Speaker 1: Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
Speaker 1: movies and psychoanalyze them. My name is Brittany Brownfield and
Speaker 1: I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by Ben Stover,
Speaker 1: individual therapist, Hannah Espinozo marriage and family therapists. We're all
Speaker 1: licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists, who practice
Speaker 1: out of Chicago. Even though we are licensed mental health professionals,
Speaker 1: this podcast is purely for entertainment purposes and to fulfill
Speaker 1: our love of dissecting pop culture and all forms.
Speaker 2: Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
Speaker 2: we aren't your therapist.
Speaker 1: If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
Speaker 1: a local mental health provider. Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone.
Speaker 1: For our last episode of twenty twenty five, we were
Speaker 1: talking about a Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens classic. Specifically, though
Speaker 1: we will be discussing map It's Christmas Carol, which in
Speaker 1: my opinion, is the best adaptation of a Christmas Carol.
Speaker 3: I don't know what you two think of. What are
Speaker 3: your two? Well?
Speaker 1: Do you guys have different opinions about what's the best
Speaker 1: adaptation of a Christmas Carol.
Speaker 3: We'll get that out of the way.
Speaker 2: Best her favorite's a different discussion. Favorite Muppets exactly best.
Speaker 2: I think George C. Scott did it best. But okay,
Speaker 2: fair best and favorite. This is classic and it's gold.
Speaker 1: This is the only version that I really love and
Speaker 1: I've never watched another version and I never will.
Speaker 3: We watched Scrooge yesterday. Yeah, but that's.
Speaker 1: Different because it's Bill Murray.
Speaker 3: That feels different. It's more of a retelling. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: I'll give you that.
Speaker 1: Okay, but I think most people know the plot of
Speaker 1: a Christmas Carol, but if you don't, it's about a
Speaker 1: miserly old man named Ebenezer Scrooge who has no friends,
Speaker 1: who is a I don't know, busy this man, what
Speaker 1: will we call him?
Speaker 2: He's a lender?
Speaker 3: A lender?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, Yeah, he's like a loan shark type and
Speaker 1: he's taken a lot of money from people. He doesn't
Speaker 1: give a shit about anybody, He overworks his employees, doesn't
Speaker 1: care about Christmas, and he gets visited by three ghosts
Speaker 1: on Christmas Night to teach him that basically money isn't
Speaker 1: everything and he needs to turn his shit around. If
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to go to hell like his ex
Speaker 1: partner and friend Jacob Marley.
Speaker 2: So in this episode we're going to be covering emotional neglect,
Speaker 2: attachment wounds, and values before we get into treatment and
Speaker 2: final thoughts.
Speaker 1: Just like always so, Ebeneezer is a classic character, even
Speaker 1: being called like a scrooge or saying bahumbug, and he
Speaker 1: is sort of a parody of a guy that is
Speaker 1: a miser. I mean that's like the classic word right
Speaker 1: for him is someone who is just not just rich,
Speaker 1: but super tight with their money.
Speaker 3: He won't turn the heat on in.
Speaker 1: His place, but he also went in the lights on
Speaker 1: or used something like he was doing stuff in the dark.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he doesn't care about it.
Speaker 2: He lives at Marley's place. Oh yeah, he doesn't even
Speaker 2: have his own house anymore. He lives in his dead
Speaker 2: partner's house so he doesn't have to pay for it.
Speaker 3: Well, damn, that's worse than I thought.
Speaker 2: And still won't use heat or really barely uses his
Speaker 2: chamber stick.
Speaker 3: Oh God, would Kurda define that for the class?
Speaker 2: A chamber stick a candle with a little brass ring
Speaker 2: as a holder.
Speaker 1: Oh, I thought you were referring to something associated with
Speaker 1: a chamber pot. No, like something you use maybe like
Speaker 1: a stick to break up your poop.
Speaker 2: No, a chamberstick is a candle holder, you know, because
Speaker 2: they used candles to keep fighting. Familiar candlestick or candle
Speaker 2: chamber stick collection.
Speaker 3: Oh fancy.
Speaker 2: So it's been forefront of my mind. Also watching The
Speaker 2: Frozen a lot, and they use them in there too.
Speaker 3: Okay, gotcha, gotcha didn't realize.
Speaker 2: Which is more or less set in the same time period,
Speaker 2: so makes sense.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So he is a man who pinches pennies to the max,
Speaker 1: like he even though he has a ton of money,
Speaker 1: he is choosing to live as if he almost has none,
Speaker 1: and he treats money as like a very scarce commodity.
Speaker 1: He had no generosity in his spirit, like he wants
Speaker 1: his Bob Cratchett, his like secondhand man to work on Christmas.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to give money to the orphans, the
Speaker 1: people collecting money for orphans. He just doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: care about anyone else and seems to value money over everything.
Speaker 1: And that's the guy we meet at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the story. When I think about Ebenezer, also think about
Speaker 1: him as just like hoarding, like he's just hoarding all
Speaker 1: of his money and hoarding all of his resources and
Speaker 1: just keeping them really tight to him. He won't he
Speaker 1: won't spend money in anything or anyone because he just
Speaker 1: has to have all of it to.
Speaker 2: Himself, and he won't even enjoy it.
Speaker 3: No, he doesn't enjoy it. He seems.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like miser literally means a miserable fuck.
Speaker 3: Like he's a miserable fuck. Yeah, he's miserable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty much exactly means. And it's very clear
Speaker 2: that Ebenezer is the now classic definition of this miserable
Speaker 2: old person who humbug humbug doesn't like anyone or anything.
Speaker 2: But really that gruph exterior is just something he's locked
Speaker 2: into to keep other people locked out and to keep
Speaker 2: himself locked in. It does not reflect who he truly is,
Speaker 2: and it shows pretty quick into the story that he's
Speaker 2: not actually got such a frozen heart as he likes
Speaker 2: to portray.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, he's definitely some one that is acting as
Speaker 1: if this is also the life that they want. And
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is he does have this
Speaker 1: very gregarious, kind seeming nephew who wants to involve him,
Speaker 1: wants to kind of get him out, Like you can
Speaker 1: see moments where, even like with Bob Kraujet, like moments
Speaker 1: where it seems like the community would take him in,
Speaker 1: like would open themselves up to him, but he has
Speaker 1: gotten so deep into what you're bringing up in like
Speaker 1: this protective persona that he is constantly rejecting and pushing away, and.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, well and also something.
Speaker 1: People do do which is over identifying with what keeps them,
Speaker 1: what they think keeps them safe, like I like being
Speaker 1: by myself. I don't even care about Christmas. Overdoing it
Speaker 1: with this part of their personality.
Speaker 2: It's a part. I mean, I think people are more
Speaker 2: or less to understand. Yeah, what a part is, We've
Speaker 2: described it pretty well. I mean I think this isn't
Speaker 2: a component of his personality. He's developed as a defense
Speaker 2: to keep himself as painfree as possible.
Speaker 1: And we see right away because obviously because we watch
Speaker 1: the Muppets movie. Though I'm sure we'll reference other parts
Speaker 1: of the story from other adaptations because it's such a big, well,
Speaker 1: it's such a ubiquitous story that everybody seems to know,
Speaker 1: similar to when we talk about the Grinch.
Speaker 2: And conveniently, because of Hollywood, money. It's in the public
Speaker 2: domain now. Oh, so they don't have to pay royalty fees.
Speaker 3: So I could make my own version of Christmas Carol.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure you could.
Speaker 3: Wow. I mean I won't, but it's nice to know.
Speaker 3: But I could.
Speaker 1: But we see right away in this version of the
Speaker 1: story when the ghosts of Christmas Past comes, which spooks me,
Speaker 1: the gross of Christmas past scary in this version of
Speaker 1: the story.
Speaker 2: Oh, that puppet is creepy, ooky, spooky.
Speaker 1: I don't like it. Definitely haunted me as a child,
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable. Wow, really, because I feel like the first
Speaker 1: ghost is like, well, whatever ghost because of the little
Speaker 1: kid head.
Speaker 3: No, it's like it doesn't exist in the real world.
Speaker 3: I mean, which I guess is the point.
Speaker 2: It looks very ethereal.
Speaker 3: Creeps Oh, I see.
Speaker 2: Okay, because it looks ethereal, or because the way the
Speaker 2: face moves. Because the way the face moves is creepy.
Speaker 2: This puppet is a little I really both.
Speaker 1: This is definitely a feeling that comes from my childhood,
Speaker 1: when I was probably watching it and being like what,
Speaker 1: I don't like it, Like, I couldn't contextualize it. It
Speaker 1: just gave me the weirds and so I still have
Speaker 1: that feeling when I see it. But this ghost to
Speaker 1: show Ebenezer right away. Like the first image we get
Speaker 1: of him as a kid is being at boarding school,
Speaker 1: I assume, and he's there at Christmas time. It seems
Speaker 1: like most of the other kids, if not all the
Speaker 1: other kids have gone home for holiday break, and he's
Speaker 1: sitting by himself in the classroom doing work, doing school work.
Speaker 2: And that's the first time we see a part appear
Speaker 2: in this movie. Because Scrooge is still accessing that memory
Speaker 2: and locking into like, well, it's quieter and it gives
Speaker 2: you the opportunity to do more work. He will not
Speaker 2: admit to himself still that that Mettmory pained him, but
Speaker 2: the veil cracks not long after that, and he's like,
Speaker 2: please don't show him anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, when he said, it's the best, it's a
Speaker 1: good opportunity to get work done because he's by himself,
Speaker 1: And I was like, yikes, you can very much hear
Speaker 1: how that's a story he started telling himself around that
Speaker 1: time to deal with the situation, because you're right, like
Speaker 1: this the sad circumstance, which is that's horrible.
Speaker 3: I mean, when we talk about.
Speaker 1: An idea of emotional neglect, like leaving your kid at
Speaker 1: the school over the holidays, choosing to do that.
Speaker 3: We don't know why.
Speaker 1: I mean, this movie, this version doesn't give us a
Speaker 1: lot of details about his backstory.
Speaker 2: This version sure doesn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we're to assume that he, Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: just like a really lonely kid who had to spend
Speaker 1: time by himself. And instead of acknowledging the truth of that,
Speaker 1: he's trying to, yeah, make it into something else.
Speaker 2: Well, I was using it to retell his story and
Speaker 2: use that as the reason why he was successful. All
Speaker 2: these other people went home, and I learned how to focus,
Speaker 2: and I learned how to ignore frivolous human interactions and
Speaker 2: connections and just focus on money and facts and learning,
Speaker 2: which very clearly becomes untrue. And we see is untrue,
Speaker 2: because he lights right up when we start seeing other
Speaker 2: parts of his story. But I won't skip ahead just yet.
Speaker 1: No, And I think you're naming there is something we
Speaker 1: see now, like in real life when people talk about
Speaker 1: their stories, Like when I hear successful people talk about
Speaker 1: their childhoods and stuff, and I can hear what we're
Speaker 1: talking about, like them doing that too. Which is, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really good for me that my parents did
Speaker 1: this to me or that to me, because it taught
Speaker 1: me to be ruthless or to really work hard. The
Speaker 1: way that we try to make meaning out of bad
Speaker 1: stuff that happens to us, which isn't on its face
Speaker 1: the worst thing to do, obviously, like there is something
Speaker 1: there to putting meaning into.
Speaker 3: Hardships we've gone through.
Speaker 1: But the way that we're talking about it is where
Speaker 1: you go too far in the other direction and you
Speaker 1: over do it and you get really attached you and
Speaker 1: you almost like moralize the circumstance you were in, like
Speaker 1: it was good for me, and so it was good
Speaker 1: that I went through that because it allows it to
Speaker 1: make it into something virtuous versus just something painful.
Speaker 2: Which is exactly what parts do. We'll start creating a
Speaker 2: version of the story that separates the version we allow
Speaker 2: to exist, or the version that needs to exist, from
Speaker 2: the guey soft core underneath that represents all of us
Speaker 2: where we can get hurt and do and in his
Speaker 2: case did get hurt, get very got very hurt, and
Speaker 2: you know, they make the point of showing us it's
Speaker 2: weird by having the other kids present in that story
Speaker 2: asking him you're not going home. He never goes home.
Speaker 3: He always stays.
Speaker 2: And I think one of them more or less is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's getting left. And other versions of the story go
Speaker 2: through the interactions between him and his sister who also
Speaker 2: goes to I believe goes to the school, or the
Speaker 2: sister talks his father into letting him come home for Christmas,
Speaker 2: not this one and not several of them, but eventually
Speaker 2: she talks the dad into letting him come home, and
Speaker 2: he's very very attached to her, but not to his
Speaker 2: parents and his sisters. The mother of said nephew you
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, which is why that nephew is still connected
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 1: Also maybe why that nephew is such a happy person.
Speaker 1: If his mom had a different experience growing up than
Speaker 1: Ebenezer dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his sister would have gotten love and connection and
Speaker 2: seen as valuable, which would kind of build into the
Speaker 2: attachment wounds. If we don't have anything else to say,
Speaker 2: I'm emotional neglect at this moment.
Speaker 1: I think the only thing I want to say about
Speaker 1: this part of Ebenezer's experience is that when you have
Speaker 1: something that happens to you repeatedly, over and over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. That story that you're telling yourself
Speaker 1: only gets stronger and only and feels like truth instead
Speaker 1: of a part of a story that you were experiencing.
Speaker 1: So because this isn't like he got left one Christmas,
Speaker 1: he got left every Christmas after he went to boarding school.
Speaker 1: And having experiences like that also makes it really hard
Speaker 1: for a person to hold hope that things will be
Speaker 1: different or that things can be different, because well, look
Speaker 1: what happened over the last I don't know, we want
Speaker 1: to say maybe decade roughly, probably because he was at
Speaker 1: least he was maybe like five or six when he
Speaker 1: went in probably and I'm guessing is probably somewhere around
Speaker 1: seventeen when he graduates. When he graduates, does that seem accurate?
Speaker 3: Well, I would say I think.
Speaker 2: Totally a bit younger at this point in time.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think in Britain, because I watch a lot
Speaker 1: of British shows, I think the age that they get
Speaker 1: sent to boarding school Nowish is like eightish.
Speaker 3: But if his family were.
Speaker 1: Just not wanting to deal with him, which it sounds like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, they sent him to boarding school as soon
Speaker 1: as you literally could, so I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 1: he was going to boarding school at five sex, even
Speaker 1: though I don't think.
Speaker 2: That's common, and it's clear he's formed this idea, and
Speaker 2: you know, the ghost of Christmas Past walks us through
Speaker 2: all of these various points in time where we see
Speaker 2: the foundation of emotional neglect that he sees the world
Speaker 2: through repeat itself. There's moments where you see young Ebenezer
Speaker 2: connecting to people and engaging with people, but you also
Speaker 2: simultaneously hear him praise the teacher that taught him the
Speaker 2: most important lessons he learned, which were to kind of
Speaker 2: you know, focus and focus on finance and that to
Speaker 2: lean into what you're good at.
Speaker 1: And he also which I've caught for the maybe the
Speaker 1: first time ever seen this movie, like I don't know
Speaker 1: two thousand times, probably I know all the dialogue, which
Speaker 1: I practiced today because I was like, do you really
Speaker 1: know of the dialogue? I know all of it. Is
Speaker 1: that when the right at the end of the school
Speaker 1: scene when Ebenezer is the oldest going to see him
Speaker 1: at the school and the teacher tells him don't tip
Speaker 1: the driver. So also I think he's also getting shitty information,
Speaker 1: like shitty info from these men that he puts on
Speaker 1: a pedestal, right, because we also know that Jacob and
Speaker 1: what is the other brother's.
Speaker 2: Name in this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's two of them.
Speaker 2: There are two of them, but that's only because they
Speaker 2: put the two critics in it.
Speaker 1: There's oh yeah, that's what be surprised of. Their names
Speaker 1: are Jacob and Morley Marley.
Speaker 2: No, it's like Jacob and Eric or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, then it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: But also that also shows like when you're taught lessons
Speaker 1: by people, and you're only taught lessons by one people,
Speaker 1: one person, versus having like a mother and a father
Speaker 1: and aunts and uncles and all of that kind of shit,
Speaker 1: Like he only has this one teacher and then these
Speaker 1: other two men that he idolizes because they're so rich.
Speaker 3: So like he also is.
Speaker 1: Getting a lot of impact from the outside world telling
Speaker 1: him that money is the most important thing. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you want to talk about attachment, we attach to
Speaker 1: whatever we can as we're growing up. So if he's
Speaker 1: being kept at school, then his only relationships with adults
Speaker 1: at least are with teachers, and so then the version
Speaker 1: of him that's like, well, I want to have value,
Speaker 1: I want to please an authority figure of some sort,
Speaker 1: instead of it being like through my parents, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna really please my professors and do really well at
Speaker 1: school and listen to everything they say. And yet, because
Speaker 1: we still have to get like our values and our
Speaker 1: social skills and our life lessons. And unfortunately he's getting
Speaker 1: them from these adults that are only or these muppets
Speaker 1: that are.
Speaker 3: Only he's an eagle, Sam Diego.
Speaker 1: Yes, that are only focusing on one part of his life,
Speaker 1: which is the education part, and then for the business part.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, he's getting this message almost like religious
Speaker 1: in nature from Sam the Eagle of you know, business
Speaker 1: is powerful, it's good that you're doing this, and yet
Speaker 1: and be a miser, pinch your pennies as much as
Speaker 1: you can.
Speaker 3: So those are like the life lessons he's left with.
Speaker 1: Because it feels like even when he meets Fuzzy Wig, right,
Speaker 1: which we see in all the versions that I've the
Speaker 1: other versions that I've seen all have he's kind of
Speaker 1: like a pushover businessman. He's kind of really really really lax,
Speaker 1: really chill, and you can tell that Ebenezer feels like
Speaker 1: he's kind of silly as compared to the other people
Speaker 1: that I think he's held in esteem, which I think
Speaker 1: makes sense for him to feel that way based on
Speaker 1: the seriousness with which business is talked about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he calls him like, what a what a soft
Speaker 2: feather of a man he was or something. In this version,
Speaker 2: he always Fezziwig has always shown even though Scrooge has
Speaker 2: great fondness of him, and the memories really start to
Speaker 2: light up. There's Wiggs and we always had this Christmas party.
Speaker 2: You can see he clearly, you know, had such fondness
Speaker 2: for this, but yet it was a gentler kinder man. Interesting,
Speaker 2: that's who you attach, you because we can't help but
Speaker 2: attach and want to please somebody that's a parental figure.
Speaker 2: But we will stop trying to get that approval from
Speaker 2: people who won't give it. But that doesn't mean we'll
Speaker 2: stop trying to get it.
Speaker 1: Well. The inclusion of fazzi Wig or Fezziwig as a
Speaker 1: character in a Christmas story is an interesting one in
Speaker 1: that his first seems like his first substantial job out
Speaker 1: of school is with someone that is so contrary to
Speaker 1: the values that he was raised in at school, and
Speaker 1: that it doesn't have an impact on him the way
Speaker 1: that you would hope it would, you know, and like,
Speaker 1: you're right that instead of him seeing the contrasting positives
Speaker 1: of Fezziwig's lifestyle, he instead is still trying to like
Speaker 1: jam it into his value system. Like even as he's
Speaker 1: walking up in that scene and he's like, this party
Speaker 1: is really expensive, and fezzy Wig was like, what the
Speaker 1: fuck's your problem?
Speaker 3: Did like, it's first mess.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be generous, have fun, drink, dance, who cares.
Speaker 1: And you can kind of see how for Ebenezer it is.
Speaker 3: Not.
Speaker 1: It's just not how he views the world, which I
Speaker 1: think just goes to show more of that how much
Speaker 1: he values this way of thinking, in this way of being,
Speaker 1: and it is like he met someone who's like an
Speaker 1: extremely different religion and he can't square it, and so
Speaker 1: it doesn't really go into him. Like I think now
Speaker 1: at is older, he can view it as the memory
Speaker 1: with more perspective, but in the moment he can't reconcile
Speaker 1: how different this lifestyle is than the lifestyle he's been
Speaker 1: raised to believe to be true.
Speaker 2: And this movie kind of glossed it over because it's
Speaker 2: a kid's movie. But usually that Fezywig scene is a
Speaker 2: little bit longer in different versions of this, So that's
Speaker 2: one of the longer scenes. And whyat songer is because
Speaker 2: we start seeing the contrasting present Scrooge looking back on
Speaker 2: it with kind of old man eyes versus the younger
Speaker 2: Scrooge who can't quite release himself and is really starting
Speaker 2: to develop this more wooden version of himself before Bell
Speaker 2: brings it out of him. And that's the thing that
Speaker 2: kind of draws him out. His friends eventually can get
Speaker 2: it out of him. You see as Scrooge ages as
Speaker 2: we get into each different flashback, that that leaves him
Speaker 2: just a little bit more each time.
Speaker 1: And I think it's it's a really interesting story of
Speaker 1: how you can have these moments of turning it around.
Speaker 1: And it's not as easy as maybe we want to
Speaker 1: believe it is as easy as like having one good
Speaker 1: I mean it can be. You know, one person can
Speaker 1: enter your life and change it radically. And I think
Speaker 1: what we're seeing with Ebenezer and this is maybe more
Speaker 1: going into the attachment wounds.
Speaker 3: Part of it is.
Speaker 1: When you have gone through the emotional glect he's gone
Speaker 1: through growing up. Even though he's trying to emotionally remove
Speaker 1: himself from that, there's still that imprint of it, right,
Speaker 1: And I think for him what that looks like is
Speaker 1: I don't even know if he could let someone and well,
Speaker 1: I guess he can't, like Fezziwig or Bell actually get
Speaker 1: close to him. Like it even makes me wonder what
Speaker 1: the Bell thing, how much of it is I can't
Speaker 1: buy a house, which I think it's a big part
Speaker 1: of it. And then it also makes me curious if
Speaker 1: that's also a good excuse to keep her distant from him,
Speaker 1: Like I wonder if there's a part of him that
Speaker 1: does struggle with accepting. I'm sure this is true, accepting
Speaker 1: that kind of love, accepting such like positive, optimistic, you know,
Speaker 1: comfort love attention from both of those people would be
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable for someone like Scrooge, even though you would
Speaker 1: think it would do the opposite.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break here and we'll be back in
Speaker 2: a few so. Attachment wounds is a concept that gets
Speaker 2: talked about amongst therapists a whole lot and definitely has
Speaker 2: been something that Attachment trauma has been a folk of
Speaker 2: quite a few trainings that I've been taking over the
Speaker 2: past few years, and has been one of the things
Speaker 2: that's more entering the zeitgeist of our professional but I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's transcending into the social zitegeist as
Speaker 2: general of attachmounds. I know that we've been trying to
Speaker 2: understand that everyone's a narcissist, but no.
Speaker 1: The girls on the internet, and by the girls, I
Speaker 1: mean people in general love to talk about avoidant attachment,
Speaker 1: anxious attachment. It's become it has become very.
Speaker 2: Buzzy attachment styles.
Speaker 1: Attachment styles even use the word attachment. So even us
Speaker 1: talking about attachment wounds, we probably need to be very
Speaker 1: clear about what we mean when we say that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because attachment wounds can help define what attachment style is.
Speaker 2: But I've seen many videos of everybody trying to understand
Speaker 2: what everybody's attachment style is and what that means, and
Speaker 2: it's become the next version of the Myers Briggs that
Speaker 2: drives me fucking nuts. But what attachment wounds are are
Speaker 2: things that happen to us over the course of our
Speaker 2: life that make us feel like we've gotten punished for
Speaker 2: showing the vulnerable side of ourself to someone else, and
Speaker 2: that can impact how readily, how willingly, how quickly, and
Speaker 2: how firmly we will attach to someone else. And as
Speaker 2: you can see from good old Ebenezer here, if you
Speaker 2: continually show someone that everything but them has no value,
Speaker 2: this attachment wound will work both ways. Is that one
Speaker 2: way is that they will show a great difficulty in
Speaker 2: connecting to other people because they will have a lot
Speaker 2: of trust issues. But also they will attach quite firmly
Speaker 2: to something else. An idea concept e Scurage. His attachment
Speaker 2: is not to people at all, but to success in business,
Speaker 2: being the smartest, richest guy. That is all he cares about.
Speaker 2: Other people's things are none of his concern. They're humbug
Speaker 2: and particularly Christmas. Scrooge doesn't hate everyone and everything else.
Speaker 2: He especially hates Christmas because while he watches everyone else
Speaker 2: attach and feel warm and comfortable, he realizes even more
Speaker 2: so how alone and unwanted he is. So he struggles
Speaker 2: with attachment wounds. So when we look at an attachment wound,
Speaker 2: it's an understanding that those happen at specific moments. It
Speaker 2: can be a breakup, it can be trying to appeal
Speaker 2: for the love of a parent. It can be little things.
Speaker 2: It can be, like Hannah said, loose little things that
Speaker 2: happen over and over and over again, where you're appealing
Speaker 2: for a parent to care about you when you fall
Speaker 2: and they don't even look at you. Or your spouse
Speaker 2: or partner is looking for someone to care that they
Speaker 2: at a hard day and you can't pull yourself out
Speaker 2: of the TV or your phone. Eventually they start seeking
Speaker 2: that connection from somewhere or someone else. Understanding these wounds
Speaker 2: happen all the time in these little moments, and they
Speaker 2: build and sometimes they're really big ones. But it's through
Speaker 2: these we can through the balance of these wounds. And
Speaker 2: I don't know what the opposite word I would want
Speaker 2: to say is of an attachment wound, but the positive
Speaker 2: attachment moments we have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think a Gottmann term could even
Speaker 1: be like bits of connection, like moments in which connection
Speaker 1: is reciprocated and rewarded.
Speaker 2: Right, and it forms a stronger bond. The things we
Speaker 2: get a stronger bond to, we will start appealing to more.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately for Scrooge, for him that was money and business success,
Speaker 2: but understanding that attachment style is formed out of the
Speaker 2: interaction of both of these. Not just like my mommy
Speaker 2: loved me. No, it's much more than that.
Speaker 1: And I think he's an interesting case of because he
Speaker 1: would be someone where I could see people arguing, even him,
Speaker 1: arguing that that doesn't exist for him because he maybe
Speaker 1: he got sent to a nice school and he always
Speaker 1: had his needs met, his literal needs met. And I
Speaker 1: think that can also be what keeps people from recognizing
Speaker 1: something like this within themselves, even especially if it's connected
Speaker 1: to their childhood or their relationship to their parents, is
Speaker 1: that it's just confusing to be like, well, I did
Speaker 1: get everything I needed technically, so I can't have a
Speaker 1: problem like this, Or I wasn't abused, so I shouldn't
Speaker 1: be having an issue like this, And so it's good
Speaker 1: to recognize that it can be more nuanced than that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, because it matters. It matters how it makes
Speaker 1: you feel, It matters how the other person responds, It
Speaker 1: matters how we perceive the interaction going. Like I think
Speaker 1: we can see Ebenezer, like we already kind of talked
Speaker 1: about him kind of having to shift his reality to
Speaker 1: make it make sense for himself. Right, he has to
Speaker 1: talk about it in this really specific way of no,
Speaker 1: like it was fine, it wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 2: Well more so it made me the man I am today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly like I wouldn't be who I was
Speaker 1: if I didn't have to go through all this hard shit, right,
Speaker 1: And I think, and that's very and it makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense that people come to that conclusion. And
Speaker 1: it also makes it really hard to be flexible around
Speaker 1: things that we actually needed and things that we really
Speaker 1: wanted and needed somebody to say or point out or
Speaker 1: support us with. And so it would make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense that any attachment that Ebenezer makes is on
Speaker 1: his terms only, which means he is not allowing himself
Speaker 1: to really be connected to anyone else because that's not
Speaker 1: safe for him.
Speaker 2: It is absolutely not. And I think as you were
Speaker 2: talking about that, it occurred to me that there's another
Speaker 2: side of the attachment thing that becomes really apparent in
Speaker 2: behavior later on. Is that we learn vicariously by watching
Speaker 2: our caregivers and our parents. But one of the things
Speaker 2: that people don't often connect to is that we learn
Speaker 2: whatever is adaptive. We don't just learn whatever is societally approvable.
Speaker 2: And when you think about Scrooge, he is more closely
Speaker 2: mirroring the behavior of his father, who showed him that
Speaker 2: you can successfully lock out somebody you don't like, and
Speaker 2: that if you take on that behavior, you can be stronger,
Speaker 2: even though it hurt Young Scrooge. Old Scrooge who forms
Speaker 2: this narrative just made me the man I am today.
Speaker 2: All these beatings and ignoring and being left alone, and
Speaker 2: I learned to be smart and I learned to survive. No,
Speaker 2: that's adapting. But he also took on the knowledge and
Speaker 2: then later mirrored and mimicked it by acting exactly like
Speaker 2: the person that hurt him, and that shows up in
Speaker 2: behavior all the time.
Speaker 3: I mean, have you seen the new Frankenstein movie?
Speaker 2: Not yet?
Speaker 1: It's freaking awesome. You need to see it on the
Speaker 1: biggest TV you have. It's so but it is like
Speaker 1: exactly what you just said happens, which is I have
Speaker 1: I have become my father that I hate and that
Speaker 1: I've been doing all this to spite, but yet I
Speaker 1: become him.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I'll watch it on my biggest TV upstairs
Speaker 2: one of these days. The biggest TV I have is
Speaker 2: pretty good and I would like to see it. Looks
Speaker 2: like it's good.
Speaker 1: And I think, as we're talking about this, what it's
Speaker 1: bringing to mind for me is I worked with a
Speaker 1: lot of kids that have been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder,
Speaker 1: which is when a kid has been abused neglected, But
Speaker 1: really a lot of it is more about that you
Speaker 1: didn't have a solid attachment to someone, either because you
Speaker 1: were bounced around to different caregivers, or your caregivers didn't
Speaker 1: take care of you well and neglected do in some
Speaker 1: capacity or mistreated you in some capacity, or even if
Speaker 1: you had a caregiver that maybe was around, but they
Speaker 1: were depressed and so you didn't get the emotional attachment
Speaker 1: stuff that we need to get from a caregiver in
Speaker 1: our life. And when you were talking earlierhand about hoarding,
Speaker 1: that also connects to this for me in that when
Speaker 1: I worked with kids that had reactive attachment disorder or
Speaker 1: RAD for short, they would do a lot of hoarding
Speaker 1: behaviors because they didn't feel like they were in control.
Speaker 1: They knew that people, the adults in their lives didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily want to or were able to take care of them.
Speaker 1: And so a way that you survive, like you guys
Speaker 1: are both talking about, like the ways that you adapt
Speaker 1: and survive is by hoarding resources when they are available
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 3: So kids with RAD will hoard food and.
Speaker 1: Not fun food, Like I've had kids with RAD that
Speaker 1: would like hoard like cake mix, like the box powder
Speaker 1: that's not good by itself, or like cans of vegetables.
Speaker 1: Like it's not like kids that are stealing candy bars
Speaker 1: and cookies.
Speaker 3: It's just truly like they're seeing.
Speaker 1: Food and they're like, I don't know when I will
Speaker 1: see food again, so I'm gonna take it. And that
Speaker 1: can be when they've even lived with a secure caregiver
Speaker 1: for a while, those behaviors will show up. And so
Speaker 1: I think, like another version of this is what we're
Speaker 1: seeing with Ebenezer, which is I can control how much
Speaker 1: money I make. I've learned how to do that, Like
Speaker 1: I develop the skills to do that with the few
Speaker 1: caregivers slash teachers I've had, And it does make you
Speaker 1: feel safer because it doesn't involve anybody else. And so
Speaker 1: when I've worked with kids that have more of the
Speaker 1: inhibited RAD type, which is him in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: which is I don't really get close to anybody. I
Speaker 1: don't let anyone get close to me. I act like
Speaker 1: everyone can go fuck themselves, and I will get what
Speaker 1: I can and I can get it, and I will
Speaker 1: keep it for myself, I wouldn't be shocked if maybe
Speaker 1: when Ebenezer was a kid, and if I worked with him,
Speaker 1: I maybe could have given him a RAD diagnosis based
Speaker 1: on him circumstances. But I think, yeah, this hoarding of
Speaker 1: wealth can be a definite version of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure it can be. And as you watch
Speaker 2: him in this old age before the spirit's intervened, think
Speaker 2: about how many losses he's had and how much further
Speaker 2: into that he retreats each time. You see it as
Speaker 2: a kid, but he's also when he's old. He's lost
Speaker 2: his sister, he's lost his business partner and friend, he's
Speaker 2: lost Belle. Who is left besides cratch It that he
Speaker 2: attaches to and the way he attaches to cratch It
Speaker 2: is pretty rad.
Speaker 1: And his nephew too, And he has someone in his
Speaker 1: life who is like truly open arms to him, right,
Speaker 1: like you can do he can do whatever to his nephew,
Speaker 1: and his nephew is still like, yo, you can come
Speaker 1: to Christmas.
Speaker 3: We'll always have.
Speaker 2: You and his cnicle gun when you're not here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And his.
Speaker 1: Total removal response rejection response is yeah, a form of RAD.
Speaker 1: I've worked with plenty of kids that they get adopt
Speaker 1: did or they get into a caregiver situation with a
Speaker 1: secure caregiver for years sometimes before I worked with them,
Speaker 1: and they would still be very rejecting, like don't I
Speaker 1: don't want to be hugged, I don't want to be touched,
Speaker 1: I don't want to don't tell me you love me.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you I love you. And
Speaker 1: when I work with the parents, I would encourage the
Speaker 1: parents to chill the fuck out. And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is, don't put pressure on the kid. They
Speaker 1: need time. Maybe it's going to be years and years
Speaker 1: and years, if at all, to really know if they
Speaker 1: can be vulnerable to you, Because that's really what it
Speaker 1: is is can I am I ever going to be
Speaker 1: safe enough, safe enough to trust enough to be squishy
Speaker 1: and vulnerable to you? Because it's not just whether Ebenezer
Speaker 1: feels love for his nephew or love for Crashed, or
Speaker 1: love who for whoever, for Bell, which.
Speaker 2: He does in his way, but the more the culture
Speaker 2: he gets, the more he rejects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not that's much whether he's capable of feeling
Speaker 1: love for them. It's whether he feels like it won't
Speaker 1: kill him emotionally literally maybe even to be open about
Speaker 1: that love. That's really what can feel almost intolerably uncomfortable
Speaker 1: and unsafe when someone has has deep attachment wounds. Is
Speaker 1: then me asking them to open up to someone is
Speaker 1: truly like I'm saying, I want you to rip your
Speaker 1: heart out, and I want to hold it in your hands,
Speaker 1: and I want you to put it in someone else's
Speaker 1: hands who you just have to trust. Isn't gonna like
Speaker 1: take that heart and just shove it between their fists
Speaker 1: and squeeze it and then shove it onto the ground
Speaker 1: and step on it. Because that's what his parents did.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, Like, that's where these woundes
Speaker 1: come from. Is you had someone when you were a kid.
Speaker 1: They did not hold your heart the way they should
Speaker 1: have if they did it all. And so how are
Speaker 1: you to trust that anyone else could do that?
Speaker 3: Why would you do that?
Speaker 2: And his nephew, at least the book implies. It never
Speaker 2: clearly states, but his sister died young, but it seems
Speaker 2: to imply she died, possibly in childbirth, So yet another
Speaker 2: extra layer of complication of accepting that nephew. Because yet again,
Speaker 2: something new and good can come into your life and
Speaker 2: take away from you. So should you trust it? Should
Speaker 2: you let it in? You might want to let it
Speaker 2: in because it's the last piece, but also, nah, that's
Speaker 2: going to get me hurt, so you stay frozen out.
Speaker 2: When I worked with kids, so there's one kid in
Speaker 2: particular who was absolutely head read. And remember he eventually
Speaker 2: got adopted, and it was a struggle at first, and
Speaker 2: you'd see like he was really attaching hard to this
Speaker 2: person that was adopting him. And then once the adoptions
Speaker 2: started getting closer, behaviors turned up almost as a test,
Speaker 2: will you love me at my worst?
Speaker 1: No, they will test the absolute shit out of you.
Speaker 1: Which is also what I used to have to coach
Speaker 1: parents through, is that this kid is going to test
Speaker 1: and your job is to stay calm and consistent with
Speaker 1: them and just keep saying like, no matter what happens,
Speaker 1: I'm not going anywhere. Do you wonder as you're saying that,
Speaker 1: do you wonder with Bell if some of what he
Speaker 1: was doing was like unconscious testing of her.
Speaker 2: I think he was probably at that point a little
Speaker 2: too young to recognize it, but he may have been.
Speaker 2: I think some part of it was. But I think
Speaker 2: at that point he's so locked into the value that
Speaker 2: he had that the only way he felt he could
Speaker 2: be good enough was to lean into the strength side
Speaker 2: of it. So it's kind of like a missing a
Speaker 2: forest for the trees kind of thing. Hey, I need
Speaker 2: to have business needs to be doing well enough that
Speaker 2: I can support you and you can marry me, so
Speaker 2: you don't leave me. That I have to be good enough,
Speaker 2: and you have to see me it's good enough, and
Speaker 2: I have to see me it's good enough, and that
Speaker 2: the only way your silly feelings can't be in those
Speaker 2: are silly. It has to be I have to have
Speaker 2: enough business sense that it makes sense on the ledger
Speaker 2: for us to be married and me to be a
Speaker 2: good husband, where she just wants him to be present
Speaker 2: and there and him, you know, attend to her. And
Speaker 2: I think at some point she tells him that she
Speaker 2: feels like she's become like a golden idol or something,
Speaker 2: or that business has become a golden idol. There's some
Speaker 2: mention of that, like really elevating how she feels like
Speaker 2: she is left behind and not seen anymore and that's
Speaker 2: why she left.
Speaker 1: And what you're saying is is so real in the
Speaker 1: sense that when you grow up in this situation Ebenezer
Speaker 1: did with his parents. Also, it wouldn't ever occur to
Speaker 1: him that someone would just want to be with him
Speaker 1: because they love him. Like the idea of Belle not
Speaker 1: caring about the money stuff as much, that he doesn't
Speaker 1: have to demonstrate his value via money because she already
Speaker 1: believes that he is value is like another thing that
Speaker 1: would be hitting him like an alien belief.
Speaker 3: So it does maybe wonder too with him.
Speaker 1: Another way to think of it is maybe it really
Speaker 1: did surprise him that it would push her away that
Speaker 1: he has to wait untill he is enough money. Like
Speaker 1: I could also see because of how bought in he
Speaker 1: is to that as a value that of course she
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to get married either until I have enough money.
Speaker 3: And so we're both on the same page about that.
Speaker 1: So I also wonder if maybe it was quite shocking
Speaker 1: for him that that would actually break them apart instead
Speaker 1: of something that she would have like an inherent understanding of.
Speaker 2: I think that you're right that I think it does
Speaker 2: surprise him. But he also doesn't do anything to say no,
Speaker 2: wait stop, he doesn't.
Speaker 1: That's the rat of it all too, Like he's like
Speaker 1: well see there you go. Of course, on how he
Speaker 1: just walks away in that scene, right, she's singing and
Speaker 1: he's just like, Okay, well I guess this ain't gonna work,
Speaker 1: so he just walks away.
Speaker 2: It's like.
Speaker 1: Having again that awareness, like he doesn't have awareness about
Speaker 1: what even being in the middle relationally is like, right,
Speaker 1: he's only experienced the extremes, right, So when you've only
Speaker 1: experienced the extremes the kind of natural experiences that we have,
Speaker 1: seems so they're too comfortable.
Speaker 3: They're too they don't have.
Speaker 1: The chaos attached to them the way that their other
Speaker 1: experiences have. So that's a part of why they feel
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable. You mean, like kind of when we talk
Speaker 1: about like the window of tolerance in regards to trauma. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that when you're used to, Yeah, when we were used
Speaker 1: to really elevated situations calm. It's like, i mean, like
Speaker 1: this is stereotype, right, And I'm sure we've all had
Speaker 1: this experience with clients where they have a trauma background
Speaker 1: and they're finally in a relationship that's Jill, and they
Speaker 1: can't stop talking about how boring it is it else
Speaker 1: and how there's something wrong with the fact that it's
Speaker 1: so boring and that they need to break up with
Speaker 1: them because it's not working, And I'll be like, are
Speaker 1: we bored or are we just like not so hyper
Speaker 1: aroused in a traumatized way that too.
Speaker 2: I think there's real struggle with people who have been
Speaker 2: in really chaotic situations that they only look for and
Speaker 2: register the extremes but don't understand the in betweens having,
Speaker 2: like normal relationships go through ups and downs, and sometimes
Speaker 2: you're a little more connected, sometimes you're a little less,
Speaker 2: but it's okay. And they're looking for that like complete
Speaker 2: toxic love situation because all the love they know and
Speaker 2: understand was toxic and came with severe ties consequences at
Speaker 2: the end of those toxic periods, Like if look at Scrooge,
Speaker 2: Scrooge only learned well, if I connect emotionally and assign
Speaker 2: emotional value to these things, I'm gonna get the extreme
Speaker 2: reaction of being abandoned and my family's gonna see me
Speaker 2: as a pain in the ass, and that my dad
Speaker 2: hates me. So if I attached him, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: get hurt. But if I attach fully to money, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna get praise, and that's gonna be really good. So
Speaker 2: he struggles to recognize how hard he's shifting into that
Speaker 2: I love money and I need to do everything because
Speaker 2: money is the only way that I actually feel good enough,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't connect. In the minute Bell shows him yep, gonna,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go, he doesn't pursue her because he's just
Speaker 2: gonna get hurt, and he leans even further into money.
Speaker 1: So sad and I feel like with I think it's
Speaker 1: also interesting that with Ebenezer, he the first relationship that
Speaker 1: he tries to repair after having the miraculous dreams and
Speaker 1: all that piece is a relationship that he's only connected
Speaker 1: through business. With Bob Cratchittt is the first person that
Speaker 1: he can even consider to repair a relationship with because
Speaker 1: the attachment to Bob is through is as his employee,
Speaker 1: and that he is almost I don't want to say
Speaker 1: guaranteed a positive response, but more guaranteed than maybe Bell,
Speaker 1: than maybe with Belle.
Speaker 2: You have a very good point. The Cratches the second
Speaker 2: person he goes to. He goes to the nephew first,
Speaker 2: but he does way more work with Bob, which I
Speaker 2: think lends very strongly to your point. I think he
Speaker 2: always connects with the nephew first because he goes to
Speaker 2: the family bond, but he doesn't stay very long. He
Speaker 2: just kind of he kind of like hits and miss
Speaker 2: unlets his nephew know, like, Hey, I am going to
Speaker 2: come see you on Christmas. But then also he dips out.
Speaker 2: And I know in this version, like the nephew shows
Speaker 2: up at Cratchit's and they have like a big party.
Speaker 2: I don't think that happens in the other ones.
Speaker 1: But you're right in that with Bob, he can use
Speaker 1: the language that he's already comfortable speaking, Like the way
Speaker 1: that he shows Bob love and to repair the relationship
Speaker 1: is I will give you a raise, I'll pay off
Speaker 1: your house, and like I'll help tiny Tim get what
Speaker 1: he needs, like I'll spoil you monetarily as a way
Speaker 1: to become attached with each other, Which isn't I mean,
Speaker 1: like that's it's the yeah, you're right hand, It's like
Speaker 1: the safest way. And I don't think it's like the
Speaker 1: worst thing. I think it's just him having to walk
Speaker 1: before he walk before he runs.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's a bad thing at all.
Speaker 1: I think, in fact, it would be an example of
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about with clients about out how
Speaker 1: we instead of trying to correct something with someone new,
Speaker 1: why don't we choose a person that we've known for
Speaker 1: a while and share something with them first to see
Speaker 1: if there's a better outcome, right, Because people always want
Speaker 1: to try it out on someone new. They want to
Speaker 1: wait until they have this new experience so that they
Speaker 1: can show out these new ideas and awareness that they
Speaker 1: now have of themselves. And that's when boundary setting can
Speaker 1: really fail when we try to do it with someone
Speaker 1: new versus with someone that we already have a connection.
Speaker 2: With and end up love bombing and not recognizing that
Speaker 2: someone else might look at that and go WHOA way
Speaker 2: too much, way too soon. Yeah, and we can throw
Speaker 2: the other person who's trying to do this miraculous recovery
Speaker 2: of all the things that have always been wrong with me,
Speaker 2: which is just such an ADHD thing to do. But
Speaker 2: these people that go through this exact thing you're talking
Speaker 2: about the consequence of that can be people who have
Speaker 2: not encountered what is happening here, going like, ah way
Speaker 2: too much. What we see in that cycle is that
Speaker 2: this person is reaching out for connection and they're showing
Speaker 2: a bit for connection, and it's getting rejected because they're
Speaker 2: too much and they're showing too much, and they're trying
Speaker 2: to fix and place way too much emotional weight on
Speaker 2: this relationship, and the other person's like, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: figure out if I like hanging out with you. This
Speaker 2: is a little bit, a little bit early. And there's
Speaker 2: a line from Supertroopers. I don't know if I've said
Speaker 2: on this show before, but I do love Supertroopers. It
Speaker 2: makes me laugh. Is desperation is a stinky cologne, And man,
Speaker 2: is that not more true in a relationship and you
Speaker 2: feel somebody trying to do that thing. Hannah talk about
Speaker 2: it like I'm gonna fix everything it's ever been wrong
Speaker 2: because I learned this new skill and now I'm gonna
Speaker 2: fix everything. And everything with you is just gonna work out,
Speaker 2: and you're gonna be the person in my dreams. And
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure that's what the movie with Joseph Gordon
Speaker 2: Levin that we did was about five Hundred Days of
Speaker 2: the Summer kind of about that thing, and like, no, you
Speaker 2: fell in love with the idea of a person, not
Speaker 2: the person.
Speaker 1: And it's also a shortcut, right, I'm gonna start over
Speaker 1: fresh with someone new, instead of having to do the
Speaker 1: more vulnerable work, which is go to someone that already
Speaker 1: has a history with me and I have a reputation
Speaker 1: with them, and I have to see the true vulnerability
Speaker 1: is like showing up and then seeing if things can
Speaker 1: turn around. Is like we're like I was kind of
Speaker 1: talking about, like opening up my heart a little bit
Speaker 1: and seeing if they can receive it or not, and
Speaker 1: tolerating that experience, which is much more brutal than or
Speaker 1: feels much more brutal than going to someone new who
Speaker 1: has no idea of who you are that you can
Speaker 1: create a new idea with. And his nephew speaks through
Speaker 1: the language of love, you know. His nephew is very
Speaker 1: like warm and fuzzy, and that is really uncomfortable. It's
Speaker 1: making me think of because Hannah and I watched Scrooge
Speaker 1: last night, which is the Bill Murray retelling of this story.
Speaker 1: And actually Bill Murray, I think, does a really good job,
Speaker 1: maybe the best job, of conveying this thing we're talking
Speaker 1: about right now.
Speaker 3: But in his story it's his brother, not his nephew.
Speaker 1: And the way that Bill Murray looks so not distraught,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you have a better word for it, Hannah.
Speaker 1: But he looks so emotionally uncomfortable around his younger brother,
Speaker 1: and not because he doesn't like his brother. You can
Speaker 1: actually tell that the more he likes his brother, the
Speaker 1: more he's like, I gotta get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 1: It's like he can't tolerate being around his brother because
Speaker 1: of all the warm and fuzzy energy around his brother,
Speaker 1: and how he doesn't know how to deal with that,
Speaker 1: and so he just doesn't even try, and he just
Speaker 1: like skips out. And I think that's a really realistic
Speaker 1: version of a really realistic portrayal of what we're discussing,
Speaker 1: which is how when you aren't used to these kind
Speaker 1: of things being around it.
Speaker 3: Will make you uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: And it's good when you work with clients to name
Speaker 1: that so that they're prepared for that and so they
Speaker 1: don't misunderstand the discomfort for like I'm doing the wrong
Speaker 1: thing or this isn't right, or however they might very
Speaker 1: understandably miss construe or identify the discomfort they're feeling. That
Speaker 1: It is one of the many things in therapy where
Speaker 1: you have the opposite reaction that then you think you
Speaker 1: would have, and so it is our duty as therapist
Speaker 1: to give people a heads up so that they don't
Speaker 1: free can leave, which I can understand if they did,
Speaker 1: and that they have to sit in the discomfort of
Speaker 1: the squishiness of the vulnerability. But yeah, his nephew, even
Speaker 1: though you think he'd be like the safest option, in
Speaker 1: some ways, I think will be the hardest for him.
Speaker 2: I'll definitely be the hardest, agree, because there's real emotional
Speaker 2: connection there and real work to do that's going to
Speaker 2: go far beyond just that employer relationship, no doubt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's a good point too that with cratch It,
Speaker 1: they have that natural boundary, yeah, of employer and employee,
Speaker 1: and so he can use that to his advantage, whether.
Speaker 3: He's and I don't.
Speaker 1: And I'll say I don't think he's doing that consciously,
Speaker 1: but that there is safety with that natural boundary, yep.
Speaker 2: And he can yet again step in and use the
Speaker 2: money that he's learned to control and stabilize the world
Speaker 2: with to control and stabilize that relationship. Cratch It will
Speaker 2: not leave songs he pays improperly and you know, keeps
Speaker 2: this little boy from dying of whatever disease he has,
Speaker 2: and then he can have a pseudo Marley to have
Speaker 2: a connection with, but just better. But he doesn't have
Speaker 2: to reinvent the wheel because it gets real clear that
Speaker 2: the relationship with the nephew is gonna it's going to
Speaker 2: take some more time because also the nephew is not
Speaker 2: going to know that Scrooge saw him with the ghost
Speaker 2: of Christmas present, going well, it's not a rat and
Speaker 2: it's not a cockroach. What's something else that nobody wants
Speaker 2: at Christmas? Oh Scrooge, Oh, that's going to take some
Speaker 2: time for him to repair. Even though the movie shows
Speaker 2: us he's recognizing like, oh, yeah, I'm kind of an asshole.
Speaker 2: Huh Yeah, that's not the way emotions work. You might
Speaker 2: have context for it in that moment when you're vulnerable
Speaker 2: and learning, but the more protective voice and parts of
Speaker 2: you were going to show up later and be like, ah,
Speaker 2: this motherfucker inviting you to dinner is the same one
Speaker 2: that said you were less desirable than a rat and
Speaker 2: a cockroach, Right, that's who him. M M humbug.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break care and we'll be
Speaker 1: right back to talk about values and the divine intervention
Speaker 1: aspect of this story, all right, So what made me
Speaker 1: think of that, Ben, is what you said about the
Speaker 1: context in which he receives Scrooge that information. Is that
Speaker 1: Something that does propel the story obviously is the fact
Speaker 1: that he's having a wild experience that is forcing him
Speaker 1: to confront his past trauma and attachment wounds, but also
Speaker 1: his values. How that reaches through to all the parts
Speaker 1: of his life, both past, present and the future.
Speaker 2: It sure does. And it's real clear that it's not
Speaker 2: just a bit of bad meat or a piece of
Speaker 2: rotten cheese. I know that, right, But instead it's a
Speaker 2: divine intervention with the intent to make a change on
Speaker 2: a profoundly lost man, to keep him from getting more lost,
Speaker 2: and sort of the story kind of implies that the
Speaker 2: divine intervention is coming from Marley or someone releasing Marlee
Speaker 2: to go talk to him as the only voice that
Speaker 2: will reach him. But the first person that comes to
Speaker 2: talk to him from beyond the grave is Jacob Marley.
Speaker 2: All in chains with chain to the money, which is
Speaker 2: a really powerful vision that's also been enduring of like
Speaker 2: carrying around all these heavy chains, chain to the things,
Speaker 2: change to your sins and being. He kind of implied
Speaker 2: he's not necessarily stuck in hell, but stuck in purgatory
Speaker 2: with these chains to carry around until he can pay
Speaker 2: for his sins. If ever and warning Scrooge, hey, I'm
Speaker 2: still stuck here. You have time. I don't. But we
Speaker 2: see these values that he's developed start to crack after
Speaker 2: each of these spirits start showing him his own life.
Speaker 2: Moment after moment, he's forced to consider, how did I
Speaker 2: form these beliefs and do I still believe them? Value
Speaker 2: formation is a pretty powerful component of how we see
Speaker 2: and understand the world, and if you talk about things
Speaker 2: through a cognitive behavioral lens, they're the deepest and most
Speaker 2: difficult layer to challenge and change. You can't challenge and
Speaker 2: change them without a very big event happening. Something's got
Speaker 2: to really make you reconsider how you view things, or
Speaker 2: you won't because these are the things that I've been taught.
Speaker 2: They're tried and true. When we think about Scrooge, what
Speaker 2: do we see his values as well?
Speaker 1: I would say he values money, obviously, but I would
Speaker 1: say underneath money what he values is independence, hard work,
Speaker 1: hyper individualism. You know, even earlier when they were talking
Speaker 1: about the two guys come in to get donations and
Speaker 1: he's like, why don't they work hard or something like that.
Speaker 1: He's like, he is espousing this idea that, yeah, bootstrap
Speaker 1: shit like the meritocracy lie that our country loves, which
Speaker 1: is that if you just worked hard enough that you
Speaker 1: would be fine, which in his story I guess technically
Speaker 1: is true in that he just devoted his whole self
Speaker 1: to making money and he is idolizing that about himself. Right,
Speaker 1: So I think he would say that he values hard work,
Speaker 1: and he values being financially literate and being I don't
Speaker 1: think he would say cheap or whatever they call him.
Speaker 1: I think he would just say like responsible, frugal, you know,
Speaker 1: not concerned with frivolities. And underneath that value though that
Speaker 1: I don't think he would identify, is how that's connected
Speaker 1: to his feelings of like safety, security, control, power, all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff that makes him feel like he's
Speaker 1: in control.
Speaker 3: Because that's also why not to get on a whole tangent.
Speaker 1: All those people are so invested in this idea of
Speaker 1: meritocracy in America, and people will I mean, I get
Speaker 1: into arguments sometimes with people in my life about the
Speaker 1: idea of meritocracy, and I think it's It goes back
Speaker 1: to this idea that it is. It is a safe,
Speaker 1: comforting idea for a lot of people that if you
Speaker 1: just work hard, you can kind of have total control
Speaker 1: over your future and over what happens to you. And
Speaker 1: so I think he's in that trap.
Speaker 2: Well, Scrooge is from the aristocracy already. I mean, yes,
Speaker 2: he's in that trap, but he's in that trap of
Speaker 2: trying to apply it to other people while not recognizing
Speaker 2: he's above.
Speaker 3: It exactly because he's exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's basically That's all Dickens's work is examining
Speaker 2: the Victorian England and how fucking ridiculous it is that
Speaker 2: the rich just prey on the poor. That's David Copperfield.
Speaker 2: All these stories that are about that, and all of
Speaker 2: them have that lesson in there. It's clear that Dickens
Speaker 2: was trying to kind of create that message of like hey, hey, hey, no, like,
Speaker 2: are you serious right now, Oliver Twist, Like we're you
Speaker 2: see where these kids are living in a workhouse. Who's
Speaker 2: making money off that? It ain't them. They're going to
Speaker 2: be living this kind of life, working in workhouses their
Speaker 2: entire life unless something magical happens, some big intervention, and
Speaker 2: Scrooge is absolutely lampooning that idea that the meritocracy is real. Like, no,
Speaker 2: if you were born rich and you had all these advantages,
Speaker 2: then you can expect to be rich. But get out
Speaker 2: of here rich men thinking that all these poor people
Speaker 2: can just work really hard like I did. Like you
Speaker 2: mean at that private, fancy boarding school you went to
Speaker 2: and weren't in the workhouses that one. That's where you
Speaker 2: learned all these things from people your parents paid to
Speaker 2: teach them, do.
Speaker 1: You, And that's where he gets challenged values wise. I
Speaker 1: think with like being shown Bob Cratchett, right, is that
Speaker 1: that's also someone who works really hard, who works his
Speaker 1: fucking ass off, because Scrooge makes him work his ass off,
Speaker 1: and yet he lives in a shithole. He can't get
Speaker 1: his kid proper care that they are not doing well. Nope, financially,
Speaker 1: even though that guy is working his absolute ass off
Speaker 1: and really trying to be everything that Scrooge wants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he won't even pay for him to be warm
Speaker 2: at work, which means he's probable to get sick and
Speaker 2: die himself, and then his family will land in the poorhouse.
Speaker 2: It's really quite a pointed message of no, rich Man,
Speaker 2: it is not quite what you think. And yet people,
Speaker 2: I love that story, and yet again it's the fucking point.
Speaker 1: And it's very difficult to, like you were saying, challenge
Speaker 1: our values like we I mean, that's why I think
Speaker 1: in his story, he has like the most bananas experience
Speaker 1: where it really blows the doors off his brain right,
Speaker 1: like he's being visited by ghosts, Like even the introduction
Speaker 1: of Marley, I'm sure is trying to like soften his
Speaker 1: brain for the experience he's about to have, like we're
Speaker 1: going to crack this bitch open because it's about to.
Speaker 3: Get blown to smotherings.
Speaker 1: And so we do see people have big value shifts
Speaker 1: when something bananas happens in their lives, like in your
Speaker 1: death experience or a big loss of some sort, and
Speaker 1: they feel ready to challenge the idea that what they
Speaker 1: have been devoted to, the ideas that they've really cashed
Speaker 1: in on, maybe they're not really it. And that takes
Speaker 1: a lot of humility and introspection, like you really have
Speaker 1: to be willing to break down the way that you've lived.
Speaker 1: I mean, in the religious aspect, they call deconstructing. I
Speaker 1: think that term is from when people leave evangelical Christianity specifically,
Speaker 1: that's the way I've heard it be used, but I
Speaker 1: think it's an apt term, like you have to deconstruct
Speaker 1: yourself and your identity and what you believe to be
Speaker 1: true about the world from like the studs up perhaps,
Speaker 1: and he would have to do that, and that's a
Speaker 1: really hard thing for most people to do, and it's
Speaker 1: a very confronting thing to do.
Speaker 2: Even on a non religious and non values thing. Once
Speaker 2: you started talking about deconstruction, American history class started occurring
Speaker 2: in my head again, which you know, seems a little
Speaker 2: relevant right now as we talk about a British movie.
Speaker 2: But the post war period, for the Civil War, the reconstruction,
Speaker 2: the post Civil War period was called the reconstruction. And
Speaker 2: it wasn't called the reconstruction just because we were literally
Speaker 2: rebuilding things after the war. It was reconstructing the ideas
Speaker 2: and values of what our nation was to be because
Speaker 2: slavery was now ended. And yes, as from our you know,
Speaker 2: two movies ago, we did we know it got a
Speaker 2: little complicated and the change was a little resisted, and
Speaker 2: not just a little, a lot resisted, and a lot
Speaker 2: of horrible things still happened with Jim Crow laws and segregation.
Speaker 2: Things went through an intense period of revamping what the
Speaker 2: entire world is going to look like. And it took
Speaker 2: war to do that, to go like, hey, you can't
Speaker 2: keep slaves anymore. You just can't. Your economy cannot be
Speaker 2: based on that. We can't keep doing that. And the North,
Speaker 2: you're lying if you think you weren't benefiting because you
Speaker 2: were buying goods from the South, So like we're all
Speaker 2: kind of participating in and if we're not, well, slaver
Speaker 2: is not legal. And North you're still buying shit from
Speaker 2: the South. You're benefiting on that. And they had to
Speaker 2: recorrect all those values that were formed. People must go
Speaker 2: deconstruct and reconstruct. That's what happens during military training. That
Speaker 2: happens work training is what happens a lot of things.
Speaker 2: You have to go through periods where something big has
Speaker 2: to change in your life that forces you to confront
Speaker 2: the old habits, old beliefs, old ways of doing things
Speaker 2: and make them invalid and incompatible with the present way
Speaker 2: of living. And that's what happens to Scrooge is he's
Speaker 2: forced to deconstruct, Well, these are the ways we'd be safe.
Speaker 2: This is the way I keep black people locked out,
Speaker 2: and this is the way I'm actually better. And each
Speaker 2: moment we see if Scrooge's life makes us see that
Speaker 2: he's in fact lying to himself and he's miserable. He
Speaker 2: won't even give Bob enough coal to stay warm, and
Speaker 2: he won't even give himself enough light to see and
Speaker 2: read the books that he espouses to love, and he
Speaker 2: only leads work when's dark. What enrichment does he have?
Speaker 2: But would he ever have seen it that way had
Speaker 2: Spirits not come and gave him a transcendent experience?
Speaker 1: And for him, it's having that repeated confronting experience which
Speaker 1: sometimes we as therapist provide, unfortunately for our clients, but
Speaker 1: fortunately where it is shown to you that you actually
Speaker 1: do care about the things or value the things that
Speaker 1: you say that you don't. So he does care about
Speaker 1: what people say about him. He does care when they
Speaker 1: see both the moment where he gets made fun of
Speaker 1: at his nephews, but also that he cares when he
Speaker 1: gets spoken in a loving way at Bob Cratchett's house.
Speaker 1: And he cares a lot of I mean, he has
Speaker 1: like a full mental breakdown when he realizes that no
Speaker 1: one gives a shit at his funeral, that no one
Speaker 1: cares that he died. People are talking mad shit about him.
Speaker 1: They just want his stuff. And it's really challenging for
Speaker 1: him that you say you value money, finances, your capital,
Speaker 1: and yet when people after your death are only talking
Speaker 1: about your capital as what they care about with you,
Speaker 1: like those pigs saying like who gets his money? It
Speaker 1: doesn't feel good. It actually really upsets you. So be real,
Speaker 1: you know, in that moment, death without talking is saying,
Speaker 1: be real, you do care. And so what you're saying
Speaker 1: you value and what your actions are connecting to value
Speaker 1: wise isn't really hitting what you actually actually actually emotionally
Speaker 1: care about.
Speaker 2: It is not And it takes yeah, busting that wide
Speaker 2: open to go like this, this is actually what you
Speaker 2: care about, Like yeah, you notice he didn't have any
Speaker 2: reaction to he knew whose jewelry that was, he knew
Speaker 2: whose bed curtains those where he's just dissociating from it
Speaker 2: and likese he's overloaded, But he didn't show the strong
Speaker 2: reaction to that. He showed the strong reaction to being
Speaker 2: seen as disposable, not mattering, and the kiddie versions of
Speaker 2: this outside of mister Magoo's Christmas Carol really kind of
Speaker 2: gloss over the robbers, like this version like showed like
Speaker 2: the spider and the creepy things, but you get kind
Speaker 2: of caught up in that it's a creepy spider and
Speaker 2: those things. To really understand what's happening here is these
Speaker 2: are people that like go in and scavenged the houses
Speaker 2: of rich people that died when they think no one's looking,
Speaker 2: and they're really like scummy and gross, and they're breaking
Speaker 2: down his value into what trinkets they can steal that
Speaker 2: might be worth a dollar. Yikes, You're being scavenged by
Speaker 2: buzzards and crows. That's what the imagery is here. And
Speaker 2: him seeing that he didn't react, and he never does
Speaker 2: to his things. He's never like, those are my things,
Speaker 2: that's my thing. It pains him to see he's discarded,
Speaker 2: not that he has no more value, and that's I
Speaker 2: think where you start to see a real shift. But man,
Speaker 2: this movie kind of let him off the hook light.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if Mickey's Christmas Carolyn and cover
Speaker 2: that part, do they. Mister mcgoo's is the one that
Speaker 2: sticks out in my head most it's like I've never even.
Speaker 3: Heard of mister Chas either, no ever. I mean I
Speaker 3: know who mister is obviously.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, there's like a song from that because we
Speaker 2: watched that one a lot. There's like a song from
Speaker 2: that that sticks out of my head of him like
Speaker 2: singing about money ringle jingle coins out of they tingle.
Speaker 2: Oh how I love the sound and like the Burglar
Speaker 2: people basically sing another version of that song that really lands,
Speaker 2: but they're really creepy and gross, kind of like a
Speaker 2: master of the House kind of song like m And.
Speaker 1: If I was working with Ebenezer, Let's say in this hypothetical,
Speaker 1: I'm working with Ebenezer, he's had this experience. He comes
Speaker 1: and maybe hasn't changed yet, but he comes to my
Speaker 1: office and he's like, can you believe these people talking
Speaker 1: about me after my death and that they just wanted
Speaker 1: this thing that I have in this thing that I
Speaker 1: have and a strategy I could see me taking with
Speaker 1: someone like him is but isn't that what you But
Speaker 1: isn't that good?
Speaker 3: That's what you care about, right, Like, that's what you.
Speaker 1: Wanted to represent, is a bunch of stuff, and so
Speaker 1: you should feel good that that's what people care about,
Speaker 1: and that's what they want from you after your death.
Speaker 1: It's a bit of spitting in his soup, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like leaning into his way of thinking as
Speaker 1: a way to challenge him, because then he would have
Speaker 1: to make the opposite argument to me in that back
Speaker 1: and forth, and that would have to require him challenging himself.
Speaker 1: Well no, I mean yeah, but I want them to like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, but you didn't say but you don't
Speaker 1: care about that, right, You're not fostering that. You don't
Speaker 1: care what people say about you. You don't care about
Speaker 1: having a good impression on people. That's not you, right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, And like I said, that's a technique that
Speaker 1: then puts.
Speaker 3: The ball back in your court as the client.
Speaker 1: You'd be like, oh, well, either I have to agree
Speaker 1: with what you're saying, which I don't want to, or
Speaker 1: I have to truly make an argument against my own
Speaker 1: verbalized beliefs. And that's why they say like bad therapists
Speaker 1: give advice, And what they mean by that in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways is.
Speaker 3: As a therapist, I'm not supposed to tell you the
Speaker 3: stuff like this.
Speaker 1: Necessarily, we ask you questions that then provoke you to
Speaker 1: tell yourself, which is harder to ignore.
Speaker 2: Right, and let you sit in it. A good therapist
Speaker 2: knows that exact moment when you get the aha, or
Speaker 2: you see someone's eyes going back and forth and then
Speaker 2: like changing their facial expression, their affecting Oh wait, you
Speaker 2: mean it's oh hah, that sucks. You learn to just
Speaker 2: go hmm, say nothing in those moments, let them sit
Speaker 2: in it.
Speaker 1: I think that that is a really helpful strategy to
Speaker 1: use with clients because them hearing it from themselves and
Speaker 1: experiencing it for themselves and being able to make that
Speaker 1: connection after we I'd let them sit in it or
Speaker 1: help them make that connection, right, because that's a big
Speaker 1: part of what we do. We help piece together the
Speaker 1: parts of the story that you don't can't always see
Speaker 1: clearly because you're the one who's in the story.
Speaker 3: And I think that.
Speaker 1: When I feel like I really see him change, and
Speaker 1: maybe it's just in this version, when I feel it,
Speaker 1: really feel like I see him changes when he's with
Speaker 1: the Ghost of Christmas Present, and that the Ghost of
Speaker 1: Christmas Present, which is the one that mostly you guys
Speaker 1: are talking about where he kind of gets to experience
Speaker 1: the love and the joy of Christmas with this one
Speaker 1: ghost who was really excited about Christmas and wants to
Speaker 1: celebrate and wants to show him all the beautiful things
Speaker 1: about it. And I feel like that's one of those
Speaker 1: parts where Ebenezer really feels like he's really like he
Speaker 1: really didn't know.
Speaker 3: What Christmas was about.
Speaker 1: He didn't really know what all that what all the
Speaker 1: big deal is about it, And so in this moment
Speaker 1: with where he's getting shown what it could be like,
Speaker 1: he actually gets a chance to realize that this could
Speaker 1: happen for him, this could be something that he could experience.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's a part where I really
Speaker 1: notice him being more open and more flexible with this
Speaker 1: ghost versus the other ghost.
Speaker 3: I think it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it challenges this idea too of what do I
Speaker 1: actually want versus what am I engaging in behaviorally? And
Speaker 1: that's how I usually will do it with clients in
Speaker 1: normal therapy. Is like with Ebenezer and him being like,
Speaker 1: well I like that, and I like that, and I
Speaker 1: don't like that, and then I'll be like, okay, but
Speaker 1: but how is the way you're living behaviorally connecting to
Speaker 1: or going away from those values? And that's what you
Speaker 1: really have to take responsibility for a lot of times
Speaker 1: we do walk around in this life. I think Ebenezer's
Speaker 1: not a great example of this, actually, because he does
Speaker 1: have stated values and he is living by those values.
Speaker 3: In the version of him that we see for most
Speaker 3: of the movie.
Speaker 1: But I'd say with most people though that I work with,
Speaker 1: who we have these kind of discussions, they are saying
Speaker 1: one thing and doing another. Well, I really value my family,
Speaker 1: but I spend eighty two hundred hours a week at work. Well,
Speaker 1: then you don't value your family. You value work or
Speaker 1: money or whatever it is that you're getting out of
Speaker 1: that behavior.
Speaker 2: Or maybe that can jingle all the way. I'll be
Speaker 2: at your tournament, yeah, I'll see your karate.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Or maybe that is how you value family.
Speaker 1: That's how you think you're valuing family by working a ton,
Speaker 1: But is that actually getting you closer to that thing
Speaker 1: that you're wanting or what even that means to you.
Speaker 3: And one of the ways that I work.
Speaker 1: With clients about values is even just helping people have
Speaker 1: awareness of the values they're actually holding is so helpful
Speaker 1: because so often people are completely unaware that there have
Speaker 1: that awareness of oh, I'm working eighty two one hundred hours.
Speaker 1: I really don't value my family, like people don't have
Speaker 1: any awareness about the things that they value because they
Speaker 1: either go by what they've been told by their family,
Speaker 1: they go by what society is telling them. But they
Speaker 1: don't really have a buy in to the values that
Speaker 1: they should be connected to because they're behaving around all
Speaker 1: these values in reaction. So I feel like values is
Speaker 1: a place where I'll walk in to help somebody figure
Speaker 1: out what they want to do, if they want to
Speaker 1: change their career path, if they want to do something different,
Speaker 1: we do Values work to help them have some insight
Speaker 1: into the things that they actually give a fuck about
Speaker 1: versus the things that they were told to give a
Speaker 1: fuck about.
Speaker 2: Values is powerful, and it embeds early, and it's yet
Speaker 2: another idea that we reject that yet again, there are
Speaker 2: ancient wisdom, or there is ancient wisdom about it, including
Speaker 2: one that was mentioned in this book or in this movie.
Speaker 2: They showed the head of Aristotle and Plato's The Republic
Speaker 2: is Teachings from Aristotle where they cover this idea of
Speaker 2: like values formation. In order to really reform of society,
Speaker 2: you'd essentially have to make sure everyone is given the
Speaker 2: same set of values, Otherwise the values that come from
Speaker 2: their family are going to conflict with whatever values the
Speaker 2: republic needs to function ideally. And we've known that for
Speaker 2: two thousand years, and people still struggle with these concepts
Speaker 2: that we're talking about right now, like, well, I mean
Speaker 2: values are easy to change, No they're not. It takes
Speaker 2: quite the existential experience sometimes and sometimes not.
Speaker 1: Even then, I do this whole thing where I have
Speaker 1: this exercise that has twenty five values on it, and
Speaker 1: then we go through. They have to go through to
Speaker 1: decide quite important, very important, not important, don't give a shit.
Speaker 2: About and so.
Speaker 1: And once they do that, we come back to see
Speaker 1: what percentage of time do you want to be focusing
Speaker 1: on this value? So how often do you want to
Speaker 1: be focusing on this? And then we break it down
Speaker 1: to see, well, I want to be doing this once
Speaker 1: a week, I want to be doing this once a month, whatever.
Speaker 3: And so that's how I help them.
Speaker 1: Shift their behaviors towards their values by figuring out what
Speaker 1: percent of the time do you want to be engaging
Speaker 1: in this because right now it's like two percent, and
Speaker 1: you want it to be at ten. We got to
Speaker 1: get eight percent up in order to get to where
Speaker 1: you actually want it to be.
Speaker 3: And so I feel like with.
Speaker 1: Ebenezer, kind of getting all of his values shook around
Speaker 1: while he's going through this experience, I think that would
Speaker 1: definitely be something that I would want to do with
Speaker 1: him in treatment to continue helping him. Well, we are
Speaker 1: kind of sliding into treatment talk, so before we take
Speaker 1: a break and get into that more, is there anything
Speaker 1: else specifically about values we want to mention? I think
Speaker 1: the only thing I'd want to add specific to Ebenezer
Speaker 1: or someone like Ebenezer is also when you get into
Speaker 1: values work with clients, it's like is this a value?
Speaker 1: Or is this a survival mechanism? Is this a trauma response?
Speaker 1: Is it all of those things? And so for him,
Speaker 1: I don't think it would be as easy either as
Speaker 1: I don't like that I'm caring about this, I don't
Speaker 1: care about this. Instead, I think he'd also have tous
Speaker 1: discernment around like is this something?
Speaker 3: Is this a value? Or is this me trying to
Speaker 3: protect myself?
Speaker 1: I think with him, a lot of this miserly behavior
Speaker 1: is a trauma response reaction, and so he'd have to
Speaker 1: be able to tell the difference. And once we kind
Speaker 1: of identify how much of this stuff as survival strategies,
Speaker 1: what's left, how much of that is actual genuine values
Speaker 1: versus safety responses.
Speaker 2: And IFS language right would be firefighters show up to
Speaker 2: kind of be the protectors, right managers who are like
Speaker 2: the parts we keep to keep everything, and exiles are
Speaker 2: the parts of ourselves that we try to help keep
Speaker 2: under reps and don't let anybody see because there's things
Speaker 2: in there that no, no, no no. It's where the
Speaker 2: wounds are, It's where the the shame is, where the
Speaker 2: guilt is. So understanding how those three kind of work
Speaker 2: together kind of like as signs a different language to
Speaker 2: the idea you're a sign you're talking about here. That's
Speaker 2: IFS language is real specific on self managers, firefighters, and exiles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm not trained in IFS, and I do
Speaker 1: what I like about what I have learned so far
Speaker 1: about IFS is like that differentiation and how that can
Speaker 1: help even do what I'm talking about for Ebeneezer, which
Speaker 1: is like what's what in why you move the way
Speaker 1: you move and identifying mats. You can have some separation,
Speaker 1: and then I assume you can correct me. I think, Canna,
Speaker 1: you've been teaching yourself a lot of ifs, but like
Speaker 1: yourself is probably more of where your like genuine values live. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say, I would say in some ways, yeah,
Speaker 1: the self is where we hold There's these eight C words,
Speaker 1: of course, because it's therapy and because somebody had to
Speaker 1: come up with it, right, So it's you're connected to clarity, creativity, curiosity, courage.
Speaker 1: I can usually remember a couple I haven't written on
Speaker 1: a note on my desk. Do you remember the rest ben.
Speaker 2: Not off the top of my head.
Speaker 1: But the.
Speaker 2: Dick Schwartz Cward things don't mean you know. What they're
Speaker 2: all about is about flexibility. They're about adaptability, flexibility and
Speaker 2: trusting yourself and the ability to respond with all that
Speaker 2: you are comfortably versus when you're firefighter is on. That's
Speaker 2: a real limited, inflexible part that shows up to keep
Speaker 2: you safe and it's going to do whatever it has
Speaker 2: to do to peth the fire. It's not going to
Speaker 2: respond with creativity, compassion, any of those things like well
Speaker 2: maybe we can use a little bit of this and
Speaker 2: a little bit of that and maybe a little bit
Speaker 2: over here without having to show up with we are
Speaker 2: doing this right now, and that is it, because that
Speaker 2: is all that we do. And when you look at
Speaker 2: Ebenezer the you see him become all the sward functions
Speaker 2: when he's buying the turkey and he's allowing himself to laugh.
Speaker 2: He's kind of responding flexibly to everything that happens within
Speaker 2: this devices. But it's very different that you feel that
Speaker 2: firefighter step in when they're like like, oh, look and
Speaker 2: here's you at school. Nope, that made me the man
Speaker 2: I am today. We won't be looking at that any further,
Speaker 2: thank you, boop boop, because that's an exile that lives there,
Speaker 2: and the firefighters start to protect the exile, Whereas the
Speaker 2: self could look at that in a balance way like oh, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was painful, but I learned some stuff from that,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to repeat it, but like I
Speaker 2: learned about it what I should do and not do.
Speaker 1: Well, let's take a break here and move right back
Speaker 1: with treatment. So this is you know, we've only been
Speaker 1: talking about one person, so a treatment. We've kind of
Speaker 1: already been talking about what we would do with Ebeneezer,
Speaker 1: and I think something we have started alluding to is
Speaker 1: he has gone through this great intervention, this divine intervention,
Speaker 1: but in real life, I would be curious, like once
Speaker 1: the euphoria wears off of the experience, he's going to
Speaker 1: start to have to actively practice and so sometimes with clients.
Speaker 1: And this is more of like an acceptance equipment therapy technique.
Speaker 3: That involves a lot of values.
Speaker 1: Work is just like mapping out our values and using
Speaker 1: that as like a guiding star in different situations, like
Speaker 1: if I do this instead of that, is that aligning
Speaker 1: with my value or is it going against my value?
Speaker 1: As a way to stay ground in these situations where
Speaker 1: it might be hard to intellectualize that in the moment, I.
Speaker 2: Think working through these kinds of things with Scrooge is
Speaker 2: really challenge because he's going to need reinforcement of these
Speaker 2: new behaviors. Otherwise it's going to be real easy. Like
Speaker 2: you said, once the ephorio wears off, like this is
Speaker 2: going to have to become internalized to become a new value.
Speaker 2: If we don't internalize this as a new value, he's
Speaker 2: going to convince himself that he did. He either did
Speaker 2: enough as it is, and he doesn't need to repeat
Speaker 2: it like well, I mean I raise scratch its salary
Speaker 2: and like I say, merry Christmas now, so we're good.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, because it's work.
Speaker 1: To do it differently, especially no offense to him at
Speaker 1: his age, he's going to really have to actively do
Speaker 1: things differently, Like he cannot go back on autopilot for
Speaker 1: maybe the rest of his life given his age. Like
Speaker 1: every choice he's making now has to be a thoughtful one.
Speaker 2: He must be mindfully engaged to do things different much
Speaker 2: like people who are choosing to live a sober life.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure, that's what they have, Like even the
Speaker 1: Sertinity prayer is that something they have to do to
Speaker 1: practice that intentionality, Like it's always on their mind. That's
Speaker 1: why there's so much constant work with that. It's a
Speaker 1: great comparison.
Speaker 2: Well, and why the most core value of it is
Speaker 2: one day at a time.
Speaker 3: Mmmmmm.
Speaker 2: Scrooge is going to change one day at a time.
Speaker 2: We see him in this fantastical moment where a writer
Speaker 2: living in Victorian England through the Industrial Revolution was like, hey,
Speaker 2: rich people, you need do we need to scare the
Speaker 2: shit out of you to get you to change? What's
Speaker 2: what gives? What is it that's going to get you
Speaker 2: to see the reality that the rest of us see
Speaker 2: that children are working in workhouses. People are being taken
Speaker 2: advantage of, and there's halves and haves nots, and it's
Speaker 2: not this like glorious time for England where everyone is
Speaker 2: great and England is the greatest country. It's great for
Speaker 2: some of us. For others, it really sucks and maybe
Speaker 2: you need to wake the fuck up so you see
Speaker 2: it kind of energy is what you know book is about.
Speaker 2: And like the actual writing of it, which I think
Speaker 2: I've only seen done really in the George she Scott
Speaker 2: is like the ghost of Christmas Present goes hard at
Speaker 2: Scrooge and like showing him like the like these are
Speaker 2: your children that come out from his legs, and like
Speaker 2: they're like struggle in something that it's really pointed of
Speaker 2: pointing out the things you are doing are producing their nakedness,
Speaker 2: their fear, their pain, and you must stop. This bit
Speaker 2: of happiness you'll see won't exist. And it's a harder
Speaker 2: version than we usually see because normally the Ghost of
Speaker 2: Christmas Present is kept kind of jolly and happy. Every
Speaker 2: so often you see a version that goes a little
Speaker 2: more true to the book and goes hard. I think
Speaker 2: reinforcing all of this and closing off all the dissociation
Speaker 2: to all of that societal misery that Scrooge has been
Speaker 2: gleefully ignoring so he can fill his coffers and put
Speaker 2: in his little ledgers that look, I made more money
Speaker 2: today then, so I'm not failing. Helping him to hold
Speaker 2: this behavior is going to take mindfully staying present in
Speaker 2: how much he's been hoarding, how much he really holds
Speaker 2: onto and how little other people have, and how much
Speaker 2: This balance shift that he's supposed to represent could produce
Speaker 2: meaningful change if he adheres to it, and that could
Speaker 2: allow him to find this place of love and opening
Speaker 2: his heart and wallet for him, because it's the same thing,
Speaker 2: is going to have to be both components of This
Speaker 2: is going to take him a lot of work to
Speaker 2: undo that value formation we talked about earlier that he
Speaker 2: needs to be the richest and most closed off because
Speaker 2: he's going to start feeling unsafe really quick in actuality.
Speaker 2: As soon as he lets that guard down, he's going
Speaker 2: to feel unsafe, and that pullback like you mentioned with
Speaker 2: happening with kids with red who are about to be adopted,
Speaker 2: All that testing is about to need to happen, and
Speaker 2: he's he might have one day where we see this
Speaker 2: glorious turnaround. But the other days he is going to
Speaker 2: be looking at his ledger with like you spent how
Speaker 2: much on that turkey that prize turkey that you ate
Speaker 2: like four bites of how much did you spend? And
Speaker 2: he's going to get uncomfortable with it and he's going
Speaker 2: to struggle, and what he's going to need is support
Speaker 2: through existential therapy that's helping him connect to meaning of
Speaker 2: why are you doing this? What change are you trying
Speaker 2: to create? What purpose are you trying to live? Who
Speaker 2: are you? And there's a line that's mentioned over and
Speaker 2: over in this one and some of the others about
Speaker 2: living in past, as and future simultaneously. This is what
Speaker 2: we try to do in EMDR. There's three prongs if
Speaker 2: EMDR Past, Present, future, and you have to do treatment
Speaker 2: in each one of those things. You repair the holes
Speaker 2: in the past to deactivate the response in the future
Speaker 2: and make them believe that they can continue to do
Speaker 2: so through their future self. That is what needs to
Speaker 2: happen for Scrooge, and that's kind of what this film
Speaker 2: sets up, is he will live in past, present, and
Speaker 2: future as in understanding where my wounds are, how to
Speaker 2: avoid repeating them and how to become the man I
Speaker 2: want to be and make positive change in this world.
Speaker 2: So I think for Scrooge there's kind of a blend
Speaker 2: of incorporating some of the AA change policies and philosophy
Speaker 2: and also working with him on the meaning behind the
Speaker 2: changes he's being asked to do. The discomfort he's asking
Speaker 2: himself to feel as assigning a new value to that
Speaker 2: that makes it worth it to deal with the profound
Speaker 2: discomfort he's going to go through making those changes.
Speaker 1: So a part of what I would want to do
Speaker 1: with Ebeneezer, because like you've both said, one day of
Speaker 1: excitement does not heal a lifetime's worth of experiences. So
Speaker 1: and healing trauma with clients, which is what you would
Speaker 1: be doing with Eupen easier, takes time, and it takes
Speaker 1: time for lots of different reasons. And it's something that
Speaker 1: I try to talk to my clients about because everybody
Speaker 1: wants to know when are they going to feel better?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: When am I going to feel better? When am I
Speaker 1: going to stop having these thoughts? When am I going
Speaker 1: to be stopped being afraid of taking risks?
Speaker 3: When?
Speaker 1: When? When? Right? And I think that something that I
Speaker 1: want to point out is that it takes time, and
Speaker 1: a big part of that is, first we have to
Speaker 1: establish the trust between you and I, and that trust
Speaker 1: between you and I is going to take a little
Speaker 1: bit of time, especially if you've had attachment wounds, right,
Speaker 1: and so first you have to trust me, and then
Speaker 1: I have to help you trust yourself. That's a big
Speaker 1: part of what Ebenezer will need in order to get
Speaker 1: to the work that Ben and Brittany are talking about.
Speaker 1: And so that's just something that I wanted to point out.
Speaker 1: But other than that, I think what you've both suggested
Speaker 1: make a lot of sense. And he's definitely gonna need
Speaker 1: more work because throwing money at the problem is essentially
Speaker 1: what he did, and while it may feel very meaningful
Speaker 1: and very important, it doesn't didn't necessarily make for him
Speaker 1: having to create a new narrative for himself where he
Speaker 1: could be a different person. Well, there's a whole like
Speaker 1: category of social skills that he's never developed. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: he doesn't like that would be a lot of the
Speaker 1: work too, is how do I initiate.
Speaker 3: Whatever, how a bid for connection? Yes, which is right?
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, what's the Victorian version of like
Speaker 1: asking someone to hang right, but he doesn't have those
Speaker 1: things right like being Vonne knowing how to ask for
Speaker 1: those things. And when you were saying like trusting himself,
Speaker 1: trust himself in a different way. He probably trust himself
Speaker 1: a lot when it comes to like money and whatever
Speaker 1: skills that he can recognize and hold on to. But
Speaker 1: it's more like, can I trust that I have inherent value? Yes,
Speaker 1: and that other people could, maybe God forbid, see that
Speaker 1: value and want to take care of that, and that
Speaker 1: I can trust myself to handle it if I'm not
Speaker 1: rewarded in the moment for how I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: things differently. Because that's like even what you were saying
Speaker 1: to Ben about like the existential part of it, like
Speaker 1: the why is what also keeps you going when you're
Speaker 1: not getting rewarded for all the changes you're making. Because
Speaker 1: he's not, he's a bad reputation, He's probably gonna get
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are going to come at
Speaker 1: him sideways.
Speaker 2: Get a lot of pushback.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And so he really needs to hold on
Speaker 3: to something bigger than that.
Speaker 1: And he's in such a reward based field, an instant
Speaker 1: reward too, that he also was going to have to learn.
Speaker 1: And that's what means a therapist would do, is like,
Speaker 1: we have to be patient. It's going to take time.
Speaker 1: You're on the right course, still like almost as a therapist,
Speaker 1: being like more of a guide that we're like on
Speaker 1: the right track, and this is what's going to look
Speaker 1: like and it's going to feel hard, and it's not
Speaker 1: a magic spell where once you're acting like this, everyone's gonna.
Speaker 3: Be like Scrooge, I love you, thank you.
Speaker 1: That more closer to the recovery comparison is that people
Speaker 1: are still going to have like a a bad assumption
Speaker 1: about you, or not even assumption. You're still going to
Speaker 1: have a bad reputation with some people because you've done shit.
Speaker 1: You need to just sit with that, and that can't
Speaker 1: be part of the equation of why you're doing what
Speaker 1: you're doing now. Good over it of ego death that
Speaker 1: accompanies this kind of work.
Speaker 2: Take one of those last break things that we tend
Speaker 2: to do the last one of the season here and
Speaker 2: move into final thoughts. So let's talk about final thoughts.
Speaker 2: I think we all love this movie. So we can't
Speaker 2: follow and follow our typical thing we've developed this particular
Speaker 2: season of well who love this one the least, they'll
Speaker 2: go first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I love the Muppets anything. I'm a
Speaker 1: big muppet head. I love the Muffet babies growing up,
Speaker 1: I love Muppets Christmas Carol. I wish there's more and
Speaker 1: most Piggy in this one. I think that's my only critique. Yesh,
Speaker 1: it's definitely like just as side character. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not very Muppet heavy this one. Actually, comparatively, it's more
Speaker 1: a Christmas Carol with like Muppets filling out the outside.
Speaker 3: That's definitely true. That's definitely true. I love this movie.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna watch Christmas Carol, I like this one. Also,
Speaker 1: the songs are bangers. I forget how much I know
Speaker 1: all the songs until I'm listening and I'm like bopping
Speaker 1: along with it.
Speaker 3: So it's an easy one to put on for kids too.
Speaker 1: Like, I think it is a a very all over
Speaker 1: crowd pleaser, and I'll watch it a bajillion more times
Speaker 1: after this. Yeah, I love this movie. I've watched this
Speaker 1: movie since it came out in nineteen ninety two. My
Speaker 1: siblings and I really have always enjoyed this movie. It's
Speaker 1: something that we watch whenever we're together, if we happen
Speaker 1: to be together on Christmas. It's definitely a movie that
Speaker 1: gets watched. I know all the words, saw the songs,
Speaker 1: I know all the dialogue to the film, and I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna keep I already watched it. This is already
Speaker 1: my second watch of the movie for the season. I
Speaker 1: might watch it again after this. So I love this
Speaker 1: movie and I'm gonna keep watching it at the bare minimum,
Speaker 1: which is once a year.
Speaker 3: What's your favorite line from the movie, Hannah, since you
Speaker 3: know them by heart?
Speaker 1: I mean probably the one that Ben put on the board,
Speaker 1: which is light the lamp, not the rat, like the
Speaker 1: lap not the rat, like the laugh not the rat,
Speaker 1: and he pushes them to frozen water. I like when
Speaker 1: he uses the rat to clean the window. I really
Speaker 1: love when Peter gets really excited about the goose. That's
Speaker 1: the part that I remember as a kid, that we
Speaker 1: would rewatch the goose. You's so excited about it's silly.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a better answer to any question
Speaker 2: than what's your favorite line for the movie? Like the
Speaker 2: lamp not the rat? What line was better? What's more memorable?
Speaker 2: I mean, there's plenty, but what was more Muppets Christmas
Speaker 2: Caro nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love this movie. I've always loved this movie. I
Speaker 2: also love the Muppets. I will watch anything Muppets. It's
Speaker 2: just wholesome, good entertainment. And as an adult coming back
Speaker 2: and watching this and catching a few of the jokes
Speaker 2: that they like slipping for grown ups, you're like, ah, oh,
Speaker 2: I see what you did there, And I like catching
Speaker 2: those because the Muppets are a little slick with them.
Speaker 2: It's usually Miss Piggy, and since there's so little of
Speaker 2: her in this, yeah yeah, and more of the giant
Speaker 2: that you know, this is a little harder to catch.
Speaker 2: But I really enjoyed watching this movie. I showed it
Speaker 2: to my kid and unfortunately she got scared a bit
Speaker 2: by the Marley Brothers.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, all of those old fucks. Yeah, those those
Speaker 3: miserable old bastards. Signe.
Speaker 2: I think that in the Ghost of Christmas Past got
Speaker 2: her because my two year old has not been sleeping
Speaker 2: and so getting her down was miserable. And instead of
Speaker 2: being able to go upstairs last night when I watched
Speaker 2: this and just put the baby back down for thirty
Speaker 2: seconds and patter Eva got bored and started watching a
Speaker 2: movie before me giving her the one like, hey kid,
Speaker 2: A few spots in this movie can be a little scary,
Speaker 2: so she was just watching some and ended up turning
Speaker 2: it off and watching something else. I was putting the
Speaker 2: baby down. But I enjoy this this movie a lot,
Speaker 2: and it made me consider something I hadn't considered ever before,
Speaker 2: which is in watching The Britishness and Michael Kinan of
Speaker 2: realizing how it was that Alfred Penniworth came about. He
Speaker 2: was actually Ebenezer Scrooge who tried to make his penance
Speaker 2: by caring for rich people by caring for another poor
Speaker 2: orphan kid that got left alone on Christmas, that kid
Speaker 2: being Bruce Wayne.
Speaker 1: Fuck Bruce Wayne. I think you're so slick with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of all the kids that need help in this world,
Speaker 1: it's a billionaire child.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: He has no parents, guys, and then he provided gentle,
Speaker 2: loving care and.
Speaker 3: He still grew up to dress in a fucking batsuit.
Speaker 3: So you know, I'd be a kid can offer you
Speaker 3: know any don't make me a Riddler apologist. I know
Speaker 3: that's a new Batman movie.
Speaker 2: And on this podcast, on this day, if I can
Speaker 2: make you an apologist for that riddler, I would be.
Speaker 3: A magician, that's true.
Speaker 2: But I think Christmas Carol is still a powerful story,
Speaker 2: and I think we're kind of coming back around full
Speaker 2: circle of needing to scare rich folks into behaving.
Speaker 3: I know, that's fucking right.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: When I was watching this, I was like, does anyone
Speaker 1: like an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or any of
Speaker 1: those fucks watch this movie and like any version of
Speaker 1: this story and how do they receive it? Like, what
Speaker 1: are they hearing? If they're watching it at all, what
Speaker 1: are they hearing? Are they seeing themselves? Are they just
Speaker 1: thinking this is a cute little Victorian.
Speaker 2: Story, probably probably associated from it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they're like Ebanezer seems like a cool guy.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hang out with him. He doesn't
Speaker 1: need to change. My other friends, my cohort, they're like Ebenezer,
Speaker 1: but not me. Yeah I'm different. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I gave away five million dollars with my new wife
Speaker 2: to charity.
Speaker 1: Yeah it doesn't matter that I'm going to be the
Speaker 1: first trillionaire on planet Earth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even though for what Yeah to do what with?
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Well, on that note, we'll wrap up. Here are five
Speaker 1: episode of twenty twenty five. Thank you all for joining us,
Speaker 1: Thank you all for listening, Thank you all for rating
Speaker 1: and reviewing and commenting on and all those kind of
Speaker 1: things we see. All the comments you guys leave places,
Speaker 1: we share them with each other. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: It's been a hard year.
Speaker 1: It's been a hard year for most people, especially if
Speaker 1: you give a shit and you're paying attention, So you
Speaker 1: appreciate everyone who is giving their resources and some capacity
Speaker 1: to us, whether it's financially on Patreon or buying our
Speaker 1: merch or if it's just for free, which is giving
Speaker 1: us a little bit of your time, listening, downloading, telling
Speaker 1: a friend, leaving a rating, leaving a review. We genuinely
Speaker 1: very appreciate it. We're a podcast who pays for themselves.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Right now we're in Ben's basement at a table.
Speaker 1: Sitting at a big table, a crappy table that has
Speaker 1: folded on us before, you know, surrounded by his children's
Speaker 1: play stuff because we're technically in their play basement area,
Speaker 1: and we're big children, and we are big children, and
Speaker 1: so we really appreciate you all. We hope everyone can
Speaker 1: have a chill holiday with people that they love that
Speaker 1: take care of them, and you take a care of
Speaker 1: each other, and we will see you all in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six