Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Enlighten Up the Hilarapy podcast with Lizzie Allen and Karina Lauren.
Speaker: We take hard topics, throw them up in the air and dissolve them with laughter.
Speaker: Each week we feature a comedian from the Hilarapy course and we discuss topics from their set.
Speaker: From sexual shame to getting older, we tackle it all with humor and heart.
Speaker: Our goal is to awaken the masses, promote love and increase connection by dissolving shame, all while making you laugh until you pee your pants.
Speaker: So let's enlighten up and get started.
Speaker: Hello, hello, and welcome to episode five, season two.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Or should we say it the other way around?
Speaker: Season two, episode five.
Speaker: Two, five, five, two.
Speaker: This is hard to believe.
Speaker: I almost say this every episode.
Speaker: I'm like, I can't believe we're still here.
Speaker: Do you really mean that, though?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm impressed with us.
Speaker: I mean, I don't want to say this lightly, but I think you and I are...
Speaker: Like distractible crows sometimes.
Speaker: There's something shiny over there.
Speaker: I'm going to get that now.
Speaker: Is that glitter?
Speaker: Huh?
Speaker: Huh?
Speaker: Who said that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But we set out on a mission and we were both aligned and we were like, let's do it.
Speaker: Did you just see that flash of light?
Speaker: Yeah, I did.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: That's almost like a frequency change, but one we can both see.
Speaker: So you popped on the group chat yesterday and said you've got a ghost in your house and it's friendly.
Speaker: And would we come around and talk to it?
Speaker: I mean, here's what I find interesting.
Speaker: I didn't actually ask any of you to come around to talk to it.
Speaker: I said, do you guys know someone?
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Who could come to my house and talk to the ghost.
Speaker: And you know what happened?
Speaker: Suddenly everyone's like, yeah, us.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I was like, well, I'll come and film you.
Speaker: Like, no, no, this is not a joke.
Speaker: I said, I don't need any clowning around.
Speaker: Why is filming clowning?
Speaker: Because you know what?
Speaker: It's going to turn into a comedy.
Speaker: Not really.
Speaker: I could just capture the experience of whatever you were talking about with a ghost.
Speaker: And then you went, I don't want a camera.
Speaker: So I said, right, I'm not coming then.
Speaker: I don't do ghosts.
Speaker: I guess suddenly you went from, I'll come, I'll bring a camera to, I don't do ghosts.
Speaker: No, I didn't say, I'll come, I'll bring a camera.
Speaker: I said, I can film it.
Speaker: I was offering my services, but you clearly went, no, cut you off at the stalk.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: I don't want to come anyway.
Speaker: You do your thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I have a spirit in the house and it's friendly.
Speaker: But you just said it's gone.
Speaker: Well, it might be gone.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I got home last night and I felt...
Speaker: That it was empty.
Speaker: Maybe you just farted one day and now the wind has gone.
Speaker: All wind has been sucked out of the home.
Speaker: I want to talk about we had a weekend.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: It was my birthday weekend, November the 2nd and Ellen's and five girls and
Speaker: nay, women, went up to Whistler for a riotous sober weekend.
Speaker: And we got up to all sorts, I have to say.
Speaker: There was hot tub madness.
Speaker: Me and you got a spray tan for I don't know who.
Speaker: Just for us.
Speaker: For us.
Speaker: Just so we could look like we've just come back from Mexico or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We wanted to parade our beautiful bodies in the...
Speaker: In the grisly November weather.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Like give us a bit of, I don't know, fake vitamin D and sunshine.
Speaker: I don't know what's happening, but it was worth it.
Speaker: And then we went out dancing.
Speaker: We went to a legit club in Whistler called Garfinkel's, if you've been there.
Speaker: Yeah, it was bad.
Speaker: Yeah, there was... You know what I started to think, though?
Speaker: Was there a lack of vibe in the club?
Speaker: Because I haven't been to a club in a while.
Speaker: Well, I guess I have, but I was like, is there a lack of vibe in the club, or is it just...
Speaker: we don't drink or do drugs anymore.
Speaker: So we're very aware.
Speaker: No, it wasn't that?
Speaker: No, definitely not.
Speaker: No, the music was off.
Speaker: The DJ was... It was some good music.
Speaker: Yeah, but it wasn't mixed well.
Speaker: It just, you know, it would just leap from one kind of sort of frenzy to the next.
Speaker: And it didn't make sense.
Speaker: There was no continuity or anything.
Speaker: And it would just like, the dance floor would empty, then it would fill, then it would empty, then it would fill, then it would empty.
Speaker: And it was just like, there was it.
Speaker: And everyone in there was about 11 years old.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm okay with young people, but they weren't the coolest young people.
Speaker: They weren't cool.
Speaker: They weren't cool at all.
Speaker: And you know what's weird?
Speaker: Every time I go in the bathroom, groups of two or three women would go into a stall together.
Speaker: What do you think they were doing in there?
Speaker: It might have been a little cocaine habit.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: Do you think so?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Maybe they were like sharing makeup tips or something.
Speaker: I think you should try your shirt on like this.
Speaker: No, a hundred percent.
Speaker: They were doing drugs in there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I knocked on the door and I was like, Hey guys, is there anything you could share?
Speaker: What's happening in there?
Speaker: I'm kidding.
Speaker: I didn't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I had this, I decided that if I went like right before we left, I made a decision.
Speaker: I never told you this.
Speaker: I decided if I go to the bathroom and someone's vaping in there, I'm going to ask to try it.
Speaker: That's what I just said.
Speaker: Okay, I just want to tell you at home, listeners, before we even went out, Karina announced with the most serious look on her face, by the end of the night, I'm going to have switched my shirt with somebody.
Speaker: Yeah, and I did try.
Speaker: She did try, and it was sort of like, because it was like the lamest club ever and the lamest attendees ever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It just didn't pan out for you, did it?
Speaker: No, and people weren't drunk enough.
Speaker: And we weren't there late enough.
Speaker: Well, if they're snorting coke in the bloody bathrooms, they're not going to get drunk enough, are they?
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: Anyway, but also I want to tell you at home that Karina got on the freaking monster energy drink and it was like, have you ever seen that candy, that candy floss girl?
Speaker: There's this like reel or like video of this little girl eating candy floss at a game and suddenly her face changes and she goes, okay.
Speaker: like that she has this full-on like sugar gun that is exactly what happened to you you started just like your eyes went wide as the like freaking sugar and the caffeine hit your veins then you just sort of put your eyes popped open you dropped down below the table you pop up again you were like you were just like yeah you were on one it was
Speaker: I couldn't stop laughing.
Speaker: I was dying.
Speaker: Let me tell you, Monster, hell of a drink.
Speaker: Hell of a drink.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Like that is, can't do drugs anymore.
Speaker: Can't do, can't drink nothing.
Speaker: It is drugs.
Speaker: But Monster is about as close as I could imagine getting.
Speaker: That stuff was like, I go to the bar and I'm like, yeah, what do you have with caffeine in it?
Speaker: He's like, oh, well we're sponsored by Monster.
Speaker: So we've got this, you know, fruit punch Monster drink.
Speaker: And I was like,
Speaker: Yeah, give me that.
Speaker: Lots of ice, right?
Speaker: Oh my God, when that hit.
Speaker: Holy hell.
Speaker: I was just like, it was like,
Speaker: Yeah, she was like a top spinning.
Speaker: And I was just watching her.
Speaker: She'd just like leap up and then just walk off onto the dance floor and start like dancing.
Speaker: And then I just got this image of you as a drunk person, just like being a freaking nightmare.
Speaker: Like, obviously, by the end of the night, if we'd gone out together, we would have lost you.
Speaker: You would have just disappeared.
Speaker: No word.
Speaker: Then you would have turned up at the house, probably no purse, no coat.
Speaker: Who drove you back?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, very accurate.
Speaker: Actually, very accurate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I could see that just from a sniff of Monster Drink.
Speaker: You freaking lost your mind, mate.
Speaker: I was like, thank God we can talk some sense into her and get her home from this.
Speaker: Oh, good Lord.
Speaker: But yeah, no, it was a great night.
Speaker: And we came home and we made...
Speaker: Because I hit 5,000 followers on Sunday, so we wanted to prepare, didn't we?
Speaker: And made a video, a reel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And by the way, okay, we have to come back to this because by the time this drops, you know you're probably going to be up at 7,000, 8,000.
Speaker: So we'll get there.
Speaker: Oh, I'm hoping to be at 10 by then.
Speaker: Okay, all right.
Speaker: Let's drop it for 10,000.
Speaker: But 5,000, your milestone, what did we do?
Speaker: We got some bubble bath and we put it in the jacuzzi tub and we made the bubbles go freaking miles high.
Speaker: And at midnight when we got back from our sober clubbing, I got into the bubble bath and I'm topless.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: A bit racy.
Speaker: Were you actually?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: You didn't tell me I was getting a tub with a naked person.
Speaker: I thought we were suited up.
Speaker: Oh, for God's sake, shut up.
Speaker: Okay, so yeah, you're in there topless.
Speaker: So I'm in there topless, right?
Speaker: Completely concealed in a completely British way.
Speaker: And we're making these funny videos of like, ooh, I'm just taking some self-care.
Speaker: This is for the ladies who follow me.
Speaker: And then I disappeared into the bubbles.
Speaker: And then Karina and Ellen are hidden at the other end and they pop up like...
Speaker: oh i'm at 5 000 and then they come over two more no 5 000 and two oh yeah yeah because we're the 5 000 first and second followers yeah which is silly really because you're not even on instagram yeah exactly
Speaker: Creeping around in the bubble bath.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was super fun.
Speaker: You know what I love about the trip is I've done women's trips before and I've done them sober too, but this one really landed in a different way because in addiction, I would go to on these girls trips or whatever.
Speaker: And it would just be like the whole purpose of it was to get totally drunk and stoned.
Speaker: Like what?
Speaker: Huh?
Speaker: And sure, there was deep conversations to the level that I could have them at at that time.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But this trip was just so beautiful because we we span the spectrum of.
Speaker: laughing till we were crying pretty much, going out dancing, having the best time.
Speaker: But also on the other side of that, we did like the intuitive, Deneen, incredible intuitive reader, did some readings and clearings for us.
Speaker: There was tears.
Speaker: Yeah, we all took it in turns to share what was up for us in our hearts.
Speaker: And I think every single one of us cried and was seen and witnessed by one another.
Speaker: And that felt really connective.
Speaker: And because you and I and Ellen had ended up going on a walk before that clearing and I had been laughing so freaking hard and I was listening to you guys do yours and I thought to myself, I don't have anything.
Speaker: I'm just so happy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because, but then I just, and then I was like, but what's up for me?
Speaker: And then I was like, well, I'm going away and I'm, I feel like, you know, I have,
Speaker: I've been moving my whole life kind of thing and I don't want to lose what I've built here and all of that stuff.
Speaker: And yeah, so I kind of got to clear some of that old trauma away about around not belonging and stuff like that.
Speaker: And, and it was just like wild and, and you brought up some stuff and Ellen brought up some stuff and Siobhan did.
Speaker: And then I did a little reading for Deneen and just like she, you know, she dropped into her heart space and we all had our turn and,
Speaker: And it was really cool, wasn't it?
Speaker: It was really cool.
Speaker: Because actually, I also felt like you.
Speaker: Like we had had such a good walk that I was feeling really good.
Speaker: The only thing was my stomach hurt and had been for two weeks, right?
Speaker: So I just thought, oh, well, we'll just clear that.
Speaker: I did not expect it to go so deeply emotional.
Speaker: Like I was like, oh shit, maybe...
Speaker: Because I actually think that's, I truly believe in the metaphysical connection with the physical stuff.
Speaker: But sometimes it's like, oh, no, everything's good.
Speaker: I'm content.
Speaker: And then someone could just pull a little string, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And next thing you know, you're like, oh, God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That brings up something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, which is actually what I find with the Hilarapy class as well.
Speaker: Like, oh, what an incredible course.
Speaker: Like, seriously, listeners.
Speaker: Oh, hilarity.
Speaker: What's the status of the status status of this?
Speaker: Well, can people still sign up to do the course?
Speaker: Cause a hundred percent advise it's incredible.
Speaker: Well, as you know, we're doing the hilarity recovery project, you and I, in this particular course, and we are, um, nearly finished that course, but then I'm taking that onto the road.
Speaker: So my plan is to
Speaker: to do the HRP on the road in America, right?
Speaker: So teach people in through America, through the recovery communities, create lights shining for the recovery movement.
Speaker: Say, look, we're here.
Speaker: We're having a great time.
Speaker: Don't be afraid of a good time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now, here's the thing.
Speaker: I actually had a spiritual revelation on the drive back down the mountain because I was driving the minivan, right?
Speaker: And
Speaker: I had a dream when I was eight or 10, I was driving a minivan down a country road with friends in the back when I couldn't drive.
Speaker: And it was very symbolic.
Speaker: And I remember it really clearly how I felt full of joy, adventure, love, excitement, happiness.
Speaker: And that's how I felt driving back down the mountain after that amazing weekend with all my friends.
Speaker: And not all my friends, I've got more friends.
Speaker: Please.
Speaker: Please.
Speaker: I've got friends enough to fill a train.
Speaker: A very long one.
Speaker: Anyway, I realized, hey, I should go around America in a minivan and wrap it with HilariP Recovery Project.
Speaker: And I could put dash cams in it.
Speaker: And then when you guys come down, I can pick you up from the airport and you can come and perform with me.
Speaker: But also I could put dash cams in and interview people while I drive.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And the whole thing has a wrap with HRP and we could even put speakers on the top.
Speaker: So when we come in, it's like an ice cream van.
Speaker: And it could be a whole freaking thing.
Speaker: People could be like, I saw the HRP van.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: It was like a rev, it came to me like, like, yeah, this is what, this is what's going down with that for sure.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: You guys heard it here.
Speaker: Revelations.
Speaker: This is what happens when you get 1% more enlightened every day.
Speaker: Well, that's a lot.
Speaker: That's a fast.
Speaker: You'd be like fully floating at 99 days.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: It doesn't work that way.
Speaker: No, because you regress then goes up.
Speaker: Yeah, okay.
Speaker: I think it's fine.
Speaker: You work towards getting 1% more enlightened.
Speaker: Hey, I've got a theory.
Speaker: What if you kind of flashed into full enlightenment and then regressed back into, I think that's kind of what happens.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like you get like a flash of like your interconnectedness with all that is you get the realization of your spiritual oneness, your amazing connection with all.
Speaker: Look at your face.
Speaker: I just had one right now and now I'm back.
Speaker: Exactly, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, but you've, I think we've both had situations where in meditation or whatever, there's been moments.
Speaker: I had moments with drugs, but I wouldn't say that I've had bliss moments with drugs, but I wouldn't say that I've ever felt enlightened.
Speaker: I didn't even know what that meant.
Speaker: I wasn't exploring that.
Speaker: You were really shut down though.
Speaker: I was very shut down.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: No, things were buried deep, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But that was safe for you, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But I have had moments in sobriety and meditation where suddenly I
Speaker: It's like I'm just spirit and everything goes away.
Speaker: And it is like pure peace, pure divinity, pure bliss.
Speaker: And then I come back.
Speaker: And then you blur a little bit.
Speaker: Have you done that?
Speaker: Like, I don't know.
Speaker: It's like everything blurs.
Speaker: Like it's sometimes when, you know, when someone gets up and shares something really profound in a situation, like, yeah.
Speaker: any situation, somebody sort of, and what they're saying is so true on a fundamental level that the reality blurs a little bit for me.
Speaker: And then I suddenly kind of go into almost like a zone.
Speaker: And then I'm like, oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We can do anything.
Speaker: We're powerful beings.
Speaker: And this whole thing, like stepping outside of the matrix, everything that's going on and all these collective thought patterns and everything that people kind of hook onto and then kind of buy this mega story of misery, doom and gloom.
Speaker: It's like,
Speaker: No, not for me, thank you.
Speaker: I'm just going to unhook from that and stand back a little bit.
Speaker: And wow, what an adventure.
Speaker: It's me on a country road of life driving a van with friends in the back.
Speaker: But they weren't discernible friends in my dream.
Speaker: They weren't anyone I knew.
Speaker: It was just friends.
Speaker: And that's what it is.
Speaker: Everywhere we go, Karina, everywhere we go, I expect to be met with love and friendship, and it has always been my experience.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: My little chant, my little mantra is everything is always working out for me.
Speaker: Done.
Speaker: I didn't invent that.
Speaker: I heard someone say it and I went, yeah, everything is always working out for me.
Speaker: Isn't it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: I just wake up every morning and I expect everything's going to always be working out for me.
Speaker: I have perfect timing, divine timing, and bada bing, bada boom.
Speaker: Holy smokes.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, we better, we just roll.
Speaker: We looked at the time and we thought, wow, we better introduce our first comedian or the comedian of the episode, which is Christopher.
Speaker: Now, Christopher is, well, I'll let Christopher tell you who he is because he's a pretty special guy.
Speaker: Now, welcome to the stage, Christopher.
Speaker: Christopher!
Speaker: Hello, everyone.
Speaker: What a great night.
Speaker: I mean, the comedians that we've had out here tonight have just been fantastic.
Speaker: And yes, I mean, Lizzie did mention to me, I guess our previous show, I was supposed to do about an 18 minutes.
Speaker: Well, I had planned on doing 18 minutes.
Speaker: And then I had to cut it down to 13.
Speaker: And then at our pre-cast discussion, I'm down to 10.
Speaker: So, but, so I got up this morning and I thought, well,
Speaker: I was feeling fairly confident with regards to my set, but I thought, I'm gonna go downstairs, my wife's cradling her cup of coffee around the island, and I thought I'm gonna do my 10-minute set.
Speaker: So I went down, Linda, do you mind?
Speaker: And she said, oh, no, go ahead.
Speaker: So I went through it, and not much of a facial change, but when I got to the end, she looked at me and said, well, Christopher, it's supposed to be comedy, isn't it?
Speaker: And I said, well, yeah, it is.
Speaker: And she said, but where are all the funny bits?
Speaker: So...
Speaker: You've been forewarned.
Speaker: My wife's a great judge of character.
Speaker: I mean, she did marry me, but hopefully for your sake, she's not a great judge of comedy.
Speaker: Now, my story begins March the 27th of 2020, COVID year.
Speaker: It was two o'clock in the morning when I awoke to a fantastic display of fireworks, only to open my eyes and realize it was all in my head.
Speaker: I had had a stroke.
Speaker: So I thought, well, I'm going to roll over and tell my wife.
Speaker: The only problem was I couldn't move.
Speaker: I was paralyzed down my whole right-hand side.
Speaker: And I know my walking boot's on the wrong foot, so I'm going to be messing up my kind of movements up here.
Speaker: But so...
Speaker: When we woke up in the morning, I decided, well, I've got to get the day going.
Speaker: So I struggled and struggled, and finally, I was able to roll myself out of bed.
Speaker: I dragged myself across the bedroom floor.
Speaker: Luckily, it was carpeted.
Speaker: And then I had to hop down the stairs backwards with, on my, although it's not a good left leg today, but on my good left leg, hanging onto the banister with my good left arm.
Speaker: So I got all the way down to the bottom.
Speaker: And I glanced over, and I'm going to stop there for just a second, but in our foyer, we have a picture, a two-foot-by-three-foot picture of our deceased bunny, Buddy.
Speaker: And he's been a fantastic... Oh, he wasn't deceased when the picture was taken.
Speaker: I mean, he was alive and hopping.
Speaker: But, so I kind of glanced over at Buddy, and there was Buddy, and he had this strange look on his face.
Speaker: And I thought, oh, gosh, I better reassure him that everything's okay.
Speaker: So I looked at him and said, but...
Speaker: I thought, oh my gosh.
Speaker: Besides being paralyzed down my whole, well, right-hand side, I mean, oh, this is my right-hand side, but my whole right-hand side, I had lost the ability to speak.
Speaker: I thought, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do?
Speaker: And that's when my, I mean, we all have this primitive brain, and it's not just mine.
Speaker: But my primitive brain kicked in, the fight or flight.
Speaker: Or, as we talked about earlier on last weekend, the stay put.
Speaker: So I thought to myself, what am I going to do?
Speaker: I've actually got, I've got to, well, I thought I've got to get to the office.
Speaker: I've got to collect my thoughts and try to figure out what to do.
Speaker: So my usual, well...
Speaker: My wife's still at home, so I said, in one syllable, bye, and that was it.
Speaker: And off I went.
Speaker: So my usual 10 minute walk to the office along a beautiful forested trail took me over an hour because there I was, I was dragging my right leg, and I thought to myself, I mean, this is gonna take forever.
Speaker: And then I thought, well, I'm gonna do that swing step.
Speaker: So I'm doing this.
Speaker: And I thought to myself, hopefully nobody sees me because they're going to think, didn't Christopher make it to the bathroom on time?
Speaker: And then I thought of somebody, I mean, everybody in this audience knows this person.
Speaker: I mean, he's probably one of Canada's most recognized...
Speaker: individuals, Terry Fox.
Speaker: I mean, Terry lost his leg to cancer, but he was able to run halfway across Canada on one leg.
Speaker: And it turns out to be on his left leg too.
Speaker: So, so I thought, well, I'm going to incorporate that.
Speaker: So it's the double, well,
Speaker: Sorry about these legs, but it's the double hop skip technique, or as I coined it, the foxtrot.
Speaker: So I got to the office, came in through the front door of my office, and actually I haven't introduced myself, have I?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Well, I'm Christopher, and I'm a dentist who's been practicing dentistry for 37 years out here in beautiful White Rock.
Speaker: All 37 years out here, so I'm a White Rock person.
Speaker: And, well, I mean, half of you are probably looking at me thinking, gosh, he looks so young.
Speaker: And the other half of you would be right.
Speaker: Only my esthetician who actually arrived just a few minutes ago to see Sarah's set knows my true fountain of youth routine.
Speaker: Now us dentists, we're a strange lot.
Speaker: We have some bizarre idiosyncrasies.
Speaker: But we also hold some fairly prestigious positions on some of the lists that are compiled by the province of British Columbia's health division.
Speaker: Like, we're number two in divorce rate.
Speaker: And we're number three in suicide rate.
Speaker: and we're in top five for substance abuse.
Speaker: Now some of you are probably thinking to yourselves or turning to the person next to you thinking, who the heck in the right mind would want to become a dentist?
Speaker: Well, during the rest of this monologue, I'll be able to tell you probably three really good reasons why it's not a bad profession.
Speaker: So here I am, I've made it to the office doing the foxtrot.
Speaker: And so I come in through the waiting room door and the phone's ringing.
Speaker: I thought, oh gosh.
Speaker: So I just let it go to voicemail.
Speaker: I mean, I'm exhausted.
Speaker: I mean, I've done the foxtrot all the way to the office.
Speaker: So I think to myself, well, this is probably as far as I'm going to get.
Speaker: So I prop myself up onto the...
Speaker: the waiting room bench and I got my right leg over my left leg and this arm back here and I've got the office portable phone in my hand and the phone rang.
Speaker: So I answered it.
Speaker: I mean, it's COVID, I mean, I'm still working.
Speaker: I'm the only one in the office working.
Speaker: I had to fire everybody, which was just a horrendous situation.
Speaker: So I'm the only one there.
Speaker: And so this lady calls.
Speaker: I mean, she's had quite an extensive amount of dentistry done.
Speaker: And she was just calling to inquire whether, well, what was the next phase of treatment?
Speaker: What length of time it would take?
Speaker: And possibly how much discomfort she would encounter, if that's the right word.
Speaker: And luckily for her and for myself, I was able to answer all of her questions with strategically placed yeses and nos.
Speaker: But it would be, yep, nope.
Speaker: And by the end of the conversation, I think she became quite suspicious that something wasn't right when she finally asked, Christopher, Dr. Brooks, are you sure there's nobody that I can call that can come to the office that can help you?
Speaker: And I said, no.
Speaker: So the call ended.
Speaker: And I leaned back, sigh of relief.
Speaker: Oh, I dodged that bullet, as Gian said.
Speaker: I mean, phew, dodged that bullet.
Speaker: Well, or so I thought, because within five minutes, three RCMP officers come into the office.
Speaker: The lead officer sits down on the bench next to me, and the two other gentlemen say, well, we're going to look around.
Speaker: I thought, look around?
Speaker: So the lead officer starts asking me these questions.
Speaker: Well, first of all, he says, Dr. Brooks, we're here making a wellness check.
Speaker: Are you okay?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, really, how was he to know that there was something wrong with me?
Speaker: I mean, how does he know that I'm not normally paralyzed down my whole right-hand side and can't speak?
Speaker: I mean, he doesn't know.
Speaker: So luckily for him and probably for myself, I was able to answer all of his questions with strategically placed, yep, no.
Speaker: And then the two officers came back.
Speaker: They said, yeah, we looked around.
Speaker: I mean, I could hear them in the back, opening cupboard doors, shuffling about, shutting cabinet doors.
Speaker: And the taller of the two lead officers, or the other officers, said, yep, there's nothing in the back that he can take that won't cause him any harm.
Speaker: And they left.
Speaker: I thought, my gosh, are these guys delusional or what?
Speaker: I mean...
Speaker: I mean, didn't they go through my medicine cabinet where I've got my cocaine, my Mepivacaine, my lidocaine and astrocaine, and then there's my pharmacy cabinet with the morphine, the codeine, and the clonazepam.
Speaker: Now clonazepam, that is an interesting drug.
Speaker: It was originally developed as a treatment for seizure disorders and it was very effective.
Speaker: But in dentistry, now here's one of the good reasons to become a dentist, clonazepam.
Speaker: Now if you go into the dentist, if you're moderate to severely anxious, and if I was to give you one of these pills, clonazepam, within 10 minutes, boy, you'd be feeling great.
Speaker: You'd have no hesitation whatsoever going back into the treatment area, laying down in the treatment chair, and having me poke around with my instrument in your mouth.
Speaker: There's number two, but... Gosh.
Speaker: So, so...
Speaker: But clonazepam did become my drug of choice.
Speaker: 2020, or no, 2014, our daughter was halfway through grade 12.
Speaker: And social media was ramping up.
Speaker: Some nasty things were being said on social media.
Speaker: Catty girlfriends, and I imagine Sydney was probably part of that cattiness too.
Speaker: And also too, boyfriend issues that we had to take her to Peace Arch Hospital because she attempted suicide.
Speaker: And she laid in a hospital bed for three days in emergency in the hallway.
Speaker: They moved her up to the fifth floor, and where she was in the adult psych ward.
Speaker: And luckily, Surrey Memorial Hospital has its own adolescent teenage psych ward, which is a minimum security prison.
Speaker: So you're searched, going in and searched, coming out.
Speaker: And that's where she was for five weeks.
Speaker: So my anxiety got ramped up quite a bit.
Speaker: And I don't know about any of you people here, but I surely wouldn't want to go see a dentist that hadn't slept for three, four, five days, who was going to operate a drill in your mouth that turns at 300,000 revolutions a minute.
Speaker: I mean, I sure wouldn't.
Speaker: So I thought, well, I'm going to pop one of these pills.
Speaker: So I did.
Speaker: And you wouldn't believe it.
Speaker: I had a fantastic night's sleep.
Speaker: But we're all professional here.
Speaker: I mean, gosh, I mean, the shame, the guilt.
Speaker: I thought, no, I slept.
Speaker: I'll be able to sleep again.
Speaker: Well, I didn't.
Speaker: And so the third night, I took a pill.
Speaker: And I slept.
Speaker: Well, you can well imagine by, well, the end of the week, I was taking these pills every day.
Speaker: So from 2014 to 2020, when I had my stroke, well, those six years, every day, taking clonazepam, I seriously think that the clonazepam contributed to myself having a stroke.
Speaker: While I was in the hospital, I had two seizures and proceeded to fracture three vertebrae in my neck.
Speaker: So I would say...
Speaker: The clonazepam broke my neck.
Speaker: So now,
Speaker: In 1982, I was in a serious near-fatal car crash, which I feel caused me to develop a mild but manageable form of dyslexia.
Speaker: When I had my stroke in 2020, that manageability just disappeared and it became terribly unmanageable.
Speaker: I mean, simple words...
Speaker: got all mangled up.
Speaker: Transposing letters, missing out letters.
Speaker: I mean, just for example, my wife, she drives a 2005 Volvo wagon.
Speaker: And, oh, come on, Lizzie.
Speaker: Okay, well,
Speaker: I'll cut out that last bit then.
Speaker: That was one of my favorite parts.
Speaker: I mean, there's Sarah going back to Regina.
Speaker: So there's Linda.
Speaker: She has a car, and it's a Volvo.
Speaker: She's going to take her Volvo and drive it back to vagina.
Speaker: So that's that joke.
Speaker: So of course I'm not allowed to tell that joke.
Speaker: So as you all know, I'm a dentist.
Speaker: So here I am.
Speaker: So this is what I see every day.
Speaker: I do numerous head and neck examinations every day.
Speaker: So we can see all that.
Speaker: And you see that little tag of tissue in the back there?
Speaker: That's called the uvula.
Speaker: Now with dyslexia, if you were to remove one of those letters or change the shape of one of those letters, the word takes on a totally different meaning.
Speaker: So just last week, I had this lady come into the office.
Speaker: She sat down in the chair.
Speaker: And I walked up to her, looked at her and said, open wide, I want to look at your vulva.
Speaker: And she looked a little startled and she said, but Dr. Brooks, I thought I was here for you to look at my sore tooth.
Speaker: I didn't realize I had gone to the gynecologist.
Speaker: Now you guys have been great.
Speaker: Hey, Christopher.
Speaker: Hey, Christopher.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Christopher, Christopher.
Speaker: You know, we're watching it on video and you're just hearing his voice, but hopefully you can hear his jovial, lighthearted looking face, right?
Speaker: He's kind of got a smile the whole time, but he's legit talking about some serious issues.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Deep suffering.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm so glad he's in recovery for goodness sake.
Speaker: If you've ever been to Christopher's dentist as a patient, I hope it was post addiction.
Speaker: Clonazepam?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Clomoxipom.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I wasn't sure.
Speaker: Is this a comedy set or is he just trying to sell me clonazepam because I'm in?
Speaker: Or is it just a terrible confession to get him put in jail and struck off?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It was really cool.
Speaker: He brought up some really big topics.
Speaker: Like, can we just first zero in on...
Speaker: You know, what brought him to seek the use of drugs in the first place was that he was going through some really difficult stuff with his daughter.
Speaker: His daughter was getting bullied at school or online and ended up, you know, trying to take her own life.
Speaker: And then that, you know, had this ripple effect of causing him to be so worried that he started to self-medicate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's pretty heavy.
Speaker: And I mean, it's always hard when our loved ones, child or other,
Speaker: are going through things where we're basically powerless.
Speaker: Like actually I found that even in recovery when friends who I absolutely adore just cannot stay sober, right?
Speaker: And they just, and you're just like watching it like a slow car crash, but you can't take your heart out and give it to them.
Speaker: You know, they have to find their own way.
Speaker: And it's, it's a really challenging thing to go through.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that was, that was really quite something.
Speaker: But now here he is in recovery, you know, expressing this and, you know, finding some humor in the elements of, I mean, goodness me, somebody having a stroke and then not being able to tell your wife for fear that she might not find an attractive husband anymore, you know, like what a situation to find yourself in.
Speaker: The thing is, there's very much so this misconception, I think, with men.
Speaker: And actually, men do it to each other as well.
Speaker: They perpetuate the misconception of you got to be a man.
Speaker: You are expected to be the strong one.
Speaker: You're expected to be the rock.
Speaker: And if any of you have watched the show Curb Your Enthusiasm, there was actually a really funny one where Larry David was dating this woman.
Speaker: And he went to go walk outside to start the barbecue.
Speaker: And he walked right into the glass sliding glass window and fell.
Speaker: And after that, she was not attracted to him anymore because she saw him as weak.
Speaker: That was the whole thing.
Speaker: And he knew it.
Speaker: He knew it as soon as he hit the window.
Speaker: He was like, I knew right then and there it was over.
Speaker: But that's, I think, what men have embedded in them is if I trip up.
Speaker: If I, you know, don't have the strength.
Speaker: And actually you see this in a lot of older men.
Speaker: I saw it with my grandpa when he could no longer fix things in the house because he was losing his functions and his, uh, his strength.
Speaker: He almost gave up on life.
Speaker: It was just like, what am I even here for?
Speaker: I'm useless.
Speaker: My dad is, that's what I think one of his biggest problems is, is that he's getting old and he can't do what he used to do.
Speaker: And then who the fuck is he if he's not doing manly things like moving furniture and all of that stuff?
Speaker: Hey, did I tell you that my dad made an amends to me?
Speaker: And I want to tell you readers at home, listeners at home, my dad, who I might have heard I set a boundary with about two months ago,
Speaker: Back when I was in England, because it was just too difficult to kind of be around his behavior.
Speaker: I set a massive boundary with him and hadn't spoken to him.
Speaker: And I received a letter and he read the letter out on a voice chat and he made amends.
Speaker: He said, I'm really sorry for pushing you away.
Speaker: I've been trying to, you know, I've just been
Speaker: and thank you for waking me up.
Speaker: But it was very humble.
Speaker: He'd obviously been working it through.
Speaker: And now we're talking again.
Speaker: And now we have a relationship.
Speaker: So I'm just so glad that
Speaker: That he pulled through.
Speaker: And that's another testament to recovery.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That my dad dug in, he picked up the tools and he came back and he said, listen, you know, I want a relationship with you and I'm really sorry I hurt you and I'm sorry that I was behaving like that and I'm going to work on it.
Speaker: I'm working on it.
Speaker: And he didn't ask for my forgiveness or anything, but he apologized and I accepted that.
Speaker: It was really a spiritual breakthrough, actually.
Speaker: It was...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he said, and he thanked me for being the ass kicker for him to make overdue and much needed change.
Speaker: Those were his words.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And see, sometimes it's hard to be the person who sets a boundary thinking that's it.
Speaker: It could be over.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And holding loving detachment, knowing that I set a boundary out of love, but this could be it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like if the other person doesn't
Speaker: want to do their part, right?
Speaker: This, this could be over, but what, what you're saying about your dad is like, it's so beautiful because it involves smashing the ego and,
Speaker: And smashing the facade, you know, what we put on like, Oh, I'm cool.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It doesn't matter to me.
Speaker: It's like, it involves like smashing that and actually showing that you are vulnerable and that you are sorry, but you're also vulnerable.
Speaker: hurting inside.
Speaker: And I just think that's really going back to Christopher set, like something he talked about was not only holding this kind of facade with his wife, the police, like walking to work, like he's fine.
Speaker: I mean, this is to the extreme of I'm fine.
Speaker: You know, I don't need any help.
Speaker: I could be dying.
Speaker: But it's fine.
Speaker: Yeah, and you've got to be pretty quick with strokes, haven't you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Some lasting damage if you don't get on it fast enough, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Men.
Speaker: It's okay to be weak.
Speaker: Bloody men out there.
Speaker: Do you hear me?
Speaker: I'm shaking my fist.
Speaker: I'm saying.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Just stop being so strong.
Speaker: It's okay to be weak.
Speaker: It's okay to break down.
Speaker: It's okay for you not to be strong and powerful all the time.
Speaker: At least if you go and fix something at the end of it.
Speaker: Just kidding.
Speaker: You know, tinker a bit.
Speaker: Tinker.
Speaker: Make yourself useful.
Speaker: Don't just sit there like a great lump.
Speaker: But that's the thing is it's almost like akin to women who think their only power is in their looks.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The beautiful woman who starts to get older and struggles with the fact that, oh, no, I'm not going to have my looks anymore.
Speaker: So who am I?
Speaker: What am I worth?
Speaker: It's like if you put all your eggs in one basket for worth, you're either going to have a come to Jesus moment, as they say, where you really need to get over that and get past it and value yourself better.
Speaker: or you, you do start to try to hide it, right?
Speaker: Like you see that with women, with all the injections and trying to like maintain that one thing that is going to make them okay.
Speaker: And so Christopher set was so much like that.
Speaker: Like, I'm okay.
Speaker: I'm okay.
Speaker: I'm okay.
Speaker: Look at me.
Speaker: I can still move.
Speaker: I can still walk.
Speaker: I can still function.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's not just the looks thing that people do or that women do.
Speaker: It's also, it can be anything.
Speaker: It can be being of service, right?
Speaker: Being useful, you know, constantly being like, oh no, I'll do it.
Speaker: I'll do it.
Speaker: I'll do it.
Speaker: That's another thing that kind of happens.
Speaker: And then when you get burnt out and you can't do it and nobody's doing it for you,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, and then it's like, well, who am I if I'm not able to, you know, or work, right?
Speaker: Attaching to your position in the community or your position in, you know, with wealth and things like that.
Speaker: And then that falls away or, you know, or it doesn't work for you anymore.
Speaker: It's so true.
Speaker: It's so true.
Speaker: It's so true.
Speaker: Oh my God, look at us.
Speaker: Or people who- Look at us, we're so intellectual, just noticing all these things.
Speaker: How do we do it?
Speaker: We just do it because we are just tapped in, turned on, and tuned in.
Speaker: And it's just coming straight from the divine.
Speaker: Yeah, we're clearly just channels.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're welcome, listeners, because this is free.
Speaker: I wonder if someone's out there is listening to this right now and they're like getting a light bulb going, oh, I do that.
Speaker: I do that.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: I do that.
Speaker: You're not alone.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, you're not alone.
Speaker: Where do we... Let's own our stuff.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Where do we do it?
Speaker: Well, I definitely have... I think I've come out the other side, but I was really struggling with my looks when I started at...
Speaker: working back in the corporate world like five, six years ago.
Speaker: And I went back and I was like, oh my God, I just cut my hair right off, right?
Speaker: Which I liked.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So I had hair down to my hips pretty much and I cropped it like right up at my chin.
Speaker: And then I go and I work at this very young company and I just felt like Shrek walking around amongst a bunch of young beauties.
Speaker: And I was just like, nobody's even gonna like me.
Speaker: Like I honestly, like it's, it sounds weird to me now, but I honestly believed that people wouldn't like me unless I looked a certain way.
Speaker: Like I hadn't thought that maybe there was something else to me that people might like, you know, or, and I also believe that as I aged,
Speaker: I wouldn't fit in because people also couldn't relate to me or they wouldn't like me as much.
Speaker: And I mean, I've gotten past all of that.
Speaker: And it's so freeing.
Speaker: Because it's your spirit, isn't it?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That animates you.
Speaker: And the terrible thing is, is that when we get in our head about this, and I've been in my head about this, especially when I start comparing myself to...
Speaker: you know, the people around me or whatever I, you know, used to do.
Speaker: We get in our heads around it and we don't, you know, we act differently or weirdly, we shut down a little bit energetically.
Speaker: And then it's like we, nobody can connect with us.
Speaker: So we get the response of the very thing we're projecting, even if it's for a different reason, as in, I can't connect with you because you, you, you're just not looking up and you're not
Speaker: trying yeah or even available for connection and then you just push people away before they can even get close yeah and I've just seen like the the most sort of
Speaker: the people in this world who you wouldn't see on the front of a magazine necessarily, but who just own themselves and own their light.
Speaker: And they just, they are the most attractive people ever.
Speaker: And I, and I just, and I'm just stepping into that more and more myself.
Speaker: Just like, I don't care.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: It's so freeing though.
Speaker: If you don't like me because I don't look right, I don't care.
Speaker: Like where I really, really noticed it was when we went out clubbing, like when we went in Whistler,
Speaker: I wasn't thinking about, I was just there out of pure joy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there wasn't the thought of, oh, I hope I look okay.
Speaker: Or I don't know.
Speaker: I really, like what you said, I really didn't care what anyone thought.
Speaker: I wasn't there for anyone else.
Speaker: That's the freedom is like when you can show up in your own life for yourself out from a place of love,
Speaker: It is absolute freedom.
Speaker: And express yourself.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Just be you.
Speaker: With wild abandon.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: With wild abandon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the response is always just the light turns on in the other.
Speaker: Have you seen that?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: They just go, huh?
Speaker: Who are you?
Speaker: Like fucking who the fuck are you?
Speaker: And I'm like, huh?
Speaker: I'm here.
Speaker: I'm like, it's just a clown.
Speaker: I met this, uh,
Speaker: And I'd first met him through the CEO at the company.
Speaker: So I work at a tech startup.
Speaker: Don't know if I've talked about it.
Speaker: But anyways, this guy, the second meeting I had was just with this guy.
Speaker: And he's like the director of IT or something like that.
Speaker: And I don't know what came over me.
Speaker: We're like talking and whatever.
Speaker: And he goes, yeah, I had to create this account and then wrap it into this.
Speaker: And he was like, yeah, it was really rough.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah, it sounds rough.
Speaker: I was getting bored just listening to you.
Speaker: And then he's like, whoa.
Speaker: And I was like, I'm just kidding.
Speaker: But it was like...
Speaker: I am good in my own light and he knew that, right?
Speaker: So we're just like buddies now.
Speaker: Because when you can just connect with a person, because it's not about a title.
Speaker: It's not about what they look like.
Speaker: It's not about what they do for a job.
Speaker: It's not about any of that.
Speaker: It's like from one light to another, when you see that spark in someone else, at least for me, it always lights me up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you feel safe.
Speaker: When someone's shining their light, you feel safe because you can see yourself in them.
Speaker: Watch out.
Speaker: We're having some spiritual.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Hold up.
Speaker: Yodel lady, yodel lady, yodel lady.
Speaker: Yep, I just did that.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Now we're just jamming.
Speaker: This is our light.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: I'm just so, you know, just so buzzed.
Speaker: So, Christopher, you just brought the thunder today, my friend.
Speaker: I'm so pleased.
Speaker: And I'm really grateful that you found your way into recovery and that you're doing the work that really heals the family system.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good job, Christopher.
Speaker: Good job, bloody Christopher.
Speaker: Good job, no more clonazepam, Christopher.
Speaker: Stay out those pill cupboards, Christopher.
Speaker: All right, squad.
Speaker: Yeah, all right, squad.
Speaker: We'll see you in the next episode.
Speaker: And thank you again for coming on this delightful journey with us.
Speaker: And we see you, we love you, and shine your beautiful light.
Speaker: Shine the lights, sisters and brothers.
Speaker: Always got to have the last word, haven't you?
Speaker: Dear listeners, we are a two-woman shop here, and this is a little labour of love.
Speaker: So anything you can do to show us some love.
Speaker: Our love language is subscribing, sharing on social media, and coming to one of our many shows.
Speaker: And if you're feeling really adventurous, take a course.
Speaker: We're out.
