Episode 28: And We All Go To Raleigh

Join Sarah and Christine on 'Mental Funnybone' for a funny and chaotic episode as they navigate podcast recording blunders, humorously acknowledge their lack of qualifications, and share insights on recent fan interactions. They dive into family travel adventures, recalling humorous anecdotes from a trip to Raleigh with their parents and discussing missed Bob Seger concerts for soccer games. Throughout the episode, they confront their struggle with meditation and mindfulness, exploring concepts from self-help books like '10% Happier.' Tune in for a highly entertaining and candid conversation filled with laughter and relatable life moments

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

0:02

Hi, welcome to Mental Funnybone, Becoming the Gaster Girls. God damn it. I'm Sarah. I'm Christine, and I have complete control over when we start recording. And I think I screwed that up because I gave you a piece of information while the countdown was on already that I probably should have given you before we started. But it's still me. I'm still the one who hits the button. anyway, I'm Christine, and neither of us has a license to do anything. do you, drive. I have a license to drive. That's pretty much it. License to chill? Even then, Jimmy Buffett revoked mine, because I'm so uptight, Ah, okay. Here we are. there, there are a list of places to go, suggestions, if you will, in the show notes. I will say, having skipped a few weeks of therapy, it's clear that I really need to talk to Emily tomorrow, and I highly recommend getting involved. Mother! Okay. Yes. Okay. I figured out why I couldn't hear you. We're still recording? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're just gonna go with it. Okay. I can't say why I couldn't hear you then. You'll just have to ask me later. Intriguing, isn't it? I won't put it in the podcast. I'll cut it out. Okay. Okay. I can't trust it. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. Come on. Your eye makeup looks pretty. Do you have eye makeup on? I do have eye makeup on today because I don't have any lashes. Like a shadow? Yeah, I did some shadow work there. Yeah. Looks really nice. Mine looks I have an eyelash update for everyone. Mine looks like I might be an emo kid from the 90s. Like I've just got some really I should get your glasses. That's what I was thinking too. Like less eye makeup on this eye is going to be important because I've got these tiny little Things and their prescription is difference is pretty obvious when you're looking at me straight on these days great now I have that to be self conscious about and the fact that my face turns red all the time I haven't even been drinking. I'm just a little bit hot. Sorry. Anyway, there's a that's what we got yeah. All right. So there's lots of stuff happening in our fan mail. Lots of stuff happening Have you been in there? Did you go in there just now? I was in there earlier today I'm looking at it right now Yeah. so we got a note from, your friend Shauna, our friend Shauna. Yeah, we have to give her a big apology. We're dicks and don't remember anything. Here's the thing, after we record them, we forget. We should not forget fan mail though. we're gonna have to work on this. like that was, this was shitty. We're gonna have to improve our behavior. We are terrible fan mail people. Write a PIP for ourselves because it's not like we're getting a shit ton of fan mail. Yeah, we're not. It's, yeah. We mostly, it's Kim D and our mom is just really who we're relying on. Yeah, we're gonna, Shauna, we apologize. So what we're apologizing for anybody who's been a consistent listener, Shauna's husband gave us an email and we kind of like, I don't know, called Shana out, called her out. Yeah, call her out for not sending us an email. Maybe we'll have to re-listen to that episode too. sure did. Shana is one of the very few that sent us fan mail previously. About how we met at Chuck E. Cheese and beer. yeah, Shawna. One of my favorite fan mails too, Shawna, our bad. Our bad. We're dicks. Ryan, sorry, you've been, demoted. you're second favorite. Yeah, you were second, sorry. okay. So that was Shauna's, and what else did she say? Cause I'm just actually reading it. For the record, I emailed you a while back about making friends as an adult and our turkey cheese meeting. Gotcha. I recall now. Now I remember that. And she was very amused by Noah's, email that was actually the snail mail. that he wrote us on a piece of paper and stapled the, stapled it together as though it was a book. It's cute. I feel like I thought it was funny too. And, she also wants to give us a head up, heads up, cookie season is coming up soon. And, Ryan has talked about hunting some cookies at our house again. and, Kim D left us, left us a quick note. About, how she's a trad wife, in the same vein as our mother. She would spray Lysol in the kitchen sink just to give the illusion that she had cleaned. I don't know. Every email I get from Kim D, I love her a little bit more. And you got to meet Kim D in person yesterday. Yeah, that was fun. That was fun. I love it. Yeah, and you know who else ended up, coming to the game? I didn't know until this morning I checked my email. Rick was at the game. Aww. I don't know if he was at JV, though. I know he was at Varsity. I did let him know that he missed the whole Gaster crew. Great. Sorry. Sorry, that's gonna be painful for people who don't get to hang out with us all the time. Yeah. And I would like to say that I am officially on Rick's bucket list. He would like to sit with me in my lonesomeness during a game and talk soccer. Oh, God. Yep. Okay. Yep, we are, we're out of home games. So unless he's coming to an away game or we're in the playoffs, which that's something else I want to talk about. We don't have to talk about it now, but is it the, yeah, I will say my soccer mom story right now about the playoffs. so when Olivia was a freshman, her best center team made the playoffs with it. I think they let's, they weren't that great. they weren't that great of a team and. Olivia is a, it's a lovely player in a person, but right. So I had tickets to see Bob Seger on his farewell tour. And if you've spoken, I hate you. I hate you already. I hate you. I didn't know this. I didn't know this. I hate you. To me or David in the past 10 years about our favorite concert, the concert that we were like, not even going to go to, but we're super presently pleasantly surprised by. It was Bob Seger. He was amazing. Amazing. And, Olivia's team made the playoffs. instead of going to see Bob Seger, we went we went to a playoff soccer game. You are such a better mom than me because I definitely would not have gone. I went to see a Van Morrison cover band instead of going to Owen's soccer game. It wasn't a playoff game, but still, yeah, no, and you missed, I cannot believe you did not go. I can't. I'm Bob Seger. As a parent, I'm, no, there is no part of me that is impressed by you right now. No. look at the back. I think Olivia would not, I think out of the things that we did as parents to screw up our kid, going to see Bob Seger instead of going to her, playoff soccer game would have been the least of that. Nope. It would have been fine. it definitely did not make up for the other shit that we did to screw up, screw her up, but Let me ask you a question about the Bob Seger, because I don't think I knew that you went to a Bob Seger, concert. How can you not know this? Did he sing, did he turn into Mr. T for you guys? He did. He did. He did? You will accompany me. ha. It's the best line that he sang. Yes. I love other Bob Seger songs, but that is by far my most favorite. I will qualify that with maybe he didn't, while he was singing it, but I did. You did, yeah. I can only imagine if you and I went to see him together, and how much we would ruin everybody else's experience of that song if they were around us. Or if they were cool, they would laugh really hard with us. I was for sure at least two beers deep. Because I think that David and I, we were just happy to be at a concert. We got a hotel room across the way to, so we didn't have to drive home. And yeah, I definitely turned to David and went, listen how funny this is. And I'm like, you will accompany me, like Mr. T. And he was like, he looked at me like, I believe that we discovered this and started this Mr. T will accompany me thing. Just one of our drives, we were driving somewhere and that song came on and maybe you, maybe me. I think it was me, but it might've been you because I don't remember things. But one of us was like, it's like Mr. T. I will tell you, I have a vivid, maybe, memory of this, and I think we were driving in Bloomfield to go to a bar, where I was wearing, inappropriate shoes. They were way, the heels were way too high, and I was way too old, for those shoes. To Gators. Cause that was my Bloomfield That was the name of it. I frequented that place so much that the bartender, Kenny, in case you're listening, I doubt you are, but just in case you are, he came to our wedding. I think it was pre wedding for you. I think maybe I had just had Olivia. So that is. Yeah, it was probably in our earlier Gator days, but yeah, that's how much time I eventually spent in that bar. Oh, there you are. That is our, that's our segue. That is our detour. All right. but I would like to thank the WPIL for letting every single soccer team into the playoffs. So this is what, oh, this is what started it. so out of our section, see, things have changed. I don't, and the problem is now, like I just have my memory of when I was in high school and I don't really pay attention to how things are now. this is the end of Owen's sophomore year, so I should know by now, what the names of everything is. in my day, it was a section, and I think that's still the thing. It's a section game. I don't know. I'm pretty sure. But in our section, I think we have six teams, and four of them are going to the playoffs. This is what I'm saying. Because I was like, there's no chance we're making it to the playoffs. We lost way more games than we did last year. And somebody was like, oh, yeah, we're still going. I was like, what? How? It, honestly, it, so yeah, that is, that is the point of my Bob Seger story, is that I had tickets to see Bob Seger on his farewell tour, definitely not going back out, not like a kiss farewell tour that I've seen five times, and we didn't get to go, because the PIL, and then, so there you are, thanks. Thanks to BPAL soccer people. we'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. we got fan mail from my friend Elaine. So Elaine, I worked with her, when we worked together when I was in Boston at a company called Decibel and, I had the chance to have dinner with her and we hadn't really, talked a whole lot. We'd exchanged a couple of text messages and, Oh, hello, macho. I heard him in the background. Yeah, I'm going to pick him up. Because he's just sitting here looking at me and I'm afraid he's going to bark, so I'm just going to put him up on my lap now as a preemptive macho strike. Come here! Macho! He wants me to chase him. No, he doesn't want you. It's just going to be fun. Alright, I'll just, go ahead. Continue. Okay. Elaine had sent me a couple text messages maybe in August, after she started listening to the podcast and she's I think we're twins. And I was like, that is amazing. So we finally had a chance to sit down and talk about the pod and talk about, a bunch of other stuff we didn't necessarily get to talk about when we were working together. Elaine, if you're listening, loved our conversation at dinner, super fun, and I will just remind Elaine that I was terrified again of her. you guys decided, found out that you liked each other even more, not that you disliked each other when you worked together, but you found out that you liked each other even more now that you're not working together and you actually are learning about each other. yeah, like a friend kind of conversation. It's interesting. Elaine had like a big time job. At the decibel and I was like, I was like a level down from a big time job. And, we were in Boston the one time and, there was a dinner plans happening and Elaine and another lady were making plans to eat dinner and I was standing near them and I was like, I don't have any plans. And, you could tell, they were, I was making it uncomfortable because And I didn't know what to do. Cause I, if you don't want to invite me to dinner, that's fine. I don't, it's cool. But I was standing right there and, so they went off to have dinner and I was like, all right, I'll see you guys later. And it, it turned out that, that the one lady, Penny, then texted me and said, Hey, do you want to come to dinner with us? I wasn't sure what Aline wanted to talk about, but you can come to dinner with us if you want to. And I was like, oh, okay. All right. Yeah. I would. I would like to. And it, as it, it wasn't just that one part where they were talking about dinner and not inviting me, like I kept running into them as I was leaving the building. So at the elevator, I was like, Hey. Yeah. It was just super, super awkward. but it turned out they were, it was when they were doing the whole merger and yeah, they were like, There were things to talk about. Yeah, that I didn't need to know about. Yeah. so there you go, that's where I know Elaine from, and since we were talking about reels, Elaine sent us a recommendation for bedtime reel watching, which wasn't, The cleaning of the rugs. Have you watched them yet? I will admit that I have gotten sucked into the rug cleaning and the rug cleaning watching, multiple times. Yeah, you should check on car cleaning as well. No, I can't, because I live with David, I see that shit in the driveway every couple of weeks. Thanks. Thanks. but it's not really dirty. Like you should see the dirtiness that gets, you have to see it from start to finish with dirty cars. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. I'm on, the tattoo guys giving me love advice these days. Oh, you're still on that. I'm, I enjoy a good fixing of a, ingrown toenail every once in a while. we all have our things. We all have our things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that, I think that catches us up on fan mail. again, I was at a conference and people were very complimentary, about the podcast. a couple of people I hadn't talked to, at the other conference were like, Oh, yeah, we didn't know about it. And now we know about it. And now we listen. and you can see, I, we really appreciate you guys. And It's still tens and tens of you that are listening, but that, the number of tens has definitely gone up. I Okay, so shall we give the people what they want? shall we tell them about our trip to Raleigh? I believe that we should. I believe that we should. I am, I'm going to say that this is our Growing Up Gaster story of the week as well. Since we were all together, since the whole fam, the whole Gaster clan, Nani, Pappy, Sarah, Sissy. I will give you my perspective. Just getting them to the airport on Thursday. So, we all, it load up into my car, and David's driving, and your dad apparently had to pregame a little bit before he could even get in the car. Yep. we're on the way to the airport, and your dad is like, is the airport always this far away? I don't think it's moved. It's always been there. He's it's taken us a long time to get there. I was like, we've been in the car 20 minutes. We're in Washington. Yeah. He's I know. time to get there since the last time he's been there, I'm sure. it, we're on the new highway to there. Yeah. it doesn't necessarily take less time. It's just less congested. Yeah. There you go. Okay. Which I can appreciate in a highway, really. Yeah. so we get them there and then we have to split up because I'm in charge of Anita who doesn't have TSA pre check. You're in charge of Jumbo, who somehow does, and then there's David. Yeah, so David I still don't understand that, but okay. David charts his own course because he can't with us. He already knows he can't with us. So he, but he's got clear, so they measure his eyeballs, then they, they let him on through. and then I have your mom. They didn't let him through. He came in quite a bit of time after me and Daddy. Because he had, he had, gum wrappers in his pocket. He didn't have gum wrappers. He had gum, like a whole pack of gum. When they say, take the shit outta your pocket, they mean all of this shit. That's shit what it was. Okay, alright. Not everything but this gum.'cause anyway, anyway, and then we get them through security. We, we settled down to have a little, appetizer before we have to board the flight. So there you all are at the ess. Primal tease. Yes. Yes. Yes. So we sit down, we have some apps. I have to go have a meeting before we get on the plane. And as I'm having the meeting, I'm watching my family walk towards me and they don't see me. I don't know why you guys couldn't recognize me. It might've been cause I had that big headphones on. I didn't even look over by the window where you were. Actually, I think that's where you were. I don't know. It's looking like you, you expect them to be in a certain place. Like we, when we were looking for mommy and daddy yesterday in the stands. I expected them to be somewhere else and they weren't and therefore I felt that I just couldn't find them. Pick paper and lost. Yeah. The, the funny thing is that independent of each other, all four of you came to try to find me. Like you were looking around for me and none of you looked at me, none of you. And what it looked like to me is that everyone was just wandering off by themselves. In my defense, I was Xanaxed up and I don't think I was actually looking for you. I was just trying to get away from all the assholes standing in front of the door to get on to the plane. I can't say it enough. I find it funny because I had a Facebook memory that was me bitching about the people standing who are in zone Z or zone 800. And they're the first ones to stand up in front of everyone. so yeah, I. I think that's what I was doing. I was just trying to get away from everybody and open up my neck pillow and get that figured out. It was adorable. Yeah. I had to get off the phone because it looked like everybody was just wandering around willy nilly and I couldn't have it. Nothing was like, where's your sister? Where's your sister? Where's, I was like, she's not going to miss the flight. I definitely, I want to go. I'm in. I bought the ticket. It was great. We got your dad on the plane. We got him a whiskey drink and he was super excited because it was complimentary. It might have been his favorite thing of the weekend. outside of seeing Libya, I'm pretty sure that was a big deal. it was so fun. And then, we stopped. so we get to Raleigh, we rent a car and we have to stop and get a couple of groceries before we get to our Airbnb. And, we pick up some beer. And, your dad got out of the car to greet the lady who was bringing the groceries because she had the beer. I don't remember. Oh, because you were saying an X up. It was like cats. you got out to puff on your puffer, Anita got out to puff on her puffer. All we're doing is just stopping so the lady can put the groceries in the car. And you guys were like, kitty cats. Kitty cats. I don't know why I got out of the car. I vaguely remember now. It was the, we were in a parking garage. waiting for the, and she was coming. I could see her walking towards us. I was like, all right, she's just gonna put the groceries and David got out to help her because he's a gentleman. So he's gonna do her work. And then your dad goes back and he's like, what do you do with those beers? Yeah. he's trying to grab a beer as the lady is. He wanted to open it and putting it into the car. Because you were five minutes away from our Airbnb. I'm like, I could see it. It's right there. Yeah. Then he was real mad'cause David wouldn't give him a beer. And then we did that on repeat four or five times over the course of the time we were there. So that was a hoot. We, we did so much stuff like on Friday. I am, I'm just remembering the recipes that I needed. I wanna look up that wing sauce. I wanna look up that brutto recipe. I get to figure these things out and I'm just realizing that I haven't eaten anything today. So now that's making me hungry. And I wish that the magic mushroom would send me some bruschetta. Mellow mushroom. It should be magic. It should be. According to their menu design, it should be the magic mushroom. but it is a, Collegetown favorite, the mellow mushroom. It's in a bunch of Collegetowns. And we, as a family, collectively, eat there every time when we come to Raleigh. That's our first, dinner stop. So we met Liv there for dinner and it was great. I felt a little bad for her because all five of us were super excited to see her and we each wanted our own Olivia time and we were just, Pepperin that poor kid. question after question. To the point where she was like, it was like a roundtable discussion. It was like a town hall. And she was like, yes, I agree border control. No, I don't have fleas in my room anymore. Yes, we got a new couch. No, it's not fabric. It's made of leather. No, they give us our, they didn't take our sheets. It was just rapid fire. and that was fun. That was fun. And I had that apple pie beer, which tasted like apple pie. It was delicious. It really was. I was pretty impressed. Yeah, that was good. And then we went home and everyone passed out. Yeah, as we should. long day. And any time I take the Xanax, I just gotta go sleepy. And I'm not sure anybody actually passed out because the, we were all sleeping on an assortment of cinder blocks. Wow. Wow. Lovely Airbnb. Great location. Cute little neighborhood. Adorable front porch. So many positives. Those pillows suck dick. Yeah, they were bad. They were real bad. They were. Great. The pillows were bad. The mattress was bad. it was bad. I think I only slept, I think I only slept because I was not sharing the bed with anyone. I was sharing. Xanax. David and your dad got pretty gooned up on, Friday. I think they started drinking at 9. 30. In the morning. A. M. A. M. Then we took them to lunch. And then we did stuff. Oh, we went to Target. We went to Rothy's. Oh, yeah. And, Boners, we, we got a picture for you. Yeah, you're gonna have to post that somewhere. I wonder if I could put it in the show notes. I bet I could. I feel like you should. there's a picture of Sarah and I in front of the pink chicken. Which isn't If you're a true boner, you'll know why this is funny. Which isn't a brothel, like you might think. so chicken should be. Chicken is what our mom used to call our vagina. Bleah. When we were, yeah. So pink chicken is just, one, one layer of funny, above all that. Yeah. Pink chicken should be a brothel, isn't. What's even better is mommy's the one who took the picture of us. So there we are. There we are in front of the pink chicken. That was great. And then your dad and David, again, the good Samaritans that they are, rescuing people who have locked their keys in their car, just by a show of brute strength. Just brute strength. They did a great job. They did a great job. we had planned to go back to, our little Airbnb, and since we had a huge, gigantic lunch at 2 o'clock, no one was hungry, So we didn't get any food. Olivia was thinking about ordering Chinese food. Then I prefer her big soccer game at two in the morning at two in the morning while I was awake, we bought games cause I thought we were going to want to play games and Olivia comes over and because she's the dedicated soccer player that she is. She was like, Hey, why don't we watch a, why don't we watch a film? Why don't we watch games? that the team we're playing tomorrow has already played. I was super excited about that. Cause I just wanted to lay on that. The Chase Lounge. The Cheese Lounge. The Cheese Lounge. So much funnier if it's cheese. The Cheese Lounge. I do like cheese. So we did that, and I went to bed, and David was a bit drunk, so he snored in my ear, but very quietly. Oh, that's nice. Like in keeping, with internet trends, he was very demure, very mindful about his snoring, but it was very nice. directly into my ear. Yeah. Uh. I got up, and Olivia introduced me to the real, not the real, the secret lives of Mormon wives. I can't watch it. I just can't. What is it that you don't like? Or you feel like you're prying. Do you feel like you're prying? Looking in on somebody else's private lives. there was a 22 year old girl who was getting a divorce. Yeah. I feel like it's a lot. nothing against them, like whatever. do your thing. but yeah, I started watching it and I was like, I just can't honestly. I can't stand the way that one girl talks, like the girl who starts it all off. I was like, wow, is she for real? so that was, that pretty much did it for me. I watched maybe a quarter of an episode and was like, yeah, Nope. I stuck it out. I stuck it out. I got sucked in and then I couldn't go, I couldn't sleep cause I was like, do Jordan and Brittany get along? Like where does Whitney come back in? what happens? So I got to see all that. And I don't feel like they're super Mormon. They're, they're all about, progressive, being like the modern Mormon women. they go to see the Chippendales in Vegas. Okay. I guess the swinging thing is where I missed that part. I didn't see that part. Yeah, cause that's that was, I thought that was one of the things that made them famous was this whole controversy that they all started sleeping with each other's husbands and wives and shit. I don't know, that wasn't in the episodes I watched, but now I'm I think that's where I was like, I feel like that's not Oh, there's macho! Things to look up, Mormon swingers. Yeah, I don't know if maybe that's And again, you want to swing, that's your thing? That's great. I don't really want to watch about it, or learn about it, on TV. And, for instead of saying, this shit should be banned, cause I don't agree with it. I just turned it off. do your thing. Yeah. It just seems like a lot to handle. It's a lot. And I already have enough. But we got, but I only got like a tiny bit of live time, so maybe I was just looking for David to snore in my ear so I could go out and lay on the couch. Oh, yeah. She could touch me with her hand while she was sleeping. I didn't think about that. maybe. Because I am pretty sure that's what it was. I am greedy for Olivia time and I am not ashamed of it at all. I was going to say you should be. We got to watch her play on Saturday and then she stopped over before she went out Saturday night right as we were all going to bed. I was in bed already when she came over before she went out. I was already asleep. And I, I don't know if you noticed, but in Olivia's room, they're making a beer pong table. It was, I loved it. A favorite square on the table was the, I need a cocktail minus the tail. That was a good one. I also liked, save a horse, ride a pacer. Yeah, that one. I liked it. That they're very creative in her little area. Yeah. And her room was fantastic. And I am like, if I had that room when I went to school, I might've stayed in one place. I will, this is going to be so great, Funny Boners, you can join Sarah and I at the University of Alabama when we go back to school. We decided while we were sitting in Olivia's dorm room that this was so nice. Yeah, we wanted to go to a big school. We want to go to a big school and see what it's like. Yeah, we definitely have this exact setup. We want to live in a dorm. We it'll be great. It'll be great. I'm gonna join the psychology club and run it, I think. That'll be my new major, psychology. I'm going to, I don't know, work on beer pong skills because I suck at it. I feel like I'm like a super huge disappointment considering that I went to several schools. Like I should have picked up on that shit at one school. and I'm really bad at beer pong. So I feel like that's what I'm going to focus on. You should. You should. I think maybe the second time around, I'm going to focus less on academics and more on my social skills. I feel like that's. Yeah, absolutely. I'm still not going to focus on academics. I did for the last couple of years I went to school and it's overrated. Whatever. No, I'm still going to, I'm going to focus on having fun and spending time by myself in my dorm room. I am, I'm going to provide the other kids, my my colleagues, if you will, with, pithy, sayings like you can always retake a class, but you can never relive a weekend. I like that. somebody said it to me when I was in undergrad and I was like, that's weird and scary. That's amazing. Except, Jumbo will kill me if I have to take another. He was pretty mad I had to take Psychology of Love. to get the two credits. I took, I took too many math classes as a math major at a liberal arts school, so I was two credits short of graduating. So I had to take Psychology of Love, over January. Things you'll never hear me say. I took too many math classes. if anybody was curious about how rowdy I was in college on the surface, it was, I took too many math classes. I was just going to say, on the surface. I like this. because. Or is it underneath? Whichever one it is, as you did your fair share of I did get up to some shit. but I always went to class. You did. I always went to class. I might have had vomit on me, and I might have smelled like tequila. But I was there. Pretty sure a couple of them, I was still, Real drunk. Yeah, but at class. That was the secret. So yeah, I took care of my shit. I didn't. I didn't. Took care of my shit. still, managed to create a lot of shenanigans. When, when I was not in class. For sure. Many a good story. Okay, And then we had to get up like ass early on Sunday to come home. Super early, but it was a good call. It was a good call. So from experience, like you can take, yeah, there are two possible direct flights on American. you can take a direct flight to Pittsburgh at 6 45 in the morning, or you can take a flight at seven o'clock at night and that seven o'clock at night, one is tough, because you're tired from not really sleeping that great and you have to get out of whatever Airbnb you're in by 11. And then you just have a whole day of, trying to find stuff to do. Yeah, I know. And, and, it just extends out the amount of time you end up saying goodbye. And I had a nervous breakdown in the Harris Teeter the first time we tried to do it that way. Yeah. It doesn't make sense. It's much better to get up, get on the road, get in the air, and you're home. You're home by, we were home by 8 a. m. It was great. I was able to be sad, without Olivia looking at me. Yeah, there you go. I'm crying in the Harris Teeter while I'm trying to check out a bunch of groceries for her. David still cried because that's, he does that. he cries all the, every time we leave her, he I find that funny for various reasons. It's, it is an odd thing, strange. But that is our growing up gaster story of the week. That is what it was like to be with us. It's like a fever dream most of the time. You're not sure what's happening, where anybody's going. Yeah. There's at least three people talking a bunch of nonsense at any time. One of you is always bored, and wants to do something else. Don't think I was bored at all. No, I was delighted with sort of the down time. Like we, we spent the entire morning on Saturday just festering around that Airbnb. It was wonderful. I read my 10 percent happier homework. I don't remember what I read, Pissed around on the internet, I mean it was a, it was nice. What else? Is there more from the trip you wanted to talk about? No, I think you covered it all. Awesome. Now the only thing left for us to talk about is 10 percent happier. Yay. So take it away. Eckhart Tolle. Yeah, he looks like a hobbit. He does. If you guys haven't, if you're reading along, Dan Harris kind of gets into Eckhart Tolle in his, some of his philosophy about spiritualism and meditation. So he's introduced to Eckhart Tolle because he's looking at something that Oprah has done, I think, in some way. Yeah. And he can't decide. There's the moments of genius. Yes. All right. So chapter three, we're talking about Eckhart Tolle and the whole thing is Eckhart Tolle. And it's this whole journey of how he's, and I think at this point Dan Harris is still wearing his religion spirituality hat. So he actually found Eckhart, Eck, Eckhart Tolle from Felicia, one of the camera ladies or one of his. Oh yeah. Damn it. Yeah. One of the people that he worked with. And so he did a little bit of research, found that, that Tolle was friends with Oprah and she was all about him and blah, blah, blah. So he ordered the book and he starts reading the book and the first thing that strikes He says, at first the book struck me as irredeemable poppycock. Irredeemable poppycock, And I think that's all I, that's all I underlined throughout this chapter is the funny shit that Dan Harris says about the book and Toll. It was something that struck me. Basically he, and then he ends up having an interview with Toll. And he just wants Toll to tell him what to do, and I feel like that's me, I just want you to tell me what to do. So he kept like, how do you do that? How do you do that? And at one point, I don't know where it is, but Dan Harris says, unbreak my heart because he's not getting the answers that he wants from him. because there's no practical application in what Eckhart Tolle is saying, right? he is just a. operating on kind of a different level. So Dan Harris is like, this is, I feel like there's something here, but there's nothing I can grab onto. there's nothing that I can, there's no practicality to what you're saying. in his interview, he asked so you never get mad at anyone? He's no. Tole's no. Like for anything, like someone cuts you off. You don't get mad at them? No. No. Like, how do you do that? And he is. spout something that's what the fuck? So yeah, the practicality behind that is what Dan Harris is missing. And I think what a lot of us miss when we start thinking about meditation, right? Cause it ties back into that spirituality of Buddhism. And I'm like, I want to be a Buddhist. I just want to be less wackadoodle during my day. I just want to have a quiet mind for God's sake. I don't need to read ancient Buddhism philosophy. Just got to the part where, Dan says, Unbreak my heart, that's all you've got. And Tole starts explaining, let me see, but he says he can hear the cynic saying, this guy saying, I can awaken by taking a deep breath. What the fuck is he talking about? And he said, yes, that's the mind talking, of course. I can hear him and his little hobbit. I've never heard him speak. But I could hear it in my head and mind, the mind is talking in a useless sense because it's talking about something that's already passed. There's nothing that can be done about that, so it's time to just move on. But that guy is an asshole and just cut me off. Right, I am sincerely worried about losing my hair right now. How is Yeah. Practicality is what our friend is missing. And then he's talking about like inner energy fields. Aligning with the molecules. Blah, blah, blah. Did like the one thing that one of his ex girlfriends said to him and I have to find that. oh, it was in eighth grade, which is fantastic. In eighth grade, an ex girlfriend told me when you have one foot in the future, one foot in the past, you piss on the present. I had never heard that before. Huh. No, I've never heard that before either. And I thought, why have I never heard that before? Because no one ever said it around you? You don't. But I feel like that's, I don't know. It's a neat thought. yeah, you're pissing right on your present. But I don't know. how do you live just in the present when your past decisions put you in your present and your future is affected? Like I'm very. that's the whole idea of it is that there's no like you can't just go I don't want to live in the present or I don't want to live in the past anymore. Like what? Philosophically you need to do is as much as you can Live now, like you're not gonna be able to go back like you can't go back. So what does it matter? What does it matter what bad decisions you made like? Yeah, that was I'm fucking dumb Yeah, I probably should have studied more. I probably should have picked a different school. it's so, you can have all of those thoughts, but, Eckhart Tolle's kind of right. That's just your brain. Your brain is just chirping at you. And the idea behind meditation is to be able to, recognize the brain chirping at you. that's the practical thing that Dan Harris is looking for. Like, how do I not piss on myself in the present because I did dumb shit in the past? Or, how do I make it okay that I'm going to do some dumb shit here in a little bit, but, I, maybe I take a heartbeat and think about it. The meditation, the practical piece of it is how do we train, how do we train our brains to be less impulsive? How do we train our brains to take that one little step before you do the action that's self tap, self sabotaging, right? Or have you just been looking for something in the book this whole time? no. I have been listening to you, but that's right. And that's. I found the part where he asks him about, you're never annoyed or irritated or sad or anything. And Tole's response is, no, I accept what is. And that's why my life has become so simple. And if you're on the YouTubes, you could see me blinking. yeah, but again, practically, what the fuck are you talking about? And then he says, it's like a sudden gust of wind. I don't personalize a gust of wind. It's simply what is. I I will But see, I, when the gust of wind comes along and fucks with my hair in a way that I don't like, I am, I'm motherfucking that gust of wind. Yeah, I have a lot of work to do. Do you remember when we were reading the subtle art of not giving a fuck? vaguely. Me too. But, part of Mark Manson's advice is You can't control the gust of wind, right? you can't control the gust of wind. All you can control is how you accept and react to that gust of wind, right? And it's the same, yeah. So you can motherfuck the gust of wind all you want. but, what, you're not really motherfucking the gust of wind. You're like, damn it, because now that this gust of wind, now I have to realize that I'm cold and I should have brought a jacket. Damn it. And now my hair's a little bit messed up, so now I have to fix it. I think that it's also understanding that the thing that I'm upset with isn't. It's not the guest of wind, it isn't the tragic cancer diagnosis. The thing that I'm upset with is that my life is off course now in some way. And it's up to me to get my life back on course. It's not the guest of winds. And maybe Eckhart Tolle is just really good at saying, this is what I'm really upset about it. And then just not being upset. I don't know how to do it. Like, how do you not do it? It also makes me think that his world is just Do you think he does drugs? I think Mark Man, like another thing that Mark Manson said is, you can't give a fuck about nothing. I'm not, my bullshit meter on Eckhart Tolle is like sky high, right? of course you get upset when the guy in front of you cuts you off. yeah, maybe he just, I feel like he might just get over it a lot quicker, or Right, he might recognize that as a thought that's counterproductive. Nothing I can do about it. I'm gonna let that, I'm gonna let that back into the ether. Yeah. And I think that, yeah, that's exactly what it is. You accept it for what it is, you realize that's, okay, move on. But fundamentally, there has to be something that pisses him off. there has to be something that he's so passionate about that you fucking with it is the thing that he cares about. Do you know what I mean? the subtle art of not giving a fuck is about finding that thing and then focusing on that stuff and not the guy cutting you off. I am wondering. What Eckhart Tolle cares passionately about that he gives a fuck about. Just don't and one thing I think one thing I Underlined here is after it's towards the end of the chapter 3 and Dan Harris just says yep yet another sharp Turn sharp left turn into crazy town Exactly. Exactly. Because he's Tolle's talking like all this stuff's oh, yeah, that makes oh and then he says something Ridiculous that I wish I could find what it was. But yeah Is it something about the nebulous? When I remarked that he looked much younger than that, cause he was 62 at the time, and I remarked that he looked much younger than that, he told me, matter of factly, that he basically hadn't aged since he'd had his spiritual awakening, which happened when he was 29. Yet another sharp left turn into crazy town. Again, detect a little BS. I detect a little BS. it, I think, this whole, the whole Eckhart Tolle, what I took away from it the first time, and what I'm taking away from it the second time, is that there's little nuggets of things in here that are good, and then there's the crazy shit. And what Dan Harris is looking to do is find what's the good, how do I, how do I get the good? what do you mean I just breathe? And the fact that you say crazy shit makes it so much easier for me to take the thing that would be good and just shove it aside and be like BS. And I think, and tell me if I'm wrong because maybe I'm not remembering, but like at the end of this chapter he's so the search continues, but it also reinforces the stuff from the last chapter that Maybe there's something here that I can't apply to my life that doesn't have anything to do with the other or crazy shit like being open to Spirituality and being open to beliefs that aren't necessarily ones I grew up with is what you get from the male escort Priest and what you get from Eckhart Tolle is yeah There's some spirituality here and some piece of what you're doing that kind of makes sense and could help me practically Yeah, but and then That's like the next step on my journey. Yeah. he said his meeting with Toll left him pretty much in the same place when he finished the book. Fascinated, yet, yet frustrated. A friend of his, described Toll as a eulog, initially boring, but ultimately mesmerizing for some reason. And then at the, he ends it with, he still feels there's a nugget of goodness here, like you were saying, like there's something good that's to be extracted by this, so he's not going to let it go just yet. and he felt it says, it was as if I'd met a man who told me my hair was on fire and then refused to offer me a fire extinguisher. Yes. So there's something there that there's something that I need to figure out and I need to do something about it, but I just don't know how to do that. And I feel like that's exactly how I have felt since we started reading all of this shit. Like this all makes great sense, but I am yet to be able to figure out how to fucking do something about it. Like comic habits, like looking at looking back at the subtle art of not giving a fuck. Thank you, Mark Manson for helping me. Figure out the fact that I don't need to get chafed every time some minor irritation comes along in my life. I get it. I get that. I get that. I need to align. I have pulled that have helped, for sure, but I'm still looking for the, yeah. like I need my values, which is what, the subtle art of not giving a fuck helped me understand. I need to look at what's important to me and define what's Those values and make sure that I'm living a life that aligns with them because that's when I'm going to be 10 percent happier and then looking at atomic habits and how Practically we can make little changes once we figure out what our values are we can line some stuff up and then this book is about Like really being able to change the way your brain thinks, right? Like being able to do the work that's going to give you pause when your little, Adam's reminder pops up that says you should do your checklist for tonight. And I'm in the middle of a hockey romance novel and I'm like, no, I'm not doing it right now. Like, how do I, and I think maybe that's where meditation should help us. Maybe. Yeah, it should give us it should give me enough of a quiet mind to be like just do It's gonna take you a half an hour. Don't be dumb. Take this thought of well, if I stop reading now I'll never ever get back to reading and I'm Fuck it. I want to read right now. I don't want to clean. Just looking ahead. chapter four is Happiness, Inc. And I feel like it's the same thing. It's just about a different individual, which would be, what was his name? Deepak Chopra. So famous. But he has a little bit of crazy, there were moments where Dan was like, you're obviously like with Toll. And this is the small thing I remember from reading, like with Toll, he was always like, he never changed. Like he was always just this Yolog. Right. boring. Just very, I remember Dan had mentioned that after the interview was over, they went for a little walk, like to do photo op things. And he had expected him to react to be the same way as other people he's interviewed, like a different person after it was done with the interview, not a totally different person, but a little more open maybe. And it was just completely flat. Like he was the same no matter what. But with this guy, I knocked something over. with D Pack, which I want to say D Bag, which makes me giggle, anyway, he talks about how he witnessed this guy get frustrated and annoyed and yell and get pissed. But I feel like I forget though, exactly cause Dan Harris calls him out on it. And I forget how he explained it though, because I feel like he tried to gloss it over. Like it wasn't really him getting mad. And again, my bullshit meter goes off, right? that's what I got out of these two chapters. Like you guys are selling books and you're selling a philosophy and you're best friends with Oprah and you're on the Today Show or whatever. The practicality of being able to apply all of this and turn it into a brand is what Dan Harris is Filtering through like he's I don't want it to be a brand like I don't want to sign up for You know the Dalai Lama school of meditation or the Deepak Chopra school of meditation. He's I just want to I just want oh, it's Deepak like Tupac Right Deepak Chopra. He's famous. Apparently. anyway, like there's just so much bullshit you have to sift through to get to the practical stuff that's gonna work. And a lot of that is going back to simplicity and not relying on the BS that people are trying to sell to you, maybe, when it comes to spirituality and philosophy and finding tools that are going to help you do the stuff that you need to do in your brain. So I think at the end of chapter 3 and chapter 4, he's this, there, there are good things for both of these guys. There are good things that both of these guys have in common. And a lot of what they have in common is just meditation and being able to control your mind. And they're taking it, Tobel's taking it over this way and being, some kind of brain dead lunatic. And, Deepak Chopra is taking it over here and being, like, some kind of a brain dead entrepreneur. And, what do they have in common and what can we take out of that? And how does that relate to spirituality? So I think that's why these books are, or these chapters are in the book. I 100 percent agree. And it reminds me of something that actually my husband had to say. First of all, he said, when are you guys actually going to start meditating? Like you keep talking about it. we're getting there. We're getting there. It's a buildup. It's a buildup. It's a buildup. us. But when we started the book, I was like, this is Dan Harris's journey to get to meditation. this is the story of how he, as a completely objective, slightly neurotic Jewish journalist, got from doing a bunch of coke on the weekends, philosophy and Buddhism and meditation, and how it changed his life. if you're gonna follow the story, you gotta follow the story. We're gonna meditate. We're gonna get there. We're gonna meditate. We're gonna get there. And he, him being the Christian that he is, was pointing out, the similarities between Christianity, when you're talking about spirituality, And his Bible reading, which is something I've never done. So I did tell him we weren't going to read the Bible for the podcast. So I've tried to read the Bible a few times. I didn't make it very far, but I did tell him that we're, it's not like we've, we're totally different. We're focusing on the books that we're focusing on. that's where we're pulling this stuff from. we're not going to read the Bible, but maybe eventually like chapters, we will discuss other Christianity values that pull into this. There's always that opportunity and that option. Like we're not closing the door on any type of spirituality or anything. And I explained to him that was one of the things that I thought was cool about Dan Harris is that. But at the age of nine, his mom was like, Santa Claus doesn't exist and God doesn't exist. But yet he has still found people and the pull into looking into this, whether it's Christianity or whatever he's looking into, he is still looking into these things. He still wants to learn about them. so that, that's what the cool thing is. But I did tell him we would get to the meditation part. We weren't going to read the Bible, but, maybe. Who knows? But that's the whole point of all of this, is to pull us into things that we never thought we would relate. We could pop open a book on self help Christian style. Yeah, and that's what I said. We're not discriminating anything, of course. But I'm still arguing that Buddhism isn't actually a religion. I don't know. We studied it in world religions. When I was in college. Like Buddha, Buddha existed, right? Buddha was a person. So did Jesus. No, but Buddha didn't create the world. no he didn't. It was already there. Okay, so I feel like you can still, I feel like you could be a Christian who believes that God created the world in seven days and still, I don't know. Do Buddhism? Yeah. Yeah. Follow Buddhism? Because Buddha was, wouldn't that mean that Buddha was created by God? Yes, depending on what you're looking at. There is a whole chapter on the marriage of, people who are Jewish and people who strongly buy into Buddhist philosophy. So if the Jews can do it, I think the Christians have proved this time and again. If the Jews can do it, the Christians can do it. we co opt their whole thing at one point. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. There you have it. Religion. It's a religion podcast now, in addition to being a geography podcast. Jesus. Geography and religion, two of the things I really am, that's so disappointing to my husband, too, but two things that I am Just my hands are sweating now. Listen to us not know anything about religion. Anyway, all So yes, there is, I think there's an opportunity to take your spirituality and whatever you believe from a religion point of view and layer meditation on top of it. And I think that's what essentially these two chapters are about is that you, the chunk that you need to take away from this book isn't necessarily that You need to be a Buddhist to Yeah, you don't need to prescribe to a certain religion or spiritual Whatever. Yeah. And I think To be able to do this shit. If I recall, the rest of the book is about how this is a very real practice that comes with very practical benefits, and that is a scientific endeavor, much more than a spiritual or a religious endeavor. And that, I think, is something that, that Dan Harris had to have this whole journey to get to. he had to interview Eckhart Tolle, he had to hang out with Deepak Chopra, he had to talk to the Dalai Lama. Shaking my head as though I read the book already, because that's really what you're talking about now. But I think that's the other thing, is that I can't wait till we read a book that you haven't read yet, and we can be at these stages together. I won't read any, I won't read ahead anymore. I know that's going to be super difficult for you and you're fucking lying. I'm 100 percent lying. Part of, it's like when we were watching Game of Thrones and I had already read the books and I got to watch other people enjoy things I already knew was going to happen. And then when we got to the point where there weren't any more books, I didn't want to watch it. Because I am, there's something, it's potentially something I should unpack with, with dear Emily tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway. Getting back to Dan Harris. Yeah. Okay. I think that's what he's doing. Yeah. He's stripping away the spirituality in itself isn't a terrible thing. having a happiness ink mindset isn't necessarily a bad thing. But the thing that, that will give us practical ways to impact what's happening in our brains is the meditation piece of it. And you don't have to subscribe to a Self help philosophy. You don't have to subscribe to a particular religion. You're welcome to. Do it. Yeah, whatever brings you joy, my friends. Whatever brings you joy and get you from A to B. That's what we are proponents of. And having podcasts about shit we don't know. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. I love the fact that people still tune in to listen to us talk about shit we don't fucking know about. I think that's the basis of most podcasts, like listening to people ramble on about shit they barely know about. I'm really hoping that when you listen to this one to do the editing, you're like, Oh, what? It was a good one. Cause I feel like we end these episodes. I'm like, wow, that sucked. And then you're like, Hey, it was a great one. And then I listened to it. I'm like, Oh, it was pretty good. I'm hoping that happens. Cause I feel like I have failed for this episode. So no. No, I think I think anyone where I can string together like three or four sentences is positive, for me and next week we get into the stuff that I like. Cause I remember I didn't like the Eckhart Tolle chapter and I liked the Deepak Chopra one less. I was like, I don't care. Just tell me more about the meditation. Just get to it, my friend. And, for those of you who are playing along, I downloaded a meditation app and Sarah, I think. Starting on Friday, we ought to give it a go. We ought to give it a going on. There's a lot going on. Bullshit. Bullshit. It's five minutes. It's five minutes. What's the name of the app? what's it? I had, I have Headspace. I think the app, the app and what you're doing. That's something I don't have to pay for. Yeah. Because I'm getting my eyelashes put back on, so I have to save money everywhere else. Yeah, what you can get is on the Dan Harris thing that we already signed up for, there's a whole list of meditations and all you have to do is click on one and just follow along. Alright, I'm gonna get on that. my first time ever trying to meditate, I had a book, Meditation for Dummies back in 1999. Oh, wow. So you've tried this before. I definitely have not. I'm shitty at it. And that's why I did it twice back when I had the book and then checked it for like the next 15 years. The pandemic is the next time I tried it. Okay. But the book was like, okay, sit down in a comfortable position and breathe. And I was like, okay, I'm doing it wrong. I'm doing it wrong. I'm doing it wrong. What? I just, I forgot. so having a guided meditation, I think helps. So do one of those. I'll send you a link. Okay. Perfect. Commit, commitment time. Let's do. I don't like commitment. Five minutes, at least three times before we come back here. Five minutes, at least three times. If you can find like some. Five minutes, three times, that's a total of 15 minutes. I think I could find 15 minutes, plus we have to read chapters. How many chapters are we going to read? let's read two. let's read the jubu and happiness is a skill. I think those are the next two. Okay. Yeah. I can do that. Because I think they go along together. Sleepy. Little sleepy Sarah. And if you guys want to follow along, you guys have the assignment to read those two chapters. Do three, three meditation sessions of five minutes of meditation each. And then we will come back. I, I think I have a pretty quiet weekend. Sunday. Saturday should be really quiet, Five minutes. I think that I could do the reading and actually take notes and, be able to reference them so I'm not flipping through my book trying to figure out what the fuck I'm talking about. We did great. We did great. once I figured out which one was Chapter 3 and which one was Chapter 5, I think we yeah. I'll just cut that out. this part won't make any sense to you guys. Cool. Yeah. It'll look like I completely knew what I was talking about the whole time. Yeah. It's a little rough there for a minute. We got it. We made it. Okay. Alright. that's, that's it. I think that's it. Love you. Have a fantastic weekend. Alright, love you sissy, love you listeners, keep listening, send us some mail, gastergirls at gmail dot com. We almost went an episode without saying the email address. Seems dumb. No. Alright y'all, love you, bye. Love you, bye.