Power Trip

What happens when power goes unchecked?

This week on Outside the Footnotes, Wendy and Klynn take on power—but not the quiet kind.

Wendy looks at the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma, and how money, influence, and protection became intertwined with the opioid crisis. But this story isn't only about the people who held the power. It's also about the people who lost it—the patients, the families, and the loved ones who watched someone they cared about change, struggle, and sometimes die.

Then Klynn takes us into the world of Bikram Choudhury, the founder of Bikram Yoga, and the story of how one man's influence grew into something much bigger. Her story explores what can happen when people put their trust in someone, that person gains enormous control, and nobody seems willing—or able—to challenge it.

Two very different stories. Two very different kinds of power.

And somewhere in the middle, we ask a bigger question: Is power something you take, something people give you, or something you can lose without even realizing you had it?

Come get lost in the stories, the rabbit holes, the uncomfortable questions, and—of course—the conversation.

What's missing from the discussion?

If you or someone you love is struggling with drug addiction, help is available. SAMHSA’s National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357) is a free, confidential, 24/7 resource providing information, support, and referrals to treatment. You don’t have to figure out the next step alone.

This document is provided for informational and commentary purposes only and is not legal or medical advice. It is based on publicly available sources identified below and distinguishes, where applicable, among allegations, admissions, judicial findings, and settlement terms. Allegations are not findings of liability, and readers should consult the cited primary materials for complete context and current status. The author makes no representation that this summary is exhaustive and recommends consulting a qualified professional for advice about any specific legal or medical matter.

THE SACKLERS — SOURCE LIST

EARLY HISTORY AND PHILANTHROPY SOURCES: Purdue-Frederick Company history and Sackler family histories documenting the 1952 acquisition, Arthur Sackler’s 1987 death, and the later transfer of his heirs’ interest; institutional histories from the Smithsonian, Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Royal Academy documenting their distinct gifts, collections, funded facilities, and naming arrangements.

PRIMARY / GOVERNMENT SOURCES

1. U.S. Department of Justice — Global Purdue Pharma & Sackler Resolution (2020)
   https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-global-resolution-criminal-and-civil-investigations-opioid

Covers:
 • Purdue Pharma's criminal guilty plea
 • Civil allegations involving members of the Sackler family
 • Purdue's opioid marketing practices
 • High-volume prescribers
 • Diversion of opioids
 • Purdue's financial penalties
 • Sackler family settlement

FDA AND 2007 CASE SOURCES: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Timeline of Selected FDA Activities and Significant Events Addressing Substance Use and Overdose Prevention, documenting OxyContin’s 1995 approval and the 2010 reformulation; United States v. The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc., Plea Agreement and Agreed Statement of Facts (W.D. Va., May 10, 2007), documenting the felony misbranding plea, the admitted marketing representations, and the financial penalties.

1. U.S. Department of Justice — United States v. Purdue Pharma

https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-vns/case/united-states-v-purdue-pharma-lp

Covers:
 • Purdue's federal criminal case
 • Fraud allegations and admissions
 • Anti-Kickback Statute violations
 • Payments to physicians
 • Purdue's conduct involving opioid prescribing
 • Criminal penalties

1. U.S. Department of Justice — Purdue Pharma Pleads Guilty

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/opioid-manufacturer-purdue-pharma-pleads-guilty-fraud-and-kickback-conspiracies

Covers:
 • Purdue's 2020 guilty plea
 • Three federal felony offenses
 • Kickback allegations
 • Misleading the DEA
 • Marketing to questionable prescribers
 • Financial penalties

BANKRUPTCY AND SETTLEMENT SOURCES: Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P., 603 U.S. 204 (2024), decided June 27, 2024; January 23, 2025 attorney-general announcements describing the $7.4 billion settlement in principle; June 16, 2025 attorney-general announcements confirming that all 55 eligible states and U.S. territories had joined; and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York’s November 18, 2025 Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order Confirming the Eighteenth Amended Joint Chapter 11 Plan of Reorganization of Purdue Pharma L.P. and Its Affiliated Debtors.

PUBLIC-HEALTH AND HUMAN-IMPACT SOURCES: CDC, Understanding the Opioid Overdose Epidemic, reporting approximately 806,000 opioid-overdose deaths from 1999 through 2023; CDC and NIDA overdose trend data, reporting prescription-opioid deaths rising from 3,442 in 1999 to 17,029 in 2017 and declining to 13,026 in 2023; SAMHSA’s 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health and CDC’s related data brief, estimating about 5 million adults with opioid use disorder in 2023; and a 2024 NIDA, SAMHSA, and CDC study estimating that 321,566 U.S. children lost a parent to drug overdose from 2011 through 2021. The broader death and parental-loss figures include overdoses involving substances beyond prescription opioids and are presented as national context, not as deaths attributed solely to Purdue or OxyContin.

--

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_03 0:20

We're recording now, Kevin. Awesome. Hello. Finally. After I put you off all day long.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Yeah. What was that about?

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Go windy shit, I suppose. Let's meet at noon. Never mind. Let's meet at 5 p.m. That's what you call being fashionably late.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

At least we're getting it stun getting it done. Maybe I was trying to power grab. Probably not.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Probably.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Right, but that is our that is our shoes, like mummy, it does kind of track, Wendy. Man, no need to be meaningful. Did you go on and attention myself? While you were Did you go on and No, no, no, no. If you remember last week's episode when you kept trying to bring up my uh obsession with perfection. When we were discussing obsession.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

I went to go read through my story one more time and I was like, I don't know. I think I kinda want to change it a little bit. It's not not what I'm envisioning anymore. It was not the perfection I was looking for. And you know what, Caitlin, in all honesty, I think it's better now. Five hours later. Actually, yeah. Because I started at eleven. I w I went to go reread through it at eleven this morning. So five hours later, I think it was finally around four something. I was like, okay, cool, I could do this. So, you know, hopefully it's okay. You know, my hopefully people like it.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

My mom loved to write. My mom passed on her love of writing to me, and she always taught me to write a first draft. And I used to be able to go back and see like my first draft was nothing like the final product. And that's the whole point.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

This is probably my tenth rewrite on it, but I think at the end of the day, when I read through it this morning, it didn't have enough human emotion in it. Because my story, as everybody well, I guess everybody doesn't know. Let's introduce our topic this week, Caitlin. We're talking about power today, right? And so uh let me put my glasses on because oh, Andy can't read without them. But uh our topic today is is about power, and I wanted to make sure within my story that I grasped the type of power that I was wanting to actually pull in to play. So, you know, for some people, power means control. For others, it means freedom, security, influence, or maybe just having a voice. Sometimes you do not realize how much power you had until you lose it, or how much you want it until someone takes it away. So obviously, you guys know today Caitlin and I are gonna each tell each other stories, which we were just discussing how I had to be a perfectionist about mine, but we're coming from our own perspectives of what we think power is. And I was coming into it with this idea that I wanted a story that had uh both the power taken and the power gained kind of involved in it, right? So obviously I'll introduce my story here in a second, but before I do that, let's get let's get into this. This is outside the footnotes, and I am Wendy.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

And I'm Caitlin.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

So up to my story, shall we? I'll go into my introduction unless you've got anything you'd like to add in the beginning. No, you got nothing. Kayla's like, I got nothing. I'm just waited with bated breath on what you have to tell me. I hope you are not snoring. Literally. I hope you are not, I hope you're not snoring through this because I do go through a lot of there's a lot of facts in this one, okay? So uh when I started thinking about power, I kept coming back to one question, right? Well, what if you could take power from other people and still call it business? Completely acceptable, right? So you're taking the power from somebody and by doing so you're gaining the power, but it's just business, man, right? So you have the money, the influence, and enough protection to keep on doing it.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

The people on the other side lose their independence, their control, and pieces of themselves, and sometimes they even lose their lives, but the loss doesn't stop with them. The people who love them lose power too. They watch someone they love change, unable to stop it, fix it, or protect them from what is happening. Sometimes they feel they have lost that person long before the person dies. Meanwhile, the people creating the dependence grow richer and more powerful. And that's the story I wanted to talk about today when I refer to power. My story is about the sacklers. Are you familiar with the Sacklers, Caitlin? Yes. Okay, but a quick note before we begin on my story. This episode is for information and commentary, not legal or medical advice. It draws on public records and reporting, and I'll distinguish allegations from admissions, court findings, and settlement terms whenever possible. Some details may change as cases develop, so please check the source and the show notes for the latest and most complete context, because obviously some things are still ongoing and they could change. So let's get into let's get into the Sackler story. Sackler. I Sackler. I said Sackler, pard my mispronunciation. The Sackler story. So some stories grow more complicated the deeper you look. Others leave you wondering how so many people could be hurt while the people at the center kept moving forward. The Sackler story does both. This is not only a story about a drug company, a famous family, or a legal fight. It is about people who walked into a doctor's office in pain and trusted the prescription placed in their hands. It is about the families who watched relief turn into dependence, dependence turn into fear, and fear become part of everyday life. It is about communities that buried neighbors and kept searching for treatment while the money continued to move upward. It is also about influence, reputation, and ultimately power. What happens when you become so wealthy, connected, respected, and powerful that your version of events begins to carry more weight than the experiences of the people affected? And perhaps more important, what happens when you start believing that your position gives you the right to keep doing what you're doing? Now, in order to do that, you guys, we gotta start discussing how the power grew. We gotta go back years before uh just ahead. So everybody who's not uh familiar with the Sackler family, let me give you a little bit of a heads up. The Sackler family owns Purdue Pharma, uh, associated with Purdue Pharma, uh Purdue Frederick. They are the ones that released Oxycottin, which we all know is an extended release pill form of Oxycodone. So I apologize if I replete what I just told you, but I want everybody to actually have a knowledge of what we're getting ready to go into before I start talking about the people who actually were a part of it. Caitlin, you're I know you're familiar with it, correct?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yes, I am.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Okay. So to understand how that power grew, we have to go back to the years before Oxycotton became a household name. And to three brothers, Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler. All three brothers were doctors. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_00 7:05

No, I didn't know that. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

I I I didn't know that either. But Arthur Sackler also understood something important about medicine. People do not respond only to a drug, they respond to the authority around it. Through pharmaceutical advertising and medical publishing, he helped develop ways to use doctors and medical journals to shape how drugs were viewed and prescribed. In 1952, the brothers bought the company that became Purdue Frederick. Arthur, do you think I'd know how to pronounce that word better? It's my grandson's name. Arthur died in 1987, eight years before OxyCotton was approved. His heirs later sold their share to Mortimer and Raymond's branches of the family, which went on to own and control Purdue Pharma. The family accumulated not only money but status. Their name appeared on museums, galleries, universities, and other cultural institutions. To anyone walking through those buildings, the Sacklers could look like patrons of medicine, education, art, and science. Their name was carved into walls meant to endure. That matters because philanthropy can turn wealth into something more protective than luxury. It can turn a family name into a shield. You do not just become rich, you become respected. That carefully built reputation mattered when Purdue introduced Oxycontin, the drug that would transform the company and reshape the Sackler family's public legacy. After the FDA approved Oxycotton in 1995, can you believe it was that long ago?

SPEAKER_00 8:35

No, I thought it no, no, it seems more recent.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

Because I feel like it's at the end of the I know, but I feel like it seems more rent I think it feels more recent to us because we don't feel like we're as old as we are.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

That's true.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

Do you know what I mean? Just feels like, you know, the year 2002 was just 10 years ago, man. Anyways, it was in 1995. And it, like I said earlier, it's an extended release form of oxycodone. So Purdue aggressively marketed to physicians as demand for pain treatment grew. For many patients, the story began in the most ordinary way imaginable, right? Surgery. Like I've had surgeries before, an injury or pain that would not go away. They were not looking for addiction. They were trying to sleep, work, care for their children, and get through the day. They trusted their doctors and they trusted the prescription placed in their hands. The national toll that followed cannot be attributed to one company or one drug. I don't I don't want to throw that just on them, right? Because it's the the epidemic later changed as heroin and illicit fentanyl drove additional waves of death, right? But prescription opioids were central to the first wave. CDC data showed that the overdose deaths involving prescription opioids rose from 3,442 in 1999 to 17,029 in 2017, nearly five times as many families receiving devastating news in a single year. By 2023, this is three years ago, prescription opioid overdoses were still linked to 13,026 deaths, an average of more than 35 people every day. Those are birthdays that stopped being celebrated, phones that never rang again, bedrooms left untouched, and families learning to speak about someone they loved in the past tense. Purdue promoted oxycottin as an effective treatment for pain and made claims about its risk of addiction and abuse. Those claims later became central to federal criminal proceedings. They also shaped how the drug was discussed with doctors and how its risks were understood. In 2007, Purdue Frederick Company, an affiliate of Purdue Pharma, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of misbranding Oxycontin. The company admitted that it had thought presented OxyCottin as less addictive, less likely to be abused or diverted, and less likely to cause tolerance and withdraw than other pain medications. Purdue and three executives agreed to pay more than $600 million in penalties. The 2007 guilty plea should have changed the company's course. Instead, the Sackler family remained involved with Purdue, and the government later alleged that family members continued to receive information about the business, prescribing, and sales. Outside the boardroom, those same years were measured in locked bedroom doors, mischiefs, empty bank accounts, treatment attempts, relapses, frightened children, and the dread of a late-night phone call. This is where this becomes a story about power, not simply having money, but having enough distance and protection to keep making decisions while other people live with the consequences. By 2012, the government alleged the named Sacklers knew that the legitimate market for Purdue's opioids had shrunk. But the government alleged that rather than accept lower sales, they pushed Purdue executives to win those sales back and grow the company's share of the opioid market. So they they know this is no good. And they're like, no, we're gonna we need more shares, we need more money. As part of that, and that's my personal opinion, guys, please don't take that as facts, other than if I say it is. But as part of that effort, the company intensified its focus on extremely high volume prescribers. Doctors who were already writing dramatically more oxycotton prescriptions than their peers on a spreadsheet, those prescribers represented opportunity. In a patient's life, each prescription involved the person trying to function through pain and relying on medical guidance. For some patients, opioid use developed into dependence or addiction, leaving families to confront changes they did not initially understand. And this is where the story becomes uncomfortable. The question is no longer simply did they know opioids could be dangerous? It becomes what did they do with the information they had? After Purdue reformulated Oxycottin in 2010 to make the tablets harder to crush and manipulate, the company's revenue declined. Purdue saw lost sales, families saw something else, a loved one who could not make it through the day without opioids, another frantic search for treatment, another relapse, another night spent listening for breathing and wondering whether morning would come. In 2023 alone, about 5.4 million US adults reported having opioid use disorder. Roughly one out of every 48 adults. That's a huge number, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:29

That's atrocious.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

It is. It really is. But the number is better understood one person at a time. Someone trying to work, parent, manage pain, ask for help, or survive long enough to reach recovery. Around each person were partners, parents, siblings, and children learning how quickly love can become vigilant and how exhausting it is to fear for someone every day. Purdue said the revenue drop had two main causes. People who abused opioids moved away from the reformulated oxycotin, and doctors, pharmacists, and others in the supply chain were facing more scrutiny. That pressure to win pack sales helps explain what happened next in 2013. Purdue launched a marketing program called Evolve to Excellence. The government alleged that the program targeted more than 100,000 doctors and nurse practitioners each year. That included prescribers Purdue knew or should have known were using opioids in ways that were unsafe, unnecessary, ineffective, or likely to lead to diversion. To Purdue, those prescribers were on market. To patients, the consequences could be much more personal. Dependence that slowly took over, missed work, broken promises, isolation, and families trying to help without knowing what to do. One detail is especially disturbing. According to the Justice Department, Purdue kept marketing opioids to more than a hundred healthcare providers. It had good reason to believe were diverting them.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

The government also alleged that Purdue sales representatives repeatedly visited a doctor known by patients as the Candyman, despite Purdue knowing about his extremely high prescribing practices. Your face, Galen, could say a thousand words.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Candyman? That's so gross.

SPEAKER_03 15:17

Well, I mean, obviously there's they're calling him that because he's Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

He's just dispensing it like candy.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Yeah. For patients, the allegation raises a troubling question about whether a trusted medical relationship was also being shaped by a company sales strategy. These were not isolated warning signs. They became part of a larger pattern that led to Purdue Pharma's next criminal case in 2020. Company pleaded guilty to three federal felonies. Purdue admitted to three conspiracies. One involving fraud against the United States and violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and two involving violations of the federal anti-kickback statute. Purdue admitted that it misled the DEA about the efforts to prevent opioid diversion, even while it continued marketing to healthcare providers it had reason to believe for diverting the drugs. Purdue also admitted that it paid doctors through its speaker program to encourage more prescriptions of the company's opioids. The company further admitted that it paid an electronic health records company to influence opioid prescribing.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

This was all 2020. This was just six years ago. Yeah. By then the opioid epidemic extended far beyond prescription pills. We know it's it's gone. It's gone past, right? Heroin, analysis, fentanyl had driven later waves, and no single company explains the entire crisis. Still the scale is staggering. From 1999 through 2023, approximately 806,000 people in the United States died from an opioid overdose. Spread across those 25 years, that's an average of about 88 deaths every day, more than three people every hour, day after day. Each death left an empty chair, an unanswered message, an unfinished plan. The people forced to learn the language of naloxone treatment, relapse, funeral arrangements, and grief. The financial consequences were enormous, but billions of dollars can make the human scale harder to see. A federal study estimated that more than 321,000 U.S. children lost a parent to drug overdose between 2011 and 2021. Roughly 80 children each day across that period. The study covered drug overdoses broadly, not opiates alone. Its findings show how overdose deaths reshape families, leaving children and relatives to face grief, discare, and new responsibilities. Under the 2020 agreement, Purdue accepted a $3.54 billion criminal fine. Fuck, man. Like $3.54 billion.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

Not million.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Billion. Chunk ch chunk change to them? Like what I mean, you have to wonder what were they what was their do we know what their gross profit was?

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Well, I I mean this is in 2020, they kept going. So just do we know what what problem was?

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Gross, sorry, gross profit.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

No, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't look into financials of the company. Two billion in criminal forfeiture. Okay. And 2.8 billion civil settlement with the federal government. These were amounts the company agreed it owed, not necessarily money paid immediately or in full, and they did not mean Purdue and the Sackler family had the same legal responsibility. So the Sackler family, not legally responsible, Purdue. Legally responsible. Wonderful thing about having corporate protection. Purdue pleaded guilty. Members of the Sackler family did not. The Justice Department's 2020 agreement with individual family members was civil, not criminal, and the claims against them remained allegations. The agreement also did not shield anyone from possible criminal charges later. That distinction matters. The story should not treat allegations as proven facts, but legal precision should not make the people affected by the crisis disappear. Money was only part of the Sackler's influence. They possessed social power. The Sackler's influence was not only about money, it also came from trust, access, credibility, and prestige. All of that created distance from the patient in an exam room. The parent begging for an open treatment bed, the spouse shaking someone awake to make sure they was still they were still breathing. And the family choosing a photograph for a funeral. The farther decision makers were from those moments, the easier it was for the harm to become a statistic, a lawsuit, or someone else's problem. That's one of the strange things about wealth. The more resources you have, the more lawyers can exist between you and the consequences of your decisions. You do not always have to face the problem yourself. You can hire attorneys, accountants, consultants, public relations firms, lobbyists, and financial advisors to handle it for you. And suddenly the question is not how do I survive this? It is how do I manage this. That's a very different kind of power. Then there is the money itself. As lawsuits mounted, attention turned to how much money had moved from Purdue to members of the Sackler family. So we're talking going from Purdue Pharma, the company corporation, to the Sackler family personally, right? And the family-controlled entities. For families, that question was not about accounting alone. So we're talking about families affected. We've got this judgment. Obviously, we've got this judgment. It's going to go to help the people that were affected by it, right? Whether it's treatment programs that the government provides, things of that nature. Yeah, you would think it should. I mean, they they want it, it should. But so so now these families are like, but wait, money has been moved from the company, right? And so it's got the the families are the families are a little nervous about that. You know, it it's about whether or not the resources would remain for treatment, recovery, prevention, compensation after so much wealth had already been left, had already left the company. So much has already left the company and it went into the Sacklers, right? So in 2020, the Justice Department made a civil allegation that from about 2008 through 2018, it named the members of the Sackler family Ask Purdue to transfer assets into family-controlled companies and trusts. The department alleged that the transfers were meant to put money beyond the reach of future creditors or were otherwise potentially fraudulent. These were allegations, not criminal findings against the family, but they made one question even more urgent for victims how much of the money generated by OxyCotton would still be there when accountability arrived.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Well, that's huge. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Yeah, right. Those allegations shifted the dispute from produced survival to a broader question. Who would bear the financial consequences? The company, the family, the creditors, the state, or the victims. For people who had already spent years caring for someone with an opioid addiction or grieving someone who died, the answer was r was not rhetorical. It affected whether money would be available for treatment, recovery, prevention, and compensation, and whether accountability would reach the people who had benefited most. As those questions intensified, Purdue filed for bankruptcy, and the fight over accountability moved into a new arena. You ready for this? Of course they did. The proposed bankruptcy plan gave families a painful choice. So this is the proposed plan for the bankruptcy. The stacklers would contribute money. In return, they would be protected from future opioid-related lawsuits, even though they had not personally filed for bankruptcy. So Purdue Pharma, the company, is filing for bankruptcy. Right. Not the stacklers. Right. But the entity. In order for Purdue, in order for Purdue basically to say, hey, we're gonna contribute. Stacklers are like, we're gonna we're filing for bankruptcy and we know we owe you guys this money and we will put money towards it. You know, the stacklers were going to contribute. They so that's the families contributing this money, but you can't come after us for any more money ever again. Like you can't come after us.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Right? Even though they weren't personally filing bankruptcy, they're still they still got all of this money. They're not they're not financially hurting, right? Of course not. So for someone who had spent years paying for treatment or grieving a child, rejecting the plan could mean waiting even longer for help. Accepting it could mean giving up the right to bring other claims against members of the family. Neither choice could restore what had been lost. Like, let's think about the lives, man.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Totally. I know.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

The power that these families lost, the power that the people who became addicted lost. You know what I mean? Wow. In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court projected that plan. They're like, nah, outta here. We're not doing that. The court said Purdue's bankruptcy could not automatically wipe away claims against family members who had not filed for bankruptcy themselves unless the affected claimants agreed. Right? So, like, no. So for this story about power, the decision raised to start questioned could wealth buy an exit? The Supreme Court's answer to that was absolutely not. No. Purdue's bankruptcy could not automatically provide that protection to family members who had not filed for bankruptcy themselves.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

This is heavy. I and I I was quiet throughout the story. I have three examples where that are kind of tied to this whole epidemic.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

And it's like just churning in my head. No, you're fine, but feel free to feel free to pop in if you got something to say, right? So basically the Supreme Court's like, no, nah. Just because like you're you you have stake in it, you're not filing for bankruptcy, you're not, you can't know, right? I'm not so when just to to verify in case anybody's confused, when I say family members of not people, I'm not talking about the victims of opioids. I'm talking about the family members who participated in ownership in Purdue, pharma. Okay. So the ruling closed off the proposed arrangements, uh, but it did not end the dispute. After the Supreme Court rejected the first plan, the parties went back to the negotiating table. So here we are in January 2025. Not that long ago, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:34

No.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

They announced a new, wait for it, 7.4 billion dollars settlement in principle involving Purdue. Members of the Sackler family, attorney generals, and other parties. So like they're they're like the amount was historic. If the settlement took effect, it could send money toward treatment, prevention, recovery service, and payments to affected individuals while publicly recognizing the scale of the harm. Under the agreement, the Sacklers would pay up to six point five billion over 15 years. That's the Sacklers.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

That's that, the family.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

Like Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

And Purdue, Purdue would add nearly 900 million. So company 900 million, family 6.5 billion. The money was meant for governments, communities, treatment, and prevention programs and affected individuals. It could help fund support that many families had struggled to find, but it could not give back the years, relationships, or lives already lost. The agreement would end the SACLER's control of Purdue and bar them from manufacturing, selling, or marketing opioids in the United States if the plan became effective. By June of 2025, all 55 participating attorney generals representing every eligible state and U.S. territory had joined the settlement in principle. The broad support showed how urgently participating governments wanted money for treatment, prevention, recovery, and compensation. On November 18th, 2025, the bankruptcy court approved the new reorganization plan. That approval allowed the process to move forward. The Sacklers would lose ownership and control of Purdue when the plan officially took effect. After decades of wealth, influence, and control, the family was set to lose the company that had generated so much of that power. But losing control of a company is not the same as losing a child, a parent, a partner. Or years of your own life to addiction. One is a financial and legal consequence, the other follows a family home. A settlement can move money, restructure a company, and pay for treatment, prevention, and recovery. It cannot undo the moment someone found a loved one unresponsive. It cannot return the years spent fighting for recovery, erase the guilt of wondering whether more could have been done or give a child back their parent they lost. Deeper question is not simply whether the sacklers were greedy. It is how wealth became power. The power to shape institutions, influence how people saw them, manage legal consequences, and stay far away from the harm connected to the company's actions. Power does not always look like dictator behind the podium. Sometimes it looks like a family name on a museum wall, a doctor in a white coat, a pharmaceutical representative in an exam room, or a check written to a prestigious institution. Sometimes it looks like money. A lot of money. And when someone finally asks who gave you the right to do this, the answer may never be spoken aloud. It is built into years of wealth, access, and influence. Years spent convincing people that the right was already theirs. That is the story I want to leave you with. Not only about how wealth becomes power, but how that power can delay consequence and how differently those consequences are carried by the people.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

So many lives were destroyed in uh opioids. So I was quiet.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Still to this day.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

To this day we're still in an opioid state. I and I was quiet because I was so I can actually think of three different situations related to opioids that they were turning in my mind as you were talking. First, I worked in a pharmacy where we served assisted living. Like we were actually in the assisted living building. And we served them and the other assisted living facilities in the area. And people would call and they would be like, You have blah blah blah blah blah. I need and they would know the drug, it was an opioid the count, and they would I mean they could just you know say it like they hadn't had it memorized, and we would be like, you know, we don't serve the general public. So that was always kind of creepy because there was and I don't know why, but my pharmacist always had this fear that these people would be out in the parking lot waiting for her, and I don't know if that's like a stereotype or if something had happened, but it was something that would happen on occasion and we would be concerned. Second is I was aware of a situation where somebody who was not a doctor stole a doctor's pad and was writing prescriptions, opioid prescriptions for their son, and they got caught because the DEA was like, Wow, this doctor is writing a lot of prescriptions and it became a whole thing. And then personally, my mother's family has always struggled with addiction, and my uncle, he is the last one of the five that is still alive. I believe that he is struggling with opioid addiction. And uh I'm not going to say why he gets his opioids, but I do believe that it's probably overkill for his issue. But he's always he's struggled with addiction his whole life. So I guess it makes sense that he would move on to opioids.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

So I yes, they've always made me sick. When I had my lung surgery back when I was 26 years old, a major lung surgery, and they sent me home with an oxycottin prescription for pain. And uh it made me sick. Like I I get it. Like I I I definitely do because it makes you feel like super like up and and good for a few minutes, but then but then I would come down from it and I would have the worst headache and I would I would feel like I was gonna throw up and I would just want to fall asleep. And and I took a couple of them and I was like, mm, I think I'm just gonna handle the pain and I'm gonna but I I do understand that not everybody not everybody can do that. And so it's kinda and I I don't what bothers me the most about this, and this is just one 100% guys, so everybody knows this is just opinion. This is my opinion, this is not based on anything, so you know please take it for what it is. But I just in in my world, the idea that you could know that something is negatively affecting real people. Yeah, that you could see in real time the crisis getting worse. You could see in real time how it's being abused, but still just kind of turn your back to it and and go back and count your money. Like that, so like you just look it it the way that I looked, like that's the the power that need to have the money, that that greed, the power of that, you know, the power to be able to be just so five times the separation from the actual issue at hand. But then the idea of the power that was lost by all of these families, by the people I mean, because drug addiction uh drug addiction is a loss of power.

unknown 32:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:24

It's a loss of power within yourself. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Then the family has no power to do anything until you're ready to be out.

SPEAKER_03 32:31

It's it's I so you've got You've got these families losing power, and you've got this corporation gaining power. And it just it's I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

That's that's why I picked it up I took a I'm gonna uh when I was I had my wisdom teeth out when I was 18 and I literally felt like I was levitating off the bed and I couldn't hear anything. It's like all of your senses, it's like you go inward and you just you kind of check out from everything. That was my experience. Like like I said, I felt like I couldn't even feel the bed under me. It was crazy. I didn't like it.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

No, I didn't like it either. I can understand why some people do though. I mean, I've heard a lot of people refer to it as as heroin in a pill form, but it's not it's not cool. And uh definitely we will be if anybody does have any issues with addictions looking for help. We will definitely be posting in our show notes those uh phone numbers, crisis centers where you can get help. Don't be afraid to ask for it because as easy as it is for us to lose power sometimes, it's never something we lose forever, it's always something we can get back.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

Kaylin, it's time for your story.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Okay, so my for us this week. We're venturing into the world of yoga. I love yoga. I think as I've said, I'm a yoga instructor. I've been doing yoga since my early 20s, so it's been a big part of my life. And I first want to give credit to a Netflix documentary that was done in 2019 called Beekram, Yoga Guru Creditor, and two articles by the Guardi the Guardian by Richard Godwin in 2017 and Adrian Portman in 2019. That's where I got a lot of my info and put it together. Some of the details are a little fuzzy, so just have some patience. I'm trying to I was trying to work through it and I kind of made it a little bit generic, but all the same, it it's about power and what happens when it's unchecked in one individual. So the person that we're talking about, oh, and excuse me, I want to say there have been no criminal convictions, innocent until proven guilty. So I just wanted to make that statement as well. So today we're talking about Bekham Beakram Shroudri, the founder of Beekram Yoga. It was a very popular type of yoga in the 1990s and 2000s. So Vikram was born on February 10th, 1944 in India. We don't know much about his life there, and there are some questions as to whether or not some of the things that he has said are true. So we're already off to a great start with this guy. So he comes to the US in the early 1970s and he sets up a studio in Los Angeles, California, in the Beverly Hills area, which is very smart of him to do. And initially he starts out very humbly. He asks for donations, he sleeps on the floor of his studio. So very, a very simple man, right? And I think that's part of the appeal of a yoga guru. They're typically very simple. They live like almost like a monk. Um, for some reason, I think that's what made this baby attracts us to them. So he starts teaching yoga to celebrities in Hollywood, and he gets popular by word of mouth. So he is a guru to everyone from George Harrison to Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Barbara Streisand. He also tells this story where he helped President Nixon fix a bad leg and that he got a green card as a result of that, but there's actually no proof of that. So he gets so popular that he ends up owning a fleet of 40 luxury cars. He lives in a massive mansion, and he's just very opulent, which I'm not against. Well, but what does he what does he need that many luxury cars for? Well, and that's yes, and I think as a guru, I would question that just like I would question a pastor. If a pastor had a fleet of 40 cars, I'd be like, Aren't you supposed to feed the poor? And like I I would question it. So yes, I think it's way too opulent. So I think people have a certain image of a guru, right? We're all like and people in yoga, we're all sitting around going, oh, and contemplating the big questions of life. But Beakram is he's different, he's eccentric and he's loud. And he literally describes himself as a mix of Mother Teresa and Howard Stern. I you can't have two more opposite people than that. That's no, that's that's that's quite that's that's quite a mix.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

I know I'm like when I'm I was like So he's saying, he's saying, I'll give you soup and I'll protect like so like when I well mother Mother Teresa was fierce now. I know I'm going a little off topic here. She was. But Mother Teresa was not one to be messed with. While she was very much a philanthropist and very much there for the needy and the poor and she was very much about changing like you know, the world, she also you don't mess with her because she understood the difference between uh she understood the difference between being weak and also being mindful. Like you don't have to be weak to be mindful. Like she protected peace, like nobody's supposed to. But Howard Stern, he's opinionated.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Well, he's also like how do you come he's very crass.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

He's very crass, he's very opinionated. He's he's very the way that he speaks is extraordinarily like he doesn't have a it's it's like me sometimes. Like words just come out of his mouth, and you're like, wow, probably not appropriate, Wendy. Should have thought about that before it came out, but he doesn't care, right? So like I can't even imagine a mother Teresa Howard Stern mix, but continue on. I didn't, I just took you down an AD. It's up to there's my ADHD rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Unfortunately, he's more like Howard Stern, so well you'll see. So in the Guardian article by Godwin, he writes that Beakram claims to have launched Michael Jackson's career and that he cured Janet Reynolds Parkinson's disease, which that makes me mad.

SPEAKER_03 38:39

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What year did you say he started this group where he launched Michael Jackson's career?

SPEAKER_00 38:45

No, he's no no no. This was from a Guardian article in 2017 that Beakrum so Beegram I know, but you said you said that he claimed he did, right?

SPEAKER_03 38:54

Yes. So B. I want to know what year. Remind me what year he started.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

I said the same thing because I'm like Michael Jackson was a star from the time he was very little.

SPEAKER_03 39:02

Like I don't A B C Yeah, yes. Easy as one to probably shouldn't be doing that. That's sorry. That is like 50s, 60s, man. This guy was no.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

And the Janet Reno thing is really gross because I know that I think the nation kind of they rewatched her decline in health and pass away, and it was horrible. It was an awful thing. Well, this is this is an exact quote from Beakram. You'll find this funny. Beakram apparently told people he experienced 70, 72 hours of marathon sex where my partner, not his wife, had 49 orgasms, and he said, I count.

SPEAKER_03 39:38

Okay, first and foremost, sounds like a good idea. Like, where do I sign up for that experience? Is that carnival ride? Where do I go? Whoa.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:49

I you know, at my age, how old was he? He was probably in his 20s, wasn't he? I know as a 48-year-old, that's you're pushing it. Like, are we talking 49 consecutive? Are we talking like 49 over the course of a 24-hour period?

SPEAKER_00 40:03

It was 72 hours of marathon sex.

SPEAKER_03 40:06

Okay, well, that's three days. I mean, I could probably do that in three days with somebody too. So, like, cool, dude. You're so cool, right? Sorry. Continue on. I can't wait to hear about his power grants.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

With this quote, uh, pun intended. Okay. So these claims are obviously ridiculous, but I think Americans actually eat this stuff up. I mean, if you look at our current political landscape and the claims that get made with no verification, you know, nobody calling anybody out, I mean, it's kind of like, well, hard for the course, right? Becrum starts to offer a nine-week training course. And the only way you can become certified to teach Begram yoga is to be re recommended by a fellow Begrim yoga teacher. And then if you want to open up a studio, you have to get permission from him.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

So it's like this circle where you can't So not only was he holding ultimate power, but then he was trickling down the power to other people in order for them to I see it. Yeah, I could see because he's got these people that feel like they're so higher up than everybody else, they're protecting his power. This is insane. Continue, I'm sorry. It gets worse. I was correlating the power in my head.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

So he's basically getting funneled young women. Okay? Keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

Not cool.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

You're at a resort, you are isolated, so it's almost like you're you're at an all-inclusive resort. It's tens of thousands of dollars for this nine-week training. They start their day at 8 30 in the morning and they go past midnight. Now they do two 90-minute sessions every day. Now, B Grum Yoga, you are in a room that's about 104 to 105 degrees, and you do 26 moves twice. So the idea is that on purpose? Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 42:04

The point is that Oh Lord, the only reason I'm in rooms that hot is because I gotta be at work and I'm getting paid for it. You're telling me these people are paying to do it?

SPEAKER_00 42:13

And training to become instructors.

SPEAKER_03 42:15

So no judgment here, guys, but you could take like they do polar plunges too.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

So now imagine this in his trainings. There are hundreds of people in this room. Okay. So a couple of things that I mean, these are ridiculous, but here we go. When he came to America, he saw carpeting and he thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. The rooms where these people are training in this hot weather are carpeted. Okay, that's just nasty from a hygienic standpoint. He b yeah, I know. He bans them from wearing the color green because he hates the color green.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

Okay, no, no, no, no, no. See, this is where the power would have gone too far.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Right, if you're not gonna be a big thing.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

This is where Wendy would have set a boundary. Like what is wrong with the color green, dude?

SPEAKER_00 43:10

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 43:11

It's grass and trees. It like no. Oh green for you! How how are you how are you a yoga guy that hates one of the most most well significant colors and grounding? Like, come on.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

So he he berates a student and then he'll compliment them in the same breath. And he yells and swears, he shames people in bigger bodies. He he doesn't like when people go to the bathroom during his training. So he basically, and I'm not even gonna repeat the quote because it's so crude, but he tells men to use a string and women to use a cork so they don't have to pee. You can find the quote somewhere, it's very gross, and he sounds like a fantastic. He's just a vile man and he says he says like anti-Semitic and homophobic things in class. But yeah, we're not gonna talk about that. No, I won't. I'm not gonna say that. But he's just very, very crude. And but people worship him, they love him. And even the people he berates, they're like, Well, I kind of needed a kick in the butt. It's okay. I got in shape and blah blah blah blah. And so even in the midst of him berating these people, they're they're praising him. So it's a very unhealthy relationship. And in addition to that, so from about 2002 to 2015, he tries to copyright the sequence of 26 houses. Now he's got books and videos that he can copyright, and that's perfectly fine. And then what he does is he starts suing studios who are teaching it because he's saying this is his sequence. And these are former students. Remember, you can only have a beak from yoga studio if you get permission from him. So he's literally suing his former students. He somehow, and I'm not quite sure about this, but my understanding is that the copy, the US copyright office mistakenly copyrighted the sequence, and then they were like, you can't do that. So he goes to court, he loses, he appeals, he loses the appeal, basically. They're like, that's crazy. You can't copyright your sequences. So if that's not bad enough. Week five of the nine-week training is called sex week. Okay, and everybody knows this.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

So Begram claims Is that also in a hundred and four, hundred and five degree room?

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Because it still doesn't sound appealing. It's in his presidential suite that he lives in.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

Oh, cool, cool, cool. So we got AC now?

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 45:54

Is it with him? If it's with him, I'm gonna pass.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

So pass. Begram claims he doesn't need much sleep. And since he doesn't need much sleep, neither do his students. And he likes to watch Bollywood movies at night. And he would literally call, of course, his female students in the middle of the night and say, come and watch this movie with me. And you would go in there and you'd watch the movie. And if you fell asleep, he would wake you up and he keeps doing that until about three in the morning. And unfortunately, this is where there are things that go bad. And I'm gonna talk about that in a minute, but it's a little fuzzy again, no criminal charges, but there are some things, there are some accusations that are made that are very serious. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 46:39

We all know I wouldn't have survived that, and he probably wouldn't have either waking me up. Caitlin, you know, you know the drill.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

You're gone.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

If I fell asleep, yeah, like you're just he he would have had me in a pine box before I woke up in the morning thinking I had so gently passed away in my people are in this very physically exerting nine-week training, they're getting little sleep.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

It's it's rough. And they know that these bad things are allegedly happening. Again, no criminal charges. Amidst all of this inappropriate behavior, who speaks up? A black woman. Her name is Pandora Williams, and she was in his training and they were in corpse pose. The la it's the last pose of any yoga session. You're just on the floor relaxing. And Beakram says something very homophobic. And I have what he said, but we might I think we'll just keep it out because it's very hurtful. Even I cried when I first read it. I couldn't believe he said that.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

After class, yeah, let's not let's not say that. Did he he said this to her?

SPEAKER_00 47:45

Was she said it in class during the training? In the training where hundreds of people are laying, they're relaxing. It's the end of the yoga session. He's fair enough. And she is brave enough to ask him, and I quote, Beakram, why are you preaching hate? Yoga is supposed to be about love. And he says, We don't sell love here, B-I-T-C-H. And then told his assistant to get that black E I T C H out of here because she's a cancer. Pandora Williams gets kicked out of the club the training, and she has not refunded the money. She sues Begram. And I'm like, you go, girl. So Begram's head legal advisor, Manakshi Jaffa Bowden. She receives the lawsuit, and she's really concerned at this point. People know who he is. Even you know, his people, they all know he's just very crude, rude, and does not care. Jaffa Bowden, his head legal advisor, is subpoenaed to testify by William's lawyer, Carla Minard. Now remember her name. So this is William's lawyer, Carla Menard, and they settle for an undisclosed amount the night before the jury is selected. But this wasn't the end. Pandora opened up a box and it had a powerful ripple effect. So in 2013, there are Okay, wait.

SPEAKER_03 49:11

That was such a perfect setup.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

I was I said her name was like that was destined to Pandora's box.

SPEAKER_03 49:18

She opened up a box. Hell yeah. Open that box, sweetie.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

There are several Go Queen. Yes, oh yeah. I I love this woman. I I want to know what happened to her, where she is now. There are several allegations, again, allegations of essay. Jaffa Bowden, as his head legal advisor, does her job and she questions him. And he's his usual crude self. And he makes so many crude remarks, and she's now really concerned. And at this point, she even has to say to him, Eikram, you can't bring trainees to your room. And he says mockingly, my lawyer tells me I can't have a girl in my room. So now I'm gonna have two. So, you know, I mean, he's a great guy. So then Jaffa Bowden alleges that she sounded like he just wanted to be in power.

SPEAKER_03 50:07

Sounded like he wanted to be the most powerful one in the room. Power out of the way. And for everybody that doesn't know, when Kaelin says SA, she's referring to sexual assault. Sorry, I was trying to be he's he's there's been sexual assault, sexual assault allegations.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

So Jaffa Bowden, you know, she she is seeing, starting to see what's going on. And unfortunately, she has a she has a situation where Beakram tries to get her in a hotel room alone and she's like, no. So props to Jaffa Bowden. She's from India and she comes, she she is a devotee of Beekram's, and she to this day does Beekram yoga. She's with her daughter, she's a single mom. Her work visa, her apartment, her car, her cell phone, everything is tied to Beekram. And the minute she is supposed to testify, he ends her contract and she loses everything. So again, props to an again, another woman who stood up and was like, Nope. So she goes, and this is I love this part of the story. Joqua Bowden goes to Carla Menard, Pandora Williams lawyer, the black woman who was not gonna take Beakram's abuse. So Menard takes the case on one condition. They have to go to trial because she settled with the Williams case for an undisclosed amount, but now she's like, no, no, we gotta take this to trial. So to make a long story short, Beakram is terrible in the deposition and on the stand. I mean, if the story weren't so horrific, it would be comical because he's just like he's his own worst witness and he loses, and he's ordered to pay $7.4 million to Jaffa Bowden for wrongful termination, sexual harassment, and discrimination. And like this is a civil, obviously, not a criminal. So again, but what do powerful people do when they get in trouble? He claims bankruptcy, he flees the US, he divorces his wife in what they believe to be a sham divorce. So basically what he did is he divorced his wife and then said, Well, all the assets are hers and not mine, right? So it's a very I mean it's actually a very smart move, but of course Little bitch. I know, I know. So there are still several uh allegations out there, and there's a civil warrant that is active in the state of California, and from what I've read, because it's a it's a it's through the state of California and not a federal criminal indictment, extradition is very complex. So this is the kicker. Talk about power. He is still teaching in Mexico, Thailand, and India, and young women are still getting funneled to him through the system. And so, of course, with any accusation, there's a split. There are people who support the accused, becrum, and some people who support the accuser. And to this day, like I said, even the people who know he did wrong still they still speak very highly of him, and that bothered me. Um but today in the US, most studios in the US have rebranded and they are called hot yoga. So if you go past a hot yoga studio and it's been there for a while, it was probably a Begrim yoga studio. So he's still alive at 82 teaching yoga.

SPEAKER_03 53:34

So so is that what Begrim's claim to shame uh fame was on having a different type of yoga? Was just the fact that he was gonna turn the heat up so that you were intensely uncomfortable and sweating.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

Let me so this is a personal twist. So Bikrim yoga was actually the first yoga I was exposed to. I was in my early 20s. I was living in a city where there were a ton of yoga studios. One day I was like, I really need to start exercising. I went to the closest yoga studio, I went to the class that fit my schedule. It was a B Grip class. Now, granted, I was in my 20s, so it was a little bit different. I could handle it. So this is what I have been told. And I've been told a couple things that it simulates the experience in India. I don't know if that's true. And also the idea is that so you do a pose and then you do the pose again. It's 26 times two. And the second time you do the pose, because of the heat, you you should be able to go deeper into the pose because your muscles are more relaxed. That's the theory. That's what I've been told. I don't know if it's true, but it is a that room gets very hot. They have to monitor the CO2 levels. If they get too high, they have a system that literally dumps the CO2 out and brings in air from the outside. So it's gotta be a very controlled system. You can get faint. My teachers were always good about telling me to lay down. That's called that's called heat exhaustion. Yeah, I mean, that's called heat stress. And even in this, the the the documentary I watched, students are they're they're getting sick, they're I mean, it's it's not good. And so they did this, they do it twice a day in the nine-week training. Two 90-minute sessions in the heat. And I forgot to tell you, while they're in the heat, he sometimes is sitting up on an inflatable chair, like a throne, and he has cold air being pumped through through pipes dumped on him while they're drenched in their own sweat. Great guy.

SPEAKER_03 55:26

He sounds like a great guy. That's that sounds like a great guy. That's I mean, I it's like uh it's funny because that story, the way that I interpret it, and I don't know if you interpret it this way or not, uh, but he gained power by convincing other people that they had power. Even though they really didn't. He always had the power, right? Like the the the the lawsuit that he had oh with uh the lady that had the daughter from India. Right? Yeah, I I'm not gonna try to say that. I just I you heard me have an issue earlier with Mortimer. My mouth doesn't always work properly, and that's Jacobu Hama. I was like, I just I don't have it in front of me to sound it out. Sorry, no disrespect to that beautiful queen because that's quite a feat to stand up to somebody like that. Yeah. But making her feel like she had that power, like she was in a position of power, but then ultimately saying that he was the one in power. And I love how she reclaimed her power and said, I don't think so, sir.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

Yes, this is definitely a story of I don't think so. Yes, and I love that you know that especially Pandora Williams, she was Pandora, come on, powerless, and she was like, Oh no, I'm not gonna take this.

SPEAKER_03 56:37

She was just a student. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

Yeah. So yeah, it it's it's a good story, and it just it had a personal touch, and now I wonder what some of my Beakrim teachers went through in their training, because I think there are a lot of people who haven't who may never tell. And I understand why things happen, and sometimes we don't feel comfortable telling, but it all that stuff was going on while I was I was a student, and then I actually went to another studio that was a beak room studio, so I did it for quite a while and I didn't know, not a clue.

SPEAKER_03 57:12

I have I have never done yoga. I I did you just say I should.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

You should, yes.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

Yeah, okay. I love I love I love that.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

Any yoga is for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 57:24

Everybody yoga's for everybody. There's different different kinds of yoga. I I did you know I work in construction, I do physical stuff all day. I don't need to be that bendable, flexible. Oh, you were talking about the like I never thought yoga was that's like meditation. I do the meditation on the incense, all of that. I love making it.

SPEAKER_00 57:44

The ultimate goal of yoga. The ultimate goal of yoga is to actually be able to sit still in meditation. That's why we do the poses, that's why we push ourselves, that's why we do a pose that may not feel comfortable. The ultimate goal is to be able to sit for meditation.

SPEAKER_03 58:00

You can't do that without making your body hurt. Well, I'm sorry, I love you. We can wrap this up if you want to. I'm sorry. I know I irritate the shit out of you. It's okay.

SPEAKER_00 58:14

I love you.

SPEAKER_03 58:17

Just let me put my glasses on, we'll finish this babble way up. What do you say?

SPEAKER_01 58:22

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_03 58:24

Oh my goodness. Hopefully everybody uh liked the difference in perspective of power between Kaylin and I. I feel like this new format really is a way for people to see, you know, kind of like similar we are, but also how very different we perceive the world. Because I don't think anybody perceives the world the same, and I think that everything that we discussed and everything we're going to discuss is gonna have a different meaning to somebody else, right? And no power is definitely one of them. And the funny thing about power is that we spend so much time thinking about presidents, CEOs, money, and people at the top that we can off often forget that power shapes our everyday life. So, like today I talked about the Sackler family, Caleb talked about the Bikram yoga, but it does hit us on an actual personal level on every day. And this is where we uh want to kind of talk to you because I think if we all sit back and we all look at where power exists or doesn't exist within our lives, it gives us a better understanding of what it is and the ability to identify it when it's happening around us. Because power, like I said, isn't always the things that we assume power is, like a president or government or things of that nature. Power is a parent over a child.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:40

A boss over a coworker.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 59:43

A friend that knows a secret about you that you don't want anybody else to know. They hold power, right? It it's a lot quieter and sometimes it can even be stronger. It could be the person that finally says no.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 59:55

Think about the times that you've decided to say no or set boundaries. The employee that realizes they don't have to stay. Caelan and I have talked about that before in an episode. The person that walks away from a relationship they once thought they could not live without. Yes. Sometimes power is simply realizing you have a choice. And maybe that is what makes power so complicated. Sometimes we have more of it than we think, and sometimes we give it away without realizing it. Sometimes we spend so much time trying to reclaim power that we never stop to ask what getting it back might cost us. So maybe the question is not just who has the power. Maybe it is what are we doing with the power we have? And what are we willing to do when we do not have it? So, you know, all about what's missing from the discussion. Feel free, guys, to email us what you think is missing from the discussion at outside the footnote at gmail.com. Give us a follow on TikTok at outside the footnotes. Feel free to follow the substack that our beautiful Kaylin is writing for. Until then, guys, can't wait to see you guys next week. Tune in for Wendy Wednesday. It's gonna air on Wednesday. That's our mini episode that we're putting out where I get to go and tell all kinds of crazy stories that Kaylin doesn't necessarily want to hear because sometimes they get a little creepy. Or I might say words she don't like to hear. I'm just teasing that's not why I do it. It just helps me with a little bit of a smaller obsession that I have that Kaylin just supports. So hopefully you guys tune in Wednesday for our mini episode. Hopefully, we see you guys back here on Monday. And like I said, reach out, tell us what you think, and give us what you think is missing from the discussion. Until then, I am Wendy. And I'm Caitlin. Uh perfect.