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Today on the podcast, Tahnee is joined by nutritionist and award-winning author of The Healthy Skin Diet, Karen Fischer, for a very real breakdown of why so many people suffer from skin conditions and how healing from within is always possible. Working as a nutritionist specialising in eczema and skin health for the past 20 years, Karen has just about seen it all when it comes to skin inflammation issues (acne, eczema, rosacea, psoriasis) and the lineup of factors that cause them. The author of seven health books, including best-sellers The Eczema Diet, The Eczema Detox, and The Healthy Skin Kitchen, Karen's approach to healing the skin is utterly holistic; She addresses lifestyle, environment, emotional wellbeing, and diet. Whether you're a mother of a baby who has eczema, someone who suffers from acne or allergies, has an autoimmune condition, or wants to have clear, healthy skin; This episode is brimming with something for everyone. Karen discusses the increasing prevalence of salicylate sensitivity, autoimmune conditions, food elimination diets, nourishing the liver for healthier skin, calming the nervous system, Inflammatory load, protocols for skin conditions, and provides practical lifestyle, diet-related skin advice.       "In traditional diets, when you eat seasonally, your diets change with the season, and that's how you would notice the food you're reacting to. But in western society today, we have the same foods available every day. and that's a problem with diagnosing food intolerances".   - Karen Fischer    Tahnee and Karen discuss: Acne. Eczema. Rosacea. Psoriasis The itchy dozen. Salicylate foods. Salicylate sensitivity. Inflammatory load. Eczema in babies. The eczema detox. Oils to eat/avoid or acne. Histamine intolerance. Salicylates and the Liver Autoimmune conditions and skin. Glycine for food chemical intolerance. The mind-body connection and skin sensitivities. The correlation between lung function and health skin. FID programme: Food Intolerance Diagnosis programme Why child teething gel is not great for babies with eczema.   Who is Karen Fischer?    Karen Fischer is an award-winning nutritionist who has written seven health books including, bestsellers; The Eczema Diet, The Eczema Detox, and The Healthy Skin Kitchen. Over the past 20 years, Karen has helped thousands of people with skin inflammation including, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, dermatitis, and acne.    Karen runs a skincare and supplement company called Skin Friend and The Healthy Skin Kitchen Membership; An online support network for people with skin inflammation.     CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON APPLE PODCAST    Resources:   Skinfriend.com Eczema Life website Karen's Instagram Eczema Life podcast Skin Friend Facebook The Eczema Diet Facebook The Healthy Skin Kitchen Facebook The Healthy Skin Kitchen website Shop all of Karen Fischer's Books and products HERE     Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We'd also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee: (00:00) Hi everybody. And welcome to the SuperFeast podcast. Today, I'm joined by Karen Fischer, which makes me very happy, because I've known Karen for a very long time and she is an incredible author and creator of beautiful skin supplements and many websites, we were talking about before we jumped on, and her work has been for me, it was really profound to get to work with her in my early twenties. And I've seen just so many positive reviews and feedback from her work, especially around things like eczema and acne and rosacea. So I'm really stoked to have you here today, Karen, thanks for joining us.   Karen Fischer: (00:37) Oh, thanks Tahnee. Thanks for having me.   Tahnee: (00:40) Yeah, it's been such a long time, but so nice to see your face again.   Karen Fischer: (00:46) Yeah. [crosstalk 00:00:47]-   Tahnee: (00:46) Yeah. And so I was hoping we could start off with your journey because so just for some context, for those of you listening, Karen and I worked together on her first book, the Healthy Skin Diet, which was probably in the late 2000s, 2008 maybe.   Karen Fischer: (01:03) Yeah, it was published in 2008.   Tahnee: (01:05) Okay, great. My memory's still working. And so I remember reading your story in that book and it's just such a beautiful story because you had such a personal relationship with the work that you do and you went on and educated yourself and healed yourself and your daughter. And so if you could share that story with us, I'd love for you to start off there.   Karen Fischer: (01:27) Yeah, absolutely. Look, I became a qualified nutritionist probably about the age of 25 and shortly after I had a baby girl, Ava, and she two weeks after she was born developed really severe eczema all over her body. And it's funny, I only have like one photo of her with the eczema everywhere, as I just didn't take a lot of photos and just used the general topical treatments for her.   Karen Fischer: (01:54) And it wasn't until a nurse from the early childhood centre, she saw Ava when she was about 10 months old after seeing her earlier, and she's like, "Has your daughter still got eczema?" I was like, "What? Eczema is a genetic condition. What can I do about it?" And she knew I was a nutritionist and she's like, "Oh look." She mentioned salicylates and don't use baby teething gel because it's salicylate. Medication and salicylates are related to eczema. And I was like, it was a light bulb moment for me. I was like, "Oh wow. I know how to get rid of salicylate sensitivity because I had it when I was younger and I studied nutritional biochemistry and I worked out how to fix it from my uni studies." And I was like, so it just changed my life and started me on a journey.   Karen Fischer: (02:42) And by the time my daughter was two, I developed the eczema diet and a supplement routine for her and it cleared up her skin and I kind of, "Oh yeah, that's great." And I forgot about it. But then as a nutritionist, word got out that I treated eczema and I kept on having all these eczema patients come and see me and it grew from there. And I thought, "I don't want to specialise in eczema. I just want to specialise in skin health and beauty." But I was like, "Oh, but these people are suffering." And I was like, "No, I actually really should focus on it." So I wrote the Healthy Skin Diet first and I'm like, "I know I should be writing an eczema book, but I want to help everyone."   Karen Fischer: (03:21) I know there's acne information, acne's a very important thing to treat as well. In my first book I wanted to help everyone and then I went back to, "Okay, let's publish the eczema diet because this is what I did with my daughter." The diet for someone with eczema is totally different to a diet for somebody with acne. Acne's oily skin, eczema is very dry skin. So any dry skin condition, you are going to need a vastly different diet to someone with oily skin.   Karen Fischer: (03:53) So that was the start of my journey. And well, actually before that, I grew up with skin problems as well. I was the kind of kid that looked like I was sick all the time. And I used to joke, "I grew up on aspirin." So no one really knew [crosstalk 00:04:11] salicylate sensitivity because I had headaches every week. I was popping aspirins as a kid. So I did end up with salicylate sensitivity and that's why look, no one really talks about salicylate sensitivity, but it's the most widely researched chemical in the world because of all the problems that people had with asthma, aspirin and getting asthma attacks and being seriously ill from aspirin. So yeah, so it's a massively researched area. So when I was treating eczema, I was like, "Oh." Or there's so much scientific research on salicylates, it actually made it easier for me to design my diets.   Tahnee: (04:50) Yeah. And I mean, I remember the first time I heard about salicylates was probably from your book and then speaking to, I think it was our accountant whose son had really bad eczema and they drew it down to salicylate sensitivity being the cause. And what shocked me, I think about when I learned about them is they're in so many foods and actually a lot of foods we would consider like healthy and maybe even like the foundation of our diet for, especially if we're trying to feed our kids lots of vegetables and fruits and whole foods and that kind of stuff. Could you speak a bit to that?   Karen Fischer: (05:23) Yeah. So it looks like salicylate foods aren't unhealthy. They are definitely in healthy foods and my goal has always been to get people not being sensitive to salicylates so they have a varied diet. So yeah, I know we tend to demonise things like gluten and histamines in foods and amines in foods and salicylates in foods. And I probably did that in the early days as well going, "This is bad for eczema." But while really it's our immune systems are overreacting to a harmless substance. So that's the bottom line with any sort of food intolerance. Look, food allergies might be a little different, but with any food intolerance, such as salicylate sensitivity, histamine intolerance, even gluten intolerance in the milder sense and other food chemicals, there's glutamate such as MSG. Those are intolerances based on our immune system overreacting to stuff.   Karen Fischer: (06:24) So while with my dietary stuff, it's really important to reduce those things in the diet, to calm down your skin and get you feeling normal again, and that calms down the immune. And then you can start reintroducing those salicylate foods again, even reintroducing little bits of gluten. And it does depend on the dosage to start off with. So it's calming down the immune system by giving it a little break, a three month break from those high chemicals is often enough for people to be able to consume them again. Some people, it does take longer. Some people it takes a year or two.   Tahnee: (07:01) And I guess I'm thinking about that naturopathic concept where there's like that bucket of tolerance, I suppose, or chemical inputs into the system and the body gets to a point where it really just can't handle what's coming in anymore. And so I think what you are talking to there is that if we reduce the load on the body, it gives the body a chance to heal and repair and then it doesn't have to necessarily be a lifetime of avoiding... Because they're in mangoes and things, right? Like yummy foods.   Karen Fischer: (07:34) Yeah. So the bucket being full, that's a really good analogy because what happens is, yes, so the bucket does get full. And how that occurs is your liver is designed to deactivate salicylates and eliminate them from the body but your liver needs nutrients to do that. So your liver needs a range of B vitamins and zinc and minerals and glycine and a bunch of other proteins in order to deactivate salicylates and other chemicals and drugs such as paracetamol and so forth. The liver does all of that, but when your liver runs out of nutrients, the bucket fills up really quickly. So a nutritional approach is also really important and also calming down the nervous system is really important as well and stress, so that all helps to empty that bucket. So yeah, it's an important thing.   Karen Fischer: (08:29) Because they're our fun foods, salicylate foods, almonds, which are [crosstalk 00:08:35] as well, which can damage the gut lining. There's so many good and bad things to any health food. It's funny because people just say, "Oh avocado, coconut, almonds, the best thing for your skin." I was like, "Well, yeah, if you process them properly. Absolutely." Yeah. If your bucket's full, avocado could give someone the worst itchy night of their life and they'll be crying all night because they can't sleep and they're itching like crazy. I've had head to toe eczema myself, and I've had nights like that even while avoiding all the foods when I had an autoimmune condition for a while that made everything go crazy. I'm better now. So those things are absolutely reversible.   Karen Fischer: (09:25) And I'm really excited about that, but I know how itchy and uncomfortable it can be and I've of people email my team and just say, "Oh, I found you because I searched eczema and avocado because I've been eating a lot of avocados and I can't sleep because I'm itchy all the time." And they said, "Your website came up, your itchy dozen worst foods for eczema came up because... And I was like, oh, I've always been told to eat lots of avocado. So I was eating more and more and more and getting more [crosstalk 00:09:58]." I say one person's superfood is another person's sleepless night itching.   Tahnee: (10:07) Like a kryptonite.   Karen Fischer: (10:08) Exactly. Yeah. My daughter and I, we can eat avocado and things like that again. My daughter's a funny one. She can eat everything again, but if she has avocado every day for a week, she'll start to get itchy. So it's like having it two days a week and you're totally fine with it, but it's I just say it's not an everyday food.   Tahnee: (10:30) And in terms of that, like I mean, I guess thinking about kids coming in with eczema as tiny babies. Are you looking at the toxic load to use that sort of phrasing on their bodies? Because my understanding is their little livers don't function quite as efficiently as ours anyway. So that's-   Karen Fischer: (10:51) That's right. That's in my books, yeah.   Tahnee: (10:52) Yeah. Maybe I learned that from you, but yeah the factoring is this like, "Yes, their bodies don't process that." So is it something that if your baby's got eczema, are you looking at your diet as well? Or is it overall supplementing them to help assist their liver function? Or what are you looking at when you're dealing with babies?   Karen Fischer: (11:13) Yes. Babies are complicated.   Tahnee: (11:15) Yeah.   Karen Fischer: (11:16) There's not a lot you can do, but definitely, I mean, the first thing is look at what is going on in the home. From anything like stress within the family, babies pick up on that, if the place is dusty or carpets. So we look at the external stuff first for babies. The fabrics, if they're got a hundred percent cotton fabrics on their body, in their bedding, that's great. What you're washing their clothes with, is it a sensitive skin washing powder? So we tick all those boxes first and then we go to making sure you're not using teething gel because use the frozen kind of chew rings instead of the salicylate teething gel, because that can seriously cause eczema to bleed and some of my patients have gone, "Yeah, no. Yeah. When I gave my child teething gel, their skin started bleeding." And so it's not great for babies with eczema.   Karen Fischer: (12:23) So once we've ticked all those boxes, then we go to what the mother's eating in the diet. I don't like to tell breastfeeding mothers to take a whole bunch of things out of their diet. Just say, "Look, just avoid the itchy dozen. And once your baby's the age of one, then we can deal with things a little bit differently." But I think it's more important that because when you're breastfeeding, you're just like [crosstalk 00:12:46]-   Tahnee: (12:48) Eat whatever you need.   Karen Fischer: (12:49) [crosstalk 00:12:49]. Your baby is second priority to you, having good nutrition and getting good sleep and not having to fuss with a major diet while you are going through these big life changes with a new baby. So the eczema comes second in those cases. And look, just doing those changes is enough to reduce symptoms in a lot of cases. And having just a good skin cream as well, that's really hydrating. We've got one on my website, but just anything that's going to just lock in moisture and not make them more itchy. That's a really wonderful approach for a young baby, making sure the ingredients are okay for babies.   Karen Fischer: (13:39) A great time is when you're starting to introduce new foods for a baby. So your first foods so we have a list of babies' first foods that are lower in salicylates and lower in those natural chemicals because there is research showing that babies' livers are naturally under functioning and they don't process salicylates very well and that's aspirin research. So it's really well researched. So it's not just saying, "Oh this could be it." It's like going, "Okay, this is scientific research." So any salicylate food so don't give babies avocado first, maybe give them things like white potato is a low salicylate-   Tahnee: (14:24) Mushy pears that kind of thing.   Karen Fischer: (14:25) Yeah mushy pears. Yeah. Mushy peeled pears that's low salicylate. So just starting with the easy to digest foods for a baby, just does wonders with starting them off on the right track. And a paediatrician, not a doctor, but a paediatrician can also prescribe a really special formula if the baby's formula fed. So it might be Neocate or something, but it's something that a regular doctor can't prescribe for a baby with eczema. But yeah, that's a really great approach if someone was using formula as well.   Tahnee: (15:04) Yeah. So just back on that diet thing is an interesting thing that I came across much later after working with you when I was studying Chinese medicine and dietary therapy. So they actually recommend for babies, a clear bland diet with a lot of white foods, which is really interesting because if you look at what eczema diets typically are, and again, from having read a couple of your books, they are usually pretty bland and pretty white.   Karen Fischer: (15:33) [crosstalk 00:15:33] with white cabbage. You can have red cabbage as well [crosstalk 00:15:36].   Tahnee: (15:37) Yeah. Like the peeled potato, it's a lot of these really, like I imagine things like congee and stuff would be quite good. Things that are quite simple to digest. And we certainly didn't have that approach with my daughter. We were a bit more in that whole baby-led weaning world, but it's interesting. I think being pregnant again, I'm like, I might be a little bit more gentle this time and not be she was eating avocado and green smoothies and all sorts of crazy-   Karen Fischer: (16:05) But if she doesn't have eczema, then you don't need to worry about it. If there's no problem, you don't need to fix anything. You can be intuitive like that. An eczema baby, there is a genetic component to having eczema in the family. I don't suggest everyone has to necessarily follow that. So if the child had eczema or asthma or any signs of inflammation, then this is the approach for that type of child.   Tahnee: (16:37) Well, I remember, and this is interesting because that stuff supports lung function in Chinese medicine and spleen function, which are those two really weak organ systems in a baby according to their sort of philosophy, and I know you've spoken, I think it was in the Healthy Skin Diet, you spoke about lung function being really important to healthy skin function. So there's this interesting correlation I think, between supporting those organ systems and having minimising things like asthma and eczema and any skin dysfunction. So is that something you've seen in practise showing up?   Karen Fischer: (17:08) Yeah, absolutely. And I feel the body supports each other as a whole. I know there's a lot of diets that just focus on liver health or they just focus on gut health. And I was like, "Oh that's nice, but that's, what sometimes..." Or heart health, it's like, "Your red wine for heart health." I'm like, "Yeah, but it's not great for your liver health." Let's not forget it's a body as a whole. So absolutely, I think all those systems we can learn, take the best of all the information that helps a certain system in the body and put it together in a holistic way. It's not all about gut health, it's not all about liver health, it's like the body as a whole.   Karen Fischer: (17:54) And I think the mind is one of the biggest predictors of our health as well. What we tell ourselves every day is one of the most important things for our mental health and wellbeing. Because if we are telling ourselves, "Oh I look fat or I look this." That's an instruction, that's setting your GPS to make food decisions that will keep you that way. So we've really got to be really careful and kind with ourselves. And those thoughts will naturally pop up and you can just say, "You know what, that's not true. I'm not going to focus on that. I'm going to focus on having great health. I'm going to focus on eating for healthy skin. I'm going to focus on creating my best life." You've got to shut down the negative thinking because it's going to happen naturally, but you can't buy into it. So it's like, "Oh yeah. That's not true." You're just going to remind yourself-   Tahnee: (18:56) Not helpful, thank you. Moving right along.   Karen Fischer: (18:59) [crosstalk 00:18:59].   Tahnee: (19:00) No, it's so true. Yeah. And I mean, I had an eating disorder as a young person and it's really interesting how sitting where I am now, I can't even relate to that thinking process, but I remember that loop and I remember being like... I almost remember the day it snapped as well. And through a lot of work, it wasn't just magical, but I think it's like a spiral that you can really easily get sucked into. And I remember you addressed it in the Healthy Skin Diet. And I remember thinking, that was for me one of, [inaudible 00:19:34] you had the breathing and the mind aspect in there, which I think was really new at the time. Because a lot of people weren't talking about those factors in terms of skin health and just general wellbeing. It was the 2000s, I guess, were the start of that movement toward us really understanding that mind-body connection more collectively and I think that was really special. So thank you for bringing that into everybody's consciousness before it was a thing.   Karen Fischer: (20:03) Yeah. You remind me because that books from so long ago, but I remember people saying, "Oh, I've never thought like that." Because there's a walking meditation where you think a nice thought about a person who's walking past. You pick a good point about them whether it's something about the way they look or they look confident, they look like a nice person. Because I used to do that and I'd go, these people would smile at me, I'm going, "Oh, can they read my mind?" I got lots of comments. So I've had readers saying, "Oh, I never thought to do that, but it actually made me feel really good and really connected to people."   Karen Fischer: (20:40) And I just really wanted people to know it's just not all about food and weight and weighing yourself or denying yourself stuff. It's about eating foods that aren't harming you, whether that's for if you have a salicylate sensitivity or a gluten sensitivity or whatever, and also bringing the mind aspect into it and just that kind of self-love, it just is growing the good in you and it retrains your brain to avoiding eating disorders and avoid harming ourselves, which we do by accident. We don't mean to, but we train our brains to get into this loop of choices, which we aren't good for us.   Tahnee: (21:27) Yeah. And I think that negative or, I mean, it's easy to look for fault and negativity and what's wrong I think. And there's all the evolutionary research around why we do that and obviously our family upbringings and stuff too. I learned from a Daoist teacher, a practise called inner smile where you purposely, and at the beginning you feel like a real idiot, but you like, "Smile at my body." And over time it becomes quite, you condition yourself to look for that joy and happiness and pleasure in experiencing your body. And I think those kinds of practises are really helpful. I think if you are listening to this and that's something you're interested in, Karen's first book, which we'll link to, talks to that.   Tahnee: (22:12) You also speak to, from memory, acne and rosacea and psoriasis and ageing and all sorts of stuff in that book. So that was definitely a more general piece of work. And I remember it has all the programmes and protocols and I mean, I've looked at it when I had my daughter. She didn't, she actually, so we didn't have eczema early. She didn't have anything until she started probably when she was two, she first got eczema and it was because I was giving her heaps of coconut milk, almond milk and avocado. And I was sort of like, "What the hell was going on?" Because she'd had perfect skin before that. And I'd had sensitivity to preservatives as a kid, like fruit juices and stuff. So I knew that there was something in our family that was a bit like that. And we just took that out for a few months and she was fine after, now she can have all those things like you say, we don't overdo it.   Tahnee: (23:13) It was really interesting to me picking that book up again and it was really helpful to have a look at even that small programme on eczema you have there, but you've gone on to write the complete eczema diet and you've got your new book as well, Healthy Skin Kitchen. Is The Healthy Skin Kitchen again, aimed at a more general kind of audience or is it still specifically for-   Karen Fischer: (23:37) [crosstalk 00:23:37].   Tahnee: (23:37) Yeah. Okay. Can you tell us a bit about that then?   Karen Fischer: (23:38) Yeah. So that's really the accumulation of 20 years working as a nutritionist, specialising on skin health and eczema, because there was just so much new information. So I've covered vagus nerve wellness and some really great research on that and your microbiome and all the research that's on that. Because it's just the research side's really fascinating. So with The Healthy Skin Kitchen so I do mention the different diets for things like acne. So you can look up your skin disorder and you can see what supplements you need. For example, with acne things like flaxseed oil and chia seeds and things like that, wonderful, everyone writes about how they're great for skin, but for some with acne, who's already got oily skin that is going to make you break out like you're a teenager again. So it's little things like that.   Karen Fischer: (24:36) With acne, the only oil you should ever use really is the olive oil or extra virgin olive oil because it's not going to change your skin oiliness. So researchers who have done flax seed oil research shows how after using it for six to 12 weeks, it's increased your skin hydration and the oil content in your skin and their placebo they use is olive oil because it doesn't change your skin oiliness. That's kind of a scientific factor. If you've got oily these skin, it's just the olive oil or extra virgin olive oil.   Karen Fischer: (25:06) For someone say that has psoriasis, their diet is probably closer to the eczema diet. But one big thing with psoriasis is calcium deficiency because calcium is needed for your skin cells to differentiate so for your skin cells to exfoliate and shed in a normal way. So with psoriasis, your skin cells are turning over crazy amounts and you're getting really flaky, but with all my psoriasis patients and I've had it as well, you need calcium and magnesium in equal amounts. We've got a product specifically for that. Because too much calcium without magnesium's not good for you. You really need equal amounts of magnesium when you're doing a supplement form. And that will just really quickly decrease the psoriasis and make the skin cells not turn over as quickly, just to turn over at a normal rate. So it's just little things like that in The Healthy Skin Kitchen, just to help break it down very specific for specific skin disorders and the prescriptions that I've prescribed over the last 20 years, just so people aren't doing just a blanket, healthy skin programme that's designed for everyone because really different people-   Tahnee: (26:23) You've got to drill down really on what you need, yeah.   Karen Fischer: (26:27) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.   Tahnee: (26:28) And I mean, if there's, because I know with psoriasis and probably a lot of these things and you mentioned the immune system at the start, that autoimmune factor, it was one of the things that my husband and I first talked about when we met. He said to me like, "You've got to understand, of course autoimmune is serious, but there has to be ways to sort of start to work with it and heal it because why would your body want to attack itself?" And I'd been to doctors and naturopaths that had just kept me on protocols and routines forever, but never really... I wasn't necessarily getting anywhere. I was just staying in this homeostasis place. And that for me was a really big mindset shift, which also then led to me exploring things like medicinal mushrooms and things which changed, I think, how my immune system functions, because I can tolerate things I could never tolerate before. I wonder what your experience with that is and how that relates to skin, because I mean it's something that I hear all the time in our business, people coming to us with autoimmune.   Karen Fischer: (27:29) Yeah. And it's such an important topic to talk about because having an autoimmune condition is just awful. It really changes the way that you interact with society. I know when I had it, so I had mast cell activation syndrome so I became allergic to cold weather. So I'm on the Gold Coast and when the Gold Coast got cold, I was covered head to toe in eczema and I'd get hives if I had a [crosstalk 00:27:57]. I tried the Wim Hof Method and I'm like-   Tahnee: (27:57) Don't do that.   Karen Fischer: (28:00) [crosstalk 00:28:00] all over my body. So with me, my autoimmune condition, it was just, and I actually I'm saying that I really don't talk about it anymore. Because just talking about it can make my skin itch. So a big thing with autoimmune is not to make it who you are, not to talk, talk about it yet when you need to, but try not to all the time or make it an excuse for not being able to do things, even if-   Tahnee: (28:29) Yeah, that identifying with it sort of-   Karen Fischer: (28:32) Yeah. I couldn't eat out with my friends, but in the end I'll just say, "Oh, I'm just busy or I can't." Rather than going, "Oh I can't eat." And now I can, I can go out with my friends and I order whatever I want and that's great. But so with autoimmune, the biggest thing I found was reducing stress or changing the way you process stress. So that's the a lot of calming activities, a lot of self-love because yeah, I always look at what's the body trying to tell you. If the immune system's attacking you or you're attacking yourself, like an auto way, how am I attacking myself? How am I attacking others? Am I being self critical? Am I being critical of others?   Karen Fischer: (29:20) I think it's changing, with the brain you're training, it's changing pathways of the past. It's the way of accepting people, accepting myself. So a lot, lot, lot of self-love, breathing techniques is important. Meditation is important. I know you guys do all of that. Someone with an autoimmune condition it's really about going within and finding what works for you. I'm actually developing a programme on how I reverse my autoimmune condition, which I'll bring it out next year. So I've got The Healthy Skin Kitchen membership and at the moment, so that's the membership that helps people to follow my diet programmes, the food intolerance diagnosis programme from the Eczema Detox so that's going to be in there. We teach people how to diagnose their food intolerances and then how to expand their diet.   Karen Fischer: (30:19) But then I've got another programme which helped me to reverse my autoimmune condition. So about calming down the nervous system and the steps and brain retraining and the steps on how to do that. Because I tried brain retraining and it didn't quite work for me so I had to flip it and do the opposite of it using partly what I learned from brain retraining. But I had to change it to suit my autoimmune condition. And I just want to share that with everyone. So I will bring that out in mid 2022, it's going to take me quite a while to do all the videos and stuff. But yeah, so autoimmune very much self-love and getting back to nature. I grow fruit trees and veggie patch, I've got 20 fruit trees in my backyard, my soil [crosstalk 00:31:09]. I'm very much in the dirt trying to get my sand to be real dirt.   Tahnee: (31:17) Coastal problems. Yeah.   Karen Fischer: (31:18) First world problems.   Tahnee: (31:22) They're good problems to have.   Karen Fischer: (31:25) Yeah. Autoimmune, yeah. And it's also important for people with autoimmune to just listen to themselves and go within, because everyone's slightly different. We have our different triggers and our different reasons for having it as well.   Tahnee: (31:42) Yeah. I really relate to that piece on attacking yourself and that shows up in your thought processes and how you... And it for me, it was around there was the eating disorder that was sort of an extreme expression of it, but the autoimmune was almost like my secret continuation of that same process if you know what I mean? And so it took a little while to really understand that. And yeah, for me, things like Yin Yoga and Yoga Nidra and meditation and the Daoist practises and stuff I learned, they all contributed to healing. But yeah, it does, I mean, I would say it took 10 years for me to really be okay and probably still have to manage things.   Karen Fischer: (32:26) [crosstalk 00:32:26].   Tahnee: (32:27) Yeah.   Karen Fischer: (32:28) We're told it's a life sentence kind of thing. We're not told, "Hey, you can reverse that." I think us talking about it today, going to people, "Hey, you can reverse that." I think that's an important conversation to have. Because I went out to dinner with a couple of friends the other night and one she's just recovered from this terrible arthritis that was all over her body and she's only in her forties and another one she's just got it because of the pandemic. It came on because then she was in lockdowns in Melbourne and she had terrible crippling after arthritis in her hands. And I was like, "Oh, hey, you can reverse that. It's a lot of self care and it's a lot of not being so driven and relaxing a little bit." She goes, "Oh no, I'm very driven. I'm not going to stop that." I was like, "I'm there with your, sister. I'm very driven too, but I had to put my health first."   Tahnee: (33:19) Yeah, it's a type A kind of a thing, isn't it? And look, I think if you look at, and that was something I wanted to touch on quickly with the piece about salicylates and the liver as well, it's like you're looking at this inflammation, this inflammatory load, and if you look at what these autoimmune conditions are all the time they're associated with really high inflammation and stress on organs like the liver and dysbiosis in the gut and things. But again, from that whole systems approach, it's like you don't need to then go and attack the liver with detox chemicals or like it's really more about how do you bring everything into harmony so that the system can harmonise. And like you're saying, reducing stress, reducing the goals in one's life, they're all really important parts of it.   Tahnee: (34:03) And I've noticed it with my daughter. I keep her home from school and you can just see when she's starting to fall onto that side of things and getting stressed and she'll... I don't know, this is something you start to see in kids and that she's been a really good mirror for me where I've been able to see her start to fall into a behavioural change or something where I go, "Okay, she's hitting stress and I'm actually reflecting. I'm really busy. I'm stressed. We all need to take it down a notch today." And if you can get onto it early, it really helps I think and so that stuff-   Karen Fischer: (34:35) Yeah. That's great. And just noticing and identifying that, that's really important in children as well, so very, very important. Because it's like modern life, we just have all these goals and are really, really driven and that can... And the funny thing is, is when I had the autoimmune condition and before it, because I think I've... I never knew that my body was so tense and then I was so, I mean maybe even anxious for it. I just thought I used to be shy as a child, but I was probably riddled with anxiety and it's only just come out in my forties, the autoimmune stuff. And once I learned to calm myself down and relax my body, I was like, "Oh wow."   Karen Fischer: (35:24) And when I do start to feel my body getting tense again or feeling tense again, I was like, "Oh yeah, that's not normal so now I need to do something." So I always feel like I could be on the brink of tipping back, but then I notice it and I just do something to tip me back the other way. And it's so simple when you identify it, it's like people that are tired all the time and need coffee all the time. Once they detox off coffee and go back to eating well, they're like, "Oh wow. I feel amazing. I never knew I could feel this good. I just thought feeling bad was feeling normal." So it's identifying stress and seeing in our children and in ourselves when we start to tip over into that stressy kind of mode because yeah, it's not healthy for our skin, it's not healthy for [crosstalk 00:36:15]-   Tahnee: (36:16) No. And yeah, what you're saying that course correct. One of my teachers used to teach this. I can't remember which one right now. But if the pendulum is swinging in extremes, then you're going to have extreme symptoms. But if you can get your pendulum to swing in like a smaller range, then you'll notice, "I'm getting tense or getting run down, course correct, rest." And then you can kind of start to navigate in a more graceful way, I suppose, without as many extreme symptoms and needing to have those... I used to need a week in bed to recover from my life and now it's like I have a day off with my daughter and we hang out and play in the garden. We're evolving, look at us let's go. And getting there.   Tahnee: (37:04) I wanted to bring it back to rosacea because this is not an area I'm super familiar with. Again, I'm aware that there's a bit of a liver correlation there and I don't know what your research has brought up around the MTHFR, is that how you say it? That sort of process, but a lot of the people I've spoken to with rosacea tend to seem to have that genetic variant. I wonder if you could speak to that and rosacea in general, what you know about that.   Karen Fischer: (37:32) Yeah, absolutely. So look with rosacea. So rosacea for anyone who doesn't know, it's kind of when your skin goes all red and you can end up with this a bulbous nose, if you have rosacea really badly for a long period of time. So you want to kind of reverse it before your nose starts to grow. So what rosacea, what your body is kind of telling you with rosacea... So blood is having trouble getting to your skin surface. So what's happening is the blood cells are opening extra wide to let the blood into the skin surface. And that's giving you this red appearance because all your blood vessels are vasodilated and staying open. If you kind of analyse that, you go, "Okay, well, how do I naturally get blood to the surface of my skin without this vasodilation needing to happen?"   Karen Fischer: (38:27) So exercise is one massive thing for people with rosacea. I had it very mildly, many years ago. I lived a sedentary lifestyle, not much of an exercise back then and whenever I exercised it went away. So it really is a matter of how do I get really great blood circulation to my skin without... And that's, first of all, exercise. Vitamin deficiencies are important to correct as well. And so rosacea is also, so drinking alcohol is a big issue with that. So histamine, so it's a histamine response. So people with rosacea, I find if we take them off amines, sometimes they need to reduce their salicylates as well ,that gives them relief really, really quickly. And then they get their body healthier so then they don't react to those things down the tracks.   Karen Fischer: (39:22) But getting onto it early is better before because the vasodilation changes can become permanent. So, but they don't need to be so that's really important. So the MTHFR that kind of gene variant, so look those genes can be switched on and off so that if you're really working on stress management, relaxation... And I know that some of their treatments, they use really high methylated B vitamins, which I disagree with very high of anything can have side effects and they talk about all the side effects. So I do really low doses, if you need the methylated version of B vitamins, but in super low doses. Our bodies don't need a lot to function properly, but they need everything in balanced amounts or else you'll end up deficient in something else. So too much of one B vitamin will cause a deficiency in the others.   Karen Fischer: (40:25) Magnesium's really, really important. So if you are deficient in magnesium and taking these methylated B vitamins, you're going to react to the methylated B vitamins. So magnesium's a really, really, really important nutrient, helps us to get calcium into the correct places in our bones or else calcium just floats around in our bloodstream. It helps with our liver to deactivate chemicals. So when our body's functioning properly, when our liver and our gut's functioning properly, we don't have these gene issues. So definitely methylated B vitamins, but low doses, more magnesium, less B vitamins would be my kind of prescription for anyone with those kind of issues. Yeah, less is more.   Tahnee: (41:14) And that epigenetic piece, I guess, is super important because that's, I think for me as well, I think I've technically been diagnosed with celiac disease, but I can tolerate gluten now. I'm going to have to be careful with dosage. I can't go and eat it for a month, every day, like it wouldn't do me any favours, but I can have it a couple of times a week without dramas. And that I believe is sort of pushing me into that space of like, "If I maintain my stress levels, if I tend to myself in other ways, then that sort of aspect of my diet needs to be less controlled." And I think that's probably that overarching theme of what we've been talking about in terms of autoimmune, in terms of all of these things, it's like, there's the environmental factor, there's the personal, and then there's the things like diet and supplements and stuff as well. It's never just one, I wish, just one piece of the puzzle. There's lots of things obviously that can be done.   Tahnee: (42:12) And I saw your product, the Skin Friend product, there's like an AM and a PM. I did notice you had magnesium in there. Do you want to talk a little bit about what the intention with that product is? Is it mostly for eczema or is it...   Karen Fischer: (42:25) Yeah, absolutely. So the Skin Friend AM, so that's like your morning multivitamin, because it's really important that we just aren't deficient in things so that I actually initially designed that for people with salicylate sensitivity and eczema, but then people with acne just said, "Oh, it got rid of my acne as well." The AM is a liver helper. So that's just giving your liver what it needs to deactivate chemicals. So it's like when your bucket gets full, I thought I needed to have something to, because it wasn't available for me to prescribe to my patients. So I designed this for my daughter initially and then one of my patients said, "Why don't you give me the supplement you gave to your daughter?" So that came from that. It's just the liver nutrients that helps your liver to deactivate all the chemicals. We can't avoid chemicals and pollution and pesticides or whatever. We breathe them in, we ingest them accidentally or on purpose. So it's better to focus on giving our liver whatever it needs to cope with all the chemicals, without the bucket getting full. And so-   Tahnee: (43:37) And like is said, a lot of the, I was just going to quickly say, a lot of the chemicals are healthy chemicals. Things like salicylates and histamines and amines aren't necessarily bad for us, but if we can process or digest them. Yeah. So moving on to PM-   Karen Fischer: (43:51) All those chemicals are in healthy foods. So yes, and the liver's job is to deactivate them. So we just want to help the liver so it's not working so hard. And now the PM, so that's got the calcium, magnesium and glycine. So a lot of [inaudible 00:44:14] people with eczema and psoriasis and skin inflammation, they're actually deficient in calcium and magnesium. But so more so calcium, they're getting it in their diet, but if they're deficient in magnesium, they're not absorbing their calcium. So everyone recommends calcium and vitamin D but it's not the whole story. So research shows that your calcium will stay floating around in your blood and not get into your bones where it's meant to be if you don't have enough magnesium. And taking calcium on its own can even be harmful because, because it needs so much magnesium to be processed properly, it will make you deficient in magnesium. So there's another 300 enzyme reactions in our body will miss out on work, it won't work properly because calcium's-   Tahnee: (45:05) Dominating.   Karen Fischer: (45:07) Dominated your, made you deficient in it. So this product's evolved over the years. So it's got equal amounts of calcium and magnesium. So it's a really safe product and it really helps with sleep. People just say, "Oh, one night have taken that and I started sleeping better." Because people with eczema, as you might know, they just get really itchy in the middle of the night. It's like, I don't know, you just wake up itchy all over. So it just helped to maybe knock those people out a little bit and it just, magnesium calms the nervous system. It's muscle relaxants. And calcium blocks the absorption of zinc. So it needed to be away from the AM ingredients as well so that's really important the way a supplement's designed to not block the absorption of other nutrients.   Tahnee: (46:07) And glycine, can you speak about that a little bit, because I feel like you mention in The Healthy Skin Diet and probably in The Eczema Diet.   Karen Fischer: (46:18) Yeah, absolutely. So glycine's a component of collagen in your skin. So it's a really important one. People talk about taking collagen supplements. So glycine is a component of collagen and I feel glycine works better than collagen supplements. I've taken a collagen supplement and they say, "Oh, it takes 18 months to show results." I don't know if that's true or not. I think maybe some are better than others and probably some would do better results, but glycine's a component. So I find that taking glycine separately can really help and it helps the liver deactivate chemicals as well. So that was just another way... It does need magnesium and B vitamins and your vitamin C as well. So it's not just all about glycine, but yeah, really, really helpful for people with food chemical intolerance.   Tahnee: (47:08) And I guess I'm hearing, as a bit of a side effect, it's going to have some of those benefits of collagen that maybe people who are looking for anti-ageing and stuff are going to have some better collagen structure in the body, in the fascia and that kind of thing is that...   Karen Fischer: (47:20) Yeah. So yeah, collagen is super important with skin elasticity as well with avoiding things like stretch marks. So yeah, so making sure you've got your collagen nutrients, that's really great. Whereas if you're taking a collagen supplement, that's naturally high in histamine, so that's not really suitable for someone say with eczema or skin inflammation.   Tahnee: (47:41) Yeah. And that was something I thought was interesting I think in The Healthy Skin Diet, you spoke to how sometimes things like bone broths and things which everyone on the internet likes to say are amazing for skin health, but not necessarily. Could you speak a little bit about that?   Karen Fischer: (47:57) Yeah, absolutely. And I do have a bone broth recipe in The Healthy Skin Diet and-   Tahnee: (48:01) You do, it's a good one. I think I still make it.   Karen Fischer: (48:06) Yes. But for someone with eczema who also has amine intolerance or someone with histamine intolerance then that's what going to make them itch like crazy. So 35% of eczema sufferers are sensitive to amines and histamines so only 35% of them can't have a bone broth. And on saying that, a homemade bone broth that's say lower in salicylates is probably a better option for them.   Tahnee: (48:29) Yeah, because storing it actually increases, is this-   Karen Fischer: (48:33) The amines.   Tahnee: (48:34) The leftovers? Yeah.   Karen Fischer: (48:36) Absolutely. Yeah. So leftover meats develop amines the next day, that's why they get all yummier the next day. [crosstalk 00:48:43] and bone broths get more flavoursome the next day as well. So amines is a flavour enhancer.   Tahnee: (48:52) Yeah. Okay. So if you're intolerant to those, then you're going to find those yummy next day foods not so good for you.   Karen Fischer: (48:58) Yeah. And we probably should say how to find out if you're intolerant to it because so it's doing a special elimination diet. So we call it the FID programme, it's the Food Intolerance Diagnosis programme. So it's temporarily taking those foods out of your diet and we just have set recipes that make it really yummy for people. So it's not just a eating rice and bean kind of diet. It's come a long way since the 1970s, we have a trendy, fabulous recipes and smoothie bowls and whatever you see online, we have a low salicylate version of it. We've got out [inaudible 00:49:39] flat breads and just some really nice gluten-free wraps or whatever so people don't miss out on a single thing.   Tahnee: (49:49) Yeah. Is that part of your online membership as well as the book?   Karen Fischer: (49:53) Yes.   Tahnee: (49:53) Yeah. Okay.   Karen Fischer: (49:55) Yeah. The Healthy Skin Kitchen membership. I've got the healthy skin kitchen book, which has lots of great recipes. My wonderful publisher, Exisle Publishing, I had 90 recipes and they went, "Oh, we can only fit in 50." So the other ones have gone in the online programme plus we do free recipe every week and we have a support network, a forum where you can chat with everyone else who's on the programmes and you can see all the videos explaining the programmes and how to diagnose your food intolerances. I find that diagnosing it rather than just taking everything out of your diet and not testing it, is really important to diagnose it, put everything back in and see how you react because you don't want to be avoiding something you actually don't need to avoid. And the diagnosis program's a temporary programme so you expanded diet after that.   Tahnee: (50:51) I'm curious as to your thoughts on those IG, I'm going to probably get this wrong IG protein allergy tests. Do you know what I'm talking about?   Karen Fischer: (51:00) Yeah.   Tahnee: (51:00) Am I making sense? Yes. Because it's really interesting you say that. I did a lot of elimination diets in the early days trying to work out what was going on before I knew the gluten factor and that was useful because I sort of isolated gluten as being a problem. But then I went and saw a naturopath probably, I don't know, a year or two later and she told me I was allergic to like the whole world through one of those IG panels. And I was like, "God how am I going to function?" Because it was everything. It was eggs, I was vegetarian at the time, but it was chicken. It was heaps of different fruits. I mean, I literally remember it being broccoli. Like it was so many things and I remember thinking, "God, I'm basically going to be eating, like you're saying, rice and beans for the rest of my life."   Karen Fischer: (51:44) Yeah.   Tahnee: (51:46) But I turned out to not really be relevant to me. I've ended up being able to eat all those. I ate everything now without exception, except for McDonald's but yeah. It's like, I don't eat crap, but yeah. If I'd gone off of that, I would've lived my life rather miserably. My understanding now is that that tests where you're at, which is you're in a highly inflammatory reactive state and you're reacting to things, but it's not necessarily a end of the world life sentence that you're stuck with that.   Karen Fischer: (52:18) Yeah, absolutely. So that type of allergy testing is probably the one that doctors don't believe in, but the one that the doctors do believe in the IgE testing, it has its limitations as well because they tested the same amount of people say with an egg allergy, they did a skin prick test and they also did a blood, another test, which was a patch test that had a immediate response and a delayed response. And they got completely different results. 60% of people react to the skin prick test and with the patch test, not a lot of people reacted, but then later like hours later, the patch test 82% of people reacted. So it's amazing. Every test kind of has different things. So 25, 20 or so percent of people who had an egg allergy wouldn't have been diagnosed if they'd just done say a skin prick test.   Karen Fischer: (53:20) So I take any test with a grain of salt and you let your body tell you what you're reacting to. That's why I love food elimination diets. Like say, if people follow the FID programme, they take the foods out and go, "Oh wow, I don't have to take antihistamine medications anymore. I'm not itchy anymore. Oh my skin's starting to clear up." Then you know you're on the right track. But if you do the IGG test or whatever it's called and you take all those foods out of the diet and go, "Oh, I'm all better. Oh, that really worked for me. I feel different. Or hey, my symptoms are starting to reduce." Then you know you're on the right track. But if you take all the foods out of your diet and you go, "I'm no different or I'm a little worse." Then further investigation is required.   Karen Fischer: (54:08) Because I know that people with eczema, they take dairy out of the diet, they take gluten out of the diet or take wheat out of the diet or egg and they go, "Oh yeah, that helped a tiny bit or that didn't really help much at all. Diet might not be the issue. Diet's not the issue because that didn't work for me." So it was just relying on allergy testing is not usually enough. I find that if we're eating the same foods every day, we'll never know what we're reacting to. So it's rotating your diet. For one week of totally avoid grains, full stop, next week, add them in, but don't have same grains every week, every day. Don't have the same smoothie every day. Don't have the coffee every day.   Karen Fischer: (54:52) That's how I knew I reacted to caffeine because I would have a coffee or tea once a month and I'd feel achy on that day or the day after and I'd go, "Oh, that's the caffeine or that's the coffee." Or else I'd probably be achy and arthritic every day and not know. And if I was having coffee and red wine, because those are the two things that made me go, "Ooh, that doesn't feel so good. So it's our same, same diets. In traditional diets when you eat seasonally, your diets change with the season and that's how you'd notice more what you're reacting to. But we have the same foods available every day. And that's a problem with diagnosing food intolerances because we're the same.   Tahnee: (55:37) And so you've mentioned a couple of times that these, like say you do do a food elimination diet and you end up, "Okay, amines are a problem for me, but that isn't a life sentence." When would someone feel confident to start experimenting with bringing those things back in? I believe you talk about this in The Eczema Diet book, because I think it's the FID diet's written up in that. Yeah. Could you speak a little bit to that as well? How do you know when it's okay to start experimenting?   Karen Fischer: (56:06) Well, I feel like as soon as your symptoms totally get better or partially get better, that's the time to reintroduce and I say, look, reintroduce just... You've just got to maybe once a month, just test stuff. I like to, if I go to a cafe go, "Oh, I feel like eating this today."   Tahnee: (56:26) It's experiment day.   Karen Fischer: (56:31) [crosstalk 00:56:31]. Exactly. So I will generally do it when I'm out with friends and I just want to eat something. But I say, if you're really stressed, if you're having a bad day, if you're really stressed, if you're under pressure, that's not a good time to test foods. But if you're really relaxed, if you're laughing with your friends, that's a really great time to try something and just try small amounts because you want to win. So with the initial testing phase, you eat big amounts of stuff to see if you get results. And I'm in two minds about doing that, because I'm like, "Well you want to win." So I know that for me, if I drink a glass of soy milk, I react to it. But if there's a little bit of soy hidden in foods, I'm fine. So I'm like, "I'm not sensitive to soy." Because with your mind stuff, you shouldn't go, "Yeah, I can't have this, this and this." So I'm like, "I'm not sensitive to soy when it's in sensible amounts."It's about testing at the right times when you feel happy and when you're laughing.   Karen Fischer: (57:40) Some brain retraining techniques involve eating while laughing and smiling while cooking and things like that. It's about not going, "Oh my God. Okay. I'm going to try this and I might react. Okay. I'll notice and if I'm looking for a reaction, I'm going to eat it and look for a reaction." Don't do that. Just don't do that, go, "You know what, I feel great." Visualise eating it maybe for a couple of days beforehand, be really happy and relaxed. So you want to win so you want to do it in low amounts when you're happy.   Tahnee: (58:15) This reminds me a lot of that holiday phenomenon where people can go to Italy and suddenly eat pasta three times a day and not die, but they come home and they can't eat anything. So much of it is how we are when we're digesting and how we...   Tahnee: (58:31) I actually had an experience that is really indicative of this. I didn't eat dairy for probably close to 10 years and then I was at work really stressed, really busy and decided to have a banana smoothie and it came out of me in about two seconds. It was a milk banana smoothie and it was the same thing, it was a whole whatever, half a litre of milk or something, whatever it was, a cafe sized banana smoothie. I was hyper stressed. I hadn't eaten in, I don't know, probably close to 12 hours because I was at work and busy and drinking coffee all morning and then I hadn't had dairy in 10 years. My body's just going like, "What is this?" And then over time I started to creep it in slowly and now I can have it, no problem. So yeah, it's very same thing.   Karen Fischer: (59:17) That's a good example, a really great example. Yes. It's [crosstalk 00:59:21] and it's gradual and sneaking it into the body. It's like, "Oh, look at that nice flower. Look at this. Oh, beautiful sky today." And it's [crosstalk 00:59:32]. It's all about not making a big deal about it as well and being in a good place.   Tahnee: (59:37) Yeah, well that's, I think that mindset thing and I was going to touch on quickly with teenagers because I know you've had two, or you've got one and you've had one, and acne because it's such a common phenomenon in young people and I'm just curious as to your advice to parents who might be listening, how to navigate that time obviously there's the hormonal factors, teenagers don't usually want to eat particularly healthily. It's all the stress of being a teenager.   Karen Fischer: (01:00:12) [crosstalk 01:00:12].   Tahnee: (01:00:12) Yeah. I'm just curious about that because I'm still 10 years away from that, but I'm interested in what you think, how we can navigate that.   Karen Fischer: (01:00:22) [crosstalk 01:00:22] primarily for that.   Tahnee: (01:00:24) Getting organised.   Karen Fischer: (01:00:25) Well, teenagers and adults in traditional societies that don't eat the crap that we eat, they don't get acne. And that really does sum it up. And there's research showing four year olds are getting acne, which is ridiculous.And I know that whenever-   Tahnee: (01:00:41) Wow, okay.   Karen Fischer: (01:00:43) Yeah. And I mean, look, my kids don't eat a perfect diet. They do most of the time, but when it's holidays and I just want to spoil my son or he steals, we only have chocolate in the fridge over the holidays and he... I spoil him a bit and I actually [crosstalk 01:00:58] chocolate. And I know if he eats a whole block of chocolate, he'll have a little spot the next day and I'm like chocolate is a big one because of all the fats in it as well. So things in moderation. And teenagers, they're away from home, they are eating a lot of crappy foods and they're really stressed.   Karen Fischer: (01:01:16) So look, I do a lot of marketing health food to kids and with teenagers, you just appeal to their vanity. It's like mention that, "Oh yeah, these are the pimple foods and these are the healthy skin foods." It's like, "Yeah, chocolates a pimple food so maybe just have it only one day a week and hey, why don't you have this instead? Why don't you make yourself this oat milk smoothie, we'll put some cacao in it or we'll put some berries in it as well, maybe we'll make a blueberry and smoothie instead. And that can be your sweet treat instead of chocolate." So it really, really is diet related, really is stress related as well.   Karen Fischer: (01:02:02) I know with my kids, I took the pressure off them achieving well at school. I know that my son went to this high pressure school that gets you ready for high school two years before high school and he couldn't cope with it. And he was anxious and he was vomiting in the morning and all stressed out. And I just, I could not get him out from under the bed to go to school some days. It was actually really stressful for me. And it was an awful, awful time and I just went, "You know what, I'm never going to pressure him to, because he's an anxious type, I'm never going to pressure him to do well at school." I was like, "I just want him to not hide under the bed and to not be so nervous in the tummy that he's vomiting." So I mean, he doesn't do that anymore. He's totally fine, loves school. I'm like as long as he does his homework, great, but I don't care if he's smart or not smart or...   Karen Fischer: (01:02:56) It's like with my daughter, I was like... We got tutoring for her because she wasn't very smart. And I didn't pressure her to do well in high school, but she ended up getting amazing grades and got into the top architectural university in Sydney, Sydney Uni [crosstalk 01:03:12] end up doing it, because she chose something else. But I was like, that was self motivation. And gosh, she was a nightmare that one in year 12 because she was so motivated, she was crying. And I was like, "Oh." Kids are under so much pressure to do well. So I, for me, mental wellbeing is top of the list for teenagers and children, teaching them how to love themself and care about themself and to have goals, but to not work themselves up into this crazy state as well. And I guess that's just long term chatting with your kids because I know my parents never chatted to me about that stuff.   Karen Fischer: (01:03:55) I was a really anxious teenager and I cut a fringe to cover the pimples on my forehead in high school because I was this super stressed out teenager. So yeah, don't be like my parents talk to your kid, talk to them about stuff. It's like, I would've loved to have been taught how to put on makeup when I was a teenager. So I could hide all the horrible bits. And I think that would've helped me to cope better, just talking about stuff and asking, "How are you going at school?" A kid will always go, "Yeah, fine." I mean, I did that and my son does that and I'm like. It's kind of maybe play video games with them because that's probably when they're going to open up about stuff, do something they love, sit side by side-   Tahnee: (01:04:41) Like get on their level, yeah.   Karen Fischer: (01:04:43) Get on their level, talk to them because they could be really stressed out on the inside and we need to know as parents because just if they can confide in you that instantly calms their nervous system and helps them to calm down is that connection of, "Wow. My mom really or my dad really knows me. I know I can tell them anything if I get into trouble, if I get stuck out in the middle or in the middle of the night, I can call and go, hey, can you pick me up?" But yeah, so-   Tahnee: (01:05:13) God bless parents.   Karen Fische

If you thought the Culture War was a recent invention, you'd be wrong. Investigative mischief-maker JON RONSON joins us to explain how its roots run a lot deeper than you might think – as he learned from making his new podcast series Things Fell Apart. Plus, are progressive politics finally turning the corner? The Guardian's RAFAEL BEHR on the difference between where Starmer is and where he needs to be. And what will the NEXT Culture War be about?  • “If you fill your head with ideology then there is no room for curiosity.” – JON RONSON • “The Government only has two approaches: total lockdown or Plague Party.” – NAOMI SMITH • “There is no Blairism left in the Labour Party. But there is anti-Corbynism.” – RAF BEHR • “Every generation wants to solve the problems of the previous one.” – JON RONSON • “Brexit was sold on controlling the borders – but you can't do that if you only control one side of the border.” – RAF BEHR Listen to Jon Ronson's Things Fell Apart: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m0011cpr Back us at www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Ros Taylor with Naomi Smith. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. Theme music by Cornershop. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Intro: Boz deserves a seat at the table, life coaches, let's be directLet Me Run This By You: Gina versus plots - is it just ADD? Interview: We talk to Kate Dugan about living in Morocco, her playwriting program,  Sandy Shinner, Victory Gardens, shooting yourself in the foot, being ready or not to take advantage of opportunities, Outliers, regret, Sandra Delgado, the Bad Boyfriend years, Austin Film Festival, Ola Rotimi, Actor's Training Center, Meisner, Erica Daniels, Bikram yogaFULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited): 1 (8s):And Jen Bosworth from me this and I'm Gina Polizzi. We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? Not a whole hell of a lot. I mean, I'm, I feel I'm right. I just real, really excited to like level up my, my work life game. Like, it doesn't even mean that I, it just means that, like, I actually feel like an adult, like I just feel at 47 right now.1 (55s):I'm 47. I feel at 47. Like I'm ready. Oh girl. Wait, am I 40? No, I had a birthday. October four. Yeah. You turned 40 you're you're you're desperate to be older apparently. Oh, I've been telling people 47. Okay. So what year were you born? 75, but I'm terrible at math for 46 years. Okay. So what was I saying about being the wrong age? Oh, I just feel like at 46, right? That's my age at 46. I am finally ready to get a job, like, okay. I need a writing job, like a, B a real job, a real job of like, of like, I feel like I finally deserve, I just, I'm starting to feel like I finally deserve a seat at the table.1 (1m 47s):I love that. Yeah, I definitely do. Yeah. I mean, I just do deserve it, but like the world needs for you to have that seat at the table. Thank you. And I finally feel like that is a possibility, you know, it's interesting. And I was going to ask you about this. So there are all these Clem coaches in Los Angeles. Oh, that's funny. I was going to ask you if something about coaches, but go ahead. Okay, great. So, so God bless him and I can just see everyone is really trying to earn a living, right? So like, everyone I meet is trying to help. I know a lot of hustlers, right?1 (2m 28s):So coaches now have this language. It's fantastic. First time a coach uses language with me. I thought it was so cool. And I was so special. They all fucking use this language. Good ones, bad ones, whatever. Okay. So they get to the part. I had a free introductory session with a woman who was wonderful, nothing wrong with her. I'm talking about specific coaching language around payment and charging people talking about the fee. Okay. So therapists my in my, you know, the way it was, well, I also worked for a social service agency. So I could like just people please, my way out of it and say, well, the agency charges this, you know, all of this. Okay.1 (3m 8s):But for all the people I've seen as therapists, they're pretty straightforward. They're like, my fee is 180 an hour. This is how much your copay would. I looked up your insurance, whatever coaches have a whole nother situation where they say things like, I don't usually do this. This is what they say more than one coach say this to me. I don't usually do this, but I'm going to do something I don't normally do, which is I'm gonna let you set your fee. How much is this worth to you?2 (3m 36s):Oh God. Oh fuck you. What kind1 (3m 39s):Of invest?2 (3m 40s):$7 and 50 cents.1 (3m 42s):What kind of investment are you willing to make in your future? Whatever, whatever they get. And then2 (3m 51s):If you low ball it, it's like, well, I guess you're not recommend it to your future,1 (3m 54s):Right. Or, and you must not value. You must not yet. Right? You must not think that you're abundant enough to bring it the way. So the first time someone said this to me, I was like, this is brilliant. Like I totally, and I bought in and I was like, and I, and, and I didn't know. I was like, okay, you know, $80 a session. And then she later, and then we did that for a while later, she told me that she charges like $2,000 for, oh my God. Like a packet. And I was like, what? Okay, so right. Okay. This person did not do this the other day. I had a free introductory session. And she said that, you know, when she's a woman of color and I really adore her, but it was the same language.1 (4m 38s):And it's not, it's what they're trained to say. And so I just am, so I was so naive. I thought this was like such a cool thing. And now I'm like, wait, everyone's using the same thing, which is, I'm going to let you set your fee to tell me how much you are invested in yourself. And I'm like, wait, that's manipulative. Just set your fucking fee. And if I just said fan, and if I don't pay it, I don't pay it. And we don't work together because otherwise2 (5m 7s):You're setting up the road. I mean, setting up the dynamic where somebody is going to feel resentful, right? Like if, if you're the coach and you're not charging what you, what you think you're. I mean, what about that? Why wouldn't you turn it back on them and say like, well, I really rely upon providers to tell me what they think they're worth by having an established fee. I mean, this is, it's so crazy. It's, it's like saying actually I've had this before with, I can't think maybe babysitters, like how much you charge. Well, whatever you feel comfortable with, I don't know what to do with that. Like, I mean, I feel comfortable paying you nothing. Does that mean that's what you want to,1 (5m 48s):Right? This is what we get in trouble with when, whenever there's a barter situation as well. Like I remember, oh my God, my dad is a anyway. I remember a psychologist getting into huge trouble at a friend, my dad's friend for bartering with therapy.2 (6m 7s):Oh my God. Like, make me homemade tofu or something like1 (6m 11s):Similar, like out, like you do my yard work. I'll do. I mean, I mean, like you get into trouble. It leads to trouble. I think it's better to be out of vagueness, set your fee and not, and just say, this is my fee. And if someone wants to have a conversation about the fee and do you lower it, and then you have a further conversation, whether you decide to lower it or not is up to you. But like, yeah, I don't like this, this,2 (6m 39s):No. And let's just be direct. I mean, this is another problem that we have, like with just, I don't know, globally with communication. I just feel like people are so darn indirect and it doesn't help. I'm not, I'm not suggesting that like, I can't use more, you know, finesse or be half softer or whatever. But like at the end of the day, I just want to know what it is. You're trying to say to me, you know, and I don't want to guess about it because I'm going to guess wrong. And then you're going to feel a type of way about it. And it's unnecessary.1 (7m 12s):It's unnecessary. And I do, you know, as much as, as much as I, I always think back, I had a therapist at the, at Austin Riggs in Massachusetts and Stockbridge and Dr. Craig Pierce. Right. And he, it was interesting. I wanted to call him Dr. Craig. And he was like, no, that is not my name. And, and I was like, this guy is such a douche, but really he was setting a boundary saying, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not your friend. I'm actually not your dad. I'm not your, this isn't, we're working. We're doing serious work here. And it's either Craig or Dr. Pierce, but you can't. And at the time I was like 21 or something. I don't know what I was, but I thought what a douche, but now I'm like, oh, he actually was, was trying to help me.2 (8m 1s):Let's just get this out of the way. This is how I expect to be referred to this is how much I expect to be paid. My thing about coaches recently is I feel like everybody is doing this group delusion about, like, we can't go to therapy. So we have to say, I mean, we could pay more for a coach than we might for a therapist. We could be more revealing with a coach that we were therapists. It's just turned into the stigma of like, well, I don't want to go to therapy, but you know, I want to have a coach. And the problem with that is it's so wildly unregulated.1 (8m 34s):Yes,2 (8m 34s):Exactly. If anybody can call themselves a coach,1 (8m 37s):Right. And even this, this coach that I saw was like, yeah, it's wild Lynn regulated. And I understand that, you know, so, so there are some, you know, weird coaches and she's lovely and she's trying to make a living. The other thing that is so clear to me is everyone is trying to make a living. So there is right. Everyone's trying, I give them points for trying, like you she's trying to have a coaching business. So, so right. I don't fault her for it, but I did. I was like, so shocked that the language, I was like, oh, here we go. She's going to say the exact thing that this other coach said. So, duh, there's all kinds of like classes that for free structure that could the coaches taste.1 (9m 24s):Are you going to see her again? I mean, I'm not, no, no, no, no, no. I told her, I was like, you know, I'm just really not in a position to do coaching right now. And I'm not, I have a therapy. I have a new therapist. Let me just pay the therapist who told me what our fee was. So it was interesting. The other thing that I think was interesting is like I took, the reason I met this coach was I took a workshop on a free workshop on imposter syndrome, which is another like thing that people are really throwing around now is imposter syndrome. And self-sabotage those kinds of phrases. So I took an imposter syndrome workshop, lovely workshop. And then they said, you know, we're going to have a raffle and see who gets a free coaching session.1 (10m 5s):Well, we all, did. We all won the RAF. I mean,2 (10m 14s):Oh my God. I mean, is everything a play Like a performance piece in Los Angeles?1 (10m 24s):Yeah, it is. It is. And it's so, it's so funny, but like, so yeah, I was talking to my friend, I'm like, who went to the workshop? I'm like, oh, I won the I wasn't coaching says, she goes, so did I? And then I talked to someone else who I met when I networked with like soda. I was like,2 (10m 40s):I really respect how much it seems like people in LA are devoted to self-improvement. I really, really respect that in a way that I just feel like people out here aren't or if they are, they don't talk about it. Maybe it's what it is. But it does seem, it does seem like people in LA are either they're on a health kick or a mental health kick or they're, you know, getting sober or I just feel like there's a lot of, there's a lot of1 (11m 5s):Types here.2 (11m 8s):And I appreciate the fact that everybody talks about that openly. Because if, if people are into that stuff around here, they don't talk about it. So I ended up feeling like, you know, I'm a weirdo.1 (11m 19s):I feel like it's like, like literally like old money versus new money. I swear to God it's like old, old paradigms versus new paradigms. And like, yeah, it's out in the open here, everyone's on some kick, but at the same time, it's also lessened because everybody's talking about it all the time and it becomes like the, like a F like a farce, like not sacred in any way. It's like,2 (11m 47s):Yeah. And I bet there's a lot of people who are doing the most, like in terms of self-help and they're just still the biggest, or they're just lying to themselves about the fact that they're, they feel like they're getting better, but they're really just haven't changed at all. Yeah. I mean, I think that like, living anywhere is a problem. Well, let me get out of here. I feel like, wow, you can really feel the Puritan vibe. I mean, it's yes. You really it's like, we don't talk about feelings. We, we talk about things on the surface. We don't reveal, you know, very much about ourselves. Wow. Yeah. Keep everything. It's all, it's very buttoned up.2 (12m 27s):Wow. When I first moved here, I really appreciated that, you know, I've done some wild swings geographically, like yeah. Growing up in Sacramento was kind of one sort of thing unto itself that doesn't relate that much to California. Yeah. And then going to Chicago was like, oh, okay. I like this. These people are really down to earth. You know, then I got kind of sick of that. And then I moved to back to California, to the bay area. And I really was into that for awhile. And then I felt like, oh my God, this is all. So this is all bullshit. Like talking about everybody was an imposter. I felt like everybody was low key. So aggro. And then just this hippie, you know, talking about free level the time.2 (13m 8s):And then we moved to New York and I was like, oh, people will just get right to the point here. I really appreciate that. And I never got tired of that, but then we moved here and I thought, oh, this is new England. This is what the pilgrims they've decided a way to be. And it's very buttoned up and they haven't changed in, you know, 300 years. For, you know, have like a little ideas folder in my notes where I just make it little snippets of ideas and write them down. And I've had like six or seven that I realized are all circling around the same idea, which is, I want to have a movie or some, or some type of a script where it's a superhero, but the superhero, their power is that they can interact through some type of magic.2 (14m 8s):They can intervene in somebody else's life when they're making bad decisions. This is sort of romantic coaching and like, Hmm, maybe it's virtual reality, but they, they can kind of put themselves into the body of the person who's making the bad decisions and then help them. You know, it's like, it's basically like the therapist having none of the barriers to, you know, wellness or whatever, and just kind of getting right in there at the same time as this is a comment about how we look to other people to tell us how to behave. Anyway, the superheroes name is psyche and I love it. And, and I'm, I'm it, I'm it.2 (14m 49s):I want to kind of continue with this idea, but I am woefully terrible with plot, as I think we've talked about before. I don't know if you're talking about the podcast before and it's such a, it makes perfect sense that my given my own psychology, that plot would be the hardest thing,1 (15m 11s):Because more that,2 (15m 13s):Well, my, my mother is the first person to tell you, she's never done anything with a plan. She's always just reacted to whatever has come her way. In fact, the idea of like having a goal and working towards it was literally something I never learned until I met my husband. Wow. When like a week, a day. And he was like, what are you going to do today? And I said, oh, I think I'm going to sit out in the sun. And he said, what? I thought you were trying to be an actress. I thought you were like, well, you don't have any time to sit down and do anything. Like you have a goal. And that, and that's been my thing is like, I, I have these vague undefined or have had vague undefined goals yet that in some ways I'm working towards, but because there's no sort of master plan or not a conscious one, if don't know how to get from a, to B to C I know everything about what it looks like as you're traveling from a to B to C, I had to describe it and everything like that.2 (16m 10s):But as far as charting a course of like, this is where I'm starting, and this is where I'm going to end up. That's pretty new to me. And I feel like that's why I struggle with clot. Cause I just don't have like a lot of idea of how something unfolds.1 (16m 26s):Seriously. Literally just ADHD. Could that be,2 (16m 30s):Oh, maybe you have ADHD.1 (16m 33s):Did we talk about2 (16m 33s):This? I have add1 (16m 36s):Or add. So if you have that, this is when I talk to writers who have add that this is their exact situation. Oh, okay. Excellent. With dialogue, excellent. With everything except the actual plot pointing to a, to B, to C you just, I think you just need a class in some add meds. Like I'm serious. I, I don't think, Hey, this is not a, this is, this could be a very practical thing. So, so my father had some big problems, but was a brilliant man in a lot of ways, right? His dissertation, he could see the whole thing where it was going to end up.1 (17m 16s):He knew what he wanted people to feel when he read it. He knew he could not write the thing. So my mother ended up writing it for him. Please don't take your degree away possibly anyway, because he couldn't do the, the actual thing. So I I'm wondering, just like my thing was kind of practical of finding a coworking space and not getting a divorce kind of a situation like yours is literally like, could be a physiological response to too much stimuli going on and how to get to, to your vision. So, and maybe2 (17m 54s):I need a coach.1 (17m 56s):Well, Gina funny, you should bring that up because I was going to say to you, how much is it worth for? You know, I tried to tell you as being your coach on our pocket,2 (18m 6s):That would have been so slick. That would have been like, you're like, I, wasn't going to mention this to you, but I'm actually becoming okay.1 (18m 12s):I'm actually a coach now. So anyway, that is my 2 cents. When you start saying, when you start talking about that, I was like, wait a second. This is not a psychological problem. I don't think,2 (18m 25s):Okay. I mean, you know what? That sounds right to me.1 (18m 29s):Well, it makes a lot of work. You're not lazy and you're not, it's not like you don't have ambition. That's not true because you we've talked a lot on the podcast about how, like having some sense of power is really important to you. Maybe not fame, but power, the power that comes with that. So I'm like, all right, so that's not someone that has no ambition, right? So that's gotta be a different mechanism in the brain. That's not connecting in some way because you're also a people pleaser. So if someone, so my guess is if I w I would wonder if we did an experiment, like if you were in a class, right. And the class person was the teacher, the person in authority was like, and you trusted this person or mentor, whoever writing group, whatever the higher power is in that moment said, she said to you, Gita, you must do, you know, act one must be written by this date.1 (19m 18s):I wonder if you do it,2 (19m 20s):I would, I totally would. In fact, that's a part of me has been like, should I try to get into an MFA program? I don't think that's the answer. I class first just take a class,1 (19m 31s):The script anatomy, there's all these classes that like, that we can talk about later, but like take a class. I know I should have taken a class and not enrolled in an MFA program. Like that was what I, I mean, it was,2 (19m 44s):Can I tell you one of my favorite slash least favorite things in the world is when I have a big problem. And the answer is like, something really is. I both love and hate that. I hate it because I think, wow, why didn't I think of that? And why have I spent so much time just like ruminating and cogitating and wringing my hands about something that has like a pretty straightforward answer. Yeah.1 (20m 6s):And a lot of times, a lot of times us, I think kids that weren't really, for whatever reason, didn't get what they needed, emotionally, make all these things. Our brain works overtime to try to figure things out when this solution, like, I remember, like when I started having panic attacks, I thought I had schizophrenia. I thought I went to the doctor. He's like, you have a panic disorder, take this pill. And I was like, what? Yeah.2 (20m 31s):How could it be that easy? How could it be? How could it be? I feel like in that if I were in your shoes, I would think, no, no, no, I don't just have something that everybody else has. I have a truly unique, right. Is that what you were feeling?1 (20m 44s):Yeah. I thought I was going to end up in a state run nursing and I had a panic disorder. It was so I couldn't, and I think it gets wrapped up in shame and wrapped up and I should be able to, I could be, you know, all that shit, but yeah, it, it, it was like, he was like, no, no, no, no, you have something called a panic disorder. It's in this book and it was a DSM. He was like, it's in this book. And he read the, the stuff, the criteria. And I was like, I had that. He was like, no shit. Which is why I'm telling you to take this pill, the Zoloft. And I was like, wow, it didn't even cross my mind. The other thing is, nobody tells you about it. Like a lot of the struggle that we have, I think at, or at least that I have is internal. Right. So I don't, I'm not sharing it with people, which is why I think the podcast is good because maybe someone's listening to the podcast going, oh fuck.1 (21m 29s):Maybe I just have a panic disorder or maybe I have add, or I need a class instead of my life is over.2 (21m 36s):I'm terrible. I'm fundamentally incapable of getting any better. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. Well, thank you for that. What a gift1 (21m 42s):You gave me? Well, yeah, that's just what came forward. I'm like, wait, this is not a psychological weirdo, psychological pathological emotional problem.0 (21m 55s):Well,4 (22m 0s):Today on the podcast, we're talking to Kate, Dougan a playwriting major from DePaul theater school who currently lives in Morocco, where she teaches English. She is also a performer and has some interesting stories about her road from wanting to be a performer to deciding, to be a writer. So please enjoy our conversation with Kate Dougan2 (22m 27s):Oh my God. You haven't changed you one1 (22m 30s):Tiny bit. Let's say.3 (22m 34s):Thanks. Wow. Nice to see you girls. Do you guys look the same? I can't believe it. 30 years almost, right?2 (22m 41s):Yeah. Don't say it like that.3 (22m 43s): sorry. It's been 30 years since I graduated from high school. 25, since I graduated from college.1 (22m 53s):It's a long2 (22m 54s):You go by Kate.3 (22m 55s):Yeah. I go by Kate now. I grew up from Katie. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah.2 (23m 3s):Well, Kate Dougan congratulations used for five to theater3 (23m 7s):School. I did. I did.2 (23m 10s):You are now in of all places, Morocco, what the heck's going on in Morocco?3 (23m 15s):I'm teaching a high school here at an American high school. Yeah. My husband is Moroccan. So that's how we ended up here. We met in Chicago, worked together and in 2018. Yeah. We just decided it was, you know, he, his parents are, you know, getting a little older and he had not lived in Morocco for about 20, 25 years. And so he decided, you know, he wanted maybe try to come home for a little while. And so he got a job at an American high school. He's a teacher, he's a math teacher. And so we came and then I, I started sort of in one job that didn't really work for me.3 (24m 2s):Cause I initially thought like I was coming to teach theater. Always. The reality is never quite the same as what everybody says is gonna happen. And so, but when we got here, so I tried to teach a theater class, it didn't school wasn't quite ready for it. Then I sort of morphed into teaching English as a second language. And then last year during, well, during 20 19, 20, 20, I got my teaching accreditation to teach high school English. So I teach English language and literature. So yeah. Yeah. How cool do you like it? I do, actually.3 (24m 43s):I like it a lot. I, you know, everybody says the teaching is the hardest job and in many ways, teaching really is the hardest job. Like you, it's a lot of work and it's kind of, it's almost like doing like five shows a day, but you have to write all of your own material and learn all of your own material. And you know, it, it, you have to sort of, you have to really be ready for like a group of high school kids. I mean, these are, you know, they, they want to be engaged and they want to be entertained and they want to, you know, and if you can do those things and talk to the kids and be real with them, then you know, it works.3 (25m 28s):And on days that you're not quite up for it, it's a little tough. But yeah, I do like it a lot. I mean, I think that if you like to be in the room with the kids, then, then you you're, you're going to win, you know? Yeah. There's, I think that there's unfortunately, a lot of teachers who don't necessarily like children. And so you kind of questioned that sometimes. I'm sure we've all had experiences as students in that kind of situation. But yeah, I liked the kids. I liked being with high school kids, you know, they're alive and interested and you know, they haven't given up yet.3 (26m 11s):It's true. There, there, I read something to them the other day about, yeah, they're not dead yet. They're still alive. So that's, that's what I like about it.1 (26m 21s):The other thing I was going to say is that my, my mom was a teacher and she used to say the first year of teaching, like full-time was the hardest year of her life. And she like cried every day after school and it was the most rewarding. And so I, yeah, yeah.3 (26m 39s):I mean, my first year was 2019 or 20. So 2019 to 2020, I was doing my accreditation and I was teaching part-time and that was March, 2020, obviously it was all online. And then September, we started back, it was my first year teaching full time. And, you know, we had one class that was online and then everybody, you know, the kids had the option to be online if they wanted to. So there was one class online and then there were students in school and yeah, you're just trying to, you know, learn, figure out what you're doing and teach yourself the material and, you know, stay alive and handle whatever it was.3 (27m 20s):It was, it was a very stressful year. Last year I got to the, I got to June and I was really tired and really stressed out. And I just, you know, the good part of that is I have declared this year. I will never let myself get into that state again, you know, whatever I have to do to maintain my balance is really important to me. And so far it seems to be working. I I'm feeling much more on top of things this year, so. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah.2 (27m 55s):So beef, let's talk about the period of time you decided to go to theater school. You did, you caught up on the east coast.3 (28m 7s):Yeah. I, well, not exactly. I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I know. I always thought of it as east coast. And then years later I was like, I think Pittsburgh is really Midwest. Like, I mean, it's, it's like this close to Ohio where I was from was like this close to West Virginia. So there's a whole other element going on. So it almost, you know, it is east coast, I guess, officially, but it has sort of a Midwest sort of feel like blue collar, you know, town, but yeah, so I grew up in Pittsburgh. I, I don't know.3 (28m 48s):Do you guys just want me to do grow2 (28m 49s):Performing and I do high school plays3 (28m 52s):And stuff. Okay. So not, not as much as I would've liked. I knew from a very young age that I did want to go into theater. We, we lived up the hill from a small college Washington and Jefferson college. I'm from Washington, Pennsylvania. And you know, they built a new like art center one year. And I remember going to see my first theater show there and it had just opened. And I think it was the Rainmaker. I think my dad knew the guy, the place Starbuck, and I just, you know, like, so we want to see the play and it was just the whole experience of it, you know, going to the theater and sitting in the audience and the lights and the people.3 (29m 36s):And I just remember like when the lights went down at the, at the end, I was just like, that's what I wanna do. I wanna do this, you know, how old were you? I was eight actually. So I, yeah, it got me at an early age. I wish I had gotten set on something else a little bit. But1 (30m 0s):Why Did the theater break your heart?3 (30m 5s):Ah, did the theater break? My heart? Well, I mean, it's, you know, it's, everybody's journey is different. Yeah. I mean, in some ways it's not that it broke my heart now. I feel like I just wish I had no, of course. I mean, I wouldn't change anything. I wouldn't change the trajectory. I wouldn't change that love, you know, like that feeling. But I think just like when you experience something like that, it's such a young age, like your mind gets like really set on that thing. And like, I think it's important to grow and change and you know, obviously I've done that and I've done other things.3 (30m 46s):It just, I don't know. No, because I don't wish it was really different. So I, but I, you know, we all have our moments, right. I'm sure. Of course.1 (30m 57s):Yeah. That's what this whole podcast is about where we were like, what the fuck was that? And theater broke my heart over and over again. I thought it was going to be one thing or the business and I, it was not that thing. So I, for me, it's been a off and on heartbreaking experience with the theater. And that doesn't mean that there hasn't been intense love to, you know what I mean? Like, I think it's all part of the same, but yeah. So you, you, from a young age, you were like, you saw Rainmaker and you were like, that's it? Yeah.3 (31m 25s):So that's what I want to do. And so, I mean, but like I said, it was a small town there wasn't like a whole lot going on there. I never really took any acting classes or anything until I was in high school. You know, I went like there was a, there was an acting teacher at my high school. And I just remember like going to her class and being like super excited to finally like, get to do this thing. And like, you know, she asked everybody to kind of give a spiel like about what they want to do. And so I talked about it. I was like, this is really what I want to do with my life. I'm really excited about it. I, I just, you know, this is it for me.3 (32m 6s):And, and I just remember her, like, it wasn't necessarily that day, but like at some point she just kind of looked at me and she was like, oh, you're the one that wants to be an actress. And it was like that first, like, I'm sure you guys have experienced this. It was like that first experience of like, oh, I guess like me being excited about it, isn't necessarily going to get people to be positive with me. There was certain that there was an element of bitterness, I guess, which I think happens to people, you know, and I think it happens justifiably.3 (32m 53s):And so I think, you know, it's very important to me that I don't become bitter that I, and I'm glad I haven't, but I, I felt it was a very, it was like that first experience, like, okay, this is somebody that I, I, this is something I want to do. And this is somebody that can help me. And she was just not very enthusiastic about being helpful to me, you know, like, yeah. Who knows I was, it was kind of a weird year for me. So maybe I, you know, wasn't a very good student or something, or maybe she,1 (33m 25s):She, she, that's a shitty you you're probably right on. No, no, because I know because I've done that to people. Actually, I, I feel like I've dampened peoples. I do this with my husband all the time where I rain on his parade. And she rained on your parade a little bit. I'm not saying it's not that she doesn't have good reason to rain grades, but she did. And that, that is sort of, we hear it a lot. So I would think for someone to either either blatantly or inadvertently reign on a youngster's parade in terms of their artistic dreams.3 (33m 57s):So like at high school, I wasn't really that, like, I, I think I, we did like a play for my English class or something. So I don't know. I, I try, like I was in speech and debate and I went to one meet. And let me tell you like the power of the mind. Like I got laryngitis that day. Like I got laryngitis on the bus on the way to the meet and couldn't talk all day. And then on the bus on the way home I was able to speak. And so, you know, I think, you know, there's, yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a whole other . I mean, does that mean you1 (34m 37s):Didn't keep going with speech and debate3 (34m 39s):Or you had no, I don't think I did. I don't really remember. I obviously it was not a huge part of my life because I think at some point I was like, okay, this is not the person that's going to help me. I'm not getting feeling very positive vibes here. And so I'm gonna try to, you know, do other things. So then I started taking acting classes.1 (34m 60s):Did she wait to interrupt? Did she run the speech and debate thing too?3 (35m 3s):Yes, she did. Oh, no.1 (35m 5s):So that's, I mean, there you go. I mean, that's3 (35m 8s):How my mom1 (35m 9s):Running.3 (35m 11s):Yeah. Who knows. Anyway, so then I started going to like taking acting classes in downtown Pittsburgh. There was the civic light opera, and they had like an academy of, it was musical theater, but I just took straight acting classes. I was never like really a singer or anything like that. And that was a really positive experience for me. I had a great teacher, Jill, and, you know, we did a lot of scene study and she was, she was the opposite, you know, she was a very positive person, very loving and sweet. And, you know, really, you made me feel good about what I was doing and what I could do.3 (35m 52s):So, you know, there are those people as well that, you know,2 (35m 57s):Who suggested that you could pursue it for college.3 (36m 5s):I mean, I think it was never, for me, it was just never a question like, but I long story, I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't in the acting program at DePaul, I was in the play. I was in the wait. I was in the, I was in the playwriting program. Yeah.2 (36m 27s):Why do I remember you as being in class with me? But I feel like I remember you as being one of the actors. I remember seeing you on Steve.3 (36m 38s):No, I, I, I doubt it. I, I, unless2 (36m 42s):Were you in a play onstage?3 (36m 44s):I don't think so. No. I mean, unless it was like some kind of workshop for one of my plays or something like that, but no,2 (36m 54s):I mean, do you remember me at all? I3 (36m 56s):Do remember. Yeah. I remember you guys. I remember you completely. I just, so I think I graduated. I was a year older than you guys. I think. When did you graduate? I graduated in 96. Okay. So yeah, one year older. You will, so, okay, go ahead.2 (37m 14s):Awesome. Yeah, that happened. What the hell?3 (37m 19s):Well, let me, let me dial back to, to where, cause you asked me if my teacher wanted me to go to college and for me, like there was just no other, I was going to school for theater and there was no stopping me. You know, it was funny. I've listened to some of your podcasts and, and I listened to Caitlin Kiernan's and she was just like, you know, I was 18. Like, what do you, you know, like what did I think? I don't know, but I just, this is what my mind was set on. So, so I'm sure she, she, I remember her telling me that that acting teacher, she was like of all of my, you know, she put me aside and this one other girl, Heather, who I think has actually done pretty well. I think she lives in LA and you know, there's not a lot of TV work.3 (38m 0s):And she was like, you know, she's like of my students. I think you guys have real potential to make something in this business. So she was very positive. So then I started auditioning. I auditioned for probably not enough schools. I should've heard DePaul and like Carnegie Mellon and I think some other, a couple of other schools. And so then I kind of had my mind set in Chicago. My brother lived in Chicago for a couple of years and I had gone to visit him. And I just really like fell in love with the city. And I always knew that I wanted to go to school in a city. So I kind of got my mind set on Chicago. I was like, well, if I get in the car to Carnegie Mellon, I'm from Pittsburgh obviously, but I didn't.3 (38m 45s):So then I auditioned for DePaul and I didn't get in my first, I didn't get in. And so I decided to take a year off and try again, which my dad was not super happy about, but I just had my mindset. I was like, no, I'm going to take year off. And then I'm going to try it again. I'm going to audition again. And that's it. And it ended up being, you know, I think taking your off was a good thing for me. I auditioned again and I didn't get in again. And so, you know, it's funny, like listening to these stories of you guys, like, and all the struggles that you went through and it's like, well, you know, well, at least you, you got in what's true.3 (39m 33s):Like there are different struggles. Yeah. There are different struggles for sure. But then so, and I, when I didn't get in the second time, I was just, I don't know. I think I was just set on Chicago. I was kind of set on DePaul. They'd offered me a place in theater studies program. And so I took it and then I, I decided when I was there to do join the playwriting program, and this is 1996 or 1992. And I was like, at that point I was like, literally like the only person in the playwriting program. My first year, there was like one person who was like a sophomore.3 (40m 14s):I think it was like the second or third year that Dean Corrin was there. He had just been taken on to start this program. And so, yeah. And then as I went through like a few other people joined like Diane Herrera and I think Adam Matthias was also in the writing program. And so while I was there kind of grew a little bit. Yeah. So I, it was, you know, I mean, I don't know. You just want me to keep talking? I feel like2 (40m 51s):I was just ask a question about the theater studies program, because I don't know that we've ever really talked about that program and, and how you just described it, made it sound like that's where people can go to figure out what non-acting thing they want to do in theater.3 (41m 9s):I mean, I think I, to be honest, you know, I mean, let's not kid ourselves college is about making money. Right. For, for most people it's, for-profit, it's private school. I think that they wanted to build the program and yeah. I don't know what it was. I mean, I think I did pretty good on my SATs. My grades were decent and I don't know, maybe my audition was okay. And so it was sort of, yeah, like, you know, they offered it to people like, you know, if you want to come, you're not invited to the acting program, but if you want, you can come to the theater studies program. And so I said, no, the first year, and then the second year I was like, I'm ready to go to school. I mean, sometimes I think I probably would've been better off like going to like a smaller school that didn't necessarily require an audition or something like that, but say levee.3 (41m 57s):Right. And, and so, yeah, I was like, well, I guess I'll do playwriting. And I, I, I mean, I'm glad I did it for many reasons. It was not, it ended up being a really good choice for me. I mean, I think like listening to you guys talk about the competition and, you know, sort of like, I don't do well with rejection. You know, I think you really, I don't, I don't necessarily like love to be the center of attention. And I think like, as an actor or at least to be successful on some level, you have to want that attention.3 (42m 42s):I mean, you guys do, do you feel that you like being the center of attention? She does.1 (42m 49s):Like, I love, I am constantly and mine is, if you listen to the podcast, like we talk about the psychological stuff. Like, I, I still, you know, feel like I wasn't treated right as a kid. So I'm constantly, I'm so transparent about it. I'm constantly trying to get the approval of my mother. Who's dead by the way. So yeah, I, I can say that, like, I want to belong and I want someone to say you are special and I pick you. That's like my dark sort of shadow side. And it always will be for me. I think even if I work through it, I think we all have our shadow sides and that's, and that's mine. And I think it transformed into, oh, maybe if this school likes me, that will give me that sense, but I never got that from DePaul because, you know, one it's that set up for that too.1 (43m 37s):People are bitter and weird and three it's an inside job. Yeah.3 (43m 41s):Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I mean, I think for me, like part of it was, I am the youngest of four and so I think it was like that craving for attention. Like I totally get what you're saying there. So, I mean, I like to be on stage, but like, I don't necessarily like the auditioning part of it and I don't necessarily, you know, like have to be the center of attention to parties or any of those things. But I did, you know, I really did enjoy, I really do enjoy acting like I, I do like it, but so1 (44m 12s):You, you,3 (44m 12s):You were doing a playwriting BFA. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You did.1 (44m 18s):And your plays got workshopped.3 (44m 21s):Yeah. I mean, you know, the, the program was still very fledgling and I think because, you know, I wasn't in the acting program, you know, I had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, I think admitted,1 (44m 43s):Wait, I just have to say, like, there's something really fierce about auditioning twice for the program and then going to theater school, studying theater studies, look at your, at a young age to say, you know what? I fucking want to go to school. So I'm going to, I mean, talk about, I, I see it as, you know, I hate calling people brave, cause I think it's kind of sending, but I think it's fierce to say I'm still going to go to this school. I mean, of course you had, I would have a chip on my shoulder so big. I wouldn't go. Yeah. You went and got an education for God's sake in a degree.3 (45m 16s):Yeah. And I, I, I got a really good education, you know, that's part of what was really positive for me. And I'll go back to the question about workshopping in a second. But what was positive for me is that the theater school had this glitch in their, in their system in because the acting students had to take so many classes cause you guys had yoga and movement to music and scene study and whoever knows what else. So like as part of your tuition, you could take up to 24 credits. And so what I did is I then got a really great liberal arts education.3 (45m 57s):I took poetry writing classes. I took like performance of literature. I took video editing. I took intro to film. I took like,1 (46m 10s):We'll do you could do that Kate? Like, how did you figure out like, oh, I have 24 credits. I'm going to use these.3 (46m 15s):I really don't. I don't know that anybody told me, I think I just figured it out at some point. And I was like, okay, well I guess I'm going to get my money's worth and I'm going to go take these other classes and these other schools and learn how to write and learn how to make films and do intro to film and learn, you know? So like I really loved college. I don't, you know, the theater school was, I don't have anything negative to really say about the theater school either. I knew what I was getting into. Like I said, I sort of had that chip on my shoulder to begin with about being part of the theater school about feeling like Jen, like you said, like about feeling like an insider, but you know, all my friends were in the theater school.3 (47m 2s):I, I love theater people. I really enjoyed that experience. But, but part of my good college experience happened outside of it in many ways, just because I kind of took the reins and I was like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have some fun with this and get a good education and, and play. And I, I loved it. I loved school. I loved learning new things and try new things. I even, I even took like a leave of absence from the theater for theater school for one quarter. Cause I did a, an overseas, I went to Ireland for a quarter.3 (47m 43s):So, and to do that, I had to take a leave of absence from the theaters. Yeah. Does that seem familiar? Yeah, probably Kelly was crying because I was supposed to be her roommate, but I never got which Kelly Kelly and Mick Adams. I was when I came back from Ireland, we were supposed to be roommates, but I never called and she just got her own apartments. And then I was like, oh my God, I don't know where I'm going to live. But yeah. So I, you know, anyway, so back to my theater school experience, so was, was positive also for playwriting. I, I don't know. I mean, I, you know, Dean Corrin was great, you know, we took like dramatic criticism we had yeah.3 (48m 30s):You know, another, another theme that I have, you know, listening to your podcast and you guys talked about it a little bit is like self-sabotage or not taking advantage of the opportunities presented to you. I feel like, because I kind of had that chip and I wanted to be an actor. Like I didn't necessarily take advantage of the opportunities, like playwriting opportunities, which came easier of course, because cause that's the way it goes, because if you want something it's not going to be, you know, it's not going to be easy, but if you're kind of, sort of like, well maybe, maybe not then the opportunities roll in, but yeah, like we had a poetry or a playwriting workshop class with Sandy Shinar she worked at victory gardens at the time.3 (49m 18s):Yeah. And she was good friends with Dean and like he had her come in as like a guest teacher one day and we were going to work my play and he'd given it to her and she had read it and, and I was just, I don't know. I, I just was like, oh God, I hate that. I really don't want to work on it. Do we have to do this? Can we do something else? And like how we shoot ourselves in the foot, you know, like what an opportunity really? And because I was insecure and scared, I'm sure like whatever psychological, you know, thing you want to come up with that, that, that we, we do to why, why we do these things for ourselves.3 (50m 1s):So, you know, and I, I had other opportunities like that along the way that I didn't necessarily take advantage of. But1 (50m 8s):Did you pull your play or did you work3 (50m 10s):On it? We didn't work on it. No, because there was somebody else in the class who was much smarter than I was and was like, oh, well here's my play. We can do my play. We can work on mine today. Yeah. I know. That's really that's.1 (50m 26s):I mean, I totally relate. And I think it, it just speaks to many things, but like, you weren't ready for that and that's it. And I, I'm starting to look at things like ready versus not ready versus good and bad. So you just weren't ready to have that experience. And we can look back and, you know, I listened to Gina and I talk to people on and we're like, we blame ourselves for that, but you just simply didn't have the emotional resources to take in that experience. And that sucks. But,2 (51m 1s):And when you're not ready, it, people could say anything to you. That person could have said, we want you to be the new resident playwright, a victory gardens. You would've said, I don't think so.1 (51m 13s):I could've gotten the laryngitis again. Like it it's, we couldn't stop.3 (51m 19s):That's so interesting. I mean, I agree with you. I think you're, I think you're right. And that's, that's hearing it come from you. It, it, it's nice Rather than me saying it to myself or trying to figure out, like, why, why do I do these things to myself?1 (51m 37s):And it's interesting having done all these podcasts, Kate, we see it over and over again. So we have the data to tell you that people have, we've heard like so many people like with these ICTs being offered these things and being like, no, I'm not going to move to LA because you know, I have an apartment in Wrigleyville. Like I'm not going to be a movie star. And people are like, what's the D we all have that. I think that's part of growing up. And I also also think it's part of expecting young people to really handle a lot of things we cannot handle.3 (52m 11s):Yeah. They're one of the books that I, I teach my students is called outliers. Have you guys read it? It's Malcolm Gladwell. And he, you know, there's a section in where he talks about practical intelligence and you know, how some people, the people that are successful, you know, they grow up with a certain family life, or, you know, maybe it's about money. It's about education. It's about these things. But it's also just knowing how to handle yourself in certain situations and knowing how to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to you. And I think if you aren't, if you don't have that, or you're not taught that it is hard sometimes to, you know?2 (52m 50s):Yeah. And what, I just heard you, I mean, when you said, it's good to hear that from us, that made me think, oh, you've been beating yourself up about this for 25 years to yourself. Why did I squander this opportunity? Which, I mean, whether or not you did it, it's completely human. That, that you might occasionally have that thought, but have you spent a lot of time in, in regret?3 (53m 18s):I mean, I don't think so. I think I don't spend a lot of time in regret. You know, I definitely had moments over the years. I, well, a few years back, I sort of had like a little bit of a, not a breakdown, but like, I think of my midlife crisis started and like my, you know, I have two kids and my daughter was, you know, eight and my son was four and it was just kind of like, you know, you know, when kids are babies, it's just baby, baby, baby, baby. You don't, you don't have time to think about yourself. So who cares? And then like when you start to get back to yourself a little bit, it's just like, okay, I'm, you know, I'm 42 or, you know, whatever, and what have I really done?3 (54m 8s):And you know, what am I doing? And you know, is this, this, this it, I mean, I, I was teaching yoga. So, I mean, that's also a part of my journey. I mean, like I, so when I got out of school, like I did acting for a while, like, I've done some very bad independent films. Do you guys know Sandra Delgado? Oh yeah. Yeah. She, I like, we did a really bad film together in the early two thousands. And, you know, like I did like a horror film and I was like, had some small parts as mother independent films.3 (54m 52s):And, you know, I, I was trying to act and auditioning and auditioning and auditioning and like I did a couple of plays, but it was just never, you know, I just could never get to a certain point. I really just, I would have done theater and crappy theater and whatever, but I just, I couldn't, you know, for whatever reason, you know, I have the, that decade that I called the, the bad boyfriend years, so which we can all relate to on some level, which I, you know, where we all waste a lot of energy on people who don't deserve it. Oh yeah. Yeah. And then, so, so then, yeah, like a few years back, so it was kind of not in a good place.3 (55m 39s):And I was like, okay, well, I guess it's now or never. And I, I finally finished the play, so I went back to writing. Yeah. That's huge. That's awesome. You know, I finally cause I, I was like, okay, I guess if I'm going to try, I guess I gotta try. And, you know, I, I really discovered a few things. I discovered that I like writing. I, I feel good when I'm doing it. You know, there's a lot of positives to it in that way. I finished the play. I, it got, it got into like the second round at the Austin film festival.3 (56m 19s):So that was, yeah, that was pretty cool. I guess, since it was just like my first foray out of doing anything in theater in quite some time, and I had a stage reading in Chicago and then it sort of, you know, petered out after that. I, I was sending it out, sending it out, but no, no, no hits after that. But so, you know, I'm kind of gearing up to write again. So, no, I don't, I don't have, I don't, I haven't been beating myself up about it. I think that, you know, life takes a course and you can only do what you are doing in the time that you're doing it.3 (57m 0s):You only have the information that you have. You only have the life skills that you have. You only have the resources that you have. And so I think regret, I don't waste a lot of time on regret. I have enjoyed listening to the podcast and sort of like you said, Jen, like everybody's story is the same, a little bit. And that, you know, a lot of people who, you know, I've looked up to and had a lot of respect for and were really good actors and good at what they did. It just didn't happen for them. And so that's, that's like, I, yeah.2 (57m 37s):So I'm still just trying to, I'm still trying to wrap my head around why I just remember you as being an acting student, maybe it had to do with that. You were friends with Kelly and maybe because of your friendship with Kelly.3 (57m 54s):Yeah, probably that was it. Yeah. I mean, I was, I was friends with all the apartment three crew. I, yeah.1 (58m 2s):So I mean, I like, I like that even like deeper in my brain, I was like, what if I was taking on your desire to be an actor? I saw you as an actor because it was so strong that you wanted to be an actor. Like, I literally have an image of you on stage, but I actually can't3 (58m 22s):Be somebody else. Yeah. I1 (58m 25s):It's your face. It's really weird. So, anyway,3 (58m 27s):I mean, I guess at one time, like I had a play that maybe I did a stage reading of with Darryl Dickerson at school and maybe some other actors, maybe Kelly was in it. I don't know. But that would have really been like in a classroom. Yeah, yeah, no, I not an actor or, I mean, I am an actor, but none of the theater school. Yeah.2 (58m 54s):So these days, I mean, when you're talking about the work of being an English teacher, it reminded me actually, ironically, just a few days ago, I ran across a notebook that I haven't opened since I was a teacher of social studies and drama. And I re remember that I used to take for social studies. I used to write my lesson like a monologue kind of, and sort of not memorize it exactly, but almost like repeatedly rehearse it because it was not information that I already knew. I was learning the lesson right before I taught it. And teaching is so performative that during that time I was doing theater at the time.2 (59m 35s):But even if I weren't, I think I would have felt fulfilled in a performance way. Do you have that feeling about being a teacher? That it feels like a performance?3 (59m 50s):I guess what I, I do like the exchange of energy, like, like you would get from say a live audience or something like that. I don't know that I necessarily look at it as a performance, but I do feel like, yeah, you, obviously you have to be ready. You have to know what you're going to say. You have to know the material. And like, even if it is you just learning it that day or getting, you know, I feel that exchange, like, I feel good after class, like after talking with the kids and being with the kids and talking at them and, and teaching them, it does feel that way, like a little bit like that exchange of energy that you get from an audience a little bit.3 (1h 0m 35s):Yeah.2 (1h 0m 37s):Do you otherwise feel a kind of a need to do, do you have a need for any other type of creative outlet or your guys you're doing it because you're kind of getting back into3 (1h 0m 48s):My goal is to, yeah. To start writing again, like, I, I don't know how, what your, how you guys write. Like, I don't know what if you're constantly writing all the time or for me it's, it's like, I tend to sort of get inspiration and then work on something, you know, in a, in, in a period of time. Or if I create the discipline, like when I finished this play, I was getting up at like four 30 every day. I was teaching yoga at the time and the kids were, you know, still pretty young. And so I knew that the only way it was ever going to work is if I was disciplined enough to, you know, set that time aside, this is my time, my time to write.3 (1h 1m 33s):And so now, you know, after, like you said, you know, that first year is so hard, so now I'm starting to get my legs again. And I'm hoping to, yeah. Maybe start working on something I have, I've like dabbled in screenwriting before a little bit. So I'm thinking about, maybe I'm getting too into that a little bit.1 (1h 1m 57s):I have a question for you when you took playwriting. So this is interesting because it was such a young program, right. Was there any actually teaching of writing at the theater school, Like how to write a play?3 (1h 2m 12s):You know, it's funny about that. It's funny because I mean, like, I, it feels like we would write and we give it the stuff to Dean and we had deadlines and things like that. And he would give us feedback on it. You know, it's the funny thing is, is like the only, I feel like the only piece of practical writing advice that I ever got, and I, this is nothing against Dean. It's just what I remember. So Dean was awesome. I loved him. Well, we had a visiting playwright from Nigeria all over TIMI. I don't know if you remember him being there. He was there for like one quarter and he basically just like, kind of taught me to, to write a bit, you know, he's like, he's like, you have this scene here.3 (1h 2m 57s):And the guy he's at the cafe and he wants his coffee, but the waitress isn't giving him his coffee. He has to keep asking for his coffee over and over again. And it was just like, oh, you mean, I have to create like a little bit of dramatic tension in the scene, what a revelation. Right?2 (1h 3m 16s):Like it just a Mo create3 (1h 3m 17s):A moment. I felt like, you know, he gave me some real practical advice. It was just like, okay, you just have to, you know, these two people are here and you have to kind of, he wants his coffee and she won't give him his coffee and that's where the comedy comes in. And so, yeah. I don't know. I, I don't know how much, you know, they taught me about writing. I feel like I could have used a little bit of more help, like in practical matters, you know, listening to Kate's thing when you guys all went out for your showcase and that kind of thing. Like if somebody had talked to me more about submitting my work, maybe that would have been helpful.3 (1h 3m 58s):I mean, it's so weird though, to think of it at that time. I mean, I was, we were sending out headshots through the mail. We were sending out work through the mail. I mean, you have to go ,1 (1h 4m 14s):You'd have to go to what was called Kinko's then print out your play and then, and then mail it in an envelope to theaters or drop it off in person.3 (1h 4m 24s):And there was like that, like one place where you could get your headshots downtown, like the one like photography place where you could go and get like your headshots in bulk and you'd have to go pick them up. And like the blue2 (1h 4m 35s):Box. I remember the blue box.3 (1h 4m 37s):Yes. I still box exactly. You know,1 (1h 4m 44s):I think, or2 (1h 4m 45s):Yeah, something like that. So. Okay. So then let's talk about the period between graduating and we're where you are now. So you, well, you said you were auditioning,3 (1h 4m 57s):So I graduated. Yeah. And then after that, I, I, you know, I would go in spurts of productivity, you know, where I would audition a lot. You know, I was always looking at performing, you know, once again, trying to, I took a lot of classes in Chicago. I, I took classes at the actor's center. They had a lot of Meisner there. I did Steven, Steven. I have a villages program. He had a studio in like Wicker park. And so he had like a, like a, I think it was like a nine month program or something. So you would, you know, go and you'd be with the same group.3 (1h 5m 40s):And I went through a program there. I took classes downtown at, I forget what it's called now, the audition studio, or, you know, and I remember taking like an on-camera class with Erica Daniels. And who was the other, who was the lady that she always worked with? The casting director. Do you remember she was blonde1 (1h 6m 8s):Phyllis at Steppenwolf?3 (1h 6m 9s):No. It was like a casting director. Her name began with an ass. I want to say it was like Sharon or Sally, or, I dunno, she was like a big casting director at the time. So I took like an on-camera class with them, you know, I, Yeah. I don't know. It's funny cause like you, you, there's these moments where you realize like you're trying to be funny and it just, isn't funny and it just ends up really awkward. And that was one of those moments with them, you know, you're trying to impress somebody and, and she, I was sort of like chubby in high school.3 (1h 6m 57s):And so I think that as with most women who have issues with body issues, like you, you have those body issues forever. It takes a long time to shake them off. And I remember they gave me the scene. It was, the character was played by Sarah rule. Yeah. So, you know, she was a little overweight at the time, you know, and I remember kind of making this off-color joke about how, oh, I guess I see you gave me the, the part of the fat girl or something like that. Like really like probably not appropriate, but I, I meant it to be self-deprecating, but I wasn't really fat at the time.3 (1h 7m 37s):So it was didn't come off as self-deprecating it was another one of those instances where it's just like, and the woman just like hated me after that, you know? And Erica was pretty cool. I think she kind of realized that I was just nervous and awkward. And with the other woman, I remember seeing her like outside after, and she crossed the street to like, not talk to me. And I was like, oh my God, I'm such an asshole. Like, why did I say that? I didn't mean it. You know? And so I'm even blushing now I think thinking about it,1 (1h 8m 10s):You said what probably a lot of people were thinking when they would get that.2 (1h 8m 15s):Honestly, you can rest assured that absolutely every person who was there was just in an internal monologue about their own body issues. I mean, that's, that's the thing that comes up over and over again, when we feel so much shame about something like that, it's like, those people would never remember it. A and if, even if they did, they'd say with the benefit of hindsight, they might say, oh yeah, well, that just brought up for me. You know, my feelings about myself. And3 (1h 8m 44s):I mean, you know, I think, yeah, it just, it, so I took classes all over the city. I auditioned a lot, like I said, I did some independent films and then, you know, like I was still auditioning kind of in spurts over time, I think. And then I discovered yoga. And so I started doing Bikram yoga. It's just the hot yoga. I hear you guys talking about cults and cult leaders a lot on here. He's, he's one of those guys. He's a, he's a cult leader, a guru now downfall on by sexual harassment.3 (1h 9m 26s):But I started doing the yoga and that was like 2007, I think. And, you know, I had a friend who really kind of pushed me to go do the training and I wasn't really sure, but I decided to go do it. And you know, it kind of, I think, I don't know if you guys have ever done yoga, but it is sort of, you know, it kind of, it gave me something that I had been missing in a way. I think, you know, it is that, that mind body connection, I think I had been very detached from my body for many reasons, you know, abuse and all that.3 (1h 10m 7s):Like not physical abuse, but other kinds of abuse. And, and so like, I think that people get detached from their bodies. And so I think I was really connected to it in a way, and I felt good, you know, in a way that I hadn't felt in a long time. And, you know, I think that's the hardest thing. Sometimes when it goes, when you go back to theater, it's like you put so much energy into it and so much time. And I took so many classes and, you know, I enjoyed the classes and, but I just, you know, I really wanted to get on stage and it was just like, I just couldn't get there. And I think like at a certain point, you're just kind of like, what positive am I getting from this thing that I'm giving all this time and energy and love to like, what's the positives that I'm getting out of this.3 (1h 10m 55s):And I'm not, I'm not really seeing it anymore. You know, you know, I, I would get calls from people. We loved your audition. It was lovely. Please come audition for us again. So, you know, there, there were positives, but it just could never, it just really came to fruition. And so then I started doing the yoga and I, I felt really connected to it and I felt really good and in a way that I hadn't felt. And so then I started teaching yoga and I did that for like 10 years while I was having babies and raising them. And then like, yeah.3 (1h 11m 36s):So then 27 16, I started writing again.2 (1h 11m 40s):I did, I did Bikram yoga for like two years and you're just making me re remember that part of what I liked about it. It was kind of like rehearsal. I mean, cause you just go and you do the same, whatever it is, 26 poses. And the set is the same and the smell the same. And it is kind of like, it's very rich of all the nuggets, like really ritualistic.3 (1h 12m 8s):It is very ritualistic and you know, I haven't been practicing here in Morocco. Sometimes I, you know, close all the doors to my kitchen and I turn on t

Welcome to Hope City Church! NEW If you are new to Hope City text “Welcome” to 502-754-3212 WORSHIP GUIDE Order of Service Welcome - Pastor Jason & Andrea Worship - King of my Heart Scripture Reading - Psalm 13 (please stand) Sermon - Pastor Jason Communion Worship - Holy, Holy, Holy Worship - Great is thy Faithfulness Dismissal - Pastor Joe Psalm 13 1O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? 2How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? 3Turn and answer me, O Lord my God! Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die. 4Don't let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!” Don't let them rejoice at my downfall. 5But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. 6I will sing to the Lord because he is good to me. Congregational Prayer Oh God, How long will I feel this way? How long will I be separated from you? I feel the space between us. What once felt personal now feels distant, like you have forgotten me, or moved on to something else more important. Why have you not stepped in, Oh Lord? Why have you stopped this spiraling of my soul? I look around and see those who do not love you flourishing While I am biting my tongue and biding my time. Oh God, give me back my joy again; You have broken me, now let me rejoice. Amen. CONNECT Connect with us! Visit the Hope City Church website at https://realhopenow.com/ , connect through the Hope City Church Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/realhopenow or download the Hope City Church Louisville app from the android or apple app store. CARE If you or a loved one is in need of prayer or care, we would love to help! Simply open the Hope City Church Louisville app, click on "Pastoral Care" or "Prayer Request" and fill out the form so that we can know how we can help. Or go to https://app.textinchurch.com/groups/webform/MjYxMDg4 and send us your prayer request. GIVE Our heart is to share as much hope with as many people as possible, and you make that happen because of your generosity. Click the link below to give. http://www.realhopenow.com/give/ Thank you for tuning in to today's service. We'll see you soon!

Carisa's mission: to help you create a healthy lifestyle and build a new relationship with food. A relationship to fuel all the fun, desired and deserved in your life.  Some of my favorite things she shares with us: “The biggest secret, and it's like the hidden secret behind all the diets is…”  WHY you should drink lots of water.  “It's like a nutritional meditation.” “Love your body, period. You're right where you need to be.”Administrative: (See episode transcript below)All things Carisa CaudillKick-Start Mini Audio Course https://fabulous-inventor-840.ck.page/products/47-kickstart-audio-course45 Min Coaching Call https://fabulous-inventor-840.ck.page/products/45-min-check-in-call$697 DNA-Based Nutrition Plan (Kit) https://fabulous-inventor-840.ck.page/products/dna-based-nutrition-planFREE 15 minute Assessment Zoom Call https://calendly.com/soberfitlifecoach-carisa/30minCheck out the Tools For A Good Life Summit here: Virtually and FOR FREE https://bit.ly/ToolsForAGoodLifeSummitStart podcasting!  These are the best mobile mic's for IOS and Android phones.  You can literally take them anywhere on the fly.Get the Shure MV88 mobile mic for IOS,  https://amzn.to/3z2NrIJGet the Shure MV88+ for  mobile mic for Android  https://amzn.to/3ly8SNjGet A Course In Miracles Here! https://amzn.to/3hoE7sAAccess my “Insiders Guide to Finding Peace” here: https://belove.media/peaceSee more resources at https://belove.media/resourcesEmail me: contact@belove.mediaFor social Media:      https://www.instagram.com/mrmischaz/https://www.facebook.com/MischaZvegintzovSubscribe and share to help spread the love for a better world!As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.Transcript: [music]0:00:06.7 Mischa Zvegintzov: Welcome back, everybody to the Tools For A Good Life Summit. Now, I would like to introduce to you Carisa Caudill, a dear friend of mine. Welcome, Carisa.0:00:18.0 Carisa Caudill: Thank you, hi, I'm so excited to be on your show. Thank you.0:00:23.1 MZ: Yes, indeed. So real quick, I'm gonna read your bio for the seven audience, so they can get an idea of who you are. And then we'll go from there, okay?0:00:32.7 CC: Okay.0:00:33.5 MZ: Alright, fantastic. So Carisa, you're a nationally certified nutritional recovery coach, certified testing and designing... I guess certified in testing and designing personalized DNA-based fitness. Which sounds awesome, we were talking about that before we started here, which... So anybody listening, if we happen to touch on that, it's amazing. Diet plans associated with that. You're a personal trainer, trainer, yoga meditation practitioner. You were awarded first and second place in a bikini competition and a bikini competition title in a drug-free natural body building show after losing 50 pounds in 2018 and 2019. I don't know if that flowed right, but suffice it today that you...0:01:27.4 CC: It's a lot in there.0:01:29.0 MZ: There's a lot in there. But that's amazing. Congratulations on that. You have an athletic background, a background since you were 5-years old. You've struggled since your teens with addictive behaviors, emotional eating, weight gain. Approaching, you're approaching seven years into your personal health, wellness and nutritional recovery journey. Your entire life is dedicated to teaching and sharing with others, your unique approaches to help build a new relationship with food, enhance energy, manage weight, curb cravings and bring more awareness around nutritional recovery, recovery habits. Your mission is to help others create a healthy lifestyle and build a new relationship with food to help fuel all the fun, desired and deserved in life. Freaking love that. How amazing is that. So I think what's really cool, maybe we could touch on for a second is like the ability to utilize nutrition. I know you said to manage cravings or things, but also to manage like energy and stress levels and things like that. Maybe talk to that for a minute.0:02:49.3 CC: Yeah, that's a big part of my journey. You know, since I... And I'm transparent about this, and it has, but I... Was in my addiction really deep six years ago. Six math years ago, and I knew nothing about nutrition, like I really was not taking good care of myself. So through my journey, learning how to slowly take care of myself through exercise. And all the other things we're supposed to do that are out there that help us. Nutrition... I realized I was eating food to fill a void for the longest time, for the longest time. I wasn't realizing that hormonal balances were off when I was craving a lot of carbs or a lot of sugar or just wanting to fill up on food.0:04:04.1 CC: And I know I was going lengths of time without eating at all, and I really thought that it was gonna help me lose weight. So bottomline is nutrition is... We have to eat. We have to eat. [chuckle] And so the biggest secret, and it's like the hidden secret behind all the diets is managing sugar levels, and they don't tell us that. And so I've done the cleansing, the starving myself, the, all the diets that are out there, I think I've tried them all. And a lot of them worked for short periods of time, but they were not sustainable. Sustainable with energy or sustainable overall to really help me understand how to connect with my body. So I know I'm kinda talking in code a little bit, but the biggest thing is to manage your sugar level, and that is what I focus on most. That we really...0:05:08.1 CC: It's so important, I can't emphasize enough, how important it is for me to share with people and for us in general to understand what foods are spiking your sugar level. And what foods are causing different cravings, what foods are causing different energy crashes, what foods are causing different... Have an effect on different moods.0:05:34.2 MZ: Yeah.0:05:34.7 CC: You know food moods. So food mood logs are a really big thing I do with my clients. And once I started to interconnect my relationship with food, like what food was doing for me, that's when I... So to speak, nutritional recovery plan really, my journey really started. And so we all know that eating vegetables and eating...0:06:03.7 CC: Lean meats or healthy foods are important, we all know that. It's kind of common sense, but our bodies so often want other things, and I'm just keeping it real. It's like I'm keeping it real. I've been to the point where I was 50 pounds overweight because my eating spiraled. And then I've gone on to the crash diets and the bikini competition was one of them. I went on a crash diet. I got super ripped and I learned... I thought at the time, I was actually eating healthy, and I really thought I was 'cause I lost all this weight and if you look at pictures of me on the stage of that bikini competition, I was ripped, but I can't...0:06:52.9 CC: And I didn't know at the time, so this has been an evolving nutritional journey for me. So I didn't know at the time I was actually doing more harm to my body than good by losing all that weight so fast and not allowing my body to have the healthy fats it needed. I was eating too lean and I pushed my body to adrenal fatigue because it wasn't getting the nutrient, and I was a nutrient deficient. So when we see pictures of people totally in shape, ripped, I'm just gonna be... I have to be honest, it's...0:07:36.4 MZ: Please do.0:07:37.4 CC: It wasn't the healthiest journey at that time. [chuckle]0:07:41.2 MZ: Yeah. No, I love that. I thank you for that. You've made me think of two things. One is, we tell our kids or at least try not to give the kids too much sugar 'cause we see the emotional roller coaster it can put kids on, and I think that still... You just reminded me that still holds true to adulthood. We're not immune to that just 'cause we're older, and that as a matter of fact, now sugars... And this is not to do a discourse on the food industry, but we'll save that for the next summit, but that perhaps unhealthy sugars are hidden all over the place. So there's that and don't answer that yet. And then the other thing is that, if we're going through a hard time, there's foods... How we eat can enhance the stress or temperate or provide calmness, and so sometimes... Well. I'll just say that. Is that a true statement?0:08:58.0 CC: That's a 100% true. And it took me the longest time to really embrace the process of my eating, and I know it kinda... And it was so embarrassing for the longest time because I really struggled. I really struggled with what was healthy, what isn't, eating a bunch of nuts, eating a bunch of fruit, eating... And then somebody's saying or you're hearing that nuts make you fat or... You're getting all these mixed messages out there of what's right, what's wrong, what to do, what not to do, and then your body's here craving something else. So there is a way to get to a point where you intuitively... There is intuitive eating, where you do intuitively know what works for you and what doesn't work for you, but it takes work. You've got to actually write it down, and that's what I do with my clients. We actually have a food mood log. What foods make you feel this way? What foods spike up?0:10:12.2 CC: And then your sleep. That's something that is really, really big, the sleep hygiene, when we eat late at night and we are spiking that sugar level at night, that cortisol level. It's actually linked to the melatonin, the melatonin hormone. So it really does affect our sleep, and there's a whole cortisol, a little cycle where your cortisol should be really low at night, and then you should wake up hungry. So if you're not hungry when you wake up, that's kind of like a little signal to where you need to look at it 'cause you're now starting the day for a potentially triggering day to emotionally eat or grab foods that are gonna be not in your best interest. So there's a lot to say on that. [laughter]0:11:15.0 MZ: I love that. I love that. Yeah, thank you for that. I think too, one of the reasons I brought you on to the show, or not the show, the summit, and to speak to me and our audience right now, is that I loved the balanced perspective that you bring. It's so easy to find people that are like, "Work hard, push through, get ripped. Bam, bam, bam." And for some people, that might be the solution, but the reality is, as you said earlier, that might just be heightening the... Might not be a proper way of applying the tool of nutrition to having a good life, to stick with the summit theme. It might be heightening your anxiety versus calming your anxiety. So that was what excited me about having you on here is that it's like, "Hey, let's bring someone on who can talk pragmatically," if that's the right word, or...0:12:18.3 MZ: About nutrition. So I think on that note, we get to the question.0:12:22.5 CC: Okay.0:12:23.5 MZ: Yes, you ready?0:12:24.7 CC: Hopefully, I have good answers for you. [laughter]0:12:26.0 MZ: I know... You better. Oh, I love the little tip about sleep already. I think the way you described it versus don't eat before you go to bed, the way you described it is, oh okay, that makes sense. I see, right? I don't know...0:12:41.0 CC: Well, if I'm gonna eat the popcorn at night or if I'm gonna... Of course, I always work on the next best option. If I'm gonna make a smoothie of some sort, I try to do it as low glycemic as possible because of my awareness around it, and what it's gonna do and set me up... For not failure, but it's gonna be more challenging when I wake up. So at least my awareness around it helps my decision making. And I'm not so hard on my body, and it makes me want to choose something that's actually gonna be more beneficial. But if you don't know what those options are and you don't know what's going on with your body and how food actually affects your body, then you don't know. You don't know if you don't know. [laughter] 'Cause the longest time, I didn't know.0:13:31.3 MZ: Alright, let's get to it. So, I'm gonna lay out a scenario and then I'm gonna ask you a question. So, the scenario is this, if we think of life as a three-legged stool of relationships, finance and health, and if we think of someone who is successful or was successful... Successful or was successful, and then they have two or three of those legs fall out from under them, that's when stuff can get gnarly. Sometimes it's easy if, "Ah, there's a little relationship chaos, but mentally, I'm okay." But if there's relationship chaos and then financial chaos or... And then you have a health ailment or... For me, it was my parents were dying and I was getting divorced, more failed relationships, and I was... My... That success, pull myself up from my bootstraps, apply more success to it, work harder through it, was no longer sufficing, right? I needed new tools. And for me, by the grace of God, I was open-minded. So, my question to you is, thinking of nutrition, what are the exact next steps you would offer a man or a woman who's coming out of that tumultuous time... What are the exact next steps you would offer this person, so they know they are headed in the new right direction, that they will have positive momentum towards getting their life back on track? How can they use nutrition as a tool to facilitate that?0:15:14.5 CC: Oh man, and I've been there. I have been there more than a few times in those circumstances, and I didn't have the tools that I do now. So I'm really excited to speak on that, so thank you. I love your question. Man or woman, doesn't matter. First and foremost is to know that you have to take care of yourself, like the airplane going down analogy, if you don't put the oxygen mask on you first, you're not gonna have strength, you're not gonna be able to save anybody else, and that's actually a mindset that I have every morning. I'm still cleaning up some wreckage of my past, so to speak...0:16:07.6 MZ: Sure.0:16:07.9 CC: And I'm still in those phases of certain things not transpiring yet. And I know they will, I'm optimistic, I'm open, in my life circumstance with the relationship, the family, like stuff like the finance, all that stuff. It's still not where I would like it to be, and I still have my personal challenges. So, how I use nutrition to help me and what I would best offer, my suggestion and mindset to help anybody else is to make sure, first of all, you're drinking lots of water, lots of water. We have to drink water, and sometimes we put that on the back burner. And as we say that, I'm gonna take a sip. [laughter]0:17:00.7 CC: And I learned to do that. I learned to pause and I learned to take a breath sometimes when needed, but water is so important. It... Water will help push through the circulation and the blood flow that you need, it'll help the whole circulation process so you can actually think clearer. If your brain is foggy and you're over-stressed and you've got all these things going on and you're dehydrated, you're lethargic, you're not gonna able to think clear and have any rations. So first and foremost, you need to drink water. Me, I drink a gallon a day, that's my goal. It's a good goal. It's always worked for me and because I like to drink, but that's in the hydration actually allows you deeper meaning, to absorb nutrients. You will actually be able to absorb more nutrients when you're eating healthy foods versus it getting stuck in the body or just being flushed out too fast so that there's an equation there, but... And I work a little bit closer, but water hydration, hydration, hydration, I can't tell you enough. Stay away from... And lower the caffeine. Lower the caffeine because a lot...0:18:22.1 MZ: Sorry, sorry everybody. [laughter]0:18:24.0 CC: Lower the caffeine and it... And I'll tell you, when I was doing those bikini competitions and the fitness getting all crazy, 'cause I had just gotten sober and I was trying so hard to get my new life back and all this stuff, my revenge body, so to speak...[laughter]0:18:41.2 CC: Yes I wanted it. I wanted the revenge body.0:18:45.8 MZ: That's all good.0:18:46.9 CC: Yeah, but I was drinking a pot of coffee at a time.0:18:51.3 MZ: Oh my God.0:18:52.0 CC: No joke.0:18:52.0 MZ: Which is brutal on the emotions, right, and your physiology, I guess.0:18:57.4 CC: All of it, all of it. And so I was in trouble. So anyways, water and... Go ahead.0:19:08.5 MZ: So any tips or tricks to help somebody drink more water, right. 'Cause I think a lot of people go, "Okay, I'll drink more water," but as you said, you have built the habit.0:19:20.3 CC: No, water workouts. I actually have a course and there's a little section on water workouts.0:19:24.4 MZ: Okay.0:19:26.1 CC: A little tip on that is... So I just drink. My goal is to drink four of these a day. So I drink two by two, from the minute I wake up, I drink two by two, and then two by the time I go to bed. I just break it down, and I keep it with me at all times. And I remind my... And I breathe, of course, and I like to take a deep breath and actually visualize the water flushing through my body and getting my circulation going and pushing out the toxins. I really love to visualize that because it just... It's an inter-connection. It's kind of like the ocean and the waves. I like to just feel... And it's a sense of calm, and it's an esteemable act that I'm doing for myself, so it really helps me with esteem. And knowing that if I get a phone call, that's either good or bad, if it's a good phone call, I'm able to show up, if I'm mentally clear. If it's a stressful phone call, which we get them, or emails you didn't the bill or whatever it is, I feel like, if I'm on top of my water, it allows me to just have this sense of calm inside where I can just show up for a situation better. My water and me, 'cause I'm thirsty, I'm a recovering alcoholic, I'm in sobriety, and I had no problem drinking then...[laughter]0:21:02.6 CC: It's like the drinking...0:21:03.4 MZ: I hear that.0:21:06.2 CC: So, the drinking the water, I can't emphasize enough. So...0:21:09.0 MZ: Fantastic.0:21:10.0 CC: That's the number one.0:21:10.8 MZ: Okay, fantastic. So good, thank you.0:21:13.2 CC: Number one, and number two is to be mindful of what you're eating. Be mindful, because we put ourselves... It's so crazy, and I have to go back to this, and I share this with a lot of moms I work with, that for the longest time, we used to... We... Ever since we were moms, we would pack our kids all the snacks and all the meals and all the things, and how many times as a mom was I out and about where I was like, "Oh shit", constantly feeling like, "Where's my food?" I forgot to pack me, I forgot me. So I'm either eating their snacks, which at the time they weren't that healthy, they're snacks, and I didn't know better then, or I'm just quickly eating out.0:22:03.7 CC: So, one thing I've done for myself and it's... And my purse is literally a backpack, it's half insulated, so it can hold in a little... A little ice pack thing, and then I keep food with me at all times. And then the other little section of the backpack is where I keep my wallet, my stuff. And so I literally, I have a backpack. And that's something I do for myself every day. I have food on hand, and I make sure I'm never in a situation where I don't have something prepared for myself. And if I'm out and about, and if I'm running short or if I didn't have time to... Which making that time is the best act of self-love I do for myself today, is making that time to make sure I have my smoothie in there, my snacks in there, whatever it is. I set myself up for success when in the food arena.0:23:01.3 CC: I never... That is my first and foremost. And if I'm out and about, I already know that I'm gonna go to a deli, either it's Sprouts, Whole Foods or... And I know what my go-tos are rather than... What I was programmed to do for the longest time is the drive-through or... So I know what my next best option is. 'Cause when I get in those moments of panic of... And I don't know I'm hangry until I'm totally my... That's the thing, when your sugar level drops so low, where you're in an oh shit mode and you know you're hungry... Know you're angry when you're in that drop level, that's when your cortisol levels spike, and that's when everything's out of whack. I have gone on that hamster wheel so many times, long enough to know that I won't do that to myself anymore.0:24:00.1 MZ: You know what I love about that and you just reminded me and how these days, I guess for the awareness that I have or that hangry, I know that hangry, that was a heavy thing for me back in the day, is now, if I'm going into a... If a circumstance with the boy's mom comes up or something, or perhaps with one of my kids or whoever, maybe... It's like, you know what... And I haven't eaten, it's like, "Hey, can I eat and then we can come back to this?" Prioritize that food that nourish, to bring down, right?0:24:38.1 CC: And I don't even ask anymore. I just eat when I need to. I'll be like, "Oh, I'm gonna have something to eat." And I offer and I like to have a little extra something 'cause I like to offer people. Because, I don't know, eating was always like this really awkward thing. You know, when you're eating in your car and someone's looking and you're... I don't know. For me, I was like, "Oh God". I have this weird thing around... But now I'm just... I'm okay with it, I need it. And you need it too.0:25:08.1 MZ: Yes. [laughter]0:25:09.7 CC: Here you go.0:25:11.8 MZ: Love that. Here, have a bite then let's talk.0:25:17.2 CC: Yeah.0:25:18.0 MZ: Dawn my ex wife, I think, you know Dawn, or the boys mom whatever. We're dear friends, but she was like, she started packing food for me 'cause I would get that hangry and she'd be like, "Eat." [laughter] So, I love that.0:25:34.0 CC: So those are my two, I wanted to have three in there, but two... Oh, and I guess number three would be to make sure you get no less than six hours of sleep. No less. And it's gonna be a little different for everybody, but that six to eight hours of sleep is... Even our cell phones, they die, we have to charge our cell phones. We are not... The expectation of myself to keep going and keep going and keep going, and it's not real, it's not fair, so my water, my food, and my sleep are crucial. And sometimes that looks like taking a 20-minute nap. Sometimes I'll pull over, 'cause if I'm feeling... I'm just so in tune now to where if I'm feeling like my energy level is... I like to keep it between my heart and my gut. My throat and my gut. If it's too high, careful, 'cause you're gonna come down and you're gonna feel a little you know... But if I'm too low, it's hard to get back up. It's hard. So I will literally pull over sometimes and just shut everything down, shut the phone down and I'll close my eyes for 10 minutes. Of course, you find a safe spot to do so.0:26:55.0 MZ: Yeah. Of course.0:26:55.8 CC: But I always pull in, I pull out my backpack and make sure I have water, I take... It's like a nutritional meditation. A lot of people meditate different ways. Moving meditation with extras, but that's my way of meditatively bringing it in. And what does your body need right now? If it's sleep, give it to her. [chuckle] And then I know... I used to think all this self-care stuff was selfish, but honestly, it's the best gift I can give to anybody I care about; my clients, my family, my kids. And yeah, me too, but all these things I wanna do, if I'm not doing these things, how the heck am I gonna show up for anybody else? So I just know that the people around me are gonna... I don't know, you kinda train people how to treat you. And it's just been a thing I've had to do for myself that it is who I am, I'm not afraid to eat, I have no shame in eating anymore, and that was a lot of work. 'Cause I was in the overweight. I've been in relationships where they monitored my weight or they made comments on my weight, and actually that made me revert into emotional eating even more. [chuckle] I do this for me, and I'm okay with it. That's the best advice I can say, is to take care of yourself enough so you can actually show up for all those situations the way you want to.0:28:37.6 MZ: Carisa, that was freaking amazing. Thank you so much. I think that that's a great place to end. Everybody listening and watching with us, if this interview with Carisa was fantastic, and you want to get even more content from Carisa, upgrade to the all-access pass for that bonus interview, 'cause we're gonna talk about more amazingness. Any final thoughts to share that we did not get a chance to cover?0:29:16.7 CC: I would just say, enjoy the journey. Love your body, period. You're right where you need to be. Sometimes those things you wanna do for yourself seem far-fetched, as far as in the health arena, but they're very possible, and I love just sharing all the ways that you can get there through nutrition and how that's really the base of it. So, that's it.0:29:46.5 MZ: Beautiful. Everybody, you can find Carisa at... She's got a Facebook group, an awesome Facebook group, she's gonna vet you just so you know, but it's called "Sober Sundays." So go to Facebook, search the Sober Sundays Facebook group, and she might graciously let you in. You can find Carisa at coachcarisa.com, and soberfitlife.com. Am I saying those... Did I get those right?0:30:15.6 CC: Soberfitlifecoach.com, that's that. And then from there, I have an Instagram link where you can follow me on Instagram or you can send me an email and you can ask any questions and I will get back to you, I answer all my emails. My website has a platform where you can just find different avenues to reach out to me.0:30:37.6 MZ: Fantastic. And quick in the... If you upgrade to the VIP all access pass, which the buttons either there, there or there, I'm not sure which yet, but Carisa graciously... She has a DNA, what do you call it? It's this DNA package where you'll get the DNA sequence and then build a best health program for them. Right?0:31:09.2 CC: Right.0:31:09.4 MZ: It's got four sessions. Normal price. Well, she's gonna heavily discount it, it's gonna include the DNA piece, so she'll help cover that for you.0:31:24.1 CC: And I think I'm gonna have to limit it to the first 10 people. Because it's a lot of time invested, it's a lot of time vested. We do a DNA, I register a kit with you as your coach, and we get a DNA swab and...0:31:42.7 MZ: What I'm gonna do... Oh, go ahead. Go. Finish, finish.0:31:45.8 CC: It helps us together, me and the client, whoever it is I'm working with, he or she, customize a nutrition plan, fitness plan and lifestyle plan, based on what works best for your body, how you metabolize carbs, how you metabolize certain fats, your exercise response system, everything. [chuckle]0:32:15.7 MZ: I might be the first of 10. Sounds amazing. So generous that you're offering it. So upgrade VIP all access pass. You can get unlimited access to all of these interviews, plus all the bonus interviews. Carisa, I'm gonna hit stop. Thank you so much and we'll see you in a minute for round two.[music]

As Johnson makes a pig's ear out of his speech to the CBI, and with unrest sizzling on the Tory backbenches over social care, is the Prime Minister in danger of getting smoked out, or can he use red meat to buy off his MPs? Plus continental Europe is facing a fourth wave of COVID, reaching case rates the UK has seen for months! Will Britain avoid another lockdown, and are we changing our behaviour as Christmas approaches? Naomi, Dorian and Alex are joined by special guest Gavin Esler on this week's show. “Johnson turning up and winging his speech is effectively another way of saying ‘fuck business'.” - Alex Andreou “I hate commentators using the word ‘authentic', some people are authentically shit.” - Gavin Esler  “Johnson is under attack from all groups in the party, this makes it very difficult for him to buy them off.” - Naomi Smith “One person I think has a good chance is Jeremy Hunt. He's biding his time, outside the cabinet of disasters.” - Gavin Esler “The UK became desensitised after the 80,000 death second wave, something that other European countries didn't go through.” - Alex Andreou Back us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Dorian Lynskey with Naomi Smith and Alex Andreou. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Today’s Show: Happy Thanksgiving, Freaks! Contact LVL80CatLady About Secret Santa – @LVL80CATLADY on Twitter Great Big Pete And Vlad Do Prank Calls: Great Big Pranks Podcast Voicemail: 206-666-4463 (206-66-OH GOD)  Have Your Voicemail Played On The Show E-mail: show@distortedview.com – Say hi, suggest news stories, videos, audio, etc. Discord: The DV discord server! Chat with like-minded monsters. […]

Intro: buzzsaws and clean slates, rage, Where the Wild Things AreLet Me Run This By You: MoneyInterview: We talk to Carole Schweid about Juilliard, Phoebe Brand, John Lehne, Michael Brand, Midnight Cowboy, musical comedy performance, open dance calls, starring in the original cast of A Chorus Line, Bob Fosse, Pat Birch, Martha Graham, Minnie's Boys, Mervyn Nelson, playing Fastrada in the first national tour of Pippin, being a lone wolf in theatre, Lewis J. Stadlen, doing West Side Story at Bucks County Playhouse, Shelly Winters, Mary Hinkson, Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, playing Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof, Peppermint Lounge, Nick Dante, Michael Bennett, Marvin Hamlisch, Public Theater, Gerry Schoenfeld, The Shubert, the wish for a job vs. the real experience of working, Theda Bara & The Frontier Rabbi, Agnes de Mille, Play With Your Food, Staged Reading Magic, Albert Hague.FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):2 (10s):And I'm Gina Pulice.1 (11s):We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later,2 (16s):We're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense1 (20s):If at all we survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? As more space is actually a huge thing.2 (36s):Yeah. I have to apologize for the sound of buzz saws. What is going to be going the whole time I'm talking, doing well, you1 (50s):Took some trees down, right.2 (53s):You know, that's how it started. Yeah. It started with actually, you know, it all was a surprise to me, basically one we've been talking about taking down all the trees in the front of our house. And one day Aaron said, they're coming tomorrow to take down the trees. And I'm like, how much did that cost? Because you know, taking down trees is usually really expensive. And so he says, well, he's going to do everything in the front for whatever. It was $5,000.1 (1m 22s):Yeah. She was pretty good for more than one tree. Cause one tree we had removed was $5,000 at my mom's.2 (1m 28s):Well, and it's not like they have to extract the whole tree. It's just, you know, just chopping it down. Like it's not, I don't know if it's different when they have to take out the, yeah,1 (1m 38s):I think it is when they have to take the stump out the roots and all that.2 (1m 43s):So that was fine. Although I did think to myself, Hmm. We have $5,000 to spend and this is what we're spending it on.1 (1m 54s):I've been there. Oh, I've been there2 (1m 56s):So the morning, but I'm letting it go. And so the morning comes and he tells me to go outside so we can talk about the trees and, and, and I, anyway, we, we designate some trees and they're all in the lower part of the front of our house.1 (2m 10s):Yes. You, and by the way, for people that don't know, like you have a lot of land for, for, for, for not being in the super super country, you have a lot of courage. I mean, you got a lot of trees.2 (2m 21s):Well, yeah, we have an acre and it's a lot of trees and it's a lot of junk trees. What they call junk trees. Because the idea here is once upon a time, when everybody got their heat from wood, you had to have fast growing trees. So it's these skinny trees. Yeah. Anyway, so I thought we were sort of on the same page about what we were going down. This is where I'm getting with this. And I had a couple of meetings yesterday and I was hearing the sound pretty close, but it wasn't until I looked outside that I saw, they took everything out.2 (3m 1s):The, every living thing out in the, in the front, in front of our house, including the only tree I was really attached to was I have a beautiful lilac tree.1 (3m 14s):Okay. Oh shit. And everything out.2 (3m 21s):What's that? Why they1 (3m 22s):Take everything out? Is that the plant? I think,2 (3m 25s):I think what happened was for the first couple of days, the boss was here. And then I think yesterday, the boss was like, you guys just go and finish up. And I don't know that anyway, you know what, I'm just choosing it to be, I'm choosing to look at it like, okay, well we're getting to start over and it can be exactly how we want it to be. So yeah,1 (3m 45s):That is a great attitude because there's nothing you can do you really do about it? Absolutely. Zero. You can do about threes coming out.2 (3m 53s):The only bummer is that it sounds like buzz saws all day at my house and at my neighbor's house, I'm sure they're annoyed with us too. Well,1 (4m 2s):What are you going to put? It is. Okay. So, so, okay. The good, that's the sort of wonky news, but what the good news is, what are you going to put in? Like, is there going to be a whole new,2 (4m 12s):I think it's just going to GRA, I mean, I think it's just going to be grass, which is fine. I mean, my thing was actually, it does a little bit of a metaphor because when we first moved here, we loved how quiet and private and everything is. And part of why everything feels very private at our house is there's trees and bushes blocking our view of anything. I mean, all we can see is trees and bushes when we're laying on the front, which for a while seemed cozy. And then it started to seem like annoying that we could never see. And actually there's kind of a really beautiful view of the mountains behind us. So our mountains Hills.1 (4m 51s):Yeah. But I mean, small mountains, like small2 (4m 53s):Mountains. Yeah. So I realized that it does coincide with our psychological spelunking and trying to just be like more open about everything. Like totally. You know what I mean? Like this is just be open to people seeing our house. This is open to seeing out and let's have, and actually my kids were kind of like, oh, but it's just also open and we don't have any privacy. And I'm like, yeah, well you have your room and bathroom. I mean, there's, there's places to go if you don't want people to, to see you, but let's just be open.1 (5m 31s):There's like a whole, yeah. It's a great metaphor for being visible. Like I am all about lately. I have found a lot of comfort and refuge in the truth of the matter, even if it's not pretty, even if I don't actually like it. So like getting the facts of the matter and also sharing the, of the matter without a judgment. So I appreciate this, like wanting to be seen and then letting go of what people make of that, whether your house is this way or that way, or the neighbors think this or that, I'm also the, I I'm all about it.1 (6m 15s):I'm like, you know, this is, there's something about transparency. That's very comforting for me. It's also scary because people don't like it when they can see, or they can say whatever they want, but the hiding, I think I'm pretty convinced hiding from myself and from others leads to trouble.2 (6m 37s):It leads to trouble. And any time you're having to kind of keep track of what you're, you know, being open about and what you're not, and what you've said, you know, it just it's like it's T it's listen. If I only have a certain amount of real estate in my mind, I really don't want to allocate any of it too. Right. Hiding something and trying to remember. Right.1 (7m 1s):And it's interesting, the more that we do this podcast, the more I see that, like, you know what I thought gene, I thought when we're dead, this podcast is going to remain. And then our children's children's children. I mean, I don't have kids, but my nieces and nephew and your children's children's children will have a record of this. And, and I'd rather it be a record of the truth, the truth and transparency, then some show about pretending. So I think it's going to be good for them to be able to look back and be like, for me, it's like the, my crazy aunt, like, what was she doing? And what did she think? And, and, oh my God, it's a record of the times too.1 (7m 43s):Yeah.2 (7m 43s):I think about that kind of a lot. And I think about, of course I say all this and my kids are probably like going to be, have no interests unless the, until they get to a certain age, I mean, I'll put it to you this way. If I could listen to a podcast of my mother in her, you know, in the time that I don't really the time of life, certainly before I was born, but in my life where I still didn't see her as a person until, you know, I'd love to just things like what her voice sounded like then, and that kind of thing. I mean, it's interesting.1 (8m 16s):I have nothing of my mom, like we have a very few, it was interesting because we didn't, you know, we, there was not a lot of video of my mother and today's actually the 10th anniversary of her passing.2 (8m 28s):Oh, wow. Wow. That's hard.1 (8m 31s):It is hard. You know, it is hard. And I'm working through, I started therapy with a new therapist, like a regular LCSW lady. Who's not because my last guy was an Orthodox Jewish man who wanted me to have children. Like it was a whole new, I just got involved in all the Shannon Diego's of like weirdness. I attracted that weirdest and whatever. So this lady is like a legit, you know, therapist. And they only bummer is, and I totally understand she's on zoom, but like, I I'm so sick of like, I would love to be in a room with a therapist, but I get it. She's in, she's an older lady, which is also great. I was so sick of having like 28 year old therapists.1 (9m 13s):Yeah,2 (9m 13s):Yeah, yeah. For sure.1 (9m 16s):I don't even seem right. Unless clients are like, you know, fit seven to 17. So anyway, so, but all this to say about my mom, I was thinking about it and I think what's harder than right. My mom's death right now is that there's I just, you know, and this is something I wanted to bring up with you is just like, I have a lot of rage that's coming up lately about my childhood and we weren't allowed to feel rage. And my mom was the only one allowed to feel rage. And so this rage mixed with perimenopause slash menopause. I mean, like I still get a period, but like, it's, it's a matter of time before that's over.1 (9m 58s):So, but the rage, so I guess, right. I get, you know, people like to talk about rage as some or anger as something we need to process and we need to do this and that, but the truth of the matter is since we're being transparent, like rage can be really scary. Like sometimes the rage, I feel, it's not like I'm going to do anything. Why wonky? I hope, but it's more like a, I don't know what to do with it. That is my, and I was talking in therapy about that. Like, I'm not actually sure. Practically when the feelings come up, what to do with rage. And I feel like it speaks to in our culture of like, we're all about now, this sort of like, we talk about this fake positivity and shit like that.1 (10m 41s):And also like embracing all your feelings, but there's not really practical things that we learn what to do when you feel like you're going to take your laptop and literally take it and throw it across the room and then go to jail. Like you, you. So I have to like look up things on the internet with literally like what to do with my rage.2 (11m 1s):I think that's why that's part of my attraction to reality. Television shows is a, is a performance of rage. That's that I wouldn't do just because I don't think I could tolerate the consequences. I mean, an upwards interpretation is, oh, it's not my value, but it's really just like, I don't think I can manage the content of the consequences. I'm totally at having all these blown up1 (11m 30s):And people mad at me and legal consequences. I can't,2 (11m 35s):It's something very gratifying about watching people just give in to all of their rage impulses and it's yeah. I, it it's, it may be particularly true for women, but I think it's really just true for everybody that there's very few rage outlets, although I guess actually maybe sports. Well, when it turns, when it turns sideways, then that's also not acceptable.1 (12m 3s):Yeah. I mean, and maybe that's why I love all this true crime is like, these people act out their rage, but like lately to be honest, the true crime hasn't been doing it for me. It's interesting. That is interesting. Yeah. It's sort of like, well, I've watched so much of it that like now I'm watching stuff in different languages, true crime. And I'll start again. No, no, just stories. I haven't all been the only stories that I haven't heard really, really are the ones from other countries now. So I'm watching like, like true crime in new, in Delhi.2 (12m 42s):Do you need your fix? I actually was listening to some podcasts that I listened to. There's always an ad and it's exactly about this. It's like, we love true crime, but we've heard every story we know about every grisly murder, you know, detail. And it was touting itself as a podcast of, for next time I listened to it. I'll note the name of it so I can share it with you. You know, about this crimes. You haven't heard about1 (13m 9s):T the thing is a lot of them now, because I'm becoming more of a kind of sewer. Like a lot of it is just shittily made. So like the, the they're subtitled and dubbed in India, like India. So you've got like the, the they're speaking another language and then they're and if they don't match, so then I'm like, well, who's right. Like, is it the dubbing that's right. Or the subtitles that are right. And, and actually the words matter because I'm a writer. So it was like one anyway, it's poorly done is what I'm saying in my mind. And so it sort of scraped scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's like deli 9 1 1. I swear to God. That's what it, and, and it's, and also it's, it's horrifying because the, you know, the legal systems everywhere fucked, but India has quite a system.2 (13m 57s):I think that to the rage, like, tell me more about what comes up for you with rage and where you,1 (14m 6s):Yeah. Okay. So some of it is physiological, like where I feel literally like, and I think this is what my doctor's talking about. The menopause symptoms. I literally feel like a gnashing, my teeth. Like, I feel a tenseness in my jaw. Like, that's literally that. And she's like, that could also be your heart medication. So talk to your heart doctor. I mean, we're checking out all the things, but like, but it's tension. That's what it really feels like in my body is like tight tension where I feel earth like that. If I had to put a sound effect to it, it's like, ah, so I, I feel that is the first symptom of my rage. And then I feel like, and, and I say out loud, sometimes I hate my life.1 (14m 54s):That's what I say. And that is something I have never allowed myself to say before. Like I, I think unconsciously, I always told myself, like, you just, you have to be grateful and you know, those are the messages we receive, but sometimes life just fucking sucks. And sometimes my life, I just, I just can't stand. And, and in moments, you know, I never loved myself. So it's mostly a physical symptom followed by this is intolerable, what someone is doing. Sometimes my dog or my husband, but even, even if the coworking space, you know, like the lady was talking too loud and I was like, oh my God, this is intolerable.1 (15m 34s):She has to shut up. So agitation, that's what it is. And, and then it passes when I, if I, if I can say, oh my gosh, I am so fricking in Rouge right now. Then it passes.2 (15m 52s):Yeah. Well, it, it kind of sounds like from, from you and probably for most people, the only real option is to turn it in on yourself, you know, like you're not going to put it elsewhere. So you've, you know, you have, which is, so I guess maybe it's okay if you turn it on yourself, if you're doing, if you're working, if you're doing it with acceptance, which is the thing I'm gathering from you, as opposed to stewing and festering. And1 (16m 21s):I mean, it becomes, it's interesting. Yes, it is. So it's like, so red, hot, and so sudden, almost that the only thing I can do is say, okay, this is actually happening. Like, I can't pretend this isn't happening. I, it I'm like physically clenching my fists. And then I, yeah, there is a level of acceptance. I don't get panicked anymore. Now that I, that something is wrong. I just say, oh, this is rage. I name it. I'm like, I feel enraged and white, hot rage, and then it, and then it, and then I say, that's what this is.1 (17m 3s):I don't know why. I don't know where it's coming from. Right. In this moment. It's not proportionate to the lady, like literally talking on the phone at my coworking space that she's not shouting. So it's not that. And I don't want to miss that. I'm not like I can't fool myself to think that it's really, that lady's problem. That I feel like throwing my laptop at her head. And then, and then it passes. But, but, but it is, it is more and more. And, and I think a lot of it, not a lot of it, but you know, my doctor really does think that it's, it's hormonal. A lot of it just doesn't help the matter. I mean, it's not like, oh, great. It's hormonal. Everything's fine. But it, it does help to make me feel a little less bonkers.2 (17m 45s):Maybe you should have like a, a whole rage. Like what, like a rate. Well, first I was thinking you should have a range outfit. Like, oh, for me, if I, I noticed I pee in the winter anyway, I pick like my meanest boots and my leather jacket. When I'm feeling, you know, maybe say maybe kind of a rage outfit, when did Pierce?1 (18m 9s):No, I, I scratched myself in my sleep. Oh no, it's okay. It happens all the time. I do it in my sleep. It's a thing that it's like a little skin tag that I need to get removed. It's2 (18m 23s):So you could have a rage outfit and then you could have a rage playlist, And then you might even have like rage props. I'm just trying to think about a way that your ma you, you could write because if, if how you process something is artistically creatively, then maybe you needed a creative outlet that's specifically for, for race.1 (18m 48s):Yeah. And you know, the, I, I love that. And now I'm thinking about like, as a kid, we, because we, anger was so off limits to us. I used to violently chew gum. Like I would chew on the gum. That was a way, and my mom did the same thing, even though she also got her rage out, but it was like, you know, when people violently chew on their gum, like that was a way I could get my aggression out. That's so sad that that's like the only way.2 (19m 16s):Well, I mean, you find it wherever you can find me. It's like water looking for whatever that expression is, right? Yeah. Huh. Well, I have to get more in touch with my rage because I I'm told that I seem angry a lot.1 (19m 33s):You do.2 (19m 35s):I, I do get told that, but, but that sucks for me because I feel like I'm not expressing my anger and I'm, but I'm not. So I'm not, and I'm being seen as angry at certain times. So that means I didn't even get the benefit of like letting out the anger that somebody is.1 (19m 56s):Right. You didn't even get to act out the anger. It's like, yeah. So for me, miles tells me that all the time, like, he's like, you seem really in couples therapy. Also, I have to admit yesterday was a big day. We had couples therapy on zoom. Then I had individual therapy. And in between I had all kinds of like, just stuff happening. So, but yeah, I'm told I a miles is like, you seem so angry and he's not wrong. And, and we take it out on the people that we live in a two by four apartment with. So I also feel like this office space is helping with that, but yeah, I dunno, I'm going to have to keep exploring my, my rage and that's what it is.1 (20m 37s):And also it is like, I am the character in where the wild things are that kid, that is what I feel like. And it feels it's like the perfect cause he wants to gnash his teeth and, and he does, and a thrash, thrash, thrashing mash, or the words 2 (21m 6s):Let me run this by you that I wanted to do when we're going to talk to Molly that we didn't get to do. And it was based on made, you know, and just about money and, and wondering like what your relationship is right now with money. And also, but when were you at your lowest with money? What do you remember as being your lowest moment? Sure, sure. With money with money.1 (21m 40s):Okay. I have moments of what first comes to mind was when right. I was at DePaul. So it's an apropos in college and there was obviously a sense. I had a sense of lack, always, even though based on whatever, but it was phone. Somehow my accounts were always negative, right? Like, and I would call the number, the banking number, incessantly to check, and it would always be negative. So I have this panic thoughts about that. Like being a time of like, and that's not the only time that happened like that.1 (22m 23s):Where, what is the feeling? The feeling was that, and this was in college where it started to happen, where I felt like there's never enough. No, one's going to help me. I'm irresponsible with money. Was the message I told myself and I probably was, I was in college, but I can't handle money. And literally that, that panic was also, I mean, it was true. I had no money, but my parents would have backed me, probably helped me out, but I was too scared to ask for help. So that's like, that's when, when you asked that question, that's where I go.1 (23m 4s):But, but that's also a college kind of me. So like in terms of an adult, me, that's a really great, great question. My lowest, I don't know. What about you?2 (23m 22s):Well, I've got a lot of Loma Loehmann's moments with money when I was in high school. The thing was, I lost my wallet all the time.1 (23m 35s):Oh, I remember this. I remember you talking about,2 (23m 38s):Yeah, that'd be still lose stuff all the time. That actually started at a young age with, you know, my mom would, she, my mom was really into jewelry and she would buy me destroyed. And there's nothing wrong with the fact that she brought me jewelry, but I lost it. You know, she buy me nice gold jewelry1 (23m 59s):Because she likes nice things. That's right. Yeah.2 (24m 4s):In college it was pretty bad. And the first time it was pretty bad. I had to move back in with my mom because I couldn't afford rent. And then the second time I just, I re I really, if I had more bravery, I probably would have signed up to be one of those girls in the back of the Chicago reader. Like, I, I, I just figured what ha how literally, how else? Because I had a job, but I only worked however much I could work given the fact that we were in rehearsals and like busy all day, so I never could make enough money. And then I just, I think I always have had a dysfunctional relationship with money.1 (24m 51s):Wait a minute, but I have to interrupt. Why, why didn't our parents fucking help us? Okay. Look, I know I sound like a spoiled asshole brat, but like, when I think of the anxiety that we were going through and I know your mom did, so I'm not going to talk shit about your mom or anything, but I'm just saying like, why did we feel so alone in this when we were so young, this is not right.2 (25m 11s):Yeah. Well, my mom did help me out as much as she possibly could, but I think part of it too, my dad certainly didn't think it was that. I mean, when my mom was 18 and my dad was 19, they bought a house and had a baby. So I think part of it is, has been like, what's the matter with you? Cause I didn't go to college, you know, that's the other thing. So, so then when I, then I had a period for like 10 years where I always had three jobs, me two, what1 (25m 46s):Did you have enough then? I mean like, could you make rapid enough?2 (25m 49s):I had enough then yeah, I had enough then. But then when Aaron decided he wants to go to medical school, it was really on me to, to bring in the income. I mean, his parents always gave him money. They helped, it was a lot more. I mean, and actually it's why he became a therapist because I thought, well, we're going to be living with no income because he's going to be a student. Right. So I better giddy up and get a job. So the whole time I was in social work school, I was bartending. I remember that. And then I went quickly into private practice so that I could make money.2 (26m 29s):And it turned out to be, it turned out to backfire on me. Tell1 (26m 35s):Me, tell me, tell me more.2 (26m 37s):It backfired in two ways. Number one, I was, I shouldn't have been operating a private practice without my LCSW. I had my MSW and I was working at the time in a psych hospital. And all of the psychiatrist said, you should start your private practice. You should start your private practice. And I remember saying at the beginning, I don't know if I'm allowed to oh yes, yes. You definitely can. I know tons of MSWs into plenty of people and it's true. I don't know if it's still true now in New York, but at that time you could walk around and see plenty of nameplates for offices where somebody in private practice and that just have an MSW.2 (27m 18s):They just had to have a supervisor1 (27m 19s):Or something.2 (27m 22s):I don't know. Okay. I dunno. Right. So that ended up coming to haunt me when a disgruntled patient. And they're all disgruntled in some way, a family who actually had been swindled by a con artist, like they, they were a blue blood, rich ass family and they got swindled by a con artist. And so they were talking about rage. They had a lot of rage about that. When this guy who was paying for his daughter's treatment, didn't think it was going where, you know, he wanted it to right.2 (28m 4s):He started pushing back about the fee and then he was submitting to his insurance company and they were not reimbursing because I didn't have the LCSW. So then he reported me to the New York state office of professional discipline or1 (28m 21s):Whatever yeah.2 (28m 21s):Regulation or whatever. Yeah. And I ha I had to go through a whole thing. I had to have a lawyer and I had to go, yeah, yeah. It was a nightmare. It was a complete and total nightmare. And I, and I said nothing, but like, yeah, I did that. I did do that. And I did it because I needed to make the money. I mean, in some ways I don't regret it because I did it worked for the time that it worked. And then by the time it stopped working, I was ready to leave private practice anyway. Oh my God. Yeah. But then it also backfired because we were taking in this money, which we desperately needed living in New York city with two kids.2 (29m 3s):And, and we were, we were spending it all and not hold withholding any for taxes. So then that started, that started, that started almost 10 year saga of just, I mean, I, it's embarrassing to even say how much money we've paid in just in fees, compounded fees. Nope. I'm sure. In the last 10 years we've given the government a million dollars.1 (29m 29s):That sounds, that sounds about right. And you know, I think the thing with money too, is the amount of forgiveness I've need to muster up for the financial decisions that I have made. So one of them that I'm super embarrassed about is that, and I, and I hear you when it's like, yeah, I, it, it's embarrassing. I, I, when I did my solo show, I inherited the year that my mom died. My great aunt also died, who I very barely knew. And I inherited like, like a lot of money. Well, to me, a lot, like 50 grand from her, and I spent 15,000 on a publicist for my solo show that did nothing.1 (30m 14s):So I was swindled. Oh,2 (30m 17s):I'm so sorry to hear that. That really did nothing.1 (30m 22s):I could have done it all on my own. I could have done it all on my own, on drugs, in a coma. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, like, come on. So I have done made some questionable decisions. I did the best we did the best we could with, with the information that we all had at the time. I would never make that decision. I wouldn't, I will never make that mistake again. So yeah. Money is very, very, obviously this is so like kind of obvious to say, but it is, it is. So it is a way in which we really, really use it to either prize or shame ourselves. Right. And, and, and w I do it either way, like I do it.1 (31m 2s):Oh, I'm so fancy. I inherited this dough. And then I also do it. It's that thing that they talk about in program, which is like, you're the worm, but you're the best worm for the festival, special worms. And like, you're not a worker among workers. I'm just like the best idiot out there. It's like,2 (31m 18s):Dude. Yeah. And you're making me realize that money might be the only very quantifiable way of understanding your psychology list. The money is like, understanding your psychology through math. It's going okay. If you're a person like me who gets offered a credit card at age 20 totally signs up and, and immediately maxes it out at whatever, to get 27% interest rate. So whatever little thousand dollars of clothes I got, I probably paid $10 for it. And for the longest time. So, so that's me being afraid of the truth of my financial situation, being unwilling to sacrifice, having, you know, whatever, cute clothes being about the immediate gratification of it all and not thinking longterm.2 (32m 15s):Yeah.1 (32m 16s):Okay. Well, not asking for help either. Like, like, I don't know who I'd asked, but someone had to know more than me. I didn't ask my parents. They didn't really know what was happening at, or that just was their generation of like, not teaching us about money. It was sort of like, good luck. Get it together. We got it together. You get it together. Okay. Fine. But like unwillingness and fear to ask, to be taught something about money. Like, I didn't know, Jack shit about credit or interest Jack shit.2 (32m 46s):Yeah. And I recently realized that I'm basically redoing that with my kids, because we supposedly have this allowance. Only one of my kids ever remembers to ask for it because you know, only one of my kids is very, you know, very interested in money, but like, in a way I can understand why the others don't because it's like, well, anytime they want something, I pay for it. I never say sometimes I'll say recently, I've gotten better about saying, if we're going to go back to school shopping I'll especially if the oldest one, I'll say, this is your budget. If you, if you spend it all on one pair of sneakers, then I hope you're okay with your sweat pants that don't fit and wear them everyday for the rest of the school year.2 (33m 31s):Right. But it's, we've, we've just been extremely inconsistent in tying, like, for example, chores to your allowance,1 (33m 42s):It's fucking miserable and hard. And I have trouble doing that for myself. I wouldn't be able to do that for my children. If I had children, I can't not give the dog people food. What are you talking about? How am I going to bring it? Doesn't shock me. We didn't learn the skills and I'm not blaming. I mean, I'm blaming, of course my parents, but I'm also just saying, it's just the facts. If we're going to be that in the truth, like, I didn't learn, I didn't educate myself and nobody educated me. So I'm really learning through trial and error. Mostly error, how to be okay with money. And it is you're right. Like finances, romance, and finance teach us the most about our psychology.2 (34m 24s):Yeah. Yeah. Romance finance. I love that. 1 (34m 28s):I think that my boss at Lutheran social services to say all the time, finance and romance, romance, and finance, that's what all these addictions are about is that's how you see them. I'm like, she's right. I mean, she was, I liked her. She was bonkers, but I liked her. She said some good. She, she also is famous for saying, and she didn't say it, but she would always quote, the, no one gets out of here alive. You know, none of us getting out of here life, we might as well start2 (34m 54s):. Well, today on the podcast, we were talking to Carol Schweid and original cast member of the original production of a chorus line on Broadway. She's got great stories to tell she's a fascinating person. And I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation with Carol Schweid. Exactly. Carol shrine. Congratulations. You survived theater school. I did. You did.2 (35m 34s):And where did you go to theater school. Okay. First of all,3 (35m 38s):Let me just take my coffee, my extra coffee off of the stove and put it on my table. Cause it's gonna burn because we don't want that.4 (35m 51s):Okay. You're I am looking for a cop. If you have one, you know, this is ridiculous.3 (36m 2s):Hi there. Hi. This is a riot that you talk about surviving theater school. I think it's great. Okay. So this is working, right? You can hear me. Yeah, no, totally. A hundred percent. So this is my, I started college at Boston university. I was an acting major, which I loved. I really did, but I, what I loved more than anything was I loved the history of the theater. We had a great professor who told the tales of the gladiators and the, you know, the gladiators on the island and the fighting, and then the island, the survivors, and then the island would slowly sink into the water.3 (36m 45s):What is this? What did I miss? It was the early history of the theater. It was starting on the church steps. It was, you know, the second, whatever all of that history was, I found it really interesting. I also loved the station shop crew stuff. I liked learning about lighting. I was terrible at it. I, you know, I would fall off ladder, but I, I, I enjoyed the backstage stuff as much as I enjoy. I just, I liked it. I, we did the rose tattoo and my, and my first job was to take care of the goat. I was on the prop crew.3 (37m 28s):I took care of the goat. Was it a stuffed goat? No, it was a real goat. Wow. What can I tell you? The rose tattoo. There's a goat in the play. I didn't realize you could have livestock and colleges, college, whatever it was. I look like I have jaundice with is that something's wrong with the light jump I sent you stop your, where is the microphone part of your, do you want me to hold it up better? Because when you move, it hits your shirt and it makes like a scratching, right? That's right. I'll do it this way. I won't move around. When you look tan, you look, you don't like jaundice at all. Okay. Well then that's all right. Good. Thanks. Were the goat handlers.3 (38m 8s):Good to talk to you. I mean, that was, and I didn't mind, I didn't mind being an usher. All of those things, you know, I remember somebody sitting us down and saying, you're you are the first person. The audience we'll meet tonight as an usher. I took all of the stuff I did, but the acting business was very confusing to me. I didn't quite know. I had done a lot of theater and dancing and been in the shows and stuff, but I really, I was a little more of a dancer than an actor. I'd taken class in the city. I'd followed some cute guy from summer camp to his acting class. But half the time, I honestly didn't understand a word.3 (38m 48s):Anybody said, I just, nobody does. I really didn't get it so much at the time I loved it, but I didn't always get it. And for some reason, and I have no idea where this, why this happened. I had a boyfriend in summer stock whose mother worked at Barnard and her best friend was a woman named Martha Hill. Martha Hill ran the dance department at a school called Julliard. Nope. I had no idea. Cool. Just a little, nothing school. This is back in the day. It's a long time ago. It was just a plain old school. It wasn't like a school, you know, where you bow down. And I really was a very good dancer and always loved dancing.3 (39m 33s):You know, I've been dancing since I'm like a kid, a little five or six or whatever. So I was a little disenchanted with my successes at Boston U even though I had friends, I was having a great time. I mean, Boston in the late sixties was amazingly fun, but I felt like I wasn't getting it. I mean, it wasn't a school that was cutting people. Thank God, because that would have been torture. I don't know how anybody survives that, but I audition for this dance department in this school called Juilliard and got in and then told my parents that I was going to change colleges. I remember making up a dance in the basement of my dorm in Boston.3 (40m 17s):Cause you had a sort of take class and then you had to show something that you should have made up. And somebody else from college was leaving school to come to New York to be a singer. So we decided we were going to be roommates. And then we had a summer stock. Somebody at BU started some summer theaters. So I had a job or two, I think I had some friends from there. So I ended up moving, changing colleges and going to Juilliard. And I spent three years there. I was a modern dancer major. So we had the Limone company, including Jose Lamone wow teachers and the Graham company.3 (40m 59s):I mean, Martha, Martha Graham did not teach, but her company did as a winter and Helen, I was Helen McGee. One of the, they were maniacs. I mean, they're, they're like gods and goddesses and their whole life is about dance. And I was one of those demonstrators for her eight o'clock beginning class, my third year of school. I mean, I, it was all about technique. We had amazing ballet teachers. We had Fiorella Keane who, I mean, Anthony tutor taught class there and he was Anthony. I mean, so I got a out of being at that school that I have never lost. I mean, I can, I'm making up the answers for high school kids now really.3 (41m 42s):I'm just finishing up a production of grease, which is really kind of boring, but whatever I liked Greece, tell me more. Yeah. It's okay. If you hear it enough, you really get sick of it. Well, that's true. Yeah. I mean high school kids doing high school kids is like, Jesus, God, you just want to slit your throat. The moodiness when it comes to the girls. I mean, I love them. I really love them. I love the guys because puppies, they fall all over each other and they're fabulous, but that's a lie anyway. So I did something that I don't know why I did it and how it worked out. That way I left. I had a very best friend in college that was, you know, and I came to New York and made, made and shared an apartment with this slightly crazy woman.3 (42m 32s):And a year later I got myself a studio apartment on west end avenue and 71st street. And my mom co-signed the lease. And I spent three years dancing, honestly dancing almost every day. I wanted to take sights singing, but they wouldn't let me because I was in the dance department. And I didn't know, you could advocate for that. Sure. I didn't know. You could take classes at Columbia. I mean, who had time anyway, but was it a three-year program? It was a four year program, but I had taken a music class at BU that was like music appreciation one. Yeah. And for whatever reason, they gave me credit for that.3 (43m 14s):So I had a full year credit. Yep. Three years of Juilliard where I really worked my tail off. What's weird about it is that I am, you know, just a plain old Jewish girl from New Jersey, you know, a middle-class Jewish girlfriend. And to, to think that I could have a profession where people don't talk and don't eat, which is what the answers do is a riot to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's an absolute riot because you know, I mean, that should be basically the manual for dancers. Don't talk, don't eat, but I always knew that I was heading to Broadway. I really have always wanted to do that.3 (43m 55s):And I, and, and w was not really ever in question that I would, I somehow assumed if I worked hard and figured it out enough, I would find my way to working on Broadway. And I, and I made the right choice in the sense of switching colleges. Because in the seventies, if you look at your list of Broadway shows, all the directors were choreographers. They were all dancers, all of them Fauci, Michael Bennett champion, all of them. So I started working when I got out of school, you know, it was, and I had already done a couple of summers of summer stock and I did a summer Bushkill pencil, you know, these ridiculous, stupid theaters all over, but it was a blast.3 (44m 36s):It was fun. Where, what was your first job out of school? I was still, I was in school and it was the Mount Suttington Playhouse, which was like a tin shell in Connecticut. And I think it was still in college. Cause two guys from school had opened this theater at the skiing place, but it wasn't skiing. Then it was a sh it was like a tin shell. So couldn't really do a show when it was raining very well. And I believe it was stopped the world. I want to get off and I can still remember the Alto harmony to some of the songs. So you okay. Wait, so you don't consider, you didn't consider yourself a, an actor or did you?3 (45m 20s):Well, I did, but I think what happened was I had to audition for something. It'd be you like, they had grad programs and it wasn't that I was unsuccessful there, but somebody came and I didn't get cast. I didn't get hired. And I didn't understand, you know, like they give you all these acting exercises. We do sense memory. Well, I didn't know they were exercises. I didn't, they were they're like plea aids. Right. They're like learning things. I took this all very seriously. I would stand in a room and try to feel it was like that song from chorus line, you know, try to feel the emotion, feel the, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.3 (46m 5s):I did all of that. I didn't really understand the simple, what am I want here? And what's in my way of trying to get it. Yeah. It took me so long to find teachers that I really could understand and make me a better actor. So when did you find them? When did you start to find them? Oh, that's interesting. Well, I found a couple of good teachers in New York. I mean, honestly there was a woman named Mary Tarsa who had been in the group theater and an older lady. I mean, it's a long time ago anyway, you know, but I remember sitting in her class and she would talk about using imagery and th and I started to sort of understand a little bit, which is amazing to me because after I moved to Westport and I met, do you know the name Phoebe brand?3 (46m 58s):Yeah. Phoebe brand was in our theater workshop. Oh, taught a class. She was already up in her eighties and she taught a class, a Shakespeare class on Sunday mornings. And all of a sudden these things that I didn't understand from decades before. Hmm. It sort of pulled it all together. But for me, I went, I was in California after I got married and moved to LA for a couple of years, found a teacher named John LAN and Lee H N E and two years in his class. I started to really understand how to do it. And then when I came back to New York, he sent me to Michael Howard and Michael Howard, Michael Howard was a great teacher for me.3 (47m 44s):He's still a great, I don't know if he's still around if he's teaching or not, but he was a wonderful teacher. And I started to understand how to do it. Was Len the, did he teach the method or what was yes, he was, he was an actor studio teacher. And I started to understand about being present on the stage and being able to deal with people. All of it, it just changed dramatically. I mean, I started to understand what this was about and seeing other good actors and chipping away at it and finding people to rehearse with. And1 (48m 22s):You, you, from what I know, and what I'm gathering is that once you graduated Juilliard, you were cast in New York.3 (48m 30s):Well, you know, I did get my very, my V I I've. I mean, I, I remember going to see midnight cowboy, which was about the same time as I got out of college. And I remember going into a terrible panic of, oh my God. I mean, really scared about all of it. And I, I went, I joined a class that a friend of mine, somebody told me about this class, you know, I always follow somebody to a class. I'm always, I have good friends. And I, somebody says, oh, I love this guy come to class and I'd show up.3 (49m 12s):And this was a musical comedy singing class, kind of where there were writers in the class and actors in the class. And the writers in the class would work on a musical that they didn't have permission for. It wasn't like they were, we were doing this for money or for, for future. So my friend who I became friends with wrote her musical version of barefoot in the park and which has never been done, but I remember I was in it and this guy was in it. And we, it was the kind of a class where it was a very warm, funny group, funny group of wacko theater people. And I would go to open calls and I'd usually go to open dance calls because that was a door for me.3 (49m 59s):And also I used to have to sneak out of Jew, not sneak necessarily, but essentially sneak out to take my singing lessons. And I took singing lessons every, you know, every week for years, for three years, I would, you know, and I, and I was not really, I don't think a very good singer, but I became a good singer. I would sneak out of school and go to an acting class. I don't even know when I started that, but I know that I would find the time to do it and then talk about acting and find a teacher so that when I would audition for a musical and I would get through the dancing. Usually if I got through the first cut, I would make it to the end. I wouldn't always get the job, but if I made it through that first horrible, random cut, you know, where there's 200 people in your dancing across the stage and it's yes, no, yes, no.3 (50m 47s):Is it really?1 (50m 48s):Because I'm not a dancer. So I never had this. I, when my agents are like, oh, there's an open dance call. I'm like, ah, that's you sent the wrong person, the email. So it's really like that, like in, in chorus line where they say, you know,3 (51m 1s):Oh yeah. It's like all that jazz. It's really like that.2 (51m 6s):Wait, I have a question. I want to hear the re the rest of that. But I, I just, I've never asked anybody. What's the biggest difference between the people who got cut immediately. I mean, was it training or were there people that, in other words, were there people who were just walking in off the street with no training trying to audition? Yeah,1 (51m 29s):No, truly an open call.3 (51m 31s):No. And sometimes these were equity calls. Cause I, I, I did get my equity card on a summer. That one summer I worked for a non-union, you know, we were in either Bushkill Pennsylvania or Southern Eaton Connecticut, or I did a couple of those summers. And then the next summer, the choreographer from that show had an equity job. And he hired like three of us from our non-unions summer stock, because we were good enough. And1 (52m 4s):So when you went to these open calls, everyone, there was a bad-ass dancer. No one, there was like,3 (52m 10s):That's not true. That's not true. There were all different levels of dancers, but it was also a look await, you know, it was always, I was always like seven pounds overweight. It was like, the torture is thing of weight does enough to put anybody over the edge1 (52m 26s):That they literally3 (52m 27s):Weigh you, Carol. Oh God. No. Oh, but it's so look, and I will tell you there's one. There was one time when I remember auditioning for above Fossey show and there were a lot of people on the stage and we were whatever we were doing. And then at 1.3 Fossey dancers, it was their turn. And these three gals, okay. Their hair was perfect. Their makeup was fabulous. They had a little necklace, they had a black leotards, you know, cut up high, but not out of control. Good tights, no, no runs, nice shoes, nails done.3 (53m 7s):And they were fantastic. They were clean. They were technically, and we all sort of went, oh fuck.1 (53m 16s):Right.3 (53m 18s):Right. And I have friends who became Fossey dancers. I mean, I worked for Bob, but I have friends who did a lot of shows him. And they had that same experience where they saw other people, the way it should be. And then they would go back a month later and get the job because they knew what it took. It was all about knowing what it takes. But the thing about having studied acting and having slowly studied singing is that in the world of musical theater, I was ahead of the game because there's not that much time. So you have to be willing to spend all of your time.3 (54m 0s):Right.1 (54m 1s):There are some people I'm assuming Carol, that could dance wonderfully, but couldn't do the singing and the acting part. And that's where you were like, that's the triple threat newness of it all is like, you could do3 (54m 12s):Well, I could do them better than a lot of people. And I certainly could sing well, and I had, I could sing a short song and I knew that you sing a short song. I knew that you'd probably do an uptempo, you know? And also I tend to be a little angry when I go into an audition. It's like, why do I fuck? Do I have to audition? I better, duh. So I needed to find things that allowed me to be a little angry so I could be myself. And I could also be a little funny if I could figure out how to do that. So all of these things worked in my favor. And then of course, like everybody else in her, a lot of people, pat Birch, who was a choreographer, she had like a gazillion shows running, including Greece on Broadway. And now over here, I don't know if she did grease, but she did over here.3 (54m 55s):She did. She was very prolific choreographer. She had been a Martha Graham dancer and she had taught a couple of classes at Julliard. And when it came to my auditioning for her, she needed girls who could dance like boys. She didn't need tall leggy, chorus girls. We were doing the show she was working on, was a show called Minnie's boys. And it was a show about the Marx brothers and the last number of the show. We were all the whole chorus was dressed up like different Marx brothers. And she needed girls who could be low to the ground, who can, you could turn who and I was the right person.3 (55m 36s):And I remember being in that class, that wonderful musical theater class with a teacher named Mervin Nelson, who was just a great older guy who kind of worked in the business. I remember I had to go to my callback. I went to my class and the callback was at night. And I remember him walking me to the door, putting his arm around me and saying, go get the job. And if you don't get this one, we'll get you. The next one1 (56m 4s):That makes me want to3 (56m 4s):Cry. Well, it made me feel like part of the family, cause we all want to be part of that theater family. And so I tend to do that when I'm with an actor, who's going to go get a job or go get, you know, you want to feel like it's possible. Yeah. You feel like you can, you deserve it.1 (56m 29s):You said, you mentioned briefly that you worked for Bob3 (56m 32s):Fossey. I did.1 (56m 35s):Oh my gosh. Did you turn into one of those ladies that looked like a bossy dancer too? Like, did you then show up to those auditions? Like, oh3 (56m 43s):No, I don't think I, I couldn't, I didn't, I could not get into a chorus of Bob Fossey, but I did get to play for strata in Pippin in the, in the, in the first national tour. And he, Bob was the, he was the director and I, I knew I was the right person for that job. It was also a funny, kind of lovely circumstances that I was in some off-Broadway an off-Broadway show that had started as an awful off, off of a, that, that Bubba, that moved to an off-Broadway theater. I got some excellent reviews. And I think the day the review came out was the day I had my audition for Bob Fossey.3 (57m 24s):So I, and I played it. I had talked to people who knew him. I talked to, you know, I, I knew that I, I don't know, I just, I, I had done some work and I just, I don't know the right person at the right time, somebody, he needed it. That part required a good dancer. Who could, I don't know how I got the part. I just,1 (57m 57s):I'm kind of getting the impression that we're talking about being a strong dancer.3 (58m 0s):Well, let's strong dancer. And also being able to, being able to talk and sing was really the key. I'm not sure that I certainly, as a young person, I, I didn't do nearly as much comedy as I did when I got a little older, but, and also there were a lot of divisions. You sort of either did musicals or you did straight plays and it was hard to get into an audition even for a straight play. And the truth is I think that a lot of us who thought we were better than we were as you get better, you see when you really, wasn't a very strong actor.1 (58m 43s):Right. But there's something about that. What I'm noticing and what you're talking about is like, there's something about the confidence that you had by maybe thinking that you might've been a little better than you were that actually behooves young actors and performers that, you know, cause when Gina and I talked to these people were like, oh my God, they have a healthy ego, which actually helps them to not give up as where I was like, I'm terrible. I'm giving up at the first hour.3 (59m 9s):Exactly. Right. Right. And, and it, and it goes back and forth. It's like a CSO one day, you feel like, oh yeah, I'm good at this. I can walk it. I get, I'm like, I'm okay with this. And the next day you just to hide under the bed, I think that's sort of the way it goes. I didn't know that people who worked on Broadway even then all had coaches and teachers and support systems and you know, being kind of a little more of a lone Wolf, which I was, and still fight against in a way I come against that a lot, for whatever reasons, you know, whatever it doesn't work, what to be a lone Wolf.3 (59m 54s):Yeah. Yeah. You can't do this alone. You can't do it without a support system. It's just too hard because when I actually had the best opportunity I had, which was being part of a chorus line, it was harder than I thought to just be normal, come up with a good performance every night, you know, it was up and down and loaded and that you lost your voice and had nobody to talk to because you couldn't talk anyway. And we didn't have the internet yet. You know, there was so many, it was so much pressure and so much, and I hadn't really figured out how to create that support system up for myself.3 (1h 0m 42s):And it was harder, harder than it needed to be. Did you ultimately find it with the cast? No. Oh, not really where they mean, oh, none of the cast was fine. It wasn't that anybody was mean it's that I didn't take care of myself and I didn't know how I was supposed to take care of my shirt. How old were you when you were cast in a chorus line? 27? Maybe I was, I was young and, but I wasn't that young. I just, but it wasn't that C w it was a strange situation to, I was, I had already had one Broadway show, so I had done, and then I had gone out of town to bucks county Playhouse.3 (1h 1m 25s):And did west side story Romeo was your first Broadway show. I'm sorry. It was called Minnie's boys. Oh, that was it. That was my, I did. And it was a show about the Marx brothers. Right. And I don't know if you know who Louis. We would probably do Louis Stadol and Louis J Staglin who works with, he works with Nathan Lane a lot. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's like second bun and he's incredibly talented. He played Groucho. Okay. We were all 25 years old. We were kids. We were right out of college. And the weirdest part of all was that the mother was played by Shelley winters. And this was a musical. What a weird you've really. Okay. So then you went onto chorus line.3 (1h 2m 6s):Well then, well then in between that, this is like, you know, then, then I went out of town to bucks county. I love being in bucks county for a year. We did west side story. We did Romeo and Juliet during the week. We do them together, one in the morning, one in the afternoon for high school kids. And then on the weekends, we do one of the, and I was the only person in the cast who liked dancing at 10 o'clock in the morning. You know, I didn't mind doing west side at 10 in the morning. I'd been up at eight, being a demonstrator for Mary Hinkson, teaching people how to do a contraction. So I didn't care. I love working in the daytime. That's what I play with your food is such a nice success. My lunchtime theaters here, I get tired at night.3 (1h 2m 47s):I don't know.2 (1h 2m 49s):Most people do wait. So was the, was the audition process for chorus line?3 (1h 2m 56s):I have a great story. I can tell you what my story is. Okay. So I, I was in, I don't know what I was doing. I had done a lot of off-Broadway work. I had been doing, I had been working a lot. And then of course there were the year where I didn't work. And then I went off to south North Carolina and played Nellie Forbush in south Pacific, in the dinner theater for three months. And I loved that. Actually, I think it was one of those times I had a job and a boyfriend and it was like a relief. It was wonderful to have like a life and then do the show at night. You know, I, I enjoyed that a lot and I didn't, you know, it was a big part and I didn't panic about seeing it.3 (1h 3m 37s):And it was just, I learned a lot from doing a part like that. I was doing Fiddler on the roof at a dinner theater in New Jersey, down the street from where my folks lived. And occasionally my mom would stop by her rehearsal and watch the wedding scene. Honest to God. I'm not kidding. She's like, Carol, you ever gonna get married? Are you ever gonna? Okay. So I'm doing Fiddler on the roof, in New Jersey. And there's a guy in the cast, one of the bottle dancers who were dropping off at night on 55th street, because he's working on this little musical about dancers and he would bring in monologues and he'd asked me to read them at rehearsal because he wanted to hear them out loud.3 (1h 4m 25s):And there was some stuff about this place to ever hear the peppermint lounge back in the studio. Right. It was a disco thing, but it was also a place where there was something. I remember one the couch girls, girls who would just lie on the couches and the guys, I mean really crazy stuff that did not make it into the show, but some interesting stuff. And I was playing the eldest daughter sidle, and it's a terrific part for me. So I was good. Yeah. And Nick knew I was a dancer. Anyway, this little show called the chorus line was in its workshop. Second workshop. They had already done the I, cause I was not a Michael Bennett dancer. I didn't, you know, I, I, I had auditioned for my goal once for the tour of two for the Seesaw.3 (1h 5m 10s):And it was the leading part and I didn't get it. I auditioned, I sang and I read and I read and I sang and I didn't get the part. And I came home and I was like in hysterics for like five days. I just, you know, I, I didn't get the part year and a half later, I'm doing Fiddler on the roof with Nick, Dante in New Jersey. And somebody leaves the second workshop and Nick brings up my name because there's a job all of a sudden to cover, to be in the opening and to cover a couple of parts next, bring up my name. And Michael Bennett says, wait a minute. I know her. I know she's an actress and she's a singer. Can she dance?3 (1h 5m 52s):So I showed up the next morning and I danced for 10 minutes and I got the job. I mean, I think, wow. Yeah. That's a great story.2 (1h 6m 1s):No. So that means you didn't have to participate in3 (1h 6m 4s):Callbacks or nothing. Oh, I started that day. I mean, honestly, it was Fiddler on the roof, you know what, I don't remember whether, how it went. Cause we were already in performance tour or something, you know, I, I it's a long time ago, so I don't really remember, but I know that this particular story is the absolute truth. That's fantastic. That2 (1h 6m 27s):Was it a hit right away3 (1h 6m 29s):Chorus line. Well, it wasn't, we were in previews. I'm no, we weren't even previous the second workshop, which means it was still being figured out. And when I came to the first rehearsal and sat and watched what was going on, I could not believe what I was seeing because the truth of what was happening on stage and the way it was being built was astounding. It was absolutely astounding because something about it was so bizarre. Oh. And also, also Marvin Hamlisch was the rehearsal pianist on Minnie's boys.3 (1h 7m 10s):Wow. So I knew him a little bit, not well, you know, but he was the rehearsal pianist that nobody would listen to a show about the Marx brothers, Marvin would say, wait, this is the Marx brothers. You got to have a naked girl running out of the orchestra pit. You gotta, you gotta, and of course, nobody would listen to him. Wait a minute, just turn this off, stop, stop, turn off. Sorry. So I couldn't get over what I was seeing. And I, I knew from the beginning, of course, I think most of us did that. Something very, very unique was going on and it was always changing. Like Donna McKechnie came in late at the audition, all dressed up in like a fur thing.3 (1h 7m 56s):And it was like, I'm sorry, I'm late. I'm sorry. I'm late. And then Zach says, would you put on dance clothes? And she said, no, no, wait a minute. Anyway, you couldn't help. But know sort of, you just kind of put,2 (1h 8m 8s):I mean, I remember seeing it when I was a kid and not, not being able to relate as an actor, but now that I think back, it just must've felt so gratifying to be seen for all of the, you know, because like we w the Joe Montana episode, we3 (1h 8m 28s):Haven't listened to yet, but I'm looking forward to2 (1h 8m 30s):It here today. But he was saying, I love3 (1h 8m 33s):Him2 (1h 8m 34s):For you. You were saying that when he won the Tony and everybody would say, well, it's like to win the Tony, what's it? Like he said, it's like, you won the lottery, but you been buying tickets for 15 years. You know, that's the part of acting that people now, I think it's a pretty common knowledge that it's really difficult to be an actor, but I don't know how Hmm, how known that was then. And it just, must've been so gratifying for all of those people. I mean, who are living in their real life? The story of that musical. Yeah.3 (1h 9m 9s):I think that that's true. And also, I mean, it really did come out of people's experiences. Those stories are so, so to be part of something like that, and down at the public theater, which of course it was a vol place to be, you know, you, you knew that Meryl Streep was walking down the hallway and you knew that. I mean, talk about confidence. I mean, I don't know if you've read her new book, no book about her. No, it's worth the time I listened to it. Actually, I didn't read it. I listened to, it's quite wonderful because you see a very confident person who's working on creating who she is.1 (1h 9m 47s):Do you feel, I feel like you have a really strong sense of confidence about yourself too. Where did that come from? Would you agree? First of all, that you have, it sounds like you had some comps, some real chutzpah as a youngster and maybe now as well. Where'd that come from3 (1h 10m 5s):Beats me. I have it now because I, I, I, I've had a lot of, a lot of experience. And I, I think that, that, I, I think I know a lot about this, but I don't know that I had it. The trick was to have this kind of confidence when it really matters. Yes. And I think I had it, like if I was in an off-Broadway show, I could say, I don't think that's good enough. Could you restage this blah, blah, blah. Or if I'm in North Carolina, I'm not, I think we need to dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. But when it comes down to the real nitty gritty of standing up for yourself, when it really, really matters, boy, that's harder than it looks.3 (1h 10m 51s):You know, even things like, I mean, my character, when I eventually took over the role of Miralis, which I under, you know, I was we've covered all these parts. There were nine of us. We sang in the little booth in the wings. We had microphones and little headsets. And the coolest part of all was Jerry Schoenfeld, who was the chairman of the Schubert organization would bring any visiting dignitary who was visiting the city that he was showing around his theaters. He would bring them into our little booth. And then we would watch the show from stage left in our little booth while we're singing, give me the ball, give him the ball. Cause half the dancers on the stage, cause stop singing because they had a solo coming up.3 (1h 11m 31s):So, you know, singing in a musical is not easy. You know, there's a lot of pressure and you got to hit high notes and you, you know, you just wake up in the middle of the night going torture, torture, and you have to work through that and finally go, fuck it. You know, fuck it. I don't care what I weigh. Fuck it. I don't care if I, if I can't hit the high note, but it, it takes a long time to get there. You know, I see people who do this all the time. I don't know how they live. I don't know how they sleep at night. There's no wonder people like to hire singers who have graduated from programs where they really understand their voice, know how to protect that, which you don't, you know, you have to learn, you have to learn how to really take.3 (1h 12m 24s):That's why, you know, it's wondering about ballet companies now have misuses and we didn't have any of that. You were hanging out there alone. I felt maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I felt. And if I was vulnerable or if I didn't feel well, and I was like, oh, what am I going to do? I can't tell anybo

Welcome to the House of Funds… Parliament's sleaze scandal rolls into yet another week. But have no fear! Boris Johnson has announced plans to reform the rule for second jobs MPs can do, and this time it's totally going to work, you guys. Gracie Mae Bradley from human rights group Liberty joins us to discuss the week's news...  Will the Tory old guard be impressed with Johnson threatening to take away their nice little earners, and is there any stopping serial filibusterer Christopher Chope from ruining votes at the last minute?  Plus, President Putin is piling the pressure on his regional allies, and refugees are being used a political pawn by Belarus. We take a look at why the story isn't bigger here in the UK, and how the erosion of democracy on the other side of Europe affects us all.  “Johnson had a torrid time at PMQs, the speaker told him in politer terms to sit down and shut up” - Alex Andreou “MPs are paid to be full time representatives of their constituency, so any jobs should be agreed with that in mind” - Alex Andreou “Conservative MPs elected in marginal seats look at Christopher Chope and think ‘what impression is he giving the public of us?'” - Ros Taylor “All that Johnson has going for him is that he wins, that's the only reason people in the party like him” - Dorian Lynskey “There is a horrible continuity between the accounts of people in Calais and on the Belarus/Poland border” - Gracie Bradley “All of this is Putin's way of testing Biden's resolve” - Alex Andreou www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Don't forget the OH GOD, WHAT NOW? Christmas live show - tickets are selling fast so get yours at https://bit.ly/3CvhpqH Presented by Dorian Lynskey with Ros Taylor and Alex Andreou. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/172/29 Does going to church on Sunday morning feel rushed? How do you practically prepare before, during, and after the service? When you come to hear the Word of God, you are listening for your name. You are coming and you are saying, Oh God, what do You have to say to me today? If you come to it with pride or to merely listen, then you'll go away without any transformation. In this message, you'll take home more from church than you ever thought possible.

Does going to church on Sunday morning feel rushed? How do you practically prepare before, during, and after the service? When you come to hear the Word of God, you are listening for your name. You are coming and you are saying, “Oh God, what do You have to say to me today?” If you come to it with pride or to merely listen, then you’ll go away without any transformation. In this message, you’ll take home more from church than you ever thought possible.    Click here to listen (Duration 25:02)

Go to http://upstart.com/newsdump to find out how Upstart can lower your monthly rate. Download the DraftKings app NOW and use promo code NEWSDUMP to PLAY FREE FOR MILLIONS this Thanksgiving weekend. 

Student Leadership University's mission is to develop and equip student leaders to think, dream, and lead. We strive to instill future tense thinking; character-driven decision making; ownership of biblical values; and a commitment to influence through service.Order Brent's new book Ten Steps to Your Best LifeResources from this EpisodeTime to Get Serious - Dr. Tony EvansKnowing God - J. I. PakerHoliness - J. C. RyleThe Cross of Christ - John StottThe Mission of God - Christopher J. H. WrightLife Together - Dietrich BonhoefferSpiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith - Henri J. M. NouwenShow Notes:We need other voices to come along side us to teach us about the truth of scripture.Psalm 63: "Oh God you are my God..." - A good paradigm for looking for a devotional book that helps you with spiritual growth.A good devotional book based on Psalm 63:Stirs something inside you.Helps you become more of who you are in Christ.Contributes to a sense of awe and reverence for God.A pilgrimage is the metaphor through which to understand discipleship.What you do on the platform is determined by what you do in the prayer closet.Your private faithfulness will dictate your public fruitfulness.Brent's BookThe Cross of Christ - John StottThe Cross is undeniably at the center of human history.The Cross of Christ is at the center of the Mission of God.This is a book that can be read by a 15 or a 50 year old– and they will both get something good out of it.A good book helps you grow in your faith and should be read more than once.Jeff's BookSpiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith - Henri J. M. NouwenThe Five Core Questions of the Spiritual Life:Who am I?Where have a been and where am I going?Who is God to me?Where do I belong?How can I be of service?The practice of unceasing prayer:Cry out to God our all our needs and requestsTurn our unceasing thoughts into a conversation with GodLearn to listen to God in our hearts through meditationWe must push away from the business of life.We must always and continually go back to the basics.Everyone you read has flaws, brokenness, and personal struggles. And this will either help or hinder their writing.Connect with SLU:InstagramRegister for SLULearn more about The LIFT TourLearn more about YPSHostsBrent's InstagramBrent's TwitterJeff's InstagramJeff's Twitter

Vultures circle as the Owen Paterson scandal disintegrates into a circular Tory firing squad featuring Geoffrey Cox (hon. member for the Virgin Islands), vengeful whips, an absentee unmasked PM… and a collapsed Conservative poll lead. Plus COP26 winds down, we talk to PETER STOTT, author of Hot Air to find out how climate denial has morphed into a campaign to smear climate mitigation as “too costly”. And ARTHUR SNELL drops in to introduce our new sibling podcast Doomsday Watch, a deep dive into mammoth global threats that media and leaders are ignoring.  “Being in power is not enough. They need to be in power with nobody looking over their shoulders. And now, everyone is looking over their shoulders.” – ALEX ANDREOU “The Paterson story is so simple. Man took money. Government changed rules to get him off. Even the Mail could see it.” – NAOMI SMITH “There's an internal implosion going on in the Conservative Party – and it's delightful to witness.” – ALEX ANDREOU  “We need to stop talking about climate ‘sceptics'. They're not sceptics. Scepticism is a tool of science. They're deniers.” – PETER STOTT “The Tories are terrified at this story that they've all got their noses in the trough because… they've all got their noses in the trough.” – ALEX ANDREOU Paterson no, Patreon yes! Back us at www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Buy Peter Stott's Hot Air: https://amzn.to/31JkIxD Presented by Dorian Lynskey with Naomi Smith and Alex Andreou. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest this week is the fierce and fabulous Lindley Ashline, fat-positive photographer and body liberation activist, who has literally BANNED the weight loss industry from using her stock photos. In this glorious episode, Lindley tells how she pushed back when a diet company tried to do just that! The AUDACITY of diet companies and the weight loss industry is next level, but they were no match for Lindley! Join us for a completely fired up, inspiring conversation with a woman who takes no bullshit, AND takes staggeringly awesome photos! Show Transcript Intro: Welcome to All Fired Up. I'm Louise your host, and this is the podcast where we talk all things anti-diet. Have diet culture got you in a bit of rage/ is the injustice of the beauty ideal? Getting your nickers in a twist? Does fitspo make you want to spitspo? Are you ready to hurl if you hear one more weight loss tip? Are you ready to be mad, loud and proud? Well, you've come to the right place. Let's get all fired up. Hello, passionately pissed off people of diet culture. I am so excited for some episode of All Fired Up. And thank you to all of the listeners who send messages of outrage to me via email louise@untrapped.com.au. If something about diet culture is really getting your go, let me know about it, get it off your chest. And who knows, we might be able to rant about it here on All Fired Up. And if you are a listener, don't forget to subscribe, so you don't miss episodes when they pop out. And while you're at it, why not leave us a lovely five star review and rating wherever you listen to your podcast, because the more five star reviews we get, the more people listen, the quicker diet culture topples, and then I can go and become a florist. As the COVID crisis unravels, more and more people are banging on about the relationship between weight and health. And if that's really getting up your nose and you want a strong resource to help you push back against that, and you want something for free; look no further then now wonderful ebook, ‘Everything you've Been Told About Weight Loss is Bull Shit' co-written by me and the wonderful Dr. Fiona Willer, anti-diet dietician, and general all-round awesome person. In this ebook, we are busting wide open the diet culture bullshit myths about this relationship. Because when you look under the hood and scratch the surface just a tiny, tiny bit, we see that all of this BMI stuff is complete bullshit, and it's great to have a booklet in which all of the scientific evidence to support the health at every size and anti-diet approaches can be presented to people who are still upholding the greatest injustice when it comes to health. So have a look for the ebook, it's at untrapped.com.au, and a little popup will happen, and you can download it from there. Give it to all your friends and all your family. Put it in their stockings for people for Christmas, give it away, trick or treating for Halloween. Hell you know, give it away instead of Easter eggs, just get it out there to as many people as possible because just so over this groaning insistence that size is all accounts when it comes to health. If you're looking for more free stuff and you're struggling with your relationship with your body, because let's face it – who doesn't in diet culture. Have a look at the Befriending Your Body eCourse, which is completely free. You can find that on untrapped_au on Insta. In this course, basically you'll get like an email from me for 10 days. Every day for 10 days, you get a lovely little email from me talking through the wonderful skill of self-compassion, which is essentially literally learning how to become your body's best friend and become your own best friend as you wade through the of diet culture. So have a look for that course, as I said, it's on Instagram, it's completely free. What have you got to lose? Huge shout out to all of the Untrapped community. Untrapped is my online community and masterclass for all things anti-diet. Untrapped has been around since 2017. And we have built ourselves into this wonderful online group of fierce and fantastic people. If you are struggling with your relationship with food, with how you are moving, with your body, with just generally trying to get along in diet culture with all of the pressure that's heaped upon us every day and you're just absolutely sick of dieting; have a look at our Untrapped course and community because we would really love to have more people join us. You can find it at untrapped.com.au. Louise: Okay, let's get into the nitty-gritty. Shall we? I'm so excited in this episode, I'm having this awesome conversation with fat activist, photographer, author, and cat mom, Lindley Ashline. Lindley is the creator of Body Liberation Photos and does some really amazing ethically produced diverse stock photos of people in larger bodies. And, oh my gosh, how much do we actually need this kind of stuff. So I had the most amazing ranty conversation with Lindley. You are going to absolutely love her. So without further ado, here's me and Lindley. Lindley, thank you so much for coming on the show. Lindley: Oh, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Louise: Me too. So tell me, what's firing you up at the moment? Lindley: Well, when we were emailing back and forth talking about doing this podcast episode you had said, I want to hear what's firing you up, and I would love to hear you talk about stock photos, which are photos that can be used for marketing that people buy from other people. And also, wondering if you've experienced any diet culture co-opting of your work. And I immediately said, I have all that put together because I do have the stock photo website where I sell my photos. And most of my clients, my stock photo customers are health at every size oriented, or anti-diet, or body positivity folks who are marketing their small businesses. But the other day there is a diet that is probably familiar to you, that is very big here in the United States, that is called Whole30. Louise: Whole30, is that the Brene Brown one? Was she doing that? Lindley: Oh, I don't know. Louise: I'm sorry. Lindley: That's very, very trendy here. So, someone from Whole30, the company that runs that diet bought some of my stock photos. Louise: Oh no. Lindley: To use for an event. And I know this because I reacted to that. I'm a small business, so I do sell a decent number of stock photos, but I'm not at the point where I don't see every order as it comes in. So every time someone buys something from me, I get an email, of course, and I'm always curious, who's buying things. So I saw this such-and-such a name @whole30.com. And I said, wait a minute. Because not only do I not want… my photos are, they're mostly people in larger bodies or fat bodies. When I use the word fat, I'm using it as a neutral descriptor of people's bodies and not an insult. You don't have to use that word for yourself, but I have reclaimed it and many other people have too. Louise: That's such a beautiful way of putting it. Thank you. Lindley: Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's like saying that I'm a medium height, or if I were tall or short, I have long hair. It's just a descriptor. But the people who appear in those photos, they are in vulnerable bodies themselves. They are often people of color. They are people in very large bodies; people who experience a lot of discrimination and stigma just by living in their bodies. And not only do I not want those bodies being used to represent diet… Louise: Yeah, like they're not before photos. Lindley: Yeah. No, but also when I started creating stock photos, I worked with a lawyer to create my license that you are bound by when you buy these photos, you have to agree that you're going to respect this license to use the photos, and in the license, it specifies that you cannot use them to promote diets. Louise: You are terrific. So they're buying it in breach of your licensing already. Lindley: Yeah. If I'm going to set out to create body-positive and fat-positive stock photos, and work with people who are in marginalized bodies to start with; I can't allow those photos to be used in ways that will hurt people. Louise: How dare they. They have the audacity. Lindley: I was very fired up speaking into the theme. Oh, I was fired up and I said, no, how you. I immediately messaged my best friend and said, how dare they. And so, I emailed her, I issued her a refund. So here's what I did; I issued her a refund for the money that she's paid. I deleted her account. I couldn't delete the account, so I changed her password on her. I couldn't delete it, but I could change the password. And then I emailed her and said I have refunded your money, you may not use these photos, my license prohibits you from doing so. And that's that. Louise: So, did she respond to you? Lindley: Well, to make it even better, she had put her work email address in when she placed the order. But for her billing address, she was using a corporate credit card. So she had put as the email for the credit card, she had put in the corporate address. So I emailed her, but I CC'd the whole company. Louise: Oh my God. That's fantastic. Lindley: CC'd headquarters@whole30.com. I'm sure that maybe just a random assistance, someone deleted it, but like, I'm sure it didn't go to all the employees, but that was very satisfying. Louise: That is very satisfying. So she did email? Lindley: Yeah, she emailed right back and sent me kind of an indignant email. And she did say that they wouldn't use the photos. I keep meaning to go check and see if they actually did. But she was very indignant because she said we were going to use these for an event to promote body positivity next month, and I guess we won't. And I'm like, yeah, I guess you won't. Louise: What are you doing in the field of so-called body positivity if you're a diet company? Lindley: And that's the co-opting, that aspect of it. Because now, like Weight Watchers has changed its name formally to WW. What does that even mean? Like, we all know it's Weight Watchers, we're not stupid Louise: Well, they think that we might be. Do you remember in the eighties when Kentucky Fried Chicken decided to improve its brand by going to KFC, because then it wouldn't be fried. Lindley: But it's still fried chicken. Louise: Yeah. And this is still like, we want your money. Lindley: Yeah. And they've realized that people are wising up. Louise: We know that their diets are shit. Lindley: Yeah. They don't work, and in fact, they're worse for you, for your health than not dieting than being at a stable weight. Louise: Yeah. And then they're like, well, we can't have that, so let's launch into the field that grew around resistance to us, and let's nick everything, including their stock imagery. And how dare they run a body positivity event when they're in the business of shrinking bodies. Lindley: And as we move forward in time, you're going to see more and more of this because there is a lot of profit in telling people to love their bodies while selling them products because you made them hate their bodies. And in the body positivity movement, it's really rampant. If you look at Dove, Dove is one of the first companies to really monetize at a grand scale the body positivity movement. In the last decade, they've done a bunch of very high profile feel good, “love your body no matter what,” you can't see me, but I'm making really sarcastic hand gestures right now. Louise: Yeah, I'm loving it. Lindley: I mean, you can see me, but our listeners will be able to. But all these love your body just the way you are things, but at the same time, they're selling skin lightning cream to people of color. Louise: How dare they? Lindley: And they're selling wrinkle cream or whatever. Louise: Anti-aging, right? Lindley: Yeah, so it's very two-faced. Louise: Yeah, they were just changing the marketing where baiting and switching people on a global scale. And I agree. I think we're going to see more and more and more of it, but it's also like kind of core at the same time, because the fact that these big nasty wolves are coming to sniff at your door means that you are the one with the power, right. Body positivity movements are the ones who are driving the direction of – like the increasing level of diversity that's happening around the planet. I think they're just getting a bit desperate. Lindley: I mean, these are dinosaurs – that meteorite is coming. And I want to say too, for our listeners, I want to acknowledge, because you don't hear this stated enough, how traumatic, like full-on psychologically traumatic it is for both us as a culture and for people as individuals to be told for hundreds of years that their bodies, particularly fat bodies, and particularly women's bodies, but all bodies are bad in their natural states. And then have a generation of companies turn around and tell us that it's our fault for not loving those bodies. That's trauma. That is trauma – culturally and individually. So I want to be very clear that if you don't love your body, which most people don't, I have days I do and days I don't, but if you don't love your body, that is not on you, that is on hundreds of years of culture driving up and product power, so it's not you. Louise: It's the system. Lindley: Yeah. And you're not individually possible for fixing that, unless you want to. Louise: I'm so glad you're here. You are on fire and I love it. Lindley: I get so angry at the scam that's been perpetuated. Louise: Yes, that's exactly what it is. It's a giant gaslighting scam that turns us against ourselves and each other. And when we kind of hit body size as a measure of worth, it's really damaging and divisive. I really want to ask how you got to this point. Lindley: I got mad. Louise: Yeah, how did you get mad? Like, how did you come to have this amazing idea to start the body liberation stock photography stuff, and come to it with so much conviction to protect people who have been marginalized? Lindley: Well, it's been a process of about – it took about 10 years to go from being very, very sort of normal person invested in diet culture, sort of very mainstream, to being very passionately anti-diet and doing this activism work. In 2007, thereabouts, I discovered I had been on the website live journal for a very long time. At that point, it was like a pre-Facebook. Louise: The dark days of early internet. Lindley: Yeah. And I had stumbled across this group called Fatshionista. So like fashionista, but with fat folk. And it was such a revelation because here were these mostly women who were in large bodies in very large bodies who were being styling and confident and walking around in horizontal stripes. Louise: Oh my God. Lindley: And tight fitting outfits and colorful outfits and just living their lives confidently. And I just lurk for a really long time. But from there I started discovering… so the pre-cursor, these of foundation of the body positive movement is the fat acceptance movement, which started in the 1960s and has been the backbone of all of this. So this was a little bit before body positivity became a thing. And I found these fat acceptance blogs, where they were talking about the science of weight loss and why scientifically it doesn't work. And I had been in this state that I think many people sort of existed where they're like, well, it's fine to say, love your body, but my body is big. My body is not okay. Like, that might be cool for other people, like maybe other people deserve to be confident. But something about… Louise: Gosh, that is like, when you said that, that is like where so many of us are stuck. Like it's okay for everyone else and I love the idea of diversity and I love the idea that large and small and everyone in between can exist, but my body. I can't get there. Lindley: Yeah. And so, when I learned the science and the fact that somewhere around 98% of diets fail and that people gain the weight back, I started to feel like I'd been scammed. I'd been raised my whole life to believe that if I could just be good enough and strong enough and have enough willpower and do the right things for long enough, then I too would be thin and healthy and fabulous and have the life I'd always dreamed of and all those other things you see in diet ads, and it turned out none of that was true. Louise: It's bullshit. Amazing. Lindley: I started to get annoyed and then gradually I got mad, and then I got really mad. Louise: Excellent. Lindley: And then I started doing my own activism work because it was so tragic to see people that I love trapped in that system and be lied to. And so, I started speaking out – just a little bit, just a little bit. Like, I'd post something on my Facebook about, “Hey, we know that diets don't work because of science.” Louise: Yeah. I mean, like in tiny little writing. Lindley: Yeah. And that's really scary when you start doing it because it's so counter to what we think we know. So in about 2015, I was in a really crappy job, after a series of really crappy jobs, corporate full-time jobs. And I said, you know what, I got to a breaking point. And I said, “I'm done. I want to take my photography and turn it into a full-time business.” Louise: So you'd learned photography for a while. Lindley: Yeah. Well, I've done nature photography for many, many years, but I had never photographed people. Louise: Interesting. Lindley: So I took a year and I took a bunch of classes online and then I learned to photograph people. So in 2015, I quit that job. And I want to acknowledge my privilege here. I am a white cisgender straight woman who lives in the United States, and my husband is my financial safety net, so I was able to take that. I also have a part-time job as well, but I was able to take that leap because of my privilege. And so, I've always… Louise: Because you have some security, yeah. Lindley: There's not a lot of path that is open to everyone, and so I always want to acknowledge that. Louise: Yeah, it is really important, but I also think it's kind of fabulous that there are people who are able to do that because what you've done is create something for so many people. Lindley: And if you had asked me a decade ago, if you had said maybe in 10 years, how you feel about being a full time, small business person, photographer and activist, and I would've laughed in your face. Because at this point I have enough experience speaking out that I often sound very confident and powerful. Louise: You do, you sound really fired up and it's fantastic. Lindley: Which is wonderful, but that is not where I came from. Louise: So you took it on. Lindley: Yeah, I came from a very meek sort of very nice lady, southern sweet background, where you never disagreed with anybody to their face. Not to their face… Louise: Disagree behind their back with a cup of tea. Lindley: Yeah. That's how we do it in the south, the Southern US, we smile at your face and then snip at you behind your back. But like, I wasn't brought up in a way where I was allowed to access anger or to even believe that I felt it. Louise: It's part of the, like, part of the gaslighting of diet culture is that it uses other gaslighting of being raised female, and like, just be nice and shut up and don't rock the boat. And if you're mad, it's probably a period, right – it's not worthy. Lindley: Yeah. And it's very threatening to a lot of people, too, particularly when someone in a fat body is angry, that's very threatening because we are expected to shut up and take it. And so, I do get a lot of trolling. I've had some threats, but thankfully I'm not yet high profile enough to really be getting a lot of that. But it there's been some unpleasantness. Louise: It's really terrible. What you were saying about the science stuff and speaking up about the science, its that's sort of, my pathway was through the science as well, initially as well as like the massive sense of social justice and eating disorder work as well. But I'm so aware, and when I talk about the science, so if we were in the same room talking about the science, it's possible that my voice would be listened to more, even though we're talking about exactly the same thing, because our body sizes are different, which is ridiculous because actually you've got more lived experience alongside the science, so it's kind of like what the… Lindley: Yeah, yeah. We consider it culturally, we consider a thin body or a thinner body to be a credential, just like a degree. I was actually talking about this on Instagram literally last night that we consider thin body is to be a credential. So even though I live in this body and I have experience with this body, in general, I am considered as much of an authority on this body as someone who is in a more socially acceptable body. Louise: Which is so weird, it's like being like, oh, I'm the expert on same sex relationships, but I'm completely head show. Why would that credential be? Lindley: Yeah. Again, when marginalized people are allowed to speak and allowed to be angry and allowed to be believed, it's very threatening to the status quo. So it's easier to, I mean, again, both at a cultural level and an individual level, it's easier to assume that I am lying or that I'm exaggerating or that I am unacceptably angry or unacceptably sad or whatever, so that it blunts the impact of what I'm saying. Louise: Yeah, it's easy to dismiss something you don't agree with. Lindley: Right. I had someone who is in an average size body for here to the US. A maybe US 14, 16, which I think in Aussie size is about a 12. Louise: I have no idea because sizes confuse me. Lindley: I think the Aussie sizes run one size lower, I think. But anyway, at any rate, someone who is of average size here in the US. And often I find, again, I am speaking for my US experience. I'm not speaking for the whole planet, but I often find that folks who are of the average size because of the nature of our culture, think that they are much larger or much farther along that spectrum. So I often find that there's people who are of average size assume that the way that they are treated is the same way that people much larger than they are, are treated – which is not accurate. Louise: But it's about that unconscious, like they don't know the privilege they have. Lindley: Yeah, because it's a spectrum. I live in a very large body, but I am nowhere in near the extreme end of the fatness spectrum. There are many, many people who are larger than I am. And then I have privilege over those people because I can still get clothes that are… I can't get them in person. I mostly have to buy online, but I can still get clothing that's commercially made. Even if it's not the clothing I would prefer, and even if it doesn't fit very well, I can still find clothing somehow. But this was a person who I think wasn't quite ready to understand that that is a spectrum. Louise: And that's real. Lindley: And I had written this, I was recently diagnosed with a new to me health condition that has been quite challenging and that I am pursuing treatment for. And the treatment for that condition, it is a stigmatized condition. I'm not going to go into details, but it is a stigmatized condition, and it is a condition that is correlated with larger bodies. We don't have any scientific evidence that it is caused by being in a larger body, but it is correlated. And so, as someone who now has condition, there's sort of a double stigma and there it's been very challenging to get treatment. Louise: So you're stuck in the whole stigmatizing, like, medical condition stuff where they're like, “Oh, you've got this condition. If your body was different, you wouldn't have this condition,” Which is really not an interesting conversation, but it seems to be one that keeps on happening. Lindley: Right. Right. And so, this is something that I have been dealing with for a while now. Just pursuing treatment and it's taken much longer than it should have. And I was talking on my personal Facebook about the challenges of getting this health condition addressed and the ways in which some of those challenges have been caused by people reacting to my body size by fatphobia, plain and simple. And this person who has been listening to me speak for years and who is very earnest and was clearly trying very well intentioned. Because this was not the same experience that this other woman had had in her life, she approached me and wrote me a long message about how I was basically bringing all this on myself. Louise: Oh, bringing all of what on yourself? Lindley: That maybe I was just imagining that people were treating me poorly. Louise: Oh ouch. Oh dear. Lindley: Because I was putting out negative energy into the world, and so my poor treatment was my own fault. And there was a time in my life that I would've been devastated and I would've believed her. I would've gone, “Oh no, maybe because I'm in a fat body, maybe I am putting some kind of energy out into the world that maybe I just, oh no, it's all my fault.” Louise: Oh wow. Lindley: And my friend Brandy, calls this confidence magic. Louise: Good time. Lindley: Yeah. She said she calls it confidence magic because she is also in a very large body. And quite often, when we talk about the way we're treated it, the retort is, well, if you were just acted more confident, if you were just friendlier, if you just did X, Y, Z. But mostly, if you just acted more confidently, then people wouldn't treat you that way. And it's entirely possible that for someone who is in a smaller than ours body, that works. Maybe it does work if you're in a smaller body. But I want to be very that there is nothing I can do or not do that will make my body not an oppressed body. It doesn't matter what kind of energy I put out into the world, I don't deserve to be treated poorly, especially for the size of my body. Louise: It's putting emphasis back onto you, it puts it back onto you and it takes the focus away from the person who's being the dick head. Lindley: Right. My oppression is never my fault, period. And so now I asked her to sit down and really look at that discomfort because the problem was that she had reached a point where she couldn't imagine that people actually get treated the way that I was describing. And so, it was so uncomfortable to realize that her experience was universal, that she sort of flipped over into this default state of, oh no, you must have done it to yourself, because it it's so hard to think. It is hard to think about people you like being mistreated. And it's easier to think that it must somehow be under their control it, that it [unclear28:21] behavior. Louise: Exactly. I was going to say that it's a locus of control problem. If we can locate the problem within us, then we feel like it's controllable and that we can do something about it. But to actually kind of recognize that this is structural, this is big. And we can be as kind and nice and put as much positive energy crystals out to the universe as possible and it won't change fatphobia. Lindley: Yeah. And unfortunately, this particular person was not receptive to being asked to reevaluate what she was saying, and so she wandered off and I haven't seen her since. But it really illustrates that when we start learning about systems of oppression, it can be really uncomfortable. As an America, I have had to do a lot of work around racism and a lot of learning, and as a very white person, that is very uncomfortable. But also, I feel like it's part of my job on this planet. Louise: We're not always supposed to be comfortable. Lindley: Yeah. And it's okay to be uncomfortable, especially when you're learning; you have to learn to sit with it. Louise: Yeah. Gosh, like there's so much that you have to deal with, when all you're really wanting to do is get on Facebook and talk about it. Lindley: I just want to whine on Facebook, and now too, my personal Facebook, because I have so many professional connections there, it is up being a hybrid. It is a hybrid space. When I'm speaking there, half of the folks who are in my sphere are there because of my work, so it's never really personal. And that is a boundary that I chose. I could choose to maintain my Facebook to be much, much smaller and more closed, and so I do have to be aware that I'm sort of speaking to a hybrid audience there, but sometimes you just want to get on Facebook and gripe too. Louise: You want to have a good old Facebook page and just get supported. That's kind of what we want to. Lindley: Right. But yeah, it's so important that all recognize that when we are treated badly for something about ourselves or related to something about ourselves, that's not ever our fault. Louise: Ah, such a good message. And the solution isn't to be kinder to the person who's being the dick head. Lindley: Yeah. I don't owe someone who is oppressing me, who is treating me badly based on the size of my body. I don't owe them in anything. I don't owe them an explanation. I don't owe them kindness. I don't owe them education. The only thing I owe is to myself to minimize the harm done to me. And if I give them anything beyond that, that's a gift. Louise: Yeah. Ah, God, what you're saying is so important, it's going to resonate with so many listeners. I just know it. Lindley: I hope so. It's time to stop blaming ourselves for the way that we're treated. Louise: Yes. Yes. And just last week, one of my clients was talking to me about a health interaction here in Australia with yet another person who is kind of locating the problem, same story. There's a person who's lived for a very long time in a larger body, tried every diet under the sun, the body's not going to change size. Now there's a health condition that needs urgent attention, and this person has been told very nicely that the problem is their body size. And they're actually experiencing delays to the actual treatment, while they are referred to a “obesity clinic” to address the problem of their size. And the emphasis there for this person, this health profession was being kind – it was being said to me in a nice way, which was a revelation for this person, because they've been treated so unkindly, but people can still be kind and still be a dick head. Lindley: Yeah. Oh yeah. Like a doctor, many years ago now; the doctor who lied to me about my health numbers so that she could put me on an off-label medication to try to make me lose weight. And so, she told me I had a condition that I did not have so that she could prescribe me a medication to actually try to make me smaller. She was so nice about it. I assure you; she was kind and sweet and gentle while she lied to me and gave me an unnecessary medication for a decade. Oh, she was very nice though. Louise: I have no words, that is dreadful, but this brings us right back to that Whole30 thing, right. I'm sure their body positive event would be full of kindness and niceness and fairy wings. But what the fuck are they doing? They're selling a diet. Lindley: Yeah. And you can, you can put as much lipstick on that pig as you want, but it's still going to be a pig. And I understand that pigs are smart, sweet, intelligence animals, they're still going to be a pig. Louise: That's right. You know, shit rolled in glitter is still shit. Lindley: Yeah, it's still terrible. Louise: So I've looked at your website and there's the most beautiful photo of a woman in a larger body, in a chair, in a garden, and oh, it is stunning. It is such a beautiful photo. And there are many, many photos like that. And I really want to talk to you about your photography, like how you got… so you got angry at the science, you got all fired up, you started to take pictures of people and now ended it up in this body liberation photography. So tell me about that and how you feel that photographing larger bodies is such an important piece? Lindley: Yeah, there are two sides to the photography. The one side is the stock photos, and for that I'm finding people who most of those folks are not models. They're just regular folks that I find in various ways. And then I'd also do offer client photo sessions; boudoir photography and portrait photography and business branding like business photos, and so there's sort of the two sides of it. And I started out doing the client photography because when I quit my full-time job, that seemed like the most obvious path to take income-wise at the time. And a couple of years later, there's a stock photo company, a very famous one called Getty images, based out of New York – when you see red carpet photos and you see really high quality stock photos that big companies use, those are often from Getty. They are very large and powerful. And they released, I think it was in 2017, they released a special stock photo collection. That was a body positive collection. And it got a ton of press. And I got really excited because we need – the more of that in the world, the better. But I went to go look at the photos and it turned out that they were mostly people who are again, in the US average size, which again is much larger than model size body. It was still different, but it wasn't particularly representative. And also, the photos were very expensive and they were also for editorial use only. And in stock photo lingo, that means that you can't use them for marketing. Louise: Okay. Lindley: What on earth was the whole point of that? Louise: What are they folding? Lindley: What a wasted opportunity. And so once again, I got mad and I said, I can do that, so I did. Louise: And you went like the full spectrum of body sizes, and identities, and cultures and genders, it's like everything, basically humans. Lindley: Yeah. When I am looking for models for the stock photos, and again, most of these people aren't trained models, but when you pose, you become one. So now these folks can all say that they're, that they're models too, which is cool. But I am always looking for the largest possible bodies to represent because I'm the only one on the planet doing this work right now, photographing very fat people – the only one. And I look forward to the day when that's not true. I look forward to the day when I have tons of competition. Louise: When it's not a niche or a specialty. Lindley: Yeah. And it turns out that many of the people who come to work with me on that basis are also people of color, are also LGBT+, or they're folks, or they have a mental illness, or they have a disability. They bring these other identities with them, and so I have the honor of being able to represent those things as well. Lots of folks in eating disorder recovery. Louise: Yes. And so, how did someone, like, if someone wants to do a stock photo with you, do they approach you or do you like follow people in shopping centers and ask them? What do you do? Lindley: It's been a combination. I have an email list that I maintain. And if you would like to be on that list, I am in Seattle, Washington in the US. But if you're ever visiting or you want to be on my list just in case, you are welcome to contact. We'll put that in the show notes, but I do have an email list that I send out model calls to, at least in non COVID 19 times. And then, I did once follow a coworker into a work bathroom; I was doing a corporate contract at a big company, and I had kept running into this woman, she was just lovely and seemed, I don't like you can tell when you're washing your hands at a bathroom sink beside someone, but she seemed very nice. And she was right in the demographic I represent. And so finally I followed her into the bathroom one day and I said, “I'm so sorry if this is creepy, and you can tell me to leave at any point and I will leave and never talk to you again. But I do photography and I'd love to have you as a model.” And she came and modeled for me, and it was wonderful. Louise: That is so gorgeous. Lindley: But yeah, it's a combination. When I started out, I was finding people on Craigslist, which is an American website, the classified ads, so it is just been a combination. Louise: Fantastic. Have you heard of Obesity Canada? Lindley: I'm aware that they exist. I've tried not to get tangled. Louise: That's pretty gross. It's pretty eww. Well, actually, I'm not sure who has released it, but they're kind of like this O organization up there who have this stock photos collection. Lindley: Oh yeah. It's another one of those weird co-opting things. Louise: Yeah. Yeah. And they work very closely with our friends at Novo Nordisk who are releasing all the weight loss drugs, and trying to take over the whole world. Lindley: Of course. Louise: Yes. But those I guess they're competition for you in a way. Lindley: Well, yeah, in a way. There's also a free collection on a website called Unsplash of our own bodies. And those photos are lovely and they are free to use, unlike my photos, which are not free because I need to eat. Louise: Imagine that! Lindley: Yeah. My models have the choice of, they can either choose a living wage money or for every hour that they are modeling or they can choose to be paid in photos. Many of them are very poor and they need the money, so I'm happy to pay them. But everybody involved in mine gets paid a living wage, which is why the photos aren't free because I get paid a living wage too. But yeah, there are some collections out there that do compete, which is fine. Again, we need all the representation we can get. Louise: We too, but I guess it's ethics, isn't it? And because I think that some of the people who are being photographed for those stock photos associated with the O organizations use members of their so-called patient groups, who are people who – that's another kind of section of my podcasts, people who are being encouraged by the weight loss industry to promote body positivity in the name of getting better public healthcare for weight loss surgeries and the like. So, it's really nice to hear about the ethics of you treat the people that you work with. Lindley: Yeah. When I'm photographing people, because again, almost everyone who comes to me… now, sometimes I'll get people who are just like, I'm ready. Let's do it. I love my body. I'm ready to show it off. Let's do the thing. Louise: How often does that happen? Lindley: It's rare, but it's cool. That's fun too. But most of the people who come to me, they're nervous. These are bodies – we live in these bodies that are not considered okay. And now here's this girl with a camera pointed it at you going, “No, you're great.” That's very disconcerting. And so, we do a lot of coaching. We do a lot of… I tell people like they get to control when they're done, whether they need a bathroom break or they're hungry or they just need to not have a camera pointed at them. It's a very warm and friendly environment because that's the only way to be ethical about this. And if nothing else, if you're unhappy, it's going to show in the photos. Louise: Yeah, of course. Lindley: So I have a vested interest in keeping you relaxed too. But these organizations releasing these photos is another example of this smiling oppression because it doesn't matter. Louise: What a beautiful way of putting it. Lindley: It doesn't matter how nice you are about it; if you're trying to erase me, and if you're trying to get me to pay you for surgeries or drugs or meal plans or meals or whatever, or weigh-ins, whatever that are not evidence-based. And you can tell I'm all fired up about this, come back to our theme again, because it doesn't matter how nice you are about it. Louise: You're still a dick head. Lindley: I know all about nice, but nice is not kind and kind is not anti-oppressive. Louise: Yeah, we've got to stop this bullshit. Yeah, I love that term “smiling oppression”. Yeah, if people are being nice to you and trying to represent you, and simultaneously trying to eradicate you; that's bullshit. Lindley: Yeah. I mean, again, I talk about being Southern because it's very relevant here because I have an ancestor who owned a slave, who owned another human being. That was a couple hundred years ago, so I had no idea whether that person was nice to their slave. I wouldn't have any way of knowing. Louise: It doesn't matter. Lindley: Yeah, it doesn't matter. In the south, one of the things that I was taught in history classes in school was that slavery wasn't it really all that bad because people were nice to their slaves and let them live in the house, and I'm not going to repeat the rest of it. It is very… Louise: Oh my God, that's just, yeah. Lindley: Yeah. And I had to learn better as an adult. But just because, and I'm not comparing slavery and fatphobia, they are not the same thing. They are not the same oppression. It doesn't matter how nice I am to you' if I am hurting you, if I'm stepping on your foot while smiling and asking you about the weather, the proper response is, “Hey, get off my foot.” Louise: Yeah. Right. Oh God, so many people need to hear this, and it's so good to hear how fired up you are. Lindley: We're being lied to, and we're continuing to be lied to by people who want to present, particularly weight loss surgery is now the big new thing, but it's still not evidence-based. We know that the side effects are really horrific, that a lot of people die. And then most people who even have that surgery gain the weight back. I know somebody who's had it twice and the doctor is pushing her to have it a third time because it didn't work. I mean, she lost the weight and then she regained it right back because that's what human bodies do – they protect. Louise: Our bodies are amazing. They're smarter than the weight loss surgeons. Lindley: Yeah. My body says, “I see a famine coming. We're hungry, I need to protect you.” That's what our bodies are doing. Louise: And I love that the photography that you do highlights the beauty inherent in diversity. And like that picture of the woman in the backyard, she is by no means small and she is just absolutely, like, there is just such beauty in that photo. A lot of the people that I work with really can't see that beauty in their own body and really don't even look at their own body, and that's where I guess photography can open up. Like, what are you trying to do for people when you take their photo, when you're aware of that much, like avoidance or disgusted or all of that stuff that people get stuck on when it comes to their own body? Lindley: Well, again, there's, there's kind of two facets. There is often when client come to me, generally the folks who are modeling for stock photos, because they are aware that those photos will be used publicly and sold, so there's an extra layer there of not only being willing to see yourself, but to know that many, many, many other people are going to see these. So generally, the folks who model for stock photos are maybe a little more ready for that. But a lot of the clients who come to me, maybe they haven't had a photo of themselves since their wedding day, or maybe they haven't had one since high school, or maybe they're always in the back of photos, or they're the ones behind the camera because they can't stand to be in front of it. And for those people, when I started doing this, I didn't know the term for it, but the term is exposure therapy. This is not a process that I'm qualified to coach at this point, generally, this is ad hoc, people do it for themselves. But people will often take their finished photos, and we've always look at them together. We always go through them together, both from that's… I mean, it's part of my sales process. It's business, we look at them together because people are buying products with them. But also for support, I think your photos are amazing, and I know that you will too, but I'm still going to be there to metaphorically hold your hand while we look at them. But then people take them home, and they'll look at them for just a minute. And then the next day they'll look at them for two minutes, and they will expose exposure therapy themselves. That's the coolest thing because they're teaching themselves to look at their own bodies. And then the other facet of that is that you saw that photo of the woman in the chair, in my backyard. I'm very lucky to have overgrown backyard to put people in. Louise: You have a nice backyard. Lindley: And we had the behind the scenes of that photo is that I had sheets hung up all over around her because the back of my backyard is open to the next area behind, so I had sheets hung up all over for privacy because she is very nude. So, you saw that photo on the website and it made a difference for you. You remembered it. And so the other facet is that you can… I don't know what the verb is. You can expose your therapy yourself by finding photos of people who are either look like you, like have your similar body type or are bigger or have visible disabilities, or basically by exposing yourself to all kinds of bodies, not just the ones that you kind of get forced fed by the media. You can do this process for yourself without necessarily having to look at photos of yourself. Although eventually you will also want to look at your own body, but you can do so much just by looking at people of actual bodies; look at them. Louise: Not in a creepy way – maybe in a creepy way. Lindley: I mean, maybe don't go staring at people in the grocery store. Louise: Don't follow people into the bathrooms at pools. Lindley: Yeah, please don't follow people around staring at them, but the internet is a wonderful place to stare at other bodies. Louise: Yeah. And actually, you raise a really good point because I think it's, well, 20 years into my foray into like the non-diet stuff. And I think me, even in the mid two thousands, looking at that same photo, I wouldn't have had the same reaction of just like being struck by the beauty because I hadn't done all of that. Like, I do surround myself with lots and lots of pictures of, like we've got naked women all over this house and my kids make a point of warning their friends, and I'm pretty sure my dad does think I'm a lesbian, which is okay, because I'm exposing him to diversity, but it's the exposure, exposure to diversity. If we see ourselves everywhere, represented everywhere and see other people represented everywhere, nothing strikes us as wrong, and then the beauty can grow. Lindley: Yeah. You know, what we are exposed to inn our regular lives, without taking efforts otherwise is a very narrow slice of humanity. And the more we see people… the more we see all different kinds of bodies, the more normal they become. The more we can see the beauty in those bodies as opposed to those bodies and out of bounds, or wrong, or transgressive, and the more you can expose yourself, the faster it will work. Louise: Yeah. And do you think that the last place that that kind of appreciation happens is your own body? Lindley: I think it depends for people. I think for some people, yes. I think for some people, body is the least, like theirs is the last place that happens. And I don't know, you know, I'm not in other people's heads, so I don't know whether that correlates with how outside the mainstream your own body is or not. Louise: Yeah, I do think there's something in that, but to keep going. So you are basically encouraging us all to take modes of ourselves. Lindley: Oh, yeah. Take some new selfies, seriously. Start in the bath. Like if you have access to like a bubble bath, because then you can like take pictures of your toes, like pointing delicately up from the bubbles and it's the least offensive nude in the world and it's really safe. And then you turn that camera around or use your use the other camera on your phone. Don't electrocute yourself please. Louise: Don't live stream it. Lindley: You take a photo of like if you have cleavage and you want to see that cleavage, like you do the bubbles and the cleavage. Again, I'm making hand gestures that you can't see so you don't imagine. And you do like the coy bubbles and the cleavage and you like camp it up. And then from there, you get out the bath and you dry off or not, I don't know your life. And you start putting that camera on a timer and you do whatever makes you happy if that's nudes or a costume or a Godzilla suit, I don't care – as long as you're seeing yourself. Louise: I love it. It sounds really playful. Lindley: Yeah. It doesn't have to be… like, there is a lot. And if you are an eating disorder recovery there a chance that you have been exposed to some of these exercises already on body image. There is a ton of resources out there on things like mirror work, where you're looking into mirror and seeing yourself and lots of… like, I have a whole book of journaling prompts about body image. There's a ton of resources out there, but just taking a selfie and deleting it, you can delete it. You don't have to keep it. Louise: You don't have to put it on Facebook. Lindley: You don't have to share it. I know that some people will start like a secret Instagram that is just them sharing selfies just to have them out into the world, but you don't have to, you don't have to do any of that. Louise: You don't have to perform this. Yeah, this is fast, this is good stuff. Lindley: Just like anything you can do. But again, you're not obligated to, this is not a moral imperative. You don't have to do selfies. You don't have to do nudes. You don't have to love your body. It's great if you can respect your own body, but there's no particular moral good in it other than that, you deserve it. None of these – I'm not giving you marching orders. I'm giving you some options, but like we get to do you. Louise: Lindley, thank you so much. This conversation has been immense and everything and awesome. Thank you for everything that you're putting out there in the world and for being so fired up. Lindley: Yeah, thank you. Such a joy to get to come in and talk about what I'm really head up about. Louise: Yeah, it's truly terrific. And I hope that your health condition gets properly addressed and that you feel better soon. Lindley: Thank you. Louise: All right. Thank you. Outro: What a dead set legend. Thank you so much, Lindley, I just adored that conversation and thank you everybody for listening. So if you are looking to learn more about Lindley and all of her amazing work, you can find her at bodyliberationphotos.com or on Insta @ bodyliberationwithlindley. And don't forget that her name has a silent D in it. So it sounds like Lindley, but it's L I N D L E Y. Okay everyone, that's all for this week's episode, I will see you soon, I promise. Take really good care of yourself in the meantime, trust your body, think critically, push back against diet culture, untrap from the crap. Resources Mentioned Find out more about Lindley here Follow Lindley on Insta @bodyliberationwithlindley

A sneak peak at a brand new series from the producers behind Oh God, What Now? To hear more, visit kite.link/doomsday The world has never stood as close to the apocalypse as it does today. Hosted by ARTHUR SNELL, a former British diplomat and counter-terrorism operative who has seen service in Yemen, Helmand and Zimbabwe, DOOMSDAY WATCH meets experts and eyewitness for an unflinching look at the threats that conventional media ignores. On this first edition: Is a toxic combination of extreme partisanship, detached elites and Trump's incitement driving the world's greatest democracy to a second Civil War? • “This is the story of a great project that has torn itself apart from the inside.” – ARTHUR SNELL • “At what point do we stop saying this is a democratic country?” – BRIAN KLAAS • “Where there is anger and polarised states, democracy may not work any more.” – JACK GOLDSTONE DOOMSDAY WATCH was written and presented by Arthur Snell and produced by Robin Leeburn – with assistant production from Jacob Archbold. Theme tune and original music is by Paul Hartnoll. The group editor is Andrew Harrison. DOOMSDAY WATCH is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Today’s Show: As I talked about last week, I’ve got a Best-Of Show for you today! Voicemail: 206-666-4463 (206-66-OH GOD)  Have Your Voicemail Played On The Show E-mail: show@distortedview.com – Say hi, suggest news stories, videos, audio, etc. Discord: The DV discord server! Chat with like-minded monsters. The DV Subreddit: Share links to DV worthy audio/video and news […]

“A bingo card of Tory sleaze…” It's COP26 week so naturally the Tory Government puts the recycling out – bringing back 90s corruption by overturning the suspension of self-enriching paid lobbyist MP OWEN PATERSON. What were they thinking, will it bite them back in the end, what exactly were Randox getting for their money, and can we consign “standards in public life” to the box of quaint historic relics? Plus our guest this week is PAUL HAWKEN, author of Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation.  • “Johnson's like a greasy pastry. The sleaze is baked in.” – NAOMI SMITH • “Politics is the most environmentally destructive industry in the world.” – PAUL HAWKEN • “The Brexit Party saved Labour from an even worse defeat in 2019… ‘Thank God for Nigel Farage' is quite a statement” – DORIAN LYNSKEY • “The only thing Bolsonaro hates more than trees are the indigenous people living among them.” – NAOMI SMITH www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Buy Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Paul-Hawken/Regeneration--Ending-the-Climate-Crisis-in-One-Generation/25990481 Presented by Dorian Lynskey with Naomi Smith, Ian Dunt and Ros Taylor. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

-Derrick Henry out for the season?? -Potential replacements for Titans RB -Vols basketball rolls in exhibition

The Government sanctions explosive leaks of noxious material, leaving the country nauseated. But enough about the Budget. As National Sewage Week comes to a glorious end, we reach around the political S-Bend to see what Rishi Sunak has left in Britain's economic pan. Also we welcome guest MICHAEL BRADDICK, author of 'A Useful History of Britain: The Politics of Getting Things Done' to ask if ‘Britishness' really exists. Plus, what would our panel do if they were dictators? * “Clean water would bankrupt the water industry? I see problem there…” – Alex Andreou * “If you drink liqueurs on domestic flights, this is the Budget to help you.” – Ian Dunt * “If you want people to feel British, then make Britain work for them. Don't just tell them they're British” – Michael Braddick www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Alex Andreou with Minnie Rahman and Ian Dunt. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you keep your relationship strong despite the pressures that child-rearing can create? And how can you leverage your attachment styles in how you show up for each other to improve your relationship along the way?  Our guests are Kara Hoppe and Stan Tatkin, co-authors of the new book "Baby Bomb: A Relationship Survival Guide for New Parents" - one of the few books that tackles the impact that raising a child can have on your connection. Whether you're expecting a new baby, or already have children in the mix, today's episode will give you the tools you need so that you can weather the storms of parenting while celebrating its joys. As always, I'm looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Also, see below for links to our other episodes with Stan Tatkin. Sponsors: Want something new to entertain you? Acorn TV is a commercial-free streaming service that's rooted in British television. It's home to sophisticated and artful storytelling with top-rated mysteries, dramas that pull you in, heart-felt comedies and so much more. So - Escape to Britain and beyond without leaving your seat. Try Acorn TV free for 30 days, by going to acorn.tv and using the promo code “alive” (lowercase) at checkout. Find a quality therapist, online, to support you and work on the places where you're stuck. For 10% off your first month, visit Betterhelp.com/ALIVE to fill out the quick questionnaire and get paired with a therapist who's right for you. Resources: Check out "Baby Bomb" on Amazon Get more information about Kara Hoppe and her offerings To learn about his trainings and retreats, visit Stan Tatkin's website Here are links to our other episodes with Stan Tatkin (prior to this one): Episode 19: Recipe for a Secure, Healthy Relationship Episode 50: Wired for Dating and Love - Psychobiology Episode 150: Attachment Styles and Relationship Repair FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict and shifting the codependent patterns in your relationship Or...check out the Secrets of Relationship Communication complete course! Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Your Relationship (ALSO FREE) Visit www.neilsattin.com/baby to download the transcript to this episode with Kara Hoppe and Stan Tatkin. Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out Transcript of this episode: Neil Sattin:  I think we've either seen it happen or maybe even experienced it ourselves, that the addition of a new life, a new being to a family can create big changes, and some of those changes are amazing and wonderful and life-enhancing, and some of those changes can feel almost cataclysmic. And so we are here today to talk about how to navigate a new edition to a family, whether it be a baby or adopting an older child, or even if you've had children in your life for a while and experienced the impact of children on your relationship. We're going to talk about how to steer your couple-ship in a way so that you can strengthen your relationship and strengthen with each other and with your children, and hopefully have a little bit more joy and a little less cataclysm. To have today's conversation, we have two very special guests: one is Kara Hoppe, who is a marriage and family therapist. And the other is Stan Tatkin who you may be familiar with from being on the show before, the author of, Wired in love and Wired for Dating among other books. Neil Sattin: And together they have written the book, Baby Bomb: A Relationship Survival Guide for New Parents. Because as we were chatting about before this interview started, there aren't many resources to help people not just navigate what's going on with a new baby, but actually navigate how that impacts their relationship and how to have a strong relationship, despite all the ways that the new addition or additions to your family might make the waters a little rocky. I don't know why I'm going with the boat metaphor today, but it's happened. [laughter] Kara Hoppe and Stan Tatkin, it's a pleasure to have you here today on Relationship Alive. Stan Tatkin: Thank you, Neil. Kara Hoppe: Happy to be here. Neil Sattin: Great, well, we're off to a good start. [laughter] So I sometimes like to do this, which is to start at the end, and in your book, Baby bomb, which is great by the way. You offer 10 guiding principles for how to help couples stay strong in their relationship, despite however having a child in their life may be impacting the relationship. And at the very last guiding principle that you have, I'm going to just read it verbatim here, I think I dog eared the page. Guiding principle 10: You and your partner parent and partner with sensitivity, respect and trust. And I wanted to start there because, for one thing, I'm not even sure people necessarily nail that down before a child comes along. Kara Hoppe: Right. Neil Sattin: And so much of getting things strengthened and resilient has to do with those very things, so I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about why those things are so important, sensitivity, respect and trust. And why their absence might lead to some of the common things that people experience when a new edition actually throws things into chaos. Kara Hoppe: Yeah, Neil, I love it that you started at the end, the last guiding principal. And I immediately when you were saying it, was thinking about the beginning of parenthood, when two people become parents, neither one of them really know what they're doing. They've never done it before. No aunt or uncle or godparent experience speaks to that. And so they're both learning in tandem how to do this, so it's a really vulnerable experience. So having that respect and sensitivity and trust in themselves and in their partner as they learn how to do this is so critical, right? I'm thinking about when we brought Jude home from the hospital, neither one of us knew how to burp him. And it's such a simple thing, but I didn't know how to burp a baby, nobody had taught me before. And I remember watching Charlie do it and feeling in my body like, Oh God, like fear and wanting to jump in. But then pausing 'cause I wanted to give him, the respect, like he was giving me the respect to learn how to do it. And all of that increased our participation in showing up for our son Jude, but it also made our relationship feel like a safer place for both of us to kind of fumble around learning how to be parents together and be witnessed as parents together. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Yeah, so much of what you talk about in the book has to do with battling in some ways the cultural expectations that we have, and I think some of that includes this assumption that you're somehow going to know what to do. Kara Hoppe: What they need. Right. Neil Sattin: And so I appreciate your highlighting that it's a very vulnerable act to suddenly have a child in your arms. Or If you're a step-parent, to find yourself with an older child potentially in front of you and to not necessarily know what to do. There are all these ways that we're fighting internal messages that we've gotten from culture, from family, etcetera. Kara Hoppe: Right. That idea of the maternal instinct kicking in. Like, yes and maternal instinct doesn't cover burping, it doesn't cover putting on diapers, it doesn't necessarily cover even breastfeeding. All of that has to be taught in real time, learning how to do it. And so there can be a lot of internal pressure because of that external pressure that if I don't know what I'm doing, I'm somehow failing, and that can be asseverated of course, we know like partners doing that to each other. And like, "Come here, I'll take the baby, I know how to do this." And just cutting each other down. And what Stan and I really wanted to do with Baby Bomb was to help people recognize the importance of supporting each other during this vulnerable experience and how they could do that with really practical ways, and we just wrote the book to walk people through that journey of how to show up for their relationship that way. Neil Sattin: Yeah. So lest we make any assumptions here about what sensitivity, respect and trust mean, can we do just kind of a quick breakdown of what you mean by sensitivity, what you mean by respect, what you mean by trust? Interested in reading the transcript for the rest of this episode with Kara Hoppe and Stan Tatkin?  Visit neilsattin.com/baby to download the full transcript of this episode!

Obviously we're all absolutely fine…but…isn't everything a bit nuts right now? This week we imagine a Midult House of Horrors where we are assaulted by voice notes and chin hairs. Apps that we actually need – like ones that warn us we are about to be the arsehole or let us know when an ex-boyfriend is going to appear. And we wonder if it's nearly time to switch from our regular anxiety to our shiny Christmas anxiety…. Oh God. P.S. This week's podcast is bravely sponsored by carbon neutral jewellery sensation @AnaLuisa. Go to https://shop.analuisa.com/absolutelyfine and use the code ABSOLUTELYFINE for a 10% discount. It doesn't cost the earth… or the planet. #analuisany Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Benny Fergusson, aka The Movement Monk, joins Mason on the podcast for an insightful discussion around how we can be more adaptive in our physical practices, embody flexibility with integrity, and bring a broader range of diversity into the way we approach movement. Bringing 20 years of experience and wisdom to the table, Benny comes versed in many forms of physical practice; Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Shaolin Kung Fu, Martial Arts, Yoga, Bodyweight training, to name a few. But what really lights him up and continues to evolve his work is providing people with unhomogenised frameworks of physical movement; Connecting them back to their unique bodies, their nature, and supporting them to thrive and achieve what they never knew was possible. Through his business (The Movement Monk), Benny and his team offer personal support, coaching, and an epic range of transformational online courses that hone in on movement exploration, better physical performance, and personal growth. In this episode, Benny explores many notions of movement and flexibility. He encourages the listener to look beyond mainstream prescribed ideas of physical workouts towards a limitless realm of movement exploration; One that isn't bound by body image, a singular goal, or a season. Mason and Benny also move around the concept of approaching both life and physical practice with more flexibility and connection to the body/self; With less dogma and more diversity, allowing us to change and adapt with ease as we go through the different seasons of life. Benny is a pioneer revolutionising the way we approach movement. Tune in now.     "With regards to movement, the body is always changing. My body now, in my thirties, is different from what it was in my twenties. There's a different context, and it's going to continue to change and evolve. And because of this, I need greater diversity to choose from. So I can adapt to an ever-changing environment, to the different seasons and how I'm feeling. In times where I'm feeling more lethargic. How do I work with that? There might be times when I'm feeling less grounded; How do I work with these things? There might be times when I'm feeling tired or when I'm feeling looser. To be able to continue to look at things and then go, oh, okay, cool. I have a series of choices that I know that I can make continually to keep the process of life going".    - Benny Fergusson   Mason and Benny discuss: Hypermobility. Hypomobility. Embodied flexibility. The quality of flexibility. Flexibility, stability and injury. Benny's process of movement. The explorative mobility method. Sustainability in physical practice. Chronic tension and pain in the body. Not letting our bodies do not define us.    Who is Benny Fergusson? After living with chronic scoliosis & pain for years, getting no lasting relief from mainstream fitness and therapies.. Benny embarked on a journey to heal his body and get to know himself better. Through years of research and the practice of movement & meditation arts, Benny found a way to restore his physical freedom, leading to profound personal growth. Benny now shares his findings with his students at MovementMonk.xyz   CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON APPLE PODCAST    Resources: The Freedom Academy Embodied Flexibility Course The Movement Monk Website The Movement Monk YouTubeThe Movement Monk Facebook The Movement Monk Instagram Use The Code MASON10 For 10% Off     Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We'd also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Mason: (00:00) Hey, Benny. Welcome back.   Benny Fergusson: (00:01) Thanks for having me again, Mase. It's good to be back   Mason: (00:03) [crosstalk 00:00:03] Yeah. You've been on long enough. I think you'd say friend of the podcast. Regular.   Benny Fergusson: (00:10) Friend of the podcast.   Mason: (00:11) Yeah. You're a regular. I think it's been a decent amount of time since we've been chatting on here.   Benny Fergusson: (00:19) Yeah.   Mason: (00:19) Even as much for the people that haven't met you before, but for those who haven't heard you for a year and a half or two years since you've been on. Do you just want to give them a little bit of an intro to what you do? But for you, where you're at with your movement practise that could just help frame out what you're doing in the world a little bit?   Benny Fergusson: (00:44) Yeah, well, a little bit like you, a lot can happen... I'm always evolving. I'm always growing. I'm someone that I never rest on my laurels. I love this work. I love the process of having a body and exploring it and how that then intersects with who we are as people and what life is and what it can be. So, I'm always growing. Flexibility practise is something that just continues to be a cornerstone of my life. I think because my body is always reflecting back to me. Flexibility is very symbolic of how I meet my edges in life, how I adapt and stay supple. I continue to run a business, Movement Monk, and we provide online education and I'm always looking at how can we serve our members better?   Benny Fergusson: (01:50) How can we get the message out? There's just so much homogenised physical exercise out there that doesn't open up people to themselves. So, I'm always pushing my edge within myself to see how I can educate better and also see what I'm made of. So, I've been continuing to grow in my personal practise. One thing that has continued to evolve is looking at the same situation, say like a stretch. What are the multiple ways that we can look at that so that we can be adaptive? Like when we're talking about embodied flexibility and that whole notion of what it means to embody something. In this case, the quality of flexibility. It's something that is not just... you're not a one trick pony.   Benny Fergusson: (02:52) It's not just like I stretch in this way and then that just works infinitely. I've tried that and it doesn't actually work like that. You start to stagnate. We see this in so many different schools of thought, Philosophy, movements where you become a product of your own dogma, and then you're no longer living. You're just a series of regurgitated thoughts and actions repeated and nature doesn't work in that way. It's always adapting. It's going through so many different cycles. Having gone through this, maybe the hard way, I don't know, doing it for 20 years, you start to come to these realisations and realise that you need greater biodiversity in the way that you approach things. I'm really interested in that from a physical practise perspective.   Benny Fergusson: (03:53) With regards to movement, the body's always changing. My body now, in my thirties, is different to what it was in my twenties. There's different context and it's going to continue to change and evolve, and I need a greater diversity to be able to choose from, to adapt to an ever changing environment, to the different seasons and how I'm feeling, whether there might be times where I'm feeling more lethargic. How do I work with that? There might be times when I'm feeling less grounded, how do I work with these things? There might be times when I'm feeling tired or when I'm feeling looser. To be able to continue to look at things and then go, oh, okay, cool. Maybe not have all of the right answers, but I have a series of choices that I know that I can make continually to keep the process of life going.   Benny Fergusson: (04:51) So, these are the things that have been evolving. Like when I started this process with Movement Monk, and even this course in body flexibility, it happened around the same time, about nine years ago, in the online space. I was inspired by Shaolin practises, particularly Shaolin Qi Gong and stretching practises and that came through a lot in that process. That's where it was a lot about not just stretching for an end result, but also who you become in that process. Then, you put it out in the world. I was stoked about sharing that and I'm like, "oh, I've got to get this out to people, It's really helped me". Then, you get almost 3000 people come through and you get all this feedback, and it's just wonderful and it's humbling and you get all these different perspectives and then you come back and [inaudible 00:05:50] and you saw it and you go "okay, what can I do with this feedback?"   Benny Fergusson: (05:53) How can I continue to grow and be better and provide something that is able to go to that next level, rather than be overly prescriptive of "do this, do that, do what I do and get what I got". It's now more about, these experiences have helped me, but use this process as a way to get to know yourself, and at the end of that, then you've got these tools to start to go "okay, how would I like to apply it? I can actually keep using these skills for a long time."   Benny Fergusson: (06:27) The idea is that you could use these principles and practises for the next 10, 15, 20 years. A lot of the time we don't think about that in this transformational world of befores and afters in the realm of movement and fitness. I went from this amount of flexibility to that amount of flexibility.   Benny Fergusson: (06:50) And that's cool. I think that's useful. It's an important part of the process, but then where do you go from there? Where do you go to keep your heart alive in your practise? Rather than just "Yeah, I've got the splits now what ?", "has that changed me?" "Does that touch the very fibre of who I am?"   Benny Fergusson: (07:08) Is that just something that gave me some social currency and validation amongst my peers to go "whoa, you're really cool because you can do this thing", but I think this starts to then go deeper and go "okay, cool, Our bodies do not define us".   Benny Fergusson: (07:28) We enter this bit of a paradox, yet here we are in this physical existence, living in this proverbial meat sack. It gives us a wonderful learning opportunity and it grounds us and thrusts us into these kinds of challenges and opportunities for growth, and brings us back to deeper questions about perhaps there's more to me than just my body. So, to come to that point through a physical practise is something that, to me, after 20 years of being interested in this, or more, 20 years of structured cultivation and exploration, it still keeps me yearning. There's a thirst to continue, to learn and grow, and also through that process to realise what I've accumulated and to be inspired to unlearn as well and come back to our essential nature, whatever that is for whoever we are.   Mason: (08:37) Yeah. Uniquely. [crosstalk 00:08:42]I'm looking forward to checking out the new, improved, current reflection of everybody's flexibility, really reflecting on where it's all at and what's developed. What I like about the idea of embodied flexibility, it's an initiation process. Some people might come with the intention solely around what you're talking about. It might not be flexibility in particular that they have any specific goals revolving around, but they might feel the more metaphysical or emotional like, "Hey, if I bring this flexibility to my body, I'm going to be able to use that to bring adaptability and flexibility to the way that I think", or "I'm with my kids or when I'm in my job or running my business" or whatever it is. Likewise, I think if I went in there, I'd probably, at this point in my life, I'd probably be like "You know, I'd have a few mobility goals that I'd really be"...   Mason: (09:45) I think the reason I got pleasantly surprised going through it probably eight years ago that I had those mobility intentions around maybe getting my forehead closer towards my shin, moving closer towards the wide split. I won't even talk about the front split yet. That's... maybe I can bet. That's a horrendous stretching for me. I love it, but you go in and you move towards those goals, but then you also get that pleasant surprise of, hang on... I said it in the live we did earlier, you make yourself and the system just that little bit too slippery that you can't just hook into an ideological outcome or an ideal outcome of what you're going for or attach what you want to you or any of the other instructors.   Mason: (10:38) It just keeps on falling back into the self. And if you keep on going with the practise, so I'm [inaudible 00:10:43] understanding this. I imagine the new courses, especially particularly designed to just show up and keep on having faith in this process and keep on showing up in your practise in the way that we've loosely built it. You can still explore for yourself and through the other side; one, you probably do have some serious improvement in your mobility than when you're in your actual flexibility, but then there's that pleasant happy accident for many people that "wow" and all those things you're talking about, I'm feeling way more adaptive in my everyday life because I've altered the way that I relate with being uncomfortable, seeing that there's ways that I can explore being uncomfortable, move beyond that and see that things do move, even though it was very hard when I first arrived there. Does that sum it up a little bit ?   Benny Fergusson: (11:33) Yeah, totally. It's an ongoing... To put this in an online course format that's digestible... It's a process of art and to give what our intention has been and is with this is to provide structures and frameworks and clarity that then open up someone to exploration. So, first and foremost, we put the focus on really two key things, the methodology rather than it. So, for example, to highlight an evolution, we started off with a simple process of in the first version of embodied flexibility, it was a series of dynamic stretching movements. So, you'd move in and out of the range to acclimatise with what you're doing, and then you'd focus on generating good quality contraction in your end range to stabilise and give your nervous system an opportunity to go "Okay, I'm safe here."   Benny Fergusson: (12:37) And then a natural result is your body is more confident and able to move into deeper ranges. Which was good, really useful. That, at the time of my research was a very widely applicable process. It had to evolve, then, to different questions of "okay, well, what if I have a natural propensity toward hyper mobility?" So my joints are a little bit more lax and they can hyper extend and all that sort of stuff. What do I do? I've done a lot of strength training and my body is hyper mobile. My muscles can contract well, but they have trouble letting go. I've got a lot of armour, so to speak, real stoic warrior vibe, but how do I learn to put down my shield and surrender into deeper layers of the body.   Benny Fergusson: (13:33) So, you can't do that with just one type of stretching, and you see what happens then in my observations and experiences in lots of different realms of movement is... you see... and none of this is a negative on any of them, but you see the necessity of how they've popped up, for example, Yin Yoga is a lot about surrendering into deeper postures and it's a psychological, physiological unravelling process through surrendering to what is. It's kind of a meditative process and unfurling, which is wonderful. Yet, what often happens is people who have that natural propensity toward that quality gravitate toward it. So they just get more of what they're already good at and then other people, it can be really beneficial, but then it can reach a point of your physiology needs more diversity.   Benny Fergusson: (14:30) So, this is where one of my intents is to provide options so we can see the benefits of all of these different approaches, but then we can change and adapt. For example, my body started off and I was into strength training. I was into strong man. I was into CrossFit-like activities before CrossFit existed. So, that came naturally to me and I could put on muscle and all that stuff. But, when it came to flexibility, that was not a natural realm for me. So, I need to find ways to work with my body, but then there's the other side of the coin as well. People who maybe are a little bit lighter in their frame, that their joints don't have as much structural and integrity and all that sort of stuff.   Benny Fergusson: (15:24) So, with all these questions and as working with thousands of people now, over the years, you start to get a greater diversity of the different types of bodies, and that brings up the question, how do we make a method that is adaptive to the individual?   Benny Fergusson: (15:40) So, this is where the method turned from a rhythmic strength stretching as we started, to now the explorative mobility method, which is what it sounds like. We combined four different types of stretching as options. So, you can go into the same stretch, but then realise, "Oh my God, I've got four key different ways which each have different physiological impacts and also different mental approaches to elicit an effect in the same stretch", which is really, really cool. So, it means that in a practise you can either, let's say you like that variability, that's a part of your constitution.   Benny Fergusson: (16:24) I don't want to just be locked in a box with one thing, and that's a part of the individual's makeup that is not just physiological. Then you give that space for that part of the beam to flourish, and then there might be another type of beam that's, "No, I want to focus on one clear thing to get this outcome". We can do that, too. And then once we satisfy these parts of the beam, then it's like, "okay, cool, what else is there? How can I start to actually grow into new space, that is beyond what my natural inclination is?"   Benny Fergusson: (17:03) So, that's a big part that I was actually surprised that it came out. I started coming back and taking all this feedback and then looking at what do we need to do to do better.   Benny Fergusson: (17:18) Then this came along the way and I was actually also really surprised. I continued to bring it into my practise and then just seeing how it gives structure, but then also gives someone a sense of personal agency that they have choice of that overwhelm in a flexibility practise.   Benny Fergusson: (17:35) So, that's one of the cornerstones that's in this new process and it's something that if I had have seen it around in the world, I wouldn't have had to do it. So, this is a driving force of going, "Okay, we deserve more options when we're working with our body. We deserve more ability to personalise and find something that not only suits us where we're at now, but gives us space to grow." So, these sorts of things that are exciting me at the moment.   Mason: (18:13) I had a really new, sapling thought when you were talking about the bulking muscle men and women. Again, don't have this to take anywhere. I just wanted to share it with you quickly. Especially in relation to when I was in the live, I was talking about the spleen. For most people with deficient muscle, you're going to see deficient capacity to create strong bonds and have strong boundaries within your relationships and with yourself, because that's the virtuous nature of the spleen. I was just thinking about that, that being jacked up and high, having that hypermobility, you can see that it's a hyper bond. It's like "bro! You're my bro!"... Same with the women. You just see that the bonds between them is so intense and the boundaries between their tribe and other tribes seem really intense and really defined as well.   Mason: (19:11) You know what, I can really just see those bonds and boundaries becoming excessive. Maybe using a little bit of that medicine of... I guess a little bit of flexibility could be coming in, especially from the liver, for those of you that have the Taoist incline to help bring some balance into that. Especially, some balance to the frustration and anger that can come up in that from that world, which the liver has to deal with. I just wanted to talk about quality of flexibility when we talk about stretching, quality of stretching, quality of flexibility, because I know my colonised mind, my reductionist mind still hears you go "you know, flexibility" and I'm like, "oh yeah, yeah, cool. Yeah. I need more flexibility and doing some stretching in your practise."   Mason: (19:59) Yeah, yeah. I got it. I should stretch and it's all the courses and I read every... Anyone who's focused on doing... It was an athlete and now I got in. Then, of course, I stretch. I stretch at the end of the day. And I'm like, "what do you mean, You know?" I know you've just said that you've got four different types. So, it's not just one myopic concept. I remember you've talked a lot in the past about someone who... and you brought up hyper mobility and how some people might think, "Oh, that person's going to breeze through embodied flexibility."   Mason: (20:37) But, can you talk to a little bit about what that process would be like for someone with hypermobility? And then I'm sure that can take us into whether we're hypo or hyper...   Benny Fergusson: (20:47) Yeah.   Mason: (20:47) What's that quality of flexibility that you're looking for? And does it necessarily just mean going to your furthest range that you have right now?   Benny Fergusson: (20:57) Yeah, yeah. Well, qualities... Probably one of the... So, I don't like to be too hierarchal in the way that I think, but if I have a look at my evolution as I've journeyed into the body further, I started off with techniques, which is what a lot of people do. It's like I do a stretch. Now, what I realised with a technique is you bring yourself to that technique under the illusion that you think that that technique is going to somehow magically change your wiring. So, what often happens is that we then highlight... The practise reflects back to us, ourselves, like a classic case is... like the technique of stretching is just so open and ambiguous. It's like going to what someone has described as a stretch. What does that mean? It's going to mean 10 different things to 10 different people.   Benny Fergusson: (22:08) So, it's not enough for you to then have some sort of personal agency in the experience. So, then you go a little bit deeper into principles. So, what are the things underneath, the cogs that turn to make that technique work? Why that technique came about? So, principles are really useful because that then starts to take a little bit deeper into the conversation you start to look at. Ah, okay. Rather than just doing, focusing on the tip of the iceberg, I then start to look at all of the supporting structures that allow it to float, because it's such an illusion. This tip is everything that you need to create that reality. It doesn't work like that. We need foundations and those foundations are principles which I'll go into some of the ones that I find really useful, in a moment.   Benny Fergusson: (23:10) Then you go a little bit further and you start to talk about qualities. Like when we start to look into different qualities of being, qualities of mind. So, if I go into something and my intention is very strong, very attachment based, very future focused, then that quality will be reflected through the activity that I do. In this case, a stretch. An example... I'll give more examples in terms of how we apply this to someone who's hyper mobile. For me, at the start of my journey, I wanted to get flexible. We're talking about, I wanted the splits, I wanted the backbend. To be honest, I'm still interested in those things as much as I was when I started.   Benny Fergusson: (23:58) However, the level of attachment has significantly loosened off. It's something that is less future-based and now more I'm appreciating where I'm at in the process of where I'm going. So, the quality of patience has emerged. The quality of, for want of a better term, flexibility, to be able to adapt with what is, because I'll wake up and some days I might be tighter, and if I push my body on that day, my body's going to give me some sort of feedback to say whether that's okay, whether that's not okay.   Benny Fergusson: (24:38) It's like anything in nature, you just can't force it to grow. It grows through a product of being supported to grow. So, rather than trying to force... and you can see these other types of qualities, if this is underlying factor driving the being, so that quality of pushing, of striving, of achieving, then you will get a result, but it will reach a ceiling pretty quick, because it's out of the accordance of natural law which has cycles and interrelationships and all of that sort of stuff.   Benny Fergusson: (25:15) So, when you look into qualities, that's when things start to get rich into How does our level of being influence what we do and then interrelate to what we have. It's that very classic notion of be, do, have.   Benny Fergusson: (25:30) So, who I am will then inform what I have, what I experience. So, if we track it back and look at someone who's hyper mobile, someone who has maybe less joint integrity, less structural integrity, more gravitation toward flexibility. This is what a lot of people... you see it in the yoga world... a lot of women demonstrate wonderful flexibility and you get the guys going, "I could never do that", or some women who don't have that quality naturally going "Oh, well, yoga is not for me because I can't do those [inaudible 00:26:11], those postures from day dot". Maybe that person who's demonstrating it has cultivated it over years.   Benny Fergusson: (26:20) Maybe, also, they've just always been that way. So, either way we need to find ways for... because there's also people who are hyper mobile, who don't feel stable, who get injured easily, who are also not very flexible. So, there's all of these wonderful, different variants in someone's body.   Mason: (26:43) Yeah. There was that woman, I don't know her name, not that I want to share it, but I remember Tahnee, Tahnee keeps me up to date with all the scandals in the yoga world.   Benny Fergusson: (26:52) Yeah   Mason: (26:52) She was a pretty famous Ashtanga teacher ? [crosstalk 00:26:56]   Benny Fergusson: (26:56) Yes, yes, yes.   Mason: (26:57) The classic lunge. The really sexy knee over the ankle, one calf right up on the thigh and her back acetabulum popped out ?   Benny Fergusson: (27:08) Yes. [inaudible 00:27:10]   Mason: (27:09) Just popped out. Hip just popped out. Popped right out of the hip, I should say. And I think that's a perfect example that what you're talking about.   Benny Fergusson: (27:20) Yeah.   Mason: (27:20) Right.   Benny Fergusson: (27:21) Totally, totally. So, here we are with unique circumstances of the body. If we focus on an external posture being the primary goal, we push outside of what our internal needs are. So, if we go back to that layer of principles and we just start first, this is a really useful place of starting at something easy.   Benny Fergusson: (27:50) I think a lot of the time we, in my experiences, focus on flexibility and that end goal is really clear. I know where I want to get to. So. you put yourself in a stretch that maybe you've seen on YouTube or someone's shown you, or you learn in high school or something like that. Then you go directly at that path, but it doesn't tend to work like that if you don't yet have the underlying foundations to support that.   Benny Fergusson: (28:21) So, if someone is hyper mobile or even hypo mobile, this will work for both sides of the coin, which is great, you find a space that is reflective of where you'd like to go, but it's easy, and what starts to happen in the mind is you go, "oh, okay, cool, I can do this". What also can happen in the mind is, "is this enough for me to improve?", and that's another little hook that can come up. "Do I need to push myself harder in order to get the gains?" This is where you see it can challenge people's ongoing sustainability in their practise.   Benny Fergusson: (29:04) So, first I feel when we're coming to the conversation of flexibility, we need to understand those two spaces, the space of ease. So, "What can I already do?", "What is the ease or quality that I already possess that's already there?"   Benny Fergusson: (29:22) Then, that space of challenge. "What do I do when I get to that space?", "Is that a positive incentivizing experience for me to go harder?", because it's the whole, no pain, no gain adage, or "Is that something that I've become hypersensitive to, and I tense up in the experience of, and go into fight or flight?", and then I don't give my body an opportunity to open up into its innate potential because we are actually all naturally flexible, and that's the thing, it's an innate state, we've just lost touch with it.   Benny Fergusson: (30:05) So, starting with that space of ease, whatever you need to do, maybe you take that... I remember we were talking about the pancake and that being a more challenging position for you. We let go of the attachment of what it needs to look like and we find that basic pattern and then we go, "Okay, what's my space of ease within that basic shape?"   Benny Fergusson: (30:27) Then we get accustomed with that first. Then the hyper mobile, or even hypo mobile, you'll notice that a lot of these things, what it does is it brings together to then just focus on our experience as we're going into spaces of ease and spaces of challenge. So, then everyone will have different noticing. As that hyper mobile person goes into it, they might notice, "Ah, as I go and I bend forward, my knees start to hyper extend, or my hips start to push into the socket and that sort of thing. So, you can feel when it starts to come on and then adapt and go, "Okay, that doesn't happen when I'm in this space of ease."   Benny Fergusson: (31:20) Then, as I go into that challenge, it starts to come on. So, rather than just put yourself into it, system's all kind of hyper stimulated, and then it's just too much sensory information to be able to make a clear decision. That's a really, really useful principle, so basic, but how many people apply it and value it as a thing? So, that's one thing that I want to bring out is sometimes it's the obvious things, but to really let people know from someone who has not just done this with themself for 20 years, but observed thousands of different bodies and different people for probably the last 15 years of working with people one-to-one and 10 years of doing it in an online space to realise, keep going with this, it's worthwhile. Pull that thread.   Mason: (32:21) I just wanted to speak to you a little bit to your process. You mentioned about some people just want to go real hard and they would just want to give it their all. It's almost like you've got that dominating kind of approach to your practise in life. I think that's a great quality you brought up that you're still just as interested in those and getting into those extreme poses, say, but there's just other elements there. I think I'll just reiterate for everyone, you can still go hard. This is a challenging approach where you can go hard, but there's just other qualities there like that back off patients breathe, explore. It does enable you to go way further and way deeper into this. So, you don't have to relinquish that part of you that's, "Oh, I like to just get after it."   Mason: (33:10) You will be able to get after it in here, [crosstalk 00:33:13] and one of those areas I just wanted to reiterate you've gone into that big view of around, especially like if you're hyper mobile, what happens, but can you just talk a little bit as you go down the road a little bit, that relationship between just having extreme flexibility where there's a floppiness versus where that intersection of strength, flexibility, having stability comes into effect, and how does that... just tack onto the back of that... I think about this often in terms of injury. I think about football players and athletes getting knees and hip injuries constantly and crutch injuries constantly that are debilitating and I often think about your work. Could you just give us a little insight there and to how that all works?   Benny Fergusson: (34:11) Yeah. The way I look at it is I love woodworking, so I relate to it with the quality of wood. So, if you have a certain quality, so let's say strength, you focus on that. If you look at a lot of athletes, they strengthen themselves, or they do specific movements to improve that thing that they're doing. That's one thing that athletes can benefit from to reduce their rates of industry injury, massively, which is actually more diversity in movement, and you've seen it in MMA fighters, like Conor McGregor is a great example of this, how he's challenged the typical ways of MMA people training. He has brought in a broader approach of movements and you can see that in his fighting style.   Benny Fergusson: (35:09) Also, it reflects on him as well as a person and his general outlook. Of course, I don't know him, but I can just observe, but we've got one quality, like strength. That's like a groove. The more you do it, the deeper that groove gets in the wood. Eventually you can dig yourself a trench. The same as flexibility. If you continue to focus on the end posture, you dig yourself a trench into that posture.   Benny Fergusson: (35:40) We often don't have a spectrum between those two qualities. We want to equally focus on both. Not separately, but at the same time. So, then we're starting to get a wider spectrum. If you had the choice... You got a highway and you wanted to spread the load across multiple lanes, that road is going to get worn out a lot less quickly than if you just had one or two lanes where all the traffic goes down.   Benny Fergusson: (36:15) These things are the breeding ground for injury. So, when it comes to bringing that into the context of training flexibility, we need to start to not just look at the end space we get into, but bringing... What's the thing that merges it all ? Movement. Can I move in and out of these postures ?   Benny Fergusson: (36:37) So, then you realise that flexibility's not a static thing. It's not an end goal. It's a continuum of me being where I am and being able to move in and out of where I'd like to go with the quality of ease. So, the end goal I find... It's like a car... if you're always redlining the car, you're always pushing it to its maximum capacity. Shit gets worn out faster.   Benny Fergusson: (37:05) It's like that with injury. If you're a sportsperson, you're always doing that turn or doing that adjustment to the edge of your current ability. Then the circumstances that breed injury are going to be higher. You see it in... If you watch enough 100m races, the tear in the hamstring doesn't just happen gradually. It's a buildup, and then, boom! It's done. It's a lot of pressure built up in the system over time to one glorious culminating moment and, boom, you're injured.   Benny Fergusson: (37:41) So, if you create, this is the beautiful thing of creating more than what you need. This is a very abundant mindset. This is the thing that keeps me struggling. Yeah, it's cool to get these outcomes and it looks cool and people will celebrate it, but for me, I look at... I just started Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu again. So, if I go into that class, I know my ability and I know where I can go more and I can play in my 80-90 percent zone.   Benny Fergusson: (38:16) If I want to really dial it up; if I get into a challenging situation, I can, but it doesn't have to be a constant where I'm always struggling, I'm always redlining and then I'm setting myself up for the injury.   Benny Fergusson: (38:31) When I work with another person, I can start to feel "Okay, where am I at in my spectrum ? Can I play?" and then also bring context with going "Okay, I'm challenging this situation. This is where I need to focus to give myself a bit more space."   Benny Fergusson: (38:48) Then, I'm not always pushing, pushing, pushing right on that edge and setting myself up for potential injury. Sometimes things happen. I don't actually believe you see a lot. We talk about bulletproofing the body. It's bullshit, to be honest, because shit happens.   Benny Fergusson: (39:08) Through the process of training flexibility, I've torn my adductor twice. I've torn my hamstring twice. It's been big setbacks. They were big ego moments of where my mind, my sense of striving, achievement was pushing further than what my body was ready for. I wasn't listening to the subtle signals.   Benny Fergusson: (39:28) So, my body had to go "Hey, dude, I'm going to give you a really clear message that you can hear, that's going to reflect back to you your way of living, and this is not sustainable. So, get your shit sorted and come back to the foundations, so we can be more robust."   Benny Fergusson: (39:46) In short, look at the picture of movement, how it interrelates rather than just these fixed states and linear ideas of what flexibility is. Strength, flexibility and them merging together into one as you practise is really, really useful, and highly applicable. We do become more resistant to injury. Will it completely stop injury ? Well, that's a personal choice.   Mason: (40:20) This might be a bit of a weird question. You've got quite a large community now and the community is growing. We know, not for everyone and not in definitely every movement, so [inaudible 00:40:38]. Largely, when we begin to talk about movement, the people who are motivating us, or we're learning from, have a real high aspiration for a shiny thing. They may say it's not about achieving this thing, but yet their life revolves around, quite often, achieving a big thing.   Mason: (41:03) Do you find a lot of people... Again, not a bad thing... I've got large goals that I'm uniquely going for as well. I'm also someone who can get quite quickly... If I fall into step with someone motivational, I can quite quickly, maybe in the past, get hijacked and think I've got to go and achieve something amazing, physically, through running or something like that. All of a sudden, it's marathons and ultras are on the mind.   Mason: (41:34) Do you find a lot of people gravitate towards your community with those... Maybe they're athletes and maybe they're really focused, maybe not on the process of being an athlete, but on that shiny thing. Do you find when they come into your community... Do you help them ? I know you don't have an agenda, there... Do they continue to be obsessed with the shiny thing ? Do they stop looking for it, sometimes ? Do they continue to go for it, yet find substance in the middle ?   Mason: (42:07) Or, do you find the people that come to you are those who are no longer thinking that that's the pinnacle, to find the shiny thing and they say they wanting something else ? I'm curious about that world.   Benny Fergusson: (42:24) What comes to mind... What I will say first is that people that tend to come into our space, they've done and tried a lot of things. That might be, "I've done this type of yoga", "I've done this", "I've done Crossfit", "I've done these different modalities and I've seen benefits in them. I'm interested. I feel there's something more. I don't know what it is, but I feel like there's more potential within me to explore. Just putting that label on it, I now know there's a limitation."   Benny Fergusson: (43:07) So, that's one type of person. That can also go on the other side where "I've had pain, discomfort. All that... I've done the Chiro, I've done the Physio, I've done the Osteo, and all of these are beautiful. I've done the Chinese Medicine or like you were talking about, the colonialized versions of it. I've done all these things, but I need to come back to a place of taking personal responsibility, rather than building reliance on any one person or one thing."   Benny Fergusson: (43:41) We do have people who have those goals. We have Martial Artists. We have rock climbers. We have adventurers. People who would like to experience more out of their body. A great example that comes up is one of our senior teachers, Marcus, based in Austria. When we started, he had been a personal trainer for a long time. He didn't come in green. He came in with a good level of physical ability and strong level of aspirations. He wanted to do the splits. He wanted to handstand. He wanted to do all these sorts of things.   Benny Fergusson: (44:20) So, the wonderful thing is, because I've been walking this path for a long time, I can empathise with that because that was me at a certain point, too. I used to, and we've talked about on the podcast, run a facility in Melbourne called Cohesion. We had classes just on handstands. How to get the handstand. Is that sustainable? That's questionable, because a lot of people come into it and they go, "ah, my wrists are hurting" and all that sort of stuff.   Benny Fergusson: (44:49) So, it highlights when we overly focus on one thing and then neglect the foundations that support that thing where it naturally happens. Wonderful thing that I've noticed. I used to train handstands daily for, sometimes, an hour plus, which is not actually extreme compared to the handstand world. You've got people, by their choice, and I'm not taking away from that choice, but they might be spending one, two, three plus hours a day focused on that specific skill. Now, I look at that, and I'm like "Oh God, I may be able to make the time, but why would I choose that particular thing just to get a handstand, if I'm not working for Cirque du Soleil ?"   Benny Fergusson: (45:33) I have a friend who performs in Cirque du Soleil and the training he goes through for that is immense, but it's contextual to his life. That's the one thing that tends to happen in our community. Rather than make something a negative, like "Ah, cool, just because you want to do a handstand or do the splits, you're less of a person". I celebrate that and those goals and those achievements. What tends to happen is the self reflective nature of[inaudible 00:46:09] movement practises that we share, get you to question your deeper "why". "Why would I put in this amount of effort for that outcome?" "Does that really align with me?"   Benny Fergusson: (46:21) What tends to naturally happen is people start where they start, wherever that is. Then, they get reflected back their deeper drive. Then they make choices. So, Marcus started off and when we were working together seven years ago, might be a bit more, I nurtured that. I was like "Cool, you want to do a handstand ? Let's do a handstand. Let's do that. Let's do the things you want to do and we'll do some other things that maybe you haven't considered, that are nurturing for not just your muscles, but also your organs and your general quality of how you experience your body. We'll start to do some reflective practises where you get to know the nature of your mind and listen to the way you're breathing affects your physiology, and all that sort of stuff".   Benny Fergusson: (47:11) So, through that process, you start to ask bigger questions. You start to go, "Ah, okay, I'd like to still do this, but there's something bigger that's calling me."   Benny Fergusson: (47:23) So, if I then fast forward into what that has looked like for Marcus, myself, in this example, we still like to do a handstand and still can do a handstand. Maybe not quite as well as when we were practising x amount of hours a day, but I remember there was a little kid who was like "Can you do a handstand?". I was like "I can't remember, it's been a little while", and up into the handstand and all that body memory was there. Plus all of this deep awareness through the whole system rather than just this specific skill.   Benny Fergusson: (47:56) There I am in a handstand, surprised, going "Oh, this is the easiest handstand I've ever done and I haven't systematically practised it for many years." So, I look at that and the freedom that comes with. It's just incredible to know that I can honestly say I've enjoyed the process, the challenges along the way so much more because it's provided so much more diversity than just at the end. Pouring my heart and soul into one thing and just having a handstand that doesn't really enrich my life at a deeper level. That's one of my observations. I don't always know how our community is going to adapt because I'm always on the edge of my game as well.   Mason: (48:44) Yeah   Benny Fergusson: (48:45) It's a common thing where I do my best to not control, but to give people an opportunity to reflect and make choices. That's a consistent thing that I notice is they do tend to look a little deeper into their underlying intention for why they are practising .   Mason: (49:05) Yeah. It was a very broad question. What just came up at the end there when we were talking about the handstand. If we're not objective, if we don't have an objective, focused, outlook, or community. But, more of a community, a process that focuses on creating possibilities, or potential. Creating that ecosystem. It makes me think of... You heard of [Rostiano's 00:49:34] Tonic herbs ? Like Ashwagandha. One of the ways they describe what they can do is create an environment where you have a great capacity to have spontaneous joy. "So, we're not focusing on a shiny thing, being joy. I'm not doing this so I can have joy all the time. There's just the potential for joy to emerge".   Mason: (49:55) And if there's an ecosystem, an environment created, where "Ah, there's joy", and "Ah, actually I'm feeling patient", "Ah, I can actually climb under a fence, pretty easily", "Ah, I can get up that tree pretty easy", "Ah, I'm [inaudible 00:50:08] and I've got mobility", "You can't just push me over, and I don't have to worry as much about breaking my hip by falling over, because I know I have stability". These things just emerge. Versus, "Hey, here's this course to create stability for seven year olds", and that might be really good as a starting point. Like in here. It's a structured entry point. Like the Embodied Flexibility course and the challenge you've got going on. Like, "Hey, let's get flexible", "Hey, let's get stable and let's do that" and then "Oh, my gosh, look what's on the other side of this".   Mason: (50:45) These secret treasures hidden within that makes it... It's not just about stability. It's not just about flexibility. And that flexibility or stability, let's just pretend there is a geriatrics course that you have, so elders don't fear falling over and breaking their hips. On the other side, there's all these other diverse outcomes that are applied to everyday life, rather than just sticking straightly [inaudible 00:51:11].   Mason: (51:11) I think it's good, man. I think you've created something special, as always, because as you said, you're always on the edge of your own creativity and your own process, yet in this trail, this business you've created, this organisational structure that you've got behind you, are these places where people can safely go in and it's super clear and obvious what they need to do to start stepping into that place where they do have greater mobility and they can adventure around their body and their practise and their physical practise however they want. That's the fun thing.   Mason: (51:53) You go in and you go "Benny's doing it his way" and, again, it's hard to attach. That's the way. It's just not there. The same with Marcus. It's not what's generated. You can't just go "Ah, I have to be like them and aspire to them". It's just within your own practise.   Mason: (52:13) A practise that has integrity will take you and connect you to your own nature and the qualities within yourself. That self informs your path, through your practise, which I think is really cool how you've... It's one thing to talk about it right now. It's a hell of a thing to create a landscape of community and courses and also the academy, I love. It helps breed it.   Benny Fergusson: (52:38) Totally. Yeah. I think that's one of the things that I'm really inspired by is how do we continue to integrate the notion of human design, technology and community, altogether with physical practise, or [inaudible 00:53:03] and physical practises. That's where we're going. To continue to push the boundaries of what can we do with technology, how can we utilise that as a tool to not separate people, but bring them together, open up conversation. For us to just discover what the heck lights us up. At the end, take that last breath and go "Ah, you know what, that was a wonderful story. That was a wonderful movie that I participated in. I'm at peace."   Benny Fergusson: (53:43) It's wonderful. I look at... continually, just asking the question, "What can I do to contribute ?", "How can I share my experiences ?", "How can I create space for someone to make it their own, rather than just to always be held under me ?"   Mason: (54:09) Putting it that way, the glass ceiling being "held under" either an ancient particular philosophy or movement patterns or teacher ?   Benny Fergusson: (54:24) Totally   Mason: (54:25) That's an interesting skill. That's something I know we've talked about the nature of developing that skill to teach and be a leader without actually placing yourself up there, which is a natural... Naturally, you gravitate there, or people try and put you there. All of the time, be the source of my inspiration and where I need to go next. To do that a little bit, infusing what you're talking about as well.   Benny Fergusson: (54:54) Yeah.   Mason: (54:55) That's a skill you learn in your practise, right ?   Benny Fergusson: (54:57) Yeah, I think the thing that I've continued to learn through... Physical practise is something that I talk about. It helps me so much. It's a part of the relationship that I've established with myself. Getting to know myself and being okay with who I am and being okay that that's... I'm still discovering who that is, even though this is part of me that just knows. Moving beyond my conditioned self. What I get to is, "Okay, the best that I can be, the best leader I can be, is being me."   Benny Fergusson: (55:43) If I can then support other people, give space for them to just be themselves, what ends up happening is whatever level of achievement someone gets to, someone might be more flexible or stronger or have different mental capacities or different energetic qualities in another person. It might appear on the outside, "Ah, that person's achieved more than what the other person...", but if we then start to meet in a space of, "You're you, I'm me, here we are having an experience of life". Living to the highest level that we can, then we don't meet in a space of competition. We meet in a space of collaboration.   Benny Fergusson: (56:32) That's the thing that's helped at least myself as I'm a sharer of information, an educator, as my intention. It's taken out the "me holding back" out of fear that someone will take all of my knowledge and be better than me and then, I'll be irrelevant.   Benny Fergusson: (56:54) I know that no one will ever be me. I know that I will never be anyone else. I've tried and it just doesn't work. There's something in me that's like, "This is not you, this is not your nature". Let other people be themselves. That's what inspires me to educate. That's what inspires me around community where we all do come to a point of self agency and we exercise. Some people are more inherent in leadership. That is a quality that I notice that I have that's just a part of me. It's partly cultivated, partly just innate, in me. I've been averse to that for a long time of being "The Guy" who has all the answers, and "Come this way. Off we go. Do what I do. Say what I say. It's the way of virtue".   Benny Fergusson: (57:50) To a point now, where I go, "Okay, I can lead people and inspire them to maybe something greater than what they thought they could get to within their own belief structure, within their own environment". I can inject that new vibrancy into their physical goals, into these sorts of things. I also love to just, once they're running, step away and see what they make, and we meet at this space. That's what I notice is happening and, God, I don't know how it's happened, because I couldn't have done it with just a product of strategy and all of that sort of stuff. These things light me up at the moment.   Mason: (58:35) I can tell. I love it, man. I just encourage everyone to... If you're new to the community, Benny is... been a part of the Super Beast family for a long time. He's come out back in the day, when I used to run retreats, fasting retreats. Just basic lifestyle upgrade retreats. I think you came out to every single one of those and held a workshop. We're going to get you in doing more workshops with the Super Beasts as well when we can. I think we've been friends for, it must be coming up, nearly 10 years.   Benny Fergusson: (59:19) Yeah. [crosstalk 00:59:20] Close to that   Mason: (59:22) About that point, and I couldn't recommend the offerings through movement month, enough. We'll pop links down in the Bio for you to go and find the Embodied Flexibility Course. The website. The Freedom Academy. The Freedom Academy is where you can move around and have endless access to all these various movement patterns and styles of cultivating flexibility and strength and peace within. It's really wonderful. You can also use the code MASON10 through the website movementmonk.xyz   Mason: (01:00:06) Cool, man, thanks so much for coming on.   Benny Fergusson: (01:00:08) Thanks for having me, Mase. It's wonderful to keep the conversation going. I think one last little thing I'd just love to share is off the back of the new course. We're bringing out teacher training soon. Any people in your community. Yoga teachers, personal trainers, movement coaches, and all that sort of stuff, I'm looking forward to sharing the conversation with them and providing ways on which we can facilitate journeys for people to transform. Not just in the short term, but in the longer term in their physical practise. With their flexibility.   Mason: (01:00:46) So, that module of teacher training is revolving around the Embodied Flexibility [crosstalk 01:00:52] ?   Benny Fergusson: (01:00:52) Yeah, we've built it around all the frameworks and with that, we basically have more personal support. It's a 12 week journey and, at the end, basically what happens is someone produces case studies on how they've applied [inaudible 01:01:08] We take them through everything from what happens in situations if someone's results stagnate or if they are hyper immobile, or hypo immobile. How do we adapt these things ? One of my thing is I love to get into any situation, working with different types of people that I've never worked with before. Different challenges. There's some confidence that's being built within me of like, "Okay, cool, I do have value here, and that's something that I'd like to impart"   Benny Fergusson: (01:01:39) It's a really wonderful thing. Just when you're confident working with people, in the realm of flexibility. It's just like, "Okay, cool, I don't have to have all the answers, but I've got some really good frameworks to then support this person to thrive", rather than, "Ooh, God, what am I going to do in this session", scrounging around, reading books, and then you piece it together and underneath the surface, you're like a duck paddling on water and at the end of it, I just would like to support people to just be relaxed and confident in what they're sharing. We're doing that in the realm of flexibility.   Mason: (01:02:13) Magical!   Benny Fergusson: (01:02:14) Yeah!   Mason: (01:02:16) movementmonk.xyz again. For people to get details for that.   Benny Fergusson: (01:02:21) Yeah. We'll be talking more about how we... I think one thing I'd like to continue to focus on is how we bring herbalism and all of that sort of stuff. The physical practise. The things of what we do is the part of it. What's the engine underneath in our physiology that's supporting the robustness of the physical regeneration? That's why I just love what you guys are doing.   Mason: (01:02:51) When you go into the core... Let's go to the core of the foundation. When the Taoists have... They've gotten to that point. They've dedicated to their practise and they're disciplined. Not just the Taoists. Those who are... They've gone next level and they're cultivating something special. It's herbalism and physical practise. [inaudible 01:03:14]become the foundations of what's going to then lead to that greater capacity to have potential. As we said before, not looking for a shiny thing. Just creating this landscape within us, where the potential and the possibilities can blossom.   Mason: (01:03:30) So, as you said, the physical regeneration, bringing physical herbs in there to do that regenerative work and then getting to that point where... when you're self sustainable and you're flowing and you just looking to bring this opening up through your fascial system, through your capacity to stand erect and strong, become flexible.   Mason: (01:03:51) We start looking at mushrooms coming in and the Chi herbs nourishing the fascial system. The Yin liver herbs. The ones in beauty blend. Goji. Schizandra. Bringing that capacity to yield and become flexible. Those Yang liver herbs, like Eucommia Bark bringing that upright bamboo erectness. They fall all into the same tribe. Once you've got lifestyle dialled, then your potentiation, when you're going towards potentiation, that practise, that physical practise breath, movement meditation and herbal practise, they come in and they just light it up. I'm with you, man. I'm glad that we hopefully dial in and work together more and more in that space, and I think a lot of people have already got it in this community.   Mason: (01:04:40) I'd love to see them dip into the movement, Monk World, and take it to another level. Especially because a lot of people are like, "Should I do QiGong or Tai Chi, or Kung Fu ?" or these kinds of things.   Mason: (01:04:52) Yeah, you can, and they're amazing. What's at the heart of them ? You should go and explore those worlds, but when you go into Movement Monk World, Benny's been through lots of Tai Chi, and Qi Gong, Shaolin practise, Kung Fu practise, lots of Martial Arts, both the Yin and Yang nature.   Mason: (01:05:15) A lot of those principles that are there and those attentions you will find there, as long as you can stay consistent, as long as you can show up to your practise. I'll put it out there. Even though this is a place, you can see Benny's a very gentle, grounded, person. Once you get in there, you can get gritty with yourself. In terms of, "Come on, I know you don't feel like it. Show up. Show up".   Mason: (01:05:44) There will be a reflection practise and I think you'll be generally gentle and soft, "Okay, let's approach why that is." But, at the same time, I'll come in and, because this is generally what I need... Come on, I can't find anything super legitimate right now around why you don't want to get in there and have a sustainable, exploratory, stretch.   Mason: (01:06:04) I think you're just avoiding what is going to become opened up and therefore the potential and the peace that you're going to be able to find in yourself, because you're going to have to dredge through a little bit of shit. Then you forget, "I can go slow and I can go sustainable and gentle", but nonetheless, that shit's going to get dragged up and I am going to find out that I can really start accessing some beautiful things within my body. Openness, flexibility, adaptability.   Mason: (01:06:33) You don't get that reward without the discipline. Through that structure. It's something I'm feeling more than ever. I'm feeling it in the business, and I know a lot of you love structure and you go, "Yeah, whatever Mase". That's fine. Then I challenge you to go into the Magic and exploring the vision of what's possible to keep on going into the nether lands of your body.   Mason: (01:06:55) Once you start opening that up. But, a lot of you are such free flowing. You're already Peter Pans and Wendys. Never wanting to grow up. Flying off in Neverland. Grow up for a little bit. Come and get structured. Allow that structure and discipline into your life. Allow those qualities to be cultivated and the freedom and the capacity to dream and step back into the Magic.   Mason: (01:07:23) When you've created that next platform, it's beautiful and it's your life, breathing through different processes. You're coming in. Maybe you need that structure right now. Don't fight it, because if you're fighting it, it will always come again, but you can miss that opportunity of your life for a little bit. That stage of your life.   Mason: (01:07:45) Don't fight it. Grit your teeth. Get in there. Then release the tension from your jaw, because you're doing Benny's work. [inaudible 01:07:54] Grit your teeth and get in there and accept that things are evolving and changing and trust that process. That's one thing I've really experienced in your work. I just wanted to share. I think a lot of people listening to this would need to hear that. Create a new relationship with that showing up and experience the freedom that's going to come from that discipline. For others, experience the Magic. The further discipline that will come for you and the further structure that will come for you. If you step into exploring the unknown.   Benny Fergusson: (01:08:31) Hmm, powerful, man.   Mason: (01:08:34) Yeah   Benny Fergusson: (01:08:34) Yeah, truth.   Mason: (01:08:37) As a friend, more than anything, but as a teacher, you've helped me get to that place a lot. So, I just wanted to make sure that that was sharing my little piece and testimonial on the backend here and as I said, everyone, I really encourage you to either do The Embodied Flexibility Course. Maybe you've got a shitload of tension in your body and you start there with the tension release. Is that right ?   Benny Fergusson: (01:09:02) Yeah, literally.   Mason: (01:09:02) Maybe some people are here with chronic pain ? Do you want to just quickly share that with the entry point for people with chronic pain ?   Benny Fergusson: (01:09:08) Yeah. The best way is in the physical freedom academy. At the moment. Inside that, we've got all sorts of different processes. We run a call every week for people with chronic tension and pain. First, just know, from someone who has been through chronic pain. You're okay. It's okay. You're not broken. And there are other ways that we can move forward. It doesn't have to be something that just lives at a dull level in the background. That's where me sharing this process called Break Through Your Pain is based around key questions we can ask ourselves to then start to really have moments of truth and go, "Oh, okay, I see that I have power in this. I see that I'm not a victim to my circumstances. I can stand up and go, you know what, yeah I'm in pain and I can work with it, rather than through it. To just be something that I manage and wrap myself in cotton wool and then just become limited in what I feel like I can do in my life."   Benny Fergusson: (01:10:17) I know how that feels. I've been there and it's time to stand up to it. You can, irrespective of what you're told. That's one of the reasons why I think I love working with all different types of people in different situations is to realise that there is a space where we can connect that is maybe a different conversation than what's in your family or your friendship circle. That's why we exist. To create high level conversations to start to really call people to truth. We do it through physical practice.   Mason: (01:10:59) That's powerful, man! Alright, thank you so much. Big love to you. Hope I can see you soon. All the way up there in Queensland.   Benny Fergusson: (01:11:08) Yeah, we're so close, but yet so far, at the moment.   Mason: (01:11:10) Forbidden Land.   Benny Fergusson: (01:11:12) Yeah.   Mason: (01:11:14) Alright, man. Have a great weekend. Thanks for coming on.   Benny Fergusson: (01:11:17) Thanks Mase. Thanks for having me.   Dive deep into the mystical realms of Tonic Herbalism in the SuperFeast Podcast!

If you think this episode is a fun conversation about the classic George Burns, John Denver movie “Oh, God,” you're right … but it's so much more. Join the PCPS as they delve into discussions ranging from other movies that hit the screens in 1977 to why the message of “Oh, God” isn't necessarily a religious one. Does it still resonate today? And maybe more importantly, why are Carolyn, Kristin, and Michelle suddenly crushing on John Denver?Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTokSign up for weekly fun from the PCPS here

On Today’s Show: No Show Notes Yet Voicemail: 206-666-4463 (206-66-OH GOD)  Have Your Voicemail Played On The Show E-mail: show@distortedview.com – Say hi, suggest news stories, videos, audio, etc. Discord: The DV discord server! Chat with like-minded monsters. The DV Subreddit: Share links to DV worthy audio/video and news stories BE A PART OF THIS STUPIDITY: A new way […]

MPs want the Online Harms Bill to be tightened to take in “hateful speech” – yet the murder of David Amess appears to have had nothing to do with social media. Are they trying to insulate themselves from criticism. Special guest, news and policy blogger David Allen Green, joins us to look at the fallout from David Amess's killing, plus the confirmation that, yes, the UK government signed the Withdrawal Agreement always intending to break it.  “Just because extremists are on social media, it doesn't mean that social media is the reason they're extremists” - Alex Andreou “It's strange that MPs are demanding the end of anonymity online when they're so deft at using ‘off the record' to get messages into the media.” – David Allen Green  “It's always fun to see the ones who brought you ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE bringing up Angela Rayner's ‘scum' comments.” – Dorian Lynskey “This is a betrayal of the central argument that got the Government elected – and everyone just shrugs?” – Alex Andreou “Think how different things would be if we'd had the wit to call the EU the Winston Churchill Memorial Organisation…” – David Allen Green www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Dorian Lynskey with Ros Taylor and Alex Andreou. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Next Week's Reading Assignment: Reading Assignment: Luke Chp. 12-24Challenge: The LostAre you found? From what have you been saved. Be specific. Who are the lost in your life? ChallengeREPENT – Search your heart. Has it been made clean before The Father? What remains to be healed in you? Read Psalms 51 until it becomes the prayer of your heart. Bring ever hidden thing to the throne of grace daily until you can call yourself Blameless. Then look to lead others in the journey to do the same. Scriptures For Memory Last Week:“Create in me a clean heart, Oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.- Psalms 51:10-11“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.- 1 Peter 3:15-16 Discussion Questions “The LOST Coin And Sheep” What stood out to you in the reading this week? Why?What does it mean to be “lost”? When you were lost, who/what helped you find God?Read Luke 5:29-32. Why did Jesus come according to this passage? What does that mean to you?In Luke 15, why might Jesus make it seem like the finding of the lost is more celebrated in kingdom of heaven than the continued “righteousness” of those who are not lost?Read Luke 7:36-47. The modern-day “Christian” has fallen away from God's love, miraculous healing, and His good work in many ways. What is drawing you closer to His kingdom in your life? What have you learned about God's Kingdom, Jesus, and/or Spirit-led prayer this week?

On Today’s Show: Introduction 0:00.000 Test Of Patience Talk 3:46.129 Those Mentos Musicians Gave It Their All 8:20.201 Male Lactation Tips And Trickles 10:09.785 Incel Hitting On Women 15:06.019 A Different Kind of Coming Out Video 17:54.645 When You Donate Too Much Sperm 28:50.326 Lesbian Cop Drama 34:11.142 Pussy Lasers 36:59.751 Voicemail: 206-666-4463 (206-66-OH GOD)  […]

Brexit's back! Unelected bureaucrat Lord Frost resurrects the nightmare by tearing into the disgraceful deal and NI Protocol negotiated by dastardly unelected bureaucrat Lord Frost. Wait til he finds that guy… Plus, Johnson re-enacts the late 70s by going on holiday during a national crisis and unfortunately misses the interim COVID report which pins a large chunk of blame on Boris Johnson. Just another perfectly normal week in a perfectly normal country. “Johnson is like a man who has pissed themselves and then says they're wearing yellow trousers” - Ian Dunt“When you have a Government who wants to shrink the state, you can't be surprised that when a crisis does occur the state can't handle it” - Alex Andreou“What kind of Government would tear up their own territorial customs arrangements?” - Ian Dunt“The DUP's handling of Brexit when they had the whip-hand at Westminster has seen their support plummet” - Naomi Smith“Johnson is not going to go without a turkey at Christmas. This is class war, plain and simple.” - Alex Andreouwww.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnowPresented by Ros Taylor with Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Ian Dunt. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An extra for Oh God What Now listeners! Every Monday morning we put out an exclusive, brand new microcast for our Patreon backers, called (inevitably) OH GOD, WHAT ELSE? Our regulars tide you over between episodes by talking about politics but also politics-adjacent stuff like movies, food and the terrible decisions they've made in life. Here's a supercut taster edition so you can hear what you're missing. If you'd like to get OH GOD WHAT ELSE every Monday morning, search PATREON OH GOD WHAT NOW PODCAST and back us for as little as £2 a month. It'll be the best few quid you spend all month… (Oh, and Ian meant to say Cenobites, not Cenotaphs)Featuring Minnie Rahman, Ros Taylor, Alex Andreou, Dorian Lynskey, Naomi Smith and Ian Dunt. Assistant producer Jelena Sofrenijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. Oh God, What Else is a Podmasters production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On Today’s Show: Introduction 0:00.000 Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples Day 1:43.481 Speec Recognition Of The 1980’s 4:51.556 Computer News – History Repeats Itself 7:52.549 Poetry Of A Recently Dumped Woman 9:36.257 Spanish Class With The Caucasians 12:52.663 Support DV! 15:48.954 Yakkin Up A Vibrator 16:32.853 Voicemails / Ending 23:11.664 Voicemail: 206-666-4463 (206-66-OH GOD)  Have […]

As the Conservatives drift through a self-congratulatory conference, special guest David Gauke – former Conservative Justice Secretary, now rōnin of old-school Toryism – joins us to sieve Johnson's speech for an atom of real content. Plus, does the BBC's Blair & Brown: The New Labour Revolution give us new insight into the TBGBs? And after Facebook goes down, would we miss it if it went away forever? “Johnson's speech was jibbered nonsense, like a human jelly spitting at you for 45 minutes.” – Ian Dunt“Article 16 isn't quite what everyone thinks… It's not like in one bound Britain will be free.” – David Gauke“It was pathetic see a grown man, with all the power and influence he has, making jokes about beavers.” – Ros Taylor“If the Conservatives cared about free speech they wouldn't introduce any of Patel's measures – but they only cares about it as something to beat the Left with.” – Ian Dunt“No Russians ever came to me offering donations. What was I doing wrong? I had to rely on little old ladies giving £50…” – David Gaukewww.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnowPresented by Dorian Lynskey with Ros Taylor and Ian Dunt. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

https://podfollow.com/oddtonewfoundland/view?fbclid=IwAR0_FlxyNn0BRuyKLYV16pIAr713xclaqyPJPaWkYl6bFDklXajyTgp2xT8#_=_ Nothing is sacred but everything is scary. OH GOD!  Join Our Mailing list and get reminded about shows and upcoming events and contests: https://mailchi.mp/f23f93d0f550/theoddtonewfoundlandparanormalpodcast Drop a like on the Odd to Newfoundland Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OddtoNewfoundland Follow on Instagram: Oddtonewfoundland Follow on twitter: @OddtoNFLD Wordpress: https://theoddtonewfoundlandparanormalpodcastclub.wordpress.com/     This Podcast is powered by Accusonus:   https://accusonus.com/   The ERA Bundle was released in 2018 and is the fastest-growing product line of Accusonus. A collection of single-knob plugins for quick and efficient audio repair, the ERA Bundle allows both entry-level and professional creators to instantly enhance their audio recordings. #Newfoundland #Paranormal #Odd #Ghosts #Bigfoot #Psychic #Metaphysics #Strange #Weird #Oddities #Aliens #Angels #Monsters #Cryptozoology #Spirits      

Have you ever felt like you just don't deserve to be happy? Or more specifically, have you ever found yourself having self-harm urges or feeling suicidal after someone is genuinely kind to you? If so, you are not alone. Tune in to understand the reasons why this might happen as well as how you can train your brain to start accepting love and kindness. Support the podcast and the movement! Light After Trauma website Transcript:   Alyssa Scolari [00:23]: Hey, Warriors, what's up? And welcome back to another episode of The Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari ,and I am honored to be here with you. We're doing a solo episode today. So some housekeeping things first. I just wanted to say thank you so so much for 15,000 downloads on the podcast. I am blown away and continue to be blown away. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was a really exciting milestone. Alyssa Scolari [00:56]: The other thing I wanted to say is head on over, if you haven't done so already, to my Instagram page lightaftertrauma is the handle. So it's just the exact same title as the podcast. And check out some of the content and let me know what you think. If there's more you want to see. I have really been boosting the amount of content and really putting it out there. I'm trying to put out content about four days a week and I'm also going to be doing an Instagram live this Thursday, October 7th, at 8:00 PM Eastern time. So that's Eastern standard time. I would love it if you could make it. Even if you can pop in for only 30 seconds to just say hi, I would love to meet you. This is my first official Instagram live. So I'm really excited for it. Alyssa Scolari [01:50]: And yeah, I can't wait to meet the folks who have been listening to the podcast because it feels like I have a bunch of friends out there. And I know I've said this before, but it just feels like I have so many friends out there, but I don't know their names. And I would love to just talk to you. And thank you personally, we're talking about stress management on the Instagram live, so I'm going to share some stress management tips because Lord knows we all need it. Alyssa Scolari [02:14]: So that's this Thursday, October 7th at 8:00 PM. Eastern Standard Time. I will be on Instagram live, feel free to come join. The Instagram handle is lightaftertrauma and thank you always for your support and your love. I love you all so much. And also if you haven't done so already, please leave a rating or review for the podcast. The more ratings we get, the more we grow and the wider audience we reach so that we can give even more free content to people all around the world. Alyssa Scolari [02:49]: So if you are a listener of the podcast and you like what you're hearing, or if you hate what you're hearing and you want things to be different, just go leave an honest review. Let me know your thoughts. I would be honored to hear from you because this podcast really is for you. So yeah. Please leave a review. I would really appreciate it. Alyssa Scolari [03:12]: Okay. So today, so I cannot take credit for the inspiration for the topic of today's episode. This topic came from a podcast listener, so thank you. I will not name their name because they did not give me permission to do so. So you know who you are. I told you I was going to be doing an episode about this topic this week. Thank you so much for reaching out and sending me an email. It was great to connect with you. Alyssa Scolari [03:42]: So today we are talking about feeling like you don't deserve to heal and feeling like you don't deserve nice things or compliments or healthy relationships, or really any kind of genuine relationship. Feeling like you just deserve loneliness and heartbreak because that is the narrative that you grew up believing because that is what you had experienced for of your life. Alyssa Scolari [04:22]: I love this topic because it really resonates with me. When I first started my recovery journey and I was in therapy, my therapist, who was truly not, she's not the greatest at all. And she did a lot of harmful things and this was one of them. When I started this process and started uncovering a lot of repressed memories, I was in a spiral. I was going out of my mind. They were definitely some of the worst years of my life and, dare I say, at many points I often remember saying to my therapist or my husband, "This process is actually harder than experiencing the trauma itself." And that's not a fact. That's just my lived experience is that having to like work through it and having all those memories come to the surface so much harder than the trauma itself. Again, that's just my experience. Alyssa Scolari [05:28]: So when all of this started happening and I started having all these memories flood back, my therapist was really good at showering me with compliments. Which, I think that there's a debate on whether or not therapists should be constantly complimenting their patients. I think it depends on the type of compliment. It depends on the goal of the compliment. But my therapist, wasn't very good at holding space for me being in that spot. She very much wanted me to be healed and happy and she wanted me to immediately see how wonderful I was and be done. And I wasn't there. It was going to me a long time to get there. But in that process, all of her compliments, and when I say compliments I mean things like, "Look at how well you're doing. Look at how you're still functioning in life even though you've been through so much." Alyssa Scolari [06:35]: Let's see, what else did she say? Oh, she was full of them. "Look at what a wonderful family you have. Look at the husband that you have." She used to talk about my husband like, "He's such a wonderful guy and you did all of these things. You have this amazing, wonderful life now." And what I noticed was happening for me is the more she talked about how amazing my life is, right? She would kind of say, "Yes, this trauma happened. These terrible things happened, but your life is so amazing now." And the more she would say that to me, the worse I would get when it came to self harm, any kind of like self-deprecating, the self-deprecation increased. Really all the self-destructive behaviors skyrocketed. And I noticed this pattern early on, but I didn't quite understand it enough. Alyssa Scolari [07:33]: So I wasn't really able to talk to my therapist about it at the time because I didn't understand what was going on. But it wasn't just my therapist. Right? It was anybody in my life. If somebody would say, particularly the words, "I'm proud of you," were really hard for me to hear. And if somebody would say that I would spiral. I can recall a time where, so I have, had a supervisor, I should say. My supervisor has now blossomed into a wonderful friend and mentor, Rebecca Christensen. She's been on the podcast before. She's amazing. She's just, she's an angel on earth is really what I can say about Rebecca. Alyssa Scolari [08:21]: But you know, when I first started meeting with Rebecca and she helped me ultimately open up my private practice and she would often say, "I am so proud of you for doing this. I am so proud of you for doing that." And don't get me wrong. She didn't mean anything about it. She had no idea that I was panicking when I would hear those words and neither did anybody else, so this is not a blame game. My therapist definitely knew. So I do place the appropriate amount of blame on her, but for everybody else, this is not a blame game. Alyssa Scolari [08:56]: So she would say all the time, Rebecca, "I'm really proud of you. Look at all you're doing. You're amazing. You're going to do great things in life." And I would, she might say that in a text message. And I would not be able to look at it. If I were to open up my phone and I could see like the, the first, I don't know, whatever, three to five words of the text. And if I could tell that it was a compliment, I would have to shut my phone off and put it down and I couldn't look at it. Alyssa Scolari [09:25]: And then I would start to panic. And then I would call for David. And then I would usually end up crying or having a panic attack. And then eventually I would read the kind message and I would have another panic attack. And then I would talk to David about it incessantly. And I would be like, "Well, David, what does this mean? Do people actually think that I'm kind? Do people actually think I'm a good person? How can this be?" And then I would say, "Well, David, they just don't know the truth. They just don't know what I'm really like. They just don't know how evil I am, how insane I am." Alyssa Scolari [10:09]: Because I truly thought that I was in every sense of the word, insane. That all of the memories that were coming back were false and that something just broke in my brain. So I said to David all the time, "These people who are showering me with compliments and telling me I'm a good therapist, they just don't know the real me. And if they really knew what I was like, they would hate as much as I hate me." Alyssa Scolari [10:42]: How sad is that? I take a moment to pause and reflect on that because I was fighting for my life and I couldn't even tell how amazing I was doing it. It wasn't until, let me think. Yeah. You know, it, it wasn't really until the last year or so. And I attribute so much of my healing to this podcast. Hasn't really been until the last year that I have been able to sit with compliments. So I'm sure that I'm not alone in this. And I know I'm not because the podcast listener, that I was referring to earlier, emailed me and told me that this is one of the most difficult things for them. And I could not agree more in the beginning when I was first understanding everything I had been through and trying to make sense of it all. I couldn't hear that I was a great person. Alyssa Scolari [11:40]: I couldn't hear how strong I was, because I didn't even know if what I was remembering really happened. Or if what I was remembering was just some figment of my imagination. And I think a lot of trauma survivors feel that way. Whether or not we repressed our abuse or not. Whether or not we have repressed trauma or we have a full memory of it, I think a lot of us feel this way. Well, what if I made something up? Well, what if I could have done something differently when I was traumatized and then nothing bad would've happened to me? Alyssa Scolari [12:15]: We find ways in our head all the time to make the trauma our fault, because that gives us a sense of control. And it makes us feel like we could have done something about it. So I just couldn't handle it. And I know that I would resort to binge eating really before, before I was able to recover from my eating disorder, lots of compliments and lots of praise and lots of attention would often result in binge eating and occasionally cutting. Alyssa Scolari [12:46]: But I would say more so binge eating to try to stuff down any of the feelings that were coming up from me when I was having somebody genuinely love me and care for me. I couldn't tolerate it. And I'm sure a lot of us are wondering, right? Like, "Well, why?" Like, "Yes, I do that too. You know? Yes, I also can't take a compliment. Why is that? I get really uncomfortable when people will praise me or compliment me. Why am I like that?" And let's break it down on the most basic, like a fundamental level. Alyssa Scolari [13:21]: So when we look at your brain structure, when you have complex trauma and you have a history of being invalidated, unheard, unseen, gaslit, made to feel like your voice doesn't matter. If you've been sexually abused, physically abused, emotionally abused, whatever it's been, your brain develops., especially if you experience this as a child, that changes the development of your brain. So without getting too technical, because I am a brain nerd and I could absolutely go off on this, but I won't. So without getting too technical, what happens is your brain develops and gets to this sort of homeostasis where it is so used to the invalidation. Alyssa Scolari [14:18]: It is used to being ignored. We are used to being unheard. So, you know, somebody gas lights us. We're like, "Yep. That's just one more person trying to fuck with my head." Somebody sexually abuses us. We're like, "Yep. That's just one more person who doesn't respect my body." Doesn't mean that it's not traumatizing. Please don't misunderstand me because it is all extremely traumatizing. But when you're in it and you're in the thick of it, we learn to expect the worst things to happen to us. "Well, yeah, of course my mom said that to me." Or, "Of course my dad said that to me. That's what he said his whole life. That's just dad. That's just what he does." Alyssa Scolari [15:06]: So we sort of developed this pattern of accepting the abuse and accepting things that people say that hurt us. Shit, if I could go back now and talk back to all of the people who have ever said horrible things. Whew. I wish I could. I wish I could. And, and sometimes I have, right? Sometimes I have. But I know for so many of us, we can't and back then, I know for me, I was just like, "Yep, this is one more person who has let me down or disappointed me. Or one more person who has crossed a boundary, but I don't feel of comfortable speaking up or I'm not going to say anything because you know what, that's what people do. People don't respect my boundaries. So I'm used to it." Alyssa Scolari [15:58]: So then you have somebody come along, and a lot of times it's your therapist, because we talk about this stuff in therapy all the time. It's a little bit easier to brush off compliments from friends because we're just like, "Ah, yeah. You're my friend. I know you like me. Whatever." A kind of take it for granted type of thing. But when we finally go to therapy and we are getting treatment and our therapist is genuinely proud of us. Or we we can tell that whatever was said, whatever that therapist said, gave us this message that they genuinely care. That they genuinely want us to get better. That they genuinely see the good in us our brains initially are kind of like, "We're not used to this. What is this? Somebody respecting my boundaries? Oh no, I can't handle it." Alyssa Scolari [16:53]: And then what happens? Right? We panic. Oftentimes we feel guilty. Oftentimes we get extremely uncomfortable. We feel shame. And we just kind of want that moment to be over. And we want to brush it under the rug, because we're really uncomfortable. Sometimes it gets even worse where that comment kind of sits in our brain. And then we feel like we have to self destruct because it's like, "Nah, my therapist said that to me. And that can't be true. That can't be true. My therapist just doesn't really understand what a monster I am. So I'm going to show them what a monster I am." And a lot of this is subconscious. I want to point that out. Right? I don't think any of this for most people is like a conscious stream of thought that we sit in. Alyssa Scolari [17:39]: It's like, "Well, how can I show my therapist what a monster I am?" I do think a lot of this is subconscious and for me it certainly was subconscious. So our brains simply can't tolerate it because it is so new. And the brain on trauma is very hypervigilant. It is extra wired for protection. So when we are receiving information that is brand new to us, we automatically label it as a threat, even though it's a compliment, right? Even though it's something like, "Hey, Alyssa, I just really love the way that you are so resilient and you keep going and you keep getting up and you're able to also work through your own shit and be there for other people. I think that's amazing. You're doing great things in this world." Alyssa Scolari [18:26]: Oh, I'm cringing. I'm cringing as I say it. Cringing as I say it, because it is so hard and my brain is like, "No, that can't be right. That can't be right. We're not used to receiving this kind of information." So even though it's good stuff, my brain is hearing that and going, "Ugh, no, no, no, no, no. This must be a threat. This must be a threat." And then what happens when your body perceives a threat, right? You go into fight, flight, freeze, or falling. And we panic or we self destruct or we shut down or we kind of just laugh because we don't know what else to do. Or we kind of mimic the facial expressions of the person next to us because that's what's supposed to keep us the safest. Alyssa Scolari [19:10]: So that is, breaking it down on a fundamental level, that is why this happens. So the good news is this changes. It has certainly changed for me. I had somebody text me, I want to say, what's today? It's Sunday, October 3rd, when I'm recording. So I had somebody text me on Friday, October 1st. And this person was somebody that I used to work with a few years back and she follows me on social media and she texted me only to say, "I am so proud of you. And I hope that one day I can be half the clinician that you are." And man, that was amazing to hear. Alyssa Scolari [20:08]: But I have to say that if this were to two years ago, I would've not been able to tolerate it. I would've started sobbing and I would've showed David and I would've had a panic attack. And I would've said, "She doesn't know the real me. She does not know the real me." But today I open up my phone and I see that and I go, "Oh man, this is awesome." Alyssa Scolari [20:39]: This is somebody who did not have to do that. With as busy as everybody is, people don't have time for compliments. People usually just make time for the complaints. People are so much more likely to complain than compliment someone. So for her to find the time out of her busy day to pick up her phone and compliment me when it's, doesn't really, it's not going to affect her. Right? This was a completely selfless act, as small as it might seem, it actually feels really big to me. And I just smiled and I teared up a little bit, but I teared up because I'm just so grateful and very humbled by the love that I've received, but I can tolerate it now. Alyssa Scolari [21:34]: And the reason I can tolerate it is because of this podcast. So it does get better. What you are doing by trying to sit with people saying kind things to you and trying to accept people saying kind things to you and trying to accept relationships where people respect your boundaries you are rewiring your brain. Alyssa Scolari [22:03]: Your brain is forming new neural pathways all the time through this process called myelination and, I believe I said that correctly, if I didn't someone correct me, but I believe the process is called myelination. Where your brain is forming these new neural pathways. And the more we allow ourselves to be around people who shower us with love and affection, unconditional love, I should say, and kindness, the more our brain is rewiring itself. So that now when it receives that information, when it gets that input, it goes, "Oh, we know what this is. This actually, isn't a threat. This is good stuff. So we're going to file this away as a really good moment and not a moment to freak out and panic." So I really hope that makes sense. And unfortunately the process of rewiring your brain it takes a long time. Alyssa Scolari [23:09]: You know, the great news is that it can be done it. I am living proof that it can be done. The brain is neuroplasticity, right? That means that the brain is constantly changing and evolving. So in the same way that your brain learned that only boundary crossing and abuse and gas lighting was safe, that's the same way in which we can learn that unconditional love and affection and genuine compliments are safe. It takes time and it takes practice. So what does that look like? Right. It's nice to talk about that in theory, right? "Oh yeah. Okay, great. My brain needs to rewire itself, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." But what are some things we can do to work on that? Because it takes work, right? It's not just something we're going to wake up one day and go, "Oh God, look. I can accept these compliments now and I can accept healing. And I can accept that. I'm getting a little bit better." Alyssa Scolari [24:12]: Could be because it's not just, and I should say this, I should have said this from the beginning, but it's not just compliments, right? It's the healing process. It's anything positive in our lives, right? It's healing when we're getting better. When normally a triggering situation would've made us self destruct or self harm or use our eating disorders. And then in this instance, we didn't, and we overcame this triggering situation without self-harming, all of that, right? Any kind of steps towards healing, healing your brain, healing your nervous system, healing your relationships, and your social life. All of it can be difficult. So what are some things that we can do when we notice that we are starting to have better people in our life, or when we notice that we're starting to not self destruct, when time get tough, what can we do? Alyssa Scolari [25:09]: Here are some things that I did. So one of the things that a lot of DBT skills, which I'm sure many of you may be familiar with, I know that I've talked about them before on the podcast. So DBT stands for Dialectical Behavior Therapy and DBT is really wonderful for like distressed tolerance and has really effective coping skills. And honestly, I hate the word coping skills because I think it's just so hard to use coping skills when you're triggered. And it's so hard to find coping skills that are actually good and effective, but I can say, I promise you, DBT skills are where it's at and go a really long way in helping to sit with this kind of stuff. So DBT skills are meant for like, well, they're not meant just for self harm, but they definitely are used in self harm. Alyssa Scolari [26:08]: And that's really what this process is, is you're having a really great healing experience or a really great interaction with somebody and your brain is perceiving that as a threat and therefore self-destructing. So for me, I find that what helps is sitting with it and trying to talk through what exactly is happening inside of my brain and why I'm perceiving this as such a threat. And sometimes I can't, right? Sometimes that like good interaction is way too much for me. And that's when I have to do other stuff, which is like, "Okay, I'm going to sit with this, but I'm also going to go take a bath." Or, "I'm also going to go take a walk." Or sometimes what we need to do is distract. And that can be key. Alyssa Scolari [27:05]: A lot of times, that's what I need to do. And the thing for me is as much as I want to distract, I don't want to forget about it because it really is special to me when somebody is kind to me. Or when I have a really good interaction with somebody it's very, very special to me. So while my system might not be able to tolerate it in that moment, I very much want to come back to it. So what I have found most helpful is I will write it down. Whether I keep like a note in my phone, or if it's a text message, I'll take a screenshot and then I will immediately distract it with somebody else or with something else or somebody, right? I'll talk to my husband or I'll be playing with the dogs, or I will, a really big fan of Epsom salt baths. Or we'll just go to the gym. Or we'll kind of go read emails if I'm in the middle of a work today. Alyssa Scolari [28:02]: But writing it down really how helps me to be able to like put it someplace and then kind of move on with my day. So it's like, "Okay, my system can't tolerate this right now. So I'm going to distract. I'm going to do something that's going to calm my nervous system." Whatever that might be. Also another big one making a hot cup of tea. Ugh. So soothing to me. So do things to soothe your nervous system, if you can't tolerate it. Alyssa Scolari [28:29]: And I know that that sounds kind of silly, right? Like why should I have to try to calm my nervous system or use coping skills because I received a compliment? But again, it goes back to the way your brain is wired, which as a result of trauma, your brain is wired so that you're used to being shit on. But when somebody is actually respectful, your brain's like, "Uh oh, what is this?" Right? It really should be the opposite in folks without a history of trauma they're used to people respecting them. And then when somebody is disrespectful, then they're nervous system gets dysregulated and their brain is like, "Rut oh, this is a threat." Alyssa Scolari [29:10]: So sitting with those feelings, trying to work them through, going through DBT skills, I won't go through all of them. I think that a lot of sensory stuff is really helpful for me. Whether it's cold water, whether it's, like I said, a hot cup of tea, whether it's a massage, an infrared sauna, I'm a very sensory oriented person. So you can Google DBT coping skills and you can find a list of skills. And again, I know that that might sound like a lot of work, but I am telling you it is so, so worth it. Alyssa Scolari [29:47]: And over time, as you continue to be able to incorporate this new information into your body and into your brain, this new information that tells you, "Oh, hey, maybe I am not a horrible human being after all. Maybe I'm just a person who had terrible things happen to them." It will get easier and easier to accept wonderful interactions. And it will be easier and easier to accept your healing. And you will find yourself craving healing and you will find yourself feeling worthy and deserving of healing. Alyssa Scolari [30:28]: So I hope that that helps spread some awareness and insight as to why it is so hard for people to take a compliment or for people to have a genuinely a good interaction with other people in this world. Why we self sabotage with our healing sometimes because it's really difficult, right? The trauma is hard, but the healing is hard too. So I know that I'm not alone in this, as I said earlier, and you are not alone in it either. It's really difficult, but you can get there and you will get there. Alyssa Scolari [31:07]: So with that said, I hope that everybody has a wonderful week. Remember again, I am going live on Instagram this Thursday at 8:00 PM. Eastern time again, that is this Thursday, October 7th. My Instagram handle is lightaftertrauma. Be sure to go check that out as there is lots of great stuff on that page now. We're really rolling out the content and I am holding you all in the light. My husband has brought home some Rita's water ice. So I am going to go chill out with him, have some Rita's and enjoy my Sunday night. Wishing you all the best. Take great care. Alyssa Scolari [31:47]: Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram. We are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter. It is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightafter trauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's paton.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

STAFFORD!! NO!!! WHY?! That can pretty much sum it up this week as far as instant reactions. Also, "Oh God, Kenny Young" and "Darn it David Long" and "Swear words, Taylor Rapp" to the defense. Kenneth and Blane discuss the game RIGHT AFTER the Rams fell 37-20 to the Cardinals. Subscribe to Turf Show Times for immediate reactions to games, as well as Last Minute Thoughts w/Rob & JB, plus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

https://podfollow.com/oddtonewfoundland/view?fbclid=IwAR0_FlxyNn0BRuyKLYV16pIAr713xclaqyPJPaWkYl6bFDklXajyTgp2xT8#_=_ 31 Days of Halloween  Taphophobia is the fear of being buried alive. But this irrational fear has no roots in actual truth though right? People weren't actually buried alive were they? Oh God....They were? This Taphophobia is giving me claustrophobia!  Join Our Mailing list and get reminded about shows and upcoming events and contests: https://mailchi.mp/f23f93d0f550/theoddtonewfoundlandparanormalpodcast Drop a like on the Odd to Newfoundland Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OddtoNewfoundland Follow on Instagram: Oddtonewfoundland Follow on twitter: @OddtoNFLD Wordpress: https://theoddtonewfoundlandparanormalpodcastclub.wordpress.com/     This Podcast is powered by Accusonus:   https://accusonus.com/   The ERA Bundle was released in 2018 and is the fastest-growing product line of Accusonus. A collection of single-knob plugins for quick and efficient audio repair, the ERA Bundle allows both entry-level and professional creators to instantly enhance their audio recordings. #Newfoundland #Paranormal #Odd #Ghosts #Bigfoot #Psychic #Metaphysics #Strange #Weird #Oddities #Aliens #Angels #Monsters #Cryptozoology #Spirits      

Listen to Valentine in The Morning every weekday from 5a-10a on 104.3MYfm in Los Angeles.

Scripture For Today:2 Corinthians 13:7“Now we pray to God that you will not do anything wrong—not so that people will see that we have stood the test but so that you will do what is right even though we may seem to have failed.”Prayer That Changes Things pt 3Yesterday we started to look at the prayer of binding and loosing. We seen in Matthew 18:18 where Jesus talked about “binding and loosing.” It is part of the blessing. It is part of our authority to use His Name. Amen! It is our responsibility to bind the devil wherever we find him trying to operate…anywhere on the earth…you see a news story come on tv… can and should be praying against the situation and binding the devil at work in that area of the world…when believers come together and start doing that…you will see dramatic things happen and nobody will understand why…except believers!  Amen..  I remember a few years back a hurricane developed in the Gulf of Mexico and was headed straight towards LA….all the forecasts said it would be direct hit…then, it suddenly turned right and headed to Florida….they said it would be a direct hit…then it turned right and headed south back into the Gulf!  It spun around out there and ended up impacting the highlands of Mexico…the weather people did not understand it…but what happened was believers started praying and it changed things – amen!  Another hurricane a few years later out in the Atlantic Ocean was heading straight for Florida…then, when they thought it would be a direct hit…suddenly turned and went right up the coast and then out into the ocean…never making land fall….so prayer DOES CHANGE THINGS!!! Amen! But, when you pray against something…sickness, lack or whatever…and then begin to speak words of doubt concerning God's ability to handle the situation…you negate the entire process…. “Yes, brother Bob, I believe God heals me…but I just thank Him for making me sick with this cancer…it made me draw close to Him….Praise God…!  NO!  God does NOT have cancer, flu or anything else that makes people sick…it could not stand in His presence.  You would not give your kids cancer to get their attention would you?  Would you pray, “Oh God, please give my baby cancer so she will come to know you?”  NO – so stop believing God would do that to His kids…amen!  When you do that, you are taking the Lord's Name in vain…and buddy, you do not want to go down that road!  Amen! Now, let me give you a word of advice…you need to keep you gun loaded at all times with one or two scriptures you can quote out verbatim and a moments notice and FIRE at will right at the devil…  I remember in the military…I was a Cavalry Scout Platoon Leader…if we can across the enemy unexpectadily…we could call the mortar platoon on the radio and request “Immediate Suppression” and give the coordinates for them to fire to…. In artillery, there are different rounds of ammunition for different purposes…depending on whether you are firing at personnel in the open or lightly skinned vehicles, jeeps, trucks, etc. or heavy armored vehicles like tanks and things like that….but if you just pop around the corner and run smack on into something…you call for “Immediate Suppression.”  That tells the mortar team that you need Rounds on Target NOW!  They don't have time to go get the appropriate rounds designed just for that situation, cut the timing charges, etc…etc…they just fire whatever is inside their tubes at that moment and get rounds down range to where you told them to shoot….it is designed to make the enemy duck while you take cover…and while you are taking cover and putting your rounds on the enemy as well…the mortar team is then preparing the appropriate rounds for the situation and loading them…so when you come back in a minute or so and call, “FIRE FOR EFFECT”  they send a special delivery package to...

So, how did that Labour conference go? Did Keir Starmer snatch victory from the jaws of fratricidal defeat with that closing speech? Special guest Clive Lewis MP joins us to work out whether Labour is back on the road to recovery – and what was missing from the Conference. Plus, the German elections a row of light for the centre-left? And is it really so terrible if politicians call other politicians “scum”?“If you were casting hecklers to look mad and unsympathetic, you couldn't have done a better job.” – Alex Andreou“Starmer won on a platform of sensible Corbynism. Now he's changed into a New Labour tribute band.” – Clive Lewis“Labour's choice is they can be the biggest coalition party under PR – or be in opposition forever under FPTP.” - Naomi Smith“The Conservative Party is the most successful party in the world – which by default makes Labour the most unsuccessful.” – Clive Lewiswww.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnowPresented by Dorian Lynskey with Naomi Smith and Alex Andreou. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chad talks to Leadership Coach and Founder of Plucky, Jen Dary, about working with individuals and companies to create healthy dynamics at work. In fact, Plucky just released a new product that aids in doing just that! Manager Weeklies are notebooks designed to help leaders intentionally set up their weeks and track progress. It includes tips and tricks, including useful 1:1 tools. Each notebook is designed to last one quarter. Follow Jen Dary on Twitter (https://twitter.com/jenniferdary) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-dary-46b0367/) Plucky (https://www.beplucky.com/) Manager Weeklies info & order link (https://shop.beplucky.com/products/manager-weeklies-2-pack) Newsletter: beplucky.com/newsletter (https://beplucky.com/newsletter) Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Jen Dary, founder of Plucky. Jen, welcome back to the podcast. JEN: Thank you. My third time. Three time's a charm. I feel very lucky. CHAD: There aren't many people who have been on the podcast as guests three or more times. So you're in an ever-increasing select group of returning guests. JEN: Thank you. I feel like it's maybe because the Tokyo Olympics have just started, but I feel competitive and ready to take on this third session. CHAD: [laughs] So the last time you were on was October 28th, 2019 is when the episode came out. JEN: Millennia ago. CHAD: Not quite two years ago, but yeah, also a millennia ago. And that was Episode 342 so if people want to go back and take a listen to that. And then before that, you were on Episode 270, which I actually don't even know the date of. It was even longer. So welcome back. You are celebrating the eighth anniversary of Plucky. JEN: I know. I don't really think of it in these ways because I don't have an MBA, or I didn't come from a business background or anything. But definitely when I hit five years, I feel like my husband said something about that. He was like, "Honey, you should be really proud. Not a lot of businesses make it five years." And that was not really on my mind. But now that Plucky is eight, I feel like oh man, I'm just so happy to talk about how businesses evolve and how what you thought it was going to be in year one was different than year three, was different than year five, and of course, it's different than year eight. So we're eight years in, but nothing's the same, and everything's the same. I'm sure you've experienced that too. CHAD: It was actually the eighth year going into the ninth year mark that we at thoughtbot started to make big changes. And it was that idea of coming up on a decade. It started to feel like, wow, there's real momentum here. And instead of thinking about what the next year looks like, what does the next decade look like? And are we the kind of company that is going to last 20 years? And that put us in a different mindset. And I started to think about the impact we were having and the legacy that we would have. And was it big enough for the size of the company that we had? JEN: How old is thoughtbot right now? CHAD: We just celebrated our 18th anniversary. JEN: Oh my gosh. All right. Well, maybe at the very end, you can give me your best wisdom for the ninth year. [laughter] CHAD: Oh jeez. Okay. [chuckles] JEN: No presh, but tuck that in the back of your brain. CHAD: Yeah, get some sleep. That's my best advice. JEN: [laughs] Great. CHAD: That would be great. We can come back to that. JEN: Cool. CHAD: So obviously, it's been a big two years since we last talked. I'm sure a lot has progressed in Plucky. How have things changed? JEN: Well, what's funny is that the two years spread that we're talking about or 18 months or whatever it is, for the most part, overlaps with COVID so far. So by the end of 2019, things were cooking, and everything is good. And even, personally speaking, my youngest son would be entering kindergarten in the fall of 2020. Again, as a business owner, a mom, all those things I was sort of at the end of 2019 hot, so good. And then I was anticipating 2020 to be continued pretty much the same as is. Like, we would keep training managers. I would keep traveling. All that would get easier because the kids are getting bigger, then my kid would go to kindergarten. And I was also finishing a book about...I can't remember if we talked about this before, but I was really sick in 2016. I had a brain tumor diagnosis, and I'm okay now. It was benign. I had this memoir that was eh, I don't know, maybe two-thirds done. All that was the plan for 2020, Chad. And I'm sure this is shocking news to you, but none of it happened, including freaking kindergarten, obviously in person. So on the business side of things, I kept everything stable as best as I could. So coaching kept going because coaching has always been remote. We have some products, and we kept shipping those out as best we could. At the very beginning of COVID, when everybody thought it was this three, four-week hiatus from real life, I recorded a story every day. Because I was like, what can I do for all the world that's working? So I recorded a storytime for Plucky with my kids. And I put it out on social media so that working parents could have another 15 minutes of distraction for their kids. That's how cute I was back then. [laughter] After one month of that, I was like, I need somebody to read stories to my kids. Yikes. CHAD: Yeah. [laughs] JEN: So the big thing that changed was that our manager trainings in person obviously I had to cancel those. So I transitioned from in-person to virtual events, and that has continued. And as of this recording, end of July, I was thinking that our November event this year…it's the 20th cohort of So Now You're a Manager. I was going to have it in person. And just last week, I pulled the plug on that. And I was like, no, we're going to stay virtual a little bit longer because I don't know how to predict what the hell is coming. So again, that sort of stabilizing, right? Like, okay, well, now I know how to do the virtual. That will be the stable choice this year, which is weird to say, but true. CHAD: Yeah. So you just gave a great organic listing of the things that Plucky does, and a big part of that was that in-person So Now You're a Manager training, which, if people remember from the previous episodes, new managers at thoughtbot have attended over the years. It's a really great training for people who become managers. So what was transitioning that to remote like? Because you'd only ever done it in person before, right? JEN: Yeah, totally. The first 11 cohorts were in person, and then we got to 12, and that was supposed to happen in March in Atlanta. We canceled that, and it wasn't until June that we had the 12th, and that was the first virtual one. And to say that I needed to go through stages of grief is probably pretty accurate. [chuckles] My energy in person is so a thing, like a tool of mine and just pulling people together, and making safe space for conversations and all that jazz. So I was like, what the hell is that going to be like on Zoom? And meanwhile, remember I'm watching my first grader go through the shenanigans of Zoom for the end of that year. And I'm like, oh my God, how am I possibly going to get grown-ups on this and paying attention and not being distracted? So a couple of things, I will say number one is I definitely interviewed four or five people in the industry who are good at virtual events, and I tried to get their deepest wisdom about it. The second thing is that I made the cohorts smaller. So in person, we have around 20 to 22 max, and in virtual, we do 10 to 12 max. And so that got a lot smaller. Also, instead of being two days back to back, I broke it into three half days which is just a different ask. And I wasn't sure if people would bite at that. I tried to mimic it after how some people do an MBA on the side. So then they go to work, and they practice the stuff they're learning at the MBA. And so that has been my thought like, okay, you'll be with me basically for a month. We'll have three half days together, usually on a Friday. And then you're practicing in the meantime. So between the times I see you, you're improving your listening skills. You're coming back with anecdotes about hires or tough conversations or whatever. So I won't say that's like a silver lining, but it's just a different beast. And the first day I did it, I mean, I'm telling you, I was on the bathroom floor on my knees like, don't let the internet go out. CHAD: [laughs] JEN: I was so scared. I don't know why looking back. I'm in tech, but I'm not technical. It's my husband who helps me set up a monitor and whatnot. Oh God, I was so nervous. And I just thought, shit, this is the thing I can't problem-solve. If the internet goes out, I don't know what to do, but if someone's upset, I can help them. So it just brought all of my skills in a different environment. And now I feel pretty good about it. I don't know if you found this with your distributed company overall, but I have worked very hard to make sure that it's a blend, of course, this digital experience, but also I use the mail. I use snail mail a lot. So attendees get a packet before we begin. They get a gift at the end, a graduation gift. And yeah, I feel like I've learned a lot about how to have a hand-in-hand experience of digital as well as a physical object that they can touch to make that experience more than just a screen. CHAD: Yeah, I think that's important. How did changing the format, reducing the class size, what business ramifications were there for that? JEN: Well, it's way less money. [chuckles] CHAD: Right. Okay, sorry. JEN: No. Oh my God. I want to be very real about these things, especially for people starting their businesses. It's way less money. And also if you think about it, everybody had already bought tickets to Atlanta, and then they had already started buying tickets to...I can't remember what the next one was going to be, New York, I think. So for a lot of the year, everything was, I'll say, comped, but that's not really what's going on. All of a sudden, the amount of seats that I thought I was selling for the year got reduced in about half, and much of that were already pre-bought tickets. So, as a line item, that was way lower. I also think I got...man, I haven't really said this transparently to anybody before, but I'll say it here. I got really scared about what to charge. Do you charge the same thing virtually than you do in person? And so I lowered it, I would say for a year. I lowered it by a couple of hundred dollars for each ticket because I didn't know what the market wanted. And also, I didn't know, oh God, were businesses closing? Were people getting prof dev budgets? Everybody was frozen for a good while. So I'm lucky that now today I'm back up to the same price that it had been before, but it's not as much income per event. And the other thing I'll say which affects money…but again, I want to be transparent for other folks who think about or currently run businesses. One great thing to come out of some of the social unrest of last year is that we now have an equity scholarship for So Now You're a Manager. So in every cohort, be that virtually or in person, I always reserve a seat for someone who's coming from an underrepresented group, so people apply. And that is something that I very happily said I will eat the cost of that ticket because it's important to me to have different voices in the room. And that has been a total awesome thing this year. That just started in January of 2021, but that's something really great that came out of last year. CHAD: Yeah. What did you find that customers wanted, and did it change over time? Was there an appetite for it to be remote, or was there resistance to it? JEN: I think at first people were overwhelmed and didn't want it. That's why I held it from March until June until I thought people were ready. I can tell you categorically that I've had the lowest percentage of parents attend of all time because, let's be real, who wants another kind of obligation? Or also, parents during this time, especially with young children, were not in that growth space necessarily for work because there was so much to keep afloat. So other than the three half days, I also have this optional hour that I throw in just if people can come; there's this extra exercise that didn't fit in from the original curriculum. And I don't think I've had one parent, maybe one, come across all those cohorts that have been virtual to that. So the optional stuff I see parents opting out of. That said, I saw more folks who maybe either live alone or maybe have a roommate but who are pre-family or some people won't have families but someone who was socially like, "It was so hard and tiring last year." And that sort of swung back around towards the summer and end of summer. I saw much more interest there because I think people were really lonely. CHAD: Yeah. And I also think, at least for me personally and for thoughtbot, that was when the thinking definitely shifted that this wasn't going to be going away anytime soon. And so we came to terms with that and started to then make much more long-term plans and permanent changes. JEN: I think it was also in the...I want to say like early fall when Twitter announced they'd be remote. Like, they have an office, but they wouldn't oblige anyone to ever come back again. And whenever that decision was made, there were a couple of other companies...At that point, I was still living in the Bay Area, and there were a couple of other companies that made similar suggestions. And so again, to your point, there was a revisioning of what the next phase was like or at least what to expect. And so, I think people weren't holding out to go back to normal. It was like, what's the new normal? CHAD: Yeah. So when we first shut down offices and went remote, we were giving updates every two weeks, and then it changed to every month. And then it would be like, "There's really no change. We're going to give another update in April." And then April was, "We'll give another update in May." And when it came to June, we just said, "We're planning on being in this mode for at least the end of the year. Let's start all acting and make this sustainable." So that is when our thinking changed too. JEN: Did you feel like with your CEOness and business responsibility over there...what kept you grounded for all that thing? Because obviously every time you make that announcement or regardless of whether that's in person or just...I don't even know– retention or whatever it is. It feels like you're just building strategy on freaking quicksand. CHAD: It wasn't easy. You feel responsible for everybody's well-being, both financially and everything else. And so the lack of stability…you want to provide it in an unstable world. You want to say, "Well, at least you shouldn't have to worry about this. Let's provide…" but it was impossible to do. And I'm much more comfortable with uncertainty. I think there's a spectrum of comfortableness with uncertainty, and I'm pretty far on one end of it, and even I was struggling. Same thing with like I'm very much on the spectrum of not having to worry about anxiety or anything like that, and even I was feeling it. And so I was just like...at one point I said to I think it was Diana or whatever "If I'm feeling this, if I'm getting chest palpitations, [laughs] something's really wrong, and we really need to pay attention to how everybody else is feeling." JEN: Oh, yeah. I even saw that anxiety obviously with coaching clients. There are some clients that when budgets dried up, there was like an initial drop-off, I would say March, April. But then I feel very lucky that the pipeline was still very strong, and I had clients stay with me or join or whatever. You remember as well as anybody not only did we have this health crisis going on, which again we still do but my last class...So third of three of the cohort in May last year was a couple of days after George Floyd's murder. And the responsibility I felt too...like, when all these things were going on last summer, it was like, who freaking cares about anything? It's like these huge things. And you start to say nothing matters. There are only three things that matter in life. And then you kept sort of recycling the drain on that. So here I am going into teaching the third of three classes. And during the third class, I always teach concepts on how to hire, concepts on how to lay someone off and fire someone, which everyone's always very barfy and nervous about. And I try to bring us together and graduate us in what feels like a victorious moment. But that's three days after George Floyd's murder, and everyone is reeling and needing to process. And I remember thinking that morning, I don't know how this is going to go because I was fully willing to rip up the plan and do something different. But at the same time, there's also sometimes they want some structure. Folks want to just show up and take this class and be distracted from what's going on in the world. So we sort of talked about this a few minutes before we started recording but really, what has been fascinating and challenging about continuing to train managers over the last two years is that these very large things are going on in the background: George Floyd's murder, a lot of social unrest in Minneapolis, the election, COVID, all these things. And you can't just put that away and show up to manager training. It is freaking relevant because it is relevant for them. Of course, it's very meta, but all of my students are then going to go back and be responsible for 3, 5, 7 other people in their day-to-day work. So it was really wild, but again, stretching and a challenge that I met with a lot of intention. I don't know if I was always super successful at it, but I thought a lot about it. CHAD: Yeah, I think that was the shift that we saw on our team. And what I've heard from people is that enough is enough in several different categories of things. And like, we just can't keep on doing what we were doing before. It's not working, and it is unacceptable. People are angry too. So it's not just processing. It's anger and wanting to see action, wanting to take action. And yet, doing it in a world where we can't actually be together, I think, made it particularly challenging for some people and for managers to know how to meet their team members where they were. And people process things in different ways too, and people need different things. And at that point, we had hired people who had only ever been remote. So I think the connections that you have with people that you might've worked with in person you can lean on a lot in the beginning. But then you're working with someone or managing someone who you've never met in person. JEN: Yeah. It's a whole new ball game. And I think that the notion of community has gone through the wringer, not only in the worst, it's a rebirth almost. I think the notion of locally what's going on for you and then who can you see? Who can you have a barbecue with? All of those questions of like, who can I be with? Of course, the internet's great, but the internet has some major, major boundaries to it. And people see that at work, and they see that in training. CHAD: One of the things we're struggling with in that category now is there are people who live next to each other because we were historically in offices. And as it becomes more possible to get together with each other, and this is something that, as managers, we're trying to navigate, it actually has a huge potential for exclusion now that we have hired a bunch of people who are anywhere. If the teams that were in-person together but are now working remotely start getting in person again, even if it's just an outing at a park, who's not able to attend that, and how will they feel? And what expectations have we set with them? And then you have just sort of equity and inclusion issues around people we've hired in Brazil since we've gone remote. There's no way for them to come. JEN: Sure. CHAD: It's not fair. And navigating that as a team, I think we've been able to do that, but it hasn't been easy. JEN: I think sometimes the only way to see it is none of it will work. So if none of it will work, then cool. The bar's low. [laughter] Yeah, it's not going to be perfect. And all in person had its issues too. So then, if you just sort of bottom it out and say, cool, cool, cool, there's no one silver bullet answer here. So what that means is yes, as human beings, folks who are possibly able to meet up for coffee will resonate and glow and be psyched to be around some other people. So, how do we say "No," less often to that? Because that's great. That's really something to celebrate. And I'm sure if everybody was in that situation, they would try to take advantage of that too. But then to say, if you're not in that situation, here's another option. And then, every once in a while, we'll mix those options together and have like a rolling menu with it so that nothing gets too static and paralyzed and presumed. And it's in that flow state, which of course, is more fatiguing because you have decision fatigue, and you got to keep making decisions about it. But if you can just say, "Oh, well, we're going to decide that on a week to week basis or on a quarter to quarter." I probably have said this to you before in one of these other podcast conversations, but I just really think that life is a giant science experiment. So if that's true, then you can just say, "Hey, y'all, for Q3, we're going to try this. And at the end of Q3, we'll ask you how that went, and we'll either keep doing it, or we'll totally change it, or we'll increment it." Software people are really good at this because they know that not everything has to go from 2.0 to 3.0. You could go 2.1, 2.2, 2.3. There are incremental builders. So if you can leverage that metaphor even culturally or socially with the makeup of the team and the way you run things, I don't know; I kind of think that's the best you got. CHAD: Yeah. And I think we generally have the idea that we trust people and that we can provide the information. And people will generally use that information to make good decisions that are oriented towards fulfillment. So a really good example when it comes to managers is in an environment where if you're meeting in person with someone, one team member and you're their manager, and you're not meeting in person with another, that could influence negatively the other person's path to promotion or the relationship they have with you and just subtly bias you towards the person that you might be able to meet in person with. And so as a manager, making sure people know that, that that is a thing that can happen is a good way to manage that bias because I think generally, people don't want to let that happen, but they might not even realize it, so they can actively manage it. JEN: Well, it sounds like even in that thought, you are gently nudging people back towards intention and back towards just not sleepwalking through their work, that this is important for us, not only in the distance conversation here but also obviously for race, and for gender and for all kinds of different ways that humans are. We will never get it 100% right and yet intention, and taking a beat, and taking a breath before you move into conversations about promotions or whatever will help remind you hang on a second, remember there's invisible stuff inevitably going on based on who I am and where I came from. How do I make sure things are fair today? Or whatever the reminder needs to be. It sounds like that's...I don't know. It's good that you have that front of mind. CHAD: So that's one example of remote management. How much of before the pandemic were people who were coming and attending the workshops? Were they managing people remotely? And how much of your curriculum was specific to that, if any? JEN: My gut says maybe about a third were remote managers. They are definitely with bigger companies that I was seeing that. The small agencies based in Pittsburgh, you know, Austin, those places were pretty localized. But so what you get with a bigger company is also a bit more infrastructure that supports some of these cultural conversations. And we had it as part of the curriculum, but it wasn't very big, and maybe I would sort of be intentional. There are breakout groups and stuff like that. And I might think I'm going to pair these two together for their practice one-on-one because I know they're both remote managers. I am very intentional about a lot of the pairings and all that stuff, and so I would be thoughtful in that way. But now, on some level, in all these virtual workshops, everybody has an equal footing now. So everybody's kind of screwed, and everybody's also making it work. So that has been a very interesting thing to see. And I always laugh at this example, a woman who came early on, maybe like the eighth or ninth cohort, and she's a remote manager. And she would say, "Well, I don't have a water cooler. I don't have, like, I'm walking down the hall sensing somebody's upset or anything." But she would say, "This is going to sound weird, but I keep an eye on how fast they emoji something." So if you have a person who...You know this person in Slack. They're always on Slack, always so supportive, funny, have something to say, a little thumbs-up emoji, or whatever. But if one day they're at work for sure and they haven't said anything about something, she would learn to read the tea leaves like that and check-in. And I just thought that was so clever and very creative. And what she's alluding to is this level three listening that I teach, which is gut or instinct or intuition. And what she was tracking was basically a change in behavior. And that's pretty much what we're tracking when we're in the office too. There could be many reasons why somebody doesn't emoji something right away. Maybe your daughter just ran into the room. Maybe there's a doorbell. There are a million things. But at the same time, not to be too precious about it but to casually track that at least instinctively. She was doing a good job of meeting the moment as best she could. CHAD: Are there other ways in which what you've been doing has changed over the last year? What are managers concerned about or challenged by? JEN: Yeah. First of all, I always had name tags that allowed for pronouns. But this is now certainly part of the curriculum. When we start, I give some social norms and then some tech norms. And so I make the suggestion that in Zoom, after your name, you put your pronouns. And it's not a huge chunk because I really don't feel like I am the best to teach this, but I've added in a DEI component, diversity, equity, inclusion component. And we have some folks in the alumni community who are DEI consultants, so that's great. I always give them shout-outs and refer over if people are looking for that. I've noticed that people are...I'll say careful, but what I mean by careful is that they are aware of all of the stuff we're talking about, like race and social stuff. Depending on where your office was in the country, the election was sometimes really hard. I think about companies in Ohio or Pennsylvania or swing states where it was not obvious that everybody in the office was on the same page about that. And the way that that stuff comes up and is like this piece of baggage in the room that prevents literally like a website being made. We want to think no, that shouldn't enter. That's not relevant here. And yet people are careful about both trying to say, "Listen, bring who you are. You're accepted here." And also like, well, sometimes what you're suggesting you believe about the world is harmful. The whole Basecamp thing is a good example of that. And so I found the managers who come to my training to just be open to not only sharing their experiences with that but looking very much for some guidance on that from their peers and then from me. CHAD: That's sort of what I was saying about people felt like you needed to be changing the way that you were approaching things. It wasn't okay anymore for most people to say, "We shouldn't be having this conversation. It's not a work-related conversation." It affects people's work and their ability to work. It is a work issue. And you can't simply put everything aside. That's one angle of it, but we're not all equipped. We're not all educated. We're not all ready to be able to do that as managers. JEN: Totally. But with the amount of shit that we have had to handle for the last two years, short of somebody who's a social worker/priest, I don't know who was ready. I feel like a lot of what we're talking about is so resonant for me because all of this is so hard. And if you are alone doing hard things, it's impossible. But the reason that I run the manager trainings the way I do and the reason that I hold onto them after and I put them in a Slack community, they're now alumni of the program. And it's active; it depends on the day. But people have hard questions that they're wrestling with. People have jobs that they're promoting, that they're trying to get people to apply to. It's this active community that goes on afterwards. Because, honestly, Chad, I feel like a big input into me creating So You're Now a Manager and the community around it was my experience becoming a parent. I was one of the first ones of all my friends. I was the first one of my siblings, and my son was the first grandchild on both sides. And I was like, this is so lonely. All my friends are going out in Brooklyn for dinner. And I was 31. It's not like I was very young or anything, but that's New York. And so I had a moms' group. And man, that moms' group got me through those early days because we could all laugh at how hard it was. We could cry together. And when I looked at the transition that people go through from IC, individual contributor, to manager or some level of leadership, you get responsibility. You have to play the messenger sometimes, something you're not totally down with. You have sometimes competition with peers. You have to manage up sometimes. And then you have these people who come to you with requests: I want a new career path. I want more money. I want a different title. And the slog of that is very reminiscent, on some level, of parenting to me. So I thought, well, this is not going to be like, here's your book. Good luck being a manager, although books could be helpful. For me, it seemed like there was at least a certain template of a person in the world who could use community too. So I always say you'll be with me for two days or a month if it's virtual. But I can't possibly teach you everything you'll encounter. That said, we can get some critical skills under your belt. And then you can just continue to riff with this peer network. And that has been a very, I would say, unique thing about the manager training I run and something that is so fulfilling to me. I have a very tiny business. Those are, in weird ways, kind of my colleagues, the funny jokes they tell or those personalities. That was another thing that we had to let go of. In 2020, I was going to have the first reunion. CHAD: Oh yeah. We actually talked about that in the previous episode as an idea. JEN: Heartbreaking. Yeah, it was called Encore. Basically, it was a follow-up and open to anybody that has already taken SNYAM, So Now You're a Manager. I had people who pitched talks, and we had selected them. And yeah, we had to pull the plug on that. So my hope is that next year we can do that. And now we've got almost...actually; I think we just hit 300 people, so maybe 50 will come, I don't know. We'll see. But I like the idea of providing a space for these folks who were new managers when I knew them and when they came through me but have gained some skills themselves and could become thought leaders in this management space. And whenever the world is ready for it, I'm excited to put that together. CHAD: Yeah, that's awesome. That sense of community is one thing I've struggled with, to be honest. Because having done this for 18 years, there aren't many people who worked at the company that work there now anymore. [chuckles] We've grown too. So I no longer have the close personal relationship that I had with most people at the company before or close work relationships. And combined with as we've grown, it's harder...you have to be more of a leader. You have to put yourself aside. It's harder to always be a servant to others. And then I found that especially difficult last year. And it's part of why I needed to not be CEO anymore and to transition to the COO role. Because I couldn't be in a position where everyone was always looking to me continually to make...and as distributed as we are, one of our values is self-management. But continually always looking to me to be the one who always has an answer, who is the stable one, I needed a break from that. So it's been nice, the transition. JEN: I was going to say is it better? CHAD: [chuckles] So it's a little bit different than I expected. So what happened was we made that change. We made other changes, and that was all going well. And then, in February, the largest vaccine scheduling provider in the United States came to us and needed help scaling the infrastructure and all that stuff. JEN: Oh my God. That's exciting. CHAD: And so I, along with a crack team of other experienced thoughtboters, went and spent all of our time focused on that. It has pros and cons, which is right as I was transitioning into a new role; I completely got pulled away and started working full-time with that client for a very important cause, which is the reason why we did it and decided it was worth it. The silver lining is it put everyone else in a position where we went very quickly from Chad's no longer the CEO to Chad's not here right now. [chuckles] And that was unexpected. But I think that it had downsides, but it had upsides too in terms of really being in a position where people could come into their own, into their new roles and sort of a forcing function for some of the changes that we needed to make. JEN: You know, I'll give you major props on that, Chad. Because 18 years and especially, I think this about a lot of things, but especially business here, people get stuck. They really do. They get stuck, especially founders, CEOs. They don't know how to get out of something if they're tired. And there are not a lot of models for what that could look like. The biggest disservice someone could make to leading a company would be to not really be feeling it because that shit trickles down. And if you're tired or if it's not your thing anymore, really, the biggest gift you can give is to go get aligned somewhere else and then hand over the reins to what I keep thinking of as the next generation. I coach a lot of people, or I work with a lot of people who are in the middle, let's say, so they're not C-suite, and they're not newest managers, but they're sort of senior there. They're totally ready to go. I can't overstate that. [chuckles] Will they mess stuff up? Sure. So did you. Will they have questions? Absolutely. But the next generation of every company it's the most strategic thing that a CEO could do is to think, what happens if I'm not here? That allows you to take a freaking vacation, like take a month off. Or that allows you to meet such a huge civic call, which you're describing here, and step away. Or again, God forbid something happened, and you get very sick; it allows the company to be bigger than yourself. So I just commend you on even having the courage to step towards COO and then obviously also kind of redirect as needed this year. But I hope that if there are other CEOs listening or folks in the C-suite who are wiped, this is my gentle nudge to them to hand over the reins at some point. Because you'll get a paycheck, I'm sure you can figure that. CHAD: [chuckles] Being wiped was one small part of it. And I had Diana on who's the new CEO, and we talked about this. We had grown to a certain point. Also, to toot my own horn, I had done a really good job of building a team of managing directors who were really good at what they were doing. And I was no longer the best manager for them. I was no longer what they needed in order to continue to grow. I could do it, but I wasn't the best person for it. So that was the overriding reason to make the change, and being tired and needing to not always be the one that everyone was looking to was certainly a part of it. But yeah, it's been good. JEN: Yeah. I figured we would get there at some point, but we talked a little bit earlier about how I have this new product coming out in September. So the product is called Manager Weeklies, and it's basically...I got to figure out the exact noun for this. I guess this is the marketing moment. [chuckles] But it's basically a small notebook. The way I think of it is it helps you take a deep breath before your week starts. And so I'm not messing with your to-do lists. Everybody has different versions of that, Trello or wherever the heck you keep it. But before you start the week, it is so important to wonder where's my energy at? What's my perspective? What are the couple of priorities? What am I blocking? Just a couple of invitation questions there. And then the idea is that you then can do this on whatever, a Sunday night or Monday morning. And then the rest of the week has, I feel like I've said intention 50 times in this conversation but has intention in it. You can decline those three meetings because they're not the highest priority. You can make some space to actually do the work that comes out of the meetings that you're in. And what I have watched over the last maybe three years are my coaching clients who get themselves together at the beginning of the week who have some sort of practice about setting things up in a good way are the most successful. They get the promotions because they look like they know what they're doing because they do. So anyway, it's called Manager Weeklies. So it's a small notebook. Each notebook is for a quarter. And then, because I'm a coach, I also filled it with other good stuff. Like at the end, there are all kinds of prompts for ways to give praise to people on your team, ways to give feedback, ways to handle conflict, ways to say, "Yes, no, maybe." And then there's a Work Wheel tool at the very end. And so my hope is that people who just feel like they show up on a Monday already behind that they would find some help with that intention. And I feel like what you're saying is that self-awareness component that came through for you, Chad, to say, I'm not the best at this, and also, I'm a little fatigued and so, therefore, deep breath. Here's the strategy going forward. It wasn't reactive, but there was some thought behind it. And so we'll see this fall people get a chance to try that out. CHAD: That's awesome. I feel like it's getting back to your roots but also building on it. So for people who don't know, the Plucky Cards were actually the first way that I was introduced to you was someone showing me a pack of those cards. So, where can people find out more about that? JEN: The best way for people to find any information is just to subscribe to the newsletter. I send it once a month. It's usually a reflection on work, life, something going on there. So if you go to beplucky.com/newsletter, then you'll be first in the know. What's very funny, Chad, is I have a former coaching client who holds the record now. He was the first one to buy the first pack of cards. He was the first one to buy the second pack of cards. [laughs] And he was also the first one to do this Small Group ticket that I recently did as a little offshoot of Plucky. So anyway, in my mind, I always laugh, and I wonder, I wonder if he's going to grab the first pack of Manager Weeklies this fall. But you're right. They certainly plug and play with the cards very well where there's even space in the weekly template to say, what's the one-on-one topic for the week? So it could be a card that you pull, and you use, or it could just be something else going on in the world that you want to bring to all the one-on-ones. But I feel like there are a lot of things I'm not great at in the world, but the things I am good at are people. And then I listen to people over and over again through all of these experiences. And I try to hear what else do they need? What weird little thing can I invent that could help them with some of these things that they struggle with? And I'm also just really mindful of the fact that not everybody has the budget for coaching or for manager training. And I would love for Plucky to be a brand that even if you work for a nonprofit or if you don't have the money to pay for some of those more expensive things that you would have 35 bucks for a pack of cards or 20 bucks or whatever the pricing will be for the notebooks and that you can engage with my brand, even if you're not very wealthy. And I feel like as a person who works and serves an industry like tech, that is always really a priority for me to not only coach or work with the people with the most money. CHAD: Yeah. If I remember right, you designed the cards, right? JEN: Oh my God, I wish. No. CHAD: Oh, okay. JEN: For the first pack of cards I worked with, I don't know if you know him, Greg Storey. CHAD: Yeah. JEN: He's great. Greg Storey did my first deck of cards, and then he moved on, and he's doing other interesting things with his career. So I have a designer who helped me with the second deck of cards called the Manager Pack. So that's questions for managers of managers to bring to one-on-ones, and then the Manager Weeklies are coming out. I've been collaborating with a woman who runs a design little shop called YupGup in Delaware. So her name is Joni. So it is so wild, Chad. I wish that I had any design sense. But it's like, I make these things which look like a terrible PowerPoint. I'm like, here, then there will be a bullet. And then I give it to a designer like Joni at YupGup, and all of a sudden, she has a logo. And then she has some emojis and colors. And I'm like, this is how I felt when I was pregnant, and someone showed me a sonogram, and I was like, (gasps) there's a baby in there. CHAD: [laughs] JEN: This is how I felt when she showed me them, and it was so exciting. And I will never be good enough to even be talented at all to make these things myself. But I hold the idea, and then I find someone who wants to help me make that in the world. It's just magical. That is so fun for me. And so I just ordered them. Actually, I ordered 1,000 of them about three hours ago. And so they'll come in August, and I just know it will be very surreal when I open the box and look at them and think about how many people in the world and pens in the world will be used to set intention, to set up people's weeks and hopefully, make a softer and more fair and thoughtful place to work. CHAD: And one of the things I love about your business and products is that you know you're having an impact beyond that 1,000 notebooks that you put out in the world because each of those people manages 3, 4, 6, 7 people. And if you can make work better for those people, then you have a 7,000-person impact. JEN: Yeah. And it's funny you say that because I think that recently...I keep saying I'm about to go away for a month or just be out of work for a month as a break after this whole COVID time. Since starting Plucky eight years ago, I didn't really have a model. I am not a traditional business. And even though many people kept saying, "When are you going to hire? When are you going to build the team? When are you going to do all of that?" That is not the shape of Plucky medium-term or long-term. I'm not going to be a coach factory. I certainly could, but then I'd end up super burned out and not liking my job. And then I'd have a sad company, and it would be bad. So I don't want to do that. CHAD: And that's literally the opposite of Plucky. JEN: Right. I mean, in the name, right? So, where I have landed as a model is to look at what artists do. And you would never take an artist...I really like Lisa Congdon in Portland. She's a cool, cool artist. And I've heard her speak, and I like her a lot. And what would Lisa Congdon's team look like? She sure isn't hiring other artists to do the work that she's over-signed up for. You get Lisa. And so she has a shop, and then she has partnerships where she teaches at different universities. And as I move into the ninth year here, I'm thinking a lot about what's standing between me and Plucky's shape and what an artist like Lisa Congdon has going on? And honestly, fully transparently, I think it's that I need to own that Plucky is me. And it's so messy in marketing. Do you use the royal 'we'? We at Plucky? Who is we? And I think that there's some good growth in front of me this fall and next year to say, yeah, I'm Jen, and I run a company called Plucky. And I'm putting this stuff out in the world, and I hope to have ripple effects. And it won't be by hiring 100 people. It'll be just like you described, selling things to X people, and then those people's reports, those ripples will follow down. And I'm really grateful to have found myself in this place because I love coming to work every day. CHAD: Awesome. Well, even though you love coming to work every day, also enjoy your vacation. JEN: Oh my God. Thank you. CHAD: And your time off and your time to reflect. JEN: Yes, thank you so much. CHAD: You already mentioned the website, but again, mention that, and then are there other places that people can follow along or get in touch with you? JEN: Yes, sure. So the newsletter, like I said, is beplucky.com/newsletter. On Twitter, you can look at @BePlucky. I'm on LinkedIn, too, obviously for Plucky. And then I have basically a behind-the-scenes account on Instagram because it was too annoying...Like, what do you take pictures of, Chad, when you're a coach? You can't take pictures of confidential conversations. CHAD: [laughs] JEN: So Instagram, I was like, I don't know what to do with this anymore. So anyway, I just have a behind-the-scenes one over there, which is called bepluckster because somebody else had it. So yeah, so all those ways. And also, I just generally say that if you're a person listening to this podcast and you just wanted to say something to me or ask a question, you should always just email me. It's just hello@beplucky.com. I love just hearing from people. And I might not be able to send you a three-page essay back, but I really love just interacting. And if something moved you or made you think about something, whether that was something I said or Chad, you can always just shoot me a note and tell me what you're thinking. I am not precious about that. CHAD: Awesome. Likewise. So you can subscribe to the show and find notes for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on Twitter @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. Thanks for joining us, Jen. JEN: Thank you. Announcer: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: Jen Dary.

Scripture For Today:Acts 28:8“His father was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him.”Prayer That Changes Things pt 1All year long, we have been studying about various kinds of prayers. But one thing that should be apparent to you by now, is that “Prayer that Changes THINGS!” Amen! And prayer in the name of Jesus what WILL change things! Through this study – we want to learn to access ALL the things Jesus gained for us at the cross and through His sacrifice…Amen! Let's look at Ephesians 6:10-18: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.  Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;  Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.  And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:  Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.” In the Power of HIS might…YOU put on the FULL armor of God…it's His armor and He has given to Jesus – who wore it successfully while He was here on the earth….and then Jesus is giving it to YOU to wear!  Amen…!  He gives us His armor and His Power and His Might and His Authority – Amen!  The FULL  armor of God ENABLES us and gives to us HIS Power and Might that comes with His armor… This is what you are learning here…How to pray IN the Power of God and not as so many people do as they rehearse the problem and circumstances… “I'm so broke – I can't pay attention….I'm so sick…I'm so desperate…OH GOD, why don't you help me?”  Actually, that is NOT a prayer at all – it IS rehearsing and giving authority to the problem!   Verse 12…We are NOT wrestling against flesh and blood…man is not your problem…the devil will use man…but the problem is the devil…that is one you need to be praying against…amen!  Ephesians 2:2 talks about the Prince of the Power of the Air…that is the atmosphere…not in Heaven…Heaven is secure…the devil has no access there…but from Heaven down…he has principalities and rulers of the darkness in place…these are the ones we are in battle against and the ones we need to pray against…amen!   When we stand and wear God's armor…we need to wear ALL of it!  He spells out everything we need to do prior to Ephesians six in this life…he talks about what to do if you are an employer…an employee…what to do in your family…so after you do these things he instructs…STAND!   Different kinds of prayer require different things we need to do when praying in order to accomplish specific things and desires we want to come to pass…But in EVERY type of prayer…there are certain laws which must be implemented…We always use the name of Jesus; we always pray in the Power of His Name; we always use His Authority; we always stand in our Faith. Faith makes prayer work!  Prayer DOES NOT make Faith work!  Let me say that again so you can understand it….Faith makes prayer work – prayer does not make Faith work.  You can use your faith with out being in  a state of prayer…but you cannot pray without using your faith..  Prayer that changes THINGS – these kinds of prayers bring...

This week, Mr Spaff Goes to Washington. But as Boris Johnson chums up to Joe Biden, an energy crisis is looming back home. With two providers collapsing and more on the way, what does the winter have in store? And on Saturday the Labour Party conference kicks off at the scene of Neil Kinnock's seaside tumble in Brighton. Can Keir Starmer capture a post-Covid comeback with his own Militant moment? Guardian journalist and host of Politics on the Couch RAFAEL BEHR joins the panel to hash out this week's stories. "At least The Simpsons' power plant is still running. Well done, Mr. Burns." - Dorian Lynskey"The government should be buying out, not bailing out, the companies that are failing." - Minnie Rahman "Our energy market is failing consumers and the planet." - Minnie Rahman."People have stopped listening to Labour." - Rafael Behr. www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnowPresented by Dorian Lynskey with Ros Taylor and Minnie Rahman. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this week's episode we welcome back our good friend, Denise R. Wolf MA, ATR-BC, ATCS, LPC along with our brand new guest, author Lynn Langan. Alyssa, Denise, and Lynn are passionate about helping adolescents and use this episode to dive into the struggles and unique challenges facing our youth today. In Lynn Langan's brand new book, Duke & The Lonely Boy, she takes readers inside the world of our adolescents and emphasizes the importance of making kids feel seen and heard. Whether you are an adolescent, a young adult, a teacher, a therapist, or a parent, this discussion as well as Lynn's book will help you to better understand how to navigate the world of our adolescents.  Light After Trauma Website Support the Podcast   Purchase Lynn's Book Learn More About Denise Wolf Transcript:   Alyssa Scolari [00:09]: Happy, happy Tuesday. Welcome back to another fun episode of Light After Trauma. It kind of feels like an oxymoron, doesn't it, to be like, "Oh yeah, this is another fun episode for a trauma-focused podcast," but I hope that if y'all have learned anything from me by now, it's that I think that the recovery process and the trauma process just isn't really possible without some humor. I am a really big fan of humor therapy, which is not officially a thing, but it's my thing because I believe if we don't laugh about some things, we'll cry about everything. We have with us two special guests today. One of them is a very familiar face on the podcast. We have got Denise Wolf back with us today, which is so exciting. She has done I believe two episodes already at this point, so this is her third episode on the podcast. We just need her to keep coming back because she's amazing. Denise has done some episodes. I think the one episode that she did with just me was on art therapy, and then the other one we did talking about law enforcement and the whole defunding the police versus backing the blue. So, definitely go and check out those episodes if you have not listened already, because Denise is really an incredible person and has a lot of awesome things to say. Plus, she's really funny as hell. I'm just going to reintroduce her in case she is new and you a new listener here on the podcast. Denise R. Wolf has so many letters after her last name, which just is a testament to how incredible she is. Denise R. Wolf is the Owner and Practitioner Therapist of Mangata Services as well as an adjunct faculty member at Drexel and Villanova Universities. Denise is a Licensed Professional Counselor, as well as a Registered Board Certified and an Art Therapy Certified Supervisor through the Art Therapy Credentials Board. For over 20 years, Denise has been practicing as a therapist primarily treating adolescents and adults with histories of complex interpersonal trauma. She works as a consultant for many Philadelphia organizations, including the Philadelphia Art Museum, providing clinical supervision and programming related to trauma informed care. Denise has presented at city, state, national, and international conferences in the areas of trauma informed care, trauma and neuro biology, pedagogy, clinical supervision. She has several articles published in peer review journals, and has contributed chapters to Seminole texts in her clinical work. Actually as I was reading that, I think you might have even done... Actually, I think the episode where we talked about art therapy with Denise, I think that one was a two person episode as well. We just love doing two person episodes with Denise, because yes, I'm pretty sure we had somebody else on that podcast as well. Regardless, go check those episodes out because they're awesome. Then I also want to highlight our other very special guest today, who is Lynn Langan. Lynn is brand new to the podcast, but I am really excited to have her on because we are talking all about adolescents, teenagers, whatever word you might have for them. I'm sure that some people have some choice words for teenagers, but I happen to absolutely love working with teenagers. As you heard, Denise with teenagers, I work with teenagers and adolescents, and kids that are young adults. That's really my wheelhouse. Lynn Langan is an author who just had a book come out that we are really going to dive in today, because it's really all about kind of diving into the adolescent brain. Lynn lives in Pennsylvania, and her love for writing developed after she finally learned how to read in the fourth grade, after being diagnosed with a learning disability. She fell in love with the characters crafted by the wonderful Judy Blume, and found a great escape into the world of fiction where everything seemed to be possible from big problems to small. She went on to graduate from Kutztown University, with a BA in professional writing, and then spent three glorious years teaching at an at risk youth high school just outside of Philadelphia. There, she was inspired to write her young adult novel, which is After You Were Gone, which is available. Her newest book is called Duke and the Lonely Boy, and that came out in August. That is published by Black Rose Writing. We are here today to talk about it. I cannot wait. Hello, Denise, Lynn. Welcome. Lynn Langan [05:34]: Hello. Denise Wolf [05:34]: Hello. Lynn Langan [05:35]: Thanks for having us. Alyssa Scolari [05:37]: I'm so happy you're here. I have to admit, I feel like I'm missing the party over there because you're both together recording this. I'm like I should be there. I should be over there with a glass of wine or something. Lynn Langan [05:49]: Absolutely. Denise Wolf [05:51]: [crosstalk 00:05:51]. Alyssa Scolari [05:54]: I'm so glad you both are here. As I was telling the listeners, Denise, one of the many things that I think are just incredible about you is your versatility and your ability to just kick absolute ass in so many different realms in the mental health field, and I love it. We've gone in depth about art therapy. We've gone in depth about the legal system. And now here we are today turning it to adolescence, which is a topic we could talk about forever, and something that I think all three of us are very passionate about. Thanks for coming back again. Denise Wolf [06:34]: Thanks so much for having me again. Alyssa Scolari [06:37]: Of course. It's such a pleasure. Lynn, it is such a pleasure to meet you. Talk to me about your journey to becoming a writer, because if I understand correctly, this isn't is your first book. You've had a book out before? Lynn Langan [06:55]: That is correct. Not published though. It's been for sale, but this is the first book that was sold for me. I went to college for writing, and then when you get out of college that's not really how you're going to make money apparently. I was doing newspapers and short story stuff, so probably when I was around 27 I was like, "You know what, I really want to write a book. I want to do this." So I spent a lot of time digging in and learning how to do this actually, because college can only teach you so much. But when you get out into the real world, you have to continue practicing and learning, and growing in your field of whatever you're doing. SCBWI conferences, which is just a whole chapter of adolescent writers from probably picture books all the way up to 18 years old, so it's a whole bunch of authors. They're getting together and to these conferences, and learning, and figuring out how to write an entire book, and query it, and all the steps that go along with it. It's been an incredibly long and hard journey, but worth it. Definitely worth it. Alyssa Scolari [08:12]: Yeah, I think that's very important that you said that because the life of a writer is not an easy one. Lynn Langan [08:18]: No. No, it's not. Alyssa Scolari [08:21]: I think it's really important to shed light on that because I think a lot of people have an idea of what it looks like. "I want to be a writer. I want to be a writer," but then putting that into practice, in theory it seems like a life of luxury. I write whenever I want. I sip my coffee. Pinky up. As I type of the computer while the birds are chirping outside. It's like [crosstalk 00:08:46]- Lynn Langan [08:45]: No. And the words are so easy. They're right there and I'm just plucking them out of the air. That is absolutely not the case. It's a lot of discipline because you work a full-time job. There's no one yelling at you to go to the computer to write this book. The future is unknown if it ever see the light of day. That's kind of where I grew my peace from, was that I'm doing this thing because this thing, this art, is what makes me me. It's my joy and my happiness, even there's struggle along the way. If I wasn't doing it, then I don't think I'd be complete. It is a lot of discipline. It's a lot of just sitting down and looking at the blank computer screen back at me like, "Come on. Put some words down." Alyssa Scolari [09:33]: Any second now. Lynn Langan [09:34]: Any second now, this big idea's going to come to me. That's not true. Alyssa Scolari [09:39]: It's so tough. It's so tough. Lynn Langan [09:42]: Yeah. Alyssa Scolari [09:43]: My next question, and this is a question I have for both of you, tell me why the love for adolescence, because all three of us share a big passion for the kiddos in this world. Why? It doesn't matter whoever can go first, but I'm very curious as to well adolescents are such a passion. At least in my experience, I always knew that I wanted to work with kids. Everybody would tell me, even my professors in college would be like, "No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't." In grad school, "What do you want to do?" "I want to work with kids." "No, you don't." Everybody kept trying to talk me out of working with kids. It's very unpopular. So tell me for each of you why it's so important to you. Denise Wolf [10:32]: I'll start. Part of it too, Alyssa, like I was told the same thing, "You don't want to do that." Tell me I don't want something or I can't do something, and I am going to do it 1,000% times over and everything on fire in my path. Alyssa Scolari [10:48]: Yes. Yes. Denise Wolf [10:48]: That's part of it, but it's also a connection to adolescence and that inner 15 year old kid that still lives in my heart that says, "Fuck you. I can do this. Get out of my way." That's part of it, I'm oppositional, and that connects with adolescence. Part of it is that I had a troubled adolescence, you could say. I'll stop there. Some of it I feel like is not quite payback. I don't have the right word, but making repairs for some of the errors that I made along the way. Part of it is because I can. Because I can and because a lot of people can or don't want to. I guess there's a fourth part that adolescents are so exciting from a neuro developmental perspective. It is like the Fourth of July in their brains. It was such a great time of change and shifting, and possibilities. Lynn Langan [11:46]: Discovery. Denise Wolf [11:46]: And discovery, yeah. It's really exciting. For all of those reasons. Lynn Langan [11:53]: Yeah, and I would go into that also for all those things, and say that I want to be an advocate because I remember my youth not being taken seriously because we're young, and our voices don't matter. That's not true. We are young... Well, we are not now, but we were young and they are young, and they see things and make connections in ways that if you stop and listen to them it makes sense. We're missing some of that youthful view in the way they see the world. As we get older, I think we get more narrow in our views and also take less chances where when you're young you kind of live and learn by your mistakes. I want them to know that that's okay. It's exactly how you're supposed to learn. The adults that are walking around judging you or saying what you're doing is wrong or whatever, it's not. It's your time to grow into a person. I want to be there to foster that. Authentically, I want to make sure that's in my work that they have opinions that matter, and the way they see the world matters, and they have a place for that. Alyssa Scolari [13:06]: Yeah. Lynn Langan [13:06]: Yeah. Alyssa Scolari [13:07]: Absolutely. Have either of you seen the Twilight saga, the movies? Lynn Langan [13:13]: Yes. Denise Wolf [13:14]: Yes. [crosstalk 00:13:14]. Alyssa Scolari [13:15]: I guess let's take it to the fourth one, Breaking Dawn Part Two. Lynn Langan [13:21]: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, part two. Alyssa Scolari [13:23]: I know, I'm going here, right? Lynn Langan [13:25]: Yeah. Alyssa Scolari [13:26]: Full disclosure, I just finished watching that series again last week so it's fresh on my mind. But, this is kind of how I see adolescents and this is what I love so much about them. Remember the part in Breaking Dawn Part Two where Bella becomes a vampire and everything in the world is new to her, and her senses are heightened, and she can smell things, and run at a pace she's never been able to run before, and her skin, she's in a different body, she has a thirst for things she never thirsted before. She just feels like all of these things, like sensory overload. I feel like that's what it can be like working with adolescents. The world is just new to them. They're in bodies that they're not super familiar with. Things are explosive and exciting. Lynn Langan [14:23]: Yes. Alyssa Scolari [14:24]: I love it. I feel like that's what it's like to work with kids sometimes. That's what it's like to be an adolescent sometimes. Lynn Langan [14:31]: Absolutely. Denise Wolf [14:31]: Yep. Lynn Langan [14:32]: Yeah, you've got these thoughts and everything is brand new. Everything. Your world is so small. You don't realize how big the world is until you become an adult and you start living in it. The adolescent brain, the picture that they see is very tiny and then it makes the things that they're experiencing seem so heavy. That's another thing to work with the adolescents is cool, because you can be the person that says, "Calm down. You don't know what you're talking about." Or you could be the person that says, "Sit down. Let me talk to you. Let's talk about this. Let's have a real conversation about it." This isn't the end of the world. This is just the beginning. Denise Wolf [15:09]: Yep, and it feels gigantic and soul-crushing. Lynn Langan [15:13]: Right, because it is for you. Denise Wolf [15:14]: Right. Because your life is only yea long, and this is taking up such a big part of it. Lynn Langan [15:19]: Right, yeah. Denise Wolf [15:20]: Which is cool and exciting, and to be there and to validate it and celebrate it. Lynn Langan [15:24]: Right, absolutely. Alyssa Scolari [15:26]: Yeah, to validate it and to celebrate it, especially because so many kids get shut down. Denise Wolf [15:33]: Oh, gosh. Lynn Langan [15:33]: Yes. Alyssa Scolari [15:35]: The amount of times... Like I was saying before we started recording, the amount of times that adults say to children, "You don't know how easy you have it. What do you know? You're just a kid." I'm like I actually think they know a lot more than we know as adults. Lynn Langan [15:57]: Yes, absolutely. Denise Wolf [15:59]: Yes. Alyssa Scolari [16:00]: They're smart as hell. Lynn Langan [16:01]: They're smart, yes. And they just need a platform for themselves to be able to... That's what's so critical too, because if that age if you have that one adult that's shoving you down and you're influenced by that, your whole trajectory of your life could be changed just by some adult making some offhanded comment to you. I see that a lot. I think we see that a lot too, probably all three of us, because everybody works with kids, or has worked with the kids. You have one person that doesn't validate, and then you get in your head and you can't put it down. Alyssa Scolari [16:37]: Yeah. Lynn Langan [16:38]: Yeah. Alyssa Scolari [16:39]: Absolutely. I'm sure we've been those kids. I know I for sure was that kid who really felt like... I felt like as a kid I was always too much. My emotions were always too big for somebody. It was always like "Calm down. Stop crying. Why are you crying about this? You have to get over it. You have to move on with your life." I see kids in my office who come in with those same big emotions, and those same big feelings, and I think about how they suffer so much less simply because another adult is able to say, "Aw man, of course you feel that way." Lynn Langan [17:20]: Right. Alyssa Scolari [17:20]: It makes all the difference, doesn't it? Denise Wolf [17:23]: Yeah. Lynn Langan [17:23]: It really does. "I see you." That's what you're saying, "I see you. You exist. Everything you feel exists. It's real. It's here." Don't bury that down because it's making other people feel uncomfortable it. I think a lot of kids get their voice shut off because of that. No one's validating them or they can crawl inside their head and just be quiet. [crosstalk 00:17:45]- Alyssa Scolari [17:46]: 1,000%. [crosstalk 00:17:46] 1,000%. Lynn Langan [17:48]: Yeah, and it's sad. I don't want to see that for anybody. I think it's good to think of it in terms like that. It could just feel like you have a breakup with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Yes, as an adult you're like, "Get over it. You're going to get hurt 1,000 times." Well guess what, this is the first time I'm being hurt and everything you're saying to me is how I'm going to model my life from this point on. This is how I'm going to deal with things that come up in my life because you told me to calm down, or didn't see, or didn't hear me. I think that's good to give kids voices. Denise Wolf [18:23]: Yep. Alyssa Scolari [18:24]: Absolutely. It makes them feel human. I almost feel like we dehumanize kids, and we don't see them as having the same kind of complex feelings and emotions that adults have. There's always "I'm the adult and you're the kid. This doesn't concern you." It's like if we could shift that. Your kid is an independent human with independent thoughts and feelings, and viewpoints of the world. If we could shift from "You're just a kid. What the fuck do you know?" To "Hey, tell me how you view that," it would make such a big difference in the lives of adolescents I think. Lynn Langan [19:16]: Absolutely. When people say, "Oh, well you don't know how good you have it," I look at kids and I'm like, "Man, you don't know how bad you have it." Because you have to be plugged in to this social media, to this... You're always plugged in and you don't get a break from that ever. Ever. I look at my nieces and nephews and I'm just like, "What would it be like if you could just put that phone down?" I know you can't because you feel like you have to be involved in that, but it's just crazy. You don't ever have a safe spot. When we were kids, you can get away from school or all of that, and just go geek in your room and do whatever you want. But not these kids. They're just sitting there taking selfies 24/7 and feeling like they have to, and people are judging them for that, and they're not looking at what are the consequences of that? What does that really feel like to be plugged in 24/7 and never getting a break? Denise Wolf [20:13]: They don't know because they haven't had a different experience. Lynn Langan [20:15]: Right, yeah it's very disheartening when adults judge the kids. They're like, "Oh, you don't know what it's like. I walked up to school on a hill and back again on a hill." No, these kids are going through it. There's a lot of pressures on them. New things that they're coming against. There's just so much for them I feel. Denise Wolf [20:37]: Yep. I think part of the reason we collectively adopt, dismiss and minimize adolescents is because they don't want to remember their own eps because they're growing pains. Growing pains, they're emotional and physical. They shut them down, "Be quiet. Get over it. Calm down," like being on an airplane when there's a crying baby and somebody's like, "Shut that baby up." My response is, "Oh, you were born a full grown adult asshole? You were never a baby?" People want to forget or deny their adolescence. Lynn Langan [21:14]: Right, absolutely. Denise Wolf [21:16]: But we don't. That's why we're amazing. Lynn Langan [21:18]: Right. Alyssa Scolari [21:20]: No, that's right. That's why we're fucking amazing at what we do, because we understand the magic that lives in adolescence. I love it. I love it. Tell me, Lynn, where was the inspiration for this book? I'll let you answer that question before I drill you with five more questions. Lynn Langan [21:47]: The idea of we indirectly impact people versus directly impact people has always been fascinating to me, because Denise and I worked at Carson Valley Children's Aid, which is a residential facility for troubled youth. We had a lot of Philadelphian children who came out to our school that were bused in. Alyssa Scolari [22:08]: Is that how the two of you met? Lynn Langan [22:09]: Yes. Denise Wolf [22:10]: Yep. Alyssa Scolari [22:10]: That's awesome. Lynn Langan [22:12]: This one day the guidance counselor came out said, "Okay, I want you to give out a soft pretzel to a student that you think is deserving." We're teachers. We're like a million miles... You just take the ticket and you're like, okay whatever. So, I gave it to this student who was very short, very quiet, very closed off. She didn't like to talk at all. I walked up to her and I said, "Here you go." She started crying. I was like, "What's going on?" She was like, "I didn't think you knew who I was." I'm like, "I'm your teacher for a long time. Of course I know who you are." She was like, "I just didn't think you saw me." From that point on I was like, wow the littlest things that we do really do make a difference sometimes. You don't know. You don't know what that thing is going to be. Then that kind of just fascinated me like how many other things have I done to people that changed their perspective or vice versa. That whole seed was planted in me that I wanted to write this book where you think you know, but you don't know. You don't know what's going on in that person's life. What does that really look like, and how would that really spawn out into a novel? How could I get that across? That's kind of where I started playing with Duke and the Lonely Boy, because they both have these ideas about each other, but they don't really know each other at all. Alyssa Scolari [23:45]: Yeah. Yeah, it seems like... Again, I'm still reading this, but from all that I've gathered from the book so far, it seems like that is the moral... One of the many morals of the story is that you truly just don't know. What you did, is you magically crafted two characters who couldn't be further apart from one another. Without giving too much away, can you say a little bit more about who Duke and the Lonely Boy are? I just love their story right from the get go. Lynn Langan [24:19]: Yeah. It seems stereotypical, but it's not, I promise. Duke is the popular boy, and he's the All-Star football player, and he's got a very bright future ahead of him, but he's struggling in math. So, something very simple. The coach gets him this tutor, Tommy, who is just this outcast, but not in the stereotypical form. He's just quiet and nobody really knows his existence in this school or the story. They meet up and that's how the story begins, but it's told obviously through two perspectives. The first half of the book you're really getting Tommy's perspective as the little person and his story of what's going on. You're seeing him through Duke's eyes as a teenager. I think it's unpacking that for Tommy. Duke's got his own struggles going on, which Tommy kind of looks at like, "What's up? You can't do math, but you got everything else going for you." The story too jumps around in time, which kind of reminds me of therapy work, where it's not like you sit down with the client the first time and tell their entire history. You're working through their story kind of like event by event, and it's not sequential. So we as therapists have to be mindful that we don't make assumptions from go because I think for me one of the big takeaways is when you know, you know, and to remember that you don't. Duke and Tommy have these really complex stories, and have this sort of initial encounter where they think they know each other. Then throughout this jumping in time, back and forth in time and these crossovers of their interactions in their own personal stories, your perspective and understanding and empathy really shifts. Alyssa Scolari [26:18]: Yeah, absolutely. You know what also I love is that you're breaking this stereotype. If a high schooler were to pick up this book and read it, whether that high schooler is the football star in the school, the popular one, or more of the loner, you can still learn something. I love that this breaks the stereotype, because I think a lot of people feel like the kids who are loners are the only kids who have stuff going on. Like "Oh, they've got issues." I can't tell you how many times I have heard other kids be like, "Oh yeah, there's the loner. That's the kid that's going to shoot up the school," and say dumb shit like that that kids say. But you als don't know how much is going on behind the football stars, the basketball stars, the most popular girl. I like that you break that stereotype as well. Lynn Langan [27:24]: I wanted the reader to be able to identify with real characters. These are not those heavy issues in there, but with... I'm not sure if [inaudible 00:27:36] that for you is the right [inaudible 00:27:38]. I feel like the reader deserves that. Alyssa Scolari [27:42]: That it's like there are heavy issues in there. Lynn Langan [27:44]: Yeah, that there's heavy [crosstalk 00:27:45]. Alyssa Scolari [27:45]: Some of its tough. Lynn Langan [27:46]: Yeah, some of its tough, and it's real and maybe you could see yourself in some of these things. I like that Duke is the popular one, but he's growing so much in this story. He's trying to find his place. Just because you're popular doesn't mean you know your place. Duke constantly questions whether is this real, or if I don't keep doing things that these people are saying that I do then I'll lose everything. I do think that that's a struggle for the popular kids. If you could pick up that book as a popular kid and be like, "Yeah. Right, I have things too and I don't know what to do with these things. They're heavy and maybe I don't want to be in the box that I've suddenly found myself in. Maybe I want to go sit with the loner or the art students, or the music group," or whoever. High school is very segregated in where you're going to be, so it's nice for the popular kid to be able to pick up that book and say, "Yeah, I do have things and I don't necessarily know what the hell I'm doing. I don't have it all. I just appear to have it all." Sometimes our appearances really plays with your head. Denise Wolf [29:01]: In a lot of ways, Tommy has more resilience than Duke because Tommy's endured a lot and in some ways that's given him a lot of strength. Lynn Langan [29:12]: Yeah, but he doesn't know he has it. Denise Wolf [29:15]: Right. Lynn Langan [29:15]: Yeah, that's his journey, is that he is authentic to himself, but he doesn't know how to get that out to the world because he's just been shut down by his life situations. Denise Wolf [29:30]: I'm thinking about The Breakfast Club. I'm like is this a modern day Breakfast Club? You know in the end when I think Jeb Nelson's narrating, he's like "In each one of us there's a cheerleader [crosstalk 00:29:40]-" Lynn Langan [29:39]: Oh yeah. Denise Wolf [29:39]: "And the football player." Lynn Langan [29:42]: Right. Denise Wolf [29:43]: Right, and they're dealing with other characters in the book. You meet Charlie, and Lexie, and I'm thinking there's a little bit... It's not like, oh the popular kid's going to read this and identify with Duke. These characters are so well developed and complex. They really speak I think collectively of the adolescent experience. Lynn Langan [30:03]: Yeah, and sometimes I find I read young adult books and they bring up something that's heavy, and then they leave it. They just leave it there- Alyssa Scolari [30:14]: Skirted away, yeah. Lynn Langan [30:15]: It's like, actually that's not what the real emotion of that is. Don't just put it in there because it's heavy. Don't brush over that. We're also, as authors, I think we have a moral code that we should say we're not going to breeze over these emotions because it's not going to sell books or it's not Hollywood enough. No. I think that's what it is. We have the duty as these authors that are writing to these young children to really be their users into the world and validate their feelings that they're feeling, and not gloss over. I was reading a book recently and the main character was raped. Then we were done. I was like nothing- Denise Wolf [31:00]: [crosstalk 00:31:00] that's not how that goes. Lynn Langan [31:01]: That is absolutely not how that goes. Denise Wolf [31:03]: [crosstalk 00:31:03] like that. Lynn Langan [31:05]: Right, my fear is that the young girl who is reading that is like, "Well, I guess I gloss over that, this thing that happened to me. I guess I don't talk about it, or I don't have real feelings about it." Well, no. That's an injustice. Alyssa Scolari [31:22]: Yeah, and as you're both saying this, my adolescence is very much on the forefront of my brain just b because of all the inner child work that I've been doing recently. I have lots of memories from my adolescence, and I was in school. The time that I was in middle school, we didn't talk about this stuff. This really wasn't something that got talked about not even in the slightest. Even today, when it is getting talked about, it's usually not getting talked about correctly, or not handled well. So, we've got a long way to go, but that's a whole other podcast. I turned to books. I was such a reader, and I turned to all of these young adult novels. I remember... As you were saying that Lynn, I'm sitting here and the feeling that I used to feel as a 14 year old is coming back to me, where I was opening these books, these young adult novels, trying to find the darkest ones I could find. I need the darkest book that is in this section that somebody will let me take from this God forsaken school library. I would read it and look, and it would touch on something dark, and that to me would be what I needed to get into. I would be like, "Okay, we're talking about drugs here. We're talking about sexual abuse here." My 14 year old brain is like, "I need more of this. I need more of this. What do you mean you were raped? Are we ever going to talk about this?" No, we're just going to talk about how you got into a fight with your best friend now, and that's the plot. The rape is... So, I love that you're doing that because I agree, and I think that that is such a missing piece for so many young adult novels, is that for Hollywood purposes, for selling purposes, for stigma purposes, because we don't like to talk about these things, a lot of authors gloss over it. There's not many people who dig right into the core and look at all facets of it, because it's uncomfortable for folks. Lynn Langan [33:34]: Yep. Yeah, definitely. There's going to be times where the reader's going to be uncomfortable in Duke and the Lonely Boy, and that's appropriate. My only hope is that I did a good enough job that if it touches one kid's life, if it's a map for one kid's life, then I've done my job. That's kind of what my philosophy is on that. I want to be authentic and give you a real picture of what's going on. Alyssa Scolari [34:04]: Yeah. Lynn Langan [34:05]: Sometimes that's ugly. Alyssa Scolari [34:08]: Sometimes it's ugly, but that's what's so helpful. I know I shared this when we were going back and forth in emails, but for me the book that I was finally able to get my hands on that went into detail, this book it was called Almost Lost. It was the journey of a teenager's healing process and recovery from addiction, and it's the transcript of his therapy sessions were in the book. I read that book and I felt like I was home. Not only did I feel like that therapist in that book was speaking to me as a 14 year old, I was in the eighth grade when I read this book and did a book report on it, but in that moment that book told me this is what I need to do with the rest of my life. When you say "If this book can help one person," I guarantee it's going to help so many more than that because I see what a book did for me. It can change lives. Lynn Langan [35:09]: Right, absolutely. There's a theory I have to bring up here. Alyssa Scolari [35:12]: Please do. Please do. Denise Wolf [35:16]: A theory about why looking at art, why we have sort of these "oh my gosh" relief moments like you're say the art museum, or listening to a piece of well composed music or whatever it is. So, [inaudible 00:35:29] have this series born in psychology to arts that we take a well crafted piece of art, like [inaudible 00:35:36], but we take our defuse tensions and anxieties from our lives, the day, whatever it is, project it into the work of art or reading a book, and through resolution of the formal elements, story after story, our plot, characters, all that kind of stuff, we then experience a sense of our own relief or release of tension, cortisol, all that kind of stuff. I'm really connecting that to when story and your story, and my story of the dark, dark books that I dug out, or the banned books from the library [crosstalk 00:36:11]. Even if it wasn't directly my story to be able to be part of somebody else's that reflected a part of me, that's well crafted, we get a sense of relief and release. Lynn Langan [36:23]: Right, absolutely. Absolutely. Alyssa Scolari [36:26]: Yeah. I have never heard of that before, and that is fascinating. As you're sitting here, I'm such a dork, as you're sitting here saying that, I'm going "Oh shit, that's why I love Harry Potter so much. That's why I can't stop reading Harry Potter." Lynn Langan [36:46]: Yes. Denise Wolf [36:47]: Right, yeah. There's a part of us that we project into these works of art. Then through the character's resolution we experience a sense of our own. Does that mean it's going to fix your problems? No, that's not at all what I'm saying. Lynn Langan [36:59]: No. But sometimes, think we're all saying it too, it's nice to not feel alone. We're not alone and that. Even if it's not our story, if it's just something that's sort of singular or where we can insert ourself, even it's just a false victory because you read the character's victory, it does give you hope. Alyssa Scolari [37:21]: Yes. Lynn Langan [37:22]: And hope is all you really need at the end of the day, because if you feel that you have that, some kind of glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel per se, then you're going to chuck through to the end and find it for yourself. I think. Denise Wolf [37:22]: Yes. Alyssa Scolari [37:38]: Yes. When you are dealing with the biology of an adolescent brain, and their emotional response center is on fire, and their prefrontal cortex, the place for rational thought is under-developed, hope can be a hard, hard thing to come by. Denise Wolf [38:06]: Very. Yeah, it's abstract. I think in adolescent, the top third of their brain is like under construction. Lynn Langan [38:13]: Right. Denise Wolf [38:14]: It's not even there. So, hope is [crosstalk 00:38:16] that belongs in that top third. So, you can talk about it, you have to feel about it. That's where art comes in, to create that- Lynn Langan [38:28]: Yeah, absolutely. Alyssa Scolari [38:31]: Yeah. Lynn Langan [38:33]: There were several scenes in this book that I wrote, and then I would walk away from my desk and come back and be like, "Nope, you wrote that as an adult. Stop. You can't fix the problems like that. Stop it." Alyssa Scolari [38:50]: Yeah, now this might a little bit of a, I guess, abstract question, but was there anything that you had to do to be able to really channel your inner adolescent? Or is that something that's very easily accessible to you? Lynn Langan [39:05]: It's something I think is very easily accessible to me, for some reason. It's a gift that [crosstalk 00:39:11]- Alyssa Scolari [39:11]: It's a gift. A gift and a curse. Lynn Langan [39:15]: [crosstalk 00:39:15]. It's both those things. I was reading this book. I'm dyslexic, so there's book about... A dyslexic author wrote this book about the gifts of being dyslexic. One of the things is that the way we form memories around the events that are happening because for a normal brain it goes syntax... What's that word? Here we go, [crosstalk 00:39:39]. Denise Wolf [39:39]: It's synapsis. Lynn Langan [39:41]: Synapsis. But for a dyslexic brain, it kind of takes a U turn. It pings differently, and because of that we're really grounded in memory. We have an excellent memory for all things, but that's kind of like our survival guide because it's how we thrive. Because of that, I can basically tell you everything that's happened in my life. My memory, for some reason, well not for some reason, for that reason is extremely strong. When I sit down to write these adolescent books, I can just sit down and be like, "Okay, you're 17. Go." You got to think of high school, of events, and just remember how small my brain was, or what I was thinking or feeling at that point. Then I can dive in. That's how I know when I'm not being authentic to the characters or the voice, is when I feel like my adult brain is coming in and being like, "Well, that was easy." I'm like, wait no, it shouldn't be easy. It's not an easy [crosstalk 00:40:39] job. You can't think like that. I feel like because of all of that, that's why I'm very good with my memories and all of that. Denise Wolf [40:47]: Mm-hmm [affirmative], it makes sense. Lynn Langan [40:48]: Mm-hmm [affirmative], I'm very in touch with that. Denise Wolf [40:52]: Fun fact about Lynn, oh my gosh, this so cool, Lynn has soundtracks or song for the characters, so trying to get into character, then they're like, "Oh I need to listen [crosstalk 00:41:03]." Alyssa Scolari [41:03]: Really? Oh, that's so cool. Lynn Langan [41:06]: Right, yeah. It's that initial, here's the story that I'm thinking in my head. Here's the soundtrack that I'm going to put to that, and [inaudible 00:41:14] music. It's very helpful in rewrites because my agent's coming back and saying, "Go into this novel and fix this problem." I'm like, "What? That was so long ago. Oh, I know. I'll just hit this play button right here." And then boom, I'm right back into their world. I'm right there. Alyssa Scolari [41:32]: That is brilliant. Where did you even think to be able to do that? [inaudible 00:41:38] music, depending on whatever you put on, can get you anywhere. Anywhere you want to go- Lynn Langan [41:45]: Yes, anywhere you want to go. Alyssa Scolari [41:46]: Music will take you there. Lynn Langan [41:48]: Yes, it will take you there. The writing process is unique in the fact that you sit down to the computer and you're asking yourself to leave yourself. You're asking yourself to forget about whatever troubles you had that day, or your perspective of the world, or sometimes your gender, and go. As a writer, that's the thing that you have to work on the most, is who is actually at the keyboard today? Is it Lynn, or is it Duke, or is it Tommy? Who is it? In order for me to train my mind to do that, when I first wrote my first novel, I would play their songs. I would play them three or four times before I even put my hands to the keyboard because I knew I had to listen to it repeatedly to get all of my personal baggage out of the way so that the character could step forward and would be influenced in my writing. I can do it now without music. It's really just training your... It's almost like a meditative state, is what I would best explain. You consciously ask yourself to exit. Alyssa Scolari [42:54]: That's fascinating and brilliant. Wow. Denise Wolf [42:59]: Something else [crosstalk 00:43:00] tell me about writing, because I've done some academic writing, is to write first with an old timey pen on paper. There's something about that kinesthetic sensory, just kind of writing actual words on paper and then the first edit becomes entering it into the keyboard. That connects so much more with sort of the I think emotional part of ourselves. Lynn Langan [43:25]: Absolutely. I usually edit... My first round, I'll print out the manuscript and edit that way because there's something about that process that gets you at a computer. Alyssa Scolari [43:35]: Agreed. Lynn Langan [43:36]: It's more authentic to you. Alyssa Scolari [43:38]: Yes, agreed. There's something so different that comes out of you when you are physically writing than hitting buttons on a keyboard. It's a completely different experience. Lynn Langan [43:51]: Absolutely, yeah. Alyssa Scolari [43:54]: I talk about journaling with some of my kids who I feel like it might be helpful for, and they're like, "Can I just type it out on my phone?" I'm like, "Hell no." Lynn Langan [44:04]: No. [crosstalk 00:44:06]. Get that pen in your hand. Feel it. [crosstalk 00:44:08]. Alyssa Scolari [44:08]: And get a fun pen, right? Lynn Langan [44:10]: Yes. Alyssa Scolari [44:11]: I have a set of I think it's like 100 pack. Oh God, 100 pack of glitter gel pens. I'm still a giant child. Denise Wolf [44:21]: Yep. Yeah. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Are they scented? Alyssa Scolari [44:26]: Denise, I looked for the scented ones. Lord knows that I tried. Unfortunately, they're not. Denise Wolf [44:31]: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Alyssa Scolari [44:34]: But I wish. The last question I want to ask you, because I also think this is important because I do know that we have listeners out there who are parents, and if they don't have an adolescent currently, they have an up and coming adolescent or adolescents at home. Do you feel that this book is one that can also help parents and even any adults who work with kids get a better view inside the mind of a kid, which will then also better help them to relate to their kid in real life? Does that make sense? Denise Wolf [45:14]: Yes and yes. Alyssa Scolari [45:15]: Okay. Lynn Langan [45:18]: One of the things that you try to do as a young adult writer is remembering the place of everybody in their lives. Yes, you're living in a family. Yes, you have chores and you have bedtimes, and you have all those things. That's all true. But what's really important is the social aspect. That's where you're getting all your connections, and that's the most important part. As a parent, I think it's easy to look at your 17 or 16 year old kid and forget that there's this whole other life that is very complicated. You're just thinking they're upstairs in their room. They're taking out the trash. It's easy to get into the routine of life and forget that there's these little stories that these kids are having that have nothing to do with you. [crosstalk 00:46:08]. You can only hope that you're a great parent and you modeled well, because they're out there in the real world by themselves, and this is the time. I think that's why I like this age, because it is the loosening of the parents and the influence, and the family structure, which is also very hard on the parents, but it's just as hard on the kids. It's that constant, I think you see that a lot with Duke, where he feels guilty for not watching football with his dad because that's what they used to do. He has a social life now, and he needs to go out with his friends, but he still has that little internal battle like, "I'm going," but there's also a sadness that I know that this slipping away. Even though I'm looking forward to my independence, it is also scary. I think for both parents and kids, that's a good reminder of that. Denise Wolf [47:01]: Right, that it's all the feels. It's all the feels. I had to do an art engagement with youth, so I had to craft a 50 message about adolescents to adolescence. So, that's not a lot of words. Lynn helped me write it, thank you, and it started off with "No matter what, it's going to hurt." It was really great, if I do say so, and I submitted and they changed it before publication and didn't check with me. So, when I read my message to adolescents in this glossy thing they put out, it was like being a teen is great. I'm like, fuck no. Alyssa Scolari [47:37]: What the fuck? Denise Wolf [47:39]: [crosstalk 00:47:39] I said it's going to hurt, but it's okay. Alyssa Scolari [47:44]: You wrote, "It's going to hurt," and they took that and said, "Being a teen is great"? Denise Wolf [47:44]: Yeah. Lynn Langan [47:50]: Yeah. Denise Wolf [47:51]: Mm-hmm [affirmative], [crosstalk 00:47:52]. Alyssa Scolari [47:51]: Jesus Lord Almighty. Denise Wolf [47:55]: To your question earlier, Alyssa, I think it's really valuable and important for adults, educators remind ourselves of all that angsty stuff, all the feels. Get back into that. Like, no matter what it's going to hurt. You're going to be okay, but can't escape the pain. That's where growth happens. Lynn Langan [48:15]: Right, exactly. Just go ahead and feel what you need to feel. It'll be funny if you interviewed I would say Duke's family, they also I think would come away and have the perspective that everything in Duke's life is okay, where it's not. His family member that really knows that is his sister, which is also good for parents to I think see from that angle that siblings have that connection with each other and they can look out for each other, or they can call each other out on their bullshit, or any of that. Yeah, it's just a weird time in the like where everybody's learning how to let go of this family unit. Denise Wolf [48:57]: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Alyssa Scolari [49:00]: I think the most important part is just what both of you were speaking to is, being able as adults to get back in touch with not just the angst, but all of the feelings. I think so much of adulthood has become just about numbing out, by working 9:00 to 5:00, playing music or a podcast, or a news radio in the car to and from work. You come home. You eat. You do whatever. You go to bed, and you do it all the next days. Weekends stereotypically include going out, drinking, this, that... it's so focused around just numbing out. As adults, we almost just even have time for our feelings. I think that's what makes the three of us so fucking incredible, because I don't sense that we do that. We feel things. Denise Wolf [49:52]: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Lynn Langan [49:52]: Yeah. Alyssa Scolari [49:53]: And refuse to live in the numbed out state that I think a lot of adults have found themselves in. Denise Wolf [50:01]: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Lynn Langan [50:01]: Yeah. I should say I think one of the best advice that Denise has ever given me in my life was that she said, when I was going through some tough times, she was like "Look, pull up a chair. Make yourself a cup of tea. Get to know that feeling that you're feeling. Ask it questions. Just don't shy away from it. Lean into it." It's really good advice to remember that as an adult, you're right, we get into these routines and again, we get more and more narrow in our thinking, in the way... I think that's part of society's pressure too, like don't talk about your feelings. Just do, do, do. It's okay to have feelings around if you want to feel sad. It's okay to feel sad. If things are not working out, it's okay that things aren't working out. It's not the end of the world. That's what's so fun about adolescents too is that they can fall down and get back up. You're so resilient when you're young, because you just haven't really quite learned to stay on the floor. I think that's probably what the three of us have learned, we keep standing up. We're going to take the punches in the ring and it's going to hurt, but we keep going and we're going to feel those feelings, we're going to figure out how not to get hit by that again- Denise Wolf [51:17]: But we probably will. Lynn Langan [51:18]: We probably will. Denise Wolf [51:19]: We will. [crosstalk 00:51:20]. Lynn Langan [51:22]: Yeah, we won't shy away from it. Denise Wolf [51:23]: Yeah, and we'll have great stories to tell. Lynn Langan [51:26]: Yeah, exactly. Alyssa Scolari [51:27]: Yes, that's living. To me, that's living at it's fullest. Lynn Langan [51:31]: Right, absolutely. Denise Wolf [51:33]: Yep. Alyssa Scolari [51:34]: I love it. Lynn Langan [51:34]: Through mistakes. Yeah. Alyssa Scolari [51:37]: If people would like to buy this book, where on earth can they find it? I know Amazon is one, but I also want to plug if it's in any kind of small businesses or anything like that, or is it mostly Amazon? Lynn Langan [51:50]: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the great and wonderful Bookshop where you can go on and order it and it fosters independent bookstores. So, if you buy it from Bookshop it will be pulled from your local store. Bookshop.org, yeah. Alyssa Scolari [52:06]: Bookshop.org. Okay, I will make sure... So yeah, to the listeners out there, this is a book you absolutely going to want to get your hands on, whether you're an adolescent tuning in, whether you're in the young adult phase of your life, whether you have kids of you own, whether you are a teacher, or a therapist, truthfully even if you're a therapist who works with adults, so many of the adults that you're working with have unresolved childhood issues. I don't like the word "issues", but I can't think of a better word right now. It's very important to be able to tap into this type of stuff. Honestly, this book is very useful for everybody. Of course, feel free to use Amazon because it'll get to you very quickly, but also I am going to put the other link in there because, you know, support your local bookstore, or support small businesses as well. So, head over to the show notes. Denise and Lynn, thank you for a wonderful episode. I love talking about kids. Lynn Langan [53:13]: Yes. Alyssa Scolari [53:14]: It's been fun. Lynn Langan [53:14]: Yeah, thanks for having us. Denise Wolf [53:16]: Yeah, thank you. Alyssa Scolari [53:17]: Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information please head over to LightAfterTrauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we @LightAfterTrauma. On Twitter, it is @LightAfterPod. Lastly, please head over to Patreon.com/LightAfterTrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5.00 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So, please head on over. Again, that's Patreon.com/LightAfterTrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support. [singing]

On Today’s Show: Doing a Best Of Show this morning. I’ll be back later today with a brand new episode! Voicemail: 206-666-4463 (206-66-OH GOD)  Have Your Voicemail Played On The Show E-mail: show@distortedview.com – Say hi, suggest news stories, videos, audio, etc. Discord: The DV discord server! Chat with like-minded monsters. The DV Subreddit: Share links to DV worthy […]

Recorded before this week's reshuffle was finalised. For full analysis, listen to our Emergency Pod!As Boris Johnson kicks Gavin Williamson out from the cabinet, the issues of trade with the EU, especially in Northern Ireland, have been kicked into the long grass once again. Independent MLA Claire Sugden joins the panel for the view from across the Irish Sea. Plus, as the chess pieces move around him, Health Sec Sajid Javid announces the government's plan to tackle Covid in England over the winter. And, a year since Ian's book was released, he reflects on Covid's effect on liberalism and what it means to be free in a world where freedoms are being suppressed across the world… "Liberalism demands of you to imagine what life is like for others." - Ian Dunt"How can it be five years, and we're still talking about Percy Pigs at the border?" - Ian Dunt"Our government has got its eyes on lowering food standards." - Naomi Smith"I'm less concerned about when the Northern Ireland administration collapses, and more what happens afterwards." - Claire Sugdenwww.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnowHow to be a Liberal is out in paperback now with an exclusive chapter at Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-to-be-a-liberal/ian-dunt/2928377065010Presented by Alex Andreou with Naomi Smith and Ian Dunt. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The mince pies and P45s arrive on the shelves earlier every year. That's right, it's reshuffle season - and we're here with an emergency pod to assess the latest shower of sycophants. With Oliver Dowden taking over as party chair, are the Tories now on election footing? What awaits the justice system with Dominic Raab in charge? Can the panel bring themselves to speak the name of the new Culture Secretary, Nadin- Nadine Do- Na- oh, never mind, we can't do it either.“It's sense of moral despair that the Justice system is a consolation prize to someone who's messed up elsewhere” - Ian Dunt“Tory members see Truss as a modern day Thatcher” - Naomi Smith“Liz Truss has been able to produce ‘copy and paste' trade deals very effectively” - Naomi Smith“You get the sense this will be the team that will lead the Tories into the next election” - Ian Dunt“The best cabinet is where you have people who disagree, who raise problems, rather than closing yourself in an echo chamber” - Ian Dunt“Grant Shapps is doing an awful job at transport, especially on HGV drivers, yet he's still in there” - Alex Andreouwww.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnowPresented by Alex Andreou with Naomi Smith and Ian Dunt. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On Today’s Show: No show notes today, sorry. Watch This instead! Voicemail: 206-666-4463 (206-66-OH GOD)  Have Your Voicemail Played On The Show E-mail: show@distortedview.com – Say hi, suggest news stories, videos, audio, etc. Discord: The DV discord server! Chat with like-minded monsters. The DV Subreddit: Share links to DV worthy audio/video and news stories BE A PART OF THIS […]

On Today’s Show: Introduction 0:00.000 Happy Labor Day! 3:14.682 Amusement Park Music Studio Booths 4:31.154 Christian Comedian / Ex-Satanist 13:21.426 Voicemails / Ending 23:31.626 Voicemail: 206-666-4463 (206-66-OH GOD)  Have Your Voicemail Played On The Show E-mail: show@distortedview.com – Say hi, suggest news stories, videos, audio, etc. Discord: The DV discord server! Chat with like-minded monsters. The DV Subreddit: Share […]

“We are in a crisis and this governor is raising money off of anti-Fauci merch and going to other states to do fundraisers,” Florida Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried says of Ron DeSantis. Also in the episode, Ian Dunt—editor-at-large of Politics.co.uk, host of the Oh God, What Now? podcast, author of How to Be a Liberal—talks about Boris Johnson's COVID fiasco in Britain, where he hosted a reopening celebration just as the Delta variant spiked. Dunt goes deep on the Tory government's creeping authoritarianism and the U.K.'s new Fox News-on-the-cheap, GB News. Finally, Molly and co-host Jesse Cannon are joined by veteran New York Democratic guru Hank Sheinkopf, who explains why there'll be even more chaos if Gov. Andrew Cuomo is removed from office over his harassment allegations—and whether AG Tish James can succeed him as governor.If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast's membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O'Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you'll support The Beast's fearless journalism. Plus! You'll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.