Go Ask Ali

Content Warning: There is conversation about spousal homicide and attempted sexual assault. If you would like to avoid this content, please see exact timecodes below.

If you watch any news or doom scroll for 20 minutes, you expose yourself to all kinds of worst case scenarios. And those are dramatic and often terrifying. Gavin de Becker is a leading expert on the prediction and management of violence who says managing fear is surprisingly simple. He also, importantly, talks about intuition - the center of his work - which he calls our personal nuclear defense system and our body’s communication method for survival. They also talk about the influence of news media on our psyche and why governments love division in society.

If you have questions or guest suggestions, Ali would love to hear from you. Call or text her at (323) 364-6356. Or email go-ask-ali-podcast-at-gmail.com. (No dashes)

Trigger Warning Timecodes:

AFTER AD BREAK 1

Hearing of “serial rapist” in news = 20:58 - 21:29 

Spousal homicide / pre-incident indicators = 21:30 - 22:50

AFTER AD BREAK 2

Ali’s experience of attempted sexual assault = 32:41 - 34:11

If you need help -

RAINN & Sexual Violence Help Line: (800) 656-4673 (HOPE)

Resources: The Joyful Heart Foundation

Links of Interest:

Gavin de Becker & Associates

Book: The Gift of Fear

Master Class on Personal Safety

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What do you do when you encounter the unexpected? That make-or-break moment that leaves you crying in front of strangers or quitting your job to pursue your true passion. Now What? with Brooke Shields dives deep into the world of redos, resets, and forward fails: From career pivots and personal missteps to moving through grief (or just plain moving on). Join Brooke as she sits down with authors, experts, and celebrity guests to hear their ‘now what?’ moments and learn what they’ve done (or are still doing) to get through it. Listen to Now What? with Brooke Shields on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-now-what-with-brooke-shie-102101467/

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Who knows if it’s getting older or having experienced a global pandemic, but Ali and Melissa are all about getting rid of life’s flashy trappings and making the simple things like friends, family and a real sense of peace their primary focus. Along the way they also touch on her life as a child star playing Laura Ingalls on the classic show “Little House on the Prairie”, setting boundaries and the bliss of a good recliner. Melissa’s newest book and memoir “Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade a Life Rediscovered” details her journey from glitzy Hollywood life to her rediscovering so much more. And she sounds really happy.

If you have questions or guest suggestions, Ali would love to hear from you. Call or text her at (323) 364-6356. Or email go-ask-ali-podcast-at-gmail.com. (No dashes)

Links of Interest:

Modern Prairie Website

Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade, a Life Rediscovered

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s been about 15 years since Facebook went mainstream and the iPhone was released. In this short time social media and our pocket computers have become indispensable, even addicting. And now we have a new frontier on the horizon, the Metaverse. You’ve probably heard this trendy buzzword, but do you know what it is? Dr. Ibrahim “Abe” Baggili, a cybersecurity and forensics expert, shares his opinion, some content and security risks his team has found, what his biggest fear is, and more. Then our second guest, Jim Steyer, a civil rights attorney and the founder/CEO of Common Sense Media, offers a path forward. His global child advocacy and parental resource non-profit is devoted to child privacy, fighting for big tech regulations, and helping parents navigate the ever-evolving digital wild west.

If you have questions or guest suggestions, Ali would love to hear from you. Call or text her at (323) 364-6356. Or email go-ask-ali-podcast-at-gmail.com. (No dashes)

Links of Interest:

Dr. Abe Baggili: Twitter

Connecticut Institute of Technology 

Hacking the Metaverse, LSU Media Center (11/08/22)

Baggili Recent Research: Rise of the Metaverse’s Immersive Virtual Reality Malware and the Man-in-the-Room Attack & Defenses

Information Commissioner’s Office (UK)

Jim Steyer: Twitter

Common Sense Media

Book: Which Side of History: How Technology Is Reshaping Democracy and Our Lives (2020)

Book: Talking Back to Facebook (2012)

Child Mind Institute

Metaverse in the News:

Oculus Founder Claims To Make VR Headset That Will Actually Kill You If You Die In A Game (Forbes, 11/8/22)

An Exploration of 12 Metaverse Use Cases (Ericsson, 6/30/22) 

Murder In The Metaverse: Crime or Creativity? (Medium, 5/28/22)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ali and bestie Brooke Shields team up for a fun two-part episode. First, Ali joins Brooke on her new podcast “Now What? with Brooke Shields” and interviews Brooke on her own show about the pivotal moments in our lives and the choices we make. And here Brooke joins Ali for an all-revealing, no holds barred, cover your kid’s ears game of Bad Choices. And, boy, there are many...laughs, true confessions, fun stories, and deep insights shared.

If you have questions or guest suggestions, Ali would love to hear from you. Call or text her at (323) 364-6356. Or email go-ask-ali-podcast-at-gmail.com. (No dashes)

Links of Interest:

Brooke’s Podcast: Now What? with Brooke Shields

Ali’s episode: Ali Wentworth turns the tables on BFF Brooke

Brooke’s New Brand Beginning Is Now

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From our earliest days as little human beings we love secrets. There’s something that makes kids a little giddy about knowing something special. In fact, psychology researcher and author of The Secret Life of Secrets: How Our Inner Worlds Shape Well-Being, Relationships and Who We Are Michael Slepian says kids know intuitively that sharing a secret is a way to create intimacy. He tells Ali that if you ask a child what a secret is, they might say it’s something you share with your best friend. Oh, but we do grow up. When do secrets become dangerous? Slepian uses his unique research to explain what our most common secrets tend to be, why we keep them, why we sometimes need to share them, and how that can be good for our mental health.

If you have questions or guest suggestions, Ali would love to hear from you. Call or text her at (323) 364-6356. Or email go-ask-ali-podcast-at-gmail.com. (No dashes)

Links of Interest:

Book: The Secret Life of Secrets: How Our Inner Worlds Shape Well-Being, Relationships and Who We Are

Articles with Slepian’s Research:

“The Secrets You Keep Are Hurting You - Here’s How”, Psychology Today (01/22/19)

“Why We Keep So Many Secrets”, Psychology Today (07/05/22)

Listener Questions Notes: 

(Peri)Menopause-Supporting Beauty Brands

Womaness

Stripes

ONDA

No7 Beauty

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Chief Medical Officer Dr. Colleen McNicholas is instrumental in running two Planned Parenthood facilities - one in a banned abortion state, Missouri, and the other in a protected abortion state, Illinois. She joins Ali to provide the picture of what abortion care has come to after the U.S Supreme Court announced the Dobbs decision in June stating that abortion is no longer a protected constitutional right. They talk about the monumental demand abortion care facilities are seeing as millions of people around the country living in banned states, but needing this important healthcare, are scrambling when time is of the essence. They also talk about how her Illinois team is finding innovative ways to close the distance gap with its new mobile abortion clinic, what the next generation of doctors will be and the proper way to talk about women’s health and reproduction rights: say ABORTION. It is not a dirty word. [*recorded 10/14/22]

If you have questions or guest suggestions, Ali would love to hear from you. Call or text her at (323) 364-6356. Or email go-ask-ali-podcast-at-gmail.com. (No dashes)

Links of Interest:

National Network of Abortion Funds: https://abortionfunds.org/

Privacy for Self-Managed Abortions: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjkvjb/police-self-induced-abortion-arrests

Action for All (resource): https://choice.crd.co/

Planned Parenthood: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/

Just the Pill (Abortion Care Network): https://www.justthepill.com/

Hope Clinic for Women: https://hopeclinic.com/

Book: Lady Justice by Dahlia Lithwick https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/598207/lady-justice-by-dahlia-lithwick/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Legendary sitcom director James Burrows shares his decades of memories from behind the camera of some of the most iconic shows ever on TV from The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Cheers to Friends and Will & Grace. Originally from the theatre world, he recognized early on that sitcoms are plays with cameras and you can’t teach comedy or chemistry. Actress Debra Messing chimes in to share what makes him so brilliant, and they both dish on the buffet of guest stars that played with them on Will & Grace - including one Ali Wentworth who got down and dirty as Dr. Superstein, Grace’s gynecologist, in 2019.

If you have questions or guest suggestions, Ali would love to hear from you. Call or text her at (323) 364-6356. Or email go-ask-ali-podcast-at-gmail.com. (No dashes)

Links of Interest:

Book: Directed by James Burrows: Five Decades of Stories from the Legendary Director of Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Will & Grace and More

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Movie star and America's sweetheart Julia Roberts joins Ali for a little catch up before her new movie Ticket to Paradise is released. In this fly-on-the-wall conversation, the gals almost forget they’re being recorded. Sit back with a cappuccino and a cookie and listen to behind the scenes stories of the making of Ticket to Paradise, Julia’s newest movie with George Clooney. They also chat about her life with three teenagers and the empty nest coming; cooking for her kids versus her stardust husband, Danny Moder; the book she and Ali are (probably never) going to write; forgetting her own age; and why she’s mad at AARP.

If you have questions or guest suggestions, Ali would love to hear from you. Call or text her at (323) 364-6356. Or email go-ask-ali-podcast-at-gmail.com. (No dashes)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The promise and merits of psychedelic therapy have resurfaced from its original heyday in the 60s and 70s in no small part due to journalist and psychonaut Michael Pollan. Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind and recent Netflix documentary of the same name explores the exciting new research into the use of LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA to help people with things like PTSD, OCD, anxiety, depression, rumination and more. Ali gets all the info straight from the source and also explores an emerging fad called microdosing. Microdosing is taking such a small amount of a substance that there is no psychoactive effect and yet many people, including a mom Ali also talks to, report feeling calmer and more joyous. So Ali wonders, could microdosing help people be better parents?

If you have questions or guest suggestions, Ali would love to hear from you. Call or text her at (323) 364-6356. Or email go-ask-ali-podcast-at-gmail.com. (No dashes)

Links of Interest:

Michael Pollan Website: 

https://michaelpollan.com

James Fadiman’s Microdosing Website: https://microdosinginstitute.com/microdosing-101/james-fadiman/

Mycology Psychology:

https://www.mycologypsychology.com/

MDMA addiction:

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/ecstasy-abuse

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.