ZPR#734 – Anxiety and Friends Full Episode Transcript – DOWNLOAD
[00:00:00]
[00:00:05] Cathy: okay, Chad, it’s Halloween.
[00:00:11] Todd: Technically it’s the 30th, but when you’re listening it’s probably the 31st. It’s Halloween. It
[00:00:15] Cathy: is Halloween, basically all weekend has been Halloween. So
[00:00:21] Cathy: it’s very scary. You are not scary this year for Halloween. No.
[00:00:25] Todd: What are you? Uh, I am red. The color red. What, what does that mean? Explain. It’s signifying, um, one of the Taylor Swift albums that came out about, I don’t know, seven or eight
[00:00:34] Cathy: years ago. You’re not, you’re not red. You’re the red
[00:00:37] Todd: scarf. Well, I’m wearing a red scarf.
[00:00:39] Cathy: Right. But you are the red scarf. I am? Sure. Well, the
[00:00:42] Todd: representation. I will embody
[00:00:44] Cathy: the red scarf. Because I am the snake from Rep.
[00:00:49] Todd: Big reputation. Big reputation. Ooh, you and me, we got a big reputation. Ooh, I got some big enemies. All right, let’s go. Ready? Yeah. Here we go. My name is Todd and this is Kathy.
[00:01:06] Todd: Welcome back to another episode of Zen Parenting Radio. This is podcast number 734. Why listen to Zen Parenting Radio? Because you’ll feel outstanding and always remember our motto, which is the best predictor of a child’s well being. Is a parent’s self understanding on today’s show, um, we’re going to try to connect these dots.
[00:01:27] Todd: Yeah, we’re going to connect these dots. Um, we heard some, some bad news in the world of Hollywood, um, for people who listen to this podcast way in the future. What happened
[00:01:37] Cathy: this weekend? Matthew Perry died this weekend. Um, And it was quite a shock and it was kind of interesting because it was Saturday night and I literally got three texts in a row and people said, how are you?
[00:01:50] Cathy: How are you? Are you okay? Um, I think that there was a sense, there was a knowing that, um, it would be very bothersome to me and everybody else who is. [00:02:00] a big fan of friends or just a big fan of Chandler or a big fan of Matthew Perry, whatever it may be. And you know what? When we talk about these, these, like you said, it was a sadness in Hollywood and really it’s just a, um, I think the loss is different than just Um, him dying is shocking enough because he was only 54, but he represented something to a lot of people in, in a bunch of different worlds, in the world of addiction and recovery, um, in the world of friends and friends being a comfort show, you know, like a comfort food show.
[00:02:34] Cathy: Like it’s something we go to and just the, how much time we’ve spent with a character that he created. And, um, I think it’s, it’s about him and it’s about a representation. Of him.
[00:02:47] Todd: Yeah. You know? No doubt. And we’re going to talk a little bit about anxiety, I think. Yes, we are. Because you and I had, um, an interesting conversation in the kitchen about 20 minutes before we pressed record, which I think might be helpful to our listeners.
[00:02:59] Todd: And then, um, you’re talking to me about this John Stamos interview with Howard Stern. Yes. And it was a little bit about emasculation or emasculation, isn’t it? I think they’re synonyms, synonyms. I think they mean the exact same thing, which is weird. So we’re just going to do, um, uh, maybe a quick take on that.
[00:03:20] Demasculation topic – Beginning
[00:03:20] Cathy: Yeah. So basically, uh, John Stamos is promoting a book. Um, and he is talking a lot about, you know, what he kind of learned from the book. And one of the things he kind of worked through was his anger at his previous wife, uh, Rebecca Romaine. And he, they’ve never talked since they divorced. And he said he just hated her for a long time.
[00:03:40] Cathy: And, and he’s moving through that and is finding his way through that and finding gratitude for their time together. But Everybody, I’ve heard three interviews with him now, you know, they, they, it’s like, you hear the same people on every podcast that you, you know, who’s ever promoting their book. And he has said the same thing.
[00:03:57] Cathy: He has said, I felt demasculated [00:04:00] or, as you just shared, emasculated by her. Is it really emasculated? That feels so on
[00:04:06] Todd: normal. Uh, no, I’m pretty sure. I, I, it’s been a while since I checked, but I remember being like, okay, I’m missing this. I know what this word means. And I remember Googling and they’re like, emasculation, demasculation are the same.
[00:04:17] Cathy: Are the same thing. Okay. So I felt like every, I was listening to Chelsea Handler’s podcast and she dug into that a little bit, but most everybody else did not. So do you, what is, do you have any thoughts about that or do you want me to
[00:04:31] Todd: launch it? No, no, no. Um, so. I hear this because I work with a lot of men and there’s times when a man’s like, gosh, my wife is emasculating me.
[00:04:39] Todd: And I always, I need to own this for a second. I get reactive when I hear anybody say that. Some of it’s because I consider myself a feminist and I live with a wife and I have three daughters. And, um, it’s a little tricky and we’ll get into the nuances of it, but, um, I feel like. As a man, I would need to give somebody permission to emasculate me.
[00:05:08] Todd: It’s like you, you, I don’t feel if I’m in a good conscious place and I’m confident in what it means to be a man and I’m displaying what mature masculinity looks like, no matter what you say to me, or a stranger says to me. I need to like, buy into the idea that, that I am being demasculated. And if I’m like, no, actually this is what I think manhood is, then, then it, I feel like it’s disempowering to, to say somebody’s demasculating me.
[00:05:44] Todd: I don’t know if I’m explaining
[00:05:45] Cathy: that really. You are. And I think there’s many versions of this. So I think that there are definitely, um, you know, we talk a lot about emotional and physical abuse and a lot of times it, the, it’s typically like women experiencing it, but of course there are men [00:06:00] in their, um, marriages or in their partnerships who have experienced some kind of emotional abuse where, uh, you know, let’s just talk about a heteronormative experience.
[00:06:09] Cathy: Thanks. heteronormative marriage where it’s a man and a woman. If, if a woman is saying cruel things to her husband or saying you need to man up or you don’t have, you know, you’re not strong or whatever it may
[00:06:19] Todd: be. What we talked about was like if you said to me, grow a pair, Todd. Yeah. Um, I can see why that would hurt me.
[00:06:26] Cathy: Right. Okay. And so there are some things that are literally That’s the whole goal is to make you feel less than a man. There are, that happens. I think what he was referring to though, and I could be wrong, you know, cause John Stamos is not here, but he followed up by saying, well, she was getting a lot of jobs and she was, her career was taking off while mine was ending.
[00:06:46] Cathy: And that’s where I, you know, the whole idea of that. And then he said, he added, this is on the Howard Stern one he added. So I don’t know if it was her fault or my fault. And I just had a moment of like, well.
[00:06:57] Todd: Her career is taking off. Why is there any fault here? She’s… Right. Yeah,
[00:07:01] Cathy: I don’t get it. And maybe it’s because they didn’t talk about it.
[00:07:03] Cathy: She didn’t communicate about it. So many nuances here. We don’t want to like just say this is good, this is bad. But it’s interesting this whole idea of if a woman, you know, has a bigger career or their work is taking off or, um, that it is somehow then that experience demasculates their
[00:07:22] Todd: partner. And that’s, I have no room for, for a man saying to me, yell at my wife makes more money than I do.
[00:07:28] Todd: So it’s really demasculate like what? Well,
[00:07:30] Cathy: actually you do have room for it because you hear it a lot. What? I have no patience for it. Well. Well, and I know you’re trying to like make your point, but you do a good job talking men through this. So you do have patience
[00:07:43] Todd: for it. Yeah. But my initial reaction is like, first of all, why, why is that demasculating?
[00:07:50] Right.
[00:07:50] Cathy: And you know the answer.
[00:07:52] Todd: Yeah. Because he’s conditioned to think that if a man doesn’t make more money than his wife, then he’s less of a [00:08:00] man. Correct. And I’ve never, I’ve never bought
[00:08:02] Cathy: into that. It’s cultural conditioning. You know, it’s kind of like a woman being let, you know, there’s, we have all this societal cultural conditioning around how things are supposed to be.
[00:08:10] Cathy: And even if we decide to, to go beyond those things or to not allow them to dictate our lives, they creep up sometimes in, you know, in ways that are unpredictable. Like, you know, I feel like we’ve always been peers since we’ve been together. We both have careers and then all of a sudden we had children and we went into really gender specific roles.
[00:08:31] Cathy: I wouldn’t have predicted that. Um, and we’ve had to work through that. And then there are, you know, because the thing is, is you personally haven’t experienced it yet. Now maybe you’ve You have in some ways because we are, you and I are a business and, and I am the CEO of this business, but you are the COO or CFO
[00:08:53] Todd: or whatever.
[00:08:53] Todd: Technically, I’m the secretary according to the IRS. Really? Yes.
[00:08:57] Cathy: But at the same time, you have another job and another job as an executive
[00:09:01] Todd: director of. Yeah, I’ve been working. I’ve been working for a company for 30 years and I happen to be in a position where there’s more revenue that comes into this household based off of my job versus your
[00:09:12] Cathy: job.
[00:09:12] Cathy: And then you also have Men Living where you’re an executive director of that. So you have all these things that that prop up your masculinity. So even though in our work, I am the CEO, it’s more, and I don’t want to say this is more like my work because I know your coach and we do similar things and we’ve been podcasting together forever, but this tends to be a more, um, how would I say this?
[00:09:34] Cathy: A more feminized role as a therapist or as a coach or as someone who, you know, um, Maybe some won’t see it that way, but I just think there’s a lot of, like, nuance in this. For sure. But I, bottom line is, Todd, I agree with you. I don’t think there’s an, I don’t like that he’s demasculated. I don’t like, you know, a lot of women that I really admire and who have either been married or chosen not to be married.
[00:09:58] Cathy: Well, Chelsea Handler is one of them, just as [00:10:00] she, she’s like, I literally can’t be in relationship with men because They, my personality and the amount of money I make always
[00:10:06] Todd: throws them off. Strong women scare the crap out of many, many men, including me for that matter. I remember, um, I’ve said this on the podcast so many times, but, uh, our former House of Representatives person, Nancy Pelosi, uh, my brain’s not working yet this morning.
[00:10:22] Todd: Um, I remember saying something like, yeah, I don’t know what it is about her. I just don’t like her. Right. I remember. So whenever anybody says, I don’t know what it is, And through that lens, there’s something for me to learn about myself and my own judgments about women.
[00:10:37] Cathy: She demasculates me in some way. So in a way, you do have patience for it.
[00:10:40] Cathy: That’s kind of the, you get triggered by it. For sure. Yeah,
[00:10:43] Todd: I can help a man walk himself through that thought process like, okay, let’s, let’s break that down. Yeah. Like, what does it mean to be demasculated? So anyways, I just thought it was an interesting, um, thing and you know, like, and I, I do, I do coach men and I’ve shared this, that there’s some men who, who.
[00:11:02] Todd: who feel some arrows that are slung from their wives. And, and those, there are words that are uttered towards them, like, you know, man up, right. You know, if they start opening up their heart and getting vulnerable and she says, man up, like, or don’t cry or don’t break down. That’s, that’s rough. That’s rough.
[00:11:19] Todd: I have a lot more compassion for that than, you know, my wife makes more money. So anyways.
[00:11:25] Demasaculation – Ending
[00:11:25] Cathy: Okay. So should we talk about anxiety a little bit before we talk about Matthew Perry? Let’s go. Yeah, let’s, let’s.
[00:11:30] Todd: So let me start about the anxiety. Okay. One of our, um, kids is
[00:11:36] Cathy: just be, let’s not talk about her specifically,
[00:11:39] Todd: like struggling with something.
[00:11:41] Todd: Okay. Um, and let’s say it’s a test. Cause it’s not like she’s, she’s worried about a test that’s happening this Friday and she came to you because she was, um, really anxious
[00:11:55] Cathy: about it. Right. Are you anxious about this snake that’s around my neck?
[00:11:59] Todd: So [00:12:00] most people don’t know what you’re talking about. They have to go to YouTube.
[00:12:02] Todd: They have to go to YouTube to see us in our Halloween costumes. He’s so sweet. That’s right. He’s so sweet. He’s got a red
[00:12:08] Cathy: tongue. Do you know I’m not afraid of snakes. Really? I don’t know. And it’s weird. I’m not afraid of spiders and bugs and snakes. I have fears. Everybody. Anyone who knows me knows me. I fierce.
[00:12:17] Cathy: Yeah, but these are not, so he, and he’s the, uh, he’s the rep snake, so he represents something else. And I also have a rep here. By the way, what
[00:12:24] Todd: does the rep snake. signify for you? For me or for Taylor Swift? Well, yeah, what is Taylor, like real quick, like what type of
[00:12:33] Cathy: energy? Well, this kind of, this connects to anxiety a little bit.
[00:12:36] Cathy: I can make, I can bring this in. So I’m not going to go through the whole story, but basically there was a point where there was like a, let’s cancel Taylor Swift party. And a lot of it had to do with some things happening with Kanye and with Kim and with, um, some things that she said and didn’t say online.
[00:12:51] Cathy: And then all of a sudden there was this, supposedly this phone call that she gave Kanye permission for something and she said, no, I didn’t. And then Kim played something on, um, her like social, social media saying, listen, here’s the phone call, but really it had been altered and edited. And we all, we now know that it really wasn’t the full phone call.
[00:13:12] Cathy: Point being is that there started to be, I think it was Kim who started by saying like, you know, beware of this woman and put a snake emoji. Yeah. And meaning Taylor, you know, beware and put a snake. And also there was some things with Katy Perry, um, that the snake emoji would crop up. Um, they were having an argument.
[00:13:31] Cathy: So all of a sudden people just latched onto that and on social media when it would be like, can’t, you know, Taylor Swift is over, cancel her. A snake emoji was used. Yeah. Kind of like she’s a snake and, you know, she’s not who you think she is. So she disappeared for a long time. Um, and like, Came out with an album and owned the snake.
[00:13:51] Cathy: She’s like, well, if that’s what you think about me, then I’m gonna, I’m going to use this snake as my symbol.[00:14:00]
[00:14:04] Cathy: This too hard. Don’t try it all though.
[00:14:12] Cathy: That was reputation. The symbol was the snake and she it at the reputation tour, which we, we saw huge. I mean, not only is. Not only is there snake symbols all over the floor, but there’s a huge snake that comes out like a, like a big snake. So anyway, that’s it. Yeah. We don’t need to talk about Taylor any more than that, but that’s why I’m the snake.
[00:14:31] Cathy: You’re, you’re the, you’re the red scarf. Okay. So anxiety. Let’s talk about that.
[00:14:36] Todd: So keep going. Our kid. is anxious about a test. Right. Okay. How did you help her through that last night?
[00:14:42] Cathy: Okay. So first, let’s just talk about what anxiety is. So we have an understanding of what’s happening. So it’s basically like a nervousness or unease about a fear of the future, right?
[00:14:53] Cathy: So that’s really what’s going on when, when someone says I’m anxious, it’s like they’re uneasy about something coming up. So, Um, I found this really interesting. Like, we all know that our brain is set up, um, for immediate threat. Like, we’re neurobiologically hardwired to make sure that we are not threatened.
[00:15:11] Cathy: We know where to go if we need to get food or water, whatever it may be, and we know where to not go because we could be hurt, right? So, our brains are made up. Um, they were created and we have evolved to have, like, hardwiring for immediate threat. And so, I, this is really interesting. What, what happens and where we are in our evolution is we are still this feeling of survival.
[00:15:34] Cathy: It’s like a fear, right? We’re afraid. And so that’s, that’s fear. That’s what keeps us safe. But then we have also evolved where we can plan for our futures. Okay. We’ve been planning for our futures. We need to put money away. We need to do this. We need to do that. We need to set goals. So our planning mechanism in our brain has also been super heightened.
[00:15:54] Cathy: And anxiety is the mixture of the two. These two parts of our brain. The [00:16:00] fear. And the planning, kind of like crossing swords, and because we’re trying to survive and we’ve had experiences like, do this, don’t do that, or this was hard, this wasn’t hard. And then we start planning, and then these survival things come in like, ooh, I’m planning to go, I’m planning to take this test, but last time I took a test, I didn’t do well, and it was really hard to study for it, and then I was so embarrassed, and I was disappointed, and all these things, and so we start to like…
[00:16:28] Cathy: The wires start to cross and we get super anxious about what’s coming up.
[00:16:32] Todd: So let me see if I can get this straight. If you’re honestly feeling fear, fear happens in the present moment because there is a threat out there in front of me. It
[00:16:41] Cathy: happens in the present moment, but we also store it away in our brain.
[00:16:45] Cathy: Of course, because like, for example, let’s go back to our ancestors. If they went to a certain area to forage for food, and then what they found there was a lot of wild animals who were going to kill them, they will store, I’m not going to go back there for food. Okay. That’s not the right place. So fear
[00:17:00] Todd: is not always just present moment.
[00:17:03] Todd: Because what I was trying to, I was trying to. discern between fear is when you feel threatened. Anxiety is when there’s a future
[00:17:11] Cathy: threat. Anxiety is when our planning mechanism takes over and we start to worry. We now know all these things that could happen. So we’re like looking at the future, like, okay, I need to plan out next Friday or next Saturday.
[00:17:22] Cathy: So I need to look ahead. And all of a sudden, that other aspect of our brain, like the fear part or the experiences we’ve had. Or maybe haven’t had yet and are trying to avoid come into play. So let’s break
[00:17:34] Todd: this down. She’s like, I’m scared about this test on Friday. What is the first thing you did when she came to you?
[00:17:41] Todd: I
[00:17:41] Cathy: said, of course, here’s the thing about anxiety. It’s not a, some people are anxious. Some people aren’t. We all experience anxiety, the level of anxiety and how we feel it is different. Meaning it’s a continuum, like everything. Some people. feel pretty extreme anxiety all the time. I [00:18:00] would say between you and I, I tend to have higher levels of anxiety than you.
[00:18:05] Cathy: I think that has to do with, um, being a highly sensitive person. I think I’m more attuned to certain things that could happen or may not happen. Um, I think that there are parts of that because of our gender. I think there’s things, experiences I’ve had that you haven’t had. And, and I don’t, and I do know that there are certain things in your life that you are highly anxious about.
[00:18:27] Cathy: So it’s not about, I’m anxious, Todd’s not. It’s about, I tend to have more of that disposition than you do.
[00:18:33] Todd: So you said the first thing you did was you said, of course, actually what you did before that was you listened. Of course. Right. Yes. You did your best to listen without judgment. You tried not to interrupt her.
[00:18:43] Todd: You really kind of let her say her
[00:18:45] Cathy: thing. Who doesn’t get nervous about a test. Right. You know, if we’re talking about, and this is, Todd’s using test, we’re making that up. Who doesn’t get nervous about whatever’s coming up in their lives? A doctor’s appointment, a, um, a test that they have to take, having to meet new people.
[00:19:00] Cathy: You know, my, one of my, my daughter who’s traveling, she every, every week has to sit with another student who it’s an Italian student who is learning English and JC is an American student learning Italian and they have to sit and talk and she gets so nervous about it because she wants to do well. Yeah.
[00:19:18] Cathy: So everything can make us nervous. So,
[00:19:21] Todd: and then, uh, I might be like missing some steps here, but one of the things you said to her is like, if it wasn’t the test, It’s going to attach itself to something else. Correct. And she started talking about some other things that she was worried about a year ago.
[00:19:35] Todd: Right. I wonder if you can expand
[00:19:36] Cathy: on that. Sure. The way I have worked with my own anxiety, because obviously the things I’m sharing with her are things I’ve had to work through myself, is anxiety tends to end up being an energy in our body. And you can kind of see it like a gremlin or, um, we can have things that are a little less, uh, like gremlin may sound negative to people.
[00:19:55] Cathy: Um, what’s a, Bill Hader analogy, and we’ll get to that, but. Give me [00:20:00] something kind of sweet that I can use. Our anxiety is like a Manchichi. Okay, I, what’s a manchichi?
[00:20:08] Todd: Manchichi, manchichi, oh so soft and cuddly. Da, da, da, da, da. I
[00:20:11] Cathy: know what a manchichi is, let’s just say, I’m just going to call it a gremlin because I don’t
[00:20:15] Todd: want to make something up.
[00:20:16] Todd: Wasn’t there a nice gremlin?
[00:20:18] Cathy: Gizmo. Gizmo was not a gremlin, yet Gizmo was a,
[00:20:23] Todd: I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that, uh.
[00:20:25] Cathy: Okay, so I, this is, basically I’ll just say what I told her. I said, anxiety’s like a,
[00:20:31] Todd: It’s Mon Chichi, girl doll,
[00:20:33] Cathy: boy doll. School time and football fan outfits are each sold separately.
[00:20:38] Cathy: Mon Chichi, Mon Chichi, oh so soft and cuddle, with a thumb in her mouth she’s really cool, fun to wiggle with little feet. Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya.
[00:20:54] Todd: I think we should just stick with monchichi.
[00:20:56] Cathy: Okay, so it’s a little monchichi and it kind of travels around because it’s, it’s just part of you. It lives in you and it finds something to attach itself to. So you’ll worry and worry and worry and worry. And right now she was worried about this test. And we started talking about, you know, If this test wasn’t happening, you would still have something you were worrying about because it needs to attach itself somewhere.
[00:21:23] Cathy: And sometimes it’s a little more heightened than other times. Like it’s not always in the same, doesn’t carry the same energy all the time. Sometimes Manchichi is just a little nervous and sometimes it takes it to this higher level. But the bottom line is, is that it’s not something you can necessarily, you can’t get
[00:21:39] Todd: rid of it.
[00:21:40] Todd: The more you try to get rid of it, the bigger it gets. You,
[00:21:42] Cathy: you have to befriend it. You have to understand it. And you also have to understand the feelings that come in because another thing that’s really interesting. is that anxiety can also become a habit because as soon as we feel the nervousness in our body and that discomfort, we [00:22:00] often go into a zone of like, Oh no, now I’m going to worry.
[00:22:03] Cathy: Now I’m going to have all these feelings. Now I’m going to shut down, or now I’m going to get highly anxious. And, and we almost have like a pattern that we follow if we are not conscious of what’s happening, if we don’t notice that, Oh, I’m feeling nervous. Because. Like I was saying, it doesn’t go away. You just have to learn to recognize it, honor it.
[00:22:25] Cathy: Because the other thing she and I talked about is stress and anxiety are often there to propel us and help us. That’s what helps you study for the test. That’s what helps you get up in the morning and do your things. But it gets… Too much. It’s like an energy that’s too strong. It comes overwhelming. It does.
[00:22:42] Cathy: And, and the way I’m talking about it right now is very analytical. Um, as somebody who deals with anxiety myself, I know it’s much more difficult than, than the way we’re talking about it. The way we’re talking about it is to explain what’s going on. Dealing with the feeling itself necessitates other things like journaling and breathing and talking to a therapist and talking to friends and normalizing.
[00:23:07] Cathy: This experience so you don’t feel like it’s a Todd thing or a Kathy thing or what’s wrong with me or why can’t I control this? Well, I want
[00:23:15] Todd: you to talk about the other thing that you told our daughter as far as this is a tool you can, uh, parents can do right now to help their kids. Do you remember what it was?
[00:23:25] Todd: Yeah. Go ahead.
[00:23:26] Cathy: So one thing I learned a long time ago is if I’m worried about something that’s coming up and I can feel that worry creeping in where I’m kind of perseverating about it, like I keep thinking about it and it’s like two weeks away or a week away or whatever, is to demonstrate to myself that I have acknowledged that this thing is coming up and yes, it does worry me.
[00:23:46] Cathy: I put it on like a post it note or a piece of paper and I literally, I have a meditation area where this makes this easy, but I have a shelf in my meditation area. And I put that thing on a shelf. So like I literally write [00:24:00] down, like I have a doctor’s appointment or I have a mammogram or I have a big presentation next Thursday or whatever, and I write it down and I put it on the shelf.
[00:24:08] Cathy: It’s a very like metaphorical, like I’m going to put that on the shelf because there’s nothing I can do about it today. See,
[00:24:15] Todd: I think that that’s brilliant. And the reason I think it’s brilliant is because. The idea of first taking pen to paper is huge, right? Like you’re kind of like letting it out of your head and giving it somewhere else to go.
[00:24:27] Todd: And then you take that piece of paper and you actually put it on a shelf and you could even say to yourself or to other people, Oh, like, Oh, the test on Friday. I got that on a shelf. I’m not going to study that. Study for that until Wednesday, so I’m just gonna go put that on the shelf until Wednesday And then I’m gonna pick it up, and I’m gonna study a little bit, and I’m gonna put it back.
[00:24:44] Todd: Yes. So I think that there’s something somatic, you know, the somatic idea of actually doing something as opposed to having this dialogue in my head Which happens all the time like I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna set that aside. It’s one thing to tell your Your brain to set something aside. It’s another thing to write it down and to put it on a three dimensional object and put it somewhere.
[00:25:04] Todd: I think that that’s really, really good. And
[00:25:07] Cathy: I think that sometimes setting it aside, it can, it can verge into compartmentalizing it or denying it or push it away because sometimes it can get louder, not for all some people you’re. Pretty good at compartmentalizing, and I know others are too, where they can really just, I’m going to put that in a different part of my brain right now, um, I’m not so good at that.
[00:25:25] Cathy: The other part, for those of you who maybe have a more spiritual nature around this, is when I put things on the shelf, I’m also asking for support. And when I say support, sometimes that can be literal, like I’m going to talk to Todd about this or whatever, or there’s a more spiritual support, like I would like some support.
[00:25:40] Cathy: Guidance from wherever that comes from, you know, we all have different belief systems. So, you know, I don’t need to impose mine on you, but it’s a way of acknowledging that I don’t have to do this alone. Like I’m going to put this on a shelf and any kind of support that I can get, you know, in human form or elsewhere, I will [00:26:00] take.
[00:26:00] Cathy: And it also, I think it’s just good for us. Again, it separates us from it a little bit where we’re acknowledging it’s a thing that’s coming up, but it isn’t us. Like we’re, and these are just practices. And it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t then rear up in my head later that day. It does, but I do say to myself, Oh, you, you put that on the shelf.
[00:26:23] Cathy: You’ve already thought about it. I’m
[00:26:24] Todd: going to write. I just asked chat GPT to give me 10. 10 Hacks to Reduce Anxiety. Notice I said reduce. I’m not going to read them. I’m going to, I’m going to just read the, what it says and then you riff off of it. Right? Okay.
[00:26:38] Cathy: I, I’m always leery because it’s going to give you the most general
[00:26:42] Todd: stuff.
[00:26:42] Todd: I know. Okay. Deep breathing. Deep breathing. Of course. Mindful meditation. Hard to do that with kids that may not be into it. Well, and
[00:26:50] Cathy: it’s so, that’s such a broad, that’s like saying, sit, like where, in a chair, in a, mindful meditation, meditation, it can be obviously the practice where you actually have a meditation area with an app or, you know, breathing, or it can just be.
[00:27:05] Cathy: Taking a deep breath in the moment, wherever you are, even at your desk, you know, it’s, it depends. Number
[00:27:10] Todd: three, regular exercise. Or just say, I would, yeah, I would just say movement. Yeah. I, when I’m getting jacked up, I’ll go for a run, I’ll go for a walk, I’ll go play basketball, I’ll go play pickleball, I’ll go to yoga class, I’ll go lift weights.
[00:27:22] Todd: Like, I think that is, for me, that’s one of my favorite hacks.
[00:27:25] Cathy: Well, you were talking about somatic before. That is a literal. If you think about, uh, worry or anxiety being an energy, then what that means is you don’t want that energy to stagnate. So you have to create more energy. So how are you going to do that?
[00:27:39] Cathy: And a lot of times movement is the way. Next one,
[00:27:42] Todd: uh, healthy diet? Sure. I mean, yeah. Number five, Adequate sleep.
[00:27:47] Cathy: Uh, yeah, oh. That’s a big one, right? And I want to go back. When I just said about diet, I’m totally in on eating well. It’s just these words, these buzzwords about healthy and what that means. But yes, um, I am, sleep [00:28:00] is…
[00:28:00] Cathy: Such a big deal. Like I, I know people who are in, have insomnia, like can’t stand hearing that because it’s like so triggering, but I will tell you what I tell myself. I went through such a horrible time of insomnia several years ago that even if I get two, three, four, as long as I can sleep for a little bit, I mean, obviously ideally I like eight or eight, seven or eight, but just.
[00:28:24] Cathy: Just the act of laying down and relaxing your body.
[00:28:27] Todd: Number six, limit informational overload. For sure. And it says reduce exposure to stressing news or social media. Yeah. Right? Yeah, you have to.
[00:28:34] Cathy: That’s pretty big. You, I often look for solutions in social media and it’s not the best place for it. Wrong
[00:28:41] Todd: place to look for solutions.
[00:28:42] Todd: Number seven, relaxation techniques, whatever that is. Number eight, positive self talk. Sure.
[00:28:46] Cathy: I mean, affirmations. Um, the, the thing though, is it’s less about feel better, feel better, feel better. And it’s more about, yeah, I’m feeling anxiety and I’ve done this before, or I can do this.
[00:28:58] Todd: Uh, and then I’ll just do one more social support.
[00:29:01] Todd: Yeah. As for help. As for help. Right. Yeah. So out of those for me. They weren’t awful. Yeah. Yeah. Out of those for me, it’s movement. I sleep and quit watching the news.
[00:29:12] Cathy: Yeah. I, and again, absolutes are hard for me. We have to watch the news. There’s so much going on in the world and we have to pay
[00:29:21] Todd: attention. So many different ways to stay informed.
[00:29:23] Cathy: Yeah. Yeah. I, I hear you. So don’t watch the
[00:29:26] Todd: TV is what you’re saying. I do not consume any news via
[00:29:30] Cathy: television. Neither do I. But I do read a lot, sometimes too much. Sometimes I’m stressed about things that I can’t control. Imagine that.
[00:29:40] Todd: What else, if anything, on anxiety before we talk about Matthew Perry?
[00:29:44] Cathy: I think the last thing I want to say is the thing that I shared with my kid was, and I’ve shared this with them before, but I have I’ve found that sometimes I share something that I thought I shared with my kid years ago.
[00:29:54] Cathy: I’ll share it with him again and it means something more. And there’s this great little, uh, four minute Bill [00:30:00] Hader clip that he made for the Child Alliance Institute. Yeah, I’ll put it in the show notes. And basically he just talks about how, um, he made it a few years ago, how he’s experienced anxiety his whole life.
[00:30:10] Cathy: That’s just helpful normalization, right? I love that we talk about our mental health because, you know, you’ve got Bill Hader who’s an, you know, improv expert, SNL, you know, director, actor. And he’s like, yeah, I have pretty significant anxiety. And how he learned once he was like 37, he said that he was able to make his, when he feels anxiety, His anxiety, he envisions it like a monkey that’s crawling all over his head and trying to get his attention.
[00:30:37] Cathy: And he just kind of like pets it and says, yeah, you’re here with me. You can come with me on stage or to my director’s chair or whatever. And we’ll do this together. And he befriends it. And he really. Um, said that he wish he would have known that when he was younger, that he felt really alone. And, um, it’s just great advice.
[00:30:54] Cathy: And there’s more advice than what
[00:30:55] Todd: I just said. Yeah. It’s a four minute clip. I’m looking right at it. I’m not going to play it because you kind of summarized it really well. Uh, but you used it last night for our kids. I did. I did. Like, like, let’s use these tools.
[00:31:05] Cathy: Yeah. And just because it’s like, there’s things that It doesn’t keep, see the thing I think we believe as parents is if I do this thing, it’ll keep this from happening.
[00:31:15] Cathy: You can’t keep things from happening. What you do is you manage things when they occur. So like Bill Hader still gets anxious. He just now has experiences where it doesn’t overtake him. He doesn’t necessarily have panic attacks anymore. He has a sense of, I know this feeling I’m having. I know what tools to use.
[00:31:35] Cathy: I was actually watching a clip of Pete Davidson the other day, who’s also on SNL, and he was saying, I have depression every single minute and day of my life, period. He said, but when I wake up, I know what to do. I get up, I take a shower, I go for a walk, I drink water. Like he can’t, it’s almost, you know, for people who have, um, it is a medical thing.
[00:31:57] Cathy: I’m not trying to differentiate it from not being [00:32:00] medical, but For people who have like, you know, physical conditions that they have to maintain in the morning. It’s similar. You have to get up and do the things you need to do. You can’t just sit in it and think that it’s going to go away. We have to have some kind of routine.
[00:32:15] Cathy: And some days they work. Like I had a really bad day the other day, Todd, didn’t I? And I really just needed to cry and let it all out. I didn’t have the ability to use my typical tools. And so I needed a little more help and then the next day I was fine. Like it, it just, we have, we’re, we’re human. And speaking of humans, so is our Matthew Perry.
[00:32:35] Cathy: Yeah.
[00:32:35] Todd: So, um, This is what I’m going to do. Uh, if there’s any riffing that you and I want to do about how friends touched us or how Matthew Perry, how you were a fan of his, and then you told me about this clip and I found it about what he wants to be remembered for. So I’m going to start with that one and then we’ll go to the, his comedic beauty.
[00:32:56] Todd: So should we just start with this clip? All right. See if I can figure this out.
[00:33:04] Cathy: I say in the book that, um, if I die, it would shock people, but it wouldn’t surprise anybody. The best thing about me. Barnard. Is if somebody comes up to me and says, I can’t stop drinking, can you help me? I can say yes and follow up and do it. I’ve said this for a long time, when I die, I don’t want friends to be the first thing that’s mentioned.
[00:33:26] Cathy: I want that to be the first thing mentioned. And I’m gonna live the rest of my life proving that. I would like to be remembered as somebody who, uh, lived well, loved well, um, was a seeker, um, and His paramount thing is that he wants to help people. That’s, that’s what I
[00:33:49] Todd: want. There you go. Sweet man.
[00:33:53] Cathy: Yeah.
[00:33:54] Cathy: Well, I, you know, just to kind of start, I’ve shared this with a lot of people in the last couple of days because [00:34:00] I read his book. I’m sure a lot of you have read his Matthew Perry’s biography. Um, I read it last year, right when it came out and I, some of the, the things we have to understand is not only did he have addiction in his family, but when he, was 12 months old.
[00:34:15] Cathy: He was really colicky, maybe even before that. And one of the solutions was giving him alcohol to help him sleep, even as a baby. And I say that because he was set for this challenge. And, and it’s not about because his parents are horrible people or anything. It’s just the, the, you know, he already had the genetic predisposition and then there were already events.
[00:34:38] Cathy: that were being put into place that were creating a desire for it in his body or a normalizing of it. And then you add on the kind of fame he had and the, you know, the, where he lived, and it just was a recipe to be really, really, um, you know, in a cycle of addiction. With that said, today, We don’t know, like his body was beat up and, and what he was very unwell due to a lifetime of addiction.
[00:35:09] Cathy: But it’s funny, I was noticing today that everybody’s trying, waiting on this autopsy and toxology report as if it really
[00:35:16] Todd: matters. That’s kind of what I want to talk about because I would be lying if I, I’m hoping, which is weird to say. that he had some type of cardiac arrest as opposed to he was taking drugs the day he died.
[00:35:30] Todd: Um, so I want to be, I don’t want to be hypocritical, but I think it’s so interesting how much attention is the how, you know, what was he doing that day? Is it just like morbid curiosity? Like, what is it about us humans that need to know? Because maybe if, if we know Then we feel like we can put it to bed.
[00:35:50] Todd: Yes. It’s not us.
[00:35:52] Cathy: Yeah. Oh, he was doing drugs and drinking. Well, that’s, you know, that’s what addicts do. Like it’s our way of being very like [00:36:00] standoffish about it. If he had a heart attack and then drown. Which it sounds like is what happened that makes us go, Yeesh, he’s 54. Um, and then it feels closer to home.
[00:36:10] Cathy: We always look for ways to separate ourselves from other people’s traumas. Oh, you had, you know, oh, you smoked. Oh, you, um, you know, didn’t wear your seatbelt or you didn’t, um, eat well or exercise or whatever, then we’re like, well, I do all those things. So it’s not going to happen to me. It’s very human. Um, we don’t need to be cruel to ourselves about it.
[00:36:34] Cathy: We just need to recognize what we’re doing and that we’re just trying to separate ourselves from his. And honestly, you know, He, um, I think it was in 2019, it was three or four years ago, his colon exploded because he had been addicted to opioids for so long. Due to needing pain medication, by the way, Todd, like he was, he was done drinking and then he had an injury and then needed
[00:36:58] Todd: opioids.
[00:36:58] Todd: Well, and it’s funny, like I’m, as I shared with you, I’m, I’m starting to try to make some headway in the construction industry, uh, regarding, uh, depression and suicide because it’s the second highest, uh, rate of suicide depression amongst all industries. So you’re trying to help men in that industry?
[00:37:14] Todd: Trying to help men and actually might even open up for women in construction too. We don’t want it to be just men. I was talking to this expert on this topic and he’s like, and I, it’s like kept an obvious, but he’s like opioids because in construction, there’s a lot of injuries, like you’re picking up a lot of heavy stuff and these men and women, um, get, get hurt and the way that they relieve themselves of that hurt, they go to the doctor and they put them on these opioids.
[00:37:41] Todd: And he’s like, and you know, you and I saw dope sick, um, which is just a heart wrenching
[00:37:46] Cathy: and the other one. Um, I feel like I’ve seen three shows about the Sacklers. There was Dope Sick, another one, and then we’re watching Fall, the Fall of the House of the Sacklers.
[00:37:55] Todd: So, but I, I, I, I find [00:38:00] so much compassion for people who accidentally get addicted to Pain pills because they rolled their ankle a soccer mom rolled her ankle and she it hurts really bad.
[00:38:12] Todd: So she’s on pain pills. Whereas, um, not that I don’t have enough compassion for anybody who’s addicted to any type of drug, but the, I could see myself accidentally falling into that because. And as I understand it, it is so unbelievably innocent to start, right? I broke my ankle. I need something to, to be able to fall asleep to being strung out on it.
[00:38:38] Todd: It’s just crazy. It’s just, uh, it’s just crazy.
[00:38:40] Cathy: So. Yeah. Pain management. I mean, this is where all of this comes from. You know, we’re, we’re not going to dive into this now, but we are going to in the future talk more about fentanyl and what’s going on with that. Yeah. And it’s the same issue as far as it is, you know, there.
[00:38:54] Cathy: Fentanyl is used at hospitals to help people relieve their pain and to have certain surgeries and such. And then now, you know, what’s happening on the street and what’s happening as far as kids having it, um, in drugs that they don’t even know that’s what they’re taking. Some do and some don’t, you know, it’s, there’s lots, we’ve heard Todd and I’ve heard so many different stories.
[00:39:15] Cathy: Um, but this is about going to our weaknesses, which is wanting to alleviate pain. And when I say weaknesses, I mean, Who wants pain? I don’t. And so we look for things to help us not feel pain. And for some of us, it’s emotional pain. And for some of us it’s physical and then it gets combined.
[00:39:36] Todd: So as we honor Matthew Perry, I don’t really, I mean, I know he had a lot of issues.
[00:39:41] Todd: So it sounds like what you’re saying is it first started out with alcohol and then did he get clean off of alcohol?
[00:39:48] Cathy: He, he went to rehab. He said he spent over his lifetime six million dollars at different rehabs. Gosh. Mm
[00:39:55] Todd: hmm. Geez. Yeah. And then did he beat alcohol? And then, and then the [00:40:00] opioids came in?
[00:40:01] Cathy: He, yes. That it, um, it’s been like a year since I read it, so I can’t remember the exact, um, progression, but he had done rehab a number of times. And one thing I will say that he says in his book is he felt for him, it was much better. harder than other people. Like, not like he was a weak person, but a lot of people he talked to that were also addicts or people who were struggling with addiction, he had quite the addiction issue.
[00:40:26] Cathy: Like, I would love to study his brain as far as he He had a very hard time being done, and I know we can say this about a lot of people, you know, people we know and other people in the, in the world, you know, in the Hollywood world. Um, but he did eventually, there were long periods of time where he was not, you know, dealing with addiction, but for the majority.
[00:40:49] Cathy: of friends, he was dealing with
[00:40:52] Todd: something. Which is so weird because he was such a high performer. He
[00:40:56] Cathy: was. But if you look at every year of Friends, Chandler looked different every year. Physically. Physically. Because of his addictions.
[00:41:03] Todd: And I remember being like, oh my god, look how skinny he is. But I never said, oh, what a terrible job of acting Matthew Perry just did.
[00:41:10] Todd: Pretty
[00:41:10] Cathy: good. When he was really, really skinny and he had the goatee, that was drugs. That was opioids. When he was a little more, I don’t want to say he was overweight, but like he looked like he had gained weight in his face. Um, that, that was, there was a period of time where he was actually sober. Um, there was also a period of time where it, especially at the beginning where it was alcohol.
[00:41:29] Cathy: Um, and again, I don’t have it fresh in my head where I can go through, cause he actually goes through every season and tells you what was going on with him. He was in rehab. the season that he and Monica got married. And he, um, had to be driven from the rehab facility by a bus to the lot to film that episode.
[00:41:49] Cathy: And then they had to pick him back up and he had to go back to rehab. Um, and it’s interesting to think about that episode because he leaves and then starts smoking. Do you remember that episode? [00:42:00] Uh, vaguely. It’s just, I just, it’s just very human. Um, but I, what I wanted to say about Matthew Perry and the shock of, obviously it’s our first friend that, you know, capital F R I A N D, the show, he’s our first friend, um, to, that we’ve lost and, um, like he just said in his quote, people won’t be, what did he say, they will, they’ll be surprised but they won’t be shocked or something like that?
[00:42:28] Cathy: Like, He, he’s been the most unhealthy, um, we’ve watched his, you know, struggle with addiction. So maybe it’s not that, um, surprising to us, but it’s still very sad. And it’s still, um, hits us in that place. I, you know, I wrote something that I’ll probably put out tomorrow, the day we put the show out that, you know, it reminded me of.
[00:42:52] Cathy: Um, when Prince died, because it’s these people from our youth, they are like integrated into us. They’re like ingrained just the way that music from our teens and twenties are like ingrained in us as being the best music, you know, we’re like, this is my favorite song and this is the best band. Cause it was such a, our brains were like so intense at that time and they were growing and developing and we just really loved these things.
[00:43:20] Cathy: It’s the same as TV. Like. You know, I will always have Seinfeld and Friends and, you know, several years later, 30 Rock and all these things as my favorite shows because they were so part of that time of my life. Yeah. And so it’s, we lost a person that feels like
[00:43:44] Todd: Yeah. You want to hear some of the things that he’s been on?
[00:43:46] Todd: I’m on his IMDb right now, which I did not know. His TV shows
[00:43:49] Cathy: or his movies? Both. It lists
[00:43:51] Todd: both. Okay, let’s hear. He was on Charles in Charge. Yeah. Back when. Yeah. Stilber Spoons. Yeah. Uh, Tracey Ullman’s show. [00:44:00] Um, I’m going in. Jimmy Reardon. Revert. Yeah. How
[00:44:03] Cathy: did you know that? Cause I read his book. I know all these things
[00:44:06] Todd: that he was on.
[00:44:06] Todd: Jimmy Reardon. He was on Who’s the Boss? Mm hmm. With Tony. Tony Danza. I always say
[00:44:12] Cathy: Tony Banta. Can I bring a full circle? One of the pieces that John Stamos talks about is that his girlfriend, he found his girlfriend in bed with Tony Danza. Oh, really? Yeah, and then they broke up, of course. That was a little
[00:44:26] Todd: demasculating.
[00:44:27] Todd: Yeah. Um, the last thing he did was something called the Kennedy’s after Camelot. But I listened to Bill Simmons this morning, and he said that there’s, uh, Studio 60? What
[00:44:37] Cathy: is that? So, it’s interesting that I just mentioned 30 Rock. There was a year where two shows came out about 30 Rock, about, um, basically the behind the scenes of a show like SNL.
[00:44:48] Cathy: And Tina Fey’s was a comedy that was 30 minutes, you know, Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey. And then there was called, I think it was called Sunset Strip. Studio
[00:44:56] Todd: 60 on the Sunset
[00:44:57] Cathy: Strip. And that was an Aaron Sorkin show. And you know, Matthew Perry was in it and a bunch of other people. I actually think Bradley. Um, Whitford was in it too from West Wing.
[00:45:07] Cathy: It was a really awesome group and it was an Aaron Sorkin show and they, everyone assumed that was the show that was going to survive. Yeah. But 30 Rock
[00:45:15] Todd: was the one that survived. Yeah. Matthew Perry, Amanda, Pete, Bradley Whitford, and then a bunch of people, oh, Sarah Paulson was on that? Mm hmm. Anyways. Um, so should we just play a few funny clips from
[00:45:27] Cathy: him or what do you think?
[00:45:27] Cathy: Can we just talk about Chandler for a second? Sure. So. Chandler, this is so not original or unique, but Chandler was my favorite. Um, it’s like a feeling I get when I think about the show. I want, uh, I love the stories that were about Chandler. I liked him being involved. Um, I felt that Chandler was the most vulnerable friend.
[00:45:49] Cathy: At the time when I was watching, I thought he was the most open and upfront and self aware about his issues. Yes, I know he used humor to deflect and use [00:46:00] sarcasm to not feel, but he knew his history. He knew because of what went on with his parents and you know, the divorce and we know all the Chandler stories, um, about his mom and and He had a hard time not smoking, and he had a hard time being in a committed relationship, and he couldn’t eat Thanksgiving dinner, and he, you know, and he was often very self depreciating, especially living with Joey, who picked up all the time.
[00:46:26] Cathy: And he knew himself, and obviously he… Got to know himself even better being in relationship with Monica, but as a character, I really enjoyed his arc and, um, he was just the most
[00:46:39] Todd: funny. Yeah. Um, he, uh, yeah, he was not my favorite, but I…
[00:46:46] Cathy: Who was your favorite in the nineties when you first started watching?
[00:46:50] Cathy: I was a Ross guy. You liked Ross in the nineties? Of course. You like Ross now? I’ve always liked Ross. That is crazy. Do you know he’s usually listed like
[00:46:59] Todd: 6th? I know. And lately we’ve been watching some reruns. Oh, Ross is the best. Yeah. So, but the one thing I will say is Kathy and I went to a taping of a Friends show.
[00:47:09] Todd: Yes, we did. And it’s, it was fun. It sounds fun. But it’s a long haul. Yeah. It’s a whole day and night. And I think we got there like 3. 30 in the afternoon and I think we were like At like 9 like, let’s, let’s bail. And they had, they still had a few more hours to go. So that’s a long day. But what I will say is I was really kind of hoping the actors would engage with the audience, but they were working like they, they were, you know, That was their, they had their game faces on with the exception of Matthew
[00:47:40] Cathy: Perry.
[00:47:41] Cathy: I wrote about that. He was the
[00:47:42] Todd: one that really kind of cared that we were there. Totally.
[00:47:46] Cathy: So anyway. I actually, I just wrote about that, Todd, that they all came out and waved to us and came in front of us and, you know, we’re kind of yelling things at people. Hi, Matthew Perry was the first one out. He was yelling jokes at us.
[00:47:58] Cathy: He was talking to us when something would [00:48:00] fail because they had a lot of bloopers. Like every show, he would kind of talk to the audience. He was the most engaged. Yeah. Friend. Yeah.
[00:48:07] Todd: For sure. And maybe we caught him on a good day, or maybe that’s just the way he was. Who knows? But, uh, that’s always been my memory, not of Chandler, but of Matthew Perry.
[00:48:15] Todd: Yeah. I have… Are you going
[00:48:19] Cathy: to play some
[00:48:19] Todd: Chandler moments? Yeah, and I don’t know how good they are. There’s…
[00:48:23] Cathy: Well, before you play them, do you have a favorite Chandler moment?
[00:48:26] Todd: Well, I think I’m about to play it right now, and I think it might be yours too. Oh, good. All right.
[00:48:34] Todd: Janice?
[00:48:38] Cathy: Hi, Janice .
[00:48:41] Todd: Okay, here we go. I don’t think we should
[00:48:42] Cathy: go out anymore.
[00:48:47] Cathy: Janice
[00:48:52] Cathy: Alright,
[00:48:56] Cathy: well there you go. Well, there you go,
[00:48:59] Todd: sweetie. Nose up a lot of it.
[00:49:04] Cathy: And you have to watch Matthew Perry’s face. Yeah. You’re the,
[00:49:10] Todd: so he’s on espresso, right? You know, I mean, it’s like we’re different, you know, I’m like the binging, binging, banging. You’re
[00:49:14] Cathy: like the boom, boom, boom. I’m so sorry. Are you okay? My lens’s my lens.
[00:49:23] Cathy: Um, I’m right.
[00:49:29] Cathy: I hit in the, hit her in the eye. This is the worst breakup in the
[00:49:33] Todd: history of
[00:49:34] Cathy: the world. Oh my gosh. Okay, how many of those have you had? Oh, I don’t know. A million. Wait here. Okay. Great. That is, how did you know that was my favorite scene? Todd, I wrote something yesterday and I reference that specific scene.
[00:49:55] Cathy: Really? Do we just talk about
[00:49:56] Todd: it? I know it’s your favorite. So I just, I just put in, I [00:50:00] don’t know, like
[00:50:01] Cathy: a million because he’s so, the thing is, is go. Watch that scene. It’s because he’s acting, the amount of things he does with his face.
[00:50:12] Todd: He’s got a little Jack tripper. He taught
[00:50:14] Cathy: Todd. What? You are flipping me out.
[00:50:17] Cathy: Said something about that too.
[00:50:19] Todd: You sound like Janice right now. You are flipping me out.
[00:50:23] Cathy: You are tripping me out. That’s one of my other favorite scenes. He’s like, we should go on a trip with your parents. We don’t have to, cause you’re tripping me out right now. All right. So. Anyway, that is my favorite of all, and that’s an early season.
[00:50:40] Cathy: That’s like his second breakup with Janice. Like he has a million of
[00:50:43] Todd: them. I gotta, I got one more like little short clip of multiple lines. Okay, let’s hear it. Oh, I know. This must be so hard.
[00:50:50] Cathy: Oh no. Two women love me.
[00:50:53] Todd: They’re both
[00:50:54] Cathy: gorgeous and sexy. My wall is too small for my fifties and my diamond shoes are too tight.
[00:50:58] Cathy: I took the quiz and it turns out I do put career before
[00:51:01] Todd: men.
[00:51:04] Todd: I’m not great at the advice. Can I interest
[00:51:07] Cathy: you in a sarcastic
[00:51:07] Todd: comment? It
[00:51:08] Cathy: bodes well for me that speed impresses you. She’s right. If I were a guy, and…
[00:51:18] Todd: Did I just say, if I
[00:51:19] Cathy: were a
[00:51:19] Todd: guy? That’s what I did. Oh, I know, this must be it.
[00:51:29] Cathy: Um, yeah, he, my other favorite is 15 Yemen Road,
[00:51:36] Todd: Yemen. That’s when he’s at the airport, right? Yeah. And
[00:51:38] Cathy: she’s going to Yemen and she’s like, what’s your address? 15 Yemen Road, Yemen. The other, um, my other favorite one, Todd, and it’s really Janice and Chandler, I’m surprised you didn’t think this was my favorite one, is when it’s the one about the metaphorical tunnel and he is like, you know, they’re getting really close and it’s the same one with the, you know, [00:52:00] the, let’s, we’ll go on a trip with your parents, but he, they tell him to like show up at her grocery store and just kind of be aloof and he’s, she’s like, are you being British?
[00:52:11] Cathy: Yeah. That one’s great too. And he’s like, not anymore. Um, so anyway, I will, um, I will be interested and in no way do I think they should have already put out a statement. I’m not saying they should have. They can, the other friends can take as long as they want to say what they want about the loss of their very good friend, but I will be very interested to see what they have to say.
[00:52:36] Cathy: I just found that part. Oh no. What are you doing here?
[00:52:40] Todd: Just a bit of
[00:52:40] Cathy: shopping, have you been? Are you being British? No, not anymore. Why are you shopping here? You don’t live in this neighborhood. Were you here waiting for me? Yuh
[00:52:58] Todd: huh. No, he just crapped out on us. He’s going to a party.
[00:53:03] Cathy: In Chelsea. He’s bringing
[00:53:04] Todd: barley.
[00:53:05] Todd: Yes, he is. Um, I do want to talk a little bit about the Zen Parenting Conference that’s coming up in January.
[00:53:12] Cathy: Don’t we have a thing that we… Like put into the show so they’ll it’ll talk
[00:53:16] Todd: about it. Yeah, that’s called the mid roll Yeah, that’s done. They already heard that. Okay, just a live push live promo time
[00:53:25] Cathy: to get your tickets Everybody things are starting to solidify.
[00:53:29] Cathy: So if you’re coming to the conference Let’s, uh, get your tickets. Let’s get her done. Get your tickets. Get your tickets. And you know, everybody that’s going to be there, we’re going to talk about teens. We’re going to talk about connecting. We are going to talk about staying connected to the, these kids that you love and knowing more about their lives so we can keep them to our, in their best way safe and, um, you know, to the best of our ability is what I wanted to say.
[00:53:52] Cathy: Um, obviously we don’t have control over everything, um, but the more we understand our kids, um, the better and. [00:54:00] more connected and safer they will be. Um, so these are just the things that we want to offer to
[00:54:06] Todd: you. There you go. Um, and then upcoming on Team Zen. Yeah. Um, oh, I don’t want to screw it up. Let me see if I can’t screw it up.
[00:54:16] Todd: Uh oh.
[00:54:17] Cathy: Well, can I say this while Todd’s looking for something he wants to say, is we’re going to do like just a little bit of trivia after this. So
[00:54:24] Todd: don’t leave. Oh, that’s right. I forgot about the trivia. There you go. Thank you for reminding me. Yeah. Um, I want to say hi to Emily from Madison, Wisconsin and Christine from Batavia.
[00:54:34] Todd: That’s my sister. By the way, who’s new to Team Zen. So, uh, it’s 25 bucks a month. Um, cancel at any time. And this week, uh, I’m doing a Zen. Finance meeting, which is a micro community within the community where we talk about money and finance. And then on November 8th, you’re interviewing Susan Stifelman.
[00:54:52] Todd: Well, we
[00:54:53] Cathy: are. No, no. I’m going to be gone. Remember? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s our, it’s our, uh, live Team Zen, like Q and A.
[00:54:59] Todd: Team Zen presents. So check out Team Zen if you want, you ready for some trivia?
[00:55:03] Cathy: Yeah, before you do trivia, I want to say one more thing because you didn’t do my Zen parenting moment from last week, which is fine.
[00:55:08] Cathy: That’s fine. But, uh, what I talked about last week was really just listening to our kids, um, and talking, you know, being able to say to our kids, if they come to us about things that are going on in the world, because as we know, there’s a lot going on, um, we, to listen and be curious about what they’re learning, what they believe, what they’ve heard, what they’ve seen.
[00:55:28] Cathy: And, um, and if we don’t have a lot of information for them or we don’t have final answers, that’s okay. We don’t need to. And we can, um, basically just say that we’re going to learn alongside them. Um, you know, Todd and I, a lot of things going on in the world, I, we talk about it with our girls all the time and we are reading and we’re having discussions at home, but I’m not necessarily posting about it because it’s not my…
[00:55:54] Cathy: Area of expertise. I am learning as I go and that’s for people who are listening to like you don’t have [00:56:00] to have absolute answers about this you can watch and learn and Educate yourself the best you can and see things with a wider lens So I just want to share that because we didn’t get to really talk about world events as
[00:56:14] Todd: much sweet.
[00:56:15] Todd: Thanks, sweetie. Okay Um, so Kathy is much better at friends trivia than I am, so I’m going to specifically ask you very hard questions. Oh, okay. I’m nervous. Because, but some people will not be able to answer the questions that I ask because they’re going to be more challenging. Okay. So make sure you ask easier questions for me.
[00:56:33] Todd: Okay. I can
[00:56:33] Cathy: do that. Do you want me to start? Uh, yeah. Why don’t you go start? Wait, mine, it disappeared. Okay, wait, hold on a second. It’s coming back. Do you want to ask me one while mine’s loading up?
[00:56:42] Todd: Um, sure. My question for you is, who is the first friend to speak on the show? Season one, episode one. Uh, I think Monica.
[00:56:54] Todd: Wow. Very good,
[00:56:55] Cathy: sweetie. Nice job. Well, I have a hot take that I think Monica is actually the lead of the show. Now, I know it’s all six of them and they all, like, if you really look at the data, they all had plenty of storylines. Phoebe had the least amount of storylines, but I think Monica is the center.
[00:57:10] Cathy: She’s the epicenter of really everything. I can see that. Yeah, that’s my hot take. So Todd, how many seasons of Friends?
[00:57:17] Todd: Seven. Ten. I was so close, I was only three off. Okay. Sweetie, what did Rachel get a tattoo of?
[00:57:25] Cathy: Um, she got a tattoo of, it’s like a flower, it’s like a rose or something like that. A lily! No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:57:31] Cathy: I got it, wait. I got it. She got a tattoo The lily was what Phoebe was going to get and Rachel got. A rose? Oh, I think she got a rose.
[00:57:48] Todd: Uh, the correct answer is a heart. Oh,
[00:57:50] Cathy: damn. Um, I knew that she, it was very small and then she kept saying, and then Phoebe didn’t get hers. Yes. He pretended that she got hers.
[00:57:59] Cathy: Your turn. Okay. [00:58:00] Um, what show was Joey on? Dr. Drake Ramore, what show? Days
[00:58:05] Todd: of Our Lives. Very good. What was the name of the hot girl from the Xerox place? Hot girl, Chloe. Very good.
[00:58:12] Cathy: Um, how many times did Ross get divorced?
[00:58:15] Todd: Three. Correct. Nice. Ross was jealous of who at Rachel’s job?
[00:58:21] Cathy: Um, Oh, I can see him. Um, he was jealous of…
[00:58:27] Cathy: Did it start with a T? Um, no. Uh, no. That was T. What’s his name? Uh,
[00:58:36] Todd: ooh. Do, do, do. Oh, I can’t remember. Do, do, do. What’s
[00:58:40] Cathy: his name? Mark. Oh, I wouldn’t have got it. I was going in the other direction. Uh, your turn. Mark. Uh, let’s see. Um, what was the occupation of Rachel’s fiancé, Barry? He’s a
[00:58:53] Todd: dentist. Thank you.
[00:58:54] Todd: He’s an orthodontist. Oh, pretty close. Um, what was the name of Monica’s senior prom date? These are very hard questions. Let’s see. Well,
[00:59:06] Cathy: I know that Rachel’s was Chip Matthews. That doesn’t help. Does that
[00:59:10] Todd: count? That’s why it’s hard. Everybody knows Chip Matthews, but nobody knows You didn’t know Chip Matthews.
[00:59:15] Todd: No, I don’t. Uh, nobody knows Roy Gooblik. Oh, I wouldn’t have gotten that. No. That’s That’s a deep, deep cut. Yes. These all are. I’m giving you very hard questions. Your turn. Um,
[00:59:24] Cathy: let’s see. Let’s see. Uh, Monica dated an ophthalmologist named
[00:59:30] Todd: Um, Tom Selleck played Richard. Good. I don’t know his last name. Uh, Monica Ross and Rachel attended what high school?
[00:59:41] Todd: I have no idea. Lincoln High School. I,
[00:59:43] Cathy: I never knew that. That’s new. You know who else went to that high school? Who? Brad Pitt. They were in the I Hate Monica, or I Hate Rachel. The Thanksgiving episodes
[00:59:52] Todd: are very funny. The best
[00:59:54] Cathy: ones. Your turn. Oh, um, let’s see. Uh, [01:00:00] what is Chandler Bing’s middle name? No idea.
[01:00:04] Cathy: It’s Muriel. Oh, interesting. I know. And I’m going to do another one. Who played Chandler’s mom? Kathleen Turner. That, that was Chandler’s dad. Oh, I don’t know.
[01:00:14] Todd: Uh, Morgan Fairchild. Oh, there you go. I knew that. Uh, which friend once mugged Ross? Phoebe. Very good.
[01:00:22] Cathy: Um, what is the name of Phoebe’s twin?
[01:00:27] Todd: Uh, Sandy.
[01:00:31] Cathy: Ursula. What show was she on?
[01:00:35] Todd: Uh, she was on, uh, the Helen Hunt show. She was on Mad About You. Mad about you, mad about you, lost in your eyes, lost in your eyes. That wasn’t out there theme song. Which balloon got away during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in season one?
[01:00:53] Cathy: The, um, the, the, oh, it’s not Snoopy.
[01:00:57] Cathy: What is it called? I can see it. It’s that. Dog. What’s that dog’s name? I’m
[01:01:05] Todd: gonna play it for you. It’s the, actually the,
[01:01:10] Cathy: uh oh, it’s two minutes long.
[01:01:11] Todd: Yeah. We don’t wanna hear too
[01:01:16] Todd: underdog. Very good.
[01:01:20] Cathy: Underdog.
[01:01:22] Todd: I liked underdog too, too. I couldn’t, I couldn’t decide if I liked underdog or not. Like sometimes it was good. And other times I’m like, what am I watching?
[01:01:28] Cathy: God, bottom line of the eighties is we didn’t have a choice. No. Who I didn’t like he man. But it was on. Yeah. I didn’t necessarily want to watch Underdog, but it was on.
[01:01:39] Cathy: But sometimes it was good. Uh, your turn. Okay. Um, let’s see. Um, I’m going down the list a little bit here. You’re not going to know that. You’re not going to know that. Who was Joey’s imaginary friend? I have no idea.
[01:01:58] Todd: Maurice. No. What [01:02:00] was that? A stuffed animal. So it was
[01:02:01] Cathy: imaginary. It was his imaginary childhood friend.
[01:02:03] Cathy: I think it comes up in the, the one, our other favorite episode, um, is when they actually do the, um, they have the game because they’re trying to switch apartments. Yeah. They’re going to switch apartments. That’s great. It’s one of the best episodes ever.
[01:02:16] Todd: The lightning round. Yeah. Who was called Sir Limpsalot after losing a toe?
[01:02:21] Todd: Chandler.
[01:02:21] Cathy: Very good. Yeah. And his toe got cut off because of Monica. Um, a knife went up in the air and then chopped his toe off. That’s a whole long story. Oh, is it your turn? It’s your turn. Um, let’s see. What does Rachel guess Chandler’s job is during that game that they’re playing?
[01:02:43] Todd: A transponster. That’s it.
[01:02:45] Todd: Is that it? A transponster.
[01:02:46] Cathy: Very good. Uh. And that’s a sad thing. None of Chandler’s friends knew what he did for a living. No. Until he got into advertising. Business boring. I know. A transponster.
[01:02:56] Todd: Um, whose idea was it to get married in Vegas, Rachel’s or Ross’s? Oh,
[01:03:03] Cathy: well, I don’t remember. I’m going to say Rachel’s.
[01:03:08] Cathy: That’s correct. And it was also, when they hooked up later and she got pregnant, there was a whole episode about who came on to who. Do you remember that? Yeah, that’s the tag. The red sweater. Yeah. That’s the tag episode. And it was Rachel.
[01:03:20] Todd: Uh, what was the name of Chandler’s roommate prior to Joey? Chip.
[01:03:25] Cathy: Mmm.
[01:03:27] Cathy: Not Chip. Was it? No. It was, oh, Kip. It was Kip. Very good. Yeah. Very good, sweetie. Yeah. Because they, they didn’t want to be like Kip and get kicked out of the group. Right. Your turn. Um, who is Joey’s agent? The
[01:03:44] Todd: lady who smoked a lot of cigarettes?
[01:03:45] Cathy: Yeah. What’s her name? That’s all I know. My snake is falling off.
[01:03:49] Cathy: Oh, no. Um, it was Estelle.
[01:03:51] Todd: Oh, yeah. What’s the name of Phoebe’s alter ego? Um,
[01:03:56] Cathy: Queen Consuela Banana Hammock?
[01:03:59] Todd: Oh, my [01:04:00] God. You’re so off. Uh, correct answer is Regina Falange.
[01:04:04] Cathy: Oh, I thought it was what she changed her name to when she got married. Not
[01:04:07] Todd: quite. Um, so in lieu of the trivia, I’m going to tell you what Rolling Stone thinks is the top ten episodes, top five episodes.
[01:04:15] Todd: You ready? You agree or disagree. The one where Ross finds out. Of course.
[01:04:20] Cathy: It’s, that’s the one where it’s like, my eyes. Yes. My
[01:04:23] Todd: eyes. Number two, the one with the embryos.
[01:04:26] Cathy: Yeah. That’s, that’s the one where, um, she’s obviously she’s trying to get pregnant, but the one with the embryos is the one with where they’re doing the.
[01:04:35] Cathy: The game. Oh, the game. That we just talked about. That’s right.
[01:04:37] Todd: Uh, number three, the one where no one’s
[01:04:40] Cathy: ready. Well, that’s, that’s the one where everything is in the apartment because they’re not getting dressed. I got the hummus.
[01:04:47] Todd: Um, that’s a funny one. And Matt LeBlanc, LeBlanc, LeBlanc. Like his shoulder. He separated his shoulder.
[01:04:54] Todd: Yeah. Um, that’s why he had, that’s why he had a, a sling in the next episode. Number four, the one where Ross got high. I don’t remember that one. That
[01:05:02] Cathy: was like a little later. Um, I think it was about, he had gotten high when he was young and his parents didn’t know.
[01:05:09] Todd: Hmm. Uh, number five, the one where everybody finds out.
[01:05:14] Cathy: So there’s where Ross finds out. So the one where everybody finds out is the one where Phoebe is pretending to hit on Chandler. That’s the one. So here’s a funny thing, everybody, that for For me, and Todd probably doesn’t follow this, but Chandler and Monica started, um, hooking up when Todd and I started dating.
[01:05:30] Cathy: And so we, you and I had just, like when Chandler tells Monica that he loves her, you had just told me that around the same time. So we were kind of like following in this trajectory. Just
[01:05:42] Todd: remember who said it first. You did. While you were drunk. Sweetie, you don’t have to add that detail. Um, I feel complete.
[01:05:50] Todd: How do you feel?
[01:05:51] Cathy: Me? Yeah. Um, I feel complete. I, I think that, you know, here’s the thing about Friends. It’s never going away from me. Ever. No. It will [01:06:00] be like, like remember when our next door neighbor, you know, Mr. T used to watch Gunsmoke? Uh, yes. It’s going to be my Gunsmoke, right? Like I’m going to always watch
[01:06:08] Todd: it.
[01:06:09] Todd: You may have just said that, that that’s the title for this podcast. It’s going to be my Gunsmoke. Friends is my Gunsmoke. Um. Gunsmoke. Matthew Perry, rest in peace.
[01:06:18] Cathy: Yeah, thank you Matthew Perry for just doing what you did and as far as your career and um, sharing your life and addiction and sobriety and um, with us because you meant the world to us.
[01:06:32] Cathy: Yeah,
[01:06:33] Todd: keep trucking everybody. See you next week.
[01:06:46]
