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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 Bernie Brownfield and I'm
a child therapist and I'm joined by

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

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all 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

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

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

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

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mental health provider. Hello. So
we are doing our second holiday episode of

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twenty twenty two. We're gonna be
talking about the Grinch. Specifically, we're

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gonna be talking about the leaf Picks, our version of the Grinch from twenty

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eighteen, or the Illumination Illumination,
but I'm sure we'll be referencing the other

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versions of the Grinch since he is
basically a public property since the nineteen fifties

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in sixties with the specials. So
we were going to be specifically discussing parts

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from that movie, but also you'll
be hearing things here and there of just

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basically the Grinch. So before we
jump into that, I'm going to have

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our guest, Brian Lowry introduced himself. Hey, Brittany and Ben, it's

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great to join you. I am
Brian Lowry. I'm a professor at the

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Stanford Graduate School of Business and also
a host of a podcast, Know what

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you See, k n OLW what
you see? Thanks for having me,

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sure, thanks for joining us,
and we're happy to have you. And

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so basically this version of the Grinch, I'm sure a lot of people know,

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but this person specifically is about a
Grinch, a dude in Houville who

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lives in a cave because he hates
everybody, and he hates all the who's,

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he hates Christmas, and he decides
he's gonna steal Christmas because fuck those

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who's. And but can we just
say can we just highlight though, can

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we just highlight them from San Francisco? So, um, that's a it's

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a dope cave he lives in.
Let's just be clear, his housing situation

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is nothing to be upset about.
He has a great view that would be

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a hell of a place in San
Francisco. I'm just gonna say, and

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I would say, he really has
what's it called Rube Goldberg, He's really

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Rube Goldberg out his cave too.
But we also in this movie, it

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touches upon Cindy Lou who, but
it gives a bit more a different kind

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of telling of her story where she's
being raised by a single mom. Donna

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no clue who or where or what
about her dad none. I googled it

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and everything, could not discern what
happened to her dad. But basically her

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mom is raising her and very young
twin boys. So part of the story

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is also Cindy Lou who trying to
help her mother by getting in touch with

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old Santa Claus. So that's how
her and The Grinch's story intertwine. So

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the themes will be touching upon our
PTSD, situational environmental triggers, and communal

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healing, and as always we'll talk
about treatment and final thoughts. So when

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I was watching this version of The
Grinch, post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD,

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in my opinion as a clinician,
is sort of textbook displayed in this

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movie. So pretty briefly, I
wanted to touch upon what actually PTSD looks

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like when it's diagnosed. Is a
lot of talk in the mainstream now about

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it, but I think not a
lot of people know exactly what criteria you

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have to fulfill. So basically,
if directly you have to directly experience a

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traumatic event or witness it or learn
about it, you have to have recurrent,

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in voluntary and truths of distressing memories
of the traumatic event, distressing dreams,

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flashbacks. You have to have a
few of these criteria emotional distress due

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to cues about it. There's also
a big component that I think we'll talk

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about a lot with The Grinch is
you have to have an avoidant response to

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the distresser. So either you are
actively avoiding the elements that trigger PTSD within

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you, or you have to avoid
also people, places, things, conversations,

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external reminders basically that aroused a stressing
memories, thoughts, or feelings.

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So if we think about the Grinch, what is his big thing Christmas?

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And I think specifically in this movie, they actually highlight that he was I

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don't know, orphaned or abandoned or
something along those lines Christmas. So we

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are seeing someone who is actively actively
actively avoiding a big external reminder of a

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distressing past memory. I think something
I noted one of my first notes when

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watching this movie was that he has
stocked up food so that he can be

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in his little cave, his big
cave actually all the way through Christmas like

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this someone who is doomsday prepping Christmas
so that he doesn't have to experience it

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at all. He and the movie
kind of opens because he's gotten himself in

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a bit of a dilemma because he's
been emotionally eating all his prep food.

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So now he has to encounter the
who vills people because he hasn't planned,

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he hasn't appropriately prepared for his emotional
responses to everything else more just like more

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concretely pragmatically prepping, but not emotionally
prepping. And he is, in his

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failure to emotionally prep eats through his
entire store of food. Yes, And

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so then he has to do which
what happens in people in real life.

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They can no longer avoid the thing
that they are avoiding, so they have

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to encounter it. And so right
in the beginning of this movie, we

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see him go down into who Ville
and be a menace. To put it

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kindly. He is starting, he's
provoking people, he's stealing their groceries,

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he's puking in their groceries. He
is walking around acting as if everyone is

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out to get him, when he's
the one who is causing drama, causing

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conflict, and being pretty unkind to
everyone around him. Yeah, well,

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you know, kind of just I
just wondered why he wasn't more fearful of

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them, right, It was just
an Interestingly, the degree of and this

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is I understand can be part of
keeps, but the degree of aggression and

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only aggression was interesting, and then
no one else responded to it was also

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interesting. I think I can answer
I can give you to that is that

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when people are afraid, if they
feel like they can take action and protect

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themselves by expressing anger. And this
is not necessarily a conscious thought, so

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I guess it should be if your
subconscious feels like it can take action to

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a perceived threat, that can keep
you safe by barking like a dog,

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would you know, But through your
behavior at something you're afraid of, you

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will assume an aggressive stance and bristle
and keep people away, even though what

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you're doing is keeping people away from
your fear, and we see that,

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I think immediately with Grinches that as
soon as he walks into the town,

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he finds his fight part to protect
his fearful, hurt parts, and if

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he keeps everyone away from him,
they can't get close enough to hurt him.

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Yeah, definitely that protective part,
because a big criteria for PTSD,

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or what can be one, is
that irrational and angry outbursts, you know,

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and is I think that's sort of
like you're saying, Ben, that

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I'm going to get them before they
can get me. Very protective. And

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also a criteria of PTSD is having
a persistent negative viewpoint on things, and

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either that's about yourself or about the
world at large, or something along those

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lines. And I think something I
noticed a lot was how much he has

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decided or how much he is he
believes that the Whos are all awful people.

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And even though I know it's played
for comedy in the movie, he

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was encountering very friendly people, like
especially his one neighbor, but he has

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decided his persistent negative belief is that
they are awful and so they deserve to

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be treated with irritability and anger.
And you're right, it's not fear.

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But I kind of agree with Ben
in that anger for a lot of people

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feels like a more powerful feeling in
the sense of action and control and intimidation,

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and so him also because even like
provoking, people are being angry with

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little to no provocation. That is
a PTSD criteria that I don't think a

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lot of people think of. I
think they think of it more of what

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you're bringing up, which is being
very fear fall and almost like meek and

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hyper vigilant and scared all the time, but actually can scue the other direction

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and frequently does of being more like
starting fights and being someone with a big

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chip on their shoulder, which he
definitely has. Yeah, I guess that

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was what was striking to me though, is often people don't respond to that

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bynum unguarded kindness. Right, So
when you do that, there's usually some

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reaction, and the reaction is not
one of, oh, let me be

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nice to you even more, right, So there is a way in which

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um, there's would I would not
expect that to be satisfying that people would

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continue to act and engage them in
a nice way given the way he's responding,

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right, So I'd assumed that that
acting in that way, it's designed

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to elicit some response and he's not
getting that response. And also, by

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the way, this is one of
the things that will come to like I

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had an issue with this movie and
that I just think it's it's if I

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had to guess who's writing this movie, would be the people of Whoville telling

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the story about the Grinch. Yeah, well they do say history is written

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by the whatever the winners, the
victors, or hurts the dominators. But

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yeah, it is an interesting thing
to consider that if PTSD is a classifiable

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disorder, it means that there's biological
basis to it, and society as humans

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are social creatures. If when we
are hurt, some of the natural responses

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we can get is that we get
so hurt we retreat from society, and

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when society approaches us, we're so
fearful of it that we lash out in

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anger. It seems like that's maladaptive
because I am hurt and I need people

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to care for me, and these
people might care for me, but I

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don't trust them, so I need
to crush them and keep them away from

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me. Keeps you in a paradox, and that's where we see the Grinch

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live and where we see a great
many people live of that they have been

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so hurt that they don't trust anything, so that they are so riddled with

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anger at how they're feeling that they
get more angry when people don't respond positively

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to their anger to take care of
their needs, and get more angry.

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And then people get very tired of
trying to meet their needs very quickly and

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leave them alone and tell bad stories
about them. Yeah, it makes me

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curious because we don't see this in
this version of The Grinch, if as

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a little kid, if he'd tried
to assimilate and to fit in and then

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was because what we get in the
live action version is a kid who does

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try to assimilate and gets bullied so
egregiously that he withdraws. So it's more

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like these little t traumas that go
on and on until finally he's like,

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fuck everybody, Fuck Christmas, fuck
Martha who, and I'm gonna go live

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in a cave. And so with
this movie, there's more of a simplistic

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story, to be quite honest,
and that one bad, one quote unquote

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bad thing happened and then he retreated
from the world at a very young age,

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and so Yeah, I'm not quite
sure where I'm going with that,

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other than I think a lot of
with it too is just that confirmation bias

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as well. You know, when
you form such a strong view of the

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world based on genuine hurt and hardship, when people are contradictory to that belief.

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I think for some people it's so
uncomfortable and invalidating that they rejected outright.

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And for him, if we're to
believe that this is his narrative and

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not the who's when they do treat
him with kindness, there's a filter going

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through his brain where he is reworking
the actual motivation behind that. And I

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do see that with clientele who've gone
through who have PTSD, have gone through

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tramatic experience, who have a very
strong belief about people humankind, some category

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of people where even if they are
treated quote unquote well by them, when

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they're in session with me, they'll
start making caveats, so we'll start rewriting

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the event, like in front of
me. Yeah, I mean, she

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did invite me to this, but
you know, maybe she was doing that

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because she really wants to make a
fool out of me, Because she's inviting

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me to the specific kind of thing, and I know that she knows that

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she's better than me at it,
and so you can kind of see I

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see like in front of me,
clientele will start changing a story to fit

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this narrative because that's how they have
viewed the world for so long, and

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to try to view it differently is
so uncomfortable and it requires a lot of

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radical ability, a lot of radical
flexibility that if you're still in the state

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that he's in and where you're still
so isolated and so in pain, it's

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just not possible until you have a
bit more relief from that. Yeah,

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I mean, I think there's a
number of studies that suggest that people want

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to support their own their existing worldview, right, So if you have a

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worldview that people are out there get
you, then it feels better to you

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when you when that seems to be
supported by experiences in the world that when

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it's challenged. So I think that
certainly is true. But at the same

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time, it's self protective, right, So we talked about it. It's

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it's easy to talk about it is
like that he should or someone in the

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situation should let people in and understand
that this is you know, it's you

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know, that this is the view
of the world. It might not be

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right, but it could be right. Doesn't clear right that it's not.

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In this situation with the Gridge,
the people that he has concerns about are

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the people, in some way,
whether they talk about or not, that

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have created the PTSD. Right,
they've been involved in the creation of the

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trauma, so that from the outside
it can look and it can look as

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if there's some issue with the person, but when you take it from their

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perspective, you can see it is
like, yeah, it's costly to engage

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in the world this way, but
maybe that cost is worth it given the

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fear of what could occur, And
there's evidence that those things could happen,

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and in the case of the Grinch, they have happened, and being able

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to consider it from his perspective is
important because the only perspective that you have

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is your own. And we see
him standing outside looking at all of these

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other kids getting all of their needs
met, and no one is meeting any

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of his. And every year he
sees all of these people, and every

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just not every year, not even
just Christmas, but we can assume it

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being in an orphanage, but no
mom and dad that he just sat and

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observed through that window everyone else's needs
getting met, wondering why not me,

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which means that resentment that he can
build and that feeling of lack of safety

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in engaging in that is very valid
and comes from a very real place.

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And I don't think a single person
in Huville would understand why they are the

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villain in his story. But if
you look at it from Grynch's perspective,

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that makes perfect sense. That every
time I look at you, I feel

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my own pain and I don't want
to anymore. Yeah, And I think

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something also to bring up, and
they talk about this on the live action

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version, is he looks different than
everybody else in this town. He's a

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different color. He is green,
and everyone else is like shades of invasion

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and tan and that kind of thing. And so it wouldn't be also surprising

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for him to put you meaning to
that as well, like I'm also the

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only person who looks like me.
That's isolating in general, but also does

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that mean something about why I'm being
left out and I'm not being taken care

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of? And I see all these
other kids who look like the adults,

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and they're being taken care of.
Like we don't even know where there are

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other kids in the orphanage? Is
it just him? I'm assuming because it's

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a whole orphanage that there are other
kids there and not just like a room

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he was sitting in, But we
don't know, Like this movie doesn't really

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give us a lot of information other
than that flashback about the extent of his

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history. Yeah, because at some
point you have to wonder if it was

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an orphanage, and I'm not sure
it was, but if it was an

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orphanage, he wasn't adopted, which
is strange given how who Villas presented.

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No, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And so it's like how old did

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he did he have to age out
of the orphanage? Did he run away

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from the orphanage and then go to
his cave? How did he find his

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cave? Like, there's a lot
of questions that if he was in my

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office, there's a lot of questions. Would I would want like a timeline

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of the situation so I can best
sort of understand where this started for him,

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you know, and what were the
meaningful beats to that timeline and how

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and kind of what you're saying to
also validate where these beliefs came from you

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know, how much it was based
on actual lived experience and then how much

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it was is that exacerbated through like
the filter of a filter of a filter

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that all of our brains do to
memories where we conflate them over time.

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Another thing about that I think about
the movie, and this is now going

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back into the movie, is that
thought that I didn't think it was an

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orphanage the way they played it.
I thought he was like born to rich

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parents or something like kind of some
kind of Batman narrative where they died or

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something, and he was left in
this huge castle kind of on his own

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because he has that big organ.
He has all these things that are like,

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this is not I mean, he's
he's living lavish even as alone.

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Well that's that's in his cave.
He definitely has those. The the flashback

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scene definitely shows it's an orphanage.
Thinks orphanage. Yeah, So I don't

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know, we're we're I mean,
we'd obviously. I just find the whole

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thing strange because then I'm like an
orphanage. But he didn't get adopted.

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I wouldn't be so happy about them
either. I'm like, what's up?

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Everything is great? But I got
to live up myself. Yeah, And

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it seemed like the subtext of one
of the scenes while Farrell was reading his

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poem to me, was like he
was watching this one kid run up to

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these other parents and and get happiness. And the way I interpreted it,

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which could be incorrect, you know, it's just our perspective, right,

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This is why we do films.
Is watching that kid run up to parents.

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It seemed like that was a kid
getting adopted, and the subtext of

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that was watching that happen was part
of a great pain for him. And

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he's right after that we see him
in imagining himself being in that big empty

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hall in the orphanage with almost nothing
at all. I think is the even

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the phrase they use. And then
you see him fantasizing and that he has

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this big, huge Christmas with all
these lights and all these presents and this

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warmth, and then it all fades
away and shows that there's barely any heat

258
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coming from the fire in this dark
and gray space, staring out at what

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might be the most colorful film ever
made other than Coca. I think it's

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of all these bright, bright colors
everywhere. No, it's very Dickensian his

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whole, like all the orphanage stuff. But no, it makes me think

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of it makes it gives me more
like more context to all the versions of

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the scene in which he is standing
at the edge of the cliff up in

264
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his cave and he's staring at all
at whose and he's like, I freaking

265
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hate their tree and I hate their
singing and I hate and I think it

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is that longing that over time has
been perverted, for lack of a better

267
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descriptor, into anger and maybe even
hatred of You guys are a community.

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You're demonstrating all the time, this
togetherness, and I'm being left out of

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it. So that's either a fraud
and fuck you guys for being so fake,

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or you're choosing to specifically just isolate
me, and also fuck you for

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that. And so, no matter
how you slice it, that celebration that

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he observes in Huville is heartbreaking for
him. And I think he does a

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thing that a lot of people do
where they're trying to act like it's just

274
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annoying to them or irritating, and
that very like I am, I scold

275
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on the inside. My heart's two
sizes too small, and I don't really

276
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care I just these people are just
annoying, but really it's coming from like

277
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a deeply painful place for him that
that behavior is just signifying loneliness and I'm

278
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sure very deep, deep longing within
him to be a part of that circle,

279
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you know, Yahoo forest or wherever
they say, like the little Yahoo

280
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song down there, and he's not
a part of it. Welcome. Yeah,

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here's the thing. Here's the thing. I don't get though, why

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would he want to be a part
of it? Like, so there's a

283
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difference between wanting to be a part
of a community and wanting being a part

284
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of the community to rejects you.
I mean, I was always because I

285
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wonder if it's because the way that
Whoville is presented, well, it's on

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00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:41,279
a snowflake, so I think that
there isn't another community for him to go

287
00:22:41,359 --> 00:22:45,359
to. So I wonder if it's
one of those things where either I'm embraced

288
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:49,640
by the community in front of me
or I isolate in this cave. So

289
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it's not like because when Horton,
here's a who those who's live on a

290
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flower. So unfortunately he has got
you know, I don't think you can

291
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jump from the snow to the flower
So I wonder in this situation is because

292
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he has nowhere else to go.
There's no other community that he can turn

293
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:11,680
to. Well, there's no other
place he can get supplies. Yeah,

294
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his resources are limitary. Leased.
Yeah, again, that guy needs to

295
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:18,279
immigrate from the snowflake to a flower. Well, someone on TikTok the other

296
00:23:18,359 --> 00:23:22,559
day, someone's so funny. Someone
on tik that the other day was just

297
00:23:22,599 --> 00:23:26,720
talking about how on Horton hears a
who all those people are different colors,

298
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,839
like all those who's there? Like
what if he was supposed to go to

299
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the flower and instead he got sent
to the snowflake by the snork or the

300
00:23:33,839 --> 00:23:37,200
stork or whatever. And so that's
just the long and the short of the

301
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:41,480
problem is it was a you know, uh miss delivery or you know,

302
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:45,559
a mistake in delivery, and he
was supposed to be on the flower.

303
00:23:47,079 --> 00:23:52,039
Man. His situation is sounding sadder
and sadder. I know. Yeah,

304
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:56,119
I have so many problems with just
the like the origin of that argument that

305
00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:59,680
all his problems would be solved if
he was born in the right place.

306
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,359
That profoundly, I'm not going to
analyze the crap out of that, And

307
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:10,119
now'll just go like my simple answer
to that is no, no, no,

308
00:24:10,839 --> 00:24:12,200
But I mean, I don't think
they were thinking too deep in it.

309
00:24:12,119 --> 00:24:15,359
It was they were just thinking,
maybe he was supposed to be on

310
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:17,880
the flower, And actually I said
to the snowflake, and that's why he

311
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:22,720
doesn't look like everybody else fit in. But that just we don't have to

312
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:26,240
get deeper than that. Then I
think they were just making an observation.

313
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:32,759
He could have been Cindy Luhu on
the flower instead of the grinch on the

314
00:24:32,759 --> 00:24:37,240
snow lake. He could have been, and it could have been, but

315
00:24:37,839 --> 00:24:42,680
even still people going, oh,
that's someone else's problem. And the diffusion

316
00:24:42,279 --> 00:24:48,519
of responsibility and clearly having enough resources
to adopt this child and give him a

317
00:24:48,519 --> 00:24:55,039
better life than relegating him to a
world in a empty orphanage in the dark,

318
00:24:55,880 --> 00:25:00,400
gray, abandoned looking area of a
very bright, happy looking town is

319
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:06,279
a you know, it echoes the
tragedies in our own world, I think,

320
00:25:06,799 --> 00:25:11,160
and just assuming if someone were born
somewhere different they'd be better. But

321
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:14,799
even someone published their thoughts, so
I get to publish mine so they can

322
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:18,920
deal with it. M sorry,
not sorry if you published that. But

323
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:26,400
the thing I think I like about
the idea of understanding Grinch's world here is

324
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:33,519
that this person, this Grinch,
is still staring yeah, over and over

325
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:38,480
at this happiness in front of him
that is inaccessible to him. And why

326
00:25:38,519 --> 00:25:42,880
would he want to join people who
have left him? Is a fantastic question,

327
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,519
Like why would I want to be
part of a community that has rejected

328
00:25:47,559 --> 00:25:53,119
me? Is a fantastic question that
people don't ask enough when you're approaching someone

329
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:57,799
in therapy or in people that you
meet that you don't sit and going,

330
00:25:59,279 --> 00:26:02,839
well, why don't you just make
some friends in this place? You your

331
00:26:02,839 --> 00:26:04,000
parents moved you too, that you
didn't want to be at, that made

332
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,279
you leave all of your friends and
family and anybody that looked like you because

333
00:26:07,319 --> 00:26:12,279
your dad got a job. Well
hold on, like, I don't want

334
00:26:12,279 --> 00:26:15,799
to be here. And as soon
as I got here, I got bullied

335
00:26:15,799 --> 00:26:18,319
because I was the new kid and
I looked different. And some of the

336
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:22,359
scenes I think that made it in
the trailers of this that I don't recall

337
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:26,720
seeing in the film where they showed
him getting bullied in school, and I

338
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:29,960
think they took those out by the
time, because when I watched this,

339
00:26:30,079 --> 00:26:33,559
I don't recall seeing those. I'm
just my brain turned off, but I

340
00:26:33,559 --> 00:26:37,960
don't think so. Are you confusing
this for the Jim Carrey version. No.

341
00:26:38,319 --> 00:26:42,079
When I remember when the trailers to
this came out, they showed kids

342
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:45,640
bullying him and him trying to shave, it was it echoed some of the

343
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,079
stuff in the Gym Carey one,
like with the toilet paper things on his

344
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:55,279
face and things, or I'm inventing
memories, which is also possible and on

345
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:57,680
brand what we're talking about. Yeah, yeah, that was another episode.

346
00:26:57,759 --> 00:27:07,440
Yeah, of course. But the
understanding that people don't always willingly resubmit themselves

347
00:27:07,839 --> 00:27:12,519
to pain is important and understanding,
like you can only reject somebody so many

348
00:27:12,559 --> 00:27:18,599
times before they assign you a file
in your brain of being unsafe, and

349
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:22,920
Grinch has definitely done that, and
he is determined I am safer by myself

350
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:29,759
than I am continuing to try to
join this community of who's even though that

351
00:27:29,839 --> 00:27:36,160
later proves false. I think it's
it's a problem I have with Christmas movies

352
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:40,880
and things that in the traditional sense
of comedy versus drama, where things end

353
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:44,880
well, things don't end well in
the Degressian theater sense of it, that

354
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:49,759
in the comedy world of movies,
we see the things ended well for him,

355
00:27:49,799 --> 00:27:53,920
and they don't end well for everybody. In holiday movies are almost all

356
00:27:55,000 --> 00:28:00,480
comedies and almost all end well,
and I think people sometimes struggle with sessing

357
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:03,680
them and watching them because they see
like, yeah, okay, but that's

358
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:07,720
not real for me. Maybe that's
real for other people, but that's also

359
00:28:07,839 --> 00:28:11,759
sort of the entire pot of this
movie is Wow, that can be real

360
00:28:11,799 --> 00:28:15,799
for other people, but not me, and it hurts me so humbug.

361
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,799
Yeah, I actually seeing people like, you know, like the Christmas aspect

362
00:28:21,799 --> 00:28:25,720
of it is really interesting that he
hated Christmas so much in particular. And

363
00:28:25,759 --> 00:28:27,759
I think this is a hard thing
for people to see that what you feel,

364
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:32,799
what makes you feel comfortable and warm
and accept it, might make someone

365
00:28:32,839 --> 00:28:38,079
else feel on the outside and not
accepted and not understood, understood or seeing.

366
00:28:38,559 --> 00:28:41,480
And I just thought that was interesting, right, and sometimes even more

367
00:28:41,519 --> 00:28:45,839
than that, Right, if you
feel like you've been rejected by community,

368
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:51,640
to see that community hold hands and
embrace is not a sign of like warmth

369
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:56,519
and goodwill toward men. Let's say
that if that community has been mean to

370
00:28:56,599 --> 00:29:00,359
you and then you see them getting
together and celebrating each other, that is

371
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:03,440
not going to make you feel safe
or welcome, and I thank you for

372
00:29:03,519 --> 00:29:07,680
him that said, that seems to
be how he responds to Christmas, like

373
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:11,880
and they're singing together for example,
like he's just really that's really off putting

374
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:15,759
in particular to him. Yeah,
because I think the movie, probably because

375
00:29:15,799 --> 00:29:22,079
it's like a simplistic children's movie,
tries to sell that it's like a big

376
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,839
ta trauma right Christmas because he just
happened to be orphaned at Christmas. So

377
00:29:25,839 --> 00:29:29,640
when there's that scene with the Christmas
tree and he has kind of like the

378
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,480
panicky, like panic attack flashback where
he feels like he's back in Like that's

379
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:41,519
a pretty textbook flashback trauma related.
But kind of what you're illustrating is that

380
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:45,000
what it's probably more realistic is a
lot of what we call like little t

381
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:51,720
traumas like time and time again,
in which he was traumatized by the community

382
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:56,960
by his situation, and Christmas is
wrapped up in it because it is the

383
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:02,720
time when all of these elements are
pumped up to the nth degree and it

384
00:30:02,799 --> 00:30:10,319
really just demonstrates how mistreated he has
been and it's so in his face to

385
00:30:10,359 --> 00:30:12,680
the point that he's up in this
cave and he can still hear them and

386
00:30:12,759 --> 00:30:17,000
see their decorations, and they're also
they're going to make it three times bigger

387
00:30:17,039 --> 00:30:19,480
this year, three times bigger.
So it's like, even when I try

388
00:30:19,519 --> 00:30:23,039
to run from you, guys,
you continue to like throw it in my

389
00:30:23,119 --> 00:30:27,480
face by pumping it up. And
I'm also saying, there's something almost in

390
00:30:27,519 --> 00:30:33,559
the Fairies about people that have been
mean to you bonding over something, right,

391
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:36,680
Like, so think of like another
movie like Carrie, like you go

392
00:30:36,759 --> 00:30:38,559
to the prom. If you've been
bullied all through high school, the prom

393
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:42,480
is not going to be some warm
experience you have, right, It's going

394
00:30:42,519 --> 00:30:48,480
to be terrifying, right, because
there's something that is scary about seeing people

395
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:53,400
go through bonding rituals when those people
have been people who haven't been you feel

396
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,359
like you've been on the outside of
that, right, and you've been afraid

397
00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:00,759
of those people. Just like the
idea that everyone experiences and this now'll go

398
00:31:00,799 --> 00:31:06,279
back to Christmas that people experience Christmas
and this way that we do. Right,

399
00:31:06,319 --> 00:31:08,799
if you experience it as a warm
together time, and that's what it

400
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:12,960
is as opposed to that's the way
you experience it, and other people can

401
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:17,400
have a very different experience so you
know, as we know, as you

402
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:19,200
all know better than I do,
that Christmas can bring up a lot of

403
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:25,440
grief for people, right, Christmas
can be really frightening and dark and sad.

404
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:27,680
And I think when you live in
a world where everyone's talking about Christmas

405
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:33,039
as the most wonderful time of the
year, that has to be intensely alienating.

406
00:31:33,079 --> 00:31:38,720
And you're absolutely right sitting there and
seeing people able to engage in something

407
00:31:40,359 --> 00:31:45,759
that fee that is obviously a communal
event where everyone knows the rules and everyone

408
00:31:45,839 --> 00:31:51,839
knows what to do and everyone knows
how to behave as you walk into it,

409
00:31:51,839 --> 00:31:56,000
it can further alienate you and remind
you just how on the outside of

410
00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:00,200
all of this you really are.
And being at a prom and not being

411
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:04,119
a cool kid who sat and talked
to everybody about, oh, what are

412
00:32:04,119 --> 00:32:07,640
you wearing this year? What are
the trends? Who even accesses the magazines

413
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:13,319
that tell you what these things are
or the websites for those of us who

414
00:32:13,519 --> 00:32:20,440
you know, um, don't know
what the magazine is, but I say,

415
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:23,680
I don't think anymore. But yeah, no, but it did when

416
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:30,160
we went the problem. Although I
know we're dinosaurs now, so it's okay.

417
00:32:30,799 --> 00:32:37,119
But recognizing the the power that when
people are celebrating something that feels good

418
00:32:37,119 --> 00:32:39,000
to them, and that reminds you
how much further away you are for that

419
00:32:40,039 --> 00:32:45,400
from that experience, it makes sense
why we see people reject holidays, why

420
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:51,200
we see the Grinch and ebone'z er
Scrooge and people like them have such a

421
00:32:51,279 --> 00:32:55,839
hard time connecting to this and that
most wonderful time of the year thing makes

422
00:32:55,839 --> 00:33:00,920
them want to throw up in their
mouth, die go over all the same

423
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:07,160
time, because that's the way they
feel inside when they're reminded of their pain.

424
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:10,160
And Brittany, I don't know.
I didn't see him mentioned that he

425
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:14,039
lost his parents at this time,
so maybe I missed something. But for

426
00:33:14,119 --> 00:33:16,759
me, just this gets his pain
gets so much bigger at this time of

427
00:33:16,839 --> 00:33:22,319
year when all of that becomes real. So yeah, all the times of

428
00:33:22,319 --> 00:33:23,920
the year, I can handle it. Other times of year, I can

429
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,559
handle it. But this time of
year, when it's also bright and there's

430
00:33:28,559 --> 00:33:31,400
the rituals going on around it that
you know, normally I can just see,

431
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:35,440
Okay, well, these people have
their own small thing where they're gonna

432
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:37,440
hug because they see each other,
and these people over here have their own

433
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:43,759
thing going on, but all of
everyone who is not like me getting together

434
00:33:44,119 --> 00:33:49,079
and showing that everyone but me has
a place here. That being the thing

435
00:33:49,119 --> 00:33:53,000
that he can't tolerate and has to
retreat from makes a ton of sense to

436
00:33:53,039 --> 00:34:00,440
me as a person who lives in
trauma treatment world. Well, you could

437
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:02,680
probably answer this better than I could, Hannah, because I think you see

438
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:06,799
the movie more than I have.
Does he lose his parents? I feel

439
00:34:06,799 --> 00:34:09,800
like the movie infers that he lost
his parents like at Christmas time, But

440
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:14,440
I could be totally making that up. No, I don't think that they

441
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:17,039
say that. I think it's I
think it just happens to be that Christmas

442
00:34:17,079 --> 00:34:21,320
time is just the hardest time for
him. I don't think it's I don't

443
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,599
think it's that he loses his parents
at the same time, I think it's

444
00:34:24,639 --> 00:34:30,519
just it's just like the biggest reminder
that he doesn't have any family, because

445
00:34:30,519 --> 00:34:36,320
everybody's talking about family and visiting and
spending time and that they have families that

446
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,159
they want to go and visit,
and that they have families that they actually

447
00:34:38,159 --> 00:34:45,400
want to spend time with, and
that being the most painful time for him.

448
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:49,719
Kind Of like what Ben was saying, Okay, Well, I mean

449
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:53,119
this could slide very easily into our
next topic, which is situational environmental triggers,

450
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:59,320
unless is there anything else you want
to discuss with the Grinch specifically and

451
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:01,760
PTSD all right, so we will
take a break here and be right back.

452
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:07,440
All right, So we're kind of
talking about it already. Christmas isn't

453
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:12,159
always the cat's pajamas for a lot
of people. To put it mildly,

454
00:35:12,599 --> 00:35:17,880
like you were saying Prime earlier,
think as clinicians we have every year we

455
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:22,920
are reminded of that or we are
in that experience with a lot of clients,

456
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:29,199
which is we do extra checking in
not just Christmas, but also like

457
00:35:29,199 --> 00:35:32,400
Thanksgiving and this time of year in
general. Is I'm doing a lot more

458
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:37,119
as a clinician, a lot more
checking with people about do you have plans?

459
00:35:37,159 --> 00:35:39,039
How are you feeling? Even if
people have plans, they're not always

460
00:35:39,159 --> 00:35:45,159
great plans. I do a lot
of copahead plans for people around the holidays,

461
00:35:45,199 --> 00:35:49,480
which is, if you know something
about an experience is going to be

462
00:35:49,519 --> 00:35:52,039
triggering, let's plan ahead for it, let's talk about skills you can use,

463
00:35:52,559 --> 00:35:59,039
and let's rehearse that plan together.
And so you're right in that it

464
00:35:59,199 --> 00:36:05,480
is very fun, and it's marketed
throughout the world pretty much as this holly

465
00:36:05,599 --> 00:36:08,320
jolly, fun, fun, fun
time for a lot of people. But

466
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:14,039
in the mental health world, it
is probably one of the more vigilant times

467
00:36:14,039 --> 00:36:17,079
of years for us in terms of
keeping an eye out for our clients.

468
00:36:17,599 --> 00:36:21,280
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean,
I think definitely a part of what we

469
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,960
see this time of year as people
having a harder time than normal, people

470
00:36:24,039 --> 00:36:30,320
experiencing more intense sometimes more intense symptoms, just worrying about things. And I

471
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:32,519
do copa head plans, but I
also have to do a cod plan for

472
00:36:32,599 --> 00:36:37,800
myself around the holidays, for you
know, for not being one of those

473
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:46,960
people who has a who has family
that are easy to be with. Yeah,

474
00:36:47,159 --> 00:36:52,639
I certainly do not have family that
is easy to be with, and

475
00:36:52,719 --> 00:37:00,480
sometimes people really need to feel like
that is an experience that is more universal

476
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:09,880
and inclusive then holiday movies and songs
and decorations and everything everywhere. From ten

477
00:37:10,039 --> 00:37:15,840
pm on October thirty first through January
tenth, when they can sell the rest

478
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:19,239
of the stuff to the late people
who want to go and buy it for

479
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:23,239
next year. They are thrust in
it. They are thrust in it and

480
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:30,199
this constant messaging that everything's merry and
bright, and you know, the seasons

481
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:35,679
greetings, most wonderful time of the
year. I love Christmas. And there's

482
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:42,280
gonna be some person who separates out
their entire reality so that they can make

483
00:37:42,639 --> 00:37:50,119
everything decorated. And there's a show
that I like called metal Ocalypse that doesn't

484
00:37:50,159 --> 00:37:55,719
run anymore as a cartoon on Cartoon
Network about a metal band, and they

485
00:37:55,880 --> 00:38:00,039
head a line on there that makes
me laugh so hard, is like it

486
00:38:00,119 --> 00:38:02,559
a minute, we get to hang
a dead thing in our house and decorate

487
00:38:02,599 --> 00:38:15,039
its corpse. That's metal, And
like people who are suffering through traumas that

488
00:38:15,119 --> 00:38:20,880
get thrust in their face don't get
to have that experience of decorating the corpse

489
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:27,400
more so, but they have is
people decorating the husk of themselves that they

490
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:30,480
have to put out in front of
the world and see everybody else decorating it,

491
00:38:30,519 --> 00:38:36,000
and they just suffer. And they're
expected to decorate the corpse of their

492
00:38:36,199 --> 00:38:42,280
losses and just join the culture and
they can't, and then they're villainized.

493
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:46,119
Why why are they villainized? What
was the what is that about? Yeah?

494
00:38:46,199 --> 00:38:51,079
I mean, I think like with
Scrooge, for anything about like that

495
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:54,559
is. I know he's the villain
becaupposedly he is, you know, a

496
00:38:54,639 --> 00:39:01,480
miser and addutional of stuff. But
I think similar to the Grinch, I

497
00:39:01,519 --> 00:39:07,960
don't think we really like to acknowledge
the I'm not gonna say I was gonna

498
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:09,159
say ugliness, but I don't want
to put that word on it. More

499
00:39:09,199 --> 00:39:16,079
like the complicated experience that it is
things like the holidays. We as we

500
00:39:16,159 --> 00:39:21,679
talked about many times on this podcast, people don't do well at the discomfort

501
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:25,960
of messy feelings or not positive feelings
or happy, shmappy feelings, And so

502
00:39:27,079 --> 00:39:31,159
to truly acknowledge that people like the
Grinch exist, that there are people who

503
00:39:31,199 --> 00:39:37,239
don't have good feelings around the holidays, I think just makes people really uncomfortable

504
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:39,599
and they just want to ignore it
or victim blame right or like say it's

505
00:39:39,679 --> 00:39:45,679
it's it's because you have your you
know, your stick up your ass,

506
00:39:45,119 --> 00:39:52,199
or you have squandered away opportunities to
be part of a community. And we

507
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:57,000
have a lot of narratives that sell
that right of their the problem, it's

508
00:39:57,039 --> 00:40:00,280
their fault that they can't get into
it and they're not even trying ying when

509
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:08,559
there isn't enough discourse around the fact
that it's okay if Christmas isn't something that

510
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:14,800
someone's ever going to buy into,
it's okay if they do. It's more

511
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:17,239
like wanting them to conform. You
know. If you don't conform, you're

512
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:22,800
the problem. It isn't the situation
we're asking you to conform to. It

513
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:28,960
feels like it feels like cult behavior. The energy around Christmas, that's for

514
00:40:29,039 --> 00:40:30,760
sure. Holidays like if you don't
get on board with this, something is

515
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:34,679
wrong with you. On you on
the outside, get it together, We're

516
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:37,000
right, come on board. It
feels a little bit like that. I

517
00:40:37,079 --> 00:40:38,840
just don't know what they don't know
what to make of that. It's really

518
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:43,199
an interesting, you know, way
of seeing it. If you were to

519
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:52,760
take a grunch perspective pre you know, indoctrination into the cult. I don't

520
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:58,960
disagree with you, honestly. I
think that we do people who are so

521
00:40:59,159 --> 00:41:04,639
excited to put aside all of their
feelings and enter this period of happiness,

522
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:08,440
which is dissociation folks. For those
of us keeping track, people who are

523
00:41:08,519 --> 00:41:15,320
so eager to dissociate away from all
of their problems and have had an experience

524
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:22,159
that makes that possible for them get
really upset with people whose difficult life experiences

525
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:27,559
have been so much that they cannot
escape them so easily and they cannot put

526
00:41:27,599 --> 00:41:30,639
them to the side, And even
worse for those who have been through things

527
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:36,920
around the holidays or centered on the
exact feelings that the holidays tell us we're

528
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,280
supposed to have that are inaccessible to
them, so it feels more alienating,

529
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:47,159
like for our good friend Ebenezer or
the Grinch, that we can't put aside

530
00:41:47,159 --> 00:41:51,960
those things, but they want us
to so that they can have their time

531
00:41:52,199 --> 00:41:59,760
where they can dissociate happily into It's
no different than you're harshing my buzz man.

532
00:42:00,199 --> 00:42:06,119
You're time, so I could get
fucked up, and you're harsh in

533
00:42:06,159 --> 00:42:10,480
my ballas I don't appreciate that you're
buzz gilt. I agree, Yeah,

534
00:42:10,519 --> 00:42:15,960
it's crazy. What if What if
Cindy Lou who is really like Rosemary's Baby

535
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:22,800
pulling him into well, that's kind
of more of like the live action one.

536
00:42:22,079 --> 00:42:25,800
She's the one who is more like
I gotta get to the Grinch.

537
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:30,239
I'm like, what about the Grinch? She's the one more actively trying to

538
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:34,320
pull in the community. In that
version, but I think I mean,

539
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:37,400
honestly, I'm just going to throw
that up to the simplest simplicity of being

540
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:43,079
a child, that you just put
something as good, and so you want

541
00:42:43,119 --> 00:42:45,920
someone that you see is suffering to
be in the good feeling you have,

542
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:51,159
and you don't really you can't really
acknowledge the nuance there and the complications there.

543
00:42:52,039 --> 00:42:54,920
I think what came to mind when
you were talking asking about this,

544
00:42:55,079 --> 00:43:00,440
Brian, is that there what's so
funny about this is there is is that

545
00:43:00,039 --> 00:43:06,559
common trope or joke that we're all
going to argue over Thanksgiving table, like

546
00:43:06,679 --> 00:43:09,440
everyone fights during Christmas. You gotta
take your walk because you can't listen to

547
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:15,000
this one uncle talk shit anymore.
So I think what's so interesting is that

548
00:43:15,079 --> 00:43:20,039
we do acknowledge through sort of comedy, but not really it's you know,

549
00:43:20,119 --> 00:43:24,159
it's comedy because it's true, but
in a sad way that people struggle during

550
00:43:24,159 --> 00:43:30,519
the holidays, and people will try
to force themselves into these happy settings and

551
00:43:30,599 --> 00:43:34,320
they don't have a good time.
They get too drunk or and they fight

552
00:43:34,559 --> 00:43:37,440
or they have to leave. And
so what's interesting is that there is this

553
00:43:37,519 --> 00:43:44,199
public acknowledgement that the holidays are hard
and that they bring a lot of strife

554
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:49,119
up for a lot of people,
and yet we want to simultaneously live in

555
00:43:49,159 --> 00:43:54,039
this fantasy that it's the happiest time
of year and everyone gets warm and fuzzies

556
00:43:54,079 --> 00:44:00,199
from their family, which I think
says so much about how in deny all

557
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:07,400
we are as people about the reality
of the world and how families are complicated,

558
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:12,920
and therefore the holidays are complicated because
they are primarily with your family,

559
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:20,719
and we want to live in this
delusions during the holidays that that stuff doesn't

560
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:24,360
exist. And then if we're honest
about it, we are causing problems,

561
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:29,599
and we are we are taking something
from the people that are still fully in

562
00:44:29,639 --> 00:44:31,360
that delusion. Yeah, I like
it. I like the Brittany, And

563
00:44:31,519 --> 00:44:36,920
then the way you present it,
I think it's similar in that there seems

564
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:40,960
to be some need to have this
space where everything is fantastic and everyone is

565
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:45,719
happy and great, and when you
need that, someone who pushes against it

566
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:51,639
is a problem. It's problematic.
And you're not going to be particularly sympathetic

567
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:53,840
to someone who's suffering, not because
maybe not even because you don't care about

568
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:58,480
their suffering, but because you need
something right like and they are preventing you

569
00:44:58,519 --> 00:45:01,559
from getting what you need, and
even what you need is delusional. That

570
00:45:01,599 --> 00:45:06,559
doesn't mean you don't need. It
just an interesting And that also that the

571
00:45:06,639 --> 00:45:12,480
distinction you drew between the way people
talk about Thanksgiving and Christmas is also really

572
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:15,519
interesting because people don't seem to have
the same kind of everything is fantastic.

573
00:45:15,559 --> 00:45:21,000
At Thanksgiving, there's there's an openness
to know it's hard. But then somehow,

574
00:45:21,519 --> 00:45:23,280
you know, the first holiday rolls
past, and now everything is going

575
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:28,199
to be great and we're all gonna
love each other. And it's too bad.

576
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:30,199
If that's not your family situation,
I feel bad for you, But

577
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:35,840
that's how it should be. It's
just an interesting societal kind of dynamic,

578
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:39,079
I think, and it is,
and I think what's more powerful about it

579
00:45:39,119 --> 00:45:50,360
is people are profoundly unaware of the
neurobiology that we possess and the reality that

580
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:54,400
we are piloting a meat machine that
comes with hardwiring that is designed to keep

581
00:45:54,480 --> 00:46:00,639
us alive, and it is designed
to rub run subconscious to whatever is going

582
00:46:00,679 --> 00:46:06,320
on in our brain so that we
can constantly evaluate the presence or absence of

583
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:10,760
threats in order to deploy responses to
them. And I put it in that

584
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:15,119
bland scientific language on purpose when I
try to talk to people to help him

585
00:46:15,199 --> 00:46:21,320
understand, it's separated. It's separate
from what you want. It's separate from

586
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:25,000
what you think. It's what your
body has encoded with situations. And when

587
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:30,360
we see a movie like The Grinch, this one does such a good job

588
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:37,360
of showing how once he walks in
to that holiday square, right when all

589
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:43,840
of those flights happened during that tree
lighting, he is completely flooded with bad

590
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:52,039
feelings because he is feeling yet again
the profound absence of safety that he felt

591
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:57,679
when he was a child, the
absence of community, the absence of parents,

592
00:46:58,039 --> 00:47:01,000
the absence of warmth, the absence
of love. And for those of

593
00:47:01,039 --> 00:47:07,320
us keeping track, those are existential
level fears that cannot be negotiated with,

594
00:47:07,559 --> 00:47:13,440
that are dictated by drives. Drives
them not wants. Drives are biological components

595
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:17,599
of survival that we must pursue in
order to stay alive. And when something

596
00:47:17,639 --> 00:47:22,320
threatens those, we get an existential
fear. And you see the Grinch start

597
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:27,760
to react to those and the lights
bam, the sounds, the music,

598
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:32,480
all of it transports him right back
and his subconscious system, his hardwiring starts

599
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:37,000
telling him you are unsafe, You
are unsafe, you are unsafe, and

600
00:47:37,039 --> 00:47:42,920
he starts dissociating and moving to escape
immediately. That profound fear that you were

601
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:45,360
asking about, Brian, I think
it's struck right there. When he could

602
00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:49,440
put up the front, when he
could put up the armor and be spikey,

603
00:47:49,519 --> 00:47:52,000
he was, but this overrode that
and told him you are so unsafe,

604
00:47:52,039 --> 00:47:57,920
you must leave immediately. And we
don't do a good job as a

605
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:04,360
society of being conscious of how our
Christmas lights that we decorate in our workspaces

606
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:09,760
might be triggering to people's experiences of
profound terror. Tied to this, what

607
00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:15,559
if someone's mom or sibling passed away
tragically during the holidays, and all you're

608
00:48:15,559 --> 00:48:21,199
doing all day long, well,
they're trying to activate their work part and

609
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:25,960
put aside their shit, is subconsciously
triggering them to a point that they can't

610
00:48:27,039 --> 00:48:30,039
tolerate being in their own skin,
and we show no empathy for that.

611
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:34,159
Oh, I should be able to
decorate for the holidays. It makes me

612
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:39,519
happy. Yeah, we fly into
our egocentricism with these things of I like

613
00:48:39,639 --> 00:48:44,679
it though, and I need it, and it's fun for me. So

614
00:48:45,199 --> 00:48:47,599
like you're saying, Ben, it's
a buzzkill. It makes me think of

615
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:52,679
when people ask people like when are
you gonna have kids? And I'm always

616
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:57,880
like, oh, like, are
you ready to talk about someone's reproductive journey

617
00:48:58,119 --> 00:49:01,559
and maybe their infertility and maybe like
they don't want to have kids and the

618
00:49:01,599 --> 00:49:06,840
complicated history that might be tied to. I think there's so much that we

619
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:13,679
societally view with frivolity that we don't
We're just either we can't or we're not

620
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:19,400
willing to, or we're not able
to, you know, connect it to

621
00:49:20,199 --> 00:49:28,800
depth, and then we get uncomfortable
and we want to shoot on the person

622
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:32,920
like they'd be down or basically like
that whole that nickname is an archetype of

623
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:37,159
someone who does that right, of
someone who takes something that I like and

624
00:49:37,199 --> 00:49:42,920
I enjoy and it brings me happiness
to talk about babies or weddings or something,

625
00:49:43,559 --> 00:49:47,760
and I am not willing to have
a real conversation about it that would

626
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:52,760
ironically truly benefit the person potentially in
front of me. If I could really

627
00:49:52,800 --> 00:50:00,079
go, if we could really go
into those conversations with open minds and and

628
00:50:00,519 --> 00:50:05,400
the true capacity to hold that space. I mean, I think we're seeing

629
00:50:05,440 --> 00:50:08,119
a lot too with people have a
lot mixed feelings about even if I'm going

630
00:50:08,199 --> 00:50:12,599
to say this, but like about
like the term safe spaces and people really

631
00:50:12,639 --> 00:50:14,800
should on it. But that's kind
of what we're talking about, is even

632
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:19,840
as we as a culture trying to
acknowledge more the nuance of conversations and topics

633
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:23,440
and how it can be upsetting for
people, the more we are seeing people

634
00:50:23,639 --> 00:50:30,960
push back really aggressively because they don't
want to accommodate. They want to just

635
00:50:31,079 --> 00:50:37,639
have their experience and they don't want
it to be tainted by someone else's I

636
00:50:37,679 --> 00:50:42,119
don't know, bad vibes. If
you want to think of it super simplistically,

637
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:46,559
well, it's no different to me
than I'm going to get real aggressive

638
00:50:46,599 --> 00:50:50,960
here, and I'm gonna make my
stance clear before I do that, that

639
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:57,079
the people who do put up those
lights and decorations and have no concern for

640
00:50:57,119 --> 00:51:00,880
the other people in your realm,
particularly if they have told you they have

641
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:02,119
a hard time with that time of
year and you still insistent doing it,

642
00:51:02,559 --> 00:51:07,480
My stance on that is fuck you. So to me, I'm going to

643
00:51:07,519 --> 00:51:13,239
go ahead and help you try to
understand that a poisoned symbol is still a

644
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,519
poisoned symbol, regardless of what it
means to you, like these assholes who

645
00:51:16,559 --> 00:51:21,320
still want to fly Confederate flags and
go like well admits, it's just symbol

646
00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:23,960
about about individual freedom and standing up
for what you believe in. No fuck

647
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:27,960
you, who thought when we were
gonna talk about the grunts that we would

648
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:35,559
talk about no shit? You know? But also it makes sense. It's

649
00:51:35,599 --> 00:51:38,639
not like it doesn't does we work? You know what's interesting? I don't

650
00:51:38,639 --> 00:51:44,599
think it could be that people just
don't like human beings, truly don't like

651
00:51:44,679 --> 00:51:47,840
individuality. And by that I mean
it's like we want to create a world.

652
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:52,079
We want to live in that world
as if we completely understand it,

653
00:51:52,519 --> 00:51:58,159
everyone fits, because if you don't
fit, you break the delusion that the

654
00:51:58,199 --> 00:52:01,079
world you're living in is the actual
world as opposed to something that you created

655
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:04,960
with the people around you. It's
right. I mean, this goes back

656
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:09,280
to the idea that we really really
need to support our worldview. Like I

657
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:12,679
go out into the world and the
world appears a certain way to me,

658
00:52:13,119 --> 00:52:16,199
When everyone around me agrees with me, then I feel comfortable and safe because

659
00:52:16,519 --> 00:52:20,000
as the way I see the world
is the way the world actually is.

660
00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:23,239
When I encounter people who are challenging
that, who are pushing back against that,

661
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:27,639
that it's not just the challenge to
something I believe is a challenge to

662
00:52:27,679 --> 00:52:30,679
the whole world. That I'm creating
the world as I see it. And

663
00:52:30,679 --> 00:52:35,760
it may be something just profoundly uncomfortable
about that for human beings, right like

664
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:39,079
that, we want to believe that
the world is the world we inhabit,

665
00:52:39,519 --> 00:52:43,480
and it's not the world we inhabit, is not the one we create it,

666
00:52:43,519 --> 00:52:46,000
but the one that actually exists out
there, And so we need other

667
00:52:46,079 --> 00:52:52,239
people to participate in that delusion with
us. We need them to validate it.

668
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:55,079
I mean, that's why when you
think about the uproar of saying Happy

669
00:52:55,119 --> 00:53:00,440
Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, for
fuck's sake, and the way that people

670
00:53:00,079 --> 00:53:07,880
blow a gasket if like they don't
get if the Starbucks cups aren't like obviously

671
00:53:08,119 --> 00:53:14,679
Christmas centric, if they're just read
God forbid. And you're right in that

672
00:53:15,079 --> 00:53:19,320
in that moment that vitriol seems to
come from a space of when I've heard

673
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:23,960
people talk about this like you're taking
something from me, you're invalidating something from

674
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:28,039
me by not allow a not allowing, which is like, no, one's

675
00:53:28,039 --> 00:53:30,480
not allowing you to say Maria Christmas. You know, you can say marry

676
00:53:30,519 --> 00:53:35,440
Christmas until you're blow your lungs.
And but I think that's kind of the

677
00:53:35,519 --> 00:53:42,840
knee jerk reaction is you're invalidating my
lived experience and that makes me feel ironically,

678
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:45,639
makes me feel insafe with the people
who I think think that way,

679
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:49,960
and so they need status quo to
be re established, and so they have

680
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:54,960
to exert, they over exert to
reestablish homeostasis. You know. So I'm

681
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:58,920
going to go harder on it to
make you back down and get my need

682
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:04,000
met, and then everything us back
to being copasetic, and there's no there's

683
00:54:04,079 --> 00:54:10,559
no nuanced thinking around like why am
I having that reaction to happy Holidays?

684
00:54:10,559 --> 00:54:15,400
Like really thinking about it, like
why is that bothering me so much?

685
00:54:15,639 --> 00:54:19,800
When I do therapy clients and they
talk about something like this, the question

686
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:24,519
I usually ask is what need are
you trying to get met by getting a

687
00:54:24,559 --> 00:54:29,079
Merry Christmas from somebody versus the happy
holidays? Like what do you feel like

688
00:54:29,119 --> 00:54:37,719
you're losing? And trying to provoke
insight into why something minute is so is

689
00:54:37,719 --> 00:54:43,920
so provocative within us or evocative,
and this is connects to kind of going

690
00:54:43,960 --> 00:54:47,679
back to the Grunch maybe thinking about
the meta narrative. These stories seem to

691
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:52,039
be about no, Whoville is right
and we just need to melt the heart

692
00:54:52,079 --> 00:54:55,360
of the Grunch and he'll see that
we're right and get on board. Right,

693
00:54:55,400 --> 00:54:59,559
it's about his heart needs to grow. Yeah, his heart needs to

694
00:54:59,559 --> 00:55:02,159
write, needs to grow, and
then he'll he'll understand and be a part

695
00:55:02,199 --> 00:55:06,039
of this because this is the way
to be and it's the right way and

696
00:55:06,039 --> 00:55:09,360
every isn't everyone happy? And I
feel like it's interesting that those stories put

697
00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:14,519
on heartstrings, right because it's there's
another way to look at that which doesn't

698
00:55:14,519 --> 00:55:17,039
seem so warm and fuzzy, right, And this goes back to Ben's point

699
00:55:17,079 --> 00:55:22,400
about you know, like some people
are half pain and you're decorating your let's

700
00:55:22,400 --> 00:55:25,519
say you're decorating your cubically your space
if and you know that might be causing

701
00:55:25,519 --> 00:55:29,480
someone's someone pain, like you don't
care, right, and who feel nobody

702
00:55:29,519 --> 00:55:31,199
cares? Nobody's like you know what, maybe we should cut back on the

703
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:35,440
Christmas a little bit, like there
should be room for everyone, right,

704
00:55:35,519 --> 00:55:39,199
Like everything doesn't have to be all
about Christmas everywhere all the time during the

705
00:55:39,280 --> 00:55:43,199
season. Let's let's make some space
for the Grinch, because you know what,

706
00:55:43,559 --> 00:55:45,360
there's probably some other people who are
going along who kind of feel like

707
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:49,920
the Grinch too. No, that
is not that is not the narrative we

708
00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:52,760
tell. The narrative is one of
no, we all know the right way

709
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:55,079
to be, and some people are
just refusing to get on board with that.

710
00:55:55,960 --> 00:56:00,199
And it's just interesting that those are
the kind of stories that get repeated

711
00:56:00,199 --> 00:56:07,840
over and over and over. And
it is not dissimilar from cult think.

712
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:12,360
No, you'll just be happy if
you just just accept that the way we

713
00:56:12,440 --> 00:56:15,119
think is right and think exactly like
us and do exactly as we do,

714
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:21,880
exactly as the leader has prescribed.
And you know, without the big ask

715
00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:25,320
of the big boundary crossing, it
gets harder to see that it's not dissimilar

716
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:30,199
from that, without the big obvious
like yeah, oh well, you know,

717
00:56:30,679 --> 00:56:34,039
in order to join this cult,
though, um, you know,

718
00:56:34,199 --> 00:56:37,039
leader gets to be the only one
that fathers children because we want them to

719
00:56:37,039 --> 00:56:40,119
be in his image. So you
you have to sign your wife over to

720
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:44,760
uh, you know, be one
of one of his wives, and you

721
00:56:44,920 --> 00:56:46,960
don't get to have a wife or
or give children because you're imperfect. But

722
00:56:47,199 --> 00:56:50,800
you know, if you join and
join our club, you know you'll be

723
00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:52,480
cool. At least I feel like
they goes and I feel like they goes

724
00:56:52,519 --> 00:56:55,599
in a dark, dark place with
the Grinch because we were talking about who

725
00:56:55,880 --> 00:57:02,519
who Mary Low's dad was, Where
do these kids come from? Why are

726
00:57:02,519 --> 00:57:06,960
they all have the same last name? Why are they all called whom?

727
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:12,960
But yeah, it makes me think
it a compound in Texas, I don't

728
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:17,480
know, because it makes me think
more about the live action version, where

729
00:57:19,239 --> 00:57:22,719
I think it does do more of
a job of calling this out almost like

730
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:30,199
the over consumerism culture and the competitive
lights shows and how people are using Christmas

731
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:35,519
as they're over identifying with it and
then that's causing a lot of like communal

732
00:57:35,519 --> 00:57:40,760
pain. And but still the way
they still try to get it's still the

733
00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:47,800
same ending, which is that the
Grinch assimilates and that's how and then he's

734
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:52,760
going to have no problems again,
because I think what's more realistic and talking

735
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:57,920
about situational triggers is that things can
change in people's life for sure, that

736
00:57:58,079 --> 00:58:04,679
make situational is less intensive. You
know, maybe by the next holiday season

737
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:08,639
they have a group of friends,
or maybe they reconnect with family or something

738
00:58:08,679 --> 00:58:13,840
in their family heels or whatever.
But that doesn't mean that all of a

739
00:58:13,880 --> 00:58:20,920
sudden, Christmas Holidays, whatever,
the situations no longer upsetting. It's there's

740
00:58:20,920 --> 00:58:23,360
still going to be things that come
up. There's layers to it. And

741
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:28,559
so that's why movies like The Grinch, all the iterations of it, the

742
00:58:29,159 --> 00:58:34,880
movie magic of it is that by
the end, now that he's part of

743
00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:39,159
them, part of them, quote
unquote, he is healed, he's fine,

744
00:58:39,159 --> 00:58:45,400
no strife, no issue. But
if the camera kept rolling, you

745
00:58:45,440 --> 00:58:50,639
know, further complications would arise.
There would be like underneath that layer of

746
00:58:50,679 --> 00:58:53,079
a trigger, there would be other
triggers, you know, and so it

747
00:58:53,119 --> 00:59:00,440
would have to be continual work around. Now what's upsetting us? Now?

748
00:59:00,519 --> 00:59:04,280
What now that we're more now that
we have family, Like, is there

749
00:59:04,360 --> 00:59:07,280
new things that are coming up?
You know? Something that can be interesting

750
00:59:07,480 --> 00:59:12,920
when I work with clients and their
circumstances do change, is there can be

751
00:59:13,000 --> 00:59:16,880
magical thinking that can be further upsetting. Ironically, of I thought this holiday

752
00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:22,440
season would be different because I am
going to get to go to my mom's

753
00:59:22,519 --> 00:59:25,159
house, or I'm married now,
or I had a baby, or like

754
00:59:25,239 --> 00:59:30,239
some situational factor that they think is
going to radically change the way it feels.

755
00:59:31,199 --> 00:59:36,559
And so it's good to acknowledge that
there's never like a magical fix to

756
00:59:36,599 --> 00:59:42,159
these things, like a light switch, and that new situational triggers can arise

757
00:59:42,400 --> 00:59:45,880
from this, you know, of
like now you're a parent, or now

758
00:59:45,920 --> 00:59:49,679
you are with someone, or even
that the fact that you don't feel magically

759
00:59:49,679 --> 00:59:54,679
better that can be triggering of like
yeah, and now I'm having a big

760
00:59:54,719 --> 01:00:00,559
existential crisis because I thought that would
change me and it didn't, or changes

761
01:00:00,559 --> 01:00:04,360
some of your and it didn't.
So that must mean that there's something about

762
01:00:04,599 --> 01:00:09,039
me that's broken. I mean,
it's usually pretty negative language that I wouldn't

763
01:00:09,119 --> 01:00:14,639
use as the provider, but that
can be the feeling of the calls coming

764
01:00:14,679 --> 01:00:17,679
from inside the house. I have
to really acknowledge that, and that doesn't

765
01:00:17,719 --> 01:00:22,679
feel good, and we see that, and I think what people what people

766
01:00:22,840 --> 01:00:30,360
miss all the time is that I
should be able to override my feelings by

767
01:00:30,480 --> 01:00:35,360
thinking about it a different way.
And where I take issue with the CBT

768
01:00:35,559 --> 01:00:38,960
model of treatment is I know that
is not what CBT says, but that

769
01:00:39,119 --> 01:00:45,039
is what people who do not understand
CBT. Think it says and try to

770
01:00:45,159 --> 01:00:49,639
teach that if you change your thinking, you will be able to change your

771
01:00:49,679 --> 01:00:54,239
feelings, and that is overly simplistic
and misses the point of what CBT teaches,

772
01:00:54,280 --> 01:01:00,480
which is that mind, thoughts and
feelings or actions, thoughts and feelings

773
01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:05,280
are interconnected, and that in order
to start changing that cycle, you can

774
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:07,559
intervene at one of them, but
all must start to change in order to

775
01:01:07,599 --> 01:01:13,559
reregulate. But people talk about it
wrong, particularly people just read or see

776
01:01:13,559 --> 01:01:15,440
what the cycle is going. Oh, I can just think different, will

777
01:01:15,480 --> 01:01:17,519
be better, and then they go
through a life change and go ah,

778
01:01:17,519 --> 01:01:20,960
like you said, Britney, I
had a kid. Christmas can be happy

779
01:01:20,960 --> 01:01:22,920
now because now we can have a
baby. And Grandma's still not here.

780
01:01:23,239 --> 01:01:30,320
Grandma's still died at Christmas time.
And the hard wiring that you have has

781
01:01:30,840 --> 01:01:37,559
was still recording every single thing.
The weather change, the way the Christmas

782
01:01:37,679 --> 01:01:40,679
lights look, the way it felt
to be in the cold, the way

783
01:01:40,719 --> 01:01:45,079
the fire felt, the way anything
felt, the way a sweater felt again

784
01:01:45,239 --> 01:01:50,960
skin. All of that was recorded
as sensory information that is now encoded with

785
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:55,920
a warning that you are in danger, and people get the magical thinking that

786
01:01:55,960 --> 01:02:00,280
they expect, well, it's this
time of year or something change ed,

787
01:02:00,559 --> 01:02:07,039
that my body should now rewire the
information it has stored with all of the

788
01:02:07,199 --> 01:02:12,119
trigger information in it, and I
should be better now because XYZ happened.

789
01:02:12,400 --> 01:02:16,719
And that's not real. That's not
the way it works. But having a

790
01:02:16,760 --> 01:02:23,360
mindful experience where you are connecting to
the distressing memories brought up by the present

791
01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:30,760
triggers and allowing your body to calm
in the face of those can allow that

792
01:02:30,840 --> 01:02:35,599
rewiring to happen. So it's not
that it's impossible. It's absolutely possible for

793
01:02:35,719 --> 01:02:39,119
to rewire, but it is not
a magical process. It is not something

794
01:02:39,159 --> 01:02:47,599
that just happens because something changes.
We must mindfully take a distressing situation and

795
01:02:47,719 --> 01:02:53,440
allow that to feel calm, with
a calm muscle body in the present and

796
01:02:53,480 --> 01:02:57,800
do the work that it takes to
get there, because I want to be

797
01:02:57,840 --> 01:03:00,960
real careful that it's not just something
you can just sit in and it will

798
01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:06,599
feel better. You had to feel
everything you felt that felt bad when you

799
01:03:06,800 --> 01:03:12,480
encoded that situation as dangerous as painful, and now you have to feel all

800
01:03:12,519 --> 01:03:17,440
of that again as it unbinds from
the situations that it was painful that time,

801
01:03:17,719 --> 01:03:22,000
but it doesn't have to be painful
as painful as it was that time

802
01:03:22,239 --> 01:03:28,480
every time going forward. So I'm
gonna connect this to the grinching. I'm

803
01:03:28,519 --> 01:03:30,960
curious, like what, like I
think it was, Brittany, you said

804
01:03:31,000 --> 01:03:36,199
like it wouldn't have been all,
you know, I don't know unicorns and

805
01:03:36,360 --> 01:03:40,920
rainbows if the cameras had kept rolling
for the grinch, what kind of expectations

806
01:03:40,920 --> 01:03:46,639
should he have? What's a reasonable
thing for someone in that situation to expect

807
01:03:46,719 --> 01:03:52,239
or to aspire too? Well.
One obviously go to therapy, which maybe

808
01:03:52,280 --> 01:03:53,880
there's a WHO therapist, but they
could be biased. That would be hard

809
01:03:54,280 --> 01:03:58,920
because he can he can't get a
therapist. That's maybe he feels aligned with,

810
01:03:59,400 --> 01:04:02,079
you know, because we always say
that it's good to have a therapist

811
01:04:02,119 --> 01:04:05,400
that you feel like you have similar
background too, because it can help with

812
01:04:05,440 --> 01:04:10,239
the cultural understanding and stuff. So
that might be tricky. I think it'd

813
01:04:10,239 --> 01:04:13,239
be hard for him to trust the
therapists because I'm assuming it would have to

814
01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:18,119
be a WHO therapist. But I
think what more to expect is it's more

815
01:04:18,159 --> 01:04:23,440
when it makes me think of when
I talk to clients about grief and I

816
01:04:23,519 --> 01:04:27,199
tell them to sort of like ride
the wave with themselves of this's going to

817
01:04:27,280 --> 01:04:30,840
be like random feelings that pop up. It might feel kind of unpredictable,

818
01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:33,960
like maybe someday you feel really good
and you feel included and it all feels

819
01:04:34,039 --> 01:04:38,719
very positive, and then maybe the
next day you feel really angry, like

820
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:41,800
someone says something or does something and
it pisses you off, and then you

821
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:46,000
lapse back into maybe small behaviors.
And so I think people need to be

822
01:04:46,039 --> 01:04:55,920
prepared for unpredictability in terms of how
they'll continue to feel towards the community or

823
01:04:55,960 --> 01:05:01,519
the situation that they are now more
actively engaging it. Like we were talking

824
01:05:01,559 --> 01:05:06,440
about like having like when you hit
different milestones too. There can be a

825
01:05:06,440 --> 01:05:12,079
lot of positive feelings with that,
and there can lead more complications as well

826
01:05:12,119 --> 01:05:15,280
of you know, actually, now
that I have my own kid, I'm

827
01:05:15,320 --> 01:05:20,960
feeling like this weird like like second
wave of grief about how my own parents

828
01:05:21,039 --> 01:05:24,320
parented me. We talked about this
a little bit. We just talked about

829
01:05:24,360 --> 01:05:29,559
hook and we talked about this kind
of too, and and so I think

830
01:05:29,559 --> 01:05:34,280
it's just being mindful that there's going
to be waves of feelings and they can

831
01:05:34,320 --> 01:05:40,280
be very random and try not to
judge them and keep bringing them into therapy

832
01:05:40,960 --> 01:05:45,480
and use your skills when you need
them, and so don't get locked into

833
01:05:46,199 --> 01:05:50,440
an equally rigid mindset of everything is
going to go well and if it's not,

834
01:05:51,360 --> 01:05:57,639
then either these people actually suck or
I suck or something some very rigid

835
01:05:57,679 --> 01:06:00,960
thinking, because that will lead to
more of like a relapse, like going

836
01:06:01,039 --> 01:06:04,519
right back into the cave and saying, you know, fuck everybody again.

837
01:06:05,119 --> 01:06:10,039
It's just being mindful that there's no
quick fix in life, and it's going

838
01:06:10,079 --> 01:06:13,039
to be an evolution, and you
have to just keep paying attention to how

839
01:06:13,079 --> 01:06:18,320
you feel and ideally keeping it paying
attention to what feels good to you,

840
01:06:18,800 --> 01:06:24,400
either because it feels healing or positive
or authentic or connected to your values or

841
01:06:24,440 --> 01:06:28,880
whatever, and keep trying to listen
to that voice. And that's also what

842
01:06:28,920 --> 01:06:31,760
a therapists going to help with,
right is you know, processing through that

843
01:06:31,880 --> 01:06:42,280
and helping to find your intuition or
your authentic self that can be dogpiled by

844
01:06:42,679 --> 01:06:47,519
all these experiences and just reactions and
survival behaviors and instincts you've been going off

845
01:06:47,559 --> 01:06:50,239
of for years and years and years
and years and years. It's going to

846
01:06:50,320 --> 01:06:55,119
take a while from to unlearn all
of these things. What I tell clients

847
01:06:55,119 --> 01:06:58,880
too, is, you know,
these behaviors that now you're trying to walk

848
01:06:58,920 --> 01:07:02,000
away from, they kept you safe
for a long time, so also you

849
01:07:02,079 --> 01:07:05,280
kind of have to honor them too. And sometimes it can just be like,

850
01:07:06,000 --> 01:07:10,480
yeah, why I want a yelp
this person because that's what kept me

851
01:07:10,519 --> 01:07:15,360
safe for a long time and I'm
trying not to do that anymore. So

852
01:07:15,280 --> 01:07:18,280
what a tool can I use instead? Am I going to take a break?

853
01:07:18,400 --> 01:07:23,719
Am I going to take a breather? Am I going to use like

854
01:07:24,000 --> 01:07:28,880
an interpersonal effectiveness skill? And so
it's what I just said. There's like

855
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:31,679
wise mind. You know, I
acknowledge my emotion mind and I acknowledge my

856
01:07:31,760 --> 01:07:34,960
logic mind. Then I have to
make a decision to bring me into my

857
01:07:34,960 --> 01:07:39,480
wise mind. And for those of
us at home, what is wise mind?

858
01:07:39,519 --> 01:07:46,199
From Brittany Dialectical behavioral therapy, She's
a powerful It is DBT is the

859
01:07:46,360 --> 01:07:53,199
mma of therapy. They went,
what are some of these techniques that worked

860
01:07:53,239 --> 01:08:00,239
good in other situations and how do
we now repurpose them into something that we

861
01:08:00,280 --> 01:08:05,159
can package easily using acronyms to help
people actually remember them in a dynamic way

862
01:08:05,239 --> 01:08:10,320
that blends ideas together, and it
can be really powerful for people too.

863
01:08:10,519 --> 01:08:15,440
It's acronym city over DBT, like
it's like hand out after hand out,

864
01:08:15,519 --> 01:08:20,439
just for the pure memories at homes, it's just acronyms, the whole fucking

865
01:08:20,479 --> 01:08:26,199
thing. It's a lot of it's
under my skin a little bit sometimes.

866
01:08:26,600 --> 01:08:30,520
But I was thinking, Brandy,
when we were talking about about what do

867
01:08:30,600 --> 01:08:32,920
we do with clients or how do
we help them have expectations that make sense?

868
01:08:32,920 --> 01:08:35,720
I think your explanation makes a lot
of sense. And it made me

869
01:08:35,760 --> 01:08:41,239
think about how I talk a lot
about living in the gray, about how

870
01:08:41,479 --> 01:08:45,920
the rigidity of depression PTSD and anxiety, the rigidity of that is that there's

871
01:08:45,960 --> 01:08:50,079
only the extremes can happen. Either
only the best thing can happen or the

872
01:08:50,079 --> 01:08:53,880
worst thing can happen, and we
don't have any other thing that can be

873
01:08:53,920 --> 01:08:58,520
in the middle. And especially when
you have PTSD, that becomes because your

874
01:08:58,520 --> 01:09:02,119
worldview, maybe the worst thing has
happened repeatedly, over and over and over

875
01:09:02,239 --> 01:09:06,760
again, and so and so to
kind of be in that place. A

876
01:09:06,840 --> 01:09:11,840
part of what keeps us stuck in
that place of the extremes. Only being

877
01:09:11,880 --> 01:09:16,319
the option is because we can't tolerate
the options that are in the gray.

878
01:09:16,439 --> 01:09:20,279
We can't even think about it,
We can't even consider it because it doesn't

879
01:09:20,319 --> 01:09:25,520
feel like that's a possibility. And
so but I really try to talk about

880
01:09:25,560 --> 01:09:31,239
how depression and anxiety PTSD really work
together. So it's upsetting because they work

881
01:09:31,279 --> 01:09:38,720
together so unbelievably well that it keeps
us feeling like only only those two options

882
01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:43,920
that we have. And so really
trying to help people think about whatever happens

883
01:09:44,880 --> 01:09:49,000
is okay because we know that regardless
of any situation, you have survived all

884
01:09:49,039 --> 01:09:55,560
of the things you have survived,
and you have and even though those mechanisms

885
01:09:55,560 --> 01:09:59,159
that it were in place to help
you survive at the time are no longer

886
01:09:59,279 --> 01:10:02,279
needed, it's okay that it's going
to take you some time to unlearn that.

887
01:10:03,039 --> 01:10:08,479
So I totally agree with Brittany when
she said, when we turn the

888
01:10:08,520 --> 01:10:12,600
camera off, we're not talking about
always going to go to five sessions and

889
01:10:12,640 --> 01:10:16,199
he's going to feel better. We're
talking about on learning and having and really

890
01:10:16,720 --> 01:10:23,399
and really increasing his awareness of what's
going on, increasing his awareness of and

891
01:10:23,520 --> 01:10:28,079
helping him understand. I think a
part of what we see with him and

892
01:10:28,359 --> 01:10:31,600
what we also can experience too when
we work with people who have PTSD is

893
01:10:31,640 --> 01:10:40,439
that they have this idea, they
have these ideas about about the world.

894
01:10:40,560 --> 01:10:45,359
I've totally lost my train of thought. Yeah, it's part of bingo here

895
01:10:45,359 --> 01:10:49,000
on the podcast. And when does
Hannah lose her thought and say fuck it?

896
01:10:50,399 --> 01:10:54,439
And will I remember it again?
And I'm gonna tell you right now,

897
01:10:54,479 --> 01:10:56,239
I think the answer is no,
no, wait, wait, I

898
01:10:56,560 --> 01:10:59,640
can help you get back on track
here ready, Yeah, because I could

899
01:10:59,680 --> 01:11:01,079
sense where you were going, because
you and I are trained in the same

900
01:11:01,119 --> 01:11:04,000
way on this particular issue, and
it seemed like it just you were like

901
01:11:04,079 --> 01:11:09,960
right there and it left your brain. Is what would Janina say about discarding

902
01:11:09,960 --> 01:11:16,880
the part that's there to protect you? Janina Fisher she she u does a

903
01:11:16,920 --> 01:11:20,920
lot of work on structural associations,
a lot of work on structural association and

904
01:11:21,039 --> 01:11:27,399
also just PTSD and has a lot
of UM and I kind of complex PTSD

905
01:11:27,560 --> 01:11:32,359
for that matter. M And I
already forgot the question that you asked me,

906
01:11:32,399 --> 01:11:35,560
Ben, So can you say it
again? I can't say it again

907
01:11:35,600 --> 01:11:40,159
because I know you explain who Janina
was. And then I lost and then

908
01:11:40,159 --> 01:11:45,760
I lost it. It's okay,
You're wonderful and you will do just fine.

909
01:11:45,880 --> 01:11:50,760
The question I asked you was,
remember what Janina would tell people who

910
01:11:50,800 --> 01:11:57,720
are feeling like we're increasing the people's
awareness of the part right and what's happening

911
01:11:57,720 --> 01:12:00,600
inside of them. What would what
would you need to tell them to do

912
01:12:00,039 --> 01:12:05,279
with that part that is protective once
you're aware it exists. So part of

913
01:12:05,319 --> 01:12:08,920
what I don't know if that's exactly
what she would do, But a part

914
01:12:08,920 --> 01:12:13,119
of what I do is help people
acknowledge that and thank that part of themselves,

915
01:12:14,279 --> 01:12:19,359
because because there's so much negativity in
terms of the way that somebody who

916
01:12:19,359 --> 01:12:24,199
has PTSD sees the world, it's
really hard to manage in a hopeful situation.

917
01:12:24,920 --> 01:12:30,239
And so a part of a part
of helping them do that is acknowledging

918
01:12:30,920 --> 01:12:35,680
acknowledging that I have this part of
myself because I needed it, and I

919
01:12:35,720 --> 01:12:39,920
don't need it anymore because I'm not
a kid anymore, or I don't need

920
01:12:39,960 --> 01:12:44,199
it anymore because I'm not in the
whatever, because I'm not at the orphanage

921
01:12:44,239 --> 01:12:47,960
anymore, like I don't need these
parts of me anymore, And but also

922
01:12:48,039 --> 01:12:54,640
being able to really acknowledge and step
into. But I'm really grateful and having

923
01:12:54,880 --> 01:12:58,640
a little piece of gratitude. I'm
really grateful that I had this part of

924
01:12:58,640 --> 01:13:02,640
me that helped me survive until this
point. And that's a lot of what

925
01:13:02,720 --> 01:13:06,199
I talk about when I talk to
people about, well, how do we

926
01:13:06,560 --> 01:13:11,079
how do we justify? What do
we do with these parts of ourselves that

927
01:13:11,640 --> 01:13:15,760
are that are standing at attention and
they're so ready and they can't wait to

928
01:13:15,800 --> 01:13:18,880
help us, and yet we don't
need them to help us in the same

929
01:13:18,920 --> 01:13:26,039
way that they used to. And
so by acknowledging and saying thank you so

930
01:13:26,119 --> 01:13:29,760
much for being here when I needed
you to be here. And I'm really

931
01:13:29,760 --> 01:13:34,079
grateful because I know that that's why
I'm here and I am not in trouble

932
01:13:34,199 --> 01:13:40,640
right now. Like comforting him,
Yeah, like comforting that part of yourself

933
01:13:40,960 --> 01:13:45,000
but also acknowledging that part of yourself
and acknowledging that it's a good thing.

934
01:13:45,760 --> 01:13:47,840
You know, a lot of times
when we have when someone has PTSD,

935
01:13:47,960 --> 01:13:51,960
I actually have PTSD. Also is
a part of why I'm talking about it

936
01:13:53,000 --> 01:14:01,359
so much, probably is that,
fuck, I have a question for you.

937
01:14:01,359 --> 01:14:04,399
Though I have a question, I
have a question, go ahead,

938
01:14:04,479 --> 01:14:09,239
go ahead, So what if I
meancause I think that what people do this

939
01:14:09,279 --> 01:14:12,479
is from again I'm not a question, but from the outside is people pathologize

940
01:14:12,520 --> 01:14:15,560
certain ways of behaving. And what
you're saying is sometimes those ways of ways

941
01:14:15,560 --> 01:14:20,279
of behaving served them and is something
that was useful at a time. How

942
01:14:20,279 --> 01:14:26,239
what do you tell people and they
don't know if they should put that aside

943
01:14:26,439 --> 01:14:29,439
or let it go? Right?
Is it always it something that's always there

944
01:14:29,520 --> 01:14:31,840
ready to call on? And if
people feel like that as a it's causing

945
01:14:31,880 --> 01:14:34,479
them pain for it to even exist
as a part of them. Like what

946
01:14:34,560 --> 01:14:38,680
would you tell them if they feel
like they might need to be cruited in

947
01:14:38,760 --> 01:14:41,079
the future, Like I just I'm
curious about this way of thinking, Like

948
01:14:41,119 --> 01:14:45,800
I hadn't heard this way or yeah, sorry I interrupted you. No,

949
01:14:45,880 --> 01:14:46,800
no, no, I'm just saying
because the way maybe have to makes you

950
01:14:46,880 --> 01:14:53,079
understand what you're saying. So there's
like a recognition and appreciation for this this

951
01:14:53,319 --> 01:14:58,000
way of being that served you and
protect you and protected you in certain situations

952
01:14:58,000 --> 01:15:00,119
and now it's no longer needed.
But I think that often what people do

953
01:15:00,239 --> 01:15:03,640
is they then pathologize that way of
being. And what I hear you saying

954
01:15:03,840 --> 01:15:08,960
is like, you should be grateful
that it protected you in servy to function,

955
01:15:09,000 --> 01:15:11,520
and now you shouldn't if you don't
need it anymore, you should be

956
01:15:11,560 --> 01:15:15,199
able to I'm going to say,
like hold it less tightly or I don't

957
01:15:15,239 --> 01:15:17,199
know, let it go. That's
what I'm trying to understand. How do

958
01:15:17,239 --> 01:15:19,359
you think about that? I got
you? I got you. I think

959
01:15:19,359 --> 01:15:24,359
I understand what you're what you're saying. So what I tell people is we

960
01:15:24,439 --> 01:15:29,159
say now I don't need you right
now. It doesn't mean I won't need

961
01:15:29,199 --> 01:15:31,279
you in the future. My hope
is that I won't need you to the

962
01:15:31,319 --> 01:15:34,039
same intensity that I need you in
the future. And the other pieces.

963
01:15:34,399 --> 01:15:39,439
I don't also don't need people to
be grateful as much as I need them

964
01:15:39,439 --> 01:15:45,000
to acknowledge that it's okay that this
part took over. I see, so

965
01:15:45,119 --> 01:15:48,800
you don't. So you wouldn't because
I just wondered to what extend you pathologize?

966
01:15:48,920 --> 01:15:51,560
Right, So when you think about
the grinch, right, the way

967
01:15:51,600 --> 01:15:55,560
it's presented is like his heart is
two sides is too small. That to

968
01:15:55,680 --> 01:16:00,000
me seems like pathologizing as opposed to
his behavior. It was self protective,

969
01:16:00,039 --> 01:16:03,399
and maybe at some point it was
necessary. I don't know, maybe it's

970
01:16:03,439 --> 01:16:08,239
not used serving him now, but
there's a difference right in the way you're

971
01:16:08,239 --> 01:16:13,920
talking about it in ways portrayed.
And I think the pathologizing part is really

972
01:16:13,960 --> 01:16:18,000
interesting just kind of in general,
because a part of what can happen is

973
01:16:18,039 --> 01:16:25,439
that when we have PTSD, we
want answers. We want answers to every

974
01:16:25,560 --> 01:16:29,319
fucking thing you could think of,
because we want to know why the fuck

975
01:16:29,399 --> 01:16:33,439
do I feel this way? And
why is there and why is it taken

976
01:16:33,560 --> 01:16:36,800
so long? Or why was I
not aware of it? Or why was

977
01:16:36,840 --> 01:16:40,399
I not aware of how big of
an effective was having on my life?

978
01:16:40,600 --> 01:16:45,279
And we do pathologize some of the
behavior. I think that that's a natural

979
01:16:45,279 --> 01:16:49,720
experience of having PTSD. Of then
we kind of see the story that has

980
01:16:49,760 --> 01:16:56,319
all these highlights and everything that comes
back is well, but then I acted

981
01:16:56,359 --> 01:16:59,840
this way or I did this,
and that must be why I have PTSD,

982
01:17:00,560 --> 01:17:04,600
that must be why this, This
must equal that. And so when

983
01:17:04,680 --> 01:17:10,279
you start to get into the pathologizing
behavior, I kind of kind of take

984
01:17:10,319 --> 01:17:14,279
a step back and kind of talk
more about what is going on in your

985
01:17:14,319 --> 01:17:19,119
body right now and what is and
kind of reconnecting them to their and trying

986
01:17:19,119 --> 01:17:24,520
to increase awareness of your brain is
trying to get an answer to something.

987
01:17:25,039 --> 01:17:30,239
And just because you have the answer
does not mean that you will heal from

988
01:17:30,279 --> 01:17:33,640
it. And that's kind of a
myth. That's kind of something that happens

989
01:17:33,640 --> 01:17:38,800
when people with people who experience all
different kinds of things, but especially people

990
01:17:38,880 --> 01:17:44,640
who have who have PTSD, that
can be wanting answers and wanting to connect

991
01:17:44,680 --> 01:17:51,199
the behavior to it because we also
we're so confused having PTSD. Often there's

992
01:17:51,239 --> 01:17:55,960
a lot of times in your life
where you were very confused because of things

993
01:17:56,000 --> 01:18:00,439
that happened to you. Yep,
and so part of and then so a

994
01:18:00,479 --> 01:18:05,319
part of pathologizing is I want to
I wanted to make sense. I wanted

995
01:18:05,359 --> 01:18:09,640
to make sense. I want to
have all the fucking dots. I want

996
01:18:09,680 --> 01:18:12,680
to know what the picture is.
I want to know where the treasure is

997
01:18:13,119 --> 01:18:17,399
so that I can stop fucking feeling
like this. And it's just not that

998
01:18:17,520 --> 01:18:23,840
simple. It's it's a very it's
very complicated. It's a very complicated experience

999
01:18:23,840 --> 01:18:30,239
as a human to have parts that
had to save us so many times.

1000
01:18:30,600 --> 01:18:34,840
And also I think it just tails
back to like rigidity versus flexibility, we

1001
01:18:34,880 --> 01:18:41,039
want things to be simplistic, therefore
rigid, and so all of this is

1002
01:18:41,319 --> 01:18:45,960
encouraging people to be more flexible,
and that is I think inherently uncomfortable.

1003
01:18:45,720 --> 01:18:51,880
And so then the instinct or the
desire to pathologize. I think that just

1004
01:18:51,920 --> 01:18:58,039
as part of that too, of
like it's a rigid thing and we're saying

1005
01:18:58,039 --> 01:19:00,439
no, I mean they can hang
out, like those parts can sort of

1006
01:19:00,479 --> 01:19:02,640
hang out within you and you're like, oh, people are like what,

1007
01:19:04,680 --> 01:19:09,000
And I think the party I want
to touch on with that because this is

1008
01:19:09,720 --> 01:19:15,359
this is definitely my area here is
for parts, understanding that you came pre

1009
01:19:15,479 --> 01:19:20,199
wired with them anyway. They're not
negotiable. They're already there. And if

1010
01:19:20,199 --> 01:19:26,079
you were to think about what part
of you shows up when you hold a

1011
01:19:26,159 --> 01:19:29,880
baby, it's not the same part
of you that would destroy a human being

1012
01:19:29,960 --> 01:19:33,279
who came into your house that's not
supposed to be there. And the important

1013
01:19:33,319 --> 01:19:38,640
thing about understanding why structural dissociation is
important is that at the top of the

1014
01:19:38,640 --> 01:19:43,279
pyramid is your core self and that
starts to split out into different functions that

1015
01:19:43,319 --> 01:19:48,319
are needed at different times that by
definition, isolate the functions of other parts,

1016
01:19:48,880 --> 01:19:53,119
like when you're able to be calm
and safe. You can show up

1017
01:19:53,159 --> 01:19:57,239
as yourself and be integrated and flexible. Like Britney's talking about. You have

1018
01:19:57,279 --> 01:20:01,159
the flexibility to draw from the s
of all of your parts in order to

1019
01:20:01,199 --> 01:20:05,560
be authentically present. But when you're
at work, you can't be all of

1020
01:20:05,600 --> 01:20:10,079
those things. You have to put
aside a certain amount of things and activate

1021
01:20:10,079 --> 01:20:13,039
you're going on with normal life self. The part of you that's going through

1022
01:20:13,039 --> 01:20:15,800
a bunch of shit might not be
the part that needs to be standing and

1023
01:20:15,920 --> 01:20:21,319
completing a checkout at the grocery store, because we all see when someone who

1024
01:20:21,399 --> 01:20:26,840
is disregulated is going and like dumping
all of their shit onto the person at

1025
01:20:26,840 --> 01:20:29,680
the grocery store, and everyone else
standing in the back of the line is

1026
01:20:29,680 --> 01:20:35,600
going like, goddamn it, like
you just buy the gum. When you're

1027
01:20:35,600 --> 01:20:39,840
able to be integrated, there's a
couple things that happen that are important that

1028
01:20:39,880 --> 01:20:45,680
don't happen when you're disregulated. When
you're integrated, you can draw from resources

1029
01:20:45,760 --> 01:20:50,800
that you have and use what's necessary
in a dynamic way. When you're disregulated,

1030
01:20:51,039 --> 01:20:56,319
you start activating survival systems that will
draw from whatever they think they need

1031
01:20:56,359 --> 01:21:00,840
to survive. That situation, and
maybe you've been and through a really hard

1032
01:21:00,840 --> 01:21:06,840
time growing up like someone like the
Grinch, for example, where things probably

1033
01:21:06,880 --> 01:21:12,079
got really hard for him as a
child. So why does he walk around

1034
01:21:12,079 --> 01:21:17,880
as a grown man Grinch acting like
a bully child Because he is in a

1035
01:21:17,960 --> 01:21:24,159
fight part of himself that formed when
he was a child, and the situational

1036
01:21:24,159 --> 01:21:28,319
triggers of seeing other kids playing in
front of him and asking him for help

1037
01:21:28,920 --> 01:21:34,279
activate that hurt child resource inside his
head that did not age with his body.

1038
01:21:34,760 --> 01:21:39,520
And when he interacts with that situation, he's interacting with it in a

1039
01:21:39,600 --> 01:21:45,800
situationally appropriate but maladaptive state because it
is stuck. And then you see him

1040
01:21:45,840 --> 01:21:49,279
do something childish like knock the head
off the thing and knock the heat off

1041
01:21:49,319 --> 01:21:54,560
the snowman. An adult wouldn't do
that to a child. A note would

1042
01:21:54,600 --> 01:21:57,960
just probably help a child. An
adult part would pick that up and go,

1043
01:21:58,000 --> 01:22:00,239
oh, you need help, let
me help you. Boop. I

1044
01:22:00,279 --> 01:22:02,760
do love when he eats that pickle
and then he borrows it back into her

1045
01:22:02,800 --> 01:22:09,439
pickle jar, and then he puts
it in her basket. But that's something

1046
01:22:09,439 --> 01:22:11,800
a kid would do, like,
oh, I don't like it, but

1047
01:22:12,319 --> 01:22:16,600
yeah, And then I'll put it
back in the fridge because because then I'm

1048
01:22:16,680 --> 01:22:23,399
unsafe. Yeah, and also object
permanence too, well that too. But

1049
01:22:24,399 --> 01:22:27,960
understanding parts is that we all come
pre wired with a fight part. I

1050
01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:30,000
don't have to explain to you what
you would do if someone came into your

1051
01:22:30,000 --> 01:22:32,479
house that wasn't supposed to be there
and it was clear that they weren't there

1052
01:22:32,520 --> 01:22:35,159
for help. I don't have to
tell you what you already know what you're

1053
01:22:35,159 --> 01:22:38,880
gonna do, and you can feel
it in your body and going like,

1054
01:22:39,239 --> 01:22:43,960
yeah, there's some animalistic shit that's
about to go down, or if they're

1055
01:22:44,079 --> 01:22:45,560
that much bigger than me that my
only choice is to surrender, than I've

1056
01:22:45,560 --> 01:22:49,600
already made peace with that, and
you activate your fawn part. I think

1057
01:22:49,600 --> 01:22:56,439
we talk about fight, fight,
and freeze and now fawn as if they're

1058
01:22:56,479 --> 01:23:01,119
mythical states that only emerge under specific
situations. We have parts of ourselves that

1059
01:23:01,199 --> 01:23:05,960
are responsible for what we can and
cannot do when we do that, when

1060
01:23:05,960 --> 01:23:11,840
we enter go mode. That is
there when you enter lecture mode, you

1061
01:23:11,880 --> 01:23:16,199
know, Brian, for you even
imagine when you're professing knowledge to these graduate

1062
01:23:16,239 --> 01:23:23,279
students, you probably enter flow state
sometimes and just start going and you feel

1063
01:23:23,279 --> 01:23:25,880
like you are in the zone and
you just bam bam bam, bam bam,

1064
01:23:25,920 --> 01:23:30,800
are dropping educational nuggets on them that
are amazing that maybe you didn't necessarily

1065
01:23:30,840 --> 01:23:33,439
plan, but you planned out enough
that you were able to be flexible with

1066
01:23:33,479 --> 01:23:39,000
your knowledge to add to it.
That's a good version of structural dissociation.

1067
01:23:39,439 --> 01:23:45,239
The other parts of ourselves that get
viewed as less desirable but were adaptive to

1068
01:23:45,279 --> 01:23:53,479
survive a bad situation get stigmatized when
they are no longer needed or desired to

1069
01:23:53,640 --> 01:23:57,720
match our present reality, but keep
showing up because they were formed at a

1070
01:23:57,720 --> 01:24:03,159
time where they were and asking them
to step back with kindness and appreciation for

1071
01:24:03,199 --> 01:24:09,600
their existence and what they did for
you is vital because that part knows the

1072
01:24:09,640 --> 01:24:13,680
truth. That part knows that the
world is that ugly and can get that

1073
01:24:13,840 --> 01:24:15,479
bad, and no, I'm not
going to let us get hurt. You

1074
01:24:15,600 --> 01:24:21,239
formed me to protect you from that. So no, if this can get

1075
01:24:21,319 --> 01:24:26,520
reasonably close to being the same situation
again, I'm here to protect you from

1076
01:24:26,520 --> 01:24:30,359
it, and no I'm not going
away. So instead of invalidating its existence

1077
01:24:30,359 --> 01:24:32,239
and fighting with it, you ask
it kindly to say, hey, hey,

1078
01:24:32,520 --> 01:24:34,680
I know you're there. If I
need you, I really do,

1079
01:24:35,039 --> 01:24:38,800
And I know this feels a little
bit like then, but we're trying to

1080
01:24:38,800 --> 01:24:43,359
reincode that we don't need you right
this second. If we do need you,

1081
01:24:43,800 --> 01:24:46,680
we will get you. So on
that note, we will take another

1082
01:24:46,680 --> 01:24:49,880
break. All right, we're gonna
talk about communal healing. Do we still

1083
01:24:49,880 --> 01:24:53,239
want to talk about that? Because
I feel like we really shit on the

1084
01:24:53,279 --> 01:24:58,960
community that is. I think I
think we're skipping that. I think I

1085
01:24:59,000 --> 01:25:02,159
think okay, yeah, I think
we'n go past that one. We can

1086
01:25:02,239 --> 01:25:08,680
just let it go because I think, and I really there's a lot of

1087
01:25:08,720 --> 01:25:13,159
communal healing with in this movie,
but not for our little Grinch. Also,

1088
01:25:13,439 --> 01:25:17,159
is his name the Grinch? These
people didn't They called him mister Grinch,

1089
01:25:17,239 --> 01:25:21,039
didn't she when he came into the
party. Well, I think because

1090
01:25:21,039 --> 01:25:24,760
they're doing that thing where he's just
the Grinch. I'm like, well,

1091
01:25:24,800 --> 01:25:31,760
his first name is the he's a
grinch, but he is a Grinch.

1092
01:25:31,880 --> 01:25:35,560
That doesn't mean that's his name.
Yeah, but he's the Grinch for them

1093
01:25:35,920 --> 01:25:42,359
because he's the only one that's true. He's the Grinch. So we're gonna

1094
01:25:42,439 --> 01:25:45,720
hop skip and jump over communal healing
now in terms of treatment, I do

1095
01:25:45,760 --> 01:25:49,079
feel like we've kind of talked about
that as well. Um in terms of

1096
01:25:49,079 --> 01:25:53,560
where we would go forward with this
movie, I know like we had just

1097
01:25:53,640 --> 01:25:57,760
discussed like what therapy would look like
for the Grinch. I think something I

1098
01:25:57,760 --> 01:26:01,479
would like to add as well is
he would be a client where the next

1099
01:26:01,600 --> 01:26:08,279
Christmas I would be eyeballing him pretty
hard and trying to make sure that we

1100
01:26:08,319 --> 01:26:11,720
prep accordingly, like what are your
plans this Christmas? It's going to be

1101
01:26:11,760 --> 01:26:15,319
different than Christmas is before. I
think he is one like we mentioned before

1102
01:26:15,600 --> 01:26:19,560
that i'd want to cope a head
plan for and I'd want to almost well,

1103
01:26:19,600 --> 01:26:24,000
I'd want to like roleplay that as
much as he would allow. A

1104
01:26:24,000 --> 01:26:27,720
lot of people really push back on
role play because it feels cheesy and corny

1105
01:26:27,840 --> 01:26:30,319
and you have to be silly and
vulnerable, and people really hate it.

1106
01:26:30,800 --> 01:26:33,119
At least when I try to do
it in therapy with people, they're like,

1107
01:26:33,239 --> 01:26:38,600
Oh, but it's helpful because you
don't really know how you're going to

1108
01:26:38,720 --> 01:26:43,239
be, and so acting it out
can bring up feelings they didn't think you're

1109
01:26:43,279 --> 01:26:45,119
going to have, And what I
do with clients, maybe this is why

1110
01:26:45,119 --> 01:26:49,000
they don't like it. I try
to be more. I edge more on

1111
01:26:49,039 --> 01:26:55,039
the provocative side because I want to
them to prep for what could really happen,

1112
01:26:55,079 --> 01:26:58,680
and so you do have to be
open to that. And so I

1113
01:26:58,720 --> 01:27:00,479
would want to do a relate cope
head play with him, and then,

1114
01:27:00,520 --> 01:27:04,079
like I mentioned before, I want
to make sure that he is mindful that

1115
01:27:04,960 --> 01:27:10,520
it's not all going to be like
unicorns lollipops this Christmas time, you know.

1116
01:27:10,680 --> 01:27:14,479
And also are we still living in
the cave? I think that would

1117
01:27:14,479 --> 01:27:17,279
be interesting to treatment wise to talk
about with him, are we what does

1118
01:27:17,359 --> 01:27:20,720
community mean to him? And all
that stuff, but kind of touched upon

1119
01:27:20,800 --> 01:27:24,359
that. I don't know, Ben
or Hannah, if you want to add

1120
01:27:24,359 --> 01:27:28,840
anymore to how you would approach treatment
in this movie. I don't know if

1121
01:27:29,079 --> 01:27:32,159
I would necessarily need to talk more
about what I would do, but I

1122
01:27:32,199 --> 01:27:35,920
do think I would like to talk
more about what a copa head plan is,

1123
01:27:36,439 --> 01:27:43,159
okay, just because we've used it
a couple of different times and I

1124
01:27:43,199 --> 01:27:46,800
wanted to just take me one second
to bring it up, and I just

1125
01:27:46,840 --> 01:27:50,520
want to kind of to describe to
people what that looks like, because I

1126
01:27:50,560 --> 01:27:55,000
find it to be very very helpful. I do them for my I do

1127
01:27:55,079 --> 01:27:58,960
them for myself all the time,
but I also filled them out with clients

1128
01:27:59,119 --> 01:28:04,479
a lot because they are because it
is so helpful. So I just wanted

1129
01:28:04,520 --> 01:28:10,039
to go over the questions that are
part of it, and as soon as

1130
01:28:10,079 --> 01:28:13,960
I can find it on this fucking
computer. Well, what I can also

1131
01:28:14,039 --> 01:28:16,279
do is go ahead, go ahead, put a picture. I can put

1132
01:28:16,319 --> 01:28:19,920
a picture of a cop ahead plan, like a blank one on our Instagram.

1133
01:28:20,000 --> 01:28:24,079
I have one saved on my computer. I think a lot of therapist

1134
01:28:24,199 --> 01:28:30,520
probably too. They typically have for
the one I use has for parts.

1135
01:28:30,960 --> 01:28:35,199
The first is what it describe the
situation that you would that you would think

1136
01:28:35,199 --> 01:28:40,520
you'd find yourself in. The next
part of what are coping skills? Go

1137
01:28:40,520 --> 01:28:43,520
ahead, Hannah, he can take
it from here. Okay. So the

1138
01:28:43,880 --> 01:28:47,319
one that I have has seven steps. The first one is very similar to

1139
01:28:47,319 --> 01:28:51,720
what Branney was saying. Describe a
situation that is likely to create negative emotions

1140
01:28:51,760 --> 01:28:56,720
for you. So this is where
you talk about what is the like I

1141
01:28:56,760 --> 01:29:01,079
walk into town and somebody says Christmas
literally, that would be a problem for

1142
01:29:01,199 --> 01:29:08,119
him. One A is describe the
things you can control in the situation.

1143
01:29:08,720 --> 01:29:12,199
What are the things that we can
always control the situation. The only thing

1144
01:29:12,239 --> 01:29:15,239
we can control is our behavior.
That's it. That's the only answer that

1145
01:29:15,279 --> 01:29:18,640
can ever go on that spot.
Most of the time, describe the things

1146
01:29:18,640 --> 01:29:23,199
you cannot control, and that's helpful. I've always found that one to be

1147
01:29:23,239 --> 01:29:26,039
helpful because then you can write down
all the things that we wish we had

1148
01:29:26,039 --> 01:29:30,279
to control of Decide what coping or
problem solving skills you want to use in

1149
01:29:30,279 --> 01:29:34,840
the situation. Be specific about skills
that you will use. We want to

1150
01:29:34,840 --> 01:29:39,520
be specific because we want you to
be able to use them in the moment.

1151
01:29:39,720 --> 01:29:43,600
So they have to be something that
something that you already know works or

1152
01:29:43,680 --> 01:29:48,239
something that you've practiced. Number three, imagine being in this situation right now.

1153
01:29:48,760 --> 01:29:53,640
Set your intentions to use to coping
skills or problem solving skills you have

1154
01:29:53,720 --> 01:30:00,880
identified above the fourth one, rehearse
in your mind coping effectively. So this

1155
01:30:00,960 --> 01:30:03,199
is kind of this is kind of
a part where you kind of do this

1156
01:30:03,359 --> 01:30:06,319
a little bit on your own and
kind of in your kind of in your

1157
01:30:06,359 --> 01:30:10,079
head to help give you an idea
of what it might feel like or look

1158
01:30:10,159 --> 01:30:15,520
like. Of what specific actions will
you take, What will you say,

1159
01:30:15,920 --> 01:30:21,000
how will you say it? Number
five, imagine how you might feel differently

1160
01:30:21,039 --> 01:30:27,439
after using and coping or problem solving
skills and engaging in effective communication skills.

1161
01:30:28,479 --> 01:30:33,840
Six practice relaxation after rehearsing. How
will you relax after imagining the situation?

1162
01:30:33,960 --> 01:30:40,079
Because imagining the situation might make you
feel might be a trigger for you,

1163
01:30:40,760 --> 01:30:43,680
and so we want to make sure
that you have a way to relax even

1164
01:30:43,720 --> 01:30:47,760
after you are just rehearsing what you're
going to do in your mind. Number

1165
01:30:47,800 --> 01:30:53,840
seven, what is a valued activity
you can engage in after navigating a difficult

1166
01:30:53,880 --> 01:31:00,319
situation? So how can you celebrate
after having to be effect of in a

1167
01:31:00,359 --> 01:31:05,159
situation that's uncomfortable? What is something
you can do for yourself to celebrate what

1168
01:31:05,199 --> 01:31:10,479
you did or to or to just
it doesn't have to be a celebration as

1169
01:31:10,560 --> 01:31:15,960
much as acknowledging what you did and
engaging in a valued activity to kind of

1170
01:31:15,960 --> 01:31:19,239
help you move on with your day. So that's what a copa head plan

1171
01:31:19,399 --> 01:31:24,199
is. And we'll put a picture
up on our on our social media for

1172
01:31:24,239 --> 01:31:28,239
everybody to say, Well, that's
all I think I had to say about

1173
01:31:28,680 --> 01:31:32,119
about treatment. I think for me, first off, I want to say

1174
01:31:32,119 --> 01:31:35,439
that a copa head plan is a
brilliant idea, and thank you for sharing

1175
01:31:35,439 --> 01:31:40,479
that, Hannah. It's almost like
Hannah's a brilliant therapist and people should listen

1176
01:31:40,520 --> 01:31:45,079
to her advice all around the world, and we do a podcast about that,

1177
01:31:45,199 --> 01:31:50,520
including Hannah and her awesome perspectives.
I think the only thing I would

1178
01:31:50,560 --> 01:31:57,760
add to that besides that listen to
Hannah is remembering that the voices of our

1179
01:31:57,800 --> 01:32:04,279
parts get very, very strong,
and thinking your way through a problem that

1180
01:32:04,359 --> 01:32:13,199
your body is telling you is a
survival situation will never work. Ever,

1181
01:32:13,560 --> 01:32:20,479
if you feel disregulated, shaming yourself
and getting angry with yourself and feeling like

1182
01:32:20,560 --> 01:32:27,199
you're wrong for feeling the way you
feel will only further agitate you and make

1183
01:32:27,279 --> 01:32:31,600
you feel further unsafe, which will
continue to activate parts that are behaving in

1184
01:32:31,640 --> 01:32:38,680
ways you're more core self are feeling, and others around you likely are feeling

1185
01:32:38,680 --> 01:32:44,800
are inappropriate. But you will still
be feeling threatened and not okay, and

1186
01:32:44,960 --> 01:32:49,520
therefore your parts will continue to feel
validated in their existence and performing their function.

1187
01:32:49,920 --> 01:32:56,880
So the simple way of saying that
is understand when you feel not okay,

1188
01:32:56,920 --> 01:33:00,680
except that it's okay that you're not
okay, and take some space and

1189
01:33:00,800 --> 01:33:06,600
time to regulate your body by grounding
too, Okay, am I in danger

1190
01:33:06,720 --> 01:33:11,399
right now? I understand I feel
like I'm in danger, But am I

1191
01:33:11,479 --> 01:33:16,760
in danger right now? And working
on calming your body so that your brain

1192
01:33:16,840 --> 01:33:24,159
can work properly before doing anything else, and giving yourself permission in space to

1193
01:33:24,239 --> 01:33:29,560
do whatever you need to do to
feel safe in order to regulate. Because

1194
01:33:29,600 --> 01:33:33,960
the way our system works, you
cannot regulate when you're in danger unless you

1195
01:33:34,000 --> 01:33:39,680
are experienced in that danger and have
a way to do so that convinces your

1196
01:33:39,720 --> 01:33:43,680
parts that you know what to do
to survive it. But even that is

1197
01:33:43,680 --> 01:33:46,479
a part, So please recognize that
throughout this holiday season. If you start

1198
01:33:46,479 --> 01:33:53,119
feeling not okay, take space,
ground to the present, breathe, and

1199
01:33:53,199 --> 01:33:57,680
calm your muscles, because if you're
able to do that, you will feel

1200
01:33:57,720 --> 01:34:01,039
yourself restore, and you'll feel your
body relax and your brain will get quiet

1201
01:34:01,119 --> 01:34:04,600
again and you'll be able to be
yourself. But there is no way to

1202
01:34:04,680 --> 01:34:10,399
just yell at yourself to be quiet, to just be better, just do

1203
01:34:10,520 --> 01:34:14,000
better. Stop being Look in the
mirror. This is my advice that there

1204
01:34:14,039 --> 01:34:15,479
was look in the mirror and point
at yourself and say shut the fuck up,

1205
01:34:15,800 --> 01:34:17,680
Shut the fuck up, and then
you'll be fixed, and then you

1206
01:34:17,720 --> 01:34:20,760
won't meet therapy and everything will be
fine and no problems from here on out

1207
01:34:21,000 --> 01:34:25,720
right, then, thank you Republican
Jesus right where have you been my life?

1208
01:34:27,800 --> 01:34:30,239
So it will take you you were
born on this day. I forgot.

1209
01:34:30,279 --> 01:34:33,960
I'm sorry. So we will take
one final break here and then we'll

1210
01:34:33,960 --> 01:34:39,640
talk about final thoughts. All right, So Brian, I'll let you go

1211
01:34:39,680 --> 01:34:42,039
first, if you'd like to give
us your final thoughts on this movie,

1212
01:34:42,039 --> 01:34:46,600
which I've been kind of been sprinkled
throughoute. I you know, my kind

1213
01:34:46,640 --> 01:34:49,760
of thing about this movie was when
I watched it first, I'll just this

1214
01:34:50,039 --> 01:34:54,800
high level movie, not the particulars
we've talked about. I was like,

1215
01:34:54,920 --> 01:34:58,960
really, who needs their Christmas stolen? Are there? Who's from Hollywood?

1216
01:34:58,960 --> 01:35:03,680
Who remade this ship? That was
my feeling about it. It's like,

1217
01:35:04,079 --> 01:35:10,039
you know, I love the Grinch, but a full length movie come on

1218
01:35:10,560 --> 01:35:15,600
anyway? Um, And I do
think that it's it's right for or retelling

1219
01:35:15,800 --> 01:35:18,159
a horror film retelling, and I
think one might be in the works act

1220
01:35:19,199 --> 01:35:24,279
where like it's really like the Grinch
should be the hero, right, he's

1221
01:35:24,319 --> 01:35:28,359
trying to escape, trying to pull
him in dark, dark, dark down

1222
01:35:28,439 --> 01:35:33,359
in Houville, because that's my reading
of it now. I just feel like

1223
01:35:33,399 --> 01:35:38,760
there's such a desire to have him
be part of their, you know,

1224
01:35:39,039 --> 01:35:45,600
little cult of supposed Christmas happiness.
Um, And I think that if that's

1225
01:35:45,600 --> 01:35:47,479
the way you're feeling this Christmas,
don't be drawn in. Find your people,

1226
01:35:47,560 --> 01:35:49,920
That's what I would tell him.
Really, right there, you cannot

1227
01:35:49,960 --> 01:35:55,920
be It's it's hard to imagine.
No one shares his experience, and so

1228
01:35:56,159 --> 01:36:00,520
finding his people would go a long
way to helping him manage and cope,

1229
01:36:00,520 --> 01:36:03,560
possibly more effectively. So that's that's
where I would end with it. Okay,

1230
01:36:03,600 --> 01:36:09,760
I can go next. I would
say in my rankings, this movie

1231
01:36:09,840 --> 01:36:15,000
is probably my most favorite of Runch
adaptation. I think I like obviously the

1232
01:36:15,239 --> 01:36:19,640
sixties version the best, just more
for like the vibes and the poetry of

1233
01:36:19,680 --> 01:36:24,439
it and all that stuff, and
the kind of really creepy that visual of

1234
01:36:24,520 --> 01:36:30,199
him slithering on the ground stealing presence
is haunting, and I like that that

1235
01:36:30,479 --> 01:36:34,359
version. Maybe because it was a
little baby me who already liked like horror.

1236
01:36:34,880 --> 01:36:38,760
Maybe that's why I was gravitating tourists
who like this is creepy shit.

1237
01:36:40,279 --> 01:36:42,760
But I do like the live action
one as well. I think it has

1238
01:36:42,800 --> 01:36:45,319
the nuance that this one's lacking.
So I think my biggest critique of this

1239
01:36:45,479 --> 01:36:50,159
adaptation is that there's a lot of
plot holes in my opinion, like who

1240
01:36:50,199 --> 01:36:54,000
the fuck is the Neila? Whose
dad? As we already said, and

1241
01:36:54,079 --> 01:36:57,920
then there's not a lot like what
I apreach about the live action one is

1242
01:36:57,920 --> 01:37:01,319
they try to give a lot of
meat to his backstory, like who is

1243
01:37:01,319 --> 01:37:03,199
he? How did he get here? What was his childhood? Like,

1244
01:37:03,279 --> 01:37:06,720
like, there's a lot of meat, and in this movie it's just literally

1245
01:37:06,720 --> 01:37:11,920
one flashback scene and that's it.
So I wish there was more. If

1246
01:37:11,920 --> 01:37:14,319
they were going to do it,
I wish they would truly flesh it out.

1247
01:37:14,800 --> 01:37:19,399
And this one felt a little too
simplistic and not as jaded as because

1248
01:37:19,439 --> 01:37:26,159
he went the live action one.
He's very jaded and cynical and funny,

1249
01:37:26,520 --> 01:37:29,680
and when he has his whole like
I got dinner with myself again, I

1250
01:37:29,720 --> 01:37:33,840
can't keep canceling mat Like a lot
of more like darkness there that I think

1251
01:37:33,920 --> 01:37:36,720
was missing in this one. Regardless, I think it's a cute movie.

1252
01:37:36,760 --> 01:37:41,199
It's definitely something I would watch with
like my nieces and nephews, but I

1253
01:37:41,199 --> 01:37:45,479
don't know if I would revisit it
again by myself as a ground so I

1254
01:37:45,560 --> 01:37:47,560
will. That's my final thoughts.
Well, Hannah, this is one of

1255
01:37:47,560 --> 01:37:50,680
your favorites. Do you want to
go all right, Hannah Bay or do

1256
01:37:50,760 --> 01:37:56,520
you want to go well, I'll
just go and well and that'll be fine.

1257
01:38:00,079 --> 01:38:03,000
I think I just like this movie
because I really like the animation,

1258
01:38:03,800 --> 01:38:06,479
and after discussing it the way that
we've discussed it, I don't know if

1259
01:38:06,479 --> 01:38:10,239
I'm going to watch it again.
This is the trials and tribulation of this

1260
01:38:10,279 --> 01:38:15,720
podcast. When you talk about it
really is sometimes sometimes it gets ruined forever,

1261
01:38:15,880 --> 01:38:24,399
which is fine. Um so,
but I did I did enjoy I

1262
01:38:24,439 --> 01:38:28,239
did enjoy the film originally. I've
seen it a couple of times, but

1263
01:38:28,319 --> 01:38:36,000
I really don't think I'll be watching
it again. Uh oh yeah, exactly

1264
01:38:36,399 --> 01:38:41,720
exactly. So that's those are my
final thoughts. Okay, I guess um

1265
01:38:42,359 --> 01:38:45,119
for once, I'm gonna be the
sunshine shining out of everybody's butts. Despite

1266
01:38:45,199 --> 01:38:47,920
usually going like trauma, trauma,
trauma, trauma, trauma. By the

1267
01:38:47,920 --> 01:38:51,640
way, this guy lives in a
cave and he's Batman, um any who.

1268
01:38:51,680 --> 01:38:58,000
What I think I want to say
about this one is that watching this

1269
01:38:58,039 --> 01:39:04,359
one with my child, that this
contained messages that I really liked for her,

1270
01:39:05,239 --> 01:39:13,640
and the way it's so bright and
the animation is absolutely amazing, especially

1271
01:39:13,680 --> 01:39:17,239
on a four K disc. Holy
crap, the colors pop so much on

1272
01:39:17,239 --> 01:39:25,520
this movie that the animation and the
artistry of it were so beautiful. I

1273
01:39:25,560 --> 01:39:30,840
really have a different take than you, Brittany on this one is that I

1274
01:39:30,960 --> 01:39:35,000
like this one a lot, and
I don't know that I like it better

1275
01:39:35,039 --> 01:39:40,680
than the Sixties one, but I
like the messaging that it contains that we

1276
01:39:40,760 --> 01:39:45,319
do need to be kind to people
who are different than us. And I

1277
01:39:45,439 --> 01:39:49,000
like the way that they bring him
in and go, Okay, we know

1278
01:39:49,159 --> 01:39:55,720
that you messed up, but we
still want to give you a chance to

1279
01:39:55,760 --> 01:40:00,720
know that we're going to try to
love you anyway and let you come in

1280
01:40:00,840 --> 01:40:04,439
from a neutral basis and come back
into this community, even though there's some

1281
01:40:04,560 --> 01:40:11,319
cultiness to it. Brian, thank
you everybody. Maybe that's just the little

1282
01:40:11,319 --> 01:40:14,199
bit little isolated community. I mean, if there's just the only people on

1283
01:40:14,239 --> 01:40:17,039
that snowflake, maybe this would always
have happened. I mean, you know,

1284
01:40:17,199 --> 01:40:24,000
it's like my favorite movie. Yeah, exactly, mis Summer that.

1285
01:40:24,880 --> 01:40:29,960
Yeah, have you just realized you
you're you're totally accepted here until you have

1286
01:40:30,000 --> 01:40:32,279
to throw your face into a cliff
on your seventy second birthday, you know

1287
01:40:32,319 --> 01:40:39,600
you're fine, like Ausha the Grinch's
cliff, which contains a dope cave is

1288
01:40:39,760 --> 01:40:44,880
doctor Lawley who told us, you
know which you know that San Francisco perspective

1289
01:40:44,960 --> 01:40:46,600
is true, Like you're up on
the hill. That's the best spot to

1290
01:40:46,640 --> 01:40:49,359
be. Yes, that's the best
spot. I mean, this this movie

1291
01:40:49,359 --> 01:40:51,319
if you want to go real dark, it's like, you know, did

1292
01:40:51,319 --> 01:40:56,359
you all have seen Dogville? No? But I know it's super dark,

1293
01:40:56,520 --> 01:41:00,159
super dark, you know what It's
like? These are like the Short Story

1294
01:41:00,159 --> 01:41:03,199
the Lottery, you know, yeah, like this, this, this movie,

1295
01:41:03,239 --> 01:41:06,439
I mean this ash shade of that. It's just all hidden behind this.

1296
01:41:08,920 --> 01:41:12,760
Yeah, you know it does.
It does have it hidden. But

1297
01:41:12,840 --> 01:41:16,399
it's also what I like about it
is for children. It shows the message

1298
01:41:16,439 --> 01:41:23,159
one way where you can see that
like inclusiveness, forgiveness, like bringing people

1299
01:41:23,199 --> 01:41:29,800
back in even if they stepped outside. And also for the cleaning. Folks

1300
01:41:29,880 --> 01:41:33,000
are just popped into my office here, Um, but the thing that it

1301
01:41:33,000 --> 01:41:36,600
shows is underneath that us adults are
looking at it and we saw a totally

1302
01:41:36,640 --> 01:41:41,079
different movie than my kids saw.
Yeah. Yeah, we're like and I

1303
01:41:41,199 --> 01:41:45,720
and I respect that it's simplistic for
children, this children's movie. Yeah,

1304
01:41:45,960 --> 01:41:47,760
and I don't think it's simplistic at
all. I think it's very layered.

1305
01:41:47,840 --> 01:41:54,000
Like I think it can be viewed
simplistic and then looking at the oppressive ways

1306
01:41:54,640 --> 01:42:00,600
like the Carolers were shown so oppressive
and like showing Grinch's perspective of like like

1307
01:42:00,640 --> 01:42:06,239
I mean they're doing the West Side
story snaps and like like that felt culty

1308
01:42:06,319 --> 01:42:12,920
as hell right, like they're coming
up pop pop Chrism was running. He

1309
01:42:13,039 --> 01:42:15,119
was running from them. Who was
running? And then they were everywhere.

1310
01:42:15,159 --> 01:42:20,119
And I think adults felt seen watching
that, like going like oh my god,

1311
01:42:20,159 --> 01:42:25,279
Like yes, I feel the same
way, like please get your Christmas

1312
01:42:25,359 --> 01:42:29,840
joy bullshit. Could do what Adam's
family do where they put they turn and

1313
01:42:29,840 --> 01:42:34,439
feather them. Yeah, right,
how would Wednesday? What would Wednesday do?

1314
01:42:34,840 --> 01:42:41,319
But looking at looking at this movie, I think it does keep up

1315
01:42:41,359 --> 01:42:45,319
with the trend of animated movies that
probably started with Shrek, where they tie

1316
01:42:45,359 --> 01:42:49,000
in just little bits of things for
grown ups that kids can't see yet and

1317
01:42:49,079 --> 01:42:53,800
that's okay, but that grown ups
can see and go also like, wow,

1318
01:42:53,840 --> 01:42:57,640
I saw a different movie than my
kid did, and I appreciated him

1319
01:42:57,720 --> 01:43:01,079
feeling and acknowledging that he is not
the only one that feels that way about

1320
01:43:01,159 --> 01:43:05,600
Christmas and it doesn't necessarily make him
a villain, that his story is complicated

1321
01:43:05,720 --> 01:43:11,399
enough that there's justification that this doesn't
feel okay for him. And the sixties

1322
01:43:11,520 --> 01:43:15,920
version missed that. And my cousin
put up a meme I sent it to

1323
01:43:15,079 --> 01:43:20,159
Brittany and Hannah today, but it
had like a picture of Thurle from the

1324
01:43:20,239 --> 01:43:24,159
sixties, probably his headshot, that
said, Hey, Thurle, we need

1325
01:43:24,199 --> 01:43:26,359
you to record a song about the
Grinch, Like what do he do?

1326
01:43:26,720 --> 01:43:32,000
He ruined Christmas? I'm will ruin
his whole world? Like see that,

1327
01:43:32,079 --> 01:43:39,239
And it's like, wow, that's
culty. But the brilliance of this film

1328
01:43:39,319 --> 01:43:42,399
is that it can be so many
things all at once, and depending on

1329
01:43:42,439 --> 01:43:45,439
what lens you're looking at, it
can be painful, it can be validating,

1330
01:43:45,880 --> 01:43:49,880
and it can also have a message
of hope. And I think I

1331
01:43:49,960 --> 01:43:54,800
really like that about this film,
and I can't stand the Jim Carrey one

1332
01:43:54,800 --> 01:43:58,600
and I never have been able to, but this one in the sixties one

1333
01:43:58,680 --> 01:44:01,399
I like probably one in one.
B So, Um, Hannah, you

1334
01:44:01,439 --> 01:44:03,800
can come watch it at my house
in Brittany and Brian can stay home.

1335
01:44:05,199 --> 01:44:08,079
I think you should definitely see it
again, Hannah. I think you're going

1336
01:44:08,159 --> 01:44:13,199
to see exactly what I'm talking about. All right? Whale, Um,

1337
01:44:13,199 --> 01:44:16,000
Brian, where would you like to
be found if you were to come for

1338
01:44:16,119 --> 01:44:19,720
you after listening to this spot episode? Yeah, you can find me on

1339
01:44:20,039 --> 01:44:24,840
Know What You See dot com.
Um, so all of my all of

1340
01:44:24,840 --> 01:44:30,840
my episodes are available there, and
you can also find me on the GSB

1341
01:44:30,000 --> 01:44:33,800
website. So if you search for
me, um, Brian Laurie at Stanford,

1342
01:44:33,800 --> 01:44:38,359
it will come up. I am
not currently pushing people to Twitter,

1343
01:44:38,439 --> 01:44:42,960
but that's another long conversation, but
you could you could go find me there

1344
01:44:43,000 --> 01:44:45,760
if you wanted. I guess all
right. Well, thank you so much,

1345
01:44:45,800 --> 01:44:48,920
and as always, you can find
us at pop Print Psychology at Facebook,

1346
01:44:48,960 --> 01:44:54,560
Instagram, and TikTok at Popcorn Underscore
psych on Twitter. You can email

1347
01:44:54,600 --> 01:44:58,520
us at Poprint Psychology at gmail dot
com, and if you would leave us

1348
01:44:58,520 --> 01:45:02,279
a review on Apple podcast or Spotify, We always appreciate that it's the best

1349
01:45:02,319 --> 01:45:05,920
way for other people to find us, And if you want to be a

1350
01:45:05,960 --> 01:45:11,279
part of our patronage, you can
find us at patreon dot com and if

1351
01:45:11,319 --> 01:45:15,199
you are a one dollar or more
subscriber, you can get free access to

1352
01:45:15,319 --> 01:45:19,000
unedited episodes early. And if you
are five hundred not five hundred, sorry

1353
01:45:19,000 --> 01:45:21,640
about that, well you can if
you want, but at fifty dollars or

1354
01:45:21,680 --> 01:45:27,319
more you can pick an episode that
we talk about. So happy holidays and

1355
01:45:27,399 --> 01:45:28,960
we will see you all next year.
