Latest / age / Ep. 12: Crying, Grief & The Emotions We're Holding

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Ep. 12: Crying, Grief & The Emotions We're Holding · age

• 0:01
  Jeannie, what was your favorite point of this podcast? It was hearing about your spiritual awakening. Yeah, it was beautiful. Mine was when Jeannie said, I'll give you something to cry about. We all had a visceral response to that. Mine was when Jeannie was talking about how emotions can be malleable. And like clay. Well, a lot of cat talk this episode. Yeah.
• 0:31
  On the wider side, love hearing about everybody's cats. People love cats. Mine was just pulling such a subject that had such relevance for this group and for the guests, and I thought it was a very special episode.
• 0:54
  my insoles and they lifted my feet too high. And then they were, yeah, then they, yeah. Then my heel kept coming, feeling like it was gonna come out. Feels like this is a dig at my shortness. Lifting the waist. No, not at all. Hey, welcome to Age. We're glad you're here today. I'm glad you're choosing to spend the time with us. I'm your host, Reggie Tidwell. Today we have Jeannie Adair. We have Tim Scroggs, of course, who's a regular. And then we have Ricardo Dejeda,
• 1:23
  Ricardo, I like that. We call him, belovedly, Ricky. Ricky. Yep. My wife calls me Ricky. He's fine. Yeah. My parents call me Ricardo. Really? I love it. See, my dad used to call me Reginald, but usually when I was in trouble. So when people say it, it's like a trauma response. That's like a, man, Reginald's like a...
• 1:45
  You don't hear that name. No. And it's like, I don't think anybody who was given the birth name Reginald goes by Reginald. I'd be concerned if they did, unless they were like British or some English or something, you know, Reginald, it's so proper. It's so proper. It's overly proper. I didn't get the sheet on everybody's. So I'm going to try this out. You are marketing strategist, strategist for startup called CX.
• 2:10
  I'm a head of creative for a customer experience startup. Okay, for a customer experience. It involves a lot of strategy. It does involve a lot of strategy. Yeah, I would imagine it does. Absolutely. And then Ricky is a phenomenal designer, photographer, and storyteller. He's a videographer. He does a lot of storytelling.
• 2:30
  We'll have all of both of their details in the caption when this goes live. But let's go ahead and get a topic. So somebody want to pass me the can. You want the trash can? Pass me the can. Oh, I put my sticky in there. I thought it was a trash can.
• 2:45
  We're going to pull that one. We do find trash in there randomly. So that must be the guests throwing trash in our trash can. Pulling out peels. Traditionally what it's for. So you're not wrong. Yes. Traditionally, trash cans are used for trash. But today, it's the right thing. Yeah. So I'm going to take a peek here and see what's going on. This is going to be an interesting one.
• 3:09
  All right, guys. You ready for this? Y'all ready for this? So, crying. Oh, wow. All right. Yeah. I immediately think of a growingly popular influencer, I guess you could call him, Prof G. Have you heard of him? Mm-mm.
• 3:33
  Oh, I have heard of him. Maybe from you, actually. Yeah, I can't remember his full name right now off the top of my head. Maybe it's Prophet G. It's actually Professor G. He started as a university professor, but he really speaks to young boys. I mean, young men, like teenage. Okay. And he helps young men find their place in the world. He speaks about all subjects, politics, politics.
• 3:58
  money saving family but he just had this podcast episode where he found his ability to cry and like he's discovered his ability to show and to feel affection
• 4:14
  At a very late time in life, and so I was watching this video with my son, who's 17 now, and it was him giving a 17-year-old advice. And it had everything to do with feeling your feelings and crying, which, I mean, that's like, I just think it's rare to hear someone talking about crying.
• 4:35
  I think, for me, I think the first thing that comes to mind is how, certainly in a black community, you're told, like, not to cry because it shows, like, weakness. And so I grew up around men who never showed their emotion. And I loved crying. I think, you know, for me, I think we talked about this maybe on another episode, but I had this one moment when I was around 10 where I had this little –
• 5:04
  music photo box thing. Yeah. And it had all these pictures of me when I was like a baby on it. And I was sitting in like the sunspot and I had that thing and I spent it and I heard the music and I was watching these pictures of me. And I got filled with emotion because it was the realization that I will never be that.
• 5:26
  person again. But the release of crying felt so good that I understand that it's bullshit to like hold that in. And so I've always been comfortable with crying. And in fact, in fact, I think
• 5:41
  It's important to have that, even if you have to force that kind of release, because when you pin up those emotions, I think over time, they come on other areas, you know, even physically. And so I think a good monthly cry, it's a good thing. Do you plan it? Like put it on your Google calendar? No, it's like, it's been a while since I cried. Let me put on a sad song.
• 6:02
  have a drive around in the rain who do you put on what's your music of choice for crying oh gosh man there's so many good songs REM's Everybody Hurts that's such a good one man certain chord progressions just get you sometimes you'll be driving and
• 6:24
  You know, you might be having kind of an average day or kind of feeling alone or whatever. And a certain note will just bam, just get you and just trigger those tear ducts. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I used to be as a child, I used to be a big crybaby.
• 6:40
  I was like... I think crying and crybaby might be in two different categories. Yeah, no, yeah. But, like, I was like, I would, like, like, the waterworks would start easily. Like, if I, like, like, if I fell or hurt myself as a child, like...
• 6:54
  I would instantly cry. Sometimes very, like, minimal things. There was one time I stepped on a rusty nail when I was six, and I didn't even realize it, and I didn't do anything. That would make me cry. Yeah. Very weird. As a grown-up, that would make me cry. The opposite. Yeah.
• 7:12
  But like kind of the same, like, man, I think I've seen my mom cry once. I don't think I've ever really seen my dad cry. I've never seen my mom or dad cry. That's what my kids say. They're like, I never see you cry, dad. I'm like, I cry. I think I cry after you guys go to bed. Yeah. I see him get emotional now in his older age.
• 7:32
  um but yeah kind of the same man like being a like slight kid growing up i'm five six now so imagine me as a child um like five two growing up yeah growing up where i grew up like a rough area like yeah you couldn't show that because like yeah then you become a mark right right right did you get made fun of when you were a little kid
• 7:52
  Actually not, no. Okay. I was wondering when you called yourself a crybaby, I didn't know if it was a crybaby. By my brother. A child that cries. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, by my brother, absolutely. You probably learned to hide it or control it. A little bit, yeah. I don't want to cry in front of these guys, so I'm going to go around the corner. Which then makes you like, which then brings it on a little more because you're trying to hold it up. Yeah, you're trying to hold it up and you can't. That's hard. But in adulthood, I cry like I'll cry. You still cry?
• 8:21
  yeah i cried dude movies oh my god oh my gosh right there's some good movies music good put on the if beale street could talk soundtrack like automatically like that score like i'm gonna i'm i'm done so it's a wrap what about you jeannie um
• 8:40
  I had somebody once tell me that crying is heart water. And I just love that. I love that too. The reframe of that, that people who cry easily are just in touch with what's going on in their heart, and it's healthy. And I love that there's influencers out there that are helping young people reframe that too. It's really, really important. I cry really easily. Yeah. So.
• 9:10
  I love that. So you have heart water. You're in touch with your heart. I love that. Heart water trademarked by Genie. Yes. Forting hearts. That's a Genie Adair trademark. I love that. I can't let a cry because I'm going to explode in crying. Oh, you're just going to like, you can't. Yeah, I think it's the thing with when you don't cry. I heard this. Someone told me this once. Every time you don't cry, it's a saved...
• 9:38
  Oh, it builds up over time. It doesn't just go away and then you cry anew. You cry all the tears you haven't cried yet. So when you feel emotion come up in you and then you hold it back, that one waits for the next moment to come out. Dang. When was the last time you cried? That's what I'm saying. Maybe I've not cried for long enough. And I felt this in my... You know when you cry because you start to get real ugly when you cry? Oh, ugly criers. I'm an ugly crier, I'm sure. It's like heaving and...
• 10:04
  And I watch, like, my mom, she cries so easily and beautifully that it's not like she's not, like, weeping and, like, uncontrollable, but she's just this calm, emotional experience of crying. That's how my wife is. She has such a gentle, just...
• 10:22
  I'm just like, I do that. I know, right? Like a little kid that just got thanked. I wonder if it's more of like an understanding of that emotion. Yeah. You're able to not like be uncontrollable with it maybe. Or maybe she's crying consistently enough to where it's like a practice.
• 10:41
  Yeah. Oh, for sure. You're comfortable with that feeling. Yeah. With that emotion. I would even be as risque as to equate a crying release with like an orgasmic release because there's a lot of people- And sometimes they go together. Don't have orgasms because they are afraid of losing that control, right? And with crying, you're also afraid of losing that control. It's like your body's being taken over by an emotion that you can't pull it back in. It's primal. Yeah.
• 11:11
  And if you don't have that release, your body stores it and it can store it in different areas. Absolutely. Lungs. Pancreas. That's how your body has an anatomical response to stored emotion. It's funny. This doesn't sound good. No, I know. Here is a really... Make me cry this episode. You need to cry. Yeah.
• 11:35
  Yeah, I just started like hailing insults at you until you feel so bad. Not that kind of cry. We got to put on like the status. We have to put on the notebook. I did cry in the notebook. I don't know if you cannot cry in the notebook. You're a monster if you don't cry in the notebook. Yeah, you're a psychopath. So are cries in movies the same as cries in real life?
• 12:01
  No. Well, maybe. How empathic are you? It depends. Right. Yeah. I think so. How much can you enter into it? So if you cry in a movie, which I do. It's triggering some part of you. If you're crying watching a movie, it's triggering some of... It's because there's some relatable emotional thing. So it's absolutely legit. It's still heart water. It's not like...
• 12:22
  Fake heart water. No, it's real heart water. Cinematic heart water. And there's the collective, right, the field that we are all a part of, and grief is there, and it's a deep, deep well. And so I believe when I start crying, I'm tapping into not only my own grief, but the grief of the world. Speaking of being empathic, yeah, that's it.
• 12:46
  Speaking of what Jeannie was saying or piggybacking on that, storing emotion in your body, I have known massage therapists that have told me where they've been massaging someone and they hit a certain spot and they just start bawling. And it's because it's like probably where they're storing that emotion. Oh, that's amazing.
• 13:08
  Yeah, they literally just out of nowhere. It's not like it hurts or anything. They just hit a certain spot and it triggers their tear ducts. They just waterworks. It's just crazy to think about, which gives credence to that. The whole concept of storing emotion in your body.
• 13:25
  I remember living in this, we were in this upstairs apartment and I don't, I've tried to ask my wife about this because I don't remember why, but there was a song on and I could not stop crying.
• 13:41
  I don't know how many years I had been since I cried. This is probably when I was 18. And my mom was worried about me. Oh, because you were crying so much? My wife, before she was my wife, was there with me. And it was just like I was on the floor crying. And it did feel so good. Right? Yeah.
• 13:59
  So maybe I'm like worried that that's what's going to happen again. So when I start to feel crying, I'm like, oh gosh, got to hold back. But there could be tears of joy. He's on day three. Tears of joy. Again, to go back to film, like Marty Supreme made me tear up because it was so like energetic and just like.
• 14:20
  the triumphant moments in that movie like knowing like hey this person worked very hard to accomplish this thing and they come like that's a that's a relatable thing and like that's just pure like joy and accomplishment and hustle your exhilaration right so you have crying when you feel joy there's people that laugh and then cry yeah which i've also experienced which is amazing
• 14:41
  Because usually you're with someone else that's doing it with you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, lasting so hard. Yeah. That's one of the best cries right there. And then you laugh and you cry when you're getting bullied. And you cry when you're really sad and grieving. Yeah. How does that, the crying works in all of those situations. Yeah.
• 15:01
  I had a scenario once when my grandmother passed away when I was in my 20s. It was remarkably sad. It was just really, really sad. And I had already done my fair share of crying. But when I went to her funeral, there were probably...
• 15:19
  300 people in the room. And it hit me. It wasn't, it was a weird kind of cry because it wasn't sadness. I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people that my grandmother had touched because she was a very influential woman. You know, she was, she was like the prognosis.
• 15:39
  president of the Teachers Association for a while. She was an educator for 36 years. There's students that she was their favorite educator ever. And so I walked, I was sitting there and I looked around and I just became so overtaken with like,
• 15:56
  I guess it was like tears of joy. Maybe it's hard to explain, but it was just the fact of having that realization that my grandmother was this really remarkable woman and just being reminded of that by the show of force in the room, the show of people.
• 16:13
  there's a little song which I won't sing but I'll just sing the lines Tim's got a guitar he got Mary's guitar when you're born you cried and the world rejoiced live your life so that when you die the world cries and you rejoice and that's what your story about your grandmother reminds me of it's like a life well lived absolutely oh man I love that
• 16:42
  That's beautiful. I think crying is an underrated skill. Like it's something that people should own more.
• 16:59
  I was, I brought up, I don't know, and just then passed, like being spanked. Like I'm crying. And I was, I did grow up getting spanked. Oh, yeah. I was a kid. You and I both. I grew up in church and get whacked around.
• 17:14
  And I used to cry. And I wonder if that's part of my issue with it because of that level of. Oh, yeah. Because you're crying out of shame or whatever. Like how many emotions do you think a child feels when their parents spank them? Oh, yeah. I grew up as it was like a normal thing. I guess that's what you did. But now I think back and I'm like someone who's.
• 17:36
  Taking care of you is now hitting you. Yeah. You're protected. Something you don't feel great about. The person that's supposed to be protecting you, you don't feel protected in the moment. And I never felt in danger consciously. Right. But I just wonder if that is some weird trauma in me. Even on some emotional level. Right. Like some blocks my crying because it connects to something else. I mean, when you're growing up, I think...
• 17:59
  You know, especially we're of a generation to where, yeah, you typically cried because you did something wrong and you got in trouble for it. So it's immediately connected to that. No one taught, like I can speak for myself, no one taught me as a young kid like, hey, crying is okay. It's okay to cry because you're happy. It's okay to show this emotion.
• 18:18
  It's okay to not understand how to comprehend something in a moment, and your only release is that. No one taught me that, so I think we tend to connect it to, oh, I did something wrong. I disappointed someone. I got in trouble for some reason. Let me not express this.
• 18:35
  And then as you get older, into your teens, early adulthood, you said that's your only connection to it, I feel like. I feel like a lot of, especially young adult, probably young adult men, don't have that connection with their emotions. Yeah, because it is negatively connected to negative parts of your life. You know, like, no one's like, never laugh.
• 19:01
  Yes, exactly. Just not laughing. Because laughing's connected to fun and joy and play. Laughing shows a sign of weakness. Exactly. Don't laugh. Don't smile. But with crying, now that I'm seeing all the, and I knew this consciously, but I'm connecting it, now the joy, the cry enjoy or to cry laugh till you cry, what if crying was connected to that level of an emotional or a human response versus it being that weakness or shame?
• 19:31
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's, I don't know. I've grown to learn how to do it and learn how to become accustomed to it. Like I was having a conversation with my wife not that long ago. This is going to sound like I'm a sociopath. But like as a kid, I never like, I never had...
• 19:52
  uh i guess empathic connection to the outside world that like something would make me cry that happened to something or some something else or someone else yeah like again i go back to film just because i love film i think there is a great emotional connector
• 20:09
  with cinema but like there was never a movie as a kid that made me cry oh interesting like i didn't connect with that i always found it weird in movies of when people would cry over yeah over a stranger like this is like you didn't know that person yeah i don't know that all your tears were like based on your own personal experiences not like this very kind of selfish very internal
• 20:32
  I could see that. And that's, yeah, that's kind of, that was my understanding into sort of late teen sort of,
• 20:44
  Right. Emotions. So it starts, you know, you develop and then you become a normal person. And you're like, oh, yeah. Oh, that's okay to cry. I'm caught up in the story. It's like, oh, yeah. These things. I feel bad for other people. It's so interesting. So, like, I have a similar thing where, like, when people –
• 21:04
  I just lost my sister just Sunday morning. She lost her strival with cancer, which has been absolutely gut-wrenching. But I haven't cried yet about it. And it's not that I'm not incredibly sad. It's just that I think, for me, crying is like...
• 21:27
  has to happen in a space that you give yourself. I, it doesn't just like, you know, like somebody, you know, like my wife was crying horribly cause she and my sister were relatively close. And, and she's like, your sister's died. Like, why haven't you, why don't you feel like, yeah, I feel, yeah, like I feel horribly sad, but I grieve in my own way. It'll probably hit me one day while I'm driving in the car. It'll, I'll be sitting at my desk one day and I'll just get overcome with emotion. But it's not one of those things that just,
• 21:57
  Now I'm just like, I'm going to cry now. It just doesn't happen like that to me. It's a very, it's hard to predict when it's going to happen. Might be at her funeral. Yeah. It comes in waves. Yeah. It might be at her funeral. It might be, you know, it might be when I see somebody else.
• 22:15
  crying about her, you know, that it hits me and I'm like, ah, it'll trigger something, but might be on this show. But like, but it's not at any like, you know, I just can't like sit and say, I'm going to cry now because she's gone. Like, it's still feel like you're in denial of it.
• 22:34
  No, I don't think that. No, it's not that. I mean, I've been in phases of grief is pretty. Yeah. I felt it cause I had such a great conversation with her just last weekend before she went unresponsive. And so we talked for like an hour and we laughed and we talked about all kinds of things. Um, and then two days later,
• 23:01
  He was barely open in our eyes and was unresponsive. And so I have, it's years ago, like in 20 and 2013, a good friend of mine died by suicide. And it was, you know, it was rough at the moment. And like very, you know, out of nowhere, get a call from one of our other friends, go through the emotions and
• 23:29
  A little arrogantly, a little selfishly, I carried guilt from it because we were close friends. He had moved to a different area of Broward County, Fort Lauderdale. I started dating my wife, we lived together, and we kind of stomach growling. I thought that was the HVAC. Kicking in. And, you know, we didn't...
• 23:53
  Didn't lose connection, but we weren't hanging out as much. So I carried guilt of like, man, if I was a better friend, if I was there for him more. It's totally normal. But yeah, absolutely. And years later, once we moved here, I was at Burger Bar with a couple of good friends. We were talking about it. And I just started.
• 24:10
  bawling like bawling and this was years later years later maybe in six like 2016 2017 wow at burger bar just bawling over it and it was such a good release and it made and i came to that realization of like i'm holding on to this arrogantly as though i could have done something different to help this person yeah maybe i could have in the moment but
• 24:37
  That's such a tricky, I don't want to say tricky, that's such a personal. It is like you can't. You feel as though you can't go on. Yeah. There's not going to be anything that one single person can
• 24:51
  I'm right there with you. I have, I lost someone close to me to suicide and it is exactly one of the things you feel like, what could I have done? How could I have made this? But the reality is if someone has chosen that path, there's, there's nothing you can really do. Like you can try to be as supportive as you can. You can be there for them. You can do all the things, but it's not your responsibility to carry their responsibility.
• 25:19
  burden, their weight, their whatever it is that they're feeling. And, um, once you realize that it gives you the opportunity to like,
• 25:32
  not beat yourself up about it. I think we all go through that. I hope nobody has gone through that. It's the sides on the rise. It's a horrible way to... It's really bad right now. Yep, it really is. My best friend lost his friend from high school. Like last month. Oh, wow. Wow. And he had two kids. And I wonder if there's something to this
• 25:59
  Like this unfelt emotion or, you know, like the way I feel when I haven't cried in a while feels like an eruption, like I'm going to explode. And I wonder if that's the feeling when all the things in your life are turned around and upside down, you feel that like you're not gonna be able to stop whatever's coming.
• 26:20
  And you're trying to get out of that. Yeah. It's like this thing is building in you that's going to destroy you and you have no other option. Like there's no like practice. Like we're not taught to cry. We're not even taught to. Like this friend had lost his daughter in a pool when she was three. I think. Oh my gosh. Years and years and years ago. So we're not taught to like grieve death.
• 26:48
  To go through death, to think about death, I used to remember going to funerals and I would see the person because it would be an open casket. And for me as a kid, I didn't even know how to process the reality of what was going on. It felt like I was in a movie or was this real? The way it was happening. So it's like I wonder if there's some sort of place where we are unable to move through things.
• 27:13
  You know, like in other cultures, there are, other ancient cultures, there were traditions that moved someone through grief and through emotions. There was one where this chief lost, or the chief died, and the person who was going to take over was very close to them, and they got like a year to grieve. Mm. Like that, everyone took care of them for a year while they grieved the loss.
• 27:40
  Like it was their tradition as a tribe. Interesting. To gather around this person and support them. And I think we don't ever get that type of ritual or that type of culture. No. Doesn't exist. Most businesses give people three days. Yeah. Three days. Bereavement. Bereavement. Wow. Can you imagine? Yeah. Three days. So I am. That's like, get it together. And then that. Pull yourself together quickly. Pushes it all down in us. Yeah. Yeah.
• 28:08
  You can't grieve in three days. No, not at all. That's ridiculous. You can't even, I mean...
• 28:13
  You can't even scratch the surface in three days, really. You're not even connecting with anything. No. Three days you're still. It's the immediacy of the shock. Especially if you're going through the five stages of grief, you're still in denial. And you're basically in denial the whole time you're in your three-day bereavement. And then anger. Then you're angry. And then you're back at work. And then you're back at work. That's such a great place to return, right? Yeah, exactly. I'm angry and I'm going back to work. Yeah.
• 28:38
  Oh, man. But there's not a shared experience of grief or a shared community of, like you were saying, of pain that...
• 28:49
  are crying, you know, like in the Bible, they had mourners that they would bring around people who lost someone. Women would keen. Right. Yeah. And so there was this shared grief, and it allowed, you know, like if you're in a place and everyone's dancing, you're free to dance because you're in the middle of dance. But if no one's dancing, it's like, it feels awkward to get up and dance here. Yeah.
• 29:10
  So if everyone around you is crying, you're free to cry. You're not this weird person on the spot. Right. And we don't have anything like that in our culture. No. I think that's very heavily Western culture. I think it's hyper-American Western culture. I think just based on...
• 29:29
  system that we live in, like, you know, you don't, yeah, grieving? Please, we got money to make. Like, you better get back on the machine. Yeah. Become the cog. Right. Keep moving. Yeah. Yeah. To your point, I do feel like sometimes crying is like a yawn. You know, you see somebody do it and it triggers you to do it. And like weddings, sometimes you'll see somebody cry at a wedding and then all of a sudden there's like four or five other people that are crying. And I'm like,
• 29:57
  I hope those are tears of joy. But it's permission. I can't object now. I know, right? It's permission to break form. It's permission to break form. Because we all are, you know, we're keeping it professional, keeping it together. And when someone breaks that wall or that barrier, you're like, oh, we're doing this. We can do this. Yeah.
• 30:17
  It's so freeing. I do think that there is a sense of control that people don't want to give up in that emotion. Especially, again, I feel like in Western American culture, we're taught to be so in control of our emotions, be in control of our lives. If you're not in control of your life, of your decisions, then you're doing something wrong, especially modern culture.
• 30:42
  I feel like a lot of self-help has gone into that weird, like, sort of amalgamation of, like,
• 30:52
  kind of manosphere space of like being in control of your emotions. Don't let anybody trigger you. Like stoic? Kind of, almost nihilism a bit. And I think having that release of crime kind of portrays a lack of control, and that sort of portrays a sign of weakness, at least as it's presented in mainstream. I mean, you know, there's no shortage of YouTube videos that you can go on these weirdos pages of like,
• 31:22
  don't let this happen to you. You're not a man if you do this. Oh, yeah, totally. That definitely seems like a rising culture. It's very strange because it's like...
• 31:32
  It also sadly goes along with misogyny. Yeah. It's a sad reality. And I wonder, you know, how can you have so much control of yourself, of your body, when you don't even really understand fully the capabilities of it? You don't even have an understanding of its real form or function. Like, scientists are just now starting to crack human consciousness. Yeah.
• 31:55
  You know, that level of control that you're supposed to have is kind of in juxtaposition of a very real lived experience. I think that's where that comes from, like not wanting to release that. And then that's when we become sort of the blubbering like snot bubbles and whatnot. It's surrender. Yeah, and nobody wants to surrender to things that they can't control. Oh, yes. I honestly think it's a sign of strength to be able to cry.
• 32:22
  Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think it's just the opposite. Yeah. So today is the three-month anniversary of my son dying. Oh, no. My son was killed. He was shot on Patton Avenue. Oh, jeez. He got mugged. And the kid who did it was 17. Took his own life. Then he took his own life because he didn't, I don't think he meant to kill him. Yeah.
• 32:47
  It's like a double, double tragedy. So I can't believe the topic of crying. I know. I actually thought that when I pulled it up. I was like, oh, man. Oh, man. Well, you know, it's interesting. Two shows ago, we was I the host?
• 33:06
  Yeah, I think I might have been the host. Two shows ago, we had our friend Lauren Moody on, and she's a social media expert. And the topic I pulled was social media. I am not joking. You know, like Harry Potter hat. It's like a magic. This must know. It's a magic trash can. It knows. It knows what needs to come. You almost decimated it with your post-it note trash can.
• 33:30
  I got to sponge it so it can get its magic. Yeah, right, right. I had some Palo Santo. Yeah, there you go. Oh, I love Palo Santo. Three is one of my favorite things. How are you? How are you? Yeah, how are you? You know, so I had always heard about grief work.
• 33:47
  But I didn't really understand, like, what is that? Oh, that's like what you do when you're grieving. And I've had a lot of sad things in my life, but nothing like this. And I have a grief therapist, and I have like a
• 34:07
  a grief doula, which is more like somatic work and an acupuncturist. And it's like I went back to work after a month. So I did take a month off. My bus was great. But even that felt too soon to be honest. Right. I mean, a child. It's like I had to get back in there. To lose a child, my gosh. Yeah. But I'm sure the distraction of work has been helpful. The distraction has helped. So I, you know. Were you in the anger stage when you went back?
• 34:35
  Remember we were talking earlier? Oh, I'm sure. Had you had time to process anything? The anchor, so it's funny. For me, the stages aren't like linear. It feels very like spirally. You're feeling a bit of each other throughout the day. One day I'm angry. One day I can't believe it. One day I'm just in despair, you know? Yeah. But what one of the therapists said, which is really great, and I think it applies to this whole topic, is that,
• 35:04
  When you're working with grief, don't let it get cold and hard and turn like metal in your body. Keep it warm like clay. Pliable. Yeah, pliable. And I think if we practice crying and empathy and laughter and joy and tears, we keep it soft. We keep it moving.
• 35:32
  What a thought. Beautiful sentiment. It's so heavy. I'm going to grab this little piece of hair right here. Oh, yeah. I don't know if the cameras even pick it up, but I'm going to make a wish.
• 35:43
  There it goes. My good friend of mine lost her husband. Oh my gosh, yeah, that's right. A friend of ours, actually. One of my wife's best friends. And it hit her with a similar amount of grief. Because when you have a friend that's losing someone, it does transfer that pain through the community. That empathy. It's an empathetic response. And it's hard to accept it as reality.
• 36:11
  Like it doesn't feel real. It just takes, every time I think about him and the situation, I'm like, no, that didn't happen. There's no way that happened. Right. And I wonder if it didn't happen to me directly. And I've actually not had that many deaths in my family, which is scary to me because I know that it's going to happen. There's no way it can't happen. That's right. And how do you accept that as a reality? Like how does it even make sense? Yeah.
• 36:40
  and the experience. It's like they were right there.
• 36:44
  Right. And he died in such a, like mysterious. Yeah, it was just a hiking accident. Yeah, and he was like a very skilled, very accomplished hiker. And he fell to his death. For me, that says you don't really have control over when it happens. Absolutely. I had another close friend and mentor of mine, and he's a marketing guy, he's really a great guy.
• 37:10
  his son passed away. And he had me make some shirts for him because he was an artist. So he took his art and he put it on shirts and so he could just spread his name and that he was there and that he was real. And this was just like an artifact of him. And the
• 37:32
  It's like you can't think there's any other way it could happen because that is where it gets stuck, I think. If this would have happened, it would have been different. If I could have done this, like you were saying, there's this like, could I have changed something? But what, his son lived at a very different level than the rest of us. I remember him talking to me about his son.
• 37:57
  And I told him, I was like, I wonder, since we can't change it, I wonder if he lived his life within a shorter amount of years than others live their life. So if you have a certain amount of, each of us have a certain amount of life that we live through, no matter how many years we are alive,
• 38:15
  So if someone is going to die early, they have gotten all their life lived through that moment. That was just their window. Yeah, in more extreme ways maybe or more deep ways. And I wonder if they're so that that guilt of I did something wrong or someone did something wrong that holds us is released. You know, because that, I don't know what that feels when you said it, when it's hard as metal.
• 38:45
  Yeah.
• 38:57
  Yeah, like James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe, like they were all part of the like live fast, die young. Like all these people died so much younger than they should have. But they had these like really full, the arc of their life is almost complete. Not in any general sense, but if you look at it in the way that you were saying, like perhaps their timeline was just shorter. Do you think that?
• 39:26
  I was just wondering this, because it's hard to say. I would say your son died too early. Way too early. Way too early. And if there's anything we could do to stop it or undo it, I'd be doing whatever that was. Oh, in a heartbeat. To help you. Absolutely. It's not, there's no excuse. There's no like, oh, they lived long enough. It's not the case. It was too soon. So I wonder if anyone's arc of life is ever complete, or if that's just a movie thing.
• 39:52
  You know where you rap all nicely? I mean, you're opening a huge box here. But if you believe that you only get one time around the merry-go-round, then yeah. But if you believe that we're going to incarnate hundreds or thousands of times, then this is just like...
• 40:13
  You know, it's a blip. And possibly, we're here to learn, to learn to love, right? To learn to be of service. And if we don't get it, or if we don't learn all our lessons, then we'll get another chance. You have to come back and do it. Yeah. You know, it's funny. My wife believes in reincarnation. And, you know, I feel like,
• 40:40
  I feel like there's no way of knowing with absolute certainty, so I entertain all possibilities, you know. But lately, there's been at least two stories that I came across where, and one of them is absolutely mind-blowing. This toddler was going on about this friend that he had who was in this village that he
• 41:05
  wouldn't even know the name of, but he knew the name of it. He knew the house. He knew everything. He was like, yeah, I had this friendship with this guy. Blah, blah, blah. He's going on and telling his old story. And people are like, what is going on with this kid? Like, this is crazy. And so they looked into it. And they found the guy in this little village whose friend had died months before, like that many years before. And to the T, everything this toddler had said was...
• 41:34
  was true. This could be they corroborated the story with this old guy. No way. And it was like, OK, so I think I'm kind of open to believe in the reincarnation now, because how else? How else? And there's been at least two of those stories that I've followed.
• 41:52
  There's a great book by Christopher Beige called Life Cycles. And he talks about all these anecdotes that are like people have researched, like what you just said. All over the world. That is crazy. You know, across cultures. And what they think is that these children may have died suddenly.
• 42:13
  Or something. And so those memories are still intact, still fresh. Wow. But they found that over time, they can start to forget. So it's just like this window. This small window. That's so good. Well, it came up in a recent podcast. Mary said something about there was this person that described your body as a spacesuit.
• 42:38
  Oh, interesting. And you need it to live on earth. Your soul can't live on earth without this body. And so we call it the meat suit. And I wonder if we identify so much with our bodies and our form that we think this is what we are.
• 42:54
  But there's something else inside us, like the spark of life or the consciousness we are. The soul. Is so much more than this astronaut suit can hold. I mean, I do like meat suit. I say skin suit. That sounds less.
• 43:11
  I don't know. It has less visceral impact on my mind. When you say skin suit, I immediately go to Pinhead. No, don't. Don't go there. Yeah, that's right. Don't darken this beautiful moment we have here.
• 43:25
  But if you've heard, I've heard stories and I heard one in particular where a person had this near death experience and they went to this place and they saw where these souls were choosing the life they wanted to live on earth because they wanted to learn something that they couldn't learn where they were in this other place. And they were these glowing beings.
• 43:48
  And this one person wanted to live poor. And so they went and were born on the earth into a being that would be poor their whole life. Oh, interesting. Because they wanted to learn what that was like. Wow. And they could do that over and over and learn different emotions. They could learn different feelings that they were or disciplines. Yeah.
• 44:09
  And I was like, whoa. Because I guess reincarnation to me always feels like you're going to become a worm or an eagle. But I think to me, I think reincarnation the way I believe it is you are an eternal soul. A consciousness that has no end. And though this body dies, you go on. You go on. And so I think there's this potential that we have the opportunity to come back in and learn things that we didn't learn.
• 44:37
  Think about, what was the Disney movie, Soul? Do you remember that? Yes. I think about that. Did you not see, oh, it's such a good one. You didn't see, oh my God, it's one of my favorites. It's kind of an off, it's like a little bit off-center Pixar. Yeah, yeah. You know how Pixar will always make you cry? I mean, I cried, I cry in Pixar movies. That's the best place to cry. There you go. Well, we'll watch a Pixar movie and get the waterworks going. Is that Inside Out? Inside Out? Yeah, yeah, yeah. My goodness, when they show the father with all his anger guys running the,
• 45:06
  Joe? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, right, in soul, there's like these little souls. These little souls. On the earth. And they have to complete their task or whatever before they can move on. Yeah. To that point.
• 45:24
  I wonder if that's one of, like, as scientists start to study and discover human consciousness, I wonder, I think that is going to be a sort of connectivity to actualizing a human soul.
• 45:38
  But I also wonder... When you say that, what do you mean? Actualizing a human soul? Like... Scientists are going to do that? No, that... Scientists are going to discover that. I would be wild. Oh, my. I think... The God spark? Well, quantum. Like, quantum physics. Quantum physics, totally. You think they'll be able to fabricate a soul? I think... Not fabricate, but... But at least be able to... Connect it to human consciousness as they start to understand what human consciousness is. That would be wild. That sounds dark. I think that...
• 46:08
  they will be like, this is what makes an individual an individual. And this is how their soul is connected to them. I do not discount science. I think if, if it can happen, it will happen. Yeah. But science has always tried to find the, the common particle. They've never found it because it does. They, the deeper they go, the closer they can look, the more space that they find at every level. The particle is just more space and it's more space. Yeah.
• 46:38
  So there is a search for something that isn't there yet. We don't have an understanding for it. We don't have a comprehension of it. Right. Because they think we don't have the tools. But what if we have had the comprehension of what it is, but we've lessened that to like, oh, you're just being this way or you're being crazy or because ancient tradition also...
• 46:59
  had studies into where we come from what we experience when we when we're alive what consciousness is it wasn't like science was the first branch of humanity to try and discover what it is that makes us alive it makes us different than other creatures i wonder if we're looking for something to avoid looking at the mystery
• 47:24
  Like if you have something, you don't know quite how it applies, like crying. No one really knows how crying applies. You can work out, lift weights, and you can get big muscles.
• 47:34
  You can laugh. Laughter is good like a medicine. But when you say crying, it has so many variables around it, so many different ways you can be made to cry. Like you're not going to laugh at something that's really mean, unless you're a sociopath. You may have felt that way. But you're, so they don't, so crying has been this thing that's been universally in America oppressed. Like don't cry, unless you're a girl. Like.
• 48:04
  This is weird. Maybe girls are allowed to cry. And then guys are like, don't cry like a girl. That's a horrible thing to say. Because I think everyone, we agree everyone should cry. So that's a stupid thing. But it's part of our culture.
• 48:16
  So I wonder if we're avoiding looking at the mystery of grief and of crying and we keep trying to scientifically solve it. Yeah, it goes to it goes to back to that control, like of wanting to have that control. Or to understand. Yeah. To understand. You know, like we want to know. Which is also some level control as well. Yeah, because things we don't understand are scary. Then we can sort of then figure it out.
• 48:41
  It's interesting when I see, I always get irked when I see like in movies, when there's like a woman that's crying and someone is like super rigid and they're like, why are you crying? Don't cry. Instead of like...
• 48:58
  shifting their, and when I see that, I'm like, why are they doing this movie that way? There's something about those kinds of depictions and portrayals in movies and shows that I've always had this visceral anger response to. I'm like, let her cry. Okay, well, this brings up a good point then. Do you think there's a time when someone should not be crying?
• 49:21
  Really good question. Right. Because I'm going to confess a moment that probably I'm not proud of, but it didn't feel bad in the moment. But this morning, my son, my littlest son, he's four, my wife didn't make his lunch right.
• 49:39
  You know, like he wanted it to be a certain way. The spoon wouldn't fit. So he started crying and he was getting all upset. And I know it's just because he's tired. Yeah. But I was. Or it's because he didn't get what he wanted in his lunchbox. He's like, why didn't you wait until I woke up to pack my lunchbox? I was like, you slept too long to be involved in your lunchmaking process. But I said, this is embarrassing. I said, stop crying because you're ruining your day.
• 50:08
  Oh. I said, it's just a lunch. The corn's in there. If you want it, you can eat it at lunch. If you don't want it, you don't have to eat it at lunch. But it's in there now, and you're making your whole life miserable right now. I think that's totally valid. I think he's- Okay, because I didn't want to shut him down, but I just felt like he was coughing, and he's getting all intense. He was too.
• 50:29
  What did he do? He was heaving. He was in a bad state. And I didn't want him. But this is maybe selfish. I didn't want him to feel that way. Or maybe I didn't want myself. Maybe this is more of a reflection. I didn't want myself to feel the way I feel when he cries. And so I didn't want him to cry because he had, we were just literally, I woke him up.
• 50:49
  Sometimes I end up being fun in the morning. I held him and I said, you're an egg and you have a floppy head. And so I woke him up in joy, like he was laughing while his eyes are closed. And so we were spinning in the living room. So we had this really beautiful morning. And then it turns into this stupid lunch problem where now he's crying after we had this beautiful morning. And I was like, why choose this moment to let it all fall apart?
• 51:15
  Maybe he was expressing an emotion that was coming from somewhere else and it had nothing to do with the lunch. No, I think as a dad. And I shut it down. I feel like that's not good. No, I think as a dad, because I do that in a sense where my kids, not necessarily they're crying, but they are choosing to be really upset about something that to me seems trivial. And so I try to be compassionate and understand that in their world it's a bit bigger than it is.
• 51:40
  is for me but I also don't want it to derail their whole day over this thing like this isn't the thing that's worth derailing your whole day but is that like a father linear totally I think that's totally valid I think that might be a protection I think it's a total protection and you want him to be happy and enjoy the morning thank you this is what I wanted here no I feel better now I'm right there with you I think that's a valid feeling
• 52:06
  As a mom. As a mom. Well, I mean, I wasn't there, right? It depends on your child, but most likely I would have taken a moment, like tried to comfort them and say, you know, let's, I know you feel bad about this, but
• 52:30
  Let's try to move on and, you know, maybe the same thing you did. Let's try to move on. Let's try to move on. Instead of just, like, stop crying, why would you ruin your day like this? That's not. I think about what my mom would have said. She would have been like, what the hell are you crying about? She backhand you? Yeah, right? Right. I'll give you something to cry about. That's it right there. Legitimately, I'll give you something to cry about.
• 52:56
  My mom would have looked at me sideways like, what the hell are you doing? Better get you to school. But see, if we were doing it right, we would have gone to our parents and said, hey, I need something to crack. It's been a while. I need to practice. Something to crack.
• 53:11
  get the bell i'll get it it's like you're crying there is something to cry about and then a parent says i'll give you something to cry about oh it does seem like the most ridiculous thing yeah because the kid should be like no i already got something to cry about yeah yeah i feel so bad about it yeah i mean is there any way to raise a child where you don't regret anything
• 53:36
  No, absolutely not. No, absolutely not. There is no parent ever. We're human, and I feel like it's like a constant daily failing. I think there's no way to have a relationship where you don't regret something. Oh, absolutely. Any kind of relationship, right? Exactly, yeah. Like, all you can do is apologize for it, and hopefully that person accepts it. And hope that you grow from it. Yeah, no, they're true. Yeah, I mean, I think that's it. If you grow from it, that's the best thing that you can do, I feel like. He's just so free with his crying, and that makes me jealous.
• 54:06
  Oh, yeah, because you can't do it. He can cry. No. We're going to work on your cry. In this moment, it made me angry that he was going to lose such a good morning that he was having. So I did really want him to have a good morning. But maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm judging crying as being a bad morning. Like maybe I relate that.
• 54:26
  experience he's having as a bad thing. And what if it's not? That's like the angry, frustrated crying, though. That's not like the good, like, release. But is there a good and a bad release? Oh, I think so. Absolutely. If you're crying because, for instance, if you're crying because your fingers got slammed in the car door, that's not the best release. You're just like, ah.
• 54:48
  It's not so bad. But if you're crying because, you know, you finally accomplish getting this Lego set put together and you just have this moment where, like, that took me fucking weeks to do. That took me weeks or months to do. And I'm like, oh, my God, the sense of accomplishment. I'm so overjoyed. Like.
• 55:07
  Totally. There's different levels of crying. But that's the thing, though. Can we even track all the levels of crying isn't applicable or an emotional response to it? That's what the mystery, I was thinking the mystery is so vast when it comes to crying. No one really knows what it does or where it comes from because it applies to so many emotions. So many. And they can't relate it directly to like your muscles get bigger when you cry.
• 55:32
  They can say it makes you feel better. But there's not like, it's not something, this is the thing with science. Science always wants proof. And they want it to be real. But then you grow up after learning science through middle school and high school and elementary school all the way through. And you're like, this is the way it is. And all of a sudden they're like, oh, sorry, we got a better microscope. And that's not really the way it is.
• 55:53
  Sorry that we taught you it was the facts. But now we have something else and now it's not true. So science tries to put its hand on it and say now we understand it. But it always constantly is changing. And crying is the same thing. You can't put your handle on why this person is responding this way. And sometimes I can't even. And I think it's one thing. But what if it's just like...
• 56:15
  Life has this array of experiences happening, thoughts, emotions, some things you didn't even consciously process when it happened as a young kid or maybe as a whatever it is. And it's just coming back in your memory. You can't even remember it, but the emotion is still there. And that's the mystery. What if you look into the face of that mystery and hold it? Yeah.
• 56:41
  think it's what you're saying kind of goes to what you said earlier about emotion grief being malleable that we want to deal in absolutes which i think people people look at science as an absolute when it really isn't it's just what we know now um so yeah i think i think holding that and understanding like hey these emotions are malleable like we can sort of change how we look at this
• 57:08
  We can change our perspective and outlook from like you had an outlook this morning. So now you're processing it. Now you're changing it. Live on the podcast. Yeah. I think holding space for things to not be absolute.
• 57:24
  yeah to kind of how we can be flexible and understand things a little bit a little better and you know the more cliche thing the more you know the less you know or whatever however that's true you know but like the more we understand the less we understand i think that's true for everything throughout life um yeah i don't know
• 57:42
  What if we leaned into crying as a necessary release so much that somebody created an app that allowed you to like. Gosh. Yeah, it takes you through a whole like thing where it just makes, just takes you there. Gives you all these things to cry about. Crying? We have an app for that. And we can call this app. It's called, I'll give you something to cry about. I'll give you something. It's heart water trademark. Yeah.
• 58:06
  Heartwater. I like that. You release your tears on a little. Yeah. It just gives you beautiful imagery. Yeah. It's good music. Perfect tearjerker music and beautiful imagery that just like makes you. But this reminds me of. I would love that. You like this idea? You're feeling it? No, this reminded me. It gets there crying. No, this reminded me of something that the almost the manufacturing of connectivity and emotions. I don't know if you all have seen this.
• 58:35
  it kind of bugs me out. I don't like it. I don't know how to feel about it. My initial feeling is I don't like it. I can see that there might be good applications for it. But a company, either Japanese or Chinese, I forget, created an AI pet.
• 58:56
  That looks like it just, it kind of looks like a guinea pig. Uh-huh. All it has are little eyes. Yeah. And apparently it learns your habits and emotions. It's like a physical pet? Real? It's like a physical little thing. Like a little robot? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But it's got fur on it and everything. It has fur. It doesn't, it has a little eyes. Oh my goodness. It makes little pet noises, purrs, little murmurs. Yeah, yeah.
• 59:19
  I don't know how to feel about it. Do they give it to a... For anyone. Because have you ever seen this thing with people with dementia? They can't take care of animals because they forget. And they don't have the process to take care of them. So they started... You know those cats that are like...
• 59:37
  rolled up in their bed and you can see their stomach moving. Those little, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a little thing you can buy. They get these for these people with dementia and they don't know that they're not real, but it makes them feel like there's a, a pet and there's a thing with them. Yeah.
• 59:54
  And I wonder if this is, if it's, I can see it being implemented that way or I can see it going to everyone. Yeah. They're marketing it to everyone. And that's why I say, like, I can see good applications for it, but the commercial is marketing to everyone.
• 1:00:09
  It's children. But do you remember those pets that kids used to have and they feed them? What were those things? Tamagotchis. Tamagotchis. Tamagotchis. Tamagotchis. Tamagotchis. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like hyper-advanced. It's an advanced. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, I saw that commercial and I instantly, like, my instant reaction was that shudder. I thought you were crying. No. I can't believe they have this. Oh, how funny.
• 1:00:32
  There could be that application where it's useful for people with dementia, elderly, maybe young kids to teach them a responsibility. But then also I see sort of a almost fabrication of emotional connectivity. And imagine they'll never lose that pet. Unless you don't charge it.
• 1:00:49
  Well, you just plug it in. I mean, eventually you charge it in. Think about the practice of grief when you lose a pet. Oh, yeah. The first place a child learns about grief. And I remember I got Lila, a hamster, not realizing they have really short lifespans. And like, I never wanted to get an animal because of the losing of an animal is so intense. So we bought her something, didn't even research. And their lifespan is shortened by putting them in captivity.
• 1:01:15
  Oh, yeah. And we built this huge cage for it. Like, my wife went in this crazy thing, built this massive cage, went all the way to the ground. It was like two and a half feet high and five feet wide. Oh, wow. Just because they burrow. They like to dig down in. So you provide all this stuff that they can dig into. Yeah. When it died, it was so sad. Oh, I can only imagine. Yeah.
• 1:01:36
  And so if you have a thing that you never have to lose, you never get to even confront grief. That's true. Which is human. Which I don't know, though. I think that's a healthy way of learning how to grieve. Avoiding it? Well, no, I think that's a healthy way of learning how to grieve. I thought you meant having this thing was a healthy way. No, no, no. I don't think you should avoid grieving. I think that that is our first. I lost a pet when I was young. And, oh, my God, I probably cried for days because it was one of those things where,
• 1:02:05
  Probably the one bad thing my grandmother ever did was she told me, like, she sent me off with some friends. And I'm like, hey, this is fun. It was so much fun. When I came back, my dog was gone. I was like, wait, what happened? And she had had him taken away to the pound because he kept jumping up.
• 1:02:27
  Because, you know, we were raised poor. We had, like, clotheslines in the back. And so she would put her sheets up, and he would jump up and grab the sheets. And, like, it drove her nuts. So she actually sent me away for the day. And then I came back, and my pet was gone. And I was, like, devastated.
• 1:02:44
  grieved i went through the whole thing so i think that was a really healthy way of understanding grief and feeling it in a way that when you get older you it's you're familiar with it it's not a stranger you know that yeah that happened when i was little we had a how old are you and you maybe like five or six how old are you i was probably eight or nine uh
• 1:03:10
  Like, yeah, maybe five. I was, I was, he, I was the, he was my super dog and I was the boy wonder. And we would run around the yard together. I had my cape on. It was so sad. Yeah, it was horribly sad. We might all cry on this episode. That is so sad to me. Yeah, it was absolutely absurd.
• 1:03:28
  Yeah, it's yeah. Pets are. Yeah. My cat, Sir Lester, like he, you know, cats. Sir Lester. Yeah, it's cats too. Sir Lester. Just sort of left the house and didn't come back. And I didn't understand. And my parents were like, you know, like he was old and he went off to die peacefully.
• 1:03:45
  Like, that's what cats do. Yeah. And I was like, oh, OK. I like didn't have because I was so young. Yeah. Yeah. Like my memories of him are really short. Yeah. But then we got another cat, Monroe. We got our we had a dog Tootsie that again, like I didn't like I didn't have so much of a connection with her. But then we got our dog, Ozzy. Yeah. I remember Monroe one time.
• 1:04:11
  Got out. Because they were out. Like, we let them out. Like, they're indoor, outdoor cats. Yeah. And he didn't come back for almost a week. Oh, wow. Oh, my God. And I was maybe in fourth or fifth grade when this happened. You are probably triggered some deeper. Oh, my God. Like, I remember going outside and, like, yelling for him. Looking. He came back. No way. After a week? Something happened to him. His leg was messed up. We think we had a...
• 1:04:36
  We attract a neighbor. A neighbor? I wonder if you were going to say that. Yeah, there was a neighbor in the neighborhood who like just was a weird... Sketchy like that. Yeah, my dad tried to like a couple of times like catch him slipping. Like, oh, wow. Get you and fuck you up. Yeah. Yikes. Yeah. Good thing he came back. Yeah, he was a weird cat. We had a couple of those. The cat being the neighbor, weird cat being the neighbor. But we had a couple of those.
• 1:05:02
  Yeah, like, I was like, I just, I remember just going out before school every day, like while he was gone. Looking for your cat. Like screaming. You were dealing with that feeling for the whole week. Yeah, and he came back. I remember being so happy. Oh, so happy. I had a cat live to 21. And it was incredibly sad when he passed away because we had to put him down. His kidneys were failing. He was in pain. And it was the right thing to do.
• 1:05:30
  But all of my kids were born into a world where he existed. And I literally got him in college. And when I was 25 years old, I got him in college. And he would sit at my feet while I was doing design projects, pulling all-nighters. He'd be right there either on my lap or at my feet, keeping me company while I was working.
• 1:05:56
  and he was with me in every house that I lived in,
• 1:06:03
  After I left home, so my first apartment, and then the last place we rented before I bought my first house. And he's buried in the yard at the last place we rented. So every place I rented, he had a home there. From St. Louis, like three places in St. Louis, to like multiple places here in Asheville. And when, like, yeah, it hit me pretty hard. Like I had to go somewhere and just like sit and like,
• 1:06:32
  Because I had all these memories of him. He was such a...
• 1:06:36
  He was one of the most amazing cats I've ever met. He was a super social, super lovable, super... People would come to the house and he would come and check them out, like, oh yeah, I know you, and he'd like purr and hang out with them. Or he'd be like, I don't know you, and he'd go back to business, but he was that kind of super cool cat. People would like come over, and I'm not here for you, where's Bolero? You know, they want to come and hang out with my cat. So it was just, it was an era.
• 1:07:04
  I experienced my first loss where I felt the emotion at like 25 years old. Wow. I don't know how it took me so long to get this experience. But yeah, we had a cat called Joey, little tiny tabby cat. I love that. And I wasn't even a cat person. My wife was like, we're getting a cat. I was like, okay. And I fell in love with this cat.
• 1:07:24
  It was the sweetest, tiniest little cat. When I would get up and get ready for work, he would like talk to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd talk to him and he'd talk to me back. And I had this really close connection with him and he got out one rainy day and got hit.
• 1:07:41
  And we found him because he wasn't out and we're looking for him, calling him because he's always around. That's the worst. And I found him up by the road just there. And I freaking fell apart. Oh, I'm sure. I was almost like my wife, both of us were nauseous in our bathroom. We didn't even go anywhere for like three days. And I got this feeling because my dad was raised on a farm. But I got this feeling from my dad that I was overreacting.
• 1:08:11
  Oh, he did he give you like it's just a cat. And you're like, it's just a cat. So it's weird because that sounds like a story you have when you're like nine or ten versus like twenty five. And I was that's not even an acceptable phrase. It's just a cat. But he grew up on a farm where animals were animals. They're outside and they die and they use them for milk and whatever meat. And and I had made this cat like a.
• 1:08:34
  a part of our family. We had no kids yet. It was a part of your family. Yeah. And so that, that experience is why I never got my kids a pet. And my daughter was like, Dad, why would you let us get a pet?
• 1:08:45
  And I would be like, just because, you know, it's too much work. But deep inside. One day I was driving to work and I started bawling. And I called Megan and I said, we have to get a cat. She's like, why? I was like, because it's only because I'm afraid that we're not getting one. I'm afraid of losing something again. You had the realization. And I had to tell her about why I'd never let her have a cat before. And so we got two cats. And one of them got hit by a car.
• 1:09:13
  Oh, no. And so I got to experience, and I had to take him. He was in bad shape. Came home. He made it home. But his face was all destroyed, and he was limping, and he was breathing weird. And we were just waiting for him to die, but he wasn't dying. He's just in pain. Kids were at school. And I'm like, what is that?
• 1:09:32
  happening this is why i didn't get a cat you're like having these feelings yeah and so i take it to the to the vet and they're like there's his face is too broken you can't put this back together and um and so they had to put him down and so i brought him home in a box and so we had this little service over him so the kids could see him and it was a really powerful moment to
• 1:09:54
  have that to be there with them to grieve together right to grieve together yeah to lose something together yeah and it was one day after i was born wow it was this crazy moment like our son our youngest son enters the world the next day he leaves and so i i i don't even know if i would take back
• 1:10:19
  the moment because of how mysterious it is. Like why, why the timing, why that even happens? Like why does pain happen? Why do we have to go through these things? But I was there to go through it with them. And I was there to face something that I was afraid of facing.
• 1:10:38
  And it was okay. I love that. It was like this beautiful circle. That's growth right there. Yeah, growth. And that's just emotions being malleable. Like you had this connection when you were 25 to this feeling and then processed it. And then you're ready to sort of, okay, I can not deal with it, but I can be here in it. I can accept it and then now bring this back into my life.
• 1:11:03
  And now Lila. And no longer be afraid of it. And my kids will now say, that's the only time I've seen you cry. I'm like, oh, really? I'm going to start crying when you're awake. I usually cry in the car and late at night. Yeah. Like driving to work or something. Like listening to a song or a podcast. I want my, you never saw your dad cry. And you were still able to cry. So it's not a lost cause.
• 1:11:27
  No, not at all. Just because they're not thinking. Instead of working out tomorrow, we're going to get the yoga mats out and we're just going to try to cry. And be like, all right, Tim, think of the saddest thing ever. I mean, think about how mysterious this is. You can practice yoga. You can practice meditation. But can you practice crying? Maybe? No. Maybe. If you're an actor, you have to do it, right?
• 1:11:49
  Tapping in, tapping into that emotion to trigger it. Yeah. This does bring a question I wanted to ask you, Reggie, because you said something about a time, if there's a right time to cry. Like, should someone cry at work? Yeah. Whatever. Should someone be able to cry at work? Absolutely. So I was worried about getting back to work.
• 1:12:10
  Getting hit with emotion. Yeah. And I said, I asked my boss, I'm like, you know, I'm afraid of getting in front of a client and then like losing my shit and crying. He's like.
• 1:12:23
  And so what would be the worst thing that could happen? Nice. Like, human. What a boss. Yeah. You have a great boss. There's, at my last job that I had, there was someone who got hired. I'm not going to say any names. But for their first few weeks, several weeks, they would go, he would go out into the hallways in the building and, like,
• 1:12:53
  cry or have like really like i don't want to say a breakdown because then it's sort of a connotation but like that's what it kind of seemed like right and everyone like and then he was like i have to go home and it happened for several weeks to the point where people became like dude what are you doing like
• 1:13:10
  how old was he my age like at the time like you know i'm 41 now at the time person yeah 35 mid 30s early i don't know how time time is i don't know what time is however old i was when i worked there eight seven years ago but like it got to a point where everyone noticed it in a way that our offices were set up like if this was the building creative had this space and then across the
• 1:13:35
  where I thought you all were going to move, those are like the product developers and other people. And people from the product development side wouldn't notice. Oh, wow. What's up with this person? What's going with this guy? They're like, no one knows.
• 1:13:50
  It's funny because around the same age, I had like a month, and this is when the thing about the pets came up in me, I had a month of crying on the way to work. I thought I was having like a mental breakdown or like a psychological something. And I was listening to this music and I was looking up at the sky and it was like everything at once was happening in me. And I had these crazy visions of what was happening. So I don't know what he was going through, but I don't know if that's what they call a midlife crisis.
• 1:14:19
  but there's something breaking in us. I think it's the softening. I think you can't go on hardened. Like, I don't think you can move through life hard, hardened in yourself. Yeah. So I had this vision while I was having these crazy,
• 1:14:34
  crying and I'd pull it together before I went to work. So it was happening on the way after I dropped the kids off. And then I just cry to work, sit in the truck parking lot, cry there, and then I'd walk in and try to pull it together. But I had this, I can only explain it as a vision, but I was sitting in the car and I saw my heart, like this hardened, tight, calloused ball inside of my chest. And,
• 1:15:00
  And some being, maybe God, it was, I believe it was God, but who, whatever you want to call it, said, I want to break you. And I was like, it sounds terrible. And I've seen my parents go through stuff. They were pastors in a church and that was pretty brutal at times. And I was like, no. And he's like, wait, no, I want to break you out.
• 1:15:20
  And I was like, okay, do it. And he karate chopped my heart. Like, shah, broke it. And it cracked into two halves. And inside was like this opalescent undulating thing. Wow. Interesting. Like this formless moving ball of goo that was moving around. And I saw it. And it started growing bigger. And it started filling up my body.
• 1:15:45
  And then it like surpassed my body and it went outside of my body and it's kept growing and it was as big as the parking lot. And then it grew bigger and it started getting bigger faster and it started going down the streets. Like the blob? This blob, this heart thing. The heart blob. Yes, like the blob. It started growing massive and it went down the streets and I actually saw like it was people could see it and they would try to like attack it or hit it and it just goes around them, it would hold them. That's the blob. The blob.
• 1:16:14
  That's the stuff. Have you seen this movie before? And it kept going and it covered the city and then it got as big as the world. This is happening in my, in whatever I'm going through. In your consciousness. And then it went really big past the universe that I knew. And all of a sudden it went, and it became one with something else, like this being. Oh, how interesting. And it was like, I felt settled. And it was the first time. And I said to myself, I was like, oh, that's what death is.
• 1:16:40
  And then I was like, and the thing I was struggling with, with this cat was not the cat. It was losing my kids. You've experienced this. And it's my worst nightmare. But I saw them do this same experience. Right on the heels of me, they grew big. Their heart grew big. And they joined me in the one. And it was this, and all of a sudden, it was the first time and the only time probably that I've not been afraid of them dying. Wow. Because it was this different understanding of what death is.
• 1:17:09
  It was like becoming one with the one. And since that moment, I've always imagined my heart, and it's weird you say this, but the softness. I've always imagined my heart is as soft. And it isn't limited. And that is what's inside. I think that's inside of all of us. That's the mystery. Yeah. I mean, in...
• 1:17:32
  Yeah, that's beautiful. I don't, yeah, I'm going to sit here and just say it. I don't have anything really to add to that. Honestly, that's a beautiful sentiment. That is a beautiful sentiment. Spiritual awakening. That's really beautiful. I love that. It was, and I felt that that fearlessness, that ability to not be afraid of death, was the thing that allowed me to start feeling.
• 1:17:48
  Because I said, this is what people must feel like when they die alone. And when I grew up, they called it being saved. I grew up thinking, I have to be saved. I'm going to go to hell. And so I always thought about this weird abstract concept. But what I think I felt in that moment was, what it means to be saved is to be open.
• 1:18:09
  and to let people love you and to be loved yeah but when you are hardened inside you can't love anybody and you can't feel love and i was afraid of death and my kids dying all these things and so i'm part of it right it's impenetrable and you can't nothing gets in love that love that sentiment of like softening and letting people in and to live and to continue living open like to stay open
• 1:18:34
  This was about to be, I was going to say that this was going to be known as the sad episode, but I think you just brought it all back. I think to be able to be in touch with your emotions in that way means to be truly open, to being able to feel, to being able to like accept. I think that's a really beautiful way to end this episode.
• 1:18:57
  Guys, thanks so much for coming and sitting and talking with us today. This is great. Thank you. It's been awesome having you both here. As always, thanks for tuning in. We really appreciate you taking the time to spend it, taking this very valuable time of your own to spend with us. And we look forward to seeing you on the next episode where we'll see what we pull out of the trash can next. Bye. Stay open.
• 1:19:23
  cheesy way to end it. Just, I like it. No, that was great. That was great. Yeah, what a great conversation. Very, yeah. I mean, I feel like I could in like nuts.
• 1:19:38
  Thanks for listening. This podcast was created and developed by our hosts, Reggie Tidwell, Tim Scroggs, Mary Green, and Dylan Garcia. Special thanks to our guest hosts, Jeannie Adair and Ricardo Tejeda. Produced by Mary Green. Live production and editing by me, Will Kennedy. Graphic design by Dylan Garcia and set design by Megan Scroggs.
• 1:20:03
  Today's episode is presented lovingly by 40 Hearts, creators of enduring value.