Episode 8: Thoughts on death, divorce, dying alone, and why we wanna please our parents so much
In today's episode, we discuss:
- Is monogamy encoded in our DNA?
- The concept of “I'm never gonna love again.”
- Why, when passion fades, do we think the relationship is over or doomed?
- Is despair a byproduct of monogamy?
- Getting older and thinking, “Shit, I don't wanna die alone.”
- Why we wanna please our parents so much
- Why we project our own fears onto other
- Not wanting to own the bad things that happen to us, only the good
- Finding the origins of your triggers
- What our baggage is made of and why we think it protects us
- If you blend in you're never gonna stand out
- People are conditioned to aspire to comfort instead of growth
Here are some highlights (listen to the full podcast using the link above)
Kelly: The majority of the population is on board for this weird fantastical idea that “my person is out there and I'm going to meet them and they’re never gonna look at anybody else and I'm never gonna look at anyone else and we're gonna be together forever."
Katie: Monogamous married couples tend to hang out with other monogamous married couples. And when a monogamous relationship breaks up, you lose the friends too. So when your relationship ends you lose everything: your partner, your social life, your community because they were all tied into that one person.
Kelly: When people are vicious at the end of relationships - it’s a defensive reaction. I’ve had two husbands and my wishes for their happiness and joy was not dependent on whether I was their life partner.
Katie: There’s a communication break down always if a relationship ends dramatically. Then you have all these unanswered questions and no closure and loose ends and that all becomes your baggage and you carry that right into the next thing because you can’t discharge all that crap until you can either find peace within yourself (and most people don’t have the tools to do that) or you’re able to have a discourse with that person like a normal human (and most people don’t have the tools to do that).
Kelly: Once you've unearthed the seeds of your anger it gets easier. Because then you can be like, “Wait a minute why am I jacking you up over the toilet seat being up. You can recognize when you’re overreacting and know that it goes back to something in your past. It’s not about being wrong or right - it’s about the recognizing the origin. It's not random. It's because of something.
Katie: You build your barriers based on your baggage: “I'll never date another stock broker” or “I’ll never marry another catholic”. That doesn't make you any safer from heartbreak.
Kelly: If you throw all your shit in a hefty bag and take it out to the trash you don’t have to open it up and look. Just throw the shit away and have a nice clean start.
Kelly: As we age we just want our truth to be the real and we don’t wanna bend or create a new idea around something because we think, “No! If I open up my grip I might crumble. I just want everyone to be on board with my idea of the truth.”
Katie: I think people equate wanting change with failure. It's not “embrace change” it’s, “Well if I want to change it means what I'm doing has been wrong.”
Kelly: Sometimes I’m guilty of being grateful for being an orphan. Not that my parents would've cared, but I know people my age and older that are still trapped in that whole thing like they were 12: I can't do that because my dad would flip out or my family won't understand. I think oh my god what a ridiculous prison.
Kris: “I’m gonna offend my family for being who I am.” That was my last straw. What got me over the hump was convincing myself that George Carlin or Louis CK would’ve never become who they were if they were worried about what their mom thought or worried about using offensive language. And they have become hugely influential cultural icons that have helped so many people. And even though you DO care what your mom thinks, you can't let it get in your way.
Kelly: I could give a shit what my kids do. I want them to be kind human beings and be happy if that's possible, but I have no attachment to what their sexual life looks like or their professional lives look like. Fuck that. Go live your life and be a joyful, kind human being. And don’t report back to me.
Katie: What if we all just said to everyone: Enjoy your life and I love you anyway.
Katie: How come we don’t err on the side of things being awesome? What if goes well and you’re successful and everybody loves you. Why do we paralyze ourselves with the negative what ifs.
Katie: You know what else fucking irritates me? Shit like, “Oh I can't XYZ on Facebook because my coworkers might see.” Shit like that is so layered. First of all - you’re kind of a coward. 2 - you’re being over dramatic. How do you know they’re not cool? It's people like you doing shit like that that’s perpetuating our tiny, sterile, rigid society because we assume everybody’s like that.
Kelly: And really, like if you see somebody is going to a topless swim party....do you even care? And the people that do care, the ones that you do offend - aren't you glad you rid yourself of them anyway? Take a nice lil bath and wash that shit off.
Katie: If you blend in you're never gonna stand out, you’re never gonna attract anything interesting. You’ll attract a lifetime of the same boring shit because no one is going to really see you, so what is there to really gravitate towards if you're just this neutral floating blob that's trying to keep everybody happy. It's not interesting.
Kelly: And it’s not growth. You can’t grow muscle in your body if you're not tearin it up a little. We have such fear around shredding our emotional body, our spiritual body, but you have to. You can't have a bigger capacity unless you shred shit up a little.
Kris: And most people are conditioned to aspire to comfort instead of growth. They think, “I need to get a job and make a bunch of money and build this comfortable shell around me. But really it’s a false sense of security.
Kelly: Right. And you have to stretch outside your comfort zone so you can understand how little you are really.
Katie: Because it just humbles you and that’s a good state to be in. But also - growing and changing doesn’t have to be painful. You can grow and change and be having an awesome time while you're doing it. It doesn’t always mean that you’re going to be uncomfortable and sad and never feel settled.
Katie: And it is ok to say fuck it and stay in bed. I mean if you did that 7 days in a row I might be like, “Um, Kelly….”
Kelly: Right. And we’re programmed from early on to not nourish ourselves in that way. We definitely don’t honor that because it’s selfish, it’s not productive, we gotta get back on track and be tough. It’s ok to fall apart and drop your basket and crumble into bed and then what? That's what's important.
Katie: It all could change at any moment. You could get dumped, someone could die, you could get fired. All that shit is outside of you. All you have control over is you and what you’re doing, how you respond to things, how you’re showing up in the world, the good you’re doing, the people you influence. Just fucking just do that and just make that cooler.
Kelly: Yeah, just rise up a little. Trauma is ok. I can almost always trace it back and see it as the anchor where my life changed in a great way.
Katie: I feel like if you're not dead, things are gonna get better. I mean unless you’re a reclusive asshole loser.....
Kelly: It’s all in some way our creation. So everything that is coming into your life has something to do with your resonance and your energy and your thoughts. To own that and have responsibility around that feels really good. Well, I don’t love it actually. There’s part of it that I hate...like, “No! This shit's happening TO me.” But you gotta empower yourself. It's not even about positive thinking, it's about being the creator of your world.
Katie: And everybody can say “I manifested this” when it’s a cool thing but when it’s bad thing they don’t wanna own it or look at what they did or what their part is. But you gotta own everything.
Kelly: Yeah you gotta own you. Even things like cancer. That's gonna push someone's buttons but I have had so many experiences with that. You just have to own it all.
Kelly: It’s all your story. It’s cute, it’s great, it’s messy, sloppy, fucked up, beautiful. It’s still you.
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