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Embracing Your Artistic Destiny (with special guest Riel Hahn)
152 Plays6 months ago
In this very special episode of *Friendless,* host James Avramenko is joined by the multi-talented Riel Hahn. Together, they delve into a deeply resonant conversation about artistic fulfilment, mental health, and navigating life's complexities.
They discuss Riel's ongoing battle with chronic health issues, including her life-changing experience with long COVID, which resulted in a gradual loss and regathering of her identity. Riel also opens up about finding solace and purpose in writing fiction and the inspiration she draws from her father.
The conversation explores the complexities of friendships and romantic relationships, the importance of understanding and communicating love languages, and setting healthy boundaries. Riel reflects on her investment in friendships and the nourishment these connections provide, while also touching on societal pressures and the notion of self-love.
Listeners will be captivated by stories of Riel's intricate dreams, her renewed sense of purpose, and her intricate journey of self-recovery and reparenting. The episode also features discussions on enjoying nature, birdwatching, and the soothing aspects of the game *Wingspan,* which adds a delightful layer to the conversation.
Join James and Riel as they explore the importance of living in the present, the process of healing, and the deep value of authenticity in relationships. Whether you're navigating your own challenges or seeking inspiration from others' resilience, this episode offers a heartfelt and thought-provoking narrative.
Don't forget to check out "Exquisite Corpses" on Bandcamp, and stay tuned for Riel's upcoming novel and music album.
**Highlights:**
- Prioritising artistic needs in the face of mental health challenges
- The impact of long COVID on identity and creativity
- Navigating friendships, love languages, and setting boundaries
- The journey of self-love, reparenting, and direct communication
- Finding joy in nature, birding, and the game *Wingspan*
- Upcoming projects from Riel Hahn and a temporary podcast hiatus in July
Tune in for an enlightening and emotional conversation that promises to resonate long after the episode ends.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:08
Speaker
Well hey there sweet peas, welcome back to Friendless. I'm your host James Avramenko, back with a brand new episode, this time with an incredible guest, Rielle Hahn. Amongst a myriad of other things, Rielle is a comedian, a storyteller, a writer, and she's one of my newest friends. We discuss how our identity develops separately from our careers, how our body adapts to trauma, and when you can tell you're on the right path.
00:00:31
Speaker
All that and so much more. It was such a pleasure chatting with Rielle and I think you're gonna absolutely love this one. So buckle up, set your volume at a reasonable level, get yourself comfy and enjoy my interview with Rielle Hahn here on Friendless.
Who is Rielle Hahn?
00:00:48
Speaker
Riel, I've been playing around with these two opening questions that I've been kind of inversing. And I'm never sure which one to start with. So I'm just going to kind of pull it out my butt here with you. For listeners who may not be familiar with you, who the hell are you? Well, I can't believe you have any listeners that aren't familiar with me. I mean, come on. Who the hell am I is a question that
00:01:17
Speaker
I am asking myself a lot lately. I had a really good handle on it for a long time. Part of my answer is who I've thought myself to be for a long time. Professionally, I'm the things you said.
00:01:41
Speaker
identity is such an interesting question.
Rielle's Artistic Family Background
00:01:45
Speaker
But I grew up in the theater, in a theater family, and also film and television family. My mother is a designer. My father was a playwright and a novelist. My stepfather was an actor, dancer, writer, producer. And so I've never not been immersed in the arts world.
00:02:11
Speaker
and from very tiny age was on stage as one of those things. I didn't start doing stand-up comedy until 2000 or 2001, and had wanted to do it for about 15 years, but was an improviser growing up. I started taking improv classes when I was about seven, and
00:02:37
Speaker
How long should my answer to who are you? As long as you want it to be. This is the glory of podcasting is that we just hit record and go and go. I'm literally I'm right here with you. Just I want to hear it all.
Superhero Alter Ego: The Human Condition
00:02:51
Speaker
So buckle up listeners. I have a superhero alter ego.
00:03:02
Speaker
that I devised at a certain point. And my superhero self is, she's called the human condition. And she looks a little like Wonder Woman. Not totally, but for sure. I kind of have a lifelong thing about Wonder Woman.
00:03:25
Speaker
on her breastplate, on the human condition's breastplate, it's covered in mirrors so that when her enemies are confronted with her, they are confronted with their own reflection. And then they might hopefully have some kind of existential breakdown. And her weapon of choice is a t-shirt cannon because everybody loves free t-shirts. And if you shoot them into a crowd of criminals, they get all distracted and crazy.
00:03:59
Speaker
I don't know. I hope that's a little bit illuminating about who I am.
Jewish Identity in Today's World
00:04:06
Speaker
Something that is a really key thing for me in my identity is being Jewish. And I would say has been more front and center lately for
00:04:24
Speaker
Plenty of geopolitical reasons. Sure. Let's talk about that. Let's not talk about that. Yeah. I was going to say, I don't know if I'm the person to unpack these things. No, I don't want to unpack it. Yeah. But I but it is something that I love about myself. Mm hmm. Like I love being Jewish. I love it. And. People that know me.
00:04:52
Speaker
really well know that I've got a real thing for flowers and gardens and that I'd really rather be outside than inside always. Like if I have the gear needed to be comfortable outdoors, I'd rather be outdoors. I'd rather be sitting in the, I mean, sometimes I get cold and I want to come in, but that to me is a gear problem. I just love being outside. I love being outside and I love being in motion.
Living with Long COVID and Identity Crisis
00:05:24
Speaker
I just love being in motion and it is a very strange time in my life because I have long COVID and then consequently chronic fatigue syndrome and I've never and some other diagnosis but whatever and I've never had to be this still in my life and it is a
00:05:46
Speaker
It's a mind fuck. We can swear on your podcast, right? Is that something that's playing into, you mentioned something earlier that I wanted to circle back to, and I think this plays into it, is this idea of you talked about identity
00:06:02
Speaker
gets linked to these different facets of our life, right? You know, people will ask, what do you do as if they're asking, who are you, right? And it's like, well, my job is not who I am. And even what my hobbies are is not who I am. But to link so much of your identity to what you do, right? And then to have all those things taken away from you. Do you find that that is a portion of what's causing these kind of like turmoil questions within you right now?
00:06:32
Speaker
Yes, and it's an astute question that you're asking, I think, because it's been going on. I'm, well, I don't know, what am I, 19, 20 months into the long COVID? And it was a steady,
00:06:57
Speaker
Decline for a little while, but I didn't understand I didn't understand it. So for quite a while I was living with it where I could still do things and but but kept having these terrible crashes and not really anyway, I did I've I've learned a lot about it and so It wasn't like
00:07:19
Speaker
It wasn't like I got paralyzed and one day I was one thing and the next day I was another thing. And had to contend with it like an avalanche that way. You know what I mean? Like overnight everything changed, even though it sort of did. But it's like, it's like a kind of, oh my God, I was just about to say, what's the word for when you forget things?
00:07:48
Speaker
Like I was about to say it, not ironically, but yeah. When I had COVID, this is kind of what started this process actually. When I had COVID, I'd been driving across Canada, a really amazing trip that I did by myself and took three months and I got
00:08:12
Speaker
I got COVID in Banff on my way back. So I'd been away for three months and I was supposed to have one more month in the Okanagan and doing all these things. And I got very ill and trying to make it home from Banff to Vancouver took 10 days.
00:08:28
Speaker
because I had to stop and some friends put me up basically in their barn. Well, it's her studio, but it's an outbuilding on 20 acres out in the woods. And then after them taking care of me for a few days, I was like, I've got to get out of your hair and I've got to get home. And so they're about an hour on back roads from Kamloops. And it was about 36 degrees out.
00:08:58
Speaker
And the one hour drive from their house to Kamloops is one of the scariest things I've ever done. And like my eyeballs were moving in different directions. It was really wild. And so I got to Kamloops and I was like, there's not, I can't make it one inch farther. I got to get a hotel. And I didn't want to be in a shitty roadside motel. I thought I'll just get really depressed. I was so scared. And so I got a really expensive hotel, but then ended up stuck there for
00:09:27
Speaker
several days. It was a very costly illness and ended up having to fly my mother from Victoria to Kamloops so she could drive my car home with me. But while I was in this hotel room in Kamloops, which was air conditioned and the bed was really comfortable, but it was a tiny white little box and I was just stuck there. And I had this experience that I've never had before, which is
00:09:54
Speaker
which I think was a bit hallucinatory and whatever, which is that I felt my identity crumbling around the edges. I had never experienced that before.
00:10:08
Speaker
I stayed in that hotel room in abject terror that I was going to wake up the next day and not know who I was or where I was. I was so sure that I was going to go completely blank and lose myself entirely. And I had no idea that that could
00:10:28
Speaker
happen, that you could be present and aware and know who you are and start to feel it slipping away and watch it flipping away. And so in the 20 months since then, it's kind of been that I lose pieces of myself slowly, but it's
00:10:56
Speaker
at the same time that that's happening because I already felt like I lost myself all at once for a little while, it's also been a re-gathering of who I am.
00:11:10
Speaker
It's so fluid right now. And I have these moments where something happens to me and it's like I drop into my body and my old self comes back and for five minutes I'm like, whoa, whoa, I'm me. I'm real. I remember me. I remember her. And then I'm back in this very bizarre universe that I don't know if it's my permanent universe or not my permanent universe. And it's
00:11:40
Speaker
losing things by pieces like last year I could ride a bike and then I couldn't ride a bike anymore but I could still ride an e-bike and then over the winter I can't and I could go for hours long walks still and then I could go for an hour walk still and I could go for a long walk still in the fall and now I can't walk a block and so just like all these little elements that
00:12:09
Speaker
that I lost slowly. And then in the last few weeks, some of them have started to regain, which is that I don't think I'm anywhere close to recovery yet, but I think I've stabilized. And I was in decline for 18, 19 months, and it was terrifying. And so this little glimpses,
00:12:35
Speaker
I cannot believe the level of gratitude I have for the simplest things. I walked without my rolling walker for a block this week. I just went for a walk with no cane and no walker and I just cried. I was like, what?
00:12:54
Speaker
one block wait i'm almost two blocks i mean that's incredible though that's that's an incredible achievement and it's you're you're describing something that is really akin to like something like an ego death or something like a you know like a really like quite a spiritual process and quite a spiritual experience that um that you know i don't want to say
00:13:17
Speaker
is a good thing because it's so difficult, right? And it's almost like in a lot of ways, because the way I sort of have experienced a similar thing is you're inadvertently describing the experience of complex post-traumatic stress. PTSD is a thing happened to me and it was scary, whereas CPTSD is
00:13:43
Speaker
little scary things kept happening and I could never get safe. And then it just built up in my system. And when you get yourself finally free of those cycles, you have a big drop. It doesn't get better right away. You get free and then you realize what you were in and then you drop. And that's where things like harm reduction come into play. And that's where things like stabilizing, like you say, come into play.
00:14:10
Speaker
Um, and you know, hearing, hearing about where you are right now from where you've come. That's a really exciting place in a lot of, from, from a certain perspective, you know, because it, it, it means there's all this space to grow out from there. Right. Um, you know, not to minimize any of the experience by any means, right? Like, cause that sounds just harrowing, you know? So we met in a writing group and.
Writing as a Lifeline and Identity Evolution
00:14:41
Speaker
that's something that I started. So I had COVID in August of 2022. And then I got better from COVID. And then in November, I had a vaccine, a vaccine booster, and then I got very sick and never got better. But I also wasn't, I wasn't doing that well in those three months, but I was, I was like 80 or 75, 80% of myself. And
00:15:10
Speaker
In November, I took up the offer of joining that writing group on Saturdays. And I started to go every Saturday, and I've been pretty much every Saturday for a year and a half.
00:15:32
Speaker
Oh man. Okay. I'm just trying to figure out what order to say all this in, but it's just going to be in a big ball of the yarn and people are going to have to start wherever they want. Those are my favorite kinds. So I have known that since I was a tiny child that I'm a writer. My dad taught me how to read when I was three.
00:15:56
Speaker
And that's what I did. I was super introverted kid and I just always had a stack of books and novels. By the time I was 10, I was reading grown up novels and like, I just knew both my dads were writers. Like I had such a handle on language and I just always wanted to play with words. And while I am an artist,
00:16:26
Speaker
and certainly, certainly have the artistic temperament. I also spent a long time in my life avoiding my art and doing like adjacent things. I went to school for film editing and, you know, I did do
00:16:51
Speaker
Improv and stuff and I love being a performer. I do. I'm a very good performer. It's natural But it's also creates an incredible Level of anxiety that is a little bit untenable. Yeah especially now and so I just kept and I also I prioritized romantic relationships work, whatever it was I was I think constantly running from
00:17:20
Speaker
not just my artistic needs inside myself, but so much stuff. And I've done an enormous amount of personal work even before I got sick in the last 15 years, just trying to deal with my anxiety and what I now think. And I'm undiagnosed with ADHD, but boy, when you look back at my life and how I
00:17:43
Speaker
couldn't stick to things and would just get lost in my own mind or whatever. And there's been a real fear of writing over the course of my whole life for quite a specific reason, which is that I used to get lost as a kid when I was reading or writing, like just lost. And one time I got so lost that I didn't hear a fire alarm go off.
00:18:06
Speaker
And the whole school emptied out and I was just in the corner reading and I didn't know and firemen came in I was five and firemen came in and found me and like
00:18:17
Speaker
had to carry me. I think I left the classroom and it was empty and I went in the halls were empty. Like everything was empty and these. You were like best day ever. No, I was terrified. Oh no. Okay. I wasn't going to tell the whole story. It wasn't my, it wasn't my school. My dad was teaching a writing workshop at a school and he'd taken me with him for the day and I was five and he'd put me in the kindergarten class in the little library sec area they had.
00:18:49
Speaker
And I guess because I wasn't in that class, they didn't think to look for me when the fire alarm went off and I was lost reading. I just didn't even know it was happening. And when I kind of came to, I came out and the classroom was empty and then the hallway was empty and I was so scared. And then these big firemen, full firemen regalia,
00:19:11
Speaker
came and they scooped me up and then my they we went outside and my dad was running from class to class freaking out yeah and they put me in his arms anyway i think this planted a seed i've thought about this for many years but i think it planted a seed of how dangerous it is for me to go into a world and i'm whatever all the reasons are that i have avoided
00:19:39
Speaker
getting still with myself. And my body has tried to get me to be still for years. And I feel like, I mean, there's so many factors to this. I do have complex PTSD. I have never felt safe. I probably had ADHD. I
00:20:04
Speaker
I think the chronic fatigue has been going on for a long time. I had a nervous breakdown in 2006. Things have been happening in this very delicate vessel. This great big giant boned fleshy curvaceous huge delicate vessel.
00:20:25
Speaker
It's like, I shouldn't be allowed to be this big and this fragile at the same time. You hold multitudes, you know? You just hold multitudes. That's the beautiful part of life, right? And the writing, the writing has saved my life this year.
00:20:47
Speaker
And for the most of the time that I was going to this writing group, I've been writing like personal essays, trying to get out so much stuff from so long. And a couple of months ago, I switch flipped in me and I was like, oh, apparently I need to write some fiction now. And I've started writing this novel and.
00:21:11
Speaker
when i started doing that something inside my body just went like i've been having these complicated dreams my whole life i have extremely vivid dreams i create entire universes in my brain you can't believe how detailed these were these worlds are every flower every leaf every and they're just so complicated and full and i tell whole stories and sometimes i write cool musicals
00:21:41
Speaker
And so I've known I'm supposed to write a novel. And I think I thought I couldn't. And then in 2021, my dad was very ill for many years and with cancer and he took medical assistance in dying in 2021. And about a month
00:22:04
Speaker
to a month and a half before he died. He, um, his first published novel arrived and we got to open the box. And, and I thought, holy shit, like my dad's been a successful playwright his whole life, but this guy's 81 and he published his first novel, like gorgeous. Okay. That's not, that's not too late for me to be the thing that, and
00:22:35
Speaker
the joy of writing this novel. Sorry, I'm going to cry because you're safe to you. It's OK because I know. I mean, everything makes me cry. Let's not. I'm not shy of crying. And I used to say, like, if you've never seen me cry, you don't work with me. I really, really cry in public and at work all the time.
00:23:03
Speaker
I'm okay with it because I had that record for you to be you and me as a kid. I don't know if you had that record or remember it. I think it rings it far. It was a real child of the 70s thing, but there's a song on there by Rosie Greer, who was a quarterback or fullback. I don't know what his football position was, but this song was, it's all right to cry.
00:23:27
Speaker
It's all right to cry, crying gets the sad out of you. Like, Rosie. Rosie, right? And I was always like, Yeah, it's all right to cry. And then I learned that tears, they did some studies and tears are packed full of stress hormones. And that is the most effective way to get those out of your body. And I was like, Okay, I don't care if I cry all the time.
00:23:52
Speaker
Anyway, there's been this feeling since I started working with the fiction, like, even though I know I have real physical issues, I'm not, I don't want to gaslight my own self about these medical conditions and say it's all in my head because it is not. Um, but I have this deep body feeling that if I can see this novel through to completion,
00:24:20
Speaker
a lot of my illness will leave me. That my body is so frustrated with me not doing the thing that I have been meant to do for my entire life. And so I'm also kind of going, am I a comedian? Am I a performer? I'm not doing it because first pandemic and now this,
00:24:50
Speaker
And I know that I'm funny and I know that I'm very good on stage and put a microphone in my hand or whatever, but writing doesn't put me through the same terrible chemical process in my body that performing does. And I don't know, maybe I'm something else for this next part of life. For a long time in my life, I referred to myself as the Oracle.
00:25:18
Speaker
because i'm very wise and people ask me for all kinds of crazy advice i have a list somewhere i should i should read it to you sometime of all the things it's a very it's a very funny list of all the things people have asked me for advice about um like for a while i was getting people regularly i and not like they knew each other or i it's not like i had an advice column but people were like i was getting
00:25:46
Speaker
requests for advice around, um, I'm thinking of having a threesome. How do I approach that? Or what should I know? Or, yeah, I've just had my first one night stand. Uh, what, what, how should I communicate with this person? Or I'm thinking about having an extramarital affair. What should I do?
00:26:09
Speaker
And then somebody would ask me like, Hey, I'm thinking about volunteering for the fringe festival, but I have some limitations. How should I handle that? But also I would get phone calls from like a friend in Toronto going, Hey, I'm driving around downtown Toronto looking for a place that has storage lockers. Well, how do I, and then I'd be like, sure, I'll find you a place from here. You contain multitudes, you know, yet again, right? You have a lot of experience. I don't anyway. So I just kind of feel like.
00:26:40
Speaker
There's some other things to this. Okay, what I'm learning about identity, I'm doing some really specific work with a really interesting internal medicine specialist who does
00:26:55
Speaker
when you get into his practice for complex chronic illness he has a group called core group which is a six-month weekly group zoom where we learn how to live a complex chronic illness and it is about
00:27:13
Speaker
It's metacognitive therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, and mindfulness basically. So it is identifying your triggers, your hot thoughts, your thought patterns, all those things.
Understanding Self-Worth and Humanity
00:27:28
Speaker
It's also learning about how to prioritize
00:27:31
Speaker
joy, how to draw healthy boundaries in your relationships, like just this incredible, like basically how to be a human. And I think every person on the planet should go through this course. It was amazing. And the there's this kind of central gift in it for me, which is I'm inherently lovable because I'm a human on the planet. Bingo. And
00:28:03
Speaker
This is the first time I've understood that in my whole life. That actually, it's okay. I used to get a lot of juice out of saying I was a comedian because people's reactions are so like, you do stand up, you're so brave. And I would be like, it's not brave, it's a sickness. It's a compulsion, I'm not brave, I'm ill.
00:28:31
Speaker
and this learning that I don't have to be anything to deserve love. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to be productive. My whole job in the world right now is to lie down and be still until my body heals. And I still have value. But at the beginning of this,
00:29:01
Speaker
having massive, massive, terrible identity crisis. I couldn't figure out what my intrinsic value was as a person if I wasn't making, doing. And now I am just being.
00:29:23
Speaker
And I realized, oh, well, like I used to fantasize that when I called myself the Oracle that I could, could I just be in a cave somewhere and people would come to me like, and for wisdom. But I, some of those cave gases, you know, and just like, yeah, you have to be careful what you wish for what you wish for, because I wished for that and I wished for early retirement. And now this is what has happened to me.
00:29:50
Speaker
somewhere a monkey's paws curling. Yeah, exactly. But it's kind of happening where because I'm learning all of these things, I'm witnessing that my friends are like coming to me with they're quite big. I mean, they do anyway, but there's something about what's happening here right now where I have a lot of information that's useful for people.
00:30:15
Speaker
And so I guess I did want to feel useful, so that is nice. It is that thing of something that I work on in my therapy is this idea of by releasing the need to be special, by just admitting you're just a person,
00:30:33
Speaker
That's actually what leaves you room to do what is special about you. It's the paradox of life. Everything in our existence is this bizarre paradox of in order to be powerful, you need to be vulnerable. In order to be strong, you have to be really soft.
00:30:53
Speaker
And in the same way that it's like, in order to have something, you have to give it up, you know? And that's the only way to have room to actually do it. Because if you're just chasing, you're not actually going to become the thing, you're just going to become the chase, you know? And you'll never be satisfied. I never was satisfied. I never was satisfied in relationships, in work, in myself, in...
00:31:23
Speaker
And I think it's crippling to think that you're special. I think it's really crippling. You can never quite live up to whatever this imagined specialness is. I mean, I think I'm very special.
00:31:45
Speaker
We do this thing. We do this thing. We haven't done it in a while in therapy, but we were for a while, maybe about a year ago or so, where basically my therapist and I, we would, we would look at each other and, and, uh, he would say, James, you're not special. And then I'd say, Scott, you're not special. And then, and then he would say, James, something I think that is special about you is that, you know, and he would like, so, so like he would, you know, it was by removing.
00:32:13
Speaker
like by first acknowledging it but then giving a kindness you know because it's like it's not saying you're not worthy of love it's you know and it's it's also the irony again another paradox it's not saying you're not special it's saying you're not special and that's you know and it's like even though those are the same words there's a nuance there where it's like
00:32:35
Speaker
You're special in that you are alive and that makes you valid immediately for unconditional love. You're not special in the sense that if you don't become the greatest comedian who ever lived, that'll be the only way you deserve love. And so by removing the need to be
00:32:55
Speaker
the need for the accolades or the need to earn love, right? And to recognize that the day you were born was the day you started deserving it. And the last day you'll deserve love is the day after you die. That's a big piece of the work I'm doing right now. And I'm not doing it with anybody in a very directed way.
00:33:23
Speaker
Like I'm not, in terms of re-parenting myself, that's not been a, that's not been a like, those words haven't been a particular focus in any of my work, but, and it has come up many, many, many years ago, but it's like, um, I'm in a place now where for the first time in my life, I trust myself, uh, where I can, I can, I can put my arms around myself and I can say, I got you buddy.
00:33:53
Speaker
And I know I believe it. Like I'm like, yeah, I do, even though I need so much help. That's okay. I, there's no elevator in my building. I'm on the second floor. The laundry is in the basement. I can't do stairs. So like a lot of things are really prohibitive. And so I know that I'm not able to contend with every chore, my own self. I need a lot of help from friends. Um,
00:34:21
Speaker
and grocery delivery, and you know what I mean? Like, I have a lot of incapacity, but I still know I got myself. I got it. I know what to ask for. I know who to ask. I know how to ask. And I think most importantly, I am really learning how to receive.
00:34:50
Speaker
Isn't that the key right there? You can ask for help, but if you can't accept the help, that is... You know, can I ask a bit more of a directed question about a part of that? Because I...
00:35:06
Speaker
I'm building trust in myself. That's the stage I'm in right now. What I've been coming out of, not just the last couple, the last decade, realistically speaking. And I'm finally in the last eight months or so, I've really, I had been doing the work
00:35:25
Speaker
And now I've really doing the work in this last chunk. And, and I know, you know, I laugh because like every five years I'm like, Oh, now I'm just perpetually, right? You know, but it's like, you know, I've been, I've been alone to do it, right? I haven't been in connection with, with, with anyone to do it. I've been really diving into myself with myself and, and I know I've made a lot of strides and, and, and I think I'm curious about your perspective on.
00:35:56
Speaker
How do you go about asking for these things? Because this is a point that I've been really chewing on myself. I was just talking about it in the most recent episode of the show actually is this idea of like,
00:36:09
Speaker
I personally really value direct communication, but it's also something that I really struggle to do. And so I'm really curious, how do you go about asking and like, how direct do you get? Well, I'm extremely direct.
00:36:27
Speaker
I send a text message that says, hi, I have an appointment with the hand specialist on Friday. I need to be picked up at this location at this time and then dropped off at the hand specialist and then picked back up there. Can you do either the pickup or the drop off?
00:36:47
Speaker
because I and I'm asking a few people. So like I'll just send really clear like it's at this time on this day or whatever for things like that when I know in advance that something is coming.
00:37:02
Speaker
I mean, a key piece of it is identifying what you need, help where. That's quite difficult. And you know that humans, right? Humans have a tendency to, when somebody is struggling or in grief or clearly needs some kind of help. But they don't know what. But they don't know what. But people also have, so people who want to be helpful, which is most people,
00:37:31
Speaker
But most people don't know specifically how, and it becomes scary, will I make you worse? Will I make you upset? And so mostly what people offer initially is, hey, if you ever need anything, and then that shuts the person who needs something down because it's overwhelming, especially if you have any kind of mental health issue or, well,
00:37:58
Speaker
when you're in deep grief, all of those things. So when you're well enough, you know what I mean? When you're having stable days, those are good times to kind of parse out, oh, when I'm doing really poorly, what are the things I need help with? And this has been a
00:38:20
Speaker
Well, it's been a real learning curve in the past year and a half how to ask for help because I didn't know what I needed either. And so, okay, over time as I learn and as I've realized who are the key people in my life who
00:38:36
Speaker
Not only have they offered to show up, but they have proven that they will show up so that I know they've been very clear with me. It's okay to ask. I've been clear with them that I need them to set their own boundaries. I cannot manage their feelings for them. I cannot manage their boundaries for them. I can't identify when they have taken on too much in their own life.
00:38:58
Speaker
and won't be able to show up for me. I need them to manage that so that when they say I will be there, I can count on them to be there. And so I have a small, well, relative to lots of people, actually, I think it's quite a large team. And I've written a couple of emails to that whole group of people, but this is a long time ago now, saying, this is what's going on with me. This is how I think I'll need help
00:39:27
Speaker
And now I have a second email ready to go out for them, which is like a year later. And we have set up a meal train for me. So I'm kind of trying to organize it in a more central location where I'll be able, all the people who said they are 100% willing to do things, go on the meal train and I can say, on Thursday I need help with laundry. I'm in a crash, can anyone bring me food today? It's an emergency, whatever.
00:39:56
Speaker
But I also, yeah, so just getting, drilling down on my own self, what are the specific things? Because sometimes I just need, I developed a little shorthand with people. I have a friend who was telling, well actually I don't know if she told me this or we both read it or something.
00:40:16
Speaker
And I can't even really remember exactly what it is. It was some meme about how, or you know, self-help thing about how when someone's in crisis, it takes eight minutes of connection. That's all it takes for them to come to a more grounded place, right? And so I have this shorthand with one friend that is, I text her and I say, hi, do you have eight minutes? And she knows what that means. She knows that,
00:40:45
Speaker
But she also knows that if she only has eight minutes, that's all I'm asking for. I mean it when I say eight minutes. I don't need you for two hours. I don't. And I guess I've developed a language with my friends over time. Last summer, a friend revealed to me that he was in quite a serious crisis and he wanted to get together
00:41:09
Speaker
because the people that were closest to him were also involved and it was too hard to talk and everyone had two emotional stakes.
00:41:18
Speaker
And I'm very empathetic. So when I'm talking to somebody who's going through a really difficult time I will have emotions about it and usually they manifest as crying I cry a lot and So we sat down to have this conversation He started talking and I was like I just want to interrupt you before we get really into this and let you know that I'm going to have some emotions about what you're talking about because it's really
00:41:48
Speaker
that's OK with me and you don't have to manage my feelings. I have got a handle on that. It's just the way things process through my body. You don't have to deal with it or take it on in any way. And I watched his whole body just like, oh, totally relax. And he was like, thank you for saying that. That makes me feel really at ease to talk about this really hard thing. Because, you know, like when someone I know, I know if I if I was with someone who communicated that
00:42:08
Speaker
It's really hard stuff.
00:42:18
Speaker
That would make me feel safe on a few different levels. Not only is it like releasing me from that pressure, but it also is like when I see someone emoting genuinely that creates a safety in me because it's like, oh, this person feels safe with me. So that means I can be safe with them. Right. So.
00:42:36
Speaker
So, you know, that by saying, you know, by showing and saying that's a that's a real nice tier of communication. Right. And I think that it's part of I'm saying that in that way that he needed that help that day. But actually, I needed a little bit of help later in the day. And.
00:42:56
Speaker
Just as a way of saying part of the part of clearly asking for help is building an emotional container with people. Yeah. So that you can clearly say, this is the kind of help I need. These are the kind of feelings I'm managing and and make it like.
Adult Friendships and Personal Growth
00:43:17
Speaker
I don't know, in my youth, the only way I knew how to get help was to set fires. Yeah.
00:43:24
Speaker
You know, it was to create a big crisis, so everyone had to help me. Not a thing that I did consciously, you know what I mean? But once it got identified, it was a really awful thing to realize, like, oh, I am the emotional blackmailer. I am emotionally holding people hostage. Oh, I'm the bully.
00:43:47
Speaker
Yeah, you know, like, oh, God. Oh, yeah. The like the the the gut drop feeling when you have those realizations. Yeah, that's those are hard. Those are hard days. Yeah. So I spent a long time in my life figuring out how to get help before things were were a crisis, how to avoid crisis.
00:44:22
Speaker
You know, when I met Megan, who, who introduced me to the, to the writing circle, um, I only met her like a month and a half ago, right? Um, it was at a, uh, it was at T next. Um, we both did a T next reading.
00:44:40
Speaker
Yes. Yes. And, um, and so we, you know, she did her thing and we said hi, like Sarah introduced us and we said hi. And then, um, we connected on Instagram and, um, uh, we, we ended up going for coffee and like within two seconds we were just like, are we best friends? Like it was just like this instant, like boom, you know? And, um, and one of the things that like,
00:45:09
Speaker
I was not like expecting was A to like have that feeling again like ever just because you know you kind of have that thing where you like you hit a point in your in your life where you're like I'm too old to make good friends
00:45:26
Speaker
You know, it's like I sort of miss a boat, you know? No, you're still so little. Look, I know it's not a reasonable thought, you know? I know it's not, I know it's not a logical thought. I know it's like purely like trauma speaking, but it was, it's just that thing of like, I miss the boat of like, cause if I make friends now for us to be like 10, 15 year long friends, we're going to be in our sixties. You know what I mean? Right? You know?
00:45:50
Speaker
And, uh, you know, so it's like, we'll miss out on all the good calculations I did around having children. Right. Yes. Yeah. Oh God. I have children now. I'm going to be in my sixties when they're teenagers. I don't forget it. Exactly. Right. So it's like, Oh my God, I don't want to be a fucking senior dad. I don't want to be tired when my kids are, you know, right. But, but like, but what's been so magic about making friends with Megan and then in turn meeting you and in turn meeting this group has been like,
00:46:18
Speaker
oh like again it feels like it comes back to that paradox feeling of like as soon as you stop looking for it life suddenly goes like here you go you know now that it's almost like it's almost like you have to play reverse psychology with life where you have to be like well i don't want that and then life's like oh okay here no you're here right you know but i would describe it i would describe it more as being in flow and that what i
Staying Present and Prioritizing Connections
00:46:48
Speaker
if I dwell too much or any in the past or the future.
00:46:56
Speaker
that I'm out of flow and I will just fall, trip, smash into things. I can't get what I want. Nothing fits together. And when I just breathe into all there is, is right now, there is only the present moment. That is what we have. And then, oh, it just sales. Things just come. And they don't come without you.
00:47:22
Speaker
You know, it's not like, oh, I put my feet up and then gold nuggets just come up. Exactly. You still have to go do stuff, right? And that's the thing, you know, showing up at the writer's circle, I had that exact same feeling where, you know, you said hi and I think
00:47:39
Speaker
you said something right out the hop where I was like, oh, yeah, this is this is this is this is my people, you know what I mean? Like crying or being almost almost certainly, you know, like anybody who will open open with a line about that is just like, yeah, your aces in my books, you know, but but I am really grateful for that, you know, and I am really grateful for this connection, you know, it is it these days, especially lately, I've really struggled with like,
00:48:06
Speaker
remembering that I do have friends, that I am not alone, that even if it's new connections, even if it's connections that haven't really been tended to a lot recently, there are people out there who care. I'm not in my solitude because for so long, my life has been built on the validation of being in a romantic connection. And as long as I have a partner,
00:48:31
Speaker
that I invalid and now that I've been eight months single, you know, it's like, um, uh, you know, taller first beginning with tolerating the solitude, but then
00:48:44
Speaker
in turn going into like celebrating the solitude and really voicing within it, you know? And although I am now at the point where I'm like, okay, I could probably stand to have someone touch me. Well, it's nice to make out. Yeah, exactly. Making us the best thing in the world. But we have a terrible problem with relationship hierarchy in our culture. It's it's distressing and it's
00:49:12
Speaker
For many years now, something I've been thinking about so much because, yeah, like when I was a little kid, I started making little wish on a star. Starlight Starlight. I wish I had a boyfriend. And I just always wished I had a boyfriend. And then every time I got a boyfriend, I was like, ah, so uncomfortable. I gotta get out of this.
00:49:39
Speaker
Or it's not what I thought or I wanted to be different or why isn't it making me feel loved? Why don't I feel whole? Why is everything not falling into place? How what it's because people are telling me to get what you need you need to ask for what you need But I don't even know what I need like what does that even mean? and then and then I realized another frustration in my life was with
00:50:07
Speaker
wanting to have friendships and relationships that I could count on. Yes. Which again, because I have terrible abandonment issues, but. I wanted to have those kind of connections that I knew I could trust, and then you would think that you had those friendships and then people would get in a couple and then you didn't have that friendship anymore until they had children and they needed a babysitter, you know, like. Yeah.
00:50:36
Speaker
or someone to do the flowers at their wedding or whatever. And not that I'm not friends with couples and whatever, but
00:50:47
Speaker
And then as you get older and older, and now I'm a middle-aged single childless woman, the least loved of all human categories. The lesser loved. Like, oh, a woman who didn't have children. Like either you're a witch and a heretic or
00:51:10
Speaker
That's the saddest thing we've ever heard because you can't be a complete woman without having had children. Either way, burn her. Either way, burn her. But I've created these extraordinary friendships. And at a certain point with my women friends, quite specifically with my women friends,
00:51:34
Speaker
It became a conversation about me going, I am investing now in this relationship in the way that I would in a romantic relationship. I'm committing to this friendship. And that means a certain kind of showing up. I mean, it means a lot of things, I guess.
00:52:03
Speaker
but that I had this realization a few years ago of like, I don't, why am I saving that kind of love and energy for a romantic partner when in fact I'm in relationship with everyone in my life in some way. I'm never not in relationship. You know, I have all of these incredible connections and I want to nourish them and, um,
00:52:32
Speaker
That has resulted in a deepening of these friendships that I never expected, an intimacy with these people that does serve that need for intimacy and trust. It's still hard to believe that if those people's couples circumstances change, whatever, that it won't,
00:53:00
Speaker
effect as it's hard to trust that sometimes but sure but I guess because I decided that and I talked about it other friends also went oh yeah actually I want to be in this relationship in that way too and and so we have ongoing conversations about the way we're showing up for each other and it's
00:53:27
Speaker
It took getting sick for me to understand that I am truly loved. Yeah. The next tier is that we have to figure out how to get everyone on board with platonic makeouts, you know? Like, that's the next one. It's not for everyone. That's the problem. No, but I mean, like, it's fair if you're the kind of person that can't emotionally handle casual makeup. That's fair.
00:53:55
Speaker
But I I and then also, OK, because I think get people on board with casual makeouts, maybe, but also with a more vulnerable way of relating physically that isn't necessarily sexual. Yes. Like when that's really what the end here is. Yeah. Yeah. Because right when my friend was here yesterday and that friend comes over every Monday afternoon since for now for a few months, it's really
00:54:23
Speaker
And they've committed to it in a way that's like, they come over and they let me know how much energy they have for tasks, right? They come and they're like, okay, I got a half hour today where we can do chores. So I got an hour and then we'll spend several hours together, but they've identified. They can do this. And they're like, do you need me to take out the garbage? Yesterday they did a load of laundry for me. It was a miracle. Amazing.
00:54:46
Speaker
But also, I was feeling so tender and irritable, and my legs hurt so much. And this person has a long-term partner, and they're monogamous. But we've been friends for a long time. And I was crying and not really knowing what was happening with me while I was on the couch, and I was looking so sore.
00:55:14
Speaker
as I told you earlier, I woke up today and had the first period I've had in four months and I was like, oh, okay, I see what's happening. Stupid. 52 years old, can't read the signs. And they started like just rubbing and stroking my legs, my knees, my calves, my feet.
00:55:38
Speaker
And then that set me into a whole round of sobbing because it released whatever was happening in there. But I was just going like this. This kind of comfort. And ease with each other's bodies. Yeah. I don't. The need for. I mean, at this point, I also I have very low energy to even what like what makeup would look like right now. I have no idea.
00:56:09
Speaker
Um, I'm not not interested in finding out, but I'm not the dynamic, uh, gymnast I once was. Um, and it just like, just that the, the, the casual affection of, of acquaintances and friends. And you look at other cultures where.
00:56:36
Speaker
men hold hands, everybody kisses each other on the mouth to say goodbye. And I'm not, I don't want, not all of those cultures have great ways that they treat women, not all of those, whatever, but.
00:56:48
Speaker
But there is. But there's a touch. There's a touch starvation in our culture that I've become really acutely aware of. You know, like I was always aware of it and it was always being explored in a certain facet. But being in like chosen solitude, you know, you know, borderline valsail, what do they call it? Valsail territory, you know, has really shown how important touches. And I find myself when I'm around my friends,
00:57:16
Speaker
I find myself really wanting to touch but not knowing how to communicate that and not knowing if that's a comfort or if that's safe for them and trying to find ways to communicate that I'm just like, I'm touch starved, please put your skin on me. And just finding ways to communicate that has been quite a struggle. That's hard to ask for. I haven't figured it out yet. That's what I haven't.
00:57:44
Speaker
I haven't really figured out. You know, I had another friend and I did, I asked him to rub my feet and then it did turn into a thing of like, okay. Then like he took it to a place in his mind of, Oh, so this is the bro. And I was like, no, we're friends. We've been friends for 20 years. Like, could you just rub my feet? It's not, I don't want to date you.
00:58:10
Speaker
Yeah, just touch my feet, it's different, you know?
00:58:22
Speaker
We've been talking about friendship and talking about service to each other and connection to each other. And this show has gone through all kinds of different iterations and all different kinds of sort of focuses throughout the years. And right now it really boils down to this simple question of
00:58:44
Speaker
What does it take to be a friend?
Insights on Friendship Dynamics
00:58:48
Speaker
What is a friend? And I'm curious in your experience and from your perspective, what would you call a friend?
00:59:02
Speaker
So, okay, I'm gonna answer this in my patented real way, which is to start with a little story about something that used to happen and then get to my answer. Love it. Also, I'll say that's your ADHD diagnosis in a nutshell right there. So, you know, you get the stamp. Welcome. Come on in. Thank you. Now I'll get a coach. Right. Which is that I had a friend for many years who I really thought that we were
00:59:32
Speaker
Like really good friends and especially at a certain point we started kind of spending more time together and and She was very
00:59:45
Speaker
were certain moments in time where she would happen to connect with me while something really difficult was happening and she would care for me in those moments. And then she would disappear for long swaths of time and be unreachable. And then I would find out from her long time later, like at one point we didn't talk for three years and then
01:00:09
Speaker
Like she was just unresponsive to me. And then she reemerged and was like, oh yeah, I was going through a divorce. And it was like, you can't even, and so I pushed up against this and the longer we were friends, and she's like a wonderful person. Like she's vivacious and beautiful and talented. And it was a,
01:00:32
Speaker
weird feeling inside myself as our friendship went on where I felt I couldn't figure out why this really this person I thought was so amazing why I felt less and less comfortable in the friendship over time and started to feel kind of mad and and resentful and I didn't really know where it was coming from and it took me a long time to understand oh it was because I was very vulnerable with her
01:01:04
Speaker
and also we had like fun together and stuff but but when anything arrived in her life where she might need a person or someone to count on or whatever she just shut down and went away and I never so we ended up having this really one-sided friendship where I felt like like I was a problem child yeah and you were never being let in
01:01:29
Speaker
Yeah, but also like she always wanted to show up for me in moments of crisis I think then and so it started to be this friendship where it was like I'm always sad She's always trying to fix me and I never get to know her any better because she will not reveal anything to me She will not let me in she won't lean on me for support and I kind of identified something for myself in terms of my friendships and
01:01:56
Speaker
I think there's many things about being a friend. I really think being a friend has a lot to do with meeting people where they're at. Same as romantic relationships. Why are you in this relationship if you're in it hoping I'll be something else or that somehow you see my potential?
01:02:25
Speaker
I guess I realized that with a number of people over time in different ways. Another friend that I had for a long time and he was really lovely and at a certain point I realized he was constantly trying to make me different.
01:02:42
Speaker
And I was just like, could you love me the way I am? And then if I decide that I want to change something about myself, be supportive of that change instead of telling me the ways you think I need to be in the world. And so I think being able to meet and see people right where they're at is a real act of kindness. And, um,
01:03:10
Speaker
I think learning your own edges, your own boundaries, your own limitations, your own expansions, so that when you say that you're going to show up for somebody in any particular way, small, large, whatever, you're able to
01:03:31
Speaker
follow through and do the thing that you said you were going to do. And that knowing yourself is a way to be a really good friend to other people.
01:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, isn't that another one yet again that that paradox of like to connect to others you have to first connect to yourself, you know Yeah, and I don't want I don't want to go down that path of like it drives me crazy I got real stuck for a long time in the oh You have to love yourself before you can be loved by other people, right? I think that's such a dangerous place and that leads to that thing where you think oh I don't deserve love unless I'm perfect. Yes, I
01:04:08
Speaker
I always push back on that. If you can't love yourself, how are you gonna love anybody else? I don't buy into that at all. I always push back on that. But I think what it is is that it's like, I think it deepens your connection. It's like you can be, and in fact you should be connected right at the gate. I think it just, it deepens connections. The further you, the deeper you understand yourself, the more capacity you have to understand others. And so I think it's about exploration.
01:04:38
Speaker
if you learn things about yourself then you can start to hear the ways people are signaling to you that they need you to show up in that relationship and then you're not imposing your own idea of what people need you're hearing this person understands sometimes i go back to that um
01:05:01
Speaker
I'm not a big self-help book person. And in fact, sometimes I just let somebody tell me what the book was about. And then I'm like, yeah, I read it. Honestly, you've probably gotten the gist most of the time. But there was that book that came out about the love languages. Which can be summed up in a PDF. Exactly. Or in a haiku, really.
01:05:26
Speaker
but a PDF of a haiku. That was when that first started to make sense to me. If a person understands
01:05:41
Speaker
They feel loved when you give them your time. Why would you always bring them gifts? Exactly. And can you hear me when I say, I don't want any more stuff. What I want from you is your time. Can you hear that? And if people don't hear it, then how are they being a good friend to you? And if you don't hear that from other people, how are you being a good friend to them?
01:06:09
Speaker
Everybody just wants to be seen for just the way they are and loved just how they are in this moment. And everybody deserves that. Even really troubled, awful people.
01:06:29
Speaker
I mean, that's the work, right, is this idea. I'm often repeating this saying that Ramdas has where he talks about, you know, the work of your life is to love everyone and tell the truth, right? And he's like, and the joke of that is like, it's the easiest thing to say and literally will be your life's work, you know, because when he says unconditional love for everyone, that means
01:06:57
Speaker
unconditional for everyone, right? And that's not, except for, you know, that's like, no, unconditional for like, there is no one who has been born, who is alive today, who will be born. There is no one who is undeserving of unconditional love. And that's a really fucking hard thing to wrap your head around, you know, that like anyone and everyone, you know, and then obviously there's the nuance of like, you can give love without giving, um,
01:07:25
Speaker
you know, parts of yourself. Well, yeah, not giving yourself up and also not like uplifting shit heads. Right. Like, you know, well, yeah. And you can also sexual love without also endorsing. Right. You know, so this is where learning about yourself and having good healthy boundaries inside yourself. Like what is that? I can't remember who said it or exactly how it goes. But boundaries are the distance
01:07:55
Speaker
between you and me where I can love you safely? I'm not saying it exactly right, but I'm saying it pretty well. It sounds right to me, yeah.
01:08:07
Speaker
Um, so that it's not because sometimes when you hear that everyone deserves, then you get overwhelmed with, Oh, I have to love everybody. But that guy, but that guy just like grabbed my crotch. Yeah. Or whatever Donald Trump is loving him means he gets to do whatever he wants. And I don't know. It's like, no, that is not actually what's loving is.
01:08:32
Speaker
saying enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Boundaries are a loving act, right? You know, they're, they're, they're an act of love to say, like, you still deserve love, but you get my love from this distance. You know, I'd like to add to this talk about, about friendship. One, one thing that is really dear to my heart and my understanding of being a person in the world, which is that I understand
Love as Actionable Commitment
01:08:59
Speaker
that love is, for me, I understand love as an action. It's a verb, yeah. And so I guess one of the things about that friend that I got mad at who wouldn't let me close to her,
01:09:17
Speaker
a thing that really fucked with my head in that friendship was when she texted me randomly at various times, it would always be this text that was, can you feel how much I love you? I'm just radiating love at you. I love you so much. You have no idea. I'm just sending you so much love. XOXO and then a million emojis and I'd be like,
01:09:44
Speaker
What the fuck is this? What the fuck is this? And I don't know what maybe, but then I also learned maybe that if that is that how that person expresses love. So I have another friend who expresses herself that way a lot. And it used to drive me crazy because I was like, what the fuck is this? And I was like, wait, if she's doing it,
01:10:15
Speaker
Yes. Exactly.
01:10:25
Speaker
It's just not your love language, right? It's just learning a new language, right? And that in itself is an act of love to be like, oh, you know, like you say, right? To be like, oh, okay, this is how you see love. So this is, you know, if I want to give you that kind of love that you'll receive, this is how, you know, right? And then it's up to you to decide if you want to give that or not, right? And that's the other thing is that it's a two way street. And so like, you know, you don't have to, um,
01:10:52
Speaker
You know, you don't have to act love for everyone, right? Like you don't have, you know, so. And yeah, there's so many nuances to it and there's so much more complicated shit that comes into play. Nobody should have to have jobs. We should all just be able to consider love and friendship. Like I just want to eat.
01:11:12
Speaker
berries and lay around in the sun like damn it you know my whole thing has always been around jobs and whatever is that I just wanna I think we should just all be walking around holding hands eating berries
01:11:30
Speaker
and fishing. Like literally, I just like, I just, I just like whatever berries is such a Oh yeah. I mean, cause that's like, that's like the, that's like the ultimate like, uh, relaxation food to me is that it's like, one time me and my friend, Sarah may went swimming at kids beach in the summer and then
01:11:55
Speaker
I think we had bikes with us. I can't remember. And it was kind of like a warm summer rainy day. And we walked all the way home from kits to main street, uh, along the seawall. We didn't get out of our bathing suits. We were like five year olds and it was blackberry season and we walked all the way back.
01:12:15
Speaker
It took us so long in the rain, we would just stop at every blackberry bush and just eat all the blackberries and then keep walking. And there's always people in the seawall looking at us because we're in bathing suits.
01:12:28
Speaker
It's like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm in paradise. Yeah. We're having the best day of our lives right now. Yeah. And then we accidentally walked into, um, we didn't realize we w we went up, we went up Quebec and then we went to cross over to main street on like fifth or third or something. And the mural festival was on. So we like turned to the corner and it was just like DJ booth tables and all these things that we were just like.
01:13:05
Speaker
I love it. I honestly, though, like I was I was made for just the Barry life. Like Barry life, you know, I shouldn't have a job. I should eat berries and hold hands. You know, like that should be my life. You know. OK, who is going to support our lifestyle? That's just it. I need like I need a Medici benefactor. You know, like I just need someone. I need my what's his name? Whatever Demodichi, you know, but you know, Cosmo.
01:13:17
Speaker
Barry stained in our bathing suits are kind of sticking out from under the bathing suits
01:13:33
Speaker
Cosmo, thank you. Thank you. You know, I'm curious about something that brings up something for me, which is I've been keenly aware that there's some that there are things amiss in my chemical makeup, in my body, whatever for years and years and years and years. And that
01:13:53
Speaker
I craved and I don't know if I always thought of it in conjunction with this but boy did I talk a lot about how much I craved being able to just I just needed three or six months somewhere quiet to just focus like just create just be with myself just be in this and
01:14:13
Speaker
And also I have this notion of eating berries and whatever. But I wonder if that is something about us, this craving for like, I just want to eat berries because like now it's imperative that I stop and I heal. And it's making me really aware of how much you learn when you don't have to do the other thing.
01:14:39
Speaker
But because we have these nervous systems that need this healing, are we then thinking of this life because it's something where our bodies actually really need? We need this time to stop, lay down, and heal? I think so.
01:14:57
Speaker
And so that's kind of our idea of what it looks like. Yeah, I think so. Absolutely. I've had this I've had this pet theory. It's funny. I've never had the chance to actually talk about this on the show. So this is a good good space for it. I think that.
01:15:10
Speaker
OK, it's a little bit more harebrained, but it's like one of my more out there theories is that like, you know, we all either know or should know that the capitalist system is inherently sociopathic and like whoever devised it is psychotic and had no conscience.
Neurodivergence and Human Nature
01:15:32
Speaker
And when you look at what is called neurotypical, a neurotypical brain can thrive within a capitalist system. And that is frightening to me because as a neurodivergent person, which I find those titles
01:15:54
Speaker
I'm like insulting at the simplest levels because it's like I'm divergent because I think it's bullshit that we pay taxes for fucking wars so that people you know like it's like whatever.
01:16:09
Speaker
So we're seeing this like explosion, seeming explosion of neurodivergence in our culture. We're discussing it more, you know, autism is more visible, traumas are more visible, ADHD is more visible. And while I'm hesitant to say that there are more neurodivergent people than there ever were, because I think it's more just that we're just talking about it more, there's this part of me that's like, I almost wonder if
01:16:36
Speaker
there's more, there are more neurodivision people because it's our bodies being like, this is what you're supposed to be. You're not supposed to be at your nine to five. You're supposed to be distracted because, you know, in sort of pre societal days, if you think about it, having an ADHD brain is way more helpful than a neurotypical brain. You know, to be able to focus on a few things
01:17:03
Speaker
you know, kind of well, but then to be really distracted and go, whoa, there's a predator over there. Now I'm going to hyper focus on you, you know, like, but when I'm safe, I can go, I can eat berries, I can lay around, I can chat, I can, you know, and I, and I'm pretty good at most things because I can understand patterns and cycles, you know, but then suddenly when something pops up, I zero in on it, right? You know, like,
01:17:26
Speaker
There's already the misnomer. ADHD is not a lack of focus. It's a lack of being able to choose what you focus on, right? But when something catches your attention, you better fucking believe you're attentive, right? I think that the, quote unquote, neurodivergent brain is actually far more useful to the development of humanity throughout the whole span of humanity.
01:17:52
Speaker
And I think that might be why we're seeing it more and more because I think our systems are recognizing that the capitalist neurotypical form doesn't work and we need to get back to what we're supposed to be doing, you know, which yet again is hold hands, make out, eat berries, you know? Watch out for bears, you know, right? Walk around.
01:18:15
Speaker
walk around look at stuff exactly you know smell some flowers be interested in bees you know like make friends with crows i'm trying to make friends with the crows across the alley from me right now and did you start feeding them i'm about to i'm actually after this one of my plans for the evening was to go get some some good food for crows i've googled it i'm gonna read a few different things and i'm gonna i'm gonna i've actually
01:18:39
Speaker
so that I don't like piss off my neighbors. I've picked out a couple spots nearby that I'm going to start like purposefully leaving food at. And then if I see any crows, I'm going to like kind of greet them and be like, you know, over here, buds. Right. So we'll see what happens. They will figure it out really fast. Well, that's just it. They are not a dumb creature. So smart. Yeah. Yeah. I love being a friend to crows. Right. They're amazing. They're amazing.
01:19:04
Speaker
But right now during Crow baby season when they're dive bombing everybody, right? It's I my method when I'm is because I used to live on over on 10th where they are really they nest in the trees all along that block. And so like during Crow baby season, you'd see tons of people like like guys go by on their bikes and crows would be by bombing. But they left. Sometimes I would take an umbrella with me. Yeah. So I put it up.
01:19:35
Speaker
But they generally left me alone and I would leave the house, leave the apartment, go outside and I would hear crows and I would just say out loud, I don't want your babies crows. I don't want your babies. Like they would just leave me alone. I just think they are so bright and they know what's going on.
01:19:55
Speaker
Yeah, they're one of the few birds that get a pass for me. I'm not a bird person, but but crows a OK in my books. Yeah, I will say on the flip side, though, I have been thinking about joining a birding club, so I could be just talking right out of my ass and maybe maybe you just haven't you just don't know yet.
Finding Joy in Birding
01:20:15
Speaker
That's just that's just it. I want to try it just to find out, you know, like, because it sounds it actually sounds really fun to go. And you're going to be eyeballs deep. You'll be just like, oh, is that a thing? It feels it feels right up my alley and that it's like you're outside. You're like fixating on something. And you also get to learn all these ridiculous, weird little details about like the blue footed booby, you know, like it sounds fabulous. Right. So.
01:20:43
Speaker
So earlier when I said that I I play word games, but I play one video game, but really it's a card game I play a digital version of a board game called wingspan Oh Which my friend Alex lovingly refers to as bird game
01:21:00
Speaker
I feel like I know this game. Yeah, well, I would like to introduce you to Wingspan. Okay. It's a really soothing game where you collect birds. And yeah, you have to pay for them with eggs and whatever. Anyway, it's a strategy game, but it involves birds. And one of the great things is the bird cards have beautiful drawings of the birds on them. And then they have little bird facts.
01:21:28
Speaker
about that. Like they have all these things. It's very robust. And in the digital version, you also get their calls. So you can then if they live by you, you can hear them. Oh, that sounds amazing. And I recently got an app that identifies birds by their song.
01:21:46
Speaker
Okay. I have to, I'm, I have to go birding. Who am I kidding? I have to go birding so that I can then use all these things and actually put them to use. Real, you are incredible. Thank you so much. Like, like genuinely, thank you so much for this conversation. This has been so much fun. I, you know, sometimes
01:22:06
Speaker
Sometimes I'm never sure how, you know, because this is the first time we've talked one on one, you know, and, and, um, you know, sometimes in these types of interviews, it can go a myriad of different ways, you know, and I'm never sure how it's going to go. I always just show up and just see what the vibes are. Right. And I said to you, I want to be on your podcast. I love being on podcasts.
01:22:27
Speaker
Like, I meant it. Yes. 100 percent. And I really suited to this format. You really are. And it just like it's been such a pleasure. And, you know, as I said before, like I'm I'm we're going to we're going to get you rebooked. We're going to try and get to some of the other core questions because I'd like to hear your opinion on other stuff, you know. But but yeah, I just you know, thank you so much for taking this time and thank you for just sort of my absolute pleasure. You know, it's been a delight.
01:22:53
Speaker
And I can't wait to converse with you more both on the podcast and not on the podcast. That's exactly it. Well, that's just it. And now we're friends. So now we can just talk, you know? Yeah. So you can unfollow me on Facebook now. Wait, that's your old show. That was the old one. That's the old one. Yeah. I was going to say, I don't think we even follow each other on Facebook. I'm not on Facebook. Yeah. Good. Good. Well, is there anywhere you would like listeners to find you? Anything you'd like to plug or do you want to just stay mysterious?
01:23:22
Speaker
I'm pretty mysterious right now because I'm mostly in my apartment, in my bed.
Cameo in Rise of the Planet of the Apes
01:23:30
Speaker
Superfair. I have a novel coming out in a couple of years. There you go. We'll keep the update on that. You know what I want to tell people? Because there's a new planet of the Apes movie.
01:23:44
Speaker
And sometimes when there's a new Planet of the Apes movie, people go back and they watch all the other Planet of the Apes movies. And so I would like people to go back to Netflix or whoever has it now and just watch Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the James Franco
01:24:03
Speaker
The first of the first of the remake ones. Yeah. Because I'm the tour guide at the zoo in that movie. And yeah, it's I'm going to dine out on that till I'm 80. That was a great day. What a great day on set that was. Yes. But I reason I want people to go back and do that is because I get nice little royalty checks. And the more people that watch streaming, the bigger my royalty checks are. Yes. Disability now. And so that would be a relief.
01:24:33
Speaker
they could do that well I I know what I'm gonna do this evening I'm throwing that on also because I've wanted to rewatch those movies so that's a great excuse I have the only joke in the whole movie and I'm blonde at the time you know also is there somewhere to somewhere that people
01:24:53
Speaker
Well, I guess people could follow me. I have a private account on Instagram, and I don't really post on there. But during the pandemic, some colleagues, friend colleagues and I collaborated because we were all at home. We did it over Zoom and we did this really cool process of making an album together.
01:25:16
Speaker
And maybe on the next episode, I'll tell you what the process was, because it's a little bit of an explanation. But it's a one hour listening thing, 20 original songs that we wrote during the pandemic and lockdown. And we're all theater makers and musicians. And it is fucking cool. It's one of the things I'm most proud of doing, honestly. Absolutely incredible. What's the title? I'll put it in the show notes for people to find.
01:25:43
Speaker
Yeah, you can find it on, the only place you can find it is on Bandcamp. Okay. And we're called exquisite corpses. And what else I'll send you the exact link is in my bio in my Instagram.
01:25:59
Speaker
I'll dig up the lip. I'll dig up the link. It'll be in the show notes. That sounds absolutely incredible. And listeners, make sure to go listen to it on Bandcamp, and then stay tuned for the follow-up episode where you'll hear the whole story. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. This was wonderful. Thank you. This was amazing. Thank you.
01:26:34
Speaker
And that's it. Thank you one more time to Rielle for coming on the show. It was such a pleasure chatting with her, getting to know her a little bit better. And I just cannot wait to talk to her again. Be sure to check out her work. I have included some links in the show notes for you to listen to that album she mentioned. It's incredible. Go check it out.
01:26:54
Speaker
And while you're there, if you could do me the favor of leaving Friendless a five-star review anywhere you listened, it would help me out so much. It is free for you and just a massive boost for the show. So here is where I would normally plug, you know, the usual stuff, but
01:27:09
Speaker
I'm actually planning on taking a little bit of a break for July. I've realized that I have just hit an energy black hole and I'm in a bit of a rut and so I've got a couple interviews for June and then I think I'm going to take a little hiatus for July and just try to recharge, get my brain straight, get my energy back up and get really focused on what I'm trying to do with
01:27:33
Speaker
you know, the podcast and with the newsletter and all the other stuff. So instead of plugging anything, I'm just going to say thank you so much for continuing to listen to the show. It means the absolute world to me. I love doing this show and I'm going to continue doing it. I just have to figure out in what capacity.
01:27:51
Speaker
I still have interviews lined up for the rest of June and they are so freaking good. I love these episodes so much and I'm so excited to release them. So don't worry, friendless isn't disappearing just out of nowhere. So I will be back here next week with a brand new interview and I really hope you will join me for that because I think you're gonna love it.
01:28:12
Speaker
but I'm not gonna worry about that right now and neither should you because that is then and this is now so live in the now and remember I love you fun and safety sweeties
01:28:41
Speaker
you