So I want you to picture this.
I am strapped in this awkwardly tight harness
beneath my costume that is painfully digging into me.
My hair is cut in a messy pixie, and it's especially disheveled.
And I have brown makeup wiped across my face
to look like dirt.
I am ready.
It is time to take my maiden voyage to Neverland
in front of an audience in the Egyptian Theatre in Park
City, Utah, for the first time.
I trust in the techs who are operating the fly system
backstage.
I trust in my months of rehearsal, the lyrics,
the notes, the choreography, the costumes.
And everything goes off without a hitch.
The pixie dust works its magic, we make it to Neverland,
we live our grand adventures, have a sword fight with Captain
Hook, and I deliver the children safely
home to their beds in London.
And the audience erupts onto their feet
in energetic applause.
Playing the role of Peter Pan was a dream come true
for this five-foot-one rough-and-tumble amateur
gymnast.
It was the perfect role for me.
Such a timeless story, and a magical season in my life.
My firstborn daughter, Lucy, was 18 months old at the time.
And she became obsessed with all things Peter Pan.
She'd come to the show dressed as Tinker Bell,
and for some reason her favorite character was Captain Hook.
[LAUGHTER] My husband was genuinely concerned
that she would grow up to only like the bad boys.
That is how much she would squeal with delight
when he came on stage.
My role as Peter Pan was made possible and meaningful
because of connections--from the relationship with my darling
Lost Boys to the connection I felt with the audience,
and the literal connection with Daniel Simons,
the talented and very capable tech director,
who had me connected to the flying cable system,
attached to that uncomfortable harness that he would pull
backstage.
And he would lift my entire body weight, causing me to fly.
Queen B--not Beyonce, Brene Brown--says that "connection is
the energy that exists between people when they feel seen,
heard, and valued, when they can give and receive without
judgment, and when they derive sustenance and strength from
the relationship."
Did you hear those words?
"Seen, heard, and valued."
Do you feel seen, heard, and valued for who you truly are?
In my opinion, often connection with others
is a commodity that holds more value than the top traded
commodities in the world.
And it is a commodity that we are starving for.
I love the idea that the opposite of hate isn't love,
it's connection.
We may not believe the same things,
vote for the same people, speak the same language,
be the same age, but there is always
something that can connect us.
So tonight I want to show you that vulnerability
as a catalyst for connection is not only
possible, but essential to our well-being and to our survival.
So come with me now as I take you backstage,
and I wipe off my makeup, and I step away
from the lights and the applause.
And I sit at my dressing room station,
and I look in the mirror.
Little did I know that in a few short months,
I would be exiled from Neverland forever,
and I would be forced to grow up in a very real and painful way.
And no amount of pixie dust could ever get me back.
On a beautiful spring day in May of 2008,
I headed out the door with my Captain Hook-loving daughter.
And I remember being so proud because I had taken the time
to prepare snacks for church--some animal crackers,
and I sliced up a big, red apple.
And we made it to church, and we sat in our pew.
And she was being so restless.
We had to take her energetic bundle out to the foyer.
It was tantrum of 2008; you may have read about it
in the history books.
[LAUGHTER]
And when we realized she wasn't going to settle down,
we decided to leave a little early.
I strapped Lucy in her car seat, and then I twisted around
and I handed her a Tupperware of the thinly sliced apples.
And just as I turn the key in the ignition,
I could hear her choking.
Quick as lightning, I exited the car, I opened her door,
I unbuckled her, and I yelled for my husband,
who was across the parking lot.
He raced toward us, and as he began
administering the Heimlich maneuver,
he assured me that everything would be fine.
How could it not be?
And that's when her big blueberry eyes locked
with mine, and a look of panic and confusion
washed over her face.
Luckily, the fire station is right next door to our church
building in Park City, and I saw my husband race with Lucy
in his arms.
And I saw her go limp.
And when he arrived, the door was locked.
And I began screaming, and people flooded out from
the church building--medical professionals, doctors, nurses,
the head of Summit County Search and Rescue.
Someone called 911.
And I lay on the cement, losing all the feeling in my limbs,
and I went into shock.
The paramedics did eventually arrive.
The Life Flight helicopter landed,
and they whisked my daughter away.
And it was as if Daniel, who I trusted,
who had been flying me across the stage, just cut that rope.
And I plummeted to the stage floor
in a heap of utter despair.
And just when I thought I couldn't fall any further,
I held my little Tinker Bell in my arms
four days later in the hospital.
And I lay in the bed with her, and my husband
wheeled us down the hallway to the yellow line on the floor
that I wasn't allowed to cross.
And I handed my daughter over so they could harvest her organs.
Her liver went to a six-month-old baby girl,
and her kidneys went to a 35-year-old father of four.
And I am intrinsically connected to these other humans in a very
tangible way.
And the question I get asked more than any other is
"How did you survive this?"
First of all, it has not been pretty.
And when asked to put our pain and grief into words,
the only word I can think of is "unspeakable."
But because I had the courage to speak my unspeakable,
I experienced connections deeper than I've ever known.
I felt seen.
I felt heard.
And it gave others permission to do the same
and to speak their unspeakable to me.
Pain is a powerful connector.
And my connection with others is truly
what saved my life when my daughter lost hers.
And now because I have shared my unspeakable with you,
we are all connected.
And it is an honor.
Another way to create connection involves your talents
and gifts.
I want you to picture a woman with hair about my length.
But her hair is blonder, if you can imagine that, and bigger.
OK, now just a little bit bigger.
And then like add a "bump it," and some--
[LAUGHTER] OK, do you have it?
You picture it?
OK, this woman's name is Jenny, and Jenny
is one of eight children.
And five of the eight children were
born with a very rare genetic disorder
called Wolfram syndrome.
And as the oldest child, Jenny watched
as her parents cared for and buried five children.
When my little Lucy was in the hospital for those four
sacred and gut-wrenching days, Jenny showed up on day three
with a beautiful white burial dress
that she had sewn herself.
It was the perfect size.
She didn't ask if we wanted her to make it.
We weren't even sure at that point
what the outcome would be.
But Jenny knew.
She had done this five times.
She knew exactly what to do, from the burial
dress to the balloons to the flowers, the luncheon.
She knew exactly what to do.
One of my favorite quotes from Neal A. Maxwell:
"Recall the [star of] Bethlehem?
It was in its [exact,] precise orbit long before it ... shone.
We are likewise placed in human orbits to illuminate."
Jenny was placed in the precise orbit
to illuminate me in my darkness of despair.
She was in my life at the exact time I needed her.
And all of the gifts that Jenny had acquired throughout her
life--her sewing, her empathy--there's nothing this
woman can't do.
She built her own house.
They were all given as gifts to me.
And we are now intrinsically connected.
I want you to think about your gifts
and how you can use them to be a gift to others.
Not only did Jenny sew that burial dress for our Lucy;
she saved part of the fabric just in case
I might have another little girl someday,
so that she could sew a blessing dress for her.
And as for her hair, I figured out
why she has to do it so big and so blond.
It's because she has to hide her halo.
Use your gifts to be a gift.
We all have incredible stories and experiences
that will forge connections.
It's been 10 years, 11 years since Lucy died,
and I still can't fly.
But I am starting to dance again, which brings me
to my third point and another way we can create connection.
Like most of us, I was in my kitchen dancing,
filming myself, and immediately posting it to Instagram.
We've all been there.
I was just being myself.
And a few minutes after I posted it,
I got this message from a college friend
I used to perform with named [INAUDIBLE]..
And she said, "You are so dumb and silly,
and my kids and I are sitting around on the couch
watching you.
You're a fool.
And we're getting such a kick out of it."
And I'm like, "Oh, stop, thank you."
[LAUGHTER] And I was so surprised
that just by being my goofy self,
I was creating this moment for her and her kids.
So I had an idea.
"I'm going to do another dance.
[SINGING] 'Oh, I want to dance with somebody.'
And I'm going to tag her in it.
And I'm going to tell her it's dedicated to her and her kids."
So I did it.
And she messaged me again, and was like, "We love it!
They thought they were so cool and special,
and we saw you being dumb again."
But she unleashed a beast, because it gave me
the idea to take this silly dancing in my kitchen
to another level.
So I told all my Instagram followers to message me
something positive that happened to them that week,
and I would dedicate a dance to them in my Instagram stories.
And thus Positive Pants Dance was born.
[LAUGHTER] So every Thursday I have a virtual dance party.
And I celebrate all the positive things
happening around the world.
And I get so many requests.
People love watching my crazy nonsense
and listening to the upbeat music,
and they love reading about a stranger in Oklahoma who just
beat breast cancer, or a guy in Colorado who just got a job
offer, or a mom who changed her last diaper
after a long potty training battle.
And all of this just because I decided to be myself
for the world to see.
And I have never regretted being myself.
We can only connect to what is real.
It's such a miracle that I can dance again, isn't it?
And that I can feel joy again, and that we're all
connected in so many ways.
So my hope tonight is that if you are silently suffering,
you will use these tools in order
to gain the commodity that can heal our hearts and our homes.
Speak the unspeakable to someone, please.
Use your gifts to be a gift.
And don't try to prove yourself.
Just try to be yourself.
After our little Tinker Bell left us for Neverland,
and we came home from the hospital to an empty house,
we found the courage to have two more children--who you saw
earlier with Jenny as a baby, and our son, Peter.
And I may jokingly call myself the riffraff of Park City
because we don't drive a Tesla.
[LAUGHTER] And my kids thought that our Toyota minivan
was a Tesla.
Who am I to correct them?
[LAUGHTER] And my flights to the grocery store and basketball
practice certainly don't end in standing ovations.
But I consider myself wealthy beyond compare
because I am so rich in the commodity of connection.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]