Speaker 1: Welcome back, besties. It's me. We're on the mend Listen.
Am I doing great? Guys? Am I ever doing great? Actually?
I'm doing alright. I really am doing alright. I you
know that forgiveness ritual I told you guys, But actually
I can't just jump right into this. Hold on a second.
I gotta promote my show. Sometimes I forget I'm a
stand up comedian and you guys too too, because I'm
barely on the road. But I have Raleigh on June
seventeenth in Nashville on the eighteenth, June seventeenth, June eighteenth, Raleigh, Nashville, respectively.
Please come. My tickets are on my site at Brittany
Schmidt dot com. I would love to see you guys
out there. I don't know if I know how to
do comedy. I don't know what I'm gonna talk about,
but we'll figure it out together. Okay. I hope to
see you guys on the road. Okay, back to me,
enough about my career. Back to my mental health illness. Yeah,
I'm okay, So i I'll be honest. Ever since Biggie died,
I've really been exercising something that I learned in La
and not LA. Well, I guess LA, but AA. One
of my friends in AA always used to say, you
can't hit a moving target, which means your depression and
your anxiety and everything can't catch up to you if
you keep moving. And I think there's a lot of
validity in that. Grief is kind of what I was
running away from this time though. And here's the thing.
You can't hit a moving target. I have been moving
so fast since my little angel baby went to the
next realm, to the better realm, I have been moving
so fast. I've been doing so much. I've been so productive.
I've been working out, I've been traveling, I've been rah
rah rah, and it's been really, really nice. But what's
been happening is this sort of underlying rage. Like this rage,
I've been talking about it like it just pops its
head up all of a sudden and I'll just like snap,
And I've been snapping at Max and I've been biting
at people, and I just am like, this is not
who I am, This is not who I identify as.
So I can't keep running away from this, like I can't.
I can't run long enough, hard enough, fast enough for
this to not catch up to me eventually. So yesterday
I did a hypnotherapy session and I have this wonderful
hypnotherapist in she's in LA but we do Zoom sessions
and if you ever want to do any of her sessions,
she has them. They can be all on Zoom. And
she is so efficient and so effective and I love
her madly. Ironically, her site is called Love Yourself Madly,
Like that's her whole thing, and it's it does not
matter what you need to talk about. It's not traditional
talk therapy in that like what's wrong? Was it your
mom who caused this problem? Was it your dad? Was
it your sibling? Was it that time you got thrown
into a dumpster by your best like do? We don't
do that stuff. We talk more like high level. We
usually talk about career and love and life and how
we're feeling spiritually, and it's much more of it's not
like fluffier, but it's much lighter usually, But we have
had a few sessions where we get into the weeds,
because how we act as people is always dictated by
our experiences and how they're sitting within us. Right, if
we don't let pain or trauma move through our body,
then it stays in our body, and so I didn't
really give myself a chance to let this pain move
through my body. I was just I've had my blinders
on you guys. I've been like, I gotta do this,
i gotta launch a patreonic, I'm gonna do cameos. Now,
I'm gonna do this. Like the stuff you're seeing me
do online is a fraction of what I'm doing behind
closed doors. My life used to be pretty laxadaisical. I
would wake up, meditate, drink some water, read a book,
go to pilates. Ladi dai dadi da was my life. Okay,
that was my life. But now I'm like, bitch, you
got to work like that's the only thing that's going
to keep me from like sinking into the deepest, darkest
depression of my life. So that's what I've been doing,
and honestly, you guys, it does make me feel really good.
I love working. I'm a hard worker. I've always been
raised to work. I literally started working when I was
ten years old. My mom had a real estate company
and she would make me telemarket Can you imagine a
ten year old telemarketing for real estate. I was like, hi,
my name is Brittany, and do you want to refinance
your house? They're like, uh, how old are you? Well?
I was like, I don't even know what the word
refinance means, but do you want to refinance your house?
And then here was the trick. She didn't pay me
hourly for this work, so I just had to cold
call as a ten year old. That was cold calling.
And I would only get paid if someone refinanced their house.
And I would get paid one hundred dollars if someone
refinanced their house. Child labor at its finest, But she
should put that money in my savings account, my college
savings account, which on my eighteenth birthday she stole from me.
So listen, I never got the money. I still my
mom still owes me money. But I love working. I've
always loved working. I think one of the things I
find the most challenging about being in comedy and being
my own boss and having to like self not self regulate,
but you know, be in charge of my own schedule
is that if I don't have someone breathing down my
neck being like you gotta fucking do this, bitch, then
I oftentimes don't do it. You know, I'm like, if
I can just like Ski de Dee de d through life,
I will. But Biggie's death really put the foot on
my fucking neck to be like, all right, let's go,
let's do all the things we've been saying we were
gonna do, and like actually fucking do them. So I've
been doing that and then I got into my hypnotherapy
session yesterday and she's like, how are you? And I
was like, I'm not good. Biggie died, but you know,
I have this going on. I have this going on.
I have this going on. And she's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, reverse,
what do you mean Biggie died? Like what you can't
just say that so nonchalant, And I'm like, I don't.
I can't talk about it, Like I literally can't talk
about it. And then what we ended up doing is
that forgiveness ritual, And so this works for all different things.
The forgiveness ritual that I told you guys about the
other week, where you envision a person, place, or thing
and you say I'm angry, that I'm sad, that I'm
accepting that I'm in denial that like, and you just
let it go. I was just ah, like scream crying
like I'm in denial that I'm never gonna get to
cuddle them again. I'm in denial it. He's not gonna
crawl under my bed sheets. I'm in denialot, he's not
gonna wake me up by stepping on my face accidentally,
when he's trying to go get water. I'm in And
I just let it rip, like I was so. I
had so much sadness inside of me, and I still do.
It's not gone. It's just like when you're able to
articulate it and move through it, it really moves things
in your body, you know, Like I've just been holding
on to this grief that has turned into two anger,
you know. And and I don't want to be an
angry person. You know, I don't want to listen. I
struggle enough with my mental health. We all know that. Like,
I don't want to be somebody who, on top of that,
is angry. I've never identified as angry. I don't have
a short temper. I'm not a nasty person. If you
push my buttons, sure i'll fucking snap. Sure I'll fucking
say some nasty stuff. And here's the thing about me,
I am fifty percent my mother all we do our
whole lives is try to be nothing like our parents.
And then one day you wake up and you look
in the mirror and I'm like, I'm fifty percent mom,
and I'm fifty percent Dad. And I got the good
stuff and I got the bad stuff. But I am
their stuff. And that's why I am the way I am.
You know, So I you know I'm I can be
a nasty bitch. My mom was a nasty bitch. Like
my mom could meet you for forty five seconds, figure
out the things you hated the most about yourself. She
would storm in the fucking chamber for whenever you pissed
her off, and then she would just hurl those epithets
and she would just fucking ruin not only your day,
your life. The insult she would say were they would
sit in your soul until the day you died. That's
how powerful she was at insulting people. That is a superpower,
not one that anyone really wants or needs, if I'm
being honest, but it is a superpower, like I remember
one day. So, I don't know if I've ever really
talked about my ex stepmom on here. I don't think
I have my dad married another woman for like fifteen
years or I don't know how many years. It was
way too many years, because she was an alcoholic bridge troll,
and that is what my mom called her. One day,
my mom was mad at her and she so she
was short. She was the ex step mom was short.
She was like five two. She had big eighties hair,
an orange tan. She looked like Donald Trump. And she
was a drunk like not like oh, cuty, cutesy, lay
down in the middle of the yard, naked drunk like
any time we lost her, we knew she was naked
and passed out somewhere like that kind of drunk, like
she would fall asleep on a floor in the middle
of a party, like a drug like. She would come
home from the bar and drive her car through the
garage door, not the garage door, like the up and
down garage door, the door that went from the house
the garage to the house, like like her pontiac grandam
would be in the kitchen like this kind of drunk,
like dragged down, nasty, nasty, little drunk. And my mom
one day just snapped on her and was like, you
little alcoholic bridge troll. Ah. She never recovered to this day.
She never recovered. I don't talk to her. We haven't
spoken in ten years. But I mean until the day
she walked out of the door and never came back again.
She would say, can you believe your mother called me
a data? And me and my dad would just look
at each other and laugh because she was right. My
mom was always always right. She would say the most
horrifying thing, but she was never wrong. And you know,
I don't know where I was going with this other
than I can be really nasty and I don't want
to be an angry person anymore, you know, And so
losing a pet is the worst thing in the world.
I've talked about it already. There's nothing worse. But I
don't want it to like fun fundamentally change me as
a person, make me cold and hard and sad and angry,
Like I just need to move through it. And so
I did that forgiveness ritual with my hypnotherapist, and you guys,
I just felt so much lighter. And I'm going to
be sad for the rest of time, probably in some
small portion. There are certain losses you have in life
where people say time heals everything, and it doesn't. It
really doesn't. It doesn't make anything better. It makes it
less potent, it makes it less like, Oh, that happened
two weeks ago, and it's still so fresh in my mind.
But there are times when you lose a piece of
your heart and you never get it back. And that's
what growing up is, and that's what the pleasure of
growing old is. It's every time you experience there's different
tiers of pain in our life, right and you experience
one tier of grief and you're like, Oh, it can't
get worse than this, and then something else happens and
then you're like, oh, it can't get worse than this,
and then something else happens and you're like, I guess
it's just going to keep getting worse forever because this
pain is insurmountable. It is so so much so it's
so it's just I my heart goes out to any
of you if you're going through anything right now, whether
it is a divorce, a loss of a loved one,
a loss of a pet, a loss of a parent.
I know Mother's Day was yesterday if you And this
is another thing, like I do really feel like there
should be like a mass unsubscribed button for people without
mothers on Mother's Day because it is so torturous and like,
I'm very at peace with the loss of my mom.
I love her so much more in her death than
I could in her life. I understand her on a
cellular level now I have done so much healing and
I'm obsessed with her and I think she's the baddest bitch.
But in this life, she was just a bitch, you know.
In this life, she was just a hurt tormented Like
she reminded me of like a rabid you know, like
a stray animal backed into the corner of a barn.
Like that's how she always was. Like but yeah, because
she was. She was coming from a place where she
had been hurt so unbelievably in her life. She didn't
know how to deal with it. She didn't know how
to articulate it. But I mean, I don't know where
I was going with that other than like I love
my mom. Oh, that's where I was going Mother's Day.
I really just feel like people without Mom should be
able to let companies know, like, don't send me this
four hundred times. I'm getting text I'm getting emails, I'm
getting all this onslaught of like make sure your mom
gets a present like her gift. What was her death?
She's out of here, you know. She got one last
gift and it was right between her eyes. You guys,
I shouldn't say that our sponsor this week is Berber Haircare.
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I do. Please go to Burber dot com br bur
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going to the moon, besties, Okay, love you by. It's
funny how much, well, it's not funny as an understandable.
How much suicide really bothers people? It really does. It
really doesn't sit well in anyone's soul. When anyone commits suicide.
They're like, you're not supposed to do that. But I'm like,
I hate it when people are like I don't understand.
I don't understand why anyone would ever commit suicide. It's like,
really you don't. Are you not paying attention? I say
this at shows now, I'm like, who here has never
considered suicide? You know? People raise their hand. There was
this one woman the other day that I was like,
what do you do? She's like, I'm a single mom,
and I'm like, you've never thought of it. You've never
thought of it. I mean, just another woman was just like,
I've never thought of it. I work at a museum,
and I was like, you've never thought about it. You've
never looked around and been like, Wow, people really respect
the dead more than the living. I could become a relic.
I could get the fuck out of here, but no,
I mean kudos to people who haven't, because I really
never had until like my late twenties. My depression didn't
set in until I quit drinking. And when I quit drinking,
that's when the floodgates opened, and it was depression and
anxiety and all these feelings that I never could articulate
or even really understand. I had because I had been
self medicating, and guess what, the medication works. I hate
when people are like, you can't just drink your way
through you can. You can drink your way through everything
until you can't until it stops working. But for some
people it never stops working. It never stops working. You know,
like my dad, if he took a few days off
from having beers, some big feelings might catch up to him,
but he doesn't, and so he's just the happiest dude ever.
He works hard, he drinks, beers, he fishes, he hunts,
and he fucking is super happy. And also, my dad
is down in Florida now, which is amazing, you guys,
It's very exciting. I love having him here. I cooked
him dinner the other night. He's working on Max's bagel shop.
We are going deep sea fishing this weekend. Like, I
just love having my dad here. He's the best dude
in the whole world. And when we're gonna figure out
a time, excuse me, we're going to figure out a
time for him to come back on the podcast. And also,
I saw a lot of you guys wanted me to
have my sister. Excuse me, I have burpies wanted to
have my sister on the podcast. I love my sister
so so much. She's so smart, you guys. Listen to this.
Her company, So she's working for a private, private company.
She's one of nine people, and this company is working
on a drug to cure guaucoma. And they've had a
ton of success. And her company, it was just in
the Wall Street Journal, just got bought for two point
four five billion dollars. I'm sorry, what, I'm sorry? What
is she officially the coolest person in her family. Absolutely.
I was like, Wow, she really came from behind and
became the coolest, Like that is insane. You none of
us know anything about science. Fine, I'm not gonna put
that on you. Guys. Maybe you know something about science,
but you if you could imagine how unbelievably successful this
drug must be that they think it's worth right now
before it even hit the market two point four or
five billion dollars. My sister's so fucking cool, Are you
kidding me? She's one of nine people working on that drug,
testing that drug, making that drug a real thing, and
she's gonna get pipe. That's fucking rat so exciting. But yeah,
so my dad's here. I saw you on Around the podcast.
My sister's a very private person. She really doesn't like
being a part of this life that I've created for myself.
You know, even when I shot my special in Chicago,
I had like a dad cam where you know, my
dad was in the picture, my sister was sitting right
next to him, and so for some of the shots
she was in there, and I was like, is it
okay you like stay in these shots? And she's like please, no,
Like she just is a very private person. And I
really respect that, Like she literally like has a beautiful
cabin in the woods and like horses and chickens and dogs,
and like she lives the life that I wish I
could live. Like I wish you guys so badly. I
could just move to the woods. I keep journaling about
this every morning in my morning pages. I'm like, could
I just move to a log cabin? Like, could I
actually do this? Because when I was growing up, we
had a cabin in Eagle River, Wisconsin, And every time
I went up there, it was the happiest I ever wrot.
I was never happier. I would go on the hammock,
I would read Harry Potter. I would come in, we'd
cook a meal, i'd eat, I'd play scravel, and then
we'd go to bed and do it all over again.
And it was kind of creepy, but it was really
fun and like rustic and charming and peaceful. I just
fear with everything technology, we're just getting too far away
from what we're supposed to be doing here, and one
day we're all just gonna be reclusive and weird, and
we're not gonna have communication skills and we're not gonna
have a tan our skin's all gonna be white and
strange and see through and not if you follow my
skin caroutine. But I don't know. I'm just worried for us, guys.
I'm worried for us as a as a society that
we're not headed in the right direction. I feel a
little scared. But I'm trying to be more optimistic lately. Okay,
I'm still practicing my gratitude list. I'm still very grateful.
Everything's good and nothing matters because we're all gonna die.
See how quickly I just snap back into my old self. Okay.
So I want to get into something and I don't
want to get into it for the same reasons I've
gotten into it before. Because I am at the point
with this now where we're done, we're moving on, and
now is the time where we reflect and we look
at the lessons we can learn and the things we
can take away from situations that made us uncomfortable. I
will go into this by first saying I was very,
very very activated by the hell fire acid bath that
went on with these designers. I have never, out of respect,
ever said their names. However, they did have a lawyer
send me a letter saying that I said it over
and over again, question Mark, and I have it. But
now I'm going to because there's nothing against the law.
There's nothing legally that says I can't, you know, speak
freely about a design firm that I've had issues with
or a company in general that I've had issues with.
So they're called jaw Renovations, and they're run by a
woman named Whitney and a man named Jordan. And I
know they're watching the pod, so HI like and subscribe.
And I only know they're watching everything I do because
the lawyer put it in the letter, which is like
a little embarrassing. Honestly, it's like, get a life, Get
a life. But now that this has come to an end,
so like I said, we did get lawyers involved. But
I'm at the point with my heart and like my
soul that I don't care. I cannot go on. I
cannot give this another ounce of my precious energy. I
have so many things going on right now that are
so much bigger than this that, like being tied up
in a lawsuit is not something I'm interested in doing.
What I will do, I'm not gonna give you guys
all the juicy details here because I can't. And I'm
not doing this to say like, well, come to the page,
but on the patreon, I am going to read the
back and forth between the attorneys. There are some like
very funny things in there, so so that's gonna be
on the Patreon. I would love if you guys came
over there. I do want to say thank you all
all of you who signed up. That means so much
to me. It really it's not like even actually a
way for me to make money. It's just for me
to break even. So if you can go on there
and support me. I have two tiers. I have the
three dollars tier, which is basically like ten to fifteen
minutes of extra chit chat each week, and then I
have the six dollar tier, where I read a chapter
of my book. I have gotten some feedback already. You
guys are saying the three dollars tier is too cheap
and the you know so, and I've talked to a
few people who have done patreons before. I might change it,
but I'm not going to anytime soon. The industry standard
is five dollars, but I'm gonna start at three dollars.
If you guys, if you can't come to five. That's
that's no worries. I'm gonna keep you guys like grandfathered
in there. But so maybe that does incentivize you to act. Now. Yeah,
I just want to say I really appreciate anyone who's
been over there, and I'm gonna give you like the
scalding hot tea. And that's where I'm gonna be like
a little mean. I'm not going to be a mean
on here because listen, these pig designers, I'm just kidding
and I'm not calling them pigs for any other reason
other than they're messy. They're just messy. They're messy people,
and they did a messy thing and they have no accountability,
and they really dig it to a point where I
was like, oh my god, like our lawyers going back
and forth about like two kids on a playground being like,
n you did this and you did this and you
did that, like it just really like I was reading
it and I was just like this is so fucking pathetic,
Like this is just like such an activation of wounds.
Right Like so for me, I think it's infuriating that
people ca and get away with it's not listen, it
is criminal activity to take money from someone saying you're
spending it on something and then have no evidence that
you spent it anywhere it is. I think what they
did is objectively disgusting, and I think taking advantage of
people that you, especially called your friends, is gross. Their
retort was that they had done a lot of stuff
for me in the past, including and I will say
they did help me with my set design for God
what was that special called Sorry Dad? The Sorry Dad Special.
I never said I would pay them. I told them
the budget had already gone to someone else who was
pretty useless, and they offered help as friends, and they
had done a few things like that for me in
the past. The Whitney flew out and helped me with
my podcast photoshoot. If I'm being completely transparent, it was
her idea. She offered to help, and I paid for
the flight out. There was never any conversation of I
should have paid her or I owed her money. I
am somebody who pays people on time all the time.
I want to pay people what they're worth for what
they're doing. That was something that was offered as a service,
as something she was doing as a friend. There's one
other thing, Oh, when I was selling all my stuff
in Beverly Hills. She was like, I've done this before.
I'm great at this, you know, I can fly out
and help. And so I paid for her flight. I
flew her out and she helped, and she did help.
She was a huge help. Again, there's never any conversation
of payment or that being something she was doing outside
of the realm of friendship. It seemed like something she
was offering me as a friend. It was very generous,
it was very helpful, you know, and I did my
best to take care of what I could. I took
care of the flight, I paid for the meals. I did,
you know, what I could and what I should. And
at no point was there any like that's a situation
where like I would have easily given her a percentage
of the sales. You know, it's like it's a one
to one. If you're selling this stuff, then take you know,
ten percent of whatever. That was never you know, never discussed.
But all of these things were put in an email
from the lawyer about things that they would retroactively be
charging me for, which, aside from it being shitty, like
a very shitty it's, first of all, it has nothing
to do with what went on here, because what went
on in West Palm Beach is we gave them forty grand,
they spent about seventy five hundred, and the rest they pocketed.
I would implore them to give me receipts. Still to
this day they will not. They refuse to because they
know that they put in writing a bunch of lies
about how much things cost, and they didn't cost that much.
And I know that I'm not saying this from a
place of anger. I'm saying this from a place of
it's interesting how two people or three people, or however
many people. Let's just say two people, because I'm going
to group Jaw as one group and then me and
Max as another group. It's interesting to me how two
people can have the same thing happened to them and
have completely different experiences. Right So, And I also want
to say this, I don't think they're bad people. I
don't think they came into this being vindictive or shitty,
or I think they were scheming a little bit. But
I don't think they're bad people. I think desperate people
do bad things. And I've talked about this before on
the podcast. I think that people are all some of
us are. I don't think anyone's good or anyone's bad.
I think we all do things that are classified as
moral and good, and we all do things that are
classified as immoral or bad. And I think, you know,
the situation we're in really dictates how we behave. And
I don't want to paint people as bad people just
because they did a bad thing, because I've done bad things.
I have done many, many bad things that like, if
people knew about it, it would be very easy to
judge me and be like, that's a bad person. She
did that. That's a bad person. But and I'm again,
I'm never gonna sit here and be like I'm a
good person. Like I just want you guys to know
I'm a good person, because I'm a good person. Because
anyone who has to tell you they're a good person,
it is probably not a good person. Their shadow self
is very large and it's very spooky. Okay, But I
think what happened in this situation is they have been
holding resentments in their heart and soul towards me probably
the whole time, and they had been doing these favors
for me as friends, and then the one time that
I didn't, I wasn't so appreciative and so like blown
away by their work. And I did ask for accounting,
and I did ask for receipts. Their wounds got activated
and they were they started to again act from a
place that's not who they are. But it's like we
get as people, we get so hyper defensive in situations
when our feelings get hurt, when things are lost in translation,
it's just like what I was saying about my mom earlier.
My mom's whole life, she lived this way because she
was in so much pain that she couldn't talk about.
And and I think when people have pain and hold pain,
and you know, they think they have to prove their
value or prove their worth, it can come out really nasty,
like when you have to prove no, I belong in
this person's life. No I've I've I've earned my keep here,
I've done so much for you, I you know, blah
blah blah blah blah, whatever it is. I think that's
what was happening. This person was acting out of a wound,
like a deep, deep wound. And objectively, I can say
there's a lot of insecurity between those two and there's
a lot of insecurity in all of us. I'm not
saying that like I'm insecure about things. I have horrible
insecurities in my life. I'm trying to think of them
right now, trying to think of one, but I can't.
I'm just kidding. I you know, I have insecurities about
my body. I have insecurities about my age. I have
insecurities about my career and why it's not further ahead.
I have insecurities. I have insecurities. I am not objectively
an insecure person. I wouldn't say that's like one of
my leading traits. I am only confident because I have
been torn down so much and I had to do
so much work on myself to rebuild myself and love myself.
That's the only reason I have the confidence that I have.
But these two are a bit more insecure. And I
think when you're insecure and you do great work, and
you do beautiful work, and you get applause for your work,
and you get adored for your work, that helps to
stave off the part of you, the piece of you
inside of you that thinks I'm not enough, I'm not
good enough, I don't belong here, I shouldn't da da
da da dah. Right, and then when your work becomes
the thing that keeps you from hating yourself and someone
attacks your work, you go into an otherworldly spiral, which
is what I witnessed with the female designer. I witnessed
injury on full display. Just injury. This is just a hurt,
wounded bird, and like my heart actually does break for her,
because you know, if you could take the wound out
of it, and you could take the big feelings that
come from the wound out of it, and you could
have just kept this as business. And you know, me
saying I don't like my place was not an attack
on your self worth. It's not an attack on who
you are as an interior designer, or what your potential
is or any of that. Because, like I've said, I've
said this till I'm blue in the face. Even though
I didn't like what they did to my place this time,
if they had fixed it and acted fucking normal and
just acted actually, they didn't have to act normal. They
just had to act like they owned a business, not
like we were on a playground, because that's what they did.
And if they would have just acted like you know,
respectable business owners came fixed it, not thrown a fucking fit.
Then I think I would have continued to promote them
until the day I died, and like, listen, go look
at their stuff. Maybe it is something that you like
and maybe they can help you. I don't want to
take business away from them. Like that's another thing that
came through in the lawyer, you know, and the lawyer
saying like, I don't know, I'm going to get into
that on the Patreon, but but maybe their work is
your vibe. It's not mine anymore because I have too
much bad blood. But and it, you know, it's not everyone's.
Here's the thing, like, interior design is very very subjective, objective, subjective,
and so you might like it. And you know, they're
mostly in the Midwest, and they're gonna crush there because
it's the best thing the Midwest has ever seen. That's
for sure. I think coastal elites will find, you know,
they'll have a few more options. But but I do
wish them continued success. I have been praying for them,
like frankly, I have been because I want them to
get everything that they want in life. I want them
to be happy and find love. And you know, Scrooge
mcdock in Money and I want everyone to get what
they want in life. The world will be a better
place if everyone gets what they want in life. But
what I want to talk about more is this sort
of phenomenon of people being in the exact same situation
having different experiences. And I've done a little bit of
research on this, and you know a few reasons this happens. One,
there's different histories, So what you've lived through before shapes
what something means to you now. So rejection, I think
can be it can be particularly hard. It can be
particularly hard. Not rejections, it's critiques. Can be hard for addicts, right,
And I'm an addict, and I know that because I've
gotten feedback before that's been helpful, like it would have
really been helpful. But I hold it in my heart
and I get angry and I'm rageful and I'm resentful,
and instead of taking that feedback, I do nothing and
then and then that's it. I have a really hard
time taking feedback. I think similarly, this jaw has had
a really hard time taking feedback. I can't speak to
either of their histories. I could, but it's none of
my business. But I think the ability to take feedback
and learning how to take feedback is really important, especially
when you know when this all started, there was never
any cruel intentions. It's not like anyone sent an email
being like I fucking hate this shit. We both were like.
My email especially was like I'm devastated. My heart is broken.
I've been I'm usually so obsessed with everything you guys do.
I just like, I'm so sad to even be writing this.
That's how it started. And the response was like, wow,
waited this, this sidden this s and it was just
like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. They
started immediately talking about things that we never ever needed
to talk about. We never needed to talk about anything
they had done for me in the past. It's completely irrelevant.
We never needed to talk about how many hours they
worked because they were on a flat raiate. It's completely irrelevant.
They just like continued to bring up complete irrelevancies, and
then we got to a really nasty place, you know,
And I think, looking back on everything, I really don't
think if I could do it again, I wouldn't have
handled it differently because I really did start from a
place of compassion and love and support for them and
everything they've ever done for me. I think the whole
process was very illuminating. There was, you know, something that
came up in one of the emails from the lawyers,
which is basically like, we've worked with Brittany on this
like trust based sort of model before, and you know,
we've never had any issues with it, which is like,
you know, it's a funny way to say, like we've
been able to pull the rug over her eyes for
a while, you know. And if I do really go
back to like actual accounting of what those two places
in the past cost me, they were overcharging me the
whole time. That's none of my business. That's their business,
it's their business model, it's their karma, it's their lives.
Karma's a bigger bitch than I could ever be. So
good luck, you know, good luck working that way. Another
reason that people can experience the same situation differently is
because of different needs, sensitivities, and values. So the same
situation can hit different pressure points. And this is this
is you know, it's there's a big sensitivity around self
worth here and value. And when Max and I thought
we were just simply like complaining not complaining, we just
thought we were like raising our concerns with the job
they did. Their sensitivity is just took over. It was.
It came from a it came from a really wounded
place of like, no, we're good enough. No this is
good enough. No, this is what you ask for. A no,
like no we're not going to fix it. No you
can fix it. No we did enough for you. No no, no,
no no. And it was just like, oh, oh my goodness,
Like what happened here? So what's this meaning making? Okay?
So meaning making? This is the point I'm at now.
What matters the most is often the story someone tells
themselves afterwards. So for a while, you guys were with
me for the ride. For a while, I was very enraged.
I don't like to live that way, and I've said
that at the beginning of this podcast. Even with the
Biggie thing, I've been enraged. I've had a year of rage,
and that's really uncomfortable for me. That's not a space
that I enjoy living in. I don't feel comfortable there.
I don't feel cozy there, I don't feel safe there.
I don't trust myself when I'm angry, I don't trust
the things I'm going to say, I don't trust the
things I'm going to I don't trust myself. And so
what I've done in the past few weeks is taking
taken a meaningful pivot right and looking at looking at
the situation, I think, what can I learn? How can
I move forward? And how can I be a better person?
Because what is the lesson here? Nothing happens to you
for no reason. Everything happens for a reason. So a
few lessons I've learned. Want trust no bitch, you literally
trust no bitch. No no, I joke about that, but like,
don't be so trusting, Like you cannot be trusting of people,
whether or not you think they're your friends. You know,
whatever relationship you have with them, you have to cross
your t's and dot your eyes and make sure that
make sure that you're not getting bamboozled. Because it really
didn't feel good to get bamboozled. And I'm so grateful
that Chase ruled in my favor, and you know, the
we did get half of the payment back. I feel
so bad for Max because he paid cash and so
they're just like all the way to the bank with
that no right, yeah, I mean, listen, whatever, whatever they
spent it on. Good for them. I'm sure it's more
designer clothes so they can be like head to toe
at tacky as fuck. Because that's by the way, you guys,
this is just another like PSA, this has nothing to
do with anyone or anything, but if you wear designer,
designer anything, it's kind of fucking tacky. Like I think
quiet luxury is in right now. And I say that
like wearing a slutty sorry dad tank top, like you're
never gonna look to me for fashion advice. But like
if you think wearing Gucci or Prada like brings you
value or makes you look rich or cool, it makes
you look bad with money, Like it really makes you
look like you're mismanaging your finances. You look tacky, especially
if you're mixing designers. You're never supposed to mix Prada
with Gucci with Chanel with no, no, no, no, no,
you look tacky. It's a it's a it's a it's
a desperation that you're wearing on your clothes. So my
advice to anyone who wants to, you know, look like
they got something going on. Quiet luxury. Okay, quiet luxury.
That's where we're living these days, Babe, We're not spending
money on designers. We've gone over this before. Designers just
charge out the ass for things that are worth like
twenty six dollars. You're paying fifty six hundred dollars for
a purse that's worth twenty six dollars. Who's the clown?
You're the clown. Don't be the clown. Don't be the clown.
Head to tone designer because you look broke. You actually
look broke, So don't dress like that because that's weird vibes.
But the meaning making is at the end of this,
like what do we take away from this? So mine
is a big lesson in two things, trust and discernment.
For me, trust, I have to I have to stop
trusting so easily. I need to exercise a lot more
discernment when I let people into my life. When I
feel their energy is insincere, I need to listen to that,
because I have felt that with both of them. And
I'm actually going to go into a specific story on
the Patreon it feels too rude to share here. There
was one story that made me one incident that made
me go like er, something was really off, and I
didn't listen to my gut. And then another one is,
so I actually met with my landlord yesterday. And my
landlord she's this fabulous woman. She has been in Palm
Beach for like forty years. She's the best. She came
over when the designers were here, when Jaw was in
our house. And it's funny because the story we got
from Jaw was that, like, the landlord loved it and
it was so great. And when we go to lunch,
we sat down and she's like, so those designers, huh
And I could tell that she was like, and I
was like, yeah, they ended up. You know, they completely
fucked our place up. And on top of that, they
took a bunch of money from us. And she she
was like, oh, I'm so glad you hated it. She's
like it was disgusting. She's like there was stuff everywhere.
It made no sense. And you know, she's like, and
the guy, the guy was nice, but she's like, it's
not the kind of nice that I trust. It's the
kind of nice that I don't trust. Like you're nice
because you're overcompensating for something. You're too nice. And I've
always I always felt that way about him. I felt
that way that, Like, he was like nice nasty is
the best way I can put it, And like, listen,
a lot of gays aren't nice nasty. Most of them
are just straight up nasty. I prefer straight up nasty.
Most of my gays that are my best friends are
fucking nasty. All right. They're nasty, they're cutting, they're mean.
They're the best people in the world. I love them
so much. But he was like nice, but underneath I
could feel that he was just scathing. So yeah, for me,
it's trust and discernment. And then also it was like
a really good relationship building experience for Max and I, Like,
was it comfortable. No, we got into like quite a
few fights about it. It was obviously horrible to have
my friends rip us off. Not a good feeling, but yeah,
I think in general, just like it was a really
good It made us so much stronger. This whole year
has made us so much stronger. We've been through so
much together and I'm like more in love with him
now than I've ever been. And I know that's corny
and tacky and like who actually says that, But like
I do think when you go through hardshit as a couple,
it makes your relationship a lot stronger, and like, yeah,
we've been together, just shy of a year, but like
we've been together. Like we both looked at each other
the other day and we're like, hey, are we having
like our ten year anniversary next month? Because it feels
it feels like we might be. So anyway, I hope
you know in this, I'm sure they took away a
lot of wonderful things too, not wonderful. Listen, this wasn't
fun for anyone. No one had fun doing this, like
fighting with friends, relationship falling apart. You took this from me,
You did that like nobody had fun here. I think
everyone's nervous systems were probably shot. And yeah, again, I
don't think they're bad people. I just think they did
a bad thing. I think desperate people do bad things.
And you know, oh, well, good luck to you guys.
I really do wish you all the best. Okay, So
here's another thing that I want to talk about before
we skidadle. So this came up recently and in my relationship. Obviously,
something happened where we were out on a boat and
not the fishing boat. We were on a yacht. Not
to brag, not bragging. It wasn't ours. Our friend invited
us and it was one of my friends, one of
my newer friends. And I said something and then Max
corrected me in like kind of a nasty way, like
he just like just like kind of nasty, like shut
me down. And then when I sat there because I
was aghast, I was like, how dare you fucking talk
to me like that in public in front of people.
He just like eyes for word, didn't even acknowledge me.
And I was like, oh, you little bitch, you little
gemini bitch. I'm in a fucking slager throat and drunk
your blood. But he we talked about it the other
night and I was like, I don't think it's appropriate
that you do that. I think if you need to
correct me about something, you need to correct me in
private and in public you need to support me, like
we need to support each other publicly. And I think
that's just a good thing in general for couples to
understand that correct your partner in private and support them
in public, because when you correct them in public and
you undermine them in public, it doesn't make you look cool,
it makes your partner look like a fucking idiot. For
picking you. It made me look like a Hong Kong
on my fucking clown knows that. I was like, this
is my man. Look at my man being mean to
me on a boat. Isn't that nice? Like yeah, it
was a real Hong kok moment. So we had to
talk about it, and he didn't really have any defense
other than he was hungry and he's sorry. And this
is another thing. This is another thing we're done with.
Okay in this year, the hanger thing, I'm over it.
We can't keep doing hanger as an excuse for being
horrible people. Okay, if you're hungry, feed yourself. You are
an adult unless you don't have the means, which, by
the way, people that don't have money for food, they
sit on the side of the road and they beg
for change so they can get food or meth in
which case you don't need food. But we're not doing
the hanger thing, the hanger thing in this year twenty
twenty six, our Lord and Savior is done. You're an adult.
Feed yourself. Your low blood sugar cannot be an excuse
for why you're being mean to me. That's insane. Like
literally just learn, like when your body says I'm hungry
feed it, so that the next thing yelling when your
body yells at you and is like, hey, I'm hungry,
feed it, so the next thing yelling isn't you at
your girlfriend? Okay, because i don't have the fucking patience,
and I'm at the point right now where i will
yell back, bitch, I'm gonna yell back. I'm usually very
zen and very chill, and I'm just like, all right,
I'll take that abuse. I'll take that micro abuse. I'll
take that mic. I'm not taking any micro abuses anymore.
I'm not taking any abuses anymore. I'm fucking sick of it.
I am sick of it. Oh my god, Okay, I
think I have one more, one more DM. I've been
sending Mike these dms. Sure he loves it. I've never
worked with a client who struggled with romantic obsession and
didn't also lack purpose in their life. Obsession is often
a distraction from an unfulfilling reality. It gives you a
project to focus on something intense to analyze, instead of
turning inward. Because the obsession rarely has much to do
with the other person, it has to do with the
strategy you developed to cope with loneliness, lack of purpose,
or unmet needs. The solution isn't getting the person, it's
regaining purpose, creating fulfillment, and expanding your world so one
person is no longer main source of excitement. I thought
this was so interesting because I think a lot of
us girlies hyper fixate on love and finding love and
finding meaningful partnership and all of that stuff. And I
think that's also important and valid and relevant. And I
don't think you should not focus on that if that's
something that's very important to you, but I want you
to make sure that you look at your lives and
make sure that they're full in the way your life
is full in the way it needs to be right,
Because I just think I really relate to this, Like
anytime I've been like, oh I need a man, I
need a man, I want any time I've ever thought
I want a baby, that's when nothing is going, I'm
doing nothing. I'm like, I'm so fucking bored in my
life needs purpose, I'm gonna make a baby. And I've
never been somebody. Here's the thing, here's the difference between
me and a lot of girly pops. A lot of
curly pops grow up and they're like, I need to
be a mother. I have this urge to be a mother.
It's all I want to like, it is what I
want to live for. I think women like that should
become mothers. Those are the ones that deserve to be
mothers and absolutely should become mothers. People like me that
are like I could leave it. I could take it
or leave it. I don't know. I don't know if
it's right for me, because sometimes I think I just
get bored and I'm like, should we have a baby.
Like I did that during the pandemic. I was like,
all right, I'm bored. Should we have a kid? Instead?
I wrote a book. You know. It's like and I
don't know which one would be more fulfilling because I
haven't had a kid yet, But like, writing a book
was pretty fucking cool. You know, I'm working on doing
it again. But I just want you, guys, if you're
like desperately searching for love, make sure that your life
is full in other ways. And if it's not, maybe
you should be doing the creative, the artists way with me.
Maybe there's a really good idea that I just came
up with right there, right on the spot. Okay, we're
gonna do our word of the week because I forgot
it last week and you guys yelled at me. You
guys be yelling at me a lot. You know that
in the DMS hegemony h so H E G E
M O N Y hegemony. It's a noun. It means
predominant influence, especially in reference to the affairs of nations.
To say one nation practices hegemonia over another is to
suggest that it exercises undue influence over conduct, more's or
administration within that nation. What a word that will never use.
Hegemony our foes. Hegemony will not stop with his control
of smaller nations. His aim is world domination. Dun dun
doll hegemony. Okay, you guys, I'm doing bad vice for
the week. Let's go. Okay. I was just curious if
you had any advice for weight loss, specifically after getting sober,
or suggestions with it. A little backstory. I used to
smoke weed consistently for about seven years. And what I
mean by consistently, I mean I smoked multiple times a day.
I always had a pen on me and I would
spend a lot of money on it. I smoke so
much it affected my eating habits to the point where
I was barely eating once a day. Wow, that is
the reverse effect of smoking pot good for you. That's
like when you do cocaine and you fall asleep. You know,
That's what I did. The first time I did coke,
I went to sleep. My ex boyfriend was like, I
thought I killed you, And I'm like, and you just
left me in the bed, and he's like, yeah. Anyway.
A little over a year ago, I stopped smoking altogether.
The first month or two was hard, but after that
I pushed through it. Now I'm thirteen months off weed.
Congratulations and super happy about it. The problem I'm struggling
with is during the thirteen months, I gained a lot
of weight seventy pounds to be exact. Before I smoked weed,
I never had an issue with my weight. I was
never insecure or thought too much about it. Now that
I'm substantially overweight, I can't stop obsessing over it. I
had the thought the other day that maybe I shouldn't
have stopped, or was it even worth it to stop.
I'm in a healthy relationship and I have no outside
pressure about losing weight. Internally, I keep beating myself up.
I started working out and cutting back on my eating,
and I've lost ten pounds so far in about a month.
That's great. So I just know I'm doing something right.
It's just the thoughts that I keep wrestling with this.
Sorry if this was long, Love you so much, Love
you back. First of all, congrats on smoking weed. Taking
anything out of your life that's keeping you from yourself
is always a positive. I've literally never heard of somebody
who smokes all the time and doesn't eat, so that's
also great. Congrats on being the outlier there. Okay, So
unfortunately this is all diet and exercise, and I think
the easiest thing anyone can do for exercise when they
don't want to go to the gym and like slogging
out is ten thousand steps a day. So when you're
doing ten thousand steps a day and drink your water, sister,
we need you to be drinking a gallon of water
a day. Literally, look at this huge Stanley cup I
have right next to me right now. Water will help
you flesh everything out, and yes, you can get a
little water weight, but water weight is better than real weight. Okay,
and then it wouldn't hurt for you to maybe do
a Macro's diet where you understand what your body needs
to be in a deficit and you can go you
can find this online. I'm sure AI can help you.
Now if you put in your height and weight and
your goals, I guarantee chatch Ebt could make you make
you something. The problem is you do have to weigh food,
and that can be triggering for people with any sort
of disordered eating, disordered thinking. It was tricky even for me,
I'm gonna be honest, because I just was like, I
can't eat more than Oh, I can't eat that, and
I can't have a cookie, and I can't have and
like that's not a headspace I like to live in,
you know. So could I be like shredded? It could be.
I have been, but I was also the most miserable
I've ever been in my life. So I don't think
shredded is the goal. I think healthy is the goal.
And I think in order for you to understand how
to get to a healthy body weight, Macros for a
little while will help you just kind of understand mentally,
like what you need to be eating in order to
lose that weight and then I don't know what your
relationship is like with working out, but three to five
times a week is kind of the dream. And if
you can do ten thousand steps a d eight, it's
not only good for losing weight because it's a ton
of fucking cardio. It's just easy cardio. It's really good
for the mental Okay, to be outside, to be getting
that sun. You gotta do that. I'm glad that there's
no one in your life saying anything mean about you, Like,
just take care of yourself, love yourself, Know that the
body you want is already. You already have the body
you want. You just have to work a little harder
to you know, get a few pounds off. But it
sounds like if you lost ten pounds in a month,
you know what to do. And just love yourself and
just know the body of your dreams is already is
already in there, and just yeah, take care of yourself.
Chin up. Don't go back to smoking weed. Here's the thing.
Smoking weed is not fucking cool, all right, It's not cool.
I go back and forth with it, and I'm like,
what is this thing weed? Like, let's really talk about weed.
What does it do. It makes you dumb and fat
mostly not you apparently, and then also insane, like there's
also a chance it can just like one day, turn
you schizophrenic and you never go back, Like what's the
what's the net positive? I guess back in school, like
when we used to be stoners and legals, Like it's like,
I don't know. Weed for me was great when I
was hungover because I needed to take the edge off.
But now that I don't have hangovers, I'm like, I
don't what edge am I taking off? I'm just turning
into a fucking loser. So losers, smoke weed. You don't
need to. I love you so much, and keep your
gin up, gin up, tits out. That's the rules. Okay,
see you later, restie. Uh. Okay, you guys. If I'm
gonna lose you here because you're not doing the artists way,
then goodbye. I love you so much. I'll see you
uh next week. Also, if you want a little more,
come to the Patreon. I'm gonna gossip over there. Okay,
I love you so much. Goodbye. Okay, what's up artists Way, lovers?
How we doing? I did see a comment or two
saying you're getting a little bored with just doing morning pages.
And you know, some people are saying the check ins
are keeping you accountable. Some people say they need more.
If you need more, go to the dms on the YouTube.
And I think you guys need to unite on your
own and maybe do a WhatsApp group and check in
and do like a little accountability group. And there's also
a site or a platform called ooh, I forget what
it's called title. No, that's jay Z's streaming network. Anyway,
there are like forums where you can do this and
it's a little less it's a little more private, so
you don't have to all exchange phone numbers on WhatsApp.
But if you guys do need more accountability, you want
to check in on your homework each week, do that,
get in a group, keep each other accountable. I know
there's maybe only like fifteen of us doing this, so
it is a small group and we can all keep
each other accountable. I think it's really important, and I
think the work we're doing together is really important. So
I just want to take the beginning of this to
congratulate you on another week of doing work that's really
important and I hope is in some way feeding your soul.
So this week is Week three, it's about recovering a
sense of power. The first thing it talks about is anger,
anger being fuel and anger is one of these emotions
that's really uncomfortable. I was just talking about it literally
all podcasts how it makes me very uncomfortable. But anger,
when it's towards creativity is actually very useful because it's
a bit of a compass, right. It shows us where
we want to go. So if we're mad a person
did a thing that we think we could do better,
that anger is a compass. Envy is a compass, and
anger is a compass. So anything you're jealous of, anything
you're envious of, and anything you're angry about. Those are
all three very strong compasses, and they're guiding points in
your life, and I think you need to use them. Right,
Angers meant to be listened to. It's a voice, it's
a shout, it's a plea, it's a demand. It's meant
to be respected because it's a map. It shows us
what our boundaries are and it shows us where we
want to go. It's also a sign of health. So
if anger is coming back to you in this creative
recovery journey. And you're starting to get mad about shit,
that's a good sign. If you're starting to get angry
and uncomfortable, that's actually a really good sign. And actually,
now that I said that all outloud, maybe that's part
of the reason. No, I'm getting I've been angry this
year about other things. But listen, there's no shortage on
rage over here. So anger is the fuel that propels
us into our new life. Right, Sloth, apathy, and despair
are the enemy, but anger is not. Anger is our friend.
So don't judge yourself if you're starting to get angry
during this process. It's part of it. The anger, the rage,
the what is it? I'm trying to think of the
rat and the cage. No, I'm still just a rat
in a cage. I'm in a rage whatever. You guys
know the song I'm talking about, Okay, So don't be
scared of anger. Listen to it, really listen to it,
because it is a really good way to figure out
what you want to do with your life creatively. So synchronicity,
you guys, answered prayers are scary, and when they start
to get answered, they're terrifying. And I'm going to tell
you guys a secret. I didn't say it on the
regular podcast. This is technically still the regular podcast, but
I know most of you guys stop listening to this,
so and I don't want to say it because I
don't want to say things that aren't fully done yet.
You know, when you mentioned something before it's fully cooked,
and then like you burn it and overcook it and
then it's it's toast and it no longer exists, and
then you have to tell everyone that you told about
the cake that the cake is burnt. And that's what
I'm That's where I'm at right now. But there is
a there's something in my life that I've wanted. I've
spoke publicly about wanting it, and it's getting closer. It's
getting closer. Things are aligning for me, and synchronicity is
very apparent for me right now. And the closer it gets,
the more scared I get, and the more I'm like,
do I really want to do this? Do I have
the time to do this? Do I have the patience
to do this? Am I a good enough writer to
do this? And I think it is scarier, you know,
it's scarier to imagine a life that's really full of
everything you want and you getting everything than it is
to imagine, just like your life, staying small and in control,
because that's the thing. As humans, we think we can
control everything, and we can control almost nothing. But we
feel like we're in control when we're in situations that
are familiar to us, right, so the unfamiliar becomes really scary.
But answer prayers are scary. Why else the cautionary phrase
watch out for what you pray for. You might just
get it right. It's my experience. We're much more afraid
that there might be a god than we are that
there might not be. Incidents like those above happen to us. Yeah,
we dismiss them as sheer coincidence. So anytime something happens
to you where you say, you know, I want to
get into a comedy class, and then you meet or
I want to learn how to do comedy, and then
you meet a comedy teacher on an airplane, or I
want to get into a writing class, and then you
meet a published author and somebody who can point you
in the right direction. We like to brush that off
as coincidence. That's not coincidence and synchronicity, that's our divine
creator helping us move in the direction that he knows
we can go. Okay, life is what we make it.
Synchronicity loosely defined as a fortuitous intermeshing of events. We
used to call it serendipity. God is efficient. I have
many time marveled at the sleight of hand with which
the universe delivers its treats. In my experience, the universe
falls in with worthy plans and most especially with festive
and expansive ones. Remember that creativity is a tribal experience,
and that tribal elders will initiate the gifted youngsters who
cross their path. We like to pretend it's hard to
follow our heart streams. The truth is it's difficult to
avoid walking through the many doors that will open. The
universe is prodigal in its support. We are miserly in
what we expect, miserly and what we accept. Okay, whatever
you think you can do or believe you can do,
begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it. Okay.
So the next thing we need to talk about is shame.
So shame is a controlling device. Shaming someone is an
attempt to prevent the person from behaving in a way
that embarrasses us. The act of making art exposes a
society to itself. Art brings things to light. It illuminates us.
It sheds light on our lingering darkness. It casts a
beam into our heart of our own darkness, and says, See,
the child is made to feel shame for bringing shame
to the family. But did the child bring shame. No,
the child brought shameful things to light the family. Shame
predated and caused the child's distress. This is a really
interesting one and something that I struggle with a lot
with my own family, because my family thinks I'm the problem, right.
They think I'm the problem because I talk about the
horrible shit that's gone on. What they don't realize is
like the perpetrator is the problem, the person who caused
all of these who the person who did all this
horrible shit is the problem. It's not me. I'm just
the one talking about it, talking about it openly, talking
about it freely, because I think that, you know, especially
when in family systems, there are bad things that have happened,
Like you know, there's different levels of bad. But it
could be like Dad had an affair with the secretary
and my brother's only my half brother or dad or
you know, whatever it is, Grandpa's abusive sexually and physically
and verbally and whatever. You know, Like, whatever it is,
whatever you're bringing to light, your family is always going
to make you feel like you're the problem because they
don't want to metabolize how horrific it is that they
live in a family with such with such flaws. But
that's the thing about shame. And Brene Brown talks about
shame better than anyone. If you haven't listened to her
ted talk on shame, you need to, because she talks
about shame and when you push it down, how it
metastas that is into as cancer, you know, like it
turns into something much worse because it's pushed down. And
if we just gave it the platform to express itself,
it wouldn't be so big and scary and it wouldn't
eat away at our bodies, souls and minds. Right, So
shame in the sense of art is it's similar. Right,
So if we are newer artists and we get a
bad review or someone critiques us or says something nasty,
that can be the thing that makes us not want
to make any more art. Or somebody says something that
you're like, I knew that about myself the whole time.
I knew I was a stupid whore and I shouldn't
open my mouth. And my stand up's good if you
listen to it without the volume on, Like, I knew
all those things to be true, and those can sit
in our heart and soul and keep us from creating more.
But what you have to understand about critics and people
that are saying that those are oftentimes repressed artists, right,
and they're trying to put you down because they themselves
are down. Once you understand that, all of the feedback
in the world can't hurt you, you know, especially if
it's nasty, and you know, to be clear, oh, this
is something a phenomenon that happens, and it has happened
to me before. Like once you get near the finish line,
you start to freak out. Right, once the painting's almost done,
you're like, oh, you know what, we don't need to
finish this. I did the exercise. We're good. Once the
book is almost done, you get near the end and
you're like, I don't think I need to tell this
story anymore. Once you know, for me, A perfect example
was my first stand up special from hode Housewife when
I put that out. Before I put that out the
two months before I put that out, I literally had
to have my manager and agent and everyone talked me
off the fucking ledge because I said, I don't need
to put this out anymore because it's not my reality
and it's not my truth. I was in the process
of getting a divorce. The whole special was about being married,
and I wanted to shelf it and they're like, you
did it, just put it out. Who cares. It's the
thing that blew my career up. I'm so grateful I
put it out, and thank god I didn't listen to
that little voice inside of my head because that little
voice inside of my head was trying to keep me
from experiencing success. And truly, it's trying to keep you
from experiencing shame and embarrassment and feeling a failure, right,
But like also it does keep you from experiencing success,
So just be really really careful with that. And also
another thing to be really clear about is not all
criticism is bad. Some criticism, you know, if it's from
the right person, if it's from a mentor if it's
from somebody, a professional in the field who has a
ton of experience and can tell you how to do
this thing better, easier, quicker, faster, whatever, with the same
success rate. Listen. You have to listen to the people
around you that are good and good They have goodwill,
good intentions, and they want the best for you. Because
then their criticism isn't It's not this horrible, painful thing.
It's just criticism, right, And a little criticism can be
good because it can push you in a direction and
get you to where you want to go faster. Okay,
we learn that when our art reveals a secret of
the human soul, those watching it may try to shame
us for making it. I experienced this a lot. You
guys might experience this too. I don't know what sort
of artistic journeys you're going to go on, So I
experience this a lot because a lot of the subject
matter that I talk about is very dark and a
lot of and a lot of it's taboo. I talk
about suicide, I talk about rape, I talk about abortions.
I talk about things that society generally likes to tiptoe
around or skirt away from, so people get very angry,
and they want to make you feel so ashamed that
you dare to speak of these things. And it's so
funny as a society, how they really, really really can
still try and push you down, even if they're important
conversations or things that should be brought to light, or
you know, anything like that. I just think it's it's
a really interesting group collective human behavior of trying to
shame people that have the audacity to speak the truth. So,
whether you're writing or painting, or you know what, doing sculptures,
whatever art you're doing, if anything is you know, ever
gonna make anyone uncomfortable by looking at it, just be prepared,
be prepared for the onslaught of shamers. But just know
that those people are just not They're not okay in
their own bones. They're not okay in their own skin
enough to confront the uncomfortable things that exist in this world.
It has nothing to do with you, Okay. So here's
the thing. At these times when people start to shame you,
you can't. You have to be very firm with yourself
and not pick up the first doubt. We simply cannot
allow the first negative thinking to take hold, taking the
first doubt is like picking up the first drink for
an alcoholic. Once in our system, the doubt will take
another doubt and another. Because the antidote for shame is
self love and self praise. This is what you need
to do. You need to when a doubt creeps in
or someone says something horrible, you have to say, I'm
good enough, I am brave, I am trying. Since when
did it become lame to try? Since when I don't
know this person, I don't know this faceless bot on
the internet, you know, saying horrible shit about me. You
don't need to give into it. It's like, you know,
you just can't take the first out. You need to
learn how to deal with criticism. And there's some steps
here in this chapter that you need to do. There's
a bit on detective worth. There's there's some in this
chapter about growth. So growth is a ratic forward movement,
two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be
very gentle with yourself. Okay, God helps those who help themselves.
If you do one nice thing a day for yourself,
God will do two more. You need to experiment with
solitude and quiet time, check in with yourself. See how
you're feeling. Take care of your inner artists, take care
of your inner child. Make sure you do your homework
for this week. I hope you guys are all doing
your morning pages. I've been doing my morning pages. I've
also been doing my artist date this week. I did
like it's not a color by number, but Jonathan Adler
did this collab with Michael's where you can go buy
some of his art and pay, and so that's what
I've been up to this week, just painting a little
bit and it's nice to just it's like again, it's
another form of meditation. It's just you know, I'm not
beaming with joy, but I am just quiet and I'm
focused and I am I'm in the zone. So I
hope you guys are in the zone. I'm so proud
of you guys for doing this work with me. I
love you so much. If you have any questions, DM
the Talk and Schmidt page. My other page gets way
too many dms for me to even see. DM me
if you need me. I love you so much and
I'll see you next week. Bestie's okay. Bye,