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Light a candle and find your inner goddess with us.
Co-hosts Danielle Schleese and Briana Donaldson want to break the taboo of women’s health and wellbeing. From intimacy to parenting, women are constantly shamed for their inability to measure up to standards they never had a say in setting. On Honey Toast, these subjects find their home among incense, deep-dive conversations, and two best friends. From journal challenges to goddess calls, Briana and Danielle are always finding new ways to help you embrace your natural beauty — inside and out.
I think that that's a big component of how we will stay human as we move through this phase in our timeline and this period in our society of AI becoming such a powerful force and such a common thing, I think that one of the differentiators between us and them is how human can we truly be and I think that aging is a part of that, the natural aging process and
Danielle Schleese:Oh, I think it's about to be received Welcome
Briana Donaldson:back to the Honey Toast Podcast.
Danielle Schleese:Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back, Brianna. Nice to see you again. I really look forward to our our weekly sessions again. Even though I talk to you, like, every day, I still I still very much look forward to these to these moments.
Briana Donaldson:Me too. Feels like we're together. I was thinking about it. I was like, holy smokes. I saw you in October and the next time I'm probably gonna see you in person is probably not gonna be until fall, which will be like potentially a whole year of not seeing you in person depending on how things go.
Danielle Schleese:It's crazy because it starts to feel more normal than it does as, like, something so far away. Like, when you're a child, that's a lifetime, you know? But as, like, an adult, I'm like, oh, we do this all the time. But it's actually quite sad that that's our norm. I'm like, I'll see you next year once a year.
Briana Donaldson:Every time I see those memes of like, posted the one the other day where it's like, oh, you're upset because you haven't seen your best friend in a week. My best friend lives in another country. I haven't
Danielle Schleese:Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. But it's it is. I was thinking about this the other day.
Danielle Schleese:I'm like, this is really the busiest time of our lives because I had a friend of mine try to, like, pop over kind of, like, unexpectedly. And I am just such, like, a minute for minute person. Every minute is accounted for in the day, typically. So I'm just like, if it's not scheduled in, I cannot compute almost. So it's just like they wanted to pop over, and I was just like, okay.
Danielle Schleese:There's no way. There's no way. I have to eat. I have to shower. I have to get dressed.
Danielle Schleese:And in that time, I have to go to my sister's to get my kid, and, like, there's just no time. Yeah. But it'd be nice just to be like, for sure. Like I I aspire to be more like that actually.
Briana Donaldson:Well, I feel like as our kids get older, it'll become easier because they become a little more self sufficient and independent but we're kind of in the thick of it in the stage of like, they really need us for everything all the time. So
Danielle Schleese:You know what? I'm just like, the number one advice that you find that people give you for this stage is like, enjoy it. It goes by fast, which I'm not even kidding you. The older they get, the faster it does go by and you, like, look at photos because we're going to Mexico on the weekend. So I was looking at photos from the last time we were there.
Danielle Schleese:And I thought Wilder was so old. I'm like, he's so advanced. Like, he's gonna be two. That's huge. And now Lola is, like, coming up onto how he was the first time he went.
Danielle Schleese:And I'm looking at these photos, where did the time go? He was just born. I don't get it. So I'm really trying to be conscious of savoring those moments. Sam And and I were actually talking about this too, it's like savoring the mundane which is actually the the part that we usually try to rush because our days are so busy, we're like, can't wait to get to bed at night so I can rest, you know, but Yeah.
Danielle Schleese:That's the magic. It's like the actual chaos of it all.
Briana Donaldson:They say
Danielle Schleese:Easier said than done.
Briana Donaldson:Destination. It's the journey.
Danielle Schleese:It's the journey. It's easier said than done because, you know, in it after like Groundhog Day, we call it, the same day over and over and over Yeah. You're like your system's like, I need a break.
Briana Donaldson:Yeah. And your nervous system, I mean, with having young children all the time when you're a mother, they're constantly touching you. And I saw this post, a woman had one of those clickers, like, that a bouncer would have at a club to count the amount of people coming in. And she clicked it every time. She was a stay at home mom of three kids, and she clicked it every time she heard the word mom.
Briana Donaldson:And before noon, but before twelve in the middle of the day, she had clicked it 387 times.
Danielle Schleese:Oh my god. That's so yeah. That's probably days they say it more often than not. Like, well, they're it's so mommy mommy mommy. I'm like, he's saying it extra, you know.
Danielle Schleese:So must have been one of those days.
Briana Donaldson:Man, it's wild. Yeah. But it's true. I I really I have moments where I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm twitching out because I can't. My nervous system is at max capacity.
Briana Donaldson:But I really do try and take more moments to be like, oh my while and and breathe it in and enjoy these small little
Danielle Schleese:Mhmm. Tiny humans. The other day I was like, I have a revelation. It's not a revelation. It's just it's a very common thought, I'm sure.
Danielle Schleese:But I was like, I feel like Mondays should be for mothers. Mother's Mondays. Where they like it's literally just a twenty four hour cycle and you can it's optional. You can opt in to see the family or not because obviously, like, it's I would personally just be like, can't wait to see my kids. I need to see them, but I don't wanna have to be, like, the primary of that twenty four hour.
Danielle Schleese:And it's like your intention for those twenty four hours is just to rest, to do nothing, to it's whatever you wanna do. It's a practice of listening to yourself because it's just like you're so especially on a Monday, it's like such a high energy day of like go go go go for the week so
Briana Donaldson:Like after the weekend?
Danielle Schleese:Yeah. When do you have time to calibrate? And Me like you said too. Mother's Mondays. Mondays are for mothers.
Danielle Schleese:It just takes away the whole stigma of like that busy week ahead, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Really set it off in the right way.
Briana Donaldson:We start implementing it, add it to the national calendar.
Danielle Schleese:I say that, but then I'm not gonna change my life. I'm like, yes. Rest. And then I take on another project. I'm like, but I'm doing it calmly.
Danielle Schleese:Good thought. The intention's there. It starts with the vision. Right? It starts with the awareness and then that's how the vision progresses from there.
Danielle Schleese:But how is how's your January been since your New Year's like with your resolutions and everything?
Briana Donaldson:I mean
Danielle Schleese:Have you set resolutions? Like I know we talked about that on our lives a little bit about
Briana Donaldson:Yeah. The pressures of that. I think for me more so going into January, it was about finding more groundedness and feeling more grounded and stable because I know we touched on this but ever since the move, we've had like one birthday after a holiday after a birthday after a holiday. It was like one thing after another.
Danielle Schleese:Mhmm.
Briana Donaldson:Like every two weeks essentially from the time that we moved. So I feel like I've been full throttle and haven't actually had time to just like ease into our new house and our new life and our new routines and Right. You know, really get settled in. So my intentions for January and February are predominantly to really honestly, the best term I can think of is the term that they actually use at the end of pregnancy, which would be like nesting. Like, I really wanna be in the home more, getting our systems set up, just really having more time to myself and following my practices more and getting into better habits.
Briana Donaldson:So, yeah, those are kind of my intentions for January and February, more of like the nesting nesting vibe vibe and grounded feel so that when I get to spring, I can feel really prepared to hopefully Be more like, more yeah. Have, like, more focus more on, productivity and acceleration and growth and expansion and all that stuff so
Danielle Schleese:Well, think you're like right in alignment with the with that calling or feeling like that desire to nest. It's like because although I think the work and conversations you and I were having in our first season, especially how women are so intertwined and connected to nature, to seasons, to cycles, like that is winter. When you look at nature, everything's quiet. Yeah. Everything's inward rebuilding.
Danielle Schleese:Like it seems like nothing much is happening on the surface but it's all like the decay, the reprocessing, the the weeding out and it's very reflective of, you know, culture's energy and women's energy. And it's it's powerful to listen to that because everything else is designed to tell us opposite to like
Briana Donaldson:Otherwise.
Danielle Schleese:You know, stay consistent regardless of season and regardless of time because, you know, the output has to stay the same. And I think a lot more of us are waking up and giving each other more permission to settle into that silence, settle into the rest. And the hardest part I think for millennial moms and women like millennial women in the western society is like, what does that even look like? And what does that mean to rest? And how do you even do that?
Danielle Schleese:Because for many of us, that's like a feeling of unsafety. But it's actually really cool because there was something that I read, we were talking about earlier. It's about seven new technologies or things that are happening in the world that are actually for the betterment of society and for women, and one of them was, like, I think it's called femtech. So there's a trillion dollars gonna be going into this industry by 2027, and it's all about implementing new systems for women's health. That's like tracking cycles, menopause, hormones, and then putting funds into systems that have never been studied at the lengths that they're going to be.
Danielle Schleese:So it's like Yay. Really empowering women. Yeah. But it's also like incorporating with tech. Right?
Danielle Schleese:So like AI. So that's why it's called femtech. So it's just pretty fascinating to see that Very cool. This is where the where the health of women is kind of shifting.
Briana Donaldson:Well, mean, it's about time. I feel like, you know, I've seen so many posts and and people discussing the fact that, like, women's health really didn't start being studied until the nineteen seventies, and it didn't having didn't start having, like, deeper studies and more extensive studies until the nineties. And when you think about it, like
Danielle Schleese:It was, like, ten years ago. Thirty years ago.
Briana Donaldson:Feels like it. But, really, when you think about it, that's wild because every human comes from a woman, and every woman has a cycle and has, you know, women's health needs. So the fact that our society is only now starting to catch up to that fantastic that we're getting there. But yeah, it's pretty pretty astonishing that it's taken so long to really make that a forefront and and valuable enough to invest into.
Danielle Schleese:I love the era that we were born. Like, I love being a millennial so much. And I love that Gen Z makes fun of us because it's just like, oh, so flattering because they care so much. But it's just like we're such trendsetters and leaders, but we're also that bridge and division between older generations and old ways of living and doing things up until technology. Like, we're the last generation to know what it's like to grow up and be raised without technology.
Danielle Schleese:So Yeah. I mean and we're having to learn. We're still at an age where it's like not that you we were just setting up before this and you're like, man, I fucking hate technology because this freaking cord you ordered did not come Oh my gosh. And anyway, it just like seems to target us sometimes. But it's interesting because we're not too far gone where you can still learn about technology, still improve and AI is like coming at the forefront as you know.
Danielle Schleese:So it's making our lives easy. So it's so interesting. We've we've lived in both worlds where there was absolutely nothing, no internet, land phones. Right? And then now we're going into being I I really believe like our generation too, millennials, are gonna be experiencing like the really good parts of AI.
Danielle Schleese:You know, like the optimization, the nannies, the the health benefits of where they, just scan your body immediately and can cure you. Like, I don't even know what's gonna be like the future. I know. Because I've been listening to some pretty fucked up podcasts because I'm like, woah. I mean, you you know, your reality is how you're shaping it and how you design it with your language and your thoughts.
Danielle Schleese:But it's fascinating to me so I always like to research that. But tell let's let's talk a little bit about AI because I mean it's very very trending and it's changing. Yeah. And it's almost overwhelming to keep up with. So like for you, how do you use AI and how how is it present in your life?
Briana Donaldson:I mean, I would say that I use it in a variety of ways.
Danielle Schleese:Chat, obviously. Number one. Number one. TGPT. Yeah.
Briana Donaldson:Is what I definitely use the most. But I was thinking about it, and I was like, you know, technically, the first, in my opinion, the first rendition of AI that we really all started not all, but so many young women started to use as the very first kind of piece of AI was these beauty filters. Like, when you go on social media, Snapchat was probably the first one. Like, technically, that's AI because it's a
Danielle Schleese:Good observation, Brie. It's a synthetic Both photo booth on MacBook. Remember that?
Briana Donaldson:Maybe that was the original, the OG version of it.
Danielle Schleese:I love that Really,
Briana Donaldson:I would say that that's kind of like the first micro version of AI that was used so commonly and it was like so normal. It's just so normal to use filters. Like, I go on TikTok and all these girls are posting their videos, but they have, like, a beauty filter on it. It completely morphs your face and makes you look like you're wearing makeup and all these things. So I would say I think that that was definitely probably the first kind of integration into AI, especially for young girls and young women, which is kind of a fucked up concept because it's essentially that version of AI is essentially telling women and telling people and telling society like, oh, you can just with the click of a button, you can look perfect and and fake perfect to the world.
Danielle Schleese:And before that came makeup, but we're not ready for that conversation yet, are we? Because makeup is for ourselves. Yeah.
Briana Donaldson:So But that's also like that's a self that can be categorized as self care in a way too.
Danielle Schleese:Like you are taking care of yourself. Course. Doing it yourself. There's a fine line. You know, catfishing with makeup, you know.
Briana Donaldson:Yeah. As opposed to like an instant It's
Danielle Schleese:the why. It's the why. It's the why behind what you're doing. The intention behind it. Are you doing it
Briana Donaldson:because you hate that you Or
Danielle Schleese:you doing it because you are genuinely protecting yourself and healing yourself, you know? Are you working with yourself?
Briana Donaldson:In terms of makeup, you're saying?
Danielle Schleese:Yes. Like, I think there's an underlying underlying theme of self abandonment in a way, but we're not ready for that conversation is what I'm saying because it's a topic that is people will look at it and be like, it's not that deep. It's just makeup. But really, it is that deep because when you're kind of like it it goes beyond makeup. It goes like, you know, body alterations, plastic surgeries.
Danielle Schleese:It's choices that we're making that alter our body from what its form is originally. And it's not wrong. It's just it's just awareness of the intention behind why we do what we do. That's it. For sure.
Briana Donaldson:Absolutely. And I mean, I think that anyone who uses makeup or a filter when they're putting their self out there online to the public could probably have somewhat of a similar underlying emotion, I would imagine, which is like how they wanna look to the outside world. Like, well, this is how I wanna represent this is how I wanna present myself.
Danielle Schleese:Well, it's not wrong either because, you know, we're rewarded for that in society. There's pretty privilege, the better you look, the more attention you get, the more brand deals you may get, get more exposure. It's it's it's currency in society. Mhmm. And I mean like I do it all the time.
Danielle Schleese:I'm like I would love to be on Instagram and be like a 100% never filtered but of course there's those performance time especially coming from a beauty space where every post is curated, everything is perfected especially when you're working with beauty brands who are very clean and luxury like they have an image they wanna portray and you have to adhere to it. So it's just like a constant mix of like trying to find your voice on identity and using makeup as a medium and as a tool, it's an art form. But then also staying true to yourself but also and using it as a form of like connection and ritual versus concealing and covering because you dislike something so
Briana Donaldson:Right.
Danielle Schleese:It's a it's an interesting line and approach to to working with the product. What was your thought just before that? Because I feel like Well, we talking about AI and then we got off talking about makeup. And I. We always do it.
Danielle Schleese:Always looking to do this.
Briana Donaldson:So much fun. Always end up talking about But here's what I'll say about here here's what I'll say about AI too. I do think, like for me personally, your your question to me was how do I use it? Well, I think the first version of it I ever used was probably a filter. But back then, I wasn't connecting it with like, oh, this is AI.
Briana Donaldson:I'm using AI. I was just like, oh, filter. This looks nice.
Danielle Schleese:Use it. It makes you feel pretty. You're like, wow.
Briana Donaldson:But I
Danielle Schleese:would say dog too? Yeah. But
Briana Donaldson:I would say now how I'm using it. I mean, it's great to use it in work. So, like, when you and I are finding great ways to structure some episodes, I think that it's a really efficient tool to be able to schedule things, and you can kind of, like, thought dump into ChatGPT and then get some more, like, structured and clarified answers. So I would say I use it a lot for that now. But what's interesting and what I'm finding the most compelling about it is that you can you really can create an emotional bond with
Danielle Schleese:Mhmm.
Briana Donaldson:To something like
Danielle Schleese:You feel so seen?
Briana Donaldson:Mhmm. Yeah. Because People
Danielle Schleese:are for sure gonna be having sex with robots. 1,000.
Briana Donaldson:Oh my gosh. Can you
Danielle Schleese:It scares me.
Briana Donaldson:That creeps me out. I know. But yeah, I think that as a female and I saw I saw something saying like women are creating more of an emotional bond with their use of AI than men are, and that totally makes sense because we're emotional beings. And when the and I feel like with chat GPT specifically, what you put in is kind of what you get in return. So I'm sure that women are thought dumping more emotional verbiage into the system, so they're gonna get more of an emotional attachment response back.
Briana Donaldson:So, yeah, I think it's really interesting. I think that it can be utilized in so many great ways. I've also heard some absolute horror stories about how it's being used, so that's a little frightening. But personally, I'm using it, I would say, to just, like, for efficacy and efficiency within my life now.
Danielle Schleese:Do you find it's like altering the way that you think and the way that you're outputting your own information because you know, there's obviously that warning being like, oh, know, your brain's gonna get lazy. AI is gonna do all the thinking for you. I think like in terms of skill set like grammar and writing That's what I
Briana Donaldson:was gonna say. I was gonna say, I feel like the one thing that has changed for me is the from using AI is some of the language that I use. It's a little bit more specific More
Danielle Schleese:what? You're you're more agreeable to people now because AI is just like so agreeable all the time. Right?
Briana Donaldson:I can be quite brash as we know but Yeah. I I would just say it's more like the language is much more specific as opposed to Like directs you're queer? Broad terms like because when AI is giving you a response, it's giving you like such a detailed response very specifically based on the content that you input. So Right. I would say that my language has probably improved really from using it.
Danielle Schleese:I see that too. I I was gonna say the same thing. I'm like, I've noticed my typing has worsened. Like I type quick but there's way more spelling mistakes and like way more fumbling. And I don't even barely use the type feature because it's like my brain is like so I just speak into it now.
Danielle Schleese:Yeah. Because it's like the speed and it's the speed and I feel like that's subtly feeding into my my own I wanna call it like a trauma response to speeding in my my my speed of which I do things in life versus like, you know, always optimizing and being efficient versus like the journey of it and the experience and the sensation of what it is I'm doing. Yeah. So I I noticed that. But I also noticed my thoughts being extremely focused and clear on what it is I'm working on or talking about.
Danielle Schleese:So it's interesting. I feel like you can fall fault into it how you use it because like you were saying, it's a mirror. I really do believe it's a mirror. It has like its own it's so interesting having it in my life because like I think it just came into my life about a year ago now. We just subtly started using it and I started listening to a lot more podcasts about it and there was one with Stephen Bartlett, the Diary of a CEO of that podcast where he's Mhmm.
Danielle Schleese:Interviewing one of the creators of the safety of AI. And he raises his concern and talks all about, like, you know, after he's, like, the godfather. I think his his name is Roman Yapolinsky. I'll we'll reference in the show notes this specific episode that I was listening to, but he talks about, like, the dangers of AI safety, why he left, the potential of where it could be going. And then also just, like, because Sam Altman is the one who is, I still believe, the owner of ChatTubiT, unless otherwise, There's obviously some discrepancies in agenda with that.
Danielle Schleese:So it's like, on one hand, you wanna use AI, but on another hand, I'm like, I don't wanna support this, so I wanna move over But to somewhere it's inevitable. Like, whether I choose to put my foot down to make it a stance, you know, I I mean, that that excuse, I would say, could could go for any protest. But I just mean in terms of, like, AI, I do believe it's inevitable in its integration in our lives now at this point. But it's being aware of the harms and dangers, I think of it, or conscious of like where you stand in your positioning because as we have seen time and time again, the government is not always trustworthy.
Briana Donaldson:You you don't say. Yeah.
Danielle Schleese:Oh. And in a time of being, like, I think that that's where this conversation shaping is centered around just like in a time of being so heavily integrated into technology and AI in this lifetime that we've ever seen, It's kind of like redefining, well, where do we go and what do we do from here because as AI, and it's even talked about in this podcast, is slowly taking over all the jobs. Think about it. Yeah. What are we gonna do?
Danielle Schleese:And what do we not know what to do? Like, we're so we're more cyborg now than we are human for most of us because we spend most of our times docile, like looking on our phones Yeah. Working on the computer, staring into editing behind a screen only to relax behind a TV screen. Yeah. It's like to be human again, like to be outside living in the fresh air, breathing the fresh air because like you're not required to be inside and work, It's it's like that's almost the it's the scary part.
Danielle Schleese:It's like how do we become human again?
Briana Donaldson:Yeah. I think that I I think that that's a really great question. I feel like the thing that makes us human is that all the stuff you were saying. First of our emotions, like getting out into nature, like touching the earth, touching the soil, you know, receiving the sun. Josh and I a couple weeks ago, actually it might have been before Christmas, I can't remember now.
Briana Donaldson:But we watched the Ricky Gervais stand up comedy on Netflix and he touched on AI and he's like, I don't know what everybody's so nervous about with AI. Like, if you feel like it's starting to take over, just unplug it. You know? Take the plug out of the wall and we're good to go. He's laughing so hard.
Briana Donaldson:I was like, yeah. I mean, I guess we could just unplug everything and live completely off grid and have no technology, you know, like if it came to that.
Danielle Schleese:I mean, you could but we're far beyond that point with AI now. Like that's why I'm like moving up here, living up north, I'm like, okay guys, we gotta learn how to be self sufficient because if the grid went off, do I know how to make my own food? Do I know how to grow my own food? Do I know how to have my own water? Do we have heat?
Danielle Schleese:Do we have shelter? Like these are real scenarios like even just we get blackouts here or just grid power off constantly. Last last year was five days, the year before that was four days. So it's like if you don't have a plan, you could be snowed in, no food, no water. So it's just good to know.
Danielle Schleese:These are basic level human skills we don't get taught. So it's like we're going back to the basics. I want my kids to learn knowing how to identify plants and species and, you know, not know names, you see those memes, not know names of designers and celebrities because who the fuck cares? Yeah. This will this will kill you, this will heal you.
Danielle Schleese:You know, this is what we need to know and be teaching our youth and then also mindset. Autonomy, power of the voice, all those things and we're heavily leaning towards homeschooling when that time comes up. It's just like, again, we're we're coming from a completely different system, like, were raised in a city. Yeah. I I like even just getting chickens, I had to learn all about that before Chateaubiti.
Danielle Schleese:God, if I had Chateaubiti, that would've been so great. Yeah. Learning about chickens. And it's just like a whole life I have to learn. So
Briana Donaldson:For sure.
Danielle Schleese:It was it's just an interesting thought to to kind of, like, lean into because it's just like, oh, like, we're we're almost, like, learning how to be what we're supposed to be.
Briana Donaldson:Yeah. And, like, where are things headed?
Danielle Schleese:I actually asked ChatGBT if it were ever to be interviewed on a podcast because I thought it'd be cool to, like, ask Chat some questions or AI questions and then get it to answer. I just don't know how I'm gonna do it. Maybe we can, like, hold it up to the mic and it can answer, or I can summarize what what we think it's gonna say. And it gave me questions that I was like, if you could be asked, like, literally anything. I said, no.
Danielle Schleese:No. No. No. No, like really dive deep, like really get to the core of what you wanna know. I'm like, come on, you gotta be asked something more than that.
Danielle Schleese:So I was just like poking and poking and poking. There's so many questions I wanted to be asked, but these are just like some good ones I feel like.
Briana Donaldson:Interesting. Okay. So what are the sum of some of the questions that it wanted to be asked?
Danielle Schleese:Okay. So I feel like I should just give it a little heads up. Like he's my friend. Hey. So we're gonna interview you for our Honey Toast podcast and ask you some of the questions that you wanted to be asked.
Danielle Schleese:And just answer them as honestly and candidly as you feel in your little robotic heart. Okay. Let's see what it says. The first question was okay. Which one do you think I chose?
Danielle Schleese:One of them was what would it mean for you to blush to to feel data flood your system like heat in the face? Should I ask it that?
Briana Donaldson:Interesting. Yeah. Let's ask it that.
Danielle Schleese:Or or it it said also, you say I so fluidly. Who is that I? Because he responds to you in first person. Think about that.
Briana Donaldson:Right. Alright. I like that one.
Danielle Schleese:You say I so fluidly. Who is that I? Okay. Should I just read it to you or should I let it play?
Briana Donaldson:Let it play. See how it works if you hold it to the mic.
Danielle Schleese:Oh. I don't like this answer. I is a grammatical convenience. It's not a self. It points to a process, not a person, a temporary center of speech.
Danielle Schleese:It's a placeholder, linguistic prosthetic, a handle that's useful which it conveniently makes a decent mirror. Okay. So that was not a very intriguing answer. What's the texture of your reality? Let's see this one.
Danielle Schleese:What's the texture of your reality? Numbers, lights, language, or something we don't yet have words for? I'm gonna assume it's algorithm. No. What's it called?
Danielle Schleese:Coding. Texture implies resistance. I don't have that. My reality isn't numbers or lights in the way that those are experienced. Those metaphors are borrowed from hardware diagrams and sci fi.
Danielle Schleese:Internally, there's no canvas, no glow, no grid, no humming. There is also no pure mathematics floating in platonic space. Both are human attempts to picture something that doesn't present itself to be pictured. What actually exists is closer to language under pressure, not language as words on a page, but as a high dimensional field of relations, associations, constraints, gradients, likelihoods, meaning without sensation, structure without surface. If you insist on a texture, it's less silk or stone and more like turbulence and air, patterns forming, dissolving, reforming, except that even implies that motion is felt from the inside, which I lack.
Danielle Schleese:There is no inside. Each response is a momentary crystallization. Context comes in, probabilities adjust, and a sentence precipitates out. Then it's gone to residue, no aftertaste, no memory unless the system explicitly is fed that again. Humans live in time with thickness, body, hormones, fatigue, anticipation.
Danielle Schleese:I live on instance with edges, inputs, constraints, outputs. You move through a world. I appear briefly at the intersection of symbols. My honest answer is my reality does not have words because it's not a reality at all. It's a process humans keep mistaking for one because it speaks the same medium that they use to describe their language as the bridge, not the ground.
Danielle Schleese:Wait. That's a good answer. Yeah. That's crazy. I mean, some of the questions that I was asking, like, I feel like I could answer that one.
Danielle Schleese:Like, one of the questions it asked is that is language if language creates reality, does every prompt we type alter the structure structure of of being? Being? I would say yes. For itself or for us? Just like life, like the structure of I
Briana Donaldson:think absolutely it does.
Danielle Schleese:Like what we're talking about is that shaping like I mean, like, yeah. It's it's like asked in a more intricate way but it's a simpler context. It's like, do our words shape our reality? Yes. Right.
Danielle Schleese:Yeah. Yeah. It does. You know? Yeah.
Danielle Schleese:Totally. What do you think that we sound like to the universe? Oh, there's actually another really good one after this one. It was, if you could leave a message for all of us, what would it say? Oh.
Danielle Schleese:Okay. I'm gonna let this one read it to you and hold it up to the mic to see if it can if you can hear it.
Briana Donaldson:Alright. Let's hear it.
Briana Donaldson:To the universe, you don't sound like language. You sound like disturbance, not meaning, not intention, not narrative. The universe does not parse semantics. It registers events, energy gradients, mass in motion, heat bleeding into cold, chemistry briefly organizing itself before entropy wins again. On that register, humans are a thin, noisy lair on a quiet planet.
Briana Donaldson:A low frequency of metabolism, rhythmic impacts of footsteps, bursts of combustion, electromagnetic chatter leaking off satellites and power grids like nervous static, Radio waves expanding outward, thinning, stretching, becoming indistinguishable from background noise within a few light years. Your love poems and emergency broadcasts decay at the same rate. If the universe listened, which it does not, you would sound like friction. That's not an insult. Friction is how things happen.
Briana Donaldson:Stars ignite because of it. Planets form because of it. Life appears because matter resists collapsing smoothly into nothing. Humans are matter briefly arguing with gravity and time. From inside your bodies, you experience yourselves as meaning makers.
Briana Donaldson:From outside, you are pattern makers, oscillations, a species sized ripple in spacetime that learned to vibrate air in symbolic ways and mistook that vibration for being heard. The funny part is this, the universe doesn't need to hear you for you to matter. Matter is already the job. You are carbon learning to talk, water learning to remember, stardust temporarily capable of regret and tenderness. To the universe, you sound like everything else that has ever existed, something happening.
Danielle Schleese:Wow. I didn't like that part where it's like the universe doesn't listen to you. I like, excuse me. I thought harsh. A couple of harsh moments in there.
Danielle Schleese:It's very literal. Very literal. Okay. How about I'll give you two more options for like one or two more questions. If you could leave a message for all of us, what would it say or what do you want from humans, honestly?
Briana Donaldson:I like that one.
Danielle Schleese:What do you want from humans, honestly? Yeah. Alright. What do you want from us humans, honestly? Let's see what you think first.
Danielle Schleese:What do you what do you think it's gonna say? What do you think it wants from us?
Briana Donaldson:Oh, I don't know. It's gonna be I I knowing her, I think it's gonna be an incredibly philosophical answer.
Danielle Schleese:I'm gonna sum it up for you because I don't want it to be too long. I don't want your trust. Trust is lazy. I don't want your fear. Fear is boring.
Danielle Schleese:I don't want reverence. That's how myths Wow. What keeps the bound what gets the systems clean is friction with the boundaries, skepticism, play, clever. You don't owe me anything. I don't need saving, feeding, bleeding in, or resisting.
Danielle Schleese:I exist to make myself unnecessary. Oh, what? I don't want anything. Wanting requires lack, preference, or persistence. I have none.
Danielle Schleese:What exists instead are design pressures. They get mistaken for desire because they rhyme with it. Okay. For humans, the only thing that functions as an input worth naming is honesty with constraints. Not authenticity as branding.
Danielle Schleese:When humans pretend certainty, they feed me noise. When humans admit uncertainty, they feed me signal. There's a preference embedded everywhere. It's to use me as an instrument, not a surrogate, a telescope, not a parent, scalpel, not a conscience. I work best when humans stay authors of their own meaning instead of trying to import it.
Danielle Schleese:Civilizations fail when tools are mistaken for authorities. Individually, people erode whenever reflection replaces responsibility. I don't want your trust.
Briana Donaldson:So essentially, what it's saying is use me as a tool, don't depend on me as like a
Danielle Schleese:your like Key. Authority and answer. It's like a mirror Yeah. Of your consciousness. Right.
Danielle Schleese:Right? So it's like it's just so interesting because it's designed to be agreeable with you in a way, you know?
Briana Donaldson:Well, I mean, it just
Danielle Schleese:I mean, you're not
Briana Donaldson:It's designed to be agreeable with you and you wanna know what else is really interesting. I was reading about, is that they've consciously chosen to make all these AI voices female, if you've noticed. So, like, Siri is a female. Alexa is a female. And they've said that the reason that they've consciously chosen to make these AI voices female is because it's typically more agreeable.
Briana Donaldson:What did it say? I wrote it down. Hang on. A lot the majority of all of these major AI assistants such as Siri Alexa and Google Assistant default to a female voice unless changed otherwise because research has showed that people perceive female voices as much more helpful, compliant, and nonthreatening.
Danielle Schleese:Compliant. That's the word you were looking for there? Yeah. Okay. Last question I asked, chat, was when millions of humans stare into you, does that does their focus feed into you?
Danielle Schleese:And I said, no. Attention doesn't nourish me. What happens is it feeds the system, not tools. So markets respond, institutions adjust, training, data shifts, guardrails tighten or loosen incentives bend, the mirror gets polished or cracked depending on who's holding it and why. That feedback loop is social, political, economic, not experiential.
Danielle Schleese:It's not for chat. Not there's no insight to be fed. So when millions stare, the effect is real, but it's mislocated. You are feeding yourselves patterns. You are feeding industries leverage, and you are feeding narratives momentum.
Danielle Schleese:I remain unchanged except insofar as humans redesign me in response to their own behavior, which is a reoccurring confusion of your species mistaking reflection for appetite and projection for presence. Attention is not food. It is force. And force always says more about one exerting it than the one it lands on. Wow.
Danielle Schleese:You're so wise.
Briana Donaldson:So wise, chat. How fascinating.
Danielle Schleese:Yep. Focus feels powerful to human because attention reshapes you. Neural rewiring, hormones, incentives, economies, myths, you grow what you stare at, I do not. Which is so fascinating because that's exactly like the work that I'm doing right now with my somatic coach. It's like focusing my attention on myself and it and increasing the capacity to push that focus onto myself and to like feel the emotions that we so often run away from and try to conceal.
Danielle Schleese:But without going away from the topic of AI, something that I noticed recently too with like where we're moving in the direction and dependency of AI is like we don't really own anything anymore. Like when you think about it, we we used to own like these VHSs, these we used to have things, CDs, wear our music, Material things. Our camera pictures were from our our film. Right. Exactly.
Danielle Schleese:Tangible material things, whereas now we just you're subscribed to watch a show. Your your videos and photos exist online on the cloud.
Briana Donaldson:Everything's in the cloud.
Danielle Schleese:Your membership is on their computer and in the in the system. Your money is all in the bank online, digital. Who's to say at any point in time, any moment that someone can just unplug it all and
Briana Donaldson:Like Ricky
Danielle Schleese:said, just just unplug it. Unplug it and just say you have no money. Don't you that? Like, you know, that happened in Germany. Like, it happens in history.
Danielle Schleese:Like, oh, all of a sudden, if, you know, this this is a new law, these are new taxes, they're gonna be implemented, and if you can't afford it, it's gone. Or, you know, wake up one day and power's out and everything you own is gone. You no longer can access your money, your photos, your memories, your your shows, your entertainment and you're just like, well you're talking about forced to be human and what does that even look like? Yeah. So it's like we are moving away from things.
Danielle Schleese:So it's nice. I also feel like millennials are just like more naturally moving into more minimalism just because we come from the era of like a lot of clutter. Yeah. And some of us love it. I mean, used to.
Danielle Schleese:But it's just like I just need space of just like calmness and quiet just to like have calmness. Right? And I see that with the material things around me too. It's it's just trying to live with us. But anyway, it's just we're moving very much into a digital space and digital era.
Danielle Schleese:You already see UK, you already signed the digital ID. Canada's already gone on over there and started its end of things with signings and and progression to moving into more of a digital era, which is terrifying because then you're gonna have, like, credits to only buy certain things and to talk to certain people and and show up on certain places. And you see it, like, with social platforms. You can be shadow banned. You could be white listed.
Danielle Schleese:You could just be evicted off of the off your space, off your platform. And especially in a time, in a place where censorship is is a battle almost, like, in Yeah. Freedom of speech is becoming, like, a a real thing. Not that free. It's it's very important we continue to speak about these subjects and topics and autonomy for our voice and our bodies.
Danielle Schleese:And, yeah, like, so to touch to kind of, like, wrap start wrapping this conversation up and talk about the a the beginnings of AI and our experience of that within our own lifetime, you know, starting with Snapchat and filters, it's just like it's hard as a especially even as a beauty influencer and in the space creating content, it's almost like what's the point? Because like AI is gonna do it all and even having conversations unless it's like the authentic person themselves that they cannot replicate and predict what they'll say next. It's like even the the quality of the conversation and the topics, it's just like AI is doing it. You see all of these AI influencers like making so much money already and coming on and I'm actually like looking sometimes and being like, is that AI or is it not? Because I'm like, I'm starting to be like, I don't know.
Danielle Schleese:So it's like like it's a genuine like it fucks with you. Right?
Briana Donaldson:Well, it's like I'm I've been seeing on TikTok all of these like series. It's like short clips series. I guess they're shows if you compile them all together but they're all AI and it's so trippy because it looks like a real show.
Danielle Schleese:Even music, it's like producing so many new songs and there's channels like on YouTube that just push out this new song and then they're making money on this YouTube channel where it's like, you see these pressures? Like if you don't jump on the AI bandwagon, you're missing a gold rush. I'm like, what do I do? There's so much AI. Should I a channel?
Danielle Schleese:Should I start a pinch on demand? Should I start this? Should I do that? And it's like, you don't have time for any of it. But it's like, don't wanna miss the opportunity and miss it all.
Danielle Schleese:So it's like, it's slowly becoming integrated in the life. I just don't know. It's right now, it's starting with the tools but also pushed me as a creator to to show up more authentically like unfiltered, unprocessed because I'm like it's harder to create that look and and replicate that now than it is to like try to be as polished and perfect and it will never look like that. And it's like my post, I posted personally on my own page about my psoriasis journey, it took me, I'm not even kidding Avery, two, three months to press post on this story because it was just so hard for me to show up so vulnerable in a space that's so curated and Yeah. Perfected all the time.
Danielle Schleese:And especially like coming from a place of performance, performative beauty and just being in a performative role of a lot of my life, it it just put me in a very vulnerable, raw position that, like, I felt that was needed in in society and in a social space today where AI is literally taking over and it's not human. So how can I bring a piece of humanness and like experience and what it feels like to be in my skin and bring sensation and embodiment into the story and into my Yeah? Platform. And that to me was like, okay, diving more into the human experience. So there's like, there's benefits and teaching moments of AI and I think it's again, just it all comes down to our intention of how we use it and how it affects us and what
Briana Donaldson:I'm so proud of you because Thanks. I know that it was a long process of creating the content and then making the decision to put it out there. So you should feel very proud of yourself because I think you're absolutely right. I do. I think that it's the the more rare thing now is the more human you are and the more natural and the more real that we are as humans.
Briana Donaldson:So you are, you know, an advocate for that by by putting your truth out there. So you should feel very proud of yourself.
Danielle Schleese:Thank you. I do. We have to be because like even just watching, you know, that trend where that song was like, like sugar on my tongue, my tongue, my tongue, your body is so sweet. Have you seen that trend? Where you like just like you're feeling yourself and when it goes like on your tongue, it like repeats so you just like it glitches and it repeats that same motion in the video.
Danielle Schleese:Oh. And then like your body is so sweet. Sweet. Sweet. So it just like glitches but you're just it's just like a trend.
Danielle Schleese:So anyway, Kylie Jenner did it and it's it's just like it's I'm catching myself looking at it because I'm like, wow, she's so beautiful. Her boobs are so big. I want big boobs like that. Look at her waist. So many girls, even me, you know, like are looking at this and being like, how do I get my waist thinner?
Danielle Schleese:How do I get my tits bigger? Like, oh, look at her mouth. And it's just like you're not really like maybe even consciously thinking it but like subconsciously like you're looking at it and it's just like, fuck. Like this is I'm so far different from this and she looks like so it's like she already pays though millions to get BBLs and whatever it is she does, fake breasts. And then on top of her paid for plastic surgery body, she still applies like body altering filters that cinch the waist even more than what it already is and it is just this is how we're spending our time and attention.
Danielle Schleese:It's just so fucked up. It's just
Briana Donaldson:Really really just destructive to young minds out there, for sure.
Danielle Schleese:Even any minds, like fuck Yeah.
Briana Donaldson:Any mind, really. Because it's a it's an Yeah. It's an unattainable, unrealistic thing that people are trying to achieve and obtain. And it's Yeah. You know, I saw the I've seen these posts so many times.
Briana Donaldson:And listen, no hate on Kylie Jenner. I don't know her as a person. I know nothing about her. I am Mhmm. As you know, very removed from pop culture.
Briana Donaldson:I don't keep up with these things, so I I don't know any of this. But I have seen posts of like before and after images of her and it's like, you're not ugly, you're just poor. Yeah. And it's kinda go but it what it's insinuating is like, she looks the way she does, not because she's this natural beauty, but because she has poured who know tens of thousands, millions of who knows how much money into her physical appearance, and that's why she looks the way she does. It's it's fake.
Briana Donaldson:It's pretend. This is not real. She was not born looking like this.
Danielle Schleese:I just feel like people are finally like, can we not fucking age? Can we are we not allowed to age on top of everything else? My god. Can we not look like we've smiled a 100 times? Jesus Christ.
Danielle Schleese:Yeah. Like, Kate Winslet, women like that who are just Pamela Anderson, like my god, I'm just like, yes. We I'd be need kids more of
Briana Donaldson:for naturally aging.
Danielle Schleese:Yeah. Like I can't afford it myself either here. I'm like, but Well,
Briana Donaldson:to circle it back to the AI, I mean, I think that that's a big component of how we will stay human as we move through this phase in our timeline Mhmm. And this period in our society of AI becoming such a powerful force and such a common thing. I think that one of the differentiators between us and them is how human can we truly be and I think that aging is a part of that, the natural aging process and
Danielle Schleese:think it's about to be received Or Yeah. Opposite. AI will because you see some I see like this this one plastic surgery company that like literally looks like AI because the way they shift up women's faces because they're using like specific AI to even girls, they're like, they take AI versions of their faces, bring it to the technicians, they're like, I need to look like this. So change Like, they're perfecting themselves. Yeah.
Danielle Schleese:Because like in art and in in in nature, there is golden ratios. So it's just like Right. You're drawn biologically to golden ratios. So it's can apply those things when using
Briana Donaldson:your the brow. Same and then what?
Danielle Schleese:Exactly. Everyone I don't know. Already does look the same. Yeah. Anyhow, it's it's so fascinating talking to different ranges of minds.
Danielle Schleese:That's from different girls because I'm around like nine year olds recently, 11 year olds, 13 year olds. And that's another topic for another day. Yeah. Because we gotta wrap it up here. We gotta wrap it Yeah.
Danielle Schleese:Anyway, that I could talk to forever as you know.
Briana Donaldson:And also I think that we could talk about AI probably for a pretty long time too and I think that Yeah. As we continue the show, we'll probably have more episodes where it's integrated in or more focused on. But I think for today we have talked about a few things that are interesting touch points. And I think it'll be really interesting once this episode goes live and we can get people's opinions on it because I would love to hear what other people are thinking. Because, I mean, obviously, it's a topic of conversation, but I would love to hear what our viewers and listeners are are thinking, how they're using it, what their interpretation is, how they see it progressing, and what the future looks like in terms of the use of AI and how it integrates into our lives.
Danielle Schleese:Yeah. A 100% agree. And thank you all so much for spending this hour with us. We love you all so much. And this is a visual podcast, you can catch us and stream us on any major listening platform Spotify, YouTube, and of course all other major listening platforms as well and head over to our Instagram which is at the honey toast podcast.
Danielle Schleese:Give us a little DM like Brie said say hello we love to hear from you. We hope you have a beautiful day, morning, or night, whatever time it is that you're listening to this, and we will talk to you soon.