September 13, 2025 • 23 mins
In this episode, Amy and T.J. talk about how they are personally dealing with the fear and anxiety that has descended upon so many of us this week. How are we supposed to talk to our kids and how do we make sure we don’t let fear get the best of us?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome everyone to this edition of Amy and TJ. It's Saturday,
September thirteenth. We've been doing every week a recovery run
episode where we talk about the ways we have intentionally
tried to recover spend some time together. This week, honestly,
we have nothing to report. This was a very intense
(00:26):
and heavy news week. I think it took a toll
on a lot of us, and I think it got
really personal for just about everybody in different ways. And
certainly we're talking most notably about the political assassination of
Charlie Kirk, but there were a lot of other stories
(00:47):
that were ripple effects. I think that came from this story.
And maybe it's just more of the same of what
we've been dealing with, where we've gotten active shooters in schools,
we've gotten more hoaxes, and it feels overwhelming to the
point where it gets personal and you think about how
it's affecting your life. And we were discussing earlier like
(01:11):
how has and I think everyone's felt this, How have
this week's headlines? How have you been personally impacted? TJ?
Have you felt the weight of this with you and
your life and your circle and Sabine like, has this
impacted you in a significant way, perhaps more than even
other weeks have.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Oh no, it's just a matter of I felt less
hope and more despair about where we are. I think
we're going more so in this direction before we correct
and this stuff stops. It felt like this is going
to ramp up. This seems impossible in our lifetimes in
(01:51):
twenty twenty five that a political assassination would be taking place.
That's insane, right, So it makes me feel like things
are going to get worse. At what point do we
turn things around? I actually did think about Emmittil and
I thought about George Floyd moments where we all look
at something and I don't care who you are, you
look and you say, okay, we gotta be better than this.
(02:14):
And I looked at this and thought that could possibly
be one of those moments and something come of it.
But I'm not hopeful there either. So I think just
despair was how I walked away from this week.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And it came on a week where we already are
reflective and somber because of nine to eleven. It's the
twenty fourth anniversary this week, so you already had a
heavy week that was kind of predetermined based on our
and we celebrate and we honor and we remember. But
in spite of all of that, we had someone actually
(02:50):
who was born after nine to eleven who never actually
even felt the atrocities of that and what the impact
of that, that act of terror created in the generations
of folks who have now not even known what it
felt like to live through that day. And so, yes,
this week's gunman who took out Charlie Kirk was twenty two,
(03:15):
so he was not even alive during nine to eleven,
which was something to consider, right, like they don't in
this age of feeling connected to people and yet in
that sense almost creating a band of thieves, like you
have this group of people you find online who think
(03:35):
like you, and you can create you can create gang
so to speak, or just tribalism where you're like, we
think this and you think that us versus them, and
they never really lived through what we all did on
nine to eleven. So that kind of struck me that
he was he's younger than my oldest daughter.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I think remember al Qaeda, Yes, an Isis, Do you
remember the day when September eleventh rolled around an anniversary,
and everybody was on heightened alert. You remember that alert
system we used to have with the yellow and the
orange and the red and the You remember they used
to warn us about terrorist organizations. And we found ourselves
(04:15):
on September eleventh of this year fearing one of our own.
In fear. Politicians weren't canceling their events because they were
scared of foreign actor or a terrorist group was going
to attack them. They were worried about an American citizen
from the other side of whatever political ideology might take
a shot at them.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And in a weird way, this week, with a single
shot and a single political assassination, it's carried more weight
in a way because someone was silenced for what they think,
silence for what they believe, a targeted and assassinated for
having a different opinion than the gunmen. And I think, look,
(04:57):
we have these mascul shootings, not to you underplay those
and the fear and terror that those instill. But this
arbitrary shooting of AR fifteen or some sort of assault
rifle where you're just spraying people indiscriminately because you're angry
at the world and you have mental health issues, that's
a whole other issue. But I think this act this
(05:20):
week cut at the core of who we are as Americans,
where we literally stand our ground and base our foundation
of our country on the freedom of speech and the
freedom of being able to have different opinions and to
think that if you think differently than someone else and
you talk about it loudly and proudly and grandly, maybe
(05:40):
even on major social media platforms, that now you are
at risk, physical risk, like your life is at risk.
That is not the country that we believe in that
we've built. And that's I think what's so scary about
what happened this week.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Now he's not a politician, but it certainly falls in
line with political assassinations of what JFK, RFK MLK, Malcolm
X all in the sixties was at sixty three, sixty five,
sixty eight. I'm missing one of the years, but all
of them were silenced because of some power, some voice,
(06:17):
some message for what they were saying. They were all
silenced for some action they were doing something in their
voice intimidated people. That's where we are now, Where do
we go robes If politicians are scared to is this
going to discourage I always hate this about politics because
(06:40):
I always say like, they're really good people out there
who could help, and politics turns them off.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Correct, the people who actually should and could lead our
country into better, calmer, more peaceful waters are the very
people who know better than to get into it.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So now this you add this to it, my life.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Is going to be on the line, right it used
to be. My reputation is going to be on the line.
I'm going to be fodder. I'm going to be torn apart.
Everyone's going to rip through every potential skeleton in my closet. Now,
I don't want that for me. I don't want that
from my family because we've all made mistakes. And just
to imagine, if your worst mistake was the thing that
(07:18):
everyone remembered about you, that was paraded out on every
campaign commercial you could watch on television. Yeah, who wants
to put themselves and their families through that kind of scrutiny.
Not a lot of people. And so you do have
a very small pool of people who are even willing
to become politicians. Now you add a threat to their
life for based for their beliefs, and a lot of
(07:39):
times we all know this. To get elected, you have
to have a strong opinion. You have to appeal to
your base, You have to kind of go to maybe
the margins of what you believe to bring along the
folks who will get you elected in those primaries. That's
just how our politics work. But that very strategy is
now what potentially could put you at risk, could put
(08:00):
you in the bullseye of somebody who thinks differently than you. So, yeah,
this has been a very scary week for a lot
of folks, and I can speak personally that this has
and so many people out there who are listening have
kids in college, kids in high school, kids in school period,
and for whatever reason, this all comes in the midst
(08:23):
of these We've had school shootings obviously for years now, unfortunately,
but now we have these hoaxes, we have these false
nine one called my daughter right now. How many times
in the last two weeks have I received a phone
call from Analyse who is at the University of Colorado Boulder,
with some sort of emergency situation, whether it's a report
(08:48):
of a gunman, a report of a bomb threat. That's
what we're dealing with right now. I believe she literally
is on lockdown right now in her home. She was
pushed out of campus. There are three bills, things now
being searched with canine units and police, and she was
she facetimed me, and she's kind of got this nervous laughter,
trying to play it off because they're hoping and thinking
(09:09):
it's probably a hoax. But with a two different school
shootings nearby her just in this week, high schools, and
then having what happened in neighboring Utah, I've never seen
this level of unease in this country, and I don't
know that. I don't know what institution is immune from
(09:31):
it at this point.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
No, and rose to your point about analyse, I get,
at what point does she stop getting scared? And just
kind of right, you become immune, you become desensitized to
a threat, and you kind of roll your eyes. And
then that is the one that's going to be the one?
(09:56):
Is it not that we can't have this boy who
cry wolf attitude? You have to take each and every
one of them seriously. But now it's affecting, like there
is anxiety, like what's the next thing? Like I'm on
edge every day. We get up very early and I
turn on the tv R, unlock the phone, and I'm
(10:18):
nervous to see the first thing that's going to pop up,
like what happened overnight? What is it now? And so
this thing and how it looks. It's hard you have
to find and we preach it all the time, robes
about staying in the moment and enjoying our lives, doing
the best we can, kindness and all of these things,
and forgiveness even but man, it is hard on a
(10:41):
week like this where you just feel anxiety and you
feel we didn't know this kid personally, and a lot
of the things he said we might even find objectionable. Okay,
my heart is breaking for those two kids.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And his wife Erica.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Oh God, But to see that many people can't even
just stop there that two kids lost their dad, Like
people are being fired left and right across the country
because they are putting out messages and essentially saying, so
what that he's dead.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I feel like that's almost the worst part of the story.
Of course, the death of Charlie Kirk is the most
tragic and the worst part of the story obviously, So
I just want to make that clear. And it's obviously
a relief to know that the gunman is behind bars,
But I think The sickening aftermath is the continued hoaxes
(11:38):
that are being called in and the apathy and the
callousness at which so many people are receiving the news
of what happened. That there is no empathy, there is
no there is no compassion, There is none of that
for someone who thinks differently than you. And then you
(11:59):
have to ask yourself, how am I any different than
the people who?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Uh? Nobody gets to that next part? How am I
any different? Nobody gets to that part.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
It's so easy to agree with and be open minded
to the people who think like you do. The challenge
is keeping that open mind and that open heart towards
people who think very differently than you, and that you
might even think aren't good people because you're judging them
based on your filter. I just it's one of those
things where I just I don't We've been screaming this
(12:31):
for so long. When is it not going to be enough?
I don't know. You know, we thought Newtown was, We
thought Paul's Nightclub was, We thought the Las Vegas shootings were.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
We thought I think you Valdi was the one that
sounds great. I think you Valdi was the one that
I finally said we will never do anything. I know
Newtown should have been the one. And even after Vegas,
how awful fifty something Parkland, I forgot Parkland Parklett. Oh
(13:02):
my goodness.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
I mean, it's just sad. There are so many you forget.
And I have been on these campuses. Yeah, and it's
the most gutting to see. Let me just tell you,
in Uvaldi and in Newtown specifically, I was there for
days and days and days. And to see those little coffins,
I'm telling you, there's nothing like it. And to know
(13:23):
that that's suffering and that loss came at the hands
of a young man. And here we are again in
the same situation, and you just don't know who you
can trust. You don't know who's good, who's bad, who
is going to snap, and who is just having a
bad day. It's really hard to know. And it's really disheartening.
(13:44):
And and I'm an adult, you're an adult. How do
we talk to our kids about this? I don't even
know what to say to analyst at this point.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
No, I mean, what lesson what are you supposed to
say to a kid? You can't explain this evil because
I don't understand it. I really don't understand how you
get to that point. How is this a gun conversation?
It should always be right, access to guns is always
worthy of conversation. But what if this is just it's
(14:15):
not that. What if it's not mental illness. What if
it's just radical behavior? What if this is someone who
has just got so caught up. Do you have to
be mentally ill to have done what he did? I
don't know. Somebody say you have to be just by
its nature. Others would just say you are that. Yes,
our dialogue in this country has gotten to a point
(14:38):
where people it keeps getting hotter and hotter and hotter
and hotter.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
And this the other question is all this technology, have
we all become desensitized or at least the younger folks
who have not really had to deal in human to
human face to face connection, where they've been so removed,
like one step removed from actually having people be human,
Like if you are on if you're a gamer and
you're just everything's virtual, does it take you, like away
(15:06):
from the fact that there's a human being on the
other side of that debate, there's a human being who
is a father, who's a husband, who has dreams, and
hopes and is confused and doesn't know what you know.
It's just it's like somehow we just we demonize the
other side, and then we justify how we feel and
(15:26):
then ultimately even justify our actions.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Man, No, I just don't have to Europe still think
about what you say to your kids. I don't have nothing.
I really don't want me talking to Sabin. She has
more access to things, she sees more things on that
phone that I can't keep them from everything she sees it.
What do you say? I mean, I don't want it
to be out. I don't want her to be in crowds.
(15:49):
I don't want to be in crowds. We do events,
we make public appearances. We don't have anything close to security,
we don't have anything close to crowds like he brings,
but we are in the public. Die. I mean, you
just you're scared to go out and you're scared to
say anything. I don't know what to say to kids
(16:15):
that don't know where the hope is. Where we talking
about this earlier, there's nothing like the worst thing in
life is to lose. Hope is not to die. We
think that's the worst thing, but it's actually to you
die while you're living by losing something inside and hope
is the worst thing you can live.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, And so when we come back, we're going to
talk about how we can all live better in the
midst of all of this chaos and all of this
difficult news, and how we can make a point to
not let fear dictate how we live our lives. Welcome
(17:01):
back everyone on this Saturday. It is September fourteenth, thirteenth.
I jumped ahead. Tomorrow's the fourteenth. Today is the thirteenth,
and it's been a hell of a week and a
lot of folks. We might be tired, but we're emotionally exhausted,
and we've been struggling. I've been struggling. I'm saying we
because I can only imagine that everyone kind of is
(17:22):
in the same boat in this situation where we're all
feeling a bit underwater. I've been struggling with how to
talk to my daughters and even how to get through
it as a parent, knowing that I don't have control
over what happens. My girls are off in the world
and ones in college and the others in Brooklyn, and
who knows what she does and where she is and
(17:45):
we all have this feeling of insecurity, I think, really,
and I'm talking physical insecurity, which is just the way the
world is, and all of what to believe, who to believe.
And I think the point being fear is always is there,
and it has been since the beginning of time. And
I've really tried to make sure that with what I
(18:06):
say to analyse and what I even say to myself,
that it isn't fear based, because that doesn't help anything. Yes,
we're aware that a threat might be there, but we
can't live our lives paralyzed by that fear. I think
we have to be motivated by it to make sure
we live our lives and every moment to the fullest
(18:26):
and not worried about what could happen. I don't know,
how do you? How do you tell? Sabine? We had
a really interesting conversation with her just the other day.
You and I grew up with tornado drills. I grew
up in Saint Louis, you grew up for my formative years,
and you were in Arkansas. We were talking about how
when we had drills in school, we were running out
(18:49):
into the hallway and we knew what tornado position was. Right,
So beIN had a very different experience.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, they have shooter drills, they have lockdown drills, they
have on drills in which they're trained to hide, in
which their teachers are trained to lock the door and
pull the shade, and they're trained to go barricade themselves
in certain areas of the classroom. At that's different. So
(19:19):
are we Now this is just a part of our culture.
Now we have to be trained to what to expect
and what we're putting ourselves at risk, and how we're
putting ourselves at risk anytime we show our faces in public.
It shouldn't be the case. It's if we need to
be mindful of it. I guess we will adjust. It's
just a shame to see that this week and we
are I feel terrible because we are. We put this
(19:42):
in place to recovery Run as really a way to
show people, Yeah, you gotta give yourself a beat, take
you always got to take a break with you, whether
you're actually running or figuratively. During the week. We are
all ripping and running figuratively every single week. And man,
we have had I had too many weeks where we
come on the Recovery Run and say, yeah, We're sorry,
(20:02):
we're just really letting you down. We haven't recovered the
right way in this today, and this week just feels.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I feel like this is more of a reflective run,
and every now and then you're like, one, Okay, maybe
this is our reflective run. But I think it's important
to actually verbalize how we're feeling. I mean, there's no
way you can consume the news that we've consumed this week.
I mean, you think about it. Many of you listening
(20:31):
watched that video and maybe even inadvertently, you didn't know
what you were about to see. And a lot of
your kids have seen it too. You know, you don't
want to think it, but they have. It was available
to everybody. The things we saw that we weren't prepared
for take a toll, and I just think it's important
for everybody to take a beat and acknowledge that that
weighs on you, and it defeats the human spirit in
(20:53):
a lot of ways, because you start to think the
worst of everybody, Like, is there you know, is there
any hope? Is there anyone good in the world left? Yes,
and there are mostly good people, and you get a
couple bad folks who then make us all feel the
weight of that negativity, and I just I just wanted
to have a conversation because I'm I was really struggling
(21:14):
with with Anna Lisa and what to talk to her
about and how to tell her to be vigilant but
not to be not to be in any way stopped
from living her life because she's in fear, but just
to be aware. And I wanted her to just to
take it and be kind and never not react to
people and if things look scary, walk away. Like you've
(21:36):
got to give your kids the tools, but also make
them recognize that you can't live like that, like always
anticipating worst case scenario. But you get into this mindset
when you hear news and you have a week like
we did today or this week excuse me, where you
just start to feel like, oh my god, I'm gonna
have to be on high alert and you're one of
those people your head's on a swivel. We talk about
it a lot. How do you balance that awareness with
(22:03):
making sure it doesn't dictate your life and stop you
from doing things you love and being with people and
being at events and things you want to do, concerts
and parades and you know, football games all of these things.
Now it's you know, in the back of your mind.
Ann Alice told me she was worried about going to
the football game this weekend. That's so incredibly sad. That's
so incredibly sad.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
That has to be on her mind, any young person's mind,
in any of our minds, but it is. And folks,
we can't say it enough. Just be as kind as
you can, yeah, and how good as tight as you can,
and don't miss in a moment because you don't know
if it's going to be the last. You were talking
(22:44):
about this earlier, What was the last thing, Charlie Kirk
said to his wife. Yeah, And she said to him,
not knowing that it was going to be the last time.
You never think it's going to be the last time,
and you can't necessarily live it sounds morbid, but you
just youd never know.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
So that's always the takeaway in all of these moments.
The takeaway is to love, to live, to be kind
to the way to defeat darkness is through light and
through love, and so that's how we will get through.
But the conversation, I think is an important one to
have with yourself and with the people you love and
(23:22):
hopefully it can remind us all to take advantage of
the time that we do have with one another to
be loving and kind. So anyway, with that everyone, we
hope you have a wonderful Saturday and a great weekend.
I made me roback alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to
you soon.
Welcome everyone to this edition of Amy and TJ. It's Saturday,
September thirteenth. We've been doing every week a recovery run
episode where we talk about the ways we have intentionally
tried to recover spend some time together. This week, honestly,
we have nothing to report. This was a very intense
(00:26):
and heavy news week. I think it took a toll
on a lot of us, and I think it got
really personal for just about everybody in different ways. And
certainly we're talking most notably about the political assassination of
Charlie Kirk, but there were a lot of other stories
(00:47):
that were ripple effects. I think that came from this story.
And maybe it's just more of the same of what
we've been dealing with, where we've gotten active shooters in schools,
we've gotten more hoaxes, and it feels overwhelming to the
point where it gets personal and you think about how
it's affecting your life. And we were discussing earlier like
(01:11):
how has and I think everyone's felt this, How have
this week's headlines? How have you been personally impacted? TJ?
Have you felt the weight of this with you and
your life and your circle and Sabine like, has this
impacted you in a significant way, perhaps more than even
other weeks have.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Oh no, it's just a matter of I felt less
hope and more despair about where we are. I think
we're going more so in this direction before we correct
and this stuff stops. It felt like this is going
to ramp up. This seems impossible in our lifetimes in
(01:51):
twenty twenty five that a political assassination would be taking place.
That's insane, right, So it makes me feel like things
are going to get worse. At what point do we
turn things around? I actually did think about Emmittil and
I thought about George Floyd moments where we all look
at something and I don't care who you are, you
look and you say, okay, we gotta be better than this.
(02:14):
And I looked at this and thought that could possibly
be one of those moments and something come of it.
But I'm not hopeful there either. So I think just
despair was how I walked away from this week.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And it came on a week where we already are
reflective and somber because of nine to eleven. It's the
twenty fourth anniversary this week, so you already had a
heavy week that was kind of predetermined based on our
and we celebrate and we honor and we remember. But
in spite of all of that, we had someone actually
(02:50):
who was born after nine to eleven who never actually
even felt the atrocities of that and what the impact
of that, that act of terror created in the generations
of folks who have now not even known what it
felt like to live through that day. And so, yes,
this week's gunman who took out Charlie Kirk was twenty two,
(03:15):
so he was not even alive during nine to eleven,
which was something to consider, right, like they don't in
this age of feeling connected to people and yet in
that sense almost creating a band of thieves, like you
have this group of people you find online who think
(03:35):
like you, and you can create you can create gang
so to speak, or just tribalism where you're like, we
think this and you think that us versus them, and
they never really lived through what we all did on
nine to eleven. So that kind of struck me that
he was he's younger than my oldest daughter.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I think remember al Qaeda, Yes, an Isis, Do you
remember the day when September eleventh rolled around an anniversary,
and everybody was on heightened alert. You remember that alert
system we used to have with the yellow and the
orange and the red and the You remember they used
to warn us about terrorist organizations. And we found ourselves
(04:15):
on September eleventh of this year fearing one of our own.
In fear. Politicians weren't canceling their events because they were
scared of foreign actor or a terrorist group was going
to attack them. They were worried about an American citizen
from the other side of whatever political ideology might take
a shot at them.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And in a weird way, this week, with a single
shot and a single political assassination, it's carried more weight
in a way because someone was silenced for what they think,
silence for what they believe, a targeted and assassinated for
having a different opinion than the gunmen. And I think, look,
(04:57):
we have these mascul shootings, not to you underplay those
and the fear and terror that those instill. But this
arbitrary shooting of AR fifteen or some sort of assault
rifle where you're just spraying people indiscriminately because you're angry
at the world and you have mental health issues, that's
a whole other issue. But I think this act this
(05:20):
week cut at the core of who we are as Americans,
where we literally stand our ground and base our foundation
of our country on the freedom of speech and the
freedom of being able to have different opinions and to
think that if you think differently than someone else and
you talk about it loudly and proudly and grandly, maybe
(05:40):
even on major social media platforms, that now you are
at risk, physical risk, like your life is at risk.
That is not the country that we believe in that
we've built. And that's I think what's so scary about
what happened this week.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Now he's not a politician, but it certainly falls in
line with political assassinations of what JFK, RFK MLK, Malcolm
X all in the sixties was at sixty three, sixty five,
sixty eight. I'm missing one of the years, but all
of them were silenced because of some power, some voice,
(06:17):
some message for what they were saying. They were all
silenced for some action they were doing something in their
voice intimidated people. That's where we are now, Where do
we go robes If politicians are scared to is this
going to discourage I always hate this about politics because
(06:40):
I always say like, they're really good people out there
who could help, and politics turns them off.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Correct, the people who actually should and could lead our
country into better, calmer, more peaceful waters are the very
people who know better than to get into it.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So now this you add this to it, my life.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Is going to be on the line, right it used
to be. My reputation is going to be on the line.
I'm going to be fodder. I'm going to be torn apart.
Everyone's going to rip through every potential skeleton in my closet. Now,
I don't want that for me. I don't want that
from my family because we've all made mistakes. And just
to imagine, if your worst mistake was the thing that
(07:18):
everyone remembered about you, that was paraded out on every
campaign commercial you could watch on television. Yeah, who wants
to put themselves and their families through that kind of scrutiny.
Not a lot of people. And so you do have
a very small pool of people who are even willing
to become politicians. Now you add a threat to their
life for based for their beliefs, and a lot of
(07:39):
times we all know this. To get elected, you have
to have a strong opinion. You have to appeal to
your base, You have to kind of go to maybe
the margins of what you believe to bring along the
folks who will get you elected in those primaries. That's
just how our politics work. But that very strategy is
now what potentially could put you at risk, could put
(08:00):
you in the bullseye of somebody who thinks differently than you. So, yeah,
this has been a very scary week for a lot
of folks, and I can speak personally that this has
and so many people out there who are listening have
kids in college, kids in high school, kids in school period,
and for whatever reason, this all comes in the midst
(08:23):
of these We've had school shootings obviously for years now, unfortunately,
but now we have these hoaxes, we have these false
nine one called my daughter right now. How many times
in the last two weeks have I received a phone
call from Analyse who is at the University of Colorado Boulder,
with some sort of emergency situation, whether it's a report
(08:48):
of a gunman, a report of a bomb threat. That's
what we're dealing with right now. I believe she literally
is on lockdown right now in her home. She was
pushed out of campus. There are three bills, things now
being searched with canine units and police, and she was
she facetimed me, and she's kind of got this nervous laughter,
trying to play it off because they're hoping and thinking
(09:09):
it's probably a hoax. But with a two different school
shootings nearby her just in this week, high schools, and
then having what happened in neighboring Utah, I've never seen
this level of unease in this country, and I don't
know that. I don't know what institution is immune from
(09:31):
it at this point.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
No, and rose to your point about analyse, I get,
at what point does she stop getting scared? And just
kind of right, you become immune, you become desensitized to
a threat, and you kind of roll your eyes. And
then that is the one that's going to be the one?
(09:56):
Is it not that we can't have this boy who
cry wolf attitude? You have to take each and every
one of them seriously. But now it's affecting, like there
is anxiety, like what's the next thing? Like I'm on
edge every day. We get up very early and I
turn on the tv R, unlock the phone, and I'm
(10:18):
nervous to see the first thing that's going to pop up,
like what happened overnight? What is it now? And so
this thing and how it looks. It's hard you have
to find and we preach it all the time, robes
about staying in the moment and enjoying our lives, doing
the best we can, kindness and all of these things,
and forgiveness even but man, it is hard on a
(10:41):
week like this where you just feel anxiety and you
feel we didn't know this kid personally, and a lot
of the things he said we might even find objectionable. Okay,
my heart is breaking for those two kids.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And his wife Erica.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Oh God, But to see that many people can't even
just stop there that two kids lost their dad, Like
people are being fired left and right across the country
because they are putting out messages and essentially saying, so
what that he's dead.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I feel like that's almost the worst part of the story.
Of course, the death of Charlie Kirk is the most
tragic and the worst part of the story obviously, So
I just want to make that clear. And it's obviously
a relief to know that the gunman is behind bars,
But I think The sickening aftermath is the continued hoaxes
(11:38):
that are being called in and the apathy and the
callousness at which so many people are receiving the news
of what happened. That there is no empathy, there is
no there is no compassion, There is none of that
for someone who thinks differently than you. And then you
(11:59):
have to ask yourself, how am I any different than
the people who?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Uh? Nobody gets to that next part? How am I
any different? Nobody gets to that part.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
It's so easy to agree with and be open minded
to the people who think like you do. The challenge
is keeping that open mind and that open heart towards
people who think very differently than you, and that you
might even think aren't good people because you're judging them
based on your filter. I just it's one of those
things where I just I don't We've been screaming this
(12:31):
for so long. When is it not going to be enough?
I don't know. You know, we thought Newtown was, We
thought Paul's Nightclub was, We thought the Las Vegas shootings were.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
We thought I think you Valdi was the one that
sounds great. I think you Valdi was the one that
I finally said we will never do anything. I know
Newtown should have been the one. And even after Vegas,
how awful fifty something Parkland, I forgot Parkland Parklett. Oh
(13:02):
my goodness.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
I mean, it's just sad. There are so many you forget.
And I have been on these campuses. Yeah, and it's
the most gutting to see. Let me just tell you,
in Uvaldi and in Newtown specifically, I was there for
days and days and days. And to see those little coffins,
I'm telling you, there's nothing like it. And to know
(13:23):
that that's suffering and that loss came at the hands
of a young man. And here we are again in
the same situation, and you just don't know who you
can trust. You don't know who's good, who's bad, who
is going to snap, and who is just having a
bad day. It's really hard to know. And it's really disheartening.
(13:44):
And and I'm an adult, you're an adult. How do
we talk to our kids about this? I don't even
know what to say to analyst at this point.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
No, I mean, what lesson what are you supposed to
say to a kid? You can't explain this evil because
I don't understand it. I really don't understand how you
get to that point. How is this a gun conversation?
It should always be right, access to guns is always
worthy of conversation. But what if this is just it's
(14:15):
not that. What if it's not mental illness. What if
it's just radical behavior? What if this is someone who
has just got so caught up. Do you have to
be mentally ill to have done what he did? I
don't know. Somebody say you have to be just by
its nature. Others would just say you are that. Yes,
our dialogue in this country has gotten to a point
(14:38):
where people it keeps getting hotter and hotter and hotter
and hotter.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
And this the other question is all this technology, have
we all become desensitized or at least the younger folks
who have not really had to deal in human to
human face to face connection, where they've been so removed,
like one step removed from actually having people be human,
Like if you are on if you're a gamer and
you're just everything's virtual, does it take you, like away
(15:06):
from the fact that there's a human being on the
other side of that debate, there's a human being who
is a father, who's a husband, who has dreams, and
hopes and is confused and doesn't know what you know.
It's just it's like somehow we just we demonize the
other side, and then we justify how we feel and
(15:26):
then ultimately even justify our actions.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Man, No, I just don't have to Europe still think
about what you say to your kids. I don't have nothing.
I really don't want me talking to Sabin. She has
more access to things, she sees more things on that
phone that I can't keep them from everything she sees it.
What do you say? I mean, I don't want it
to be out. I don't want her to be in crowds.
(15:49):
I don't want to be in crowds. We do events,
we make public appearances. We don't have anything close to security,
we don't have anything close to crowds like he brings,
but we are in the public. Die. I mean, you
just you're scared to go out and you're scared to
say anything. I don't know what to say to kids
(16:15):
that don't know where the hope is. Where we talking
about this earlier, there's nothing like the worst thing in
life is to lose. Hope is not to die. We
think that's the worst thing, but it's actually to you
die while you're living by losing something inside and hope
is the worst thing you can live.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, And so when we come back, we're going to
talk about how we can all live better in the
midst of all of this chaos and all of this
difficult news, and how we can make a point to
not let fear dictate how we live our lives. Welcome
(17:01):
back everyone on this Saturday. It is September fourteenth, thirteenth.
I jumped ahead. Tomorrow's the fourteenth. Today is the thirteenth,
and it's been a hell of a week and a
lot of folks. We might be tired, but we're emotionally exhausted,
and we've been struggling. I've been struggling. I'm saying we
because I can only imagine that everyone kind of is
(17:22):
in the same boat in this situation where we're all
feeling a bit underwater. I've been struggling with how to
talk to my daughters and even how to get through
it as a parent, knowing that I don't have control
over what happens. My girls are off in the world
and ones in college and the others in Brooklyn, and
who knows what she does and where she is and
(17:45):
we all have this feeling of insecurity, I think, really,
and I'm talking physical insecurity, which is just the way the
world is, and all of what to believe, who to believe.
And I think the point being fear is always is there,
and it has been since the beginning of time. And
I've really tried to make sure that with what I
(18:06):
say to analyse and what I even say to myself,
that it isn't fear based, because that doesn't help anything. Yes,
we're aware that a threat might be there, but we
can't live our lives paralyzed by that fear. I think
we have to be motivated by it to make sure
we live our lives and every moment to the fullest
(18:26):
and not worried about what could happen. I don't know,
how do you? How do you tell? Sabine? We had
a really interesting conversation with her just the other day.
You and I grew up with tornado drills. I grew
up in Saint Louis, you grew up for my formative years,
and you were in Arkansas. We were talking about how
when we had drills in school, we were running out
(18:49):
into the hallway and we knew what tornado position was. Right,
So beIN had a very different experience.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, they have shooter drills, they have lockdown drills, they
have on drills in which they're trained to hide, in
which their teachers are trained to lock the door and
pull the shade, and they're trained to go barricade themselves
in certain areas of the classroom. At that's different. So
(19:19):
are we Now this is just a part of our culture.
Now we have to be trained to what to expect
and what we're putting ourselves at risk, and how we're
putting ourselves at risk anytime we show our faces in public.
It shouldn't be the case. It's if we need to
be mindful of it. I guess we will adjust. It's
just a shame to see that this week and we
are I feel terrible because we are. We put this
(19:42):
in place to recovery Run as really a way to
show people, Yeah, you gotta give yourself a beat, take
you always got to take a break with you, whether
you're actually running or figuratively. During the week. We are
all ripping and running figuratively every single week. And man,
we have had I had too many weeks where we
come on the Recovery Run and say, yeah, We're sorry,
(20:02):
we're just really letting you down. We haven't recovered the
right way in this today, and this week just feels.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I feel like this is more of a reflective run,
and every now and then you're like, one, Okay, maybe
this is our reflective run. But I think it's important
to actually verbalize how we're feeling. I mean, there's no
way you can consume the news that we've consumed this week.
I mean, you think about it. Many of you listening
(20:31):
watched that video and maybe even inadvertently, you didn't know
what you were about to see. And a lot of
your kids have seen it too. You know, you don't
want to think it, but they have. It was available
to everybody. The things we saw that we weren't prepared
for take a toll, and I just think it's important
for everybody to take a beat and acknowledge that that
weighs on you, and it defeats the human spirit in
(20:53):
a lot of ways, because you start to think the
worst of everybody, Like, is there you know, is there
any hope? Is there anyone good in the world left? Yes,
and there are mostly good people, and you get a
couple bad folks who then make us all feel the
weight of that negativity, and I just I just wanted
to have a conversation because I'm I was really struggling
(21:14):
with with Anna Lisa and what to talk to her
about and how to tell her to be vigilant but
not to be not to be in any way stopped
from living her life because she's in fear, but just
to be aware. And I wanted her to just to
take it and be kind and never not react to
people and if things look scary, walk away. Like you've
(21:36):
got to give your kids the tools, but also make
them recognize that you can't live like that, like always
anticipating worst case scenario. But you get into this mindset
when you hear news and you have a week like
we did today or this week excuse me, where you
just start to feel like, oh my god, I'm gonna
have to be on high alert and you're one of
those people your head's on a swivel. We talk about
it a lot. How do you balance that awareness with
(22:03):
making sure it doesn't dictate your life and stop you
from doing things you love and being with people and
being at events and things you want to do, concerts
and parades and you know, football games all of these things.
Now it's you know, in the back of your mind.
Ann Alice told me she was worried about going to
the football game this weekend. That's so incredibly sad. That's
so incredibly sad.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
That has to be on her mind, any young person's mind,
in any of our minds, but it is. And folks,
we can't say it enough. Just be as kind as
you can, yeah, and how good as tight as you can,
and don't miss in a moment because you don't know
if it's going to be the last. You were talking
(22:44):
about this earlier, What was the last thing, Charlie Kirk
said to his wife. Yeah, And she said to him,
not knowing that it was going to be the last time.
You never think it's going to be the last time,
and you can't necessarily live it sounds morbid, but you
just youd never know.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
So that's always the takeaway in all of these moments.
The takeaway is to love, to live, to be kind
to the way to defeat darkness is through light and
through love, and so that's how we will get through.
But the conversation, I think is an important one to
have with yourself and with the people you love and
(23:22):
hopefully it can remind us all to take advantage of
the time that we do have with one another to
be loving and kind. So anyway, with that everyone, we
hope you have a wonderful Saturday and a great weekend.
I made me roback alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to
you soon.
Hosts And Creators
Amy Robach
T.J. Holmes
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