For today’s finale of “Mind Wide Open,” the IGTV series and podcast hosted by Chris Cornell’s daughter, Lily Cornell Silver, she welcomes her mother, longtime Alice in Chains and Soundgarden manager Susan Silver.
According to the announcement, Susan —who rarely does interviews —and Lily will talk about “the relationship between a parent and child with respect to the relationship between mental health and addiction, anxiety, the benefits of therapy and their own journey with wellness.” The final episode is airing a year to the date after the first episode, and once again on the birthday of Lily’s late father, who would have been 57.
They also speak about how Susan set the stage for Lily’s openness around mental health, and how they continue to approach it today.
Susan says, “What I learned probably just in the years before you were born, was that self care is not self-indulgence. It’s so important that we take responsibility for ourselves individually so we can help take care of the collective.”
Susan also doesn’t shy away from discussing with her daughter the ways that addiction plagued the Seattle music scene in which she played such a large role. “By the time you were born, I had dealt with a lot of people who had substance abuse and addiction and there had been a fair amount of losses,” she says. “And the losses of course have a profound impact. I was in my early 40s when I had you, so I had a lot of life experience to look back on. I had participated in a lot of programs with people and different rehabs, I would go as a supportive family member or spouse or in a professional capacity with clients. And certainly, I learned that there’s something underneath the addiction component and the conversation about mental health started to become more and more prevalent.”
Closing out the episode, Lily reflects on one of the many things she says she has learned through the past year of “Mind Wide Open” : “The importance of listening to oneself, and that it’s okay to ask for help.”
After the series finale, Lily plans to focus on finishing college, but has left open the possibility that it may come back for special episodes. Until then, the series can be heard as a podcast on Spotify and Apple and on YouTube with subtitles available in Spanish and English.
Past episodes of Mind Wide Open have featured Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, iconic singer, Ann Wilson, Actor/Host Jack Osbourne, Actor/activist Michael K Williams, The Pretty Reckless singer Taylor Momsen, Social media star/body positivity activist Sienna Mae Gomez, Grief expert/Author David Kessler, activist, musician, author Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot, Singer/songwriter Fantastic Negrito, actor-activist Brittany Snow, Allison Hagendorf Global Head of Rock at Spotify, TV Icon/Author Matt Pinfield, Dr. Laura van Dernoot Lipsky of the Trauma Stewardship in Seattle, Alicia Bognanno of Bully, Dr. Marc Brackett, author of Permission to Feel and founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, TikTok/Instagram influencer Sir Carter, Guns N’ Roses bassist, Duff McKagan, and Monique Minahan, founder of The Grief Practice among others.
