The Curiosity Chronicles

To be honest, I can’t quite remember EVERYTHING we talked about. I never can lol

BUT I do know that this was an over arching theme for us AND that this podcast was the kick in the pants I needed to get my shit together!

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and we are back i am your host taylor cecilia brooke here on the curiosity

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chronicles and today i have a wonderful guest who has joined us before and i'm so

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happy to have him back on this podcast this is nor hi everybody thanks for having

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me taylor i'm glad to be back of course of course so so we don't forget

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Before we started this podcast,

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we were talking about Benadryl hangovers and that when you abuse it,

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you see crazy things and you have a wild story to share about that.

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I would absolutely love to hear it.

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I do.

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So there was a medication,

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like I was recovering from an injury,

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so I was given muscle relaxants and the specific one I was given was called Xanaflex.

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So I had taken more than I...

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and i didn't realize that if you it's one of those things where like if it doesn't

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put you to sleep you're in trouble and it didn't put me to sleep so i'm lying down

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in my bed with the lights on

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and then i start looking at the walls and you start seeing like these little black

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dots that start moving around and at first i was like what the hell is this and

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then like you were saying they start taking like the form of like a spider or a bat

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and i'm sitting there just watching it yeah then i turn to my right and there's a

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woman

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dead woman holding her baby right next to me and i was so goddamn scared because

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she put her hand on my bed and when she put her hand on my bed the bed moved oh no

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i feel like it actually moved it was terrifying and then i just what

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Yeah, dude, it was insane.

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And then an hour later,

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I was trying to get myself together,

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hiding under the curtain so she wouldn't look at me.

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And then when the coast was clear,

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I finally took the blanket off and I looked to my right and there was a

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there was a black man with black priest with extremely long white dreads just

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chanting at my bed like he was praying for me but in some like demonic like tongues

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language and i was just like jesus what is happening and then he yeah and then the

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last thing that i remember is that i was if the sun had finally come up i was like

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thank god this is okay

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But then there was this guy who had like an orange hunting cap and like some camouflage.

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And he was just sitting in my computer chair, like rocking back and forth.

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And he wasn't staring at me.

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He was just chilling.

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Yeah, I was just like, dude, this has to end.

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I've never taken that shit since.

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But it was like, I'd assume that's what sleep paralysis is like.

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But I could actually move.

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Move.

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yeah gosh i that's like to me you know it's very reminiscent of like a mushroom

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trip but when you're tripping on shrooms typically you make that choice yourself

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like you go into it knowing that's what's gonna happen yeah for sure i have i

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usually have like um more pleasant shrooms trips and whatnot nothing like that um i

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know some people can see like the devil on shrooms and whatnot but yeah i've never

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quite gotten to woman dead woman holding her baby

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Yeah, mine never have been, like, terrifying.

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The walls have done things.

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And then, like, on my very first mushroom trip, I was doing it with Dee.

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And we somehow managed to end up in the same trip together.

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It was very bizarre.

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Never had that happen before.

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But we were experiencing and seeing.

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Yes, we were seeing the same stuff.

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Yeah, it was wild.

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But at one point, he became, like,

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a field i think it was and like he just turned into all these different things and

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it was like the blanket morphed into something but for me the walls had like

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started to come alive almost they had patterns and there wasn't anything crazy on

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the walls it was just a regular freaking wall then but it started to come alive but

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i can't imagine going into that not knowing something like to just have that happen

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out of nowhere would be terrifying

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Yeah, I had no idea that this was like a side effect of it.

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I had no idea you couldn't like, I didn't realize you had to sleep on it.

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and then so i googled it because i was like am i going insane or is this something

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that happens to other people so i actually looked it up and there was people

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describing this one part this one that stuck with me is like i was downstairs

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somebody was slamming on my door so i ran upstairs and then the second i peeked

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back down i was being it was a home invasion

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no one was actually there but that was his hallucination people were invading his

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home i was like jeez man i know it's crazy and well like when i said when you're in

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that state like if it touches you like your sleep paralysis thing touches you you

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feel it like it's very very real but i just have to keep reminding myself like it's

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not real it's not real it's not real oh man oh

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Congratulations on getting married.

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Oh, thank you so much.

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Yeah.

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We haven't made it like,

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I mean,

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we posted on Facebook,

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but I haven't like set any cards out yet.

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Cause I need to edit all the pictures.

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Let me tell you that story.

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Are you ready for the most insane story ever?

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Please.

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So it was like right before Thanksgiving, I think.

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And we were talking and we had been trying to figure out when we were going to get married.

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And so I was like,

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uh i don't know and you know both of us have been married before and i had the

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whole giant wedding i was like i'm not doing that again i don't want that like if

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we have an actual wedding like we'll do something small or something like that and

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the more we talked about it the more like just annoyed i became about the amount of

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coordination that was going to have to happen to do that and

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the more I looked into it, the more I was like, I don't want to spend money on that.

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I would rather spend money on a really, really, really nice honeymoon later down the line.

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It's so expensive, man.

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It's insane.

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It's insane to me.

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Like just to run out of like a little tiny space for two hours was like minimum $4,000.

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And I was just like, no, absolutely not.

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No, we're not doing this.

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It's crazy.

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I have a small ceremony in my backyard.

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you're right right so i threw out i was like what if we elope over christmas break

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like right around new year's because we knew izzy was gonna be here and lou would

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be with us for actual christmas and stuff so i was like what if we do it and he was

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like okay let's do it i was like i know it's crazy but like i think we should

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And so we had like less than six weeks, I think, to get everything together.

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And I found this chick online.

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She had amazing reviews.

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This is all she does is like basically elopements and like an ordained minister for hire.

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And she had this package that came with pictures with it.

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Like there was a photographer and like everything you needed was right then and there.

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So I'm super pumped.

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It seems like it's going to be great.

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it took you know everything in us to get all the stuff coordinated between a dress

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for me and his suit and dresses for the girls and shoes for the girls and all you

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know all the stuff but in the end it was like it all came together very well so i

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get the address for the place we're supposed to be going it's you know january so

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it's fucking freezing and tell me about it

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yeah yeah exactly i'm like you can take your weather back please i know it's so bad

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here too but it's got it's getting a little better now

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it's only just a slight amount but at least it's not in the negatives so you know

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that's nice um so the lady was like yeah we can do it inside in my office i was

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like oh okay cool i get the address and i look on google maps and it's with street

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view it's a it's like a house in the middle of nowhere and i was like is this the

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right address she goes yeah that's the right address it's like okay maybe you know

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she's got like an office building or something right

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So we get there.

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We drive out to the middle of nowhere.

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And it is a trailer house.

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There's no other buildings.

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Jesus.

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So that's her office?

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it is her home there's no office it was her home and i was like we're supposed to

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be doing this inside what okay so we get there she didn't even like come out and

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greet us so i was like super worried we weren't even in the right spot and she she

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opens the door she's like come on in and we are in her living room

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and apparently i didn't even see this but apparently right near the door there was

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like dog piss right near on the floor yeah and the place smelled just awful and

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there were ceiling tiles missing and then half of her floor was missing so it was

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just plywood on the floor she had taken her couch and shoved it into her kitchen

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and then set up like

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a thing with a sheet over it to look like some kind of backdrop and that was it i

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was just like oh my god what the did i do this woman's a pioneer and then the

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photographer was her son her teenage son wow he's really um invested in her

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business huh yeah so

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It was one of the most unique experiences I've ever had in my entire life.

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But we are married and that's what matters.

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And I was able to get the raw files for the pictures,

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which thank fuck because the way she edited them was atrocious.

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Oh, I bet.

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I'm just like, what?

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There's Canva for a reason now.

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It's not a hard concept anymore.

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There's apps that do all that stuff automatically for you.

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She put purple vignettes on them.

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and like blurred things out i'm just like oh no this is bad this is so bad yeah

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that sounds awful yeah but you know what we're married and in 20 years we're gonna

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go somewhere really nice somewhere really tropical and we're gonna take the girls

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and we're gonna get married again in 20 years that's the goal

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yeah yeah in 20 years because i like it hey yeah you know kind of like a renewing

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of the vows type thing yeah for sure that'd be cool i just made the dumbest mistake

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in the world what did you do so i'm last night i was i smoked a black and like i

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don't i don't smoke but i wanted i was in the mood for something so i just had like

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a little cigarillo a black and mild yeah yeah

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And dude,

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I drink a lot of Diet Coke and I ashed it in a Diet Coke and I just kind of forgot

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about it.

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And right now I'm drinking a Diet Coke and I reached for the wrong one.

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Literally my mouth was just filled with fucking ash and I had to spill all over my shirt.

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Whatever.

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The show must go on.

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That's always my biggest nightmare is like

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Ashing into a can and accidentally drinking it or like,

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so I grew up,

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my dad chewed my whole life.

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And so I always had to like check the cans to make sure before I took a drink of anything,

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because I was like,

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I don't need to swallow juice bit.

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that'd be awful dude oh right right thankfully d does this really cool thing where

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he like pops open the whole top of the can with his shirt i don't know how he does

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it but and then so you just know like don't touch that can like that's not a can to

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drink out of it's not your energy drink um that that's like definitely one of my

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like oh god i don't ever want to do that i'm very sorry that happened to you

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That's okay.

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It's the second time in my life it's happened and each time it's just repulsive.

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But you know what?

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That's what I get for smoking.

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I mean... That's the cosmic justice.

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Yeah, I...

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I understand.

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It's such a, like right now I feel very torn about all of the weed stuff.

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I still don't know.

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Oh, I was reading.

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I wanted to ask you about that.

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Cause I was reading your notes and I was like, what is she going through?

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Cause I was a little confused,

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but it seems like you were quitting weed and it was kind of a challenging.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So we, I just became so

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addicted to it essentially where i was abusing it really like if you had changed it

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over to alcohol i was like it wasn't that i couldn't function without it but it

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felt like that and i've done a tolerance break before i took a month off back in

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may um and that was fine but it was you know a little challenging but it was more

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challenging mentally than anything else

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um but i was just you know we were smoking a lot and it wasn't really doing

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anything anymore um and there's a lot of studies about how you can like mess up

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your brain there's not enough information out there yet but just like just with

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your dopamine receptors and all that kind of stuff and i'm just like okay i don't

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know what's going on but maybe i need to take a break like

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i'm not using this in a healthy manner i'm not using it in the way i intended to

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use it like all this stuff and so i haven't smoked since january 5th so 20 it's

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been 20 days but oh good for you i don't i feel happy about it like it no longer

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feel like at first i was like really proud of myself and even though like

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physically it was

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awful like this time around the physical manifestation of the withdrawal symptoms

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were horrible i was like profusely sweating with like in the middle of the night i

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would wake up just drenched and sweat and yeah and like my appetite was all over

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the place it wasn't right i was shaky and just constantly nauseous and tired really

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really tired and so all of that's kind of gone now

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and like i feel normal but like i miss it almost in the way that i miss like this

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is gonna sound weird but like really well cooked tofu because that's really hard to

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find that does sound very weird not at all and i was expecting you to say

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and that's what's so strange about it like it's no longer the craving of like oh my

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god i want to smoke i miss the whole aspect of it and i was wondering when i was

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thinking about that it reminded me of when we talked about you know the whole

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we don't like the word relapsing and how like you know you had been heavily

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drinking and then you took a lot of time off and then now you kind of sometimes

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drink i don't know if that's still the case but that was the last conversation

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that's still how it how it goes i'm considering

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I'm considering either quitting altogether or lowering sometimes.

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So like very rare occasions.

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Cause there's times where I just drink and I'm like,

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I don't,

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I don't even know if I like this anymore.

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It just doesn't give me the same, whatever that I used to get from it.

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So it's been questionable, but as far as you're feeling, I would definitely say it's too soon.

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Like you just have to give it some more time.

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Cause your brain, your brain chemistry takes a little bit to recalibrate.

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Like,

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it's i know with alcohol it like it doesn't even start until like after three

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months or something oh man i didn't know that yeah i mean i'm sure it starts a

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little bit before that but that's kind of a big milestone for when you start

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feeling better and it's interesting because with alcohol when you quit you have

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something called like the pink cloud being on the pink cloud because you feel like

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totally

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optimistic you're like i'm never gonna drink again and you feel awesome about what

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you're doing you get into health and like do this and that but at the end of the

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day that fin cloud is gonna go away and then that's the one that's challenging yeah

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yeah and like it kind of frustrated me because i was under the assumption that the

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weed was causing me to

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not want to go to the gym not want to do things around the house like turns out

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that's just an issue i need to fix within myself wasn't the weed at all because i'm

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still struggling with that like you have adhd right so here's the thing i don't

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think so anymore um oh okay i think it's obsessed well i know i have ocd um

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But it's confusing because I was diagnosed with ADD before it stopped being the

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separate things.

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But I don't know because I've had one therapist tell me that she doesn't think

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that's even a real diagnosis anymore.

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She thinks it's just like a...

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They don't know what else to, you know, put you in, but in reality you have something else.

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And then like my psychiatrist has never actually brought up my ADHD and,

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and she is so in tune with my struggles more than any other psychiatrist that I've

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ever encountered in my life.

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Yeah.

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Like I got, I was so happy to find this psychiatrist and it does help that she's like our age.

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So, you know, she's a little bit more,

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aware of the times and things like that um but for her she was much more concerned

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with like the things we talk about are the body dysmorphia slash anorexia the um

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ocd and then the anxiety and or depression because i don't typically have both at

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the same time which is nice but

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Those are all very challenging things to deal with.

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Body dysmorphia is an absolute bitch.

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OCD is challenging.

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Depression is obviously awful.

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yeah yeah the body dysmorphia now has been the thing that i've been tackling the

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most trying to work on um but the this is where i struggle to like i don't know

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like maybe i'm autistic instead like because i know autistic people also struggle

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with the executive function challenges but like

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simple things are still consistently hard for me every single day.

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And it hasn't changed.

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Like it has always been hard for me to brush my teeth before bed.

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And when I wake up, I don't know why it's just hard for me to remember to do that.

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It is a fight for me to wash my hair.

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Like washing my hair is such a chore for me for some reason.

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And I hate every moment of it.

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And I don't really know, like,

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the other thing is is chemically i think something really drastically happened

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after lily died because before lily i didn't have any issues feeding myself

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breakfast i didn't have any issues getting you know in the shower doing i showered

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every other day then like i washed my hair every other day it wasn't a challenge

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like did i love to take baths absolutely that's like i swear god is part of my dna

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at this point but like

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i didn't have those same struggles my house was always clean like you know i had a

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cleaning schedule that i stuck to my i walked my dog two to three times a day like

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now granted i didn't have a choice we lived in an apartment but still i still

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walked her and something happened obviously i mean it's impossible to go through a

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situation like i did and not have things change but it was like

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The pregnancies ruined my ability to eat in the morning and the depression I had

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After Lily died and then again after Lucy was born,

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I think really ruined my ability to do anything but sit and exist.

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And because that was when I started truly disassociating into books because I had

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been doing that in college.

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But then once I got out of college,

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I got a lot better and I was working out and not necessarily in a healthy manner,

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but like,

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you know,

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all of that.

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I have questions for you.

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Yes.

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Number one, have you gotten your hormones checked recently?

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Oh, no, not recently.

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I mean, so I've always, so here's the other tricky part.

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I have something called Ehlers-Danlos,

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which is a connective,

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it's known as a connective tissue disorder,

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but it actually affects literally every single part of your body because...

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Is that the EHLER or something,

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right?

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Yes, yeah.

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Yes, I've heard of this, okay.

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yeah so a lot of people have like the hyper mobile version which is like i call it

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eds light um because they don't get the um so like i'm super anemic

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and um like i get tears in my skin super easy like the inside of my nose constantly

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splits open yeah that's rough yeah and like the corners of my mouth i have like

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special steroid cream for the corners of my mouth because they constantly split

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open um yeah so there are challenges that happen because of the our brain doesn't

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receive

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chemicals correctly,

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because we don't have enough collagen coating the things that need to be coated

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with collagen.

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And so I don't know, this is where I get lost.

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Like, I don't know what

(00:22:57):

know what's causing what and what is a result of what and i was hoping by removing

(00:23:06):

the weed it would kind of show me that but what's interesting is i do remember when

(00:23:10):

i did the 30 days the last time i had the same struggle like i was just like wait a

(00:23:15):

minute this is still happening um but you mentioned the hormones i had my hormones

(00:23:22):

checked multiple times

(00:23:24):

during Lily's life after but obviously all throughout IVF and stuff and then I had

(00:23:31):

I think the last time I had my blood drawn was back in 2023 for like a full hormone

(00:23:40):

panel and everything was fine um that was the first time that like my iron level

(00:23:46):

was that like

(00:23:47):

was it was still only at the baseline but normally i'm like so far below it that

(00:23:51):

it's like really bad um but

(00:23:58):

they I'm my brain's kind of spiraling right now in the terms of I'm thinking about

(00:24:03):

how much hair loss I've had lately and how wonky my appetite's been.

(00:24:07):

I'm like, I think I maybe need to make an appointment with my doctor.

(00:24:11):

Yeah.

(00:24:12):

I think that would be a good idea.

(00:24:15):

That's, uh, none of the symptoms sound great.

(00:24:18):

Go ahead.

(00:24:19):

Well,

(00:24:19):

and then I've been more tired than usual and I just chalked it up to being,

(00:24:24):

I hadn't been taking my iron.

(00:24:26):

Um,

(00:24:28):

but because i know i struggled with a lot of that stuff i my thyroid had a hard

(00:24:34):

time readjusting after i had lily um so and i know that can happen again and again

(00:24:43):

and it needs to be monitored and i haven't been monitoring it so

(00:24:49):

Thank you.

(00:24:50):

I mean, that's definitely good things to keep track of.

(00:24:54):

Like I've had a similar struggle where I've noticed my sleep didn't feel as restorative.

(00:25:00):

I was tired throughout the day.

(00:25:02):

I was having like I constantly had brain fog.

(00:25:05):

It's just rough.

(00:25:07):

And then I was kind of thinking like, oh, do I have sleep apnea?

(00:25:11):

But I don't snore.

(00:25:13):

So I don't think that's what it is.

(00:25:15):

And then I was just I'm still not sure what it is,

(00:25:18):

but I remember kind of talking to a psychiatrist years ago about how I was

(00:25:26):

diagnosed with like this,

(00:25:27):

diagnosed with that.

(00:25:28):

And I don't agree with any of them.

(00:25:31):

She was just like, because you don't have any of them.

(00:25:33):

Only thing you have is complex PTSD.

(00:25:36):

Like, whoa, what is that?

(00:25:38):

And then it's basically CPTSD is basically like you were,

(00:25:42):

it's not like one huge traumatic moment.

(00:25:44):

You've been under stress for such a long time.

(00:25:48):

Which that's the other thing I'm like, I match a lot of those symptoms.

(00:25:53):

And I mean, you know how we've had, we had,

(00:25:57):

not maybe not necessarily the exact same childhood but our parents were you know

(00:26:01):

our parents yeah it was challenging that stuff definitely sticks with you um people

(00:26:08):

like they're starting to kind of i don't know if this is 100 true but i read that

(00:26:12):

they're starting to differentiate between complex pt ptsd and childhood ptsd i'm

(00:26:19):

reading a book on childhood ptsd right now and i'm interested to see kind of where

(00:26:23):

that goes

(00:26:25):

i um yeah it really does stop you from doing so many things it like it affects your

(00:26:31):

body it affects your sleep it affects your energy levels your pain and everything

(00:26:36):

yeah because i have a super suit does it like like give you a pretty high pain

(00:26:42):

tolerance do you have a pretty high pain tolerance extremely high pain tolerance

(00:26:49):

interesting i have one too but maybe

(00:26:52):

and so does d and he had a really rough childhood gotcha maybe then yeah it's like

(00:27:01):

okay i don't i don't i don't feel this i've been here before it's like your body

(00:27:09):

already sucks at being a body so yeah it's the worst i just want i would like to

(00:27:15):

just feel like

(00:27:17):

um i would like to see what it's like to feel what it would be like if i did not

(00:27:22):

have those symptoms so you know always trying to work on them and find a solution

(00:27:27):

like a science project it kind of is and i've tried so many things and like for the

(00:27:36):

OCD thoughts.

(00:27:37):

Cause like for me,

(00:27:39):

most of the challenge with OCD is like my brain just will not stop obsessing over

(00:27:46):

certain things consistently.

(00:27:47):

Like it's over and over and over.

(00:27:49):

And it's so much different than like rumination.

(00:27:52):

Cause it's not even like I'm ruminating.

(00:27:54):

It's literally like,

(00:27:57):

it's it's like paragraphs almost that just loop but i can hear them and see them at

(00:28:03):

the same time and yeah and like obviously it happens the most with music like most

(00:28:11):

people get a song stuck in their head every now and then but for me until i really

(00:28:15):

started learning about like

(00:28:18):

i think it's called synesthesia or something yeah until i started really learning

(00:28:23):

about that and how you can kind of like combat it a little bit like i'm never going

(00:28:26):

to be able to get rid of it but i can make it kind of calm down or go more in the

(00:28:32):

background um so until i learned that it was i would wake up with

(00:28:40):

three songs playing at the same time in my head.

(00:28:43):

And I couldn't go back to sleep after that because my brain was awake and it was just,

(00:28:50):

you know,

(00:28:50):

and I've,

(00:28:52):

I,

(00:28:52):

when I first started my sub stack,

(00:28:54):

I would post like the song of the day and it's just random and it doesn't matter

(00:28:58):

what music I'm listening to.

(00:28:59):

It could be twinkle, twinkle, little star, or it could be next X by Swako, you know?

(00:29:04):

Right.

(00:29:05):

Gotcha.

(00:29:05):

Yeah.

(00:29:07):

so but and so the zoloft has done a really good job at helping all of that and i'm

(00:29:16):

also on wellbutrin but we're starting to take me down because i don't feel like

(00:29:21):

it's doing anything anymore right

(00:29:25):

um i think i probably needed it when i had a two-year-old and i was exhausted and

(00:29:30):

parenting on my own even though i had a spouse um you know i was i was doing it all

(00:29:37):

um so i don't know but it's definitely the cptsd thing i always kind of forget that

(00:29:44):

that's something that like is a major part of my mental health

(00:29:51):

Um, it's, I don't know how I forget that I went through quite a few traumatic events.

(00:29:57):

Well,

(00:29:58):

I mean,

(00:29:58):

they kind of like one of the definitions of it,

(00:30:01):

like the trauma or sorry,

(00:30:03):

PTSD or depression is that they make you forget,

(00:30:06):

they make your memories shit.

(00:30:08):

They literally shrink the hippocampus, which is the memory center in your brain.

(00:30:14):

i didn't know it literally shrunk it that's crazy yeah but like it's not like a

(00:30:19):

permanent thing that it can grow back but it's just sad man it gives you there's so

(00:30:25):

many things that happen and people don't really understand it and i don't know i'm

(00:30:31):

hoping to one day be i don't know if i'll ever be over it but maybe accept it a

(00:30:40):

little more than i do right now

(00:30:43):

yeah yeah and and i'm you know it makes me wonder you know i want to know okay what

(00:30:51):

can i do to support myself with that like what are the resources what's the

(00:30:58):

research out there already you know what research studies can i participate in

(00:31:02):

because i love doing that um um

(00:31:07):

because you know like like you said the brain can change um absolutely and it's

(00:31:14):

interesting that you said it you mentioned the shrinking part because that

(00:31:16):

instantly made me think of in autistic people that part the hippocampus is much

(00:31:20):

larger than anybody else um yeah and their amygdala is smaller which is why they

(00:31:26):

struggle with the emotional emotions aspect of it because that's where your

(00:31:31):

emotions are well the responses i guess is the right word um

(00:31:38):

And it's a lot of the different disorders, they all overlap so much.

(00:31:49):

And that's challenging because it makes it really difficult to diagnose and to treat.

(00:31:57):

yeah that's kind of and i've noticed people are i've noticed that terms have been

(00:32:03):

growing because people are more interested in labeling themselves as having this or

(00:32:07):

having that which is stupid in my opinion because you shouldn't put yourself in a

(00:32:12):

box but as far as the diagnosis goes it's crucial because it helps you treat it it

(00:32:18):

helps you figure out what to do and i'm just i think like

(00:32:23):

i think under the cptsd umbrella there's so many of them like there's some bipolar

(00:32:27):

symptoms there might be some borderline personality disorder symptoms there's

(00:32:32):

definitely depression and anxiety but it's like cptsd is more of a it's like this

(00:32:38):

is you had a lot of constant trauma and then this is what kind of manifested it's

(00:32:45):

just a word to like link all that together in my opinion yeah and i like i like the

(00:32:51):

way

(00:32:53):

you look at that like that's a really it's just a word like it's just a it's almost

(00:33:00):

like it's not an acronym but it does represent that umbrella and i think it would

(00:33:09):

take like my brain's nerding out on the research end of this i love that kind of

(00:33:13):

stuff um which is so funny because in college i said i would never do research and

(00:33:19):

now i love it uh

(00:33:22):

Cause I didn't want to do research.

(00:33:24):

I didn't want to do research writing.

(00:33:25):

And now that's like half of what I do is research,

(00:33:28):

research,

(00:33:29):

research,

(00:33:29):

academia,

(00:33:30):

the pain in the ass though,

(00:33:31):

like doing it on your own is a lot more fun and you have a lot more freedom.

(00:33:35):

So much more freedom.

(00:33:36):

And even like when I moved into my masters,

(00:33:38):

I had so much more freedom than I did in my,

(00:33:40):

my bachelor's.

(00:33:42):

So it's,

(00:33:43):

you know,

(00:33:44):

just,

(00:33:44):

just a difference,

(00:33:46):

but you know,

(00:33:47):

it makes me wonder,

(00:33:48):

okay,

(00:33:48):

how would,

(00:33:50):

what would regular

(00:33:52):

meditation do for this what what does regular exercise do for this because all of

(00:33:59):

those like just those two things alone produce so many positive benefits into your

(00:34:04):

brain um that my other thought is i know for a fact that we on this earth have

(00:34:13):

everything we could ever need to survive to thrive to live and so you know

(00:34:20):

sitting in quiet was something that they did all the time you know 200 300 even 100

(00:34:28):

years ago and so while that might not have been quote unquote known as meditation

(00:34:35):

that's still what it was you know and 200 300 years ago everybody

(00:34:43):

was physically active because you had no choice.

(00:34:45):

You had to get up and move.

(00:34:46):

Now, don't get me wrong.

(00:34:47):

Quality of life was definitely not what it is now.

(00:34:51):

But if we take those principles and apply them to life now, like,

(00:34:56):

we should theoretically have everything we need to thrive and that's where i

(00:35:03):

struggle because for me i have zero excuses not to be meditating i have zero

(00:35:07):

excuses not to be exercising like that boils down to a self-discipline thing which

(00:35:12):

in reality is a self-love thing yeah that's definitely well put um i think

(00:35:21):

I think it's interesting because the more you do for yourself,

(00:35:25):

you do feel like the kind of return of loving yourself more.

(00:35:29):

Like I remember sort of when I started a skincare routine and like I would stare

(00:35:34):

myself in the mirror and I'd be like doing this thing,

(00:35:36):

but I knew I was doing it for myself and it kind of felt really nice.

(00:35:41):

yeah and then same with exercising is more so for me i'm doing it because it's i'm

(00:35:49):

very in the moment when i do it and i almost obsessively exercise but i also i know

(00:35:55):

that i'm doing it for like my own personal mental health i'm doing it to be in good

(00:36:00):

shape and you know to look good naked exactly

(00:36:07):

there's what was the last one meditating yeah that's um there's a lot of resistance

(00:36:13):

to meditating for a lot of people it's so simple you just sit down like it depends

(00:36:18):

on what kind you do but you can just sit down and focus on your breath for five

(00:36:21):

minutes but it just seems like such a daunting or boring task to some people that

(00:36:26):

it's really hard to start and my advice on that would be like there's so many

(00:36:31):

different forms of meditation that you have to find the one that you really gel

(00:36:34):

with

(00:36:35):

Yeah.

(00:36:36):

And that was something that like I didn't quite put together until I had it pointed out to me.

(00:36:46):

Like when I paint, typically I listen to music and that's it.

(00:36:53):

And a lot of times it's not even like regular music.

(00:36:55):

It's like some kind of like I really like spa music that plays a lot on the robots in the house.

(00:37:01):

It like brings me this instant calming effect.

(00:37:05):

um and i learned that in rosemary oil and that just must be what they use in like

(00:37:11):

massage places and stuff constantly because i instantly feel at peace which is

(00:37:16):

really cool yeah um so that was a little a little tidbit i learned about myself

(00:37:22):

that was definitely helpful but you know

(00:37:26):

painting just simply painting and focusing on that and nothing else that's a form

(00:37:32):

of meditation um i agree 100 i'd say the same thing with the writing yes yeah and

(00:37:40):

it's interesting because that was pointed out to me in the first time in the

(00:37:45):

artist's way um julia cameron yeah yeah i never even finished the book but no one

(00:37:54):

does that's how you know you're a real writer

(00:37:57):

time for real i did not know that i have so many people who haven't finished it

(00:38:03):

though that's what i don't know like the morning pages thing is just yeah well and

(00:38:08):

for me like and i had talked to quite a few people about this it did nothing for me

(00:38:13):

it actually did worse things for me um because i would have to like try to come up

(00:38:17):

with things and that's just not not what i am but and like journaling is another

(00:38:23):

form of meditation and then like

(00:38:27):

One of the things that...

(00:38:29):

I had missed the most about running because I just can't do it.

(00:38:34):

My body can't take that anymore, the pounding.

(00:38:37):

But that was definitely a form of meditation.

(00:38:40):

I remember describing to a therapist once that like one of the cool things that

(00:38:44):

happens when I run is it allows my brain to essentially go in the back and take all

(00:38:50):

of those boxes that need to be sorted and organize the mental clutter that was back

(00:38:55):

there and organize it all.

(00:39:01):

It's still hard for me to find something that gives me that same amount of stuff.

(00:39:11):

Now I will say that when Dee started teaching me to mountain bike,

(00:39:15):

I don't know what the fuck you want to call it.

(00:39:17):

Um,

(00:39:18):

that brings that for me because i have to focus so freaking much on just not

(00:39:23):

falling right so and for him you know he gets in this really cool zone and he gets

(00:39:29):

the same feeling that i got when i ran um so you know it's kind of like why am i

(00:39:37):

not helping myself now you know right right where's the self-sabotage starting

(00:39:45):

Because that's what this is.

(00:39:46):

It's self-sabotage,

(00:39:47):

like the energy drinks,

(00:39:49):

the not exercising,

(00:39:51):

the fast food,

(00:39:53):

the not drinking enough water,

(00:39:55):

not,

(00:39:57):

you know,

(00:39:58):

all of those things.

(00:39:59):

That's all just self-sabotage instead of self-love.

(00:40:04):

And I want to know, you know, what causes that inside of humans to happen?

(00:40:08):

Yeah.

(00:40:09):

I think a lot of it is fear, not fear of failure, but fear of success.

(00:40:13):

Because sometimes,

(00:40:16):

like for me,

(00:40:17):

when I'm most inclined to self-sabotage,

(00:40:21):

it's when I'm very,

(00:40:22):

very close to reaching a goal.

(00:40:24):

There's a part of me that just wants to throw everything away and just not do it.

(00:40:29):

And I realized a few things.

(00:40:31):

Like,

(00:40:31):

first of all,

(00:40:33):

you don't fear success that kind of manifests because if you're successful,

(00:40:37):

you have to take on more responsibilities and your life's not going to be as easy anymore,

(00:40:41):

blah,

(00:40:41):

blah,

(00:40:41):

blah.

(00:40:43):

another kind of thing is like think about this like i have a cousin who's talked to

(00:40:47):

me about weight loss since we were like four years old right oh he's been obsessed

(00:40:53):

about like weight loss and stuff because he always he always goes up and then down

(00:40:57):

and up and down and up and down yeah and yeah and i told her i was just like you

(00:41:04):

realize that one of the reasons

(00:41:08):

might not be losing weight is because if you actually reach the goal you just

(00:41:12):

wouldn't be able to talk about that anymore like you talk about it all the time so

(00:41:18):

if you get your goal that's no longer something you can use to talk about or to get

(00:41:23):

attention or anything like that i have never thought about it that way but you're

(00:41:28):

so right like yeah

(00:41:32):

like at what point do you just kind of throw your ego to the wind and realize

(00:41:37):

you're full of you know yeah yeah that's man that really kind of makes me like re

(00:41:46):

just think about like why i'm why i struggle with substack sometimes everyone

(00:41:56):

struggles with

(00:42:00):

i'm so jealous of people like i used to do this but i don't know why it's been more

(00:42:04):

challenging now but i'm jealous of people who are like consistent as fuck like

(00:42:10):

every and one of my theories is that if you're like a creator if you're like a tick

(00:42:14):

tock person or snapchat or whatever the hell you're doing as long as you don't stop

(00:42:19):

and you like you don't stop you keep like tweaking your stuff improving like you

(00:42:24):

know doing all that you will eventually make it you just yeah stop and i kind of

(00:42:31):

like i when i was persistent i got up to like 1.6 000 very quickly and then i

(00:42:36):

stopped

(00:42:37):

and i'm still at 1.6 000 like five months later so it's very interesting to me how

(00:42:43):

like those numbers work and now that i'm kind of making a bit of a comeback i'm

(00:42:49):

interested to see

(00:42:50):

team how much the consistency affects things because i used to i used to do once a

(00:42:57):

week so yeah i did too i i mean and i used to have the podcast come out once a week

(00:43:02):

and then a post come out once a week and i was consistently engaging with people

(00:43:09):

and i keep trying to blame it on my job but i remember

(00:43:16):

going through a period with the blog where I hit this lull and I just like didn't

(00:43:20):

want to do any of it anymore and this time around it really boiled down to I didn't

(00:43:29):

stay consistent while I was transitioning and then now it's almost like I don't

(00:43:35):

even know where to start because I have all these stories and it seems so

(00:43:40):

overwhelming to start to try to start writing about it all

(00:43:44):

just start writing again it seems so overwhelming for some reason yeah i think um i

(00:43:52):

think there's a lot of pressure if you take some time off and come back and want to

(00:43:56):

start writing again because you kind of feel like you have to put out something

(00:44:02):

that's really good and then that kind of gives you

(00:44:06):

it kind of gives you some,

(00:44:07):

it kind of cripples you a little bit because you don't want to put out something

(00:44:10):

that's not good and you just get this like anxiety around it and you just end up

(00:44:14):

not putting anything out,

(00:44:16):

which is,

(00:44:17):

which happens.

(00:44:18):

I don't, it happened to me too.

(00:44:19):

And I don't think it's correct as the right thing to do, but it's, it's very real.

(00:44:24):

And I think regarding like having all the topics and whatnot and like getting

(00:44:28):

overwhelmed for me,

(00:44:30):

it's just kind of like,

(00:44:32):

every time i have an idea i just write it down so it gets out of my brain and like

(00:44:37):

into my it's either to my phone or a notebook so anytime i have an idea

(00:44:41):

specifically for substack i'll instantly write it down and then i can think of like

(00:44:46):

stuff for it specifically like a brainstorm but well if i write it down it gets out

(00:44:51):

of my head and it becomes easier to manage so that i so i do that it's like

(00:44:57):

taking the ideas and putting them like taking the thoughts taking the stories and

(00:45:02):

putting them onto paper especially like stories that are like a good example is i

(00:45:10):

want to write about the um time when i

(00:45:16):

went with D to go pick up a motorcycle with him.

(00:45:19):

This was before we were, we were still just, you know, doing our dom sub type thing.

(00:45:25):

And, but that changed the entire trajectory of our relationship.

(00:45:30):

And for whatever reason,

(00:45:33):

thinking about all of the stuff I would write,

(00:45:37):

it's like,

(00:45:37):

I lock up almost.

(00:45:40):

And I don't even know where to start.

(00:45:44):

The other thing I think I'm worried about is I have yet to find a good medium.

(00:45:52):

Like my posts are either super short or super long and it's frustrating me a lot

(00:45:58):

because the super long ones don't usually get read.

(00:46:01):

Have you, do you edit them like very meticulously?

(00:46:06):

so that's the other thing no and i am kind of disappointed with myself in terms of

(00:46:11):

my writing because i have been kind of just treating it as like word vomit let it

(00:46:18):

go and like that's not serving me anymore and i'm i do write well i have the

(00:46:27):

ability to write well it just takes more effort and yeah and that's we're back to

(00:46:33):

the effort thing again

(00:46:36):

I think the benefit of editing is it helps cut some shit out and make it shorter.

(00:46:45):

Yeah.

(00:46:47):

And it's interesting.

(00:46:48):

I think...

(00:46:51):

i think it's one of those things one of the things about writing is that all the

(00:46:55):

cliches are unfortunately true like i haven't found a way to be able to sit down

(00:47:00):

and start writing besides just sitting down and doing it you know yeah yeah besides

(00:47:06):

just like starting jotting on like the blank piece of paper otherwise there's

(00:47:10):

nothing and something something that i found that helped me actually is if i open a

(00:47:15):

new draft

(00:47:16):

I just write some stuff based on what,

(00:47:18):

like the topic is maybe I write an opening sentence or a paragraph or two,

(00:47:22):

and then I leave it.

(00:47:23):

And then once I leave it, I become much more motivated to go back and finish it.

(00:47:28):

Why?

(00:47:28):

Maybe because I have this unfinished task there, but it really does help.

(00:47:34):

Oh, I like that.

(00:47:35):

I like that because I do know that sometimes like I'll open a draft that I had put

(00:47:43):

the title in for and I'll look to start writing it.

(00:47:48):

But then I'll look at the time and I'm like, I don't have the time to write this whole story.

(00:47:52):

It's interesting you saying this because my friend Scott and I were talking about this.

(00:47:59):

he told he asked me he was just like so nor i have a thing where when i write it's

(00:48:06):

always going to be in like an eight hour session there's no way i can like split it

(00:48:11):

up why do you think that is i i related to him because i was kind of like i i feel

(00:48:18):

very similarly where if i'm going to write something i just kind of bang it out but

(00:48:22):

now i've been learning to not do that

(00:48:25):

and i also think it increases i so my point is like i think it happens to a lot of

(00:48:30):

people but i think not doing that like not having these long sessions helps because

(00:48:36):

you write some you go about your day you come back and you have some more

(00:48:40):

perspective on what you want to say like your piece does become genuinely better

(00:48:44):

because your mind is thinking about it you know yeah yeah no that's a really good a

(00:48:49):

really good point and i think you know when i did the

(00:48:55):

i did the 1000 words a day challenge in last summer you know i really i did it

(00:49:02):

every single day and i was able to write a lot of good stuff um so it makes me and

(00:49:11):

you know it only took me 20 minutes it took 20 minutes out of my day no and that's

(00:49:18):

the thing like i so and i i

(00:49:22):

made me think about this as well like at work i struggle to dive into certain

(00:49:30):

projects because i'm like i don't have the time like people especially if i'm in

(00:49:35):

the office um like a really good example i have these forms that i have to recode

(00:49:42):

and it's just being super super difficult um but i'm the only one who knows how to

(00:49:47):

do it and yeah yeah it's special

(00:49:51):

um but it's gonna take me like three or four hours of straight concentration like i

(00:49:58):

have to concentrate on it and that's where it's like what is what's happening in my

(00:50:09):

brain that makes it think that i can't come back to it interesting interesting

(00:50:17):

yeah it's super interesting and definitely makes me want to explore a lot of it

(00:50:24):

more i think yeah for sure yeah you really brought up some really great like things

(00:50:33):

for me to think about and i think i think that's one of the things that i really

(00:50:38):

like the most about doing podcasts is just getting to talk to people and learning

(00:50:43):

other people's perspectives and you know bouncing ideas and thoughts and all of

(00:50:49):

that kind of off people and absolutely yeah so how is your men's group going

(00:50:59):

So before I address that, I had one more thing on the effort.

(00:51:02):

Yes, yes, please.

(00:51:03):

I want to actually,

(00:51:04):

a psychiatrist actually asks me,

(00:51:06):

not a psychiatrist,

(00:51:07):

a therapist asked me once,

(00:51:10):

he was like,

(00:51:10):

do you think you have a fear of effort?

(00:51:13):

And I was like, that's such an interesting way.

(00:51:15):

I don't,

(00:51:16):

but that's such an interesting way to put it because for instance,

(00:51:20):

I like to use my stretching routine as a example.

(00:51:23):

It's something I do every night and it's for some reason,

(00:51:27):

it'll take me like 50 minutes to finally just convince myself to get down on the

(00:51:31):

ground and do it.

(00:51:32):

It makes no sense at all.

(00:51:34):

I should be able to like get into it, but it just does not happen.

(00:51:40):

That is, I relate to that so much.

(00:51:43):

you you brought up skincare and i had done so many things to try and like okay i'll

(00:51:50):

put my face wipes next to my bed like that way there's no excuse the right on the

(00:51:56):

bed then i stopped doing all the other things to my face care like i stopped using

(00:52:01):

all the serums and all the stuff that was helping my face um and

(00:52:08):

so now i don't get into bed if i haven't done all of that because i won't get back

(00:52:15):

up right no 100 so fear of effort that's really interesting yeah i think so too i

(00:52:23):

don't know if there's too much to it like i've tried to look it up but it doesn't

(00:52:27):

seem like it's much of a thing because there wasn't really many results that came

(00:52:32):

up but it could be cool to look into yeah yeah i'm definitely gonna think on that

(00:52:36):

for sure

(00:52:39):

And regarding the men's group, Ben, it's been going really well.

(00:52:43):

Oh, good.

(00:52:44):

That makes me happy to hear.

(00:52:45):

Yeah, we started, I think, in August or September.

(00:52:49):

We meet for two hours once a week, and it's been super consistent.

(00:52:55):

Oh, that's awesome.

(00:52:57):

Yeah, it's been awesome.

(00:52:59):

Everybody's so respectful and thoughtful of other people's times.

(00:53:03):

It's become the point where it's like nine of us or so.

(00:53:06):

yeah it's been awesome and like it's gotten to the point where we're all like close

(00:53:12):

friends now and it's it's it's really cool it's not something i ever expected to

(00:53:16):

happen

(00:53:17):

But the way that it's manifested is awesome.

(00:53:20):

And like people always, it's awesome to hear how much it's helping some of them.

(00:53:24):

Like it's helping me tremendously too,

(00:53:26):

but it just feels really good to have put something like that together and not

(00:53:31):

really knowing where it could go.

(00:53:33):

I assume people would come for like the first couple and then just not show up again,

(00:53:38):

but that did not happen at all.

(00:53:40):

It's very interesting to me.

(00:53:41):

Yeah.

(00:53:42):

yeah so that's like i think one of the reasons why i have so much resistance with

(00:53:48):

starting you know the dead kid club because i think i'm worried that it's going to

(00:53:53):

get to a point where people just stop showing up and that i think is almost more of

(00:53:59):

like a rejection thing um like a fear of you know fear of being not necessarily

(00:54:06):

rejected but like i wasn't enough to keep them coming back you know

(00:54:12):

well I understand yeah so but that makes me think you know like I know so many

(00:54:19):

people on Substack already who have told me that they would love it um because they

(00:54:25):

don't have any other space like that because grief groups are just yeah um yeah I I

(00:54:32):

can give you some like advice if you want based on how I did mine

(00:54:39):

that would be i would love to you know chat with you about that as well we don't

(00:54:44):

necessarily need to do that here if you don't want to but no it's fine but i just i

(00:54:48):

wanted to say one thing and that's when i started

(00:54:52):

um first of all it's challenging to get x amount of people off of substack but also

(00:54:57):

another platform and then make everyone meet at the same time yeah it's a bit of a

(00:55:02):

clusterfuck but yeah before my first meeting like i was nervous to the point where

(00:55:08):

i was like i want to cancel this like it's gonna be no one's gonna because not

(00:55:12):

necessarily because

(00:55:15):

i guess it's kind of similar to what you were saying my fear was that no one was

(00:55:18):

going to take me seriously yeah but that very much so did not happen and that's

(00:55:24):

been it just i don't know it manifested into something i never expected and i think

(00:55:30):

you'd have a similar experience and you're you're right i'm not going to say

(00:55:36):

probably you are so am i what you're right oh yeah and it's um

(00:55:45):

People are like, you know how you hear about like the loneliness epidemic and yada, yada, yada.

(00:55:50):

People are desperate to connect.

(00:55:51):

So like they would want to come to the group,

(00:55:53):

not just because it's this grief group,

(00:55:55):

but also just you feel connected.

(00:55:57):

You have people to talk to.

(00:55:59):

And that's so true.

(00:56:00):

Because like,

(00:56:02):

you know right now there's one person i go to when like obviously i can go to date

(00:56:07):

with anything but you have to live through it and i'm so glad he's never never had

(00:56:14):

to live through that so like my best friend unfortunately also lived through it um

(00:56:21):

oh trust me we walked similar paths but hers was more intense than mine because she

(00:56:27):

had seven miscarriages before she finally got pregnant oh my gosh yeah and then

(00:56:32):

her son basically was born brain dead oh that's the worst dude yeah and she had to

(00:56:40):

make the choice to take him off life support yeah right so poor baby i know i know

(00:56:47):

it was just everything about it was so so awful and so like you know on the days

(00:56:53):

where things are really just really really hard she gets it

(00:56:57):

um but she's not always available because she has a life and children and a job

(00:57:03):

because she's a nurse and like you know there's all this stuff and i think having

(00:57:09):

and i know there are people out there who

(00:57:13):

don't even have that one person to talk to exactly and by you taking the initiative

(00:57:19):

they will have multiple people to talk to you you sir you i don't know what i'm

(00:57:27):

trying to say but you have the ability to do a lot of good with a very small risk

(00:57:36):

of it not working out i think it's worth taking that risk i like the way you put

(00:57:41):

that

(00:57:42):

Yeah,

(00:57:43):

I mean,

(00:57:43):

it's not just you're going to get a lot of out of it personally for yourself,

(00:57:48):

like for the fact that you started it,

(00:57:50):

you created it and like you also are a participant in it.

(00:57:53):

So you get a lot out of that.

(00:57:55):

But you're also going to realize how much it's helping everybody else and it's

(00:57:59):

really going to fill your heart.

(00:58:01):

It's a good experience.

(00:58:03):

you're really you're really speaking to me right now it's like you read my stuff

(00:58:07):

because you know that's the stuff that really what i live for that's why i do

(00:58:13):

non-profit stuff like you know it that really is a really good point because all i

(00:58:20):

ever say is all i ever want to do is just help people like i just want to help

(00:58:23):

people that's why i like doing the things that i do

(00:58:26):

yeah and i think your group would like definitely help people and i could i could

(00:58:30):

help like with some ideas like for me i um i think a cool thing was when i first

(00:58:37):

started i would ask i would like private message different people and ask for some

(00:58:41):

feedback and like how they're enjoying the group how

(00:58:45):

they think like i'm how do they agree with how i'm running it do they have any

(00:58:49):

other ideas yeah kind of to make it a very open sort of situation and i have

(00:58:55):

listened to some of the suggestions and i think because of some of those

(00:58:59):

suggestions we've locked it down to such a good format that it's very fluent and

(00:59:03):

very yeah um very like filled with profound ideas it's it's it's just great and i

(00:59:11):

think there's a lot you could

(00:59:14):

get out of it but i also don't think you should feel like you're the only person

(00:59:18):

like you're not going to be alone and starting it no and i i already i've already

(00:59:23):

talked to two moms on the platform on sub stack if they would be interested and

(00:59:30):

joining with me and starting this and both of them said absolutely i don't know

(00:59:34):

what it looks like but i'm so down and then i just did nothing with it

(00:59:40):

Well, that's what I did too, though, with events group.

(00:59:44):

I put up a note asking, like, would anyone be interested in events group?

(00:59:48):

And fucking fuck ton of people replied.

(00:59:50):

Yeah.

(00:59:51):

And then I just stopped.

(00:59:53):

Yeah.

(00:59:53):

And I just stopped.

(00:59:54):

I forgot about it.

(00:59:55):

And I didn't forget about it.

(00:59:56):

I was just kind of intimidated.

(00:59:57):

So I moved on and did nothing.

(00:59:59):

And then one of the guys in the group, he...

(01:00:03):

he private messaged me and he was like, Hey, what's going on with the men's group?

(01:00:06):

Is it going to happen?

(01:00:07):

I was like, ah, fuck.

(01:00:08):

Now I got to do it.

(01:00:10):

I was like,

(01:00:11):

dude,

(01:00:11):

that kid,

(01:00:12):

I'm not going to name him obviously,

(01:00:13):

but like he said something to me.

(01:00:16):

Like I made a joke about how the group's only there because he kind of pushed me in

(01:00:20):

the direction.

(01:00:22):

And he said to me,

(01:00:23):

he was like,

(01:00:23):

when I wanted to do the thing about the men's group is I didn't want to join a

(01:00:27):

men's group.

(01:00:27):

I wanted to join your men's group.

(01:00:30):

And I was like, dude, that's beautiful.

(01:00:33):

it is that's so cool though and i i think you can get the same thing out of it

(01:00:39):

though like it's yeah you gotta some of these things you gotta just pull the trail

(01:00:43):

trigger and yeah and i can make excuse after excuse after excuse but at the end of

(01:00:49):

the day it's just an excuse it's not

(01:00:52):

real so i'm i'm the same exact way man i can i could bullshit my way out of

(01:00:57):

anything but oh i'm so good at it but we're also just bullshitting ourselves at the

(01:01:02):

end of the day yeah we get nothing out of it you know exactly yeah that is i feel

(01:01:09):

like i kind of got a little bit of like a little bit of an ego check almost that i

(01:01:13):

really needed um so because like i have all these goals i have all these things

(01:01:18):

that i want to do and i have not done anything to work towards them

(01:01:21):

nothing except i've done one step of the goal for the book and that's it like you

(01:01:31):

know i talk about all the time how much i want this and you you mentioned you know

(01:01:35):

your cousin she if i finish it and i publish it i'll have nothing to talk about

(01:01:40):

which is not true because then i'll have other things to talk about i can talk

(01:01:44):

about literally anything i can like taylor has a problem with shutting up you know

(01:01:49):

so

(01:01:51):

No, I hear you, but I think the book becomes part of your identity.

(01:01:54):

Like, oh, I'm writing this book and yada, yada, yada.

(01:01:57):

You become attached to that idea.

(01:01:59):

And then sometimes you don't want to let go.

(01:02:03):

Sometimes you just are afraid it's not going to be as good as you think it'll be.

(01:02:08):

Well, there's so many barriers in writing.

(01:02:11):

There's so much resistance.

(01:02:13):

Yeah.

(01:02:15):

That's so, so very true.

(01:02:17):

So...

(01:02:20):

we're already past an hour,

(01:02:21):

but I do have like one more question for you that I've been wanting to learn more about.

(01:02:26):

I hear the podcast you're starting.

(01:02:30):

Oh, nice.

(01:02:31):

It's a good question.

(01:02:32):

Um, so I'm, I'm starting a podcast.

(01:02:37):

It's called casually copacetic.

(01:02:39):

It's, um,

(01:02:40):

My idea is,

(01:02:41):

and I wanted to do this for a while,

(01:02:43):

this is another thing I announced months ago,

(01:02:45):

but never actually did anything with.

(01:02:48):

I think I announced it like three months into my Substack tenure,

(01:02:51):

and it never manifested into anything.

(01:02:54):

But right now, I'm...

(01:02:57):

I want to talk to up and coming creatives and I don't mean like,

(01:03:01):

I'm not talking about like a sub stacker who has like a hundred followers because

(01:03:05):

that's just not what I'm interested in.

(01:03:08):

Sorry if you guys have a hundred followers, I'm not shitting on you for your follower count.

(01:03:13):

I'm just saying like when I say up and coming creative, that's not necessarily what I mean.

(01:03:16):

I mean, like I have people who are like,

(01:03:24):

25 000 subscribers on youtube and they're doing this really cool thing like for

(01:03:29):

example my first guest is my friend ricky he's um he does travel documentary by

(01:03:34):

himself like he he it's very bourdain like right oh okay

(01:03:40):

yeah and he has like he used to have his own show and everything and he has like

(01:03:44):

his channel is very popular and he like he took i think he took a break and he's

(01:03:49):

coming back to it now so like i want to to ask i want to ask questions like

(01:03:55):

yeah what gave you like the courage to go on your own path instead of like the nine

(01:04:01):

to five thing and like i also have my cousin who's an edm he's a pediatrician but

(01:04:06):

he's also an idm dj i was like super interested in like i can't wait to listen to

(01:04:13):

that one because he's a workhorse man it's really impressive i want to hear how he

(01:04:17):

balances it all like how do you balance publishing music like producing music and

(01:04:23):

being a pediatrician

(01:04:25):

like i have no idea like what do you do with your brain i have no idea like his

(01:04:30):

songs have like over like mil like all his songs together have like a million plus

(01:04:36):

like streams on spotify that's amazing yeah he's very successful in both regards so

(01:04:42):

um

(01:04:45):

Yeah, that's going to be a fun conversation.

(01:04:48):

The other guest that I have planned, she's probably going to be my second, is my friend Chelsea.

(01:04:53):

It's a woman coaching business,

(01:04:57):

but it's also kind of like helping women balance their hormones,

(01:05:01):

helping women.

(01:05:03):

Yeah, she's already made so much from it.

(01:05:07):

It's crazy.

(01:05:08):

She's very, very good at it.

(01:05:11):

And she has like these amazing testimonials.

(01:05:13):

So I'm very excited to bring her on and kind of ask her some questions and

(01:05:17):

introduce her to the Substack world.

(01:05:19):

Yeah, that'll be, I'm excited to listen to all of them, to be honest.

(01:05:26):

And I was really excited to see that you were doing it.

(01:05:29):

Yeah, dude.

(01:05:29):

Hell yeah.

(01:05:30):

I'm like, I'm not just going to have those people.

(01:05:33):

Like I'll also, it's going to be challenging to find guests like that consistently.

(01:05:38):

Yes.

(01:05:38):

I'm still going to have like sub stock people on every now and then,

(01:05:41):

you know,

(01:05:42):

it's just that the problem with the problem with,

(01:05:49):

um,

(01:05:51):

I don't want just I don't want to be another podcast.

(01:05:53):

We just interview sub stackers.

(01:05:55):

And it's a weird thing to say on a podcast interview.

(01:05:58):

So you know what I mean?

(01:06:01):

Yeah, it's just like I would just like your podcast.

(01:06:04):

It already exists.

(01:06:05):

I'd like to do something a little different, you know?

(01:06:07):

Yeah, no.

(01:06:09):

And I totally relate.

(01:06:10):

But I also like.

(01:06:13):

I, you know, I'm tired of interviewing just sub stackers.

(01:06:20):

And so like,

(01:06:20):

no offense to all of my sub stackers that I've interviewed every single one of you

(01:06:24):

has been wonderful.

(01:06:26):

But I do think that

(01:06:28):

I need to,

(01:06:29):

I want to start,

(01:06:31):

you know,

(01:06:32):

talking to other people who have had completely unique life experiences.

(01:06:37):

You know,

(01:06:38):

I want to learn and I want to hear,

(01:06:42):

you know,

(01:06:42):

just that's what was,

(01:06:44):

that's why I started the Curiosity Chronicles because I'm so curious.

(01:06:48):

That's a better way of saying nosy.

(01:06:50):

Yeah.

(01:06:53):

um but i'm really excited for you to start this and just to listen and and see how

(01:07:01):

amazing it turns out to be hell yeah dude i'm very excited thank you and i'm not

(01:07:06):

sure if it's going to be a video or audio thing but i might just go all out with

(01:07:09):

video i'm i don't know if people are more inclined to listen if there's also a

(01:07:14):

video you know

(01:07:16):

Yeah,

(01:07:16):

I don't know because I listen to most of my podcasts on Spotify,

(01:07:22):

but you can also see the video if it has a video component on Spotify,

(01:07:27):

which breaks my brain a little bit.

(01:07:29):

I'm like, wait a minute.

(01:07:31):

How's that any different from YouTube at this point?

(01:07:35):

it is the same i think it is the same but it's just i guess kind of like you're

(01:07:39):

saying it just gives people who prefer like different mediums a chance yeah like if

(01:07:44):

that's true that's a really good point i didn't even think about that because like

(01:07:49):

you know not everybody is on apple podcasts you know spotify but they might watch

(01:07:57):

youtube that's a really good point

(01:07:59):

You know, it surprises me and I'm sure it surprises you too.

(01:08:02):

And like a strange way,

(01:08:03):

like when I've done,

(01:08:05):

I've done like a quite a few podcast interviews and I know you've done quite a few

(01:08:09):

podcasts yourself.

(01:08:10):

And it's like, to me, people message me to like talk about the things I said on it.

(01:08:15):

And I'm always like, holy shit, someone actually listened to this.

(01:08:19):

I always, I'm always like flabbergasted by it.

(01:08:21):

I just assume it's something you make it throw into the ether and it's just kind of there,

(01:08:26):

you know?

(01:08:26):

Yeah.

(01:08:28):

It's one of the things about writing and doing like podcasting stuff,

(01:08:33):

whatever it is you might be doing,

(01:08:35):

is that there's so much of the work,

(01:08:37):

it just goes unnoticed.

(01:08:39):

Yeah.

(01:08:41):

And that's fine.

(01:08:42):

I don't need to be appreciated for everything that I do.

(01:08:45):

It's interesting that the beginning of the grind is very kind of ruthless and

(01:08:51):

you're making a lot of work that you just have to accept might not be seen by

(01:08:56):

anybody or heard by anybody.

(01:08:58):

I think that is really a crux of most of my problems when it comes to getting some

(01:09:03):

of this,

(01:09:04):

starting some of this stuff.

(01:09:05):

Like it,

(01:09:09):

I,

(01:09:10):

it's a weird way to say this,

(01:09:11):

but praise is like,

(01:09:15):

it's something that's part of like how I feel.

(01:09:20):

It's a good motivator for me.

(01:09:21):

Yeah.

(01:09:26):

They would not leave me alone.

(01:09:27):

I was like,

(01:09:28):

would relate that's so cute yeah mine's passed out right now thankfully oh that's

(01:09:34):

nice yeah he's a he has so much energy all the time but not right now apparently

(01:09:40):

that's good mine are pretty low energy thankfully yeah for sure

(01:09:45):

but yeah the lack of recognition that happens in the beginning and because i don't

(01:09:51):

get immediate results it's like my brain is like not this no it's true it's it's

(01:09:58):

hard to go through the muck and the muck in this case is just kind of the unnoticed

(01:10:04):

unglamorous just yeah nobody but hey taylor thanks so much for having me yes but i

(01:10:10):

do actually have to get going same z's

(01:10:14):

But thank you so much for coming back on.

(01:10:17):

I'm really excited for this to come out and I can't wait to see all the great

(01:10:22):

things that are going to happen.

(01:10:23):

Thank you.

(01:10:24):

I really appreciate that.

(01:10:26):

And likewise to you.

(01:10:27):

Thank you.

(01:10:27):

I appreciate that.

(01:10:28):

After this, we have to pledge to try more effort.

(01:10:31):

Yes, I like that.

(01:10:32):

This is like going out in the universe now.

(01:10:34):

So there we go.

(01:10:36):

I'm putting in the effort.

(01:10:38):

So thank you so much.

(01:10:41):

And thank you, everybody, for listening.

(01:10:43):

And we will talk to you guys next time.

Get full access to The Chaos Chronicles with Taylor Cecelia Brook at taylorceceliabrook.substack.com/subscribe

(00:00:02):

And we are back.

(00:00:04):

Welcome back to the Curiosity Chronicles.

(00:00:06):

Today I have one of my favorite guests of all time.

(00:00:10):

And her name is?

(00:00:12):

Lucy Costello Luella.

(00:00:14):

Lucy Luella Costello.

(00:00:16):

Yes, yes, yes.

(00:00:17):

That is your name.

(00:00:18):

And how old are you?

(00:00:19):

Five years old.

(00:00:20):

You're five years old.

(00:00:21):

And what did you want to talk about today?

(00:00:23):

I want to talk about how it's...

(00:00:29):

how tomatoes are a fruit and not a vegetable and how you can um and how a lime is a

(00:00:43):

fruit and not a vegetable too yeah and some other things too what about bell

(00:00:47):

peppers what are bell peppers they're a fruit they're a fruit yeah and what makes

(00:00:51):

them all fruits instead of vegetables because if

(00:00:56):

It makes them all fruits because they all have seeds.

(00:01:01):

They all have seeds.

(00:01:02):

Do you know why having seeds makes them a fruit?

(00:01:06):

Yes.

(00:01:07):

Anything that has seeds is a fruit.

(00:01:10):

Yeah, because it is the production of the seeds.

(00:01:14):

So the fruit is the fruiting body.

(00:01:17):

Whereas like I came up with this term.

(00:01:19):

Potatoes and carrots and turnips and rutabagas are all root fruits.

(00:01:26):

Because the flower portion is the stuff we chop off.

(00:01:30):

And the fruit of the plant of those plants would be the root portion.

(00:01:36):

Which is kind of funny.

(00:01:37):

But they don't have seeds.

(00:01:39):

But did you know, Lucy, that vegetables aren't technically real?

(00:01:43):

What?

(00:01:44):

Yeah.

(00:01:45):

Vegetables...

(00:01:46):

was a word that was made up for classification purposes and doesn't actually have

(00:01:55):

any scientific meaning really now do not cite me on that because i could totally be

(00:02:00):

wrong from you know just the stuff that i've gathered knowledge wise over the last

(00:02:05):

you know 30 years but i'm almost 100 positive that's what i've read um

(00:02:11):

So,

(00:02:12):

yeah,

(00:02:12):

so they're for tomatoes,

(00:02:13):

limes,

(00:02:14):

cucumbers,

(00:02:15):

lemons,

(00:02:16):

apples,

(00:02:16):

oranges,

(00:02:18):

bell peppers,

(00:02:21):

pickles,

(00:02:22):

because pickles are cucumbers.

(00:02:23):

And if you didn't know that, you need to go get on the Internet.

(00:02:29):

Honestly.

(00:02:32):

Well, what kind of podcast did you call this?

(00:02:35):

What kind of podcast did you want to have last night?

(00:02:38):

Um.

(00:02:46):

That's what you said.

(00:02:51):

So originally,

(00:02:52):

Lucy wanted to have an eensy-weensy teensy podcast,

(00:02:56):

but now she wants to have a long podcast,

(00:02:57):

which I'm totally fine with.

(00:02:58):

So what are we going to talk about next, baby girl?

(00:03:00):

So let's talk about how you can ride a bicycle without chaining wheels for your very first time.

(00:03:15):

Yeah, okay.

(00:03:17):

So riding your bicycle without training wheels for the very first time,

(00:03:22):

what do you think kiddos are thinking inside their brains when they think about

(00:03:26):

getting ready to ride their bicycle without training wheels for the very first time?

(00:03:31):

They might be thinking, what if I fall off?

(00:03:35):

What if I don't, what if I scrape my knee?

(00:03:40):

If you go to the store and you see some knee pads and elbow pads,

(00:03:46):

that's going to be great because if you wear those along with your helmet,

(00:03:51):

that will help you be protected.

(00:03:54):

Yeah,

(00:03:55):

if you wear elbow pads and knee pads and a helmet,

(00:03:58):

you won't have to worry about what if I fall off and scrape my knee because you've

(00:04:02):

got all of the protective gear on.

(00:04:04):

Yep.

(00:04:05):

So correct.

(00:04:06):

What would you say to someone who's nervous about trying?

(00:04:11):

Um, if you try and, um, if you never try, you won't know how it is.

(00:04:20):

But if you do try, you will know how it is.

(00:04:23):

Yeah.

(00:04:24):

Does mommy say that to you sometimes?

(00:04:25):

Yes.

(00:04:25):

Yeah.

(00:04:27):

If you don't try, you won't know.

(00:04:29):

Yep.

(00:04:30):

But it's so true because what did I say that to you for once?

(00:04:33):

And you finally tried it and you loved it so much.

(00:04:37):

uh the green slide the green slide at the water park yeah it was actually fun it

(00:04:41):

was actually fun that was such a fun vacation for us wasn't it it was at kansas and

(00:04:47):

i loved it and the green slide was so fast and twisty and droopy and at the end um

(00:04:53):

there was like no underwater bit no it was just like a little um a little short

(00:05:01):

thing without a cover

(00:05:03):

It was a little short thing with like a little landing spot without a cover.

(00:05:06):

Yeah, that's what it was like, yeah.

(00:05:10):

So if someone is learning to ride their bike without training wheels and they're

(00:05:16):

not sure where to start to learn,

(00:05:18):

where do you think they should start?

(00:05:20):

They should start in their parents' garage if they have one or on a sidewalk or a driveway.

(00:05:29):

That's a great idea.

(00:05:31):

And do you think they might need

(00:05:33):

maybe one of their parents' support or help?

(00:05:35):

Yes.

(00:05:36):

How do you think it would be the most,

(00:05:38):

what do you think would be the most helpful for a friend of yours learning to ride

(00:05:43):

their bike for the first time without training wheels?

(00:05:45):

What do you think it would be helpful for a parent to do for them?

(00:05:49):

Just hold, just hold, just hold, just hold the handlebars with them.

(00:06:01):

hold the handlebars with them.

(00:06:02):

What about holding your waist or your shoulders?

(00:06:05):

Yes.

(00:06:06):

I was thinking of that too.

(00:06:08):

Yeah.

(00:06:10):

Yeah.

(00:06:13):

And soon enough when you're comfortable with it,

(00:06:17):

your parents will let you go as soon as you let them know.

(00:06:21):

That is so very true.

(00:06:24):

So once you're ready,

(00:06:27):

you can let your parents know that you're ready for them to let go.

(00:06:30):

Is that what you were saying?

(00:06:31):

Yes.

(00:06:31):

And then what?

(00:06:33):

And then,

(00:06:34):

um,

(00:06:35):

if you ever fall off your bike,

(00:06:38):

um,

(00:06:39):

it's okay because you'll have to wear,

(00:06:44):

um,

(00:06:46):

you,

(00:06:46):

you,

(00:06:47):

you might,

(00:06:49):

um,

(00:06:49):

you might really,

(00:06:50):

if

(00:06:53):

you might fall down and be okay still even though you don't have knee pads because

(00:07:01):

what if it's a teensy little tap on the road it's okay exactly exactly you want to

(00:07:09):

hear kind of a crazy story from when mama was like six and a half yes okay so when

(00:07:16):

mama was like six and a half she had a bike just like yours without training wheels

(00:07:22):

but I was taller because I was older.

(00:07:24):

So your bike right now is already too small, right?

(00:07:28):

Yeah.

(00:07:28):

Yeah.

(00:07:29):

So can you imagine being a little bit taller and on a tiny bike like that?

(00:07:32):

Yeah.

(00:07:33):

And how hard it would be to do things.

(00:07:35):

Yeah.

(00:07:36):

Okay.

(00:07:36):

So one day Gamma and I, Gamma is what my kiddos call my mom.

(00:07:42):

Gamma and I were on a walk on a very nice trail and I was riding my bike and Gamma

(00:07:47):

was walking and she knew that there was a big hill coming.

(00:07:52):

But I didn't,

(00:07:53):

and I was just pedaling and pedaling and pedaling and going,

(00:07:57):

and Gamble was kind of far behind me.

(00:07:59):

And so she had yelled at me to stop, but I didn't hear her.

(00:08:04):

And I kept going down the big, giant hill.

(00:08:07):

And because the bike was too small,

(00:08:10):

when I braked at the bottom of the hill,

(00:08:12):

do you know what happened?

(00:08:13):

What?

(00:08:14):

I flipped over the handlebars.

(00:08:16):

Ow.

(00:08:17):

And you know what saved my brain?

(00:08:20):

What is it?

(00:08:22):

take a guess uh you um you um you um you instead tried to you tried to stand up and

(00:08:39):

you and it worked to stand up but you were um doing a handstand that would be silly

(00:08:45):

no i was wearing my helmet

(00:08:48):

And so I didn't hurt my head because I was wearing my helmet.

(00:08:50):

Oh, right.

(00:08:51):

Which is why it's important to have a bike that is fitted properly for you.

(00:08:56):

I know.

(00:08:56):

Yeah.

(00:08:57):

And I now understand why Dee goes on and on and on about how important that is.

(00:09:03):

So that's what happened to Mommy.

(00:09:05):

And that's why it's important.

(00:09:06):

But I knew how to ride my bike, so the rest of the part was fine.

(00:09:11):

I just flipped because I was too big for the bike.

(00:09:13):

I went, zoop, because I braked and went, zoop, right over the handlebars.

(00:09:21):

Is there anything else you want to talk about, Princess?

(00:09:23):

Well, uh, yes.

(00:09:29):

Yeah, what do you want to talk about?

(00:09:30):

So if you ever want to go play outside when it's raining, you can just, um,

(00:09:39):

There's nothing inside,

(00:09:41):

but if you have a garage,

(00:09:42):

that's great because you can just shut open the door a little bit or watch the rain

(00:09:52):

or you can also play with a sports kit if you have one.

(00:09:58):

Yeah, that's very true.

(00:10:00):

Those are great,

(00:10:01):

great ideas for indoor activities for when it's rainy out because it was rainy all

(00:10:06):

day today,

(00:10:07):

wasn't it?

(00:10:09):

And when I was in my classroom,

(00:10:13):

I,

(00:10:13):

for my second recess at School Inside,

(00:10:20):

I played PBS Kids games.

(00:10:23):

What games did you play?

(00:10:24):

What were your favorite ones?

(00:10:25):

My favorite one was the Clifford one, where I took care of Clifford.

(00:10:31):

That's a cool one, isn't it?

(00:10:32):

Yeah.

(00:10:32):

Because he's so big.

(00:10:33):

I know.

(00:10:34):

You know what, though?

(00:10:35):

Sometimes Zeus and Shepi feel that big.

(00:10:39):

What?

(00:10:40):

The other day,

(00:10:40):

Sheppy tried to lay on top of me while I was sleeping because he wanted attention.

(00:10:44):

Oh.

(00:10:46):

I know, but he was wet from being outside.

(00:10:48):

Oh.

(00:10:48):

Yeah, it was so gross.

(00:10:50):

But he felt the size of Clifford with how big he is.

(00:10:53):

Oh.

(00:10:54):

I know, silly, right?

(00:10:55):

That's weird.

(00:10:58):

So anything else that you want to talk about on this really long podcast episode?

(00:11:06):

Yes.

(00:11:07):

Um.

(00:11:10):

Uh... Peanuts are not a nut.

(00:11:18):

They're a legume.

(00:11:21):

They are a legume.

(00:11:22):

Get it?

(00:11:24):

Yes, peanuts are a legume.

(00:11:26):

And legumes are what?

(00:11:28):

They're a... Legumes are a food.

(00:11:36):

Yeah, crazy, right?

(00:11:39):

So all the nuts,

(00:11:41):

basically everything you eat is a fruit unless it's meat and then it's an animal.

(00:11:44):

Yeah, obviously.

(00:11:46):

Yeah, so that's kind of cool.

(00:11:48):

And unless it's an egg.

(00:11:51):

Which I think is technically considered an animal still.

(00:11:54):

Yeah, obviously because it's a baby chicken.

(00:11:58):

Yeah, well, not yet.

(00:12:01):

If it were sat on me, it would become a baby chicken.

(00:12:05):

Yeah.

(00:12:06):

And incubated.

(00:12:08):

Yeah.

(00:12:09):

I think we did chips in third grade.

(00:12:11):

So normally when I have people on my podcast, I ask them questions.

(00:12:15):

Can I ask you some questions?

(00:12:16):

Yes.

(00:12:17):

Yeah.

(00:12:17):

Okay.

(00:12:18):

Okay.

(00:12:19):

All right, Lucy Luella.

(00:12:20):

Yes.

(00:12:22):

One is your favorite color.

(00:12:25):

My favorite color is pink and yellow.

(00:12:28):

Pink and yellow.

(00:12:29):

Yeah.

(00:12:29):

Those are your mom's favorite colors, aren't they?

(00:12:31):

Yeah.

(00:12:33):

Okay.

(00:12:33):

What is your favorite thing to learn about in school?

(00:12:36):

My favorite thing to learn about in school, a lot of things.

(00:12:40):

Math, science, and also art.

(00:12:44):

Art?

(00:12:45):

What's your favorite thing to do in science?

(00:12:48):

My favorite thing to do in science is experiments, like making how to make elephant toothpaste.

(00:12:55):

Yeah, you've done some pretty cool experiments over the past few years, haven't you?

(00:12:59):

Yeah, like with my dad, I did, with my actual dad, I did, um...

(00:13:05):

some like elephant toothpaste.

(00:13:08):

Yeah, and we made oobleck and slime.

(00:13:12):

Yeah, that was actually fun.

(00:13:14):

Yeah, and some crystals.

(00:13:16):

What else have we done here?

(00:13:18):

Oh, you made your own perfume?

(00:13:20):

Uh-huh.

(00:13:21):

That was cool.

(00:13:22):

But it smells pretty bad now.

(00:13:25):

Oh, does it?

(00:13:25):

Yeah, it smells weird.

(00:13:27):

Uh-oh.

(00:13:28):

We'll have to go take a look at it.

(00:13:29):

Yeah.

(00:13:32):

Okay.

(00:13:34):

So you love math and science and art.

(00:13:36):

Uh-huh.

(00:13:38):

And you love to read.

(00:13:40):

You love books.

(00:13:41):

Yep.

(00:13:42):

And I'm starting to learn to read at small group this week.

(00:13:46):

Oh, yeah?

(00:13:47):

Mm-hmm.

(00:13:47):

Yeah?

(00:13:48):

Is that exciting?

(00:13:49):

Yep.

(00:13:49):

Who's in your, who all, what are your friends in your small group?

(00:13:52):

Ivy, Steph, Sophia, and Collins.

(00:13:57):

Oh, how fun.

(00:13:59):

Yep.

(00:14:00):

Is that your table?

(00:14:02):

No, it's actually just a table.

(00:14:04):

That you guys go to?

(00:14:07):

Yeah, only at the morning times when we're doing a mirror, and a mirror helps us learn to read.

(00:14:14):

Oh, cool.

(00:14:16):

As well as small group.

(00:14:18):

Yeah.

(00:14:19):

It helps us learn, it helps us count, it helps us read, and it also helps us learn science.

(00:14:27):

What?

(00:14:27):

That is super cool.

(00:14:28):

Technology is pretty impressive, isn't it?

(00:14:31):

Yep.

(00:14:31):

Did you know when I was your age, there weren't really computers?

(00:14:34):

What?

(00:14:35):

They existed,

(00:14:36):

but they were these giant machines that would take up the entire size of the garage.

(00:14:40):

What the?

(00:14:41):

Yeah.

(00:14:42):

Yeah.

(00:14:42):

So back in 1999.

(00:14:43):

No, 98.

(00:14:44):

No, it would have been 98.

(00:14:47):

Back in 1998.

(00:14:50):

And cell phones,

(00:14:51):

like real cell phones that everybody carried didn't really even start until like 2003.

(00:14:57):

Yeah.

(00:15:01):

Before that, not a lot of people had them.

(00:15:04):

And then when great grandpa doctor was working and he had a cell phone when Gamma

(00:15:09):

was a kid,

(00:15:10):

it was the size of a briefcase.

(00:15:13):

What the?

(00:15:14):

I know.

(00:15:15):

That was weird.

(00:15:16):

I know.

(00:15:17):

And we used to have phones that were plugged into our walls.

(00:15:20):

What the?

(00:15:20):

I know.

(00:15:21):

And they had little dial thingies on them.

(00:15:23):

I think there's still one at the cottage.

(00:15:25):

I think I've shown it to you.

(00:15:26):

I don't remember you showing it.

(00:15:29):

Yeah.

(00:15:30):

You were younger.

(00:15:31):

Ah.

(00:15:33):

Can I see that again?

(00:15:36):

When we go there?

(00:15:37):

Yeah.

(00:15:37):

Yeah, I'll show you.

(00:15:39):

We're going to make sure we get there this summer.

(00:15:41):

Okay.

(00:15:43):

With Izzy.

(00:15:44):

Yeah, with Izzy.

(00:15:45):

Oh, and by the way, Izzy's my sister.

(00:15:48):

I call her Izzy, but her actual name is Isabella.

(00:15:53):

Yeah.

(00:15:53):

Yeah, Izzy's your sister.

(00:15:54):

Yeah.

(00:15:55):

Yeah.

(00:15:55):

Yeah, you guys are good sisters, aren't you?

(00:15:59):

Yep.

(00:15:59):

Like me and Emmy.

(00:16:01):

But we're,

(00:16:02):

um,

(00:16:02):

not exactly the same because now she,

(00:16:06):

um,

(00:16:06):

has dark red hair and,

(00:16:10):

um,

(00:16:10):

it's,

(00:16:11):

it stays there.

(00:16:13):

Yeah.

(00:16:13):

Yeah.

(00:16:14):

She has red hair.

(00:16:15):

Yeah.

(00:16:15):

Yeah.

(00:16:16):

And blue eyes.

(00:16:18):

And I have brown eyes.

(00:16:21):

Yep.

(00:16:23):

And dirty blonde hair, like your mama.

(00:16:27):

Yes.

(00:16:28):

And Gamma.

(00:16:30):

And Gamma had brown eyes for a very long time.

(00:16:32):

Hers didn't turn hazel until she was like in high school, I think.

(00:16:38):

So you're grown up a lot like Gamma.

(00:16:41):

Wait a minute.

(00:16:42):

Mine's blonde?

(00:16:43):

Dirty blonde.

(00:16:44):

So you've got some gold and some yellow mixed in between your brown, which is like Mama's.

(00:16:51):

Oh, because when I go in the sun, it's always shiny.

(00:16:58):

Yep, exactly.

(00:17:01):

And mine does that too.

(00:17:02):

What?

(00:17:02):

And that's the gold.

(00:17:03):

And I do believe that comes from the Irish part of our family.

(00:17:10):

What do you mean?

(00:17:13):

Well, we are a combination of different people from all over the country.

(00:17:21):

It's all over the country.

(00:17:22):

It's all over the world.

(00:17:24):

So like mommy is Portuguese.

(00:17:27):

And Irish, Northern Irish, and Welsh.

(00:17:35):

And your first dad is Irish and German.

(00:17:43):

What am I?

(00:17:45):

So you would be a mix of us, so you're mainly Irish.

(00:17:50):

You're a little bit of,

(00:17:51):

you're a lot of Irish and a little bit of everything else,

(00:17:54):

but we probably could do it.

(00:17:55):

We should do it.

(00:17:57):

a 23andMe on you.

(00:17:59):

I know your genetic code, but I don't know what traits you got from all the places.

(00:18:07):

But you got probably mainly mine because you look like my family.

(00:18:11):

Aside from Judah, you look like your cousin Judah too.

(00:18:15):

And he has brown hair and brown eyes.

(00:18:20):

Alright, I think we're probably getting to the end here.

(00:18:25):

Would you like to say bye?

(00:18:27):

Bye.

(00:18:28):

Thank you, everyone, for listening to this wonderful, very awesome Curiosity Chronicles episode.

(00:18:37):

I can't.

(00:18:38):

I'm having a hard time talking today, kiddo.

(00:18:40):

Thank you so much for listening, and we will talk to you next time.

(00:18:43):

Yep.

Get full access to The Chaos Chronicles with Taylor Cecelia Brook at taylorceceliabrook.substack.com/subscribe

You can find all things Amber right here Amber Kliphouse

(00:00:04):

And we are back.

(00:00:06):

I'm super,

(00:00:06):

super excited for today,

(00:00:08):

for this whole podcast interview,

(00:00:10):

because I have with me Amber Cliphouse.

(00:00:12):

I met her through Kara Allwell, Girl on Fire.

(00:00:15):

No surprise there.

(00:00:17):

I've met so many fucking amazing people there,

(00:00:19):

but I'm really excited because I'm pretty fired up about this podcast episode.

(00:00:23):

And if you've been listening, you know, it's been a little bit of a struggle for me lately.

(00:00:27):

So

(00:00:28):

Thank you so much for like constantly like re-interacting with me, Amber.

(00:00:32):

I really, I need people like you in my life.

(00:00:36):

And then people are like, oh, I didn't mean to bother you.

(00:00:37):

I was like, no, I need you to bother me.

(00:00:40):

Otherwise I forget things.

(00:00:42):

So without further ado, here is Ms.

(00:00:45):

Amber Cliphouse.

(00:00:46):

Please, please introduce yourself to my wonderful listeners.

(00:00:50):

Hi, thanks so much for having me.

(00:00:52):

Like you said, my name is Amber Cliphouse.

(00:00:54):

And I recently wrote my first book.

(00:00:58):

It's called Clean Start.

(00:00:59):

And it's basically a teen mom's journey from suicide survivor to real estate investor.

(00:01:04):

Obviously, I'm not a teen mom anymore.

(00:01:07):

But it's been a long, long road with lots of, you know, healing along the way.

(00:01:12):

And this book has just been such a healing process.

(00:01:14):

And I would love to share it with the world.

(00:01:17):

That's like awesome.

(00:01:19):

And I completely understand while our situations were very different,

(00:01:25):

you talking about, you know, writing the book and all that being a healing process.

(00:01:28):

That's so true as gut wrenching as it is at times.

(00:01:33):

I mean, I can imagine for you writing certain certain about certain things was really difficult.

(00:01:39):

So, A, I appreciate that you did that.

(00:01:42):

You know,

(00:01:42):

you're really doing an awesome thing for people out there,

(00:01:45):

especially for there's a lot of girls who are just like you,

(00:01:51):

who are just like you,

(00:01:52):

who

(00:01:53):

will probably end up in those same shoes and so instead of feeling the way you felt

(00:02:00):

now they have someone to like look up to and be like okay i don't need to be this

(00:02:04):

way so what what it was your favorite part about writing your book

(00:02:13):

honestly just learning myself I think when we go into survivor mode it's so go go

(00:02:19):

go like your brain doesn't even have time to process like everything you're

(00:02:23):

processing as weird as it sounds so I was able to like you know relive everything

(00:02:27):

and kind of like damn like you've really been through a lot and you're still here

(00:02:32):

to tell your story like you know exactly I'm so glad you're proud of yourself so

(00:02:39):

many people are like oh

(00:02:41):

it's fine it's no big deal no you went through some fucking shit like yeah i mean

(00:02:45):

some really really hard things like i mean i read i'm like oh god who is that girl

(00:02:49):

that's crazy so i totally get that because literally this morning i was editing

(00:02:56):

going through the book for the you know bajillionth time and editing it and it's

(00:03:01):

like i don't like that seems so long ago

(00:03:07):

like and it really it was only six years ago six and a half whatever but it feels

(00:03:13):

so long ago yeah lifetimes literal lifetimes i don't even know who that girl is

(00:03:19):

anymore and there was such a girl yeah yeah it's crazy when you know you go through

(00:03:25):

tragedy and i mean we all go through things in different phases and you can never

(00:03:28):

compare

(00:03:29):

and contrast with the way you handle it.

(00:03:30):

But like, it really molds you to the person you are today.

(00:03:33):

You think you're never going to get through that moment.

(00:03:35):

And then like, you just somehow pick the pieces and you keep on going.

(00:03:40):

Exactly.

(00:03:40):

I feel like really it boils down.

(00:03:45):

There are two outcomes when people go through stuff like this,

(00:03:50):

either you pick yourself up and you keep going or you don't.

(00:03:54):

And those are really,

(00:03:56):

the only directions and i've seen it happen and like not keep going doesn't

(00:04:02):

necessarily mean that you are you know committing suicide but there are there are

(00:04:07):

choices that one could make you know to you know just become part of their

(00:04:12):

situation and just let it happen to them which i understand not everybody can

(00:04:17):

handle picking the up and walking away with it sure sure of course so but i i would

(00:04:25):

love to know

(00:04:27):

like how what was your breaking point what made you finally go this i need to fix

(00:04:36):

this like i need to undo all the like in the different phases because i know like

(00:04:41):

you've been in a few different like stages of your life and they all were

(00:04:45):

significant and all had large importance so like what was what were those last

(00:04:51):

straws for you

(00:04:53):

As far as like writing the book or just like big milestones in my life?

(00:04:57):

Big milestones in your life.

(00:05:01):

Like, you know,

(00:05:04):

I'm especially thinking about how you did a literal 180.

(00:05:08):

You know, you and your husband lost a ton of weight.

(00:05:10):

You guys stopped partying.

(00:05:12):

You guys became entrepreneurs and like all this stuff.

(00:05:15):

And I mean, it was just a complete flip around.

(00:05:17):

So, you know, I'm just curious, what was your final straw in that moment?

(00:05:21):

Like what made you decide, okay, we have to change?

(00:05:24):

So recently,

(00:05:25):

you know,

(00:05:26):

when you're an entrepreneur,

(00:05:27):

you have so much free time and everyone's like,

(00:05:29):

oh my God,

(00:05:30):

you're so lucky.

(00:05:31):

It must be nice.

(00:05:31):

But no, because then you're in your head 24 seven.

(00:05:34):

And that's a scary place to be.

(00:05:36):

Like, I don't care who you are.

(00:05:37):

It's scary.

(00:05:38):

Having super scary.

(00:05:39):

Yeah.

(00:05:39):

And like, people are like, oh my God, like, it's so nice.

(00:05:42):

Must be.

(00:05:42):

No, it's not.

(00:05:43):

It's really scary.

(00:05:45):

And you know, it's like mimosas because it's Monday and why not Wednesday?

(00:05:49):

And like,

(00:05:50):

It was always a reason to celebrate.

(00:05:53):

We bought another house.

(00:05:54):

Let's have a drink.

(00:05:56):

We don't have any bosses to check into.

(00:05:59):

It became a bad habit of just drinking and using it as a celebration.

(00:06:04):

That was like a crutch.

(00:06:06):

I wouldn't say I was an alcoholic, but it numbs you to what's really going on around you.

(00:06:11):

You're not able to feel the things.

(00:06:14):

when i decided i wanted to write my book i wanted to feel the things right it was

(00:06:17):

time to deal with everything the front cover is my seven-year-old self looking down

(00:06:23):

like a long hallway and it's just me and it's all these doors and the way i feel

(00:06:29):

how i started i opened up every single door by myself dealt with the demons inside

(00:06:34):

and shut it and i had to do that sober because i just had to have a clear

(00:06:38):

level head now there's nothing wrong with drinking like I'm not like I don't stick

(00:06:42):

my nose up to it it's just it's not for me you know like you want to drink good for

(00:06:45):

you like it saves me a ton of calories I don't feel like shit the next day and I

(00:06:49):

think clearly we have a lot of decisions that we have to make daily that are you

(00:06:54):

know we're responsible for a lot of people's lives being the business that we're in

(00:06:57):

so it just made sense to me and it was like a domino effect of

(00:07:02):

I wasn't drinking so I could go to the gym.

(00:07:04):

Again, I didn't feel like crap.

(00:07:06):

And then I was writing more and more because I was just clearer and clearer than I've ever been before.

(00:07:11):

And at the same time processing all the trauma, I was like, wow, it was like a hamster wheel.

(00:07:16):

I just could not stop.

(00:07:18):

Gosh, I relate to that so much.

(00:07:22):

We're in the middle of completely

(00:07:26):

detoxing ourselves from weed.

(00:07:28):

So it's a process.

(00:07:30):

It's going to take a while.

(00:07:31):

It takes forever to get out of your system.

(00:07:32):

But we finally were just like, okay, we, this, I'm not happy with how we are acting, how we are behaving.

(00:07:40):

And like you said, you know, for a long time I worked for myself.

(00:07:44):

So I just, and even when I worked for someone, you know, the last job I had, like, it wasn't a real job.

(00:07:52):

Sure.

(00:07:53):

Yeah.

(00:07:54):

I got paid to take care of this person's house.

(00:07:57):

Like it wasn't hard.

(00:07:59):

So, you know, I, and I would spend hours and hours.

(00:08:04):

I wasn't getting things done.

(00:08:06):

Wasn't reading books,

(00:08:07):

nothing like that because I was spending hours and hours smoking weed in the,

(00:08:10):

in the garage.

(00:08:11):

Like, and now both of us are working a lot.

(00:08:15):

And so we don't really want to spend our time, the little bit of time that we have, you know,

(00:08:24):

just smoking like that short like yeah because you're not present for your life

(00:08:29):

right like you feel like you're so present you're like you feel like you're so like

(00:08:33):

feeling all the feels but like you're really not like you're doing the opposite

(00:08:36):

literally that's exactly what's happening because oh man and it honestly has

(00:08:43):

started to cause like

(00:08:44):

issues for us like just in general day-to-day life you know it it will have

(00:08:51):

full-blown conversations while we're stoned out of our minds and then we won't

(00:08:56):

remember them the next day and like that's a big deal just on so many levels like

(00:09:04):

it makes me wonder like

(00:09:06):

what's happening inside of my brain folds, you know?

(00:09:08):

Right.

(00:09:10):

I feel you on that.

(00:09:11):

I understand the same thing.

(00:09:12):

So, but how did you get from, you know, being down to becoming an entrepreneur?

(00:09:28):

So I was kind of forced into entrepreneurship at an early age.

(00:09:32):

I wasn't forced.

(00:09:33):

I guess that's not the right word.

(00:09:34):

I feel like I was forced, but it was a blessing.

(00:09:37):

When I met my husband now, like 2008, we actually met on MySpace.

(00:09:43):

I know it's super, makes me old.

(00:09:45):

That's how my ex-husband and I met.

(00:09:47):

We met on MySpace too.

(00:09:48):

That's crazy.

(00:09:50):

Yeah, so when I say MySpace, they're like, oh my God, you're old.

(00:09:52):

Like, I'm only 36.

(00:09:53):

I'm not that old.

(00:09:54):

But when I say that...

(00:09:56):

Yeah.

(00:09:57):

Anyway,

(00:09:57):

so we met on MySpace and I was coming out a really abusive relationship and I had

(00:10:02):

worked for a cleaning company and I worked at Walgreens on night shift and the

(00:10:07):

cleaning company shut down.

(00:10:09):

And I was a single mom at this point.

(00:10:11):

My son's father had already committed suicide and I

(00:10:15):

he, he, the guy like shut down the cleaning company and he did not tell us he changed his number.

(00:10:20):

And I just met my husband.

(00:10:22):

Now, like we just, just met, like it was fresh in a relationship.

(00:10:25):

Like, Hey, you know, damaged goods here with a child and you know, all this.

(00:10:29):

also my company just shut down so here i am nice to meet you and uh he was like

(00:10:34):

just get you know an loc bond insured i got a really good insurance guy and start

(00:10:38):

your own business like you know how to clean houses so he really like encouraged me

(00:10:41):

to just do it and i was like i can't do it he's like you don't know how to clean

(00:10:46):

and kind of you know not coach me but he was definitely a major support to where

(00:10:50):

i'm like yeah i can do this and i

(00:10:52):

You know, I knocked on one door and just said, hey, like, this is what happened.

(00:10:56):

I played the not sob story was true.

(00:10:58):

Like this guy ghosted us.

(00:11:00):

It was in November, right before Christmas.

(00:11:02):

Stevie was two at the time.

(00:11:03):

He's 19 now.

(00:11:05):

And I was like, can I clean your house?

(00:11:07):

They're like, of course.

(00:11:08):

And I did it for 15 years and I ran my cleaning company.

(00:11:12):

Wow.

(00:11:13):

Yeah,

(00:11:13):

it was awesome because,

(00:11:14):

you know,

(00:11:14):

if Stevie,

(00:11:15):

everyone knew Stevie and they knew of my story because they became family.

(00:11:21):

And if he had like a concert or an event, they, my schedule was super flexible.

(00:11:25):

It was, you know, it was great.

(00:11:27):

It was wonderful.

(00:11:29):

That's awesome.

(00:11:30):

That's really, I think so amazing on multiple levels.

(00:11:35):

Like not only was that a really great turning point for you,

(00:11:41):

but like the foundation of y'all's relationships started with like support.

(00:11:47):

Yeah.

(00:11:48):

Yeah.

(00:11:48):

The fact that he was like,

(00:11:51):

think you can you know you can't clean like and he pushed you a little bit that is

(00:11:56):

the you know a true pillar of a partner yeah absolutely like people who don't do

(00:12:03):

that you know had he not done that you know who knows where life would have taken

(00:12:10):

you

(00:12:11):

Oh, yeah.

(00:12:12):

I talk about that all the time.

(00:12:13):

I express gratitude is like a big thing for me.

(00:12:15):

And I just express my gratitude for him and he does for me as well.

(00:12:19):

But I always say that, where would I be?

(00:12:21):

Because the odds weren't looking too great for young Amber.

(00:12:25):

It wasn't my course to succeed the way that I did.

(00:12:28):

But support is so important.

(00:12:30):

So I'm super grateful to have him.

(00:12:32):

Yeah.

(00:12:33):

Yeah, that's really it.

(00:12:35):

I was really unaware how critical that was.

(00:12:39):

until I needed it and I didn't have it.

(00:12:41):

And then when I needed it and I did have it, it's, it's, it's kind of wild.

(00:12:47):

So, so who is Amber outside of, you know, all of this, like what, what, what is your fun side?

(00:12:55):

Like,

(00:12:55):

like,

(00:12:56):

you know,

(00:12:56):

without all of the trauma and the baggage that we all carry with us,

(00:13:00):

what,

(00:13:01):

what is just like your favorite life things?

(00:13:05):

Right now, just like living and expressing gratitude, I'm homeschooling my youngest.

(00:13:11):

Now, my two oldest, I graduated last year.

(00:13:14):

So now I have Austin is, he'll be eight.

(00:13:17):

He's in second grade and I just started homeschooling.

(00:13:20):

We purchased a condo in Florida.

(00:13:22):

So we're living between Florida and Maryland.

(00:13:24):

So I love the beach.

(00:13:25):

Any reason to go to the beach.

(00:13:27):

That's where I went today just to kind of like, you know.

(00:13:29):

Ugh.

(00:13:31):

Yeah, this the beach is like my favorite thing.

(00:13:33):

And just I do a lot of journaling.

(00:13:35):

I do a lot of writing.

(00:13:36):

I do.

(00:13:37):

I'm still doing a lot of work on myself,

(00:13:39):

to be honest,

(00:13:39):

like,

(00:13:40):

even though I feel like the book is like,

(00:13:41):

all right,

(00:13:42):

it's done.

(00:13:42):

It was healing.

(00:13:43):

But like, I still have a lot of things to work through it.

(00:13:45):

And I want to be, you know,

(00:13:48):

A hundred percent.

(00:13:49):

And just, I trying to get better every day.

(00:13:51):

I know no one's perfect.

(00:13:52):

I'm not trying to be perfect,

(00:13:53):

but I'm just trying to better myself because there was a lot of damage and there's still,

(00:13:57):

even though it's been,

(00:13:58):

you know,

(00:13:58):

18 years since the suicide,

(00:14:00):

like I'm still damaged and I still have work to do.

(00:14:03):

And I'm, I'm not afraid to admit that.

(00:14:07):

I, you know,

(00:14:09):

I've talked to a few people about this,

(00:14:11):

how like being able to recognize and admit that you have things that you need to

(00:14:17):

work on is the biggest and the hardest step because there's so many people out

(00:14:23):

there who know but refuse to acknowledge it or who have no idea that they have all

(00:14:30):

this stuff that they need to be working on.

(00:14:32):

And it's not like, oh, you need to go work on yourself.

(00:14:34):

No, people don't understand when you do this, like you were saying.

(00:14:38):

you become your best self.

(00:14:40):

You're not changing yourself.

(00:14:42):

You're simply evolving into who you were supposed to be.

(00:14:47):

Exactly.

(00:14:49):

And so it's interesting because sometimes I feel bad for those people and other

(00:14:58):

times I don't because I'm like,

(00:15:00):

well,

(00:15:01):

at least you're just blissfully living your

(00:15:05):

little life like yeah yeah i know i know exactly what you're saying and that'll be

(00:15:10):

another conversation but it's it's hard to admit right like that's the first step

(00:15:14):

admitting and then talking about it if you choose to not like faking it till you

(00:15:18):

make it with social media and filters like it's so easy to be fake and phony and

(00:15:22):

not a lot of people talk about the real stuff below the surface for real like i

(00:15:29):

think that's what

(00:15:31):

Made me gravitate to Substack to begin with.

(00:15:33):

Because I was so tired of having to fucking filter myself.

(00:15:37):

Yeah.

(00:15:37):

Like.

(00:15:38):

Even saying shit like my kid died.

(00:15:41):

Like people would get all weird about that.

(00:15:43):

And I'm like.

(00:15:43):

I am simply just telling you the truth.

(00:15:45):

There's nothing weird about this.

(00:15:46):

It is.

(00:15:47):

Right.

(00:15:48):

There's nothing bad about these words.

(00:15:50):

None of these words on their own are bad.

(00:15:52):

Like.

(00:15:53):

So.

(00:15:53):

The fact that people were uncomfortable with it.

(00:15:57):

Yeah.

(00:15:58):

Yeah.

(00:15:59):

And.

(00:16:02):

because of people like that, I did not share anything for many, many, many years.

(00:16:10):

And that's why I'm writing this book.

(00:16:11):

And that's why I'm on Substack now,

(00:16:13):

because like,

(00:16:14):

for that very reason,

(00:16:16):

it's so easy to just brush off everything people say when you go through shit,

(00:16:26):

like what we've gone through.

(00:16:27):

And

(00:16:31):

is really important at least personally for me that we emphasize that it wasn't

(00:16:40):

easy but i don't know about you i would not have changed a thing i would go back

(00:16:47):

and do it again and again and again if i could have those moments with lily all

(00:16:53):

over again have those experiences like to me not only was she worth it but

(00:17:02):

The shit that I went through mentally,

(00:17:05):

emotionally,

(00:17:06):

physically,

(00:17:07):

spiritually through that entire process and beyond.

(00:17:12):

I would not be the kick-ass person that I am now.

(00:17:14):

I wouldn't have done all this shit.

(00:17:16):

I wouldn't have, you know, put in the effort and spent the money to go to therapy every fucking week.

(00:17:23):

So I don't have to be afraid every time my daughter's tummy hurts or like, you know, all of those things.

(00:17:31):

I wouldn't have done any of that.

(00:17:35):

And so I don't think there's very many people who openly talk about their suicide attempts.

(00:17:42):

out there.

(00:17:44):

And so the fact that you do that is really brave,

(00:17:48):

like really,

(00:17:48):

really brave,

(00:17:49):

even if you're like,

(00:17:50):

what the fuck?

(00:17:51):

What does bravery have to do with that?

(00:17:53):

But I know it takes, you know, energy to put that stuff out there.

(00:18:00):

And, you know, even though it was difficult.

(00:18:05):

Did I have a hard time talking this night?

(00:18:12):

I just said this night.

(00:18:14):

Wow.

(00:18:14):

Taylor, man, we're on a roll right now.

(00:18:17):

Okay.

(00:18:17):

Yeah, I guess so.

(00:18:20):

I don't, it's been a, it's been a hot minute, but I also was sick for like two freaking weeks.

(00:18:24):

It was terrible.

(00:18:25):

Oh,

(00:18:25):

I saw,

(00:18:27):

I saw,

(00:18:28):

I don't want to do really,

(00:18:28):

but before you go on,

(00:18:29):

I have to,

(00:18:30):

I have to comment on something that's been in my mind.

(00:18:32):

I don't want to forget.

(00:18:32):

Cause

(00:18:35):

I love the person.

(00:18:36):

I am so sorry what happened to you with your daughter, but I love that who it shaped you to be.

(00:18:40):

I love the realness that you bring to it.

(00:18:42):

I heard you on Gemma James podcast and this sticks out to my head so much when you're like,

(00:18:49):

someone said you know you lost your child like i didn't lose her like she did like

(00:18:53):

you know she said she died like yeah that moms need to hear because i i know a

(00:18:58):

really good friend who just went through this and you know there's a lot of people

(00:19:00):

that go through it's super unfortunate but like your realness like your ballsiness

(00:19:04):

to just say it how it is is incredible for the world because not a lot of people

(00:19:09):

it's all you know we can't talk about that exactly so i love i love who you are and

(00:19:15):

what did she i'm sorry for what you went through again but

(00:19:18):

the person that shaped you to be and the badass that you are and to be able to be

(00:19:21):

that light for so many people it's just incredible if no one's told you lately like

(00:19:26):

you're crushing it you're killing it no one has so i really appreciate that and

(00:19:31):

i've been really struggling lately i'm just it's been it's been a little not like

(00:19:36):

like uh well yeah it's just been a lot lately um and you know it's been three years

(00:19:44):

since i've had like a real big girl job

(00:19:47):

So like there was adjusting to that.

(00:19:49):

And I was so surprised at how quickly all of the insecurities that I had working in a job like that.

(00:19:55):

Sure.

(00:19:56):

I thought I got rid of them.

(00:19:58):

Right.

(00:19:59):

Then you go back into the real world.

(00:20:00):

Like, okay, they're still there.

(00:20:01):

I got more work to do.

(00:20:03):

Literally.

(00:20:03):

I was like, okay.

(00:20:06):

Cause like right now I'm really trying to work on my mean girl because like,

(00:20:11):

I think it's really important to,

(00:20:13):

I'm,

(00:20:14):

I always was trying to evict her,

(00:20:16):

but I really,

(00:20:17):

I started listening to this audio book called mastering your inner mean girl,

(00:20:22):

mastering your mean girl,

(00:20:23):

something like that.

(00:20:24):

And it's not about getting rid of her.

(00:20:26):

It's about,

(00:20:26):

teaching her how to live life correctly sure sure and out of love and not out of

(00:20:35):

fear because that's what it is she's the she's saying is strictly out of fear right

(00:20:40):

right and it doesn't matter what it is you know from the with where i'll turn

(00:20:47):

around and feel my body move in a certain way and she goes oh you're fad

(00:20:53):

to you know oh my gosh did i say something stupid like it's all fear like it's all

(00:21:01):

right right right and it's been kind of cool how how like it's not actually that

(00:21:10):

hard to flip it around no it just takes time

(00:21:15):

um and so i'm not doing well with the time part right now and i think that's what i

(00:21:21):

mean by i'm struggling it's just i've always been you know instant gratification it

(00:21:26):

doesn't help that i'm a millennial like

(00:21:29):

i grew up in the time of now i can get anything whenever i want it whenever i want

(00:21:34):

it wherever i want it like sure people literally escape to places where you can't

(00:21:38):

do that now right right so intense and so i want you know i want my book to be done

(00:21:46):

now i want my sub stack to be the best seller sub stack i want to have a million

(00:21:51):

podcast downloads like i want all these things and they'll happen eventually but

(00:21:58):

I have this habit of when life gets hard,

(00:22:03):

I tend to bury my head in the sand and ignore everything but my absolute have tos.

(00:22:12):

Like, I have to do these things.

(00:22:14):

I don't have a choice.

(00:22:16):

And pulling myself out of that is normally...

(00:22:23):

really hard and this time it was starting to get easier and then getting sick just

(00:22:31):

knocked the sails out of me it was like all of my spoons that i'd finally started

(00:22:35):

like filling back up were just like it was like someone shook them and like

(00:22:39):

scattered them across the earth sure maybe that's a sign that you need to slow down

(00:22:44):

and not try to go quickly like just enjoy the process you know because we like you

(00:22:49):

said we want instant gratification but like yeah say you have a million subtext

(00:22:54):

followers or whatever like what if half a million are making negative mean comments

(00:22:58):

like are you prepared for that you know like we want all these things back but like

(00:23:02):

we have to continue to work on ourselves so we can be able to handle whatever comes

(00:23:07):

our way because you know shit's coming our way girl you know we're gonna take more

(00:23:10):

blow after blow after blow like that's just life like we're used to it like we're

(00:23:14):

prepared for the worst yeah and it's like i i will say and i don't know if you feel

(00:23:18):

this way but like pretty much nothing phases me anymore

(00:23:22):

Yeah.

(00:23:22):

I'm like, yeah, I'm definitely at that point.

(00:23:25):

Yeah.

(00:23:25):

I'm like, okay, press, let's keep going.

(00:23:28):

Yeah.

(00:23:29):

There's nothing else you can do,

(00:23:30):

but I appreciate you saying that a lot because I've finally started like,

(00:23:36):

feeling the spark again and it's coming back and i'm i'm finally like okay i'm

(00:23:43):

ready to go back to unfucking myself i'm ready to go back to pursuing my actual

(00:23:50):

dreams because i got a little starry-eyed at the beginning of this job i was like

(00:23:57):

oh this is it's a great job

(00:23:59):

Don't get me wrong.

(00:23:59):

Like it's a fucking dream come true for what I need right now.

(00:24:04):

But it is not what I want.

(00:24:06):

Like when I actually sit down and think about it, I do not want to work for anyone but myself.

(00:24:10):

Sure.

(00:24:12):

Like I don't want that in my future.

(00:24:17):

And I don't want, you know, people –

(00:24:22):

I just hate people in my business.

(00:24:24):

Of course.

(00:24:24):

I mean,

(00:24:25):

especially once you get the taste of like not working for people and being under

(00:24:28):

that microscope and you go back,

(00:24:29):

but like you really want your book and your book is so important and you're going

(00:24:33):

to crush it.

(00:24:34):

You're going to nail it, but it's not something that happens quick.

(00:24:36):

So like your job's a good distraction and you also make money.

(00:24:39):

So that's, you know, plus and you don't have to work with entrepreneurship.

(00:24:43):

Like you have to come up with your own funding and paychecks and all right now.

(00:24:48):

this kind of like it's a temporary thing right like while you work on your book and

(00:24:51):

master that and it's not forever it's temporary like you're in the driver's seat

(00:24:55):

you know yeah exactly so thank you i appreciate that i needed it um but you brought

(00:25:05):

up the part about

(00:25:07):

You know, I didn't lose my daughter.

(00:25:08):

God, that pissed me off.

(00:25:09):

It's not as a big deal anymore.

(00:25:11):

But for years.

(00:25:13):

I couldn't imagine.

(00:25:14):

I couldn't imagine.

(00:25:15):

It just made me so mad.

(00:25:17):

I'm like, she didn't fucking disappear.

(00:25:19):

Yeah, like she's not an amusement park lost.

(00:25:21):

Like, you know, she's just not.

(00:25:23):

I.

(00:25:26):

I love that part about you I love that stands out to me so much because it it's

(00:25:31):

just so real like it's so and that's why I like harassing like hey I'm gonna do a

(00:25:34):

podcast with you now like your realness and wrongness I was like I had to talk to

(00:25:38):

her and I have a feeling like we're gonna run out of time we're gonna talk over and

(00:25:41):

then talk after and well and I really like I said like

(00:25:49):

my i need people like that in my life and i make sure to express like my best

(00:25:54):

friend knows like if she asks me for something she knows that sometimes she's gonna

(00:25:58):

have to harass me for it like sure like i wrote a really nice letter of

(00:26:04):

recommendation for her but did she have to ask me three times anyway um because if

(00:26:10):

i don't write it down and put it in my calendar things don't happen which is

(00:26:14):

sometimes very frustrating um

(00:26:17):

So you have two grown children.

(00:26:19):

Yeah.

(00:26:21):

And then you have your younger kiddo who is the same age as my stepdaughter.

(00:26:26):

That's fun.

(00:26:30):

How are you enjoying that age?

(00:26:32):

It's really fun because, you know, Stevie and Lexi, they're both, Lexi's 18 and Stevie's 19.

(00:26:38):

When I met Justin, he had a two-year-old daughter and I had a two-year-old son.

(00:26:43):

So what about that?

(00:26:44):

yeah and they're six months apart they both have blonde hair blue eyes i know your

(00:26:49):

listeners can't see me but i clearly have like dark hair and my husband when he had

(00:26:52):

hair also has dark hair so it's so weird everyone's like are they twins so most if

(00:26:57):

i don't never meet them again like yes they're twins it's just too complicated like

(00:27:00):

i met him on myspace and you know i mean like um so they're awesome they're like

(00:27:06):

grown doing the college thing driving scary times but they're incredible humans

(00:27:11):

They're incredible human beings.

(00:27:13):

And Austin is like, I get to redo it all over again.

(00:27:15):

I get to know where I fucked up along the way with my older ones.

(00:27:22):

I can't even imagine being able to do that.

(00:27:25):

I would fucking love that.

(00:27:27):

yeah it's like i get a redo you know like i learned all the lesson now like i'm not

(00:27:31):

rushing it but i know i'm gonna be such a badass grandma because that'll be like my

(00:27:34):

round three you know what though you know what so that's how my parents kind of are

(00:27:40):

it's really funny that you mentioned that so my sister and i are nine years apart

(00:27:45):

wow um we have the same parents um my parents had me when they were super young um

(00:27:54):

And I got it all.

(00:27:55):

I grew up with them.

(00:27:56):

While they were growing up, I was growing up.

(00:27:57):

Yeah.

(00:27:57):

So my parents, when they partied,

(00:28:12):

was there.

(00:28:12):

Like if they had a party at our house, I was there.

(00:28:15):

Not that I don't think they did that very often,

(00:28:18):

but you know,

(00:28:19):

still that's just how their lifestyle was back then.

(00:28:22):

And you know, it, they, they didn't know a lot when they had me.

(00:28:27):

And so they definitely did better when Emma came around.

(00:28:31):

I'm not, I don't have any hate towards my parents.

(00:28:34):

I fucking love my parents.

(00:28:35):

And like,

(00:28:37):

could not have done some of the things i've done in my life without them um and

(00:28:41):

they they know they had things that they had faults and i have faults and i you

(00:28:47):

know it's just one of those things where it's like they didn't know any better and

(00:28:51):

they also didn't know all the generational trauma that came from their family that

(00:28:56):

they carried and inherited because they both had really heavy generational trauma i

(00:29:02):

mean just some serious

(00:29:05):

like could we let's let's try to tone this down a little bit please like maybe by

(00:29:12):

the time lucy has a kid yeah right

(00:29:16):

the realness.

(00:29:17):

So I mean, you can't sugarcoat the realness.

(00:29:19):

And that's what you know,

(00:29:20):

life's about just the real Stevie definitely got like the first dose of like we were,

(00:29:24):

you know,

(00:29:24):

in our party and stages and like the,

(00:29:26):

the things I would like clutch my pearls of thought of doing around Austin,

(00:29:30):

you know,

(00:29:31):

I sometimes I beat myself up.

(00:29:32):

But like, you know, I'm learning, I'm learning, I'm like learning every single day.

(00:29:37):

Like, I'm not afraid to admit I wasn't perfect.

(00:29:39):

Like,

(00:29:40):

fucked up a lot.

(00:29:41):

Like, there's a lot of things.

(00:29:42):

I would say, I mean, he's learned to write a song along with me.

(00:29:46):

Like, I joke and say he's my dad.

(00:29:48):

Fun fact, he actually walked me down the aisle.

(00:29:50):

Justin and I didn't get married until two years ago.

(00:29:53):

Yeah, and he walked down the aisle.

(00:29:54):

I love that.

(00:29:55):

he's my dad he keeps me in line like back when i was drinking if we would go to

(00:29:59):

like sunday in the country he would have like Tylenol on my nightstand and a bottle

(00:30:02):

of water like he's so responsible and takes such good care of his hot mess mom um

(00:30:09):

oh that's so sweet yeah he's my little dad but he's awesome yeah so so my sister

(00:30:17):

came around and they did a lot better yeah a lot better especially so for my dad it

(00:30:22):

was with the emotions you know

(00:30:24):

because he was like oh fuck I'm having another girl okay all right yeah yeah yeah

(00:30:29):

two girls two girls that was all he got that's it you guys no more just the two

(00:30:33):

sisters just just me and my sister yeah and my mom had a miscarriage like a super

(00:30:38):

late like almost it was like at that weird like turning point where it's like a

(00:30:47):

miscarriage but if you're a few days later would have been a stillborn type thing

(00:30:52):

So that happened when I was six.

(00:30:55):

And then it took my mom a long time to get, or not a long time, a little bit to get pregnant after that.

(00:31:02):

But watching them with my daughter,

(00:31:06):

I'm like, who the fuck, where the fuck were you guys when I was her age?

(00:31:09):

Right.

(00:31:11):

Oh.

(00:31:12):

But it's funny that you mentioned that also because I was, we're watching Yellowstone right now.

(00:31:18):

And the main character mentioned, he's like, I get to do all the things that I fucked up.

(00:31:23):

Yeah.

(00:31:23):

I get to fix all of that this time.

(00:31:25):

And I get to do all the things that I wanted to do that I didn't get to do.

(00:31:28):

yeah definitely and that's totally what they're doing i mean the amount of my kid

(00:31:33):

has that's awesome though support's so important it's so important it is it is and

(00:31:40):

i'm doing a lot better about actually utilizing it learning how to accept help has

(00:31:47):

been something that has been a work in progress for like four years now sure i

(00:31:52):

couldn't imagine you know

(00:31:54):

I heard your backstory,

(00:31:56):

you know,

(00:31:56):

military and not having that support,

(00:31:58):

then like just having to fend for yourself.

(00:32:00):

Then you go in again, survival mode.

(00:32:02):

And then you don't want no one to help you because like, you'll figure it out right there.

(00:32:06):

You'll find a way.

(00:32:07):

So I couldn't imagine having to transform out of that survival mode to saying, okay, I need help.

(00:32:14):

I mean, you did it.

(00:32:17):

You transformed out of that survival mode and we're like, okay, I need help.

(00:32:21):

I need to do something.

(00:32:22):

I need to fix this.

(00:32:23):

My parents aren't in my life.

(00:32:24):

My dad left me when I was super young and my mom's not in my life.

(00:32:27):

Yeah, I guess with Justin, I did that.

(00:32:30):

He had his...

(00:32:33):

my support wasn't there.

(00:32:34):

We had the, neither one of us really had like love growing up shown to us.

(00:32:38):

So we had to create it and then show our kids was like, like support is so big.

(00:32:43):

Communication is huge.

(00:32:45):

And,

(00:32:45):

um,

(00:32:46):

our circle of five with,

(00:32:47):

you know,

(00:32:47):

my kids and I,

(00:32:49):

um,

(00:32:49):

but yeah,

(00:32:49):

we just,

(00:32:50):

we had to create it and we weren't shown it.

(00:32:52):

So we, we made it.

(00:32:55):

I that's, I love that.

(00:32:58):

And that's something that, you know,

(00:33:01):

Devin and I are working really, really hard to eventually have because he, it's so interesting.

(00:33:08):

He has a giant family technically,

(00:33:11):

but it's because his parents have both been divorced,

(00:33:15):

remarried,

(00:33:15):

divorced,

(00:33:16):

remarried,

(00:33:16):

you know,

(00:33:17):

and he went through a whole bunch of shit as a kid,

(00:33:22):

just between,

(00:33:22):

you know,

(00:33:24):

the two parents house.

(00:33:26):

So,

(00:33:27):

He's not really close to any of his family except for his one sister.

(00:33:33):

And it's funny because that one sister is almost the exact same age as my sister.

(00:33:39):

They are in the same field of work.

(00:33:41):

They're both teachers.

(00:33:43):

Their birthdays are a week apart, which is super weird.

(00:33:48):

Yeah.

(00:33:49):

It's super wild because Devin and I's birthdays are two weeks apart.

(00:33:54):

Okay.

(00:33:55):

Yeah.

(00:33:56):

Which was just like,

(00:33:58):

Interesting.

(00:33:59):

Maybe those are the signs that this is, this is where everything's supposed to be.

(00:34:03):

Yeah.

(00:34:03):

This is where you're meant to be for sure.

(00:34:05):

I definitely believe in signs and I'm a hundred percent.

(00:34:09):

Oh yeah.

(00:34:10):

Yeah.

(00:34:10):

I,

(00:34:11):

uh,

(00:34:11):

I definitely have learned to actually allow myself to believe that stuff because

(00:34:21):

I've felt all of that scene,

(00:34:22):

all of that understood,

(00:34:24):

all of that,

(00:34:25):

I feel like from a very young age,

(00:34:27):

I've been able to feel and read people's energies since I was like five,

(00:34:31):

I feel like.

(00:34:31):

Same.

(00:34:32):

I'm a Pisces, so I'm super emotional.

(00:34:35):

I'm super emotionally.

(00:34:36):

Yeah, I'm like very aware of everyone's emotions, my emotions.

(00:34:40):

And sometimes I overthink it because I'm just so emotional.

(00:34:43):

Literally, that's been so fucking hard for me, because I'm a Pisces too.

(00:34:48):

Oh, wow.

(00:34:49):

Yeah, so for most of my life, my solution was, oh, I just won't feel them.

(00:34:54):

Yeah, right, right, right.

(00:34:55):

I couldn't handle it.

(00:34:56):

They were too heavy.

(00:34:58):

They were too big, because the way we feel emotions...

(00:35:01):

It's so fucking different.

(00:35:04):

It's intense, man.

(00:35:05):

It's intense.

(00:35:06):

Have you done your human design?

(00:35:08):

I just did it.

(00:35:09):

I actually bought a book.

(00:35:11):

Um, I bought a book on it because, uh, I had never heard of it before.

(00:35:15):

And on one of our calls, one of our calls with Kara, she, someone asked what her human design was.

(00:35:22):

And I never heard of that before.

(00:35:24):

One of the girls in our group does, um,

(00:35:29):

human design blueprint readings i believe oh is it christina king the the birth

(00:35:35):

chart i would have to look it up maybe i know christina king does birth chart

(00:35:44):

readings i had a call with her if you haven't you need to because she oh she's

(00:35:47):

amazing yeah she's so good yeah is she the one that's writing the like adult

(00:35:55):

version of 17.

(00:35:57):

magazine like she's doing okay okay so that person does human design well i need to

(00:36:04):

talk to her because i just learned what it was i went down that road i'm like a

(00:36:07):

manifesting generator or something yeah yeah you are probably very similar yeah i

(00:36:13):

have i just bought a book from amazon because i was like i've never heard of this i

(00:36:16):

need to know more but then i go down different rabbit holes of and sometimes i go

(00:36:21):

all in way too much i'm like not yet i got the book i opened them like this is

(00:36:24):

really intense let me just stay in my lane of like

(00:36:27):

working on myself and you know yeah yeah i dove into it and it taught me a lot but

(00:36:34):

it was almost like i did a surface level dive okay um because i i got the book for

(00:36:42):

my specific blueprint like i bought it or whatever um and that was i mean it's it

(00:36:51):

was like this thick

(00:36:53):

Oh, wow.

(00:36:54):

Literally an inch thick.

(00:36:56):

And it taught me so much about myself.

(00:37:01):

There were so many places where I was like.

(00:37:06):

People can't see my face right now, but I'm just.

(00:37:08):

I can see it.

(00:37:09):

I can see it.

(00:37:09):

Yeah, exactly.

(00:37:10):

I was just fucking.

(00:37:11):

I felt that blown away.

(00:37:14):

I don't I don't even have the words to accurately describe how like.

(00:37:20):

I feel like my soul was seen.

(00:37:22):

And in reality, it was.

(00:37:24):

That is your soul laid out in a map form.

(00:37:27):

And it shows you exactly how it functions.

(00:37:30):

And that was what taught me about my soul contract with Lily.

(00:37:33):

And that was what taught me about how I feel my emotions and why certain things

(00:37:41):

that I experience feel the way they do.

(00:37:43):

And it's because of the type of human I am.

(00:37:46):

And

(00:37:49):

It gave me a lot of insight into my communication challenges.

(00:37:54):

Okay.

(00:37:57):

So, but I completely understand not wanting to dive into that yet.

(00:38:01):

Yeah.

(00:38:02):

I'm super intimidated just to learn more about myself.

(00:38:05):

Is that weird to say?

(00:38:06):

Oh, I'm terrified.

(00:38:07):

I, I, I'm so, are you ready for this?

(00:38:11):

Yeah.

(00:38:12):

Truth, truth moment.

(00:38:13):

I'm scared to know what it's live, what it's like, what it is like to live without an eating disorder.

(00:38:19):

I don't, I don't, I'm scared to live without body dysmorphia because I'm afraid I'm going to get fat.

(00:38:25):

I'm afraid I'm not going to love myself.

(00:38:27):

Like they keep me in line.

(00:38:29):

They keep me in shape.

(00:38:30):

They keep me, you know, the way I want to be.

(00:38:33):

So, and that's been something that like with the type of therapy that I'm doing, it's, it's better.

(00:38:40):

Cause I don't want to talk about it.

(00:38:41):

Yeah.

(00:38:43):

It's more like it's EMDR, EFT, hypnosis, all of that stuff kind of combined.

(00:38:52):

It works incredibly well.

(00:38:56):

So I completely understand being intimidated or scared to work more on yourself or

(00:39:04):

learn more about yourself.

(00:39:05):

Because I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like, what the fuck am I going to open up?

(00:39:09):

you know?

(00:39:09):

Right.

(00:39:09):

Right.

(00:39:10):

And that's why I was afraid to do this podcast because like I wrote the book.

(00:39:13):

Right.

(00:39:13):

And that was, it was really healing, but really hard, especially to read it back.

(00:39:19):

Like I read the whole thing.

(00:39:20):

I was like, there's no fucking way I'm putting this out for like the world to see my underwear drawer.

(00:39:23):

Like there's,

(00:39:24):

cause there's some pretty intense moments and a lot of truth moments,

(00:39:27):

a lot,

(00:39:28):

but I wanted to go in.

(00:39:30):

Like I really was writing this for myself,

(00:39:31):

like just as a healing and it wasn't going to,

(00:39:33):

but it turned out so well.

(00:39:35):

And I'm not like a person to pat myself on the back as,

(00:39:38):

much as others but it turned out really good i'm like it would be a disservice not

(00:39:42):

to like put this out for the world to see so going on the podcast is hard because

(00:39:46):

now i have to talk about it or talk about events or answer questions which is silly

(00:39:50):

because i talk every day like i don't understand why i'm having a like we get in

(00:39:57):

our head and like we oh yeah it's it's crazy crazy

(00:40:01):

It's absolutely fucking crazy.

(00:40:03):

And I totally understand what you mean by that,

(00:40:07):

though,

(00:40:08):

because like if people I was so nervous to go on Gemma's podcast.

(00:40:13):

You did so good.

(00:40:14):

I love this.

(00:40:15):

Thank you.

(00:40:16):

She's great.

(00:40:16):

I love her.

(00:40:17):

I wish I could just teleport so I could see her once a week.

(00:40:21):

I love her voice.

(00:40:23):

I love her voice so much.

(00:40:25):

She has a perfect voice.

(00:40:27):

I know.

(00:40:28):

You need to check out Georgia Claire.

(00:40:30):

She's also on Substack.

(00:40:32):

She does meditations.

(00:40:34):

Her voice is like

(00:40:38):

a so she's older so it's like that more of like a motherly version like an older

(00:40:45):

motherly version of Gemma's voice but it's that same kind of accent that is just

(00:40:50):

when it's just so pleasing to the ear I'm gonna have to look it up definitely have

(00:40:55):

to check her out

(00:40:57):

yeah she's on i got she went on it she ended up on insight timer because i was like

(00:41:01):

you should put your stuff on inside timer so i can use you because i'm obsessed

(00:41:06):

with insight timer it's like the only meditation app that i'll use but okay so we

(00:41:13):

are about 40.

(00:41:17):

i have no idea i don't like that it doesn't give me a timer like it does on zoom um

(00:41:22):

we're about 40-ish minutes left

(00:41:27):

I hear lots and lots and lots of thunder coming.

(00:41:33):

So I think you want to do like 10 more minutes and then.

(00:41:37):

Yeah, whatever.

(00:41:38):

I'm super flexible.

(00:41:40):

I'm not.

(00:41:41):

I really just don't.

(00:41:43):

Neither am I. Unless you say something like just straight up asshole-ish.

(00:41:49):

And then I'm going to be like, really, bro?

(00:41:50):

Why the fuck did you do that?

(00:41:51):

Don't worry.

(00:41:52):

I think everything.

(00:41:53):

So nothing like come out of my mouth.

(00:41:55):

I ever think way too much.

(00:41:58):

I relate to that.

(00:41:59):

Did you know that's actually kind of a form of OCD?

(00:42:02):

No, I did not.

(00:42:04):

Yeah.

(00:42:05):

Yeah.

(00:42:06):

Yeah.

(00:42:06):

That was a little fun, a fun little thing I unpacked about myself.

(00:42:12):

Yeah.

(00:42:12):

Yeah.

(00:42:13):

So you can, part of having OCD can be the obsessive compulsive thoughts where you can't stop them.

(00:42:20):

You can't stop thinking about them.

(00:42:22):

And it's like an extreme form of ruminating.

(00:42:25):

Um,

(00:42:28):

So, yeah, that was really interesting.

(00:42:30):

But I feel you on the overthinking thing because I don't know if this is something

(00:42:35):

that you used to struggle with.

(00:42:36):

But I used to overthink to the point where I just was indecisive.

(00:42:41):

I couldn't make a decision.

(00:42:42):

Yeah.

(00:42:43):

I couldn't do anything.

(00:42:44):

I still can't decide, like, what's for dinner.

(00:42:47):

Or my husband's like, where are you going?

(00:42:49):

I'm like, I don't know.

(00:42:49):

Don't ask me.

(00:42:50):

Please don't ask me.

(00:42:51):

Like, I don't want to make a decision.

(00:42:53):

No, I literally got a decision wheel for that exact reason.

(00:42:56):

Oh, that's a good idea.

(00:42:58):

yeah i have an app it has like it has like multiple wheels on it but it has like

(00:43:03):

energy drinks places to eat safe foods oh wow you have a lot of golden nuggets here

(00:43:11):

oh thank you i you know this is all that i've just picked from picked up from

(00:43:16):

people like you know podcasts that i've listened to and stuff like that but i'm

(00:43:22):

really starting to learn that i think

(00:43:26):

really there's no disorders.

(00:43:30):

I think you are,

(00:43:31):

you know,

(00:43:32):

one breed of human or the other breed of human because when you have challenges,

(00:43:41):

trauma,

(00:43:42):

PTSD,

(00:43:43):

anxiety,

(00:43:44):

ADHD,

(00:43:45):

depression,

(00:43:45):

all of those end up manifesting fairly similarly.

(00:43:50):

If you, if you really look at it and you really think about the challenges that people have,

(00:43:57):

know not being able to make a decision indecisiveness is like a hallmark sign of

(00:44:01):

you know trauma like yeah having that you know growing up in households where you

(00:44:07):

know if you made the wrong decision you were punished for that or um you know being

(00:44:14):

making the right choice and being right was the ultimate like that was the gold

(00:44:18):

standard you were not to deviate um and but people

(00:44:26):

with ADHD struggle with that and people with depression struggle with that and

(00:44:31):

people with OCD struggle with that.

(00:44:33):

So it's like,

(00:44:35):

you know,

(00:44:35):

at a certain point,

(00:44:36):

I don't really think of think I believe in labels of how with our mental health,

(00:44:47):

I think people go through things and there are side effects of those things.

(00:44:54):

And just like,

(00:44:56):

when you go through combat there's a side effect of combat like you when you go

(00:45:05):

through the shit that we went through like we would have already had some

(00:45:10):

challenges just based off of how we grew up like sure but when you go through stuff

(00:45:16):

like we did excuse me it it just compiles on like yep

(00:45:24):

It multiplies and people try to throw labels at you.

(00:45:33):

But in the end, what it really is, is you just have to really learn how to manage those side effects.

(00:45:42):

And a lot of them will go away.

(00:45:45):

People don't really realize how much you can do to remap your entire brain.

(00:45:50):

Oh, yeah.

(00:45:52):

Still remapping here.

(00:45:53):

I'm still remapping.

(00:45:55):

Oh, girl, me too.

(00:45:57):

Me freaking too.

(00:45:58):

I did so much work, but I feel like it's only on the surface level.

(00:46:02):

There's always work to be done.

(00:46:03):

But again, you have to be honest with yourself that, okay, bitch, we got more work to do.

(00:46:08):

That's fine.

(00:46:11):

You just have to be real with yourself.

(00:46:14):

Oh, my God.

(00:46:14):

I'm literally...

(00:46:17):

I need to write that down.

(00:46:19):

Bitch, we've got more work to do because that's going to be the title.

(00:46:22):

That's going to be the title of this.

(00:46:24):

And my next, my part two of brain starting to get unfucked.

(00:46:28):

I'm going to just use the brain starting to get unfucked as a subtitle.

(00:46:32):

And the title is going to be, bitch, we've got more work to do.

(00:46:36):

Yeah.

(00:46:37):

Look, I'll be honest.

(00:46:38):

I wanted to go.

(00:46:39):

This sounds not silly, but no, this does not sound silly.

(00:46:42):

This is the perfect role for me.

(00:46:43):

I want to go to coaching school.

(00:46:44):

I want to coach other women who...

(00:46:47):

who just struggle with,

(00:46:48):

you know,

(00:46:49):

no matter what it is,

(00:46:50):

like,

(00:46:50):

clean start is so big to me,

(00:46:52):

like,

(00:46:52):

you can have a clean start with a new job with,

(00:46:54):

you know,

(00:46:55):

new military base,

(00:46:56):

new hairdo,

(00:46:57):

like,

(00:46:57):

you can have a clean start leaving your husband,

(00:46:59):

like,

(00:47:00):

with anything.

(00:47:02):

And I just feel like anyone is like, able to have a clean start.

(00:47:05):

And I want to inspire and empower other,

(00:47:08):

mainly women,

(00:47:08):

but I mean,

(00:47:09):

anyone really,

(00:47:10):

I say women,

(00:47:10):

because I talk

(00:47:11):

very like you know feminine yeah yeah we flow very well and i've never been like a

(00:47:16):

girly girl overall i hope so it's weird to me but now i'm you know what cares

(00:47:20):

mastermind and stuff like i love like i can say anything on the call so not be like

(00:47:24):

oh my god are they gonna overthink it you know

(00:47:28):

Because everyone's ever singing anyway about their own shit.

(00:47:31):

Yeah.

(00:47:31):

So I, yes, that's me.

(00:47:34):

I grew up like my mom still likes to make comments about the wrinkly t-shirts and

(00:47:38):

the baggy shorts that I used to wear every day in elementary and middle school

(00:47:43):

because I was a tomboy.

(00:47:44):

But now I've got eight different pairs of freaking glasses and half of them are pink.

(00:47:50):

Like, but, and I didn't really like the girl thing either until I,

(00:48:00):

found my group that i had when lily was alive when none of us are all really

(00:48:08):

friends anymore which kind of sucks i'm sorry well i saw this happen to my mom she

(00:48:15):

was in a due date group um way back in the day when they did like list serves and

(00:48:20):

stuff um hold on just a second what's up kiddo um

(00:48:30):

yeah you can come when am i going to come in in like an hour and a half i was

(00:48:39):

asking you what you needed i'm doing a podcast right now baby i'm almost done

(00:48:50):

what's going on

(00:48:57):

okay all right i'll come be with you in just a minute okay i love you you can leave

(00:49:04):

my door open it's okay mom life doesn't get any realer than that that's real life

(00:49:11):

right there ladies and gentlemen for real maybe i won't cut it out that i'm not

(00:49:16):

gonna cut out that's real life yeah it's like that's the reality of the situation

(00:49:21):

like people that's been something that i i get

(00:49:27):

discouraged by as a lot of the people that I see,

(00:49:30):

I think watching you do things has been really inspiring because a lot of people

(00:49:34):

who make it big,

(00:49:35):

a lot of people who do big things don't have children.

(00:49:37):

Yeah.

(00:49:39):

And it's just different.

(00:49:43):

There's so many more things that you have to think about.

(00:49:45):

There's so many more things that you have to factor in.

(00:49:48):

There's so many different choices that don't apply to people who don't have children at all.

(00:49:53):

And it's really hard to find.

(00:49:55):

You said you wanted to coach women.

(00:49:56):

that's one of the,

(00:49:57):

it is hard to find a mentor out there who has lived a life than I have kind of

(00:50:04):

lived and has built themselves up from the ground up with,

(00:50:10):

you know,

(00:50:11):

no money with children with a fuck ton of responsibilities,

(00:50:17):

like all of that shit.

(00:50:20):

Um, it's,

(00:50:23):

There's no one out there.

(00:50:25):

I have yet to find someone.

(00:50:26):

I even asked Kara and there was like nothing.

(00:50:29):

Like, it's so, I would kill for that.

(00:50:33):

Just saying.

(00:50:33):

And I'm sure there's plenty.

(00:50:37):

I appreciate that.

(00:50:38):

I feel like the authenticness that I have,

(00:50:40):

and because I'm so,

(00:50:41):

my biggest fear,

(00:50:42):

honestly,

(00:50:42):

like I'll get too emotionally attached because like I live and love my whole heart.

(00:50:46):

So I know that I just need to do some more work.

(00:50:50):

And I know that when the time comes, I'll know.

(00:50:53):

It's led me up to this point that this,

(00:50:55):

this is what I'm meant to do is to,

(00:50:57):

you know,

(00:50:57):

inspire and empower other women.

(00:50:58):

I will get there.

(00:50:59):

But right now,

(00:51:01):

I am, you know, woman enough to admit, like I still have work to do.

(00:51:03):

So when I want to give it 110% to my clients, right.

(00:51:08):

And I know like I could do it, but selfishly, like I wouldn't be giving them my best version of myself.

(00:51:13):

And there's, you know, always work to do.

(00:51:16):

Yeah.

(00:51:18):

A hundred percent.

(00:51:19):

And they completely relate to that,

(00:51:21):

but also want to give you like mad props because being able to recognize that is

(00:51:26):

really critical.

(00:51:27):

And knowing that like,

(00:51:31):

your clients will thank you later for it.

(00:51:32):

Like that you understand that and know that just shows your ability to reflect like

(00:51:40):

self reflect,

(00:51:41):

but also your intelligence.

(00:51:42):

And so when you're downing yourself,

(00:51:44):

you should remember this moment because there I'm telling you right now,

(00:51:49):

like,

(00:51:51):

you know,

(00:51:51):

I don't lie anymore.

(00:51:52):

I don't lie at all anymore.

(00:51:54):

I don't do it.

(00:51:55):

And so when I say that I would kill for someone like a mentor like that,

(00:51:59):

like there are,

(00:52:01):

I know a lot of girls,

(00:52:02):

a lot of women my age,

(00:52:03):

a lot of girls younger than me who,

(00:52:06):

fuck,

(00:52:06):

if I would have had someone like you when I was like 26,

(00:52:08):

I think my life would look very different.

(00:52:12):

I appreciate that.

(00:52:14):

You wouldn't have wanted me at 26, girl.

(00:52:15):

There was way more.

(00:52:16):

That was a decade ago.

(00:52:16):

There's so much work to be done to that, Amber, but I really appreciate that.

(00:52:20):

Well, me at 26 was only four years ago.

(00:52:23):

Oh, okay.

(00:52:24):

Okay.

(00:52:25):

I've been a mom since I was 18.

(00:52:27):

So literally half my life, I've been a mom and it was a tragic start.

(00:52:32):

So yeah, I know.

(00:52:33):

Isn't that crazy to say when I wrote that in my book, I'm like, oh my God, that's so weird.

(00:52:37):

But that's why I'm still like nurturing.

(00:52:38):

It's all I know is to like, take care, take care.

(00:52:41):

And like writing this book was the first time I was like putting Amber first.

(00:52:45):

And I'm like, I need to put me first.

(00:52:47):

I have to fill up my cup if I want to like,

(00:52:49):

you know,

(00:52:49):

the longest relationship that you'll ever have is with yourself.

(00:52:52):

Like people don't understand that.

(00:52:56):

And if you're constantly drowning yourself out with external things,

(00:53:00):

you can't have a relationship with yourself.

(00:53:02):

No, I agree.

(00:53:03):

Because everyone's like, you know, it's like your husband and your kids first.

(00:53:05):

Like, no, it's me first.

(00:53:06):

It's Amber first now.

(00:53:07):

Like, I have been putting myself on the back burner for so long.

(00:53:11):

Like,

(00:53:12):

I know I need to fill up my cup so I can be the mom and the wife and the friend and

(00:53:16):

the coach and the mentor.

(00:53:17):

Like, that I can be the best version of myself.

(00:53:20):

Yep.

(00:53:21):

Yeah.

(00:53:21):

And that is...

(00:53:24):

one of the reasons why i'm doing all of this because like my kids deserve the best

(00:53:30):

version of me like absolutely they were not they didn't have a choice in being

(00:53:39):

brought into this world so like i need to give them my all and i can't do that if i

(00:53:47):

have all of these issues so it's like my mom

(00:53:53):

really loved the saying buckle up buttercup but here i feel like it really applies

(00:53:59):

because at least for me like it's buckle up it's time to get fucking going let's do

(00:54:03):

some fucking work you know let's you can be kind and gentle while getting the

(00:54:07):

fucking work done no yeah there's always work to be done every day every day oh

(00:54:12):

yeah better every single day and it's not like again there's no perfection but like

(00:54:16):

you can you can be better

(00:54:18):

not saying i'm just saying this is in general like everyone can be better everyone

(00:54:21):

can do better literally everyone the world is living proof that everyone could do

(00:54:27):

better for sure definitely i agree all right heartedly well i think we are coming

(00:54:35):

to a close because my computer is going to die um which i do on purpose so we don't

(00:54:40):

spend

(00:54:41):

an exorbitant amount of time on these podcasts i know because i can totally talk i

(00:54:46):

wrote this in my journal like i know i'm gonna get on there i can be able to talk

(00:54:48):

to her all night long so i it's been a pleasure talking to you thank you so much

(00:54:53):

for having me it's been great getting to know you on another level i'm looking

(00:54:57):

forward to getting so you're not even a deeper level that makes me so happy and i

(00:55:03):

want i will make sure that everybody knows where to buy your book

(00:55:07):

where they can follow you how they can talk to you how they can you know connect

(00:55:11):

with you um and just i'll be sharing all of that and and finally

(00:55:19):

back to life.

(00:55:20):

So I will actually be sharing all the time, you know, restacking and that kind of stuff.

(00:55:25):

Yeah.

(00:55:25):

Yeah.

(00:55:25):

Take your time though.

(00:55:26):

Give yourself grace.

(00:55:27):

Take your time.

(00:55:29):

Thank you.

(00:55:29):

I appreciate that.

(00:55:30):

Of course.

(00:55:32):

All right.

(00:55:32):

Well, thank you so much, Amber, for joining us.

(00:55:35):

And that was such a lovely, lovely conversation.

(00:55:38):

And we will see you, talk to you next time on the Curiosity Chronicles.

(00:55:43):

Bye for now.

(00:55:44):

Bye.

Get full access to The Chaos Chronicles with Taylor Cecelia Brook at taylorceceliabrook.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Chaos Chronicles with Taylor Cecelia Brook at taylorceceliabrook.substack.com/subscribe

You can find all things Colin on his Substack: Colin Durrant

(00:00:00):

Okay, awesome.

(00:00:01):

Dave, you have a bougie microphone set up over there.

(00:00:08):

I really like it.

(00:00:09):

Okay, and you've got animals as your background.

(00:00:12):

What are those?

(00:00:13):

Those aren't zebras.

(00:00:15):

It's an acappie.

(00:00:17):

So I've got an IT company and we rebranded a few years ago and we wanted to call it

(00:00:23):

something unique and different.

(00:00:25):

And also it's an endangered species.

(00:00:27):

So to highlight the fact it's endangered.

(00:00:30):

So we called it Okapi technology and yeah, it's all about the Okapi.

(00:00:35):

Yeah.

(00:00:36):

That's really cool.

(00:00:38):

That's super cool.

(00:00:39):

I just started asking questions right away.

(00:00:42):

On that note, we are back.

(00:00:46):

I'm Taylor Cecilia Brooke.

(00:00:47):

I'm here with Colin Durant from Colin's Chronicles, which I love that yours is Chronicles as well.

(00:00:53):

But we are joined here today by Colin.

(00:00:58):

Thank you so much for joining me.

(00:01:01):

Would you like to introduce yourself?

(00:01:04):

Ah, crumbs.

(00:01:06):

Yeah.

(00:01:09):

I don't even know where to start.

(00:01:10):

I do so many different things.

(00:01:12):

I've been running... Yeah, I kind of got two sides to me, I guess, my personal side and my business side.

(00:01:18):

So I've been running IT company for the last 25 odd years.

(00:01:22):

And I...

(00:01:26):

kind of like just a small little it company and i specialize in cyber security as

(00:01:30):

well and i've written a couple of books on cyber security um but i'm really trying

(00:01:35):

to evolve more into the into the i guess more into my authentic self and my true

(00:01:42):

self which is really helping people suffer less if if that's um kind of that's my

(00:01:47):

purpose really and um yeah i've been on quite a

(00:01:51):

journey in my life and been through a lot of kind of suffering,

(00:01:55):

I guess,

(00:01:55):

and depression and all the rest of it and discovered some work only a couple of

(00:02:00):

years ago,

(00:02:01):

which really changed everything for me and really made a huge difference.

(00:02:05):

So it's really just trying to help other people with that through the fact that

(00:02:10):

I've been through that and spent a long time going through that and then discovered

(00:02:15):

that actually there is a better way to life and a better way to live life and just

(00:02:19):

trying to help other people,

(00:02:20):

really.

(00:02:22):

I totally, I totally understand.

(00:02:25):

And for people who don't know, Colin and I know each other from Substack.

(00:02:30):

And I would say like, a good majority of your writing is very practical advice on just how to be happier.

(00:02:41):

And how not to be stuck in the miserable because it's so easy to get stuck there.

(00:02:47):

And I know you know that.

(00:02:48):

Yeah.

(00:02:50):

Yeah, it's very easy just to get just the grind, the daily grind and things.

(00:02:55):

And it's just really getting people to understand that they're in charge of their

(00:02:59):

life and they're responsible for what they've created in the past.

(00:03:03):

And when you understand that you're responsible for your past,

(00:03:07):

you can then go,

(00:03:08):

oh,

(00:03:08):

actually,

(00:03:08):

then that means I can create a better future for myself.

(00:03:12):

And then that makes all the difference in the world because then you're actually

(00:03:16):

creating your life on purpose rather than just trying to survive.

(00:03:21):

Oh, that's so true.

(00:03:22):

You hit the nail on the head with just trying to survive.

(00:03:25):

I think for a few years, that was me.

(00:03:27):

I was just trying to survive, trying to make it through to the next day.

(00:03:33):

And I was so miserable.

(00:03:34):

And I honestly thought that I was stuck.

(00:03:37):

I was going to feel this way for the rest of my life.

(00:03:40):

And so being able to pull out of that and know that like,

(00:03:45):

no, it doesn't have to be like this, you know, is amazing.

(00:03:48):

And I wish that I would have had,

(00:03:52):

you know,

(00:03:52):

all these people that I have found on Substack within the last six months,

(00:03:56):

I wish I would have had them like five years ago.

(00:03:58):

Yeah.

(00:04:01):

I think a lot of the stuff that I've gone through would have gone a little bit

(00:04:03):

differently had I found all these people,

(00:04:05):

because I don't know about you,

(00:04:07):

but the community aspect of Substack is so unique compared to any other online

(00:04:12):

community and platform that I've interacted with.

(00:04:16):

Yeah, it's nothing like anything else.

(00:04:18):

I just hope it stays that way and they don't sell it off to someone else or something like that.

(00:04:23):

But yeah,

(00:04:24):

I think like most people on Substack,

(00:04:26):

we stop spending time on other platforms because it's just not the same.

(00:04:32):

It's really, really not.

(00:04:35):

I have no desire to be on any other platform anymore.

(00:04:40):

And I always said I only stayed on social media for the nonprofit.

(00:04:46):

then once i closed it down i still had this blog um but i hated all the social

(00:04:51):

media aspects of it it's just so fake and obnoxious and just there's so many things

(00:04:58):

that you have to do just for someone to like pay attention to you and that's just

(00:05:02):

not my jam so i i do still have a facebook but solely for marketplace because you

(00:05:09):

can't go on there without a profile

(00:05:11):

Yeah.

(00:05:13):

Yeah, I find with Substack that you're building something, aren't you?

(00:05:17):

So, you know, you're building your subscribers and that sort of thing.

(00:05:20):

So you're definitely building something as opposed to like with Facebook and Instagram,

(00:05:26):

you're not really building anything,

(00:05:28):

you know.

(00:05:29):

No, and that's the thing.

(00:05:31):

And it was a little bit different in the nonprofit space.

(00:05:34):

It was a little bit easier, but not really.

(00:05:36):

It's almost like you are building something.

(00:05:40):

You're trying to build a following so you can get people to pay you, essentially, to donate to you.

(00:05:46):

But it's so hard.

(00:05:49):

And the ways that influencers and stuff, the techniques that they use don't work for nonprofits.

(00:05:58):

So that was something that I had to really learn and develop and was not expecting

(00:06:02):

and have no formal education.

(00:06:06):

I'm sure I'm sure you kind of run into that probably unless you have like someone

(00:06:10):

who does your marketing for your business.

(00:06:16):

Like,

(00:06:16):

honestly,

(00:06:16):

like I've been on LinkedIn for so long and I've spent so much time on there,

(00:06:22):

like trying to build it up and trying to do posts and that sort of thing.

(00:06:26):

and just get nothing back and it's just it just feels like a room full of

(00:06:30):

everyone's like just trying to sell you they just email you like yeah you know i

(00:06:34):

want to introduce you to my company it's like i don't care about you or your

(00:06:37):

company like you've never liked any of my posts you've never commented on anything

(00:06:42):

like you you're literally like there's no difference to pick up the phone and

(00:06:46):

trying to sell to me is it's just you know literally

(00:06:50):

So, yeah, I really started hating LinkedIn more and more.

(00:06:55):

And I put links to my articles from Substack, but that's all I do now.

(00:07:02):

And I have some automated stuff, but I just, yeah, I just have no interest.

(00:07:07):

And I stopped reading my messages as well because they're just people trying to sell me something.

(00:07:11):

Oh, yeah.

(00:07:13):

And then they taste you like, oh, just in case you missed it.

(00:07:16):

It's like, no, I deliberately missed it.

(00:07:20):

Deliberately missed it.

(00:07:22):

Your message is really boring.

(00:07:23):

No, I deliberately missed it.

(00:07:29):

Yeah, it's just filled with people who are just not operating at their highest self.

(00:07:33):

And that's what I'm all about.

(00:07:34):

I'm all about trying to get people to operate at a higher level.

(00:07:38):

And LinkedIn just represents people that I don't want to be around in general.

(00:07:45):

You can't say every person, but in general.

(00:07:48):

Yeah, I totally get that.

(00:07:50):

It's funny because my dad...

(00:07:53):

it has like this weird relationship with LinkedIn.

(00:07:55):

He only goes on it when he's ready to get a new job.

(00:07:58):

I think that you know, there's like better ways.

(00:08:07):

He's like, Yeah, but this works for me.

(00:08:11):

And then I don't have to do it the real way.

(00:08:13):

And

(00:08:14):

Like, okay, old man, sure, whatever.

(00:08:17):

You do you.

(00:08:21):

So you have this masterclass coming up, right?

(00:08:25):

Yeah, yeah.

(00:08:26):

So I'm working on a couple of things.

(00:08:29):

One of them is my book.

(00:08:31):

So I've got a lot of content for another book.

(00:08:33):

Well, two books, actually, because someone else mentioned.

(00:08:36):

Because I do a lot of, like, ancient stories.

(00:08:39):

I love them so much.

(00:08:41):

Yeah, so Janet Koch, she said, oh, well, you should just create a book with all your ancient stories.

(00:08:47):

And I was like, oh, gosh, that's like ready-made.

(00:08:49):

I can just do that straight away.

(00:08:51):

That's literally what Kara Allwell does, so you should definitely do that.

(00:08:54):

Yeah, so that just involves me pulling my finger on actually doing it.

(00:08:59):

Yeah, yeah.

(00:09:01):

And then I've got – and then I want to do another book,

(00:09:02):

which is really just about my – I guess just about my journey and then just about –

(00:09:09):

Yeah, just putting a lot of what I write about anyway into there.

(00:09:12):

So again, the content's pretty much done.

(00:09:14):

It's just kind of a time thing at the moment.

(00:09:18):

It's just like trying to do that and then also write every,

(00:09:21):

not every day,

(00:09:22):

but I had to stop writing every day because that just became too much.

(00:09:27):

But yeah, it's just trying to balance everything.

(00:09:28):

And I kind of desperately want to do my book, but like I say, it's just time management, et cetera.

(00:09:35):

yeah time management is something that i'm still working on it's it's funny that

(00:09:40):

you bring that up because d said to me the other day he was like i think a lot of

(00:09:44):

issues adults have is really just boils down to time management challenges like

(00:09:48):

that's really where we have to learn how to do better yeah well i i read this uh

(00:09:56):

this well i saw this post the other day um and it was a woman saying about how

(00:10:02):

she's not busy she's just full

(00:10:05):

So it's important, I think, to reframe that whole busy thing.

(00:10:08):

Yeah.

(00:10:10):

Yeah, I'm kind of full, you know.

(00:10:12):

Yeah.

(00:10:12):

My schedule is a little full.

(00:10:16):

And also,

(00:10:17):

I think a really important thing regarding around the sort of busy side of things

(00:10:21):

and not having time is distraction.

(00:10:23):

So we're always got so many distractions.

(00:10:26):

And,

(00:10:26):

you know,

(00:10:28):

we're watching stuff on TV or we're,

(00:10:31):

you know,

(00:10:31):

scrolling on social media or something like that.

(00:10:34):

So there's always it's just being aware of what's distracting you from wanting to

(00:10:39):

do what you'd actually love to do.

(00:10:42):

yeah no 100 and it's that made me think of what you said to me last week i think

(00:10:50):

maybe when the i'm a hot mess post came out um and that that's so true it's just

(00:10:57):

distractions and even now like

(00:11:00):

So I have the job and my sub stack's going well and like everything's going pretty well.

(00:11:07):

And so I was like, okay, I can go back to doing some of the things that I want it.

(00:11:10):

No, because it just turned into a distraction.

(00:11:14):

I got to this point because I eliminated those things and here I am doing them again.

(00:11:20):

So, you know, we're on a good path now and I haven't,

(00:11:26):

we're already down like significantly in our our weight consumption and i haven't

(00:11:31):

drank in weeks um so it's it's just nice to like work on that balance so next next

(00:11:38):

thing to work on is is the phone i just like i've got to learn how to be a

(00:11:43):

vegetable while not relying on media yeah there's also this um this exercise you

(00:11:51):

know when you when you look at your like

(00:11:54):

when there's things that you want,

(00:11:56):

like your goals and things that you want to achieve,

(00:11:58):

and you look at your future self who's achieved all of that,

(00:12:02):

and you go,

(00:12:02):

okay,

(00:12:03):

so what did my future self do in order to achieve those things?

(00:12:07):

Yeah.

(00:12:08):

And it's like when you do stuff,

(00:12:09):

you go,

(00:12:09):

well,

(00:12:10):

would my future self be doing this if they actually achieve,

(00:12:15):

you know,

(00:12:15):

these things?

(00:12:16):

And that just, again, kind of helps think about things a bit more and just about, like,

(00:12:24):

know like you said about the things that you've achieved now is because you've

(00:12:27):

raised your level yeah and then it's just yeah it's just being aware of

(00:12:31):

self-sabotage and that sort of thing and yeah i feel like people don't put enough

(00:12:37):

emphasis on self-sabotage and i think a lot of people think that you have to be

(00:12:42):

mentally unwell to self-sabotage but i think a lot of people a lot of people do it

(00:12:47):

to themselves without even knowing it

(00:12:50):

Yeah,

(00:12:50):

so I think I wrote about the,

(00:12:54):

I did a post about money the other day,

(00:12:57):

which is,

(00:12:57):

to be fair,

(00:12:58):

was actually more about belief systems than it was about money.

(00:13:01):

But that was just kind of one of the ways that it comes out.

(00:13:05):

So when you have these belief systems that you're not good enough and you're not worthy,

(00:13:10):

et cetera,

(00:13:11):

which are subconscious,

(00:13:12):

so you're not aware of them.

(00:13:14):

And everyone sort of has a financial, again, a financial subconscious limit.

(00:13:21):

So let's say,

(00:13:22):

and again,

(00:13:24):

people have,

(00:13:25):

from their growing up,

(00:13:26):

they might have issues about so-called rich people.

(00:13:29):

So rich people are evil and all the rest of it.

(00:13:32):

So they go, okay, well, when I earn X amount a month,

(00:13:36):

then I'll be rich.

(00:13:37):

But then what happens then is all this other stuff kicks in going, yeah, but rich people are evil.

(00:13:43):

So then they reach that limit.

(00:13:47):

Again, unbeknown to them because it's all happening in the background.

(00:13:50):

And then they go, okay, well, obviously I can't have this.

(00:13:53):

So then they self-sabotage and break whatever they've built.

(00:13:57):

And then they go back to whatever, zero, whatever else.

(00:14:00):

And then they've got to start again.

(00:14:01):

And you see people will have a cycle of this.

(00:14:05):

And they'll keep, you know, they'll run their own business or something.

(00:14:08):

And they'll hit a level.

(00:14:10):

And then self-sabotage.

(00:14:12):

It's a level, self-sabotage.

(00:14:13):

And unless you're aware of what's going on and you can actually do a deep dive into

(00:14:19):

what's happening,

(00:14:20):

then you'll just keep doing the same pattern.

(00:14:23):

But patterns are really important to look back at what you've been doing in your life.

(00:14:28):

Super important.

(00:14:31):

For so many things.

(00:14:32):

I mean,

(00:14:32):

from behaviors to food consumption,

(00:14:37):

to what you're ingesting,

(00:14:39):

like mentally and everything,

(00:14:43):

you know,

(00:14:43):

that patterns are how I figured out that,

(00:14:47):

okay,

(00:14:47):

I don't have a food allergy to this.

(00:14:50):

It's actually something else.

(00:14:51):

And like that kind of stuff and learning to recognize those in your own self is so challenging,

(00:14:57):

but not impossible.

(00:14:59):

Yeah.

(00:15:01):

And very rewarding.

(00:15:03):

It is very rewarding.

(00:15:04):

Once you figure it out, it's like, oh, whoa, like super cool.

(00:15:08):

All these light bulbs blow up.

(00:15:10):

Maybe that wouldn't be that cool, but glass everywhere.

(00:15:14):

Unless they're LED.

(00:15:17):

So the masterclass, you have the two focuses, you know, you have your ancient stories, which are so cool.

(00:15:22):

And I always really enjoy the imagery that you put with it because it's so fitting.

(00:15:28):

And it just proves that, like, at least to me, that's a positive way.

(00:15:33):

I believe you're using AI for those pictures, right?

(00:15:37):

Yeah.

(00:15:37):

So, yeah, there's no ways I could.

(00:15:40):

I'm not autistic, so I couldn't produce them any other way.

(00:15:44):

It's the same, though.

(00:15:45):

But, like, to me, that's such a positive way to use them.

(00:15:48):

But you're also utilizing it in the way it was, I think, more intended to be used.

(00:15:52):

Yeah.

(00:15:53):

But well,

(00:15:55):

you've learned how to talk to the image creators to create the images that actually

(00:16:02):

fit what you're writing about,

(00:16:04):

which is tricky.

(00:16:05):

It's really tricky.

(00:16:07):

And to be honest with you, like the whole AI thing really is about prompting.

(00:16:11):

So in order to kind of like nail AI,

(00:16:15):

you have to learn how to prompt to get the information back that you're looking for.

(00:16:20):

But yeah,

(00:16:21):

a lot of the stuff,

(00:16:21):

like I think I didn't put it on Substack,

(00:16:26):

but like I was trying to get a picture of a bear on top of a man,

(00:16:34):

you know,

(00:16:34):

like about to eat the man.

(00:16:36):

But obviously AI won't.

(00:16:39):

won't do certain things because they like you know whatever because they're too

(00:16:44):

dangerous or yeah i said something about a bear on top of a man and kind of try to

(00:16:51):

tone it down and all i got was this guy smiling with this bear stood next to him

(00:16:56):

also smiling

(00:17:02):

so i had to but then it will create a really scary image of like a bear which you

(00:17:08):

saw in one of my latest posts which is like drooling and all the rest of it and

(00:17:12):

vicious you just can't like but yeah and and like um yeah snakes ai can't do snakes

(00:17:19):

it's really bizarre you just have like you have like half snakes everywhere and

(00:17:25):

then half a snake coming out of the person or the bear or whatever

(00:17:30):

yeah so some stuff is really really hard to create but a lot of it is it comes out

(00:17:36):

really well that made me the half snakes now you think i saw this picture on

(00:17:42):

pinterest once of like this kitchen and at first i was like oh that's a sick ass

(00:17:47):

kitchen and then i looked a little closer and there is a curved countertop with

(00:17:53):

curved cabinets that concave inward

(00:17:57):

in front of a fridge.

(00:17:58):

You cannot access the fridge at all.

(00:18:00):

It can't open.

(00:18:01):

It's just there.

(00:18:02):

It's just an AI picture, basically.

(00:18:06):

Yeah, yeah.

(00:18:08):

I was like, okay, it definitely made that.

(00:18:10):

That is not real.

(00:18:12):

But it is cool because you can take that and use it as inspiration, which is nice too.

(00:18:18):

Yeah.

(00:18:19):

Oh, I really liked those cabinets.

(00:18:21):

Okay, how do we do this realistically?

(00:18:24):

But so what made you get on Substack in the first place?

(00:18:30):

Actually, a friend of mine...

(00:18:33):

he, what did he do?

(00:18:34):

I think he sent me a link to it or something,

(00:18:36):

or he,

(00:18:37):

he got onto it first and then he put me onto it and yeah,

(00:18:41):

I can't,

(00:18:42):

I can't remember why I thought that was a good idea.

(00:18:44):

Um,

(00:18:47):

But yeah, it just kind of worked.

(00:18:50):

And then I just kind of started posting on there.

(00:18:52):

And obviously,

(00:18:53):

whenever you start,

(00:18:54):

you just get crickets,

(00:18:55):

like literally no one sees your stuff or anything.

(00:18:59):

But yeah, it was just persevering.

(00:19:02):

And then you start getting a little bit of momentum.

(00:19:06):

I tried Medium, and that was just horrible.

(00:19:10):

I mean, I just didn't, you know, again, I don't get anything off that at all.

(00:19:15):

They did pay me six cents the other day, which I was quite chuffed about.

(00:19:19):

But then they then changed it and said,

(00:19:21):

oh,

(00:19:21):

we're not paying you unless you make like $100 or something like that.

(00:19:26):

So I was like, okay, I'm out.

(00:19:28):

yeah so i technically post on medium but i don't pay attention to it i literally

(00:19:34):

just copy and paste and schedule them and they just go out every week i have no

(00:19:39):

idea what's going on over there um the the reason why i did that is to me it just

(00:19:45):

gives one more platform for people to find my stuff and yeah they'll they'll find

(00:19:50):

my sub stack eventually so it's like

(00:19:53):

It's just getting my words out on the internet search engines as much as possible

(00:19:58):

because there's just so much stuff out there.

(00:20:02):

Yeah, I think there was a case of having to learn about how Medium works and that sort of thing.

(00:20:07):

And I was like, ah.

(00:20:09):

I don't want to do that.

(00:20:10):

Yeah, I don't really.

(00:20:11):

I tried and didn't get much back from it.

(00:20:14):

And then I'd have to start liking and commenting on people's posts.

(00:20:18):

I'm like, yeah, I just want to stick to one platform.

(00:20:20):

It's a lot easier.

(00:20:22):

it really, it really is a lot easier.

(00:20:25):

And,

(00:20:26):

you know,

(00:20:27):

sometimes I'm one of those people that sometimes I have to go through it all to

(00:20:30):

really get it to stick.

(00:20:34):

Yeah.

(00:20:36):

And, you know, DK telling me he was like,

(00:20:40):

really think you just need to stick to one thing just do stub stack work on that

(00:20:45):

and then maybe maybe do something else but like you just need to do one thing and i

(00:20:49):

was like no no it's fine i'm gonna do this no he was right he usually is too yeah

(00:20:58):

and i think i think subscale can still be your main platform and then you can do

(00:21:02):

you know you can offer stuff like like i said about a master class or something

(00:21:05):

like that and

(00:21:07):

because i want to do some kind of online training course and and just talk really

(00:21:12):

about the belief systems you know the subconscious stuff and then just really about

(00:21:18):

you know and again about intuition work and using your intuition to get answers to

(00:21:22):

things um i don't know if i've mentioned but so i do channeling i don't know if you

(00:21:28):

know what channeling is vaguely

(00:21:31):

So, so channeling is really like you, you kind of, um, I get all my information from someone out there.

(00:21:40):

essentially in the download something like that yeah exactly so that so i almost i

(00:21:46):

almost feel like it's cheating if i'm honest because because i just kind of tune in

(00:21:49):

and i just get all this great stuff through and i'm like okay there you go that's

(00:21:52):

like it does feel like cheating sometimes but and it's funny as well because like

(00:21:57):

there's some stuff um like i'll write it and because the the

(00:22:03):

it's kind of, you've got to be tuned in and just write what comes through rather than thinking about it.

(00:22:07):

Yeah.

(00:22:08):

And the more kind of pure you can be, the better it works.

(00:22:15):

And then sometimes I'll be like, yeah, I don't know where this is going.

(00:22:18):

This is really weird, but I'll keep writing and then it'll finish off and I go, oh, that's really cool.

(00:22:23):

It all kind of comes together in the last sentence sort of thing.

(00:22:27):

So yeah, I've had some really amazing stuff through and it's just,

(00:22:33):

just getting through just getting it across to people so yeah it's just about

(00:22:36):

trying to build some kind of online course or something like that and and as I

(00:22:42):

guess Substack's also about adding value to people so um and again I need to do

(00:22:48):

something around getting paid subscribers so I've got like I said I've got a couple

(00:22:52):

of books out so I want to be offering a book or something like that and

(00:22:56):

Then Gumroad's another thing.

(00:22:59):

Is her name Christina?

(00:23:00):

I don't remember her name.

(00:23:03):

Yeah, so she does loads of great stuff like that.

(00:23:06):

So yeah, I need to put things on there.

(00:23:12):

Because I guess that's the other thing with, like writing a book is a massive thing.

(00:23:19):

both in terms of the time and energy to write the book and all the distractions

(00:23:24):

that come up while you're trying to write the book,

(00:23:29):

which is next level.

(00:23:31):

And then you've got to edit the book and then you've got to get the cover and

(00:23:34):

there's lots of different steps.

(00:23:37):

And then once you've done all that, then you've got to learn how to market the book.

(00:23:40):

And that's a whole different industry.

(00:23:43):

That's a whole thing.

(00:23:44):

So, yeah, that was quite...

(00:23:49):

yeah there's just just kind of touching on that that's just something that's really

(00:23:52):

quite involved that you don't realize you got to do unless you get a publisher of

(00:23:56):

course but then again publishers unless you get a good publisher who's going to do

(00:24:00):

everything for you you know i know because because veronica again i'm really bad

(00:24:05):

with names i don't know her last name the lemon yeah

(00:24:10):

Yeah.

(00:24:11):

So she's got, she's got a publisher for a next book, et cetera.

(00:24:16):

So I think that makes life easier,

(00:24:17):

but,

(00:24:18):

but again,

(00:24:18):

you know,

(00:24:19):

trying to get a publisher,

(00:24:20):

you've got people with,

(00:24:21):

they probably get thousands of people trying to get their book published every day.

(00:24:25):

Oh yeah.

(00:24:27):

So getting through to that,

(00:24:28):

but so again,

(00:24:31):

I guess that's where Substack comes into it a lot is if you've got a lot of subscribers,

(00:24:34):

then it's a really good platform to be promoting your book to and,

(00:24:38):

and sending people.

(00:24:40):

um and getting beta readers and that sort of thing that's i think that that's what

(00:24:45):

the great thing about sub stackers is a lot more interactive with people yeah and

(00:24:51):

that's one of the things i really like about it so i'm doing the serialization of

(00:24:55):

my book and part of me did that for accountability because if i put it out there i

(00:25:03):

have to keep putting it out there which means i have to keep working on it um

(00:25:08):

What I've thought about approaching a few different like publishing houses,

(00:25:13):

just because after reading what Veronica did and a few and reading about from a few

(00:25:18):

other like editors or agents on sub stack,

(00:25:22):

I'm just going to try it.

(00:25:23):

Like, it's not going to hurt me.

(00:25:24):

Nothing's gonna, you know, nothing bad is going to come from me trying to get like, yeah.

(00:25:32):

So, and the only, normally, like if I was writing,

(00:25:37):

Like, I dabble in, like, literature erotica, that kind of stuff a little bit.

(00:25:44):

I would never approach a,

(00:25:47):

like,

(00:25:47):

publishing house for stuff like that because it's just not,

(00:25:50):

like,

(00:25:51):

it's not bad,

(00:25:52):

but it's not,

(00:25:52):

like,

(00:25:53):

I don't know,

(00:25:53):

nothing that needs to be released to the masses.

(00:25:56):

Whereas, you know, this memoir, there's a lot of people who would want to read this.

(00:26:02):

And some, I know people who don't like me will say that I'm being, like, just very...

(00:26:08):

hoity-toity and tooting my own horn.

(00:26:10):

But the reality is there's a lot of people whose kids die.

(00:26:14):

That's just the reality.

(00:26:17):

And I think that's why you would possibly appeal to a publishing house.

(00:26:21):

But the tricky part is going to be one that's OK with the topic and the vulgarity

(00:26:28):

and the way I go about it,

(00:26:30):

which is what I can see holding back a lot of people.

(00:26:35):

You know, I'm a special brand.

(00:26:37):

People don't always enjoy me.

(00:26:39):

And that is okay.

(00:26:42):

Well, I mean, it just comes down to being your authentic self, isn't it?

(00:26:45):

That's all that matters.

(00:26:46):

And I think we've spoken about this before,

(00:26:49):

that when you're authentic,

(00:26:50):

you'll attract the right people around you.

(00:26:53):

exactly and that's yeah you know and um yeah it's it's whether whether you have

(00:27:01):

five authentic people around you or 50 it's better than having you know 10 000

(00:27:07):

people that don't touch your stuff yeah i would rather have you know i think i'm up

(00:27:13):

to like 235 subscribers now which was like because i know like all those people are

(00:27:19):

actually reading my stuff for the most part um

(00:27:23):

So, but I would rather have those because of the relationships that I've developed.

(00:27:30):

I've met so many bereaved mothers.

(00:27:34):

Like it's almost kind of

(00:27:37):

Concerning how many of us there are out there just on Substack.

(00:27:42):

And it's like each time I step into someone else's Substack where they talk about

(00:27:46):

something similar,

(00:27:47):

I find a whole new set of moms who've gone through this.

(00:27:52):

And it's so wild.

(00:27:54):

And so...

(00:27:56):

You were talking about, you know, doing things for subscriptions and bringing in income.

(00:28:02):

And so it's still very much in the beginning phases.

(00:28:07):

But I'm going to be establishing the Dead Kid Club for parents.

(00:28:15):

It doesn't have to just be moms.

(00:28:16):

For parents like me who don't want a traditional grief group,

(00:28:21):

especially for a bereaved parent grief group,

(00:28:23):

a lot of them are just so...

(00:28:27):

It's a lot of box ticking, isn't it?

(00:28:29):

Yes.

(00:28:29):

It's like doing it because that's what you're supposed to do.

(00:28:32):

And I definitely feel like,

(00:28:34):

you know,

(00:28:34):

as someone who's spent my whole life being depressed until the last few years,

(00:28:40):

like,

(00:28:41):

and I tried lots of different things and nothing like traditional therapy never

(00:28:48):

touched it.

(00:28:48):

And it was only when I did something else and found out the reason why

(00:28:57):

and realized that that reason was not real, that I then was no longer depressed.

(00:29:03):

But it's infuriating because you go to the doctor and all they do is throw tablets

(00:29:06):

at you and go,

(00:29:08):

yeah,

(00:29:08):

take these and see if you feel better.

(00:29:10):

It's like, well, yeah, okay.

(00:29:11):

Well, that doesn't solve the cause, does it?

(00:29:15):

Exactly.

(00:29:16):

I finally, finally have a psychiatrist who actually understands that.

(00:29:22):

And she is very...

(00:29:27):

conservative in terms of what she prescribes because of that very reason.

(00:29:35):

She believes that most things can be fixed,

(00:29:39):

but it takes a lot of personal work and the meds are strictly supposed to be a tool.

(00:29:46):

They're not supposed to be a crutch.

(00:29:48):

They're supposed to be a tool to help you get to those next phases where you can work on the next thing.

(00:29:53):

So for me,

(00:29:54):

you know,

(00:29:54):

it's like calming down the OCD so I can work on the eating disorder and the body

(00:30:00):

dysmorphia and the the negative self-talk and self-image type stuff,

(00:30:07):

because once that's down,

(00:30:09):

I can actually work on that stuff because if it's not down,

(00:30:12):

All I can hear is the OCD in my brain.

(00:30:15):

It's so loud sometimes.

(00:30:19):

I don't know if your voices get really loud when you were like really struggling, but mine are obnoxious.

(00:30:25):

yeah so um god there's so much on that the one thing like when i was writing my

(00:30:31):

book like there was this that was the most like intense the the distraction was

(00:30:38):

like oh you got to do this are you going to do this and there's always this thing

(00:30:42):

trying to pull you away from writing um

(00:30:45):

But through all the personal work I've done on myself was just really creating an awareness.

(00:30:50):

And one of my biggest problems,

(00:30:52):

which I still have,

(00:30:57):

but I catch it,

(00:30:58):

is that my brain makes up stuff that makes me really angry.

(00:31:05):

but it's totally made up.

(00:31:06):

So,

(00:31:07):

so,

(00:31:07):

so someone will say something like they,

(00:31:10):

you know,

(00:31:11):

some shopping assistant,

(00:31:13):

you know,

(00:31:14):

was rude to them or something like that.

(00:31:16):

And then,

(00:31:16):

and then my brain puts me in that situation and then I'm like shouting at them and

(00:31:20):

everything else.

(00:31:21):

And then I'm like, no, I'm making that up.

(00:31:23):

And then it dies.

(00:31:24):

But my brain does this like all the time.

(00:31:26):

And it was such a massive, it was such a massive, um,

(00:31:32):

eureka moment whatever you want to call it when i discovered it because i was

(00:31:35):

literally i was walking along and i had three dogs with me so i was kind of

(00:31:40):

managing them and then someone had parked on the pavement so i had to kind of go

(00:31:44):

around you know into the road and then someone parked on that side so it was quite

(00:31:48):

dangerous and then i'm like oh what if like some old lady's walking and then she

(00:31:52):

has to go on the road and this guy he's parked there like an idiot and

(00:31:57):

And then I suddenly realized like I was making all this whole story I was making up and getting angry.

(00:32:03):

And honestly, like my temperature would, I would get hot and my heart rate would increase.

(00:32:08):

Like that's the effect it had on me.

(00:32:10):

And it was a complete story, completely made up.

(00:32:14):

And so I'm really good at catching it now, but I just wish it wouldn't happen.

(00:32:21):

Yeah.

(00:32:22):

It still gets a few seconds of life before I catch it.

(00:32:25):

So it's kind of, you know, it is a little bit annoying.

(00:32:30):

But,

(00:32:30):

yeah,

(00:32:31):

just being able to be aware of that has a huge...

(00:32:34):

Because then I'll be,

(00:32:34):

like,

(00:32:35):

really unhappy for,

(00:32:36):

like,

(00:32:36):

the next few hours.

(00:32:38):

Right.

(00:32:38):

On the story that I made up in my head that doesn't exist.

(00:32:41):

Yeah.

(00:32:42):

Yeah.

(00:32:44):

So it's been really empowering, you know, on that side of things.

(00:32:47):

I bet.

(00:32:49):

I know exactly what you're talking about because...

(00:32:54):

i i'm much much better at it now but the shower is the place that evokes the most

(00:33:00):

of those situations like i i my brain will think of like hey do you remember that

(00:33:06):

thing you saw and then it'll create this whole storyline and like i'll come out mad

(00:33:13):

just mad and none of it's real like it never even happened and it's so funny

(00:33:19):

because because someone else will look at you

(00:33:23):

Like your husband will see you go in the shower, like you're fine.

(00:33:26):

And then you come out and you're mad.

(00:33:27):

He's like, what the hell happened in the shower?

(00:33:28):

Yes, exactly.

(00:33:32):

Why are you mad at me?

(00:33:32):

I didn't do anything.

(00:33:35):

But, you know, that was a huge thing for me as well.

(00:33:41):

Like another breakthrough was the word I was trying to think of earlier was like

(00:33:46):

I'm comfortable with my thoughts.

(00:33:50):

And I think for a man,

(00:33:52):

only from my perspective,

(00:33:53):

is that a lot of men especially are not comfortable with their thoughts,

(00:33:58):

which is...

(00:33:59):

why we go to turn to distraction or drinking or something like that or drugs and

(00:34:04):

all the rest of it is to stop ourselves thinking and having done lots of work on

(00:34:10):

myself like one of the things i was like i was when i had thoughts coming through

(00:34:16):

about my past etc i was like okay hit me with hit me with your worst let's deal

(00:34:22):

with us because that's really what's happening and and i wrote about emotions the

(00:34:26):

other day and these trapped emotions like they're like

(00:34:29):

They're like, we don't want to live in your body anymore.

(00:34:32):

They're living in your body rent free.

(00:34:34):

And they make you sick and all the rest of it.

(00:34:39):

And serious illness, I believe, comes from emotions in your body.

(00:34:45):

And that's why it's so important for you to do your work you're doing,

(00:34:47):

because you don't want all that traumatic emotions living in your body.

(00:34:52):

Oh, and it made me so sick for so long, too.

(00:34:54):

Yeah, exactly.

(00:34:55):

So sick.

(00:34:56):

Yeah.

(00:34:58):

So it's just about being okay with your thoughts and going,

(00:35:01):

okay,

(00:35:01):

let's...

(00:35:02):

And rather than running away from your thoughts and your emotions,

(00:35:05):

et cetera,

(00:35:05):

it's like,

(00:35:05):

okay,

(00:35:06):

come on,

(00:35:06):

hit me with what you got.

(00:35:08):

And then you deal with it.

(00:35:11):

And then the energy dissipates around whatever it is, you know, those thoughts, et cetera.

(00:35:17):

And then it goes.

(00:35:18):

And then the next one, it's like, come on, let's do this.

(00:35:23):

And it's, yeah, like I say, that's just really...

(00:35:27):

it's really empowering and it's really,

(00:35:29):

um,

(00:35:30):

it's just really powerful to,

(00:35:32):

to be able to be comfortable with your thoughts and be able to sit alone and that

(00:35:36):

sort of thing and not seek distraction.

(00:35:39):

Yeah.

(00:35:40):

Yeah, for sure.

(00:35:41):

I,

(00:35:42):

uh,

(00:35:45):

thinking,

(00:35:46):

telling yourself like what's the worst that could happen or telling yourself to

(00:35:49):

give you that worst possible situation,

(00:35:51):

you know,

(00:35:53):

for me,

(00:35:56):

That was like a huge weight lifted off because of all the anxiety that I had over things.

(00:36:03):

And it was like, okay, well, what's the worst possible thing that could happen?

(00:36:08):

And, um,

(00:36:11):

99.9 of the time nothing's going to top what the worst possible thing has already

(00:36:16):

happened for me so it's like okay nothing else seems awful anymore um i mean don't

(00:36:25):

get me wrong i don't want to die i would like to live here a little bit longer i

(00:36:28):

want to see lucy get older but you know a lot of that stuff something as simple

(00:36:34):

Last summer, I was on a jet ski with Dee and I'd get like scared and anxious and nervous.

(00:36:41):

And then like 20 minutes into our ride,

(00:36:44):

I realized like,

(00:36:45):

what is the worst possible thing that could happen to me right now?

(00:36:48):

I fall in the water.

(00:36:49):

Okay.

(00:36:50):

You fall in the water, you hit your head.

(00:36:52):

Okay.

(00:36:52):

You're knocked unconscious.

(00:36:53):

A, you're wearing a life jacket.

(00:36:55):

B, Dee's right there.

(00:36:56):

Like you're not going to die.

(00:36:58):

And if you do die from some kind of freak jet ski accident,

(00:37:01):

like everything's going to be taken care of because that was supposed to happen.

(00:37:06):

So it's just one of those things where like really being able,

(00:37:13):

like you were saying,

(00:37:13):

to recognize it,

(00:37:14):

stop it and have that conversation with yourself.

(00:37:18):

Learning to do that, I feel like is so like priceless.

(00:37:22):

Yeah.

(00:37:22):

Yeah.

(00:37:24):

And I definitely,

(00:37:25):

you know,

(00:37:26):

there's a lot of,

(00:37:27):

I mean,

(00:37:27):

I haven't even touched on dating,

(00:37:28):

but I think the whole dating world,

(00:37:34):

I think that if more people did work on themselves,

(00:37:39):

that it would totally change that sort of things.

(00:37:41):

Because really what you have is you've got people...

(00:37:45):

going through life, who've got all this past trauma that hasn't been dealt with.

(00:37:49):

They've got all these subconscious belief systems.

(00:37:52):

And then they meet someone and they've got like all this baggage and all their issues.

(00:37:57):

Hey, let's have a relationship.

(00:37:58):

It's like, yeah, that's going to go well, isn't it?

(00:38:03):

Honestly,

(00:38:04):

though,

(00:38:04):

I think I brought my own tractor trailer of baggage and he brought his own tractor trailer.

(00:38:10):

Now they're just, they're slowly unpacking.

(00:38:13):

But

(00:38:16):

But it's so true.

(00:38:17):

I saw so much of that when I was, you know, off doing all my little things.

(00:38:22):

There's some really... It gave me some perspective, I think.

(00:38:26):

Like, okay, I'm not as crazy as I thought I was.

(00:38:31):

Because there were some really,

(00:38:33):

really special people out there who really needed to do some work on themselves.

(00:38:38):

But...

(00:38:40):

it's i think there would be a lot less heartbreak and a lot less depression if more

(00:38:48):

people were able to recognize the things that they need to work on and it's so hard

(00:38:53):

because there's so many factors you know there's age and then there's generational

(00:38:59):

trauma and then there's situational trauma and then there's environmental trauma

(00:39:04):

and it's like you take people like anyone who's

(00:39:10):

26 to 35 has gone through some of the craziest things in their lives just in their

(00:39:16):

own you know world we've lived through a terrorist attack and multiple wars and a

(00:39:21):

pandemic and you know all this financial stuff and it's just kind of like you can't

(00:39:29):

expect people to come out unscathed

(00:39:31):

Yeah.

(00:39:32):

You know,

(00:39:32):

unless they have like the most healthy family who proactively does everything,

(00:39:38):

which I just think is impossible.

(00:39:39):

I don't know about, I know you have kids, so I just don't think that's possible.

(00:39:43):

I don't think any parent could be prepared for that.

(00:39:47):

Yeah.

(00:39:47):

I think, um, it is about, it's definitely about dealing with those sort of things.

(00:39:54):

And the thing as well is around.

(00:39:56):

like like we don't watch the news because the news is like distraction central you

(00:40:02):

know it's all these things that are going on in the world that you you can't change

(00:40:09):

so it's fine to be aware of them and everything else but but like your job is

(00:40:13):

really to create a better life for yourself and to focus on following your heart

(00:40:17):

and doing what you'd love to do so

(00:40:21):

And the media's job is really to get you to click a link or to watch their stuff, etc.

(00:40:30):

Most of which is...

(00:40:32):

is contrived or it's not truth it's not true at the end of the day yeah um um so

(00:40:39):

that to be honest like not watching the news i stopped that in fact um going back a

(00:40:45):

long time so you know you remember enron remember when enron the whole thing came

(00:40:49):

out yeah i actually know someone who reported on it yeah so so that was that i

(00:40:55):

think that was my catalyst about

(00:40:58):

About truth,

(00:40:58):

really,

(00:40:59):

and that truth doesn't exist out there because,

(00:41:01):

yeah,

(00:41:04):

whatever you think is happening is not happening.

(00:41:07):

And the same thing, like, I think I listened to the news and I changed the channel for some reason.

(00:41:12):

So there was a robbery about some money was stolen.

(00:41:16):

So the one news channel said, oh, you know, let's say 20 million was stolen.

(00:41:21):

Then you listen to a different channel that says, oh, 30 million was stolen.

(00:41:24):

Then a different one is like, oh, 12 million was stolen.

(00:41:28):

Yeah.

(00:41:29):

Like, like, you know, you know, you're obviously not, you obviously are just making it up.

(00:41:36):

You don't have the facts.

(00:41:39):

Yeah.

(00:41:42):

That just, I was just like, yeah, it's, it's just, and it's all,

(00:41:48):

It's not just about fake news, but it's about distraction.

(00:41:51):

And that's the key.

(00:41:52):

The key is that you're either distracted.

(00:41:54):

I mean, you guys have got your elections, and that's probably the biggest thing, distracting everyone.

(00:41:59):

And that's hilarious as well because people will fight to the death for their belief.

(00:42:07):

I know.

(00:42:07):

It's so strange to me.

(00:42:10):

The only reason you have that belief is because someone told you that.

(00:42:16):

which they could have been wrong.

(00:42:17):

So you're willing to like kill someone because your belief is this is what you believe.

(00:42:23):

And this guy who's coming in is going to be, you know, the savior of the world and all the rest of it.

(00:42:29):

Only because someone said something and you decided to believe it.

(00:42:33):

And it's so bizarre how people fight like cat and dog around politics, etc.

(00:42:38):

And it's like,

(00:42:39):

you know,

(00:42:39):

especially in this country,

(00:42:41):

the reality is,

(00:42:42):

and it's so funny because we've just had a new party be elected.

(00:42:46):

I do want to hear you say that.

(00:42:49):

Yeah.

(00:42:49):

And, you know, and it's so funny because everyone is like, oh, yeah, you know, this guy's rubbish.

(00:42:54):

And now the next, you know, they're going to come in and fix everything.

(00:42:58):

And I said,

(00:42:58):

like,

(00:42:58):

nothing's going to change because the reality is that all these guys went to the

(00:43:02):

same school together.

(00:43:04):

They're all mates.

(00:43:06):

There might be different parties, but that's irrelevant.

(00:43:09):

And then again, and sure enough, we're in exactly the same boat, if not worse.

(00:43:15):

So nothing's changed.

(00:43:16):

We've got another donkey as a prime minister I've never heard of in my life before.

(00:43:20):

He's completely useless and incompetent.

(00:43:22):

Yeah.

(00:43:24):

Literally trying to kill old people is his legacy.

(00:43:30):

And he's just a buffoon.

(00:43:32):

And it's like, well, what did you expect?

(00:43:35):

I mean, so again, part of my...

(00:43:40):

purpose,

(00:43:40):

remit,

(00:43:41):

whatever you want to call it,

(00:43:43):

or messages that I get through is the fact that the whole system is broken.

(00:43:47):

And that's the point.

(00:43:48):

It's like, it doesn't matter who you vote for.

(00:43:51):

It doesn't matter who the prime minister is.

(00:43:53):

They're all part of the same corrupt, broken system.

(00:43:56):

And the system is all about,

(00:43:59):

it's about the few at the top benefiting and thriving because life,

(00:44:05):

you were born in this,

(00:44:06):

you came into this world to thrive.

(00:44:08):

That was the whole purpose.

(00:44:09):

Yeah.

(00:44:10):

of a human experience.

(00:44:12):

But people have come into this life.

(00:44:15):

So sorry, a lot of people are struggling in life, but the few at the top are thriving.

(00:44:19):

And that's not the way the world was designed.

(00:44:22):

It was designed that everyone thrives.

(00:44:27):

But man or mankind has taken advantage of that situation.

(00:44:31):

The same with religion.

(00:44:32):

I strongly believe that religion started many thousands of years ago.

(00:44:38):

It started as something pure and it's been massively corrupted and used as a tool

(00:44:44):

and as a weapon since then.

(00:44:47):

oh a hundred percent yeah so there's all these broken systems that that have

(00:44:54):

evolved over thousands of years and and here we are with all these broken systems

(00:44:59):

and the best thing we can do is not to vote because if no one votes then they go

(00:45:08):

okay we have a problem here

(00:45:13):

I know that,

(00:45:14):

I don't know the figures,

(00:45:16):

but I know that not many,

(00:45:18):

as a percentage,

(00:45:19):

I don't think it's a massive amount of people that vote overall,

(00:45:22):

certainly in the UK.

(00:45:24):

I don't know about other countries.

(00:45:26):

I don't know about the, so I will say, at least in Oklahoma, that is the case.

(00:45:31):

And it's been one of those things that they've been trying to change because there

(00:45:36):

is an influx of more progressive people in the state and they're really trying to

(00:45:40):

get those people to come forward instead of

(00:45:43):

you know, the KKK people that live here.

(00:45:48):

But even then, it's still, and a lot of that, I think, boils down to accessibility.

(00:45:55):

Because that's the other thing,

(00:45:56):

you want all these people to vote,

(00:45:58):

you want their opinion,

(00:45:59):

you want them to be involved,

(00:46:00):

and then you do nothing to help that happen.

(00:46:02):

Like literally nothing.

(00:46:04):

So why are you yelling at us?

(00:46:08):

But,

(00:46:08):

but you also have,

(00:46:09):

you almost have like what,

(00:46:11):

what I can't get my head around is that you have this,

(00:46:14):

you have these history of,

(00:46:15):

of politicians and what politicians do to get into power is that they lie to you.

(00:46:23):

So they lie to you, then you vote them in and then they don't deliver what they do.

(00:46:27):

But this,

(00:46:28):

this is a pattern that happens and it's been happening for hundreds,

(00:46:35):

probably hundreds of years.

(00:46:36):

It's like, why can't you people see what's going on?

(00:46:44):

The definition of a politician,

(00:46:46):

almost,

(00:46:46):

is someone who says,

(00:46:47):

I'm going to do something and doesn't do it.

(00:46:51):

Yeah, that is really what it's become.

(00:46:54):

But people believe so much that this person,

(00:46:58):

and I go back to Hitler as well,

(00:47:00):

because I'm a great believer that Adolf Hitler was a very powerful lesson for everybody.

(00:47:06):

And it's really important that we learn that.

(00:47:09):

What happens when you give the keys to the kingdom to somebody and let them do whatever they want to do?

(00:47:16):

I think it's a really important lesson.

(00:47:17):

I think it's really important that we continue to talk about it and be aware of it.

(00:47:23):

I agree.

(00:47:23):

And not make the same mistake again.

(00:47:25):

And I think, yeah, I think we're...

(00:47:31):

Yeah, we're kind of in a worse system.

(00:47:32):

It's just getting progressively worse.

(00:47:36):

Like I say, with corruption, everything else, and it's just a broken system.

(00:47:40):

Yeah,

(00:47:41):

and I do think,

(00:47:42):

I don't know about anywhere else,

(00:47:44):

but Andrew Eloise from Snowflake Angel Butterfly and I were talking about this,

(00:47:52):

how

(00:47:54):

know the boomer generation and older they were taught not to question anything and

(00:48:00):

they were taught that what they hear is the truth and then they were just fed all

(00:48:07):

of this propaganda that they took and digested as the absolute truth because they

(00:48:14):

were told that these

(00:48:15):

people in power were the smartest the the ones who knew everything the ones who saw

(00:48:21):

everything and that was so far from the truth i mean you've got people in power who

(00:48:25):

have less education than people working at mcdonald's sometimes like it's

(00:48:31):

disgusting to be honest and i think that they have not examined that because of

(00:48:40):

environmental things i think that

(00:48:44):

the environments that they grew up in deteriorated their brain.

(00:48:48):

And often when you have deterioration,

(00:48:52):

it starts happening in that prefrontal cortex where you do a lot of the logical thinking.

(00:48:58):

And you think about all the smoke and the lead and all of that kind of stuff that

(00:49:04):

was in their environments every single day,

(00:49:07):

the chemicals and the poison.

(00:49:09):

And I think that that definitely did not help anything.

(00:49:14):

It made things a lot worse.

(00:49:17):

And I do think that that is possibly why it has taken this long for people to start like,

(00:49:23):

what the fuck is happening right now?

(00:49:28):

Yeah.

(00:49:29):

Could we not do this?

(00:49:30):

Something needs to change.

(00:49:31):

Yeah.

(00:49:33):

I do think,

(00:49:34):

and I hear more people saying that,

(00:49:36):

yeah,

(00:49:37):

things are changing,

(00:49:38):

but not quickly enough and not enough people.

(00:49:41):

Because like, you know, you and I will see something and go, that's just crazy.

(00:49:48):

You know, maybe it's around COVID or something like that.

(00:49:50):

And you go, well, that's completely stupid.

(00:49:54):

But then you'll have loads of other people who will still believe that

(00:49:59):

whatever the lie was.

(00:50:00):

And you're like, how can you believe that?

(00:50:04):

There's literally evidence.

(00:50:06):

Yeah, like I don't want to think.

(00:50:09):

You know,

(00:50:09):

the famous line in the movie,

(00:50:13):

I watched it a couple of weeks ago,

(00:50:15):

where he says,

(00:50:15):

the truth,

(00:50:16):

you can't handle the truth.

(00:50:18):

Yes, yeah.

(00:50:21):

And I think,

(00:50:22):

yeah,

(00:50:23):

I mean,

(00:50:23):

I think some people just want to be looked after and they just want to think that

(00:50:29):

everything's okay.

(00:50:31):

And not take responsibility for their life.

(00:50:34):

And that's the big problem.

(00:50:35):

When you take responsibility for your own life and for your own health,

(00:50:41):

And for your own actions and all the rest of it, then you have a different life.

(00:50:44):

And you realize that you're not beholden to these people who,

(00:50:49):

at the end of the day,

(00:50:50):

their only interest is to make money and have power.

(00:50:54):

That is their only driving force is to make money out of you.

(00:50:57):

100%.

(00:50:59):

And that's what's so heartbreaking to me because money doesn't need to be like that.

(00:51:08):

And this scarcity mindset that we have as a society is just not helping anyone.

(00:51:20):

And trying to get people to understand that money is simply just energy and it has

(00:51:29):

nothing else attached to it.

(00:51:31):

We would have more than anybody could ever need and our world would be better, but...

(00:51:37):

that's too woo woo for some people.

(00:51:41):

Because money.

(00:51:41):

Yeah.

(00:51:41):

I mean, that's what I wrote like the other day about like money is limitless.

(00:51:46):

Exactly.

(00:51:47):

And the universe by its very nature is limitless.

(00:51:51):

So going out into the galaxies, everything else, I mean, that's all limitless.

(00:51:57):

And on Earth,

(00:51:59):

before we had so many humans on Earth,

(00:52:01):

everything was limitless in terms of trees and animals and food source and all that

(00:52:09):

sort of thing.

(00:52:09):

It was limitless until there was just too much of us.

(00:52:13):

And then we just industrialized everything.

(00:52:16):

Um,

(00:52:17):

so yeah,

(00:52:18):

it is,

(00:52:18):

it is all about energy and it's,

(00:52:20):

it's just about,

(00:52:22):

I guess it comes back to loving doing what you're doing,

(00:52:26):

you know,

(00:52:26):

it's doing a job that you love doing.

(00:52:29):

And I'm a massive advocate around that side of things.

(00:52:32):

Um,

(00:52:34):

You know,

(00:52:35):

someone who works at a restaurant and doesn't want to be there,

(00:52:38):

you know,

(00:52:38):

they don't have a great experience.

(00:52:40):

The people, their co-workers don't have a great experience.

(00:52:45):

The customer doesn't have a great experience because they're not loving doing what they're doing.

(00:52:49):

But you get someone who does love that job and they love the interaction,

(00:52:53):

everything else,

(00:52:54):

like everyone wins.

(00:52:56):

And the more we can have that kind of philosophy in different jobs around the world,

(00:53:01):

the better world we'll have.

(00:53:04):

It's really that simple.

(00:53:07):

I so agree with you.

(00:53:08):

And that's so true.

(00:53:10):

And I've seen it in my own self.

(00:53:12):

And I have seen it in my friends and my family.

(00:53:16):

And it's just like, people are so diverse.

(00:53:23):

And yet they seem to think that if we were all to do the thing that would make us happiest,

(00:53:29):

there would be things that wouldn't get done.

(00:53:32):

And there are people out there who would absolutely be perfectly content working

(00:53:39):

the McDonald's drive-thru the rest of their life.

(00:53:42):

There are people who are perfectly content standing in front of a conveyor belt, pushing buttons.

(00:53:47):

Yeah.

(00:53:49):

And that's why those people exist,

(00:53:51):

because the universe knows that we wouldn't be here if the universe wasn't limitless.

(00:53:57):

It would be impossible for us to have been created if there was all these limits and rules on everything.

(00:54:05):

But that's what I wish we could get across to people.

(00:54:10):

Just let people be people.

(00:54:11):

Let them do what they're called to.

(00:54:16):

but apparently that's too risky well i mean it makes sense because the the

(00:54:26):

governments etc they need to control people so you can't control a room full of

(00:54:31):

free thinkers can you no the only way you can control them is by making them scared

(00:54:36):

and doing what you tell them to do

(00:54:38):

So it makes sense.

(00:54:39):

You almost can't be angry with them because they're trying to do their thing and

(00:54:49):

they're trying to control people.

(00:54:51):

Exactly.

(00:54:51):

And that boils down to the risk thing again.

(00:54:53):

And I do wonder,

(00:54:56):

though,

(00:54:56):

I don't know,

(00:54:58):

maybe you have some thoughts on where this might have come from,

(00:55:01):

but the scarcity and the fear that is just like,

(00:55:05):

ingrained into human beings especially as the years have gone on do you think it's

(00:55:13):

potentially like years and years and years of just generational experiences from

(00:55:19):

evolution the people who were you know threatened by animals or threatened by their

(00:55:24):

environment and it just like morphed continuously

(00:55:29):

I definitely think, yeah, there's definitely a generational thing.

(00:55:32):

So,

(00:55:33):

you know,

(00:55:33):

um,

(00:55:34):

and I think one of the biggest issues as well as like,

(00:55:37):

as a parent,

(00:55:38):

when you,

(00:55:38):

when you,

(00:55:39):

you say like a throwaway comment to a child about

(00:55:45):

something like maybe it's a spider or a snake and you're scared of a spider or a

(00:55:49):

snake and you're scared because you were told that and it kind of goes backwards

(00:55:55):

all through time.

(00:55:57):

And it's that throwaway comment that you say something

(00:56:02):

like that that that affects the child especially when you say it a few times and i

(00:56:07):

think that's also where um you know where those belief systems are created like you

(00:56:12):

know the dad might shout at the kid going yeah you're really useless and when the

(00:56:17):

kid hears that enough times he goes well actually i'm useless so i'm going to be

(00:56:22):

useless and that's that's what's so crucial

(00:56:26):

about trying to change,

(00:56:27):

you know,

(00:56:28):

about doing work on yourself and more people doing work on themselves and being

(00:56:32):

more aware of what they're saying and how they're saying it.

(00:56:35):

And the fact that, I mean, you see that definitely in this country and definitely in poorer environments.

(00:56:44):

You know, you'll see a woman, she's got loads of kids and she's screaming at them and all the rest of it.

(00:56:49):

And it's like she's literally creating, you know,

(00:56:56):

She's just perpetuating and creating more children who are going to be screwed up

(00:57:00):

in the future and continue that because people say they're generationally poor.

(00:57:05):

And it's like, well, you're generationally poor because you've been taught that way.

(00:57:09):

But again, you often see how someone breaks through

(00:57:13):

yeah and does amazing things because they've like actually no i'm not i'm not

(00:57:16):

generationally poor like that's just a story which it is it's just a story but but

(00:57:21):

definitely you know like again from ancient times i'm sure because a lot of people

(00:57:26):

have a natural fear of snakes for example yeah um and i grew up with snakes so my

(00:57:32):

dad had a huge collection of of snakes like 150 of them oh my gosh that's a lot of

(00:57:40):

snakes i thought you were maybe like three or four

(00:57:43):

It's a totally different environment that I grew up in.

(00:57:47):

But so many people are just fearful of snakes.

(00:57:50):

They've never touched one.

(00:57:51):

They've probably never seen one.

(00:57:53):

They don't know anything about them.

(00:57:55):

And a lot of it comes from lack of knowledge.

(00:57:57):

So you might be scared of sharks.

(00:58:01):

And I would definitely shit my pants if I saw a shark when I was swimming.

(00:58:05):

but the reality is that people swim with sharks, don't they?

(00:58:09):

Yeah.

(00:58:10):

So there's obviously gotta be some kind of knowledge where that you can swim with sharks.

(00:58:15):

Um, and it's the same as snakes, you know, you can pick up a snake and hold a snake and everything else.

(00:58:21):

And it's really just around,

(00:58:22):

it's around knowledge and it's,

(00:58:25):

and,

(00:58:25):

and,

(00:58:26):

and,

(00:58:27):

and just not believing the story that people tell you about and,

(00:58:30):

and,

(00:58:31):

Yeah, just not believing something because someone says it, I guess.

(00:58:34):

It's like finding it out for yourself.

(00:58:37):

Yeah,

(00:58:38):

that's 100% true because I've never really felt truly afraid of spiders,

(00:58:46):

but I've always just kind of claimed that I was afraid of spiders.

(00:58:50):

And then somehow...

(00:58:53):

Well,

(00:58:54):

first off,

(00:58:55):

Lucy loves bugs,

(00:58:56):

which is really interesting because a year and a half ago,

(00:58:59):

she would scream if a fly got anywhere near her.

(00:59:01):

So it's like, we've done this complete 180, but I'm cool with it.

(00:59:07):

And between her and then somehow on,

(00:59:11):

these like YouTube shorts feed, these adorable spider videos started showing up.

(00:59:18):

And they're these people who keep like these tiny,

(00:59:21):

tiny,

(00:59:22):

tiny spiders and they put like digital eyes on them and they like crawl around and

(00:59:27):

they make these storylines.

(00:59:28):

And now I'm like, oh my God, these spiders are so cute.

(00:59:32):

And it just completely,

(00:59:34):

like,

(00:59:34):

just like that,

(00:59:35):

my perspective was changed because I was allowed myself to be open and willing to

(00:59:42):

learn about someone else.

(00:59:45):

And,

(00:59:45):

like,

(00:59:46):

that is all we need to be doing because no one is killing each other over the fact

(00:59:52):

that I don't like Oreos very much.

(00:59:54):

Like, that's just my opinion.

(00:59:56):

I don't think they're that good.

(00:59:58):

Whatever.

(00:59:59):

You do you.

(00:59:59):

You don't like artichokes.

(01:00:01):

I get it.

(01:00:03):

but no one's killing each other over that and that's it's it's no different and

(01:00:07):

that infuriates me because you're okay if joe schmo likes you know pickled herring

(01:00:17):

but god forbid he vote for the labor party like yeah right it's just it doesn't

(01:00:23):

make any sense to me and i think that's where i really struggle

(01:00:27):

yeah yeah it's just it's just people just choose to believe in something um i'll

(01:00:33):

tell you a story because i've got a um i've got a tarantula so so i was a little

(01:00:38):

bit scared of spiders so i thought i know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna have a pet

(01:00:42):

tarantula

(01:00:43):

and honestly like ever since i've had her like others all other spiders are like

(01:00:47):

insignificant i just like pick them up and check them out like you know we're

(01:00:50):

bigger than you know way you know you know we're near as big as rose she's a

(01:00:54):

chilian rose i call her rose but i've had her since like um 2007 oh my gosh that's

(01:00:59):

so cool

(01:01:04):

So I don't know how she survived, because I don't think I'm the best spider parent.

(01:01:10):

But she has.

(01:01:11):

And another thing about spiders is that,

(01:01:14):

you know,

(01:01:14):

jumping spiders,

(01:01:15):

which are really small,

(01:01:17):

like for them to jump from one surface to another takes a lot of math.

(01:01:23):

Yeah.

(01:01:23):

I got to work out a lot of maths to go, okay, I'm going to jump.

(01:01:26):

There's wind.

(01:01:27):

There's, you know, how much power to put in all the rest of it to get from.

(01:01:31):

Yeah.

(01:01:32):

It's like they're working out some serious maths to just to do that jump.

(01:01:36):

To figure out how to get there.

(01:01:38):

And you realize, like, they're really intelligent.

(01:01:40):

It's like a small, tiny little spider who's really intelligent.

(01:01:44):

I know.

(01:01:44):

It's so, I feel like.

(01:01:47):

And I don't know if this has been the case for you,

(01:01:49):

but having a child who's so curious has really just expanded my knowledge on things.

(01:02:00):

And I was not aware of how many, like, non-human beings were so intelligent.

(01:02:10):

Just, I mean, their brains work well.

(01:02:14):

well and so many people make it seem like every animal and instinct is just

(01:02:19):

basically an invalid but that's not really the case that's a major thing for me

(01:02:24):

because it does really annoy me how people are completely unaware of how

(01:02:28):

intelligent and emotionally intelligent all creatures are you know even even plants

(01:02:34):

react to music you know if you have a plant and you play really nice music it'll

(01:02:40):

it'll it'll go towards it and if you play like

(01:02:43):

heavy rock, it'll grow away from it.

(01:02:47):

So everything is emotional, you know, from all animals and everything else.

(01:02:51):

So yeah,

(01:02:52):

we just miss out on so much because I feel we're such an arrogant species that we

(01:02:56):

believe no one is as intelligent as us.

(01:03:00):

And it's like, they're just different.

(01:03:04):

They may not be able to speak,

(01:03:06):

but I have more conversations with my dog than I do with a lot of other people.

(01:03:11):

I literally, one of them has passed out right now.

(01:03:15):

His paws are like moving in the wind because he's dreaming.

(01:03:19):

But I talk to them probably more than I talk to regular adults on a day-to-day

(01:03:24):

basis because I don't hardly interact with adults.

(01:03:28):

You know what they're feeling and what they want and they know what you want.

(01:03:32):

Yeah, exactly.

(01:03:34):

And like even...

(01:03:37):

This is where this is one of those moments where to me,

(01:03:40):

it's very obvious that animals and other beings have,

(01:03:45):

you know,

(01:03:45):

emotions and feelings and thoughts.

(01:03:49):

After Lily died, our dog Piper was so depressed.

(01:03:55):

I had to hand feed her piece by piece for two days straight because otherwise she would not eat.

(01:04:01):

She was so depressed.

(01:04:02):

She was so sad.

(01:04:04):

And it's so hard.

(01:04:05):

Those moments broke my heart because I couldn't explain it to her.

(01:04:10):

There's no way for me to get...

(01:04:12):

her to understand in her language that her best friend is now gone completely gone

(01:04:18):

because that's i mean they were best friends which i didn't think would ever happen

(01:04:22):

that my my daughter who has such a a short life would have a very very best friend

(01:04:27):

but i mean those things alone are proof to me that there's so much more we don't

(01:04:36):

understand about just life in general and you know

(01:04:43):

People joke like, oh, these are my fur babies.

(01:04:46):

But I do understand it, especially for the people who can't have children or really don't want children.

(01:04:53):

If you really don't want children, you should not have children.

(01:04:55):

Like, that's just how that should be.

(01:04:58):

You shouldn't be shamed for that.

(01:05:00):

You need to want to have children to have children.

(01:05:03):

Otherwise, it's, you know, you're going to end up with a long, painful journey.

(01:05:07):

Yeah, that's going to be a long 18 years.

(01:05:10):

Yeah.

(01:05:15):

So how long have you and your wife been married?

(01:05:16):

Do you know what?

(01:05:19):

We're getting married on Saturday.

(01:05:20):

Okay, okay, okay.

(01:05:31):

Like officially or formally or you're just having a wedding?

(01:05:36):

No, officially.

(01:05:39):

We live in a little village, and we're getting married at the church.

(01:05:43):

It's just a small wedding,

(01:05:45):

and then we're going to a pub about a mile away,

(01:05:49):

and we're going to have a little sort of lunch-dinner type thing.

(01:05:52):

Oh, that'll be fun.

(01:05:54):

Yeah.

(01:05:57):

So how did you guys meet then?

(01:06:01):

She worked at one of my customers.

(01:06:03):

Oh, okay, okay.

(01:06:04):

Which is handy.

(01:06:06):

Yes.

(01:06:07):

Handidating to run your own business and go out and meet lots of customers.

(01:06:13):

So did you meet her before you started doing all of this like personal development

(01:06:18):

work or did you meet her after?

(01:06:21):

Uh,

(01:06:22):

just after,

(01:06:22):

and it was really,

(01:06:24):

it was really,

(01:06:24):

it just felt really right because I think,

(01:06:28):

um,

(01:06:29):

you know,

(01:06:29):

we,

(01:06:30):

we,

(01:06:30):

uh,

(01:06:31):

we were both with someone at the time,

(01:06:33):

so we would just meet for dog walks and stuff like that.

(01:06:35):

So we,

(01:06:36):

we weren't obviously seeing each other,

(01:06:37):

but we were just meeting up and getting to know each other.

(01:06:40):

And I definitely feel like that was really good that we,

(01:06:44):

I feel it's so important to get to know someone,

(01:06:47):

um,

(01:06:48):

before just jumping into bed kind of thing.

(01:06:52):

Because I think that's a massive problem, certainly in Western cultures.

(01:06:55):

Like you meet someone in a nightclub, you go, oh, you look nice.

(01:06:58):

And then they jump into bed and then suddenly one of,

(01:07:00):

you know,

(01:07:00):

then she gets pregnant and then you're dealing with,

(01:07:03):

and you just go on this ride.

(01:07:05):

Yeah.

(01:07:06):

you know, rather than actually that's what you wanted kind of thing.

(01:07:09):

You just kind of like, hold on a minute.

(01:07:11):

I almost didn't get a say in what was happening.

(01:07:15):

Yeah.

(01:07:16):

But definitely getting to know each other, I think was really good.

(01:07:19):

And then,

(01:07:22):

and that journey,

(01:07:24):

that personal development stuff I did just really changed me massively and just

(01:07:29):

changed just the way I looked at life and everything else.

(01:07:33):

And I think,

(01:07:36):

And again, it was perfect.

(01:07:37):

You know, I always say she's my best creation.

(01:07:41):

I love that.

(01:07:44):

So,

(01:07:46):

yeah,

(01:07:47):

but it's just,

(01:07:48):

it was all just perfect kind of,

(01:07:51):

you know,

(01:07:52):

meeting her and she's done a bit of the work as well.

(01:07:54):

And we both have a coach that we catch up with every two weeks kind of thing just

(01:08:00):

to keep us going and keep us on track.

(01:08:04):

That's so awesome.

(01:08:05):

That is like,

(01:08:06):

to me,

(01:08:06):

how all couples could,

(01:08:08):

should function because like,

(01:08:10):

that's something D and I,

(01:08:11):

you know,

(01:08:12):

our biggest thing is we both know we have a lot of stuff that we have to unfuck.

(01:08:19):

You know, he's had just as much trauma as me.

(01:08:22):

It's just different.

(01:08:23):

And he's also been divorced and he had a traumatic marriage just as much.

(01:08:29):

And so someone asked me the other day, they're like,

(01:08:34):

are you sure you want to marry that?

(01:08:35):

And I was like, I don't think you understand.

(01:08:37):

No one's ever going to be perfect.

(01:08:39):

And he's aware of these problems.

(01:08:42):

If he wasn't aware of these problems, we would have a different story.

(01:08:45):

Or if he was aware of them and refused not to work on them, also a different story.

(01:08:50):

Very different conversation.

(01:08:51):

Very different story.

(01:08:52):

But you know,

(01:08:54):

That's not what's happening.

(01:08:55):

He knows his challenges.

(01:08:57):

I know my challenges and we try really hard to keep each other accountable in a

(01:09:01):

gentle way that is supportive and encouraging,

(01:09:05):

but doesn't let us just fall off and stop paying attention to that stuff anymore.

(01:09:11):

So you mentioned the jumping into bed thing,

(01:09:14):

and I know you know that my relationship with Dee did not form a normal way,

(01:09:20):

but I do think,

(01:09:23):

like you were saying,

(01:09:24):

you guys were just meeting up,

(01:09:25):

getting to know each other.

(01:09:26):

And even though we were having sex and that's how our premise started,

(01:09:32):

i think it took a lot of everything else off the table for us and lowered a lot of

(01:09:38):

the walls that probably would have been there had we you know gone into it with

(01:09:45):

both of us being single i and i know for me that i think he probably would have saw

(01:09:49):

a different person had you know i had i've been single and i think that was ended

(01:09:56):

up being a blessing in disguise it's silly because yeah while you're doing all this

(01:10:00):

up like

(01:10:03):

And at the same time,

(01:10:04):

you know,

(01:10:04):

it really,

(01:10:07):

he was very,

(01:10:10):

very walled up,

(01:10:11):

very cautious,

(01:10:12):

very jaded,

(01:10:12):

understandably so.

(01:10:15):

I was so emotionally all over the place.

(01:10:19):

And with the type of, you know, relationship that we did have, all it was

(01:10:29):

like for, you know, a few months was purely weed and sex and, but the sex wasn't normal.

(01:10:37):

So the very basis of it was trust and just ironic because I lied to him the whole time.

(01:10:46):

But in terms of like that side,

(01:10:48):

there was no hesitancy in being open and discussing things and that kind of stuff.

(01:10:53):

And

(01:10:54):

because of that once the time finally came for me to be truthful about everything i

(01:10:59):

was able to which was you know a completely different story from most of my life um

(01:11:06):

and so that was really

(01:11:08):

You know, you're saying perfect.

(01:11:09):

And to me, that was like just another sign that he was my soulmate.

(01:11:14):

He's the perfect person for me because I've never been able to be that truthful with literally anyone.

(01:11:20):

And I still struggle to be that truthful with anyone but him.

(01:11:23):

Like him, no problem.

(01:11:25):

But with everybody else, it's still like...

(01:11:28):

struggle to not let my actual human being out because sometimes it's scary but one

(01:11:36):

of the biggest things for me was um was doing a lot of work on my heart

(01:11:41):

And it's so bizarre.

(01:11:42):

I find it bizarre because I'm really like,

(01:11:45):

I'm really,

(01:11:45):

I'm an athlete and I spend my life in gym and all the rest of it.

(01:11:50):

So I'm quite a, like, I would say like quite an alpha male.

(01:11:53):

And then I start talking about my heart and love and all the rest of it.

(01:11:57):

And even my head, I'm going like, that's so bizarre.

(01:12:00):

Because I'm almost like the last person to be talking about that sort of thing.

(01:12:05):

But it really has been so life-changing.

(01:12:07):

Like just allowing yourself to be loved was probably the biggest thing.

(01:12:13):

It was probably the biggest change, actually allowing yourself to be loved.

(01:12:17):

That's really changing.

(01:12:20):

And,

(01:12:21):

again,

(01:12:22):

I talk about unconditional love all the time,

(01:12:24):

and it's just sending out love to people and just loving people.

(01:12:27):

Yeah.

(01:12:27):

Yeah.

(01:12:29):

because that's what we do that that was came up in one of your newsletters recently

(01:12:34):

yeah was sending out unconditional love to people and that really made me stop and

(01:12:40):

pause and like reflect and think about that and think about you know who who could

(01:12:45):

i send some unconditional love to and i never thought about doing it that way but

(01:12:50):

It was like, duh.

(01:12:51):

I just, you know, and I thought that was amazing.

(01:12:58):

And it also made me think,

(01:13:00):

I'm going to share your sub stack with Andrew Eloise,

(01:13:04):

because one of the things they struggle with is they do not see or have not been

(01:13:10):

able to find,

(01:13:11):

you know,

(01:13:12):

that stuff.

(01:13:14):

cishet alpha male type man who is willing to talk about their heart and their

(01:13:20):

feelings and their emotions because everyone around them is no men don't do that

(01:13:27):

exactly yeah you know flex our muscles growl burp whatever you know all of that

(01:13:33):

stuff that i just don't understand how that defines you as a man um because he or

(01:13:40):

they they you know they really

(01:13:45):

that really bothered them,

(01:13:46):

especially when they,

(01:13:48):

they were like,

(01:13:49):

I have so many feelings and they had no one to talk to about those feelings.

(01:13:54):

That wasn't a girl.

(01:13:56):

And even then a lot of girls were not comfortable.

(01:13:59):

And I get that.

(01:14:00):

I would have been one of those girls two and a half years ago,

(01:14:04):

not comfortable talking about those emotions.

(01:14:07):

So, um,

(01:14:10):

I'm definitely going to share you with them because I think they would benefit a

(01:14:13):

lot from what you write and how you write.

(01:14:17):

And I also think this is going to sound funny, but

(01:14:20):

they're very auditory like i am and so i think them listening to you would really

(01:14:28):

help you really should narrate books like you and georgia claire like both of you

(01:14:33):

should be narrating books and like documentaries and i i won't listen to certain

(01:14:41):

people because of their voices like i have to the voice has to work for me but

(01:14:45):

there is something so like

(01:14:48):

this voice needs to be in more places.

(01:14:53):

And I really struggle with it as well sometimes.

(01:14:56):

Yeah.

(01:14:57):

Sometimes I have to, like, I mess it up and I have to do it again.

(01:15:01):

Then I mess it up again.

(01:15:01):

I'm like, oh, God.

(01:15:03):

Okay.

(01:15:04):

Come on.

(01:15:04):

Let's sort this out.

(01:15:08):

yeah you're definitely uh definitely better with that than i am i'm just like ah it

(01:15:12):

i'll just keep going keep going yeah who cares everyone knows i'm chaotic to begin

(01:15:18):

with so it's like i'll just lean into it a little bit more but okay so we are about

(01:15:25):

90 minutes in um i want to be respectful of your time i have no clue what time it

(01:15:30):

is wherever you are um uh it is half three in the afternoon

(01:15:36):

okay that's not awful that's not awful i was trying to get three in the morning

(01:15:42):

well so that's funny i'm sure you know who alexander j porter is yes yeah okay so

(01:15:50):

he's in australia um our podcast comes out today that it was turkey

(01:15:56):

It was real tricky finding a time where both of us could match up in our time zones.

(01:16:02):

That was difficult, but we did it.

(01:16:04):

We accomplished it in one of the mornings.

(01:16:06):

We did start at six in the morning for me, but it was fine.

(01:16:10):

I was already up.

(01:16:11):

So,

(01:16:12):

you know,

(01:16:12):

but is there anything that you really wanted to talk about or wanted to share with

(01:16:17):

people or wanted to ask me or anything like that?

(01:16:22):

I don't think so.

(01:16:23):

I mean, just on the unconditional love thing is really great for conflict resolution.

(01:16:32):

And I've used that a number of times with amazing results.

(01:16:39):

Yeah, I guess just something to be aware of all the time is what, what your end result is.

(01:16:44):

Yeah.

(01:16:44):

You know,

(01:16:44):

when,

(01:16:45):

when,

(01:16:45):

when something's going on,

(01:16:47):

you know,

(01:16:48):

there's some kind of conflict that's like,

(01:16:49):

okay,

(01:16:50):

be clear on what your end result is.

(01:16:51):

It's like, what do you, what do you want out of it?

(01:16:54):

And being clear about that really helps things.

(01:16:57):

And then,

(01:16:57):

like I say,

(01:16:58):

when,

(01:16:58):

when there's difficult people around you,

(01:17:00):

sending them love makes all the difference in the world.

(01:17:04):

Um,

(01:17:06):

yeah i think the last thing i want to mention which which i have again i've written

(01:17:10):

about is around around conflict again is that when you when you get upset about

(01:17:16):

something like in a relationship or something like it's it's not about that thing

(01:17:21):

that's in front of you it's about a memory so you actually get upset about a past

(01:17:27):

memory and you're reacting to that past memory oh that's so true

(01:17:33):

And that's really,

(01:17:34):

again,

(01:17:35):

that's just really about awareness and going,

(01:17:38):

actually,

(01:17:38):

we're having this massive fight.

(01:17:40):

And I'm thinking subconsciously, obviously, it's actually about a past event.

(01:17:45):

And on the other side, they're thinking about a past event.

(01:17:48):

So you're actually arguing about something that probably happened five, ten years ago.

(01:17:53):

And you're arguing about it now.

(01:17:54):

But you're not aware that you're arguing about it now.

(01:17:56):

So it's really bizarre how things work.

(01:18:00):

yeah i literally just talked about something like this with terry lee she had me on

(01:18:04):

to do like a reading for her and we were talking about that when i get triggered in

(01:18:13):

confrontation it has nothing to do with the actual person yeah and so learning to

(01:18:20):

accept the unconditional love from

(01:18:23):

the original person is how i can work on you know eliminating that trigger and it's working

(01:18:32):

So that's good.

(01:18:33):

So like you said, it really, it really does work.

(01:18:38):

So, well, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast.

(01:18:42):

And I'm really thankful that you, you know, reached out and that we were able to coordinate everything.

(01:18:48):

And I will make sure that everybody knows where to find you.

(01:18:51):

That'll be in the show notes.

(01:18:54):

And yeah, I think we're, we're good to go.

(01:18:59):

So thank you so much.

(01:19:01):

And.

(01:19:01):

We will talk to you later.

(01:19:03):

Thank you.

Get full access to The Chaos Chronicles with Taylor Cecelia Brook at taylorceceliabrook.substack.com/subscribe