00:00:01
Speaker 1: Oh good, All right, break it down. If you ever have feelings that you just wonsome Amy and Cat gotcha covin locking, no brother, the lady's quotes, you just follow Anna spirit Ware, tell the phone over real stuff to the chill stuff and the.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: M but Swayne. Sometimes the best thing you can do it.
00:00:23
Speaker 1: Jes stop you feel things.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: This is feeling things with Amy and Kat.
00:00:30
Speaker 3: Happy Tuesday. Welcome to feeling things. I'm Amy, I'm Kat, and we're gonna kick things off with a quote like we used to on the Fifth Thing back in the day. I love so if you're an og listener, you'll you'll kind of get this. If you're new, welcome. Here's a quote that I saw today in my Anna Voss Whimsy newsletter. I love her newsletters so much, which we have a newsletter too. If y'all want to sign up, you can. The link is in the show notes. This quote is unknown and it's if you fail, congratulations. Most people don't even try.
00:01:01
Speaker 2: Amen.
00:01:02
Speaker 3: So good. Whatever you're doing, just go for it.
00:01:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're doing more.
00:01:08
Speaker 3: There are things that I've wanted to do recently and I'm like, oh, I don't really want to pour myself into that. Because it's already seems hard, and what if we fail at it anyway? And now I'm walking in on some stuff and I'm dialed in and I'm like, it's okay, we're going to get this.
00:01:22
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's so interesting to me and it helps me try. Is that a lot of times the reason we don't try is because we don't want to fail, and we don't want people to see us being a failure. A lot of times, yeah, well, a lot of times when people watch somebody try and fail, they're still in awe of them. Like if if you put yourself out there and did something and it didn't work out, I'd be like, good for her, And so actually failing works out for us, Like it's us that would be down on ourselves for it not working out.
00:01:56
Speaker 3: There people are like, yeah, but if someone happened to have other feelings, like oh they got some weird joy out of your failure, then that's a messed up thing that they should deal with. You don't need to worry about them anyways. The people do get joy out of or like huh, or I knew they weren't going to be able to do it, but I think that's their own fear.
00:02:16
Speaker 2: And that also they aren't gonna root for you if you do well. Neither are those same people.
00:02:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, our feelings of the day. Mine is nervous because I watched that document around Netflix that you told us to watch a toxic love story, and now I'm nervous to date, get married anybody.
00:02:38
Speaker 2: Ever.
00:02:38
Speaker 3: Again, I don't want to say too much because there's some twists, okay for sure.
00:02:43
Speaker 2: But also there are some twists for sure, but there are red flags on everybody's part and I do not that could happen to anybody. And I clocked some things that if I saw happening with you, I'd be like Amy Knock, like open your eyes.
00:03:05
Speaker 3: Right, you probably wouldn't let it go to the point of where it went in these relationships, like so we wouldn't be buying condos or getting married.
00:03:13
Speaker 2: Or within a couple weeks two months.
00:03:16
Speaker 3: So no, I get it. There's definitely red flags, but it's just.
00:03:19
Speaker 2: It is scary, no, I mean, there's so many stories like that, remember the Tinder Swindler all those So okay.
00:03:27
Speaker 3: So I'm a little I'm just a little nervous, I said, And don't worry. I haven't made a LinkedIn profile or anything because Ceraently that's all the rage now.
00:03:35
Speaker 2: But don't give up on it just because because then that I'm gonna feel bad because I recommended you to watch that. Yeah, and then that would have backfired.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, well I'm not going to give up, but it's okay to having to work out there. Just like every week, I'm showing more clues of hell. It's the wild, wild West, and I should just enjoy my little life, me and my dog and my cat and my kids occasionally. I mean, I always like want my kids, but I don't have them all the time all the time.
00:04:05
Speaker 2: Uh. Well, I'm feeling frazzled because I almost died.
00:04:14
Speaker 3: Uh again, No, that was your baby fire. Your baby's almost died twice. But now you and the baby on this side.
00:04:21
Speaker 2: I guess she might not have made it either. So I was on my way here and you had just called me. So this is crazy. This is what got me thinking, really, is have you ever been somebody's like last phone call.
00:04:36
Speaker 3: Which let me set the scene for y'all. Kat walked in and she's out of breath and she's just feeling very frazzled. Is a good word, like you were frazzled and you were like you were almost the last person I ever talked to, and I'm like, tell me more.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: You were like hot in the zone.
00:04:56
Speaker 3: So I think I was working, yes, and I don't think it fully registered how much your life was in danger. So why don't you tell us?
00:05:04
Speaker 2: Well, it's not that. I mean, it's simple. I just was at a stoplight and a fire truck was coming from behind and I couldn't turn because there was oncoming traffic and also the the fire truck was not in my lane, but then right before it got in my lane, and then I was like, what am I supposed to do? Because you know, usually you pull off the side of the road. I was in the middle of the road. I couldn't pull off the side, and I couldn't turn, and it literally, you guys, can't if you're not watching this on YouTube, which you could watch this on YouTube if you wanted it. Last minute did this swerve like he was. They were coming full force at me. I literally was looking in my rearview mirror being like, oh my god, what do I do do I pull into the middle of the road and then it last minute went around me. And I almost died, so.
00:05:56
Speaker 3: First I could have flit. Second, you thought they were going to injure you on her way to an emergency, and.
00:06:01
Speaker 2: It didn't register at first, like I think, I was like, oh, that was crazy. And then as I was going to get food and I was walking out of picking up my food, and I was like, oh my gosh, Amy was almost the last person I ever talked to. That's wild. And it made me think about, like, what are the last texts that I've sent? What's the last thing I said to my husband, which was I miss you and few yeah, and that was this when at like eight o'clock.
00:06:28
Speaker 3: Wait, so he'd like left for work and you're already like I miss you.
00:06:32
Speaker 2: You left at like six something probably, but.
00:06:35
Speaker 3: And then at ate you just texted him I miss you.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:06:38
Speaker 4: Oh that's sweet.
00:06:43
Speaker 2: But then I was thinking like Amy would be the last person that I talked to, Like what would she tell people about like how I was, because I don't think I was like super cheery, but I won't want people to know I was like in a good mood before I died.
00:06:56
Speaker 3: And then he offered to give me a salad.
00:06:59
Speaker 2: I did that, But then I was thinking like, have you ever been somebody's last Like, were the last person somebody talked to before they died? Were you with like your mom or your Yeah.
00:07:11
Speaker 3: I was with both of them when they died, but they were both unconscious. Oh both my mom we didn't have to unplug. She just slowly left her body over like a couple of days. And then my dad we had to unplug, and the doctor was like, this could take anywhere from three minutes to three days. My dad likes to go out, so he was pretty quick. He was less than three minutes, so it was pretty Oh wow.
00:07:40
Speaker 2: Well so that's a big Then I was just thinking, like that's a lot to carry that, like you were the last person.
00:07:47
Speaker 3: I mean we were talking to them as if they could hear us, but I didn't hear from them. But I think those were we knew they were dying situations. Some people, like in your case, this would have been a so an unexpected event.
00:08:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:08:02
Speaker 3: I think of that when I get on an airplane every almost every time I fly, I think, well, this could be it, but I don't. I don't assess the text messages that I've sent. I should start doing that, like take notes, like you're such an amazing person in front. Like every time I fly, I said like the nicest notes to everybody. So she just sent me the sweetest text and then she died. She was so thoughtful who she was. I'll always be remembered. I just did not like fifty texts.
00:08:35
Speaker 2: I'm feeling better actually, now that we're talking about I don't feel frazzled anymore.
00:08:38
Speaker 3: I just was. I see. So sometimes it's good naming it, yeah, and then talking about it, and then the feeling will go.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: They probably knew what they were doing. They probably knew they were going to do that swerve. I didn't know they were going to do that swerve. Yeah.
00:08:50
Speaker 3: I do have a question that doesn't come up, and this is something that you said before we hit record, and I made a mental note, yeah to ask you this. Okay, why did you say you were going to be a history major? Because before we hit record, Kat and I were just talking about the news article from a couple of weeks ago where in Arizona there's a college that has made influencing a major, and so this is just casual conversation and then we got sidetracked because other people were coming in and we were about to record. But you casually said, well, I was going to be a history major, and my dad said he wasn't going to pay for it. And I thought, in my head, Kat is a therapist. What would she have done with a history major, and why did you want to do that?
00:09:40
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's my dad's point is the question is asked, like, what are you going to do with that? So I didn't know what I wanted to be. I did not know what I wanted to major in. When I went to school. I was a nursing major, but that's just because I had no desire to be a nurse at all. But my mom was a nurse, that you could make a good living being a nurse. And I I liked my anatomy class and in high school, but I can't even look at a cut on my own hand.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: Seem like I pass out at the sight of blood.
00:10:23
Speaker 2: I could like cut my thumb open a couple of years ago, and I had to like change the bandage every day, and I couldn't even do it. Patrick had to do it. That's how bad I can't. So I took one nursing class or one intro and I was like, I got to change my major, but then I had never thought about it, so I think I changed it to like fashion merchandising at first, because that's like what cool girls were doing back then. But then I was like, I'm not really good at this, that's not for me. So then I was like, well, then I'll be a business major, like a just a marketing major or something, and then whatever. So then I took my intro your US History class in freshman year and I loved it.
00:11:09
Speaker 3: Loved it, really I.
00:11:10
Speaker 2: Loved it, except I do have one traumatic story from that class. But I loved learning about because I feel like in high school I never really paid attention to history, like you know, i'll read this and have this test, but I wasn't really realizing what I was learning is like real.
00:11:28
Speaker 3: Now, So was your professor really good? Do you think that played a role in it.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: I don't want to say that, though, because this professor made me cry.
00:11:37
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so is this a traumatic story?
00:11:39
Speaker 2: Yes, so I it's looking back, it's not that big of a deal, but it was a big deal to me. Then. It was one of those like big auditorium classes because everybody had to take it, and I had asked if I could take my midterm or my final early because I loved, really I loved six hours away from where I went to school, and I was trying to ride home with my sister and she was leaving earlier, and I was like, no big deal, Like who wants to take their test early? Like surely she'll be like, you're a good student for wanting to do that. She didn't reply to my email, and then she scolded me in front of the whole class how dare I do that?
00:12:23
Speaker 3: And asked that I but in an auditorium style class, she called you out.
00:12:27
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing. She didn't say who did it, but she said I got an email from one of you asking she never responded to me, and then she responded to me without naming me in front of the whole class. But obviously I'm like bright red. And she was basically like, you knew the schedule before, Like it felt like the crime the punishment didn't fit the crime. Like I didn't understand her saying no, you can't, but why did you have to? It was mean, like she was angry. I don't know what was going on with her that day. She also she was British. I liked that about her to me, that's why I liked.
00:13:05
Speaker 3: She was British teaching American history.
00:13:07
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know then later What's what's crazy is later when I was I was because I was a child and Family studies major, and so I had to work in the daycare on like the child development center on our campus. I had to care for her child.
00:13:25
Speaker 3: Oh, so what'd you do?
00:13:27
Speaker 2: Well? I didn't hurt the child, obviously, I cared for the child well, but I just was like, oh, I don't want to like this kid because your mom wasn't mean to me. But like she probably doesn't even remember, but it was like full circle. It's like I'm going to be the bigger person, you know, not put this child in danger anyway. So I can't all have to say I didn't. I don't like that teacher. I don't want I don't want to say it was her. I think it was the content. I just really liked learning about history. So I told my dad I want to be a history major, thinking I could be a professor.
00:14:01
Speaker 3: And you would be a nice one. If someone needed to take their exam early.
00:14:06
Speaker 2: I would totally let them because a what a good student and my Dad's response was, I'm not paying for that, because what are you going to do? I think his point was, I've never heard you talk about this before, so it's not like you grew up love going to museums and stuff and you're really enthralled in it. And I like it was very random, and he didn't want me to spend a lot of time and then have a major that I couldn't use to do what I really wanted to.
00:14:32
Speaker 3: Do, sort of a dead end.
00:14:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I didn't know what I wanted to do, so that was hard. And guys, that's okay. When you're a freshman, you don't really have to know.
00:14:42
Speaker 3: When did you realize you wanted to be a therapist?
00:14:46
Speaker 2: Probably not till I was a junior, because I ended up changing my major to Child and Family Studies, which I didn't know was a thing. That's the other You know, we probably have a lot of high schoolers listening, but like I didn't know all the options. That was part of my problem. That's joking, by the way.
00:15:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, we maybe have one.
00:15:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, So once I learned more, I had met somebody at a camp. I was working at a young life camp in the summer and my boss was a child of Family studies major. I'd never heard of that, and I was like, well, I want to do you working at Young Life Camp, I want to do that. I'll do that major, and so I changed my major to that. And then my advisor was also a therapist, and she encouraged me to take a marriage of family therapy class and I loved it, and so then I wanted to be a therapist.
00:15:38
Speaker 3: Which I know two people later in life that their adults, their moms that have since gone back to get their degree and whatever other things you need to do to become a licensed therapist. But it was a It wasn't something they did early on in their twenties. They pursued it later in their forties and they really love it.
00:16:01
Speaker 2: You know what I think because there was a couple in my class when I was in grad school. It wasn't all people that just graduated school. It was very it was pretty diverse. I think that being older going back because a lot of people don't want to restart. They think it's going to be so hard, which it is hard, but that keeps a lot of people from making changes. But what I saw from the people that were older and our cohort was they had a This is from my perspective, it was easier for them because when they were interns or new nobody assumed that they were new or interns because they were older, versus I'm twenty two trying to give therapy to a forty five year old, and that person's probably like, what the heck do you know? You know what I mean? But they come with a certain amount of life experience. But also I think just because they're older, just.
00:16:55
Speaker 3: The look of Lisnes, yes, the perceived Yeah.
00:16:58
Speaker 2: So I always was very jealous of them, like, dang it, I wish I was forty five.
00:17:04
Speaker 3: You'll get there. Yeah, when you were talking about the in school daycare and caring for your mean professor's child, and then also liking you as history, it made me think about the book that I'm reading right now, which is The Calamity Club. Now it's fiction, but you get it. There's some history intertwined. It's during the Great Depression, and there is a situation of someone having to care for someone else's child and that they don't.
00:17:33
Speaker 2: Like, they don't want the child or the well person.
00:17:37
Speaker 3: I don't want to give away too much, but it made me think of that storyline of having someone in your care and let's just say she's doing the opposite of you. You're like, no, I wasn't gonna treat the child any differently. That was not the case.
00:17:50
Speaker 2: I don't want to give myself that much credit because I was also getting graded.
00:17:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if you weren't getting graded, I.
00:17:57
Speaker 2: Hope I wouldn't. But you never know you.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: Wanted to pick her child up early, you'd be like, no, you can't pick her up early, keeping her you have to. You can't pick her up till five o'clock.
00:18:08
Speaker 2: You knew the hours, you knew four.
00:18:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, we already had. I'm already scheduled, did be here till five? So your kids staying here till five? You should have known better, and you make this big announcement. Okay, So that is Kat's journey to becoming a therapist and not a history professor.
00:18:23
Speaker 2: I think I would have been. I do think I would have really liked teaching. I will say that I would have liked teaching college. I don't think I would have liked teaching high school or middle school, eleentary school. Yeah, I saw something crazy. This is a callback from last week. We were talking about the Golden Girls thing.
00:18:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, because my friend wanted to know if I would live with her in a Golden Girls type house.
00:18:48
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so we talked about that, and we talked about I don't know if it was on that same episode or the Couch Talks episode that week, but we talked about Logan Uri. You remember that she's a dating coach and she has a Netflix show. I want to say it's called like Later Daters or something that I could have made that up, but it's about older people dating, like not like a twenty year old dating show. Okay, it was crazy. We talked about those two things. Guess what what she lives in a commune with her twenty best friends.
00:19:23
Speaker 3: She does, and she's like young, so she's single.
00:19:28
Speaker 2: I don't know that some of them have families because she talked about how they spend time with their kids and stuff.
00:19:35
Speaker 3: And right, it's not just girls the greatest friends. It's not like the Golden Girls where they've all ended up a single on the way in their life. So it's more of a compound, like the family compounds you see sometimes where everybody's living together and they have a shared pool. Like I saw something pop up on my Instagram the other day of like all these cousins that live on a bunch of property together and they built one huge pool in the middle of all this property, and there was probably it looks like a hotel, like twenty five lounge chairs, but all the cousins live there and then all of their kids, and they would all just yeah, it's not like, oh, we had to pay to put a pool in. You got to split it. Yeah, and you can make it really eight ways or however many. Yeah. The show is called The Later Daters.
00:20:20
Speaker 2: You write, it's cute. And so I watched her. Actually a client of mine told me about that show. So I watched a couple episodes, and there was a tip that I want, I want to give this to you, but also you might not need it, but also I want to give this because this is something that I can see helping. I mean, it's helped me, just as like a person who doesn't feel like they do the best with small talk. So she was talking to this sweet woman, oh my gosh, you have to watch at least one episode of this show.
00:20:54
Speaker 3: Oh, I totally will, and kind.
00:20:56
Speaker 2: Of coaching her on how to start the date and how to because she was I don't know what questions do I ask or what if there's an awkward silence or something, And so she said, a anti small talk technique is called in I don't know how this is really said because it's Latin, but in media res, which means in the middle of things. So she said, instead of sitting down and asking somebody like where are you from or whatever, she said, start talking about something that you were just doing. So it's like you are jumping into a conversation. So you sit down and you say hello, and you're like, oh my gosh, on the way here.
00:21:32
Speaker 3: I was almost died.
00:21:36
Speaker 2: That was an interesting way to start the conversation.
00:21:38
Speaker 3: But you were here. You were almost the last person I ever texted.
00:21:42
Speaker 2: She didn't give that example. She gave the example of I was on the way here and I was listening to this podcast and I heard this crazy thing. I want to share it with you. And then that just like gets you guys talking, and then you are learning about the person, like their personality versus just like facts about them. And then she said you can always once you go through that, like who knows where it will lead, you can always come back to the where are you from? Or what do you do for work? You can always come back to those questions, but it just is an easy way to jump in and feel like you guys kind of already know each other in a way.
00:22:17
Speaker 3: I feel like after watching a toxic love story, I would sit down and be like, so, I just watched this documentary a toxic love story, and I need to know your thoughts on this particular thing. The one thing that the guy is this is not going to be a spoiler of the show at all, whatsoever, because there's a lot happening in this love triangle situation. I will what I think is okay to say. If you don't want to know, I don't know, hit the fast forward button. Thirty seconds. He asked someone he was dating or married to, or whatever their relationship.
00:22:54
Speaker 5: Was to.
00:22:56
Speaker 3: That he wanted to watch her be with somebody else, and she had zero desire to do that. And also she said that sort of came out of nowhere. It really wasn't his. He was sort of she was girl next door. He was guy next door.
00:23:11
Speaker 2: If you look like a Disney adult, like wholesome.
00:23:13
Speaker 3: Wholesome, right, And then one day out of the blue, he hits her with that question. And she's saying no, no, no, no no, until I guess do people just get worn down and then they don't want to lose the person so they give in. And she ultimately gave in to his request because she thought, if I do this, then it'll he'll get it out of his system and we won't have to worry about it again.
00:23:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:23:43
Speaker 3: Like so now I feel like my question is going to be, like, do you ever have this desire? Because if we do, like I'm out, let me know, let me know now, just let me know now. Because that just was such a I was shocked that she was so against it and then ultimately she was worn down and decided to do it. And I'm sure there's a lot of people they get in those situations where they end up doing stuff that they don't want to do, and they had a firm boundary to begin with. But if people are relentless and depending on the emotional abuse and a relationship or whatever's taking place.
00:24:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I could be wrong about this. I'm pretty sure she hadn't.
00:24:28
Speaker 3: Dated a lot, she correct, and she was young.
00:24:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she didn't know how Probably she didn't have the awareness she has now of like how abnormal and scary. That is not for somebody to request that so much, but for somebody to not listen to you and.
00:24:42
Speaker 3: Listen to what you're saying. Yeah, because she did say you're right. She did say maybe this is just how all relationships.
00:24:49
Speaker 2: Are because she had already built I think this is something because at first I'm like, why would you do that? But she had already built a lot of trust with this person, and so this is she thinks this way, So she's seen it through that lens of This is a good guy. He doesn't want to hurt me. This is just something he wants. So maybe if I give it to him, then we can move forward. Versus if that was a stranger or somebody you didn't have trust built with, and that's where a lot of manipulation happens. It's like, well, I already this is who I think this person is, so they can't be doing this to hurt me or because they don't care about me, or because they're a bad person.
00:25:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, So do you think that's a good eye spraker or no?
00:25:31
Speaker 2: You know what I actually do think it would be if you went on a date and you had just watched the show it would be funny to sit down and be like, oh my gosh, I just watched this documentary last night called a Toxic Love Story, and it's making me feel a little nervous to be here with you. Like to make a joke out of it, But if you sit down in your seriously like, have you ever wanted to watch your partner be intimate with somebody else? Seriously? I think he would have been like that person might be a little off put right.
00:26:04
Speaker 3: Then he's going to be like, how do I end this date?
00:26:07
Speaker 1: Pivot?
00:26:08
Speaker 3: What did you say the other day or like a couple last week or the week before you were talking about how you and one of your dates you went on it was thirty five minutes long.
00:26:15
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, that one would probably end pretty sooner than that.
00:26:29
Speaker 3: So sometimes on dates you may have a little nightcap. But I have a new version of a night cap. Okay, Now the nightcap could be with you, your friends, someone you went on a date with, yourself, your kids, whatever, however you want to see this nightcap because really it's just the acronym of cap cap and it's good to do at night. Okay, So cap your day off with this see celebrate even the tiniest win. Maybe it's unloading the dishwasher that counts, So see for celebrate, that's.
00:27:06
Speaker 2: A big deal. I hate unloading the dishwasher. I will take one thing out of time. Out of a time, I'll.
00:27:11
Speaker 3: Take a couple of things out and then reload it with new stuff and run it again. Okay, A appreciate something from your day, no matter how small, like unloading the dish I didn't get hit by that fire.
00:27:28
Speaker 2: Try and if I did, that's so sweet that any would have been my last phone call.
00:27:33
Speaker 3: Yes, pee, prioritize one to three things for tomorrow so your brain can rest easy tonight. So that is your nightcap. Celebrate, appreciate, prioritize.
00:27:45
Speaker 2: I like it.
00:27:47
Speaker 3: I mean you probably don't want to do that with your date. I guess you could, or your husband you might be able to.
00:27:52
Speaker 2: You could do that, Like, you could do that after you're dating.
00:27:57
Speaker 4: You're like, I unloaded the dishwashers, like, oh, you're a winner. And then you're like you give something you appreciate, and then you're like, all right, what's our to do list for tomorrow? Really it's just a little prompt for you to have I like it. Cat which thinking of the things we like.
00:28:18
Speaker 3: Kat put some sentences that rewired this girl's brain. Alex Aubrey poetry on Instagram, and Kat listed all the ones that were her favorite, and I thought, Okay, Kat can go over this. But Kat is very, very pregnant, and she was like, can you read the sentences because I feel like I'm going to be out of bread. Yeah, so I can read them and then we can.
00:28:42
Speaker 2: Okay, I can tell you them, and I can tell you which one is my favorite.
00:28:45
Speaker 3: Okay, I already have my favorite, ok because I read over them as well. Okay, let's see if fars are the same thing. Okay, this is the first sentence that rewired Alex's brain. Never tell a person to be strong when they come to you to be weak.
00:29:02
Speaker 2: I really like that. I do too. Patrick and I were watching like a I think it was a TikTok. It did make me cry. It was like, oh, it was an Instagram carousel and it was like things that every man should know that nobody tells you about pregnancy or something. And one of them was like, when she's screaming in pain, don't tell her that it doesn't hurt. And he was like, why would anybody's response to somebody being in labor be like it doesn't hurt or it's not that bad, and I'm like, I don't know, but somebody probably was saying that to be I mean, there's probably a somebody out there that was like, well, if I tell them that they're fine and it's the pain's not real, it's not that bad. I think that's what it was. It's not that bad, then maybe that will help them. And it's like that's It's the same kind of idea there where if somebody needs to acknowledge where they are and just like fall apart, there's a time and a place to remind somebody of their strength, and then there's also a time and a place to just let somebody fall apart.
00:30:07
Speaker 3: As a parent, that one really speaks to me as sometimes our kids need to just fall apart at home and they need to give them the space to do that. Next one, the world around you is beautiful when the world within you is peaceful. M I think that's the truth. Maybe you didn't get what you wanted because you deserved more. That's such a good one for reframing a situation.
00:30:33
Speaker 2: Yes, I love that one. I don't want to say it's my favorite because it sounds cliche, But the best cliches are cliches because they're true. Yeah.
00:30:42
Speaker 3: No, I think this is excellent for that's exactly what it is. It's a statement you can tell yourself to try to reframe a scenario. And I don't think it ignores what you went through, right, And that's the best type of reframing. You can still acknowledge what you didn't get and then say well, And it's even saying maybe, yeah, yeah, maybe maybe maybe you didn't get what you wanted because you deserve more, so go find it.
00:31:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say in those moments, I'm like, well, I don't care what I deserve. This is what I want, you know, like, I don't care if I deserve somebody better. This is the person I want to be with. You don't really feel the like, oh I get it until it happens, but I still love it.
00:31:27
Speaker 3: Next one, if your life for a twenty four hour day, it would only be seven am when you're thirty years old.
00:31:33
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a favorite one.
00:31:35
Speaker 3: Okay, explain that one.
00:31:36
Speaker 2: But I didn't do the math on it, but I guess because the day starts at twelve am. So when you're thirty, it's still only seven am, and then you have so much time left because I think a lot of people hit thirty or name whatever age it is and you're like, my life is almost over or I've lived a third of my life or whatever. But when you look at it like that, it's seven am.
00:32:01
Speaker 3: The day is my oyster Like at forty five, do I really need to give up and move in with my girlfriends in a golden girl's house because you probably only like ten of us like a whole another chapter with a partner somewhere now.
00:32:17
Speaker 2: I will say this one does backfire when you get to be like seventy, because then it's probably getting into the evening hours.
00:32:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, next one. I don't think bad things happen to good people. I think bad things happen to everyone, and the way good people respond is what makes them good.
00:32:35
Speaker 2: I like that.
00:32:36
Speaker 3: Aiming for a life full of we saw so many cool places together and not we have so many cool things, So it's more about experiences versus possessions.
00:32:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I think, Well, I don't know that the possessions thing fits, but I do think millennials are more like the Seeson moment sees the day travel do things while I can't spend the money, and we're seeing there's a lot of I feel like we get a lot of flak for that, but then we end up doing so many. Yeah, we might not have all of retirement saved up, but our life feels so full by like age thirty five, you.
00:33:16
Speaker 3: Know, next one, we don't see things as they are, We see things as we are.
00:33:22
Speaker 2: Is that your favorite?
00:33:23
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm gonna read them all and then I'm oh, my favorite. I thought we've you Okay, this is the final one? How long are you willing to postpone the life you want in exchange for the comfort of where you are currently at? That reminds me of like the one you like m the clock is ticking.
00:33:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, So which one is your favorite?
00:33:51
Speaker 3: Maybe you didn't get what you wanted because you deserved more.
00:33:53
Speaker 2: Oh sweet, that would probably be my second.
00:33:57
Speaker 3: It's just yeah, so good. Yeah, And it can apply to so many different things. It doesn't even have to be a romantic love. It can be with like or fertility, stuff, work, other opportunities.
00:34:12
Speaker 2: Anything, anything. Yeah. I like that. And again I think that's one where you have to like just believe it until it happens, because in the moment, you're going to be like, well, I wanted that job, or I wanted to have a baby that way, or I wanted to marry that loser.
00:34:28
Speaker 3: I do like the one about aiming for a life full of we saw so many cool places together versus we have so many cool things. I do. I do like that one.
00:34:37
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you got to go to Paris?
00:34:41
Speaker 3: Well, I know, I know, but when you look at how far out you're supposed to plan a trip like that, an international trip like that, you know, when I got word on my my next vacation was with not enough time to build a trip to Paris like I would want to build. So I'm still going to travel. I'm like ninety nine zero point nine percent sure at this point that I'm going to Ecuador to see my cousin Amanda. So I'm still leaving that. I'm still gonna go do that. But I don't have to get a hotel, I don't have to go places she lives there. I'm gonna be staying with her. She's telling me where to fly into, where to fly out of. I'm gonna be She's got our whole itinerary. We're going to go to her spa that she likes, go to her workout places. We're gonna hike like she has everything that We'll probably stay at her house a lot in our jammis and just talk because our moms would love that, because that's what our moms used to do together. Yeah, wake up, have coffee like that. Will That's an easy international trip that I don't have to think on, and I just think I need to be a little more proactive about figuring out, okay, when my vacations are going to be and then dial in because I don't I thought about doing the whole last minute thing, but that's a big investment to go all the way there and not have a sufficient plan.
00:35:54
Speaker 2: There are people I have a friend when we went to I've only been on one big trip like that, we went to Italy, so no expert in traveling. But I have a friend who literally will decide two days before and then take a flight and go to Europe.
00:36:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been I know you're talking about, and I've been motivated by her before.
00:36:13
Speaker 2: No, this is a different one. I said more than one friend.
00:36:16
Speaker 3: Oh yes, she's okay, the girl you have so many friends who you're tut her.
00:36:20
Speaker 2: About does spontaneous stuff. But she did plan those couple trips. I have another friend she just her and her husband just travel everywhere. She like when I was telling her about my trip to Italy, I was asking her of like advice, and then I was like, wait, you're the person to ask because she's like, just show up in the city and see where you can stay. And I'm like absolutely not, Like, first of all, I don't know how to get there. I don't know how to get and I don't know so no.
00:36:47
Speaker 3: People they can live that way. That's amazing great not for me, but also I could try it out. But I just when you start to look at the price tag of everything, right, well that seems a lot.
00:36:58
Speaker 2: That's my big thing is I am gonna we spent a good amount of money on that trip. I want to make sure it's what I want it to be, yes, versus just like hope it works out.
00:37:11
Speaker 5: And I want to know like the the you really off the beaten path places to go, Like I sure there's some big like the Louver, lad to go there, there's the Okay, I want to see the Eiffel Tower, Like there's some big ticket things where it's like those are.
00:37:25
Speaker 3: Easy boxes to check. Yeah, but I also want to know. I just I was talking to my sister's mother in law when I was in Colorado, and I think that's what made me shift from like I probably should be a little more patient with my planning and and try to do Paris right because she was talking about all the places she loves to go, and I want to pull people and talk to people and figure out, Okay, you give me this restaurant, not just googling like, oh, this is the best restaurant to go to, Yeah, it has all these reviews. I have people in my life that have gone multiple times and go to different shops there and look at antiques and see other historic things. Like I don't know, I just want to mill about on the streets.
00:38:11
Speaker 2: I walk to mill.
00:38:12
Speaker 3: About and see those So uh. Another one made that made me think of some decluttering tips that I know that you have had in our Google dog for a while. So I was like, maybe we give Kat the opportunity to go over the decluttering tips because we see so many cool places together versus we have so many cool things. That's like we need to not buy more things we need to declutter and then not just replace it with more stuff, because I know you've been in a big nesting phase. You've told us about it with the baby coming and trying to get everything ready, and so I was like, hey, these decluttering tips might come come in clutch for some people, and I think I would like to well, yeah, I know that.
00:38:55
Speaker 2: In there because I was like, I think that was a couple of weeks ago when I was like, all I want to do was throw everything out, and like that's also not the way.
00:39:03
Speaker 3: That's not the answer because then you end.
00:39:05
Speaker 2: Up throwing things out that you actually cared about. You know.
00:39:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, just a little behind the scenes baseball though, because I like when stuff ends up, like we have this Google doc and we add things take away, like cat has a folder, I have a folder, and then we have dates of episodes and they've got a folder and this is one that has bounced around and so I've dropped it in there and I'm like, we're doing it well. Three tips on decluttering.
00:39:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me give them to you straight. Then give it to me. Tip number one, use every cleaning opportunity as a chance to rid your life. You know what, you just did what you tricked me because I asked you to read the things before. I just started reading that sentence and I was like, I'm out around.
00:39:46
Speaker 3: I can read them for you, but I wanted to give you the credit of putting them in.
00:39:50
Speaker 2: I can try. I try. Use every cleaning opportunity as a chance to rid your life of unnecessary possessions. My favorite minimalist move is to constantly be decluttering instead of trying to figure out where everything should go. Always declutter as I clean. It's easier to get rid of something than create a new organizational system for it to fit in your home. Which I like that. So like, as you're cleaning, you don't have to have a declutter day where I'm gonna throw stuff out. But as I'm cleaning, if I don't have a home for something, instead of reorganizing, ask myself, do I actually need this? Or do I can I get rid of this? Because what I do is I say I don't have a home for this, I'm gonna shove it in this drawer. Then one day the drawer stops shutting, you know, So that's tip number one. Number two, have as many blank surfaces as you can. Oh my gosh, this is so hard for me. Stop filling every shelf and see how you feel when there's more room to breathe. Stop filling every shelf and see how you feel when there's more room to breathe. Because when you enter now, you don't want your house to be blank. You know, you want there to be stuff. You want there to be yes, yeah, but you feel different when you're in a house when there's stuff everywhere, and when it's you know, there's a method to the madness. However, Patrick and I were just talking about this because we were We're almost done with the nursery and I was I haven't hung anything up, and he was like, Catherine, you need to leave blank space on the wall. He was like, I'm worried that every part of the wall is going to have something on it. And I was like, but I have so many things to put up, and he was trying to tell me you don't need to do that.
00:41:44
Speaker 3: So that was on the nursery wall.
00:41:47
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm gonna put this on this wall, and i want a shelf on this wall, and I want this mirror on this wall. And he was like, this room is really small. You're going to make this he said it a nice way. But then you know he doesn't have the best design taste, so so what do you know? Yeah, I gave him one thing. I told you about this, the tree. I said Patrick could pick one thing out for the nursery because I felt back because I feel like I made every decision, and I wanted to put an olive tree in the corner.
00:42:17
Speaker 3: I've seen that olive tree.
00:42:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've seen that in there behind my head right now. Yeah, and we both have a He said he didn't like the look of the olives, so I said, okay, well then you can pick out a tree to put here, and he ordered a seven foot ficus tree, which I sent it to you.
00:42:37
Speaker 3: That's all right, but it's not what I would pick out.
00:42:42
Speaker 2: It's huge, and it is either going back or it's definitely going somewhere else anyway.
00:42:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not like the delicate, dainty baby vibes. Yeah, it's definitely.
00:42:53
Speaker 2: It was a hearty tree.
00:42:54
Speaker 3: It's not going to fit. Yeah, but you've worked really hard to curate and create.
00:42:59
Speaker 2: Try to get I was trying to be cool. I was trying to like, do you pick it out whatever you want, It's okay. You tried. Yeah, I did try. I just want him to He doesn't really care that much, but I want him to feel like he's a part of things, you know.
00:43:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure he's fine with like not.
00:43:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, he picked out some baskets in the closet for the glossic.
00:43:21
Speaker 3: He picks some baskets that aren't going to be seen.
00:43:24
Speaker 2: They're actually really cute, Actually they're really they're pretty all right. The third tip, remove some of your storage. The more shelves and drawers and bins you have, the more you fill them with stuff. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that your organizational system is going to save you from your clutter. Less storage means fewer belongings. I have so much stuff in my garage, you know, on shelves that I probably will.
00:43:50
Speaker 3: Never Well, that's the thing that a lot of people before you give birth, maybe if the nesting like really kicks in and I know that you're a little out of breath from top, But if you and Patrick and gosh, it's just summer and it's so hot in the garage's the only thing that's like a negative for you right now to go out there and tackle it. But before the baby comes because the next thing you know, you're raising a child or multiple children for the next eighteen plus years and you're not going to get to it, and more stuff is going to add and pileon and pile on. But that's where I was, like when my parents passed away, my mom specifically, like having to go through all of these things that I wish she would have taken a little more time to declutter, because then now I have to make this. It's like this emotional heaviness and responsibility of now deciding, like now I have to get rid of it, but I want to hold on to it because it was my mom's. But if she would have just done it for me, then I would have been left with only important things I don't want to keep, but to do it before they grow up and then you die and they have to do it for you.
00:44:57
Speaker 2: And it is true, the more space you have, the more stuff off you're keeping. Yes, So that's why in like my last house, we didn't have barely any storage, but now I have all these spaces I can keep things.
00:45:09
Speaker 3: Well, don't add to it. Yeah, take this advice and don't add to it just because you have what.
00:45:15
Speaker 2: A else fails to hire somebody to come help you do it.
00:45:20
Speaker 3: You know what I really want to do, and I'm going to have to hire somebody or have a friend to help me because it's just not my gift. Is I want a photo gallery or a picture gallery up my stairs? Oh yeah, where it's different sized frames, different colored frames, like everything's really mismatched. Maybe it's family photos mixed with art mixed with like everything. It looks like it doesn't go together, but that's intentional.
00:45:47
Speaker 2: And you see, this is the thing about that is like you can do I can do that on my own. It will look like this doesn't go together, and it doesn't go together. But if somebody else does, like you're saying, like, hire somebody's help, they can make it look like this doesn't go together, but it does. Like I don't. I don't have that gift either. I've tried to do a gallery wall in mine.
00:46:07
Speaker 3: I took a screenshot of one. I don't know if something popped up in my for you page, it wasn't even about the gallery wall, but it was some woman. Her page popped up and she had any walking up her stairs to go show something else, and I took a screenshot of her gallery wall, and I'm like, that's it. Now, I at least have the inspo and I can show someone who can like help me and has that gift. And you know those people that will actually like get construction paper and they'll cut out the size of the picture frame and put it on the wall and trace it and they like everything is mapped out or there's blue tape or something like, I'm just a stick of hammer in the wall and send a prayer. Yeah, but I feel like with a wall like that, I can't. I'll end up with holes everywhere. If I was just hanging one thing above, like the toilet, Okay, that's pretty easy, because you can't. You can feel like I have AYE all above your toilet. I know that's what many think of it. In my guest bathroom, this horse photo photo this piece of art horse But the frame is metal and it's very heavy, and the type of nail that I chose isn't strong enough to hold it. So then you'll also notice that there was like sticky what's that command strip command strips stuck on the wall because I then I just decided to stick the metal frame on the wall and it all It lasted for a few months and then one day I walked in and it had fallen on the toilet. Oh it fell Yeah, so that's why it's still there looking. So I just need to figure out like a drill situation.
00:47:41
Speaker 2: Okay, you should. We should have somebody come do that, right. Okay. You also have perfect staircase for the gallery wall, so I'm co signing that for you.
00:47:51
Speaker 3: I agree. I think it'll really change the vibe of the room because you know, in the last couple of weeks I've been trying to move everything around and figure stuff out, which you haven't understood. But I'm not trying to buy more, or if I do buy more, it's like it's like we're in the club. We got a clicker. Yeah, if something's coming in, something's going out.
00:48:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw a very interesting study recently I want to share with you that surprised me. It was a study from Harvard and this was from I can't take credit for this, obviously, but this was posted by my Max Life speaker on Instagram and it was just a title of what makes children Successful? So when you think about like what makes did you do? You know what I'm about to tell you now, Okay, perfect, When you think about, like what makes kids successful later in life? What would you think are like the markers.
00:48:44
Speaker 3: What level of like responsibility were they given or like what was expected of them in their home? You're like very close, say the question again one more time.
00:48:56
Speaker 2: What do you think helps to make children successful later in life? Yeah?
00:49:03
Speaker 3: What was expected in their home? Because I feel like when everything's given to a kid, yeah, or when everything's done for them. That's what I've heard the most as a parent, is like you have kids have to learn to do things for themselves if you swoop in and do it every time. And that's something that I had to yeah, because like when okay, speaking of unloading the dishwasher or loading it, I have a particular way I want it loaded. I have particularly I want it unloaded where everything goes, And so I would just be like, it's faster, it's faster. Just put your dish in the sink, like I'll handle it because it's faster for me at least, and I would micromanage, and I really need to be like, okay, yeah, will you wash your dish and put in the dishwasher and then not be so particular.
00:49:48
Speaker 2: Do you do your kid's laundry?
00:49:50
Speaker 3: They have learned to do it. I will at times, but no, they both pretty much do their own now.
00:49:59
Speaker 2: As a kid, I did my own laundry, but not because I think my mom might have done everybody else's laundry. But I wouldn't let her wash any color with a color that didn't match it. So I've had one yellow shirt. I would have like a meltdown if she washed it with like a blue shirt. So that means my mom let me wash a yellow shirt by itself, which I guess it was better than my meltdown. I don't know. Okay, so you're very close. So Harvard did a seventy five year long study on what makes children successful and found it wasn't grades, test scores, or extracurriculars. It was something that parents generally, which this also shocked me, stop doing, stop making their kids do by age ten. It was chores.
00:50:50
Speaker 3: Parents are in parents age ten.
00:50:52
Speaker 2: Yes, which that is what shocked me, is that I'm I wait, at ten you start doing the chores. I feel like that's when I would start giving them the try. So I might have read that wrong when I was reading it, but yeah, it said to grow up happy and successful, a child needs both love and work ethic, which I think is what you were kind of speaking to. He said, work ethic comes from doing chores. Clear the plate, take out the trash, feed the dog, fold the laundry. Another study traced kids at four points in their life, and the strongest predictor of success by twenty five was whether the child did chores at age three or four, which is interesting. At first, I was like, three or four, they can't do anything, But then I was reading, I was like, they can. They can help feed the pets, they can carry their plate to the sink, they can put clothes in a hamper, like there are little things that they could do, and so it said. This was also you might relate to this because you said it was kind of hard for you to like let your kids do it. Eighty two percent of parents chores as kids. However, only twenty eight percent of those people's kids do chores.
00:52:07
Speaker 3: Wow, what causes that?
00:52:09
Speaker 2: I don't know?
00:52:10
Speaker 3: Drastic drop, I wonder, because it's like, if chores were expected of you, why would you not expect that of your kids? And we all parent differently, we should parent differently, like hopefully at each generation you get a little bit better. But in knowing what chores bring about. I wonder if because there's more, is there more I don't know if there's more or less, like be making this up, but I'm like, is there more help outside the house, like or if both parents are working, then is there someone that's helping clean so the kids don't have to.
00:52:42
Speaker 2: Or it's much more common these days for both parents to work. Therefore, it is much more common to have somebody clean the house or do the things that a typical mom that stays home or dad that stays home would do. So that actually makes a lot of sense.
00:52:58
Speaker 3: I know, but that means other things that a lot of people may not. Or if the moms or the dads are staying home, are they just deciding to do it? I mean the kids who are definitely a lot more busy with five different activities.
00:53:12
Speaker 2: And when I think a lot of people think that if I put my kid in all these activities, that's what's going to help them be successful is have them volunteer here and play this sport and learn this instrument. And it's it's less about having stuff for them to do and more about them feeling needed. And sometimes when you have a chore or a task like that, you're part of the system and you're contributing. Yes. So they gave three rules that actually work when it comes to doing chores. They recommend One, start kids early three to four. They can put away toys, carry a plate, feed the dog, so don't wait until they can mow the grass to ask them to do something. Two show them how do it together first, and then let them takeover. So if it's feeding the dog, it's like, let's fill this water bowl up together, or let's scoop the food together, and then eventually you can say, hey, can you give the dog some food? And number three don't This was interesting to me. Don't pay for chores. Pain turns it into a transaction. Keep allowance is separate, So then I'm like, well, I guess you don't allowance.
00:54:30
Speaker 3: It's tricky iding. That's hard, I mean, or is it? We went back and forth with it. I think we had seasons when Ben and I were married and together where we did know charts with the kids. If they wanted certain things, they had to get a certain amount of stars. Like when we first got them, we had this big whiteboard and we'd have things that they could This is all pre COVID. Yeah, so it feels I feel like my life with the kids there was like pre COVID and Ben and I were still together, and then after like twenty twenty twenty twenty, some separations started. Twenty twenty one, we were fully separated. And so then they've got however they do it at Ben's hous and however they do it at mine, And I think we just like Stevenson wanted some extra spending money for something the other day, and so I gave him a list of things to do and he earned that money. But he still will feed the dog, walk the dog, and do his laundry, and I don't pay him for that.
00:55:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't have growing up. We didn't have specific chores, but there were things we were expected to do, like.
00:55:30
Speaker 3: For your allowance, probably well no, our allowance was we would get This is crazy because it probably doesn't feel like a lot of money now, but it was a lot to us back then.
00:55:39
Speaker 2: We got twenty dollars when we got to middle school, we got twenty dollars a week.
00:55:43
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
00:55:44
Speaker 2: We could either use that money to buy lunch every day at school, or we could pack our lunch and keep that twenty dollars. So what do you think we did packed.
00:55:57
Speaker 3: Your lunch and kept the money.
00:55:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that had nothing to do with like our chores. They were just things we were expected to do, Like we were expected to help clean the dishes after dinner. We did our own laundry. From what I remember that, at least in high school, we had day we had like cleaning days where like we would clean the whole house as a family and we would each get like a space to start and we would do that together. But I didn't. We had a dog, but I don't. I didn't help with the dog.
00:56:30
Speaker 3: That wasn't your thing.
00:56:31
Speaker 2: Well, so my parents got the dog. It really, I feel like was a gift. It was gift to all of us kids, but it was really I feel like for my little brother. I think we were supposed to take care of the dog. But the dog loved my dad more than anybody else. And I think my dad just that's what the.
00:56:49
Speaker 3: Kids say about both our pets, our dog and our cat. They're like, but the cat, and that they love you because we got these pets. Got the dog for the kids. And then Stashira it was her cat. It's her birthday present. One year and she's like, but they love you.
00:57:04
Speaker 2: You probably spend the most time with them, do you think. I guess yeah, my our dog could care less about me love my dad because.
00:57:13
Speaker 3: I'm like, why am I I'm like constantly caring for these animals and they're yells and then they're like we they want more animals and I'm like no.
00:57:20
Speaker 2: No, But I do think that's interesting, like keep the keep the chores separate from from money, so it feels like they're a part of Yeah, they're needed.
00:57:30
Speaker 3: I feel like we're a really diverse episode. We got comfort a night ap dating ah sentences that have changed that girl's life, whoever she is the girl?
00:57:44
Speaker 2: Do you follow her on Instagram or some suggested posts?
00:57:47
Speaker 3: Oh I love my suggested must come up that like hit hosts with me.
00:57:50
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, because a lot of times they're suggested that and I'm like, get this off my page. I don't follow this person, which that should be. Can you block that stuff? I'm sure I could, but it's like too much work. But this I was like, well, thank you very much, Instagram.
00:58:05
Speaker 3: I think by swiping right through it, you're sending a message to the algorithm.
00:58:08
Speaker 2: Sure.
00:58:10
Speaker 3: We also have what makes children successful. Three dcluttering tips.
00:58:15
Speaker 2: We have it all here.
00:58:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got you covered. What stage of life are you? And we're good? But don't forget to try out your nightcap tonight, Celebrate, appreciate, prioritize.
00:58:26
Speaker 2: Not on a first date, yeah unless unless you want to.
00:58:30
Speaker 3: You want to, But wherever you are, we hope you have the day you need to have. Bye Bye,
Speaker 1: Oh good, All right, break it down. If you ever have feelings that you just wonsome Amy and Cat gotcha covin locking, no brother, the lady's quotes, you just follow Anna spirit Ware, tell the phone over real stuff to the chill stuff and the.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: M but Swayne. Sometimes the best thing you can do it.
00:00:23
Speaker 1: Jes stop you feel things.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: This is feeling things with Amy and Kat.
00:00:30
Speaker 3: Happy Tuesday. Welcome to feeling things. I'm Amy, I'm Kat, and we're gonna kick things off with a quote like we used to on the Fifth Thing back in the day. I love so if you're an og listener, you'll you'll kind of get this. If you're new, welcome. Here's a quote that I saw today in my Anna Voss Whimsy newsletter. I love her newsletters so much, which we have a newsletter too. If y'all want to sign up, you can. The link is in the show notes. This quote is unknown and it's if you fail, congratulations. Most people don't even try.
00:01:01
Speaker 2: Amen.
00:01:02
Speaker 3: So good. Whatever you're doing, just go for it.
00:01:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're doing more.
00:01:08
Speaker 3: There are things that I've wanted to do recently and I'm like, oh, I don't really want to pour myself into that. Because it's already seems hard, and what if we fail at it anyway? And now I'm walking in on some stuff and I'm dialed in and I'm like, it's okay, we're going to get this.
00:01:22
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's so interesting to me and it helps me try. Is that a lot of times the reason we don't try is because we don't want to fail, and we don't want people to see us being a failure. A lot of times, yeah, well, a lot of times when people watch somebody try and fail, they're still in awe of them. Like if if you put yourself out there and did something and it didn't work out, I'd be like, good for her, And so actually failing works out for us, Like it's us that would be down on ourselves for it not working out.
00:01:56
Speaker 3: There people are like, yeah, but if someone happened to have other feelings, like oh they got some weird joy out of your failure, then that's a messed up thing that they should deal with. You don't need to worry about them anyways. The people do get joy out of or like huh, or I knew they weren't going to be able to do it, but I think that's their own fear.
00:02:16
Speaker 2: And that also they aren't gonna root for you if you do well. Neither are those same people.
00:02:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, our feelings of the day. Mine is nervous because I watched that document around Netflix that you told us to watch a toxic love story, and now I'm nervous to date, get married anybody.
00:02:38
Speaker 2: Ever.
00:02:38
Speaker 3: Again, I don't want to say too much because there's some twists, okay for sure.
00:02:43
Speaker 2: But also there are some twists for sure, but there are red flags on everybody's part and I do not that could happen to anybody. And I clocked some things that if I saw happening with you, I'd be like Amy Knock, like open your eyes.
00:03:05
Speaker 3: Right, you probably wouldn't let it go to the point of where it went in these relationships, like so we wouldn't be buying condos or getting married.
00:03:13
Speaker 2: Or within a couple weeks two months.
00:03:16
Speaker 3: So no, I get it. There's definitely red flags, but it's just.
00:03:19
Speaker 2: It is scary, no, I mean, there's so many stories like that, remember the Tinder Swindler all those So okay.
00:03:27
Speaker 3: So I'm a little I'm just a little nervous, I said, And don't worry. I haven't made a LinkedIn profile or anything because Ceraently that's all the rage now.
00:03:35
Speaker 2: But don't give up on it just because because then that I'm gonna feel bad because I recommended you to watch that. Yeah, and then that would have backfired.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, well I'm not going to give up, but it's okay to having to work out there. Just like every week, I'm showing more clues of hell. It's the wild, wild West, and I should just enjoy my little life, me and my dog and my cat and my kids occasionally. I mean, I always like want my kids, but I don't have them all the time all the time.
00:04:05
Speaker 2: Uh. Well, I'm feeling frazzled because I almost died.
00:04:14
Speaker 3: Uh again, No, that was your baby fire. Your baby's almost died twice. But now you and the baby on this side.
00:04:21
Speaker 2: I guess she might not have made it either. So I was on my way here and you had just called me. So this is crazy. This is what got me thinking, really, is have you ever been somebody's like last phone call.
00:04:36
Speaker 3: Which let me set the scene for y'all. Kat walked in and she's out of breath and she's just feeling very frazzled. Is a good word, like you were frazzled and you were like you were almost the last person I ever talked to, and I'm like, tell me more.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: You were like hot in the zone.
00:04:56
Speaker 3: So I think I was working, yes, and I don't think it fully registered how much your life was in danger. So why don't you tell us?
00:05:04
Speaker 2: Well, it's not that. I mean, it's simple. I just was at a stoplight and a fire truck was coming from behind and I couldn't turn because there was oncoming traffic and also the the fire truck was not in my lane, but then right before it got in my lane, and then I was like, what am I supposed to do? Because you know, usually you pull off the side of the road. I was in the middle of the road. I couldn't pull off the side, and I couldn't turn, and it literally, you guys, can't if you're not watching this on YouTube, which you could watch this on YouTube if you wanted it. Last minute did this swerve like he was. They were coming full force at me. I literally was looking in my rearview mirror being like, oh my god, what do I do do I pull into the middle of the road and then it last minute went around me. And I almost died, so.
00:05:56
Speaker 3: First I could have flit. Second, you thought they were going to injure you on her way to an emergency, and.
00:06:01
Speaker 2: It didn't register at first, like I think, I was like, oh, that was crazy. And then as I was going to get food and I was walking out of picking up my food, and I was like, oh my gosh, Amy was almost the last person I ever talked to. That's wild. And it made me think about, like, what are the last texts that I've sent? What's the last thing I said to my husband, which was I miss you and few yeah, and that was this when at like eight o'clock.
00:06:28
Speaker 3: Wait, so he'd like left for work and you're already like I miss you.
00:06:32
Speaker 2: You left at like six something probably, but.
00:06:35
Speaker 3: And then at ate you just texted him I miss you.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:06:38
Speaker 4: Oh that's sweet.
00:06:43
Speaker 2: But then I was thinking like Amy would be the last person that I talked to, Like what would she tell people about like how I was, because I don't think I was like super cheery, but I won't want people to know I was like in a good mood before I died.
00:06:56
Speaker 3: And then he offered to give me a salad.
00:06:59
Speaker 2: I did that, But then I was thinking like, have you ever been somebody's last Like, were the last person somebody talked to before they died? Were you with like your mom or your Yeah.
00:07:11
Speaker 3: I was with both of them when they died, but they were both unconscious. Oh both my mom we didn't have to unplug. She just slowly left her body over like a couple of days. And then my dad we had to unplug, and the doctor was like, this could take anywhere from three minutes to three days. My dad likes to go out, so he was pretty quick. He was less than three minutes, so it was pretty Oh wow.
00:07:40
Speaker 2: Well so that's a big Then I was just thinking, like that's a lot to carry that, like you were the last person.
00:07:47
Speaker 3: I mean we were talking to them as if they could hear us, but I didn't hear from them. But I think those were we knew they were dying situations. Some people, like in your case, this would have been a so an unexpected event.
00:08:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:08:02
Speaker 3: I think of that when I get on an airplane every almost every time I fly, I think, well, this could be it, but I don't. I don't assess the text messages that I've sent. I should start doing that, like take notes, like you're such an amazing person in front. Like every time I fly, I said like the nicest notes to everybody. So she just sent me the sweetest text and then she died. She was so thoughtful who she was. I'll always be remembered. I just did not like fifty texts.
00:08:35
Speaker 2: I'm feeling better actually, now that we're talking about I don't feel frazzled anymore.
00:08:38
Speaker 3: I just was. I see. So sometimes it's good naming it, yeah, and then talking about it, and then the feeling will go.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: They probably knew what they were doing. They probably knew they were going to do that swerve. I didn't know they were going to do that swerve. Yeah.
00:08:50
Speaker 3: I do have a question that doesn't come up, and this is something that you said before we hit record, and I made a mental note, yeah to ask you this. Okay, why did you say you were going to be a history major? Because before we hit record, Kat and I were just talking about the news article from a couple of weeks ago where in Arizona there's a college that has made influencing a major, and so this is just casual conversation and then we got sidetracked because other people were coming in and we were about to record. But you casually said, well, I was going to be a history major, and my dad said he wasn't going to pay for it. And I thought, in my head, Kat is a therapist. What would she have done with a history major, and why did you want to do that?
00:09:40
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's my dad's point is the question is asked, like, what are you going to do with that? So I didn't know what I wanted to be. I did not know what I wanted to major in. When I went to school. I was a nursing major, but that's just because I had no desire to be a nurse at all. But my mom was a nurse, that you could make a good living being a nurse. And I I liked my anatomy class and in high school, but I can't even look at a cut on my own hand.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: Seem like I pass out at the sight of blood.
00:10:23
Speaker 2: I could like cut my thumb open a couple of years ago, and I had to like change the bandage every day, and I couldn't even do it. Patrick had to do it. That's how bad I can't. So I took one nursing class or one intro and I was like, I got to change my major, but then I had never thought about it, so I think I changed it to like fashion merchandising at first, because that's like what cool girls were doing back then. But then I was like, I'm not really good at this, that's not for me. So then I was like, well, then I'll be a business major, like a just a marketing major or something, and then whatever. So then I took my intro your US History class in freshman year and I loved it.
00:11:09
Speaker 3: Loved it, really I.
00:11:10
Speaker 2: Loved it, except I do have one traumatic story from that class. But I loved learning about because I feel like in high school I never really paid attention to history, like you know, i'll read this and have this test, but I wasn't really realizing what I was learning is like real.
00:11:28
Speaker 3: Now, So was your professor really good? Do you think that played a role in it.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: I don't want to say that, though, because this professor made me cry.
00:11:37
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so is this a traumatic story?
00:11:39
Speaker 2: Yes, so I it's looking back, it's not that big of a deal, but it was a big deal to me. Then. It was one of those like big auditorium classes because everybody had to take it, and I had asked if I could take my midterm or my final early because I loved, really I loved six hours away from where I went to school, and I was trying to ride home with my sister and she was leaving earlier, and I was like, no big deal, Like who wants to take their test early? Like surely she'll be like, you're a good student for wanting to do that. She didn't reply to my email, and then she scolded me in front of the whole class how dare I do that?
00:12:23
Speaker 3: And asked that I but in an auditorium style class, she called you out.
00:12:27
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing. She didn't say who did it, but she said I got an email from one of you asking she never responded to me, and then she responded to me without naming me in front of the whole class. But obviously I'm like bright red. And she was basically like, you knew the schedule before, Like it felt like the crime the punishment didn't fit the crime. Like I didn't understand her saying no, you can't, but why did you have to? It was mean, like she was angry. I don't know what was going on with her that day. She also she was British. I liked that about her to me, that's why I liked.
00:13:05
Speaker 3: She was British teaching American history.
00:13:07
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know then later What's what's crazy is later when I was I was because I was a child and Family studies major, and so I had to work in the daycare on like the child development center on our campus. I had to care for her child.
00:13:25
Speaker 3: Oh, so what'd you do?
00:13:27
Speaker 2: Well? I didn't hurt the child, obviously, I cared for the child well, but I just was like, oh, I don't want to like this kid because your mom wasn't mean to me. But like she probably doesn't even remember, but it was like full circle. It's like I'm going to be the bigger person, you know, not put this child in danger anyway. So I can't all have to say I didn't. I don't like that teacher. I don't want I don't want to say it was her. I think it was the content. I just really liked learning about history. So I told my dad I want to be a history major, thinking I could be a professor.
00:14:01
Speaker 3: And you would be a nice one. If someone needed to take their exam early.
00:14:06
Speaker 2: I would totally let them because a what a good student and my Dad's response was, I'm not paying for that, because what are you going to do? I think his point was, I've never heard you talk about this before, so it's not like you grew up love going to museums and stuff and you're really enthralled in it. And I like it was very random, and he didn't want me to spend a lot of time and then have a major that I couldn't use to do what I really wanted to.
00:14:32
Speaker 3: Do, sort of a dead end.
00:14:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I didn't know what I wanted to do, so that was hard. And guys, that's okay. When you're a freshman, you don't really have to know.
00:14:42
Speaker 3: When did you realize you wanted to be a therapist?
00:14:46
Speaker 2: Probably not till I was a junior, because I ended up changing my major to Child and Family Studies, which I didn't know was a thing. That's the other You know, we probably have a lot of high schoolers listening, but like I didn't know all the options. That was part of my problem. That's joking, by the way.
00:15:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, we maybe have one.
00:15:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, So once I learned more, I had met somebody at a camp. I was working at a young life camp in the summer and my boss was a child of Family studies major. I'd never heard of that, and I was like, well, I want to do you working at Young Life Camp, I want to do that. I'll do that major, and so I changed my major to that. And then my advisor was also a therapist, and she encouraged me to take a marriage of family therapy class and I loved it, and so then I wanted to be a therapist.
00:15:38
Speaker 3: Which I know two people later in life that their adults, their moms that have since gone back to get their degree and whatever other things you need to do to become a licensed therapist. But it was a It wasn't something they did early on in their twenties. They pursued it later in their forties and they really love it.
00:16:01
Speaker 2: You know what I think because there was a couple in my class when I was in grad school. It wasn't all people that just graduated school. It was very it was pretty diverse. I think that being older going back because a lot of people don't want to restart. They think it's going to be so hard, which it is hard, but that keeps a lot of people from making changes. But what I saw from the people that were older and our cohort was they had a This is from my perspective, it was easier for them because when they were interns or new nobody assumed that they were new or interns because they were older, versus I'm twenty two trying to give therapy to a forty five year old, and that person's probably like, what the heck do you know? You know what I mean? But they come with a certain amount of life experience. But also I think just because they're older, just.
00:16:55
Speaker 3: The look of Lisnes, yes, the perceived Yeah.
00:16:58
Speaker 2: So I always was very jealous of them, like, dang it, I wish I was forty five.
00:17:04
Speaker 3: You'll get there. Yeah, when you were talking about the in school daycare and caring for your mean professor's child, and then also liking you as history, it made me think about the book that I'm reading right now, which is The Calamity Club. Now it's fiction, but you get it. There's some history intertwined. It's during the Great Depression, and there is a situation of someone having to care for someone else's child and that they don't.
00:17:33
Speaker 2: Like, they don't want the child or the well person.
00:17:37
Speaker 3: I don't want to give away too much, but it made me think of that storyline of having someone in your care and let's just say she's doing the opposite of you. You're like, no, I wasn't gonna treat the child any differently. That was not the case.
00:17:50
Speaker 2: I don't want to give myself that much credit because I was also getting graded.
00:17:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if you weren't getting graded, I.
00:17:57
Speaker 2: Hope I wouldn't. But you never know you.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: Wanted to pick her child up early, you'd be like, no, you can't pick her up early, keeping her you have to. You can't pick her up till five o'clock.
00:18:08
Speaker 2: You knew the hours, you knew four.
00:18:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, we already had. I'm already scheduled, did be here till five? So your kids staying here till five? You should have known better, and you make this big announcement. Okay, So that is Kat's journey to becoming a therapist and not a history professor.
00:18:23
Speaker 2: I think I would have been. I do think I would have really liked teaching. I will say that I would have liked teaching college. I don't think I would have liked teaching high school or middle school, eleentary school. Yeah, I saw something crazy. This is a callback from last week. We were talking about the Golden Girls thing.
00:18:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, because my friend wanted to know if I would live with her in a Golden Girls type house.
00:18:48
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so we talked about that, and we talked about I don't know if it was on that same episode or the Couch Talks episode that week, but we talked about Logan Uri. You remember that she's a dating coach and she has a Netflix show. I want to say it's called like Later Daters or something that I could have made that up, but it's about older people dating, like not like a twenty year old dating show. Okay, it was crazy. We talked about those two things. Guess what what she lives in a commune with her twenty best friends.
00:19:23
Speaker 3: She does, and she's like young, so she's single.
00:19:28
Speaker 2: I don't know that some of them have families because she talked about how they spend time with their kids and stuff.
00:19:35
Speaker 3: And right, it's not just girls the greatest friends. It's not like the Golden Girls where they've all ended up a single on the way in their life. So it's more of a compound, like the family compounds you see sometimes where everybody's living together and they have a shared pool. Like I saw something pop up on my Instagram the other day of like all these cousins that live on a bunch of property together and they built one huge pool in the middle of all this property, and there was probably it looks like a hotel, like twenty five lounge chairs, but all the cousins live there and then all of their kids, and they would all just yeah, it's not like, oh, we had to pay to put a pool in. You got to split it. Yeah, and you can make it really eight ways or however many. Yeah. The show is called The Later Daters.
00:20:20
Speaker 2: You write, it's cute. And so I watched her. Actually a client of mine told me about that show. So I watched a couple episodes, and there was a tip that I want, I want to give this to you, but also you might not need it, but also I want to give this because this is something that I can see helping. I mean, it's helped me, just as like a person who doesn't feel like they do the best with small talk. So she was talking to this sweet woman, oh my gosh, you have to watch at least one episode of this show.
00:20:54
Speaker 3: Oh, I totally will, and kind.
00:20:56
Speaker 2: Of coaching her on how to start the date and how to because she was I don't know what questions do I ask or what if there's an awkward silence or something, And so she said, a anti small talk technique is called in I don't know how this is really said because it's Latin, but in media res, which means in the middle of things. So she said, instead of sitting down and asking somebody like where are you from or whatever, she said, start talking about something that you were just doing. So it's like you are jumping into a conversation. So you sit down and you say hello, and you're like, oh my gosh, on the way here.
00:21:32
Speaker 3: I was almost died.
00:21:36
Speaker 2: That was an interesting way to start the conversation.
00:21:38
Speaker 3: But you were here. You were almost the last person I ever texted.
00:21:42
Speaker 2: She didn't give that example. She gave the example of I was on the way here and I was listening to this podcast and I heard this crazy thing. I want to share it with you. And then that just like gets you guys talking, and then you are learning about the person, like their personality versus just like facts about them. And then she said you can always once you go through that, like who knows where it will lead, you can always come back to the where are you from? Or what do you do for work? You can always come back to those questions, but it just is an easy way to jump in and feel like you guys kind of already know each other in a way.
00:22:17
Speaker 3: I feel like after watching a toxic love story, I would sit down and be like, so, I just watched this documentary a toxic love story, and I need to know your thoughts on this particular thing. The one thing that the guy is this is not going to be a spoiler of the show at all, whatsoever, because there's a lot happening in this love triangle situation. I will what I think is okay to say. If you don't want to know, I don't know, hit the fast forward button. Thirty seconds. He asked someone he was dating or married to, or whatever their relationship.
00:22:54
Speaker 5: Was to.
00:22:56
Speaker 3: That he wanted to watch her be with somebody else, and she had zero desire to do that. And also she said that sort of came out of nowhere. It really wasn't his. He was sort of she was girl next door. He was guy next door.
00:23:11
Speaker 2: If you look like a Disney adult, like wholesome.
00:23:13
Speaker 3: Wholesome, right, And then one day out of the blue, he hits her with that question. And she's saying no, no, no, no no, until I guess do people just get worn down and then they don't want to lose the person so they give in. And she ultimately gave in to his request because she thought, if I do this, then it'll he'll get it out of his system and we won't have to worry about it again.
00:23:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:23:43
Speaker 3: Like so now I feel like my question is going to be, like, do you ever have this desire? Because if we do, like I'm out, let me know, let me know now, just let me know now. Because that just was such a I was shocked that she was so against it and then ultimately she was worn down and decided to do it. And I'm sure there's a lot of people they get in those situations where they end up doing stuff that they don't want to do, and they had a firm boundary to begin with. But if people are relentless and depending on the emotional abuse and a relationship or whatever's taking place.
00:24:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I could be wrong about this. I'm pretty sure she hadn't.
00:24:28
Speaker 3: Dated a lot, she correct, and she was young.
00:24:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she didn't know how Probably she didn't have the awareness she has now of like how abnormal and scary. That is not for somebody to request that so much, but for somebody to not listen to you and.
00:24:42
Speaker 3: Listen to what you're saying. Yeah, because she did say you're right. She did say maybe this is just how all relationships.
00:24:49
Speaker 2: Are because she had already built I think this is something because at first I'm like, why would you do that? But she had already built a lot of trust with this person, and so this is she thinks this way, So she's seen it through that lens of This is a good guy. He doesn't want to hurt me. This is just something he wants. So maybe if I give it to him, then we can move forward. Versus if that was a stranger or somebody you didn't have trust built with, and that's where a lot of manipulation happens. It's like, well, I already this is who I think this person is, so they can't be doing this to hurt me or because they don't care about me, or because they're a bad person.
00:25:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, So do you think that's a good eye spraker or no?
00:25:31
Speaker 2: You know what I actually do think it would be if you went on a date and you had just watched the show it would be funny to sit down and be like, oh my gosh, I just watched this documentary last night called a Toxic Love Story, and it's making me feel a little nervous to be here with you. Like to make a joke out of it, But if you sit down in your seriously like, have you ever wanted to watch your partner be intimate with somebody else? Seriously? I think he would have been like that person might be a little off put right.
00:26:04
Speaker 3: Then he's going to be like, how do I end this date?
00:26:07
Speaker 1: Pivot?
00:26:08
Speaker 3: What did you say the other day or like a couple last week or the week before you were talking about how you and one of your dates you went on it was thirty five minutes long.
00:26:15
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, that one would probably end pretty sooner than that.
00:26:29
Speaker 3: So sometimes on dates you may have a little nightcap. But I have a new version of a night cap. Okay, Now the nightcap could be with you, your friends, someone you went on a date with, yourself, your kids, whatever, however you want to see this nightcap because really it's just the acronym of cap cap and it's good to do at night. Okay, So cap your day off with this see celebrate even the tiniest win. Maybe it's unloading the dishwasher that counts, So see for celebrate, that's.
00:27:06
Speaker 2: A big deal. I hate unloading the dishwasher. I will take one thing out of time. Out of a time, I'll.
00:27:11
Speaker 3: Take a couple of things out and then reload it with new stuff and run it again. Okay, A appreciate something from your day, no matter how small, like unloading the dish I didn't get hit by that fire.
00:27:28
Speaker 2: Try and if I did, that's so sweet that any would have been my last phone call.
00:27:33
Speaker 3: Yes, pee, prioritize one to three things for tomorrow so your brain can rest easy tonight. So that is your nightcap. Celebrate, appreciate, prioritize.
00:27:45
Speaker 2: I like it.
00:27:47
Speaker 3: I mean you probably don't want to do that with your date. I guess you could, or your husband you might be able to.
00:27:52
Speaker 2: You could do that, Like, you could do that after you're dating.
00:27:57
Speaker 4: You're like, I unloaded the dishwashers, like, oh, you're a winner. And then you're like you give something you appreciate, and then you're like, all right, what's our to do list for tomorrow? Really it's just a little prompt for you to have I like it. Cat which thinking of the things we like.
00:28:18
Speaker 3: Kat put some sentences that rewired this girl's brain. Alex Aubrey poetry on Instagram, and Kat listed all the ones that were her favorite, and I thought, Okay, Kat can go over this. But Kat is very, very pregnant, and she was like, can you read the sentences because I feel like I'm going to be out of bread. Yeah, so I can read them and then we can.
00:28:42
Speaker 2: Okay, I can tell you them, and I can tell you which one is my favorite.
00:28:45
Speaker 3: Okay, I already have my favorite, ok because I read over them as well. Okay, let's see if fars are the same thing. Okay, this is the first sentence that rewired Alex's brain. Never tell a person to be strong when they come to you to be weak.
00:29:02
Speaker 2: I really like that. I do too. Patrick and I were watching like a I think it was a TikTok. It did make me cry. It was like, oh, it was an Instagram carousel and it was like things that every man should know that nobody tells you about pregnancy or something. And one of them was like, when she's screaming in pain, don't tell her that it doesn't hurt. And he was like, why would anybody's response to somebody being in labor be like it doesn't hurt or it's not that bad, and I'm like, I don't know, but somebody probably was saying that to be I mean, there's probably a somebody out there that was like, well, if I tell them that they're fine and it's the pain's not real, it's not that bad. I think that's what it was. It's not that bad, then maybe that will help them. And it's like that's It's the same kind of idea there where if somebody needs to acknowledge where they are and just like fall apart, there's a time and a place to remind somebody of their strength, and then there's also a time and a place to just let somebody fall apart.
00:30:07
Speaker 3: As a parent, that one really speaks to me as sometimes our kids need to just fall apart at home and they need to give them the space to do that. Next one, the world around you is beautiful when the world within you is peaceful. M I think that's the truth. Maybe you didn't get what you wanted because you deserved more. That's such a good one for reframing a situation.
00:30:33
Speaker 2: Yes, I love that one. I don't want to say it's my favorite because it sounds cliche, But the best cliches are cliches because they're true. Yeah.
00:30:42
Speaker 3: No, I think this is excellent for that's exactly what it is. It's a statement you can tell yourself to try to reframe a scenario. And I don't think it ignores what you went through, right, And that's the best type of reframing. You can still acknowledge what you didn't get and then say well, And it's even saying maybe, yeah, yeah, maybe maybe maybe you didn't get what you wanted because you deserve more, so go find it.
00:31:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say in those moments, I'm like, well, I don't care what I deserve. This is what I want, you know, like, I don't care if I deserve somebody better. This is the person I want to be with. You don't really feel the like, oh I get it until it happens, but I still love it.
00:31:27
Speaker 3: Next one, if your life for a twenty four hour day, it would only be seven am when you're thirty years old.
00:31:33
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a favorite one.
00:31:35
Speaker 3: Okay, explain that one.
00:31:36
Speaker 2: But I didn't do the math on it, but I guess because the day starts at twelve am. So when you're thirty, it's still only seven am, and then you have so much time left because I think a lot of people hit thirty or name whatever age it is and you're like, my life is almost over or I've lived a third of my life or whatever. But when you look at it like that, it's seven am.
00:32:01
Speaker 3: The day is my oyster Like at forty five, do I really need to give up and move in with my girlfriends in a golden girl's house because you probably only like ten of us like a whole another chapter with a partner somewhere now.
00:32:17
Speaker 2: I will say this one does backfire when you get to be like seventy, because then it's probably getting into the evening hours.
00:32:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, next one. I don't think bad things happen to good people. I think bad things happen to everyone, and the way good people respond is what makes them good.
00:32:35
Speaker 2: I like that.
00:32:36
Speaker 3: Aiming for a life full of we saw so many cool places together and not we have so many cool things, So it's more about experiences versus possessions.
00:32:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I think, Well, I don't know that the possessions thing fits, but I do think millennials are more like the Seeson moment sees the day travel do things while I can't spend the money, and we're seeing there's a lot of I feel like we get a lot of flak for that, but then we end up doing so many. Yeah, we might not have all of retirement saved up, but our life feels so full by like age thirty five, you.
00:33:16
Speaker 3: Know, next one, we don't see things as they are, We see things as we are.
00:33:22
Speaker 2: Is that your favorite?
00:33:23
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm gonna read them all and then I'm oh, my favorite. I thought we've you Okay, this is the final one? How long are you willing to postpone the life you want in exchange for the comfort of where you are currently at? That reminds me of like the one you like m the clock is ticking.
00:33:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, So which one is your favorite?
00:33:51
Speaker 3: Maybe you didn't get what you wanted because you deserved more.
00:33:53
Speaker 2: Oh sweet, that would probably be my second.
00:33:57
Speaker 3: It's just yeah, so good. Yeah, And it can apply to so many different things. It doesn't even have to be a romantic love. It can be with like or fertility, stuff, work, other opportunities.
00:34:12
Speaker 2: Anything, anything. Yeah. I like that. And again I think that's one where you have to like just believe it until it happens, because in the moment, you're going to be like, well, I wanted that job, or I wanted to have a baby that way, or I wanted to marry that loser.
00:34:28
Speaker 3: I do like the one about aiming for a life full of we saw so many cool places together versus we have so many cool things. I do. I do like that one.
00:34:37
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you got to go to Paris?
00:34:41
Speaker 3: Well, I know, I know, but when you look at how far out you're supposed to plan a trip like that, an international trip like that, you know, when I got word on my my next vacation was with not enough time to build a trip to Paris like I would want to build. So I'm still going to travel. I'm like ninety nine zero point nine percent sure at this point that I'm going to Ecuador to see my cousin Amanda. So I'm still leaving that. I'm still gonna go do that. But I don't have to get a hotel, I don't have to go places she lives there. I'm gonna be staying with her. She's telling me where to fly into, where to fly out of. I'm gonna be She's got our whole itinerary. We're going to go to her spa that she likes, go to her workout places. We're gonna hike like she has everything that We'll probably stay at her house a lot in our jammis and just talk because our moms would love that, because that's what our moms used to do together. Yeah, wake up, have coffee like that. Will That's an easy international trip that I don't have to think on, and I just think I need to be a little more proactive about figuring out, okay, when my vacations are going to be and then dial in because I don't I thought about doing the whole last minute thing, but that's a big investment to go all the way there and not have a sufficient plan.
00:35:54
Speaker 2: There are people I have a friend when we went to I've only been on one big trip like that, we went to Italy, so no expert in traveling. But I have a friend who literally will decide two days before and then take a flight and go to Europe.
00:36:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been I know you're talking about, and I've been motivated by her before.
00:36:13
Speaker 2: No, this is a different one. I said more than one friend.
00:36:16
Speaker 3: Oh yes, she's okay, the girl you have so many friends who you're tut her.
00:36:20
Speaker 2: About does spontaneous stuff. But she did plan those couple trips. I have another friend she just her and her husband just travel everywhere. She like when I was telling her about my trip to Italy, I was asking her of like advice, and then I was like, wait, you're the person to ask because she's like, just show up in the city and see where you can stay. And I'm like absolutely not, Like, first of all, I don't know how to get there. I don't know how to get and I don't know so no.
00:36:47
Speaker 3: People they can live that way. That's amazing great not for me, but also I could try it out. But I just when you start to look at the price tag of everything, right, well that seems a lot.
00:36:58
Speaker 2: That's my big thing is I am gonna we spent a good amount of money on that trip. I want to make sure it's what I want it to be, yes, versus just like hope it works out.
00:37:11
Speaker 5: And I want to know like the the you really off the beaten path places to go, Like I sure there's some big like the Louver, lad to go there, there's the Okay, I want to see the Eiffel Tower, Like there's some big ticket things where it's like those are.
00:37:25
Speaker 3: Easy boxes to check. Yeah, but I also want to know. I just I was talking to my sister's mother in law when I was in Colorado, and I think that's what made me shift from like I probably should be a little more patient with my planning and and try to do Paris right because she was talking about all the places she loves to go, and I want to pull people and talk to people and figure out, Okay, you give me this restaurant, not just googling like, oh, this is the best restaurant to go to, Yeah, it has all these reviews. I have people in my life that have gone multiple times and go to different shops there and look at antiques and see other historic things. Like I don't know, I just want to mill about on the streets.
00:38:11
Speaker 2: I walk to mill.
00:38:12
Speaker 3: About and see those So uh. Another one made that made me think of some decluttering tips that I know that you have had in our Google dog for a while. So I was like, maybe we give Kat the opportunity to go over the decluttering tips because we see so many cool places together versus we have so many cool things. That's like we need to not buy more things we need to declutter and then not just replace it with more stuff, because I know you've been in a big nesting phase. You've told us about it with the baby coming and trying to get everything ready, and so I was like, hey, these decluttering tips might come come in clutch for some people, and I think I would like to well, yeah, I know that.
00:38:55
Speaker 2: In there because I was like, I think that was a couple of weeks ago when I was like, all I want to do was throw everything out, and like that's also not the way.
00:39:03
Speaker 3: That's not the answer because then you end.
00:39:05
Speaker 2: Up throwing things out that you actually cared about. You know.
00:39:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, just a little behind the scenes baseball though, because I like when stuff ends up, like we have this Google doc and we add things take away, like cat has a folder, I have a folder, and then we have dates of episodes and they've got a folder and this is one that has bounced around and so I've dropped it in there and I'm like, we're doing it well. Three tips on decluttering.
00:39:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me give them to you straight. Then give it to me. Tip number one, use every cleaning opportunity as a chance to rid your life. You know what, you just did what you tricked me because I asked you to read the things before. I just started reading that sentence and I was like, I'm out around.
00:39:46
Speaker 3: I can read them for you, but I wanted to give you the credit of putting them in.
00:39:50
Speaker 2: I can try. I try. Use every cleaning opportunity as a chance to rid your life of unnecessary possessions. My favorite minimalist move is to constantly be decluttering instead of trying to figure out where everything should go. Always declutter as I clean. It's easier to get rid of something than create a new organizational system for it to fit in your home. Which I like that. So like, as you're cleaning, you don't have to have a declutter day where I'm gonna throw stuff out. But as I'm cleaning, if I don't have a home for something, instead of reorganizing, ask myself, do I actually need this? Or do I can I get rid of this? Because what I do is I say I don't have a home for this, I'm gonna shove it in this drawer. Then one day the drawer stops shutting, you know, So that's tip number one. Number two, have as many blank surfaces as you can. Oh my gosh, this is so hard for me. Stop filling every shelf and see how you feel when there's more room to breathe. Stop filling every shelf and see how you feel when there's more room to breathe. Because when you enter now, you don't want your house to be blank. You know, you want there to be stuff. You want there to be yes, yeah, but you feel different when you're in a house when there's stuff everywhere, and when it's you know, there's a method to the madness. However, Patrick and I were just talking about this because we were We're almost done with the nursery and I was I haven't hung anything up, and he was like, Catherine, you need to leave blank space on the wall. He was like, I'm worried that every part of the wall is going to have something on it. And I was like, but I have so many things to put up, and he was trying to tell me you don't need to do that.
00:41:44
Speaker 3: So that was on the nursery wall.
00:41:47
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm gonna put this on this wall, and i want a shelf on this wall, and I want this mirror on this wall. And he was like, this room is really small. You're going to make this he said it a nice way. But then you know he doesn't have the best design taste, so so what do you know? Yeah, I gave him one thing. I told you about this, the tree. I said Patrick could pick one thing out for the nursery because I felt back because I feel like I made every decision, and I wanted to put an olive tree in the corner.
00:42:17
Speaker 3: I've seen that olive tree.
00:42:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've seen that in there behind my head right now. Yeah, and we both have a He said he didn't like the look of the olives, so I said, okay, well then you can pick out a tree to put here, and he ordered a seven foot ficus tree, which I sent it to you.
00:42:37
Speaker 3: That's all right, but it's not what I would pick out.
00:42:42
Speaker 2: It's huge, and it is either going back or it's definitely going somewhere else anyway.
00:42:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not like the delicate, dainty baby vibes. Yeah, it's definitely.
00:42:53
Speaker 2: It was a hearty tree.
00:42:54
Speaker 3: It's not going to fit. Yeah, but you've worked really hard to curate and create.
00:42:59
Speaker 2: Try to get I was trying to be cool. I was trying to like, do you pick it out whatever you want, It's okay. You tried. Yeah, I did try. I just want him to He doesn't really care that much, but I want him to feel like he's a part of things, you know.
00:43:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure he's fine with like not.
00:43:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, he picked out some baskets in the closet for the glossic.
00:43:21
Speaker 3: He picks some baskets that aren't going to be seen.
00:43:24
Speaker 2: They're actually really cute, Actually they're really they're pretty all right. The third tip, remove some of your storage. The more shelves and drawers and bins you have, the more you fill them with stuff. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that your organizational system is going to save you from your clutter. Less storage means fewer belongings. I have so much stuff in my garage, you know, on shelves that I probably will.
00:43:50
Speaker 3: Never Well, that's the thing that a lot of people before you give birth, maybe if the nesting like really kicks in and I know that you're a little out of breath from top, But if you and Patrick and gosh, it's just summer and it's so hot in the garage's the only thing that's like a negative for you right now to go out there and tackle it. But before the baby comes because the next thing you know, you're raising a child or multiple children for the next eighteen plus years and you're not going to get to it, and more stuff is going to add and pileon and pile on. But that's where I was, like when my parents passed away, my mom specifically, like having to go through all of these things that I wish she would have taken a little more time to declutter, because then now I have to make this. It's like this emotional heaviness and responsibility of now deciding, like now I have to get rid of it, but I want to hold on to it because it was my mom's. But if she would have just done it for me, then I would have been left with only important things I don't want to keep, but to do it before they grow up and then you die and they have to do it for you.
00:44:57
Speaker 2: And it is true, the more space you have, the more stuff off you're keeping. Yes, So that's why in like my last house, we didn't have barely any storage, but now I have all these spaces I can keep things.
00:45:09
Speaker 3: Well, don't add to it. Yeah, take this advice and don't add to it just because you have what.
00:45:15
Speaker 2: A else fails to hire somebody to come help you do it.
00:45:20
Speaker 3: You know what I really want to do, and I'm going to have to hire somebody or have a friend to help me because it's just not my gift. Is I want a photo gallery or a picture gallery up my stairs? Oh yeah, where it's different sized frames, different colored frames, like everything's really mismatched. Maybe it's family photos mixed with art mixed with like everything. It looks like it doesn't go together, but that's intentional.
00:45:47
Speaker 2: And you see, this is the thing about that is like you can do I can do that on my own. It will look like this doesn't go together, and it doesn't go together. But if somebody else does, like you're saying, like, hire somebody's help, they can make it look like this doesn't go together, but it does. Like I don't. I don't have that gift either. I've tried to do a gallery wall in mine.
00:46:07
Speaker 3: I took a screenshot of one. I don't know if something popped up in my for you page, it wasn't even about the gallery wall, but it was some woman. Her page popped up and she had any walking up her stairs to go show something else, and I took a screenshot of her gallery wall, and I'm like, that's it. Now, I at least have the inspo and I can show someone who can like help me and has that gift. And you know those people that will actually like get construction paper and they'll cut out the size of the picture frame and put it on the wall and trace it and they like everything is mapped out or there's blue tape or something like, I'm just a stick of hammer in the wall and send a prayer. Yeah, but I feel like with a wall like that, I can't. I'll end up with holes everywhere. If I was just hanging one thing above, like the toilet, Okay, that's pretty easy, because you can't. You can feel like I have AYE all above your toilet. I know that's what many think of it. In my guest bathroom, this horse photo photo this piece of art horse But the frame is metal and it's very heavy, and the type of nail that I chose isn't strong enough to hold it. So then you'll also notice that there was like sticky what's that command strip command strips stuck on the wall because I then I just decided to stick the metal frame on the wall and it all It lasted for a few months and then one day I walked in and it had fallen on the toilet. Oh it fell Yeah, so that's why it's still there looking. So I just need to figure out like a drill situation.
00:47:41
Speaker 2: Okay, you should. We should have somebody come do that, right. Okay. You also have perfect staircase for the gallery wall, so I'm co signing that for you.
00:47:51
Speaker 3: I agree. I think it'll really change the vibe of the room because you know, in the last couple of weeks I've been trying to move everything around and figure stuff out, which you haven't understood. But I'm not trying to buy more, or if I do buy more, it's like it's like we're in the club. We got a clicker. Yeah, if something's coming in, something's going out.
00:48:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw a very interesting study recently I want to share with you that surprised me. It was a study from Harvard and this was from I can't take credit for this, obviously, but this was posted by my Max Life speaker on Instagram and it was just a title of what makes children Successful? So when you think about like what makes did you do? You know what I'm about to tell you now, Okay, perfect, When you think about, like what makes kids successful later in life? What would you think are like the markers.
00:48:44
Speaker 3: What level of like responsibility were they given or like what was expected of them in their home? You're like very close, say the question again one more time.
00:48:56
Speaker 2: What do you think helps to make children successful later in life? Yeah?
00:49:03
Speaker 3: What was expected in their home? Because I feel like when everything's given to a kid, yeah, or when everything's done for them. That's what I've heard the most as a parent, is like you have kids have to learn to do things for themselves if you swoop in and do it every time. And that's something that I had to yeah, because like when okay, speaking of unloading the dishwasher or loading it, I have a particular way I want it loaded. I have particularly I want it unloaded where everything goes, And so I would just be like, it's faster, it's faster. Just put your dish in the sink, like I'll handle it because it's faster for me at least, and I would micromanage, and I really need to be like, okay, yeah, will you wash your dish and put in the dishwasher and then not be so particular.
00:49:48
Speaker 2: Do you do your kid's laundry?
00:49:50
Speaker 3: They have learned to do it. I will at times, but no, they both pretty much do their own now.
00:49:59
Speaker 2: As a kid, I did my own laundry, but not because I think my mom might have done everybody else's laundry. But I wouldn't let her wash any color with a color that didn't match it. So I've had one yellow shirt. I would have like a meltdown if she washed it with like a blue shirt. So that means my mom let me wash a yellow shirt by itself, which I guess it was better than my meltdown. I don't know. Okay, so you're very close. So Harvard did a seventy five year long study on what makes children successful and found it wasn't grades, test scores, or extracurriculars. It was something that parents generally, which this also shocked me, stop doing, stop making their kids do by age ten. It was chores.
00:50:50
Speaker 3: Parents are in parents age ten.
00:50:52
Speaker 2: Yes, which that is what shocked me, is that I'm I wait, at ten you start doing the chores. I feel like that's when I would start giving them the try. So I might have read that wrong when I was reading it, but yeah, it said to grow up happy and successful, a child needs both love and work ethic, which I think is what you were kind of speaking to. He said, work ethic comes from doing chores. Clear the plate, take out the trash, feed the dog, fold the laundry. Another study traced kids at four points in their life, and the strongest predictor of success by twenty five was whether the child did chores at age three or four, which is interesting. At first, I was like, three or four, they can't do anything, But then I was reading, I was like, they can. They can help feed the pets, they can carry their plate to the sink, they can put clothes in a hamper, like there are little things that they could do, and so it said. This was also you might relate to this because you said it was kind of hard for you to like let your kids do it. Eighty two percent of parents chores as kids. However, only twenty eight percent of those people's kids do chores.
00:52:07
Speaker 3: Wow, what causes that?
00:52:09
Speaker 2: I don't know?
00:52:10
Speaker 3: Drastic drop, I wonder, because it's like, if chores were expected of you, why would you not expect that of your kids? And we all parent differently, we should parent differently, like hopefully at each generation you get a little bit better. But in knowing what chores bring about. I wonder if because there's more, is there more I don't know if there's more or less, like be making this up, but I'm like, is there more help outside the house, like or if both parents are working, then is there someone that's helping clean so the kids don't have to.
00:52:42
Speaker 2: Or it's much more common these days for both parents to work. Therefore, it is much more common to have somebody clean the house or do the things that a typical mom that stays home or dad that stays home would do. So that actually makes a lot of sense.
00:52:58
Speaker 3: I know, but that means other things that a lot of people may not. Or if the moms or the dads are staying home, are they just deciding to do it? I mean the kids who are definitely a lot more busy with five different activities.
00:53:12
Speaker 2: And when I think a lot of people think that if I put my kid in all these activities, that's what's going to help them be successful is have them volunteer here and play this sport and learn this instrument. And it's it's less about having stuff for them to do and more about them feeling needed. And sometimes when you have a chore or a task like that, you're part of the system and you're contributing. Yes. So they gave three rules that actually work when it comes to doing chores. They recommend One, start kids early three to four. They can put away toys, carry a plate, feed the dog, so don't wait until they can mow the grass to ask them to do something. Two show them how do it together first, and then let them takeover. So if it's feeding the dog, it's like, let's fill this water bowl up together, or let's scoop the food together, and then eventually you can say, hey, can you give the dog some food? And number three don't This was interesting to me. Don't pay for chores. Pain turns it into a transaction. Keep allowance is separate, So then I'm like, well, I guess you don't allowance.
00:54:30
Speaker 3: It's tricky iding. That's hard, I mean, or is it? We went back and forth with it. I think we had seasons when Ben and I were married and together where we did know charts with the kids. If they wanted certain things, they had to get a certain amount of stars. Like when we first got them, we had this big whiteboard and we'd have things that they could This is all pre COVID. Yeah, so it feels I feel like my life with the kids there was like pre COVID and Ben and I were still together, and then after like twenty twenty twenty twenty, some separations started. Twenty twenty one, we were fully separated. And so then they've got however they do it at Ben's hous and however they do it at mine, And I think we just like Stevenson wanted some extra spending money for something the other day, and so I gave him a list of things to do and he earned that money. But he still will feed the dog, walk the dog, and do his laundry, and I don't pay him for that.
00:55:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't have growing up. We didn't have specific chores, but there were things we were expected to do, like.
00:55:30
Speaker 3: For your allowance, probably well no, our allowance was we would get This is crazy because it probably doesn't feel like a lot of money now, but it was a lot to us back then.
00:55:39
Speaker 2: We got twenty dollars when we got to middle school, we got twenty dollars a week.
00:55:43
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
00:55:44
Speaker 2: We could either use that money to buy lunch every day at school, or we could pack our lunch and keep that twenty dollars. So what do you think we did packed.
00:55:57
Speaker 3: Your lunch and kept the money.
00:55:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that had nothing to do with like our chores. They were just things we were expected to do, Like we were expected to help clean the dishes after dinner. We did our own laundry. From what I remember that, at least in high school, we had day we had like cleaning days where like we would clean the whole house as a family and we would each get like a space to start and we would do that together. But I didn't. We had a dog, but I don't. I didn't help with the dog.
00:56:30
Speaker 3: That wasn't your thing.
00:56:31
Speaker 2: Well, so my parents got the dog. It really, I feel like was a gift. It was gift to all of us kids, but it was really I feel like for my little brother. I think we were supposed to take care of the dog. But the dog loved my dad more than anybody else. And I think my dad just that's what the.
00:56:49
Speaker 3: Kids say about both our pets, our dog and our cat. They're like, but the cat, and that they love you because we got these pets. Got the dog for the kids. And then Stashira it was her cat. It's her birthday present. One year and she's like, but they love you.
00:57:04
Speaker 2: You probably spend the most time with them, do you think. I guess yeah, my our dog could care less about me love my dad because.
00:57:13
Speaker 3: I'm like, why am I I'm like constantly caring for these animals and they're yells and then they're like we they want more animals and I'm like no.
00:57:20
Speaker 2: No, But I do think that's interesting, like keep the keep the chores separate from from money, so it feels like they're a part of Yeah, they're needed.
00:57:30
Speaker 3: I feel like we're a really diverse episode. We got comfort a night ap dating ah sentences that have changed that girl's life, whoever she is the girl?
00:57:44
Speaker 2: Do you follow her on Instagram or some suggested posts?
00:57:47
Speaker 3: Oh I love my suggested must come up that like hit hosts with me.
00:57:50
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, because a lot of times they're suggested that and I'm like, get this off my page. I don't follow this person, which that should be. Can you block that stuff? I'm sure I could, but it's like too much work. But this I was like, well, thank you very much, Instagram.
00:58:05
Speaker 3: I think by swiping right through it, you're sending a message to the algorithm.
00:58:08
Speaker 2: Sure.
00:58:10
Speaker 3: We also have what makes children successful. Three dcluttering tips.
00:58:15
Speaker 2: We have it all here.
00:58:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got you covered. What stage of life are you? And we're good? But don't forget to try out your nightcap tonight, Celebrate, appreciate, prioritize.
00:58:26
Speaker 2: Not on a first date, yeah unless unless you want to.
00:58:30
Speaker 3: You want to, But wherever you are, we hope you have the day you need to have. Bye Bye,
