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Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast
where we watch blockbuster movies and psychoanalyze them.

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My name is Brittany Brownfield and I'm
a child therapist and I'm joined by

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Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah
Espinozo marriage and family therapists. We're all

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licensed clinical professional counselors also known as
therapists, who practice out of Chicago.

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Even though we are licensed mental health
professionals, this podcast is purely for entertainment

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purposes and to fulfill our love of
dissecting pop culture and all forms. Please

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remember that, even though we are
all licensed therapists, we aren't your therapist.

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If you are struggling with mental health
symptoms, please find a local mental

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health provider. Hello. We are
discussing Arrival today, which is one of

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my favorite movies. We're going to
talk about communication and existentialism. Here's a

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synopsis of the twenty sixteen film,
which was based on a short story by

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Ted Chang titled The Story of US
Linguistics Professor Louise Banks. Amy Adams leads

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an elite team of investigators when gigantic
spaceships touched down in twelve locations around the

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world as nations teeter on the verge
of global war, Banks and her crew

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must race against time to find a
way to communicate with extraterrestrial visitors. Hoping

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to unravel the mystery, she takes
a chance that could threaten her life and

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quite possibly all of mankind. Yeah, so first we're going to talk about

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communication, which is about mostly what
the movie is about. So what were

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you thinking about communication, Brittany?
This movie, right off the bat establishes

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this idea that you can't make any
assumptions about communication because she gets brought in

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right by the military because these spaceships
land freak everybody out obviously, and force

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what A comes in and he's like, very bruntly, is like you need

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to just ort how to talk to
them, as if it's just this problem

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of like finding the right language,
like human language that you need that the

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aliens would understand. And I really
love the scene. It's one of my

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favorite scenes actually, where she breaks
down that there's so many layers to language

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that is based on assumptions cultural understandings, like the idea of like if I'm

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asking what's your purpose, do I
mean you Joe alien or do I mean

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you the collective? And it really
inspired thinking in me about the assumptions we

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make with communication and how that comes
into work as a therapist, even like

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specifically when she brings up the idea
of purpose and how that's an abstract concept,

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like what our definition of purpose is? What does that mean to an

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alien? Absolutely? And what a
daunting idea that is too to communicate with

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someone where you might not have any
shared vocabulary, And right away it made

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me think about when I do work
with people human beings, we do this

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a lot where we assume everybody walks
around with the same dictionary that we have.

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We all have the same glossary,
if you will, and so like

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specifically, when I work with couples
or families, they'll say, like the

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classic example is I want us to
have better intimacy. And then I say,

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can you define intimacy for me?
And often than not, I get

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very different answers from one partner and
the other partner. One partner will say

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intimacy is holding hands and having communication, and the other partner usually says sex

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sex, yes, And I think
people get annoyed. Sometimes I can see

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people get annoyed with how pedantic I
can get about defining terms. But it's

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such an important starting point to get
to communication. If I assume that you

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both have the same definition of intimacy
and then we're working towards concrete steps to

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get there, we're not even working
towards the same objective, right, And

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I think that is all. How
so, how the human ego presents right

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Like force Whitaker, his ego centricism
is showing up by assuming that aliens have

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the same dictionary and glossary that he
does. They just have to find the

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right words. And we all do
that to a certain extent, of course

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we do, and more importantly understanding
that, Let's say, in the example

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of the intimacy definition, you are
addressing the intimacy as it's meant by a

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partner A, who was referring to
closeness, and you're working on concrete steps

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to be there, and partner B
is sitting there with their arms crossed,

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going this, what the fuck are
you talking about? Has nothing to do

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yeah with me getting what I need, because we are talking about closeness and

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snuggles, and that usually results in
partner A falling asleep on me on the

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couch and no sex happening. And
as long as we're not talking about sex

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happening. I'm not fucking interested in
this conversation. Absolutely, And if you're

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shutting partner B down while hearing out
Partner A, we aren't communicating exactly.

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We are deepening the divide and assumptions
of the definitions are very important. And

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why therapists will frustrate the shit out
of you by it not assuming you have

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the same lexicon they do and asking
you what does that mean? How does

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that make you feel? Because we
can assume but will be wrong. I

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think a good example in the movie
is this idea of the word weapon,

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right, and what is the word
for war? It's the Sanskrit word for

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war. And she asks she asks
the kernel to ask the person that they're

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going to go to second, the
second best linguistics person, and she said,

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make sure you ask them what the
word for the Sanskrit word for war

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is. And the answer came back
as it's meant to disagreement, but what

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it actually means is a desire for
more cattle. And just the huge difference

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between those two things. Yeah,
and how if you will go off of

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that assumption of what that words mean
within the different cultures, whatever different lexicons,

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Like you said, ben that can
lead into a whole different problem,

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and I see that a lot when
I do therapy of someone will use a

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word and it'll feel loaded to the
other person, and they'll react off of

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the loadedness that they're inferring onto that
word, and then they are having two

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conversations about the same thing, thinking
that they're having same conversation, and then

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getting pissed at each other because why
are you fighting with me about this?

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Why are you assuming that? Why
are you saying I'm acting like this when

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I didn't even mean that. And
then they come into my space and I

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make them do really annoying active listening
techniques that maybe we can talk about later

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in treatment. Yeah, we will, where I make them slow down and

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repeat back what they're hearing right exactly. And a big part of that is

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we also hear in a lot of
ways what we want to hear, and

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so sometimes we'll listen to part of
what our partner is saying, but we

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won't listen to the full thought.
And so that also gets us into a

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pattern of that back and forth.
You said this, I said that,

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you said this, And that is
where communication completely breaks down and becomes completely

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unhelpful and then you just have two
people who feel like shit and both feel

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like they haven't been heard or seen
by their partner and so and I feel

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like communication. I mean, that's
what couple's therapy is. It's communication.

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It's helping people with communication. It's
almost exclusively what you're doing. Yeah,

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And a part of the reason why
we ask so many clarifying questions is because

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your personal experiences and thoughts and feelings
is what has a big impact on what

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words mean to you and what they
don't mean to you. So I feel

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like there's so many times when I'll
say to a client, so, what

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does that word mean to you?
Yeah, And sometimes they'll be confused,

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or sometimes they'll be like, what
do you mean? And I'll say,

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well, so this is what I
think you're saying, but I'm not sure

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if that's what you're saying. So
again, just this piece of we can't

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make any assumptions. And I think
that's a big thing that we do as

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therapists, is not making assumptions that
we automatically understand what somebody is saying just

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because they're using language that we're familiar
with. Yeah, it's a good point,

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it's very important, and it makes
a huge difference to use your own

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language to invite them to explain further, to clarify and crystallize the point and

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the feelings that they're trying to get
across, which usually gets lost within whatever

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dynamic you're working with, whether it's
a family, couple's friends, whatever it

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is that's coming to sit in a
therapy office and talk to you. Something

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is breaking down because there is not
that extra layer of clarification happening. There's

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just reaction to it. And throughout
this entire film, we see the military

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primed, yeah, ready to respond
to a threat and constantly assessing for a

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threat, without ever once considering that
there could be a peaceful purpose for this

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visit, Like they're ready to lay
down their lives fight this obviously superior force.

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Definitely, absolutely, I mean even
just based on the fact on the

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way that they get to the space
of how the the twelve spaceships that drop

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down, of how it switches and
they become where they were, gravity changes

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and that's how they get the rest
of the way. There's like even just

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that small piece shows how much more
technologically advanced they are than us, right,

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yeah, you have no chance.
Yeah, And something else that I

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was thinking about as I was thinking
about this film, is how I feel

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like I teach communication in every session
that I'm in, whether it's communication,

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helping people communicate effectively with other people
and helping them kind of decide like what

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are they going to say? Like? For instance, an example of that

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is helping so like helping a kid
figure out how to talk to a parent,

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helping an employee talk to an employer, helping a couple one partner of

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a couple talk to the other talk
to their partner, and so there's I

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really feel like that's mostly what I
do when I work with people, is

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I help them with some form of
communication, whether it's them expressing themselves and

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helping them just express themselves because there
haven't had good experiences with that in the

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past, or helping people communicate effectively
with others, or even just helping them

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understand you can't assume, yes exactly, that this person you're talking to knows

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what you mean. People get really
frustrated with communication techniques like dear man or

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dear woman and things like that because
it's so it breaks things down into such

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simple things that I think sometimes people
even feel like offended, Like you think

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I can't communicate without this thing,
imagig and yes, that's why you're here.

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Get it through your head. Yeah. And what people don't understand is

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how much we struggle with concretism around
communication too, and being clear and the

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clarification part that we use so much
overarching language and we get pissed when people

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don't know what we mean. Like
even the saying like what's your purpose?

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That's a wild question really to ask, absolutely, because that could mean so

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many different things, even if they
kind of understood the language, you know,

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and kind of what you were saying
too. Ben reminded me of the

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scene of the movie when they realize
that the Chinese have been using majong to

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communicate with their ship. I would
love to be able to see how everybody

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was communicating with their ships anyway.
And how she talks about the influence that

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putting things in the context of a
game would have on how they communicate with

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each other and how they infer what
they're talking about and when they do the

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whole. You know, if you
think everything, if all you have is

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a hammer, you see everything being
as a nail. And I think how

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that comes into therapy work is when
we work with families or couples where they're

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already defensive and pissed off, and
maybe at the contempt territory, and so

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they will go to the other place
where they assume everything their partner is saying

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is an attack, or is to
hurt their feelings, or it is from

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a very bad faith place. And
like you were saying, Ben, like

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that defensive position that you can be
in where you are waiting to be attacked

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and you're waiting to defend yourself.
And I've been in many a couple session

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where one partner will say something very
innocuous, something very chill, whatever,

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like you know, I'd like it
if you helped with the dishes more.

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And I watch this look go over
their partner's face, and I'll say,

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what did you just hear them say? And they'll say that they think I'm

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so stupid I can't even do the
dishes, And I go, I hate

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to say this to you, but
that is not what they said. That

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is not what I heard. Can
you trust what I'm saying I heard?

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And how quickly jump to what we're
worried about or what's already in our mind's

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eye. So what you were saying, Ben about the military is so ready

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to strike in this movie. They're
so scared of the threat of these aliens

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that they want to interpret everything as
a threat. Well, that's also their

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role, don't agree, it's I
mean, of course they're scared. Everybody

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scared. Yeah, But remembering that
the military they are a hammer. They

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are most certainly a hammer. They
are the only hammer we have. They

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have been trained to be a hammer. They swore an oath to be a

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hammer, and much like our fight
parts that exists withinside us, once they're

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activated, they're there to do one
thing and that is the only thing that

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they do, and that's essentially the
metaphorical role they're playing in this film.

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Recognizing the importance that when you bring
a weapon, you then have a weapon

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as an option, and when things
are interpreted through the lens of fear,

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you're not assessing rationally. You're assessing
reactively, and if you have a weapon

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to use against something that appears the
threat, you will use a weapon.

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So recognizing how important it is in
this story to see that the parts of

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society that are functioning as the weaponized
front are constantly assessing everything only through that

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lens and are struggling to grasp the
lens that Luis is trying to pitch of.

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There is more than one way to
look at this situation. And as

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she's trying to explain the nonverbal part
of communication, which I don't think she

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ever directly addresses of how much communication
is nonverbal, because it's just sixty percent

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or something. I think I can
look it up to find the exact amount

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later. But yeah, I think
you're right. I think you're right enough

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of that well, and even the
fact that we see later of how big

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they actually are and how're you're not
even we're not even able to see the

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full being. She's talking to their
feet basically, yeah, exactly, go

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ahead, sorry, right now,
it's okay. It's recognizing that she's there,

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always in a calm, curious position. She was afraid at first,

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but then as she's assessing, she's
recognizing, we're not seeing any posturing,

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We're not seeing any defensive stance.
They're not making any aggressive movements. We're

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the ones making aggressive movements. We're
the ones rolling up with tanks. Yeah,

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we're the ones interpreting everything they're doing
right and preparing to strike and threatening.

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They haven't made a single threatening move
their body language is not demonstrating threat

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at this time, we need to
not And that's kind of the importance of

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recognizing in the old Freudian terms,
like the difference between what your id ego

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and super ego are for it is
the desires and biological responses to things where

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your fight's going to live from.
Ego sits in between, and super ego

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would be more thought and hyper rationalization. And you kind of see the military

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play that ID role. I think
Luis sits kind of right in the middle,

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and the super ego is Ian because
he's he's not feeling anything, he's

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just completely thinking and yeah, he's
in full science mode, full science all

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the time. Agreed. Agreed,
He's just interested in what's going to happen.

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He's not emotionally invested in a single
thing. Yeah, at least the

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way I read his character. No, I feel like you're absolutely right.

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I feel like that's exactly how he
plays the role for sure. But also

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I think that is the role,
Like I think that is the idea of

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having of why they need so many
different types of people to help them figure

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out how to communicate, and why
they have to have people who are in

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different mediums in order to do that
right, because the colonel and the military

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as a whole, depending they kind
of used him differently. The kernel is

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very short, very now or never
do it or don't? He's all id,

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yeah, all ID, And it
seems to me like the writer's conceptualize

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it that way. But looking at
those three kind of parts of the human

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psyche, it's important to recognize which
one is dominant when people are having a

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conflict, because it gets more expansive
from there, depending on which theoretical orientation

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you're using. Right, if you
look at some of the more advanced ones

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that look at how deep parts go, whether it's ifs or structural association or

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ego state, it's all different words
to describe the same idea that expands upon

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the Freudian idea of breaking the psyche
down into three components. That we have

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what's called parts of ourselves that are
specialized subfunctions that emerge to match whatever the

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situation is. And it's important to
recognize when communicating that which part is online

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dictates how well someone can accept the
communication. If someone's fight part is on

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and they're doing what Hannah said of
when you can see people doing it,

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they're not listening to the whole thing. Someone is saying they're listening for the

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next threat and then they're going to
launch. Well, guess what the military

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was doing in this movie. Exactly
that, exactly that. Whereas Louise was

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constantly staying in kind of a neutral
space, she was aware of her fear

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and aware of their fear and their
feelings and trying to stay kind of balanced.

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And Ian had no awareness of anything. He's just full analyzing. He

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wasn't perceiving any ounce of danger that
he was in at all. He was

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just this is cool, happy to
be there. Yeah, And we're going

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to take a break right here,
and just want to double check about the

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cultural differences when we think about communication
and what that looks like in our sessions

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when because then we have a whole
new context for language. I know that

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I get asked a lot if I
speak Spanish because I'm brown and I don't

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speak Spanish. And a part of
that also is when people ask me that

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question, I also tell them,
even if I did speak Spanish, I

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don't think unless I had been a
native speaker, I don't think I would

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be able to do therapy in Spanish, even if I learned it as an

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adult because the nuances and the differences
in that language, there's no way I

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would be able to allot So much
of the work we do is reflecting back

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to people what they're feeling and thinking, and so I would never be able

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to do that unless I was a
native speaker, and even then it could

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be tricky based on the age of
the person that I'm working with, based

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on maybe based on even the region
that they're from. We know that language

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can be different, even even with
English, of how people sound different from

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based on what states they're from.
Yeah, or even do you say soda

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or pop? Yep? Cultural like
dialectical changes, which the correct answer is

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pop. That is right. That
is also correct. Can you believe there

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are places where people say cola or
coke and they mean pop and soda,

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they mean they call everything coke or
cola? Yep, right, that's right.

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Go see a therapist. But I
think you're bringing up something so important,

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which is why you've heard us talk
about many episodes how sometimes people will

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actively seek out a therapist with a
shared background because it can be helpful to

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not have to understand will explain all
these different context Like think about when I

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was watching this movie, I was
just thinking, how exhausting when she explains

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every little part that you have to
break down that one scene to even like

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do they even understand what the concept
of a question is, like that it's

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asking for a response, you know, it's inquiring, And how just to

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talk to them and to break down
take so much work. It takes them

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so long just to understand who they're
talking to and their names right exactly,

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And how it is exhausting to have
to think in a different language, exhausting

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have to communicate in a different language, and how much nuance get lost with

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that. So and not even just
like you were saying, Hannah, not

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even just if there's a different language, but also a different cultural glos like

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lexicon, right, like, and
how it's a lot of work to have

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to explain that. And so if
you can get that out of the way

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to do therapy, that's good,
Especially in therapy when you talk about such

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abstract concepts, such emotional concepts that
aren't necessarily rooted in a concrete thing that

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has a definitive term for it,
and to get into all that language is

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so hard. And in this movie, the only reason I think they really

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get as far as they get is
because these aliens are able to go into

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her mind and reach her there.
They're able to surpass written language, written

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spoken language and have an understanding telepathically, and that's why this speeds up so

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much. And then she's able to
connect with them and you know, if

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you time all differently and stuff.
But we can't unfortunately, cannot do that

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yet in modern world where I can't
hook myself up to a client and be

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able to infer what's going on for
that, and don't say that's too loud,

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They'll find you. They'll scientists will
take you away. How do you

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know they did not already find me? And that's why I can do it.

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How do you know I'm not a
robot? Well, you should be

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saying this on recorded medium. The
definitely not. You should see a robot

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energy. I was saying before we
start recording, I'd rather do with an

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alien than a robot. That's how
much I distrust the concept of robots anyway,

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which is assumptions you're making that robots
will kill me, that robots I

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do seriously, I do see every
robot as a hammer and I am the

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nail. And I know that we
don't have as diverse of a population of

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therapists as I know that I wish
that we had so that people could have

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those experiences. That's another reason why
it's so important as a therapist to do

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a lot of clarifying, especially when
there are some when there all are cultural

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differences between you and your client,
because we want to make sure that we're

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giving them the chance to give us
the definition of something that they are trying

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to described to us without well coming
from our centered view like in this movie,

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the humans like Fort Whittaker, for
example, are coming from a strong

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human centered view. When they are
saying weapon, they mean weapon, and

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she says, we don't know that
they mean weapon. They might mean tool.

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And when they say offer, you
know, they might be trying to

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give us a tool, not fire
a weapon at us. And I think

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that's a great example too, because
I've worked in different settings, and I've

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worked with diverse populations and so and
I'm white, and so one thing you

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have to learn to do to be
culturally competent, especially if you are part

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of the arguably the oppressive party like
white people are, that you're not coming

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from a white centered view into therapy
as well, and assuming when someone brings

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something up about their family or the
way their family structured or the fact that

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they believe, which is something you've
brought up in previous episodes when we've talked

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about ghosts and stuff, like when
people talk about communing with spirits, that

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we are not coming from a white
Anglo Saxon centric viewpoint of that means that

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your family has no boundaries, or
that like you all live in the same

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house together, What the hell is
that about, you know what I mean?

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Or like why are you so close
to your parents? Or yeah,

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and like why do you talk to
your ancestors? And you know, things

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like that, and assuming that the
white point of view is the correct point

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of view, and that what they're
talking about is unhealthy in some way or

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inappropriate, you know, and that
they might have another way of meaning what

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they're saying when they talk about family, for example, when they talk about

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family in white, well, the
white culture I unfamiliar with. Your family

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is usually your nuclear family. That
thing other cultures, it could be your

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grandparents that live in home with you, or like aunts and uncles and stuff

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like that. And so it's good
to be aware of not assuming, like

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the word of the day in this
episode, yes, that your viewpoint is

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the correct one, or that even
when I say, like, how's your

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family even me assuming what they would
define as family if they're from like a

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markedly different cultural background than me.
It's very important to understand how vital a

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role that plays. You can't communicate
with someone if you can't allow them space

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to share their reality with you.
And it's challenging in therapy to own the

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differences between your culture and someone else's
and create space in your head for what

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people are saying to mean different things. It's why diversity classes are important because

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we often get trained as therapists,
most of us in life when we're just

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starting to break out of our own
egocentric viewpoints of the world, where well,

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the way I see things is X, Y, and Z, and

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that's not the only way to see
things. And as you get into a

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therapy session with someone, it gets
really important that you can respectfully create that

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space but also not make it laborious
for the client to share their reality with

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you. That you don't need to
explore every aspect. You just need to

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be on the same page enough that
you're picking up the major emotional themes.

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And I think too many times people
get stuck in the investigative side of things

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where they want to fully understand what
everything means, and you can't Canna.

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You're talking about not speaking Spanish,
and even if you did, Mexican Spanish

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might be different than Peruvian Spanish.
There will be different contexts and different references

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and different cultural relevance points that would
use the dialect different diferent yes, and

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that's true of every language in the
United States. It's true the Southern United

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00:29:07,839 --> 00:29:12,160
States have a different style of speaking
than the Northern United States, the East,

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and the West. Everything, it's
different. And just assuming you can

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let someone or that someone can come
in and you can understand everything about the

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world because you can label them is
dramatically false. And where therapists, I

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00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:34,839
think, get in trouble. Coming
back to this idea of which parts of

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someone are online, is when therapists
start to feel pressured to be able to

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fix something, they may not be
taking the space to be as calmly taking

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attempts to clarify so their own roll
down, which can lead to communication blocks

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that might also be playing out in
the system you're trying to talk to.

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And it's very important the therapists can
kind of emulate what Louise is doing in

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this movie and dial back and go, let's not assume anybody is communicating clearly

358
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with anybody and slow this down to
use active listening skills and go, what

359
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did you hear them say? Don't
just respond, don't react to part of

360
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it, don't throw more guests,
stop trying to fight fire with guestline.

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Yeah, and get yourself into a
place where you can calmly encourage whoever it

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is you're working, whether it's one
person or several, to be able to

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break down what are you hearing this
person say? Repeat it back to them

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and give them a chance to clarify
before you say anything. And I think

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a big and I think another big
part of that ben that making assumptions based

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on how long we've been together.
I feel like that has a big aspect

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that plays out in couples a lot
of we've been together for twenty five years,

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or we've been together for ten years, why don't you know what I

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mean? And that creates its own
problem of again going back to assumption making

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and how no matter how long you're
with someone, you never learn how to

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read their mind. Yep. And
that's the way they don't love you.

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And it doesn't mean that they don't
love you. It just means that we

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can't guess what is in each other's
minds. We just can't. We're never

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going to be able to do that. And so in a lot of my

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00:31:32,799 --> 00:31:37,279
work when I work with couples is
pushing up against those assumptions and all of

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the assumption making that is happening.
And people will go back to, but

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we've been together for ten years or
we've been together, It's like, exactly,

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that doesn't mean you know every thought
or how I feel, or what

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00:31:45,839 --> 00:31:49,559
it's like to be this human in
this body right now in this moment,

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or what is activating whatever is exactly
activated? Exactly. There are lots of

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things that people don't tell you about
their life because they may not know themselves

382
00:32:00,119 --> 00:32:06,839
until it just came screaming back into
their consciousness right this second, exactly.

383
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And the only way you can ever
properly attune to that is asking what just

384
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:17,640
happened? Why is this causing this
reaction for you? What's prompting that?

385
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:22,759
What are you feeling right now?
Yeah, Like I encourage clients and I

386
00:32:22,799 --> 00:32:27,519
model this as the therapist is to
come at things like you said about Louise

387
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with curiosity, like if something hits
you wrong, instead of getting defensive,

388
00:32:32,359 --> 00:32:37,680
can you go towards each other with
curiosity? Hey, this is how that

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00:32:37,759 --> 00:32:40,119
sounded to me. Is that what
you meant? Or me as a therapist,

390
00:32:40,119 --> 00:32:44,759
I'll say, oh, okay,
like I think I heard what you

391
00:32:44,799 --> 00:32:47,440
said, but I'm not sure,
or ooh that brought up a feeling in

392
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:52,680
me. I want to clarify what
you meant, and not getting defensive,

393
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:54,880
because even as therapists we can get
defensive sometimes kind of say things at us

394
00:32:55,200 --> 00:33:00,880
about us, And in those moments
I try to drop into We'll take a

395
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:05,519
deep breath, try to regulate myself
and then I go, okay, can

396
00:33:05,559 --> 00:33:07,960
you help me understand what that means? Or can you help me understand what

397
00:33:08,039 --> 00:33:12,759
I'm missing? That's a great question. What am I not understanding? And

398
00:33:12,799 --> 00:33:20,240
that really helps people feel like you're
willing and you're open, and people will

399
00:33:20,279 --> 00:33:28,240
really de escalate themselves when you respond
that way too. They will. And

400
00:33:28,759 --> 00:33:34,839
another technique that sometimes you can use
that I definitely use sometimes is to unbalance

401
00:33:34,839 --> 00:33:43,240
the situation by recognizing the emotional content
underneath what someone is saying and leaning into

402
00:33:43,279 --> 00:33:46,359
that even if the words don't match, Like if somebody is starting to look

403
00:33:46,359 --> 00:33:52,160
really ang you're like, so I'm
hearing you say you really fucking hate what

404
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:53,160
your spouse is doing, and're like, well, oh, I don't know.

405
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:57,599
I wouldn't say I really really hate
it because what I'm what I'm doing

406
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:01,720
is having some paradoxical intention. I'm
leaning into it, but I'm trying to

407
00:34:01,799 --> 00:34:07,480
unbalance it by because there it is
starting to come online. Their their fight

408
00:34:07,559 --> 00:34:10,239
part, some part of their defense
system, their army is activating, and

409
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:15,679
it wants to do what it does
because it's detecting it's needed, kind of

410
00:34:15,679 --> 00:34:21,519
like we see the military do throughout
this whole movie, and that same thing

411
00:34:21,559 --> 00:34:23,320
of it's prime to do that.
You will see that when you talk with

412
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:30,159
couples or families, people will listen
only so far when they feel their feelings

413
00:34:30,199 --> 00:34:34,039
may be in danger. They don't
trust they will be safe, so therefore

414
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:39,039
they brought with them weapons. Yeah, because we always have them with us.

415
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:44,559
And when you can sometimes detect that
somebody's getting hot as a therapist,

416
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:50,159
you might want to pop that bubble
because if you unbalance and push it a

417
00:34:50,199 --> 00:34:54,079
little farther than they are. They
may come back with their another part of

418
00:34:54,119 --> 00:34:58,280
them and reregulate and go like,
well, no, I don't fucking hate

419
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:00,960
my husband when he says that,
like, oh yeah, Like I wouldn't

420
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:01,880
go that far. I was like, Oh, tell me more about that.

421
00:35:02,639 --> 00:35:05,840
What does it mean to you to
fucking hate your husband when he does

422
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:08,840
that? I don't feel that way. I love my husband, Like oh

423
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:14,159
yeah, they'll put it in more
appropriate level terms, correct, because their

424
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,719
ego will grab hold of it again. Yeah, And it's important that you

425
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:27,599
help people realize how to do that
because it causes instant physical deactivation when they

426
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:34,119
reregulate their body to get control.
And it matters because once that warlike part

427
00:35:34,159 --> 00:35:37,519
turns on, it's there to fuck
stuff up. All right, Is there

428
00:35:37,519 --> 00:35:42,400
anything else we'd like to say about
communication before we move on? No,

429
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:45,000
all right, we'll take another break
care and we'll be right back. All

430
00:35:45,079 --> 00:35:47,400
right, So we're back, and
we're going to talk about one of Ben's

431
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:52,400
favorite topics, existentialism. Yes,
this movie has a strong existential theme.

432
00:35:52,440 --> 00:36:00,639
I think Luis might be one of
the most existentially tuned in characters that we've

433
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:08,079
seen in a film. And it's
a powerful psychological modality that formed in philosophy,

434
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:15,280
and then in the sixties and seventies
became a very large movement in psychology,

435
00:36:15,039 --> 00:36:21,360
kind of running counter to the cognitive
behavioral therapy movement that emerged a little

436
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:29,039
later. And I think why I
feel so drawn to it is because existential

437
00:36:29,039 --> 00:36:36,360
psychology and philosophy are focused on the
truths that we all have base level fears

438
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:43,000
just from being alive. That we
are all afraid of death, big scary

439
00:36:43,119 --> 00:36:47,320
number one, because our prime directive
is to stay alive, So we're afraid

440
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:53,760
naturally of everything that makes us closer
to death. This is just logical,

441
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:59,360
right, Yes, we are all
afraid of being out of control. We

442
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,599
are afraid of being alone, because
humans are not solitary creatures. We are

443
00:37:02,639 --> 00:37:08,079
pack animals, and predators tend to
pick off who in the wild, weak

444
00:37:08,159 --> 00:37:15,280
lengths, stragglers, outsiders. Those
are the ones that don't fit in to

445
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:21,599
the group, right, So we
fear being cast out, We fear the

446
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:25,639
unknown, We fear what we can't
control. At the root of all fear

447
00:37:25,639 --> 00:37:31,440
is loss of control, because that
makes you closer to death. So if

448
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:37,800
you can understand that there are a
great many things about being alive that are

449
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:45,280
fucking scary because they make you closer
to dead. We also have to come

450
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:47,119
to grips with there's a great deal
of things that no matter what we do,

451
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:52,920
we can't control m h an.
Unfortunately, big scary Number one is

452
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:58,119
at the top of that list.
Being alive does not in any way guarantee

453
00:37:59,159 --> 00:38:04,599
you're going to continue being alive past
this moment. And that's a lot,

454
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:10,360
and that gets to be more as
people have more people that depend on them,

455
00:38:10,559 --> 00:38:17,840
more people that they're responsible for,
and it creates intense fear and desire

456
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:22,840
to control things past a point that
is rational in human beings. When people

457
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:31,440
start dealing with existential level fears,
they get strongly reactive. When someone thinks

458
00:38:31,519 --> 00:38:35,719
someone's going to leave them, what
kind of bonker shit do they do?

459
00:38:37,159 --> 00:38:40,360
Yeah, people will act in ways
where later they feel embarrassed or they were

460
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:45,199
like, that's so out of character
for me, Like people like I always

461
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:49,280
tell people when I'm working with someone
who's dealt with grief, you know that

462
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:54,599
you might act in a way that
is very antithetical to yourself. You might

463
00:38:54,639 --> 00:38:59,480
act in a way that's very unpredictable
to yourself. You're you're emotionally, you'll

464
00:38:59,519 --> 00:39:05,400
be all over the place. And
it's because when we lose things or there's

465
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:10,800
the threat of losing something, it
is that existential freak out that we have,

466
00:39:13,079 --> 00:39:19,119
and we can really bebop all over
the place internally during that process.

467
00:39:19,639 --> 00:39:25,400
We can, And it can happen
during times when you're facing death of a

468
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:32,079
loved one or pet. It can
happen when The most common existential crisis we

469
00:39:32,119 --> 00:39:37,639
get culturally familiar with here in the
United States is the midlife crisis. You

470
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:43,360
are realizing half your life is over. You are not young anymore, and

471
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:49,239
sometimes people struggle to accept that and
they try to cling to youth that they've

472
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:57,920
already lost. Bro, you are
balding, your hair is gray. You

473
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:02,159
are fifty two years old. I
just bought this corvette and it is a

474
00:40:02,159 --> 00:40:07,000
convertible and I'm gonna pick up chicks. Yeah, and I might get an

475
00:40:07,039 --> 00:40:10,519
earring. It's like, sir,
you are married for the past twenty seven

476
00:40:10,639 --> 00:40:16,480
years, and these chicks you are
thinking about are your daughter's age. But

477
00:40:17,199 --> 00:40:24,000
where the existential work becomes important with
people is helping them accept the things they

478
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:29,719
cannot control or change and stop trying
to fight against them, because you are

479
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:35,440
fighting something that cannot be fought.
There is no person alive who has ever

480
00:40:35,559 --> 00:40:43,320
won against father time. We will
all die, there is no changing that.

481
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:51,920
None of us want to die tomorrow. And you will get older.

482
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:58,199
There's no way to stop that.
Yeah, we all just got five seconds

483
00:40:58,199 --> 00:41:01,119
older right now. Yeah, And
Hannah, what's one of my favorite quotes

484
00:41:01,119 --> 00:41:07,280
from a movie, Cosmo? One
day You're gonna die? That's from Moonstruck,

485
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:09,360
which we still haven't done on this
podcast. I'm gonna write it down.

486
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:14,559
I'm gonna write it down, right. But what existential psychology wants to

487
00:41:14,559 --> 00:41:17,480
do the main goal of it really
is helping people understand that if you fight

488
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:21,800
against those things, you will act
outside of yourself. You'll act in ways

489
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:27,039
that aren't appropriate to your situation,
and you'll struggle to fit into reality,

490
00:41:27,079 --> 00:41:32,119
and you'll be perpetually anxious because your
fight modes and your defense systems will be

491
00:41:32,199 --> 00:41:37,760
active against things which you have no
chance of winning against. Kind Of like,

492
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:45,159
this movie is a giant metaphor for
your military is gonna shoot their tank

493
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:50,639
shells at a ship from outer space? You think they haven't thought about that,

494
00:41:51,519 --> 00:41:55,360
bro, Yeah, they don't have
tanks or weapons in their world.

495
00:41:55,599 --> 00:42:02,880
That your magical shells that are ineffective
against earth bound things will just puncture a

496
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:07,119
hole right in their ship because you
want it to. Because I'm trained in

497
00:42:07,199 --> 00:42:12,000
this and I can use it.
That does not make it an effective solution,

498
00:42:12,159 --> 00:42:16,760
Sir. Recognizing the amount of irrational
control we try to place on these

499
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:20,960
things, like people who don't trust
their partner, that think they're getting more

500
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:23,400
control over things by tracking their phone. I just need to look at I

501
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:27,840
just need the password to your phone. I just need to Oh God,

502
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:31,440
in modern technology, I just you
need to turn your location on and I

503
00:42:31,519 --> 00:42:36,000
need to be able to like this
is how we make trust is me being

504
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:42,159
able to surveil you, which is
incorrect. What that's actually doing is feeding

505
00:42:42,199 --> 00:42:49,039
the irrational anxiety that somehow that gives
you more control over your partner's behavior and

506
00:42:49,079 --> 00:42:53,719
they can't possibly deceive you, which
is so fucking false. They could just

507
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:58,559
leave their phone at the gym.
You know what this is actually really making

508
00:42:58,559 --> 00:43:02,519
me think about is when I used
to do more family therapy work a few

509
00:43:02,599 --> 00:43:10,000
years ago, and how many parents
were spinning out around this dilemma that now

510
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:15,679
all their kids carry computers around in
their pocket and then get life three sixty

511
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:19,119
and they're like, I want to
read your texts and a lot of times

512
00:43:19,199 --> 00:43:21,960
what I would, and it's part
of that existential Then you're talking about ben

513
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:25,639
where it's like I have this thing
available to me that allows me to surveil

514
00:43:25,679 --> 00:43:29,199
my kids at all time, and
so it makes sense that I use that.

515
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:31,440
It's a new tool that I take
advantage of, and I would have

516
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:35,960
to tell those parents, well,
I had two approaches. One is is

517
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:39,039
this making you feel better to know
what they're up to at all times,

518
00:43:40,159 --> 00:43:45,559
and then trying to make like an
analog equivalent of that. This is like

519
00:43:45,599 --> 00:43:51,000
if your parents pull like picked up
the phone in another room when you're on

520
00:43:51,039 --> 00:43:53,960
the landline and we're listening in,
or they were reading your notes or your

521
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:58,880
diary, or or they were following
you around in a car in the station

522
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:02,360
wagon as you you bopped around the
neighborood with your friends, Like this doesn't

523
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:09,440
actually make you feel better. It
creates this surveillance state energy that causes I

524
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:15,840
think, more anxiety and it degrades
trust if you need all this evidence to

525
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:19,199
trust them when you don't trust them. But I get my parents do it.

526
00:44:19,199 --> 00:44:23,320
It actually makes me think of two
are we did a demo episode of

527
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:28,679
this podcast before we did it,
and we did it on a Black Mirror

528
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:30,239
episode which was about this, right, like she puts a chip in her

529
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:36,440
kid and what that looks like and
how is that good for us? Like

530
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:37,760
a lot of Black Miror episodes where
they're like, is this actually good for

531
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:42,519
us? And this is part of
that. Right, It's how our existentialism

532
00:44:42,599 --> 00:44:47,119
and technology get all like fucked up
together and create this like horrible anxiety provoking

533
00:44:47,159 --> 00:44:52,280
soup, right, and so so
how it works as an overarching theme when

534
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:53,920
you hear me talk about it,
especially if you see me, because I

535
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:59,719
will talk about it is and we
will be confronting it because it's brain breaking

536
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:04,280
and life changing. But it's really
fucking hard and it takes quite a while.

537
00:45:05,119 --> 00:45:07,960
But looking like to understand it,
I can say it and it'll take

538
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:12,000
years. It took me years in
grad school. Like we watched a brilliant

539
00:45:12,559 --> 00:45:17,159
clip from UH that I heard Huckaby's. I'm gonna say I heard Hakkaby's has

540
00:45:17,159 --> 00:45:21,880
got to be what you're talking about
so long I haven't watched that since I've

541
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:25,559
been in the field. But Dustin
Hoff been talking about metaphysics and the interconnectedness

542
00:45:25,599 --> 00:45:30,840
of everything, and it's it's beautiful
and reassuring. But he says, write

543
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:34,960
in that quote, I'm going to
tell you about it. It's you're not

544
00:45:35,039 --> 00:45:37,360
going to get it right away,
but it'll help you. And it's the

545
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:43,440
same kind of thing that you're It's
a tremendous ask to ask people to deal

546
00:45:43,519 --> 00:45:46,480
with their shit, because what you're
doing with existentialism is you're asking people to

547
00:45:46,639 --> 00:45:51,920
accept that there are things beyond your
control that you have never had control of,

548
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:57,519
that no human alive who has ever
lived, has ever had one single

549
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:02,639
ounce of control yep over and you're
not any different, And expecting yourself to

550
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:07,280
be different or have some control that
no one has ever had is irrational,

551
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:13,800
and that's going to make you perpetually
anxious as you fight against something that you're

552
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:21,920
underlying, collective unconscious, the database
you were born with basically your genetic knowledge

553
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:28,320
knows is false, which means there's
a constant war inside of you telling you,

554
00:46:29,119 --> 00:46:31,880
no matter what you do, you're
not safe. And it's important that

555
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:37,000
what you do with people is you
help them accept the big truths. The

556
00:46:37,079 --> 00:46:40,360
world is not safe, the world
has never been safe. You will die,

557
00:46:42,079 --> 00:46:45,639
and all the people that you are
close to. Your relationships with them

558
00:46:45,639 --> 00:46:52,639
are precious because they're impermanent. And
you know that what we can do is

559
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:58,199
refocus our attention on to rational things
we actually can influence. We can make

560
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:04,239
it less likely we die, we
can make it less likely our children die,

561
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:09,000
We can make it less likely bad
things happen, but we can't prevent

562
00:47:09,119 --> 00:47:15,039
them. But we really like to
live in a fantasy that we can we

563
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:21,239
do because then we're in control.
Yep. And that's where Louise is a

564
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:28,199
character is so powerful, and why
the movie punches the way it does is

565
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:31,840
because we get to see that she's
going to have a child, and her

566
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:37,559
child is going to die young,
and there's nothing she can do. And

567
00:47:37,679 --> 00:47:42,679
she finds acceptance of this because she
sits in that egos thing, it's in

568
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:49,679
between the rational and the emotional,
and she gains this existential idea that life

569
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:53,480
has never begun or stopped. Time
has never begun or stopped. It just

570
00:47:53,679 --> 00:48:00,599
is. And if once she embraces
that idea, she stops fighting against the

571
00:48:00,679 --> 00:48:06,199
things that she can't control, and
she embraces every moment that she has.

572
00:48:07,039 --> 00:48:15,280
And there's beauty in that, and
there's an opportunity to live without regret.

573
00:48:15,639 --> 00:48:20,119
And as I was thinking about this
movie hit me hard. It's kind of

574
00:48:20,159 --> 00:48:23,960
pissed off for a little while.
My part's got pretty talkative because seeing kids

575
00:48:24,039 --> 00:48:28,079
die in movies is hard for anybody
that's a parent, and seeing as I

576
00:48:28,159 --> 00:48:32,800
have two kids, watching that was
not the easiest experience for me. But

577
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:40,039
watching this had me thinking about I
also own a dog, and I will

578
00:48:40,079 --> 00:48:45,239
outlive that dog. Yeah, And
I love that dog and she loves me.

579
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:52,599
But I am choosing to have this
dog knowing I will have to go

580
00:48:52,679 --> 00:48:55,039
through the pain of losing her and
that I get no say in when that

581
00:48:55,199 --> 00:49:01,360
is. I hope she makes it
to seventeen years old and dies happy in

582
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:10,599
her sleep. But I'll be in
young man still yep, not quite at

583
00:49:10,639 --> 00:49:14,840
the age that I'll be uh needing
a Corvette and a new wife. But

584
00:49:15,039 --> 00:49:24,800
understand close, walking real slow past
those car dealerships like hmmm yeah yeah,

585
00:49:24,840 --> 00:49:28,199
hair, skin little thin on top
a little bit in some paces, so

586
00:49:28,679 --> 00:49:32,639
we're getting close, but recognizing the
power you see in Louise, Except she

587
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:39,159
knows this fate, she sees it, and when she does, she chooses

588
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:45,000
to have a child anyway, to
have the marriage that she knows is going

589
00:49:45,079 --> 00:49:49,320
to fail, and to follow through
with these experiences and live every single moment

590
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:52,599
of it, embracing each emotion as
it comes without trying to control it.

591
00:49:54,119 --> 00:50:01,920
And you see a piece on her
that Ian can't half. Yeah, Ian

592
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:06,400
struggles to get in control of it. Seems to be the subtext. He

593
00:50:06,559 --> 00:50:08,880
can't rationalize with it. There is
no winning, there's no getting in.

594
00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:17,079
And she knows this. And we
see the difference in what happens to their

595
00:50:17,119 --> 00:50:22,840
mental state. And it's of course
an idealized version because she's had some kind

596
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:29,719
of divine intervention to reach it,
to be this enlightened person. But too

597
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:34,840
many people fight against the concept of
reach a point in your life where you

598
00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:40,199
get comfortable with being uncomfortable and focus
on being more comfortable as the standard,

599
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:46,360
not completely comfortable, not in control
of everything, but in control and acceptance

600
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:51,159
like you do every time you drive
a car. Driving a car is the

601
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:57,000
most dangerous fucking thing any of us
do, for the most part, unless

602
00:50:57,119 --> 00:51:01,000
you're a first responder, military,
or somebody does something inherently more dangerous than

603
00:51:01,039 --> 00:51:05,239
that. Driving car is pretty fucking
dangerous, But you don't think about that

604
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:07,360
every time you get in your car
and are jamming out to your tunes driving

605
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:13,519
down the highway. You trust to
yourself to be able to respond to whatever

606
00:51:13,599 --> 00:51:17,519
you see on the road and that
you can reasonably protect yourself, and you

607
00:51:17,679 --> 00:51:20,800
just accept that that's the only way
you have to get there, so you

608
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:22,920
don't think about how deadly it is
every time, other than to stay a

609
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:29,079
tuned. But the truth is,
you could fucking die on your way to

610
00:51:29,199 --> 00:51:35,440
anywhere anytime you get in that car, and you have no control if somebody

611
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:39,039
hops, a median, does something
you don't expect the one second your attention

612
00:51:39,199 --> 00:51:47,480
is broken or just rear ends you
out of nowhere, you could die life

613
00:51:47,639 --> 00:51:54,000
over and it's scary as hell.
But if you focus on that, you

614
00:51:54,119 --> 00:52:00,519
get so anxious you don't operate the
vehicle correctly and make it more likely that

615
00:52:00,639 --> 00:52:05,159
you get in an accident and less
likely you're allowing your body to perceive what's

616
00:52:05,199 --> 00:52:12,559
going on and empower yourself to respond. And those are hard truths. Yeah,

617
00:52:12,599 --> 00:52:15,159
I mean, something I feel like
I'm always working on with clients is

618
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:22,400
understanding that so much of life is
a gamble and we're making educated risks,

619
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:29,440
hopefully, and that because I think
also the talk like there's a lot of

620
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:30,920
that could be arguably toxic about this. And I think part of it too

621
00:52:31,039 --> 00:52:35,920
is when things don't work out or
go wrong, we make that reverse engineering

622
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:37,519
of this idea, right, which
is I must have done something wrong,

623
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:42,679
something's wrong with me. I should
be able to control it, and if

624
00:52:42,679 --> 00:52:46,360
it's not working out, it's because
I'm fucking up. And this is where

625
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:52,559
this really eats us too, this
lie we're all buying and selling, which

626
00:52:52,639 --> 00:52:54,920
is that if I'm doing the right
stuff, if I'm smart enough, if

627
00:52:54,960 --> 00:53:00,239
I'm dedicated enough, of especially in
American culture, you know where you see

628
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:05,280
this idea that if you're meditating and
you're doing ice plunge baths in the morning,

629
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:09,039
and you're walking outside and regulating your
getting invitamin dep like you know what

630
00:53:09,079 --> 00:53:12,280
I mean, Like people will have
like if you just all these regiments,

631
00:53:13,159 --> 00:53:15,960
then nothing bat will ever happen to
you. You'll never get old, you'll

632
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:17,880
never be lonely, you'll always have
sex, and you'll never die. There

633
00:53:19,039 --> 00:53:22,039
is this like when I hear Elon
Musk and guys like him talking, I'm

634
00:53:22,119 --> 00:53:25,039
like, you really think that you'll
never die? You think you're gonna outrun

635
00:53:25,119 --> 00:53:30,800
and out smart death and you ain't
and Nope, that's gonna be rough stuff,

636
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:34,199
buddy. Maybe we'll freeze your head
like Walt Disney. I don't know,

637
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:38,639
but this, yeah, it eats
people up right, So when things

638
00:53:38,639 --> 00:53:42,960
don't work out, when they just
have bad luck, bad circumstances, and

639
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:45,039
then they come to therapy and they're
like, what am I doing wrong?

640
00:53:45,119 --> 00:53:47,559
What's wrong with me? And then
I have to do more of this work

641
00:53:47,599 --> 00:53:51,840
you've been talking about, Ben,
which is have you done what's in your

642
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:54,159
control? Have you been trying?
Have you been doing this? Have you

643
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:58,880
been listening to your values and your
sense of self and your authentic self?

644
00:53:59,599 --> 00:54:02,599
And if you you are doing everything
that you legit have control over. And

645
00:54:02,679 --> 00:54:07,519
sometimes I have to help people understand
what's actually in their control and what's not,

646
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:10,360
because we also love to pretend like
things are in our control that aren't

647
00:54:12,159 --> 00:54:15,840
most definitely, and then when you
if you're doing that, we have to

648
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:21,519
practice sitting in the discomfort of uncertainty
and that sometimes things just don't work out

649
00:54:22,199 --> 00:54:27,039
and we can be typically okay,
it can still be painful. Things can

650
00:54:27,199 --> 00:54:30,360
usially go to our heartbroken, things
can school go wrong. We'll go through

651
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:35,800
grief and we can work through it. We might be forever changed, but

652
00:54:36,039 --> 00:54:40,760
we can still find a version of
life that has still has value and beauty

653
00:54:42,239 --> 00:54:46,559
and worth right, and it's just
all this stuff like Well, I love

654
00:54:46,639 --> 00:54:52,079
extensions too because it acts us to
expand our minds and to I like the

655
00:54:52,199 --> 00:55:00,559
idea of committing to the chaos in
a way and letting go if it's also

656
00:55:00,639 --> 00:55:05,760
like letting go of what we can't
control. It's like banging your head against

657
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:07,920
a wall, and people also get
stuck doing that. I have to just

658
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:10,000
make that work. If I can
just make that work, if I can

659
00:55:10,039 --> 00:55:14,800
get that person to respond, if
I can have a kid or have that

660
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:20,239
body, then everything will fall into
place and people will stay stuck at that

661
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:23,880
wall forever their whole life. And
is that the quality of life that they

662
00:55:23,920 --> 00:55:28,840
want to live? Because where you
can pull an existentialism into therapeutic work is

663
00:55:29,239 --> 00:55:32,039
helping people find their values and their
meaning. What is meaningful to you?

664
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:38,679
And is your day to day behavior
connected to your values. Something I like

665
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:43,679
to do two people it does feel
like I'm doing it to them, is

666
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:46,719
do something called a values questionnaire,
And one part of it is you're asked

667
00:55:46,800 --> 00:55:51,400
to rate your ideal values, so
prioritize them. I think from like one

668
00:55:51,480 --> 00:55:55,119
to ten, I'll be like family, work, physical health, recreation,

669
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:59,519
stuff like that. And then and
this is where it gets you, is

670
00:55:59,559 --> 00:56:00,519
you flip it over and it's like, okay, and I'll think about the

671
00:56:00,559 --> 00:56:04,679
last two weeks and how you spend
your time, and now I want you

672
00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:07,679
to prioritize your values, your real
values based on how you spend your time.

673
00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:13,079
And that people will come back and
I'll be like fuck, yep,

674
00:56:13,199 --> 00:56:15,039
fuck, And I'll be like,
yeah, so you're saying you value family,

675
00:56:15,559 --> 00:56:19,840
but you're spending eighty hours a week
at the office, so you're actually

676
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:24,880
valuing work. And so because Louise
has this benefit of like time being like

677
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:30,239
a circle for her, she's able
to be more conscious of her values right

678
00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:35,480
of Like, I really want to
value my family, my daughter, and

679
00:56:35,639 --> 00:56:40,519
so I'm going to make sure that
my day to day behavior matches that value

680
00:56:42,199 --> 00:56:45,280
and I'm going to be present about
that and I'm going to really be there.

681
00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:49,000
And we don't do that enough societally. I'm sure I don't. I'm

682
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:52,039
sure if I do this to myself, I would have to have a hard

683
00:56:52,079 --> 00:56:54,800
look at the mirror and be like, well, shit, you know,

684
00:56:55,519 --> 00:57:01,639
and like you're saying, ben,
A lot of times when people feel uncomfortable

685
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:07,039
or anxious or at odds with themselves, or though they don't feel like they're

686
00:57:07,159 --> 00:57:10,000
in their lives correctly, a lot
of times if I do something like that

687
00:57:10,119 --> 00:57:15,000
with them, there is a mismatch
between their ideal values and their actual values.

688
00:57:15,480 --> 00:57:19,039
And sometimes people don't even know what
their values really are. They haven't

689
00:57:19,039 --> 00:57:22,079
even asked out of themselves, and
so then it becomes that question of okay,

690
00:57:22,159 --> 00:57:24,360
like what do you want to have
meaning to you? If you want

691
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:29,920
it to be social justice? Are
you doing anything that goes towards social justice?

692
00:57:30,239 --> 00:57:34,719
Let's try to do that because it
also helps take these like these bigger

693
00:57:34,760 --> 00:57:37,920
abstract ideas and make them more concrete, actionable things that you can do.

694
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:40,760
And that's where you do have control
of your life, and that's where you

695
00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:49,159
can find groundedness and satisfaction and fulfillment
instead of getting hung up on the things

696
00:57:49,199 --> 00:57:52,760
that are outside of your control.
But we love to get up hung up

697
00:57:52,800 --> 00:57:54,639
on the things so side it is
scary. I think we just just get

698
00:57:54,719 --> 00:57:58,480
scared, and we don't want to
be scared, and so we like to

699
00:57:58,559 --> 00:58:02,239
pretend that we can control. I
mean, this makes me think of two

700
00:58:02,519 --> 00:58:07,800
that podcast we did like twenty twenty
it was peak COVID times when we were

701
00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:09,679
a guest on that other podcast and
he asked us questions about why are people

702
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:14,400
so reactive about masks and COVID And
we had that long conversation about how this

703
00:58:14,519 --> 00:58:19,440
is bring up a lot of existential
fear for people. Yes, this is

704
00:58:19,519 --> 00:58:22,960
something we're all going through that we
can't control, and it's difficult for them

705
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:28,559
to accept it's even real and how
deadly and scary it is that they're literally

706
00:58:28,639 --> 00:58:32,119
loading bodies on refrigeration trucks because the
morgue is full, and why are people

707
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:37,280
engaging in so much denihalism around it? Because yeah, fear, because it's

708
00:58:37,320 --> 00:58:38,719
fear, and it's uncomfortable, and
it makes me confront the fact that I

709
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:45,880
am closer to death than I had
accepted. And that's the critical component of

710
00:58:45,960 --> 00:58:50,519
it is. And what the philosophy
and the use in therapy preaches is you

711
00:58:50,639 --> 00:58:52,800
got to get comfortable with that.
You got to get comfortable with it,

712
00:58:52,840 --> 00:58:58,599
and it's okay to be uncomfortable with
it, but accepting that you can die

713
00:58:58,679 --> 00:59:01,320
tomorrow and there's not a damn thing
you can do about it, and kind

714
00:59:01,360 --> 00:59:05,360
of you know, if you're the
Chris Traggers of the world from Parks and

715
00:59:05,440 --> 00:59:12,840
reg he's such a person a microchip. He's a microchip. I even get

716
00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:15,679
dust in it when he's that person, right, and he goes to therapy

717
00:59:16,039 --> 00:59:20,679
because he starts spinning the fuck out
because he's spiraling, and he was a

718
00:59:20,719 --> 00:59:23,760
lovable version of that. But is
his doctor Richard Nigar whatever, he always

719
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:27,079
says his full name. He does
always say his full name. Yes,

720
00:59:27,280 --> 00:59:29,880
my therapist, doctor Richard Nigar's head. I go three times a week.

721
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:32,679
He's even trying to Oh. That's
also where people will do this control thing,

722
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:37,760
is they'll try to do the control
stuff on therapy. And I will

723
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:42,800
tell people, you can't crush therapy
so hard that you speed this process up.

724
00:59:42,880 --> 00:59:45,519
You cannot. Sorry to disappoint you, but that, more than anything,

725
00:59:45,519 --> 00:59:49,159
will probably push you over an edge
than if you just surrender to the

726
00:59:49,159 --> 00:59:52,039
process. A lot of what we're
talking about is surrendering, right, surrendering

727
00:59:52,159 --> 00:59:55,280
to the process of therapy, surrendering
to the universe. That's why people people

728
00:59:55,400 --> 01:00:00,239
don't love AA because there's that God
element to it, which I get And

729
01:00:00,360 --> 01:00:02,679
the point though of it is you're
supposed to humble yourself before something bigger than

730
01:00:02,719 --> 01:00:07,639
yourself and accept that existential idea of
you're out of control. There's something bigger

731
01:00:07,679 --> 01:00:12,920
than you. Your addiction's bigger than
you. Check your ego. You can't

732
01:00:13,000 --> 01:00:16,199
control it like you think you can, and continuing to do so will make

733
01:00:16,239 --> 01:00:21,360
it worse. Yeah, you can't
just go to a bar and think you

734
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:23,000
can be fine and have a drink. You can't just you cannot have one

735
01:00:23,079 --> 01:00:28,960
drink. It has not worked.
The alcohol affects you differently or the substance,

736
01:00:29,039 --> 01:00:35,000
and it's you can't just have one. You can't and it's tremendously difficult

737
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:42,440
to accept. Dennis Leary's No Cure
for Cancer was such a brilliant comedy,

738
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:45,400
specially he did in the nineties,
and it covered this in one of the

739
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:51,280
sections where he was talking about kind
of this idea in his antagonistic way.

740
01:00:51,320 --> 01:00:53,519
But if talking about you know,
I remember there's this guy who was on

741
01:00:53,679 --> 01:00:59,000
the cover of all these magazines and
talking about jogging and how important it is

742
01:00:59,039 --> 01:01:01,000
to jog and how good it is
for your health to be running and jogging,

743
01:01:01,159 --> 01:01:05,639
and you know, when he fucking
died when he was forty two years

744
01:01:05,639 --> 01:01:07,960
old. And you know what he
was doing when he died. Who's fucking

745
01:01:07,079 --> 01:01:13,360
jogging? I'm not dead yet,
lights up his cigarettes and smokes Yah.

746
01:01:13,440 --> 01:01:16,000
Yeah, Dennisliero with lean over his
body smoke a cigarette in a Hamburger walk

747
01:01:16,079 --> 01:01:20,000
off. Correct, at least that
version of him streets you know, probably

748
01:01:20,079 --> 01:01:22,559
not that now, but when in
that routine he was talking about, you

749
01:01:22,599 --> 01:01:25,519
know what I love. I love
living in New York because you have to

750
01:01:25,599 --> 01:01:30,679
accept that death is around every corner
as you're walking down the street. To

751
01:01:30,760 --> 01:01:32,360
live in this city, you have
to accept that at any point in time,

752
01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:36,920
a poodle could be dropped off a
forty seven store building and land on

753
01:01:37,000 --> 01:01:40,719
you in Bam dead. What a
way to die. But that's the truth.

754
01:01:42,840 --> 01:01:45,519
That's the randomness of the world that
this is trying to preach acceptance of

755
01:01:45,679 --> 01:01:50,920
is you can't control that. You
can get diseases for no fucking reason.

756
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:54,119
You can be the healthiest person in
your friend group and be the sickest for

757
01:01:54,280 --> 01:01:59,599
no fucking reason, and it's not
fair. And understanding what I love is

758
01:01:59,679 --> 01:02:04,039
kind of how how she addresses that
with her child is there are things that

759
01:02:04,079 --> 01:02:09,199
are unstoppable. There are things that
we can't change. Opposed to the messaging

760
01:02:09,239 --> 01:02:15,519
we tend to give kindergarteners, which
is everybody gets a turn, everybody gets

761
01:02:15,559 --> 01:02:17,840
to stand at the front of the
line. If you do the right things,

762
01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:21,960
like you were saying, good things
will happen to you. Things will

763
01:02:22,000 --> 01:02:27,599
work out if you just do everything
right. That's the Western lesson we teach,

764
01:02:28,079 --> 01:02:31,599
and it's false. You can do
everything right and still it not work.

765
01:02:32,440 --> 01:02:39,920
What are your thoughts, Hannah about
Ian going away basically like engaging in

766
01:02:39,920 --> 01:02:51,320
avoidance with their daughter once he knows. I think that his reaction makes sense

767
01:02:51,519 --> 01:02:55,440
in terms of that immediate first reaction
that you might have, but that what

768
01:02:55,679 --> 01:03:00,639
I think really breaks my heart is
when is when the daughter, When Hannah,

769
01:03:00,760 --> 01:03:04,920
the daughter says, he looks at
me different. It doesn't feel the

770
01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:13,840
same to be around daddy anymore.
And how he isn't able to look at

771
01:03:13,880 --> 01:03:19,480
it with calm curiosity the way that
Louise has. And maybe a part of

772
01:03:19,599 --> 01:03:24,119
that is because she again had that
divine intervention and that's a part of why

773
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:30,840
she has a better understanding. But
I feel like with Ian his response,

774
01:03:30,079 --> 01:03:36,599
he's not able to accept that there
isn't anything that he can do, and

775
01:03:36,719 --> 01:03:42,719
that there isn't and that and that
it was still made sense to have a

776
01:03:42,880 --> 01:03:47,760
child anyway in order to have the
experience of being parents in order. But

777
01:03:47,880 --> 01:03:52,000
also in a lot of ways,
it feels like for Louise all of the

778
01:03:52,159 --> 01:03:59,800
different because of the experience that she
has, that I don't know that she

779
01:04:00,039 --> 01:04:06,079
could ever not have that child after
essentially experiencing being a mother but then also

780
01:04:06,199 --> 01:04:12,480
experiencing grief at the same time.
So again that's a little bit of the

781
01:04:12,559 --> 01:04:17,079
movie magic of the film. But
I feel like with Ian, him leaving

782
01:04:17,559 --> 01:04:21,400
is really him not being able to
accept what's going on and what's going to

783
01:04:21,440 --> 01:04:28,079
happen to his daughter. Yeah,
and also too, it's a good case

784
01:04:28,239 --> 01:04:31,719
for a flexible way of a flexible
mind in a rigid mind. You know.

785
01:04:31,880 --> 01:04:39,519
I think when I work with people
who identify as pragmatic, and they

786
01:04:39,599 --> 01:04:43,480
usually identify as such, they tell
me who they are. People who are

787
01:04:43,559 --> 01:04:47,639
very logical, yes, even though
no one is only logical. And when

788
01:04:47,639 --> 01:04:50,719
I work with people who are more
pragmatic, maybe more scientific minded, like

789
01:04:50,840 --> 01:04:57,079
Ian, they can really struggle with
this idea of radical acceptance, this idea

790
01:04:57,119 --> 01:05:02,840
of letting go this idea of sitting
on uncertainty. There is a lot of

791
01:05:03,320 --> 01:05:09,159
fear there, which I think is
ironic because they're hiding behind sometimes hyper pragmatism

792
01:05:10,679 --> 01:05:15,119
out of as an emotional response to
their existential dread, angst fear. Of

793
01:05:15,239 --> 01:05:19,559
course, if he limits his contact
with her, he won't be as close,

794
01:05:19,880 --> 01:05:25,159
so that when she goes it won't
hurt as bad. But the regret

795
01:05:25,239 --> 01:05:30,880
he feel later will punish him for
eternity. He will haunt him for not

796
01:05:31,039 --> 01:05:34,639
taking the time that he could have
taken knowing that the time is limited.

797
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:41,159
Yeah, it's this Also the thing
of life where which we talked about four

798
01:05:41,159 --> 01:05:44,719
with Midwesternism is this idea that we
only can feel the good things and we

799
01:05:44,800 --> 01:05:47,440
can avoid the bad things, and
so much of life and this existential acceptance

800
01:05:47,760 --> 01:05:53,960
acceptance is that in order to feel
really beautiful, profound things, we have

801
01:05:54,199 --> 01:06:00,960
to be open to feeling hard things, things that hurt. And like you're

802
01:06:00,000 --> 01:06:03,639
saying, Ben, like why do
people keep getting pets? Because there's the

803
01:06:03,760 --> 01:06:09,320
positivity, a love, a comfort, all these benefits to having a pet

804
01:06:09,880 --> 01:06:15,920
that outweighs the disadvantage the negatives of
losing them one day, the grief of

805
01:06:15,960 --> 01:06:17,440
that that's why people when they lose
a pet, they'll go get another pet,

806
01:06:17,559 --> 01:06:21,320
even if it really hurts them.
And because I think there's some of

807
01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:27,679
that that we can acknowledge that the
pain is worth it, the juice is

808
01:06:27,679 --> 01:06:30,679
worth a squeeze, you know what
I mean. And every day without a

809
01:06:30,760 --> 01:06:35,559
dog is worse than a day with
a dog, and that I think that's

810
01:06:35,599 --> 01:06:42,960
what Louise accepts, right, is
that the beauty and the benefits of experiencing

811
01:06:43,119 --> 01:06:48,639
our child period is worth the pain
and sadness and grief of losing her early.

812
01:06:49,840 --> 01:06:56,360
And my assumption is is that Ian
couldn't get there mentally, which is

813
01:06:56,440 --> 01:07:00,679
awful, and yeah, that will
haunt him forever, but on that perky

814
01:07:00,760 --> 01:07:05,280
note, will take a break here
and be at back with treatment. All

815
01:07:05,400 --> 01:07:10,679
right, So whose life are we
saving in this movie, guys, Luis

816
01:07:10,800 --> 01:07:14,719
doesn't need saving. No, Luise
has the I mean, like the ability

817
01:07:14,800 --> 01:07:17,039
to see everything like that. I
would love to talk to her as a

818
01:07:17,119 --> 01:07:20,000
therapist, just to pick that brain. Absolutely, I mean, I think

819
01:07:20,039 --> 01:07:24,159
she should be a therapist. She
comes at it like a therapist, Like

820
01:07:24,199 --> 01:07:28,000
the way we've been describing her is
therapy esque, like being the middle man

821
01:07:28,079 --> 01:07:30,960
between the military and the aliens,
her able to approach things with curiosity and

822
01:07:31,039 --> 01:07:35,599
flexibility, expanding her mind. Being
flexible like these are all traits. Being

823
01:07:35,639 --> 01:07:41,920
empathetic are all traits that therapists ideally
has. And I guess I'll go because

824
01:07:41,920 --> 01:07:47,880
I'm about to launch on it is
looking at for her even though she's kind

825
01:07:47,880 --> 01:07:53,039
of gotten this. I'm gonna explain
what I think metaphorically has happened, which

826
01:07:53,119 --> 01:08:00,199
is she's essentially gotten work through a
logo therapy lens, which has gotten of

827
01:08:00,239 --> 01:08:04,159
co opted by a great many other
things. As logo therapy is now I

828
01:08:04,199 --> 01:08:08,519
don't know, ninety years old and
getting close to one hundred. It was

829
01:08:08,599 --> 01:08:15,639
created by Victor Franco who was a
psychiatrist from Germany in the thirties, and

830
01:08:15,800 --> 01:08:20,680
he went to Auschwitz and he survived. And even though we all learned about

831
01:08:20,680 --> 01:08:26,640
the Holocaust, I don't think processing
the numbers that of six million people that

832
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:32,720
went to those concentration camps, only
hundreds of thousands survived, and that's stunning

833
01:08:32,920 --> 01:08:42,119
odds against survival. Tragic horribleness happened. But what he realized through his experience

834
01:08:42,199 --> 01:08:45,880
and writes about is that the people
that survived, the people that didn't give

835
01:08:45,960 --> 01:08:50,960
up. Were the ones that held
on to the things that brought meaning to

836
01:08:51,159 --> 01:08:57,840
their life and held on to those
things, like he kept being the doctor.

837
01:08:58,279 --> 01:09:01,399
He had no medical tools, no
medicine to give, but he kept

838
01:09:01,479 --> 01:09:06,319
up that role because it was meaningful
to him, even in odds of tremendous

839
01:09:06,640 --> 01:09:15,840
human awfulness, and that kept him
going enough that he survived. And he

840
01:09:15,960 --> 01:09:18,000
saw other people do the same.
Like people that would make stone soup,

841
01:09:18,319 --> 01:09:23,119
they kept being the cook or became
the cook, or people that became the

842
01:09:23,199 --> 01:09:27,199
cobbler. Even with leaves, they
made shoes for people, even if they

843
01:09:27,520 --> 01:09:33,399
could only make one pair a week. They did something, and later from

844
01:09:33,439 --> 01:09:42,800
that experience starting to digest other philosophy
and learning that suffering and pain are inextricable

845
01:09:43,800 --> 01:09:48,319
components of the human experience. They
are part of being alive. Pain teaches

846
01:09:48,439 --> 01:09:55,000
us what to not do or what
to keep doing because it hurts to lose,

847
01:09:56,239 --> 01:10:00,319
and we need them and people especially
this we are all three Midwesterners from

848
01:10:00,319 --> 01:10:05,439
different corners of the Midwest that have
collided. Here is this Midwestern idea that

849
01:10:05,479 --> 01:10:12,279
everything's fine and that to be accepted, I must be fine or I am

850
01:10:12,960 --> 01:10:15,840
not accepted, and no one will
talk to me because I'll tell them the

851
01:10:15,880 --> 01:10:18,319
truth and they're not here for that, like whoop, oh oh oh,

852
01:10:18,520 --> 01:10:25,239
nope, here my mom calling me
gotta go. And understanding that what Louise

853
01:10:25,359 --> 01:10:32,760
is demonstrating masterfully by Amy Adams is
a piece with that that I cannot avoid

854
01:10:32,840 --> 01:10:39,800
the suffering. I cannot have the
experience without also having the pain. But

855
01:10:39,920 --> 01:10:45,840
if I don't have the experience,
I don't have an a reason to be.

856
01:10:46,760 --> 01:10:50,600
And I must have a reason to
be, and I accept that it

857
01:10:50,720 --> 01:10:55,279
comes with that, and I'm going
to make the most out of my suffering

858
01:10:55,520 --> 01:10:59,560
and I'm going to make meaning of
it. And then it's kind of heavily

859
01:10:59,560 --> 01:11:06,560
imply that she's through her pain,
has found an after. And one of

860
01:11:06,600 --> 01:11:12,119
the things that I think part of
the existentialism and logo therapy would work on

861
01:11:12,199 --> 01:11:16,359
with people is understanding you don't know
the version of you that exists as an

862
01:11:16,439 --> 01:11:25,399
after yet. Yeah, but it
will emerge if it has to, but

863
01:11:25,520 --> 01:11:30,319
it won't be without the pain.
You can't not have it. But what

864
01:11:30,760 --> 01:11:35,520
the meaning of life comes from is
what we do with the pain that we've

865
01:11:35,640 --> 01:11:43,399
encountered and how we make meaning of
it. Mothers against drunk driving is one

866
01:11:43,439 --> 01:11:47,279
of the I think the example given
in his book man searched her meaning that

867
01:11:48,399 --> 01:11:56,920
a mother lost a child to a
drunk driver and created an entire campaign that

868
01:11:57,119 --> 01:12:02,359
got shit Done've got the be see
lowered from one to point oh eight.

869
01:12:02,479 --> 01:12:06,760
That led to significant changes in legislation
and work, and none of that was

870
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:12,680
ever going to bring back her child. But she also found meaning and connection

871
01:12:13,079 --> 01:12:16,439
and the ability to be seen and
heard and connected to other people who had

872
01:12:16,479 --> 01:12:21,279
similar laws, so she didn't feel
so alone and not so powerless, and

873
01:12:21,399 --> 01:12:28,079
she took her pain and turned it
into something to try to do something better.

874
01:12:29,079 --> 01:12:32,800
And I think when we look at
Louise, to me, I interpreted

875
01:12:34,720 --> 01:12:41,079
this scene about where they asked her
really specifically if she was pregnant before she

876
01:12:41,159 --> 01:12:45,560
got on that ship, that to
me, it was the undertext that the

877
01:12:45,680 --> 01:12:51,399
cost of her communing with these aliens
was that her child would contract this disease.

878
01:12:53,199 --> 01:12:58,680
Oh. To me, that was
the she's like a christ like figure,

879
01:12:58,760 --> 01:13:01,600
so that her sacrifice is going to
be necessary. And I think that

880
01:13:02,760 --> 01:13:05,159
just my interpretation. I don't know
if it's right, but that's the way

881
01:13:05,199 --> 01:13:09,600
it struck to me that there was
some purpose in that being said. Right

882
01:13:09,640 --> 01:13:14,399
in that second with then flashbacks of
the child coming up. Not long after,

883
01:13:15,399 --> 01:13:19,239
there was some invocation that the impact
of her doing this and saving the

884
01:13:19,359 --> 01:13:26,199
human race, this was the cost, and she was accepting it, and

885
01:13:27,680 --> 01:13:32,800
she's making peace with the amount of
suffering that she's going through by saving humanity

886
01:13:32,920 --> 01:13:36,319
that she will never meet three thousand
years from now. It doesn't matter how

887
01:13:36,359 --> 01:13:41,159
we find that contextualization, but when
we can do something with our pain that

888
01:13:43,000 --> 01:13:46,159
makes us feel like we can go
on with some reason to be going on

889
01:13:46,560 --> 01:13:50,560
instead of what many parents, myself
included, struggle with is I don't know

890
01:13:50,600 --> 01:13:57,439
what I'd do if I lost my
child. My life would cease to exist.

891
01:13:59,239 --> 01:14:01,840
But that's the truth of it,
is just this version. I don't

892
01:14:01,960 --> 01:14:08,560
want that version, but I don't
get a choice. And that's a lot,

893
01:14:10,000 --> 01:14:14,960
but it's true. But our prime
directive to survive will keep you going,

894
01:14:15,520 --> 01:14:21,680
and you will through pain if you
can embrace that suffering and face your

895
01:14:21,760 --> 01:14:29,640
losses, make something of them,
and it will create a healthier post version

896
01:14:29,680 --> 01:14:33,399
of you, no matter what that
loss is. And that's what Victor Frankel's

897
01:14:33,399 --> 01:14:38,800
book is all about, of accepting
that. And then it's what I think

898
01:14:39,319 --> 01:14:44,159
Louis went through in this story is
finding a way to make peace and meaning

899
01:14:44,239 --> 01:14:46,960
of the suffering. She has learned
through connecting that time is a circle.

900
01:14:47,399 --> 01:14:50,560
There's always been pain, there will
always be pain, there will always be

901
01:14:50,680 --> 01:14:57,479
death. But I can do something
to affect the world being a better place

902
01:14:57,600 --> 01:15:02,840
through my pain, and that's powerful, Hannah. You want to go sure.

903
01:15:04,000 --> 01:15:11,600
So I really thought about working with
Ian and Louise, and the way

904
01:15:11,640 --> 01:15:15,800
that I thought about working with them
was after the fact that Ian couldn't be

905
01:15:15,920 --> 01:15:19,359
with Louise anymore, based on the
decision that she made, which is what

906
01:15:19,439 --> 01:15:24,000
we're assuming happened, Yeah, which
I think is a pretty accurate assumption.

907
01:15:24,920 --> 01:15:30,880
And so a part of what I
wanted to talk about is how important it

908
01:15:30,079 --> 01:15:38,159
is as parents to still have good
communication even if you aren't still with the

909
01:15:38,279 --> 01:15:45,239
other partner, and how important it
can be to still engage in couple's therapy

910
01:15:45,479 --> 01:15:51,560
in order to help support co parenting
together. And it's also a way where

911
01:15:51,720 --> 01:15:56,439
they can do that with each other
and not in front of the children.

912
01:15:56,840 --> 01:16:00,560
You can, like, family therapy
is still something you can do even when

913
01:16:00,880 --> 01:16:04,479
the two partners aren't together, and
couple's therapy is something you can still do

914
01:16:05,279 --> 01:16:11,560
when even though you're not going to
be together because we still have to communicate

915
01:16:11,600 --> 01:16:15,439
with each other and we still have
to engage with each other. And even

916
01:16:15,479 --> 01:16:17,520
though people say, oh, I
only have to deal with them for ten

917
01:16:17,600 --> 01:16:20,520
more years or five more years,
No, you have to deal with that

918
01:16:20,680 --> 01:16:28,079
person for the rest of your life
in some context, because you have children

919
01:16:28,159 --> 01:16:33,119
together, and the way it goes, kids outlive their parents. That's the

920
01:16:33,319 --> 01:16:38,119
hope, that's the expectation that we
all have, and ideally you'll both be

921
01:16:38,239 --> 01:16:43,760
in the kid's life forever, exactly
at their wedding or their graduations, or

922
01:16:43,960 --> 01:16:46,199
we have kids, when grandkids get
involved like all that stuff or whatever they

923
01:16:46,279 --> 01:16:50,680
do. Right, So, my
parents had an effect on my first marriage

924
01:16:51,560 --> 01:16:56,399
even though they were together based on
how they can't couldn't be in the same

925
01:16:56,479 --> 01:16:59,880
room together, and they at that
time weren't talking, and that still had

926
01:17:00,159 --> 01:17:01,640
effect. So guess what, you
still had to deal with each other.

927
01:17:02,239 --> 01:17:06,800
And I can't help but think about
how important it would have been for Louise

928
01:17:06,840 --> 01:17:12,880
and Ian to be able to communicate
more effectively about what was happening, not

929
01:17:13,159 --> 01:17:18,279
only to help support them both expressing
thoughts and feelings about what was going to

930
01:17:18,319 --> 01:17:23,640
happen to their daughter, but also
so they can communicate what they want the

931
01:17:23,720 --> 01:17:28,000
rest of their daughter's life to look
like together. Yeah, which is vital

932
01:17:28,560 --> 01:17:33,279
because that daughter is going to need
both of you. Her relationship is with

933
01:17:33,600 --> 01:17:38,600
an attachment, her primary attachments are
to both of you, even if you're

934
01:17:38,680 --> 01:17:44,119
no longer attached to each other exactly. And so really wanting to make sure

935
01:17:44,800 --> 01:17:47,680
that I helped support communication between these
two people, and a part of the

936
01:17:47,720 --> 01:17:51,840
way I would do that is by
using couple's dialogue, which is something I

937
01:17:51,920 --> 01:17:58,079
believe I have referred to in the
past but haven't really discussed further than saying

938
01:17:58,199 --> 01:18:01,319
couple's dialogue. Of that is because
it's something that has to be taught.

939
01:18:02,000 --> 01:18:05,760
It isn't necessarily something that I can
just tell you how to do it on

940
01:18:06,039 --> 01:18:10,000
the podcast and then you can just
do it. Because, let me tell

941
01:18:10,079 --> 01:18:15,520
you what talking about communication in this
episode today, even when I communicate it

942
01:18:15,159 --> 01:18:19,720
very clearly and directly, people still
go home and do it wrong. Oh

943
01:18:19,800 --> 01:18:24,920
God, and every time, every
time, every time, they do it

944
01:18:25,000 --> 01:18:29,680
wrong. And so that's a part
of the reason why I don't usually go

945
01:18:29,800 --> 01:18:32,439
into a lot of detail about it, because it is really is something that

946
01:18:32,520 --> 01:18:34,840
has to be taught. But I
wanted to talk about it a little bit

947
01:18:34,880 --> 01:18:40,800
today. So the couple's dialogue has
a couple of really big tenets, and

948
01:18:41,239 --> 01:18:46,640
the first one is surprise surprise,
mirroring each other, and that literally means

949
01:18:46,720 --> 01:18:50,760
saying back, So what I heard
you say is you want to take the

950
01:18:50,880 --> 01:18:56,960
kids to the zoo? Is that
right? Yes, that is right.

951
01:18:57,279 --> 01:18:59,920
I heard you say that you wanted
to take the kids to the zoo.

952
01:19:00,560 --> 01:19:03,920
That is what I said. So
that's and that's just the first step.

953
01:19:05,159 --> 01:19:11,840
And a big part of that first
step is allowing again that space that each

954
01:19:11,960 --> 01:19:15,800
partner needs to really hear and understand
the person who is across from you,

955
01:19:16,520 --> 01:19:24,680
and how important it is to be
able to really hear someone without the without

956
01:19:24,800 --> 01:19:28,880
all of the big emotions and escalation
that can happen. So something else that's

957
01:19:28,880 --> 01:19:32,079
important about the couple's dialogue is you
can't do it when you're pissed, because

958
01:19:32,159 --> 01:19:35,800
guess what trying to say what I
heard you say is, And so it

959
01:19:35,960 --> 01:19:42,359
sounds like becomes completely loaded and it's
a complete and utter mess. So something

960
01:19:42,399 --> 01:19:45,000
else about this is that you have
to be in a place where you can

961
01:19:45,079 --> 01:19:48,560
actually hear each other if you're both
pissed. You have to take a ten

962
01:19:48,600 --> 01:19:53,239
minute break before you can come back
and even try to use this skill.

963
01:19:53,560 --> 01:20:00,520
So the first step is mirroring.
The second step is validating validating, and

964
01:20:01,279 --> 01:20:06,239
validation is so this is what it
sounds like to me or or you,

965
01:20:08,119 --> 01:20:11,800
I would imagine you might be feeling
this way, or this is the way,

966
01:20:11,880 --> 01:20:14,000
this is what it sounds like you
might feel like, I get that

967
01:20:14,119 --> 01:20:15,680
you feel that way, and I
understand that you get that way. And

968
01:20:15,880 --> 01:20:20,560
even though and you can say that
you understand a person and still disagree with

969
01:20:20,680 --> 01:20:27,640
them, validating someone does not automatically
say that you agree with what they're saying.

970
01:20:27,800 --> 01:20:30,119
But that is a lot of times
how people take validation, and it

971
01:20:30,239 --> 01:20:40,159
is one thousand percent where it gets
fucked up. Always, always, that's

972
01:20:40,159 --> 01:20:43,520
where it gets fucked up because people
will I heard you say this, but

973
01:20:43,640 --> 01:20:45,840
you're on bullshit and you're wrong because
you and you just like sit there doesn't

974
01:20:45,840 --> 01:20:49,439
even matter, what does it matter? The amount of times that I have

975
01:20:49,560 --> 01:20:55,720
had this skill thrown back in my
face is too many fucking times to count.

976
01:20:56,239 --> 01:20:59,800
People who are not interested in being
uncomfortable, people who don't think it's

977
01:20:59,840 --> 01:21:02,399
in important to listen to their partner, all for all different reasons. So

978
01:21:02,479 --> 01:21:08,840
I've been through it with teaching people, this couple's dialogue that has three steps.

979
01:21:09,159 --> 01:21:15,520
The third step is empathizing. And
what that means is I understand that

980
01:21:15,640 --> 01:21:20,039
you're going through this because blah blah
blah, because I've there, I've had

981
01:21:20,079 --> 01:21:25,479
that same experience or what I'm hearing
I'm trying to remember exactly. I feel

982
01:21:25,479 --> 01:21:28,760
like my brain is not helping me. Well, if you wuyse google Amago

983
01:21:28,880 --> 01:21:34,000
dialogue, you can find a template
that walks you through this like a handout,

984
01:21:34,439 --> 01:21:39,399
and if you put it into YouTube, you can find couples, like

985
01:21:39,600 --> 01:21:44,000
therapist couples practicing it with each other. Yes, so yeah, like the

986
01:21:44,359 --> 01:21:48,520
mirroring, the validating, and then
empathizing. Right, it's great, Hannah.

987
01:21:48,560 --> 01:21:54,079
What I hear you saying right right? Exactly see what I did there?

988
01:21:54,319 --> 01:21:59,079
Yes, it is. I hear
you saying that it's very important for

989
01:21:59,159 --> 01:22:01,399
couples to recognize this three step process
at which they can fuck up any of

990
01:22:01,520 --> 01:22:04,960
one of the three steps, and
if they fuck them up, the fight's

991
01:22:05,000 --> 01:22:10,520
going to get worse, guaranteed,
because step one is making sure you're saying

992
01:22:11,680 --> 01:22:15,520
this is what I heard you say
before I open my big fat mouth and

993
01:22:15,640 --> 01:22:19,720
react to it. Am I reacting
to the correct interpretation? Is that what

994
01:22:19,840 --> 01:22:25,920
you said? And it offers them
an opportunity to do what clarify? Ooh,

995
01:22:26,880 --> 01:22:33,720
rephrase and clarify so that the point
of what was intended is actually validated.

996
01:22:34,359 --> 01:22:40,359
No, communicated, communicated validating.
Yeah, my brain is like,

997
01:22:41,399 --> 01:22:48,680
the validation is important because we need
to communicate. I understand that what you're

998
01:22:48,680 --> 01:22:54,760
feeling is real, yes, and
that that is not coming from nowhere,

999
01:22:55,199 --> 01:23:00,520
and you're not just wrong. This
one is a particularly sensitive point in couples

1000
01:23:00,600 --> 01:23:06,119
that I see that drives me up
a fucking wall hashtag thanks mom and dad,

1001
01:23:06,520 --> 01:23:12,439
because Midwestern parents who are boomers don't
apologize for a goddamn thing, and

1002
01:23:12,840 --> 01:23:15,520
have all of us, being millennials, have all had parents that told us

1003
01:23:15,680 --> 01:23:20,760
I'm sorry you feel that way oooo. And that's not validating. No,

1004
01:23:20,920 --> 01:23:25,159
it's not. It sounds like it
could be, but it is not,

1005
01:23:25,720 --> 01:23:30,000
Ye validating. It is I'm sorry
you have a problem. Yes, what

1006
01:23:30,119 --> 01:23:35,600
would validating look like, Hannah,
Validating would look like, I understand that

1007
01:23:36,439 --> 01:23:40,279
I've had a time when that happened
to me. It can feel, it

1008
01:23:40,399 --> 01:23:44,800
can be frustrating to walk in and
see a mess like that exactly. How

1009
01:23:44,840 --> 01:23:46,479
on the other two are empathy?
This sord gets tricky, right, It's

1010
01:23:46,560 --> 01:23:50,920
like, yeah, the validating is
like I get that you feel that exactly.

1011
01:23:51,039 --> 01:23:59,960
So validation is very much just saying
I understand that. I understand that

1012
01:24:00,119 --> 01:24:03,760
this is what you're feeling, and
that's what you're communicating to me, and

1013
01:24:03,880 --> 01:24:08,359
it's real for you, and it's
real and it's valid. And then the

1014
01:24:08,439 --> 01:24:12,560
empathizing is you take that's the only
part in a mago that from what I

1015
01:24:12,680 --> 01:24:15,880
understand, where you take a mild
leap and you're like it sounds like you

1016
01:24:16,079 --> 01:24:23,199
feel and then you make a judgment
about like you infer and then you also

1017
01:24:23,279 --> 01:24:26,800
ask for clarification like it sounds like
that would make you feel really angry,

1018
01:24:27,319 --> 01:24:31,119
or like I can you know,
and making a leap an empathetic leap,

1019
01:24:31,159 --> 01:24:34,119
and then you allow them opportunities to
say like does that sound right? Do

1020
01:24:34,239 --> 01:24:39,359
it? Am I understanding you exactly? Because I definitely that part. People

1021
01:24:39,399 --> 01:24:42,079
will make that leap, and then
they have to be okay with the other

1022
01:24:42,119 --> 01:24:45,239
person saying no, yep, they
have to be okay with the other person

1023
01:24:45,319 --> 01:24:48,600
saying no, that's actually not how
not how I was feeling. The empathizing.

1024
01:24:48,760 --> 01:24:55,640
Usually the way that it goes is
you have to pick three feelings that

1025
01:24:55,800 --> 01:24:59,920
you think that your partner is feeling. Now, most of the time they've

1026
01:25:00,039 --> 01:25:04,720
already said how they're feeling in one
way or another. So again that's why

1027
01:25:04,880 --> 01:25:09,880
taking that leap actually shouldn't be that
big of a leap, because most of

1028
01:25:09,920 --> 01:25:13,840
the time, if you're doing active
listening and mirroring back what they're saying,

1029
01:25:13,920 --> 01:25:18,279
which is indicating that you're understanding what
they're saying, is that you are I

1030
01:25:18,399 --> 01:25:21,600
just lost my train of thought.
You are tuned. You are tuned in

1031
01:25:23,279 --> 01:25:31,439
to the conversation exactly exactly, you
are into the conversation. So yeah,

1032
01:25:35,199 --> 01:25:44,079
so I'm going to stab me,
I'm uned that. So that's what that's

1033
01:25:44,119 --> 01:25:46,039
what couple's dialogue is. I would
suggest that you look it up, but

1034
01:25:46,119 --> 01:25:51,319
also just know that the thing that
we need most as humans is to be

1035
01:25:51,439 --> 01:25:59,039
seen and heard, and that's really
what we need. And as much as

1036
01:25:59,199 --> 01:26:02,279
the couple's dialogue takes time to go
through, this is it's not a five

1037
01:26:02,359 --> 01:26:05,600
minute conversation. Oh god, no, it's not. It's like four sessions.

1038
01:26:05,960 --> 01:26:10,880
Yeaest exactly. It takes some time
to get through all of the stages,

1039
01:26:11,600 --> 01:26:15,520
and what it really helps show is
how important listening to your partner is,

1040
01:26:15,960 --> 01:26:21,079
understanding what your partner is going through
and also being able to identify feelings

1041
01:26:21,119 --> 01:26:26,079
that they might be feeling to help
them feel seen and heard. And so

1042
01:26:26,239 --> 01:26:30,359
that's what I would want to do
with Ian and Louise. Yeah, And

1043
01:26:30,439 --> 01:26:33,039
I think the only follow up on
a give to that is the way of

1044
01:26:33,159 --> 01:26:38,119
kind of boiled this down from Hannah's
Imago book really helped me a lot with

1045
01:26:38,359 --> 01:26:41,680
couples therapy back when we all worked
in the same practice so long ago.

1046
01:26:42,039 --> 01:26:44,920
Is like learning this and going,
why the fuck don't we just start with

1047
01:26:45,000 --> 01:26:50,039
this? Always an active listening technique
of the time. Why is this not

1048
01:26:50,560 --> 01:26:54,640
because anything else of why are we
here? Why have this fucking asshole cheated

1049
01:26:54,720 --> 01:26:56,960
on me? Or that she did
blah blah blah. She's always bitching.

1050
01:26:57,079 --> 01:27:03,680
We never and you will go nowhere
relutigating fights. But what is very important

1051
01:27:03,680 --> 01:27:06,119
to understand, and I don't think
Louise got it. I think this is

1052
01:27:06,239 --> 01:27:10,960
like a kind of a flaw for
her, is that I think she thought

1053
01:27:11,039 --> 01:27:15,600
telling him would enlighten him the same
way she's been enlightened while ignoring that she

1054
01:27:15,760 --> 01:27:23,279
had a spiritual awakening, that a
divine encounter, basically a celestial encounter.

1055
01:27:23,399 --> 01:27:28,039
If you will absolutely that her brain's
different now, her brain's different, and

1056
01:27:28,119 --> 01:27:30,199
his can never be the same.
And it's not going to be the same

1057
01:27:30,239 --> 01:27:32,159
for him, even if he can
think about it doesn't work that way.

1058
01:27:32,680 --> 01:27:38,439
Yeah, and what hurt people want
to know? There are two things,

1059
01:27:38,680 --> 01:27:42,000
and one of them she could not
communicate to him, and I think that's

1060
01:27:42,000 --> 01:27:45,119
why he left. There are two
things hurt people want to know. One,

1061
01:27:46,720 --> 01:27:53,960
what hurts me is understood thing.
Two, what's hurting me will stop

1062
01:27:54,079 --> 01:27:59,560
hurting me. That's it, And
that's the point of that couple's dialogue.

1063
01:28:00,319 --> 01:28:04,479
You must hear them so that they
feel like they're communicating the right thing.

1064
01:28:04,680 --> 01:28:09,239
You must validate them so that you
understand that is that it is real and

1065
01:28:09,319 --> 01:28:14,239
whatever you did actually impacted them,
regardless of what your fucking opinion of is

1066
01:28:15,760 --> 01:28:18,119
that that is irrelevant. Well requires
a lot of ego death to do with

1067
01:28:18,199 --> 01:28:21,359
this kind of active listening. Sure
does. If the checker yougo at the

1068
01:28:21,399 --> 01:28:25,840
door. That's what I love about
a Mogo dialogue. It makes people have

1069
01:28:25,960 --> 01:28:30,159
to really swallow it, which they
need to. And thing three is that

1070
01:28:30,479 --> 01:28:40,640
your feelings are something that I can
perceive and understand and connect to, which

1071
01:28:40,760 --> 01:28:45,399
allows me to enable the caring parts
of me that care for you to turn

1072
01:28:45,600 --> 01:28:47,840
back on. So I stop fucking
hurting you in a way that you'll be

1073
01:28:47,880 --> 01:28:53,720
convinced by. So we meet condition
one and condition two, which makes a

1074
01:28:53,800 --> 01:29:01,760
MAGO brilliant. Absolutely, And just
to clarify for everyone, Ben is explaining

1075
01:29:01,880 --> 01:29:06,560
this. He's not explaining this to
me. He's explaining this to everyone else

1076
01:29:06,640 --> 01:29:11,279
because we all know that we hear, as we've been talking about all fucking

1077
01:29:11,399 --> 01:29:15,920
episode, is that we all hear
things differently, and sometimes I'll say something

1078
01:29:15,960 --> 01:29:18,479
a certain way, but sometimes you
might hear it better through the way that

1079
01:29:18,640 --> 01:29:23,520
Ben says it. So he's not
explaining this to me, He's explaining this

1080
01:29:23,680 --> 01:29:26,920
for everyone. Yeah, And I
just want to point that out. I

1081
01:29:27,000 --> 01:29:33,760
appreciate that, Brittany, are you, but I don't like to hear just

1082
01:29:34,000 --> 01:29:39,119
joking. Are you the one that
wrote that review? You bet your ass.

1083
01:29:39,159 --> 01:29:45,319
I'm just hooking up iPhones still peple
iPhones and reviews. So I'm going

1084
01:29:45,359 --> 01:29:50,279
to go a different angle because I
happen to just randomly work with a few

1085
01:29:50,359 --> 01:29:58,199
people that are in cancer remission,
and so we're doing a lot of processing

1086
01:29:58,760 --> 01:30:01,720
now that they feel safe sing back. And so what I want to talk

1087
01:30:01,760 --> 01:30:06,399
about is the perspective of when you've
gone through something like that, how support

1088
01:30:06,479 --> 01:30:14,079
systems around you engage with you,
and how for Louise's daughter Hannah, and

1089
01:30:14,199 --> 01:30:18,439
I assume Louise can do this for
her because Louise has reached this existential radical

1090
01:30:18,479 --> 01:30:24,560
acceptance place but Ian couldn't get there. Is how when someone we love becomes

1091
01:30:24,920 --> 01:30:30,840
sick, whatever that means mentally sick, physically sick, how we sometimes as

1092
01:30:30,920 --> 01:30:34,399
the person who loves them, have
a really hard time getting out of our

1093
01:30:34,479 --> 01:30:40,960
own way and being actual support for
them that is helpful. I think the

1094
01:30:41,079 --> 01:30:44,279
thing that I hear a lot from
people that I work with or that I

1095
01:30:44,399 --> 01:30:47,199
know who's gone through something hard like
that is how they will pull away sometimes

1096
01:30:47,279 --> 01:30:53,159
from their loved ones because their loved
ones are getting so caught up and how

1097
01:30:53,319 --> 01:30:59,520
sad they are that they're loved that
the that the person is sick, that

1098
01:31:00,079 --> 01:31:06,359
they are not Intentionally I can give
people mone fit out prioritizing their sadness and

1099
01:31:06,479 --> 01:31:12,560
their grief and their distress over how
they're showing up for the person who's actually

1100
01:31:12,640 --> 01:31:16,359
sick. And how a lot of
times people will tell me, you know,

1101
01:31:17,239 --> 01:31:23,199
I am resentful that when I was
going through the hardest time of my

1102
01:31:23,279 --> 01:31:29,439
life, I couldn't go to my
mom because she'd get so upset about what

1103
01:31:29,600 --> 01:31:34,840
was going on with me that I
ended up comforting her. And how when

1104
01:31:35,000 --> 01:31:40,840
if you really want to show up
in a supportive way for someone in your

1105
01:31:40,880 --> 01:31:47,359
life who's struggling, you need to
check your emotional stuff before you are with

1106
01:31:47,520 --> 01:31:51,560
them. So and we see this
with the in right, like he can't

1107
01:31:51,640 --> 01:31:56,600
get out of his own way to
show up for his daughter exactly, and

1108
01:31:56,760 --> 01:32:01,920
he is prioritizing his feeling over being
a good story, over being a good

1109
01:32:02,000 --> 01:32:06,800
father to her. And people don't
necessarily go that extreme with it, where

1110
01:32:06,800 --> 01:32:11,239
you like totally ostracize your kid or
your loved one. But they'll do the

1111
01:32:11,319 --> 01:32:15,000
other versions, right, which is
micromanaging them, being all over them,

1112
01:32:15,119 --> 01:32:18,800
do a lot of reassurance seeking,
calling them a lot, crying all over

1113
01:32:18,920 --> 01:32:21,880
them. You know, all these
things that make the person who actually needs

1114
01:32:21,960 --> 01:32:27,840
care pull away, not feel supported, and like I said, like actually

1115
01:32:27,880 --> 01:32:30,520
feel like they have to take care
of the emotional well being while they're sick

1116
01:32:31,279 --> 01:32:35,079
of these people in their lives and
almost feel like they have to apologize for

1117
01:32:35,199 --> 01:32:39,039
what they're putting the people in their
life through, so they can't even sick.

1118
01:32:39,279 --> 01:32:43,560
Yeah, so they can't even focus
on their own healing. And then

1119
01:32:43,600 --> 01:32:46,399
they will pull away sometimes from their
loved ones, which I'm sure then causes

1120
01:32:46,439 --> 01:32:50,199
a train reaction where the loved one
is like what and like it's needier or

1121
01:32:50,279 --> 01:32:56,680
whatever, And so how much that
people will engage in their own reassurance seeking

1122
01:32:57,840 --> 01:33:00,199
And I would say this too,
like when I worked in more intense of

1123
01:33:00,239 --> 01:33:03,640
settings and I'd work with teenagers or
kids who had been to the hospital,

1124
01:33:03,920 --> 01:33:09,039
like maybe they eat an attempted suicide
at some point, and their parents would

1125
01:33:09,119 --> 01:33:11,760
make it about them, and not
in a shitty way, not in an

1126
01:33:11,840 --> 01:33:15,119
intentionally asshole way most of the time, not where they're like how could you?

1127
01:33:15,159 --> 01:33:16,920
I mean, I have heard parents
say how could you do that to

1128
01:33:17,000 --> 01:33:20,359
me? Which is one of the
worst things you can say when your kid

1129
01:33:20,399 --> 01:33:27,439
has attempted correct suicide only exists when
people feel so bad that death seems the

1130
01:33:27,840 --> 01:33:32,560
only acceptable alternative to being only available, not acceptably only available alternative to stop

1131
01:33:32,640 --> 01:33:39,279
being a paint. And so the
amount of times that I have watched parents

1132
01:33:39,279 --> 01:33:45,079
specifically, you know, make it
about them. I can't. I can't

1133
01:33:45,119 --> 01:33:46,840
deal with that. How could you
do that to us? Family? Like

1134
01:33:46,960 --> 01:33:49,840
I can't like there, or even
when they're trying to show up, well,

1135
01:33:49,880 --> 01:33:53,560
their feelings are so all over the
place, and the kid picks up

1136
01:33:53,600 --> 01:33:55,920
on that, they're like, I
don't want to talk about that stuff because

1137
01:33:55,920 --> 01:33:58,760
I know my mom is going to
freak out, or I know my mom's

1138
01:33:58,760 --> 01:34:00,600
going to get up so upset,
or my dad is going to get up

1139
01:34:00,600 --> 01:34:03,600
so upset that I can't talk to
them about that, you know. And

1140
01:34:03,720 --> 01:34:09,000
so like ironically, the people that
you're trying to show up for will pull

1141
01:34:09,039 --> 01:34:14,159
away from you because you have shown
that you are not a safe place.

1142
01:34:14,560 --> 01:34:16,319
So when I do this work with
people, what I would do with parents

1143
01:34:16,359 --> 01:34:19,880
specifically after like a Kidden crisis,
One, I would acknowledge you're going through

1144
01:34:19,920 --> 01:34:25,760
something traumatic or you have gone through
something traumatic by loving someone that's going through

1145
01:34:25,840 --> 01:34:28,880
this or has gone through this.
So get your own therapy for fuck's sake,

1146
01:34:29,399 --> 01:34:31,600
and have a place where you can
just barf all your feelings out if

1147
01:34:31,680 --> 01:34:35,760
nothing else, don't make it your
kid's problem or your loved one's problem.

1148
01:34:38,159 --> 01:34:41,359
About your feelings, talk to a
friend, talk to your therapist, talk

1149
01:34:41,399 --> 01:34:44,119
to somebody else. Don't talk to
them about them. That's not fair.

1150
01:34:45,239 --> 01:34:48,479
And you know, when you show
up with them for them, ask them

1151
01:34:48,520 --> 01:34:51,760
what they need. Because people have
different responses to this, like I want

1152
01:34:51,840 --> 01:34:57,039
you to be talking about how I'm
doing. I want you to be checking

1153
01:34:57,039 --> 01:34:59,600
it with me. I want you
to be like very emotionally tuned in,

1154
01:34:59,640 --> 01:35:01,359
and I want you to be like
coddling me or like, you know,

1155
01:35:01,439 --> 01:35:03,239
babying me. Some people do like
that, you know, they want to

1156
01:35:03,239 --> 01:35:05,000
be taking care of in that way. And a lot of times, though,

1157
01:35:05,039 --> 01:35:08,920
especially when it's more the mental health
part of it, they'll say,

1158
01:35:08,960 --> 01:35:12,720
I want my parents to treat me
like I'm fucking normal, Like I want

1159
01:35:12,760 --> 01:35:16,760
people in my life to not be
weird with me because I already feel weird.

1160
01:35:16,880 --> 01:35:19,880
I'm already going through something that makes
me feel very othered and very outside

1161
01:35:19,880 --> 01:35:24,720
of normal life. I want people
to treat me like I'm normal. And

1162
01:35:24,880 --> 01:35:30,800
so when so, anyone who's listening
who might be going through this kind of

1163
01:35:30,840 --> 01:35:33,039
situation, like, yeah, get
the help, get your own help,

1164
01:35:33,960 --> 01:35:41,159
and be be aware of where your
emotions is coming up and where you're engaging

1165
01:35:41,199 --> 01:35:45,640
in things with your kids or whoever
because you want to be comforted about how

1166
01:35:45,760 --> 01:35:48,920
upset you are about how they're doing. Am I calling them every day multiple

1167
01:35:48,960 --> 01:35:53,359
times a day because I genuinely think
that helps them feel better and support it?

1168
01:35:53,560 --> 01:35:57,000
Or am I calling multiple times a
day because I'm so anxious and upset

1169
01:35:57,000 --> 01:36:00,279
about how they are that I need
them to continuously reassure me that they're okay.

1170
01:36:01,000 --> 01:36:05,680
And those are two different things,
and one is very egocentric, unfortunately,

1171
01:36:06,439 --> 01:36:10,960
any other one is actually helpful.
And so, like I said,

1172
01:36:11,000 --> 01:36:15,399
Ian unfortunately is choosing the more egocentric
route because he's not working on his stuff,

1173
01:36:15,760 --> 01:36:19,239
yep. And Louise, because she
has had this divine intervention, is

1174
01:36:19,279 --> 01:36:23,600
able to show up and not engage
in reassurancy as we I mean, we

1175
01:36:23,680 --> 01:36:27,159
don't really see a lot of it, but she's not doing that, you

1176
01:36:27,239 --> 01:36:29,640
know, even in the way that
she talks to her daughter, like she's

1177
01:36:30,119 --> 01:36:32,279
trying to be thoughtful and age appropriate. But yeah, So that's where I

1178
01:36:32,319 --> 01:36:39,920
wanted to go with treatment, just
in how I wish people would be and

1179
01:36:40,279 --> 01:36:43,039
what I hear firsthand from people who
have gone through tough times like this,

1180
01:36:43,199 --> 01:36:45,960
like how they want their support system
to show up for them. So that

1181
01:36:46,079 --> 01:36:48,720
was my thought for treatment, Like
if I have to work with Ian,

1182
01:36:48,800 --> 01:36:55,279
for example, how I might go
with that. So we will take one

1183
01:36:55,359 --> 01:36:59,000
last break here and be back for
final thoughts. I feel like, Hannah,

1184
01:36:59,079 --> 01:37:01,439
you should go asked because this is
your one of your favorite movies.

1185
01:37:01,840 --> 01:37:03,279
Do you want to go, Ben? Or do you want me to go?

1186
01:37:04,239 --> 01:37:09,560
Maybe we'll do a sandwich. I'll
go go for it. So I've

1187
01:37:09,600 --> 01:37:13,520
only seen this movie I think three
times, which if I like a movie,

1188
01:37:13,560 --> 01:37:15,439
that's not a lot of times for
me to have watched a movie.

1189
01:37:15,520 --> 01:37:16,760
I'm the kind of person Hannah as
as well. Ben, I think you're

1190
01:37:16,840 --> 01:37:19,720
like this too. Actually, we're
all people that if we like a movie,

1191
01:37:19,760 --> 01:37:24,880
we'll watch it, will burn the
tape longer times. I don't know.

1192
01:37:25,399 --> 01:37:29,119
Absolutely yeah, And so I've only
seen this movie three times because it's

1193
01:37:29,119 --> 01:37:31,640
a heavier topic. But I will
say every time I turn that sucker on,

1194
01:37:31,880 --> 01:37:35,840
I'm like, hell fucking yet one. I love alien movies. You

1195
01:37:35,920 --> 01:37:40,720
gotta you got a movie about an
alien, and then you gotta like a

1196
01:37:40,760 --> 01:37:45,960
movie about a crack team coming together
to solve something. I'm in on either

1197
01:37:45,000 --> 01:37:49,399
of those ideas. I love the
although linguistic thoughts, how much it makes

1198
01:37:49,439 --> 01:37:53,920
you think about like communication, like
we've already talked about to death. And

1199
01:37:54,560 --> 01:37:59,439
I love the look of it.
I feel like this movie was Denis practice

1200
01:37:59,479 --> 01:38:03,680
for Doune. Absolutely, like you
can see Dune yes, and like specifically

1201
01:38:03,800 --> 01:38:10,640
the planet that Paul trades is from
on screen, yes, with the coloring

1202
01:38:10,880 --> 01:38:13,760
of like the planets and things like
that. Like this was definitely a practice

1203
01:38:13,840 --> 01:38:16,840
run for Noon. And I love
it is where House of Tread's is from.

1204
01:38:17,119 --> 01:38:23,880
Yeah, Caladan. Louis said it
was Montana. I think it is

1205
01:38:23,960 --> 01:38:28,560
Caladan, which I would be shocked
if that was right, but but yeah,

1206
01:38:28,600 --> 01:38:30,520
So I love and I love Deni
Vella note like I love Blade Runner

1207
01:38:30,640 --> 01:38:34,000
twenty forty nine. I love the
Dune movies. I won't ever watch Prisoners

1208
01:38:34,039 --> 01:38:38,920
again because it makes me feel physically
sick when I saw the first time because

1209
01:38:38,920 --> 01:38:42,439
of the subject matter. But I've
everything I've seen of his I've loved.

1210
01:38:42,560 --> 01:38:45,680
I'm sure I'll watch this movie again. I love the ideas about it.

1211
01:38:45,800 --> 01:38:51,239
I'm very big into like an idea
of like radical acceptance and the chaos of

1212
01:38:51,239 --> 01:38:55,960
the world and giving into the chaos
of the universe and stuff like that,

1213
01:38:56,079 --> 01:38:58,920
and I try to practice that for
myself, to varying degrees of success.

1214
01:38:59,399 --> 01:39:02,439
So I'll define watch this movie again. I think it's beautiful. I love

1215
01:39:02,520 --> 01:39:06,600
the music, I love pretty much
everything about it. I guess that's me

1216
01:39:06,600 --> 01:39:13,560
because I'm getting pointed at. So
this movie I thought was an incredible film,

1217
01:39:13,600 --> 01:39:18,720
and I see why it got so
many reviews. It was a difficult

1218
01:39:19,279 --> 01:39:27,079
movie for me to watch, being
a cancer survivor myself and realizing that fears

1219
01:39:27,119 --> 01:39:29,520
one A and one B for me
are being played out on the screen,

1220
01:39:30,399 --> 01:39:38,479
which is losing a child or losing
myself and leaving said children behind. That

1221
01:39:40,479 --> 01:39:45,279
ties into the existentialism. But beyond
noticing that, I got some pretty significant

1222
01:39:45,319 --> 01:39:50,680
parts activation from this movie and was
a little bit bitchy. Sorry, you're

1223
01:39:50,720 --> 01:39:55,119
forgiven. Seriously, you guys fucking
kid dying in the first minute of the

1224
01:39:55,159 --> 01:39:58,640
film. Are you fucking kidding me? It was like, really, okay,

1225
01:39:59,560 --> 01:40:04,960
But the beauty of the film and
the way it addresses some of the

1226
01:40:05,039 --> 01:40:12,000
things and makes us confront the shit
that we ask people to confront every single

1227
01:40:12,119 --> 01:40:17,720
day is important to tune into how
uncomfortable it is and how impactful it is

1228
01:40:17,760 --> 01:40:27,000
and how much work it really is
to grapple with these in escapable truths of

1229
01:40:27,119 --> 01:40:30,600
the world, that your life is
impermanent, you do not have control,

1230
01:40:30,560 --> 01:40:34,640
things can change and be taken from
you, and you would have to form

1231
01:40:34,680 --> 01:40:42,720
an existence beyond that and an understanding. And it's really hard. And while

1232
01:40:42,800 --> 01:40:47,319
walking around being angry that I was
subjected to this, but also immensely impressed

1233
01:40:47,359 --> 01:40:51,880
with the beauty of the film,
I was thinking, like taking my dog

1234
01:40:51,960 --> 01:40:56,279
out in the yard, that I
realized I faced the same choice by choosing

1235
01:40:56,319 --> 01:40:59,000
to own this dog that she chose
with a child. And while dog is

1236
01:40:59,039 --> 01:41:03,119
not a child, not equivalent,
it is still the same thing in concept

1237
01:41:03,159 --> 01:41:08,600
of I will outlive this dog,
but I am choosing to have her anyway,

1238
01:41:08,920 --> 01:41:13,680
to enjoy her life, knowing I
will endure the pain when she goes,

1239
01:41:15,800 --> 01:41:19,960
and there's beauty in that that I
am choosing to accept the happiness.

1240
01:41:24,640 --> 01:41:27,800
It's something we all have to do. And we watched watch Louise do on

1241
01:41:27,880 --> 01:41:30,920
a screen in front of us of
accepting the consequence of doing all that she

1242
01:41:30,039 --> 01:41:34,279
did, and why it had to
be done, and what that would cost

1243
01:41:34,359 --> 01:41:40,760
her what she did it anyway,
and found a beauty in its powerful film.

1244
01:41:41,680 --> 01:41:45,359
I don't know that I will volunteer
to watch it multiple times, but

1245
01:41:45,119 --> 01:41:49,439
I respect the hell out of it
and see why it is kind of an

1246
01:41:49,960 --> 01:41:58,319
under the radar gem of a film. I love this movie. I saw

1247
01:41:58,359 --> 01:42:00,720
this movie more than once in the
movie when it came out, because it's

1248
01:42:00,760 --> 01:42:06,720
such a beautiful film just to watch
and look at. And I think a

1249
01:42:06,840 --> 01:42:14,319
part of what I really loved about
this film is not only the intricate storytelling,

1250
01:42:14,960 --> 01:42:20,079
but also the idea that with language
we can change our mind and we

1251
01:42:20,159 --> 01:42:24,319
can do something different with our mind, and how that's such a big part

1252
01:42:24,359 --> 01:42:30,439
of what we do as therapists is
helping people find the language or communicate language.

1253
01:42:30,039 --> 01:42:38,960
And how of what a magical idea
to have to Basically, once you

1254
01:42:39,199 --> 01:42:44,840
understand the language, you then understand
their concept of being and their concept of

1255
01:42:44,960 --> 01:42:50,600
time and how beautiful that really is. And I really love I really love

1256
01:42:50,680 --> 01:42:56,000
the story. I really love Luise. I love her character. I love

1257
01:42:56,039 --> 01:43:01,479
the way that she presents herself,
I love how I love how much she

1258
01:43:01,680 --> 01:43:08,800
has confidence in herself in this film. There's so many films out there where

1259
01:43:08,880 --> 01:43:14,600
we don't have a woman who is
able to be engaged in the same way

1260
01:43:14,800 --> 01:43:17,520
that the men are in the film. And I really feel like in this

1261
01:43:17,720 --> 01:43:23,960
film, Louise is just as important
and as important as every as the other

1262
01:43:24,119 --> 01:43:29,680
characters in the film that are men. And really, I just really love

1263
01:43:29,760 --> 01:43:31,560
the way the story is told.
It also probably helps that the daughter's name

1264
01:43:31,640 --> 01:43:39,359
is Hannah at least a little bit. And I just really enjoy the again

1265
01:43:39,439 --> 01:43:45,239
the idea that language can really change
us and can really help us better understand

1266
01:43:45,279 --> 01:43:49,199
ourselves, and I just thought that
that message was so beautiful, and so

1267
01:43:49,399 --> 01:43:53,079
yeah, so I love this film. I'm sure I'll watch it one hundred

1268
01:43:53,159 --> 01:43:56,560
more times. I don't watch it
as much as I used to, for

1269
01:43:56,680 --> 01:44:00,600
sure, but again, just experiencing
all of the different thoughts. I feel

1270
01:44:00,640 --> 01:44:04,000
like every time I watch it,
I have different thoughts about something, or

1271
01:44:04,000 --> 01:44:08,399
it brings up something else for me
that I haven't thought of. And so

1272
01:44:08,680 --> 01:44:12,800
that's another reason why I really love
rewatching this film. It is beautiful to

1273
01:44:12,840 --> 01:44:21,640
watch a female character retain her femininity
and solve the issue while not having to

1274
01:44:21,840 --> 01:44:26,960
take on a masculine role or identity
or solve things be in the way that

1275
01:44:27,079 --> 01:44:30,359
the men do or the way that
the men say, she uses her own

1276
01:44:30,479 --> 01:44:34,720
power, her own viewpoint and fiercely
holds it through the whole film, and

1277
01:44:34,840 --> 01:44:39,880
she's not hyper sexualized. She's also
not demeaned, like even when she's questioning

1278
01:44:39,920 --> 01:44:44,600
the movie, it's more from like
a legitimate, like militant, like I

1279
01:44:44,640 --> 01:44:46,159
don't know if I can trust that, and not like you know you women

1280
01:44:46,279 --> 01:44:56,359
with your feelings and your horniness,
exactly the very modern feminist take of women

1281
01:44:56,520 --> 01:45:02,079
have power being exactly how they are. There is nothing wrong or broken that

1282
01:45:02,239 --> 01:45:08,159
needs to be fixed or corrected by
another point of view or a male point

1283
01:45:08,159 --> 01:45:12,880
of view or anything else. And
then look at that she solved the problem

1284
01:45:12,920 --> 01:45:15,640
and saved the whole world and didn't
worry about being likable while she was doing

1285
01:45:15,720 --> 01:45:19,880
it. Nope, she's also very
unique. Yes, she didn't beg the

1286
01:45:19,960 --> 01:45:24,479
kernel to come back. She's like, all right, bruh, ask him

1287
01:45:24,520 --> 01:45:26,640
this question, come back, see
if you like the answer. Yeah,

1288
01:45:26,760 --> 01:45:30,600
I'll see you. Well. On
that note, we will wrap up here.

1289
01:45:30,920 --> 01:45:38,359
So as always, you can find
us via intergalactic communication or on TikTok,

1290
01:45:38,399 --> 01:45:42,439
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1291
01:45:42,560 --> 01:45:45,520
Underscore psych You can always email us
at Popcorn Psychology at gmail dot com.

1292
01:45:46,399 --> 01:45:49,000
If you want to support us,
which we appreciate as we are a totally

1293
01:45:49,079 --> 01:45:55,880
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1294
01:45:55,880 --> 01:46:00,359
you early access to unedited episodes.
It also gives you like a little swag

1295
01:46:00,439 --> 01:46:02,840
bag of cute little things with our
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1296
01:46:02,960 --> 01:46:06,840
fifty dollars or more patron, you
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1297
01:46:06,880 --> 01:46:11,239
which is pretty cool. And if
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1298
01:46:11,319 --> 01:46:13,880
us, you can find us on
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1299
01:46:13,880 --> 01:46:16,000
support us or really appreciate it.
Also, one of the best ways to

1300
01:46:16,439 --> 01:46:20,279
support us, and that is free, is to give us a hopefully positive

1301
01:46:20,479 --> 01:46:26,359
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1302
01:46:26,399 --> 01:46:29,920
best way for new listeners to find
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1303
01:46:30,000 --> 01:46:32,039
stars checked yes, and we appreciate
it, and we read them and we

1304
01:46:32,119 --> 01:46:34,800
share them with each other. And
yeah, if any of you guys know

1305
01:46:34,880 --> 01:46:40,000
anything about aliens and whether they exist
or not, please contact us to one

1306
01:46:40,039 --> 01:46:47,439
of those mediums and tell me I
need to know. Brittany really wants to believe