Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Link. And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we are going to be pulling back another curtain. And behind that curtain is two men who have been going to therapy for a certain length of time. And we’re just gonna do a little check-in. I thought you were gonna say you’re gonna pull back that curtain, and it’s two men and it’s our therapists. They’re not joining us today. They’re not joining us. We can say anything we want about our therapist. But we won’t. Well, we will. We’re gonna be talking about our experience thus far in therapy and how we’re viewing that, what kind of stuff is happening. And let me, just in case you’re immediately like, I don’t care. I’m not from Los Angeles. You guys obviously are. Listen, therapy’s not just for boys in Los Angeles. Therapy can be for anybody. We, and it’s been beneficial to us. We don’t know if any, we don’t know if you think that, but we used to think that. Yeah, we’re speaking to our former selves. And we’ve, therapy’s come up a lot in conversations because we’re talking about processing our lives, and therapy is a big part of that, an important part of it. But we thought- You have a hair that- Oh, I can see it. There we go. I know you don’t like when hairs- How’s that? Are in that place or that place. How’s that? And if people don’t point it out, you get upset. So I’m just letting you know right now. I don’t want you to be looking back at this and be like, why did you let me do that the whole time? I’d hate for my therapist to be the one to bring it up. But what we haven’t done is devote an extended conversation to the topic in some time, if ever. So now’s that time. I will say, I have a little update, recent travel excursion to. I mean, thankfully, certain places in the country have kind of, we’re not out of the pandemic, but certain, there’s certain places, and if you take certain precautions, you can feel somewhat safe to travel. I’ve kinda taken advantage of that. But also this was a wedding of a friend that took place in Kansas City that I was gonna go to regardless. But thankfully I could sort of feel safe in doing so. But the most notable thing, besides a beautiful wedding, beautiful couple getting married and beginning a beautiful life together, which is not what I’m gonna talk about, is the fact that we stayed at a haunted hotel. Okay. Now, you know me. I’m into horror stuff. I like the idea of haunting. I’m pretty skeptical about the paranormal. I can act like I’m really into it, but in my heart of hearts, in my heart of hearts, I’m just, this is probably all made up, right? But that did not stop me from being very enthusiastic about the ghost tour. And this is coming from someone who’s been on a few ghost tours. It’s hard for me to get enthusiastic. The two that I went on with you, and one in New Orleans, and where was the other one? London. It was a Jack the Ripper tour. That’s right. Oh, boy, I just, I kinda needed to just turn in for the night about halfway through. Well, let me tell you why I was particularly excited about this one. Both of those ghost tours were going around a city, and then like coming up to a corner, and looking at a building, and hearing somebody who had just been told information, what to say about this thing. Are you telling me you had an actual ghost give the tour? Well, it wasn’t that good, but it’s somewhere between the original experience and that. Which is? A ghost tour of a hotel where you are staying. First of all- Okay. We’re in a different category. And secondly, well, there’s actually three points to this. The second point is- Uh-oh, the points are expanding. The guy doing the tour, and this isn’t something I knew ahead of time, but the guy doing the tour wasn’t just talking about things that other people had said. He was telling his own stories in being an employee for 15 years at the hotel. So many of his stories were like, this happened to me. Again, never experienced that. And then the third thing was, the bride and groom had experienced some metaphysical unexplained phenomena, you might say. Okay, what? The first night in the hotel. Well, when you’re contemplating a marriage. The night before. Well, the night before the ghost tour. Things could go really wild when- The night before the ghost tour. So… Oh, and also Locke told me that something happened in his room. I’ll tell you about that in a second. Apparently they wake up, and the bedside table little deal where the drawer, it’s a drawer. What would you call a bedside little thing that’s got a drawer and it’s a table? Bedside table. My bedside table’s got two drawers, man. My previous one had three drawers. I don’t think that’s technically a table. Like in furniture speak, I don’t think it’s a table if it’s got a drawer. Bedside chest of drawers? It’s definitely not that. There’s probably like a French word for it. I’d like to get to the haunted part. The drawer had opened in the night, okay? Okay, well, that could happen. They closed the drawer, and the drawer opens again before their very eyes. Now, this could be like the gravity of the, it could be like the floor. It’s an old hotel. Like the gravity can open the drawers. Yeah. But then the, a water bottle, like a, whatever, the one that you have. The one everybody’s got. Like a Nalgene? No, the like Hydro Flask. Hydro Flask, okay. So like a metal water bottle was on that same table, and it, at some point in this process, began to do that thing where you know like a bottle isn’t quite settling, and it’s kinda like, kinda rotating a little bit, like right before, like a coin settling and then stopping. Okay, yeah. That was happening, but it was just happening indefinitely. It was just like, okay, this bottle is gonna do this. They’re just watching it. And then they stopped it, and put it back down, and it started doing it again. And then they were just like, okay, you can have your drawer open. I don’t know exactly the sequence of events, but ’cause I kinda heard it as they were telling a group of people. And I was, it was enough for me to be freaked out. I have an explanation for that. There’s vibration in the hotel from like- Hey, listen. The laundry room. There’s always an explanation. Or the elevator shaft. I told you I’m a skeptic, man. Vibration takes care of everything I’ve heard so far. But of course, and every single thing I’m gonna tell you, I’m not gonna tell you everything that happens on the ghost tour, but everything, every single thing I was told, because like Locke and Shepherd, after the ghost store, because Locke had heard somebody whispering in the vent at like three a.m. in Locke and Shepherd’s room. And then he actually told the guy on the ghost tour that, the guy giving the tour. And he was like, oh, that’s just because all our, the whole system is connected. So you just heard somebody whispering in another room. He wasn’t like feeding into it. That’s good. Maintaining credibility. He’s kinda like the Pope. He’s like, I’m the only one who can tell ghost stories. Well, no, ’cause he was, he had many people on the tour were saying things that had happened to them, and he was validating some things. But if it was, if he actually thought it was the truth- He’s keeping it real. But when Locke and Shepard were, after the tour, they were like, Dad, what do you think about this? I was like, well, you wanna know what I really think? I was scared at multiple points on that ghost tour, especially the moment when we were standing at the top of the stairs, and some little girls who apparently knew that the ghost tour comes by their room, and they could hear the guy talking. Jay is his name. He’s actually, he’s wearing one of those headset microphones with a speaker that’s around his neck, like a tour guide does. You know what I’m saying? So that he can just speak in a normal volume, but everyone can hear him. So he’s like coming by your room, you know. oh, Jay’s there. He’s doing the tour. They waited until he was in the middle of the story, and they started going. And he had already just told us a story about somebody being in a room and seeing the handle move. Oh. And so then he’s telling us a story, and that’s when these little girls in the room started, like taking their door and like shaking it. And me, and Locke, and Shepherd were like standing a little bit down the hall, and we immediately run up next to the tour guide. Before you have time to process, oh, this is probably somebody just playing a trick, but I still, was just legitimately scared. Did the girls come out and say, gotcha? They just laughed from within the room, which actually was sort of creepy, little girl laughter through a door. But I said, having said all that, I believe that if you just, if you put me, put my back against the wall and telling me, I’ve gotta give you an honest answer, I think there’s probably a natural explanation for all this. There’s a reason that it happens at night. There’s a reason that it happens during the so-called witching hour after three a.m. That’s because you’re usually, you’ve been asleep, and you’re waking up, and you’re not, your senses aren’t complete. You’re just pouring water on yourself now. You okay? It was haunted, man. My tea was haunted. So in other words, what I’m saying is that I think that there’s probably almost always a natural explanation, but I’m not sure. I’m open to the fact that places- That’s not fun. Places can be haunted, and it’s more fun to believe that the place is haunted. So, and this guy, Jay, he’s. Oh, the other thing that happened. A lot of famous people have been to this hotel. In fact, the room that the bride and groom are staying in is the room that Harry Truman slept in the night that he found out that he won the presidency. He went to sleep thinking that he had lost, and they woke him up at like two a.m. and said, sir, you won. And then there’s another room that is a room where like Al Capone would come and play cards and stuff. And they were like, he would sit right here, and he could see this through this window and this window. He had both entrances covered in case the feds came in, he could go out this way or whatever. So it’s been around 100 years. It’s got this storied history. Where is it? It is outside of Kansas City, Missouri. Okay. So he’s telling a story about some famous person that was on the tour. And then, I can’t remember who it was. So then we get to the next spot, and I kinda, me, and Locke, and Shepherd were sort of ahead of everybody, and we kinda walk up, and we’re right next to him, and kind of waiting for the group to gather. He said, and he was like, you look like a famous guy. You famous? May I include you in subsequent tour mentions? And that was like, I never know how to answer that question. So I was like, to some people. Yeah. And he was like, Naked and Afraid. Okay. Was he changing the subject, or was he thinking you were on that show? He thought, he was like, I was a guy. ‘Cause I was like, no, I’ve been Naked and Afraid on YouTube. Haven’t been on that show, but- Naked just because you- He said that, no, he said, there’s a guy on season so-and-so of Naked and Afraid that looked a lot like you. But then the next day when I see Jay, and now of course, we’re all masked as we’re walking around this thing, so. And of course, if you don’t watch our content regularly and you see me now, you may not immediately recognize me ’cause my hair is so different. So the next day he’s like, hey man, Good Mythical Morning, of course. I didn’t put it together. My daughter watches a lot, and I watch it with her. So, love what you guys do, but. But still, not Naked and Afraid. I thought you were from Naked and Afraid. You should really look into that. You got demoted overnight, man. So shout out to Jay at the, it’s the Elms Hotel, historic hotel. They have a European lap pool in the basement. Do you know what a European lap pool is? Isn’t it like an indoor, it’s just like a ditch that- It’s a track that goes in a circle that you swim. Oh a track? It’s like, it’s a canal. It’s a ring. It’s a moat. That’s wide enough for a person to swim in, and it goes in a circle. It’s kinda awesome. And when you get to the end of one side- It’s a circle, there’s no end. Well, it’s an oval. It’s a very long oval like this. Oh, wow. At one end of the oval, well, at one end of the oval there’s a ghost, of course. Right. But- Naked and Afraid. At the other end, there’s a hot tub and a cold plunge pool right next to each other. So we had fun kinda going back and forth between those. I’ve never seen a racetrack made of water. There’s a part of me that was just like, how necessary is this? ‘Cause it couldn’t just be- You didn’t try it out? Oh, I swam in it. I like, oh yeah. What was it like turning, banking the corners? NASCAR? Yeah, I mean, I felt like I was about to come right out of the thing. As long as you are going around those corners, were your like feet and hands hitting? It’s big. Wow. It’s very cool. In the bottom of a hotel. They probably just were gonna make a pool, and then they were like, you know what? Let’s just fill in the middle except for a little bit, and let’s call it a European swim track. No one will know the difference. I think it’s the only European lap pool in America. What? That’s what they said. I think? Okay. I know they said in Missouri. Hey, listen, once you start blurring the lines of truth with ghost tours, you can say anything you want. You can’t believe these people. They’re not credible anymore, and neither are you. Man, I’ll tell you right now. If you have an opportunity to go into a European lap pool, and if you’re in America, that may only be available to you in the Elms Hotel. Apparently. In Missouri. Excelsior Springs, I think is the name of it. Okay. You should go do it and swim some laps. All right, let’s dive into some therapy. Ooh, is this gonna hurt? But first, we’re gonna, we’re in the midst of a huge Black Friday sale. Yep. And it’s over the weekend. This comes out on Sunday, this video version. And so the 40% that you can get on Sunday, and you could have gotten the last two days, off of everything mythical.com. Everything. We’re extending it through Cyber Monday, through tomorrow. You can still get that 40% off through the end of the day. Okay? Think of the day tomorrow, which is Monday. You can also get 25% off Mythical Society monthly memberships at mythicalsociety.com through the end of tomorrow, Monday. We’re extending it for you. So take advantage, take advantage, take advantage of this stuff, guys. The discounts are rolling in. There’s also discontinued items that are returning for one day only, and that is tomorrow, Cyber Monday. Coming out of the mythical vault, mythical.com, check those discontinued, but recontinued just for that day, tomorrow. Get it, mythical.com and mythicalsociety.com. Ooh, that felt good. It felt so good. Felt good to do that add. Just like therapy. Just like the, just knowing that people are getting discounts. 40% is deep. Yeah, should we even do that? Can we call it? Can we decide something different right now? Where do we begin? I think that’s the name of Esther Perel’s podcast. Or How Was Your Day, or How’s Work? There’s two of ’em. She’s a therapist. She’s great. She’s pretty great. She’s not my therapist. This will not be as good as an episode of Esther Perel’s podcast. No, Esther. Esther. Well, if you know her well, it’s Esther. No, no, no, no, it’s not. Quite the opposite, quite the opposite. She says, quit emphasizing the stair and emphasize the S. You know you’ve crossed over. But where do we wanna start with? Well, let’s just, let’s give some background about how long we’ve been going to therapy, maybe what got us into it. These are the things that have come up before, but just for the cohesiveness of this, of where we’re headed. And since you’ve been going to therapy longer, you go first. I think that it was 2017. 2017 was the end, or the beginning of, didn’t last long, the longer version of Good Mythical Morning, if you do recall that, where we did a bunch of videos every single day. And my wife had been going to therapy for a couple of years at that point and had been asking me, or telling me that I should be going based on things that she was learning about herself that were then immediately sort of transferring to me. Because I think she, like me, thought that I didn’t need therapy. Do you know what I mean? She thought that, okay. I think that she thought that the one with the things that needed to be addressed from a professional standpoint, it was probably her, right? ‘Cause she struggled with OCD since she was a young child. So there was like diagnosable things, OCD and depression, that she knew she had and had been professionally diagnosed by like a psychiatrist years and years ago. And I had never had that. And I had always sort of presented myself as, well, I mean, I’m super stable and reliable, and I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I don’t think I need professional help when it comes to like my mental and emotional health. But as she began to explore her own, and realize, oh, it’s not just about addressing this diagnosis, but there’s a whole more to therapy in the same way that you might have a physical problem. Like, oh, I hurt my knee in this very specific way. I need to go to the doctor. Well, even if you haven’t hurt your knee, you’re a person with a body, and there are ongoing needs. So having a regular physical checkup. You see the analogy here, so. I do. And she started to talk to me. She also started to be able to see the way that I was sort of dealing with the immense amount of stress that had built up in my life over many, many years of our, this Mythical thing growing to where it had, and our schedule being crazy, and the amount of weight and pressure on us to perform and to keep growing the business, and to be relevant, and all the things that come with being a public personality. And she kept, she started saying, you really should go to therapy. And I think you should just go to my guy because he’s great, and he’s open to doing that, having both of us. So anyway, after, and when, at the end of 2017, in the midst of all that stress, I had some physical problems that developed that definitely seemed to be stress-related. I’ve talked about that before. That was when I started. But just, I mean, to give them the blurb though. Well- You went- I had multiple, multiple things- You had a form of blindness. I’ve had multiple things that are known to be stress induced, like skin issues, like psoriasis and eczema, back issues kinda often. So I always had those, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when I developed central serous retinopathy, which is literally when there’s like a fluid sac that gets behind your eye and creates a blind spot on your eye in your field of vision. And it was first observed, or maybe not observed, but first sort of recognized and labeled when these World War I or II pilots were coming back from war, and a bunch of them had this condition because they had been under so much stress. So there’s reason to believe that it’s stress-induced, and it is not permanent. If it happens once, it’s not unlikely to happen again. But anyway, I go to the doctor, the eye doctor. They tell me that’s what this is. It’s gonna take months for this thing to resolve itself, which it did. For awhile, I think, I can’t remember which eye it was, but I basically couldn’t see in the middle of my field of vision with one of my eyes. And if it was like- Was I black or wavy? Well, it was blurry and wavy, and made you feel like you have vertigo. He made a connection to stress or some inner mental working. I made the connection to stress when I started reading about that condition. Oh. And I was like, man, okay. Yeah, I guess, ’cause I always would say, I don’t feel stressed because, well, I’ll talk about what my process is and what I’ve been working on, but it was because I wasn’t dealing with it in an emotional way. I was dealing with it in a physical way. I do believe, and I don’t understand, and I don’t have the science to back it up, but I do believe that there’s a natural connection to when you don’t process things emotionally that it kinda finds way to get out of you, and it can manifest itself physically. So that’s what led to me having my first appointment in sometime in like late 2017. So it’s crazy to think that coming up on four years of therapy. I’m coming up on two years of therapy in like the January, February timeframe. So that means I started like just a couple of months, had a couple of in-person sessions before the pandemic hit, and we went to zoom meetings. And for me it’s been pretty much every week, except when like scheduling challenges, or our trips or whatever. But yeah, the reason why I got into it, the best that I can remember is, yeah, Christy had had a few therapists for many years and had been very open and experienced the benefits of that, of going to therapy back home in North Carolina, and then out here when we moved out here, and like all the stresses and everything associated with that. Therapy re-entered her life. And we always had a really positive view of it because she had a very positive and helpful experience with it. And of course, we’re talking to Jessie. She’s having positive experiences. And then you get on board, and you start having positive experiences. And I was always very open to it, but I think in a similar way that you’re describing, it was, well, I’ll say that I started going because Christy kept encouraging me, and I was benefiting from hearing from how everybody else is benefiting from therapy. So I felt like I was getting therapy by proxy. And I was, I’ve made jokes about that, but in a way to acknowledge that like, I’m warming up to this. I wasn’t opposed to it, but I didn’t feel like I had an urgent need to go to therapy, like to run there to fix a specific problem. I didn’t think that I had any problems that needed therapy. Meanwhile. I was wrong. Meanwhile, I mean, we never, I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about this, but meanwhile, like me, and Jessie, and Christy would talk about, well, when is Link gonna go to therapy? Yeah, and sometimes I will be there. But like, it’s like- So, it wasn’t weird. It wasn’t like, when do we intervene, I don’t think. You can’t really talk to someone. You had to let somebody come to that decision on their own. I would say that for anybody who thinks that somebody in your life needs to go, or you’ve experienced something, and you’re like, ah, man, I wish that they could experience this. Right. You can’t force them into it. Well, your spouse can kinda do that. Yeah. Depending on the nature of your relationship. It became more of like, I’m going to do this. I have plans to do this, but they’re not, it’s not pressing, and it’s not imminent. So I’m gonna just keep back burnering it for probably a couple of years. In the meantime, I would read books, a lot of the books that Christy was reading of the like introspective self-help, self-discovery variety, like stuff that she would be recommended by her therapist or that she would take to therapy. So it was like an extension of that. I would read those books, and I would start to feel the benefits of that. And so I think the thing that got me over the hump was I, as a result of my spiritual deconstruction, and my ongoing spiritual journey, and really coming to grips with my priority of, in doing the work, as they say, like really invest in myself, and understanding myself, discovering more, and just, I knew there were things in my past that affect me now, and I was fascinated by that, and I knew I could benefit from it. So when I started going, it was like, I know I experienced a lot of anxiety, and I do want help with that. There was like an opening meeting. The way that I found my therapist was on like psychology.com. They have, you can search for somebody locally, and you can read reviews. And there was an initial interview process. Which if you want to, you can tell how you met your therapist. But with mine it was like, I didn’t have a personal recommendation. I just had an interview meeting phone call. And I remember in that meeting, I kinda just laid it all out. I was like, I wanna send a message that like, I’m an open book and I’m all in for however I can benefit from this. And I know that I deal with anxiety, and I know that I have things in my past. When it came to the anxiety- But it felt more like an improvement thing, not a fixing thing, or not a help, please help me thing, was I think my mindset going in, honestly. ‘Cause when it comes to the anxiety element of it, like, would you have considered yourself, like what level of anxiety would you, if somebody was like on a scale of one to 10, how much anxiety do you have? How would you have described that? I would say that I’m able to manage it at like a six is what I would say at the time. And six, well- Maybe a five. Maybe I would have said five or six. I guess what I’m saying is- And then it spikes. Ultimately like if your baseline level of anxiety is self-assessed at a six out of 10- Yeah. I’m no expert, but that’s sort of like, okay, I’m actually- Well, because I dealt with that so long, I was kinda, it just kinda- That’s just, that’s what everybody says. Feels like a normal. But I remember going to the cardiologist back when Christy and I were first married, and I worked as an engineer at IBM. And every day I’d come home and lay down on the couch and just to chill out. And then my heart would just be like skipping beats and like jumping out of my chest. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night with like those heart palpitations or whatever. I don’t know if that’s the official title, but like, and I talk. I remember I talked, I told my therapist very early on about that. And I was like, that was 20 years ago. Yeah. But I knew that it was stress. At least I really hoped that it was stress because when I sent in the EKG readings, the tech said, yeah, this just looks like you’re stressed out, and then so I never followed up with a doctor. And you’re like, oh, of course I can, handle that. But I kinda knew. And then I would, I developed various coping mechanisms over the years and just kind of felt like I was putting the anxiety in its place. But there’s also, I think there’s also a thing- So then only in certain times would my heart rate, heart start to flutter like that when I was in a really stressful zone. I mean, I think, and I’m not trying to generalize here, but I do think I am going to generalize. So I’m just, I guess I’m just giving a generalization disclaimer. That in my experience, there are a lot of men who, based on like certain cultural pressures and expectations, especially if they are in a relationship with a woman who is already kind of addressing her mental and emotional health, I think there’s a resistance. There’s a resistance to be like, I got, I feel, oh, I mean, I gotta be the one that’s got it together, man. Like, and so even if you would- It may be that. Assess yourself at a six out of 10 of like a baseline anxiety- I got it under control. You’re like, I got it under control. Like I’m not about to explode. I’m a safe person. But, and so then you kinda say, but she’s really the one that needs help, and she’s getting the help that she needs. Which is very- And I would’ve never said that. I’m just saying that there was a- Subconscious. Subconscious thought that just, I thought that that’s just the way that it was supposed to work. I agree with that experience. I relate to that, and I think that it wasn’t fair to our wives to like put them in that box as like, okay, you’re the ones that need therapy ’cause you have. What I think was going on was that they were actually much more in touch with what was going on inside of them, and much more willing to seek help for it when we were just out of touch with it. And I just kinda put it in this box, the physical evidence that there’s something going on deep with inside of me that I need to wrestle with and deal with, and that’s why it looked different. And I could say, well, that’s what I would describe. Well, Christy situation, or she’s the one who needs help, because that’s what it looks like. But really what she was demonstrating is an openness and an in touchness with herself. And I didn’t realize that, for me, it was a closed off, not willing to go there thing. And I just chalked it up to differences. And I think that- And needs. Unintentionally, there’s this amplification effect that you actually make the, whatever it is that your partner or your friend is dealing with more intense by not addressing your own problems. Right, so if you’re somebody who’s walking around, I mean, obviously I got my own- You mean comparing, like- Well, no, no, I’m just saying. So-and-so’s worse than me. If you’re going around a six out of 10 anxiety, based level anxiety, you’re not the best person to be, to rely on for someone who’s going through those issues. You can even exacerbate the anxiety that she’s dealing with. I know that I did that for Jessie. As someone who wasn’t processing my emotions in a healthy way, I was not the best resource. And again, I don’t wanna get into like codependent situation. What I’m saying is that if you actually want to be the healthiest partner to your partner who is having their own issues, dealing with your own shit is one way to address that. But when you’re like, I don’t have anything, I don’t have anything to deal with, then you can actually create more of a burden for your partner who’s already dealing with their own stuff. So I went in with this like optimization self-improvement, become my best self kind of thing. And I was willing to go to dark places in order to get there, but I was also like, how dark can it be? Really? And so, I did bring everything I had to it, but there’s a little bit of a dance, ’cause you have to ease into it because it’s a relationship. This is a complete stranger with qualifications and reviews. So this dude’s checked out, and I feel like we’re starting off on a good foundation, but you gotta build on that. And you gotta talk about yourself, and like you don’t expect immediate. I’m learning that like, okay, I don’t wanna expect like immediate results. I gotta give this some time and let this blossom. Then the pandemic hit, and I lot of, I mean, therapy for me evolved into crisis management, like the crisis of the pandemic and all the pressures that we then, that you mentioned earlier, filtered through that. Leading a company and being a resource for my, loving my family became a week to week crisis. I’ve talked about Christy’s health challenges, and I’m so grateful that I had gotten in under the wire, and we had met in person a few times, that then, and I had gotten a slot with this guy so that I could then, when the really started hitting the fan, and boy, was it hitting the fan for the majority of that year, every week was just help me hold this together, I think is what I brought to our meetings. Now this has happened. How do I deal with this? How do I respond? So it was kind of, it was a survival type thing. And I’ve described the low points and all those challenges. So I don’t wanna go into that, but that really impacted the tenor of what therapy became for me for that entire time. And then there was, and then when things are better, or like when the light shines, when the clouds clear for a little bit, and the light shines through, I remember there being a few sessions where it was actually about kinda living in that moment of, I’d walked through all of these difficult things and anticipated more, but with this person, that then it was kind of a, it was a sweet session when we could just kind of celebrate it. And so I discovered that like that was a different facet of therapy. Like that the relationship paid off, and it could be a positive celebration of moments of growth or just of survival. But I’m painting a picture of us not really getting back to that like deeper inner work that was like the thing that I thought I was signing up for. Because getting through the day, and the next night, and the next week was kind of all that I had the capacity to focus on. So I would say that described a phase of therapy for me. And I’m interested if you see it that way or how you see it, but then I’ll say there’s a next phase that I’m kind of in now, which is really great news that like, there’s been enough space between crises that I can start to say, what are some deeper things that I wanna work on or places I wanna go? But it wasn’t without a very specific challenge that related to therapy itself that I’ll get into. But I wanted to hand it back over to you in terms of like how you see the trajectory of building that relationship, and has it gone through phases? So my therapist was Jessie’s therapists first. Okay. And also my boys had been to see him initially. Actually the thing that was the impetus was kinda recognizing that Shepherd had ADHD, and that was, and somebody recommended who is now basically our therapist that everyone can see. I mean, Jessie and I are the ones that see him regularly, but. So he had a lot of insight into our family. And I think, and again, not every therapist will do that. And it was a long process, and there’s people have different opinions about whether or not a therapist should serve a couple or a family in that way. For us, it’s a really good circumstance. I don’t think I would recommend it for everybody. But one of the things that did is there was a level of trust and connection. And I think actually the first time I met my therapist was in a couple session with Jessie there. And that was the introduction to like, oh, this is the guy that she’s been talking about for years, and now I know who he is. And so that first session was like talking to somebody that I already knew. I think, when that’s the way that it starts, and of course, if your wife has been going to a therapist, and your wife has been talking about you in therapy- Yeah. You come as a, there’s a narrative attached to you. Right? Which could be a negative thing. But I think that Jessie was very fair in the way that she kind of described the things that I dealt with. But then I immediately confirmed all those things while meeting. And again, my main issue, the sort of the, the main sort of ongoing thing that is my struggle is the fact that I tend to intellectualize and rationalize my emotions versus just experiencing them, right? So something comes in experientially, and there’s a natural, emotional response to that thing, whether it be sadness, or anger, whatever. And if it’s an inconvenient emotion, I think I’ve always seen myself as a very self-reliant, super dependable. Like you can put me through basically any circumstance, and I’m gonna be the one person that’s still standing. Right? It’s a pride thing. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve, like give me something else to do. I will not break. Give me a new challenge. I will succeed at it. And so negative emotions feel like wastes of time for me. Right? Being sad about something. Well, that’s like, who’s got? Ain’t nobody got time for that. You know what I mean? And so what you end up doing is if there’s something that’s genuinely difficult for me to deal with that should result in an outpouring of grief, or sadness, frustration, whatever, I will immediately, and I’m very skilled at this, refrain that circumstance to remind myself that it’s actually not that bad. Like this is not that bad. Lots of people have it worse than you. Like you can actually easily get to over here and see the bright side of this, and see the optimistic side, and see the future of where this thing could go. And I immediately just move to the side, and I get on that track. And there’s a lot of benefit in that when it comes to like being successful in capitalistic society, right? And so I have experienced a tremendous amount of success in one sense because of my tendency to not let myself feel things and just to kind of. But what was happening over time is that if you continue to do that, those emotions are going somewhere to be processed. Usually if it’s a sadness that you’re dealing with, then it will be an outburst of anger. It will be a short temper, which I definitely have at times. And it will be like, oh, you went from zero to 100. Like where did that come from? The kids came in and did something, and you snapped at him immediately. Like what was? A lot of that comes from not processing and letting myself feel things. So that’s my main issue. There’s a lot of other issues, but I’m saying that that’s the main sort of emotional sort of misfire that happens repeatedly with me. And so- And that’s something that you discovered. You became acquainted with it in therapy. ‘Cause what I would have told you, and what I would have told Jessie is I would have just told you the positive side of that thing. I would be like, I’m kind of a stoic guy. Like I can get very enthusiastic about things, and it’s not like I don’t cry. Like I said, I’ll cry at Hallmark commercials. But, and then when my therapist explained to me, he was like, well, the reason you do that is because you’re very willing to feel emotions for other people. Like if I go to a wedding, I don’t care if I know the people, I’m gonna cry. If I go to a funeral, I’ll most likely cry. But if I am experiencing something, very rarely will I cry. If it’s something that’s an emotion that I’m the target of it, and I’m the one who’s supposed to feel sadness, I’ll deflect it, and I’ll save it. You put it over here in a little jar. It’s building up. That jar has gotta be emptied somehow. It’s either gonna come out as anger, or it’s gonna come out as emotion for someone else. I just always was like, I never, had never sorted through any of this stuff. I was just like, I’m like my dad. I’m just like, I’m super dependable. I’m not the emotional person in the room. Like, I’m not gonna take any of your energy. Like if you’re in a relationship with me, if you’re working with me, we’re never going to have to stop to accommodate me. Like I’m not that guy. And so I just was like, and that’s what makes me great. You know what I’m saying? But what my therapist was beginning to, well, and Jessie was saying things about it. Like, well, you just, you’re not just letting yourself feel this. You’re not opening yourself up to this. It was just a couple of meetings as I explained. He was like, tell me about yourself. I mean, the first few meetings were talking about my upbringing, talking about the way I see things. And I’m presenting myself in a certain way, and I wasn’t trying to present a good picture of myself. I was like, I know I need something because I mean, I’ve got all this physical stuff happening. I don’t really understand what it is ’cause I don’t have the language to talk about this. But, and my therapist is a very good friend now as well. Right? So he can say, he just tells me like it is. And sometimes- Hold on, let’s not skip ahead though. So, but early on you were telling about yourself, and then you were unpacking these things, and he was helping you come to these realizations that you’ve just shared. Yeah, but like, what I’m getting at is, there was an immediate relational connection. So I’m not just saying he’s a friend now. There’s an immediate sort of relational connection, which is not necessarily normal or expected. I will just say that. It just worked out that way. And I don’t even think it’s necessary, to be clear, but in my situation, it was great. But like, I specifically remember a time where I would like explain something, and he just laughed. You know what I’m saying? Yeah. Because he was observing how adept I was at moving myself out away from like, you get on the uncomfortable peak of an emotion, and you immediately dodge it. And he could just observe that happening, and he would be like, no, no, no, stop. Let’s stay there with this thing. Where do you feel it? Like where physically? And like the first time he asked me where I felt something physically, I laughed at him. Because I was just like, man, what does that even mean? Where do I feel it? Like I can’t even tell you what I feel, much less where I feel it. Yeah. But I’ve since, we’ll get into it later like what I’ve actually learned and how I’ve applied that, but that was kinda my initial experience was like, immediately kinda understanding what the challenge was and having it explained to me in a. And this is my tendency is I’m gonna like try to like academically define what it was. And so right from the beginning, I was like, oh, this is what’s wrong with me. So this is the thing that I need to start fixing. That happened really quickly. The fixing- Then what? The fixing is a different process. Well, so I do a session, I’ve consistently done every other week, not weekly. For an hour and a half instead of an hour. Well, yeah, like a double session. So I guess it ends up being the same amount of time as if I was doing it every single week. But, and it’s actually gotten a little bit shorter recently, in the past year or so. It’s pretty much just a single session every other week. Did it, when I described like the crisis thing, like, I mean, are there times when you’re like, this happened or there’s a crisis? Yeah, well, every session- And it’s external. It’s an external crisis. Well, yeah, usually- Obviously there’s an internal component. It usually starts with that, yeah. Yeah, I, and I still do this. It’s still my tendency, but I will start off a session kinda telling him everything that’s kinda going on in no particular order. I don’t take, I don’t have an agenda. I don’t really think about it until I see him on the call. And then I’m just like, I just start going, and I just start talking. And the things that are the heaviest and feel like the biggest sort of burden are the things that become very obvious very quickly as I talk. And then he’ll kind of rewind. Let’s go back to this, and then we’ll kinda talk about that. And again, it’s a subtle process of just getting me to actually understand what it is that I’m feeling. It’s pretty simple with me because the issue is so severe. You know what I’m saying? I’m sure there’s other things to continue to deal with, but because the tendency is to just reframe, redefine, and cope versus feel, it’s really just like, all right, let’s talk about that. Let’s see what you’re feeling. And so one of the things that, I know we’re gonna talk a little bit about how you gauge your own progress. So I don’t wanna say that now, but because the issue is kinda singular for me, and yes, it will be like, we’re having particular issue. And again, ’cause he knows our family so well, he might be like, well, I already know the issue that so-and-so is dealing with. Now, he doesn’t tell me anything. There’s privacy. It’s a little complicated. But like he, if I had to say, well, Jessie’s going through this thing right now, or Locke’s going through this thing right now, he already has insight into that ’cause he’s already talked to them about it. Which again, for me, has been a great benefit because you got somebody who understands the dynamics on both sides of the situation. So there are times when you’re walking through like processing a crisis, but the general mode for you is like a continual, an exercise of bringing your emotions to the table and processing things on a level, on that level, like instead of just the way that you would left to your own devices pre-therapy. Yeah, it’s just kind of sorting through all that stuff. Okay. Because, it’s interesting because there’s a difference between vulnerability and emotional vulnerability. I’m actually a really vulnerable person in terms of like, I’m not a secretive, protective person. If I meet you on the subway, which I don’t go on the subway ’cause I’m in Los Angeles. We call it a Metro, and I don’t usually take that. But I could have a conversation with somebody, and immediately get into like some deep stuff and be very personally disclosing about myself, my issues, et cetera. Yeah, you can share things. Yeah. Factually. And I’m a very, I’m a very introspective person. Meaning that I’m willing to look at myself, and analyze my actions, et cetera, et cetera. But those are not substitutes for emotional vulnerability. Again, yes, I’ve cried on this podcast, whatever. But what I’m talking about is just like getting to a place where I give myself permission to feel something. Like it’s okay, you can stop and feel this. Like no task is gonna be left aside. Or it’s okay for this person to see you in this state. So I wanna, ’cause those issues can get conflated pretty easily. Well, as an aside, I think we’re both very vulnerable here, but there are things that we’ve decided that we’re comfortable sharing, but there’s moments when we might be experiencing something on an emotional level. Like if we tear up or cry about something here, that happens much more rarely. It’s a different type of vulnerability. So even if you look at it here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, the reason why I’m asking like the questions of like, how you go about therapy and how you view it, is because I feel like, even though it’s been almost two years for me, I’m still just getting started because there was so much acute crisis to deal with. And there was definitely, I mean, I’m not saying that there weren’t times when like we’ve made connections between my past and how that impacts me now, or what’s going on inside of me. And definitely I’ve been processing the emotional aspects of the crisis that I’m going through and finding it as a resource. I do tend to overanalyze everything. And so at certain points I would describe therapy as, you know what I feel like if I were just talking to a wall, and I was disciplined enough to like verbally process to that wall every week for an hour. And then kind of, that I would come to a lot of the same conclusions. Like that’s probably not true. That says a lot about your therapist. I’m just kidding. It says a lot about me, right? I understand exactly. I mean, I’m just being honest that sometimes it feels that way ’cause it’s like, well, how much did he say? I can talk a lot. I can get, you know I can get going, and I am such a verbal processor, that like hearing myself is a huge part of the process for me. And on the skeptical side, I’m like, yeah, he only asked me three questions, but- How much am I paying him? And how much am I paying him? But on the other side it’s, those are some pivotal questions. And those moments when I stopped, and thought, and answered to the question, probably redirected the whole conversation in a way that the wall wouldn’t. But I’m just being honest and saying- If it’s a Tesla wall, I don’t know. I always like feel that way. But I’ve noticed in the points when there’s not something that like I feel like I am, need to run to someone for help, that I’m drowning in some way, or that I want to help somebody else that I love, or something. If there’s not an emergency and the session’s coming up, I just really started noticing the amount of trepidation that I would bring to it. And this started happening, I think, pretty early. Like I actually, I went through a period of time in the first year where I would jot down on my phone, like a sentence or two from the therapy session. And I went back and looked, and I realized that like a year ago this was happening. Like we had gone through a lot of things. And like, it was one of those, like the clouds had cleared moment. And I jotted down that I was just, I approached the sessions with so much trepidation because I did not know what I wanted to talk about. And then I noticed over the past few, and by the way, when that happened, I remember I canceled an appointment. And then it was, and then the next week I like, I wanted to cancel again. And so, I ended up talking about it a little bit instead of canceling the. I like, I felt like I confessed it. I was like, listen, I canceled on you last week because I was just too afraid to show up and not. And the unknown just was too much for me. I didn’t know what I wanted to talk about. And then a lot of shit hit the fan again, or I guess, because over the last few weeks, maybe months, it’s come up again. And I guess it’s a good sign that like, I have the room. I have the head space to say, I’m not drowning here. I’m not afraid. I’m not desperate for help about a specific thing. But my mind immediately goes to, now what? That’s how I know therapy. So going back to that first place of like, I’m gonna just start working on some like longer term, or deeper issues, shadow work type stuff, the real sexy, hard stuff. Instead, my mind, I would just get frozen with, I don’t know what to say. And I would get so stressed out like five, six days in advance. And I would notice the moment that I would come up with something, I’d feel relief. And I would, I’d realize that like, this is what I felt in college every time I had an assignment. Until I could finish the assignment or develop a plan that I knew I could finish it, it would drive me nuts. And I started to think, this might be a good thing to talk about in therapy. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. But you know- But, so my question is, because again, like what I’m hearing, as your friend, as you say these things, is just like, yes, the reason that you should be in therapy is the, it being evidenced in the way that you approach therapy. Yeah. And so when you take this to your therapist, what do you feel? Do you feel like there are some? And again, I understand it’s not about necessarily. You’re not necessarily paying them for their insights, so to speak. It is like paying for time to process, which everybody needs, but they are trained professionals. So do you feel like when you take that- A year ago when I took it to him, he was like, you know what, I want you to feel like you can come with absolutely blank slate, not knowing anything. Some of the best sessions I have with people are when they have no clue what we’re going to talk about. And they still show up. And he encouraged me to think about it as I’m prioritizing myself and something that I need. This is me time that’s protected. And he didn’t say, you’re not performing for me, or we didn’t really, he just reassured me at the time. It was like, you know what? You don’t have to come up with anything. I got this. I can handle this. And I could not bring myself to believe him in action. It was difficult. And then more shit hit the fan, and I had stuff that I felt like was urgent, and it was. So, and then it kinda, again, it moved to the back burner, but I realized that was a year ago. That was October that I put that in my journal, my phone journal. So a few weeks ago, a few sessions ago, I brought it up again. And I was like, this is still happening. I’m having such a difficult time. I don’t know what my hangup is. We started to explore like, well, I wanna make sure it’s worth my time and my money. I wanna, am I afraid that I’m not demonstrating, that I’m not making the most of this, that I’m not bringing enough to this, and my therapist knows it? And I’m telling him this stuff at that time. And I’m realizing that there’s definitely barriers there for me to accepting that as a place that is, that’s a nonjudgmental zone. Because there’s a lot of things going on, but one of the things that I realized was that I just assume that he is analyzing me in the same way that I’m analyzing the session and myself. And control is obviously a big thing for me that I’m working on, and I see it at play here. It’s like, when I don’t feel like I can, I have plans, meaning that I have control over where the therapy starts, so then I know when I’ve gotten to it, when I’ve gotten to the answer, when I’ve made the most of the session, when I’ve gotten my money and time’s worth, when I’ve gotten, when I’ve demonstrated that I’m willing to make progress because I actually have made progress. ‘Cause I brought a starting point, and then there was some sort of conclusion. I definitely found myself towards the end of a session. I would look at the clock throughout the session and realize, okay, I’m halfway through. There’s something else I wanted to talk about so I’m gonna get to that now. I would very much control everything in order to try to feel okay about it. And then at the end, if it went well, I would always, I realized that I would thank my therapist. I don’t know if this seems weird. Because I wanted to acknowledge to him kind of in like a code that like, yes, you helped me. I got what I needed out of this. It’s like kinda giving him a review, and demonstrating that I’ve made progress. And I did. So all of these things, I’m starting to realize, as we’re having the conversation about how freaking difficult it is for me, and how much I put on myself and bring into therapy just because it’s therapy, or what I think it should be in my mind. And then I realized that like, I haven’t, before going to therapy in this environment, like the way that we would do it before is we would, I would go visit. I would have a counselor, which would normally be my church pastor. And I knew that that was not a judgment free zone. Like I always knew that innately. There was like, a pastor was always comparing, at least in my mind, comparing my, like whatever I was confessing. And again, I never confessed to a Catholic priest. It wasn’t like that. I never went into the closet with the Catholic priest. Just the Protestant guy would be comparing, well this is, comparing my point of view and my actions to the morals of the Bible, and then saying, okay, well, this is what, this is how you need to change. This is what you need to repent of. This is where you’re in sin, and this is where you need to get right with God, right? It was an implied place of judgment, the exact opposite of what therapy is supposed to be. Right? And I- Yeah. And it’s so difficult for me to believe that he’s not constantly judging me. ‘Cause I’m like, aren’t you coming up with an assessment? Don’t you have like? Like what do you? I’ve been talking to you for almost, for a year and a half. More like, what conclusions are you drawing about me? What do you know? Did you ask him that? Yeah. He said a number of things that were like made me feel, they were edifying. But then he basically said that I deal with, I can’t remember the term he used. Basically like, I have anxiety. And it seems, it’s like, well, maybe it seems obvious, but and this was just a few weeks ago. And I know, and I harness all of my neurosis for comedy. I am acquainted with it enough to use it to my advantage and also kinda laugh at myself. But to hear the therapist just kinda say it in more of like a diagnosis kinda way, it shook me up a little bit. Because it was like, oh, I don’t just experience anxiety. I have anxiety. It felt different to me. And I just uncovered a lot there, but it’s like- There’s a few things that come up for me as you talk about this. I mean, one is, the conversation that you’re having with me right now about your therapy. And you’ve done this a little bit, but it definitely feels like that’s the conversation that you should be having with a therapist. Now, like you said, you have kind of done that, right? Yeah. Because the nature of the way you’re seeing it, and the nature of the conversation that we’re having about it is indicative of what your work is in the anxiety, and control, and those things. Right? Yeah. I mean, if you feel like when you asked him that question, I mean, again, it’s tough. It’s tough for me. I don’t, like I’m not here to evaluate the effectiveness of your particular therapist, right? There’s a part of me that, in the way that like Jessie had already told my therapist a bunch of things about me. Someone who’s in relationship with you, which is actually something I wanna talk about in terms of how I evaluate what I’ve actually experienced in therapy and what the benefit has been, but also kinda understanding what it is that your issues are, are sometimes most eloquently articulated by the people in your life. Because I could have told you- Yeah, I’ve gone to- That your issues- I’ve gone to therapy with Christy and been able to provide my perspective, that really kinda coalesced some things for Christy. It’s like, I feel like if me and Christy could sit down with your therapist for one hour and just be like, can we just tell you some things about Link? ‘Cause I don’t know if it’s coming across as he talks to you. I don’t know if he’s packaging it differently, or he doesn’t have a, ’cause no one has a great self-assessment, right? I don’t have a great self-assessment, so. But you’re really, I mean, I think you are, and I’m totally cool with this, that like you are questioning whether, after all this time, couldn’t he have like, couldn’t he have gotten, do I need a new therapist? Well, well, no, I guess what I’m saying is, is that, okay, as I think back on our life together, first of all, there was a lot. Like if you take our life in sections really quickly, and you take like growing up together, I had absolutely no clue that you were dealing with so much anxiety. I was not. Like that was not. Right. Anxiety wasn’t something I was dealing with. You were like nervous and shaken up by all kinds of things, and no one had any idea that it was happening. Your best friend had no idea it was happening. And then for most of our adult life, I kind of dismissed a lot of your anxious. First of all, it would be like, yes, he’s got. Like once we started working together, I was like, oh, he’s got a lot of control issues. I see that. And that is interesting in like creative collaboration, but it didn’t feel like a mental problem or like emotional problem. It’s just like, Link has control issues. It’s something that he understands, I understand, and we work it out. But your anxiety was something that I did not have an understanding of. I was just like, I know he’s stressed out, quote unquote, because he’s as busy as I am. And I know what it feels like to be this busy. And I know what it feels like to have this much pressure, and have this many projects, and this many employees, and all these issues that we’re constantly dealing with. Like, it’s stressful as hell. So, and we do everything side-by-side. So I know that you’re stressed out, but the anxiety that you bring to like every type of experience, not just the stressful things, is something that I didn’t have a language for until I started going to therapy, and we started like talking about all this stuff, right? And so I’ve come to understand like, oh, like Link is running really, really hot. Yeah. That baseline anxiety that you’re talking about. And now, okay, I see it come out in some of the things that he says and does. It’s like, oh, that’s coming out because he’s so anxious about this thing right now. And so to me, and I’m not saying, I mean, he’s told you that you deal with anxiety. I’m not saying he’s a bad therapist, but I’m just like, okay, we’re two years in, and he’s like saying that like, no, man, like, this is your, this is an issue that like is very consequential in your life. Do you know what I mean? And so I just want, I mean, I guess I’m just, what I want him to do is- I have a hard time judging my therapist ’cause I’m just constantly judging myself. No, I understand that. And we do talk about those things, and we do, and so it’s like assignments. Like think back on memories from your child, like from your childhood. Let’s explore like your family life growing up. Like okay, your dad wasn’t there. Then your stepdad wasn’t there. And this is how you interacted with your mom. It’s like, we do talk about those things, and it does, and it has shed light on my impulse to control and the roots of my anxiety. Right, and the control being the thing that is, you’re trying to get hold of the anxiety with the control. Right? Yes. I didn’t even, we talked about this today. I didn’t even realize until like six months ago that a lot of the things you told me in situations where you were just vocalizing something to yourself, but you were telling me because I’m with you. You know what I’m saying? And then I’m like, oh, he does that a lot. Like, he’s like, now don’t forget to make the most of this. Or you say something to me, and I’m like. And for years I was always just like, yeah, you’re right, man. It’s like I didn’t really need to hear that, but you’re right in what you just said. All of a sudden it hit me. I was like, oh, he’s self-soothing right now by saying this thing to me. And so I guess what I’m saying is this. I just wanna sit down with your therapist and be like, ’cause I wanna hear him talk, and I want to know like, do you really understand this guy? Do you understand him? I mean, I do think that my work is like understanding what I’m so afraid of. And I think that, I don’t, it’s, do I need a new therapist? Listen. It’s really hard. I mean, I have, I mean, Christy’s has been through different therapist. It’s very common. Other people that I know have been, most people that I’ve talked to that I know really closely about therapy have been to multiple therapists. And sometimes they’ve gone back. Just to know what they may have been missing. Well- So I actually feel like- If you were to ask- And I feel like I would like to start over anyway. It’s like something about the way that it, again, we talk about it. We talk about two weeks ago, we have so much in. So it’s an opportunity to kinda change the trajectory to not be so crisis oriented. We talked about that specifically, and that’s why we got into the, reflect more on your past, and we can unpack some of that, and talk about this impulse to control. Like, this is where we’ve talked about going. But I do wonder, there is a part of me that’s like, I feel like I gotta have somebody to, I gotta have a different experience with a different person to compare it to. Yeah, I mean, I can’t advise you, and I’m just, I guess- Because I, but I think the thing that I feel like I’m missing is like, I would, I just anticipated that I would be breaking down left and right in therapy. I mean, I just don’t. I’ve got a shit ton of issues, but it’s not like, I don’t think I have the issue you’re talking about where I’m not gonna like weep about my own emotion, let that emotion out. You know? I actually think that I, that’s not what I thought I was signing up for. I thought I was signing up for crying a lot. And you know- And because I haven’t, and I just feel like, I feel like that’s a reason to look for, see if another therapist can get me to cry more, because I thought that was gonna be part of it. That’s an outward sign for me that I’m getting somewhere. And it may be. I mean, as somebody who, just to put things into perspective, as somebody who’s been going to therapy since 2017, specifically focusing on being able to feel things and process things, I still haven’t cried. And my wife just laughs at me. I mean, not in jest, but just because she’s like, I cry every damn time. But do you think that I would? Listen, I’m not- At least a few times. Like, I want a breakthrough, I guess is what I’m saying. Here’s what I’ll say. I wanna be really hesitant to like, ’cause I’m not a professional by any means. Well, I know that. It’s just. I know how to filter your advice. In comparing it to my experience where the way that I would categorize, the way I would characterize what happened with me is very, very quickly we got to the root. And now, when we got to the root, we saw that the root was really thick, and really deep, and splayed out in many different areas. So it’s not like just identifying the issue solves it because I still have all the tendencies, but it didn’t take, it took two sessions to get to the root, not two years to get to the root. Yeah, and like, I feel like we’re like, we’re certainly digging into in the right place, but, and there’s reasons why maybe it’s taking this long to get back to it. But I feel like that I can’t continue the route analogy in talking about the point I’m trying to make. What is the point I’m trying to make? Well, okay. I’ll talk a little bit about, because I recent- Oh, I know what I was trying to say. We’re looking in the right place, like saying, this is the root of the issue. And I’m envious of the way that like, now you kinda know, well, I’m envious. I feel like you’ve described an assignment. Like you bring the therapy your life, and then you make sure that you’re processing it on a level that you haven’t been able to until therapy unlocked that for you, an emotional level. So the protocol seems clear to me. Again, it’s a plan. I feel like, and so is my exercise to find someone new who can give me that breakthrough, and then filter every experience that I have through the trauma that I’ve endured as a child, that then is making me wanting to control everything to soothe it, or is my exercise that and also letting go of the control of needing a plan to get there, and analyzing- That’s what makes it really complicated for you. And in a different way, again, because I like to present myself as having it together, and I do it unconsciously. Again, I don’t know. Now, I’m not gonna get into what I’ve explored specifically about my childhood that kind of potentially led me to a place that, this is the way that I cope with things. But because I present as someone who’s got it together, as a default, sometimes it takes 30 minutes of talking in therapy to begin to break through the shell ’cause I’m doing it without even knowing it. Just like, I think things are going pretty good, but they’re not. Like and they may be externally, but like in here, no, there’s something that you’re not really. I gotta bring that out. So yeah, there is this, I’m constantly. What I’m saying is that my issue does directly impact the way that I do therapy. So I’m not saying that like, every time I start a therapy session, I’m like, here we go. I know what the work is. Let’s do it. No, the work is directly related into the way that I approach therapy in a very similar way, just a different issue. But I feel like my therapist is so attuned to that being the problem that he will just be like, okay, let’s stop a second. Now, do you see what you did there? You’ve been talking about this for this much time, and you see how quickly you moved to this thing. But what about this thing? And so, because he’s like, I’m dealing with a guy, if it was like he was a coach, and it was just like, the thing this guy can’t do is he can’t go to his left. Right. Then he would be- See, there’s a level of authority that I’m envious of that too, because I feel like- You don’t feel like he’s assertive enough. Yeah. Like he’s like stop. When you said that, could that mean this? It’s like, I just don’t. I feel like it’s all up to me. It’s like, he’s gonna answer. He’s gonna ask a question, and he’s gonna, what else am I gonna say? Now what am I gonna say to the wall? The fact that you’ve now referred to him as a wall multiple times, maybe. Listen, I don’t want, again, everybody’s experience is different, but because there’s a question in your mind- But I think it’s a style thing. I don’t think it’s a criticism of him as much as like, am I discovering what I need? And ’cause it’s just a relationship. So it’s the style, right? The therapist is a person. So I just, I’m really feeling like I’m wanna try somebody else just because it’s just a fit. It’s a style. It’s a- You wanna go to my therapist too? No, that would be unethical. At some point, the circle has to stop expanding. I mean, could it be a handoff? Like- Maybe you take the weeks that I’m not there. No, again, this is two very, very non-professional guys talking about therapy, but I think, the only thing that I want to affirm is that I don’t think it’s wrong to think, should I just, could I try something else out? I know it’s not wrong, and I know that they do it all the time. Yeah. And, but it’s like, I get hung up on it. And I’m definitely thinking that I’m not gonna tell him. I’m just gonna get a second therapist at the same time. Wow. I don’t know how I feel about that. I should be able to tell him. He’s my therapist. Yeah, I think- But it’s like, hey, I’m breaking up with you for a little time until I change my mind and realized that the grass wasn’t greener, and then I’ll come back to you. He knows all of that. It happens all the time, right? I can just be like, ’cause- I think you have to talk to him about this. The temptation is, I’ll just go to every other week, and then I can hedge with somebody else. I think the whole point is, is that- I gotta build the other person back up while I taper the other guy off. Well, I feel like- I don’t wanna be left in a lurch. This is the thing I was kinda getting at earlier is that I feel like there’s the real narrative that’s happening in here, and then there’s the curated narrative that you bring to your therapist. And I think that, and I do the same thing. But the- I didn’t know you were saying that. But what I’m, ’cause no, ’cause I’m performative in a different way, right? I’m definitely performative. Okay. But you’re- My performative is that I’m getting, I’m being- You’re trying to control it, and get the most out of it, and make it the best possible session. I’m just trying to appear like I got it together. Yeah. Even if I don’t. But they’re both performative in a certain way. So the thing that he breaks me out of is the curated narrative. And either you gotta break yourself out of the curated narrative or- Or if I don’t have a curated narrative, whatever it is, I just want to have more of a, I think his style is more like raise a question, and then it’s self-discovery, but it’s not a conversation. We’re not batting ideas back and forth. Well, and you know- And I kinda want a little more of that. This is a way that we tell people who work for us and work with us this all the time. Because if there’s anything that we are, we have very much in common in the way we work with people, is we invite collaboration really intensely. And we tell people, when we get ready to work on a project, we say, listen, you can’t offend us, and we don’t hold any ideas sacred. If you don’t like something, you should tell us because that’s how we work. And listen, if you step back, and you make it a light touch thing, and you don’t ever voice your opinion, we will bowl over you because we have so much intense creative energy. Now, I actually think we kind of function relationships in this way. And so I think what you’re asking, it’s like- When I have something to bring to therapy- You want him to- I bowl over. I talk to the wall. Yeah, you want him to reach out and grab you by the collar. Yeah. So to speak. And again, I feel like my therapist does that in the most respectful, friendly way possible, but he just kinda is ready to, when he smells bullshit, he says, I smell bullshit. You know what I mean? I don’t know what he need to smell. Maybe there’s a different scent for me, a different stink than bullshit. But yeah, it’s not, whatever that is, I would like to be- So I think you gotta talk to him, and I think you gotta say that I’m just, this is how I feel. And what I want to do is maybe meet with someone else just ’cause I just don’t have anything, I don’t have any sort of connection to compare this to, and see what he says. And then I’m starting over. It’s like, that’s why I haven’t done it. And that’s when things go better, and I have that, like I don’t have anything to talk about, I’m like, I’ll just, I’ll stretch it out. I’ll just meet every other week. We’ll try that out. Maybe I don’t need therapy. I start to tell myself that stuff. Okay. And then I know what- This is what I wanted to talk about because I started thinking the same thing, okay? And I actually asked Jessie when we were getting ready for this episode. I was like, I feel like I understand what my problem is, and I understand what I’m, kind of what I’m doing to work on it, but it’s really difficult for me to talk, to articulate the progress and what’s actually changed. And she was like, well, do you want me to tell you? Right? And so I actually wrote down some of the stuff that she said, ’cause I asked her to repeat it. Okay. First of all, she kinda laughed again. And it was like, what’d you want me to tell you what I’ve seen? She’s like, you’re much more in touch with your emotions, which has translated into the way that we communicate, me and her communicate. Been married for 20 years. Spent many of those years, if we were arguing about something, my main goal was to get a point across, to debate, to be like, this is why I think that I’m right about this, and these are my supporting, this is the supporting evidence versus worrying about connecting. Do you know what I’m saying? Or just saying, this is how I feel. Like I’ve literally changed the way that we argue about things by saying, well, this is what I’m feeling right now. And it isn’t, I feel that you’re a jerk about it. It’s just like, no, this is the emotional response that I’m having right now. And she’s already there because she’s been doing, and that’s completely changed the way, that’s changed conflict resolution. I didn’t even know that until she pointed it out. She’s like, you don’t get mad as much. I mean, again, that’s something that I didn’t really have. You really don’t have a way to perceive yourself in that way. She said we are closer than we’ve ever been. And I was like, well, you know what? I recently told somebody that I thought that too. Oh, that has something to do with- Emotions. Therapy. Yes, okay. And then she says, and think about the way that we, the differences in the way that we deal with our kids since before therapy. One of the things that our therapist has really harped on is this maintaining the relationship with our kids as they age. And as they get older and get more independent, Locke will be in his senior year in high school, resisting the urge to datafy every situation and to moralize, and to correct, and to teach, and to use every conversation as an opportunity to give my wise perspective, versus using every conversation as an opportunity to connect emotionally. And again, that’s just not something that, I love my kids. I love being with my kids. I love doing things and having fun with my kids. But usually if they start talking about something, my default is to be like robot analyze situation, give solution. Like, it’s just my personality. You bring me a problem, I’ll come up with a solution real fast. Versus bring me a problem, and let me get into, let me get behind that problem with you. Let’s not solve it. Let’s just agree that it’s a problem and connect emotionally. These are things that have happened, but I needed my wife to point them out. So I guess my question for you is, I think before you make any of this decision, you gotta talk to Christy about it. Oh, sure. We’re already talking about. Yeah, but like if she were to be like, oh no, like I’ve seen this change in you in these ways, or be like, no, I think you need a new therapist. Like, she’s gonna know way better than me. We had a fight last night, so. But we’re having a date tonight. Okay. Just gotta get the fight out of the way. But the fight was, the conflict was resolved, but I did not, I kind of showed my ass. So I didn’t really demonstrate a lot of progress in any area. So I don’t know if tonight is a good night to ask. ‘Cause she might be like, there’s work to be done. I mean, that is the sense I get. It’s like the, and in an effort to wrap this up, I think just the benefit of kinda looking back. The other thing was that I looked back at my notes, and they ended a year ago. I stopped jotting down. I think I wanna start that back up because I’m sure Christy can give me perspective on all of this, and I’ll put that question to her in terms of like how I’ve changed or grown, if at all. I know, I believe I have. I’ve definitely survived a lot of things I couldn’t, and that is saying a lot, and it’s not something to diminish. You’ve had acute situations that took a lot of energy and time. But I do think I wanna keep writing things down, and I am gonna seriously consider getting a new therapist. And I think that came from within me. That’s not something that you were, that wasn’t your idea. Does your therapist listen to this podcast? Why would he? I don’t think my therapist, my therapist doesn’t listen to it because every time he refers to it, he calls it earbuds. So. Yeah, yeah. Just keep it that way. I don’t think he would. And I do not correct him because it’s my way to know if he’s actually listening. Boy, this is, therapy’s tough. What have we learned? Is this a ringing endorsement. No, to me, and it’s funny ’cause we, I’ve had two conversations in the past month with two close friends, one who just started therapy and feels the need to change therapist, and one who just started therapist and wanted to check in with me after a few sessions and just ask the question. Like, it’s hard to evaluate. And he was thinking about it from a financial perspective, which is a note we wanna make. I mean, being able to pay for your own mental health is a privilege that we have. It’s the luxury, sadly. Sadly, that’s the case. But we were talking to edits before the show with Kiko and Jenna, and they were both kind of reminding us about like, there are mental health resources and groups, and there are actually, there’s free resources depending on your background and things that you deal with. And the community you live in. Yeah. How big it it. There are ways to get at some of the stuff. There’s affinity groups like LGBTQ. I mean, if that’s. Or there’s support groups. Yeah, and sometimes that can happen in a group setting and doesn’t necessarily have to be one-on-one. But if you can afford it, try to make it happen. But he was asking that question ’cause he was like, I’m spending a fair amount of money on this, and just like what? And I find myself, like he was, he’s a lot, he’s not like you, but it was funny ’cause he did something that you would have done, which is he printed out like a summary of himself with background information, like a resume that you give to a therapist and send it to the therapist before the appointment. Yeah. To kind of get it out of the way so they didn’t have to spend a bunch of time talking. I love that idea. And he was like, the therapist was like, no one has ever done this. I don’t know how to feel about it, but thank you. Really? So, but I told him the same thing. I was like, listen, man, like I had to ask Jessie. ‘Cause I can’t immediately articulate. You forget what’s actually happening. Therapy rolls around and I’m just like, ah, man, I just wanna watch TV. I don’t find myself longing for my next therapy appointment. If I have to miss it, and I end up going a full month, I don’t feel the need- You get secretly happy. No, I don’t get secretly happy, but I don’t have this felt need of like all this stuff building up that’s about to explode the moment that the Zoom call starts. But then what I find is that when the Zoom call does start, and I just start letting it flow- It’s there. That’s your MO. It’s there. Right. Yeah. So- So you’re recommending therapy. I’m recommending therapy, but it’s not, yeah, it’s not gonna be like some easy thing. My actual recommendation, to wrap things up, is a book that I’ve been reading called “Why We Sleep” by, I think his name is Michael Walker. Let me just make sure that’s his name. Matthew Walker. This was like a New York Times bestseller a few years ago. And it’s basically just all about sleep and the importance of sleep. Now I will say that, as I’ve dug into it a little bit, that there are some people, some researchers out there who question some of the conclusions he comes to. Okay. But so much of the book is him just saying, this was a study, a peer reviewed study that was done with these people, and this is what it. He explores all these different aspects of sleep, and you will learn a lot of really good information. But I’ve just been absolutely blown away at how, just reminded at how important getting a good night’s sleep is. Like, if you don’t wanna read the book, then just get a good night’s sleep. Get seven to nine hours of sleep every single night. That would be my recommendation. I like that. But if you’re interested in that kind of information- If I can sleep with my therapist, maybe all my problems will be- Right. And I don’t mean like that. Yep, oh, I understand. But it’s just, it’s a good book in general with a lot of absolutely fascinating information that you would like here on like a podcast or like NPR, all put together into a really fascinating book. All right. Well #EarBiscuits. Let us know what do you think about this. You don’t have to give me advice. I got enough people in my life to help me with that. But any other way that you’re dealing with this, or if you wanna give Rhett advice, use #EarBiscuits. I’m sure you will. Talk at you next week. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your mythical best.