Episode 26: Gamecocks or Fighting Squirrels

In this episode of Mental Funny Bone, hosts Sarah and Christine embark on a journey filled with humorous anecdotes and mental health insights. The duo delves into their experience with fan mail, detailing the anonymity and unexpected feedback they've received. They touch on the often overlooked show notes in podcasts and the amusing misinterpretations that ensue. Christine shares a story about an intense soccer game where the passionate behavior of parents took center stage. Transitioning to more personal matters, Sarah and Christine discuss the impacts of social media reels, particularly Facebook Reels, and how these snippets sometimes align oddly with their lives. The episode also includes a thoughtful conversation about mental health, therapy appointments, and the influence of medications, culminating in the hosts' initial impressions of Dan Harris's book, '10% Happier.' With laughter and candid reflections, they explore the challenges of staying mentally balanced in a chaotic world.

How to find mental health help when you're struggling. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists
https://washingtoncountyhumanservices.com/agencies/behavioral-health-developmental-services
https://www.alleghenycounty.us/Services/Human-Services-DHS/Publications/Resource-Guides
Apps - Just search mental health where you get your apps.
EAP programs are a great place to look for help!!

Additional Resources (Sports Related):
https://globalsportmatters.com/health/2020/12/04/mental-health-resources-2/

Transcript

0:05

You just, instead of telling me to be quiet, you just shook the candy really hard and then took a big piece and then crunched on it really hard and then shook it up again and then set it aside. It was so good. So worth it. welcome to the Mental Funny Bone. I'm Sarah. She's Christine. We don't really know what we're talking about. we have some links in the show notes. If you need, help with, any mental health issues. Also, you can call or text 988. Is that the correct number? I always feel like I'm getting that wrong. I don't know why. No, you're getting it right. Hi, I'm Christine. A big part of, nope. Did it for you. All right. Fine. Okay. All right. So let's get into it. do you have fan mail? Has anyone given you a positive feedback about us this week? No. Amazing. I found on the Buzzsprout, website that we had, we have enabled a fan mail feature. Oh, this is exciting. If you're listening to us on any platform, there's a little link in the show notes. It says fan mail goes here. And if you click on that, Whatever you type in comes directly to our Buzzsprout accounts. It doesn't go to our gastergirls at gmail. com email address. It goes right to the fan mail. The disadvantage is that we can't see who it's from. It's anonymous feedback. Have we gotten any feedback? We got some last week, about, from that link, how did, were you notified that we got the feedback? It popped up when I went in there to put in the new episode. I was like, what's this? Because I can't even log in to Buzzsprout on my phone anymore. It's asking for the login and I don't know what it is. I can help you with that. Hey, but don't say it now because we're recording. We don't want everybody to be logging in our buzz throat. So you imagine all 20 people being like, Hey, I edited it for you. Before we get there, I want to sidetrack for a second and just talk about show notes. When you listen to a podcast, how many times do you look at the show notes? Never. Okay. Never. All right. So what's the feedback that we got? That the story about your mother making us eat gruel. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody put green beans, somebody's mom put green beans in the beefaroni and they missed a St. Michael's basketball practice because they weren't allowed to get up from the table until they ate all of it. Oh dear god. Was that, was it Gerald that sent that feedback to us? We're going to have to text him and be like, Hey dude. I'm not doing that now because I feel like that sidetracked me last time. but I feel like who else is listening that was, didn't go to a St. Michael's basketball practice? I don't know. Cause I didn't go. I had cheerleading practice. I'm trying to think who else would listen that was a Jaguar. I see Gerald, JR. I'm pretty sure he doesn't listen. Chris is dead. That's sad. He's trying to think of other boys that I went to elementary school with, Andy, Eric, he's dead. Sarah! Stop it! Welcome to the Mental Funnybone. Anyway, that's great. I love that. Now we just have to find out who leaves the feedback. but if you've been looking for an anonymous way to give us feedback, now you have it. But if you want to tell us we suck, or give us, like. do this better. You can do it this way. And we won't even know it was you. We will still be friends with you. We will. we'll talk about you on the show. Like you're a giant pussy, but feel free. Yeah. It'll be like that time when someone said, Hey, your sister swears a lot. Or one of my favorite bits of feedback was, you might want to warn everybody that it's not that you shouldn't be listening, at the office. What was that feed? Do you remember this? And I was like, who in the fuck are you listening on speaker? Are you not putting your headset on? you are actually going to get feedback back from us that says Don't do that. Stop doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. anyway. Okay. That's great. I like that. I like the feedback. I like the fan mail. Yeah. So if you, if you know how to navigate to the show notes, and I think primarily the reason I don't look at the show notes, because podcasts for me are things that I listen to when I'm mobile. Like I'm walking around, I'm driving, doing like other stuff. So I'm not, like real focused on, I think maybe once I was like, I would like to check out that book. But I was like, I'm going to look at the show notes. And then I was like, I don't know where the show notes are. I feel like, yeah, I feel like that's what's happened. And like the, during I've, during an episode, I've been like, Ooh, I need to check that out in the show notes. And then I tried to actually check it out and I couldn't even find the show notes. And that just made me feel dumb. And therefore I have never, ever thought about show notes again. Great. Great. But everyone who podcasts says. Show notes. It's in the show notes. Which is why I put a lot of effort into making beautiful show notes for us. You do. And you, and Chad, and doesn't the, doesn't Riverside just put them together for us now? Yeah. Like I outsourced that to Chad or in the editing software, the Descript editing software. There's a Oh, that's it, yeah. There's a thing called an Underlord, and he does it. Oh, wow. I'm afraid of him. Yeah. Yeah, he's gonna run the world one day. Right now, he just writes the show notes for us, so I don't think there's You know who his voice is, right? Garfield the Cat? Even funnier. Yeah, for sure. That's definitely his voice. Alright, moving on from fan mail, I have a confession. Since I was away from home and Raleigh this week with not a whole lot to entertain myself. I have been watching a lot of Facebook reels. Do you know what a Facebook reel is? I do. I do. I get sucked into those. I get sucked into those. I am going to be quitting Facebook again though, but go ahead. I have to watch a lot of them. Like I lost three hours on a Sunday night. They're amazing though. Do you watch anybody make cakes? I like that. I have watched people make cakes. I have watched, somebody make tiny cakes with tiny instruments, where she is in a tiny kitchen, making tiny things. And I love that. And, for some reason, my algorithm thinks that I am a trad wife. But I don't know why or how. A what? Wife? A traditional, a trad wife, a traditional wife. Like someone who makes her own bread and rears children by tying them to herself. I don't know. Who taught you the word, that it's trad wife? Because it says it. Hi trad wives. I was like, oh, I was like, first off, you guys missed the boat on that one because I'm not. Hold on, explain a traditional way to meet again. she fills a traditional gender role in the home and, she stays home and, she bakes bread and makes her own clothes and she's wearing a dress with pearls in some of the videos. And I'll be, to be fair, all I know about it is what I see on Facebook Reels. Yeah. Yeah. And hey, if that's what you're into, cool. Good for you. Do it. I'm happy for you. You look delighted. You look, June Cleaver, fabulous. Wow. You're in the most amazing kitchen I've ever seen. who is the best trad wife? Hey, I'm swanning. Anita Gaster. She was, yes. because of a story that Lori Black shared with us that I don't remember, but makes me fall in love with her even more. I love her lots cause she's my mommy and all, but but this story opened up a new plate, like a new place in my heart because it's fucking amazing. Lori Black says to us, I don't know the exact words, but she was like, yeah, I One of the things I remember about your mom is she used to have to go home and get out the pledge. Pinesaw. Pinesaw, yeah, the pinesaw, at the end of the day before your dad got home, so she can make it smell like she had been cleaning all day. When in reality, she was over at Pam Swanwick's house. That's all she said, but I imagine the end of that sentence is smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. And exchanging smutty Harlequin romance novels. And doing some sort of craft, maybe. I don't know. But this story, cause, when I was on maternity leave, I'm mad at myself cause I didn't get out the good smelling shit, but I was like, the flight of the bumblebee, like a half hour before Noah got home. I'd been sleeping with the baby on the couch the majority of the day. and then I was like, oh shit, it's 430. Anyways, so yeah, our mother was a, is a great trad wife. Hey, these videos, there, there is, also, I think Facebook thinks I might be a 25 year old girl who's dating, because it's also showing me a lot of videos of adorable boys who are telling me how to date better. And I was like, I wonder where they get this from. Like mine shows me cake making, somebody in a kitchen pouring a large amount of dough out of a very large bowl and cutting it. And soccer things. Yeah, I don't know, I must have paused on one to be like, What are the kids talking about these days? And Jason Kelce, anything Jason Kelce too. Is that a thing? I have no Kelsey's, I have no Taylor's, maybe that's it, maybe I have too much Taylor Swift, but, I am, here's what happens, I'm fucking fascinated by it, this little guy who's cutting up food in his kitchen, telling me like, the deepest, darkest secrets of boys who are dating, and I was like, I gotta know, I have to know What the secret is. it's not useful knowledge for me at all. I was like, and what it makes me think of is how dumb are the girls that are dating now that they need this dude to tell them, if he doesn't text you back, he doesn't like you. Yeah. I don't know, because I feel like I didn't really get that all the time. if he didn't call me back, I'd be like, I guess I'll just call him again. You know what I'll do? I'll go over to his house. You know what I'll do if he, I will all army crawl through his yard. yeah, they're dumb. It's just the age. It's the age. And we've always been dumb. And some of the advice, is heart melting. He's here's the secret to approaching a guy in 2024. He's Hey, brief eye contact across the bar. I was like, got it. Yeah. He's walk towards me. Give me a compliment, tell me, hi, ask me my name. He's one of two things is going to happen. I'm going to say, hi, give you my name and refuse to give you my number. And that's just a polite rejection. That doesn't hurt for more than 15 minutes. Or I'm going to tell you, hi, accept your compliment, give you my number. Ask for your number. And now we're, and now you're in business. He's that's all it takes. Hi. And I was like, this is, I don't, why is someone on Facebook saying that? Telling, is this new information? Maybe they don't know. And I was like, it seems to me like, nothing, it's been, what, 25, 30 years since I was actively part of this thing. And I was like, it's been a minute. I feel like I could still go back to it right now and be just a okay. alright, yeah, that's how it's done. That's how it's done, girls. Do you want to come back to my apartment and see my new stereo system? I fell for it multiple times. All the time. All the time. That's gotta be a really nice stereo. I wonder what's so unique about it. I would, I'm curious. Thank you. I don't know. Hi. I thought just going like the direct route was good. And the direct route is Hi, I'm Sarah. What's your name? Hi, I like your Ramones t shirt. Yeah. Do you want to grind? a bit more forward than some of them, but whatever gets you to connect. But, hey, Hobbit Steve. If you're just talking to me because you think I'm going to make out with you later, I'm not going to make out with you. And he didn't even say a word. He just walked right away from me. I felt like that was, might have been one of the best things that I've ever done. We wasted zero time. No one's feelings are hurt. Like I told you, I wasn't going to make out with you. And he was like, I appreciate that. Yeah. I'll fight peace. Yeah. You're not recording. You're not recording. Okay. we're going to wrap up the reels talk because I feel like it is 20 minutes into our recording and we haven't even five minutes is what I had for fan mail. It's been quite some time. I'm going to have to do some editing for this one. I think. It's all right. It's good because we're like, we got our shit together and we're like, it's a normal time. Like it's a Monday. We don't release till Thursday, but I should tell you in your ADHD mind, that doesn't mean that you can wait until nine o'clock on Wednesday night to be editing. In fact, I believe that you have some time, set aside, at 7 p. m. on Wednesday that you no longer need. Thank you. I'm just putting it in my calendar right now where it says. Or you could do it tomorrow. Or, yeah, no I'm having dinner with somebody tomorrow. I'm taking the dating advice from the real people and just applying it to my girl relationships. Oh fantastic. Which is a nice segue into visiting Olivia and making some friends. So on Tuesday, I drove down because Lou was supposed to have a soccer game in Danville, Virginia. And that is, that's where Dan lives. That's where Dan lives. He doesn't live there anymore. If he just founded the town. Oh, okay. I think he died. I feel like his ghost is always there. Oh, it is. It's in the, it's in the saloon. In Danville, Virginia, or the brothel, I'm not sure. Anyway, Olivia calls me when I'm about halfway to Danville and she's hey, that game's canceled. And I was like, oh, poor Liv. Did we talked about this last week. Oh yeah, we did. Yeah, we did. Nevermind. did I tell you about making friends though? Cause I feel like that happened after we started recording. Okay. Or like after we recorded. I don't remember that. I go to visit Olivia, and then I have to go to this, to go to the Oh, is this where you went to Topgolf wearing slutty heels? Yes! okay. Yes, this was after. This was after. Yeah, me and Lucas. Lucas picked me up at the hotel. And, obviously, we're the two prettiest people there. Yeah. Except for this one girl, Erin. So Sharon and I get to talking and about four minutes into the conversation, she's I love your outfit. Love your shoes. I love everything that you are doing right now. She's, and she's like, let's talk about, let's talk. She is your best friend because she just did everything that you need someone to do. Yeah. Yes. And I was like, I know, isn't this boring? Where are you from? And she was like, I'm from Charleston, South Carolina. And I was like, can I ask a question? And I said, when you cheer for college football, your team is the Gamecock at University of South Carolina. She's She's I love the idea of having a pair of pants. That say cocks right across the butt and I was like and then it was like that scene in stepbrothers where we were gonna Do we were I was like, do we just become best friends? Are we gonna do karate in the garage and she was like, oh my god Why don't we make us some bunk beds? Oh, I love that. I love that for you. And she was like, listen, I don't care about work. I don't care about these guys. I feel like you and I are our friends and I'm gonna text you. She's in fact, I'm gonna text you right now so that you have my number. Oh, I love Sharon. I can't wait to find out that she's a serial killer. She is definitely gonna murder me. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Is she gonna listen to the podcast? I feel like you should have told her about the podcast. Oh, I definitely gave her a card. Gave her a card. Sweet. Meg, and then Meg came over, met her, and then we started talking about work. Oh, Which is fine, because that's what we're supposed to do. And Meg loves her, and Meg's oh my god, we're hiring. So now we're trying to hire, Sharon. Oh, that's fantastic. Sharon, Sharon's real close with her dad, and her nickname growing up was Hurricane. Hurricane. Oh, I love Sharon. Can she be my best friend? Yes. obviously as soon as she meets you, she's gonna like you more. Oh, so it's not the case with everybody. You have friends that like you more. Yeah, like two. I only have four friends, but yeah, two of them like me more than they like you. So that was all very nice, very exciting, and hopefully she joins our group because we were charming as fuck. I like him. I like him. So she's, is she going to join your, is she going to, what will she do? Sales. She's a sales lady. Oh, I knew someone else who does sales. Okay. Moving on. He does sales to pharmaceutical company. It's okay. You can just tell me that you don't ever want to hire me or have me work with you. It's okay. Did we not just cover how much everybody likes you more? It's a lot of pressure. Doesn't get me a new job. A lot of pressure for me to perform at work. I love you. Anyway. I love you. It's fine. when are you and Sharon going on vacation together? Because I feel like that's where you are in your relationship. She was like, come down and we'll go to a Gamecocks game together. That's where she'll kill me. Pretty sure. Can you mail me a cock shirt before? Yeah. She kills you. Yeah, I'm gonna have to buy one to wear, so I'll buy you. Me too. Speaking of shirts, did we not end one of the episodes talking about the shirt that you brought me home from Mexico, but we never really talked about it? Do you remember this? We did. We did. I think we did promise that two episodes ago, so back in the nineties. When we lived in Arizona, you could rent a beach house in Rocky Point, Mexico for 11 cents, I think. I had to buck up 20 bucks for a mansion on the beach. It was still too expensive for me. Yeah, you couldn't go. And I think the 20 bucks was for me and Mike. Yeah. 20 bucks a couple for a mansion on the beach. And then the people who, who we were with, they were good at speaking Spanish. they were bold enough to speak Spanish and they talked to a guy and the guy gave us a bunch of shrimp and shellfish and the old Corona they had laying around apparently and all of that cost us like 4. And you had diarrhea the whole time. my God. I was a difficult journey back home, but, what I'm saying is, then we were, we went shopping in the little shopping area, and, they had a bunch of tourist things you can buy, and I look up, I'm buying like, a, drug dealer coat, do you know the one with the hood in the pocket here, it looks like a hoodie sweatshirt, but it's made of, wheat, or whatever, it's made of, the chi cheese hat, and, They took a chi's hat and made it into a sweatshirt. I don't know why that's what I think, but that's exactly what I think. And I guarantee there's so many people who know exactly what I'm talking about. everybody had them. I had one that was like pale green. Yeah. I wore it with my folded over pegged jeans and my, dark green, suede soccer shoes. What were those called? Do you remember them? Gazelles. Gazelles. But anyway, I was looking at a bunch of those, and up high on a shelf, with a beam of sunlight hitting it, was the perfect shirt for my sister during this time period. Angels sang. they had two Jesus candles on either side of it, lit. Like for real. no lie. You could buy them everywhere. And this t shirt was white with black, bold lettering, no ornaments or fancy scroll lettering. It was as if a generic brand from the 1980s had made a t shirt and this t shirt said fuck on the first date. Bingo. I was like, must have it. I paid 3 for it and brought it home to you. I don't. Did you wear it out? I think she wore it out once. And I think once I was coloring my hair in the laundry room wearing it. I remember that. Weren't you there with me? I was with you, yeah. And grandma came out. I remember her being upset about the hair dyeing, but I think she was upset about the shirt. Yeah, I think it was really the shirt that got her in the end. Yeah, she's, yeah, it was a bit much for her. Oh my god. I think Kimmy wore that t shirt and I also had a lighter that was a penis. I remember this party. Was it, were we down in the patch? We were at David's house. Were we? David had a birthday party for me. Yeah. I think I was 29. That's what it was. And Kimmy had the penis lighter. I don't know if she had the t shirt on at that time, but we definitely had the penis lighter. It was amazing. Just amazing. Man, those were the days. My God. There you are. there's that story. Yeah. So I also, on the way home from Raleigh, I went to Stanton, West Virginia, or no, Stanton, Virginia, which is outside of Charlottesville. I think it was your stopover on the way home with our parents. It was. I didn't realize it was Stanton. I thought it was Stompton. Neither did I until someone heard me say it and said, it's Stanton. And I said, you're fucking spelling it wrong then. Then it's spelled wrong. Dickwad. If you put a U after it, it turns it into an what a fucking idiot. I know, I hate everybody. It's Stanton. My apologies for pronouncing it correctly. Yeah, sorry. Thank you for the tip. anyway, so we were there Just the tip. Thank you for just the tip. We were there to, I was there to watch the Fighting Squirrels of Mary Baldwin University play. The William Pease Pacers. When you say that, I just imagine all these squirrels running around making very high pitched noises. Didn't see one squirrel. I just, I, wow. That's another book. There was another book that I was reading that was, there was a long history of squirrels in the town. It's fucking hysterical. It's a, it was a funny part of the book. It's a little, it's a bit of a comedy, romantic comedy type book. A little rom com. Love it. Yeah. So the fighting squirrels, I sat down in the stands because I got there half an hour early. And I'm watching the teams warm up and, I'm sitting in the stands and I go like the furthest away from what I think is where the home team is going to sit. And as the stands fill up, people sit next to me and I try to be nice. I'm like, I'm a visitor. It's not my home. I'm not a fighting squirrel, but I would like to watch my kid play soccer. It's nice. and there's a family here, and the papap and the grandma are there to watch the granddaughter not play. The lady next to me ends up being the forward's mom. Sarah's mom is next to me. And I'm like, Oh, that's nice. she does sit a little close to me, which I should have realized was a red flag. Yeah. Big one. Right off. Big one. there's a whole entire bleacher to choose from and she sits about this far away from me. Like I'm on one of the COVID dots and she's on the other COVID dot. So I'm like, that's. Too close. Too close. I feel like I need to teach you how to choose a seat at a soccer game. so the referee blows his whistle and they start playing. And, immediately there's a foul, like the referee calls a foul, and Sarah's mom is what? That's ridiculous. How is that a foul? Oh my God. Raph, how is that a foul? And then Sarah's mom listens to me too, because Sarah's mom, if you're listening, you fucking saw you're the worst person to sit next to. Because you are a moron. And obviously, Sarah got into college because she takes after her. She obviously takes after your ex husband. Cause there's no way this cunt is still married. The next words out of her mouth are, That's okay. Piss her off cause she'll just play better. is Sarah a fighting squirrel or is she a pacer? She's a fighting, she's a fighting squirrel. Why are you still sitting by her? I don't under, why didn't you move? This all happened in five seconds, right? Sarah gets fouled, the referee call, like the referee doesn't call it. And it wasn't a foul, 50 50. I don't think even the referees know when it's a foul, honestly. And I think they guess. Anyway, she says that, I grab my phone, I look at her, and I stomp down the bleachers. Yeah, behind you. I'm like, can't. There's no way. There's no way. I go, to the end of the bleachers, and I stand there, but there's still, like, all of the Mary Baldwin people are there, and obviously, The quality of the refereeing in Virginia must be so high on a consistent basis that these people are expecting the referee to make the right call. Every single time. ever. I never expect the referee to make the right call because they're bad at it. yeah. And you might be a little bi. And you might not. And actually they might be doing it right and not making the call because it shouldn't have been called. I don't know. Like I said, it's 50 50. They don't even know if it's right. Pretty sure that, but everybody, all of the parents must have gotten together and taken a referee class. Oh, I can't stand it. by the end of the first half, I was ready to throat punch an old lady. Sarah's mom might have been one of the, more informed ones. Ugh, I can't stand it. I just can't. Which is when I called you and said, Is throat punch one word or two? then I found the, then I found the William Peace fans and I went and stood by them. It was nicer. Sports spectating is, it's awful. it's truly an awful experience. It really is. I do not get it. Cause when your kid is new to sports, so when they're like, when they're like you eight, like I can see you being a little overzealous about it. Like you don't quite realize that to me seven and your experience with sports is watching professionals play, not. Kindergarten kids. Yeah. I, that I can forgive, but at this point, your child has gone through thousands of games, they have played thousands of games, thousands of times referees have gotten calls wrong. yeah. I am literally thousands. And, you, standing on the sidelines, bitching and moaning about how bad the referees are, only enforces this kind of sense of entitlement to these children, somebody owes them a really well refereed game. Bullshit. They owe you a refereed game, not a well refereed game. Ugh. It's just, my, my thought on it is, I always want to say to these parents, When was the last time the referee made a different call because you were yelling at them? it doesn't typically happen. So how about you pipe down a little bit, okay? Like, all you're doing is making me upset. yeah, it doesn't, frankly, I don't need any, it doesn't make any sense. I'm pretty sure that our goalie got a red card last week because of one of our parents. Because she was yelling, that's a red, for the other, like she felt that he was filed. Filed? Filed. Filed. And, And so she was yelling, that's a red card. And then the referee gave our player a red card, which I think he might have deserved, but I think they were going to let him go until someone in the stands kept screaming, that's a red card. Yeah. I mean, when we were moving as a group through the state cup or PA West cup or whatever it was that Olivia did, we had to sit down with one of our dads and be like, you have to stop, That you cannot scream at the referee like that it embarrasses us and embarrasses the kids. It doesn't help. No, nothing about this helps. In fact, you're probably hurting us. So if you can't stop screaming at the referee, you can't come to the games. that is what we did as a collective group of parents and to sit there and listen to grown people say things like, I can't wait to report you. I'm like reporting for what? Yeah, I don't understand. I don't. I truly don't understand. And there's definitely times where there's bad calls. There's, it's gonna happen. And there's me in the stands going, what? But I also sit by myself and I say it just about at that level. What? That was a shit call. And then I move on with life. I don't. And it's not helping. Anything that you're doing, yelling, is just negative. It is just negative. It's going nowhere. You're upsetting yourself. You're upsetting your child. You're upsetting the people around you. It's not good. It's not good. Why do we want to get everyone riled up? Just sit and play. Plus it's division three. It's the USA South, division three. no one's getting a gold medal. Relax. You're going to watch, you're going to watch your kid. If she's a freshman, you're going to watch her play 30 more games. Just relax. Enjoy it. Because they're not going to play forever. maybe you have seven kids. I don't know. Maybe you're a trad wife and you're just squirting them out on a routine basis. There you go. Okay. Mental health stuff. So I have a few things. To cover, and then we'll hop right into season three, 10 percent happier. Yay. All right. So I had a psychiatry appointment today with my psychiatrist where we talked a little bit about my medication and her idea for dealing with the angry person that I am in the late afternoon is to take the medicine later. Oh, okay. So then you don't become angry until it's bedtime. So then I'm like, I'm all the way through the day. I'm all the way through. Cause what she thinks might be happening is that I've made it through the day just fine. And then there's a lot of things that happen at the end of the day. Like you got to figure out what you're cooking for dinner. David wants to know what's going on. He's coming home from work. He's giving me a lot of feedback about shit I didn't do during the day or that I've done incorrectly. there's a little bit of overwhelm happening at the very same time I'm not able to cope with that as well because I don't have the Vyvanse anymore. She's if you can just move the 12 hour window from here to here, then by the time it wears off, you will have dealt with a lot of the, a lot of the after work things in addition to the work things. you should be less likely to stab somebody. So have you tried, did you start that? no. Cause the appointment was just today. Oh, like in my habit of taking the medicine happens when I drink the coffee. Yeah. You're gonna have to change that. It's been working so well though, like I hardly ever miss a dose. we'll have to switch up our atomic habit of taking my medicine. So that was that. And I talked to her a little bit about therapy and she was like, I'm so proud of you for finding a therapist. She's that's really hard to do. I'm like, You did it. You done it. I did it. We started talking about really good stuff and then I quit going for two weeks. you'll be back at it this week, right? Oh, I have a virtual appointment tomorrow, and then I have another one on Friday. Oh, good. Good. Very good. But, my appointment on Friday overlaps with my Botox appointment, you, are you gonna reschedule that? Yeah, I'm just rescheduling. So how long have you known that, and how long have you been putting that off? Just today. Just today. I've known, thought, that my Botox appointment was on Thursday, but that's my eye appointment. Because these are the only four days I'm in town, in September, all of the appointments have to happen, this week, now. Yeah. Gotcha. In addition, I want to, maintain my, friendship relationships, so I also, have to do some friend stuff, this week. If I want to keep, having friends. but the psychiatrist was really proud and she said, you sound like you're doing great, really happy with what's going on. You should be really proud of yourself. You should. And I was like, thank you, and that's all I'm gonna say because I know how to take a compliment without being all weird and awkward and telling you that you're wrong. Very good. She was like, proud of you again, hanging up. There you go. So that was pretty funny. Good. I'm very proud of you. Dan Harris's website, Dan Harris has a website, the author of 10 percent Happier, and I joined for both of us. You should have an invitation in your email. Like when? Today. Or you should just go there and try to log on with your email, cause now it'll recognize your email. Okay. Yeah. It's a nice, it's a nice website. It's very busy. I get emails from it. Yeah, there you go. So I know that much and like it there's a mention of a chat and God bless you. Came out of nowhere. That hurt. Hurt my ears too. Anyway, yeah, there's mention of chat and I feel like that's very overwhelming. Yeah, like the whole thing is very busy. Clearly not a website for attention deficit people, but there is a section on meditations, so When we get to the point where we're going to, we're going to get our busy brains into doing some meditations, there's a whole section for us to look at. So we can do it. I did yoga. here's the thing, I, so I read the preface of the book and chapter one. Before the face. I thought you would like that. And yeah, there was, it was more solidification that Dan Harris and I are very similar individuals except for the whole. super smart, broadcasting genius, lots of making lots of funny shit. Besides that whole thing, because he originally wanted to call the book, the voice in my head is an asshole. And I often refer to the voice in my head as my brain voice and my brain voice is a dick. Like this is something that I'm very much aware of. he talked about how he wasn't fully aware of the voice in his head. For a long time and I was like, yeah, but I know mine's there. The thing is, I haven't gone past that. Like I know it's there. It's a lot of funny shit. That's really all I recognize is the funny shit. The bad shit is the stuff that I try not to recognize. it's time to start recognizing all of it, But the, one thing that he had stated and I was like, yes, this is me. And so this is going to be helpful because I know that this man now is all about the meditation because he originally talked about how, he believed that, that meditation, what did he say? it was basically for just the robed gurus, the unwashed hippies and fans of John Tesh music. I know exactly where I was on the road when I heard that on my audible book. Yeah. I was like, yeah, then his next sentence is, moreover, since I have the attention span of a six month old lab, I figured it was something I could never do anyway. I was like, yeah, that's pretty much, yep, yeah, Dan and I are on the same wavelength there. Yeah. yeah. Squirrel on crack. It's good. It's good. yeah. Yeah, I think that you, hello, kitty, But the whole point of the book is to get rid of that. the whole point of the book, the whole point of him sharing his experience, is to show us how he went from that mindset, To being a, meditating, crazy, awesome guy, and how much it's helped him. And a guy who is constantly pointing out the benefits of meditation, and if a guy like that can find benefits to meditating, if a guy who is super high energy, super competitive, super focused, and super neurotic about their career. Yeah. Can find the benefits to meditation. I'm all for giving it a go. Giving it a go. Getting out of my own head, I think, is the place that I am excited to go. Looking at the books that we've read, looking at the subtle art of not giving a fuck, and Figuring out what my values are, looking at the Atomic Habits book, and figuring out how to make my values line up with the shit that I'm doing, and stop doubting everything, overthinking, stop second guessing, and if we can get there with this meditation stuff, then I am 100 percent willing to be more peacefully minded. I can do it. I can do it. We can do it. We can do it. We can definitely do it. We can do it. Yeah, and as long as we're thinking like we have all the tools right like we've got these atomic habits And we've got we've got the fact that this is a goal for both of us Like we want to do this meditation because we think it'll help us be better people. Yeah people who don't throat punch People who don't have to call their sister and say, how do you spell throat punch? Yeah, people who are able to let that lady enjoy the soccer game the way that she wants to enjoy it without really getting angry and maybe this will help with the crash of the vibe amps Like maybe this will help with that. Yeah, not being so anxious about what i'm eating or not eating I gained 10 pounds, by the way. I love it. You are now a normal size. I don't like it We'll figure it out. I think you'll be fine. All right. chapter one. do you want to start talking and I'll throw in some things that, that I agree with or disagree with? Sure. right off the bat and even just reading it right now on a piece of paper, the title of the chapter makes my hands sweat. Why? The title of the chapter is air hunger because I know the story and the air hunger is because literally he can't breathe and you can't breathe. And it makes my hands sweat. Because it's terrifying. It's terrifying. And I know that we've told the story before about Dan Harris, and that's basically, what started his journey was his meltdown on Good Morning America. I can't say meltdown, but he had a panic attack in front of over 5 million people. And yeah, just some of the stuff he said about it is he felt like his He was stabbed in the brain with raw animal fear, a paralytic wave of panic. My heart galloped, my mouth dried up, and my palms oozed sweat. Funny thing is that when I read the title of this chapter, I thought he was, He talks about how being on air, right? And how competitive it is and about how his dad was, I forget the phrase that his dad used, but the way to, I don't know. The way to always be on top of it was to always be afraid of it. Yeah, like a fear I have it written down here somewhere. his dad to insecurity. Right, and that resonates so deep with me. the reason I always feel Panicky the reason I wake myself up at four o'clock in the morning to worry about things at work is that Insecurity that I think is going to lead to the security. if I'm not constantly worried about what's happening at work, then something's going to get missed and something isn't going to get done. And that's what I took out of the title. And it's so funny because you and I took the things that, that, that really resonate with us. Like panic attacks resonate with you. Me being terrified of not being enough resonates with me. the, he did, I wrote this down. He said that actually the. A pulmonary doctor that he went to called it air hunger. Is but yeah, that's the first thing, obviously that's the first thing I thought of, was just because it's, Yeah, the panic attack itself is completely insane. so that, that stuff I knew, the background that he gives about his climb into where he was and into being a correspondent with ABC and working with Peter Jennings and that background was fascinating to me and that's really what I enjoyed about it because that was new to me because I didn't know any of this. And he went up to ABC, I think he was 28 years old, like very, not normal. I was going to say unheard of, but I don't think that's the case. very young. And he went up there, he was supposed to replace Anderson Cooper on one of the overnight shows. And Anderson decided he didn't want to leave. So he found himself, working with Peter Jennings. I forget exactly how it went, but he had some other job and he did a piece that I guess Peter Jennings saw, and then he got a phone call and was like, Oh my God, it's Peter Jennings. and ended up working for Peter Jennings for quite some time. Can you imagine? And he was basically like, yeah, dude, just like to embarrass me, yell at me. Yeah. I feel like we all had that boss. I feel like I had that boss, at the same time that Dan Harris had that boss. Yeah. I feel like there are a lot of, yeah, dude, I get you. Like that boss just reinforces everything that you think is terrible about it. The insecurity, security thing, like that kind of boss just reinforces it so much. Yep. And just the, how did he put it? Cause this, the price of security is the insecurity. So Dan got that, that worrier gene, he said from his dad and he referred to it like you're constantly scanning your consciousness for the threat. And it's like pressing on a bruise that you could see. Just to see if it still hurts. A hundred percent. Wow. Wow. That's yeah. Yeah, this is my early career And this is my career. He refers to it as the caveman thinking, you know Of course that's gonna it's gonna be fight or flight and you're you have to be aware of threats So you can continue to live and it's gonna prolong life. But we're not cavemen anymore. So It's now just making our lives less enjoyable. yes, I can say with certainty that waking yourself up at 3 30 in the morning to go back and look and make sure that there isn't something you should be worried about is a very specific kind of terrible way to live. Yeah. 100%. And even like just reading the shit about the beginning of his career at ABC was stressing me out. Like I could just feel my heart rate. It was like, okay, this is where Dan Harris and I differ because I would have ran away crying. No, no more. No more. I can't do it anymore. and it's that part and then being in a war zone and the PTSD that you just don't deal with. that's the, yeah, that's the big part of it is that, this is in 2000 when he started there. So then of course, in 2001, the world stopped. And so he refers to that as the most formative time in his career, yet the most, most dangerous time of his life. and when he, in my mind, when he says dangerous, I don't just see that as a war zone thing, but that, that was leading him to a very dangerous downwards spiral, including the PTSD that he wasn't even aware that he was fighting when he came back. and like he talking about some of the things he saw and how like you just turn that part of your brain off. I think that there was a couple of things that he detailed that I wanted to throw up. I just wow, what? What the fuck, but then he was referred to it as the journalistic heroine, right? This is the catch 22 on some of the PTSD stuff. Like it's exciting, right? He also like he started he was seeing these events in just his self interest and where it was gonna get him Yeah, like you're like dude. I should not be Like super psyched about any of this stuff. But I think if you're looking at like servicemen and women and people who are first responders, like the adrenaline is the part that they like. Like it's like a lot of their stuff is like not necessarily journalistic heroin, but career based heroin. You're like, yes, let's get to it. Let's get to it. The thing that's exciting is also the thing that is killing me from the inside. And as long as you're able to focus on the positive and you ignore the bad stuff that's happening, then everyone is content to do that. okay, obviously you don't have PTSD if you think you don't have PTSD, you're really just making a bunch of little boxes and putting them over here on the side. bunches of them. Anyway, so our poor little, poor little Dan Harris. He comes home, and he's, he gets sick. he gets real sick, like he has like flu like symptoms, and they're trying to figure out. He's gone to every doctor, and he can't figure out. He's exhausted. He has, he's got aches and pains, and whatnot, and finally comes to find, months after being home, he has depression, and that goes back to people not understanding that there's a physical side of it, that, that comes along, and you can also be very depressed, and not even realize you're depressed, because He was like, no, that's not it. I'm not sad. That's not it. That's not it. And the doctor was like, yeah, let's get you on some meds. And Dan was like, that's awesome. I'm sure they will go well with the cocaine and ecstasy I'm already doing. That's great. self medicating is, especially like a certain segment of the population can self medicate. We have the means, motive, and opportunity to call it having fun. Yeah. We don't have to worry about spending our entire paycheck. I guess if we're Dan Harris, we don't have to worry about spending like half our paycheck. whatever. he talks about his addictive personality and knowing that he had that addictive personality. on the upside, you didn't have the cocaine problems. So I feel like I've lost you again, even though it says you're recording. Hello? All right. we lost Sarah because her computer crashed. But I will sum up the rest of the chapter here. So Dan Harris, turns to, a little bit of partying on the weekends to cope with, some of the things that are happening to him. It doesn't make the panic attacks better. It makes them worse. somebody suggested to him that maybe he tries, maybe he tries meditation to go along with his, Therapy and his depression medication and sort of the end of the chapter is him still being pretty skeptical About meditation as a potential solution. So we are gonna we're gonna carry on with chapter 2 next week Sarah and I probably won't start meditating this week, but if you wanna hear how that goes, tune in next week when we talk, Chapter 2 of 10 percent Happier by Dan Harris. if you'd like to play along with us, grab the book. It's available as an audiobook. That's how I'm listening to it. You can get a paperback. That's how Sarah's doing it. And if you go to danharris. com You can sign up for Dan Harris's website when we start doing the medication, medications, meditations. We're gonna look there. All right, guys. Yeah, a bit of a ruffling for us recording this week since we pumped out a couple of times. And we were pretty happy to talk to each other because we haven't talked to each other much this week. So you got a lot of extra sister talk without a lot of book talk. I don't know. I dig it. So hope you guys enjoy this and we love each other and we love you. Alright. Love you. Bye