Last Saturday, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau appeared as the “honorary guest of inspiration” at a Toronto event called the Soulful Divorcée, where she spoke to an audience of dozens of women during a fireside chat.
Canada’s former “unofficial first lady” and the author of “Closer Together: Knowing Ourselves, Loving Each Other” shared her thoughts on topics ranging from parenting to sexual liberation to the pressure on women to change their faces and bodies.
The event’s organizer, Kathryne Mejias, told the Star that she invited Grégoire Trudeau, who separated from former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2023, to speak at the Soulful Divorcée event, and in what “felt like a sign, a gift from the universe,” Grégoire Trudeau responded on Mejias’ birthday.
“Her experience is one that so many can relate to, yet she has navigated it with an unshakable sense of self and a commitment to growth,” said Mejias. “Divorce often feels like stepping into unknown territory, but when women witness someone like Sophie — who has walked this path in the public eye while staying grounded and empowered — they realize that they, too, can rise stronger.”
Under the glass dome ceiling of the Toronto Event Centre at Exhibition Place, attendees browsed a marketplace of vendors as girl-power anthems like Katy Perry’s “Roar” boomed from the speakers. Wares included prayer-bead bracelets, crystals and menopause-friendly sweat-wicking pyjamas. One jewelry brand offered tarot readings alongside a poster advertising divorce rings. A company called Dancing Geisha sold pole-dancing classes. Some guests sipped a signature cocktail of vodka, blue curacao and cherries.
There was a guided meditation session by life coach Eva Redpath, and attendees received a complimentary tote bag including discount coupons for Botox and fillers, Mexican real estate opportunities, liquid sex-drive supplements and a QR code to preorder Mejias’ book.
Onstage, Grégoire Trudeau spoke about the benefits of hugging for 30 seconds. “It feels amazing and your heart rate slows and your breaths almost come up and down and they dance together, right?” she said. At the end of their conversation, Grégoire Trudeau and Mejias embraced, and an audience member suggested they hug for 30 seconds, which they did.
Here’s what stood out from Grégoire Trudeau’s talk.
She loves making eye contact
“I usually want to look at everybody as much as possible when I get the chance to meet new humans. I’m an only child and I grew up being raised saying, ‘Hi, my name is Sophie — would you like to play?’ And I’m still that way, and I’m turning 50 soon.”
Her life goal is to be of service
“It’s not about me. I’ve been given a voice and I take the voice seriously without taking myself too seriously, I hope. And kids will really take you down (off) your high horse. So I just love life, I love humans, and I think that I was given this assignment to be of service in the way that I can. And I think my love for humans is real and people smell the BS from miles away, by the way.”
She’s disciplined about her self-care
“My practices of grounding, of exercise, of nutrition, of sleep — perimenopause, please help — and contact with nature and yoga, meditation: I’m super-disciplined with this. I didn’t take it so seriously. My kids see me practice and they roll their eyes, but sometimes my daughter or my son will ask me to go teach at their school on a volunteer basis to teach meditation and yoga.”
She worries about our screen time
“You’re not supposed to be in front of a screen for eight hours a day. You’re not supposed to be not moving. We’re not supposed to put that much processed food in our bodies and sugar. We’re not supposed to be isolated from one another. And what’s happening now is that as we start this younger and younger, from six to 10 years old. Like, go back to your six- to 10-year-old self. Personally, I was born in nature. My parents put me out there. All my pictures from childhood are like almost unclothed, if not unclothed, you know, in summer playing with the squirrels and whatever wildlife, and when we are now giving screens to little people, especially from four to six? I can’t even believe you would get a screen, but I see that in strollers a lot and I’m like, ‘No, save your child’s brain!’”
She admired Madonna’s sexual liberation
“The difference between pain, suffering, and trauma is constriction, closing it — when we close in and we hold parts that solidify, that calcify. You keep those hidden and very often there will be guilt and shame, especially as women. We learn the guilt and shame as we grow older. I used to look up to Madonna; I thought she was so cool, I turned the ‘Sex’ book upside down to make sure I understood everything. She pushed boundaries, that a lot of us were like, ‘Wow!’ Back into the real world it’s like, ‘Oh, yes, let yourself go, dance as you wish, but don’t be a tease,’ right? It was always a paradox between ‘free yourself’ and ‘act like a proper person,’ but the boys could do whatever they wanted.”
She believes we can change our habits
“When you say you don’t have time? You have time for your micro-habits; you have time to go to what makes you feel good and gives you temporary relief. If you were able to change in baby micro-steps — no leaps, forget the huge leaps. That’s not where real change happens. It will lead you to huge leaps. As the Buddha is saying, leap and the net will appear. So I would transfer that to habits and to our universal neurobiology and try baby steps again and again and again and the habits will be created.”
She says there’s one thing no human can do without
“Did you know that you can live a lifetime without having sex? I know — boring. You won’t die from it, right? But without human touch, the chances of you thriving are very, very low. It’s true for a baby; it’s true for an adult.”
She thinks that beauty standards are dehumanizing us
“How we treat ourselves is also a reflection of how we build our first relationships in life and how we evolve in our relationships in our lives. So it’s really fascinating because of the level of agency that we can have in a world that rewards us for self-betrayal. Do this to your faces, do this to your bodies, do this to your hair, to your nails, your eyelashes, to your lips, to your calves, to your bum, to your relationships, to how you perform in society, to your definition of success. Constantly. This is tiring. We’re dehumanizing ourselves at a rate that is quite alarming, and there’s a high price to pay for this because we’re losing our authenticity.”
She warns against looking up to celebrities
“Right now in your own life, what do you bring your attention to on a daily basis? What do you consume? What do you look at, what do you bring into your mouth, body, food, how you treat yourself? Are you always critical, comparing, or are you tender and patient, or are you dancing in between like most of us do? I include myself in there. Do you accept the norms that are set upon you for your looks, for how you’re supposed to perform, or do you set them yourself and say, ‘No, no, nobody’s gonna tell me how to look, this is how I look, this is who I am.’ And it’s so pervasive because we’re actually rewarded for self-betrayal: ‘Oh my God, she looks so young, she never ages.’ This is all a delusion. So is fame and celebrity, by the way. I’ve met enough people in my life from all walks of life to realize that we’re actually looking up to strangers we’ve never met on social media and adore
She says transforming relationships is difficult work
“Positive energy is contagious. And I’m not talking about toxic positivity here. I think when we open up, you have to break in a million pieces in order to see yourself truly, and that hurts, it hurts, and changing your micro-habits isn’t easy, either, but there is no price to the freedom and sense of liberation and choosing your authenticity over your attachment. That’s what I did when I transformed my relationships, and it’s great; it’s really difficult work.”
She says that boys are suffering
“A baby cries as a survival mechanism. But when humans stop crying, and when we stop and when we told our boys to stop crying, it’s almost…I don’t want to say the word criminal, [but] it’s dangerous. And I’ve heard firsthand, leaders that ignite fear and division tell me that they were never taught that it was good to cry … How is it that I’ve been a mental health advocate and a gender equality ambassador and I’ve been fighting for the rights of girls and women across the planet, but our boys — I love them. I have two boys. They’re suffering, too. We need to wake up. We need to see that our culture is not serving them, and we need to be there for them, and we need to allow them to express and feel safe in doing so. Because it’s still too many of them, well, not too many of them, but a lot of them, when we look at it from a statistical point of view, are still the leaders, right? And they’re still forming the patriarchy. Boys — this is Gabor Maté’s work — boys are more fragile in the first years of life from an emotional perspective. They are, and I saw it because now I have two boys and one girl and it’s true in the early years. It’s beautiful. It’s not a negative, but it is an opportunity to connect with them.”
The advice she would give her 20-year-old self
“Slow down. And forget about being known from the world, just be known to yourself. You know, my dad always used to tell me — I lost him a couple of months ago, so he’s probably watching over me right now — he used to tell me [speaks in French], that means, ‘Stop running, baby, because you’re going backwards.’ And I was like, ‘ugh!,’ right? Eye-roll. He was right. And our capacity to slow down is our capacity to pay attention in words and to love. I don’t think we will solve world problems with love exclusively, but we will solve a lot of problems with leading conscious lives, looking at the truth, at the inconvenience of truth, and at the inconvenience of pain. It’s not convenient, but it’s the greatest work that we’ll ever do.”
