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00:00:09
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Saturday, November 7th. Question for you. Are you a hugger? Another question for you. Can you remember a really good hug that you had, whether it was last week, last month, last year, or even 10 years ago? Your answers to those questions tell us a lot about you and possibly your attachment style. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. You a hugger? Generally speaking. No. No. Why? Would you characterize yourself that way?
00:00:43
Speaker 2: I've always characterized myself that way.
00:00:46
Speaker 3: And I will say this, and I'm curious as we get into this conversation, if it can change or evolve.
00:00:53
Speaker 2: Because I would say that I have, and it depends on who's doing the hugging.
00:00:59
Speaker 1: Now, they do say you can change your attachment style. It is possible to do so. I wasn't that up on attachment styles. The reason we're talking about this now, it was very... Interesting to see a headline in New York Times in an opinion piece that asked the question, are you a hugger? Your answer may be telling. Another way they put it, Robes, is why the best hugs are so memorable. Now, I asked you this earlier and you struggled with it. Can you remember a hug? Any hug, anytime, anywhere that was memorable over the past, in your life, like a specific, you know you've hugged your mom, your dad, you know you've hugged people plenty. Could you remember one?
00:01:41
Speaker 2: No.
00:01:42
Speaker 1: Isn't that.
00:01:44
Speaker 3: No, I do not have a specific hug that I remember. Now, let me ask you those very same questions. I already know the answer to the first one.
00:01:53
Speaker 2: Are you a hugger?
00:01:54
Speaker 1: I'm a crazy hugger. I'm a crazy hugger.
00:01:58
Speaker 3: Why? Which is weird because I think when you know each of us, maybe from the outside looking in, if you don't personally have a relationship with us, I would be willing to guess that... That most people listening who know of us but don't know us would assume I am a hugger and you are not.
00:02:16
Speaker 1: Because you appear to be outgoing. You appear to be the person that wants to be around people and with people and enjoy people and smiling in groups.
00:02:26
Speaker 2: All of that's true.
00:02:27
Speaker 1: And all of that stuff.
00:02:28
Speaker 2: I'm friendly. Very friendly.
00:02:30
Speaker 1: I appear to be the guy who doesn't want to be in that group. I am standoffish. I am an introvert. You're in the corner. To a certain degree. But we are totally flipped. I engage. I like to be roped a number of times. And you saw it plenty. Tell TJ segments. How much hugging did I have going on in segments all over this country? I'm hugging everybody all the time everywhere.
00:02:57
Speaker 2: We are absolute opposites when it comes to that. I struggle with it.
00:03:03
Speaker 1: Now, why is that? You say you struggle with it. Why? Why do you struggle with hugging?
00:03:06
Speaker 2: I've always said this about myself.
00:03:09
Speaker 3: And the reason why I asked if things can change or people can change or if it depends on who you are hugging. I have always said my love language was not personal, was not, sorry, physical touch. But when we became romantically involved and we became in a relationship, suddenly, literally, that became the most important love language of them all to me with you. I wanted physical touch for the first time in my life. I craved holding your hand. I crave hugging you. I come in.
00:03:38
Speaker 2: Every morning in the podcast room. There are a few exceptions here and there, but I do.
00:03:44
Speaker 1: Not a lot, baby. I'll actually give you credit for this. There aren't really exceptions.
00:03:47
Speaker 3: And it's not because I'm trying to get anything out of it. I genuinely want to hug you.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: I see you.
00:03:53
Speaker 3: You get up before me. We just did our previous episode. If you want to take a listen, we don't wake up together very often. So, yes, when I come into the room, you're usually already at work. And the first thing I do is I come in and I give you a hug.
00:04:06
Speaker 2: And I want to. I crave it. But that is the first time, I really think that's true, in my life, that I have, like, craved.
00:04:16
Speaker 3: Now, I love a hug from my little girls when I would come home from a work trip and they'd come running in my arms.
00:04:20
Speaker 2: All of that. But just generally speaking, no. I feel uncomfortable. I feel....
00:04:29
Speaker 3: I don't, all I can tell you is it doesn't feel natural to me in most circumstances to hug someone. Wow.
00:04:36
Speaker 1: Now, does it matter who that someone is?
00:04:39
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:04:40
Speaker 1: Okay. I am not that way. So I am asking, and maybe most people would say that's completely understandable, Robes, that, I don't know, somebody you just met or somebody you're not that close to or somebody you're interviewing or whatever those things might be. Does that make a difference to you? I guess at what level and what closeness do you have to have to that person before that hug doesn't feel uncomfortable to you?
00:05:06
Speaker 2: Well, I can tell you I've practiced.
00:05:08
Speaker 3: I've practiced leaning into hugging someone. And I do believe, like I've read the studies that show your body chemistry changes when.
00:05:18
Speaker 2: You hug someone.
00:05:20
Speaker 3: And so my resistance to it, I'm more curious about it, why that's my instinct and And it's probably about protection.
00:05:27
Speaker 2: It's about fear. It's about probably childhood issues. Don't they all say you go back to that?
00:05:36
Speaker 3: I just think maybe even culturally, I'm 92% German. And I don't mean to throw Germans under the bus, but I think culturally speaking, it doesn't tend to be as physically effusive of a culture as some others. So I just think the way I grew up, the way I've... But I have leaned into it. And
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certainly, I would actually say post-cancer... And fighting for your life and meeting other people who are fighting.
00:06:04
Speaker 2: For their lives, you just start, those barriers go down.
00:06:07
Speaker 3: And I've been much more of a hugger in the last decade for sure of my life.
00:06:11
Speaker 1: I don't think you're being offensive to Germans by saying they're not generally known as being warm and fuzzy. I don't think that.
00:06:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just didn't grow up in a touchy-feely environment. If you met my brother, he is a wonderful, awesome, he's a doctor for God's sakes.
00:06:26
Speaker 2: He's brilliant. spent his life healing and helping people, but he would never be described as a warm and fuzzy person.
00:06:33
Speaker 1: Known this dude a long time. We barely shake hands. No, I'm kidding.
00:06:38
Speaker 2: It's just not, yeah.
00:06:41
Speaker 1: Okay, so this got our attention because there is a study that came out end of last month, so it's only been out a couple of weeks here, and the title of the study is, quote, Why We Hug Individual Differences Predict emotional touch memories and what they were examining here robes is how you can go back to your attachment style and it can determine today how you feel about hugging and what memories of hugging that you have and i tested their theory out first by asking you can you remember a hug you couldn't come up like a specific like after somebody died i remember my aunt came and i can remember When I was a kid and I lost my blank and my teacher gave me a hug or like anything, everybody generally has one of those.
00:07:31
Speaker 2: What's yours? Or do you have one or several?
00:07:34
Speaker 1: I got tons.
00:07:35
Speaker 2: Name a couple of them for me.
00:07:37
Speaker 1: You know, the one, and Rose, I know you've, I'm sure I've told you this story before. Now, there's a whole bunch of circumstances that caused me to remember this, but Chadwick Boseman. Chadwick Boseman, the first time I met him, we just locked eyes. He was walking through GMA. I remember where I was standing in the freaking, you know, the break room there, coming out of it into that long hallway. He was coming by, going to do his interviews around Black Panther time. Never met the brother before. We locked eyes. We get it. We understand each other. Black man, black man. We get it. Immediately come to each other and wrote, he hugged me and he put his head on my shoulder. almost in a way that he took a nap. If you picked up a child and that child was tired and they put their head on your shoulder.
00:08:27
Speaker 2: Best feeling in the world.
00:08:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, you love that. He did that. And in that moment, I didn't think it's strange, but it caused me to reciprocate. And we just had, in that moment.
00:08:41
Speaker 2: I'm visualizing that now.
00:08:43
Speaker 1: Well, he put his head on my... Now, I wonder if later, because of what happened and what we found out later, do I remember it because of that? Rose, I've been telling this story for a long time, even before we found out about his diagnosis. His cancer, baby. That stood out to me. I don't know what about that was unique. I don't know. I remember being comforted after I had fallen down. So this is all trauma, I guess. Falling down some stairs on a school trip when I was in the freaking first kindergarten. And this guy in a pair of cowboy boots had to step in front of this barricade to make sure I didn't keep falling. I remember the hug that my teacher gave me at the time to comfort me.
00:09:26
Speaker 2: That's so sweet.
00:09:27
Speaker 1: Standing there at a circus in the middle of this whole place. I remember that hug. Now, why is it? Rose, that was 45 years ago. Why do I remember that hug? They suggest in this study robes, there's a reason for all of this. I didn't remember all the attachment styles I've heard. I think a lot of people are familiar. This is huge, but they have four of them. Secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. Disorganized is often referred to as well as fearful avoided. Did you know yours already?
00:09:57
Speaker 3: I did not. Um, I did quickly take it. There's like a three second and you can go into a deeper dive. There are plenty of quizzes you can take. But I actually quickly just did one just to see what I ended up as.
00:10:12
Speaker 2: And I'm a little concerned by it.
00:10:13
Speaker 1: And I want to take it.
00:10:15
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because it's not what I would have thought.
00:10:17
Speaker 1: What do you think?
00:10:18
Speaker 2: I thought maybe I was going to just be avoidant.
00:10:21
Speaker 1: Okay, but?
00:10:22
Speaker 2: But I need to take a.
00:10:24
Speaker 3: This is actually from the person who wrote the book that the New York Times is referencing called Attached, which I actually just ordered on Amazon because I actually want to read it now.
00:10:33
Speaker 2: I'm really interested. But.
00:10:36
Speaker 3: The quick little quiz I just took said I was fearful avoidant, which apparently is less than 5% of the population.
00:10:42
Speaker 1: Fearful avoidant. So you know what? I'm going to go ahead and go down to that. What is fearful avoidant or disorganized? Adults with this attachment often exhibit confusing or unpredictable behavior. They crave love and connection, yet they also fear these things. As a result, they may settle into a pattern of seeking out love only to reject it repeatedly. They might alternate between clinging to their partner and pushing them away. They may be emotional one day and aloof the next. Now, when you hear that, what does that sound like to you?
00:11:15
Speaker 3: It sounds like a terrible partner that you wouldn't want to be in a relationship with.
00:11:19
Speaker 1: What does it sound like to you?
00:11:20
Speaker 3: I do think when I read a couple of the things, if I'm being honest, I don't think I'm just like a glaring example of this. That's why I want to take maybe a
longer quiz because this was just like the first kind of like snapshot.
00:11:31
Speaker 2: I'm like, wait, is that really me?
00:11:33
Speaker 3: But I need to be honest with the questions and honest with my answers and then get.
00:11:37
Speaker 2: Honest with myself. But yeah, I don't know. Yes, some of it did sound like it reads. Does that sound like me to you?
00:11:47
Speaker 1: Some of it, yes.
00:11:48
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:11:50
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Craving love and connection, but fearing these things at the same time.
00:11:56
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:11:56
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Seeking out love only to reject it. That it actually does. I immediately put you at just avoidant, not fear avoidant. Yes. So some of this rose, do you have difficulty trusting others, trouble regulating your emotions, signs of anxious or avoidant styles? Do you have a fear of rejection and confusing or contradictory behavior? Yes, I think I do. Okay, that might be you then.
00:12:22
Speaker 3: I do. And look, I actually am now so curious about understanding this because to your point, it did say that obviously in many ways, Well, in anything, when it comes to relationships, whether it's with yourself or with others, it's about understanding why you do what you do and then recognizing how you can heal.
00:12:41
Speaker 1: So, yeah.
00:12:42
Speaker 2: What would you put yourself at? Anxious.
00:12:45
Speaker 1: So let me read what this is. And you tell me, quote, adults with anxious attachment style may worry that their partners or friends don't love them. Because of this, they may have a deep fear of rejection or abandonment. People with anxious attachment may have low self-esteem overall and need approval from others to feel validated. They're also more prone to codependent tendencies, and they often become very distressed when relationships end. That sounds like you, actually. Some of that. Well, yes.
00:13:16
Speaker 2: I mean, some of it.
00:13:16
Speaker 3: And I think about relationships ending with, like, friendships and things like that. Look, I do think that my, if I am, it turns out this fear avoidant or disorganized, then I probably have a.
00:13:29
Speaker 2: Little bit of everything. So I've got like all the worst.
00:13:32
Speaker 1: Okay. So we got two left. Secure. And can you go through secure for me in there? And then the other one that's left is avoidant. Those are the other two. And then we'll connect this all back to hugging.
00:13:41
Speaker 3: Okay, so secure attachment style, which is the one we all want to get to, and I do believe we all can get to, and I do think that you and I are edging in that direction.
00:13:52
Speaker 2: I do believe that.
00:13:53
Speaker 3: But it is having a secure attachment style. You feel safe and confident in your adult relationships. You openly share feelings with your partners and close friends. you seek out social support when you need it, and you have good self-esteem overall. And look, if you have a secure attachment style, you can probably trust others easily, communicate effectively, regulate your emotions, feel comfortable when you spend time alone, connect with others easily, manage conflict in a healthy way, and make yourself emotionally available to the people in your life. Now, I do think you and I both have some of these traits. There are secure parts to us. I mean, look, I do think that I trust others easily. I connect with others easily. And I think those are things that I have check marks on. But I need to work on a lot of things. But this is interesting.
00:14:46
Speaker 1: See, now I'm reading through that. My initial thought would have been anxious. But reading that, I mean, you know me, Robes. You know how I am. You know how I deal with conflict. You know where my confidence lies. You know where my lack of confidence lies.
00:14:59
Speaker 3: Yep.
00:15:00
Speaker 1: That feels more in line with me. The other one was what? Avoidant or anxious?
00:15:05
Speaker 2: Just avoidant in general.
00:15:06
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, go ahead.
00:15:08
Speaker 2: I think that you have a lot of avoidant. So it's interesting to me. I wouldn't have guessed you were anxious. I would have guessed you were avoidant.
00:15:16
Speaker 3: And avoidant is you might avoid intimacy and invest very little emotion in your relationships with partners and friends. People with this type of attachment might have a strong sense of independence and feel threatened when someone tries to get close to them. This can make it difficult to share your intramost thoughts and feelings with the people in your life. So you feel a strong sense of independence. You dismiss others easily. You have difficulty trusting others. You feel uneasy when people try to get close to you. You avoid intimacy. And you have commitment issues.
00:15:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is all over the place because some of those are definite for me and some of those are absolutely not for me.
00:15:53
Speaker 3: Right.
00:15:54
Speaker 1: Your attachment style. We will explain. Stay here. We will give you the conclusion of this study, the point of this study, and we'll give you the breakdown that certainly calls for further discussion, Robes. They say some of these specifically. If you are avoidant or you are anxious, they can predict for sure whether or not you can remember a hub.
00:16:31
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ.
00:16:33
Speaker 3: We're talking about hugs and whether or not you're a hugger or not, and whether or not hugs.
00:16:41
Speaker 2: Are memorable to you.
00:16:42
Speaker 3: I think this is such an interesting way to approach understanding ourselves and healing ourselves in a lot of ways, because look, I think anyone, if you ask anyone, if you have a hug from the right person, you are assuredly going to feel better.
00:16:58
Speaker 2: Like there's just no question.
00:17:00
Speaker 3: You are in distress, you're upset, you're sad, you're scared, you're emotional,
even if you're happy and celebratory. For me, if the right person is there, that hug is powerful. But if it's the wrong person, it could have the opposite effect.
00:17:17
Speaker 1: So avoidant and anxious, and this is why I put myself in the anxious category role, because the key findings of this study did show that people, if you have an avoidant attachment style, those folks are less likely, less likely to remember hugs that might have made them feel positive emotions. You're shaking your head.
00:17:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that I do understand that, and that does make sense for me.
00:17:45
Speaker 2: But I will say I am evolving. I am evolving. I don't know, and the goal is to get to secure.
00:17:51
Speaker 3: But yes, I now truthfully enjoy hugs in a way that I didn't for a very long time.
00:17:59
Speaker 1: And the folks who have an anxious attachment style, they are more likely to remember hugs that made them feel positive emotions. Because, Rosen, it makes sense. What are you looking for? Reassurance. Comfort. You are looking for someone to let you know it's okay. And sometimes the best thing you do is put your arms around somebody. So those folks... tend to remember hugs. So I thought, and I put myself in the anxious category when I saw that.
00:18:29
Speaker 2: Because of that.
00:18:30
Speaker 3: Yes. But it would be interesting one day we'll have to do an episode where we actually sit down and take, there are some accredited tests. And I think actually this is, people talk about love languages, but I do think understanding your love language, understanding your attachment style, but also understanding your partner's attachment style, that goes a long way in just understanding each other and yourself so.
00:18:54
Speaker 2: That you can, yes, truly comfort one another and be there for each other.
00:18:59
Speaker 1: The love languages. We determined we had different love languages. You actually want to receive love in a way I don't consciously. It's not my first thought in how to give it.
00:19:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's your number one love language?
00:19:11
Speaker 1: I can't remember.
00:19:13
Speaker 2: Is it words of affirmation?
00:19:15
Speaker 1: No, what's the acts of service?
00:19:16
Speaker 2: Acts of service.
00:19:17
Speaker 1: I think that might be it. Yours is words of affirmation.
00:19:20
Speaker 3: Well, no, mine I think was always acts of service for sure. But now with you, it's physical touch. I like it when you touch me.
00:19:28
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. I'll touch you constantly. Yeah.
00:19:30
Speaker 2: Which is why we're doing well.
00:19:32
Speaker 3: Nice.
00:19:32
Speaker 1: Um, last thing here, you see the study conclusion. I thought this was at least worth noting. Yes.
00:19:38
Speaker 2: Um, okay.
00:19:39
Speaker 3: So while hugging is an important form of everyday touch, there is little research on how and why hugs become memorable. The findings show that hugs are commonly remembered for comfort, support, and understanding. Importantly, individual differences in empathy, attachment dimensions, body perception, and everyday hugging experiences were associated with whether hugs.
00:20:06
Speaker 2: Were remembered and why.
00:20:08
Speaker 3: In this way, the study provides an overview of the psychological factors that shape the meaning of social touch and extends current theoretical work on affective touch by linking affection and exchange to the formation of of autobiographical memories.
00:20:24
Speaker 1: Isn't that something? Depends on your love. You might remember hugs based on how your mama treated you. They go back to this stuff. Those initial bonds and what you see as love and how to be loved and how you receive love are affecting us at 49 years old. Still, this is amazing stuff.
00:20:46
Speaker 2: It really is. And look, I don't think it's very rare. I think you go wrong.
00:20:51
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, if there was a time we had we were not in a good space. We had a little bit of an argument and I went in to go hug you and you said not right now.
00:21:00
Speaker 2: And I get that. Like you.
00:21:02
Speaker 3: I get it where sometimes it's not what you need. But I would say most of the time a hug, one hug without any words goes a long way.
00:21:15
Speaker 1: It always does. You can't argue with that. Sorry, I'm coughing here. Last thing I wanted to show you the difference is there was a male-female breakdown of what I guess when people remember hugs, why they remember them. For women, it was comfort. They remember the hugs because it... I am so sorry I'm coughing.
00:21:44
Speaker 2: Don't apologize for coughing.
00:21:46
Speaker 1: No, I can't get through it.
00:21:47
Speaker 2: But that women.
00:21:48
Speaker 3: Were appreciative of the comfort they felt. I can tell you, even if we are not in a good place, if you just come over, I've said this to you before, and touch my shoulder or even give me a half hug or just a little just physical touch of any kind, it absolutely... creates a situation in which my cortisol levels go down, my stress hormones go down.
00:22:12
Speaker 2: I feel like it's a powerful, powerful tool.
00:22:16
Speaker 3: I think in anyone's tool belt, so to speak, if you see someone you love, even if you're not happy with each other, even if you've been in a fight, just holding their hand, squeezing their arm, like just kissing the top of their.
00:22:28
Speaker 2: Head, it makes a big difference. At least it does for me. And I don't know if that's a male-female thing, but as a woman, I absolutely... concur.
00:22:38
Speaker 1: You know that was um men who were saying why they remember hugs they remember for comfort 25 but for women it was 35 that was a big difference for them remembering them because of the support it allowed or or provided those are about the same arousal was listed they didn't get too specific on this but it was very slow or low percentages for women arousal accounted
for less than one percent for men it was about four percent not significant For the friendliness, this was interesting, 12% of men recalled hugs because of the friendliness of the hug. Only 5% of women.
00:23:16
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's funny, too, because when we talked about why we hug, the first thing I said was comfort.
00:23:22
Speaker 2: And I think you said support, which was interesting.
00:23:23
Speaker 3: I mean, those are kind of interchangeable, but it was like instant comfort coming from the right person, even if perhaps the person was the source of my discomfort. Right.
00:23:34
Speaker 2: It still provides comfort when that hug is given.
00:23:37
Speaker 1: And one listed here, Robes, because they remember it because it conveyed understanding.
00:23:42
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:23:43
Speaker 1: Isn't that something? That's the one. And it was about 30% for women, 25% for men who answered in that way. Robes, that is one. I probably give hugs for that reason more than anything else.
00:23:57
Speaker 3: And I do.
00:23:58
Speaker 1: I go back to, and Robes, you've seen this, the tell TJ, the tears. Tell TJ. TJ was for tearjerker for a little while. You remember that? Because when I am, I don't know. I've never had a situation where folks on the air were uncomfortable or felt uncomfortable. It was always reciprocated. But Robes, just putting your arm around somebody. I am with you. I understand what you're going through. It's just, I don't know if that's Southern, if that was how I was raised, if my family, it's just, you've seen this plenty of times where even your family members, some of them I met for the first time, and they were afraid to approach TJ, and then as soon as they say hello... First thing I do is hug them.
00:24:35
Speaker 2: Well, you tell people I'm a hugger.
00:24:37
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm a hugger.
00:24:38
Speaker 3: So when people come up with a handshake, you will actually say I'm a hugger. And that is literally a phrase that I have never uttered in my life. Sarah Haynes, one of my good friends, used to always tease me. She's like, unlike Amy, I'm a hugger.
00:24:54
Speaker 2: She would literally say that if we were meeting people. Yeah, but I do think you can become a hugger.
00:25:00
Speaker 3: I do think you can recognize maybe why you haven't been so initially comfortable with being a hugger, but I, like I said, I'm evolving and I love hugging. I think, would you not say I am a big hugger with you?
00:25:15
Speaker 2: Like a big, big, big hugger.
00:25:17
Speaker 1: Oh, you're totally touchy feely. We are weirdly, Oh God, I hate him saying it sounds ridiculous. We're all over each other all day long. We don't pass each other without a touch of some kind. It's true. And even if we, right, if we're sitting here and, If we're quiet for like two minutes, what do I say to you?
00:25:33
Speaker 2: Are we in a fight? And you can only say that when we're not in a fight.
00:25:40
Speaker 1: You would know.
00:25:41
Speaker 2: Because when we are in a fight, we don't need to ask.
00:25:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point.
00:25:44
Speaker 2: It's rare, but it's obvious.
00:25:47
Speaker 3: We've even, like, it always seems to happen, like, right before people come over and you're like, are we really just, like, how do we possibly pretend?
00:25:52
Speaker 2: Because everyone knows how we are when we're good.
00:25:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
00:25:56
Speaker 3: Which is, like, 95% of the time, it's so obvious. So when we're not, we can't even pretend.
00:26:02
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, it's a disaster.
00:26:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:26:03
Speaker 1: I want to cancel all events if we are not perfect. Like I'm not perfect because we don't fake it. We can't fake just getting along or being okay or being normal. We are so over the top all the time that if anything is off, everybody's going to notice.
00:26:21
Speaker 2: So a hug away.
00:26:22
Speaker 3: And I do think practice makes perfect when it comes to hugging. So yeah, hug the ones you love, even if it doesn't feel natural right at first.
00:26:31
Speaker 2: I promise you. you can lean into it. And with that, everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk soon.