The Mental Funny Bone

Episode 33: Blue Star Ointment for the Mind

• Gaster Girls • Season 3 • Episode 8

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In this episode of 'The Mental Funny Bone,' hosts Sarah and Christine dive into relatable and comical discussions about mental health and share resources to find help. They kick off the show with a Veterans Day shout-out and a humorous explanation of their Pittsburghese lingo. The weekly catch-up includes a surprising Taekwondo reunion story and reflections on the latest Election Night's impact on their mental health. Christine emphasizes the importance of being better people without resorting to divisive language or actions, inspired by quotes from 'The Hobbit' and Dave Farmer. They also recollect their grandma's quirky Sunday dinners featuring dishes like Cheez Whiz on green beans. The sisters touch on their struggles with multitasking, mindful practices, and the concrete health benefits of meditation outlined in Dan Harris's '10% Happier.' The episode concludes with their humorous daily routines, Steelers enthusiasm, and a call to fans to share their holiday food traditions. With a perfect blend of humor and genuine introspection, Sarah and Christine remind us to tackle life's chaos with laughter and mindfulness.

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/

Sarah:

Hello and welcome to the mental funny bone becoming the gaster girls. I'm Sarah.

Chris:

And I'm Christine. And, we don't know anything about mental health other than, we have mental health and we should take care of it. That's what we know. We do have links to places where you can find help with your mental health and your mental wellness. And you can find those in our show notes.

Sarah:

Yay. Awesome. Okay. Here we are. first of all, happy veterans day. We are recording on Monday this week. so shout out to all the veterans. I'm off the Facebook currently. So I didn't get to give my dad, his Facebook veterans day shout out with my favorite. Daddy Vietnam picture. hopefully he's now an avid listener of the show and he will hear the shout out. I don't give me that look. I'm put, mommy will tell him, mommy will tell him that he needs to at least listen to this part. So we love you, dad. You're a favorite veteran,

Chris:

yes, of all the veterans. You're our

Sarah:

all the veterans. You're our favorite. Yay.

Chris:

Yay. Now, is it, is it veteran

Sarah:

veteran. I'm pretty sure it's a veteran, but I just felt like saying veteran.

Chris:

I feel like we get that from somewhere. Like veteran,

Sarah:

Veteran. we were from Pittsburgh and we like to skip parts of words.

Chris:

true.

Sarah:

And make whatever word we want to make out of it. It's also known as Pittsburgh ease for any of you that are not from Pittsburgh and listening. Feel free to look it up. Feel free to try to understand it.

Chris:

I was, into my 20s when I realized that gumband isn't a real word.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yep. Yep. I was living in Arizona and yelling at a little girl at the Taekwondo studio because I told her to go get me a gum band and she wasn't moving. Go get me a gum band. I don't know what you need. I need a gumband. I don't know how much,

Chris:

What?

Sarah:

I could be.

Chris:

Oh, listen to this. we are gonna, we're going to skip fan mail for right now and go right to weekly catch up corner.

Sarah:

Oh, okay. I have a, I wanted to do something real quick,

Chris:

okay. All right.

Sarah:

It's part of, it's part of ketchup. So go ahead.

Chris:

We, so I'm traveling a lot for work and there is a client that we've had. I've been on multiple teleconferences with her and the whole time. I'm like, damn, she looks familiar. And she has said the same thing about me. and we had just assumed, That we knew each other from working in the same industry, being at the same conferences and all of that stuff. turns out she knows me from Taekwondo in the early 2000s.

Sarah:

What? Really?

Chris:

she had gone, she had done the whole circuit. We're roughly the same age. So she was always in my age group and we had competed against each other in Las Vegas. swear to

Sarah:

nuts. How did you guys figure it out?

Chris:

because I said something today about, about teaching Taekwondo, not Taekwondo, whatever, however you say it. I said something today about teaching, the Taekwondo and she's Oh my God, that's where I know you from. And I was like, what? yeah. She's did you do that when you were in Arizona? I'm like, huh. She's Yeah. That's where I know you from. I'm like, that's impossible. And I was like, no, that kind of makes sense. Cause it would have been the same size. My

Sarah:

Did you do that? My face would have looked the same.

Chris:

right? I wouldn't have had pudge face.

Sarah:

Did you do the teaching? I don't remember you doing the teaching.

Chris:

No, I was saying something and telling a story and teaching the Taekwondo fit better into, I was taking Taekwondo with 14 year olds. It's it was a better narrative.

Sarah:

That may, okay. I just figured it was, you could have gotten away with it. I just figured it was something that I don't remember. I barely remember myself trying to teach it. So

Chris:

right? I don't

Sarah:

could do it.

Chris:

she's are you're still in your practice? And I was like, oh, no. Oh, no. No,

Sarah:

I know I can barely kick someone's ankles.

Chris:

right? No, I can barely do yoga Which is not aggressive at all. Like

Sarah:

Yeah. No. Nope.

Chris:

so there you go. Alright, so back to you I

Sarah:

now that I just wanted to make mention of our last episode, we were, it was election night for us. and I'm gonna, I'm going to throw out some shit right now. And, Yeah, that's how it's going to be not super happy about the results of the election, but that's it. That's what it is It ruined a lot of my week last week, and I'm not gonna let it ruin anymore It wasn't great for my mental health, but I have to deal with that So I just wanted to throw it out there to our listeners who are also not happy with the results I do hope we have some kind of diverse audience? I don't know. Whatever. let's put it this way. So what we need to do is exactly what's happening. We're moving along peacefully with our lives. that's the good news here is that had it turned the other way, I'm not sure that we'd be living in that peaceful. Environment right now. So the good news is we're moving along peacefully. My ask is that we be better people. Let's not go out and buy flags that say, fuck you, Donald Trump. Let's not come up with terms that, under the radar, try to say, fuck you, Donald Trump. fuck your let's go. Brandon ask. Let's not wear t shirts that say FDT, cause there's t shirts that say FJB, fuck Joe Biden. let's not do that. Because it's fucking stupid. let's try to support each other. Let's be better. Let's just be decent fucking human beings. And teach our kids how to be decent fucking human beings again, cause that would be really nice. that's all I'm gonna say about the election. I love you all. Um, that's really all I got. Just, let's just do better. And I'm not saying do better than someone else. Just, let's just be better than we were the day before.

Chris:

think that's fair.

Sarah:

So

Chris:

I think that's always, I think that's always good advice. let's try to take care of each other. this is, this was my advice eight years ago. This is always my advice. This is my advice. Now let's just take care of the people that are next to you. and really that's, that's how we do better. I think going back to, the Hobbit. Going back to The Hobbit and thinking about the small acts of kindness that we can perpetuate for each other are the way that, that we move forward. And, again, to quote Dave Farmer, this is not going to change the price of beer. So let's just have a drink. Let's just have a drink with our neighbors and thank God that we can now buy eggs again at a reasonable price. Whoo!

Sarah:

Yeah. Anyway. yeah, so there you have it. That's a, other than that, that was a big part of the weekly catch up for me. I went out on Saturday with some friends to, to commiserate and, we went to a little cigar and whiskey event. And at first, I was like, I'm not participating in the cigars and the whiskey, so I will just chug Miller Lights, and then like seven Miller Lights in, I was like, you know what I want? A cigar. if I'm gonna have a cigar, I should probably have some fucking whiskey, right? Not a good idea. Nope.

Chris:

Good gravy. That just sounds

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

It just sounds gross. how is your workout practice? Also, thank you very much for calling me. Every morning at six o'clock.

Sarah:

Yeah. Noah asked

Chris:

where I called you.

Sarah:

yeah, there was a couple that you called me. So yeah, we're doing good. And I feel like that's working out because literally if I didn't have to call you, I would not have been getting up. I know I wouldn't. So we're just going to have to keep doing that. And I apologize if you don't let me know that you're in a different time zone. Actually, I prefer you don't let me know because then I'll be like, Oh, sleep in. maybe just turn your phone off. I don't know. Or expect me to call you at my 6am.

Chris:

I knew what was happening this morning because I was already awake. I wasn't up out of bed. I was just laying there. And of course, because it was an hour before my alarm was going to go off anyway, I was just drifting back to sleep.

Sarah:

of course. And I apologize. Cause I know you're extra tired. That's how I was. I was like extra tired at the end of last week. I think I, I talked to you and told you it was like, I felt like I was in a bad breakup for a few reasons. I'm sorry. Back to the election just a little bit, but it's coming, you're having a bad time. You're going through a rough patch. You're just hoping maybe something's going to get you through it. And then when the breakup actually happens, you're like fucking gutted, even though you knew it was coming. And then the residuals of it, like I didn't really sleep really well. And so by Friday I would just felt sick because I hadn't slept. And because apparently I've had an imaginary boyfriend that broke up with me.

Chris:

Oh, I'm sorry about your imaginary breakup.

Sarah:

It's all right. Do you remember, did I do that with you? Talk to you about talking about my imaginary boyfriends when I was at Cal U?

Chris:

I, something is tickling something in my brain. I'm getting something from that, but fill me in if you don't mind.

Sarah:

Working at the bookstore. There's only one I can remember, but I'm pretty sure there were multiple, there was a kid who was always around the bookstore and I was in love with him. I can't even remember his name, but I stalked him a little bit, maybe, and everybody in the bookstore, we just started Talking about him as though he is definitely my boyfriend knowing that I've never even actually talked to him

Chris:

Oh,

Sarah:

So he would come in the bookstore and people like hey, Sarah, your boyfriend's here You better go check him out And then I'd go and I'd bring him out and then he'd leave And then I'd make up some story about what we were talking about and how we're going out later And everybody was into it. Everybody was into it. Like Rosie, Rosie be like, Hey, Sarah, I saw your boyfriend. He came in. He was asking about you.

Chris:

my god.

Sarah:

then he told me this story about you and how you guys did this. And everybody just, I think at one point I was slightly confused and I thought maybe he really was my boyfriend.

Chris:

we run into him at the bar before Denise's wedding

Sarah:

It's a

Chris:

was that a different, was that a different pretend boyfriend?

Sarah:

that might've been a different one. Cause I had several of them. Like the one I'm talking about, this was just at the Cal U bookstore. there was a few other. Other boyfriends that I just decided to make up.

Chris:

was he in your, this one was in your math class maybe.

Sarah:

no, this guy wasn't in any of my classes.

Chris:

This is hilarious.

Sarah:

Yeah, sometimes you just gotta make something up to get through it.

Chris:

Oh, let's do that now. Oh, hey, there's a, there's there's fan mail for

Sarah:

yeah, there's several

Chris:

us back on track, but

Sarah:

a few things to talk about in our emails. First of all, I would like to get back to fan mail of last week to Lieutenant Boner,

Chris:

right,

Sarah:

I learned because I didn't listen to the prior week's episode, Until last week. So I listened to them back to back and I realized that we, I indeed said something and made fun of his storytelling style in that episode. So that's what he was defending himself against. So that's where that's where that came from. So that's it and he said that he would only send true fan mail from now on which I think he meant I won't email you anymore

Chris:

I'm only, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. And he's I'm taking it. I'm taking it to heart. I'm taking it to heart. good luck with your podcast.

Sarah:

Yeah. Have fun. I'll continue to listen to try to support you but fuck off

Chris:

Oh my gosh. And then, and then we got other fan mail from, So that was Noah's. And then, we got people who want to create partnerships with us, but I think that involves us paying them.

Sarah:

Yeah, I don't think that's not people. Google won. Google won once. Oh, they're just telling us how we could save 16%. That's not it. Um, storage tip? No. No.

Chris:

Shawna. Shawna. Our friend Shawna. and she, this one's, this one is a fan mail for me. She said, I am amazing. I do a great job keeping Sarah on track, and we all know that's not an easy job.

Sarah:

She's right. She's not lying. She is not lying. So we're gonna set up a DJ's date and you and David will have to come with us if we ever do it. Apparently DJ's is just not the same. I haven't been there in years. So I don't know.

Chris:

They have a new, satellite place in Washington, across from the casino.

Sarah:

I feel like I was at that one at some point. Again, I still think that was like years ago, but Shana also, probably Shana also mentions her every morning, every wake up, what the fuck? I wake up every morning and get on the treadmill.

Chris:

I think that was a song by Sugar Ray, wasn't it? Every morning when I wake up. I don't know. I don't sing so good.

Sarah:

don't say my R's too good. Walk it.

Chris:

god! Alright, that's enough. That's enough. I don't sing so good. There's more fan mail.

Sarah:

Okay.

Chris:

There's

Sarah:

Do you want me to, Kim D. Gotta love her. I absolutely love her. Here's her email. Not for nothing, but sausage in the face makes me 90 percent happier. Love you guys. As, and we love you too, Kim. We sure do.

Chris:

I don't think I was clear about what Lucas said as Ming was throwing sausages at me last week.

Sarah:

I think, I got it. And then I told co workers of mine, actually.

Chris:

He said, she's used to it. Did I say that?

Sarah:

I am pretty sure that you did, or not the first time that you've been hit in the face with sausage. I told, I told my coworker Ashley, cause I said, okay, so my sister told me a story and I feel like me and you would have been on the opposite side of her. Like we would have been the two who were drinking too much and throwing sausage and making rude comments. And I told her the story and she was like, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:

just wanted to go to bed. I think I just wanted to get a cup of coffee and head back to my room. Alas, no.

Sarah:

It was one of my favorites. And, then they're setting up an assembly for AFSP, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention at our alma mater at Elizabeth Forward. So shout out to Jackie for getting that set up. And I actually want to see if I can go

Chris:

Aw, that would be nice. A little homecoming for you.

Sarah:

yeah, I really want to go because I want to get them into Montour. And I feel like seeing it up front, what's the word I'm looking, in

Chris:

In person.

Sarah:

I'd like, I would like to check it out. So I think I'm going to ask if that would be okay. And if Jackie and Ed are gonna be there, I'd like to go see them too.

Chris:

I would say that I want to go to, except for that I will be traveling. One can only assume

Sarah:

I was gonna, January 23rd, you have your schedule already.

Chris:

I'll be here in Austin.

Sarah:

Really? Fuck off. Alright, your job is stupid. Anyway, so I think that's all the email stuff that we have to share.

Chris:

I think that's it. catch up corner. What, what else happened last week? Progress on the She Shed. It's moving right along.

Sarah:

she shed, I like this she shed progress.

Chris:

Moving right along. It's got windows now. We fixed the door.

Sarah:

Are you loving it?

Chris:

I can't wait. I can't wait. Can't wait. We can podcast from the she shed. We can have sleepovers in the she shed.

Sarah:

what I can't wait for. Can you do me a favor and take that cow picture behind you and put it in your she shed? Cause I really like it.

Chris:

The, the decorating theme at this Austin Embassy Suites is, cow. They have gone also with a livestock theme for decorating, just like you. there was a shaggy,

Sarah:

cows.

Chris:

there was a shaggy faced cow. In the comfort room I was in today, all

Sarah:

Shaggy faced morn cow, like a highland.

Chris:

Yeah, horned cow,

Sarah:

I

Chris:

shaggy face.

Sarah:

I want a baby one.

Chris:

Right where you keep it. In the basement,

Sarah:

Eh, I don't know.

Chris:

I could make a little, I can make a little, field by my she shed, it in. And I could have a baby cow.

Sarah:

yeah. people have chimpanzees and shit. People are dumb enough to think that's a good idea. I watch Chimp Crazy on, HBO.

Chris:

Why

Sarah:

Here's why lemme explain to you because live with Kelly and Mark had their Halloween show and it's one of the funniest, like it's always a great show anyway. And she, one of her costumes was the woman from Chimp. Crazy. And it just, it was cracking me up and I was like, I gotta see what this show's all about. So I had to watch it and it's crazy. Capital C.

Chris:

is it like Tiger King crazy?

Sarah:

Yes. I didn't ever watch Tiger King, but I'm assuming, I think it's the same people who did Tiger King. but it's fucking crazy. I don't understand when people will learn these are, this is not a good idea. These are not good ideas. These are not animals that you should have in your basement. You certainly shouldn't be fucking hiding them down there because that's not where they belong. They don't belong in your center block of a basement. That's just sad and fucking cruel. I don't give a fuck what anybody says. Anyway, check it out. you'll be horrified, but check it out.

Chris:

great. I've been needing a reason to be sad about nothing. So I'll go

Sarah:

you won't be sad. It is also very fucking entertaining because the lady is, yeah, you just, yeah. you gotta check her out.

Chris:

I got to hang out with, with my friends, Jean and Maggie. Okay.

Sarah:

Yay! Yeah,

Chris:

got to see them. We had some, We had some drinks and apps. And that was nice. And, you funny boners are in for a treat. Because we're going to get ourselves an intern. And we're going to get ourselves an intern who's going to help us do some stuff around here. for one credit, and we can't pay her. But dang,

Sarah:

but she can really get credit for helping us,

Chris:

right. That's what I said. Happy to help out.

Sarah:

Like, how does that work? don't we have to prove that we're, like, something?

Chris:

We, we have to send, we have to send her the address for the podcast and, we have to send her, we have to give her a job title and, we have to create a job description, which I think we should be able to do pretty easily.

Sarah:

I love everything about this.

Chris:

I know, I can't wait for, her to fetch us both coffees in the

Sarah:

It's fucking fantastic.

Chris:

First, step one, go to Starbucks, someplace in the middle, where you

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

Then, drive,

Sarah:

middle of us, so

Chris:

drive half

Sarah:

hour that way.

Chris:

drop it off, stop again on your

Sarah:

another hour. Totally. Absolutely.

Chris:

Other duties as assigned.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

And then we can go and hang out with her at her college,

Sarah:

I

Chris:

at her sorority.

Sarah:

I think that's such a great idea because we can blend in.

Chris:

Right. We're fine. We're

Sarah:

I do not have a Karen haircut

Chris:

I'm not wearing a blazer 80 percent of the time these days. It's

Sarah:

Totally fit it totally.

Chris:

Hi, let me hand you my business card. But I was able to hand out some business cards at a social function. I went to this week, that social function was a funeral, but I was able to hand out some business cards

Sarah:

gotta do what you gotta do

Chris:

for the ones that are spelled wrong because we haven't fixed it.

Sarah:

Yeah, I didn't order the other ones.

Chris:

I handed it to the lady and she held it out as far as she possibly could and went, Oh.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'll order the other ones. How many should I order? I think that's where I keep stopping. Like I forget how many of the other ones I ordered.

Chris:

Like 50?

Sarah:

Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Maybe. Yeah. Okay. All right. I'll get those ordered. I'll get those ordered.

Chris:

Alright, shall we, shall we talk about the growing up gaster story of the week?

Sarah:

Yeah. Do you have anything? I have something written down, but,

Chris:

no, you lay yours on me, and if I don't like it, I'll throw out a different one.

Sarah:

mine's pretty basic, with the holidays coming up, Noah was making a list of food we're going to eat. and I just thought of. weird family traditional foods. And I felt like we should maybe when we ask people to email us, maybe we need to give them an assignment.

Chris:

Ha ha. Why do I don't know why you continue to be surprised by this.

Sarah:

okay. So, yeah, so funny boners. The email address is gastergirlsatgmail. com. I want to know about your family food traditions for the holidays.

Chris:

Which holiday?

Sarah:

It doesn't matter. It can be any holiday. Like the one I'm thinking about, I think it might've been an Easter thing. first of all, Thanksgiving. Can o cran. absolutely.

Chris:

were a thing until I was like 22.

Sarah:

it's, and you can't open that shit and smash it up and try to make it look. No, it has to have the shape of the can. If it doesn't, you've done it wrong.

Chris:

You slice off

Sarah:

Yes.

Chris:

a circle of cranberry sauce, and that's how you know you have enough.

Sarah:

In Grandma Annie's I could see it in the glass dish that she always used, you know what I'm talking about?

Chris:

Yes! because you open the can, you turn the can over on the plate, you poke a hole in it, and then

Sarah:

And you blow.

Chris:

blow into the can.

Sarah:

It's one of my favorite things to do. It's one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving altogether.

Chris:

And that's how you get can of crayon on the plate.

Sarah:

it was that one and I think it was Easter that we did the green beans from a can and Cheez Whiz.

Chris:

I feel like that was a staple. I feel like we had that with

Sarah:

With everything like with all sorts of stuff. I loved I don't know why I associate it with with Easter But man, that's good shit.

Chris:

do you, so when we were younger, funny boners, our grandma lived about an hour away from us ish, 45 minutes maybe. but it felt like a, it felt like an experience, like an adventure. Like we would go down, we would stay overnight at my grandma's house. I think we've talked about the play toys that we had at my grandma's house. There were no actual toys. there were the toys that you got at Fisher Big Wheel when you got to spend your dollar. There, you could get those toys. there were also,

Sarah:

encyclopedias.

Chris:

oh yeah, there was an encyclopedia. So you could read that. That was fun. There were five books maybe that I had read by the age of nine. All of them. I read Tom Sawyer like seven times, seven times. There was a Julio Iglesias album.

Sarah:

Julio, say it again.

Chris:

Julio

Sarah:

Julio.

Chris:

there was that, there was a, there was an ancient, Ancient record player from 1944.

Sarah:

we definitely talked about that one.

Chris:

there was a Kenny Rogers album. There was an album of the Smurfs that I believe

Sarah:

itch.

Chris:

go for it. No one can see you because this is a podcast. So it's your boob all you want

Sarah:

Oh, I bet we get an uptick in, in YouTube videos. Just say

Chris:

this shirt, guys. It's under this shirt. You're not going to be able to see anything. Don't waste your time.

Sarah:

And you don't want to, honestly.

Chris:

they're liquid at this point.

Sarah:

we thought, we talked about that in recent weeks. Okay, go ahead.

Chris:

Smurfs, there was the Smurfs album.

Sarah:

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Smurfs album. What a good one. What a good one.

Chris:

you're a pink toothbrush. I'm a blue

Sarah:

Bluetooth brush.

Chris:

Have you met somewhere before?

Sarah:

Oh, I

Chris:

You're a pink toothbrush. I'm a blue toothbrush. Have we met by the bathroom door?

Sarah:

door. Yeah, we gotta look it up. We gotta look it up. We gotta find it. I gotta find it. I'm putting it on my playlist. Putting it on my playlist.

Chris:

it was a classic. doing that kind of stuff would occupy you for about 12 minutes roughly. And then you had to like, then you had to dig into the costume jewelry and the crinoline slips and that kind of stuff you had to play hide and seek. like whatever your creative little kid brain. but we would go down there and stay the weekend. And on Sundays, our grandma would make us a roast beef dinner. And she would, I didn't realize she would spend all day, after church. And I think we've talked about this before, was the way I thought one could get out of going to church was to be asleep. And my grandma either liked to go to 7 a. m. mass or a mass at noon. Because there were like four masses to choose from. The one at 7 was fast. The one at noon was fast because the priest wanted to get everybody in and out before football started.

Sarah:

was hungry too.

Chris:

also hungry. And you weren't allowed to eat before church, which I can't remember why. Some sort of Catholic canon role, like you can't eat before you go.

Sarah:

I don't remember. I just remember going early all the time.

Chris:

Yeah, because we were hungry. but,

Sarah:

and the fact that everyone else on the road was going to church.

Chris:

right,

Sarah:

Grandma would say on the way there, wow, look at all these people going to church.

Chris:

they're not going to church, just us. It's us and Aunt Tabina and Aunt Midge. that's it. It's just our relatives. Those are the only people that are going to be in church. Same people every week. in the tiniest church on the planet, there's seven seats. We're taking up all of them. Like everyone's sharing the same DNA. But I thought if, if I was asleep, no one would wake me up to go. So even though I was an early riser and have attention deficit problems and can't sit still very well, I would lay in bed an extra two hours. Like until I just couldn't take it anymore and had to get up and I could never test my theory because I just couldn't Stay in bed that long.

Sarah:

Yeah, it didn't work.

Chris:

It didn't work.

Sarah:

no, you still had to get that.

Chris:

so we would stop at the butcher shop and get the rest of the ingredients And if for those of you aren't local, the Frederick town butcher shop still in existence today, you could go in there and they would sell a prepared chicken at the butcher shop, which is what it's famous for, and you could get a chicken leg to not on while you're walking around the store for free, which was a lifesaver. Oh my God, it was starving. And I, and your grandmother once suggested to me that maybe I get an apple instead.

Sarah:

She was good at that. she was good at that. as she got older, it got better. Meaning wow, Sarah, did he cut your hair with dull scissors?

Chris:

it was more overt as she got older. I thought she was suggesting maybe a different snack. Instead, I think what she was saying is you're starting to get a little chubby, maybe you have an apple instead of a chicken, deep fried chicken leg. Anyway, so we get all the ingredients and then Our grandmother would spend the rest of sunday afternoon cooking cooking a beef roast so good. So good homemade mashed potatoes homemade gravy if they were in season cucumbers with sour cream and onions and Green beans with cheese whiz and here is the thing that I don't think I appreciated like that beef was so dry You That the reason I liked the green beans was because the cheese sauce gave me something to dip the

Sarah:

it in.

Chris:

That wasn't the gravy because I was using that for the mashed potatoes. Same thing with the cucumbers. I was like, yes! Let's get as much of this sour cream on this dry ass beef as we can. It was delicious. Don't get me

Sarah:

shit all around.

Chris:

So good. So good. and then we would stay there for another hour and watch golf. Everyone would catch a nap. And, and then we would, we would leave. And I was always sad to leave on Sunday night. I think like Sunday sadness,

Sarah:

we would leave with our leftovers packed in Cool Whip containers or country crock containers and a gallon of milk.

Chris:

Sometimes held together with a paperclip,

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

on how much milk we had bought.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. that's Sunday at Grandma Annie's.

Chris:

That was a growing up Gaster story of the week. that is what we did every Sunday from the time I was like, maybe six until I was well into college,

Sarah:

yeah. Yeah. Cause I, we were still doing it when I was, yeah, when I went off to college,

Chris:

right until we all moved in. And then we didn't do it

Sarah:

actually live there,

Chris:

Then we didn't do it anymore. Now you people are here all the time, you're a pain in the

Sarah:

pain in the ass.

Chris:

You're not company anymore.

Sarah:

So yeah, send us an email. Let us know some fun holiday staples or just a Sunday dinner staple. Just give us your stories. Yeah, can o'cran. Yum.

Chris:

I can still taste the roast beef.

Sarah:

Yeah, I'm tasting the green beans. I'm hungry though.

Chris:

right, same. Pretty hungry right now.

Sarah:

I'm tasting the cucumbers and the sour cream with the fried

Chris:

beef. Oh,

Sarah:

green beans. Salivating.

Chris:

good. So good. Delicious. And I don't know for, I don't know if you remember this, but there were times where I would stay by myself with, with Grandma Annie and we would watch the Lawrence Welk show.

Sarah:

Yeah, that was, when I stayed by myself, we played games.

Chris:

Now she wouldn't play games. She wanted to watch Lawrence Welk. So we would watch Lawrence Welk. And, yeah, I remember not enjoying that too much, but then we would turn on like different strokes. So sorry. That was all right.

Sarah:

Yeah. She loved to watch baseball, which cracked me up because she would just fall asleep.

Chris:

No, exactly. Like we would watch Johnny Carson and before the end of the monologue, she'd be over there like big bird. She got her flutter beak tucked under her wing.

Sarah:

seriously.

Chris:

And the first couple of times that happened, I would panic because I was little and I can't get myself to bed. What do I do? Oh my God. I'm going to have to wake her up. What happens? What happens? No

Sarah:

And then we'd go to bed. We'd go to bed and cuddle. She made a little chair and I sat in her lap.

Chris:

That's grandma. So fun. So

Sarah:

It was a blast. Anyway, so there you go.

Chris:

so fun and so mean at the same

Sarah:

Yeah. Yep.

Chris:

Adore the memories. All right, so let's, let's talk about 10 percent Happier. Fill me in on this chapter, because I've carried the book around to four states now.

Sarah:

first of all, Noah wanted me Jubu is because he thought it might be a little bit of a racist slang.

Chris:

Oh, no, I don't think it is.

Sarah:

It's not. It's a Jewish Buddhist.

Chris:

Right, Jubu,

Sarah:

So just to throw that out there to make sure everybody's aware of it.

Chris:

the one Jewish listener that we have. Don't be offended.

Sarah:

I'm just, I just want to make sure because he felt that you said something that if he said I would have tore him another asshole. And I was like, what are you talking about? And he was like, jubu? And I was like, yeah, it's definitely not a mean word.

Chris:

It's in a book.

Sarah:

it's a name of a chapter for fuck's sake.

Chris:

Jewish Buddhist. Jubu.

Sarah:

so anyway, I thought this chapter was appropriate. It talks a bit about, we'll get to that. so it's about the science. This is, it's all about the science, and the studies that were started about meditation and the benefits, that come from meditation. just, As an overview, but we love the science. That's really what we should

Chris:

This is what we're here for.

Sarah:

and based on these studies, it's proven health benefits for people facing major depression, drug addiction, binge eating, smoking, cessation, stress for specifically for cancer patients. loneliness, specifically for senior citizens, ADHD, asthma, psoriasis, IBS, essentially, it is the blue star ointment for the mind,

Chris:

Asthma?

Sarah:

right? When we got to psoriasis, I was like, literally, it's like the ointment.

Chris:

Psoriasis?

Sarah:

Yeah, that's what it says. So yeah, I would like to, I'd like to learn more about that, but that's what, that's the information I have from the book right now.

Chris:

this is the reality to the, to the Buddhism that comes up. So to the mysticism that comes up so frequently when we talk about meditation,

Sarah:

yeah.

Chris:

might be true, but also science.

Sarah:

Yeah. And that's what this whole chapter, that's what this whole thing is about. one, like the major studies started with a jubu. I'm not going to be able to say it now without laughing. And I feel like that makes it ignorant. Anyway, John Kabat Zinn. And what he came up with is MBSR mindfulness based stress reduction, which was an eight week course, for meditation. And what he did was he took out the Buddhist philosophy, spiritual quote unquote religion part of it. I still stand by Buddhism as not being a religion, but whatever. but basically to make it a more, secularized

Chris:

Gotcha.

Sarah:

practice. so there were studies done. specifically this one that was done by Harvard that looked at the brain of these individuals going through this eight week course. And what it found is that there is a thicker gray matter in areas of the brain for people who are doing this meditation course, a thicker gray matter in areas of the brain associated with self awareness and compassion,

Chris:

Yay.

Sarah:

proving that the respond, not react to superpower. Which I like that, not react, which I felt goes with things going on these days, superpower that it's something real, like we're seeing the science behind it and the areas of the brain that are, What's the word I'm looking for? the stress. Yeah. The stress parts of your brain, those start to shrink. and there's another study that was done at Yale that investigated the DMN, which is your default mode network.

Chris:

Oh! Oh! That, that has all kinds of stuff to do with ADHD. That comes up all the time in my ADHD research.

Sarah:

it makes sense because that's the part of your brain. That's the part that's active. When. you're obsessing when you're obsessing, when you're, this happened in the past, this might happen in the future. This is going to, this happened in the past, this might happen in the future. And you're just spinning your wheels and spinning your wheels. And it was found that meditators doing the, this eight week course were more successful in deactivating this part of the brain. But then in further studies, it was even found that They were able to deactivate this part of the brain even when they weren't in active meditation mode. So it essentially is saying that it's possible to retrain your brain. It's possible to train your brain and it's my new favorite word Neuroplasticity.

Chris:

I love neuroplasticity.

Sarah:

Me too. I just like saying it. but it proves that happiness is a skill. We can figure it out. We can retrain those areas of our brain that go down that spiral and

Chris:

This is,

Sarah:

least, it's super interesting and this is just a small, these are just like a few little snippets of the science that's done.

Chris:

this kind of goes back to that, that pause that, that we need to make the right decision. this is the brain's ability to say, whoa. You're living in your DM. Yes, the MNS, you're living in your DMN and maybe if you take a step back, you're going to give yourself a chance to be like, Oh, that's not real. That is just me spiraling. This is just me. This is just me being hyperactive right now. And if I take a deep breath and think. Maybe I can make a different decision, not my just reaction to this, like the respond and react is that pause that we're looking for that lets us say, Yeah, I'm up at six o'clock in the morning. And I could give Sarah a line of BS about how, yeah, I'm definitely up. I could also turn over and go back to sleep. This is the brain being able to, to tell you to do the right thing, giving you the space to be like, all right, make a good decision. Get up out of bed, get up out of bed, do your atomic habit. Think about your value in this pause that you've given yourself over months and months and years of meditation.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

And this is eight weeks though. It isn't months and months and years of meditation. It's eight weeks where you're there already seeing results. So even though it feels like you suck at meditation, the, just the act of trying to meditate is the thing that gives you the results.

Sarah:

And there's another reference that we talk about, I think, every week is the practice of meditation. It's like anything else, if you're working out, you're trying to build muscle, you have to continue to work out. And that's like when you're talking about the thicker grain, thicker brain matter You know what I'm saying? That's you have to work up to that. It's not, you're not going to meditate once and all of a sudden have this huge, compassion brain. It's not the way it works.

Chris:

cool.

Sarah:

Yeah. the thing that brought all of this on was Dan was working, I guess he, he was working with Diane Sawyer's group and. Pitched this to her that he wanted to do some pieces on it, and she said, yeah, go for it. And she had, alluded to him earlier that she thought it was a bunch of bullshit.

Chris:

of course she

Sarah:

So these are the things in doing the research for these stories that he found. Then he went to General Mills because Yeah, they make all kinds of stuff. Betty Crocker. That's the thing. Hamburger Helper. Cheerios. That's

Chris:

They're a competitor of your old company.

Sarah:

They're a competitor of Heinz, and I'm fairly certain that Heinz does not have any meditation rooms.

Chris:

They have that guy with the great sports analogies though, who I remember to this day.

Sarah:

Who's that?

Chris:

Bruce, was his name Bruce?

Sarah:

Oh, yes. How do you remember that?

Chris:

I don't know.

Sarah:

Sheesh.

Chris:

I don't remember why I walked into the kitchen. I remember that guy's name.

Sarah:

Wow. So this part was a little bit of a So anyway, he goes to general mills and he goes there because they have a lot, they're embracing meditation. They have meditation rooms with like yoga mats and they really, they're, they really, what's the word? Empower it. No. Suggesting that they really want their employees to grab hold of this embrace. That is it. Ding, ding. Ding, ding. So anyway.

Chris:

It's me.

Sarah:

So he interviews this woman who is the one who, brought all of this to General Mills, and she's just like the way that they approach it. They don't want to approach it from the spiritual, which is exactly what we were already talking about and approach it more that these practices are proven to work. assist in better leadership, help people focus and enhance the creativity and innovation within people. and she doesn't even really like to bring up the stress reduction, even though that's part of it. She wants to just focus on the positive things that can come of this. and here's the part that, that mind blown, multitasking is a no. No multitasking. No multitasking. How much have we been, like, I don't know about you, but I've always been like, yeah, I can multitask. I was, like, that's always a big deal that you can multitask. so Dan Harris, just like myself, thought this was fucking insane. So I'm going to read a little bit from the book. So Dan asked her, so you're telling me I can't multitask her response. It's not me telling you it's neuroscience. That would say that our capacity to multitask is virtually non existent. Multitasking is a computer derived term. We have one processor. We can't do it. So he's still this is, I'm like mindfuck. Like this doesn't make sense to me. I'm not sure what you're, I've no compute. It's just not, no. like he's saying, I always thought like I was being efficient if I'm multitasking. To which she says no, cause you're going from one project to the other project, to another project, back to this one, by the time you get back to this one, you have forgotten a bit of what you've already done on that one. So you have to go back and remember that again. So that's where the biggest inefficiency is. it's silly. So what, what they do with their employees is they actually recommend taking a timeout. I forget what she calls it. oh, purposeful pauses. So when you're on the phone, this is what's amazing to me because I don't do any of this. When you're on the phone, be on the phone. When you're in a meeting, try actually paying attention.

Chris:

Sorry. What?

Sarah:

Set aside an hour to check your email, then shut off that, then shut it off and focus on the task at hand.

Chris:

Sorry?

Sarah:

How many?

Chris:

What? I have heard this before. And as, as your classic late diagnosis ADHD, lady, It is, it has come up that multitasking isn't going to serve me very well, but I can't not do it. this is a huge ask. you want me just to sit in a meeting and not, I've, we've talked about this on this podcast. this podcast might be my favorite part of the whole week. this might be the thing I like to do the most. And yet, if we go long enough. I will open another tab in the browser that we're in and I will do other shit like not because I feel like I like there's a It's just going to happen. Like I'm done with this part already. And I think that this is it. This is a huge ask, right? what are you talking about? I don't wait for that email to pop up and go and look at it immediately losing the four minutes I've just spent trying to focus on this other thing, and it turns out from my ADHD research, this is the single Most important thing for me to understand is that one thing at a time and however long you can do that one thing, it's how long you can do that one thing. that's just your capacity and doing seven things at the same time won't make you any better at anything.

Sarah:

Nope. It won't. And, it makes sense. It makes sense, and I feel like I've heard it before, but I feel like I probably was multitasking at the time, so I wasn't listening. So

Chris:

here's also the interesting thing about focusing on a meeting. I can't have a meeting where I don't have my camera on. Now, like this is the discipline strategy that I use these days. If you can see me, you're going to know I'm multitasking. if you can see what my face is doing and it's doing this,

Sarah:

that's scary.

Chris:

I'm obviously looking at my other tabs and not paying attention to what's happening. you see when it happens when we're on here together.

Sarah:

100%.

Chris:

so that is my trick for paying attention in meetings is I just have to have my camera on and I'll tell everybody, like you don't have to have your camera on, but I have to.

Sarah:

Yeah. this

Chris:

is my handicap.

Sarah:

it's something that came up, in my coaching. That I'm partaking in

Chris:

Yay!

Sarah:

my loss of, ability to focus. I'm for the past few months, all over the fucking place, like totally lost. so we were talking about strategies to get focused again. And one of those was setting a timer, set a timer, focus on one thing. Yeah, even if it's just for five minutes set a timer for five minutes and then treat it like meditation Maybe bump it up a little bit like keep going And do that just throughout the day But I think now like this is something that I'm really gonna have to

Chris:

Pay attention

Sarah:

do. Yeah

Chris:

Sorry, I didn't mean to finish your sentence. That's also another ADHD thing.

Sarah:

No, but it's, sometimes I need help with the end of my sentences, but, yeah, this is, I think that this is what I'm going to start to practice. what's the word? See, I need help again. I need help with the words because COVID stole my words. Employ. I'm going to employ. Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

Chris:

There we go.

Sarah:

the only other thing, let's see, I just have, One more thing I have, underlined is too much mental churning is counterproductive. And then, Dan Harris asks okay, so we're having these purposeful pauses. If I'm the corporate samurai, I'd be a little bit worried that you're recommending these purposeful pauses, like the other companies aren't taking. Purposeful pauses and she's yeah, but that assumes that the pauses aren't helping you and that they're not productive But they are

Chris:

Again, it's a, I love, and I think in this chapter, correct me if I'm wrong, but they also talk to people from the arts.

Sarah:

from what I'm sorry you I can't hear you. I will just make fart sounds until you come back She said hold please.

Chris:

Hi.

Sarah:

Hi, you're back. Okay.

Chris:

hello. I'm back. I'm back. Great. Now we have a new recording. So that's going to fuck shit up when I try to edit this. Fuck me.

Sarah:

the good news is it's not like it won't be really long Yeah. We're almost done.

Chris:

Yeah. we're almost done. corporate Samurais and army dudes are doing the same thing. And I think That just again, psoriasis, ADHD, is it the blue star ointment for fucking everything? And,

Sarah:

Yeah. It's the blue star awaitment for the mind. That's what, that's what I think. Yeah. They did a study, with Marines. Dan interviewed one of the Marines who was like, yeah, this is a bunch of bullshit. But again, he's this guy that he interviewed is now continuing to practice meditation. It is helping him. The Marines, they wanted to do studies as far as PTSD to see if it will help with that. and another, a plethora of other things. so it's something that's being, Being employed throughout corporate America, throughout, the armed forces, like we're trying to get this out there. and the chapter ends with, the old school Buddhist friends, like what they think of it. And they're not really all that happy about it. And people refer to it as McMindfulness because it's just making it okay for everybody and losing the Buddhist. meaning behind it, to which Dan Harris kind of gives you the middle finger. Yeah, that's okay. And with me, like I, I, again, I don't think Buddhism is religion, but using a comparison of religion, just because someone doesn't practice Christianity doesn't mean that they should be treated any differently or not allowed to pray because it's not the exact same thing. thought process that the Christian does it in. I think meditation doesn't have to be strictly a Buddhist.

Chris:

right. being nice to other people isn't just the purview of Christians, even though that's Part of the religion, right? do one to others is a big thing in Christianity. That doesn't mean that you have to be Christian in order to be nice to people. same thing. Like you can get the benefits. It just so happens that this is a magic thing that people didn't realize. And if I can get the magic without the religion, then

Sarah:

And that's the big thing about it is that this is something that you can practice that has a philosophy behind it if you choose to go that route. And you can even you could do meditation with a Christian background to it. There's a lot of meditating in Christianity. They don't call it meditating. but there's other forms of it. So yeah, as long as you're being, it's the mindful part of it. And that's the other thing that I've I like is, I hate the word meditation. I don't know why, because you say it

Chris:

Oh, because it sounds hippie dippy, Oh, meditation.

Sarah:

referring to it more of a mindfulness activity and being aware of what's going on around you at this moment and not. Doing that spiral. I was chatting with one of Owen's buddy's dads. I don't know how it came up. I know cause I brought it up.

Chris:

I don't know how it came up.

Sarah:

but I don't know why I brought it up to be honest, but we were chatting about meditation. He and his family are really into meditation. And so there's a guy that we have to check out. I haven't been able to check him out. I just wrote it down. his name is Saad Guru, S A D U HGURU. And I was like, and I was telling him, I was like, my sister and I have a podcast, it's comedy. And then we talk about mental health and we're checking out meditation and how it can help us. And he was like, Oh, this guy's funny. You'll love this guy. And he takes that, he's doing exactly what we talked about. He does. Take for the most part my understanding he takes that buddhist part out of it and just focuses on the meditation itself So he's someone that I want to what that I want to check out.

Chris:

here's what I'm thinking about now. Like I want to check out the funny meditation guy too, but I'm thinking about like recent experiences at work. And I'm thinking about, all of the things that make me, who I am at work, right? so I'm having a little bit of a Dan Harris moment where, I'm thinking about the intensity with which I can approach work and still be mindful. do you know what I mean? that is where I am that is where I think Dan Harris struggles with it and where I struggle with it is that it looks like I am a Right? oh, no, I did my yoga. I did my meditation this morning and somebody else at the table is like, I answered 40 emails this morning. So which one of us is ahead? I'm like,

Sarah:

neither because it's not a fucking race But go ahead

Chris:

and I think that in some ways that's hard to reconcile that like the intensity with which we approach our jobs isn't impacted by meditation. we still have the ability to be intense. We can just be intense with a little bit more intentionality. Maybe is what I'm, is what I'm thinking that I don't need to answer 40 emails this morning because I did the thing that's going to make me a great worker all day. it's just a different practice, a different approach to how you do your job. And I think that one of these gets a lot of respect and another one gets a lot of dissing, right? I think that's maybe why you don't like the word meditation because you're like, Oh, no, I don't want to do that. What kind of hippie dippy moron would engage in that kind of activity? So

Sarah:

literally you say it and everybody's okay

Chris:

that's cute. you're going to be so easy to cream in the corporate world because you're wasting your time. And I'm hoping that what actually happens is that I get to be with practice and with intention, get to be more productive and I don't have to, I don't have to, Justify what I'm doing. I don't have to go back and point to the number of emails. I just point to how I'm just better at what I do, but you're not going to, you're not, again, it's like exercise, right? Like you don't see, you don't see that, developing and changing. there's no metric by which I'm judging how much more intentional I'm being at work other than, there's just improvements in the metrics that matter, not necessarily emails responded to, but, the rest of

Sarah:

you a question. Did this really happen? Like somebody rebuttaled to your You did yoga and meditated and they said, Oh, I responded.

Chris:

Yeah, they didn't, the implication was, oh, who's better? the implication was, you were wasting your time.

Sarah:

That's what I mean. who says that? okay, here's something to throw out to all of our listeners. Don't be an asshole. You're allowed to be like, you're allowed to say, wow, that's great. That sounds why do you do that? You're, again, it comes back to

Chris:

Curiosity.

Sarah:

curiosity. Be curious, not judgmental. Like, why can't we do that?

Chris:

yeah, why is,

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

The approach can be different as long as the results are similar. Like as long as we're getting shit done, what does it matter if I spent 40 minutes or I spent my morning doing yoga and meditation rather than answering a bunch of emails?

Sarah:

Yeah. Like, all right, do you feel good about answering your emails? you feel like you got worked on? You feel better?

Chris:

good, good. then awesome. Then awesome. But

Sarah:

why do you have to, why do you have to be a dick?

Chris:

I think it's the comparison that, That does the harm. Do you know what I mean?

Sarah:

sure.

Chris:

if you want me to tell you that you're better than you're better,

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:

If that's what's driving you to succeed is the fact that you need to be better than you're better off you

Sarah:

Yeah. Go for it. Bye bye.

Chris:

Um, I think that's what makes it hard. And that's what kind of, Pushes me to be like, maybe I should have done something different this morning. And then I have to, again, you have to have that pause and be like, you need to do the thing that's good for you. And you need to stop comparing yourself to other people. And you need to stop worrying about what is happening in somebody else's brain, because you have zero control over that. And you nanny. And if you came to me with this exact situation, I would be like, what a dummy that we have to talk about this. And yet here we are. Okay.

Sarah:

it. I'm glad that you brought it up because it's, that's exactly it. that's something that's going to try to set us back, but. That's where the mindfulness comes in and that's where the practice comes in and the practice and the intention and that's what it's about.

Chris:

Exactly. And now we come back to the fact I'm super tired.

Sarah:

You sleepy. Now I'm yawning cause you're

Chris:

Oh, sorry. Now everyone on this pod, listening to this podcast just yawned.

Sarah:

And they fell asleep.

Chris:

They did, because I'm

Sarah:

womp. Okay, I'm hungry. You're tired. You also have to go out and eat so I'm sorry about that. my new bookmarker is a It's a bobby pin. I don't know why I'd never thought of that before. It's perfect.

Chris:

that's awesome.

Sarah:

It's a little baby bobby pin.

Chris:

I don't have a bobby pin, but I do just want to give Olivia a shout out

Sarah:

Oh, yeah.

Chris:

for giving me this hedgehog sticker that I can put on my headphone case. Look at his little paws.

Sarah:

Love it. Eee!

Chris:

Love.

Sarah:

Hey, did you watch the Caesar game yesterday?

Chris:

I did. I watched the second half, in a bar with,

Sarah:

last play?

Chris:

super, super exciting. With, with other Steeler fans, I met a lady who grew up in Hazelwood, even though I'm in Austin.

Sarah:

Nice. Cause they're everywhere. They are everywhere.

Chris:

my streak of not being home and enjoying the game in outside territories continues this week. I did not get a lot of Beanie Bishop love and I don't know why someone with sports talk experience is going to have to explain to me if the other dude came back and maybe we just didn't have any Beanie Bishop.

Sarah:

know. I really don't know. I actually didn't watch it.

Chris:

I got to see my, my special teams coach and it looked like he had like maybe some cuts on his face and I'm sure those were self, like not self inflicted, but inflicted by, members of his own, team. It's special teams people. So you guys leave the man alone for God's sake. He's old Steelers.

Sarah:

though. I like him.

Chris:

He too, he's got a huge wad of chewing gum. It's the best. I went, where do I get his Jersey? was he a player? Will someone gastrogirls at gmail.

Sarah:

what his name

Chris:

I know. I don't know if somebody told me and I immediately forgot it. that just went in and out. Is it Beanie Bishop? Because if it's not, I can't

Sarah:

If it's not, I don't care.

Chris:

Can't even remember Beanie Bishop's name for three weeks.

Sarah:

Oh shit. All right. I think that's it for this week. I think we're going to wrap her up.

Chris:

All right. yeah. Thanks guys. Sarah. Love you. Miss you.

Sarah:

Love you. I missed you too. I hate your job. Love you. Bye.

Chris:

Love you. Bye

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Christine Kanalis

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Sarah Leibhart

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