Latest / Pod Therapy / #352: Porn Addiction, Initiating Divorce, Under Accomplished

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#352: Porn Addiction, Initiating Divorce, Under Accomplished · Pod Therapy

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: One of you got exactly right.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: It's me. It's it's not try the guy with the.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Sales tax I guess that's steps into that.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: One today's episode.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: It has made possible bar and therap partners, dirty p
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: and tickets from Fabulous Las Vegas.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: No matter.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: This is pod therapy, real people, real problems, and real therapists.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: You can submit your questions anonymously at pot therapy dot
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: net or email us at pot therapy guys at gmail
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: dot com. And now broadcasting from the Churns. That's Jim,
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: that's I'm with me and I'm Nick. It's time for
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: some pot therapy.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Welcome everybody, taxes. We are very interested in what Pello
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: you sleep on. Hello, we would love to know because
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Nick is going through I think it's fair to say
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: a crisis. He is trying new things.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: I think I've worked.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: But you're having hallucinating dreams. I don't know that.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: That's ah No, that's a very normal Well it's not
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: a normal dream, it's a normal day dream.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: You ever had a dream where you work your entire
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: work shift the following day in your dream, and it's
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: just a normal dream of like literally just doing shit
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: and then you wake up. You're like, God, damn it.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Now I have to go to work.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: This happened to me when I was a server all
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the time. It was a waiter, like I would I
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: would work the night shift, and if I had to
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: work the next day, like in the morning, because it
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: was a breakfast, lunch and dinner restaurant, and a lot
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of times I'd get dinner shift in the morning shift
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and I'd close that bitch and like come home at
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: like midnight and like, oh shit, I've got to get
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: there like five am, and I would just dread it
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: so much, and my dream would be Yeah, but unions
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: aren't good for anything. Yeah, yeah, we need unions. I
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: don't think that they ever help people in the waiting business.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's the thing. I don't know.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I don't think you know what the culinary union does.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Oh shit, yeah, oh yeah, you are right. You are right.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: It depends on where you work. Yes, that that is
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a significant thing. Anyway, We would love to hear about
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: your pillows and your dreams in our discord. Come on
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: down Patreon dot com slash therapy catch the extra stuff
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: that we record before we start this thing. And you know,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: funny enough. So I kind of got a little pissy
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: about this the other day. Oh yeah, not you.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: She was a little annoyed.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: So our stuff has been going on YouTube now and
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: it's doing cool, like I guess, wellish, like people are
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: finding it. Which YouTube is the second largest search platform
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: in the world, second only to the other Google property,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Google Search, you know, and so this is the second
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: place that people find content. And so people are finding
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the podcast, which is great, but a lot of them
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: are finding it on an episode by episode basis. They're
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: not listening to the show like and subscribing to it.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: There's a topic we are addressing in that show, it's
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: coming up in their search, and so then they're diving
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: into that show and so listening to.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: Only when show yeah yeah, yeah, which is the recipe
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: for success.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: There's no way that goes wrong. And so what's happening
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: is people are commenting on the episodes and yeah, I've
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: been making reading that, yeah, and I shall not be
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: doing that. And they're saying things like is there any
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: way to get time stamps? Where the host just answered
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the question because I do not like all the parts
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: where they're talking and like making jokes it and like
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: at first I thought, okay, you know, yeah, I guess,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and then I thought, you know what, no, fuck you,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Like it's been seven years, Like, we have a brand,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: we have designed a specific formula. The theory is more
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: than just here's an answer to your fucking question. That's
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: not what this is.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Like.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: It's not a vending machine. Hit a button, you get
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: a gatorade, Like, no, fuck you. You're joining this community,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: You're joining the conversation. You're getting to know us, and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: then the answers contextually mean more because you're getting to
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: know us as people and we're you know, teaching people
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to put them at ease.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: So it's a long way to go to to say
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  Speaker 3: that you're too lazy to put in a timestamp.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: You know what's funny though I did, so you are
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: a dumb person. That's a weird take, just automatically way
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: to be made.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Like I'm also upset.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: But I'll clean your dog. You know I don't do it, no,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: but it's funny. Is like for years I did put
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: timestamps on every single question. I would, I would figure
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: out exactly where they were, I'd put them in the
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: episode descriptions. So that I stopped doing because it was
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of extra work and like it was already
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of post productions. I don't want to do it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: So when I say I did, I meant past tense,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: not recently. I did not start doing it again. In
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: response to that one person's comment. But anyway, if you
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: were if we had a whole production crew, yeah, yeah,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: that would be easy.
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  Speaker 2: We can definitely do.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Well well pinpoint every goddamn or if we had an
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: yeah we make her do it. Yeah. Anyway, So yeah,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: if you are listening on YouTube or whatever and you're
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: just finding us for the first time, I hope that
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: you'll stick around and get to know us instead of
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: just grabbing what we offer. But hey, do do whatever
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: you want, don't care, skip around, find the shit. But
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  Speaker 1: I'm not doing it for you because I have other
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: shit to do with my life.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Way to take a stand.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Thanks buddy, Thanks for that support. Jim's growing a backbone.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: We've got great questions today. Leading off with a sexy one.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: We're talking about porn addiction. And here's what it says.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Short one, my partner looks at porn all the time,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: like all day every day. It appears to his it
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: appears to his go to for any time he has downtime. Okay,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: it appears to be his go to anytime he has downtime.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Can you help which.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Then turns into uptide uptiwn what I mean?
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Can you help me understand people who look at porn
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: all day just out of boredom. I feel like it's
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: gotten to the level of addiction. Since it appears to
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: be any time that he is free, does it really
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  Speaker 1: become an obsession or just an easy go to? He
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: obviously is ashamed of it or feels it's taboo enough
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: to not mention it or her tend he looks he's
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  Speaker 1: not looking at it at all. And I only know
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: because we share a browser account and this guy hasn't
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: figured out how to use the incognito mode.
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  Speaker 2: Come on, Bud, it's a rookie move anyway.
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  Speaker 1: Ps. We are in a sexless marriage by his choice,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: which also makes his obsession even more confusing. Thanks for
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: your advice, Anonymous. Interesting sometimes Christmas for you?
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Why why? Because you're literally born right now? Fine?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Put my phone down, yeah, close the laptop, zip up
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: your pants.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Answer the question?
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Just because Whitney's not here today?
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Whitney misses one show and all of a sudden, we
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: got all these rules.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: You know what, You're on the right side of this.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: That's the agreement was when she's not here, we do
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: what the funk we want. That's right. It's old school
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: pod therapy. Nobody's judging anybody, jacket it on ourselves.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: No eye contact.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Oh wait minute, this is this the part that they
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: want to skip?
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there might be the part that you
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: people are like, can I get to the part where they.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Say smart shit? Okay, fair? Maybe they're not wrong. I
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: think maybe if we did.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Gold the good.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Stuff, All right, what do you want to tackle? First
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: the boredom thing, because that's I think the main thing,
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  Speaker 3: But then the last ps really kind of got my attention.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I definitely see three areas to talk about. One gravitating
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  Speaker 1: towards something like porn or anything else out of boredom,
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  Speaker 1: and the question of, at some point, how do we
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  Speaker 1: think about that clinically when it's sort of a boredom
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  Speaker 1: context versus like a compulsive context, do we even distinguish
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: those things? And then the other two topics I think
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  Speaker 1: are it's a sexless marriage. And then the third one
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  Speaker 1: is just this question of is porn addictive. How do
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: we feel about that? What's what's the data say on that?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean so as far as like the the
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  Speaker 3: boredom thing, boredom versus obsession that you had kind of mentioned,
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  Speaker 3: I think that is an important distinction, at least for
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  Speaker 3: me as an addiction's counselor Yeah, that's an important distinction.
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  Speaker 3: Not to say that it's any less of a problem, right,
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  Speaker 3: but I from my perspective, I think it would be
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  Speaker 3: a lot easier to treat, you know, like if I
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: had somebody who is drinking alcohol out of boredom, right,
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  Speaker 3: not out of compulsion. Oh yeah, I'll take that. You know,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: that's a fine problem to work well.
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  Speaker 1: And it's so fascinating, right because a lot of times
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  Speaker 1: addiction and boredom do hold hands in the sense of
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: when we sit down and do a trigger's analysis, that's
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: one of the higher ones, right. We almost always find
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: that they do not handle stagnancy really well. The brain
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: gets itchy and starts wanting to fill that void in
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: that time. Emotions can find them in boredom, just they
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: don't do it well. They don't sit still well, and
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: so there's a sense of like, oh, I need to
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: get out and get a drinker. I need to go
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: do something. So I could see that being like woven
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: into this. So I think it's difficult distinguish is this
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: an addiction or not? But I do think it's important
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  Speaker 1: to say out loud sexual and pornographic addictions are absolutely
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  Speaker 1: a thing.
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that definitely happens,
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  Speaker 3: you know, and you also see I guess what we
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: would describe like in the substance use world as tolerance, right,
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: you see that especially with with peor an addiction and
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: sex addiction.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: And I think even before you even go down the
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: road of is this an addiction or not, we kind
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: of have to look at is it the obvious question?
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Is it problematic?
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Sure? Yeah?
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: What are the negative content? I mean it obviously is
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: for the writer?
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Well, and I wonder if the PS is related to this.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: So it's a sexless marriage by my partner's choice, my
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: partner who is at all times watching pornography. And this
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: is something that I've seen clinically when I've when I've
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: had patients come in, usually male, that present with this
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: and that they're they're not the writer. They're obviously the
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: writers spouse in this one. I've had patients come in,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and a lot of times men in their twenties, and
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: what they'll say is, I discovered, you know, pornography at
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: a young age. It became something that I was constantly
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: going back to. It started to become in a way
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: that I would emotion my life, like if I was stressed,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: if I was defeated, if I felt less than I
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  Speaker 1: would turn to this.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: And I think that's the thing that most people don't
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: understand night that that is very common.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: It gets to a point where it's no longer about
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  Speaker 3: like sexual urge or desire. It's like, oh, got nothing
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  Speaker 3: better to do, or yeah, I'm really stressed at work, or.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say habit it is a habit, Yes,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: it becomes habituated. But also there is and and this
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: seems to be something I've seen in the data as well.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: There's another component, especially to male sexuality, that pornography is affirming.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: And even though it's all fiction, it is an affirming fiction.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: The actresses are excited to be here, they're all very
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: welcoming of this. And and sexuality, female sexuality directed at
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: men is inherently an affirming thing. It goes back to
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: basic evolutionary concepts of like survival the fittest and who
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: is the choice maker? Right, and the female of the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Homo sapien species is technically the choice maker, and if
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: they get to pick, it's you know, this is the
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: natural selection. They get to naturally select. And whenever they
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: show sexual favor toward a male, there is an affirmation
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: to that. Boys grow up seeing the dude at school
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: who's got like the leather jacket, the football player, and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: one of the hallmarks of his success is that the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: females show him attention, and that attention is am I
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: like him. It's more than just isn't he a great guy?
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: We all just agree he's a great guy. Intellectually we
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: alway think he's a great gut No, it's that you
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: dress pretty for him and you want him to notice you,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and you're flicking your hair and you're throwing yourself at him,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: and that sexual attention is affirmative. And what's interesting is
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: that translates to the pornography experience because when guys get
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: addicted to that, it is it starts as a sexual thing.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It just starts as ooh, this this is hot I'm
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: turned on by this. I'm orgasming to this, and therefore
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: there is a dopamine loop that's that's established right there.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: You guys are just counting how many times?
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah? Where is that? Those are gon.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Orgasm this easy, man, there's so many questions I could
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I don't play defense all right again. I put it
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: all on the field, baby.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: I'm glad. Jacob and I both looked at you. I
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: stayed very quiet for that.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your phones and just hit a button really quick
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: and stamp. The dopamine loop is being established in the
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: beginning by sexuality, but over time, what when when people
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: get to this place where there's constantly doing it. What
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: they don't realize and they often do in therapy when
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: they sit down and analyze it. There is an affirmation
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: at a almost biological level that's happening where they feel
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: better about themselves while they're watching this something about it.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: It's uplifting. It's almost like a pep talk. And then
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: they become obsessed with it. There's an addictive component to this,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and so it really is difficult. And the other thing
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: that happens, and this is wild and super interesting. A
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: rectile dysfunction often occurs when people get to this point.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious because I've seen situations where the husband
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: or the boyfriend here they are, they're a man in
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: their twenties. Biologically, there's no reason to be experiencing ed.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: The equipment works. A lot of times that bend to
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: a urologist, and everything's correct. They've done all the tests,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: but they can't get an erection and participate in sex,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: in part because they are so desensitized. And this goes
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: back to your point about tolerance. They've been witnessing so
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: much pornography that that's what it takes now for them
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to get aroused and get interested in And a lot
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: of times the guys that are watching porn all the time,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: they don't even have an erection while they're watching it anymore.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: They're just passively watching this and it's like the news.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: It's nothing to them. So what happens is the equipment
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: gets cognitively tied up, right. We've talked about neuroplasticity, neurons
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: that fire together, wire together. There's so much sexual firing
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: that it's almost like it takes a huge new stimulus
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: to get the body to react, and the body starts
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to associate a sexual partner as what's on a screen
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: instead of the woman in front of you, and then
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: that creates a new problem in their relationships where they
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: love their partner, they're interested in their partner, but they
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: can't sexually perform with their partner, and they're also sometimes
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: not sexually interested in their partner anymore because they have
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: gotten addicted to this other thing, you know, they're they're
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: like constantly, you know, snort and coke, and so when
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: you come to them and offer them like a normal coffee,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: they're like, what is this water? You know, like this
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't affect me, Like I may as well not even
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: have it. And it's like, yeah, it's because your brain
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: has gotten stuck on the hard stuff. Mm hmm.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Once you've tasted blood, wine seems too thin?
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Is that a saying yeah, I heard, it's pretty fucked
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: up saying man, yeah, also not scientifically acting. Unless you're
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: drinking a drunk person's blood then okay. I mean, if
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: that BAC is high enough, then sure, you know, I
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: guess that could be true.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: I mean with the whole sexless marriage thing, by choice,
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: by his choice, I don't know.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: I guess I would want so you can't.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Just throw that in.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: At the very end. That's a big curve fault. Writer.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: That's not a ps, that's a that's a paragraph.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: Also, not sure if this would be relevant, but yeah,
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: that related question.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm very curious about that. I love to hear
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: more about that. And then I mean, have.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: You not gone on because it's an email?
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Have you have you approached him about this too?
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Like that's kind of something I'm interested in too, hearing
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: a little bit more about that, Like, yeah, is this
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: obviously this this does bother you to some degree. I
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: think this is a good conversation to have. I think
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: it's a conversation that needs to be had. But I
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: like what the writer's kind of doing here, is the
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: writer's kind of getting some more information first. Yeah, it
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: sounds like before I confront him about this, you know,
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: is there anything that I need to understand?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Can somebody do this just on of boredom?
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Which yeah, we did talk about that, right, you know,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: does it become an obsession or just an easy go to?
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: I think both. I don't think we know enough about.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: This situation right now to be able to say like, yeah,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: this is this reaches the criteria of an addiction.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Right, but it sure does look like it. I mean
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a lot there. I mean, there's there's
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: key parameters that Nick and I are always searching for
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to tell us, like as somebody using despite negative consequences,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: that they tried to cut back and fail.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: I honestly, I think the easiest way to tell if
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: something is addictive or if it's become an addiction is
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: to just remove it and see what happens.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, just set up to my
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: parental blockers, see what happens on the on your Wi
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Fi one day? Yeah, just don't say anything about it.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Oh there you go to see what the reaction is. Yeah. Well,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: I think at a minimum we would probably use the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: word dependent. I mean, this person is, that's how they're
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: living their life. So writer a couple of things in
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: this and for the general audience. So one, there's a
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: really good movie that portrays this with Joseph Gordon Levitt.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Is that this kid's name it's called Don Juan Okay.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And in this movie he plays a sex addicted young
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: man who's navigating life and relationships. And you can see
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: he does a really good job portraying some situations where
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: he's in love and he meets a wonderful woman and
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: he cares about her, and like he's on the way
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to see her, and like he's watching porn in his
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: car and he's just it's obsessive. He can't stop, and
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: it's very confusing. And so when you're in the situation writers,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: it's very easy to conflate all of this in a
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: personal way. When your partner is drinking too much, there's
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: a temptation to think, like, oh my god, are they miserable?
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Do I make the miserable? And my part of this problem?
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: And we get sucked into it with porn and sex addictions.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: It's very tempting to look at this and take it
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: personal and say, this is a rejection of me. I
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: am unattractive, they don't want me, and they're replacing me
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: with these actresses, and that's part of this. The reality
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: is not usually that. The reality is usually this high octane,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: very specifically produced and designed content that is creating this
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: mental experience in the male mind. And when you think
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: about the way that human instincts are very profound and powerful,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: and how they motivate a lot of behavior and how
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: they shape the brain. Sexual connection and sexual performance and
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: sexual selection is perhaps one of the largest driving factors
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: in men most of their adult life. And so this
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: is a very powerful biochemical circuitry that's getting manipulated. It
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a lot to do with you. So one,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I usually want to get people away from personalizing it. Two,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: I want to get people away from moralifying it. I
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: don't like whenever they start looking at that you are
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: a degenerate, You are a bad person, this is evil,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: this is bad. That's tricky too. It usually says more
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: about your personal insecurities and your fears about this and
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: certain maybe religious or philosophical beliefs you have, and I
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: don't know that those are super helpful for disentangling your
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: partner's behavior and you entering into that. I do like
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the idea of a conversation about it, but from a
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: perspective of starting with hey, I stumbled upon this, right,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not stalking you. I'm not doing anything crazy here.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: But I do I do notice sometimes that this is
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: going on the background and making it safe, making it like, Hey,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to interject myself in this,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: because it's your body, your choice, and like, I don't
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: necessarily care, but in this I don't want to speak
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: for you, writer, because you don't tell us whether you
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: have a problem with the sexless marriage. You just say
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: it's your partner's choice. But if you would like more
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: sexual connection, you can usually try to bridge both of
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: those at the same time in a conversation that says, hey,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: is this something you'd like to do together sometimes? Is
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: this something that we could weave into our bedroom time
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: and maybe recapture something And this would be a way
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to slowly start to wean a person away from just
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: that content and starting to reconnect to their brain circuitry
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: to you in a sexualized way. Now, that's not a
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: perfect prescription. A lot of couples have tried that and
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: found that to also be very damaging to them. So
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I don't just Carte Blanc say, yeah, just bring some
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: por in your marriage. Everything'll be great. No, there's a
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: lot of research that says that is not always a
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: good idea in your very specific situation. I think it
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: could be interesting, but I don't like just ignoring this forever.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: When you notice a person's doing this this habitually, they
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: could be doing it at work, they could be doing
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: it while they're driving, They could be doing it at
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: a coffee shop.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: I mean that definitely explains some of the people I've
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: seen on the road recently.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure, for sure they're driving in jacket.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I mean that's just the thing, you know. So, like,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I definitely want you to think about bringing it up,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: because I do think that at a minimum, if we
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: know somebody is doing anything to access and is dependent
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: upon anything and we love them, we want to depersonalfy it,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and then we want to talk to them as a
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: human and say, hey, I just want to make sure
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: that I'm talking about this. Are you okay? Is this something?
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: And sometimes you need to do that as a voice
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: of normality because you can get so sucked into like
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: these these these addiction holes that you lose perspective. Like
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: you know, at some point you might talk to a
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: friend about it and your friends and be like, bro,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: that's not normal, I don't do that, and then they
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: might be like, oh okay, And that might be the
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: one spark of light that like causes them to say,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: maybe I need to look into this. Is this a
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: real problem? Like is it not normal for me to
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: feel these ways? So I'm okay with bringing it up,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: but I don't know, what do you think about that,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: nig Is it okay to talk to the partner about this?
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Absolutely?
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, if it's something that you're concerned about, concerned
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: enough to write into us to talk about, Yeah, I
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: think that's fair game. I think it's perfectly fine to
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: bring up. I think as long as you bring it up,
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: you know, in kind of a concerned, curious way and
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: non confrontational.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely. The right way to bring it up
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: is importantly non judgmental. That's a big part of this.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: But anyway, writer, a real talk, I appreciate this question.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of people privately going through this.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure how to navigate it. They take it personally,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: it feels like rejection. It is something they tiptoe through.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of really good writing out there. If
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: you're a person out there who's struggling with this and
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: this story describes you. Coming out of the Shadows by
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Patrick Carnes is a great starter text just to kind
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: of start to wrap your mind around the science and
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the reality of sexual addictions and how they can manifest
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: that it is something that can happen to you, and
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: that if you're struggling with it, you deserve to get
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: help and don't forget. There are organizations out there like
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Sex Addicts Anonymous, sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, there's Pornography
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Addicts Anonymous now, and there are so many support groups
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: for this. And I just really hope that if you're
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: out there and struggling with this, you realize you don't
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: have to This can get better in your life. It
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: can help you right size your sexuality, recapture your sexual
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: interest in real people partners that are in your life,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: which is probably going to be healthy for you overall. So,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: you know, last thought to just hold another tangent. You know,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest areas that we're seeing a new growth,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: a new resurgence in porn addiction. My pants is in
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Jacob's pants. And I just got that newsletter, you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: from a sect. It was really crazy AI. So there's
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a bunch of apps now that are creating AI girlfriends
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and you design the girl and she's your dream girl
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: or whatever, and then she behaves in this very natural
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: mean you guys have seen what AI can do, and
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: like the way she talks to you and remember shit
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: you're telling her and like you just talk to this
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: app in real time and it flirts with you. It
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: does sexy stuff, and like a lot of people are
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: getting addicted to that now, and especially the youngest generation,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the Zoomers, and a lot of there's a lot of
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: interesting research watching that and saying, oh shit because they
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: remember that movie her Ye where she was her with
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Joaquin Phoenix.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And so it's opening up a lot of interesting
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: components that. But anyway, we are gonna take a quick
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: break and when we come back, we're talking about the
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Big D. You're listening to pod Therapy.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Today's therapy pruisers who sponsored the show Ours Miller, Tes,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Milleryler T, Paris, Team Monaco, Oscar swanros Anna, Marie and
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  Speaker 3: signing up at patreon dot com slash therapy. Alright, you
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: want to post interests or you want one star reviews.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: One star review, sure, let's save host interest for Whitney. Okay,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I like one star reviews.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: Okay, uh, here we go, very famous beloved places and products,
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Here we go. Quote there was way too many rocks. Literally,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: that's it. Just rocks, No bathrooms, no Starbucks, nothing.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Just gotta be like the Grand Canyon or something. Yeah,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: or like Red Rock. Are we blinding on this or
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: are we getting okay? H just rocks. Oh, I'll bet
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: you had Stonehenge. Oh, Stonehenge is good. That's a good one.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: All right, I'll stick with the Grand Canyon.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, h it's it is the Grand Canyon. That's great.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: One star like though.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, the fuck up of these rocks in a field
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: Stone Hinge is like out in the middle of nothing, right, right,
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: I guess the Grand candidate is too.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: Here we go quote absolutely nothing to do here. It
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: is just a bunch of walls and some old furniture.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: I thought this was supposed to be some epic escape story,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: but nope. The audio tour was slow, the prison was
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: too cold. Even have a gift shop that sold good souvenirs. Really,
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: who wanted to remember this place?
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Alcatraz? Yeah, I gotta be. I would think so too.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: It is Alcatraz. Yeah, here we go.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: My trip here was completely let down for such a
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: quote unquote wonder it's really just old rocks and sand
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: I expected to see something breath taking, but all I
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: got was a lot of wind and dust. There's not
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: even a proper visitor center, just a bunch of locals
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: trying to sell trinkets.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I got to know.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: The guides wouldn't stop talking about how ancient it is.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah that's yeah, it's old.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: But maybe spend a little of that tourist money on
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: an upgrade.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: All right, I feel like, since you've got it, I
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: got it easy because I'm I'm searching. I've got a
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: couple of ideas. I think I know what it is,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: all right that I'll go first, because I'm probably the
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: least talk us through your your thought process here job.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: So my mind is drifting toward the pyramids, the sand thing, okay,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and wonder that that's a huge clue as far as
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: other wonders of the world. And then there's like natural ones,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and there's like man made ones. But we've already got
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Green Canyon off the board, so I feel like it
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: can't be that again. It's probably gonna have to be
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the Pyramid. So that's probably my best shot.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: I was gonna say, the pyramids, Yeah, pyramids, all right?
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: What what what got me?
• 26:56
  Speaker 6: The only other one it could be is the Great
• 26:58
  Speaker 6: Wall of China, but I think the Pyramids.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, oh yeah, it is the Pyramids. Yeah, dude, we're
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: doing really good on this. Yeah. The thing that got
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: me was the locals trying to sell trinkets.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I've heard. It's very heart it's very scammy.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: They're like pushy. They try to make you walk over
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: with them. The places.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: By the way, there are hints to all of these,
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: but I'm only scrolling enough to see the quote and
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: not the hint.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: All right, I appreciate the honesty.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, quote last one quote. It was expecting. I was
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: expecting something out of a fairy tale. But this place
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: is just overrated. Sure the towers are tall, but they
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: aren't as impressive up close. The gardens were fine, but
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: it felt like just another park. I thought I was
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: walking into a Disney movie. But it's a movie, but
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: it's it's more like a walk through an outdated attraction.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: Save your money.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: What towers Disney movie. I've got a guess. Oh man,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: my guess is the taj mahal.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: That's solid. There's towers there.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Gardens were fine, but just another park.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna take Okay, I'm gonna need some grace on
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: this because I don't know the proper name for this building,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: but I want this to be it.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: There's a building in Constantinople that's like thank you. Yeah yeah, yeah,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: there's like spires. Yeah, okay, I want that thing. Okay,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and I'm going with towers. Most of that. I don't
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: know about gardens towers. I was gonna say, but you
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: could be like an English thing, like a castle, like
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Disney Castle. I mean you famous castle?
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Is that?
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Is that a thing? What famous castle is? Oh?
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: There's castles all over. I don't know if there's any
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: one particular ones Disney.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Disney was one of my early guesses, but then there's
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: so many. On the nose reference Yeah, I'm.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Gonna go with Jacob on this one. I think, Oh, okay,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: you all wrong. We do you want the hint? Yes,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: a famous castle in Germany often considered the inspiration for Disney.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: That's that thing.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: I know what it is, but I have no idea what.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: It's called, like the something something.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, if he's close, should we give it to him? Hell?
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is close? Yeah, we'll give it to him.
• 29:25
  Speaker 7: If it's with a bunch of German sounds. It's like
• 29:30
  Speaker 7: it's like Ergenstein. No, it's it's new Schwasten Schwanstenstein.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: I feel like I was very swan. I got the
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: swen in there, schwanstein Castle. I didn't anything like so
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: no points award.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: In fact, we were taking away points. The effort shall
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: be punished. All right, good questions. I like this, this
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: is a fun topic. How to have a conversation about
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the Big D? Hello pod therapy. First of all, get
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: your mind out.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Of the gutter.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Although it if we were discussing that Big D, I
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: probably wouldn't be asking this question. I'm actually talking I soud.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: We were going to talk about who shot Jr? Dallas Dallas,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I'm actually talking the other D. Divorce or perhaps instead
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: conscious uncoupling. We've been together for a long time, but
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: not married, no kids, and but do have we own
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: a house together and we have dogs. Like pretty much
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: anyone who is ready for the divorce talk, it's probably
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: a few years overdue, as the relationship has run its
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: course and we're both just in coasting roommate mode. What
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: is a good way to start the conversation? How do
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you avoid falling into the trap of using blaming language,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: especially as things get heated or into a fight, thinks anonymous. Interesting,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: So to be clear this, this person's saying, it's a
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: breakup conversation, but they're equating it to divorce. They're not
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: legally married. Okay, Like, look, we live together, we own
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: a host home together, we have dogs together.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: If you own a house together and have dogs, for
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: all intents and.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Purpose, the common law right, common law marriage, that they
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: were together, yeah, and where they are and all that stuff.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Wow, So I mean none of us have actually been
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: through this.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: So yeah, if only there was someone here who's been divorced.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Next question, All right, well we tried. Let's talk about Dicky.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: You know that's not what your question about. You made
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: it very clear, like a politician.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: We're just gonna pivot to the one we want to answer,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: like you Teas does with that title.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: All the show's answers.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Come back to the Dick. I think, FREDI it is.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Writer.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I think the best way to approach this is to, uh,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: it's gonna sound kind of cheesy, but kind of those
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: I statements and really kind of focusing on here's how
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I feel, Here's what I'm going through.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: These are my thoughts, you know.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: And yeah, it is sometimes very difficult to not play
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: the blame game because you know, when something like this happens,
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: especially if the other person is caught off guard or
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: you know, if they don't share the same feelings that
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: you do, it, they're going to become defensive. Even if
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: you're not attacking them, they're going to become defensive because
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: they're seeing like, this is the end of their relationship
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: and what is more personal personal you know, to them
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: than that, you know, And so if you're talking about
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: this is ending, you can expect that there's going to
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: be some some pushback to that, unless they're just completely
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: on the same page like yeah, you know what, I've
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: been feeling that too, you know, and.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Then you can work it out amicably.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: But yeah, even in those situations, like it's tough because
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: the slightest thing is going to turn into a blaming conversation. Yeah,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: and it's really hard to avoid that.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: I had a friend in the last two years who
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: had a very long term relationship with their partner. Neither
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: of them were into the whole marriage concept, so it
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: was never something that they decided to legally go forward with,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: but they did live together. He owned the home, she didn't,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: but they had dogs together, the whole business, and like,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: you know, had a life together. And at some point
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: he came to me and he said, you know, I
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: think we've become roommates. Like it's that old you know trope,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: which I think many of us have heard. We're living
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: separate lives, just all the things, and said, you know what,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: I think. I think I'm at a place where it's
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: it's time, you know, I want to let go of this.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: And also this person was like, I think I just
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: want to do a lot new things with my life.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: I want to travel, I want to see the world
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: a little bit. I think that like it's time for
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: me to you know, make some big life changes. Well
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: what was interesting was, you know, we talked through this,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: and you know, I felt like this person was sort
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: of ready, and I was like, so, wow, you seem like,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I've kind of kicked all four tires on
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: this thing. I've tried to be your friend and talk
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: about this from different angles, kind of test your willingness.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Obviously your friend happens to be a therapy So like,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm sort of plying in some interesting ways
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: to try to be helpful to you, and you do
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: seem like you're ready for this, right. Well, then he
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: kept delaying it and I was and every time i'd
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: see him, a couple months would go by and I'd say, oh, so, hey, man,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: you know we'd get together for a bear bick. So
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: tell me, brother, you know, did you finally make that decision?
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: And he goes, oh, yeah, man, I'm still on the
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: I'm still gonna do it. I'm convinced I'm going to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: do it, but I haven't done it yet, and I'm
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: like why. And it was so interesting because whenever you
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: build a life together, you have so much that you're
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: still doing. It's like, well, we have this vacation coming up,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: you know, or like, well the holidays are coming up,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: and I really like this person's family, so like, I
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: don't want to mess up the holidays, and like I
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: don't want to fuck up there, you know, make them
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: depressed before the holidays or this that, or we have
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: an anniversary coming up. I don't want to fuck up that.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Editor like, I just want to get through this, and
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: I'm like okay, like you know this is interesting, and
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: they're like yeah, like it it's actually becoming a different
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: problem because I want to do this, but it's not
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: like I am actively unhappy. Right, They're not beating me,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: they're not setting the house on fire.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: A rush to get it done, yes.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: And then I think you get you get like slipped
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: into this complacency because your equilibrium is so functional day
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: to day and your friends, right, and so like you'll
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, hey, do you want to go catch
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: a movie and see a pizza?
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: Okay? Cool?
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: You know, and like you just do your thing and
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: you just don't. You don't feel the sense of urgency.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people write letters like
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: this or or in this headspace where it's like I
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: feel like we're getting to the end, I'm not ready
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: to take action. And to me, that's something I'm really
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: curious about because I think Nick's right, like when it's
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: time to have the talk. I like what Nick said
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: about that. But one of the big questions that I
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: think a person needs to sit with is progressing in
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: their stage of change, Like are they in preparation, what
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: does it look like to take action? And are they
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: ready for the life disruptions that come with that, Because
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: once you talk about this, you know the cats are
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: out of the house, like I don't know what's gonna
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: happen now, Like is my partner going to say, Okay,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: well I don't want to live here another day like this?
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: You know, when you do immediately make choices, like when
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: you do do rush all this or is it going
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: to be like okay, thank you for telling me. Now
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: there's tension. We're fighting. It's now going from equilibrium mode
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: where we weren't cruel to each other to now cold
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: shouldering and being mean. And I'm like, I might even
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: scare you or hurt you and like try to go
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: out and date somebody, and like how is that going
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: to affect you?
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: So none of that.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I don't want to deter you from making choices, But
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I do think a healthy thing to do as one
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: prepares for action is to sit down and simulate all
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: that out. And I think that actually increases their readiness
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: to do the uncomfortable thing.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with that, because even
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: though you're you know, you're in a boat and you're
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: going downstream and you're going in a direction you don't
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: want to go in, the waters are calm, yes, you know,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: and that that says a lot for that current relationship.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: So I do get I do understand that, because you
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: have to understand that. Okay, Well, as soon as we
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: do this, we're not going to be in calm waters anymore. Yes,
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: but that's the only way to change your direction, right,
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: is you're going to have to go upstream or you're
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: going to have to do something, and then the boat's
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: going to rock and it is going to be difficult.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: There's no easy way to do it, right, I mean,
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: even for like the people that I've come across that
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: have had amical breakups, right, I mean, it's it's relatively amicable, right,
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: you know, compared to you know what we see. But
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: it's still not easy. It's still very difficult. A lot
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: of difficult choices have to be made. People's feelings are
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: going to get hurt, yes, and it's going to happen.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. My last thought on this too. At the end
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: of the day. I've had a lot of people come
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: to me over the years in therapy and say, you know,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I'm here to talk out how I'm feeling about my relationship,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and they'll use a lot of this language. They'll say,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: you know, we've lost connection. There's no chemistry, there's no romance,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: We're just an old married couple kind of thing, or
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: like we're into our routines. And it's interesting, I think
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: for me person of therapist, I sometimes struggle with with
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: hearing that because in eight sessions in a day, six
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: of them are couples who are trying to actively merge
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: to each other or there's some kind of like insanity
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: in their world and they're screaming and crying and gashing
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: of teeth, or somebody's like, it isn't even the couple
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I'm treating, it's a member of the couple, and they're
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: telling me about the insanity that they live with. And
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: I think, my god, there are so many humans that
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: would love a boring life with a boring partner who
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: is nice and is not a problem and maybe you
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: don't have a spark anymore, but so many people are
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: living in chaos like they would love your life. And
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: so there's a part of me in the back of
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: my head that I think, you know, for every one
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: person I hear from who's like, I think I want
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: to leave because I'm bored and things are restless or whatever,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I've got eight that I've heard from that are in chaos.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Like the actively hurting and so it's really tricky. But
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: I also like to point people to the triangle theory
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: of love. Steinberg's triangle theory of love is a great
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: visual model, and one of the things I really appreciate
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: that is just remembering that in the life span of
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: a long, long term relationship, we expect that you are
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: going to go through various developmental cycles. And in the beginning,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: you know, and I think this is a common trope
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: in society. We talk about the honeymoon period and like
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: we expected there'll be spark in chemistry and sex and
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: oh my god, it's so exciting. This person's fascinating to me.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: And then over time we expect there to be a
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: lull and then people get into more of a commitment
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: focused relationship where they are there. They're rock solid, they're loyal,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: they know each other, I've got your back, I'm steady, unpredictable,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: but the spark is gone and maybe there's a drifting
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: from the friendship. And so all of that's accounted for
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: in the life cycle of a relationship, and some relationships
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: drift from end to end. So anyway or bring that
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: up to you right or not to disqualify your feelings.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: If you feel like, hey, you're ready to leave, that's fine,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: But a full exploration of your feelings is due before
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: we do anything, before we throw this away. And I
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: would just want to bring your attention to that because
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: that is a valid area to end up in relationship
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't have to be forever. Really great book
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: about recapturing sexuality and con tact in your relationship Mating
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: in Captivity by Esther Perell. She talks about how the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: familiarity we develop in long term relationships has an inverse
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: relationship to eroticism. That eroticism sort of fundamentally lives in
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: a mysterious space of not knowing this person, craving their
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: affirmation and then seeking them, and we don't tend to
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: seek what we have, and so she talks about how
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: to recapture some of those postures and reignite a relationship.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: So anyway, just putting all ideas on the table in
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: front of you, writer, but fundamentally I agree with Nick's
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: approach of if a conversation needs to be had, that's
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the way you have it.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: Do you have any other tips as far as avoiding
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: falling into the trap of using blaming language. I mean,
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: for me, I think, like I said, I would go
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: back to those eye statements and really kind of focusing
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: on that, but then recognizing early on when it starts
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: to when the temperature starts to warm up and we're
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: starting to blame, we're starting to point fingers, to recognize
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: that early, and then just kind of bring it back,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: maybe even taking a break from the conversation if you
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: need to, and come back to it later. You can
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: only control I mean, you can only you can only control.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Your side of the street. Yes, you know.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: If the best thing you can do is do your
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: best not to try to use blaming language, right, and
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: if they do, then the best thing you can do
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: is not feed into it.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Well, then maybe take a break if you need to.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I love that, And two thoughts I'd add to that too.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: When somebody comes to me and says they think they
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: want to have a conversation like this, I tell them
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: you will be ready for that conversation when you and
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: I have done enough therapy on this, and you've gotten
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: out all your resentments and you and I have talked
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: it all through to where you're ready to talk to
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: this person without any blame language because a lot of
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: times we have all of our resentments and our misgivings,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: we've made the case in our head ten times, right,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and so then we get up to this person and
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: we're ready to like unload on them. We're ready to
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: make this their punishment. We're going to say, you're officially
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: being broken up with, and here are your crimes, here
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: are the things that you have done, and so like
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: that is a natural thing for people to want to
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: do in a breakup, even if they're like, hey, I
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: don't hate you, but they're kind of aching for you
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: to ask why, And then you can say, well, look,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: here's ten times that I tried to ask you out
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: on a date and I was trying to be flirting
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: with you, and you were dormant and you weren't interested
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: in times that you shorted me, or times that you
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: didn't pay attention to me, or times you went out
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: with your friends, or times that you didn't appreciate things
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: that I've asked you to do in the past. Like,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: we have all of that waiting inside to be delivered
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: in that breakup conversation. And my rule of thumb is,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: if that's how you feel like you need to give
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: them their indictments. You need to read the charges. You're
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: not ready for the breakup because you only need to
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: read the charges if you're making a bid for change,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: and if you're still in a place where you want
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: to make bids for change, then you're not ready for breakup.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: You're ready for negotiation and revision. And that's where I
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: like to work with people because sometimes we realize you're
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: not ready for a breakup, you're ready for a revolution,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: and so let's prepare you for that conversation to go
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: in and make bids for change and being prepared to
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: lose the relationship. But now is where I'm going to
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: rip the carpet out and tell you everything we're doing wrong.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: But if you feel the need to do that, then
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: you're really not ready to break up. Because when you're
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: ready to fire somebody from your company, you don't need
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: to read them the list of everything they've ever done wrong,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: because in twenty four hours they will not work here anymore.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: It will not matter. You need to read things that
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: people have done wrong when you want to change them
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: so they can be a better employee. If you're keeping them,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: a write up tells them what they're doing wrong. That's
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: a pip. But if you're terminating, and you've made peace
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: that you're ready to terminate, then you need to come
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: into that conversation offering no feedback at all. And that's
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: the way you terminate employee. You do not sit down
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: with them and say here's the old things did wrong,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: because then they're going to respond to that, and now
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: we're negotiating your return to the company immediately. Instead, it's
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: got to be it's not working out, we've made a decision,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: here's what we're going to do.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Then there is no blame language.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: They may piss and moan on the way out of
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: the building, and your partner may piss and moan because
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: they still have their hurts, But when you're personally ready,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: you won't have any blame language in you because you'll
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: be beyond that.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: I'm full of good points.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: All right. Now let's get to the big d.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, finally, let's talk about Dick. I think that's where
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: we need to get. Too many drops are coming out
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: of this episode. I need to stop talking. We're gonna
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: gonna talk about feeling unaccomplished for my age.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, oh wow, that's relatable. You're listening to pod therapy.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: Today's episode of Front of You by Smitty Scoop, Mason Miller,
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: Tess Miller, Myler, t Paris Te Monaco, Osper Swandro's, Anna
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: Marie and Emma Cain.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: And would you like to response to the show become
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: a therap producer.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: Patreon dot com slabs. Okay, here we go, continuing on
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: with one star reviews. All right, I don't understand why
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: people are willing to spend this much on something that
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: just makes noise. Sure it's small, but I can't even
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: tell the difference between this and my regular radio. And
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: sometimes it doesn't even understand what I'm asking it to play.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Waste of money. Ah, I think this is a I
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: think this is an Alexa or a jukebox.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Oh ha, I was gonna say, like an iPod or
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: a car radio. I'll bet this person is an idiot
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: and it's like a fucking car radio.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: Why I won't the DJs listen to one of them?
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I bet it's a car radio. All right, I'm going
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: car radio or radio. I want, I want that entire
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: corner of the board.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: Here all right, anything that makes noise.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, fuck you. I'll take thing
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: with speakers. Shit, that's a good move. I'll take like
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: an iPod iPhone type thing. Oh we're giving him that,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: We're giving him Apple products, doesn't matter.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: He's wrong.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah it was Alexa, Amazon, Echo Slash.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: It was that those things are annoying. I have mine
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: hooked up to play Spotify, and I've appreciated that change.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I used to use Amazon Music and I switched to Spotify,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: Alexa play pod therapy.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: I was smart, all right, Alexa order one potato and
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: subscribe and saved every day.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Potato day.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: It just keeps getting delivered. Have you seen that birthday
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: gift you can order. It's a big, like whatever fucking
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Idaho potato and they brand into it whatever you want
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: it to say, and then they delivered in a nice
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: wood box to somebody.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: It's like the gift. It just like happy birthday, Jago.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Just a fucking branded potato that will rot. That's great quote.
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: Why do people wear this? It's uncomfortable and honestly it's
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: not even that cute. The fabric is scratchy and the
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: fit is weird.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: For cage. Final answer.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: For something that costs us much, I expect it to
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: feel like luxury, not something I could have gotten from
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: the clearance rack.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: A luxury. I think it's a course set. Hmmm, a
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: corset whatever? Is that what it is? But it's spelled
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: like co r s e t T. That's set s
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: e t T of course set, course set. I think
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: you're just putting the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: course and the wrong Yeah, that's right, all right. I'm
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: going with a course set and or corset whatever. I
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: feel like those are uncomfortable, I have no idea and luxurious,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: and I feel like somebody would be busy about it,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: and I feel like they would comment on Amazon about
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: like this sucks.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: I'll do like a a nice robe. Okay, robe sounds
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: like a good idea. I'm gonna go with Fedora, okay, okay.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: Oh I think it was Lulu lim yoga pants.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: All right, yeah, fine, fine, okay, last one.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: I'll bet you Whitney would have gotten that. Oh.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Probably.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: I can't believe this thing gets such rave reviews. First
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: of all, the design is so bad. It's tiny, and
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: I can't figure out how to get it to stay
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: where I want.
• 48:25
  Speaker 8: It, constantly slipping out of place, and when it's not slipping,
• 48:37
  Speaker 8: it's making the most irritating noise, kind of high pitched
• 48:41
  Speaker 8: buzz that's just unbearable if you tried to use it
• 48:45
  Speaker 8: in a quiet room. The packaging made it seem like
• 48:49
  Speaker 8: it would be sleek and modern, but it's honestly just
• 48:52
  Speaker 8: the pain to use.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: I regret wasting my money. He might be right.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: I think Vibrator the ass blastered three thousand when she
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: was doing when I'm going vibrator, yeah, I think easily
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: it's gotta be all right. So I think the personal massage. Yeah,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: we're being strongly led in that direction, and I'll bet
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: it's gonna end up being like like a foot.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: To stay where I want it without constantly slipping out
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: of place.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be maybe a back massage, something
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: that you're thinking.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: My original thought was like one of those massage guns.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: But how is it slipping out of place? Doesn't make sense?
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, keep it where I'm really happy.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Vibrator.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Right, that's what she wants us to think. Man, don't
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: fall for her dirty tricks. She knows that we're so
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: immature that that's exactly where we're going.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: With but she knows that we know that we're very immature.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so so she might think they're gonna loop back around.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: My god, what is it? I just answer?
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Give us hints.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: Okay, here's a hint. It's a tiny, high portable gadget
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: that many people use daily, often in quiet bases like library.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: It's those it's those Apple pods in your ears.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: What it is. What's the answer?
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Air pods? Yeah? Fuck?
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Oh this is great. Yeah, she she knew, she knew
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: what she was doing. Or vibrator.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I don't see why those have to
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: be different things. I can Yeah, there you go solidly?
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Was that the last one?
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: That was the last one? Wow?
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know who's winning, but I'm I'm really happy.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: People bitch about the air pods all the time. I
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: have a pair that work. They don't fall out. No,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: I have the Android version of them. Uh, it's hit
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: and miss. They're They're reliable to some extent. But if
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: I'm chewing, I'm fucked. Like if I if I'm trying
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: to like listen and while I'm eating lunch or something
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: like that, no way I got some jbl okay buds. Yeah,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: but that's a full headset, isn't it. Oh they go
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: in the air.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, they're They're fine.
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: I noticed it, but like if I take them out
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: to the driving range, if I'm golfing or something. Yeah,
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: every once in a while, like the music stops life. Yeah,
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: well I only while doing that.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: I think it's a bluetooth interference thing. I'm noticing it
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: when I drive sometimes, and I feel like it's just
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: so many signals.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: Shouldn't have earbuds in while you're driving, jim.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I meant my car. You shouldn't have
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: earbuds in and shouldn't be jacking it.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: They'll tell me my life. Yeah, Jesus, I thought we agreed.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: We're Whitney free man, live in our best bucket lives.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Feeling unaccomplished for my age from a man to h Hey, guys,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: I've been really struggling with the fact that I'm getting older.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: I turn thirty next year, and I just feel behind,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: like I'm supposed to be further along than I am.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: I don't really know how to quantify it, but I
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: just saw my life at twenty nine as being completely
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: different than it actually is, and I don't know what
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: to do about it. I kind of think I should
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: see a therapist about it, but it feels silly. Therapists
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: have real problems to deal with that just feel more
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: important anytime I try to lean on my support team,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: though they downplay it as something everyone goes through and
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: I will feel better when it just happens. I just
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: feel kind of weird about it all, and I'm having
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: a hard time trying to set myself straight here. Is
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: it ridiculous to want to see a therapist just because
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I'm getting older. Love the show, guys, and glad to
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: finally re up my Patreon Amanda h pronouns are she,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: and they.
• 52:20
  Speaker 9: Thank you, Amanda Man. This is relatable as shit. Everybody
• 52:23
  Speaker 9: goes through that at some point. I'm still going through that.
• 52:27
  Speaker 9: I don't have any feedback. I'm gonna listen to what
• 52:29
  Speaker 9: you have to say.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: I'm also wondering.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: Just make honestly, that's what I've done. I'm forty three.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: I don't like where I'm at. I figured i'd be
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: further along than this, and I'm just kind of like, well,
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: this is the hand that I've been dealt here's this
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: is where I don't have any other choice than to
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: play the hand that I've got.
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: Now that i'm kind of thinking about it, I'm thinking
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: this is a byproduct of a poor work life.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Balance for for all of us. Yeah, not just for Amanda, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: Like we we focus in this country, we're really bad
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: about it. And I'm sure it happens in other countries too,
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: but but I can I can speak for the US.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: In the US, we're really bad about focusing too much
• 53:18
  Speaker 6: of our attention I think, on our work, uh, and
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: not on our outside of work life. And so when
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: you focus all of that attention just on your work
• 53:28
  Speaker 6: life and you aren't to the position that you feel
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: that you should be in your professional life, now it's
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: affecting your personal life. Now, it's going to affect your
• 53:38
  Speaker 6: personal life at a greater rate than it would if
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: you didn't care about your work life as much.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's true.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: That's definitely true. Although I mean speaking for myself, because
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: we're just gonna put Amanda's letter off to the time this. Yeah, good,
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: go ahead, take the floor, and then we can talk
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: about my physique after.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll bring you back up.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: You can get into the stuff. You can really Nashville shirt.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: Oh I got paid the best compliment, did you at
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: Life is Beautiful? Okay, so this past weekend, actually just
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: last night, I was that Life is Beautiful for those
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: of you who don't know, it's a music festival in Vegas, which,
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: by the.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: Way, yeah at the Plaza. Yeah. Oh so it was fine.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: But compared to what it used to be, right, you know,
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: with like I think six different stages, they had like
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: twelve city blocks blocked off, you know, that was huge,
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: and then now it's it's pretty much in the plaza
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: parking lot. Oh, and they made it nice, like it
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: looked really nice. It was great, you know, and there
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: was like the.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Plaza's downtown Las Vegas. Yeah, for the listeners.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: There's only two stages, and so they were side by.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Say if you've ever seen Back to the Future too,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: that the plaza is biffs ye yeah, ye, so there's Biffs.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Looks way cooler than what the plaza actually presents as.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: Nah.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: Nah, the Plaza is awesome.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: It's a great place.
• 54:59
  Speaker 6: I like the plaza, the huge murals painted on the
• 55:01
  Speaker 6: side of it and everything.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's swanky. It's a different size experience, but anyway,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: so it's much smaller.
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so like there are two stages side by side,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: so basically the bands like one would be playing and the.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: Battle and and so was it was fine. But anyway, so.
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: We we got in line for our twenty one and
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: older passes, right, so, uh we're getting those on and
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: and the guy was like, guy complimented my shirt.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: He's like, that's a nice shirt. Okay. He's like, ooh,
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: and you brought the biceps out tonight. Good, that's that's nice.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: Like he's like, she's a lucky girl. Yeah.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I always like how it's dudes that compliment. Yeah, like
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: none of us have ever heard a nice word from
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: a woman in our lives, including our partners, but like
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: other dudes who have never met you all and be like,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: my man, yeah you've got it tonight. They're like thanks, dude,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: you're just walking around like it's a good guy.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Men need more of that. We're cheering for each other.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: We need more positive.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: That's just I'll tell you this.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: It's not that I don't get compliments from my wife.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: I will get compliments from other women in the in
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: the wild. I'll get a compliment from a woman in
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: the in the wild and my wife will actively roll
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: her eyes.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: That's whatever. No, he does not. I love your shirt.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: It's a shitty shirt. What are you doing? I get
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: so few of these? Do you have to snatch them?
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: A little butterfly landed on my hand and you just
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: slapped it. There's a lot of truth to that. But anyway,
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: where we got so we were talking about underachieving and yeah.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: So for me, I definitely agree with like the professional
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: identity in the United States because that's like the that's
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: the second question anybody asks you when they meet. It's like,
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: what's your name? And the very next question is what
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: do you do? And I've been told that in other countries.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: That's really weird that there's so much emphasis. Yeah, like
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: why would you even ask that? Yeah, it seems kind
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: of crazy. But like for me, it's not that I'm
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: not where I would like to be professionally, right, I
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: feel like where I am professionally, I'm very happy with
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: my accomplishments. Yeah, my accomplishments have not been financially rewarding.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: That's what.
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: That's the frustrating part, because I feel like, Wow, and
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: I see all these other people, you know, like friends
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: of ours, and just kind of how they're doing and
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: everything that you know is going on in their lives,
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, wow, that would be nice. Yeah, but
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: there's no way I can do that on a social
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: worker salary, right, you know. And it's just that's the
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: part that I think is kind of frustrating.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: But well, it's that old saying, right, comparison is the
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: thief of joy. Yeah, And I think that what the
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: writer's talking about, and what I think all of us
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: relate to, is how there is this standardized model for
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: decades of your life and what you and I don't
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: This isn't fucking written anywhere, but like there's this understanding
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: of like life milestones of like, okay, so you're a kid,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: you graduate high school. Now you've got these twenties where
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: you're supposed to accomplish a few things. Maybe you get
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: into significant relationship, maybe you get into your career, and
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: like you've gotten into like something that you can put
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: your name behind, and like that's what you're into now.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Some people are starting families, and like throughout these like
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: different decades, I think there are these different standards of expectation,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure that you feel it even whenever you're
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: in like your fifties and sixties. I'll bet you in
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: your your sixties, there's this comparison of like, well, I
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: know a guy who I'm friends with who's retired, you know,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: and like he can do this now, and like I'm
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: not gonna retire. I don't have that financial picture, and
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: so now I'm feeling left out of that or like
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: under accomplished at this age. So I think that there's
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: like this pace car of expectation that some and I'm
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: sure it's culture by culture, sure, but like is very
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: much looming over I think especially American culture, and there's
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: this sense of like any time you check in with somebody,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: I feel like they feel social permission to fish for
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: those those clues and ask things like, oh, are you
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: in a relationship, how long you've been in a relationship,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: So what are you doing these days? What are you
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: up to? Like reunions High school reunions are notorious for
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: that show you just you meet up and you just
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: compare checklists like do you own a home, do you
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: have any kids? Are you in a serious relationship? Did
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: you go to college? What's your career, you know, just
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: like that, and it's like you know, and then subtly
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: how much money you make?
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: All right, we need everybody to line up, yeah, in
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: order of success successful people over here and then just
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: find your spot.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Find your spot.
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: Know who your people are Southwest flight Yeah, yeah, James, James,
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: come on, are you fucking kidding over there?
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: What are you doing, buddy? You don't sneak over in
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: the front of the line. And so it's you're right,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: Like this comparison thing is really really difficult.
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: Also, just the fact that I saw somebody was posting
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: on Instagram about this and it was it was actually
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: a financial uh like page, financial guidance page or whatever
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: that I follow, and they were talking about how the
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: next generation has it, like every generation just has it
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: worse and worse as we're going because we've got rising
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: costs for everything inflation, but just also the housing market
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: is incredibly taken off, so like the younger folks are
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: never going to be able to own their own home
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: given because wages have not caught up. So wages have
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: not caught up. Everything's more expensive, and your visibility to
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: see other people with financial success right has never been greater.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: Right, So you have social media helping you have incredible.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: Access to see how all these other people are living,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: knowing you will never achieve that.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: That is one of the most damning parts of this
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: because I think if you grew up like, okay, let's
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: get in a time machine and you're born in U
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: seventy or whatever, and like, you're growing up in a
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: smallish town, and you keep in touch with the people
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: that you grew up with, right, so by nineteen ninety five,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: you know, here you are, You're twenty five years old,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: and you're comparing notes of the people. The Internet isn't
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: in this place where anybody's comparing lives. It's a place
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: for silly memes, you know, and like to see some
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: interesting facts and look up some things and down as napster,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: like you're fucking getting music. You're comparing yourself based on
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: word of mouth with your peer group, other people that
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: you see at the bar, that live in the same community,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: that are part of the same economy, and so like
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: that's where you're getting your comparison statistics. And if your
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: town is struggling, it's in the rust belt or whatever.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: There's a depression upon all of that, which is going
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: to change the expectations and the outcomes. And so like
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: you you're coming from the same place, you know, your people,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: you're grading on a curve. But this era of Internet
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: has ripped that shit away.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: And so you get on the fucking Internet and you're like,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: here's this asshole idiot who like had their fifteen minutes
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: of fame and is now like fucking Logan Paul or whatever.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: And it's like there's making stupid amounts of money and
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: all sorts of stupid ass projects, or like even people
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: that aren't famous but just have access to like fuck
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: you money and they're walking around showcasing it, and you're
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: like okay, like and you just you can see way more.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: I mean when I was a kid, the wealthiest person
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: I knew of owned the car dealership in town.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, that was King of the Castle.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, his house was well over twenty seven hundred square feet.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, that was Oh it's like oh Dodge
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: mahah yeah.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: And then but yeah, I mean, now you've got access.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: You can't go anywhere on social media without seeing people
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: you know on you know, driving their exotic sports cars,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: you know, on expensive vacations on a yacht someplace and
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: all this you just had your just flushed with all
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: of this image imagery.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It is so discouraging, and it's tough writer,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: because look, I don't like the abundance of this. I
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: also think there's an overcorrection in the other way where
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: people go like full fucking Diogenes on this shit and
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: they're like, I don't care about anything ever.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: I am.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: I am completely detached from standards and expectations in the world,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna lay on this couch and get
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: high and that's all I'm gonna do. And a lot
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: of times to end up like oppressing other people in
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: their lives. They tend to have to lean on others, right,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: and like they just don't They're like, I don't subscribe
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: to the ways of the world, man, And it's kind
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: of like I, as a therapist, I don't know that
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: that's excellent for you either. Like if it's your worldviewer,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: it's your religion or something to that effect, then you know,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna seek to change it, because I'm gonna
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: give you autonomy and treat you with respect that this
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: is what you're interested in, but I also want to
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: appreciate the consequences of those choices, and let's be you know,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: grown ups about how that is affecting your life. And
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: I've met a lot of people that are that are
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: in that bag, that are like extremist. On the other side,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: I think we've seen several reactions to some of the
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: nonsense that we were just describing, Like minimalism is like
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: it's more mainstream, not quite Diogenoy shit, but like it's
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: you know, it is a reaction to like the seeking
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: of abundance, like no, no, fuck this, I'm gonna get
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: a tiny house, you know, and I'm gonna no kids,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: and like all these like choices that people are just saying,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: if the world is not going to enable me to
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: get these things, then fuck these things. I will choose
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: to value other things, which I think is a healthy reaction,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: but you can see how quickly it can slide off
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: the other side of the continuum, where it's like I
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: reject all interest in all standards and all milestones and
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: I'm going to live in this detached way that's you know,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: completely atypical, and like, again, I admire it if that's
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: your jam, but I can also see where that is
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: a poor coping skill. Right, So there's a healthy medium
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: where I think it's healthy to yes sort of think
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: in big terms of like what what are my values?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: Like I do want to be personalized? And then am
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: I meeting those values? And I want to respect the
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: writer because I think that Amanda, we shouldn't just say, oh, Amanda,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: the reason you're unhappies because you're adopting other people's standards.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: I'm just a part of this, but I think Amanda
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: is saying no, no, no, by my standards what I wanted,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: I feel under accomplished. How do I deal with that?
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: And I don't think there's anything wrong with seeking a therapist.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: I love that idea.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, I mean here's the other thing too. You
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: need to because I know a lot of people kind
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: of struggle with this and like what what constitutes the
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: need for a therapist and what doesn't. No therapist is
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: just going to be like, oh, this is not worth
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: my tey it out Because from a therapist perspective, if
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: if I've got somebody who you know, wants to meet
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: with me to talk about something that's bothering them, I'm
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: not judging what this crisis is based off of other crises.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at how does this affect this person? Right,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: it's significant to this person. So that's the approach that
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: any therapist is going to take. With that, They're going
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: to look at how is it affecting this individual, and
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: then what does success look like for that individual and
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: just basically help you achieve that. No, that doesn't mean
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: that you're going to be in therapy long term. This
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: could be you know, a phase of life thing, real
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: brief therapy. You know, this could be a few sessions
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: and you're just going to get some ideas. Yeah, I
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: don't think there's anything wrong with that.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: I like that idea. I mean therapy again, and I've
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: said this before in the show. A lot of people
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: think the purpose of therapy is to achieve an epiphany,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: and I try to remind people like, yes, therapists are
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: highly trained and are considered to be something of a
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: library of information, and we definitely want to give that
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: to you in a customized sort of way that applies
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: to something at the time you need it. Yes, we
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: are informers and teachers, but also I think one of
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: the most valuable aspects of the experience of therapy is
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: the emotional yoga of stepping into this very special relationship
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: where you are meant to encounter your thoughts in this
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: deliberate way with somebody who facilitates that movement in ways
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: that you couldn't access with others. And I think that's
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: really helpful in a situation like this, because this is
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: where person needs to sit down and examine what are
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: your values, but then go deeper than that, Why why
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: do you value that? Where did you learn that?
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, And like, I think that's
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: really powerful for people Like I struggled for a long
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: time in my life that if and I still deal
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: with this, but I think I've gotten a lot healthier
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: with it. For a long time, I would feel guilty
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: if I was resting, if I didn't have a very
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: busy day every day, if I if I couldn't complain
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day that I had been
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: spent and I'd done everything I could, then something about
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: that day I was lazy, it wasn't good enough. I'd
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: feel like unhealthy and like I should be ashamed of myself.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: And family members have challenged me on that because I
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: would apologize to them if like I would get out
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: of work out out of like a nine hour marathon
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: of work and like do all this other stuff, and
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: then as soon as I get out, I would like
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: go run errands or try to like do tasks. And
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: then at one point I think I had apologized to
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: somebody very sincerely that I had dropped the ball and
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, I think i'd like lost track
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: of thirty minutes and like checked a phone or something
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: like that I felt terrible about. I was like, I'm
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: so sorry, like and this person was like, yeah, man,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: that's not fucking healthy, Like you know who hurt you?
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: Right? Yeah?
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: And so like I needed to do some personal work
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: of like reflecting on like where did I get this concept?
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: Like who taught me that in my childhood? And when
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: did this become a way that I measure my output
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: in my standard? Right? So, Amanda, A lot of people
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: discover that kind of stuff in therapy through that self examination,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: and either yes, they make peace with what's going on
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: in their life that they don't have control over, or
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: they make a plan to sometimes get goal oriented and
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: attack on some things that they do want to see
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: some progress, and they make smart goals and they start
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: having somebody that's coaching them and pushing them forward on
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: a strategic initiatives that could make change, like a life coach.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: That's a very important role that a therapist could be sometimes.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: Or Jacob, who is available.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: It's a big deal.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: Life coach Jacob. He's expensive, but he's good.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: Dot G Sims, get.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: What you're paying for. That's right.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: You go anyway, Amanda, I hope that you will kind
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: of step into a therapeutic relationship on this. I really
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: think there's a lot here to grow on. But yeah,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: something that's so relatable and feel free, you know, as
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: you're back in our community to get into the discord.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: I think so many people will talk through that and
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: share their own epiphanies. And if you're a listener of
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: the main feed, I listened to our show the other
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: day on the main feed, and you know what the
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: most annoying shit is the fucking ads. Those ads just
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: pop pop pop. They just because like back in the day,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: we used to take the time to engineer it so
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: that all the ads fell during the trivia break.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: You don't do that anymore.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: I don't do that anymore because it takes a long time. Like,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of post like design work to get
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: it done. And I started looking at it and going,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I listen to so many podcasts that do
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: not designate when the ads come, the ads just they
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: pop in. Sometimes the host will say we're taking a
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: quick break, boom, and like, I just skipped through them.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: Everybody who listens to podcast has the thirty second skipper,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: so I know people are just skipping them and they
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: only come like one or two on the main feed.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: And so I thought to myself, you know what, I'm
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: gonna let people just do their part and skip it,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: and if you don't like it, it is one dollar
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: to never have to skip it again and you get
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: the extra show one dollar. We are losing money in
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: this economy. Asking for one dollar. Quit asking for a dollar.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: Two dollars is the low level Jacob always inflating. Our
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: price is a buck. Patreon dot COM's like, put a
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: buck in the two dollars. You can just get the
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: feed imported into your pocket.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: At some point it probably will have to come two
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: dollars because we don't.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: Inflation is killing well, it's not just inflation.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: We don't see a dollar. We lose money.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with the Patreon fee. If you do a dollar,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: it means nothing for the show. Two dollars is the
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: minimum anyway. We haven't changed it yet, but at some.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: Point anyway, as we wrap up the show, we want
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: to remind you can go to patroon dot com slash
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: therapy and you can get our extended show advertisement free.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: If you're a main feed listener, stop having to hit
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: that damn skip for only two dollars a month. Get
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: in still on our dollar deal while at two, as
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: well as enjoy our live chat discord community in our
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: weekly deep dives, interviews, skill shares, research roundups and rants.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: And we've got some new people joining the therap party.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: Who's new to the tribe there, Nick, we got a
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: new therapodan on that's a really good restaurant or club
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: and or bar. I don't know, I don't leave my house.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: Really good person too, also a good person. And we'd
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: like to think the benevolent, revered, generous, and flagrantly pro
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: therapy diehards who love you all so much they give
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: till it hurts, the therap partners dirty be and pick it.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: And we want to thank our bosses, the mysterious and
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: Shrouded Illuminati, members of our fan club that their producers
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: thank you, Jake Schneider, myro Robert Brownie Junior and Smitty Scoop,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: Ben Don, Judy Schneider, Kayla Lansberry, Malia Leon, Cassab Mason Miller,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: Richard Fucking Macy, Carolyn Albert, Kevin Chamberlain, Tess Miller, Sammy Scoop,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: Ben's Danley Slapping your Face, Sarah Smith, Adam Hathaway, Builer
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: t Mike Helm, Paris, Samantha Cone, Darren Cunningham, Lib Team Monaco,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: Thunder Cougar Falcon, Scoop, Matt, Lisa Tansman, heyo Oscar Swan
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: ros A, Sunny Boys Look Motherfucker, Sandra mcwoffle Dan Martin, Hanna, Marie,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: Andrew Langmead, Emma Kin, Elena and Cody the DeLorean Guy.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: And if you'd like to hear this episode uncut and
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: unedited and spontaneous side projects a pictureon dot com.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: Slash therapy and thank you for support him. It's all
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: that's all the time we got through this week's session.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: I want to thank our Landlord's Matt Mattingley's ice Cream
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: Social Podcast and thanks of those of you contributed to
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: our show today. We really appreciate it. Remember, pop therapy
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: isn't something to keep all to yourself. Share the episode
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: of the world, tag us on the sociips when you do.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: It's at pot therapy guys on Instagram, threads on Twitter,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: at slash pot therapy on Facebook, and don't forget about
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: all the extra goodies at Patreon dot com slash therapy.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: Do you want to submit a question with the show,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: ask anonymously at podtherapy dot net or email that's at
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: pod therapy guys at gmail dot com.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: I'm Nick Tanjaman.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this best Jim.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: Thanks. We'll see if your appointment.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: Next week's Boum Bound Bound