The Mental Funny Bone

Episode 39: Make 2025 Your B*tch

• Gaster Girls • Season 4 • Episode 4

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Join Sarah and Christine as they kick off the New Year with laughter and mental wellness in the first episode of 2025! They delve into personal stories about meditation challenges during the holiday season, hilarious Christmas mishaps, and the unforgettable chaos of New Year’s Eve 2000 in Vegas. The duo also tackles the concept of FOPO (Fear of Other People's Opinions) using insights from Michael Gervais’ book 'The First Rule of Mastery.' Gain a deeper understanding of how FOPO impacts our lives and learn strategies to overcome it while laughing along the way. This episode is the perfect blend of humor and valuable mental wellness insights to start your year off right!

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. I'm Sarah

Chris:

And I'm Christine.

Sarah:

we are not mother. We are not mental health professionals. If you need professional mental health assistance, please take a look at our show notes for some links or, dial nine eight eight on your cellular telephone on your mobile. to episode one of 2025.

Chris:

whoop, whoop. Here we are.

Sarah:

I feel like we've really entered into a new phase of the podcast because we can start saying shit like, but we're recording this, like by the time this

Chris:

By the time this drops, we will be well into the new year.

Sarah:

I'm yeah. Anyway. So I think that's really fun.

Chris:

All right, before we get into, get into this, tell me how your meditation's going. it's Christmas time. have you been doing, have you been doing it?

Sarah:

Again, I really suck if other people are in this house. this is where I need to make an effort. Because at the beginning, I would, even when no one owned here, I'd go downstairs and do it. and now I, If they're in this house, I just don't do it. I don't know why that's very weird. So I had a few days off, but I am using the, wake up. Is that what it is? The wake up

Chris:

Waking up with Sam Harris?

Sarah:

Yes. Yes. I do. I do love. That app. I find it fantastic. especially the talking after okay, this is what we just did. Here's, let's talk a little bit about this. so I really do like that. and I have not yet increased to 2 times a day of meditating, which I believe will be, on my. List of things to do in 2025.

Chris:

Like, when you get back into a routine. right now, it's Christmas break. it's the Wild West around here. I haven't sat down to have a meal since Christmas Eve. I've just been eating ham literally by the handful.

Sarah:

Yeah, as you pass the refrigerator like just, sticking your hand into the handbag in the refrigerator and walking like stuffing it in your face I stopped for five seconds and was like, hey, we have some horserad. Nope. We don't all right

Chris:

nope, alright, I've seen

Sarah:

fistful of ham I got

Chris:

it's amazing. I ate, I think maybe four times yesterday, like four separate times. I got all the containers out and made a plate. the last one being just a plate of cookies at, 1030 last night, cause I needed that.

Sarah:

I mentioned you, I did mention you yesterday at Christmas dinner. my brother in law made, filet and, prime rib. And they were fucking unreal. Like he got this new to, no, not toaster, but as a smoker thing. and we also had Brussels sprouts and scalloped potatoes, all smoked, everything was smoked. It was so freaking delicious. And as we were eating, I was like, we need to take a video and send this to my sister, to show her what we're eating while she's eating cold fucking ham, but we didn't, it

Chris:

It was

Sarah:

was very nice. I had a very good time. I like the games that we played. we might need to work on our competitiveness. I feel like as we get older, it gets worse.

Chris:

We're fine.

Sarah:

there's yelling. And there, it's not like we were ever quiet. But,

Chris:

there's also a fair amount of mocking, too, which.

Sarah:

Yeah. And sometimes we have to explain what we're doing.

Chris:

to outsiders who didn't grow up playing Monopoly with your father. yeah, we had game nights when we were little, your dad would play Monopoly with us and just whoop our asses.

Sarah:

and make us feel bad about it, like on purpose. And I feel like that, that that has made me who I am today. One of my proudest moments in my life. parenthood journey was beating Owen at Monopoly. Like I have proof of it. I took pictures of it. I shared them with people. and I made him feel like shit about it. He was six.

Chris:

I feel like when I go into a competitive situation, to this day, I will choose violence. if it were possible to hit people during a board game, I would do that. I would

Sarah:

throw those little sorry pieces at them and hope it pokes them in the eye

Chris:

Eight skate and donate is what our father would say while we were, I don't know the context, but it might've

Sarah:

an eight didn't have any special meaning like it was just eight. But as soon as you got an eight, eventually all of us would just. At the same time, eight, skate and donate.

Chris:

I think it goes back to his, undiagnosed attention deficit problems. Thank you.

Sarah:

but it drives Noah insane

Chris:

bright. and just to set the record straight, I lost, you and I lost to, a team comprised of our children and David, my husband.

Sarah:

so I am not claiming defeat. I don't, I refuse. I fucking refuse. I want to recount We gave him too much time for that last fucking question. He didn't know it. We should have cut him off. Daddy was real pissed off about it. I'm not sure daddy will come back to Christmas Eve because of it. Yeah.

Chris:

one of the things I admire most about David is he's not nearly as competitive as I am. he recognizes the competitiveness and he sees it as a weakness and he will put his thumb on it like a bruise and keep pushing. So as soon as we lost, he's, he like threw his hands up in the air. There was a celebration dance, like Icky Woods getting cold cuts in that commercial for Geico. was, and it continued. Like yesterday, I'm like, Hey, let's play some trivia. And he was like, Why, loser? You wanna go back? no, this is it. This is it. I will never have another chance. and he is also bringing up the last time I lost in trivia, which was when Olivia was two.

Sarah:

Yeah, you need to somehow rope him into a game of

Chris:

Harry Potter trivia. Oh my

Sarah:

am 100 percent certain you are the only person that will ever fucking win that game legitimately.

Chris:

I can't wait. I know what I'm doing tonight. yeah, Christmas Eve was lovely. Yesterday I sat on the couch for literally 18 hours. I found a

Sarah:

was nice.

Chris:

for present opening and did not move.

Sarah:

Yeah,

Chris:

Not a, I got up to get plates of food and that was it. I didn't even empty the dishwasher from Christmas Eve.

Sarah:

yeah, our house is a mess like normally by now I have the presents organized back under the tree before they have to be sent to rooms. Literally all of Owen's like pile of shit is just in the middle of the living room. Like we've been stepping over it. and there's some shit on the dining room table. There's some shit on the island. there's just piles of Christmas shit everywhere. But I can say that this year was probably one of the best. We, everybody got really good gifts. Yeah.

Chris:

I, I was telling Olivia that on Christmas Eve we would go to, Nanny and Pappy's and then we'd go to Grandma Carla's and then it would be like two in the morning by the time we got home and got her settled into bed while she was terrified waiting for a giant elf to drop off presents. and then I would start rapping.

Sarah:

Yeah, that's you

Chris:

I wouldn't finish until 15 minutes before she woke up. And then I would cook all day like I was so filled with joy at doing this stuff though that I was super happy about it. I was exhausted. And I think on Christmas Day, I would cook and feed, for your parents, for Carla, we would get through dinner, I would clean up, and then I would pass out until, I was like a bear, I would pass out until New Year's when I had to put all the decorations away. I would just hibernate until then, eat cheese and play games with Olivia until I had to put away the decorations.

Sarah:

it makes sense. It definitely makes sense. I

Chris:

Yeah, and I miss it.

Sarah:

normally, I, this is the first year we brought gifts out before Owen went to bed.

Chris:

Awww.

Sarah:

That was like, I just came out with a stocking shit just to get the stockings ready. Cause Noah's normally the one who gets up in the middle of the night and does all the shit. And as I was getting the stockings ready, he started carrying the shit out and I was like, what are you doing? He's still in the bathroom. And Noah was like, I just, I don't, why can't we just put him out? Now, Is he waiting for Santa to get here? Are we putting cookies out? I don't know, what do we, and I was like, fuck, all right, do what you want to do. Fine.

Chris:

still put the cookies out. I made myself a plate of cookies is what

Sarah:

Yeah, that's what happened. Oh, Owen's other gift was the, the human dog bed.

Chris:

Oh, I loved it. I loved it.

Sarah:

Yes. And it is,

Chris:

his brother.

Sarah:

it's, he comes home from school and I have Macho's bed in the office here. And he will come home from school and come in to talk to me and lay on, put his head on Macho's bed. Cause Macho's normally in there and he'll And sometimes he might fall asleep in there, just his head on it. But, I saw this on probably Facebook and Mary was asking me for ideas on what to get him. And I was like, get him a dog bed. She was like, what? I was like, it's a human dog bed. here's what it is. Here's how much it costs. I'll order it for you. So yeah, he, as soon as we were done with, opening gifts, we got that sucker out, got it set up for him. He fell asleep in there until we had to leave for dinner. And then last night we came home, he carried it downstairs, which was my intent is that he would have it downstairs. That's where he slept last night.

Chris:

In the dog bed.

Sarah:

Yeah. I got up this morning and went in his room to wake him up for work and he wasn't there. I was like, huh, what, went downstairs and, there he was in his dog bed. I might get one for myself, actually.

Chris:

Amazing. Amazing.

Sarah:

it's the pluffle, I think is what it's called. So check it out, folks. It's wonderful.

Chris:

Ridiculous. All right. We should probably do a podcast.

Sarah:

Okay. All right. Let's start with the fan mail. so I, we're going to try to change some things up here in the new year and, just focus on one fan mail for the week, but I'm already fucking shit up. Cause I'm going to mention two, because they're the only two we got and they're from Ryan and Shauna and their husband and wife. So I feel like we have to mention both of them because I do believe that they've been, two of our top fan mailers it's been them and Kim D pretty much keeping us afloat here.

Chris:

Yeah. oh, just a quick point of fact that I might've forgotten. Ryan and Shauna are married to each other and, they have provided, some, amusing stories and also, did they try to leave bags of cookies around your house? Is that the story I remember from prior episodes?

Sarah:

Yeah. They didn't try. They did. Yeah. It was them and our other friends, another couple, and we traded. I don't ever remember leaving the cookies at the other couple's house though. So I think it really, they maybe just knew about it or they started it. And then we were really into it. And I don't know, but like one of the, one of the most satisfying things was, Shawna came over with her son and we went somewhere and. They had left, she left her car at our house and Noah sent me a text because he had the keys. She gave him the keys and he was so excited about putting the, cookies in her middle console.

Chris:

I love it. I love it. Ryan and Chana have made previous appearances in the podcast, so welcome back. Welcome back.

Sarah:

What I really like about their two emails is they share Not just Hey, you guys are doing awesome, but Hey, you were talking about this, let me tell you about what I do and let me suggest some of this stuff. Ryan is a lover of the vitamins. We were talking about vitamin D the other day and he is on D three. I am on D two. I don't. Owen used to go to the workout place D1. So I don't like, I don't,

Chris:

I don't know.

Sarah:

and we're not playing college sports, so it has nothing to do with that. So I'm whatever, I'll have to, I'll have to figure that out. And Ryan also mentioned, that everyone needs the D and that he gets his vitamin D from chicken and. Brian loves the chicken

Chris:

I wish everyone could see my face.

Sarah:

and his mom used to call it the monkey

Chris:

Oh god.

Sarah:

and he loves monkeys and then Shauna would call their son monkey.

Chris:

Oh. Oh. See, parents, just take a note. Just call it a penis.

Sarah:

Just call it peanut, vagina, Yeah.

Chris:

It's not a dirty word.

Sarah:

or Vajayjay. that's what I would say to Liv because I still wasn't okay with saying vagina to her because she was a baby, but, whatever.

Chris:

so much better than vagina. You're right. Clearly. Carry on.

Sarah:

someone said penis the other day and I was like, why did they say, oh, the groomer or dog groomer. And I was like, oh, I wish you would have said weiner. Makes so much more sense to me.

Chris:

You are like penis.

Sarah:

I was like, what? Oh, it's weiner. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm, 46 years old. anyway, so the thing that Ryan taught me is the form of vitamin. So do, are you familiar with the methylated form of vitamins? Neither was

Chris:

vitamins or nutrition, obviously.

Sarah:

I still don't know a lot about the methylated form. I have written down here the definition of, but I'm not going to read it because. yeah, I read it earlier to myself and was like, that's still. Doesn't I, so

Chris:

Adenosylmethionine.

Sarah:

it's called Sammy. and it's actually the master methylator, which is the only thing I took of that because all I could think of was master baiter. That's the only and I was like, fuck things that sound bad. Dirty, but art

Chris:

aren't.

Sarah:

so I've, I'll have to come back to that. I trust, I trust, Ryan and there's some studies that have been done. and it's all about a gene mutations and how they prevent our body from processing certain vitamins and minerals and this form of vitamin, it's the master methylator and that apparently helps us. Anyway, so that was from Ryan. He also mentioned, the conscious mind, which we've talked about and

Chris:

I love it. The concept of the conscious mind is amazing.

Sarah:

we'll continue to discuss the conscious mind of course, and live, live probiotics. I don't, do I take dead probiotics?

Chris:

what was the culture that was in the yogurt?

Sarah:

Oh, yes. Spon Bifidus Regularis. I was going to say Sponus Bifidus, but that's like Bifidus Regularis. It was the my mom used to eat the Activia because her belly would hurt her. Mom, we love you. And I was reading, I just happened to read the label of the Activia. I normally don't do that, but in this case I did and found out that it contains a bifidus regularis. Somebody made that fucking

Chris:

Some marketing guy was like, what do we call it? It's gotta have a scientific name. What family name can we, what genus does this biotic that we made up? what species? Oh, it's a bifidus

Sarah:

It's a bifidus. It's a bifidus that makes you regular. So we'll just throw us on the end of it.

Chris:

It's like naming a goddamn dinosaur. Anyway, live

Sarah:

All right. So

Chris:

probiotics. Good for your belly.

Sarah:

Yeah, back to fan mail. We're gonna switch over to Shauna now. Shauna listens to a lot of podcasts, which I appreciate and love and She told us to check out dr. Daniel Amen. Amen. I think it,

Chris:

Yeah, whatever.

Sarah:

he speaks about brain health and the things that interfere with it and how it affects mental health. And he talks about ants, which this is really what I want to dig into because I definitely am overtaken by this. ants is a huge problem that I have and it's automatic negative thoughts. I really want, we always joke about my brain voice, but I really wish that I could record my brain voice and have everybody else listen to it every once in a while. Cause you would be like, wow, are you fucked up? Like the shit I make up in my head is Unreal. And now that I'm trying to be more,

Chris:

Mindful?

Sarah:

yes. And realize, wow, it's pretty fucking ridiculous. I also appreciate that Shauna said, Sarah will not like him because he is very much against the weed and the booze. I can't say that's going to make me not like him.

Chris:

It's just going to make you reject part of his theory.

Sarah:

I, it's not even that I reject it. It's like smoking cigarettes. I know it's bad. Like I know the weed and the booze are not helping my mental health. but I continue to do them. I have committed to dry January again. I will be doing dry January and I even have shit planned like going out plans for January, but I will be doing them sober.

Chris:

want to do Dry January.

Sarah:

Last time I did dry January, number one, I lost a shitload of weight. Number two, I ended up doing dry January, February, and half a March until St. Patrick's day. So maybe we'll do that again. I am, I'm committing to dry January.

Chris:

I'm going to do Dry January. I think it,

Sarah:

Last time I did it, I also, I just hid, I just didn't go

Chris:

Oh, don't do that.

Sarah:

This time I'm going to make an effort to actually still do things, and just do them dry. And I also wrote down here that I need to look up Tom Holland's non alcoholic beer and where I can get it.

Chris:

Wait, who's Tom Holland? Is he Spider

Sarah:

Spider Man. Yeah, he was an alcoholic. I haven't really looked up a lot of, he's five, I

Chris:

He's barely, he's a child.

Sarah:

yeah. So that's his, I just saw him, it was a prerecorded episode, but it was on live and I actually watched it months back when it was actually new. yeah, but that was one of his things. He was like, I just wanted, I wanted to be able to partake in that and, but there was nothing really that was good out there that tasted like beer. But, it didn't make me an idiot or an asshole, yadda. so I want to check that out and start looking into ways that, Maybe I'll learn how to be social without being drunk.

Chris:

Love it. We'll give it a go.

Sarah:

so yeah, so there's that. So thanks Ryan and Shauna. Appreciate it. My Gaster story. Do you want to, I have to pull my screen down here to be able to look at my Gaster story. Okay.

Chris:

It's been so long since I've used my mouse, it won't even click. There we go. Oh! ha! I've just looked at the tab.

Sarah:

Yeah, Out of water.

Chris:

Classic. Classic Gaster Girl story.

Sarah:

The Gaster Girls story of the week is about our New Year's Eve 2000. Y2K. Everybody,

Chris:

Y2K.

Sarah:

Everywhere, the world was just gonna It was abdink.

Chris:

Can I set the stage?

Sarah:

it. Absolutely, go for it. Yes.

Chris:

I, I was married, to my first husband, Mike, and we were living in Arizona in a lovely two bedroom apartment. and you were living in the other bedroom, right? You were living there. So you didn't just come out to visit. Sometimes I get a little fuzzy on when you were there and when you weren't. and Mike had made friends, I think, I don't know how, I can't remember. but he had work, work friends with, with this cluster of people who had been friends for a considerable amount of time.

Sarah:

I'm going to interrupt because my memory, it wasn't a cluster of people. He made friends with one

Chris:

Oh no. He made friends with one person in the cluster.

Sarah:

their, in my understanding, their friendship was they invited you guys to a Halloween party every year. That

Chris:

don't even think I had never met him.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. that might be the case. I feel like we did go to the Halloween party prior to

Chris:

Was it, was Steve, so Hobbit Steve? Was this the Halloween party? I can't remember. No. Oh, so confused. Halloween, Hobbit Steve was New Year's Eve party, right?

Sarah:

yeah, I don't know. I think Hobbit Steve was a random Wednesday night at Anderson's. I don't know.

Chris:

Ew, I just threw up in my mouth.

Sarah:

anyway, go ahead.

Chris:

So Mike makes friends with this one guy. whose name I can't remember now. but, they were a married couple and, they had a couple of other married friends, couples, and they had been friends for since college and we're like maybe 10 years, like they had a whole history, this group of people. And, and they had made arrangements. to stay Airbnb like before that was a thing. they were staying, somebody in the group had a relative, like an aunt,

Sarah:

But that relative was still in the house, but go ahead. I,

Chris:

It had a, it was the, now, I might be misremembering. But I feel like this was like a luxury mansion that they couldn't afford and had fallen into some disrepair. there were bedrooms aplenty and there was like an indoor pool with a room to go with it.

Sarah:

that's vaguely what I remember as well, but I'm not really sure. I don't know if we made that up, but anyway, go ahead.

Chris:

that's the memory I have. And, we, the group of people was made up of people from all ages and all walks of life. Again, I knew this guy maybe from meeting him at a party once, like I'd probably interacted, I'd add maybe five minutes of conversation and, I don't know this for sure. But what I suspect happened is he was talking about it with Mike and Mike said, Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun. And he was like, yeah, you should come. And Mike said, we would love to.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

And this guy went, oh my, so now we're going, me, you, and Mike. And I had been sick. I had a horrible fever, and I think I had the flu. leading up to, between Christmas and New Year's. So I was laying on the couch watching, watching old 70's reruns on TV. Until the day we packed and left.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

There you go, that's the background. I've set the stage.

Sarah:

you've set the stage. this couple had a van.

Chris:

Oh, they did, yeah. I don't think it was their van.

Sarah:

maybe they borrowed it, but we drove with them

Chris:

All of us. Yeah, we got to know each other in the van.

Sarah:

in the van. and then we met these other people at this house that we, I could not figure out who the fuck owned the house and what she was doing. She, for some reason in my head was Mrs. Roper.

Chris:

Yes, because her hair was super curly and blonde.

Sarah:

yeah, like it was, I don't see, there was, okay, so we get there, we go inside, it's weird, there's like sleeping bags, the sleeping arrangement's really weird, and it's not very comfortable, let me tell you, it's really not. I don't know exactly how it happened, but you and I ended up sleeping in the van, in the driveway.

Chris:

I think Mike did too. I think that was the deal. they were like, happy to have you. There's no place to sleep inside. So yeah, definitely come on our pre planned vacation that we, you just invited yourself to last week. there's nowhere to sleep. So you guys are going to be in the van. And Mike was like, yeah, sounds great. And.

Sarah:

And. Vegas or not, it was chilly. It was, for us, cause we lived in Arizona, so it was cold and we were sleeping

Chris:

In a

Sarah:

van. in a van and as we were sleeping, trying to get to sleep the first night, you realize you have a cold sore.

Chris:

I do, yeah.

Sarah:

The first cold sore ever after me living 21 years attempting to give her a cold sore. She finally developed one on her own and was extremely upset about it. We named it Steve. It was quite

Chris:

know what to do.

Sarah:

Yeah. And I did nothing but fucking laugh

Chris:

It was awful. I'm trying to meet new people. I'm like, hey, how's it going? don't look at it. And, to go along with what we were learning, what we're learning today. I was so afraid of what people were thinking about this cold sore.

Sarah:

And it wasn't even, for those of you, for my fellow herpes sufferers, it wasn't even that bad of a cold sore. It was like one that was in the corner that you could barely even see unless you

Chris:

It was right here.

Sarah:

no, it was here.

Chris:

No, it was here.

Sarah:

regardless, it wasn't up in your fucking

Chris:

no. It was tiny. It was

Sarah:

it was a baby. Baby Steve is what it was. It was baby Steve. That's what it was. Anyway. So this is Las Vegas, 2000. We're going into 2000. We had some crazy fucking outfits on. We had to get dressed up. I think there were silk blouses involved, some skirts, some chunky heels that of course were going to be wonderful as we're walking up and down the strip for the next 12 hours. The strip shut down, I'm going to tighten it up here. Just make it pretty quick. the strip there was there were the army guys or police officers on horses all over the place. and. It was insane at 1130. They shut the doors to all the casinos. if you were outside. Like they were so worried about shit, all the machines going fucking crazy at midnight. So if you were inside. If you were outside. That's the way it was. So we decided to hang out on the strip. Asses to fucking elbows. Like today, Sarah would lose her fucking mind. I was losing it then, I think,

Chris:

Pretty

Sarah:

but the thing I very specifically remember is some guy walking towards us. He had a backpack on and he was screaming and yelling. And I think they were all great things. He was happy new year, super excited before midnight. And he was taking sips of beer and spinning it up in the air. That seemed. To be okay. And I was like, wow, look at this guy. He's going to get fucking killed. And do you remember this

Chris:

enough.

Sarah:

The guy, I think it was a guy like in front of us or a couple of people in front of us just sucker punched him right in the face and knocked him the fuck out.

Chris:

It was a whole evening of horrific things happening.

Sarah:

Oh, no, it was behind us. Cause one of the guys we were with tried to grab his backpack and help him out. Hey dude. And he was like, fuck you. And obligerate. And he was like, all right, go ahead. And then the next group of people. Somebody just flattened him. It was,

Chris:

again, you're If you've ever been to Vegas, the Strip, that street is like a six lane highway. With a divider in the middle. It is huge, and there is a no place to walk. there's no cars. They've shut it down. So we're just asses to elbows, nightclub like atmosphere for however many blocks the strip is. And they locked you out of the casino, and you had to have a key to get in, and I had to pee.

Sarah:

yeah, there was,

Chris:

Everybody had to pee.

Sarah:

we were stepping in a lot of pee. There were people who were just hanging out with pee in their pants. I guarantee It And then getting off the strip. you couldn't fucking get off the strip and we weren't staying on the strip. Remember we were staying at, Mrs. Roper's van or driveway. so we had to find a way to get there and we somehow were by ourselves. Like you and I got disconnected from everyone.

Chris:

It was just the two of us.

Sarah:

Yeah. I don't know where Mike was. It was definitely just the two of us.

Chris:

And we were with like the old lady and like a young person that I might be making up the young person, but definitely somebody like we were 24. I was 24, maybe.

Sarah:

21.

Chris:

oh, I had to be older than 24. we were young

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

We were young and somebody younger than us was with us. I remember right. I don't know if that's true or not.

Sarah:

don't remember that.

Chris:

Anyway, there was an older lady. How

Sarah:

It was fucked up. We had to find a way off, off the strip. You couldn't, taxis and shit. Yeah,

Chris:

did we get there? Did we take a bus?

Sarah:

I vaguely remember being on some sort of train or bus or something. Ubers didn't exist. We didn't take a taxi there. So

Chris:

I think we took a bus. Which is how we ended up at the bus station trying to get a bus back.

Sarah:

Yeah. And that was in fucking possible. You couldn't do it. Eventually we got back to Mrs. Roper's house. I, it might've been me, but I think it was you who basically ran in front of a taxi. Like we were off the strip. Like we were like, fuck it on the strip. We're not getting dick. So we need to fucking get off the strip. So we like, went right beyond the strip and we were trying to flag taxis down. Like we were in New York city.

Chris:

right.

Sarah:

Which is impossible, they were giving us the bird and I'm fairly certain, this is back in the day when you had cash, we just emptied our purses of cash and we're like, just get us, please. But you almost died. Yeah, you almost died

Chris:

I think the taxi was going to run me over. Like it had no, and then I think I held up like a handful of cash. And we shared a cab with somebody else who couldn't find it, who couldn't find a taxi. Horrific.

Sarah:

point, it was a blur because I think it was like three o'clock in the morning and we had literally been trying to get off the strip since midnight.

Chris:

Bright.

Sarah:

said, Happy New Year. See ya.

Chris:

Peace out.

Sarah:

Anyway,

Chris:

we were the last ones to make it back too.

Sarah:

yeah. Yeah. So we should have just, I think we thought we were smarter and we were going to get somewhere quicker. So we took off from the group, but yeah. And then we spent another night in the van, and then we drove home and I don't think we ever saw those people again.

Chris:

I don't think we did.

Sarah:

The next day we did go back to the strip because I remember this vividly because it was one of my best, one of the best experiences. I had zero money because I was 21 and I just given any bit of money that I had to the

Chris:

To the taxi.

Sarah:

and we go into a casino and I'm like, fuck, I don't have any money to fucking drink. I don't know. All right. So I find this video blackjack machine and I sit down there and I put my last 5 in it. I think it was something like, I don't know, two, three, four, I don't know. Hours later, I walked away from that machine fucking hammered with 7.

Chris:

You're like Vegas is the best place ever.

Sarah:

amazing. Do you know the next time I was able to do that?

Chris:

Never.

Sarah:

never. It just was that one lucky day I made two bucks and got wasted. And I told this story before and somebody was like, but you only made two bucks. I was like, I was hammered. De runk, drunk. I stood up and fell over a little bit drunk. So no, I made way more than 2 that day.

Chris:

Ugh. what would make it? Like. what would make us run to chaos like that? what in a 20 year old's mindset is I'm sure that'll be fine. why would we be worried about how we're getting back to the place where we don't have a place to sleep? what?

Sarah:

I don't think that was, you weren't, we weren't thinking about any of that. We were just, we wanted

Chris:

Hey, we're going to Vegas with this troupe of people. We don't know

Sarah:

yeah, I'm fairly certain you and I were uncomfortable for 90 percent of

Chris:

the whole time.

Sarah:

unless we were really drunk. And even then we were still a bit

Chris:

a little bit uncomfortable, right? I'm like, Hey, we have

Sarah:

but we didn't realize that Mike invited us until we were already on our way. Like we, we were under the impression that we had been invited. There was a place for us to sleep. There was Like

Chris:

whole plan.

Sarah:

yeah, we were under the impression that we were included in the planning from the start.

Chris:

yeah.

Sarah:

We didn't realize until we got there that,

Chris:

Hey! I think we're the third, fourth, and fifth wheel here.

Sarah:

yeah. So it was rough. Anyway, that's our new year story. New year's 2000. One of the,

Chris:

So fun. Oh my god.

Sarah:

It was a good

Chris:

Terrifying. It is one of those ones where you look back on it, and you're like, how did I end up at a bus shelter watching people do heroin while trying to find a cab?

Sarah:

yeah. It was rough. It was fucking rough. It

Chris:

How do we not die? How do we not, how do we not die? Also, think about how much easier these kids have it. they could just call their friends and be like, Hey, did you find a way home? Can you stop by this bus shelter? You'll know it by all the crackheads. can you pick up, pick me up?

Sarah:

Yeah. There was no texting asking, Hey, where are you guys? Where were you able to find a ride? Where were you? There was nothing like that. Even if we could find a pay phone, where the fuck are we calling anybody? We didn't know Mrs. Roper's fucking number.

Chris:

We barely knew Mrs. Roper's address. I think I had it written on my

Sarah:

the other thing. No, like how did we even get back? that's insane. Insane.

Chris:

my hand. Cause I didn't have a purse. I don't know where I brought cash from. did I have it in my bra? Cause I wasn't going to carry a purse and wear those heels at the same

Sarah:

I had to have a purse because I was smoking cigarettes at the time. So I always had to have a cigarette carrying receptacle.

Chris:

And my feet were like hamburger meat.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

So many blisters. New shoes, of course. Cause why not? Woo. All right. Should we get into some, should we get into, some mental wellness shit?

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

Alright, finally at this point of reading the book, I have remembered the name of the book. And that the author isn't, Ricky Gervais. it's, the first rule of mastery by Michael Gervais. He doesn't pronounce the S. I don't know if you guys remember, but, a few weeks ago, we talked about our boy, beef oven and how he was quiet about his deafness because he was afraid that he would lose his place in society. And that was our introduction to FOPO, the fear of other people's opinions. This week, we're going to jump into part one, of the book. part one is chapters one through six, and we're going to cover chapters one through four this week. There's a lot of material here upfront that we're going to need as like the basis for the book later. so in, in the early parts here in chapter one, MG, Michael introduces the concept of FOPO, and we've talked about this one pretty extensively on the show already, and also in our lives. It's in our dad's, near famous top five rules for life. so quick shout out to Jumbo, for encouraging us all to pee before we leave. this is a different rule than that one though. So our dad taught us fairly early on in life that, no one gives a shit about you. And although that sounds cruel and unkind and like it might, provoke thoughts of sadness, isolation, and loneliness, that couldn't be further from the truth. so FOPO, Fear of Other People's Opinions, kept us safe in ancestral times and also in middle school. So if, if anyone out there was a middle school girl, FOPO is that feeling of, stressing out over whether or not to wear three pairs. of layered scrunchie socks, or if two would be enough to keep you in the cool group. so, these are, FOPO is, is important because it's able to, keep us a part of the herd, and our instincts make it so that we want to be part of the herd, because that's how we survived, years and years ago. Kind of the important thing is as we grow up and as we evolved, it's less important to be part of the herd, and more important to evaluate where those thoughts are coming from. So Michael Gervais mentions that FOPO is our cue to look at what we're thinking about. and whether or not we're letting that fear of other people's opinion, keep us from doing something that is important or something that lines up with our values. And the trick is that Fopo is the future looking piece of it. So it's not understanding that Oh my god, I just said something that was really out of place in this context and being able to learn from that Fopo is the fear of saying something out of place and then not doing something that's consistent with who you are as a person so fopo is a lying bitch, that needs kicked in the dick is what I wrote The ability to read the room is important, but it's also equally important to understand that allowing fear, to control our lives is really unhealthy. So there is a big difference of, valuing other people's opinions and being aware of the context in which you're speaking and letting external forces, drive what you do in your day to day life. bringing it back to Jumbo's advice is, It's really thinking, no one else is really thinking about us as much as we think they are. no one gives a shit about you. It isn't about other people's lack of empathy, caring, or understanding. It's about putting other people's opinions in perspective. they might look at your cold sore and, pity you for a second. Ooh, that's too bad. Ugh, it's so gross. but their thoughts quickly move on to what they're going to have for dinner. And why in the world would we think it is a good idea to waste our time and energy worrying about what other people might think when it's a scientific fact that they don't, that they're not really thinking about you at all. so do you remember the context in which Jumbo first gave you the advice?

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. I was actually 23. I feel like he probably tried to give me some sort of this, or both of us, this advice earlier than that, but the instance where it literally came out of his mouth as no one gives a shit about you, what, and I remember almost the date. It was the week before September 11th, 2001.

Chris:

Oh, wow.

Sarah:

the date. yeah, I was, I, it was wedding time. We were going to a family wedding and my boyfriend at the time, he was my ex boyfriend at this time cause he had dumped me,

Chris:

Dick,

Sarah:

his, I mean his loss, whatever. but yeah, so I had been dumped and it was wedding time and I wasn't gonna have a date. And I was very upset about this and I was crying about it. And I was like, I can't keep going to these weddings by myself. Like everybody in the family is going to think I'm not good enough to get married. Like that. I never have a boyfriend. everybody's going to see me single and alone again. And they're going to think blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, stop. Just stop. And at this point it was irritated, daddy. It wasn't like I'm gonna really try to help you out and be, talk to you. It was shut the fuck up. Not what he said, but just stop. just stop. Listen to yourself. Listen to yourself. Do you think anybody gives a shit about you? Nobody gives a shit about you. And I was like, Oh my God, excuse me.

Chris:

That's

Sarah:

And he said, in this context, nobody gives a shit about you. Do you think we're going to a wedding and people are going to look at you and say, Oh my God, Sarah doesn't have a date. They're not there for you. They're there for this wedding. And they're more worried about the clothes they're putting on their back or the date they don't have. So they're not thinking about you. It's not about you.

Chris:

It's

Sarah:

And, that was extremely powerful, and still plays a huge part in my life, probably on a daily basis. Because I get, I'm like, Oh God, what about, what are they going to think? And I'm like, they might look at me and be like, Hey, cold sore. Nice. Sorry about your luck. And then again, and then they're moving on worried about the zit that they have on their cheek where they don't even see the cold sore. that's, they're doing the same thing we're doing and worrying about themselves.

Chris:

like further along in this book, there's an entire set of chapters about science will tell you, this isn't just jumbo's theory of other people's thinking. there have been studies and studies. There's a really famous one with Barry Manilow. You know who I honestly, I would go see him in concert. So FOPO is this, anticipation of the rejection. So the fear is that if I do this or say this, somebody is going to react negatively and your body goes through a fear response, FOPO is actual fear And once you're in it, it's hard to get out of it. So we are constantly going through like a cycle The mechanics of FOPO is you have the anticipation part where, the best example I think that everyone can relate to is being in a meeting and you're like, I think I have something to say, and you're like adjusting your position and you're like, I have something to say and then as soon as you think you have something to say, you start anticipating the reaction of the other people in the meeting and I'm like, Oh, I can't say it because they're going to think I'm an idiot. Oh, I can't say it because it's probably irrelevant. I can't say it. And then you start like creating all of these scenarios for yourself. So you spend a lot of time in this. awareness and fear of what people are going to think when you say something and it might be a situation where you do have something important to contribute and now you're instead of being engaged in this meeting where you might a learn something, You might be able to engage in the conversation in a way that isn't, Hey, I have this best idea. Look at me. you might be able to work your idea in a way that's a little more natural. you shut that part of your brain down because you can't, you literally can't pay attention to two things at one time. So instead of paying attention to the conversation and context of the meeting, you are now focused on 18 scenarios that might happen when you might speak up. So you're just in this anticipation thing for forever and ever. And then when you finally see an opportunity to jump in and yell out your idea. you've moved into like the checking phase where you're constantly scanning, if you're on a zoom call, you're looking at the people in the zoom call, if you're just on the phone, you're listening to reactions interpreting everything that's happening. Everything that you're seeing, like every pause, you're interpreting that as a rejection. your fear response is making it so that you're seeing things that may or may not be there. and you're thinking about the next phase, which is the response phase. when you're in that checking phase, you're like, okay, does that make sense? and then you move into the responding phase, which is where you either pull back your statement. Michael Gervais goes into, I think, five different responses when you're going through FOBO. what are they? contort, conform, confront critique, This is the most damaging phase because you're taking who you are, your identity, and you're making it into whatever, eases the conversation from that point. Like you're so afraid of what somebody might be thinking or might be doing, that you change, what you're doing. you're trying to preempt a response, and you can see how dangerous this can be when we think about it in the context of bad behavior. So if you're in a group that's engaging in some bad behavior, again, going back to that 13-year-old middle school girl example, and you're like, I don't necessarily agree with what's happening and I probably should say something that lines up with my values of being a decent human being and you just don't, because if I do that, then, Kim's not going to want to be my friend. And it's really important for me to be popular because it's the only thing I care about right now. so it, it might be harmless as a 13 year old girl, until you start thinking about how frequently you see that behavior in true crime.

Sarah:

Right.

Chris:

I know that you can probably name at least three examples where people have gotten murdered. Because, other people are afraid to say anything. And I know you've been in a situation where you've thought about saying something in a meeting and you've not said it and then you just ruminate on it for the next five days. Oh, I should have said it. Why didn't I say it? I should have said it.

Sarah:

or worse when I don't say it and then somebody else does and everybody's wow, what a great idea. Like

Chris:

Fuck. Each of those phases involves a cost, you can't pay attention to two things. So you're missing the point of the meeting. You're missing an opportunity to engage with someone else. You're missing an opportunity to show who you are as a person. There's a, there's an energy involved with being in this kind of loop that takes away from your ability to perform at a higher level. chapter two is these are the things that are happening and they happen all the time without you thinking about it. So what we're going to try to do in other chapters is recognize when this is happening and come up with some strategies for how to break that cycle, how to get out of that loop and, ways that we can protect ourselves from getting in that loop in the first place there's a few fast tracks to get yourself in this loop one of them is not understanding who you are as a person. So this is why 13 year old girls fall into this all the time because you just don't know who I am as a person and then the performance based identities. So we'll talk a ton about performance based identities here before we wrap up, but, that's one of the sort of short tracks to ending up in, in FOPO. the chapter three is fear factors, and it's really all about being afraid, and what sets us up to engage in this cycle. So we learned to be afraid, like Pavlov's dog, you've been afraid, right? Everyone's been afraid. You,

Sarah:

been afraid?

Chris:

I'm afraid right now. Um, there's just a higher level

Sarah:

my natural state.

Chris:

There's just a higher level of stress in the body. not only when you're in this, loop, mechanics of FOPO, or you're taking yourself away from engaging in, meaningful things that are gonna happen, you're also raising your stress levels up high, and you're gonna find it hard to perform if you're, if you feel like you're dying, all the time. go back to that instinct of, I want to be part of the group. I don't want to be the person who is, saying inappropriate things at the company dinner. I don't want to be the person who's saying, old timey racist stuff you want to be able to understand those kinds of clues. that's an adaptation, that's good. That you can engage in, and read the room. the problem is when it starts to encourage maladaptive behaviors, and I wrote maladaptive in capital letters because I just like it,

Sarah:

It is a good word. It is a good word.

Chris:

like maladaptive behaviors are when you start to get into that FOPO cycle where you're so afraid of what's going to happen or what might happen or what crazy scenario you've built up in your head that you can't move forward. so an important distinction here is that, FOPO is a nonclinical disorder. this is just shit that happens. you're not, to the level of having, a social anxiety disorder, which is a clinical diagnosis and might require some professional help. And he gives an example in a chapter about a baseball player who's really scared, and how he went to see a therapist and, Michael Gervais is a psychologist. So he worked with him in a way that was able to draw him out of his fear. Just as a note, FOPO is something that we can work on, on our own. when you start to, develop those maladaptive behaviors, they need to be addressed. And sometimes you need to address them with a therapist. So I will say again, You probably don't need a therapist to deal with your FOBO, but having a therapist never hurts. And they have some really good ideas about how to distinguish, a little bit of fear of other people's opinions and a clinical diagnosis that could benefit from professional help. So Um, I'm going to ask you a question. should we, uh, keep going And talk about identity

Sarah:

I think identity is one that we should keep for next time.

Chris:

Yeah, I do too. I do too. So what do you think about, FOPO? what do you think about the mechanics of it? did you have any thoughts as I walked through all of that?

Sarah:

nothing different than what you already talked about. I find it amazing, how faux pas is most likely a part of all of our lives in the most, incognito way, And we don't even realize it. and being able to finally, realize that this is going on and this is something that we're causing internally and that we have control over this and we can change this and also discussing how it negatively affects us in our ability to perform to the best of our ability. I think that's something that we also don't realize. Like we might think Oh yeah, FOPO, like I probably shouldn't do that, but we're not fully thinking of the. negative effects that it can have, and the extent of those and how we can change our lives for the better. If we learn how to have a better grasp on the FOPO.

Chris:

Yeah. Yeah. one of the things that I found surprising was that, Oh, we toss out FOMO and FOPO and Oh, they're so cute. They're so cute. But when you really put some thought behind it, you really are taking away from your ability to engage because the fear is real.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

Your body's response, your body has no idea whether it's being attacked by a tiger or you're worried about speaking up in a meeting. Like the reaction is the same. Cortisol levels go up, stress goes up, and you're really taking a toll on yourself that you don't, that you don't have to.

Sarah:

It's that science shit again. That's awesome.

Chris:

it is pretty cool. worrying about what people might think is hard. Like worrying about what people actually think.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's exhausting. It's exhausting

Chris:

Looking at looking ahead and understanding the ways that, that you can prevent that from happening is understanding that it's happening in the first place and understanding how detrimental it is to, to relationships that you're trying to establish. And. it's gonna pop up in places that you probably don't even recognize right now. And being able to tease out what's good and what's bad about being afraid of what other people think about you is really important. It's an interesting thing for me. Just like everything else we're going to try to do on this podcast. It's hard,

Sarah:

Yeah. It's not easy, but, that's why we're doing this so we can do it together and help each other and help you guys.

Chris:

right? Exactly. next time we're going to talk about identity and I know early on in the podcast, we talk about performance based identity and a purpose driven identity and how those two can trust and how one is potentially better than the other one. But there's also, a step by step guide here to help us figure it out. You do love a step by step guide. All right, so we'll

Sarah:

Then let's wrap it up.

Chris:

Alright, happy Christmas break. Love you.

Sarah:

Yeah. And happy 2025. Here we go. Bam.

Chris:

let's make this year our bitch.

Sarah:

Yeah. Amen. Love you.

Chris:

Love you.

People on this episode

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Christine Kanalis

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Sarah Leibhart

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