Is This Love? with Charley Sky Gardner | 027

Obviously, I'm aware that I'm pretty young, and one of my personal

goals for myself is to look back at the book in ten years

and wanna rewrite it because I've learned so many more things.

But I think that I'm able to kind of feel

the confusion and the drama and the chaos that we're all feeling at my

age and put a foot out and look back

in. So I think I think that's why the book is so

special, you know, because it can be really hard for us to talk to our

parents or counselors who feel a little disconnected from our

lives. So I feel like

because I'm the same age as my peers, it makes it a lot easier

to engage in this comfortable conversation about

a lot of confusing feelings in our life.

Welcome back to another episode of Resilient AF with Blair

and Alana. But there's no Alana today, so let's tag in Charley

Skye. She is probably one of the most impressive teenagers I

have ever met. She's an author, and I'm so honored to

have her here today. So as a teen author, Charley Sky focuses on guiding

young people through the complexities of relationships and love, offering a fresh

perspective rooted in lived experience. She's dedicated to

empowering others to understand themselves, which is such an important

relationship. Raised in LA, Charley Skye, also known

as Skye, is now a junior at a New England boarding school, a

highly impactful activist for organizations for homeless youth, so like

Ignite Food Project in Bali or w YAC.

And she's fluent in Mandarin Chinese. She is super

passionate about strengthening human connection and fostering conscious and

expansive connections through her writing, visual arts, poetry, and way of

living. So impressive. Skye, how's it going?

Hi, Blair. It's great. I'm super nervous, but really

excited to be here and talk a little bit more about what I've been working

on. So thank you for asking me. And you know what? Honestly, like, it's

okay to it's okay to be real human. Right? And I think

your book touches on that because your book is this love

is coming out. By the time this podcast airs, it might even be out. Like,

you you wrote and published a book, and you're not even out of high

school yet. That's so impressive. Thank you. Yeah.

It definitely took a lot of work, a lot of weekends, not doing what everyone

else was doing, but I really feel like it's worth it.

And that I hope that the things that I've written are helpful to a

lot of people. Look. I know your book is targeted towards teenagers, and we're gonna

dive into it, but I really think it's applicable to anyone.

And that's the hope. I think I mean, they're all my reflections from my

lived experiences and from things I've heard from other people.

And the feeling of love does not change at any

age. We're all experiencing it. And so I definitely think my book can

be helpful to anyone. I love it. So why don't we just start

at the beginning, is this love? What inspired

you to write a book? A lot of my life has

been focused on relationships. I grew up in a multi faith

church, so empathy and looking for

other people's perspectives was really important to us all getting

along, honestly. I grew up with divorcing parents, so I

was very aware of the fact that relationships were pretty

complicated. When I started having my own,

I realized how a lot of the experiences of my younger

life were coming out in that relationship, and I became very

aware of how our own childhood experiences

come up in all parts of our life. So then

I started talking to my friends about the what they were going through,

and I kinda realized we were all confused about most of the same

things and all struggling with the same things and all

excited about the same things. And because of

what I had gone through, I had some insight on that, which ended up being

pretty helpful for the people around me. So I thought that I might as

well start writing it down. I love that.

So it's almost like you became this, like, relationship guru to your peers just

from your, like, wisdom. And I've been I've been I had the, pleasure

of getting to know you, and, like, you are so wise beyond your

years. So I think it's what a gift to your friends to

have these insights and for you to share them and then them

them being impacted by your guidance. Yeah. I

appreciate that. I I honestly wouldn't have gotten the book

done without my friends. There's been so much

motivation from everyone in my life, and getting to

hear everyone's perspectives and really have

this constant reminder that I'm not alone in the

process of writing this book, but also just in relationships

has been so helpful. I'm really grateful for the community that I have.

Yeah. That's that's really special. Okay. So you write these insights

down after you're sharing them with your friends. How did it

go from, like, writing them down and documenting them to you being

like, I'm gonna publish a book? That is

a great question, and I honestly don't always know

how I got here either.

I had written down sort of a, I guess,

you could call it, like, a thesis on relationships, and I shared it

with a licensed relationship therapist that I knew.

And she thought that I took it off of Google, which I thought

was really funny. But I I told her it was my own

writing, and she kind of showed me

how she helped other people. And based off of what she

knew, it helped me structure my thoughts in a

more coherent way. So because of her guidance, I was

able to write it down in a way that was more helpful for people

in all sorts of scenarios rather than just one of my girlfriends

coming to me and telling her about her boy problems.

But, I mean, the the book, it's supposed to feel

like a friend. You know? Obviously, no book we read,

we remember everything, but it's someone

or something that you can go back to when things get a little bit

too confusing in your life. So that's my long winded answer.

No. That's the perfect answer, and I think that's, like, really insightful. I love that

you said, like, the book is meant to be, like, a friend. Right? You know,

like, how I hear parents say, like, there's no textbook on parenting.

Like, there's no textbook on love, but it sounds like you've gathered

this wisdom and shared it. And, yes, I think there's not

no one right or wrong way to do things in a relationship,

but you're sharing this advice and it's helping people. So it's

definitely something to add to the toolkit. You know, this book that can be

your friend, you know, throw it in your bag or buy the ebook, have it

on your phone. So when you're going through one of the stages of a relationship,

you have access to a a tool. Definitely.

And, obviously, I'm aware that I'm pretty young. And one

of my personal goals for myself is to look back at the book in

ten years and wanna rewrite it because I've learned so

many more things. But I think that I'm able

to kind of feel the confusion and the drama and the chaos

that we're all feeling at my age and put a foot

out and look back in. So I think and I think

that's why the book is so special, you know, because it can be really hard

for us to talk to our parents or counselors who feel a

little disconnected from our lives. So

I feel like because I'm the same age as my

peers, it makes it a lot easier to engage in this comfortable

conversation about a lot of confusing feelings in

our life. Yeah. Then that's beautiful. So

the book is called Is This Love? And I would love to know how

you, Skye, defines what love is. Like, what is

love? Definitely. I think a common

misconception is that people might don't know what love is,

which I definitely don't think is true. It is

absolutely hard to define love, and it's hard

to make that something that is clearly tangible.

But to me, it's just this feeling

that that you know is there that you can't

quite explain, but you know it's not gonna go anywhere.

It's very

it's very secure feeling, not that it is always comfortable,

but that

it's something that you know is really authentic. So I think

when you feel love, you don't really have to explain it to

yourself immediately because it's just something that's kind of in the air

that you know is not gonna leave you. That's really beautiful.

And as you're saying that, I'm thinking, like, you know, throughout my life, I'm a

little bit older than you. You know? Because I have love for my parents,

and that might be different than the love I have for my husband or the

love that I have for my sister or my pets to a friend.

Like, love is such a spectrum. And do you believe that,

like, the feeling of knowing that you love your parents is

different than, like, falling in love with someone? Like, there's in

love and loving? Like, are there is there a difference?

Yes. I would say so. I think

love and being in love can be different for

relationships, but I think the core feeling of love is the

same for everyone in our lives. It

definitely, manifests in different forms.

Obviously, we have love that brings us to intimate relationships. We have love with

our friends and loves with our family. But it's all the

same core feeling, and I think it all

deserves the same level of attention

and the same level of understanding, which

is why I wrote the book because we all feel

love, but it can be really hard to know how to

love and how to be loved, how to receive that very

intense feeling that we can't quite get rid of, but we

definitely know is there. Mhmm. I I think that's a

brilliant answer, and it's true. And, yeah, it's interesting

because I find, like, in my life, different people bring

out different types of love. Right? And it's

it's not a linear answer. Right? It's ebbs and flows.

You know, your book has you know, you're writing it off of lived experience

and reflections. Do you have any specific stories you wanna share that

inspired parts of your book? Take us a little behind the scenes maybe.

That's definitely a hard question because there's there's so many things

so many things that built that book. I

think for me, the main experience, like, the the core of

it, that really got me going

was I was in my first long term committed relationship.

And I definitely think we had love,

and I definitely loved that person.

But it was very intense to the point where we were both very

stressed all the time. And

I think at first, I thought that was what love

was, was intensity. But as I started

to experience more with this person

and reflect on how the rest of my life had played out,

I sort of realized that I was just kind of looking to fill

gaps with this other person in my life and that this

intensity was just this very unhealthy manifestation

of our love.

Yeah. How did you know that? Like, how did you come to that

realization that, like, this isn't healthy? Like, because some people do

think that intensity that sometimes they mix, like, passion and

fire for like, there's, like, a a fine line of passion

and fire and, like, too intense. Right? Like, how did you come to that conclusion

that, woah, this is, like, this is not

where I should be?

I have to think about that. It it's hard to put into words because it

was sort of subtle for me. Mhmm. It wasn't really like

I woke up one day and realized that this wasn't what was

supposed to be happening.

Well, that's okay. That can be the answer. Yeah. Yeah. I think

I think it just became clear to me over time that the

same habits I was repeating with this person were

just a different version of the habits that I had with

my family that were not super healthy for me. Mhmm.

So I guess I started recognizing the patterns. You know,

you're it's so brilliant that you you have this awareness in high

school because I I'm just gonna get real vulnerable

here. And you know a little bit about my story, but I had a father

who lived with a drug addiction. And I didn't know I was doing

this until hindsight, but I was actually dating the the men

I was dating before I met my husband. Not all of them, but

a lot of them were had very toxic similar behaviors.

And my last relationship before Shane was so bad that, like, I ended

up having to leave an abusive relationship and but I

and that really caused me to reflect and go to therapy.

That's actually how I started going to therapy. And I was like, we you know,

we're just so used to doing what's comfortable or what we know,

and it doesn't mean it's right. And my my example is

very extreme, but I was like, woah. Because my dad wasn't abusive or anything. My

dad just had it. Not just. My dad had an addiction, not just an addiction.

Let's be very clear. Addiction is not a just thing. It it's a thing.

But I was just in this have this, like, pattern even though I

knew it wasn't good. Sometimes it's

not a moment that hits you that's clarity. It slowly builds.

And the fact you recognize this in high school, if I had

this awareness in high school, I mean, so many things would have

changed in my life. Sure. And I,

honestly, I know these things, and I still make so many

mistakes. But it's really kind of funny that you said that because the other

day, one of my friends asked me while we were walking to one of our

courses, and he asked me, I just don't

understand why people stay in relationships that are bad for them. Like, I just can't

understand it. And the way that

I explained it back to him was that when

you're in a really toxic relationship, as difficult as it can

be, especially when you're young, you haven't

experienced enough and know enough about yourself to know

that you deserve better, honestly,

and not even just that, but that love doesn't really look like that

Mhmm. Which was a really hard realization for my first relationship

because it's really comfortable to be with someone who's not

great for you even though it it's very stressful all the

time. You know it's a reliably stressful

feeling. You know? Yeah. And I think also,

and this is maybe something we can talk about. We're so inundated.

Like, high school is different for me than you because I went to high school

a hundred years ago. We didn't have social media, but we still had

Hollywood. We had, like, all the movies. We had Clueless and, like,

all these, like, classics and TV shows that showed us, like, you know, like,

Full House, like, What Should Love Be, you know, seeing all the, you know,

DJ Tanner Dating Steve. You probably I don't even know if you know what I'm

talking about. But some people listening might but you see all these relationships

modeled and there's a such a variety. And then you have what, you know,

what's familiar in your home. And I think, like, now with

social media, there's that whole other element where people are only posting, like, these

moments in time to paint a picture, but it's not necessarily the truth.

Like, how how do you navigate all that? How do

you not let other people's or Hollywood's

portrayal of a relationship impact you? I think

there's two sides to social media. On one side, it's

really helpful to see people similar to you thinking

the same things. It is an extension of a community, and it

especially became that over the pandemic for a lot of young people.

Mhmm. But the side which a lot of us,

I think, forget is that it's still a business. Social media

is a business, and the things that people are posting are

intended to grab your attention. It is intended to be clickbait

so that you will focus there. So there's

a lot of misinformation about relationships,

especially especially a lot of

people or influencers telling you to not treat your

partner very well because they were emotional about something, and that

grabs your attention, especially when you're feeling angry or sad at something your

partner did. But it's so easy to get lost in

that and forget to pull yourself out of the

situation and try to look at all sides. So

on one hand, I think social media is great because you can

feel so close to so many people you don't really know. But if

you don't remember that it is an app, it does have an

intention to get your attention,

it it it no longer becomes a healthy tool that you should rely on. So

I definitely think it is difficult to not get super swept into it

just like it was when they were Mhmm. Other TV

shows or people that you see in Hollywood doing

something because those are the only people that you can idolize in your life. You

know? So I think it's just a new version of that. And just

like managing that, you have to keep yourself in your

own reality and realize that there are so many other things going

on than just the one perspective you see on social media.

Yes. Oh, so wise. And, like, what I also love about that, and you just

said something, your own reality. Like, hey, people out there, we

actually can control what our reality is. Yeah.

Right? And I think, like, a big indicator is, like, I didn't

realize for thirty nine years I was living in fight or flight. Like, my nervous

system was so wound up, so chaos was comfortable. But once I start to

relax my nervous system and heal trauma,

I learned, like, which what what behaviors, what relationships in my

life were toxic. Yeah. Right? And,

like, you know, if you're if if if it's, like, a calm

feeling, that's good. If it's not a calm feeling and there's anxiety and

anger and, like, that lust, that not lust, but, like, you know, you

said before about, like, the intensity. Like, really ask

yourself, is it serving you or hurting you? Yeah. And I think

coming out of that is so empowering. But when you're in

it and especially when you're my age and I don't live with

my family because I'm out of boarding academy. But when you do live with

your family, the only relationship you seek on a consistent basis

is your parents. So you can become

pretty disempowered because all you see is the same pattern in your own

life. You don't really realize it, but you start

looking for relationships that model whatever it is you're seeing every day. You

know? Why would you look for anything else? It's very unfamiliar. You

have no way to really see it. You know? I think

a lot of times we forget that our lives are in our

control before we realize that they are. Mhmm. You

know? I love that. That's so beautiful.

So as we wrap up this interview, you know,

the theme of our podcast is resilience. And I

think relationships is a huge part of resilience. In

fact, recently, we've analyzed the data. So we've collect

stories of resilience where people share what their challenges, their story, how they overcame

it. And And there's a huge sense of community.

Community, like, finding community, getting help, not going through it

alone. And so I think this just ties in so beautifully because

this is not just applicable to romantic relationships. I think it's all relationships

starting with yourself. And we need this tool, this

relationship with ourself and others to be more resilient.

Yeah. Yeah. We do. Community is the most important

thing. It's so easy when you're in a relationship,

especially an unhealthy one, to forget that you have so many

other people around you that are there for you, and you have so many

other identities. I talk about this in my book a lot, but

it's so key to remember that you're not just a partner or a

boyfriend or a girlfriend, that you're a peer and a

daughter or a mother or a father or

teammates or a coworker, and all of those things are

just as important. So it's fantastic to hear that so many people are

starting to talk about this. Oh, so good. So if people

are like, woah, Skye, you're super cool. How do I learn more about you?

Do you have a website? Where can people buy your book? Definitely.

Everything is centered on my website right now, which is

sky@charliesky.com, and

l e y for Charlie. Yeah. I love that. And we're gonna

put the link to her website in the show notes and the link to buy

her book, you know, support her. Like, she's in high school. I've

written four books. One of them was my own book, and the rest are anthologies.

It is so much work to write a book. Like, it is so impressive that

you did this. So let's support her. Leave a review on Amazon. You

know, tell your friends about this. If you have kids, you have teenagers,

you're the cool auntie and your friends have kids, you know anyone in your life

who are parents struggling with teenagers and relationships, this is the perfect

gift for them. This is the perfect tool for them. You

know, this is, like, next generation relationship, like,

consulting, essentially. So I I'm so proud of you,

and thank you so much for joining us on Resilient

AF. Thank you for having me. Oh, this is so good. And thank you

to everyone who tuned in to another episode of Resilient AF with Blair

and Alana. But no Alana, but Skye came.

Skye's here. And, you know, just remember, you don't have to go through life

alone. You don't have to go through the challenges alone. It's okay

to not be okay. Just keep putting one foot in front of the

other. Know that we are that lighthouse in the storm. There are people and

resources out there, like, is this love to help you through

those challenging moments. And remember, you

are resilient AF.