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Paint by Number is Fine. A Coloring Book is a Threat! · You're Not Too Much

• 0:00
  I had like a visceral reaction to it. I was like, it just looks
• 0:03
  like failure to me. That is a blank sheet of failure.
• 0:08
  I say this as a person whose favorite playground is the fridge.
• 0:12
  If you're actually hungry and that makes you nauseous, you
• 0:15
  need to go talk to a doctor. And I was like, oh,
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  I didn't realize you guys actually paid attention to that. All
• 0:23
  right, here we go. I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record 'cause that feels right. Okay,
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  I'm pressing record. Hi
• 0:30
  everybody, I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different
• 0:34
  Not Broken, which is our podcast on exactly that—
• 0:37
  that there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken, and
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  the reality is you're just different, and that's fine. So
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  I'm very fortunate to have lovely people in my lives—
• 0:48
  my lives? I have multiple lives apparently. My life. I have a singular life—
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  who like to try to buy me things to help me
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  relax or unwind because they know my life
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  is in general very stressful and I do very complex,
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  very complicated things all day. And so they do lovely, wonderful, sweet,
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  kind things like buy me gifts. The one
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  that I not get most often, but that I have gotten many, many times
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  before is coloring
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  books. Which I totally get, totally
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  get, because it's supposed to be really relaxing
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  and it's kind of a mindless activity. And you know, I'm a proponent for mindless
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  activities and I love puzzles and I like paint-by-numbers.
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  And so for Christmas and my birthday and stuff, a number of
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  people have purchased coloring books for me.
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  I think along that same vein, like, you like mindless things, so here's a coloring
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  book. Please. Please
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  don't buy me coloring books. I
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  appreciate it so much that you would think about me and that you would
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  want to buy me something, especially something that will allow me to
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  relax and unwind. But I need you to understand that
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  there is nothing in this world more stressful
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  than a coloring book.
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  It is, it is a, it is a
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  book full of spaces. Actually, I
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  take that back. The only thing maybe more stressful than a coloring book is if
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  you were to give me a fully blank page and expect me to come up
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  with something pretty. But actually, I think that might even be better
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  because I can draw bubble letters and that's probably what I would draw because I
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  was a child of the '90s. So, hmm. Like,
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  coloring books often have very complex patterns. Or
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  even not so complex patterns. And I have to—
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  I have to pick colors to
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  color in the spaces. And what if I pick
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  the wrong color? What if it's not
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  spaced out enough? You guys give me these books that have these beautiful
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  mandalas in them that I want to color and I want to make beautiful.
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  And then I sit and stare at my box of markers
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  Like it is taunting me because I am supposed to pick one of
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  them and know that it's
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  the right color and that the color spacing will be correct
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  and that I won't totally ruin it and
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  that I won't put too many similar colors next to each other.
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  And this is too stressful. It is too much
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  pressure. I can't handle it. Okay?
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  It's too much. This is not— this
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  is not— this is not relaxing. I'm, I'm stressed just
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  thinking about it, and I don't even have a coloring book in front of me.
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  There are no colored pencils near me. There is nothing
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  that needs to be filled in. Nothing.
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  There— the expectations are too high,
• 4:00
  and I cannot deliver. Now,
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  a paint-by-number or color-by-number, probably
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  okay, but it has to, it has to
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  have the actual colors you're supposed to use in the box
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  or the package. Because my husband, being a lovely
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  man who knows what I like, got me
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  a Golden Girls color-by-number.
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  And he, but it didn't come with, it didn't
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  come with the markers. It didn't come with like any, nothing.
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  So I had to take their color suggestions and find
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  my own colors in my box of colors. I've got a
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  lot of crayons and markers. Leave me alone. I'm a grownup. Anyway,
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  I could, I spend my grownup money on markers. Bite me. But then
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  the colors weren't like, then they didn't match exactly. And then, and
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  then. Sophia Petrillo looked like a peach.
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  It was just the wrong shade, and I didn't have enough—
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  I didn't have enough different shades because, you know, you know that Blanche
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  Devereaux was tan. You know she was.
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  Sophia Petrillo was not. And so,
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  like, even having the color by number that said, like, color this gray, I was
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  like, which gray? I have 7 grays.
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  Bought a lot of markers. Okay. So anyway, that did not work either, but
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  a paint-by-number that literally comes with the little paint pots and they're marked with a
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  number and I just have to— amazing.
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  I can do that. I can handle that. Now I will say that I
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  used to stress a lot because I would do my paint-by-numbers and they would not
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  look like a Van Gogh because
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  I have no artistic talent whatsoever. And it would break my heart
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  that I didn't just pick up a cheap paintbrush that I definitely bought from
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  Walmart and all of a sudden have the
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  capacity to do impressionist art. That upset me.
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  But I had a friend at one point tell me that it's— you're allowed to
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  do things that you're not good at just because you enjoy them. And so I've
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  just decided that I'm making ugly art and that makes me feel better. Like I'm
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  just— that's the goal. The goal is for it to be ugly and then I
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  don't feel bad about making it ugly because I'm not a skilled painter. If I
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  was, I would not be filling in a box based on the number
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  on a pot of acrylic paint.
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  But the decision fatigue is high.
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  And I— there are too many choices
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  and I do not like choices. I want as few
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  choices as possible. If there was a restaurant that had like
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  chicken fingers or a burger, that would be my favorite restaurant. Not even because
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  I want chicken fingers or a burger, but because on any
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  given day I will know which one I want more.
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  And there, and that it will be fine. Even if I don't want either that
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  badly, I will know which one I want more.
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  So that restaurant is my favorite restaurant because no
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  thinking or very little thinking, limited thinking. Anyway,
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  if you also struggle with coloring books, and I know there are others like this.
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  Like me, my children were coloring the other day
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  and our babysitter was sitting with them
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  and she had her own coloring sheet, which she does not usually do. And
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  as I walked past, she held it up with— it had no colors on
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  it. She held it up and she was like, this is my nightmare. And I
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  had like a visceral reaction to it. I was like, it just looks like
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  failure to me. That is. That is a blank sheet of failure.
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  Everything I do from here on out is gonna be wrong. Get that thing away
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  from me. And she was like, exactly. She said, so if it's okay with you,
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  I'm just gonna throw this out when I'm done with it, cuz I wanna, I
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  wanna enjoy this time with the kids, but I don't wanna, I don't want any
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  remnants of it. And then they were like, okay. So yeah, don't
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  buy me coloring books because there is too much pressure
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  involved in that.
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  There's a coloring book right there. I was like staring at it as I was
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  talking. I was
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  like, I was trying to burn it with my eyes. I was trying to light
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  it on fire like the burning bush
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  coloring book. You know, it's kind of funny. I can't believe
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  I don't sign off the podcast this way because like I have a very
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  distinctive sign-off for the podcast, but literally I end every single
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  conversation with somebody that has like a definitive ending,
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  like a phone call or a Zoom, or even just like talking to somebody
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  in person and walking away. Somebody I know, I don't know, not like my husband
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  or my children, but like if I'm ending a conversation and walking away, I end
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  it the same way, literally every single time, I don't even realize
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  I do it anymore. Apparently I don't do it when I'm
• 9:02
  clowning and jackasses on the internet, but
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  if you talk to me one-to-one, I do this every time.
• 9:10
  I'll say, hey, have a great day. Nice to talk to you. Be good.
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  And then hang up. And I do it literally every
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  single time. And I have for— I think I forgot that I do it. It's
• 9:21
  completely involuntary at this point, but it started.
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  Very genuinely when I was running substance use clinics.
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  So I run a mental health clinic now that is fully virtual, but for a
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  long time I ran an in-person mental health and substance use clinic, and we dealt
• 9:37
  with a lot of patients who had recently gotten into a whole lot of trouble.
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  And literally as they would leave every single time, I would
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  say to them, be good. And it started as
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  like kind of a joke, but also kind of a, like, I don't
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  wanna see a mugshot of you between now and the next time I see you.
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  Which was a thing that happened, not all the time, but it
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  did happen. And so anytime they left, I would always say, have a good day,
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  be good. So much so
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  that one time I forgot to say it, not realizing that I said it that
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  often. And one of my patients was like, I'm leaving. What are you supposed
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  to say to me? And I was like, bye. And he
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  was like, no. He was like, you're supposed to tell me to be good.
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  And I was like, oh, I didn't realize that you guys actually paid attention to
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  that. And he goes, I do pay attention to that and it matters to me,
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  but I say it all the time. So it started out as an
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  actual thing, like, please make good choices when you leave this place.
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  Please pick up the phone and call me before you do a stupid thing.
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  Please, you know, we have all the tools in the world for you. Be good.
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  And if you feel like you can't be good, call me instead, uh, or call
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  our office instead or whatever. And I mean, we're talking about thousands
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  of patients over a 10-year period that I said it to. And so it, it
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  just kind of became part of,
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  part of what actually, I think it started as be good and don't do anything
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  I wouldn't do. I, I used to say that to them all the time
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  and that actually worked in that environment cuz I'm a tremendously boring person and I
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  always have been. So like, it's not like I was ever leaving my office and
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  getting into any kind of trouble that was interesting. Aside from like maybe
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  mouthing off to somebody for being a jackal. Like other than that, there
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  was nothing interesting happening, but then it was eventually just be good.
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  And I have not run a substance use clinic in like 10
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  years, but it's still stuck there and it still works. It still
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  matters. It's still something that's really important to me because
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  it doesn't matter what you're going through. I think when you, you know, when you
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  are proceeding away from whatever conversation we're having, I
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  want you to one, have a good day. I want you to two, make good
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  choices. And 3, I want you to make the best of
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  whatever is being presented to you from that point forward.
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  And so it's, again, like I don't even realize I do
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  it. It's fully pathological now, but if I don't
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  say it, people catch me. And I actually had somebody comment on one of my
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  LinkedIn posts the other day that I had, I guess we had talked and
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  they, I didn't say it before we signed off and they were like, that was
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  the first time you had ever not said it. And it was weird. And I
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  was like, This has followed me around this
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  far. Really? So anyway, I mean
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  it. When you leave this place, be good. One, make good choices. Two,
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  be good to other people. Three, be good to yourself.
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  And four,
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  you know, do something to give yourself the life that you wanna have that day.
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  Be good. It is not, it does not mean be
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  holy or pious or, or unfun.
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  In fact, I support you in most of the debauchery that you will get into.
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  I live vicariously through the debauchery that the people I care about get into.
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  But if you ever, if you ever talk to me one-to-one, I guarantee
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  you as a sign-off, it will come out. And I promise you, I don't realize
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  it. And it is just part of my personality at this point
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  is it started off as a way to encourage people
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  who needed to make better choices to continue to make better choices. And it
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  has just become fully ingrained in my psyche
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  in a way that will never go away. And also
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  other important things, other very important things.
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  That is the way, that is the way that I sign off every single phone
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  call. And now we'll
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  go to Alison who has this week's Small Talk. We
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  have a question from Simone in Oakland, California.
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  I get frustrated when people say, listen to your body,
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  because my body gives mixed messages. Tired
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  but wired. Calm but anxious.
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  Hungry but nauseous. How do you make decisions when the
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  signals are all crossed? Somebody needs to have
• 13:56
  a talk with your body. That's not fun. That's,
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  that's rude. Listen to your body isn't great
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  advice at baseline. Like, it's, it's not
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  bad. It's not bad advice. I, the, the intention is
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  good. The intention is good, which is that
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  there's a part of you that will tell you what you need and
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  you should listen to that part of you. However,
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  there are absolutely times when the wires get crossed.
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  100%. There are times when the wires get crossed.
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  No question.
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  The reason I say that is if
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  you were— if,
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  like, there, there can be very serious conditions
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  very serious acute episodes of something
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  where you feel funny and your instinct is to go to sleep,
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  right? Because you feel like rest is the way to handle it. Well, in
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  those situations, rest could actually kill you, right? Because something
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  horrific could happen in your sleep. Now, that's an extreme example of it,
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  but there are times when our body tells us to do something that is
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  decidedly not what the body needs to do. I'll give you an example.
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  In the afternoon, when you are exhausted, when you're hitting your afternoon
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  crash, taking a nap is not actually the way to handle
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  the crash. The way to handle the crash, and this is me talking to myself
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  more than anybody else, the way to handle the crash is to get up and
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  walk around and move around and like get your heart rate up because that actually
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  will wake you up. If you go take a nap, odds are you're gonna wanna
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  take a much longer nap than what you needed, and then you're gonna be foggy
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  after that nap, and it's not like it's not gonna be a restorative nap, right?
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  But you're having a crash because you're in the middle of the, it's the middle
• 15:48
  of afternoon, your blood sugar's low, things are boring. The office you're in is probably
• 15:51
  cold. You're wearing a sweater that makes you warm. Like there's 10,000 reasons why you
• 15:55
  could be having a crash at that point. And your body is saying,
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  or what you hear it saying is, I am gonna go lay down and rest.
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  And in reality, it's you need to get up and walk around, talk to
• 16:06
  somebody, get, get the blood flowing, get a change of scenery, and then that's actually
• 16:10
  better for you. That's actually the better outcome for you. So definitely like
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  that is you hearing one thing when your body's actually telling you something else. However,
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  every single one of those things that you explained
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  has a more prevalent
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  need out of the two of them that you described, right? So you said
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  tired but wired. Okay. Odds are there,
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  you're tired. And you're probably
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  tired because you're wired. So how do we overcome
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  that part of it so that you can go to
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  sleep? Like, there's a problem to fix there that's making you tired but wired.
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  Same thing, hungry but nauseous. Like, you shouldn't be nauseous when you're hungry. There's a
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  problem to fix there. Now, is it because you waited too long to eat?
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  Do you need to eat more often? Because hungry is the emotion there.
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  Now, if you're actually hungry and not bored, I say this as a
• 17:05
  person whose favorite playground is the fridge
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  because I get bored and I go play there. If you're actually hungry
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  and that makes you nauseous, you need to go talk to a doctor.
• 17:17
  But if you're hungry— if you're nauseous because you're hungry because you
• 17:21
  waited too long to eat, then you need to keep snacks with you and
• 17:24
  you need to eat them regularly because that shouldn't be happening either.
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  So like the the two sides of those, there's a prevailing thing.
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  There's a more important thing in each of the, the, the pairs that you
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  mentioned. And you have to do, be able to do
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  that first one. So you gotta figure out the second one
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  and your body's definitely telling you something and it is probably telling you the first
• 17:47
  one. So we need to figure out why the second one is interfering.
• 17:51
  Thanks for being here, guys. Have a good day. Love you. Mean
• 17:54
  it.
• 18:00
  I am now remembering that my dad had a way that he
• 18:04
  signed off every single phone call that was the same regardless who he was
• 18:08
  talking to, and it was always, "Okay, thanks a lot, bye-bye."
• 18:13
  And it is making me laugh that I have now developed my own
• 18:16
  idiosyncratic way of ending phone calls.
• 18:20
  So as an end to this segment, Okay, thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
• 18:24
  And be good.