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11. Chronic Shame & Its Ripple Effects
29 Plays2 months ago
Today we tackle a heavy subject: chronic shame, and the lasting effects from it. This intensely vulnerable episode explores and/or touches upon themes of body image and disordered eating, pornography, emotional/verbal abuse and neglect, trauma, and financial debt. If any of these themes might be difficult for you, please check in with yourself before listening, and please rejoin us next week if you need to step away.
Please also excuse the slight change in audio quality partway through the episode, as once again we needed to record in 2 sessions. As always, we are not professionals! <3
Where to donate for Hurricane Helene disaster relief:
Further information on how to help, with resources based on location: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna173627
We're grateful you're here! If you like what you’re hearing, you can follow us on Instagram: @soulpodthepodcast. You can also email us directly at [email protected].
Hosts: Christina Bell & Molly Wilde
Music: The Confrontation, by Jonathan Boyle, licensed from Premium Beats by Shutterstock
Editing: Molly Wilde
Disclaimer: The purpose of this podcast is for entertainment and enjoyment. We are not professionals in any regard. We do not have professional knowledge, training, or education in physical health, mental health, or spiritual matters. Any suggestions or recommendations made during our episodes should be independently researched by the listener before considering implementation, or better yet, listeners should ignore everything we say. We cannot be held responsible or liable for anything we say, or any actions taken by any persons as a result of listening to our podcast episodes. Stay safe, stay informed, stay smart.
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Transcript
Prescription Mishap and Frustration
00:00:22
Speaker
So this morning I called the little ones a pediatrician to get their refill for his script. the And I always tell them it's 60 pills because he takes it twice a day. I get the notification from Costco that the thing is ready to be picked up and it says 30 pills.
00:00:44
Speaker
So I call Pasco and I'm like, can you please verify that you guys got like the right information or whatever? Yeah. It says 30. That's what they sent over to us. And I'm like, oh my God, it's wrong. So I had to call the pediatrician back and I had to tell them. And then, and I even, I even spoke to the same lady as I did this morning and I was being very nice about it, but I was like, yeah, I called this morning to get this, you know, prescription refilled, but you know, and I made sure to say 60 because he takes it twice a day. but they only sent over 30. And she was like, oh, well, you know it could be the doctor's fault, honestly. I mean, I don't know if it was this girl's fault or not, but maybe the doctor was the one that put it through on the computer and put in the wrong amount. I don't know. But it's it's annoying because it seems like this happens every freaking month. yeah So anyhow, all right, I'm done. You think that they could just hit refill and it would do the same as what it did last month? Right. Whatever.
00:01:41
Speaker
Annoying. So how are you? I'm okay.
Stress and Relaxation
00:01:48
Speaker
I'm actually having an okay day. Um, it's pretty, it's, it's fine. It's better than yesterday. Yesterday it was really stressful. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yesterday was the last day of the month. So that was... Exactly. from Yeah. Yeah. And accounting where where, even if I'm not an accountant,
00:02:06
Speaker
Any accounting role tends to have a bit of a like flurry of just, Oh my God, at the end of every month, because you got to wrap things up for the month and me not having the ability to backdate things to prior months.
00:02:22
Speaker
I really do have a deadline on the last business day of every month, so it wasn't fun. I didn't enjoy it, but it's over, and I got a nice relaxing evening last night, and then tonight Em is coming over, and we're gonna hang out for a bit. Yay! That's fun! What are you guys gonna do? We're gonna do a sketch. What? Yeah.
00:02:47
Speaker
Like, yeah like pencil and paper sketch? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I might, I might do like, I might do some like floor plans and stuff on graph paper, because I'm not sure where my sketchbook is. um But yeah, she's, she's been sketching a lot lately. And she's actually really talented. So well that's fun. Yeah, I'm excited. It's gonna be nice. I'm gonna put on, I'm gonna light some candles and put light some incense. And We're just going to have a nice little artist evening. Sweet. But yeah, no, my day is not not really too bad.
Shopping Joys and Frustrations
00:03:25
Speaker
Yeah. Other than the ah annoying doctors being so it's like stupid. ah How's your day been? Okay. i Right when I was about to leave work, I was checking on an email because I have a Joanne's order that I told you about that I got to go pick up.
00:03:46
Speaker
And I found an email and it said that your order has already been picked up and I was just like, what?
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah. was like Talk about just annoying BS, right? like Oh my God. I had to call that store and I had to be like, hey, I was going to come over there today and pick this up, but it says it's already been picked up and I did not pick it up. Oh my God. So she checked and the order is still there. She goes, well, whoever like sets the order out and like puts the notification to be sent out, they might have their finger could have slipped and they hit the like pick up button externally or whatever.
00:04:22
Speaker
Got you. Well, that's annoying, but okay. Thank you. As long as it's still there for you to get. Yes. That's good. I'm glad. Yeah. I can't wait to get it. I'm so excited. Two of the items were sold out, I guess. So I did, so they got canceled or whatever, but. Oh, but you got a lot of stuff. So. Yeah. And it was cheap. Everything was on sale. Plus I got a coupon. Like I could do that. I love that. I love, I love the way that Joann's and Michael's does like sales for current season. Like that, you know, most stores will do like, everything that's on sale is everything from last season. But like, their current season is always the like steeply discounted stuff. And that is both wonderful and horrible because I keep spending money I shouldn't. um hear
00:05:16
Speaker
But that's a lot of fun. I love it. I know a few weeks ago, went to Michael's and got Thanksgiving-ish decor ah that is going to be year-round decor for me. Oh yeah! i ah I'm not a Halloween goth. I'm a Thanksgiving goth. Right.
00:05:41
Speaker
But it's gonna, I haven't, the um wall hangings I'm very excited about, and I still haven't put them up, but I think they're gonna look really good. oh Yeah, just gotta be in the mood to get the hammer out. Sweet. But yeah, we do have an episode today. Yeah.
Impact of Hurricanes and Community Support
00:06:03
Speaker
Pardon me, my god. It's like I i always get this frog going in my throat like as soon as I start needing to talk for the episodes. Oh no. What is wrong with me? Oh, maybe you need some water.
00:06:18
Speaker
Speaking of which, I'm going to have some. I did have some, but I probably need more. Um, I was going to say though, that before we dive in, like I don't even know what to say necessarily, except for that I'm thinking of all of our friends in Appalachia right now with the hurricane that has like completely obliterated certain areas.
00:06:41
Speaker
Oh my goodness. And we do have listeners out in that area. That's true. I don't know if your Tennessee family lives in that area or not, but regardless, we've got you know family in the Tennessee area.
00:06:58
Speaker
on and friends. And we're thinking of you guys. Yeah. And I, um regrettably, I did not even realize that the storm was heading all the way up there. I did not know that. Well, that's the thing is that normally, a hurricane tends to start to lose power as soon as it makes landfall. And it I don't know what happened with this one, but you know it appears that this storm just didn't seem to lose much power as it moved inland. And it just sort of carved a path through Georgia and up through Tennessee and western North Carolina. Crap. And I've seen some really, really devastating photos and videos. And it's just really like the town of Asheville, North Carolina is effectively gone. Whoa. Yeah. Oh my god.
00:07:57
Speaker
it's it's devastating and terrifying. And it's terrifying especially to know that like these people are stranded and like the response by the government is just as awful as it was during Katrina. Sorry if you're one of the people who truly wants to believe that our government like cares and wants to help us during natural disasters, but that's just not been my experience watching, you know, over the years, watching things happen and watching people lose so much and get no help. And so I hate saying thoughts and prayers. There's not much else we can do ourselves right now. Yeah. You know, but for anybody who is, you know, in the areas and can offer assistance or, you know, anybody who's able to make
00:08:52
Speaker
Donations to organizations that can offer assistance If you're able to please do so. Yeah, we're thinking of you Yeah, yeah i I'm just I was just checking out the radar for like the whole Eastern part of this the country and like it looks like whatever was going on His is passing them now. I was like over with now. Oh, yeah, it's it's long over but the devastation is still Yeah horrific, but there's like a storm that's passing over me right now that I didn't even know was coming. So it's not going to be devastating by any means. Yeah. you're You're fortunately pretty protected from hurricanes where you are in the country. Yeah. But we do get like really bad rainfall. like We have been getting worse and worse rainfall.
00:09:41
Speaker
in the past couple of years and like, lots of flooding and stuff. So that's not fun, but definitely more manageable than what, you know, what our our friends in the South have been busy. Yeah. Even growing up in Virginia, I sort of grew up with hurricanes as like a sad reality. We didn't get hit as hard as like Florida and the Gulf Coast tends to get hit, but we did get hit. I remember Hurricane Isabel hit pretty hard and it hit just you know far enough north that my family was out of power for a week.
00:10:18
Speaker
so yeah Yeah. Julie made a comment earlier, you know, she's like, glad I don't live in Florida right now. Cause it was hitting right around an area where she used to live, not like the most recent one, but where she, like one of the places in Florida, she used to live. Wow. Yeah. So yeah. Well.
00:10:42
Speaker
Definitely our our thoughts are are with you guys and we're sending out the vibes. We're sending out all of the positive and healing as much helpful vibes as can be sent. We love you guys. oh And on that somber note, let's talk about shame.
Exploring Chronic Shame
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, you will have seen by the title of this episode we're addressing a chronic shame today.
00:11:11
Speaker
Uh, which has been something that I, it was one of the first things that I think I put on our topic list back when we were still brainstorming a lot of things, like more than actually, you know, recording. And yet at the same time, I've been like, Ooh, how do I even talk about it? You know, right um because we're not, and this is also something that we had to ah remind ourselves about today is that we're not here to educate about the psychology.
00:11:41
Speaker
or the sociology, we're here to talk on our experiences and how it's affected, how anything, you know, whatever it is that we're talking about, how that subject has affected us, um how we've dealt with it, how we haven't dealt with it. And just to sort of, you know, one of the goals that we have is to shake off the cobwebs around some of the more difficult topics that people don't talk enough about. And shame is certainly one of them.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah. And it covers so many different, like, aspects of life. And I'm not necessarily sure how much time we'll have for each aspect. And I'm not, I don't even have that. I don't have my thoughts organized in that kind of a way anyway. um I do have notes, but I more so want to try to talk off the cuff if I can. We'll see how that goes. But yeah. Earlier we were talking on the phone and I was kind of telling you how I didn't really know how much I could contribute to this. Like as I usually feel with a lot of the topics that we do, because oddly enough, like as much as people in my life had tried to shame me for things, I never really felt a lot of shame.
00:13:04
Speaker
I never internalized it. Um, I think regarding even church, religious, et cetera, et cetera topics, like things like, obviously I i got pregnant it was as a teenager in like that's humongous, no, no big frowned upon thing. And I felt, I think I felt shame a little bit with, you know, being in church pregnant and knowing people were going to look at me and see me.
00:13:32
Speaker
And then it's cool too, you know, because it's obviously socially like not exactly normal to see. It's not socially acceptable. It's not normal to see a teen pregnant. So there was that, but, um, I kind of just put my chin up a bit and, you know, ignored and didn't think about, I wouldn't allow myself to think too much about what other people might be thinking of me.
00:13:59
Speaker
um yeah that that I can remember. I mean, honestly, it's been how many years, Molly? Right. So 32. So it's kind of weird because like I don't recall instances where I felt really ashamed and like weird and awkward or any of that. The pregnancy was, luckily luckily, it was easy to hide in school because I wasn't really big until during the summer, like before it started again.
00:14:29
Speaker
So there's that. And then like, even as I grew, like, you know, got a little older in church and like the whole thing with, you know, you should not have sex before marriage, um, all the chastity stuff. I and don't know, even, in even not, not even just as a teenager or an older teenager, like even into my twenties and stuff, it was like,
00:14:55
Speaker
I don't know why. i just never you know and I hate to be one of those people that think the rules don't apply to them because I i can't stand people who behave that way. But like I never felt like God was judging me that critically, like that harshly. Because I think like in my mind or in my heart, I felt like God knew me and knew I was a good person. And like these acts can't make me a bad person. you know yeah And you know A, what a blessing for you that you didn't get stuck with like that you know chronic shame and and like the ah you know the way that things happened for me where it became my inner critic, my inner voice that has been the thing I have to contend with even and even when I'm not around the people who criticized me early in life all the time. But like what what a blessing that you didn't have to do that.
00:15:52
Speaker
you know and so like yeah And even when you were subjected to potential shame, ah you know, or attempted shame in certain contexts, like that you let it roll off of you is so fortunate. And I'd i'd love to know like, if it's like, I don't know. I don't know what kind of a topic this would be, but just like the, the facets about a person's personality and how much of it is inherent versus developed over
00:16:24
Speaker
experience and like, it's it feels to me like you but just were born with this inherent like shield, mental shield that is so strong and has protected you and fortified you through all of the shit that you've been through and especially protected you from bullshit like, like shame.
00:16:50
Speaker
um, things that, things that you just simply don't need. Yeah. You know, I mean, I could like, I could potentially point at certain things in my childhood that helped that develop in me, um, that I wasn't necessarily born with it, but like I was neglected a lot. Right. So I had my younger brother who was mentally handicapped and my family basically focused like a lot of their attention on him.
00:17:20
Speaker
and not me. And then you know when you look at kind of the personality type of my mother and grandmother, I mean, my mother specifically, because I wasn't around my grandma quite as much, but um the aloofness,
00:17:36
Speaker
like almost like she didn't care too much about consequences surrounding anything that I did when I was young, really young. you know I'm thinking really, really young, but that that kind of makes you develop an independent um mindset, I think from an earlier age. you know Then you kind of grow up quicker too because of that, because you're like taking care of yourself. you know right So that probably had something to do with it. And like, you know, like we said, we don't want to analyze, like psycho analyze all these things. Talk about that. I'm just guesstimating based on my own history, my own past and stuff, like how I could have ended up like this. There's definitely been things that I've been like unhappy with myself about, but didn't really get down to the point of feeling ashamed of it.
Religious Shame and Personal Growth
00:18:27
Speaker
Like I just kind of look at it and say,
00:18:29
Speaker
I'm a human being, I make mistakes. you know And I like learn from try to learn from something and do better next time around. And that's like arguably the healthiest way to go about it. yeah you know It's the most evolved, mature way to go about it. And like especially the understanding that like mistakes happen, you know um whether that's about yourself or about somebody else. like And that that plays a big role into like my thought processes around this subject today.
00:18:59
Speaker
too. But like, I actually, you're mentioning the, you know, fear and potential shame around needing to show up for church when you were pregnant, as a teen. Yeah. Reminded me of something that I wasn't I, it didn't occur to me that it would apply. And I didn't, I never had any plans to talk about this. But like, I'm gonna talk about it anyway.
00:19:26
Speaker
because of again, who growing up in a hyper religious environment, um sort of skews your understanding of what is actually shameful versus like what's normal and expected. But you know, it's objectively an abundantly normal thing for a teenager to look at porn. Is it encouraged not generally even outside of a religious context? But like, does it happen? And should it be punished and Shamed? No. But again, we're talking hyper religious cultures here, where anything around sex is considered extremely shameful. And I was a normal teenager, and I looked at porn. And I was also ah before this was before I was particularly savvy about anything regarding the internet. So I didn't know how to clear internet history. Oh, and it was found out.
00:20:26
Speaker
Oh, no. And effectively, you know, when, when it came to my mother's attention that I'd been, you know, watching porn, she forced me to go to the bishop about it. And I was a 15 year old girl. And I'm really fortunate in that my bishop at the time was a good man. Right. And, you know, that's an ah abundantly vulnerable position to put a teenage girl in. Yes. My bishop was a good man and he did not.
00:20:56
Speaker
ask for details. He did not pry. He did not, you know, he actually, he really didn't make me feel ashamed. My mother made me feel ashamed about it. But he, you know, I don't remember if it was that my mother said this, and I was afraid of it, or if I just knew that it was a possibility and was afraid of it. But one of the things that I was terrified that might happen was that the bishop might tell me I needed to not take the sacrament for a period of time. yeah And that is something that everyone in the church notices. yeah And some people, some assholes out there are watching like a hawk to find the people who pass the tray along and don't take anything. And, you know, when they see that, they know that that person has been told to abstain from the sacrament for a particular reason, and they are a sinner. And that doesn't necessarily mean that those people would then go up to you and try to like, you know,
00:21:54
Speaker
No, but they could great you, but they could gossip and that's the problem. And so I was terrified needing to go see the Bishop about this. I was terrified that I was going to be told I needed to abstain from the sacrament for even one week.
00:22:10
Speaker
And, you know, and especially because like, even if I could have gone back to my mother and said, he said, I needed to abstain, you know, like she would have understood, but then she would have had to figure out how to explain it to my siblings, why I wasn't taking it, my little, little siblings. And so like, it's like a, it, it could have very easily snowballed into a massive, like public shame the situation in the church, a place that, you know, most people would hope would be a safe environment. right on And I'm fortunate, A, that my bishop was ah not a not creepy man, and B, that he did not ask me to do that. I specifically, you know toward the end of meeting with him, I was like, do you need me to not take the sacrament? And he said, no, you don't need to do that. And so like it just you just reminded me of that instance where I was like, but I think
00:23:08
Speaker
you know, maybe it didn't occur to me because it didn't go that far, but... Yeah, that could have been a seriously shameful... I mean, you were ashamed to your mother. You were, you know... Yeah, but it was at least privately, but then at the same time, like I still, you know, threw throughout my life have felt shame around the subject of porn. Like i I'm very outspoken about sex.
00:23:33
Speaker
in the right company, not around, you know, my elderly aunts and uncles and stuff. Yeah, in the right company. I'm pretty outspoken about being a sexual person, but I still feel uncomfortable sometimes about porn. And it's because of this, because it was directly addressed. You know, I wasn't having sex in high school.
00:23:58
Speaker
That's interesting. But I, you know, because she knew about this, like this was the thing that she, you know, hounded into me that I needed to feel shame about. And so like, you know, even sometimes now I'm just sort of like, I have like the impulse reaction of just like, Oh my God, what if somebody looks at my browser history and it's like, why would anybody doing that on your personal devices? Like, you know, yeah And also fuck them. there's like There's such a thing as privacy. And that's the thing that I, you know, that's a whole thing that I didn't really get to right develop a normal relationship with privacy. I think that there's, you know, a good reason to point out that there is a difference between shame and embarrassment. Yeah. And I actually also wanted to point out the difference between shame and guilt as well. And I don't know how much of these are going to overlap, but like, go right ahead.
00:24:54
Speaker
So like there were times that my my grandmother possibly found something of mine. hu One of the times it was just like a t-shirt that had like a swear word on it and I had a t-shirt made and like I liked the shirt. and like one day One time she came to help me with laundry at school and she just took a bunch of my dirty clothes to the laundromat and she must've found the shirt because I never saw it again after that. and my god so yeah and It was stupid because it was like, ah
00:25:28
Speaker
and But she didn't say anything to you. No, she didn't say anything. And then there was another time, and this is like this is the one that I think is kind of more embarrassing than anything else. I had a video cassette in my my bedroom. I had like the small TV with the built-in VCR at the bottom.
00:25:47
Speaker
And I did have a cassette with porn on it. And i think that I think that my brother went in my room and pushed play and somebody else went in there after him to like go correct the situation. Was that like when you were like a teenager or something? ah No, I think I was probably in my, well, maybe late teens, early twenties, but I lived at home for a short time around that timeframe.
00:26:14
Speaker
and um I don't know for sure, but I feel like it was my grandma, but it could have been, could it be my mom? but I think if it was my mom or my dad, they would have said something to me. But like my grandma, if it was her, didn't say anything to me, but like the the feeling of like panic and like, yeah holy shit. And like, you know, you're embarrassed, but you're also scared and you're also like, all those things. Yeah. Cause there's like, you know, there's the very real fear of repercussions. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's what I grew up with.
00:26:45
Speaker
right you know like and it was it was on every front and so i also want to preface what i'm about to say with the statement that i am not here to bash people and i'm not here to cry and moan publicly about people being mean to me this is not the purpose behind my sharing what i'm going to share right
00:27:16
Speaker
And I have to say that because in part of the kind of criticism that I'm used to getting, and then I got a lot when I was a kid about complaining about what was objectively very valid things and being told that I was, you know, a sensitive, whiny little baby and like, boo-hoo, my life must be so hard.
00:27:42
Speaker
on Like people pulled that shit on me a lot. a lot of it came from my mother. And, you know, if it didn't, like, there were other adults in my life, you know, relatives, etc., who either voiced those things or, you know, made very like passive aggressive comments that insinuated those kinds of sentiments.
00:28:09
Speaker
which in turn taught me to shut up about a lot of things, taught me to not complain. Hell, I couldn't, I didn't feel comfortable complaining about even like being in pain or like feeling sick a lot of the time because I just felt like I was gonna have people roll their eyes at me like Here's Molly having more problems, always having problems. You know, and you know, shame on them because it's not like, no shame. Yeah. and No, I know. Shame is like no pun intended. Honestly, seriously, those were adults in your life. I know. And like, they're trying to make you feel bad for the position that you have, you know, social position, family, whatever, whatever, whatever you want to call it.
00:28:56
Speaker
Yeah. You were, you did not ask to be for anything. I didn't ask to be the way that I am. I didn't ask to be with the family I was in. Exactly. Like none of the circumstances that I had growing up were things that I asked for. Right. And especially, and like, this is, I think the, the biggest, like most looming subject for me.
00:29:20
Speaker
that has, you know, that is encased by shame, that I've dealt with, that I'm still dealing with, and I'm still in therapy for, and was my weight and my appearance my entire life. And that like, the difficult thing too, is that like, it's society as well as individual people in my life. It's society as a whole, that especially in the 90s and early 2000s, valued only stick thin bodies, yeah arguably like frighteningly thin bodies. Yeah. Things have been that way for a very long time. Yeah. And I think it's only been recently where people are more open-minded about body sizes and shapes. People are certainly not talking about, or people are talking about it more than they used to. it not It used to not be something that was talked about because of the shame. That is the most difficult thing to overcome now.
00:30:18
Speaker
because and because especially, even with all the very valid real body positivity movements that are out there, there is still like it's, it's almost shifted away from like obsession with thinness to obsession with health, under the guise of thinking that's more of a healthy top or approach to, you know, the obsession with weight, you know, where it's like,
00:30:48
Speaker
i now I now come back with my mother about you know her just being like, don't you just want to be healthy? It's like, it I might fucking be healthy and you don't know. right Anybody at any weight and any size can have like a clean bill of health and be perfectly fine or not at risk for anything. yeah And just be the way that they are. And I didn't ask for the body that I have. Nobody asks for the body that they have, unless you have so much money that you can just plastic surgery your way to the body that you want. That's a completely different story. And also no shame for those people, if that's what they want, and they're not doing it in a way that like, is harmful, right, you know, in any way, like, fine.
00:31:34
Speaker
have it be happy like that's great but like growing up being told when i was an objectively abundantly averagely sized child like completely completely normal the fact that i was told repeatedly that i was overweight or that i ate too much and that i was never going to be desirable for anyone. That's horrible. It's fucking horrific. And yet it's what I was raised and it's it's affected me in so many ways. like It's honestly like potentially contributed to a bit of hypersexuality. Let's be real here. Yeah, really? Trying to counteract the feeling of like nobody is going to want me with, look at all this proof I'm giving myself that somebody wants me.
00:32:28
Speaker
um it's yeah It's just, and to and to grow up in that environment and then exist for the rest of my life now, as long as I've been alive, I've been plagued with anxiety and hypervigilance and just this fear of like,
00:32:53
Speaker
not being good enough, not being right for, I don't know what for, not being good, not being right, not being correct, and just like at every step feeling like I'm gonna trip over somebody's horrible opinion about what I'm doing or thinking or feeling about any given thing. Like, there was, you know, criticism obviously hinged a lot on my weight and my appearance growing up, but I also kind of felt like I could get in trouble for anything, for any reason, for no reason, at any moment, and it's made me afraid a lot in my life.
Societal Judgments and Cancel Culture
00:33:37
Speaker
And like, I've, you know, I've had to cope with the
00:33:41
Speaker
feeling of yeah in extremely normal situations and like very routine, normal things I've had to feel like, or I've had to fight against the feeling that I'm in trouble. I hate that so much. like Do you remember when I got rear-ended in February? I spent the next week just sick with anxiety feeling like I was in trouble somehow. Yeah. And it wasn't even at fault in the accident. Right.
00:34:12
Speaker
it's fucking bananas and kind of i also there was like another point that i had written down which doesn't originate from my upbringing it actually originates from my college years but it was something that affected me pretty intensely and it's also some also something that i'm working through now where you know i became i i became friends with people on social media and but like was a member of these certain groups that were heavily feminism focused and heavily social justice focused. And it was, at least in the beginning, it was a good place to be. It was a good environment. They were good people to be conversing with and learning from. And unfortunately, there's a lot of toxicity to be found in any circle.
00:35:05
Speaker
And unfortunately, that includes progressive circles. And there were certain people, like there were a lot of wonderful, incredible people that I met in these groups that I'm still friends with to this day. There were certain people who were absolutely obsessed with tearing apart anyone who disagreed with them. that's like And dude it's fucking bullshit. But I'm telling you, like this is,
00:35:33
Speaker
this this is what happened and you know people it's it's not isolated to this group alone because this still happens like it happens on the internet now more than ever you know with cancel culture being such a thing in recent years where people arguably unevolved people emotionally unevolved and ethically and and like socially unevolved people feel that their opinion or their views are sacrosanct and cannot be challenged. And I suppose that, you know, you can be of any political persuasion and feel that way.
00:36:18
Speaker
these people were pretty leftist and made a lot of people feel really bad about anything. Like there was never, never a teaching opportunity for anybody. so It was always just jumping immediately to here's why you're being offensive and here's why I don't feel like I owe you an explanation and it's not my job to teach you and don't make me do the emotional labor. And It's such an extreme. And I can understand certain people truly not having the bandwidth to be able to educate people sometimes, but to, to have that be your shtick every single time. Yeah. And so that's the toxic part of it is is that it's consistently like you're ready to jump down people's throat about something, but you're not ready. You're never.
00:37:11
Speaker
willing to educate. And in my opinion, at that point, you'd be better off disengaging from from the the whole conversation. you know If you can't handle certain people be making mistakes, disengage. But it taught me that it was not safe to have opinions and express them. It's such bullshit. I know.
00:37:37
Speaker
And it's kind of funny to me now that I have this podcast that we work on, and it's almost like a crash course in exposure therapy now, expressing things, especially expressing these kinds of stories where I'm bound to be hurting somebody if the people I'm talking about are listening, you know? And I'm terrified of saying anything that ever would hurt somebody or offend somebody. And I can't live that way. Yep. And this is why I wanted to talk about this. Yeah, because you should not feel ashamed to have feelings. No one should feel ashamed. And emotions and need to express them and talk about them. Exactly. Yeah.
00:38:24
Speaker
And yeah, it's I shouldn't feel ashamed and nobody should feel ashamed. ye And what we need more of in the world perhaps is people who are willing to do the emotional labor that sure, maybe you don't owe that to someone, but you can still give it. you know And if you're not able to handle that, if you're not able to exist in spaces where you're potentially going to be offended and be able to either move on and ignore or speak up and tell someone, Hey, just FYI, you may want to learn about these things and, you know, speak differently in the future. Then those are not spaces for you. And also oh give people, give people the room to grow. Yeah. Give people some grace, dude. Yeah. And especially also like,
00:39:24
Speaker
I think back to Jenna Marbles and how she got bullied off the internet yeah yeah over four years ago now. That's such a good example. like I mean, it's an unfortunate, sad story, but that's- It's terrible because people latched on to some of the earliest videos that she had made where she had said some culturally insensitive things. And she had all already previously apologized publicly and you know in some cases made you know those videos private and or no longer publicly accessible because she didn't like the way that she had behaved and she wanted to be better.
00:40:07
Speaker
And people latched onto only the oldest videos where she said the things that she said and didn't look at the way that she has grown over the years and see that she is not that person anymore. It had been at least 10 years. It's crazy. and she And they made her feel so awful that she withdrew from the internet as a whole. She doesn't even have an Instagram account anymore.
00:40:36
Speaker
And I'm glad that she did what she needed to do, but I'm... so sad that she felt like she needed to do that. Yeah, and she shouldn't have been made to feel so ashamed of prior behaviors or or attitudes that she no longer felt or engaged in. and Yeah, and I don't think she ever genuinely felt any sort of way. Right, right. ah Like, you know, she just made ignorant, she made comments or or said certain things in
00:41:07
Speaker
ignorance of the way that they impact marginalized communities. And, you know, it's not at all that she has ever been a racist person. Right. And, you know, so like, that's the kind of thing where, you know, she, it breaks my heart to think of the kind of shame that she felt with people tearing her apart for stuff that she had already disavowed. Yeah, and I hate it. Yeah, I feel awful. But I hope it sounds like she's doing well, based on I mean, I don't follow Julian Solomita, her husband, as closely, but um it seems like she's thriving.
00:41:59
Speaker
And you know, if she ever hears this, we want you to know, I love you. Your mist, your presence on the internet has been, I mean, your lack of presence, excuse me. Yeah. Has been really horribly noticeable and people want you back. Yeah. It left a gap in my life for sure. Yeah. I always, I religiously watched her videos every week.
00:42:29
Speaker
I'd be really curious to know what she's doing now. Like, what is she doing, you know, as a means of income or, you know, whatever, you know, how she's taking care of herself. I'm curious too. I would imagine that she, that's information she doesn't feel like she wants to share. Otherwise we'd know probably, you know, because she's probably even had Julia not like deliberately not talk about it.
00:42:57
Speaker
yeah And he's pretty, pretty present on the internet. He streams, he posts a lot of videos. mom So yeah, I hope someday that we see her reappear even temporarily just to say hello and give an update. That'd be amazing. Yep. Yeah.
Financial Shame and Education
00:43:19
Speaker
So I was thinking about financial debt and the shame that can be involved with that. like Because i you know as much as I could sit here and say, i don't I'm not a shameful person, I don't feel shame, or you know I don't really get embarrassed easily or any of those things, but like anytime the whole topic comes up about credit it debt and whatever, credit card debt and stuff, it makes me kind of go,
00:43:49
Speaker
I don't want to talk about that. There's a lot of it, and it's like not even on a personal level that that shame is perfect like perpetuated because like society as a whole that views credit debt as shameful you know or as like not good debt. you know which i mean it's and That's the hard thing is that like morality shouldn't be assigned to anything like that. But you know there's people talk about debt like there's good debt and bad debt and I would argue that it should be viewed as there's like useful debt and like easy to manage debt and then there's difficult debt and a credit card and I think it's mostly due to practically predatory interest rates yeah yeah not to mention like the way the interest accrues on um
00:44:46
Speaker
student loans, which, you know, I was fortunate not to have any, you know, I don't know what I'd be doing if I had to deal with student loans myself. Yeah. Oh my gosh. But like, you know, but oftentimes, shame isn't assigned to, you know, the kind of debt that student loans is because it's attached to you. Oh, like you went and got a degree, which like, how valuable is that really? Yeah. And in today's day and age, like, compared to the amount of debt that it puts you in. And we're not, ah like we we keep having to fall back on needing to remind listeners that we're not professionals. We're especially not financial professionals.
00:45:30
Speaker
on And you know to that end, like we're we're both pretty early on in our like financial education journey true because of the fact that that kind of thing isn't taught It's not taught in schools. It's not taught to, to women or girls. And we never had the opportunity to learn ways to handle our finances that weren't going to set us back. And the extent of my like, quote unquote financial education or financial like lessons that I was given growing up was just to be told.
00:46:15
Speaker
that debt was bad and to be avoided at all costs. But like that wasn't even like talked about. It was just like talked around. Because like as far as I understood, like my parents didn't carry debt. They didn't have a mortgage. you know and Every home they owned, they owned outright. And you know they certainly had credit cards. But like as far as I was aware, you know they were paying them all you know in full. and like But they didn't talk about it. They didn't say like, oh, we're paying the credit of cards in full. Like this is how you do this. Like the money was not talked about right in our home. And um yeah I mean, basically I could say the same thing about my family as well. Like they just didn't talk about much.
00:47:04
Speaker
Yeah. Like I don't remember them teaching me how to pay bills. So when I got my house, when I was 23 and I like started having to pay bills on my own, I had to figure it out pretty quick on my own. Yeah. Like I think that maybe I was taught or shown how to write a check, but like otherwise it was, it was never like, this is what a electric bill looks like. Right. And like, here's what you do and you send it in within in the mail and You know, I also had to figure that stuff out while I was in college. Yeah. you know And I think that's insane. It's insane for both of us. Like on both, it's insane, but it's the norm to not talk and teach your kids about that stuff. And then it's insane also that there is still so much shame attached to a lack of understanding or knowledge or a lack of making smarter choices, like
00:48:02
Speaker
to shame people for an education they never received, like to shame people for making choices, whether they're, you know, whether they're doing their best or not, like whether they're like thinking the smartest they can or not, to shame people for accruing credit card debt, or defaulting on loans, or, or, you know, what's the one where you like, postpone a payment,
00:48:32
Speaker
on your mortgage, like those kinds of things. I can't remember what the word is. The one where you like skip your next mortgage payment and it gets added to the end of the mortgage life. I've never heard of that. like it And I only looked into that because of how tight finances have been lately. where And I've not done it before. I've not even and asked about it. I just looked it up. But like it was like my loan right now ends May, 2053.
00:49:00
Speaker
right But if I were to do whatever this action is that I can't remember, but like basically postponing the the loan would be like, I don't owe for the next upcoming month, but then my loan ends June, 2053 instead. Okay. I never heard of that. Yeah. um i The phrase that I'm b blanking on, because my brain is not cooperating, the phrase I'm blanking on, I had heard. I did not know what it meant though, when I had heard it.
00:49:31
Speaker
Okay. So, and I don't think that's, it's not defaulting. Do you know what defaulting is? Defaulting is when you don't pay your mortgage anymore at all, and then they can repossess your house. Oh yeah. That's way worse. Yeah. There was a different word that was used. Defolting on a loan at all is is the same kind of deal. If you if you know if you don't like pay, if you stop paying, then they can come after you legally and stuff like that. Got you. I got you. Yeah.
00:49:58
Speaker
Um, cause you hear that phrase, through this is again, like the thing that like, we don't know these things because people don't talk about it. But like you hear that phrase defaulting on loans and you don't know what the hell it means. Yeah. Yeah. Like this is a major, major problem in society is the shame that is attached to things that is nobody's fault. Like it's not our fault that we weren't taught these things. It was our, you know, previous generations, our parents and grandparents.
00:50:28
Speaker
responsibility to educate us as we grew up. but and you know like I don't know if what the way I want to describe this like applies under that umbrella, but like I think that when it comes to, okay, I have been in a position of having all my credit cards paid off like a couple of times and then I rack it back up again and I like get back in debt again and then I'm like beating myself up like how did I get in this position, you know?
00:51:01
Speaker
And it's like, that shame is like me literally just being mad at myself for doing it again. And it's like, I should know better by now. You know, so I don't know. And like at the same time, like that's, are you shitting on yourself in that instance? You know, like it's the, should you know better? Like you, again, you still weren't taught. Like I mentioned, like we're still in the beginnings of our like financial education journey.
00:51:31
Speaker
like learning about things and making smarter decisions and like making, you know, moves to put savings away, even while we're still paying down debt, like things like that.
ADHD and Its Financial Impact
00:51:43
Speaker
Like we're only in the beginning of that, not to mention the struggle that anybody with ADHD has with finances. That's true. Yeah. ADHD is an absolute money sucking mental illness. Yeah. you There are so many ways in which ADHD charges ADHD facts. Like beyond the whole like not remembering you know how much you're spending and you know getting anxious about how much you're spending but wanting to avoid looking at it um and as well as like you know letting your groceries go bad in the fridge because you fucking forget about them. Oh my god you know the thing for me like like lately that I'm realizing is
00:52:27
Speaker
like losing something and being like, I can't find this thing and I'm just going to buy a new one. Right. Because you need it. Because my clutter in whatever is just overwhelming. Yeah. And that's an ADHD thing for me. so Right. There's so many things about ADHD, even aside from the the money our struggles for people with ADHD, there are so many things about having ADHD that make people feel ashamed. Yeah.
00:52:55
Speaker
Yeah. I feel ashamed when I can't, you know, get my ass off the couch and like finally, you know, do the dishes or do my laundry because I'm frozen. And like, just like that 80, the executive functioning paralysis. Yeah. Yeah. Like, where you like, I want nothing more than to just do these things and I know they won't take long. And once they're done, I don't have to worry about them for like another week.
00:53:25
Speaker
But, like, you can't make your, you put it off for so long because you cannot make yourself do it. And, like, I was taught, like, i I struggled with that even when I was a kid. And, like, I was told that I was lazy. Like, and that's what so many people with ADHD or any, like, yeah, any executive functioning mental illnesses, like, get told they're lazy when it's like, literally, I want nothing more than to be able to do this thing. You don't understand how much I do.
00:53:55
Speaker
and not make myself do it right Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? And like another thing to that point is the whole thing, like I'm tired so much from my job and everything else that I can't put together a meal and cook something for myself when I get home. I can't. And so i'm I'm spending money every single night to like feed me and my son because I have to buy something on the fly when we're out on the way, you know, on the way home, on the way to karate, on the way to whatever.
00:54:30
Speaker
yeah And that's another ADHD tax thing because it's like I'm spending way more money out of pocket on food that if I could you know keep in mind the things that are either A, already in the fridge that are leftovers that I could be eating or B, what stuff John has bought recently that I can use to like make a meal with and have that in my head and be able to use that information to come up with a meal, fine. My thing is, in the i and he doesn't seem to understand this, literally, he can go and buy all this stuff, but I won't know what the hell he bought. and like I can't figure out a meal because he's buying stuff that's either just on sale
00:55:12
Speaker
So it's like without any plan or anything. Yeah. Or he has his own plan to to, you know, for what to do with it. But I, I won't have any idea what to do with the stuff that he bought. And then really what I should be doing is just going grocery shopping on the weekend ah for myself for the week and, you know, having things that, or just make, you know, buying a whole bunch of stuff that I can make one huge meal out of and then use that and like eat, eat that for dinner every every night till it's gone.
00:55:41
Speaker
Right. But I pay the ADHD tax by opting to just buy like pre-made foods, like pre-packaged things that are either just microwavable or, you know, at the most that'll, you know, bake in the oven, like a, like a frozen, like a still-frizzed lasagna or something. Yeah.
00:56:02
Speaker
like that kind of thing where it's just like minimal effort, even if it's maximum time, because sofas lasagnas take like 80 minutes in the oven or some shit. Yeah, it's crazy. But like even still, like it's because I cannot bring myself to stand for 30 minutes in front of the stove and cook myself pasta. like Sometimes I don't even want to do instant mac and cheese because I don't want to sit in front of the stove and I don't want to deal with a pot that I have to wash at the end.
00:56:30
Speaker
yeah like I deal, like I operate so much around that and I spend more on like those pre-made foods, like the the packaged salads from the grocery store and the the packaged lunches, like the wraps and the sandwiches and things, like things that I can just grab out of the fridge in the morning and take with me to work so that I don't end up going out and spending $20 on like a deli sandwich and like, you know, a side salad or something.
00:56:58
Speaker
you know yeah But it's still $20 on one meal, one lunch, you know right one night. Right. I spent $6 on a wrap from the grocery store. They know what I did before that i I wish I had time to do this again, because I drive straight through every day. If I had time, I would like run into this one Kroger.
00:57:21
Speaker
and I would go look in their deli area for their pre-made reps and stuff. And like, usually I could find one that was the manager special that was marked down because it expired that day or whatever. And I could like buy that for $3 or $4 and I could get a two or three things that are like that. And I'd make myself a really nice meal for a lot less than, you know, fricking fast food. Just for instance, Culver's.
00:57:47
Speaker
I go to Culver's, dude. I cannot resist the fricking concrete mixer. So my whole meal at the end is like 20 bucks at Culver's. Honestly, like all like but like restaurants, fast food, like it's all getting more expensive too, which is also not our fault. right you know like And I was also thinking with regards to like than not having the time or energy to cook for yourself and therefore, you know, stopping at like a drive-throughs, you know, just to be able to have something for dinner. Cause I do that too. I want a hundred percent do that. You know, I'm, I'm still teaching myself that it's more important to feed myself than to worry about spending too much money or to worry about or to prefer like just
00:58:42
Speaker
having sleep for dinner. you know like it's It's better for me to put something in my body. And like this is another thing that ties back into like the the shame around weight that is societal more than anything, is that society would look at our budgets and look at our you know decisions to stop at a drive-through three or four times a week or whatever.
00:59:10
Speaker
And be like, here's why you're overweight. That's like, literally, like, ignoring so many other problems that we have no control over. ADHD, you know, cost of the meals, time, energy, like schedules, like, it's, you know, ah completely aside from ADHD. I think if you didn't have ADHD, and but you had the schedule that you have, you would still choose.
00:59:37
Speaker
to, you know, get something from a drive through more often than not because you don't have the time. Yeah. Like it's, it's just a, my blood boils. I can't wait to be retired.
00:59:56
Speaker
I don't know if I'll be able to retire. This is the thing, but I can't even go there right now. a Yeah. But all in all, like,
01:00:08
Speaker
just the shame around finances around ADHD capabilities being restricted and around weight and appearance and everything else that like is so outside of my control.
Overcoming Shame through Self-Love
01:00:24
Speaker
Like I cannot, I cannot even begin to state how angry it makes me. Yeah. And to be subjected to that as well as to have it have gotten into my subconscious, into my my inner voice, and taken over there. Where I can't escape it, even if I like ignore absolutely all discourse going on around me, which is impossible. I can't escape it. And that's part of why I'm trying to teach myself to to think differently.
01:01:02
Speaker
yeah to have you know, to work out of those, work my way out of those thought patterns and work my way out of the like beliefs that have resulted from them. And, you know, not only to feel better overall in like moment to moment, but to, you know, start to turn things around in any area of my life, you know, name it, we've mentioned it, like, to start, you know, nothing's gonna change, you can't shame yourself into
01:01:33
Speaker
like better spending habits or better, you know, health choice habit. it Like you can't, you can't shame yourself into loving yourself. You can't write like beat yourself into loving yourself. Like it doesn't work that way. Right. You got to love yourself into making better choices for yourself. That's about it. Yeah. And if you have spent your whole life not loving yourself because of the chronic shame cycle, that spiral, like you have to change the spiral. You have to stop it and replace it.
01:02:04
Speaker
And that's what I've been working on. Well, I need to do that then too. We're doing it together. together we're doing it together
01:02:18
Speaker
And then the one other thing, the it was pointed out recently to me, I just wanted to make sure I got to mention the difference between shame and guilt.
01:02:28
Speaker
Oh, right. You wanted to talk about the difference between shame and guilt. Yeah. Well, like I don't even have much to say about it other than that it was pointed out to me recently. And I wanted to make sure I stated it so that it's clear where we're coming from when we're talking about shame specifically, because, you know, a lot of people sort of use those two words interchangeably a little bit, or they think that they can be meaning the same thing. When in reality, like shame is basically coming from an external source, whereas guilt is coming from internally. You feel guilt from yourself to yourself. I kind of feel like they're different things though. They are. They're different. They are different things, but I hear it all the time of like people saying like shame and guilt, but it's like I i feel guilt and I don't get traumatized about it. you know I feel shame and I'm traumatized about it. huh um And i I'm sure that there's more
01:03:28
Speaker
There's like a deeper philosophy that exists that we can't even begin to get into, but you know they are they are two different things, but I just hear them too often interchanged or used interchangeably. And you know guilt is often able to be resolved you know based on our own choices. Shame is often about things you have no control over, like we've been saying.
01:03:57
Speaker
See, I was just thinking about the differences and to me it was like, okay, guilt is like when you feel bad that you've done something that hurts somebody else. But then shame is like when you feel bad about something you've done to yourself, so either because of expectations, like societal expectations or family expectations or self expectations or whatever.
01:04:23
Speaker
And then embarrassment, like I brought up before, it was like different than shame, but to me, embarrassment is like, when something happens to you that you had no control over, that's like, and then, and then maybe someone else was a witness to it. And then it's like this embarrassing thing that happened to you and somebody saw, you know, like your pants go down or something. But I think that embarrassment is probably a lot less impactful or rather like less long lasting, the effect of it, you know?
01:04:52
Speaker
Possibly, but I can tell you. Like I think of embarrassment as just like moment, like occasional moments of like, you just goofed up somehow. But like the person who ever witnessed it is not looking at you. Like, I mean, like, I guess like they could be, but like more often than not, like it's not big. You don't feel embarrassment because they're like looking at you like, Hey, you fucked up. It's like, you feel embarrassed because you know that you fucked up and somebody saw it.
01:05:20
Speaker
Yes. Or even you can feel it like within, internally within yourself, even if nobody saw it. It'd be like, oh, I'm so embarrassed to say that, but like, you don't have to admit to it or anything. I have a perfect perfect example of that and this sounds stupid. and i And I just, I've thought about this before and I've talked about it to somebody before, but like I was so self-critical before. i've used I've been so self-critical in the past that Like, as a bus driver, when we're driving, we tend to wave at other bus drivers as they drive past us, right? And it's just a quick little hand thing or whatever. Well, one time, I waved at like a semi-truck driver accidentally, and like because i I don't know why I wasn't thinking, but I just like waved at them. I got so embarrassed for doing that.
01:06:04
Speaker
And it stuck with me for so long. And then one day it clicked, like in my healing journey, it clicked. It was like, what the fuck was I so embarrassed about? Even if he saw me wave, what does he care? He probably thinks I'm just a friendly person.
01:06:21
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? Like, why was I embarrassed that I carried that for so long? And now it's like, yeah, sometimes i so I do wave like at a cement truck driver accidentally or whatever, but it's like, I don't, I don't give a shit anymore if I do it accidentally. It's like, oh, whatever, who cares? But like, why did I carry that guilt or not guilt, but that embarrassment of doing something so benign? Yeah.
01:06:45
Speaker
for so long because the self-critical thing that had been put in me from my family when I was growing up about being, you know, being perfect. Right. Not making mistakes, you know, that kind of dumb shit. So that one thing really... But I think in that way, yeah, I was going to say in that way, like embarrassment is much more related to shame than to guilt, you know, because it's like you can you can equate what you felt as shame over a long period of time over something small. like Even if it was that nobody else knew about it, you know because you there was no other impact. like You didn't tell anybody about it and you didn't know who the truck driver was, so it's not like you would see him every single day and be like, oh no, there's that truck driver I accidentally waved at one time.
01:07:37
Speaker
Like, and then there was like, so there was like one no repercussions to it. But like in that vein, or actually sort of, I don't know, still relatedly thinking about like shame versus guilt. Like I often think of guilt as like the acknowledgement of a mistake being made. Whereas shame is basically taking the road of like, nobody should be making mistakes. You know, like, cause when you're, when you feel guilty.
01:08:06
Speaker
Oftentimes it results in, you know, an apology and making things right and doing differently in the future. When you feel shame, it doesn't matter whether you apologize or behave differently in the future. right Like the shame that you are experiencing is like unforgiving. It's um it's the lack of forgiveness practically. for whereas Whereas guilt,
01:08:34
Speaker
can result in forgiveness. you know you can be You can be absolved of guilt. You can't be absolved of shame. you know
01:08:45
Speaker
Just thinking about that. like I think there is a lot of overlap though. I think there's more overlap than than I realized. I think there can be But I don't think it necessarily is relevant to our purposes. No, I know. I know. I was just thinking about it though. It's like, cause even if, even if I did apologize to somebody about something that I felt guilty for, I can still see myself feeling guilty about it like later on, because i if I hurt somebody. Yeah. But at that point, it so hasn't it evolved into shame? Maybe. Because you're not, you're not able to forgive yourself for it.
01:09:24
Speaker
Maybe I don't know. I mean, I guess looking up dictionary definitions and like you wouldn't call it, you probably would still call it guilt, but like the way that I'm thinking of it. Yeah. I think you're right. Like if, even if the person has forgiven you, if you can't keep, if you can't forgive yourself for it, like that's just shame at that point. Yeah. You know, and, and especially like when we keep
01:09:53
Speaker
mentioning the fact that like there's ah these things that we both you know do or have felt shame about are more often than not things that we've had no control over or didn't ask for. like that like There's no room for acknowledgement of mistakes being made. you know it's like Guilt is very much after what you would consider to be a mistake, but I can't consider my weight to be a mistake. You know, it's like not, it's like, oopsie, I have this body. It's like, no, like I was stuck with this body and everybody in my life when I was growing up made me feel bad for it. Like that's maybe I'm not doing too great of a job of talking about it, but. No, I i get it. I get it. Yeah. I get it. I do. Yeah. Guilt is like something that you did.
01:10:52
Speaker
intentionally even if you didn't intend to the result that you know you shouldn't have or that you know you need to do differently or apologize for. But yeah, like I do i do hold with the belief though that shame is still like originates from external sources and guilt originates from within. Anyway, it's been a very downer of an episode.
Awe as an Antidote to Shame
01:11:22
Speaker
And I didn't want to end it on that kind of a note. And so this Christina, you may remember my realization slash epiphany slash regime revelation, you know, pick your word and that I, this realization that I had earlier this year, you know, when I realized that I needed to deal with this problem of chronic shame and the way that it was impacting me.
01:11:49
Speaker
in every aspect of my life, every day, but like battling against this inner voice. And by happenstance, I came across a podcast that I think I had followed just because the premise looked interesting. And then the very next new episode they published was one that I needed to hear. And this podcast was called, Am I Doing It Wrong?
01:12:15
Speaker
And it's a really interesting podcast. there's They cover an amazingly broad range of of subjects. But the episode that was published was about awe and wonder. Oh, I remember you talking about that. Yeah. And I never did go back and listen to it, but I do remember when you brought it up. You definitely should.
01:12:38
Speaker
You definitely should listen to it. The episode is titled Living in Awe and Wonder with Dacher Keltner. I hope that that's a correct pronunciation. It was published on March 28th of this year, 2024.
01:12:55
Speaker
and or no Yes, it was published on March 28th. I was like i saw ah played it on April 5th, but I'm going to read the description of that episode real quick. We've all experienced transcendent moments in our lives, but is there a science to explain why? This week, Noah and Raj welcome Dr. Keltner, a professor from UC Berkeley, consultant on the Pixar film Inside Out and a full-time wonder researcher to talk about how to see our lives through the lens of awe and wonder. And like the thing that was expressed, I can't remember who it was specifically that said it, but the thing that was expressed toward the end of the episode
01:13:42
Speaker
literally after I had been actively on the forefront of my mind wondering how do I deal with this problem of chronic shame. Somebody said the antidote to shame is awe. Yeah. And they went a little bit into, or actually, well, obviously the whole episode went went into what is awe, what is wonder, and how do we experience it.
01:14:06
Speaker
And so like I had been just listening for 30 minutes of them talking about all the ways to experience this. and then said And then they said, this is the antidote to shame. And I was like, well, now I have an arsenal. Yeah. yeah Because some dots got connected too. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
01:14:29
Speaker
And so now, like, I realized, like, oh, anytime that I worry that I'm starting to experience a shame spiral or that I'm getting antsy or anxious about something that's stemming from shame, I know what I need to do. And it's literally anything thats that bubbles up in you, this feeling of awe, whatever it is, whatever it is for you that does that.
01:14:53
Speaker
is the is the answer. For me, I mean, it's a whole host of things, but like anything experiencing art in any medium at all, like art museums, you know, nature, which I consider to be art, um music, even dance, like, if I can ever get to a point of not feeling like so awkward and embarrassed anytime I dance, like, I will like love to try that and just be like oh like let me just dance and like feel good um but also watching people dance because like that is also pretty incredible um but music in particular i and i now have a playlist on my apple podcast or apple podcast on my apple music account that's i have titled uh classical bangers
01:15:46
Speaker
Hmm. Because I mean, like I feel it with all sorts of genres, but classical music is like on another level, where when I listen to it, I just feel like I'm being washed with emotion and the emotion being awe and wonder and just like, I don't know, there's a there's a real true magic to to music. We're going to have to talk about music in an episode like and not just like music that we love, but like music in the way that it literally is magic. yeah Yes. um But you know, that's one thing where I'll just like, I'll put music on any music, but especially with my classical bangers like playlist and lay down and just listen and just be overcome. And it's literally like there is no room to feel
01:16:38
Speaker
shame when you're in the middle of experiencing wonder at such incredible things as an orchestra playing or a canyon that you're standing at the top of or a tree, you know, just a beautiful tree. Yeah. And all of those things are literally healing your brain and creating new neural pathways. Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:06
Speaker
Exactly. And it also, you know, it it teaches, it sort of trains and redirects your brain out of the shame spiral and the anxiety spiral. Oh my God, it's so impactful. That episode of that podcast changed so much for me. And it's now, I mean, I'm still integrating, you know, I feel like I'll be integrating forever. But like, that's one of the things that I was just like,
01:17:32
Speaker
Damn, here i it's it was it was a very cosmic moment where the universe listened to me and said, here you go. Here's what you need. That's awesome. Yeah. This has been, I hope that it feels like we have ended the episode on a uplifting note after quite a bit of a downer of subject matter here.
01:17:58
Speaker
I think the point though is you got to find joy. You got to find things that bring joy and you got to rebel in those things and wash yourself with them. Yeah. Yeah. And just marinate in it. Absolutely. No, it's true. And also just have the inherent understanding if nobody's ever said it to you before, that shame is not serving you.
01:18:21
Speaker
if it's causing these bigger problems. And there's no reason, nobody nobody has the right to make you feel ashamed. for whatever For whatever it is that you're feeling that way about, nobody has that right. And so we just wanna leave you with that that understanding and that thought that you are perfectly good as you are.
01:18:45
Speaker
So, yeah. Only learning experiences. Only learning experiences. Like that, like that if you take that approach to life and understanding that mistakes are going to be made no matter what, you know, it becomes, it's ah it's an exercise in self forgiveness and self grace. And it's hard to do, but it is possible.
01:19:09
Speaker
um And I hope that it, I hope that somebody feels helped by that thought. We have had a great episode today. I feel good about it. Yay. Me too. Yeah.
01:19:24
Speaker
We are very grateful that you are here. We would be so grateful if you went over and followed us on our Instagram. ah who we We are on Instagram at the Soul Pod the podcast.
01:19:41
Speaker
ah We would also be grateful if you followed us on Spotify or Apple podcasts, wherever you're listening. Give us a follow, keep checking in. We post every Monday, a new episode every Monday, and even occasionally we're going to drop a random bonus episode. No guarantees, no promises, but sometimes we've done it before. We'll do it again.
01:20:03
Speaker
oh Also, if you have any thoughts around this subject or anything that you listen to us talk about and want to share, if you have stories you want to share, um you can email us directly at soulpodthepodcastatgmail.com.
01:20:22
Speaker
And also if you are okay with your story being shared on a future episode, please notify us. We don't want to share anything unless we know and have permission. right um So keep that in mind, but also never send anything feeling like you have to have it be read. You're welcome to email us privately is what I mean.
01:20:46
Speaker
um And yeah, and if you want to write us a review and leave us a five star rating, uh, that would be absolutely wonderful. Follow us, share and like. but Yeah. Smash that follow button. Um, but yeah, we're grateful for you. We're so happy you're here and we're happy to be here and we hope you have a beautiful day and week.
01:21:14
Speaker
and we will be back again next Monday with a new episode. We love ya. Love ya.