1
00:00:15,720 --> 00:00:20,280
Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast
where we watch blockbuster movies and psychoanalyze them.

2
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:23,399
My name is Bernie Brownfield and I'm
a child therapist and I'm joined by

3
00:00:23,640 --> 00:00:27,879
Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah
Espinoza, marriage and family therapists. We're

4
00:00:27,879 --> 00:00:32,079
all licensed clinical professional counselors also known
as therapists, who practice out of Chicago.

5
00:00:32,399 --> 00:00:35,880
Even though we are licensed mental health
professionals, this podcast is purely for

6
00:00:36,039 --> 00:00:40,200
entertainment purposes and to fulfill our love
of dissecting pop culture in all forms.

7
00:00:40,399 --> 00:00:43,759
Please remember that, even though we
are all licensed therapists, we aren't your

8
00:00:43,840 --> 00:00:47,240
therapist. If you are struggling with
mental health symptoms, please find a local

9
00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:52,679
mental health provider. Hello. Everyone, So we are finally getting to the

10
00:00:52,759 --> 00:00:56,240
second part of the Lord of the
Rings trilogy, Lord of the Rings and

11
00:00:56,320 --> 00:01:00,759
the Two Towers, and today we
actually have a guest with us, so

12
00:01:00,759 --> 00:01:04,319
I'm gonna have her introduced herself.
Justine, go ahead. Hello. I

13
00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:07,000
love how you called it end the
Two Towers like it was in her daughter

14
00:01:07,120 --> 00:01:14,239
movie A little bit when that happens. I'm doing absolute best, guys.

15
00:01:14,280 --> 00:01:19,040
I loved it. I loved it. Hi, I'm Justine Maston. I'm

16
00:01:19,040 --> 00:01:22,760
a licensed marriage and family therapist and
a licensed to Alcolm drug counselor. I'm

17
00:01:22,799 --> 00:01:26,879
also a sometimes yoga teacher, podcaster, writer, adjunct professor. I have

18
00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:32,599
too many jobs, is what I'm
saying. I am best known as the

19
00:01:32,719 --> 00:01:37,560
Captain of The Starship Therapizze, which
is both a book and a podcast.

20
00:01:38,319 --> 00:01:42,799
If you're interested in the book,
it's Starship Therapized Colin using therapeutic fan fiction

21
00:01:42,879 --> 00:01:47,560
to Rewrite Your Life, available wherever
books are sold. Yes, a real

22
00:01:47,599 --> 00:01:49,799
publishing house did put that book out. And I have a new book coming

23
00:01:49,840 --> 00:01:56,319
out called The Grieving Therapist, Caring
for yourself and your clients when it feels

24
00:01:56,400 --> 00:02:00,480
like the end of the world,
and that'll be available for pre sail in

25
00:02:00,519 --> 00:02:05,519
the next couple of months. And
I'm stoked to talk about Lord of the

26
00:02:05,599 --> 00:02:08,000
Rings. This is very close to
my heart. I'm stoked here. The

27
00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:14,800
first I've heard about this other book
you've written. I require it immediately.

28
00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:21,800
Yes, agreed, same. It
is full of harsh truths and whimsy,

29
00:02:22,319 --> 00:02:28,199
which is like description of me as
a parson. And I wrote both those

30
00:02:28,199 --> 00:02:30,639
books with my collaborator, Larissa Garsky. Yeah, and she was supposed to

31
00:02:30,719 --> 00:02:34,560
join us today, but unfortunately couldn't
make it. But she's with us in

32
00:02:34,719 --> 00:02:39,400
spirit through you, fellow Chicago,
and she is a fellow Chicago and you

33
00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:43,759
you could like see her. Yeah, she is still of this Earth.

34
00:02:45,719 --> 00:02:49,520
She's still earth bound. Yeah,
she's still part of the terrestrial plane.

35
00:02:50,199 --> 00:02:53,960
Well, I mean, Chicagoans think
that Chicago is the Earth, the whole

36
00:02:53,960 --> 00:02:57,240
Earth, the total Earth, and
that everyone here is on Earth and everyone

37
00:02:57,400 --> 00:03:00,280
not is somewhere else because we forget
with it. We are not in fact

38
00:03:00,400 --> 00:03:02,639
as cool as New York, but
we think we are. We think we're

39
00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:07,560
cooler. I was just there in
New York New York Comic Con. Oh

40
00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:10,560
yeah, you're a big time panelists
on a lot of con. Yeah,

41
00:03:10,599 --> 00:03:16,159
I'm like a big time celebrity for
a very small, niche group of people.

42
00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:23,719
Oh yeah, oh yeah, we
love it. So the themes of

43
00:03:23,759 --> 00:03:29,080
today, we're going to be talking
about grief in individuation. I'm gonna stumble

44
00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:31,680
over that a few times, and
then the character of Gallum slashed me gol.

45
00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:35,240
We're just gonna be covering a few
things in regards to him, such

46
00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:43,080
as integrated family systems, dissociation,
and a little discussion about addictive personality situations.

47
00:03:43,599 --> 00:03:46,240
So and then, as always,
we're gonna have treatment and final thoughts.

48
00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:51,360
So as I'm sure anyone who's listened
to our previous episode on the first

49
00:03:51,520 --> 00:03:53,919
part of Lord of the Rings,
you will know that I am the weakest

50
00:03:53,919 --> 00:03:59,439
link in terms of this fandom in
that it's a blind spot for me.

51
00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:02,439
So that being said, I'm going
to throw it to Ben to explain what

52
00:04:02,680 --> 00:04:08,280
this movie is about, even though
I literally just watched it and it's ninety

53
00:04:08,360 --> 00:04:11,159
years old. But that's okay.
I'll be happy to summarize the plotter.

54
00:04:11,280 --> 00:04:15,879
So in the Two Towers, what
happens is this story picks up right after

55
00:04:16,079 --> 00:04:20,319
the conclusion of the Fellowship of the
Ring, where the Fellowship has broken up.

56
00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:29,000
Bourmer has died murdered by Raki,
and we see each of our groups

57
00:04:29,160 --> 00:04:33,480
split apart on their separate versions of
the Quest to Destroy the Ring. Froto

58
00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:40,240
and Sam have taken off towards Mordor, Mary and Pippen have gotten kidnapped by

59
00:04:40,399 --> 00:04:46,360
Orkai, and we see Gimli and
Legolis and Aragorn off to rescue them,

60
00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:51,240
and then they split apart even further, even though once they rescue Mary and

61
00:04:51,279 --> 00:04:57,079
Pippen, Mary and Pippin get lost
and find an ant who helps them to

62
00:04:57,279 --> 00:05:00,439
try to get to safety before they
convince the Ants that the Ends need to

63
00:05:00,480 --> 00:05:08,879
actually go to war because the fires
of Eisngard and the mechanation of war is

64
00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:12,720
becoming relevant to them and they can't
just hide in their forest and take their

65
00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:16,319
time and wait everything out like they
always do. And then we see Frodo

66
00:05:16,399 --> 00:05:23,040
and Sam encounter Gallum, who promises
to take them to Mordor, and right

67
00:05:23,240 --> 00:05:29,680
is Frodo is showing compassion, allowing
Gollum to assume his regular identity as Smigel

68
00:05:29,759 --> 00:05:34,160
for the first time in quite a
long time. Fairmere, dealing with his

69
00:05:34,160 --> 00:05:43,120
own ship, comes in and Is
forces Frodo to betroy or betray Gallum,

70
00:05:43,519 --> 00:05:49,639
which means that Smiegel and Gallum comes
back out, leading Smiegel and Gallum to

71
00:05:49,800 --> 00:05:56,639
betray Frodo and Sam yet again.
And we see this constant cycle of push

72
00:05:56,680 --> 00:06:03,040
and pull, and we see so
much work done for each one of these

73
00:06:03,160 --> 00:06:08,800
members of the subgroups to start separating
out from their previous identities, from their

74
00:06:08,839 --> 00:06:12,639
home races, their home countries,
their homelands, to realize that they have

75
00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:16,199
to be their own people to solve
these problems, and this film culminates with

76
00:06:16,240 --> 00:06:20,720
the Battle of Helm's Deep, where
we see the people of Rohan and King

77
00:06:20,759 --> 00:06:29,160
Theadin recognize that doing things the way
they always had works to some degree,

78
00:06:29,319 --> 00:06:33,240
but can also betray you by trapping
you in a predictable pattern. And I

79
00:06:33,279 --> 00:06:39,720
think that is such an important thing
that can tie into why in this episode

80
00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:45,120
we'll talk about individuation slash differentiation as
a huge part of human development, because

81
00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:47,879
at some point the world you grow
up in is not the same one your

82
00:06:47,879 --> 00:06:54,800
parents trained you for. Yeah,
and so this movie kind of starts with

83
00:06:54,920 --> 00:06:58,439
our first topic, which is grief. You know, quite literally recaps the

84
00:06:58,519 --> 00:07:04,439
death of Gandolf and then Frodo having
a grief stricken stricken nightmare that he wakes

85
00:07:04,519 --> 00:07:13,680
up from in experiencing our capital g
Gandolf staff. Yeah, Gandolf as working

86
00:07:13,680 --> 00:07:17,000
in is the deity figure that comes
in and out of the story, providing

87
00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:25,000
guidance and magic to help solve the
problems in ways that can't be understood or

88
00:07:25,040 --> 00:07:31,360
done by our more earthly races.
Wizards are sort of like angels and oh

89
00:07:31,879 --> 00:07:40,319
Tolkien mythology, Okay, that's why
they're dicks. Sometimes if you're in the

90
00:07:40,319 --> 00:07:44,920
supernatural fandom often angels and dicks.
Well, there's good angels and bad angels

91
00:07:44,959 --> 00:07:47,920
like everything else, not just one
thing. I'm monolith if you will.

92
00:07:49,920 --> 00:07:53,759
Um, Yeah, there's a lot
of I guess where do you all see

93
00:07:53,839 --> 00:07:57,680
grief other than this, like outright
example, how the movie starts. Where

94
00:07:57,720 --> 00:08:01,399
does grief represented for you all?
In the movie? Oh, I mean

95
00:08:01,439 --> 00:08:05,600
it's all over town. Ergorn is
grieving for what he believes is the loss

96
00:08:05,639 --> 00:08:11,240
of his relationship with Rwen, and
the poor hobbits is are all grieving for

97
00:08:11,279 --> 00:08:16,399
the loss of their fellows. And
the big thing that kind of just like

98
00:08:16,519 --> 00:08:18,959
hit me in the face watching it
this time, all four hours, just

99
00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:28,959
just a little bit ago, was
Marion Pippins, specifically their grief around the

100
00:08:30,399 --> 00:08:35,200
loss of the forests, the loss
of their earth, the eco grief.

101
00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:39,120
Yeah, and the fact that hey, if we don't do something, we're

102
00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:43,600
going to lose the shire too.
We can't we can't say oh, well,

103
00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:48,320
you know like people in the world
today that are like, well,

104
00:08:48,480 --> 00:08:52,879
you know, it's fine, I'll
be okay because I live in the Midwest

105
00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:58,600
and so I'm not going to burn
as the global temperature rises, Like,

106
00:08:58,679 --> 00:09:01,360
well, but we all need to
give ship because we all live on this

107
00:09:01,519 --> 00:09:05,879
pale blue dot. I thought that
was really beautifully done and like so ahead

108
00:09:05,879 --> 00:09:11,840
of its time obviously, and you
know Tolkien ahead of its time, but

109
00:09:11,919 --> 00:09:16,200
also like this movie came out in
two thousand and two, which we were

110
00:09:16,240 --> 00:09:24,559
not having quite the conversations then that
we are now, and Treebeard is just

111
00:09:24,679 --> 00:09:30,120
this, this beautiful personification of the
shepherd of the forest. And I'm like,

112
00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:33,879
yeah, buddy, I want to
save your friends. You knew them

113
00:09:33,919 --> 00:09:39,799
from Nut and Acorn. Save them. I mean, I think this movie

114
00:09:39,879 --> 00:09:43,080
is talking about, and we've talked
about this more in the podcast, that

115
00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:48,120
there is sort of this very concrete
idea of grief and in the mainstream of

116
00:09:48,120 --> 00:09:52,039
that grief as someone dies or you
lose someone and you grief for them.

117
00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:54,960
But I think what you're talking about, and what I also noticed in this

118
00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:58,919
movie outside of the grief of Gandolf, is the grief of more like concept

119
00:10:00,039 --> 00:10:03,200
rual grief and more abstract grief and
ambiguous love. But yeah, and I

120
00:10:03,240 --> 00:10:07,360
think where I kind of noticed it
when you brought up like Mary and Pippin

121
00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:11,799
was the grief of sort of growing
up too, and the grief of realize

122
00:10:11,840 --> 00:10:16,519
of like tragedy and that things aren't
ever going to be the way they were

123
00:10:16,600 --> 00:10:20,879
before. And the profound grief that
can come from realizing that, you know,

124
00:10:20,960 --> 00:10:24,600
when, oh my god, I
do not know who is who?

125
00:10:24,799 --> 00:10:33,480
Which one is Dominic Monahan, Mary
or Pippin. Dominic Monahan is the bond

126
00:10:33,559 --> 00:10:37,759
or the brunette. Who's the bond? Dominic Monahan is Mary. When Mary

127
00:10:37,039 --> 00:10:41,080
was like talking and he was like, we gotta fight, and Pippin was

128
00:10:41,120 --> 00:10:45,600
like, na, man, we'll
just go back to the shire that exchange

129
00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:48,200
when and I think I said out
lybra right before Mary said it was like

130
00:10:48,200 --> 00:10:52,120
there isn't gonna be a shire anymore. And so this idea that you can't

131
00:10:52,120 --> 00:10:58,279
go home again, that you have
to grieve the life or I think I

132
00:10:58,279 --> 00:11:01,720
saw the grief on his face of
like the life you knew before is gone

133
00:11:03,519 --> 00:11:07,360
and hopefully we can get some version
of it back again. But right now

134
00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:13,840
there's no there's no settling into that
life and staying in that life anymore.

135
00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:20,240
It is done. And there's such
profound grief with moving forward in your life,

136
00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:22,120
you know, from one stage of
life to the next, which is

137
00:11:22,120 --> 00:11:26,039
what we're seeing here too. Like
they once were happy, little Hobbits and

138
00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:31,480
now they are part of their warriors
in this huge battle that is so much

139
00:11:31,480 --> 00:11:33,919
bigger than them, and there's so
much grief with that. And I know

140
00:11:35,039 --> 00:11:37,320
from what very very little I know
about Tolkien, and you can correct me

141
00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:41,960
if I'm wrong, Like a lot
of inspiration from this was from him going

142
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:46,679
to war right in World War One
and witnessing his peer group go through that,

143
00:11:46,879 --> 00:11:50,679
and so I'm sure this was a
huge inspiration of that, of like

144
00:11:52,159 --> 00:11:56,559
these young people and kind of light
in their eyes going away and the grief

145
00:11:56,559 --> 00:12:01,639
of that, well, it's that
you can absolutely true. Tolkien himself was

146
00:12:03,120 --> 00:12:07,320
a soldier in World War One in
the trenches and most of his company did

147
00:12:07,320 --> 00:12:13,159
not return. And you can feel
the World War One politics at play throughout

148
00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:18,639
both the Hobbit, especially the Hobbit, but this movie as well the story

149
00:12:18,720 --> 00:12:22,559
as well, and in it you
see the particular clash of World War One

150
00:12:22,879 --> 00:12:31,879
was the isolationism of so many world
powers as evil is coming. Evil is

151
00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:35,320
coming, and war is coming to
your door whether you like it or not,

152
00:12:35,799 --> 00:12:41,320
and it is affecting everyone. And
we see that theme playing out with

153
00:12:41,799 --> 00:12:46,960
the Aden who's refusing to help Gondor, and we see Pippin, who just

154
00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:50,600
wants to go back to the Shire
and pretend like all this isn't happening,

155
00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:54,000
because in his head, if we
retreat back to the Shire, no one's

156
00:12:54,039 --> 00:12:58,960
going to notice that the Shire is
here. And although these movies don't show,

157
00:13:00,279 --> 00:13:03,519
in the book, there is an
absolute burning of the shire where even

158
00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:09,519
Hobbits turn on Hobbits and join the
Orcs and burn the shire. And you

159
00:13:09,559 --> 00:13:15,279
see this theme reckoned with over and
over throughout the movie, as each player

160
00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:20,440
has to recognize they have to grieve
the loss of the life and the reality

161
00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:26,360
that they thought they once had in
order to accept that all of their resources

162
00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:31,759
that apply to the world they thought
existed no longer apply, and that they

163
00:13:31,960 --> 00:13:37,000
must let go in order to accept
the new reality and form new strategies to

164
00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:41,960
survive because the old ones will not
work. You know, it's interesting,

165
00:13:41,039 --> 00:13:43,799
Ben, when you were talking,
something kind of clicked into place for me

166
00:13:43,840 --> 00:13:48,679
that I hadn't thought about before,
because one of the big relational shifts that

167
00:13:48,759 --> 00:13:54,480
happened during World War One was that
social stratification barriers just kind of tumbled as

168
00:13:54,519 --> 00:14:00,559
everybody was in the pits together.
You know, it didn't matter if if

169
00:14:00,639 --> 00:14:05,120
you were the president of a bank
or a person without a home like you,

170
00:14:05,120 --> 00:14:09,000
you were fighting for your country and
suddenly you were all you know,

171
00:14:09,879 --> 00:14:16,879
all of that social shit came tumbling
down. And I'm thinking about, like,

172
00:14:16,919 --> 00:14:22,120
obviously all these folks are people of
status except for the Hobbits and Gollum,

173
00:14:22,360 --> 00:14:28,679
but suddenly they're all in the same
war and there's some interesting relational dynamics

174
00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:33,240
there that I wonder if if Tolkien
was like, oh, look, all

175
00:14:33,240 --> 00:14:41,559
of these people could come together except
for women, or we don't allow any

176
00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:46,000
more than one woman per story or
two two, but like they can't talk

177
00:14:46,039 --> 00:14:50,159
to each other, never have to
be absolute smoke shows. Yeah, just

178
00:14:50,200 --> 00:14:54,879
like stunning a great time, you
know. So we can bring a bunch

179
00:14:54,919 --> 00:15:03,799
of slightly different people together like a
ditch and it's just slightly different, and

180
00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:07,879
those those social barriers can come tumbling
down. You know. That gets real

181
00:15:07,919 --> 00:15:09,759
fucked up when we go back into
the real world. Like those folks that

182
00:15:09,799 --> 00:15:13,399
came back from war, it was
very confusing for them because it was like

183
00:15:13,480 --> 00:15:18,600
me and this president of the bank
were in the trenches together, but now

184
00:15:18,679 --> 00:15:22,000
he's the president of the bank and
I'm you know, this unhoused dude and

185
00:15:22,039 --> 00:15:24,200
I'm not supposed to talk to him
anymore, which, you know, Brittany

186
00:15:24,240 --> 00:15:28,360
gets to your idea of like growing
up and changing and oh, such rich

187
00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:35,559
relationships. You brought a structural and
relational thinker in and these are the thoughts

188
00:15:35,600 --> 00:15:41,320
I'm having, oh for sure,
Yeah, which is good and it's it's

189
00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:46,200
so powerful to watch, especially the
scenes in this one where you see not

190
00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:54,200
only those types of relationships where people
of all different social stratification must form bonds

191
00:15:54,200 --> 00:16:00,279
in order to survive, but also
the reality that people you thought were good

192
00:16:00,360 --> 00:16:07,279
or neutral wheel joined sides with evil, that they're in the parade of evil

193
00:16:07,320 --> 00:16:14,080
men marching into mordor Is. Yes, the men from the east and the

194
00:16:14,159 --> 00:16:21,440
South. Not a great look,
a great look at all. Yeah,

195
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:29,559
Tolkien was pretty racist as well as
being misogynist. What a male writer of

196
00:16:29,639 --> 00:16:36,440
that time, bab Well. And
also think about just psychodynamically what's playing out

197
00:16:36,440 --> 00:16:41,840
for him is in his war,
that's exactly who he fought. England is

198
00:16:41,080 --> 00:16:47,840
west of Germany and north of the
Ottoman Empire. So that makes sense,

199
00:16:48,200 --> 00:16:52,279
yes, if you, if you, if you really break it down,

200
00:16:52,320 --> 00:16:55,399
and he swore it wasn't. He's
like there's mouth and allegorical in here,

201
00:16:55,600 --> 00:17:00,080
I don't know what you're talking about. That speaks to a fair amount of

202
00:17:00,159 --> 00:17:06,759
lack of insight if I ever heard
it. I mean, yes, such

203
00:17:06,799 --> 00:17:11,000
a lack of insight. You mean, if I create art, part of

204
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:14,400
me will be in that art.
You don't say that is something a client

205
00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:15,519
would say, and I'd be like, hey, girls, try to break

206
00:17:15,519 --> 00:17:19,839
this to you, but I'm noticing
some things, whether you mean to or

207
00:17:19,880 --> 00:17:23,640
not, right, I mean,
I have to remember this atoic englishman from

208
00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:27,799
the would definitely think exactly that that. No, this is just a work

209
00:17:27,839 --> 00:17:34,319
of my brain and my creativity and
my research of Norse cultures and Saxon cultures

210
00:17:34,359 --> 00:17:38,279
and how they intersect, and go
like yeah, yeah, dude, I

211
00:17:38,319 --> 00:17:41,240
was in high school and I wrote
a paper about how this is a World

212
00:17:41,279 --> 00:17:47,319
War One allegory and found hundreds of
journal articles even contradicting your own quotes and

213
00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:53,880
psychologists going like yeah, nah,
b in short, oh my god,

214
00:17:55,440 --> 00:17:57,519
stepping into what you were saying about, like eco grief, just going back

215
00:17:57,519 --> 00:18:04,200
to that just in like, I
also felt it because we're finally socially starting

216
00:18:04,359 --> 00:18:08,200
in a general way, starting to
talk about climate change and the planet.

217
00:18:08,319 --> 00:18:11,559
So you're right, like it was
kind of been watching this movie that's twenty

218
00:18:11,640 --> 00:18:17,000
years old, based on a book
that's a bajillion years old. It was

219
00:18:17,319 --> 00:18:21,079
striking, and I really noticed a
lot of the themes that it's the only

220
00:18:21,119 --> 00:18:22,680
second time I've watched this movie,
so it's not like I've watched it so

221
00:18:22,720 --> 00:18:26,160
many times. I wish, I
wish I had your mind. I wish

222
00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:30,319
this was only the second time I
was. But I did write art orcs

223
00:18:30,359 --> 00:18:33,559
the Industrial Complex ruining nature for progress, And Wow, what a thought to

224
00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:37,200
have in a book written by as
We just talked about a man from like

225
00:18:37,359 --> 00:18:41,119
nineteen tens, because so much of
what they talk about with you know,

226
00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:45,480
we're going there's like a whole speech
that Sorromon I think that's his name,

227
00:18:45,599 --> 00:18:51,000
says in the beginning where he's like, you know, we're gonna rip this

228
00:18:51,039 --> 00:18:53,279
stuff down and we're gonna build it
up, and then it's never gonna be

229
00:18:53,319 --> 00:19:00,319
the same like it was before,
and then also finding disenfranchised men and making

230
00:19:00,319 --> 00:19:03,440
them part of his group and then
having them attack their own people. I

231
00:19:03,519 --> 00:19:04,759
was like, Hi, yeah,
yeah, I think I even wrote insults

232
00:19:04,759 --> 00:19:08,440
in my nose. I was like, insull stuff, it's got climate changing

233
00:19:08,519 --> 00:19:11,559
kind of stuff. It's got an
industry capitalism. I was like, jeez,

234
00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:15,359
Louise, I mean, I know
I'm viewing it through this specific lens,

235
00:19:15,400 --> 00:19:19,519
but it felt very timely and yeah, and like the true grief of

236
00:19:19,559 --> 00:19:26,759
that, of that when things change, when we quote unquote progress societally,

237
00:19:26,559 --> 00:19:32,519
there's also something we greatly lose.
And culturally we've been moving at such a

238
00:19:32,599 --> 00:19:38,960
rapid clip that I think we're now
allowing ourselves to realize the true sacrifice of

239
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:45,480
that. And I see that in
this movie too, You do, and

240
00:19:45,559 --> 00:19:49,519
you see it all over and remembering, like, what makes something timeless is

241
00:19:49,559 --> 00:19:56,519
that the same theme can be applicable
to any time period, and that the

242
00:19:56,599 --> 00:20:04,519
same degree of human inner conflict can
be told through metaphor and still be relevant

243
00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:11,319
now. And that's why I think
these books, among all the other great

244
00:20:11,319 --> 00:20:15,839
fantasy that's ever been written, have
stood such a strong test of time,

245
00:20:15,839 --> 00:20:22,240
and why these movies were so hotly
anticipated and became such a huge part of

246
00:20:22,279 --> 00:20:27,279
the cultural zeitgeist is because of how
powerful all these metaphors are continually, because

247
00:20:27,319 --> 00:20:33,519
of that loss you're talking about.
Every time there's progress, something old is

248
00:20:33,559 --> 00:20:41,559
lost, and for Tolkien, it's
having lived through the Industrial Revolution to see,

249
00:20:41,680 --> 00:20:45,400
of course, men develop a better
way to kill each other, because

250
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:51,079
unfortunately, that's always driven industry is
better ways to kill each other. And

251
00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:56,440
for World War One, we're talking
the development of better explosives, airplanes,

252
00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:06,640
machine guns, and gas and watching
the way death was distributed in ways never

253
00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:12,039
seen before wars prior to this guy's
lined up in lines with guns that don't

254
00:21:12,079 --> 00:21:18,720
shoot accurately at all and stood and
kneeled behind each other hoping they didn't get

255
00:21:18,799 --> 00:21:22,480
hit with musket balls. We saw
in this movie people just kind of going

256
00:21:22,519 --> 00:21:26,839
towards each other, which is such
a gnarly idea, right, I mean,

257
00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:32,559
you want to just charge straight into
the face of a spear, you

258
00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:37,640
know, no thanks, but that's
what heroism was considered. And you see

259
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:44,119
people having to grieve the idea that
people would come back from war and now

260
00:21:44,119 --> 00:21:47,480
they don't. I mean not everyone
did, of course always. But this

261
00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:52,519
starts to translate the timelessness of human
evolution, because human beings are always finding

262
00:21:52,559 --> 00:21:57,680
better ways to do things. But
in military industrial complex still is part of

263
00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:03,440
that, and that's an evil must
be dealt with, and seeing the impact

264
00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:06,720
that has on nature becomes part of
the eco grief of this story and why

265
00:22:06,799 --> 00:22:10,759
Treebeard and the other ants are so
relevant. Yeah, and they have their

266
00:22:10,799 --> 00:22:12,160
own thing like we talked about in
the beginning, where they're like, this

267
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:18,559
isn't our battle, and then having
to realize that this is coming for us.

268
00:22:18,599 --> 00:22:22,160
And I think the shame of it
is in the whole concept of eco

269
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:26,920
grief and how we're recognizing it now, unfortunately, is that you don't really

270
00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:30,319
understand it's happening until it's at your
front door. And with the situation with

271
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:34,839
Treebeard as he's taking them the Hobbits
home, as he thinks we're taking them

272
00:22:34,839 --> 00:22:37,720
back south or whatever, and he
sees that like they've already killed some of

273
00:22:37,759 --> 00:22:42,039
his friends, and it's right there, and so him and the other ants

274
00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:48,480
can no longer ignore what's happening,
and they're doing the thing which happens often,

275
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:51,720
which is I'm not really taking it
seriously or that I have a role

276
00:22:51,759 --> 00:22:56,440
in it until there's already been death
and destruction and personal pain absolutely, which

277
00:22:56,480 --> 00:23:03,319
we see over and over again and
our country in general, of until it

278
00:23:03,519 --> 00:23:06,480
is, you know, at my
doorstep, it doesn't apply to me.

279
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:11,319
And unfortunately that is a part of
how we got where we are currently,

280
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:15,519
and also how they end up in
the same place where this isn't something where

281
00:23:15,559 --> 00:23:19,960
tree Beard is just taking you know, taking them back. And it's also

282
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:25,799
really interesting because the part of what
changes that is Mary and Pippin deciding and

283
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:29,279
knowing that now we have to do
something different, and we're going to go

284
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:33,359
and we're going to fight because now
we know we have like that acceptance that

285
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:37,960
you and Justine we're talking about,
that acceptance of no one is safe,

286
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:41,559
right. And then when they show
up and it's again it's that example of

287
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:47,160
him already having to deal with the
grief immediately of something, not something that's

288
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:52,640
coming, but something that's already happened. And I love when he makes the

289
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:57,400
call to the other ends and his
like his call of like outrage, and

290
00:23:59,319 --> 00:24:03,960
the scene with Eisngard is one of
my favorite fight scenes probably in the whole

291
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:10,039
series, because in our world the
trees can't do anything. Yeah, the

292
00:24:10,079 --> 00:24:14,440
trees can't change anything. They just
have to take it. And so watching

293
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:19,440
them try to save themselves in this
impossible experience, I think, again,

294
00:24:19,519 --> 00:24:22,759
Ben, when you were saying that
this how this movie applies over and over

295
00:24:22,799 --> 00:24:27,759
and over again, I have cried
at that scene the ten the first time

296
00:24:27,799 --> 00:24:33,759
I watched that scene and the millionth
time I've watched that scene, and and

297
00:24:33,799 --> 00:24:41,200
how I think it is a really
good pinnacle of grief in terms of experiencing

298
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:45,440
what it's happening in front of you, and then having to make a decision

299
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,559
if you're going to do something about
it or if you can do something about

300
00:24:48,599 --> 00:24:52,599
it in the moment because it's happening, and then having to live on with

301
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:56,720
your life after you've experienced this,
and what does and then you know,

302
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:02,799
having to figure out what we're to
do next. Yeah, and calling on

303
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:07,200
supports too, which he knows right
away, which he has. The beauty

304
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:11,680
of community, which is that I
know instantly, when I'm going through this

305
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:19,720
deep sorrow and shock, that I
can bellow aloud, and my fellow tree

306
00:25:19,759 --> 00:25:25,559
shepherds whatever ence will come to me, And they will and we all are

307
00:25:25,599 --> 00:25:27,480
going to be on the exact same
page at the exact same time. And

308
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:32,480
what a lovely idea that when you're
in the throes of grief, there's so

309
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:37,160
much certainty of who you can call
on, and there's so much trust and

310
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:42,720
certainty that they will immediately present themselves
and be available to you, and you're

311
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:48,319
not going to waste any time explaining
why they should take it seriously or why

312
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:52,880
this is a big deal. Everyone's
on board one hundred percent. And it

313
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:56,240
is beautiful that that can occur,
and it's a shame that we don't have

314
00:25:56,359 --> 00:26:02,240
that more often. There's so much
time that gets argue wasted by having to

315
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:08,799
explain and convince people of why something
that's going on is tragic and important and

316
00:26:08,839 --> 00:26:15,599
then what to do next, And
that's time that's lost, and also emotional

317
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,799
labor on the part of the person
trying to make other people realize what's going

318
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:22,359
on. Yeah, and that that
brings up stages of grief stuff, which

319
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:26,400
I mean, we could debate about
coolber Ross all day, which we have,

320
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:30,839
yes, But I think there's some
interesting if we just want to take

321
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:36,839
that paradigm. I like that paradigm
because it's very narrative. There's if we

322
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:38,799
think about the hero's journey, there's
the call to the there's the call to

323
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:44,079
adventure, and then there's the rejection
of the call and then you know,

324
00:26:44,079 --> 00:26:49,279
so we're kind of like moving through
this this circular paradigm, and we see

325
00:26:49,319 --> 00:26:53,839
folks going through different stages of grief
as they're discovering that there is war,

326
00:26:55,279 --> 00:26:59,279
or that this world is changing,
or that this world is ending, and

327
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:04,319
the ends before they feel it themselves. They're in the nile, get this

328
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:08,640
away from me? Is it mine? Go away? And then they go

329
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:12,960
right into anger, which is what
we needed in that moment. We needed

330
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,559
that tree that was going to get
caught on fire and then just stick his

331
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,160
head in the roaring water to put
himself out. That's what we needed in

332
00:27:21,279 --> 00:27:26,400
that moment, which is amazing,
and that even as you guys are talking

333
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:30,799
about this, another angle of the
timelessness of this occurred to me is not

334
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:36,680
only do we get to see people
moving through these stages of grief and deal

335
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:41,400
with it in real time, which
is how life happens right oftentimes other than

336
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:45,279
the death of a family member where
or a loved one where sometimes we get

337
00:27:45,319 --> 00:27:48,359
kind of stuck in a bit of
suspended animation in the world. If we're

338
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:52,359
fortunate enough gives us some space to
do that is, life continues to evolve

339
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:56,640
around you immediately. It does not
stop because you had a loss. Everyone

340
00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:03,119
else and everything else continue. For
this story, I think what's amazing about

341
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:07,319
it is, in addition to all
of that we also see the stark warning

342
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:14,440
that our world needs and that those
who are constantly pursuing too much from nature

343
00:28:15,039 --> 00:28:22,160
need to also grieve their hopes,
dreams and aspirations if you will, because

344
00:28:22,559 --> 00:28:29,000
if you push nature too far,
it will be nature itself that reclaims.

345
00:28:30,559 --> 00:28:33,400
And that's exactly what's happening with people. Where like all the water levels are

346
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:37,200
rising and storms are increasing, is
like the ants are going to war.

347
00:28:37,839 --> 00:28:41,079
I don't know why you are getting
crazy the wildfires. It's like, yeah,

348
00:28:41,599 --> 00:28:47,640
bitches, Like mother nature is like
I've had an ass ants will go

349
00:28:47,759 --> 00:28:52,000
to war. And in addition to
that, I think the most stark conversation

350
00:28:52,200 --> 00:29:00,079
on grief and guilt that I saw
in this happened telepathically between l Rond and

351
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:06,039
Glaudrille, where they recognize that the
time of the elves is ending. The

352
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:11,720
light of their star that gives them
their ability to be immortal and have influence

353
00:29:11,759 --> 00:29:14,759
over the world and be supreme beings
is gone. It's time for them to

354
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:22,039
go, and they have to accept
that. As having that social responsibility,

355
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:26,839
it's irresponsible for them a to leave
without helping, and they send a detachment

356
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,799
to help the people at Helm's Deep
and they certainly would have died without the

357
00:29:30,839 --> 00:29:34,359
elves help, but alsolutely they would
not have made it to dawn on the

358
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:40,640
fifth day. They would not have. Yeah, the Elves definitely felt like

359
00:29:41,519 --> 00:29:45,200
no offense to them, But I
guess offense like the elitist class, who

360
00:29:45,359 --> 00:29:47,599
is like, we were all set
up though, and we're like hot,

361
00:29:47,799 --> 00:29:52,240
and we live like a long time, and we've got like dope ass palaces

362
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:55,079
and transportation. So babe, let's
just like get out of here. Let's

363
00:29:55,279 --> 00:29:59,519
take that rocket ship right to Mars, like all of the billionaires are doing

364
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:07,640
right now, and you're interpreting the
Elves or Elon Musk and fucking Jeff Daso.

365
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:08,880
I want to give them more credit
in that, which is why I

366
00:30:10,039 --> 00:30:14,279
gave that caveat. But that was
the energy of like, we're above all

367
00:30:14,319 --> 00:30:18,319
this and we've got resources, so
why are we going to get involved in

368
00:30:18,359 --> 00:30:22,839
all this muddy lower class business.
And Arwen's like that rich daughter who's like,

369
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:26,119
I'm going to be different. I
get the triumph of the struggle of

370
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:30,440
the working man because I fell in
love with one and I'm gonna go down,

371
00:30:30,559 --> 00:30:33,480
dad, and you can't stop me. But he's not really a working

372
00:30:33,559 --> 00:30:37,359
man because he's he's also a king
but in her brains, you know,

373
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:45,400
yeah, and so. But it's
definitely that that kind of relationship or that

374
00:30:45,519 --> 00:30:48,839
example. And you're right, it
took someone who l Ron views as an

375
00:30:48,839 --> 00:30:52,880
authority to say, bitch, you're
a part of this too. You can't

376
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:57,559
just fuck off to Mars with your
family or go into your little like bunker.

377
00:30:57,799 --> 00:31:00,519
We are part of this too.
It's class solidarity, y'all. It's

378
00:31:00,519 --> 00:31:06,240
what we all got to get our
arms around. Class solidarity, right anyway,

379
00:31:07,559 --> 00:31:14,920
leverage your privilege elves, which they
have to do. Yeah, but

380
00:31:15,039 --> 00:31:23,519
you also see them acknowledge the cost
of what they're putting Froto through that Glaudreel

381
00:31:25,279 --> 00:31:27,240
says to him, like, you
you know what I know, and what

382
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:32,920
Froto is likely soon realizing or realizing
now, is that this quest will consume

383
00:31:33,039 --> 00:31:36,200
him absolutely. That's oh, go
ahead, Ben. I was just in,

384
00:31:36,319 --> 00:31:41,119
can we ethically abandon them? Yeah? And it made me think of

385
00:31:41,559 --> 00:31:45,079
that's what I thought you were talking
about when you said the grief of them

386
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:48,960
both acknowledging and you kind of see
it on their face that they clearly have

387
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:53,960
known all this time, and also
their realization of Proto is not going to

388
00:31:55,039 --> 00:32:00,200
make it through this, and we
knew that when he stood up at the

389
00:32:00,319 --> 00:32:04,039
meeting that he wasn't going to be
able to live through this. And it's

390
00:32:04,079 --> 00:32:09,440
so interesting because they both have relationships
with other people, right, So it's

391
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:15,400
also interesting that they never say that
to anyone or never and I guess and

392
00:32:15,519 --> 00:32:20,640
in some ways it probably doesn't make
sense because if they told him or told

393
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:24,119
anyone, then they would they wouldn't
be able to hold any hope throughout the

394
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:28,319
war. They wouldn't. I mean, And people are watching the elves leave.

395
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:31,200
That's a scene that got cut from
Fellowship, is the passing of the

396
00:32:31,279 --> 00:32:37,160
elves. You see them leaving.
You all watched the extended edition of both

397
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:39,759
of these, right, I mean
I have many many many times. Yeah,

398
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:43,960
I have. I didn't watch it
for this because I knew that Brittany

399
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:49,920
wouldn't be watching the extended version,
So we didn't watch the extended version because

400
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:53,720
the regular version is three hours long. To the minutes. Okay, it

401
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:58,519
is one minute short. Actually for
the record, well, I felt the

402
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:02,279
extra minute that Okay, I can
I just step aside for one second,

403
00:33:04,519 --> 00:33:08,480
even if you don't love these Brittany, it is worth the extended edition because

404
00:33:08,559 --> 00:33:16,559
what they cut out is like people
speaking in exposition and it's hilarious. Like

405
00:33:16,759 --> 00:33:22,200
someone will show up and be like, so, here's what's happening to this

406
00:33:22,359 --> 00:33:28,279
other person. So like if you
don't follow Tolkien that well, literally people

407
00:33:28,279 --> 00:33:31,519
are showing up and they're saying like, okay, so King Thaden is under

408
00:33:31,799 --> 00:33:38,960
the spell of like the dummy edition. This is like here's I'll say,

409
00:33:39,039 --> 00:33:44,319
here's my I'll say this aloud on
the podcast. Is Hannah for you?

410
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:47,079
Maybe over the holidays, I'll watch
the extended editions, but only if we

411
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:52,559
can make some sort of drinking game
out of it. Oh, I would

412
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:58,079
highly I would highly recommend. This
is something that I've done with folks before,

413
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:01,599
is you watch all all the extended
editions in one day and you make

414
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:09,159
it a full hobbity experience. You
have first breakfast, second breakfast, elevensis,

415
00:34:09,639 --> 00:34:13,400
like you got all the food,
you got all the drinks. By

416
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:24,119
the time you get to sheilab your
potatoes. I will say, what I

417
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:30,239
do know is we're taking they're taking
that hobbist eyes and guard and the song

418
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:31,039
that came out of that. So
when he said that, I was like,

419
00:34:31,119 --> 00:34:35,440
ah, I know that I know
that reference. What do your elf

420
00:34:35,519 --> 00:34:38,280
I see? Like, damn it, Eric, irn you talk that way

421
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:45,800
to your boyfriend? Well, is
there anything else you want to say about

422
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:51,000
grief before I move on to individuation, One more thing I would like to

423
00:34:51,039 --> 00:34:54,039
say about grief. I have used
this a lot with clients. We give

424
00:34:54,119 --> 00:35:00,519
the ring a lot of qualities as
therapists. I've used difficult relationship with chemicals

425
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:06,039
as the ring. The burden that
we're carrying. You can use like anything

426
00:35:06,119 --> 00:35:08,920
for that burden. But I've used
grief as that burden. So you know,

427
00:35:09,039 --> 00:35:13,480
the carrying of the ring is the
is the the person who is really

428
00:35:13,559 --> 00:35:19,840
holding the grief. And Brittany to
your point about having community, I mean

429
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,280
you gotta have your sam wise.
Yeah, and you might inadvertently hurt your

430
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:29,880
sam wise because you're in the throes
of the grief taking hold of you.

431
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:35,320
But if you don't have that sam
wise, then you you can become a

432
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:39,159
gollumn. Yeah, I'll I'll alone
in a cave for five hundred years,

433
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:45,559
just you and your grief. So
having a fellowship is so important and um,

434
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:50,480
you know, taking walks, getting
some exercise, having some elven bread.

435
00:35:51,079 --> 00:35:54,880
Yeah, skipping around, you know, frolicking around the greenery New Zealand,

436
00:35:54,920 --> 00:36:00,800
if you will. I've been there. It's amazing, it looks beautiful.

437
00:36:00,159 --> 00:36:04,159
It is amazing and beautiful. And
they have signs up for where the

438
00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:10,760
things were shot Nearragorn's Cliff. There's
no cliff spoilers. Okay, good to

439
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:15,199
know. A line of heartbroken.
Sorry, we'll take a break there,

440
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:20,360
We'll be right back, all right. So we're going to jump into individuation.

441
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:22,360
This isn't really my bread or butter, so I'm going to throw it

442
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:30,639
to use scholarly types on the podcast. I don't know if I call myself

443
00:36:30,679 --> 00:36:36,760
a scholarly type, but I will
own being a nerd. But the thing

444
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:39,800
that stuck out to me a lot
in this movie is I'm a therapist that

445
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:45,519
really prefers to focus on individual in
my career. I've learned from doing multiple

446
00:36:45,599 --> 00:36:51,199
kinds of therapy that really where my
bread and butter lies is helping people understand

447
00:36:51,639 --> 00:36:55,920
themselves, and that the dynamics of
family and other things play into that,

448
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:01,599
but really understanding that at the end
of the day, we have to understand

449
00:37:02,599 --> 00:37:07,280
ourself and our interpretation of the world
and what our skills are in order to

450
00:37:07,559 --> 00:37:14,079
survive, and the process of that
happening throughout this film is something that's I

451
00:37:14,159 --> 00:37:20,159
found really powerful in watching it,
as the amount of time spent split away

452
00:37:20,199 --> 00:37:24,000
from the parents in this film versus
the first one, where you have the

453
00:37:24,119 --> 00:37:30,440
parents of Glaudriel and el Rond and
Gandalf being so involved in the story and

454
00:37:31,079 --> 00:37:36,519
they have to separate from all of
them, and even Bormire coming with his

455
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:39,320
despite that the ring corrupts him.
He initially comes with a very fatherly and

456
00:37:39,559 --> 00:37:45,360
older brotherly attitude to be a mentor
and guide people, and the split from

457
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:51,039
Rigorn too. All of that,
you see these Hobbits who had all of

458
00:37:51,079 --> 00:37:52,360
these mentors, who've been through war, who have seen more than just the

459
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:59,199
Shire has to offer, have to
all really start figuring out who I am

460
00:37:59,599 --> 00:38:02,880
in this world and how can I
use my understanding of the world and my

461
00:38:04,039 --> 00:38:07,760
skill set and combine them in the
unique ways that make me me with things

462
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:12,920
that spontaneously occur to me in the
moment and start trusting them as viable and

463
00:38:13,079 --> 00:38:17,320
correct solutions. Never mind the powers
and things that I can't do, never

464
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:22,800
mind that I'm three foot tall and
I'm battling men and orcs who are so

465
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:25,400
much bigger than me, and that
I have no physical power against them.

466
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:30,840
Okay, but what can I do? And seeing that process of people having

467
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:36,679
to realize everything I've been taught and
told is the right way no longer matters

468
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:39,679
or applies, and I have to
trust myself that I as I am,

469
00:38:40,159 --> 00:38:45,679
with my skills, my traits,
and my knowledge are enough to survive this

470
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:52,280
world. And I think watching that
happen is really powerful as people start rejecting

471
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:57,760
all of these narratives that they're stuck
in and have to start writing new ones

472
00:38:58,119 --> 00:39:06,320
in order to allow themselves access to
their spontaneous, right brained solutions, finding

473
00:39:07,119 --> 00:39:12,000
modes that weren't available to them when
they're stuck in old thinking that doesn't apply

474
00:39:12,079 --> 00:39:15,360
anymore. Ben, there's a book
that I'm going to recommend to you that's

475
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:22,159
literally about individuation in the Hobbit Do
if you haven't read it. Yeah,

476
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:25,320
But I just want to speak to
differentiation for a minute. Friends at home.

477
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:30,000
If you're not a therapy nerd welcome. I don't I don't know how

478
00:39:30,079 --> 00:39:34,599
you how you found this podcast,
but if you are a long time listener,

479
00:39:34,639 --> 00:39:37,400
I'm sure you know that there are
many different schools of thought in different

480
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:44,639
ways to conceptualize the way that we
think about psychology. And differentiation was the

481
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:52,559
idea of Murray Bowen of Bowennian Therapy, and Bowen's concept was similar to what

482
00:39:52,679 --> 00:39:55,840
Ben's talking about, but his point
was we need to find a way to

483
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:01,320
be separate from our family of origin, the folks who raised us, and

484
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:07,519
still in some way connected. So
Bowen was against cutoffs. I'm not saying

485
00:40:07,719 --> 00:40:13,039
I agree with that in its entirety. I think sometimes some relationships are too

486
00:40:13,119 --> 00:40:17,159
toxic. But the idea that I
pull away from it is it can't be

487
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:21,760
either or it can't be black or
white. We can't be one hundred percent

488
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:24,239
enmeshed with our family or one hundred
percent cut off from our family because they

489
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:28,519
still live inside of us. We're
going to get to that in a little

490
00:40:28,519 --> 00:40:32,440
bit, and I think the best
example of someone who experiences differentiation through this

491
00:40:32,639 --> 00:40:38,599
journey is Sam, because Sam is
very enmeshed with Shire life, and he's

492
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:44,440
very resistant to change Shire life,
and he really has to get pulled out

493
00:40:44,519 --> 00:40:50,760
of his comfort zone to be able
to figure out who he is as more

494
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:54,239
than a gardener, even though that
is an aspect of him. But he's

495
00:40:54,320 --> 00:41:01,519
becoming all these different identities and all
these different aspects of himself and retaining his

496
00:41:01,679 --> 00:41:08,880
love of potatoes and his firm and
fervent belief that they will go home and

497
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:15,199
they need some food for the journey
back. So he feels like he's done

498
00:41:15,199 --> 00:41:20,519
the best job of differentiating to me. He is in the Bowenian sense,

499
00:41:20,679 --> 00:41:25,719
he is both separate and connected to
where he came from, which is hugely

500
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:32,039
important to Sam's role in this story
because, like you said before, without

501
00:41:32,119 --> 00:41:37,800
Sam, Wise, Proto becomes Gallum
and succumbs to the darkness around him.

502
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:44,800
And the value of differentiation versus peer
individuation is that where you separate from everything

503
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:49,920
is, you have to retain the
parts that have made you who you are

504
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:54,280
and connected to something so you don't
succumb to everything. You must retain a

505
00:41:54,440 --> 00:42:00,719
sense of value and values. And
Sam represents that and the story that no

506
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:06,920
matter how much growth he does,
where he shows courage and fights and spontaneously

507
00:42:07,079 --> 00:42:10,920
defends and does things he never thought
he could, he never ever loses that

508
00:42:12,079 --> 00:42:16,840
connection to what makes him him,
and Frodo does. Frodo starts to lose

509
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:21,079
that, the Ring starts to take
that from him, Yeah, it reminds

510
00:42:21,119 --> 00:42:24,679
me of this is a little tangential, but not too much of when I

511
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:30,400
do work with clients and I do
more like values based work and like what

512
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:36,719
feels like your authentic voice and what
I feel like your authentic values versus what's

513
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:40,360
been projected onto you by your family
or the community that you're a part of,

514
00:42:40,519 --> 00:42:45,920
or the society at large, and
how a lot of times in my

515
00:42:45,119 --> 00:42:52,119
work and my anecdotal experience is that
when we feel the most discomfort and distresses,

516
00:42:52,199 --> 00:42:57,519
when the values we are trying to
align with our in values that actually

517
00:42:57,559 --> 00:43:01,800
come from us, and that we
feel the most fulfilled, even if it's

518
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:07,639
really uncomfortable because it might be an
antagonistic to parts of our lives, is

519
00:43:07,679 --> 00:43:10,199
when we are living more closely aligned
with what feels like authentic values. And

520
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:15,239
I think bridging into what you guys
are talking about is that when I do

521
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:17,000
that with clients, and kind of
where I think Sam is going too,

522
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:22,360
is that you have to figure out
what values, what parts of yourself might

523
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,079
have been part of your family as
well, but what parts of that don't

524
00:43:25,079 --> 00:43:29,079
actually work for you, and that
we're the parts of you that maybe we're

525
00:43:29,119 --> 00:43:32,360
trying to conform and fit in with
your family versus the parts of you that

526
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:37,519
you still like about how you were
raised and still feel good and you're right.

527
00:43:37,559 --> 00:43:40,840
When I work with people, sometimes
there can be very like throw the

528
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:44,960
baby out with the bathwater, like
fuck this, I'm not going to do

529
00:43:45,079 --> 00:43:47,760
anything like and everything that came from
this part of my life is trash,

530
00:43:49,679 --> 00:43:52,039
or they go the opposite way,
which is kind of what Sam's doing a

531
00:43:52,079 --> 00:43:54,920
little bit, especially the more beginning
of this trilogy, is like grabbing onto

532
00:43:54,960 --> 00:44:00,519
it so tightly, and it's the
need to evolve and that knowing and trusting

533
00:44:00,639 --> 00:44:06,719
me as a clinician, but trusting
the process period that you will feel better.

534
00:44:07,079 --> 00:44:10,360
It'll still be hard, but you'll
the inner turmoil will be turned down

535
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:15,639
if you can find this middle ground
somehow this well, as we'll talk about

536
00:44:15,679 --> 00:44:21,360
in the second integration between where the
values that were brought up on and the

537
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:24,079
values that feel like they're actually you. And that's really it's a real like

538
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:28,159
head fuck for some people some times, even for myself, to really think

539
00:44:28,199 --> 00:44:34,440
about what feels like the parts of
me that are good and that I feel

540
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:38,199
proud of, and what parts of
me are maybe from my family of origin

541
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:43,719
or something like that that I'm still
clinging too because either I don't want to

542
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:50,320
change or I'm scared. And it's
really really hard. And I would say

543
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:52,559
to anyone listening, if you want
to do this work, it's one of

544
00:44:52,639 --> 00:44:55,280
the things that you definitely need to
see, I think a therapist about because

545
00:44:55,360 --> 00:45:01,480
it's impossible to be unbiased to have
perspective on this, Like you really need

546
00:45:01,639 --> 00:45:07,840
a third party guiding you through that. Myself included. You know, therapists

547
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,239
go to therapy, you know,
most of the time, and and it

548
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:15,280
you need that help no matter how
much knowledge you have, Like is it

549
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:19,079
even as like a therapist, you
need someone else who can help guide you

550
00:45:19,159 --> 00:45:22,719
through that. Yeah, because it's
so hard to parse out this idea that

551
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:27,159
like someone in your life might have
hurt you and they offered you something positive,

552
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:30,440
or someone in your life was this
really positive force and they offered you

553
00:45:30,679 --> 00:45:37,639
some kind of negative messaging, right, Like Gandolf. Gandolf is wonderful and

554
00:45:37,119 --> 00:45:43,119
he kept a big secret and sometimes
he just disappears, and that's fucking problematic.

555
00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:46,199
Yeah, all right, the double
door of it all. And Bilbo,

556
00:45:46,599 --> 00:45:52,480
right, he writes these beautiful narratives
that only include the stuff that he

557
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:57,960
wants Frodo to take from him,
and yeah, kind of problematic, right,

558
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:01,960
So there's some stuff we can take
from folks, and it can be

559
00:46:02,159 --> 00:46:07,679
hard for people to reckon with this
idea of like, Okay, this person

560
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:09,440
hurt me, but I love them
and there are these things I want to

561
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:15,840
carry forward. Or this person is
this beautiful shining light in my life and

562
00:46:15,039 --> 00:46:17,480
they did some fucked up stuff and
I need to reckon with that too.

563
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:23,559
As we're talking about them being individuated. It also makes me think about how

564
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:29,639
sam Wise is so connected to being
a gardener that that is something that's very

565
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:32,679
positive for him. That is something
that is also very helpful on the trip

566
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:37,280
as he's you know, as we
can see he's grabbing different herbs and things,

567
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:45,400
and how Froto was still kind of
looking for his vocation in some ways.

568
00:46:46,119 --> 00:46:50,679
And so it makes me wonder if
a part of the reason why sam

569
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:52,760
Wise is in a different place and
also, guess Froto has the ring.

570
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:59,119
I know that, but I wonder
if a part of the reason why sam

571
00:46:59,159 --> 00:47:02,119
Wise is able to get to this
place is because he already felt very connected

572
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:07,639
to his values and very connected to
the life that he was living, and

573
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:10,480
I wonder if a part of the
reason why he's able to be this light

574
00:47:10,639 --> 00:47:16,199
for Frodo that without that the film
would be would have ended the end,

575
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:23,639
like you know, we would have
gotten anything else and just exactly exactly like

576
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:30,840
his uncle did and so and so. Just it's just interesting because I feel

577
00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:37,280
like we also find that characteristic when
we talk about people who are resilient for

578
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:39,760
whatever reason. I feel like that
is a part of the way we can

579
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:46,320
look at the differences between the two
of them and how their experiences and being

580
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:51,559
connected to values and how important things
are. For Sam Wise really is the

581
00:47:51,760 --> 00:47:55,239
pushing motive of hope, and that
beautiful speech that he gives in this film,

582
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:59,800
which is one of I love that
speech so much, the amount of

583
00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:04,119
time that I have snapped that whole
speech and sent it to people who've already

584
00:48:04,119 --> 00:48:06,519
seen the movie and been like,
I love this fucking speech so much,

585
00:48:07,039 --> 00:48:10,000
and I love how much he because
he's able to carry so much hope,

586
00:48:10,599 --> 00:48:15,760
because he has so much belief in
the world for himself, because he has

587
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:21,519
experienced being connected to the world,
of being connected to himself and really believing

588
00:48:21,599 --> 00:48:27,519
that he's doing what he was meant
to do, which is it's amazing how

589
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:32,559
powerful that is and how these words
in the way that they were written and

590
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:39,800
delivered, carry that meaning for so
many people ever since this book first came

591
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:45,480
out, And it makes me think
of when I was in my existential therapy

592
00:48:45,559 --> 00:48:51,079
class the professor made us watch a
clip from a movie that did not do

593
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:53,559
very well overall, which is,
I heart Huckeybees. I knew that's what

594
00:48:53,639 --> 00:48:57,760
you're going to say. I knew
it was that one going weird choice.

595
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:05,719
It is, but it's also not
because the whole metaphysical conversation with Dustin Hoffmann

596
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:09,800
on the blanket theory, where he's
trying to help the other guy understand that

597
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:14,239
the kid that he's investigating that is
going, Hey, what you need to

598
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:20,400
understand is that everything is the same
and everything is connected, and it essentially

599
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:23,320
proves the shakesperience thought that things are
neither good nor bad, but thinking makes

600
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:30,280
them so. Assigning value to things
that don't necessarily have value outside of their

601
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:36,440
context is an important thing to recognize
as you go through this individuation or differentiation

602
00:49:36,559 --> 00:49:40,719
process that you have to change your
relationship to these things in order to understand

603
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:45,199
the most powerful line of that that
ties in is that everything you could ever

604
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:52,159
want to be or ever have you
already have an r and very Buddhist it

605
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:59,400
is. It is all metaphysics and
existentialism is all very Eastern philosophy and not

606
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:04,599
in the slightest pull yourself up by
your bootstraps horseshit that we adhere to so

607
00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:07,280
strongly. Well, there's a similar
quote that I actually wrote down, one

608
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:10,840
of the few quotes I wrote down, which is sam Y says something along

609
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:14,239
the lines of like we should be
back, like none of this would have

610
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:17,360
happened, and Froto says gand Oft
didn't mean for a lot to happen.

611
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:22,360
Things to happen, and they did. End of story, right, And

612
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:28,360
like understanding that for going through anything
like this, that a it's going to

613
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:36,000
affect every single person equally and differently
at the same time, and that every

614
00:50:36,039 --> 00:50:37,760
person is going to have their own
journey through it, and that every person

615
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:42,559
is going to have to both find
connection to their values and what's going to

616
00:50:42,639 --> 00:50:46,320
drive them to find meaning in their
suffering, but also that they must look

617
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:52,119
inward and find their resources to solve
it in the way the situation requires.

618
00:50:52,599 --> 00:50:57,000
And I find that to be such
a powerful like way that this story shows

619
00:50:57,400 --> 00:51:01,880
essentially people breaking out as siblings,
experiencing the world away from their parents and

620
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:07,599
learning those things. All right,
anything else on this topic before we move

621
00:51:07,679 --> 00:51:10,000
on? Okay, we'll take another
break here, all right. So the

622
00:51:10,119 --> 00:51:14,840
last thing we wanted to hit is
basically the character of Gallum. He's a

623
00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:17,840
big part of this movie. He
gets a lot of FaceTime, if you

624
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:22,119
will, in this part of the
trilogy. And so I know we had

625
00:51:22,119 --> 00:51:24,320
a few topics we want to touch
upon, but I guess we can start

626
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:29,360
with the first, which is IFS
or integrated family systems, which I think

627
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:32,320
we've covered here. Oh internal,
I'll do that every tongue, Internal family

628
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:36,440
systems. You know what's so funny
about this. I'm seeing an internal family

629
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:40,480
systems therapist right now and I still
couldn't say that correctly, but any day,

630
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:44,559
So we'll throw it to you,
Jess, because I know this was

631
00:51:44,679 --> 00:51:49,039
the topic that came to mind for
you when talking about Gallam. Yeah.

632
00:51:49,079 --> 00:51:53,880
Yeah, So I've gone through three
levels of internal family systems training, which

633
00:51:53,960 --> 00:51:58,920
means nothing other than I've given a
lot of money to a mania reports,

634
00:51:59,039 --> 00:52:04,400
You've given a lot of life.
We don't realize. It's like it's so

635
00:52:04,559 --> 00:52:09,920
expensive to get trained in specific things. It's very expensive to specialize. Takes

636
00:52:10,239 --> 00:52:17,679
like a year per per well for
level one. Anyway, people at home,

637
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:22,840
if you aren't familiar with internal family
systems, it's just the idea that

638
00:52:22,559 --> 00:52:28,599
we humans do not have a unitary
mind. We contain multiverses, or like

639
00:52:28,679 --> 00:52:32,119
Walt Whitman said, we contain multitudes. We couldn't say that in our first

640
00:52:32,159 --> 00:52:36,840
book because we would have owed money
to the Walt Whitment state. Oh my

641
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:40,440
god, So we came up with
we contain multiverses. I know. Yeah,

642
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:45,159
Walt Wani state is like, you
want to use a quote, give

643
00:52:45,199 --> 00:52:50,599
me some of that money? Still
yeah, still wow. But we all

644
00:52:50,679 --> 00:52:53,480
experienced this on the day to day, right, Like when you get invited

645
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:59,079
to go out to coffee with someone, you immediately have multiple thoughts about it.

646
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:00,719
You've got a part of you that's
like, yes, I totally want

647
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:04,079
to go have coffee with this person, and then you have this other part

648
00:53:04,119 --> 00:53:06,360
of you that comes in and is
like do we have time to do that?

649
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:07,840
Don't we have other stuff to do? Oh no? And you have

650
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:12,079
another part that comes in and is
like, why are they inviting me,

651
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:15,119
do they have some kind of ulterior
motive? Are they going to ask me

652
00:53:15,199 --> 00:53:19,199
for money? And then maybe you
have this other part that comes in and

653
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:23,360
is like outside COVID, right,
And with this one request of do you

654
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:29,400
want to go to coffee? You
have you could have twelve different parts of

655
00:53:29,519 --> 00:53:35,199
you involved in weighing in on that
decision. And that is normal and healthy

656
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:39,960
and we all experience that, and
when we've had some trauma, sometimes those

657
00:53:40,079 --> 00:53:45,039
parts get to be a little bit
louder or a little bit more wanting to

658
00:53:45,199 --> 00:53:52,599
grab the wheel of our life rather
than checking in with this is in ifs

659
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:57,119
I know this is not everyone's belief
system, but that there is a grounded

660
00:53:57,239 --> 00:54:00,639
capital s self that we all have
that's kind of like the conductor of the

661
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:06,320
parts orchestra. And so when you
get a whole lot of Tuba playing,

662
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:10,119
which is the part that's like govid, go vid, govid self comes in.

663
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:14,679
He's like, hey, Tuba,
what's happening, buddy? You for

664
00:54:14,800 --> 00:54:17,320
you bemp kind of aloud, what's
going on? And Tuba's like, I'm

665
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:21,400
scared of COVID. Like okay,
yeah, man, I hear you.

666
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:23,559
Let's sit down, let's talk about
it. Let's talk about what you need

667
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:28,079
and if you don't have that capital
s self, Tube is just screaming at

668
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:35,920
the violins, and the violins are
like, let's see you, and everything's

669
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:45,400
just really discordant. And I see
this happening with Smigel turned Gollum because Gollum's

670
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:51,960
been through a trauma, he's had
an evil power in his head, and

671
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:54,440
he's been alone in a cave for
five hundred years with all the parts talking

672
00:54:54,519 --> 00:55:00,880
to each other, and sometimes parts
of us can think and this is getting

673
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:04,440
a little bit deep and existential into
ifs So, friends at home, if

674
00:55:04,440 --> 00:55:07,400
you don't follow this, that's okay. Sometimes we look for that capital s

675
00:55:07,519 --> 00:55:12,960
self in other people. M or
hey, you seem like you have your

676
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:16,760
shit together. Could you be myself? Hey, dark Lord, could you

677
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:30,719
be myself? Yeah? Yes,
yes, sure the fuck have Yeah.

678
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:37,320
And it makes sense then why he
grabs so strongly to Frodo, who he

679
00:55:37,559 --> 00:55:42,239
was going after five minutes ago,
and now he's calling him Master, and

680
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:45,440
he's arguing with himself about Master knows
best and Master believes us and we can

681
00:55:45,519 --> 00:55:52,840
trust Master, and and really wanting
Frodo to be that self for him.

682
00:55:52,159 --> 00:55:55,440
M Right, it's kind of like
there's that children's story Are you my missing

683
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:59,320
piece? Are you my missing piece? Are you my missing piece? Like

684
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:02,000
are you myself? Are you myself? And sorrows happy to be like,

685
00:56:02,159 --> 00:56:07,639
yeah, I'm yourself. And Frodo
doesn't know that's what Gallum's doing. He's

686
00:56:07,679 --> 00:56:12,760
just like, oh, look this
pitiful creature. I'll help him. But

687
00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:15,360
if we don't turn it back around
and say, hey, actually, those

688
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:22,920
parts need you, they'll just keep
grasping and that you're all right on.

689
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:29,159
That's how we get cults, because
the GIRs like, I am yourself and

690
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:32,639
I'm gonna tell you what to do
and what do you think? And when

691
00:56:32,679 --> 00:56:36,800
I want your opinion, I'll give
it to you. That's why there was

692
00:56:37,079 --> 00:56:39,760
a podcast I used to listen to
called Zealot It Done Now they don't have

693
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:45,039
any new episodes, but one of
their jingles they would play was when disenfranchised

694
00:56:45,159 --> 00:56:47,519
you finally came into the picture,
because you're right, it is, you

695
00:56:47,599 --> 00:56:52,239
know, needing someone, because that's
what you know Spiegel is he's disu He's

696
00:56:52,280 --> 00:56:58,480
someone who is disenfranchised who does not
have a Yeah, exactly what I'm just

697
00:56:58,559 --> 00:57:02,400
repeating you. But yeah, he's
right for being taken up, but unfortunately

698
00:57:04,280 --> 00:57:07,440
he's still kind of on his own, you know, because you're right,

699
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:13,320
Frodo doesn't understand the part he's playing
for him, and so he's still kind

700
00:57:13,320 --> 00:57:17,039
of left his own devices of fingering
it out until finally that part of him

701
00:57:17,599 --> 00:57:22,320
that isn't the best one, you
know, for him, you know,

702
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:25,119
the more self destructive part, starts
taking them to danger at the end,

703
00:57:25,239 --> 00:57:30,480
because Tubo will always win versus the
violin because it's most distressed. It's the

704
00:57:30,519 --> 00:57:34,639
sweaky whale. Sweaky wone gets the
grease, like, yeah, the most

705
00:57:34,760 --> 00:57:37,000
freaked out part of you is if
you don't know what to do with it,

706
00:57:37,320 --> 00:57:44,760
will win because how could it not
if you're scared? Yep. And

707
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:47,760
I love that you came in hot
with that, Justina, that you happen

708
00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:52,880
to be IFS trained, I am
not I trained, but I am trained

709
00:57:52,920 --> 00:57:59,760
in structural dissociation, which is a
cousin of it's all parts work right,

710
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:07,360
It's it's all ego state, it's
all the same shit again. I mean,

711
00:58:07,400 --> 00:58:12,079
I think what I would love for
clients and budding therapists to understand is

712
00:58:13,159 --> 00:58:16,760
as much as places offer you credentials
and training and knowledge that do crack your

713
00:58:16,800 --> 00:58:21,679
head open and give you the ability
to help people and yourself help people.

714
00:58:22,639 --> 00:58:28,559
Is watch the dogmatism in these treatments, because even the people create them will

715
00:58:28,639 --> 00:58:31,199
later go on and talk about how
somebody else's model influenced theirs in their life,

716
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:38,119
and that what they are doing is
running a business and they are preaching

717
00:58:38,239 --> 00:58:45,119
their thing because they've researched it and
standardized it and manualized it through their viewpoint

718
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:51,280
in order to make a business,
and understanding that is important that these are

719
00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:55,320
all ways of saying the same things, but you may need to hear it

720
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:59,440
in a different way, and that's
the value of their being a different voice

721
00:58:59,480 --> 00:59:05,280
saying it, but speaking out of
different voices. What I love about the

722
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:12,880
way structural dissociation puts things is understanding
that these parts that Justine is talking about

723
00:59:13,519 --> 00:59:21,679
all exist for a reason. Every
one of them evolved in response to an

724
00:59:21,719 --> 00:59:27,079
event or series of events that happened. And Geninea Fisher, who did one

725
00:59:27,119 --> 00:59:34,079
of the trainings that I took and
very much adored this viewpoint, is understanding

726
00:59:34,159 --> 00:59:39,599
that the more trauma occurs, the
more splitting is required, so the more

727
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:45,480
parts have to develop. And while
we see primarily two parts of Goloman Smiegel

728
00:59:45,760 --> 00:59:52,639
that interact, probably for simplicity purposes, right is what you see is that

729
00:59:52,719 --> 00:59:58,800
in all of us there are several
different parts that evolved that are parts of

730
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:05,159
our personality that are functions like our
personality operates like a phone or windows.

731
01:00:05,599 --> 01:00:08,320
You can have the base operating system
that all runs the same, and then

732
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:14,280
you install different apps based on what
you need to do, specific things that

733
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:19,679
might turn off or on other functions
that exist within that operating system. And

734
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:27,360
Gallum is the survival part of Smigel. Gallum can do things that Smigel cannot.

735
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:35,599
Gallum exists to murder, cheat steel
and do whatever is necessary to keep

736
01:00:35,679 --> 01:00:42,360
that ring in his possession, keep
it hidden from Saron, and eat and

737
01:00:42,519 --> 01:00:45,639
survive. That's it. That's all
that's for. It's the ID personified basically

738
01:00:46,000 --> 01:00:50,119
because even parts goes back to Freud, ad ego, super ego. Guess

739
01:00:50,159 --> 01:00:59,719
what part part part and understanding that
we can lose connection with the self when

740
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:02,880
we thrust into situations we must survive. And Gallum has been doing it for

741
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:08,480
five hundred years where he has lost
the connection to who Smigel is. And

742
01:01:08,639 --> 01:01:15,679
the scenes where Frodo being kind to
him and asking him what his name is

743
01:01:15,000 --> 01:01:20,840
shows such beautiful acting by Andy Serkis, even though it got digitally represented.

744
01:01:21,480 --> 01:01:27,920
You see just this emergence of Smiegel
again for the first time in so long.

745
01:01:28,119 --> 01:01:31,320
And I have seen that with clients
a great many times. In Richard

746
01:01:31,360 --> 01:01:35,559
Schwartz's language, it's getting the self
online, which is a huge focus of

747
01:01:35,719 --> 01:01:38,599
things that he works on with clients. But for a therapist, being able

748
01:01:38,639 --> 01:01:46,199
to help someone recognize that you have
ceded control of yourself over to these parts

749
01:01:46,639 --> 01:01:52,559
and when they take over, because
they evolved out of necessity to survive,

750
01:01:52,159 --> 01:01:59,559
they have limited functions that correspond only
to the situations they evolved from, and

751
01:01:59,679 --> 01:02:01,440
they get stuck. Well, they're
trying to help, but they're not very

752
01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:07,079
skillful, right They're not. And
the parts might get stuck at a developmental

753
01:02:07,159 --> 01:02:12,039
stage different than you are at now. There could be a trauma you went

754
01:02:12,079 --> 01:02:15,360
through at eight years old and that
part continues to have an eight year old

755
01:02:15,360 --> 01:02:21,000
mindset and you as an adult recognizing
I am acting like a child right now

756
01:02:21,239 --> 01:02:25,119
and I can't figure out why could
be because of a part and that part

757
01:02:25,199 --> 01:02:34,079
having formed then and understanding that is
really important. Understanding this beautiful interaction we

758
01:02:34,239 --> 01:02:38,519
see between Smeegel and Gollum, where
Smigel is doing what we would coach,

759
01:02:39,639 --> 01:02:44,719
but a therapist who's understands these models
would coach a client to do. Is

760
01:02:45,239 --> 01:02:50,559
it's okay to tell your fight part
you don't need it anymore, that right

761
01:02:50,639 --> 01:02:54,039
now I don't need you. You
usually want to do that with a more

762
01:02:54,079 --> 01:02:59,840
compassionate voice, because that part does
exist for a reason and it knows it.

763
01:03:00,679 --> 01:03:04,119
Yeah, And the way Gollum talks
to Smigle of you'd be nothing.

764
01:03:06,800 --> 01:03:13,039
Well, it's a little bout you. I'll give it that. I wasn't

765
01:03:13,119 --> 01:03:15,039
quite prepared to do it. Then
I decided to go for it, and

766
01:03:15,119 --> 01:03:17,719
I absolutely failed. So I'll just
on that. No, it's all right,

767
01:03:21,360 --> 01:03:24,760
go ahead, No, you finish. Just wanted to point out that

768
01:03:24,920 --> 01:03:30,480
that argument, you usually want to
be more compassionate with yourself because your parts,

769
01:03:30,519 --> 01:03:34,719
because the parts evolved and succeeded because
you're still here, so they know

770
01:03:35,039 --> 01:03:39,719
that their existence is valid and purposeful. But you need your core self,

771
01:03:40,239 --> 01:03:44,920
or as I like to call it, your president to tell your secretary of

772
01:03:45,440 --> 01:03:49,320
Defense that, hey, I'm aware
that if we knew to them, no

773
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:52,480
longer a problem. I am aware
that that is an option, but if

774
01:03:52,559 --> 01:03:55,039
we knew them, we're going to
have more problems, and actually we need

775
01:03:55,079 --> 01:03:59,880
to solve this with diplomacy right now, not nukes. Okay. Well,

776
01:04:00,239 --> 01:04:02,840
And one of the ways that I
that I talk about it with clients,

777
01:04:03,159 --> 01:04:09,599
or a way that I actually used
for myself, is thanking the fighting part

778
01:04:09,840 --> 01:04:13,840
for doing such a good job of
getting us to where we are right now,

779
01:04:14,760 --> 01:04:17,639
and that I'm really grateful for all
the help that they've given and that

780
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:21,840
right now I'm actually okay and I
don't need their help right now, but

781
01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:26,480
that I'm really grateful that they stood
up and wanted to be a part of

782
01:04:26,559 --> 01:04:29,280
this. Yeah. I tell clients
a lot that I said, yeah,

783
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:32,599
this part of you is like your
friend who is really scrappy and always wants

784
01:04:32,639 --> 01:04:36,039
to fight, and they're like still
your best friend though, or one of

785
01:04:36,079 --> 01:04:40,400
your best friends. And then you
have to tell like, I understand the

786
01:04:40,480 --> 01:04:43,760
sentiment, and you're gonna add stress
to me now because now it's like we're

787
01:04:43,800 --> 01:04:46,880
gonna have a fight at public Park
and you're adding more to the drama than

788
01:04:46,920 --> 01:04:50,400
you're helping. Tell them they can
put their earrings back in, and you

789
01:04:50,519 --> 01:04:56,559
know, like that we that's not
the energy right now, because I think

790
01:04:56,639 --> 01:05:00,840
the unfortunately, the sort of mainstream
concept because we're just I don't know,

791
01:05:00,880 --> 01:05:04,599
we're also mean to ourselves in each
other is to like dogpile on ourselves in

792
01:05:04,639 --> 01:05:08,840
those moments, like the amount of
times and we see it with Smigel in

793
01:05:08,920 --> 01:05:11,960
the movie when I'm with clients and
they're like, yeah, I had this

794
01:05:12,000 --> 01:05:13,760
thought pop up, and I was
like, come on, you know that's

795
01:05:13,800 --> 01:05:15,639
not true. Why are you acting
like this? I'm not that at that

796
01:05:15,800 --> 01:05:19,840
and like being mean to themselves And
I'm like, hey, so we dogpiled

797
01:05:19,960 --> 01:05:23,559
to that help us feel better?
Do that help us feel worse? Are

798
01:05:23,599 --> 01:05:27,320
we just adding to the mean voices
in our head that already tell us we're

799
01:05:27,559 --> 01:05:30,760
trash monsters or whatever? And so
a lot of times what I'll tell clients

800
01:05:30,840 --> 01:05:34,039
too as well is too And this
goes back to the idea that different parts

801
01:05:34,079 --> 01:05:38,559
of us are younger or at different
ages. Is like, how would you

802
01:05:38,599 --> 01:05:42,800
have wanted an adult to have talked
to you when you were young? And

803
01:05:43,079 --> 01:05:45,679
would how would you have wanted to
be comforted at these different ages? And

804
01:05:45,880 --> 01:05:51,079
you can give that to yourself and
that question like will make someone cry like

805
01:05:53,159 --> 01:05:56,639
that, and when you ask them
that question, But I think it helps

806
01:05:56,679 --> 01:06:02,559
us conceptualize that we still need this
same amount of responses and comfort internally that

807
01:06:02,719 --> 01:06:08,360
we did when we were young,
And I think it really helps adults think

808
01:06:08,480 --> 01:06:13,440
differently about how they're approaching themselves.
It does, and especially if you tie

809
01:06:13,519 --> 01:06:16,440
that into where they feel it in
their body so they can release. And

810
01:06:17,079 --> 01:06:23,079
people spend so much time rejecting emotions
as weakness, but I try so very

811
01:06:23,159 --> 01:06:28,840
hard to help them understand that trapped
emotions make you weaker. Expressing them makes

812
01:06:28,880 --> 01:06:32,119
you stronger because it helps you connect
to the meaning you're supposed to get from

813
01:06:32,159 --> 01:06:35,880
that feeling in the first place,
that got stuck because it wasn't allowed to

814
01:06:35,920 --> 01:06:41,199
come out at that time. I
could go on a five hour rant about

815
01:06:41,320 --> 01:06:45,719
how you're not better as an adult
because you're logical and you're so pragmatic that

816
01:06:45,800 --> 01:06:50,280
you're better than everybody else. The
scam that we've sold ourselves as adults is

817
01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:55,440
that if you're truly mature, then
you shouldn't be having feelings anymore, and

818
01:06:55,519 --> 01:06:59,880
if you're having emotions, then something
is still childish and immature about you,

819
01:07:00,559 --> 01:07:04,679
and that you've truly reached. I
don't know the zenith of your truest form

820
01:07:04,960 --> 01:07:11,440
if you can like always apply logic
and you never get emotional and do and

821
01:07:11,599 --> 01:07:15,199
that's such a disservice we do ourselves
and each other in this day, this

822
01:07:15,360 --> 01:07:20,920
mythology that like, feelings are stupid
and immature and young and you know,

823
01:07:21,079 --> 01:07:26,519
dummy stuff, and it's not.
And I always feel like I'm constantly having

824
01:07:26,559 --> 01:07:30,400
to break it to clients that your
emotions are there, buddy, and they're

825
01:07:30,480 --> 01:07:34,800
just as worthwhile as logic parts of
you. And you're not better because you

826
01:07:34,920 --> 01:07:41,360
are so pragmatic. And actually pragmatism
can get in the way of actually feeling

827
01:07:41,440 --> 01:07:45,039
better and quote unquote winning a therapy, because I feel like the people that

828
01:07:45,079 --> 01:07:48,679
are most pragmatic incline also come into
therapy with a very like I'm gonna win

829
01:07:48,760 --> 01:07:54,000
a therapy energy and like so they
have to like kind of get through all

830
01:07:54,079 --> 01:07:59,599
this, all these walls, all
right. My competitive part enjoys the process

831
01:07:59,679 --> 01:08:04,239
of helping them realize that that is
complete nonsense. Yeah, questioning social constructs,

832
01:08:04,440 --> 01:08:09,880
it's one of my favorite pastimes.
And Spock parts aren't better than Kirk

833
01:08:09,960 --> 01:08:14,639
parts, that's true. What's so
interesting about hearing you guys talk about this

834
01:08:15,000 --> 01:08:18,840
is that what I took away from
the Gallum Snegel, Sam Wise Froto all

835
01:08:18,880 --> 01:08:24,680
that collaboration in the movie was I
viewed it like such a typical child therapist

836
01:08:24,840 --> 01:08:27,880
to ask to do like a lot
of like parenting and family work as part

837
01:08:27,920 --> 01:08:30,039
of being a child therapist. And
that's the total zone that I've viewed it

838
01:08:30,119 --> 01:08:35,439
as where what came up from me
is honestly like the only times I ever

839
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:42,399
feel disappointed with Sam, which where
he is just truly vilifying Sniegel. I

840
01:08:42,439 --> 01:08:45,199
feel like I want to call Snegel
now because I have one more affection for

841
01:08:45,279 --> 01:08:48,760
him. Calling them Gallum feels mean
both see fold compassion. We just have

842
01:08:48,880 --> 01:08:54,840
to find a point of compassion and
absolutely, and so I think what really

843
01:08:54,920 --> 01:08:59,560
like felt oof Sam? Come on? Ish? They when Froto does take

844
01:09:00,000 --> 01:09:03,520
Snegle under their wing and is calling
him Snegele and is giving him, giving

845
01:09:03,600 --> 01:09:08,359
him things to be proud of and
really trying to meet him where he's at,

846
01:09:08,680 --> 01:09:12,119
and Sam keeps going he's such a
bad person, or he's not even

847
01:09:12,159 --> 01:09:15,560
a person. He's a thief and
a liar, and he's intentionally evil and

848
01:09:16,039 --> 01:09:20,279
full of bad intentions, and how
can we trust him? He's garbage monster

849
01:09:20,479 --> 01:09:26,000
person, and Frodo is like basically
says, I wrote it a lot down

850
01:09:26,119 --> 01:09:30,079
basically like the svation it's to me
was you don't get it, and you're

851
01:09:30,119 --> 01:09:32,520
not going to get it because you
don't know what it's like to go through

852
01:09:32,920 --> 01:09:38,279
what he's gone through and now what
I'm going through. And I see this

853
01:09:38,399 --> 01:09:41,600
a lot when I do family work, where I know I put it when

854
01:09:41,640 --> 01:09:44,159
I was introducing the topics under sort
of the form of like addiction, but

855
01:09:44,239 --> 01:09:47,439
honestly it's any sort of like mental
health, which you know, addiction can

856
01:09:47,439 --> 01:09:53,119
be part of that analogy, which
is that if you've never gone through significant

857
01:09:53,199 --> 01:09:58,520
mental health issues or addiction issues,
or you've never been close to someone who's

858
01:09:58,520 --> 01:10:04,039
gone through that stuff, really yeah, you can really struggle to understand how

859
01:10:04,159 --> 01:10:08,520
they don't have more autonomy over it. And there can be a lot of

860
01:10:08,560 --> 01:10:11,359
vilification in the form of how Sam's
viewing it, which is like, well,

861
01:10:11,479 --> 01:10:13,640
he's choosing to act this way,
and he's choosing to be a bad

862
01:10:13,720 --> 01:10:17,199
person, and because I'm making that
decision that he's choosing to be that way,

863
01:10:17,600 --> 01:10:20,960
he's an untrustworthy person. It's all
behavioral and he is no and he

864
01:10:21,119 --> 01:10:25,439
is every say in the matter,
And what Frodo's understanding is more of the

865
01:10:25,560 --> 01:10:29,239
voice that can come in and family
work of maybe another parent or someone else

866
01:10:29,359 --> 01:10:32,760
or something as me, which is
that's not the long and the short of

867
01:10:32,840 --> 01:10:38,279
it. And when you've gone through
hard things in life, like I'm going

868
01:10:38,359 --> 01:10:41,199
through that, like he went through, it has an impact on you,

869
01:10:41,239 --> 01:10:43,560
the choices you made. He's not
a bad person, he's just had bad

870
01:10:43,600 --> 01:10:46,319
stuff happened to him and he's struggling, and if we can give him some

871
01:10:47,239 --> 01:10:51,319
modicum of respect that he can make
it out the other side and we can

872
01:10:51,399 --> 01:10:57,479
help him feel better, get better
if you will. And that's such a

873
01:10:57,640 --> 01:11:00,439
huge battle. I think I see
that. I think maybe I'm thinking of

874
01:11:00,520 --> 01:11:01,640
it like addictions. They think that's
how I see it a lot, like

875
01:11:01,720 --> 01:11:05,079
on Facebook and stuff like that,
where people are like, how could you

876
01:11:05,159 --> 01:11:10,600
choose drugs over your kids? And
how could you, like really vilifying people

877
01:11:10,720 --> 01:11:14,760
that struggle with addictions specifically, But
it can go mental health at large,

878
01:11:15,319 --> 01:11:20,640
and we really are still struggling in
mainstream society to hold compassion and empathy in

879
01:11:20,760 --> 01:11:25,159
this arena. And I know my
assumption is it's coming from a place of

880
01:11:26,039 --> 01:11:30,079
I can't accept the idea that there
might be things that we don't have control

881
01:11:30,199 --> 01:11:33,680
over. So I have to tell
myself that you're choosing to do drugs,

882
01:11:34,000 --> 01:11:38,760
you're choosing to be depressed, you're
choosing this, choosing that because it allows

883
01:11:38,880 --> 01:11:41,920
me the comfort of thinking, well, I'm not choosing those things, so

884
01:11:42,039 --> 01:11:44,960
that can't happen to me. And
what Frodo is trying to explain to Sam

885
01:11:45,039 --> 01:11:48,279
Wise is sometimes it happens to you
and it changes you and it sucks and

886
01:11:48,359 --> 01:11:51,760
it's scary, and like, you
have got to have more empathy for this

887
01:11:51,960 --> 01:11:58,600
dude, because we are two bad
decisions, two life events away from being

888
01:11:58,760 --> 01:12:02,479
sniggle from being goal. And that's
such an important lesson And that's really what

889
01:12:02,600 --> 01:12:08,159
I saw, and I think it
is beautiful. How as soon as I

890
01:12:08,239 --> 01:12:10,680
can't want to say, Elijah,
what, as soon as Froto starts showing

891
01:12:10,800 --> 01:12:13,399
him respect, he takes it up. And I think that happens more than

892
01:12:13,399 --> 01:12:18,920
people realize. As soon as someone
is given dignity, they will respond and

893
01:12:19,119 --> 01:12:23,840
kind for that, and they will
start to grow. We can't dehumanize people

894
01:12:24,680 --> 01:12:28,840
and then think that there's going to
rise above that dehumanization. That is so

895
01:12:29,119 --> 01:12:31,640
that is trauma over and over again
when we get to the point of dehumanization

896
01:12:32,640 --> 01:12:39,640
and to think that people can rise
above that just on their own will is

897
01:12:39,720 --> 01:12:44,159
so unkind and compassionate, and I
think it is just a good lesson of

898
01:12:44,319 --> 01:12:49,520
if you give someone space and forgiveness
sometimes too, that within limits, boundaries,

899
01:12:49,520 --> 01:12:55,760
whatever, that that's when they can
truly start to quote unquote become themselves

900
01:12:55,840 --> 01:12:59,640
again or get to the other side
of the situation. And I think it's

901
01:12:59,640 --> 01:13:01,680
just really hard unless you've been a
part of it, or you're part of

902
01:13:01,760 --> 01:13:05,800
like mental community like we are.
It's really hard to wrap your head around

903
01:13:05,840 --> 01:13:11,239
that at first. But you can
get there if you allow yourself to your

904
01:13:11,359 --> 01:13:14,800
mind to be cracked open a little
bit by somebody else about this concept.

905
01:13:14,840 --> 01:13:19,199
But it's really hard. It's really
really hard. It's really hard to overcome

906
01:13:19,680 --> 01:13:30,159
being relegated to villain hood. And
the short and simple example I'll give of

907
01:13:30,279 --> 01:13:36,359
that is when there's suspicion in a
relationship that someone is cheating, especially when

908
01:13:36,479 --> 01:13:42,960
it's not actually happening, and that's
somebody else's past trauma playing out on their

909
01:13:43,039 --> 01:13:46,239
current partner, and they keep accusing
them of cheating and accusing them of cheating

910
01:13:46,279 --> 01:13:49,239
and accusing them of cheating, till
the person eventually goes, fuck it.

911
01:13:49,279 --> 01:13:53,279
If I'm gonna keep getting accused of
cheating, I'm gonna go fucking cheat because

912
01:13:53,319 --> 01:13:57,079
this shit isn't even worth it might
as well have the benefit of it right

913
01:13:57,119 --> 01:14:00,880
and reaping all of the consequences.
And it's important to understand that we as

914
01:14:00,920 --> 01:14:04,840
a society go, okay, well, you did a bad thing or a

915
01:14:04,880 --> 01:14:10,239
wrong thing, or you gave into
this or whatever broken mentality we want to

916
01:14:10,279 --> 01:14:14,520
have about something, and then gay
say, let me shame you because you

917
01:14:14,600 --> 01:14:16,760
weren't able to get better. But
also, I'm gonna make it as hard

918
01:14:16,800 --> 01:14:21,399
as fucking possible for you to get
better by shaming you to a point that

919
01:14:21,520 --> 01:14:26,720
you feel that it's hopeless. And
then your part system will take hold of

920
01:14:26,880 --> 01:14:30,000
that and say, hey, we
don't need any of that shit. Fuck

921
01:14:30,039 --> 01:14:34,840
it, let's just associate and go
to makes us feel good, yeah,

922
01:14:35,880 --> 01:14:40,720
or just a part that helps them
survive because they can unplug because there is

923
01:14:40,800 --> 01:14:45,960
no path to success. And when
our body recognizes that and chooses that for

924
01:14:46,000 --> 01:14:49,760
ourselves doesn't have to be true,
but when the perception of that is there,

925
01:14:50,319 --> 01:14:54,840
our body will start choosing from our
freeze and fawn responses, and our

926
01:14:54,840 --> 01:15:00,439
ability to fight or run away from
what's causing that will cease to be a

927
01:15:00,600 --> 01:15:04,520
viable option, and our body will
choose the num out options to escape pain.

928
01:15:04,840 --> 01:15:08,520
Yeah, because one thing I always
try to emphasize too to people when

929
01:15:08,560 --> 01:15:11,520
they're stuck in this, that's a
choice they're making. You know, they're

930
01:15:11,560 --> 01:15:14,239
deciding to be a jerk, or
they're just an asshole, or you know

931
01:15:14,399 --> 01:15:18,520
whatever is I do try to tell
people everybody's just trying to get their needs

932
01:15:18,600 --> 01:15:21,840
met. You know, no one's
ever just like I'm deciding to day I'm

933
01:15:21,840 --> 01:15:26,079
gonna blow up somebody's life or I'm
gonna be a total d bag. Maybe

934
01:15:26,119 --> 01:15:29,960
someone is very very rarely, very
rarely and a little more often than not,

935
01:15:30,840 --> 01:15:32,279
especially with younger people. But this
is all ages. You know,

936
01:15:32,359 --> 01:15:34,880
they're trying to get a need met
and they're just going about it in a

937
01:15:34,960 --> 01:15:44,800
way that is unhealthy or is causing
more strife or instant gratification, but long

938
01:15:44,920 --> 01:15:49,439
term consequences. And that's a way
to have like compassion and like you were

939
01:15:49,479 --> 01:15:54,560
saying, Ben, is like recognizing
that they're trying to deal with something with

940
01:15:54,840 --> 01:15:58,439
and you're seeing you're just seeing like
the behavior part of it or the consequences

941
01:15:58,520 --> 01:16:01,640
part. And yeah, and I
think too, you know, we have

942
01:16:01,760 --> 01:16:06,119
to be careful about how much we
reinforce as supports, we reinforce the thought

943
01:16:06,159 --> 01:16:10,720
patterns are already going on inside,
Like when he starts saying nobody likes you.

944
01:16:10,720 --> 01:16:12,520
Of course nobody likes you. Everybody
hates you, You're a piece of

945
01:16:12,560 --> 01:16:15,960
shit. All the stuff that Golam
Smigel was saying to himself behind that tree,

946
01:16:15,159 --> 01:16:20,479
like towards the end and roll throughout
and going back to dog piling is

947
01:16:20,520 --> 01:16:23,359
what I tell people in their life, Like, we have to be careful

948
01:16:23,359 --> 01:16:28,319
of the messaging we give out because
if we're just reinforcing that, then why

949
01:16:28,359 --> 01:16:30,600
wouldn't they just go down that road
like you were saying, Ben, like,

950
01:16:30,680 --> 01:16:38,279
why wouldn't they just succumb to that
thought process because you're fertilizing their belief

951
01:16:38,319 --> 01:16:43,039
system that they're bad or whatever it
is anyway, and that the world's bad.

952
01:16:43,640 --> 01:16:45,920
Yeah, this hopelessness in general,
hopelessness, helplessness, all that stuff.

953
01:16:47,079 --> 01:16:50,119
Yeah. Yeah, And I think
the last thing I want to say

954
01:16:50,119 --> 01:16:56,159
about it is recognizing the way that
this is written and shown is so important

955
01:16:56,239 --> 01:17:00,960
because, like Justine, you were
talking about when the self is ascribed to

956
01:17:01,159 --> 01:17:08,399
someone else, it is weak because
it's not real. You're you're placing impossible

957
01:17:09,319 --> 01:17:14,319
tasks and standards on another person to
be your regulator and your basis, and

958
01:17:14,479 --> 01:17:20,439
that that doesn't work because things that
are alive are fallible, they are not

959
01:17:20,600 --> 01:17:26,239
perfect, and they are susceptible to
life happening to them too and being put

960
01:17:26,319 --> 01:17:31,199
in impossible situations. And we see
that dynamic play out when Fairmere forces Froto's

961
01:17:31,239 --> 01:17:36,199
hand that either he's going to have
his men shoot Gallum in the pool for

962
01:17:36,479 --> 01:17:42,079
I think a made up rule,
and I don't think that's a a forbidden

963
01:17:42,079 --> 01:17:45,920
pool. I think that's some bullshit. It's a pool and the woods.

964
01:17:46,920 --> 01:17:53,640
He decided to use his leverage in
order to manipulate the situation and put Froto

965
01:17:53,680 --> 01:17:58,000
in an impossible situation where he had
to choose. But because Gallum's self is

966
01:17:58,119 --> 01:18:02,600
placed on Froto when Frodo is in
perfect or Smigel's ability to be himself is

967
01:18:02,600 --> 01:18:06,560
placed just on one person. When
that person fails him, it opens the

968
01:18:06,640 --> 01:18:12,319
door for Gallum to come back in
and say I told you so. Yeah.

969
01:18:13,119 --> 01:18:16,239
Gallum seizes control again. He never
fully seizes control until the end,

970
01:18:16,479 --> 01:18:23,159
but Smigel never gets back and control
of that body. Fully. My retention

971
01:18:23,279 --> 01:18:26,319
of these movies is so low that
I was gentleminely like, oh my god,

972
01:18:26,359 --> 01:18:29,399
what's going to happen now? Is
it's Megel? Because I could not

973
01:18:29,560 --> 01:18:32,479
remember he's going to lead to a
giant spider because the tent for me,

974
01:18:32,600 --> 01:18:39,960
it happens. I remember the third
one's my favorite, So I hope you'll

975
01:18:40,000 --> 01:18:44,439
have me back. Okay, all
right, well after this, let's take

976
01:18:44,439 --> 01:18:47,640
another break and then we will slip
into treatment. All right, treatment,

977
01:18:47,880 --> 01:18:51,800
I can just go first because I
stole my own answer, which is that

978
01:18:51,880 --> 01:18:56,520
I kind of talked about it already
in this last section, which is that,

979
01:18:56,760 --> 01:18:59,560
you know, we like to make
these funny, made up scenarios in

980
01:18:59,640 --> 01:19:03,479
our head. And so if let's
say same Wise and Frodo were to adopt

981
01:19:03,920 --> 01:19:09,239
Smiegel and take them home with them
to the Shire, he wouldn't automatically get

982
01:19:09,279 --> 01:19:11,760
better like people like to think that, oh, if I take someone out

983
01:19:11,800 --> 01:19:15,640
of their current situation and give them
X y Z love, comfort, security

984
01:19:16,640 --> 01:19:20,680
like shelter, that they're just gonna
get better and be so grateful and just

985
01:19:20,880 --> 01:19:26,840
everything's gonna be copasetic and then it
doesn't and then you're in my office growing.

986
01:19:27,279 --> 01:19:30,680
And so what I typically do,
like what I've already sort of talked

987
01:19:30,680 --> 01:19:33,239
about, is just a lot of
psycho education. This can be the kind

988
01:19:33,279 --> 01:19:40,079
of work where I would probably see
Sam wise and Frodo without Smiegel involved.

989
01:19:40,520 --> 01:19:43,840
Sometimes when you do family work,
sometimes I'll do from the work without the

990
01:19:43,960 --> 01:19:46,359
if I'm gonna put him in the
kid role, without the kid involved,

991
01:19:46,720 --> 01:19:53,359
because one, they don't need to
be there as I'm talking about them in

992
01:19:53,479 --> 01:19:56,840
front of them, because a lot
of psycho education is talking about what's going

993
01:19:56,920 --> 01:20:00,079
on and saying like this is probably
why they're doing this, is probably or

994
01:20:00,119 --> 01:20:01,079
they're doing that, And you don't
necessarily want to do that in front of

995
01:20:01,119 --> 01:20:05,319
the person because it can be very
mothering and of nothing else boring, especially

996
01:20:05,319 --> 01:20:09,720
if we're working with actual kid aged
kids. Is it's just freaking boring.

997
01:20:09,880 --> 01:20:13,039
And so that would be the kind
of work It was more like coaching is

998
01:20:13,079 --> 01:20:15,920
what I call it, where I
work with just like the parents in this

999
01:20:15,079 --> 01:20:19,319
situation, and I think Sam,
God love him, I think would just

1000
01:20:19,399 --> 01:20:24,800
need a lot of psycho education and
Frodo would probably help me out from an

1001
01:20:24,840 --> 01:20:29,000
anecdotal perspective when we work together about
like this is what it's going to look

1002
01:20:29,039 --> 01:20:32,399
like this or like the trials and
tribulations when you decide to take care of

1003
01:20:32,560 --> 01:20:38,119
someone who has a long history of
trauma, abuse, neglect, YadA,

1004
01:20:38,199 --> 01:20:45,840
YadA, like Smigel clearly does,
and to have realistic expectations about how they'll

1005
01:20:45,920 --> 01:20:50,359
progress in your care and that when
they do things, it's not a choice

1006
01:20:50,520 --> 01:20:55,520
necessarily making you know, they're trying
to like they're trying to manage a lot

1007
01:20:55,560 --> 01:20:59,560
of internal struggle, a lot of
coping skills that worked for them up to

1008
01:20:59,640 --> 01:21:05,680
a point, and they're acclimating to
a new environment and also having to continuously

1009
01:21:05,800 --> 01:21:10,960
decide if they can trust you and
the situations that they're in, and you

1010
01:21:11,119 --> 01:21:13,399
have to be patient with that,
and you have to practice a lot of

1011
01:21:13,520 --> 01:21:19,079
radical compassion and empathy while also setting
limits like any good parent would. And

1012
01:21:19,239 --> 01:21:23,239
so that's kind of where I would
go with them, is I would I

1013
01:21:23,359 --> 01:21:26,960
think Sam would need somebody, you
know, to really kind of sit his

1014
01:21:27,039 --> 01:21:30,279
ass down every once in a while
and be like, this is one arena

1015
01:21:30,399 --> 01:21:33,359
where you kind of don't know what
you're talking about, and your goodness and

1016
01:21:33,640 --> 01:21:38,680
the simplistic view you have of the
world is not serving you, and I

1017
01:21:38,840 --> 01:21:41,960
need you to think a bit more
out of the box and sitting its comfort

1018
01:21:42,000 --> 01:21:45,760
of that and even if you don't
like understand it, try your best to

1019
01:21:45,640 --> 01:21:50,920
understand it from a educational academic point
of view if you can't get it internally.

1020
01:21:51,199 --> 01:21:58,000
But that's where I would go with
treatment. Can you treat? Can

1021
01:21:58,119 --> 01:22:00,479
I can you just personally? Can
you just treat all of them so that

1022
01:22:00,560 --> 01:22:04,319
we can work on the understanding that
the world they continue to vote for and

1023
01:22:05,039 --> 01:22:11,039
values they continue it here too might
need to go through exactly that experience I

1024
01:22:11,159 --> 01:22:13,640
would love. I mean, I
mean, we'd really have to think about

1025
01:22:13,640 --> 01:22:15,880
how that would go about. If
it'd be a long line of boomers that

1026
01:22:15,960 --> 01:22:16,760
would go into an office one at
a time, or if it would be

1027
01:22:16,840 --> 01:22:21,399
sort of like a stadium situation,
like an arena situation, which I think

1028
01:22:21,479 --> 01:22:25,600
that that might not work. I
think they'd need one on one. Well,

1029
01:22:25,640 --> 01:22:29,239
and here's what I'm going to say, which is something I always point

1030
01:22:29,279 --> 01:22:31,119
out. I don't think the boomers
are going to come into your office,

1031
01:22:31,479 --> 01:22:33,840
so I don't think you have to
worry about it. Go ahead, Brittie,

1032
01:22:34,399 --> 01:22:38,159
I mean, I wish they would, and sometimes they do because they

1033
01:22:38,199 --> 01:22:41,880
think it's in the situation that Sam
is in, which is that now it's

1034
01:22:41,880 --> 01:22:45,159
at my front door, and now
it's causing strife in my life. And

1035
01:22:45,359 --> 01:22:48,239
so it's usually almost like a bait
and switch when I do this kind of

1036
01:22:48,279 --> 01:22:51,920
work, which they come in where
they're like, smigles the problem. They

1037
01:22:51,960 --> 01:22:56,720
don't necessarily say it like that because
in the parent child dynamic I'm talking about,

1038
01:22:56,760 --> 01:22:59,199
they love their children, but they're
like, this kid's the problem.

1039
01:23:00,000 --> 01:23:01,119
The amount of times I've had a
family come in where they're like, my

1040
01:23:01,279 --> 01:23:05,119
goal is for my kid to mind
me, and you're going to help them

1041
01:23:05,199 --> 01:23:10,199
mind me, And then I have
to do a little bit and switch on

1042
01:23:10,239 --> 01:23:13,880
them, and I'm like, actually, we're gonna talk about what you can

1043
01:23:13,920 --> 01:23:18,279
do differently and what your kid will
follow suit. Your kid will follow a

1044
01:23:18,319 --> 01:23:23,000
suit or maybe they won't. And
you know, in this one to one

1045
01:23:23,039 --> 01:23:27,119
comparison to adoption, what I tell
parents who do that work is you have

1046
01:23:27,279 --> 01:23:30,159
to be what I really want people
to understand, and if you're listening,

1047
01:23:30,399 --> 01:23:33,399
everybody, open up your listening ears
is that when you choose to adopt a

1048
01:23:33,520 --> 01:23:36,800
child or take a person into your
home that has a hard history or maybe

1049
01:23:38,319 --> 01:23:41,600
an unknown history that you have to
be ready for whatever that looks like.

1050
01:23:42,119 --> 01:23:45,720
And sometimes it looks like this,
which is that it's not about behavior,

1051
01:23:45,840 --> 01:23:50,159
it's about it's a whole nother story. And so yeah, that's why I'll

1052
01:23:50,199 --> 01:23:53,520
go with that. I'll just stop
there. But anyway, who would like

1053
01:23:53,640 --> 01:23:58,279
to talk about treatment? Next?
Mine's going to be a real downer?

1054
01:23:58,800 --> 01:24:02,920
Should I go in the middle?
You can go now, yeah, well

1055
01:24:02,960 --> 01:24:11,640
go ahead and go so that there's
time to like bring it back up so

1056
01:24:12,359 --> 01:24:17,840
I'll be great. That's perfect.
So I want to work with Marion Pippen.

1057
01:24:18,800 --> 01:24:23,079
And the reason I want to work
with Marion Pippen is because they just

1058
01:24:23,199 --> 01:24:30,199
had this really big realization that the
world is going to end, and they

1059
01:24:30,239 --> 01:24:34,359
just had a big win where where
they helped and then they're like, oh

1060
01:24:34,439 --> 01:24:41,479
cool, everything's fine, let's go
smoke some South farling weed, and they're

1061
01:24:41,520 --> 01:24:47,560
about to go into existential crises about
well what do I do now? And

1062
01:24:47,920 --> 01:24:50,680
this is so common to the folks
that I see in my office. I

1063
01:24:50,760 --> 01:24:55,720
work with a lot of folks that
are struggling with nihilism and existential dread.

1064
01:24:55,920 --> 01:25:00,000
Because I work with a lot of
folks that come out of cultic environments who

1065
01:25:00,319 --> 01:25:08,399
have completely pushed away the idea of
spirituality or faith, and so even the

1066
01:25:08,600 --> 01:25:14,560
language of believing in something, even
if that is yourself, is very hard.

1067
01:25:14,840 --> 01:25:20,239
And folks who are really woke and
tuned into what's happening in the world

1068
01:25:20,319 --> 01:25:26,119
around them, up to and including
the fact that the earth is really unwell.

1069
01:25:27,239 --> 01:25:29,840
And so a lot of the work
that I do with them, and

1070
01:25:29,960 --> 01:25:32,840
that I would want to do with
Marian Pippin is get curious about how we're

1071
01:25:32,880 --> 01:25:39,680
finding meaning when we feel so nihilistic
or when we are shut down with this

1072
01:25:39,840 --> 01:25:45,479
existential dread. And I am going
to take us to a different fandom for

1073
01:25:45,560 --> 01:25:46,960
a minute, because this is what
I would do with my clients. And

1074
01:25:47,079 --> 01:25:50,439
this is an example from the book
The Grieving Therapist. Caring for yourself and

1075
01:25:50,479 --> 01:25:55,279
your clients when it feels like the
end of the world. Imagine if you

1076
01:25:55,359 --> 01:26:00,319
will. The Titanic, the historical
Titanic, not that James camp in fan

1077
01:26:00,399 --> 01:26:06,439
fiction. It took different folks on
the ship different amounts of time to accept

1078
01:26:06,520 --> 01:26:12,760
what was happening. Some people didn't
believe it to the last possible second.

1079
01:26:13,039 --> 01:26:18,079
Some people knew right away, but
at some point we can all look around

1080
01:26:18,119 --> 01:26:21,520
and go, this ship's going down, and we have about two hours.

1081
01:26:24,239 --> 01:26:29,840
And so my question for clients is, we know that the earth is unwell.

1082
01:26:30,760 --> 01:26:35,680
We also know that mortal life is
finite, and so you only get

1083
01:26:35,720 --> 01:26:42,319
this one life that we know of. If we equate that one life to

1084
01:26:42,399 --> 01:26:45,479
the two hours on the Titanic,
how do you want to show up?

1085
01:26:45,720 --> 01:26:47,479
How are you going to make meaning
with the final two hours of your life?

1086
01:26:49,399 --> 01:26:54,520
Are you going to be someone who
helps other people into boats? You're

1087
01:26:54,520 --> 01:26:58,079
going to be a helper? Are
you going to be throwing people off the

1088
01:26:58,159 --> 01:27:00,920
side of the ship to get a
spot and a boat? Are you going

1089
01:27:00,960 --> 01:27:05,479
to be cuddling with your loved one
as the water rises? Or do you

1090
01:27:05,560 --> 01:27:13,359
want to be like the band who
played together on the deck until they couldn't

1091
01:27:13,359 --> 01:27:16,479
play anymore? And I don't get
to tell you what the answer is,

1092
01:27:17,560 --> 01:27:20,960
but for me, i'd want to
be in the band. I want to

1093
01:27:21,000 --> 01:27:29,600
do what I love for me,
it benefits others, and that's why that's

1094
01:27:29,640 --> 01:27:36,199
how I want to spend my life. And so clients and I have really

1095
01:27:36,279 --> 01:27:40,079
good conversations about this, and believe
it or not, it can be a

1096
01:27:40,239 --> 01:27:48,560
really fruitful conversation where folks have to
think and reckon with mortality, which isn't

1097
01:27:48,600 --> 01:27:51,680
easy, and I don't think it
would be easy for Mary and Pippin.

1098
01:27:51,840 --> 01:27:57,920
They've probably never thought about the fact
that they will one day no longer be

1099
01:27:58,039 --> 01:28:00,039
with us. And what do they
want to do? Are they making enough?

1100
01:28:00,159 --> 01:28:08,680
Meaning smoke and weed and eating snacks. Maybe, But it seems like

1101
01:28:10,239 --> 01:28:15,119
now that they've you know, spent
time with Treebeard and the Fellowship and you

1102
01:28:15,239 --> 01:28:19,880
know, helped save the world,
that maybe there is something else out there

1103
01:28:19,960 --> 01:28:25,479
they want to do or be and
there can still be room for them to

1104
01:28:25,640 --> 01:28:34,000
smoke weed and have snacks in addition
to this other work. Love it,

1105
01:28:34,439 --> 01:28:38,840
Thank you, love it. And
for the record, I want to be

1106
01:28:38,880 --> 01:28:45,479
the chef. The guy who was
throwing the furniture overboard and then goes to

1107
01:28:45,520 --> 01:28:48,399
cling to the back of the ship, and he survived partially because he had

1108
01:28:48,520 --> 01:28:55,279
drank enough alcohol at his bottle blood
temperature lowered, but he radically accepted what

1109
01:28:55,439 --> 01:29:00,520
was going on. We still don't
quite know how that dude survived because alcohol

1110
01:29:00,560 --> 01:29:04,159
should have made him more susceptible to
frostbite, right, should have. But

1111
01:29:04,319 --> 01:29:08,760
that dude was real and he lived. I know, I'm a bit of

1112
01:29:08,800 --> 01:29:15,479
a Titanic scholar myself. Then I
figured based on the movie fan fiction,

1113
01:29:15,560 --> 01:29:17,279
he just didn't go through that one
weird phase when you were twelve like I

1114
01:29:17,399 --> 01:29:20,119
did, where you read a Night
to Remember whatever it's called, because you

1115
01:29:20,199 --> 01:29:25,760
were so deeply into Titanic because of
Leonardo DiCaprio, nobody else. I'm I'm

1116
01:29:25,800 --> 01:29:30,680
a little bit older than you.
Okay, I think that was Yeah,

1117
01:29:31,000 --> 01:29:41,319
likes great when Titanic came out.
I was born in the seventies. A

1118
01:29:42,520 --> 01:29:46,319
Titanic stuff aside, which could be
its own episode and probably should be given

1119
01:29:46,640 --> 01:29:49,159
its status in movie history. Hannah, do you want to go next year?

1120
01:29:49,199 --> 01:29:51,399
On me too? Oh? I
can go next. Okay, I'll

1121
01:29:51,399 --> 01:29:58,680
go next. Um So, something
that I was thinking about while we were

1122
01:29:58,760 --> 01:30:02,680
recording today is that part of what
I help clients do, especially when they're

1123
01:30:03,199 --> 01:30:09,520
trying to deal with some of the
negative narratives that they hold, usually based

1124
01:30:09,600 --> 01:30:13,680
on experiences that they've had. We
all have to start some kind of narrative

1125
01:30:13,960 --> 01:30:20,119
in order to continue to live our
life. And one thing that I try

1126
01:30:20,199 --> 01:30:25,479
to do that just has to do
just with the language of how we talk

1127
01:30:25,520 --> 01:30:30,239
to ourself or how we find hope
or are able to find a way to

1128
01:30:30,359 --> 01:30:34,479
kind of connect back to the self
that we were discussing earlier. And one

1129
01:30:34,520 --> 01:30:39,000
of the ways that I do that
is we hear a lot of shit about

1130
01:30:39,119 --> 01:30:43,920
affirmations, and some people really throw
them out the window as like they have

1131
01:30:44,079 --> 01:30:48,760
to be really positive, that it
has to be this huge idea of how

1132
01:30:48,800 --> 01:30:54,800
everything's going to be fine, everything's
going to be okay. And what I've

1133
01:30:54,880 --> 01:30:58,880
really found when I work with people
is that And something that I use a

1134
01:30:58,960 --> 01:31:03,439
lot for myself is having and being
able to shift and change and affirmation based

1135
01:31:03,479 --> 01:31:10,039
on what you can actually believe.
So it's not necessarily dissimilar from values work

1136
01:31:10,560 --> 01:31:16,279
or from finding meaning as much as
it is when we say when we have

1137
01:31:16,359 --> 01:31:20,960
these narratives, usually there's about ten
or so negative thoughts, negative cognitions that

1138
01:31:21,079 --> 01:31:27,520
go along with that I'm bad,
I'm too much, I'm unlovable. So

1139
01:31:28,439 --> 01:31:31,319
a part of what I try to
do is, let's find something that feels

1140
01:31:31,760 --> 01:31:38,640
meaningful and helpful when that negative narrative
pops up for you. And and a

1141
01:31:38,720 --> 01:31:43,880
lot of the time what I'm talking
about is using something that feels that resonates

1142
01:31:43,920 --> 01:31:47,560
with you, something such as I
am learning how to take good care of

1143
01:31:47,720 --> 01:31:56,920
myself, I am learning to accept
that I will have good days. I

1144
01:31:57,039 --> 01:32:02,439
will have good days and hard days. I am learning more about my story

1145
01:32:03,079 --> 01:32:06,439
and there are a lot of different
parts kind of anything. The way that

1146
01:32:06,479 --> 01:32:10,439
I talk about with people is we
have to have something that's neutral. We

1147
01:32:10,560 --> 01:32:15,119
can't go from I'm unlovable too I'm
lovable, because that doesn't feel realistic.

1148
01:32:15,199 --> 01:32:19,159
It's kind of going back to the
idea of hope that we see sam wise

1149
01:32:19,279 --> 01:32:26,319
have and and how important it is
to find some meaning or some hope for

1150
01:32:26,439 --> 01:32:30,199
yourself, and that sometimes we have
to use various wording to kind of get

1151
01:32:30,319 --> 01:32:33,479
us there. And so that is
something that I would want to do really

1152
01:32:33,560 --> 01:32:38,279
with anybody. I mean, it
kind of makes me think of Initially I

1153
01:32:38,399 --> 01:32:41,279
was thinking for treatment to have them, all of them, all of the

1154
01:32:41,359 --> 01:32:45,920
people that survived the end of the
fellowship and everything happening, and have them

1155
01:32:45,000 --> 01:32:48,039
kind of being a group setting.
And the more I thought about that,

1156
01:32:48,199 --> 01:32:55,119
the more I thought that what would
really be helpful is having a couple of

1157
01:32:55,239 --> 01:33:00,880
different ways to help them slowly acclimate
back into the world. And sometimes that

1158
01:33:01,039 --> 01:33:04,560
comes with having a way that we
think about it for ourselves. And so

1159
01:33:04,960 --> 01:33:08,560
that's how I use affirmations with clients. I tell them, you know,

1160
01:33:08,680 --> 01:33:12,439
we can't have something that's like very
black and white. We have to have

1161
01:33:12,560 --> 01:33:15,199
something. We have to be able
to live in the gray and be able

1162
01:33:15,239 --> 01:33:19,840
to find something that can help us
just in those moments when the negative narrative

1163
01:33:19,920 --> 01:33:26,000
is popping up or those other parts
of us are screaming instead of sitting down

1164
01:33:26,479 --> 01:33:30,319
and being able to gently talk with
us. And some of those ways really

1165
01:33:30,479 --> 01:33:34,880
is having your own wording for yourself
that you believe. I also use a

1166
01:33:34,960 --> 01:33:43,039
set of emotional rights with my clients
that is so old that I can barely

1167
01:33:43,279 --> 01:33:46,159
what is the word when you It's
hard to site because it's old and so

1168
01:33:47,319 --> 01:33:51,840
and what's really interesting about when I
give these people these emotional rights, I

1169
01:33:53,079 --> 01:33:57,680
talk about how these might not all
feel true for you, and that's okay.

1170
01:33:58,159 --> 01:34:01,119
And if they seem helpful but they
don't really connect, we can go

1171
01:34:01,319 --> 01:34:05,399
over it and change any of the
words I don't feel like they like they

1172
01:34:05,479 --> 01:34:09,119
fit for you, so that we
can kind of meet you where you are

1173
01:34:10,119 --> 01:34:13,800
to kind of help you believe this
idea, especially when I work with people

1174
01:34:13,840 --> 01:34:18,000
who've experienced a lot of trauma and
and anything like I am allowed to ask

1175
01:34:18,079 --> 01:34:26,239
for what I need even if the
answer is no, and sometimes those things

1176
01:34:26,279 --> 01:34:29,520
don't feel true. So that's another
one of those ways where I kind of

1177
01:34:29,600 --> 01:34:31,399
talk about, Okay, what feels
like it would work for you, because

1178
01:34:31,520 --> 01:34:35,600
right now you're not there and that's
okay. That's a part of why you're

1179
01:34:35,640 --> 01:34:40,439
seeing me. And so that's kind
of a part of the way that I

1180
01:34:40,560 --> 01:34:44,640
use language, or I use different
kinds of affirmations in different ways to help

1181
01:34:44,760 --> 01:34:47,960
people be able to look at themselves
and use and just use something in the

1182
01:34:48,079 --> 01:34:56,279
moment in order to help neutralize the
negative cognitions or negative thoughts. So I

1183
01:34:56,319 --> 01:34:59,880
would kind of use that with anybody
in this anybody that we've been talking ab

1184
01:35:00,039 --> 01:35:02,560
out. Okay, thank you,
Hannah. It's all very important stuff,

1185
01:35:02,600 --> 01:35:09,680
especially when people are dealing with such
intensely traumatic situations. To be able to

1186
01:35:09,840 --> 01:35:15,239
provide themselves some reassurance through affirmation is
huge for me. Looking at this,

1187
01:35:15,359 --> 01:35:19,319
We've covered a lot of characters so
well, and some we've just completely left

1188
01:35:19,359 --> 01:35:23,319
out. So I feel like I
want to kind of highlight some of the

1189
01:35:23,439 --> 01:35:26,000
characters we haven't talked about much because
I know if some fans are like,

1190
01:35:26,079 --> 01:35:30,600
what about Ericorn, what about Gimley? What about Legolis, we haven't talked

1191
01:35:30,640 --> 01:35:33,680
about any of them, and largely
because Gimley and Legolis in this film are

1192
01:35:33,760 --> 01:35:45,319
almost coming to relief for up.
Yeah. Well yeah, because John ry

1193
01:35:45,359 --> 01:35:47,680
Stavies got to do all his dramatic
stuff is triebuard, so he didn't have

1194
01:35:47,760 --> 01:35:51,079
to do it as Ghimley in this
one. But I think I want to

1195
01:35:51,239 --> 01:35:57,119
cover is when people go through traumatic
situations, particularly people that have to be

1196
01:35:57,279 --> 01:36:01,960
combatants in them, when you talk
about things with them, it's important in

1197
01:36:02,239 --> 01:36:06,399
the way they tell the story.
It's our trauma narratives and just see,

1198
01:36:06,439 --> 01:36:11,640
hopefully this can resonate with you.
As someone who's written a fanfick book about

1199
01:36:11,680 --> 01:36:16,239
how to essentially use narrative therapy to
retell your life. It was just sitting

1200
01:36:16,319 --> 01:36:23,760
right in the motioning to my book
for friends at Home. But the power

1201
01:36:23,960 --> 01:36:28,119
of how the story is told is
important because, as we've highlighted, your

1202
01:36:28,199 --> 01:36:32,680
parts will pile on you and create
shame and guilt that keep the bad feelings

1203
01:36:33,279 --> 01:36:39,840
stuck, and they keep you replaying
the moments where you fail over and over

1204
01:36:39,960 --> 01:36:46,039
again, and those can prevent you
from developing spontaneous access to the flow state

1205
01:36:46,479 --> 01:36:51,640
that helps you connect to your ability
to use your skills and be so invested

1206
01:36:51,680 --> 01:37:00,439
in the moment that you're just operating
exactly at peak performance. And we see

1207
01:37:00,520 --> 01:37:03,039
Leglis as a perfect example of that
in this film. There are so many

1208
01:37:03,199 --> 01:37:08,680
moments where Legolis and I know he's
an elf and he's perfect being and all

1209
01:37:08,720 --> 01:37:15,079
of those things, but he spontaneously
generates solutions that could not possibly have been

1210
01:37:15,199 --> 01:37:18,720
pre thought of. When he skateboards
down that staircase. People were so bad

1211
01:37:18,760 --> 01:37:29,159
about that. You have no idea, but right, it's so perfectly represents

1212
01:37:29,239 --> 01:37:32,800
the exact kind of things that sometimes
spontaneously occur to us in the moment when

1213
01:37:32,840 --> 01:37:38,439
we're able to attune to the situation
and give ourselves credit for what we can

1214
01:37:38,600 --> 01:37:41,800
do and don't bother listening to our
negative voice. It tells us what you

1215
01:37:41,840 --> 01:37:48,119
can't and sometimes you have to get
there and helping people sometimes process they can't

1216
01:37:48,199 --> 01:37:51,720
always do that. You can't always
be in flow state, and sometimes you

1217
01:37:53,319 --> 01:37:56,640
have been successful doing that in the
past and couldn't find it in a moment,

1218
01:37:56,880 --> 01:38:00,359
particularly in the chaos of battle.
I work with police offer there's a

1219
01:38:00,359 --> 01:38:04,079
lot I have to help people debrief
from all manner of fucked up stuff,

1220
01:38:04,399 --> 01:38:09,199
and they have this part of them
that has been able to access flow and

1221
01:38:09,520 --> 01:38:13,159
do crazy shit that they never thought
of. And soldiers are no different.

1222
01:38:13,359 --> 01:38:15,760
And therapists can come up with solutions
in a moment that you forget immediately and

1223
01:38:15,800 --> 01:38:19,119
it was the exact perfect thing to
say, but you can't repeat it.

1224
01:38:19,640 --> 01:38:26,640
And helping people understand that in these
moments where you faced immense pressure and immense

1225
01:38:26,760 --> 01:38:30,520
terror, that there are things that
you did right that you get to integrate

1226
01:38:30,600 --> 01:38:34,840
into your story and you have to
balance what didn't go right that your parts

1227
01:38:34,880 --> 01:38:39,279
are piling on yourself with and telling
you how much you sucker, how much

1228
01:38:39,279 --> 01:38:42,920
you failed, or what you couldn't
do with the things that you did do

1229
01:38:43,079 --> 01:38:47,159
well in order to process all of
it together from that neutral point that Hannah's

1230
01:38:47,159 --> 01:38:54,720
talking about, because as we look
to ascribe meaning to terrible situations that we've

1231
01:38:54,760 --> 01:38:59,880
been through or good ones, when
we're done with the emotions that have been

1232
01:39:00,119 --> 01:39:02,960
stuck, we reach a point of
neutrality with it that helps us reach an

1233
01:39:03,000 --> 01:39:05,920
objective point of Okay, this didn't
go so well, but this did,

1234
01:39:06,359 --> 01:39:12,279
and it helps you recognize what you
can learn from both good and bad because

1235
01:39:12,319 --> 01:39:15,760
we learn from both. We learn
as much from failure as we do from

1236
01:39:15,760 --> 01:39:19,239
success, sometimes more. But you
can't do it if you continue to hold

1237
01:39:19,359 --> 01:39:25,199
on to the negative narrative that you
suck because you didn't do it perfect.

1238
01:39:26,159 --> 01:39:28,920
But if you can look at it
from a balance, your point of I

1239
01:39:29,079 --> 01:39:32,720
did this well and I didn't do
this well, you can find a way

1240
01:39:32,760 --> 01:39:36,960
to succeed. And I think Aragorn
is really good at that. Aragorn recognizes

1241
01:39:38,000 --> 01:39:40,720
what he's done well and what he
hasn't done well. But one of the

1242
01:39:40,800 --> 01:39:45,640
scenes that got cut was him explaining
to Aowen that he's eighty seven years old.

1243
01:39:45,239 --> 01:39:50,359
See it explains stuff, Brittany,
and he's so hot, so hot.

1244
01:39:53,039 --> 01:39:57,239
He's in that flow state for sure, flow state, daddy. But

1245
01:39:57,359 --> 01:40:00,319
he gets here, right, he
does get He gets more scenes, and

1246
01:40:00,359 --> 01:40:05,640
so does Owen. But the importance
of that is just recognizing that when someone

1247
01:40:05,760 --> 01:40:11,159
can be integrated with all the things
they've ever learned, all the successes and

1248
01:40:11,439 --> 01:40:16,640
the failures, they can embrace that
even if something goes against your core values,

1249
01:40:17,560 --> 01:40:25,159
such as nobody tosses a dwarf,
that at some point you must be

1250
01:40:25,319 --> 01:40:30,239
able to spontaneously let that go,
except that that's a limitation, and the

1251
01:40:30,319 --> 01:40:35,159
exact thing you need to do is
abandon your shame and preconceived notions about a

1252
01:40:35,239 --> 01:40:40,279
situation and open your mind to out
of the box solutions that can be applied

1253
01:40:40,600 --> 01:40:45,760
right now, and let yourself get
absolutely heeded into a crowd of work.

1254
01:40:51,079 --> 01:40:53,680
I was like, are you going
to do it? Or am I going

1255
01:40:53,760 --> 01:41:01,159
to do it? Right? Okay? And ORCS not the same anyway.

1256
01:41:01,640 --> 01:41:06,159
I said to you aself about that
today while you and I decided I didn't

1257
01:41:06,199 --> 01:41:11,279
want to know, I was like, you know what if we're gonna think

1258
01:41:11,279 --> 01:41:14,199
of it like the mind callus,
like Sherlock Holmes, like talk about I

1259
01:41:14,319 --> 01:41:17,720
don't need to evacuate anything from my
mind too, so that Rokai or whatever

1260
01:41:17,840 --> 01:41:23,880
can live there. I'm good,
So we can anything else before we slide

1261
01:41:23,880 --> 01:41:28,039
into final thoughts. Then nope,
all right, well one more break final

1262
01:41:28,119 --> 01:41:30,439
thoughts. I'll go first because I'm
the bummer of this part. I'm not

1263
01:41:30,479 --> 01:41:32,840
as much of a bummer this time
around, of guys as if you listen

1264
01:41:32,880 --> 01:41:35,800
to our Fellowship episode, you know
that I was like really dogging on it

1265
01:41:36,039 --> 01:41:40,359
that for whatever reason, I can't
retain anything from I watch these movies,

1266
01:41:40,520 --> 01:41:43,479
and this time I was really trying
to come at it with a different energy,

1267
01:41:43,920 --> 01:41:47,399
especially after I saw that two hours
fifty nine minutes. And I will

1268
01:41:47,439 --> 01:41:50,920
say I was still kind of like
for most of it, but then by

1269
01:41:51,000 --> 01:41:54,720
the time the battle scene came up, I was like fully in. I

1270
01:41:54,760 --> 01:41:57,960
don't know if it's because I'm like
knee deep in House of Dragon right now,

1271
01:41:58,600 --> 01:42:01,960
but I was like really into the
battle scene. When those ladders came

1272
01:42:02,079 --> 01:42:05,199
up and they were started going with
battles or whenever you guys call them,

1273
01:42:05,319 --> 01:42:09,520
I was like, oh, this
is crazy. When that when they blew

1274
01:42:09,600 --> 01:42:11,600
up that part of the wall,
I was like, this is dope.

1275
01:42:11,680 --> 01:42:13,840
Like I was fully into it.
So about the end it had me,

1276
01:42:15,279 --> 01:42:16,720
you know, I know eventually we're
have to watch the next one next season,

1277
01:42:17,079 --> 01:42:21,199
so I'll be into it. And
so I'll say that the wig games,

1278
01:42:21,239 --> 01:42:26,000
they're awesome wigs. Wig game is
very strong in this movie series,

1279
01:42:26,239 --> 01:42:30,359
and you know, beautiful wigs.
So that's my final thoughts, Justine,

1280
01:42:30,359 --> 01:42:32,319
And do you want to go next? All right, so this is my

1281
01:42:32,399 --> 01:42:36,880
final thought about this film. Yes, just kind of any like, any

1282
01:42:36,920 --> 01:42:40,960
opinion you have on it doesn't have
to be therapy. It's you as a

1283
01:42:41,079 --> 01:42:44,479
film lover, as a Tolkien lover, as whatever lover. Okay, so

1284
01:42:45,079 --> 01:42:51,560
Return of the King is my favorite. But I do love Two Towers because

1285
01:42:51,600 --> 01:43:00,760
we get all of this great hot
end action and the row here, who

1286
01:43:00,880 --> 01:43:06,199
we did not even mention. That's
so brittany. Those are the horse people

1287
01:43:06,439 --> 01:43:14,880
led by Carl Ruban. What there
were horse people like, not centaurs,

1288
01:43:14,960 --> 01:43:17,840
the guys that ride horse horsemasters.
Oh, you can't say horse people.

1289
01:43:17,880 --> 01:43:21,560
And my brain said, there were
half horse people in this half horse half

1290
01:43:21,600 --> 01:43:28,279
matching Twilight, not Twilight if anything, mister Jackson, which I have not

1291
01:43:28,399 --> 01:43:32,359
read but I'm finally aware of.
Yes, okay, I thought I was

1292
01:43:32,479 --> 01:43:40,720
making it easier. I made it
worse. Um about this specific thing,

1293
01:43:41,560 --> 01:43:45,239
yes, thank you. So we
we get to we get to go to

1294
01:43:45,399 --> 01:43:53,359
Rohan and and see all all of
that interaction. And I do love I

1295
01:43:53,479 --> 01:43:57,680
do love a Carl Urban. He's
good at all ages. Um, he's

1296
01:43:57,720 --> 01:44:00,079
beautiful and zena warrior princess. He's
beautiful here. He's beautiful in the boys.

1297
01:44:00,760 --> 01:44:06,680
He ages like a fine wine.
And this is gonna be so nerdy,

1298
01:44:06,800 --> 01:44:13,399
but here we are. I love
that Tolkien called them the roehirem because

1299
01:44:13,640 --> 01:44:24,199
I am is a plural in Hebrew, so the he's saying multiple horse riders

1300
01:44:24,279 --> 01:44:28,640
and he's using the EM. I
loved that as a linguistics nerd, and

1301
01:44:31,800 --> 01:44:35,000
good thing you didn't invite me for
Star Wars. I'd be telling you about

1302
01:44:35,039 --> 01:44:42,439
how Yoda means to know in Hebrew. Anyway, that's just a bonus fact.

1303
01:44:44,079 --> 01:44:46,319
So I I mean, I loved
it as much as I always do

1304
01:44:46,479 --> 01:44:50,880
when I watch it. I watched
the extended edition obs I opened up my

1305
01:44:51,039 --> 01:44:55,600
entire afternoon. My partner was like, what are you doing. I was

1306
01:44:55,600 --> 01:45:02,399
like, I need to watch The
Two Towers. By eight thirty. All

1307
01:45:02,439 --> 01:45:06,439
I did today was laundry and watch
this movie. And he would come in

1308
01:45:06,520 --> 01:45:15,279
and talk to me, and I'm
like, I can't pause there because this

1309
01:45:15,399 --> 01:45:20,680
movie is four hours long, like
like Gandolf three hundred years among men,

1310
01:45:20,760 --> 01:45:25,720
and I don't have enough time exactly. But he's like, you know what

1311
01:45:25,840 --> 01:45:28,920
happens. I'm like, I do, but I haven't been watching with this

1312
01:45:29,840 --> 01:45:33,319
particular mindset. And what I got
from at this time that I feel like

1313
01:45:33,359 --> 01:45:39,840
I didn't previously was just how socialist
socialist it is and how much it's shitting

1314
01:45:39,880 --> 01:45:43,640
on capitalism and I loved that.
Hell yeah, I don't think. I

1315
01:45:43,720 --> 01:45:47,920
mean, I could continue talking about
this in a myriad of ways for many

1316
01:45:48,000 --> 01:45:51,760
minutes, but listeners are like,
wrap at the fuck up? So I

1317
01:45:51,840 --> 01:45:57,720
will all right? Who wants to
go next? Hannah or Ben? I'll

1318
01:45:57,760 --> 01:46:00,600
go next? So I think I
know all the die I logged to this

1319
01:46:00,720 --> 01:46:03,000
film, not the extended version,
I don't think, cause I have.

1320
01:46:03,079 --> 01:46:06,199
I've definitely watched that one, but
not as many times. So I love

1321
01:46:06,279 --> 01:46:11,920
these movies. I just I love
them. And I probably would just watch

1322
01:46:12,000 --> 01:46:15,760
Return of the King because I can
never last time. When we did the

1323
01:46:15,800 --> 01:46:18,560
first movie, I watched the whole
trilogy because I was like, I just

1324
01:46:18,760 --> 01:46:23,720
need more of this. So yeah, So I love Lord of the Rings

1325
01:46:24,000 --> 01:46:28,319
and I love the Two Towers.
I really I've always really enjoyed the second

1326
01:46:28,359 --> 01:46:35,039
film, and I'll watch it a
billion more times because it's there's just there's

1327
01:46:35,079 --> 01:46:40,800
something. There's just something about it
and and I just love it. I

1328
01:46:40,840 --> 01:46:44,800
guess that leaves me used to bring
it home here. I have loved the

1329
01:46:44,840 --> 01:46:48,960
Lord of the Rings universe since I
first watched the cartoon version of the Hobbit

1330
01:46:49,039 --> 01:46:54,039
as a child, and I continue
to love the Lord of the Rings series,

1331
01:46:54,560 --> 01:46:58,199
and as much of it as I
can get, I will consume because

1332
01:46:58,279 --> 01:47:00,760
it's just so good. It's so
good, and these movies were done with

1333
01:47:00,920 --> 01:47:06,760
so much love for the material that
you feel it no expense was spared in

1334
01:47:06,920 --> 01:47:15,560
the details of the helmets and the
town and everything about Rohan feels like you're

1335
01:47:15,840 --> 01:47:21,319
in a Norse village, and it's
just so beautifully done. And this movie

1336
01:47:21,680 --> 01:47:29,640
in particular is among my favorites ever
because of how powerful it is and how

1337
01:47:29,720 --> 01:47:34,199
much it speaks to the ability to
start growing beyond everything that you've known and

1338
01:47:34,479 --> 01:47:42,359
find growth and success in dire circumstances
and recognize that believing in yourself sometimes is

1339
01:47:42,399 --> 01:47:45,640
exactly enough, and believing in yourself
and your friends more importantly. And this

1340
01:47:45,880 --> 01:47:51,840
movie just hits so hard and I
think it will just continue to throw audiences

1341
01:47:53,039 --> 01:47:57,359
forever. I love it so much
that I have watched all of the extended

1342
01:47:58,119 --> 01:48:00,000
stuff, the interviews, and I
feel like it's point I have to remind

1343
01:48:00,039 --> 01:48:02,800
my friends Sarah, who I know
we'll be listening to this, that I

1344
01:48:02,920 --> 01:48:06,319
did, in fact take your bishwap. And on that note, we will

1345
01:48:06,359 --> 01:48:10,439
wrap this up because I don't even
know what you're talking about. So,

1346
01:48:10,760 --> 01:48:14,439
Justine, where would you like people
to find you if they are wanting to

1347
01:48:14,560 --> 01:48:17,960
know more about you after listening?
Yes, please follow me on Facebook,

1348
01:48:18,000 --> 01:48:24,319
Instagram and Twitter at Mind Body Fandom
because I take a holistic approach to healing

1349
01:48:24,600 --> 01:48:29,119
mind Body and fandom. I also
have a website, Justine Maston dot com

1350
01:48:29,359 --> 01:48:32,560
where you can learn all about the
stuff I do outside of the therapy office,

1351
01:48:32,840 --> 01:48:39,640
such as mental health consulting and voiceovers. If you can't get enough of

1352
01:48:39,720 --> 01:48:47,079
this voice, you can have it
on your fill in the blank. And

1353
01:48:47,359 --> 01:48:51,880
of course you can find Starship Therapies
using therapeutic fan fiction to rewrite your life

1354
01:48:51,920 --> 01:48:57,199
wherever books are sold. Starship Therapies
the podcast is available wherever you listen to

1355
01:48:57,279 --> 01:49:00,920
podcasts and the Grieving Therapist caring for
yourself and your clients. When it feels

1356
01:49:01,000 --> 01:49:05,119
like The End of the World will
be available for pre sale pretty soon,

1357
01:49:05,239 --> 01:49:09,079
I will let you know as soon
as it's available. All right, great

1358
01:49:10,039 --> 01:49:15,159
and letting me watch this all afternoon, giving you a good reason too,

1359
01:49:15,199 --> 01:49:17,359
And thank you of course for joining
us. And we've been trying to get

1360
01:49:17,439 --> 01:49:27,800
you and Larissa rip Um back around, don't you guys know how comedic beats

1361
01:49:27,840 --> 01:49:31,920
work and so we were able to
finally do it. Ideally, next time

1362
01:49:32,199 --> 01:49:35,600
we will have Larissa as well,
should she come back from the Spirit realm.

1363
01:49:36,159 --> 01:49:41,119
And as always, you can find
us on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok

1364
01:49:41,159 --> 01:49:45,560
at Popcorn Psychology. You can find
us on Twitter at Popcorn Underscore psych You

1365
01:49:45,640 --> 01:49:48,479
can always email us at Popcorn Psychology
at gmail dot com. You can also

1366
01:49:48,560 --> 01:49:53,039
find us on Patreon if you don't. If you start even just a dollar,

1367
01:49:53,279 --> 01:49:57,439
you can have access early to some
of our episodes and also unedited unedited

1368
01:49:57,479 --> 01:50:00,399
pieces of those episodes, and if
you are a fifty dollars or more patron,

1369
01:50:00,439 --> 01:50:04,279
you can actually pick the movie we
discussed for an episode. And we

1370
01:50:04,359 --> 01:50:08,039
also have a t public if you
wanted to get some of our merch,

1371
01:50:08,119 --> 01:50:11,079
a T shirt, a mug,
what have you. And as always,

1372
01:50:11,199 --> 01:50:15,479
if you can find time to rate
and review us, especially on Apple podcasts,

1373
01:50:15,479 --> 01:50:18,039
it's the best way for other people
to find us and to get us

1374
01:50:18,159 --> 01:50:21,760
out there to other people. So
thank you again for joining us, and

1375
01:50:21,880 --> 01:50:26,199
we will see you guys next season
when we finally talk about Return of the King.