. Yeah. An interesting thing just happened. My daughter and I were coming back from the store, and we're at a T-intersection. We were going to take a right. There was a car in front of us, who, apparently, couldn't take a right, because there was a mom and a son biking across the street. They were going rather slow, because they were like, seven-years-old. Well, he apparently said something because he wanted them to hurry up. She called them a jerk, probably something more than that, but he didn't like it. He took a right and then screamed and did a 360 and went back.

My daughter's at the wheel and she says, “That woman's not safe.” She did a 360, and we followed this guy who got out in his car on the opposite side of the road to attack this woman. She must have told her son to go ahead. He went up ahead and hid behind a tree, and this guy got out as fast as he could and ran to this woman. She thought she was going to get hit. She gets off her bike, and he picks her bike out like he's going to throw it.

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, my God.

Connie Warden: I know. We said, “Hey, we're recording you,” which we were. Then he finally left and told us to mind our own business, which our business really is to keep women safe. My daughter called the sheriff. We got the lady's name, and they ended up calling her. She decided she was not going to press charges. But the sheriff went to his house, and they said, “You know, you're pretty lucky you're not getting charges.” He felt really bad. Hopefully, scared him enough not to be such a jerk.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. No kidding.

Connie Warden: I know. Then I thought about it and I'm thinking to my daughter, “Gosh, you should have offered this book to the sheriff department.”

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. As well as every driver out there.

Alex Cullimore: I got to give that to all the traffic court judges. They can just hand that out as part of the process.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. As part of the rehab.

Connie Warden: Yeah. I'm going to put that down as my marketing strategy.

Alex Cullimore: I really like the idea and the entire inspiration for the book, because not only is it very relatable to sometimes be a lot shorter than we would be in normal life when behind the wheel, but I had a friend of mine who would always say, “Everybody's trying to do the best they can most of the time, except when they're behind the wheel.” He would always give whole caveat of like, “We're all doing our best. But in this one crazy, anonymous instance, we're all a little bit suddenly feral.”

Connie Warden: Yeah. I like that. Suddenly feral. If you can learn techniques, why you're driving to, because the only person you hurt doing this stuff in that car is yourself. That’s the whole point of my book is, you're just giving yourself toxins. Then, I liken it to yelling at the TV, at the referees, you're not going to change anything.

Cristina Amigoni: It's very true.

Alex Cullimore: It's always interesting in the process of writing a book, how much we end up learning about the topic that we are writing. What were some of your discoveries as you went through the process of making the book?

Connie Warden: Well, one is why, why people feel they can do that in a car, because they feel anonymous and they're like, got this tin around them, this metal, like it's supposed to prevent them from having consequences. That was interesting. I think the biggest thing I learned, because I knew I wasn't going to publish a book until I learned how to deal with anger without bypassing it, right? Without stuffing it and bypassing it, only to have it come out somewhere else. That's the thing that I really needed to learn how to do, because I could be really good at going, “Okay. I'm okay. I'm all right. I don't care that these people are being jerks.” Okay, I'm going to be late to pick up my daughter at the airport, and there's a whole story, and she was coming in from Dubai, and I knew she would be tired. Then once I got home, I blew up, because the whole time, I'm pretending to myself that everything's okay, when it was frustrating. I talk about that in the book, about ways that I did in order not to just have that anger come out later.

Cristina Amigoni: Well, it's so true, because when you were talking about the horrific story on the poor woman on the bike with her son, all I could think about was like, what is that driver that ended up chasing her and attacking her, what was he dealing with? What was he had been repressing that had nothing to do with a woman and her son crossing the street on a bike?

Connie Warden: Yeah. It wasn't like, he was nice to her and she was a jerk to him. He was a jerk. Yeah. Again, something else that was underneath that. That was the tip of the iceberg and he exploded.

Alex Cullimore: That’s a good point. It's not just about like, “Hey, we'll just stuff this down. I'll just remind myself not to be angry in the car, or something.” What are the stories we're saying to ourselves? Why do we have so much that we are suddenly releasing and hopefully, not in nearly as scary a way as that? What are we doing? How do we just process that, instead of suppressing it, instead of just bottling it away, or ignoring it?

Connie Warden: Right. One of the things I talk about is coming up with a song. Just make up a stupid song about the stupid driver. In fact, my husband gave his hairdresser this book. Again, everyone will come back with saying, “Oh, I thought about you when I was driving and this situation happened.” She was getting really upset and she decided to turn an Eagles song up and just sing it at the top of her voice, and to not go down that lane of frustration.

Cristina Amigoni: It's good. Yes. I do have to say, I also think of you every time I have those moments, where I am trying to turn left, or something, and there's some driver taking their sweet time turning right, or going straight. My instinct is to say what I usually say. It's like, it's a right turn. It's not brain surgery. Then as soon as those thoughts come out, I'm like, “Okay. Think of Connie.”

Connie Warden: Yeah. Hopefully, it's about; this isn't hurting them. I mean, I like to say, “What shade of green are you looking for?” In the book, I talk about the stories we make up, because we do this in real life. In anything that we don't know, we come up with a story, and whether it's true or not. I talk about in the book about making up a story that like, okay, they're turning slow, because they have plants. When you go and get a plant, you snuggle it in, but you know if you go too fast around a corner, it's going to fall anyway, so you got to go slow. That's a better story, I can make up in my head. Making up different stories and then finally, just not making up any story.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Just not even noticing.

Connie Warden: Or just going, “Wow. Okay.”

Cristina Amigoni: Okay. Yeah.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. It reminds me of this psychological phenomenon called the fundamental attribution error, where we assume when somebody cuts us off in traffic, it's because they are actually a bad person. To their core, they're not a good person. They've made bad decisions. Then, when we accidentally cut somebody off like, “I'm so sorry. I was in a hurry. I have this. Here's all the things that happened to me.” Like, “I wouldn't usually do this. This isn't me, whatever it is.” We have all the ready-made understanding of why we are not actually just a bad person. But the person who cuts us off, they actually are. We make this immediate attribution error that this is some fundamental piece of them that can't be changed. Whereas, for ourselves, we understand there's more compassion and there's more space, because we know we have plants, we know we have something, some reason that we did this and we wouldn't have normally, or we happen to be really distracted today. That was a bad move on our part. But we wouldn't usually do that and whatever excuse we have or a reason we have.

If we can start to flip the script a little bit and start to think, “Hey, maybe that person's just having a bad day. Maybe that person's just having an off moment. Maybe it was just a mistake.” It doesn't mean that it's all horrible and they are a terrible person who's wronged us.

Connie Warden: Yeah. I think we all have some old beliefs. My mom really taught us not to be selfish. That was also that culture that time. Women shouldn't be wanting things, and not being selfish was a really big deal. When I see somebody like, “Well, they must be a selfish human being, because they're wanting everybody else to move for them, or whatever.” That, for me, I go right to that. This is what I learned. I think everybody has something, where they can bring up something that, that's not a good human being there.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Or there's the stereotypical grouping of like, oh, that must be “a woman.” So and so driver at this group, that group, whatever. Usually, when I hear that and I'm on the passenger, I actually make it a point to point out, I was like, “Well, I actually, it was a white man.” Just, let's clear the air that it's not by group. It's not a gender thing. It's not an ethnic thing. It's not any of that. It's a personal choice.

Connie Warden: Yeah. It's interesting that they would come up with that. As we're talking about it, because I keep thinking about how much of our humanity we don't like about ourselves. I talk a lot about that. Because after I did this incident and I didn't want to beat myself up too much, because I've spent lots of years in therapy. We have this inner critic and how to not succumb to that was a big trick. It still is. It still can be. I think you were referring to that, Alex, about how we – it's the self-compassion that I wanted to bring out that yes, we can also be that jerk. Mostly, when I see somebody do something, I could probably go, “Yeah, I think I've done that.”

Cristina Amigoni: It's very true. I just read a, I think it was just a quick post on Instagram, about renaming the inner critic to calling it the inner jerk, or worse. It could be also calling it something else, like naming it so that it becomes like, oh, okay. That's actually not all of me. Let's figure out what's happening there.

Connie Warden: Yeah. To have some grace for ourselves.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Connie Warden: Then we can give that grace to other people.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I think that's the huge trick that is hard to learn and hard to accept is really, when we get mad at other people, it's some reflection of something we're judging in ourselves, some inadequacy we feel, or something that we have. Both your idea, Cristina, people lumping them either this, your gender, or something. And Connie, you talking about, I immediately thought this like was a selfish person. Maybe we just have an automatic buckets, where we're like, we can blame X.

We can blame some feature of this person, and when we allow for that, and it's something that we just create us some shortcuts, some dumping ground and it inevitably is just a shortcutting any understanding, or just disembodying that portion of us we are not being compassionate to, or something that we do find frustrating, that inevitably, we are also guilty of. But we've done such an unconscious job of trying to mask as somebody else, some other attribute of them, something that we aren't a part of, even though it's always some reflection of something in ourselves, and we see this all the time in leadership as well. We see people who are like, “Oh, my teams aren't doing this, my teams aren't doing that.” When you follow the leader long enough, you're like, “You’re not doing that. You don't do those things that you say.” They are reflecting very accurately –

Cristina Amigoni: The same thing frustrates you.

Alex Cullimore: - your behaviors. If we can start to see the frustrations in life as a mirror, it's hard. It can ignite that inner critic that we're trying to ignore by putting it on somebody else. But it is almost always, I find the case, that there is some part of us that we are blaming, or avoiding.

Connie Warden: That's really a tough thing for people to go, “Oh, yeah. I did that. I am doing this.” Because nobody likes that feeling. But we have to be okay with that, right? We have to be okay. Every time I tell that story about how this book began, I wince a little bit. I mean, it's not my favorite thing. I mean, I'm uncomfortable that I have to explain why I was such a jerk, or explain that I did. I think if that's the biggest thing people can come away with is that it's okay to go, “I was wrong.” I guess, not really –

Cristina Amigoni: And, I can do better.

Connie Warden: And, yes.

Cristina Amigoni: It's what I did. It's not who I am. Unless, we keep repeating it and we're unconsciously repeating it and we don't really take the time to self-reflect and do the work and figure out, okay, is it habitual enough that it's how I show up all the time? Or is it something that like, “Oh, I made a mistake. Next time, I'm going to do better. I'm going to stumble, but I'm going to keep trying.”

Connie Warden: Yes. Yes. I think until we die, we're going to probably come up against some of those things.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Connie Warden: It just gets more subtle. It just gets more subtle. Which is, I think, how you came up with your podcast about the uncommon, or the uncommon human, the person who's willing to work at it.

Cristina Amigoni: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Alex Cullimore: It's hard to immediately embrace that. It's hard to immediately be like, “Oh, I was wrong.” Like you're saying, nobody wants to immediately think, “Oh, I was wrong about this.” To your point, Cristina, there's some freedom in that. Once we can admit that and once we can admit, “Hey, I can do better,” or “Hey, here’s something I would like to change.” It's no longer a game of trying to avoid the blame. It's a game of figuring out who we really want to be and how we want to improve. There's so much more opportunity in that, but we do have to first dive into our own vulnerability of admitting we were not the perfect person we'd love to have been, that this isn't what we wanted to do, and that we did make a mistake. I think it's really especially brave that you have that story that you wince at every time, Connie, when you're to start the book, because that's the vulnerability that allows people to feel seen and allows them to let go of their own blame in this.

We are all guilty of some amount of yelling in the car or some amount of frustration. We all have some wince when we look back at those things. But it gives the permission to be like, yeah, we have this, and here's what we can do. We can do better. It becomes an opportunity. Not just an opportunity for blame, but an opportunity for growth.

Connie Warden: Yes. That is life being a teacher, right? That's why until we stop breathing, we are going to have things that will teach us. I like to call it turning the poison into medicine. There's always going to be something there. If you've both taken vacations with family, I'm sure there was some medicine there. I mean, there wasn’t –

Cristina Amigoni: I was pretty proud about the fact that I had only one major meltdown.

Connie Warden: Yay. Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: I expected more.

Connie Warden: Because you're also trying to teach your children, right? That they have to admit to their mistakes, and that takes time, patience. I didn't grow up with parents saying, “Oh, it's okay. You made a mistake. What do you want to do? How do you want to change it next time?” It was just, you're guilty.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Shame and guilt. Shame and guilt piling up.

Alex Cullimore: Here's your punishment.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. You know how you measure how tall you get, and then they're on the wall permanently until you move out of that house? Yeah. It's the shame and guilt, but they're not on the wall; they're in our souls. They're constantly there. It's like, yup, another tick. Yup, another tick.

Connie Warden: Yes. Yeah. I actually say, it was probably a good time lived, because we’re really seeing through all that. I think our parents will look back and say, “I didn't do the best job here. Wish I would have done this more,” even as much as we try. There's another place that we could beat ourselves up. Again, it's being human.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes.

Alex Cullimore: As frustrating as that is sometimes.

Connie Warden: Right. Right.

Alex Cullimore: As much as it would be nice to be perfect.

Connie Warden: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that whole idea of perfection is interesting.

Cristina Amigoni: Well, especially as parents, I find myself actually consciously making it an effort to apologize as much as I can and to my kids. It's like, you're going to hear my apologies daily, because daily I'm going to do something that then once it's done, I'm like, “Nope. That did not turn out the way I actually intended.”

Connie Warden: Yeah. Because they can hear you say it. That becomes part of their lives. What a beautiful thing.

Cristina Amigoni: How do you find the compassion that you have found by using the driving experience? How do we take that into, well, non-driving times of our lives?

Connie Warden: Yeah. There are so many ways I have used that. I have a sister who was going through a divorce, and it's not good. It's been pretty mean and mean-spirited. I still can look at her ex-husband and go, he's still a human being. They both done stuff that I think in a year, they will maybe look back at and go – Just even that, because he could be a really easy person to hate, because some of the damage I feel is being done to his kids.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good example.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. In a sense, the same idea of all the stories that we tell. We can give a different type of grace. It's just harder and harder than some situations, where they're particularly personal to us. I think that's why I really like the idea of practicing this in the car, since it is such a place of anonymity, where we just let whatever fly. It's a good place to practice. Okay, so if you can get this privately, it can be maybe a little bit easier to do this in other arenas of life. It can be a little easier to have better stories, or no stories eventually. Just have better assumptions.

Connie Warden: Or even if you one time notice, “Oh, I didn't have a story about that.” Oh, good for me. I am going to somewhere. Then next day, you're tired, you didn't have your coffee, and somebody's walking slow across the crosswalk. It's not as easy to not make up a story. I still have to give myself grace. Again, it's usually because there's some stress. Then once we know we're in a place of stress and that I'm not going to talk right now to anybody. This is not a good spot. I mean, eight hours of sleep, or whatever.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. That's so true, because it's never about the pedestrian that's crossing slowly, or the driver that's taking their time to turn, or that cut us off. It's always about something else.

Connie Warden: Always, right?

Cristina Amigoni: Always.

Connie Warden: It's always about something within.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It's always about something within.

Connie Warden: Yeah. Sometimes it's not the perfect time to go with it.

Cristina Amigoni: No. Probably not while you're driving is probably not the perfect time to try and explore that, but maybe have that question of like, what is this really about, and when do I want to explore it?

Connie Warden: Yes. There's so many things. This is going to be a little different from driving, but I was taking a walk and there was a family that came out, and they were in one of those double golf carts going around the little community. I'm like, wow, how do people afford that? Those things are expensive. Then I realized that was my mindset about where I feel my money mindset is. It wasn’t had anything to do about them, or anything. It just like, so woke me up about my money mindset. I had to think about it. I still think about this, about what is it? The old thing against for my mom, don't be selfish, you want – if you're driving to get more money, then that's greed. I'm like, “Whoa, okay.” Again, so it is all about what's coming up for us.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Alex Cullimore: I think that's why there's always lifelong learning you talk about, that until we die, we're still finding these things. We're still learning these things. Our mind is there to create filters around the world, to create the patterns, to create the assumptions that we don't go check, so that it doesn't have to go rework our entire understanding of the world every five seconds.

If we don't pay attention to those, if we don't get better at listening to those, we end up just defaulting to all of those behaviors. We can discover all the time some new filter that we didn't know. This is how I think about money. I didn't realize that was so ingrained. That's how I assumed everybody can, or should even think about money. We can stop to remember, oh, that's not everybody's experience. They’re going to have a totally different thing. Maybe a golf cart was a really important thing to them, or they changed, whatever it is. It could be an entirely different feeling. Until we can start to notice those. It just feels like the capital T, truth, until we look at it ourselves and we're like, oh, this is just our filter of seeing the world. It's not easy to know that. It's like wearing sunglasses you don't know where there.

Connie Warden: Yeah. That's why we have to add a little humor in our lives, that we can laugh at ourselves. There is a book, and it's really hard to read, because – it's called, and I'm looking at it right now. Mistakes Were Made, But Not by Me. It's how the mind can sometimes just not see beyond your belief that it's the big truth. In this time, in 2025, this is weird political scene. That's why I am choosing to be uncomfortably visible. Get my book out there, because I think it's helpful for that.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. There's a lot of very strong lower letter T, truth out there.

Connie Warden: Right?

Cristina Amigoni: Tiny lower letter T.

Alex Cullimore: Alternate truths, if you will.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. It is very hard. One of the things that it is greatly missing is compassion. It's a curiosity to see the other people as like, these are other humans and they're doing the best they can. Whatever is happening on the outside, it's coming from the inside.

Connie Warden: Yeah. Yeah. If you ever see the mom, or dad in a store and you don't feel like they're treating their kid good. Because and I've been there where, but you don't steal, or I told you we’re going to do this. We're leaving right now. I don't care if you're crying. I could look really bad. It's not judging another parent, or having a child safe, but –

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Very hard.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. We were actually recently just flying back from Europe, and there was a child who ended up crying most of the 10 hours. After a while, first you're like, “Okay. Yeah, I'm not going to be the person who's angry at somebody who has it.” We all have moments where our kids going to go have a meltdown on a plane. Then after hour or two, you start to be like, “I don't think I feel good about this.” Or five or six, you're like, “Can you just stop them somehow? You’re failing at this” It is hard to remove the story, when there's enough trigger, impetus.

Connie Warden: Well, that is strange, too. Something was definitely wrong.

Cristina Amigoni: It could be ear pressure. So many things.

Alex Cullimore: That's exactly what I thought. I was like, they probably have a sinus thing.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly.

Alex Cullimore: But then we got all the way off the ground and they were still throwing a tantrum all the way through baggage claim. I think, later, we found out it was twins. Maybe they were just going back and forth. It just sounded like it was one continual one. Anyway, it was an experience. I think everybody on the plane, even all the parents were like, “Okay, this is a lot. This is enough.”

Cristina Amigoni: I have learned that I have a lot more compassion for that after being the mom with the crying baby on the plane. I actually feel really bad for the parents in those moments, because I've been there. I mean, I've been on a international flight, where my five-month-old at the moment, it was daytime flight, not nighttime flight, so he didn't sleep at all. I still remember the scene. It was me with a front pouch carrier, and this other woman across the alley doing the same thing, just rocking and playing, rocking and playing. We did that for seven hours. As long as we didn't have to sit down with our seat belts on, we were out there because of the fussiness and the fussiness never went away. It was like, this is what it is. I'm doing the best I can, and it's daytime, and he's uncomfortable and that's it.

Connie Warden: Yeah. Yeah. Because on those flights, don't they make it dark, so people can sleep, even if it’s –

Cristina Amigoni: They make it dark. Yes. They make it dark. But if it's daytime – It works at nighttime, but daytime, it was like, so we're going to stand up and rock and play and do all these things.

Connie Warden: Oh, Cristina. That just sounds horrible.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Whenever I hear a child fussing and crying on planes, I’ll put my noise canceling headphones on.

Connie Warden: Yeah. That's what you need. How do you take care of yourself on this flight?

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly.

Alex Cullimore: There is a timing issue, though. Over enough time, I definitely have the same like, well, be compassionate. Everybody's had a hard time. Whenever I'll put it in my headphones, and it wasn't that bothersome to me. Just after 10 hours, you're like, wow, there's got to be something wrong here. Then, it was the same thing, actually, walking through Europe for so long, we kept having this experience of people would just – I swear, they lost their peripheral vision. They'd just walk almost straight into us. Where like, I've been walking on a straight line on the sidewalk the whole time and they just drift in you.

The first couple of times, you're like, fine. I'm also looking at all the buildings, I'm taking pictures, whatever. I probably blocked a couple of people. Then after a couple of weeks of this, you're like, “Am I invisible? Is this real?” There are times where you try and put as many mental faculties up as possible. After enough experiences, you're worn down and suddenly, you're back and yelling in the car.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Connie Warden: Wow. I wonder if that's a cultural thing.

Alex Cullimore: It started to feel that way.

Connie Warden: Yeah. That's what we do, we bump, and nobody cares. But then you're used to it, and we already forgot that we do that. Because in China, nobody queues out.

Cristina Amigoni: Italy's the same way.

Connie Warden: If you don't push yourself, which is not what we do, you'll never get to the front.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, we definitely had some cultural moments of that, where we were trying to take a picture, and then suddenly, somebody's back of their head filters into your view, because they're taking the picture right in front of you. You’re like, “What? What happened here?” There is that, the feeling of like, well, I push to the front. There was an available spot at the front, so I could push to the front. That's just, they don't think they're being rude. They think that's just how you do it. Whereas, I come from, oh, that would be very rude.

We end up having these conflicts, which they don't even know are conflicts. Again, a huge story in my head and huge filter from my experience of this is not normal. That's not okay to do. But to them, that is normal. That is what you do. 

Connie Warden: Yeah. Those cultural differences. Really interesting. The whole being rude. Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Italy is very much like China. You push your way through the front. Whenever I am back in Italy, I get in that mode, because I know. If I can go alone, I'll go alone. If not, I tell my family, I'm like, “Okay, everybody stay behind me. Touch my back, because we're going.” It's literally like, elbows up, go.

Connie Warden: They smile doing it, right? They kind of like, doing this thing with their elbows, laughing, smiling, talking to friends. I'm like, “Why?” Yeah. When I learned how to do that, I thought, wow, this is pretty interesting. Oh, but it's a nice date.

Cristina Amigoni: It is pretty interesting. But it is cultural differences, like nobody. It's not rude. It's the only way you're actually going to get anywhere.

Connie Warden: Yeah. A lot of those countries, too. I don't know why they have lines on the road, because no one would pay attention to that.

Cristina Amigoni: That, too.

Connie Warden: Somehow, they do it, without too many accidents. But, yeah.

Alex Cullimore: That's one of the best and weirdest parts about driving in Europe. I enjoy the fact that there's basically no rules. If your car can fit there, you can go there. It's fine.

Cristina Amigoni: Except for the highway. The highways are where the rules are very strict.

Connie Warden: Because they go fast.

Alex Cullimore: Even then though, it's just like, social rules.

Cristina Amigoni: Because they move fast and because it is very so the slow and fast lanes and anything in between, it is very strict. As in like, if you're the slowest car, you're on the right, and then the speed has to go up all the way to the left. There's no just going whatever speed you want in each lane. That's when you can find some serious anger from other drivers, because that disrupts traffic, it disrupts safety, it disrupts everything. If you actually observe the highways, it's very clean driving through things.

Connie Warden: That's good to know.

Alex Cullimore: The second you get to pedestrians, just everywhere. It's fine.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. No, there's no pedestrians on the highway, so you’re good. Yeah, city driving is another place.

Alex Cullimore: It's nice, because otherwise, you spend all your time in America being like, “What are the rules and what will I get pulled over for? What did that sign say? Why does it have 50 words on it that I've never seen before? Am I supposed to read that while I'm driving past this?” Then in Europe you're like, you could fit, you're fine.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, exactly. Lots of possibilities for compassion.

Connie Warden: Write every day for other people and ourselves.

Alex Cullimore: It's always for ourselves. If we can give it to ourselves, we can give it to other people. If we can give it to other people, we can give it to ourselves. It's all good training. It's all a way to live a little bit calmer.

Connie Warden: Yeah. Yeah. I think, like I said, one of my things is I do love not being visible. Maybe because I came from a family of seven other siblings. I grew up and it was just safer to be hidden. I'm doing some marketing for this book. It said, you got to be visible. I'm going through that uncomfortable thing of, okay, I'd love to get this out there, because I think it has a good message.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yeah.

Alex Cullimore: Definitely agree. It's a good message. Thank you for joining here to give some of that, so that we can share some of this. I think it's a good message. It's a very vulnerable thing to do, both just to have the stories that you have in the book, as well as come out and promote it and talk about it, because it is important and it is hard to be seen.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. On that note, since you are trying to be visible, where can people find you and the book?

Connie Warden: Sure. My website is actually my name, conniewarden.com. The book can be found on Amazon. I would love if anybody got some good results, that they would leave a review, because it's always helpful.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes. Excellent.

Alex Cullimore: Absolutely.

Connie Warden: Thank you so much for having me.

Cristina Amigoni: You're welcome. We do have one last question, which is what is your definition of authenticity, especially in those moments when you're driving and you're angry?

Connie Warden: I was actually just recently asked this question, and a lot of people answered. I wanted to bring into the, authenticity is being okay with the negative aspects of your humanity, along with the things that are very, very beautiful about being human. We all have such a basic goodness. We all have inner wisdom and we all have the desire that there may be jealousy or hatred. Those are all there. If you can have compassion around that and know that you're all those things, I think that can be very authentic.

Cristina Amigoni: That's beautiful.

Alex Cullimore: I really like that definition. Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Beautiful. Well, thank you, Connie.

Connie Warden: Thank you so much, Cristina and Alex.

Alex Cullimore: Everybody, go check out Speeding to Compassion.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Think of Connie the next time you get angry in the car.

Connie Warden: How do you really want to handle that?

Alex Cullimore: In a good way. In a good way. Don’t be angry at Connie.

Cristina Amigoni: How do you really want that? Exactly. What's the story of what's happening there? Thank you so much.

Connie Warden: All right.

Alex Cullimore: Thank you.

Connie Warden: Bye-bye. 

[END OF EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Thanks so much for listening to Uncover the Human. We Are Siamo, that is the company that sponsors and created this podcast. If you’d like to reach out to us further, reach out with any questions or beyond the podcast, please reach out to podcast@wearesiamo.com. Or you can find us on Instagram.  Our handle is @wearesiamo, S-I-A-M-O. Or you can go to wearesiamo.com and check us out there. I suppose, Cristina, you and I have LinkedIn as well. People could find us anywhere else.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, we do have LinkedIn. Yes. Yeah. We’d like to thank Abby Robinson for producing our podcast and making sure that they actually reach all of you. And Rachel Sherwood for the wonderful score.

Alex Cullimore: Thank you guys so much for listening. Tune in next time.

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you. 

[END]