2 Moms on The Couch

For maybe the first time in history, there are currently four generations sharing the workplace! No matter what generation you belong to, the other ones can be so ANNOYING! Sure, millennials may be the prime targets of ridicule and derision right now, but the cycle will continue, and someone new will become irritating, and by the way, millennials don't think GEN X and the Boomers are so perfect, either. 

Join Dana and Amy on the couch for their own tales of inter-generational annoyance.  Then listen as they re-frame those tales using some great advice for getting past the irritating behaviors of other generations to a place of idyllic understanding and harmonious cooperation. Really!

Most everyone has felt like a fraud at one point or another. Amy was surprised to learn that even confident-seeming white guys can fall prey to impostor syndrome! Join the 2 Moms on the Couch as we tell you how to Get. Over. It—except for those rare times that it's normal and appropriate. 

Dana shares the unique ways in which impostor syndrome affects therapists, who don't have many observable models for their work. And then there was the time Amy really WAS an impostor, performing at the Comedy Cellar on a show with Dave Attell. Twice. She may have fooled the audience, but did the other comics know? (The answer will astound you: YES!) 

Lastly, for our segment, "No, you HAVE to!" Dana shocks Amy with the secret to her lashes. (Really, I was SHOCKED.)

Dana shares a middle school friend group story more frightening than anything Poe could have dreamed up. Amy talks about how frequent moves for her family as a kid altered her friendship landscape. 

Dana and Amy learn they both have dueling fears of friend-abandonment and friends wanting to subsume them. 

Get helpful advice about being a better friend and knowing when it's time to walk away.

Join us on the couch as we process some BIG disappointments, the result of some big expectations. 

Dana shares the gut-wrenching story of her son getting ridiculously ill in the hours leading up to his bar mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony they'd both spent months preparing for.

Amy divulges the results of a Mother's Day survey she created to measure the gap between mothers' expectations for our "special day" and the realities. She also admits to wanting something IMPOSSIBLE from a long-ago gift and how it still embarrasses her to think about it. 

Dana and Amy understand that, in the scale of problems and disappointments, the ones they discuss are good ones to have, considering what's possible. In this exploration of the underlying emotion of disappointment and strategies for working through it, they hope you can find something that resonates for you and helps you process whatever you have going on, even if you weren't expecting to get a necklace when you woke up today!

This one hit close to home for Dana and Amy! Join us on the couch as we learn what's really going on when you put off that one thing—or many things!

Dana helps us understand why procrastination is a perfectly normal and natural self-protective mechanism—and then, how to move past it to get on with our lives. 

She also gives Amy some useful advice for parenting a procrastinator. 

Amy vows to do the one embarrassing thing that she was putting off right after we recorded. Visit us on IG or FB to see if she actually did it!

And lastly, judge for yourself if Amy's "No, You HAVE To" is even crazier than Goop advice! 

Visit us at www.2momsonthecouch.com!

Google auto-corrected "Lust" to "List," because even the (biased!) algorithm didn't want to hear fifty-year old mothers talking about this deadly sin. 

But we committed to a series on the Seven Deadly Sins, and LUST is a biggie, so after some reluctance, here we are. 

There's plenty to talk about, joke about, and think about as Dr. Dana Dorfman and comic Amy Veltman take on middle-age lust. Come join us on the couch as we move through some of our own discomfort talking about this taboo, and how it got all weird to begin with. 

Much conspires to dim lust as we age: hormonal changes, exhaustion, and an ever-growing selection on Netflix. Still, for many, sexuality remains an integral part of their identity, relationships, and sense of being fully alive. 

Stick with us until we come out on the other side, a little wiser, a little more patient with ourselves, and a little more hopeful about the future of our own lust and libido after Dana shares some tips for getting your own magic back if it seems to be on sabbatical. 

Now, I gotta go post this before my kids get home....

In our series on the Seven Deadly Sins as a way to explore big emotions, it was Greed time. We stepped into it when we decided to use our kids' impending religious rites of passage (B'nai Mitzvot) as the playground for the conversation. This life-cycle event is full of family decision-making: how many people to invite, what kind of party shall we have, and, if we're being honest with ourselves, who are we trying to impress. Dana offers incredibly helpful advice about how to impart your values around money, material goods, community, and honoring special moments. And Amy offers her own services at a deep discount.

As part of our series on the Seven Deadly Sins, we cover Anger (often referred to in sin lit as "Wrath"). This sin cut to the front of the line when Dana had an anger incident brought about in part by the hell arcade that is Dave & Buster's. We learn that Dana's anger flares when someone tangles with her kids; Amy's is activated when someone eats her food. Please don't judge Amy too harshly for her skewed priorities. 

Dana offers helpful insights about the positive value of anger and how to express it in a way that it doesn't overwhelm the recipient. We also explore the relationship between anger and depression that sometimes exists, which was something Amy learned this week! 

For our concluding section of recommendations, "No, You HAVE To!", Amy offers tips for something money can't buy, and Dana recommends something money CAN buy.

Join us on the couch to explore the deadly sin of PRIDE, and the role it might have played in the college admissions scandal that this week ensnared CEOs and celebs. (They're not just like us. Phew!)

We dive into the difference between pride and confidence and figure out how to tell if you're treading into 'sin" territory, As we discuss how women and men are often expected to express confidence differently, Dana gives textbook-perfect demos of the right and wrong ways to accept a compliment. 

As Amy wrestles with the complexities of discerning what's fair in helping our kids in school and life, Dana shares a helpful POV on how to measure the "right" amount. Amy also learns why she might not want to take on as a central piece of her identity one nice thing someone said to her one time... about her pinky toe.

We're about to launch into a series loosely based on the feelings of The Seven Deadly Sins and thought there was no better place to start than a conversation about the feeling that's supposed to steer us clear from them all: SHAME. 

On this episode, Dana talks about her own struggle to overcome shameful feelings. Amy gets embarrassed that she doesn't feel as much shame as she used to anymore. We discuss these difference between shame, embarrassment, and guilt, and how (and why!) to avoid a parenting style based on shaming. 

Additionally, we marvel at the shamelessness of the current resident of the Oval Office and wonder how someone becomes utterly shameless. Amy was surprised by Dana's expert opinion of how people turn out that way, and you might be, too. 

For our "No, You HAVE To" this week, Dana recommends a recent documentary series to understand how deep shame plays out in real life, and Amy recommends something superficial to forget all about it.