The Art of Livin’ with Matthew McConaughey

Chelsea’s joined this week by Matthew McConaughey to discuss the changing nature of his relationship with his kids, how he learned to see more greenlights in life, and why you should always be your own hype-man.  Then: A flight attendant struggles with self-confidence as he pursues a career in comedy.  A post-grad feels lost in life as she searches for meaning.  And a forty-something wonders if she should quit dating and hook up with her best friend - only trouble is: she’s not into him.

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Sign up here for the ArtOfLivinEvent.com with Matthew McConaughey

Book: Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

 

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Need some advice from Chelsea? Email us at [e-mail]

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Produced by Catherine Law

Edited & Engineered by Brandon Dickert

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The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the Podcast author, or individuals participating in the Podcast, and do not represent the opinions of iHeartMedia or its employees.  This Podcast should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice, mental health counseling or therapy, or as imparting any health care recommendations at all.  Individuals are advised to seek independent medical, counseling advice and/or therapy from a competent health care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issues, health inquiry or matter, including matters discussed on this Podcast. Guests and listeners should not rely on matters discussed in the Podcast and shall not act or shall refrain from acting based on information contained in the Podcast without first seeking independent medical advice.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Catherine, Oh guys, guess what it's our season finale?
What season are we in? Technically three, but it was
sort of like a twice as big season as last season. Yeah. Yeah,
we just decide when the seasons are going to be over. Yeah,
podcasting is a wild West. You can kind of do
whatever you want. What's with climate change? It's everything is
so unpredictable. So we're applying that line of thinking to

(00:23):
podcasting exactly. Yes, this is our last episode of this
season and then we will be back shortly for season four.
Or yeah, okay, wow, what if success? You guys, it's
a success. Yes, four seasons, that's yes, Chelsea. What do
you love about this show? Love? But oh okay, well,

(00:44):
why don't you start? I'll start. You know, it's really
become this cool show where like people's lives are being changed,
like people are making better choices, we're breaking people up,
Like it's so wonderful to see people bond with like
you helped me to move my life into a better direction,

(01:05):
or you know, get that job, or you know, say
no to that mother in law or whatever it is.
People are really being filled with joy and also connecting
because of the show it's so exciting. Yes, and it's
very nice. What Catherine does goes the extra mile above
and beyond for a lot of our callers, you know,
they when somebody reaches out and is interested in hearing

(01:25):
more about a certain issue or recommendation, it's like, you
really do go the extra mile to make sure people
feel like, Okay, we're all in this together and we're
helping people, which is so nice. Yeah, I feel the
same way. I'm just so happy that people are so impact.
I can't tell you how many people come up to
me talking about my podcast and saying or our podcast,
i should say, saying just how their lives have changed,

(01:47):
and that they listen every week. And it's also a
really great reminder about humanity and that everybody just really
needs a little push at some point in their lives.
Everybody does, and that's essentially what this is is a
shove in the right. It's like a pep talk. You're
getting a pep talk when you're on the fence about
something or getting advice about how to handle, you know,
a difficult situation in your life. And I think the

(02:08):
more adept we become at handling difficulty, the better we
are at helping others handle difficulty. Yeah, and so many
of these are universal truths, Like you know, you can
hear something that might not be exactly your situation, but
you're able to take a life lesson from that and
bring it into your relationship or bring it into your
life in a way that's really beneficial. I just think
that's really wonderful. Yeah, And I like helping people. It

(02:30):
makes me feel like I have a purpose. Even though
I feel like I do have a purpose, it's nice
that this is part of my purpose. Yes. My dad
always says that we're blessed to be a blessing, and
when you have this sort of like overflowing wealth of
knowledge or wisdom or whatever, it's really nice that you
can share it. Yeah, I read. Oh. I remember we
were talking about a quote a couple weeks ago on

(02:52):
the podcast, something about being a teacher, like when you
need the lesson, the teacher will show. When the student
needs the lesson, the teacher will appear. When the student
has learned the lesson, the teacher will disappear. It was
something along the line that line. I don't know if
it was Roomy or if it was someone else, but anyway,
that's a very good way to look at people coming
in and out of your life. You know, sometimes it

(03:12):
takes you a couple times to learn a lesson, and
sometimes you can learn it the first time. And so
my goal moving on in life is to learn things
the first time, the new lessons, not to have to
do things on repeat. Yeah, because then you offer yourself
up to a new experience the next time and you
don't have to repeat that. Absolutely. I used to go
to this raiky lady in oswee Go, Illinois, and she

(03:34):
had said, you know, when you get those taps on
the shoulder of a lesson that you're supposed to be learning,
that is you know, your guardian angels trying to help
you learn the lesson, and if you don't get it,
they're going to tap you a little harder, and they're
gonna tap you a little harder, and then eventually it's
going to be the two wife or that you know,
sort of hits the upside the hat exactly, and it's
just it's sort of how life works. So I love

(03:55):
that learning the lesson the first time, right, Well, when
we're young and stupid, it's it's hard to know that
you're even learning a lesson. You just feel the two
by four. You're just like, why does this keep happening
to me? Why does this keep happening to me? And
it's like, no, it's not happening to you. You're happening
to it, you know, like you're not changing the way
you're thinking about something. So yes, these are all good
things to keep in mind. And I want to thank

(04:15):
everybody for being such loyal listeners and for your calls
and all of it. We just love it, and I'm down.
This audience is particularly awesome. Yeah they are, they are,
but that's you know what. I have to credit myself
with that, because my audience has been fucking awesome my
whole career. Just badass, fucking women. Gay men, and the
straight men that are on board are really on board,

(04:35):
and they're the cool kind of straight men, so I'm
down with them too. And of course, black men, I'm
always done with black man. I don't know how many
black straight guys are listening, but if you are, hit
me up. So what's going on, Catherine? I actually just
spent yesterday at Disneyland, so I am, Oh, Kurtfrede, you
know what, go fuck off? I am, honestly, I am

(04:55):
so sick of your shit. First the Eggs and now Disneyland.
I know, And I even wore my new little Mickey
shirt that's acute. Were at home instead? I'm wearing it. Brad?
Did you go with her? Are you an accomplice? I did?
I am. Yeah, we took our nieces. That's not an
excuse you guys. You can try, you can use them escapegoats,

(05:17):
but obviously you both wanted to be there. Oh how
is your niece? How's it going so good? Are you
having nice conversations with her? Yeah, we're having a really
nice time. Their two nieces here, One is fourteen and
one is sixteen, And all you have to do is
be like, so, what's going on with your friends? And
then they go off for an hour on their friend
drama and yeah, great, right right? I kind of like

(05:38):
hearing about that drama. Yes, and one of my nieces,
she's a new little girl friend and she's talking all
about her relationship and she's so happy and in love
and it's just it's really sweet. It's wonderful. I mean, honestly,
I'm just glad they're past the phase where they only
eat macaroni and cheese, because on some delicious street tacos. Yeah,

(06:00):
they're loving street tacos here in La. What's not to
love about tacos? Oh my god, it's the best. I'm
so excited. So No, we're having a wonderful time with well,
my lesbian sister and I she's gonna be a lesbian.
When I got done with her just planned our honeymoon
portion of our vacation. I was like, we're all on

(06:20):
this email with our Safari guide planning like our African
trip because we're taking all our nieces and my ski buddy, Kelly,
a different ski buddy than Lindsay. We're taking my ski
buddy Kelly and her two twins. I forget their names
right now, even though they're my daughters. No one is
called Jesse and the other one is called Katie. Anyway,
we're all going Charlie, Seneca and Jordan, my three nieces,

(06:43):
and my sister, Simone and Kelly and her two girls.
And so we're going for two weeks. We're going to
Kenya and Tanzania, and then we're Simone and I are
going on a lover's week. It's just the two. She goes,
I have a week off after that. Do you want
to do something, and I was like, you bet, I do.
So we're gonna go to Cape Town and we're gonna
go to Zanzibar a couple of nights. It's very fun
and exotic, I know. And she keeps like, He's like, okay,

(07:06):
here's a villa. I'm like, we don't need a villa
for the two of us. She's like, yes, we do.
Stay away from me being my wing incredible. So I'm excited.
I'm gonna have a big summer of travel. So we're
gonna have to We're gonna have to bank a lot
of episodes. Yes, we will do that. Okay. So our

(07:28):
next guest is an Academy Award winning actor and a
number one New York Times bestselling author of Green Lights.
Matthew McConaughey, are we in lining on time? Yeah? We are. Hi, Matthew. Hello,
how are you? Chelsea? I'm great? How are you doing?
This is my co host, Catherine. Hi, how are you?

(07:51):
I'm pretty good? Good? Great, great, Matthew. I am in
a state of being blown away because I read your
book in the last twenty four hours. I'll be honest.
I got it months ago and everybody was talking about it,
and just like you describe in the book when you
were accusing somebody of not being interested in something, because

(08:14):
it was a success, it was popular, everyone was talking
about it, and I was like, oh, fuck it, I'll
read this later. And I read this yesterday in a day.
It is so fucking impressive. I am so blown away
by the depth of your humanity, about the depth of
your soul searching. It's so a nice for a woman

(08:36):
to be able to read a man who speaks and
thinks the way that you do. We need more of that, absolutely,
and the fact that you are just so in touch
with yourself is really remarkable. Wow. Cool, Thank you. That
feels good to hear that. Thank you. I bet yeah.
The success of your book must have been a huge

(08:56):
boon to you to get all of this out on paper.
I mean, how did it feel to get that kind
of feedback and that kind of reaction from everybody. Well,
you know, you put something and you don't know if
it's going to stick or not. And I remember when
I started writing it, I was actually found myself writing
to try and impress you are an audience, right, And

(09:18):
then all of a sudden, after a couple weeks, I
was like, that's not the way I gotta do it.
Make it this personal for me is possible, and hopefully
make it as entertaining as well, and then if it sticks,
it sticks, And I got lucky. It hit a nerve
with some people. So the reactions that I've found in
travels and emails I've gotten from around the world to say, hey,

(09:41):
I saw myself in your stories. Hey, I'm taking more
risk to do things in my life that I was
afraid to take before. Hey, I'm gonna laugh this time
when I step and ship instead of thinking, oh my god,
it's a crisis. I want to come across some cautions
in life and I'm gonna blow through them when I
should not give a CHRISTI so much credit, or I'm
going to slow down and take a little inventory just

(10:03):
to hear the feedback. It was. You know, when you
when you put something out, you have in your mind
what you hope a reaction will be, and if someone
says that, you don't say it out loud, but if
someone says that back to you, you're like, yes, that's
what I was hoping. And I got a lot of
that from the book, and that that felt really cool.
I mean, the writing of it for me was I'm
not a guy who looks in the past. I like

(10:25):
to go forward and hey, what's in the background, what's
behind in the review mirrors, in the review mirror, So
to go back and look at who I was and
now I got here. It was fucking embarrassing. I was.
I had a lot of shame. I was like, oh
my god, I can't believe you did that, this, that
and the other. But after a few weeks writing, I
started to laugh at that ship and started to gigging on.
Was like going, well, no, shit, man, you know he's perfect. Yeah,

(10:47):
you're screwed up. Put that one in there too, put
that story in there. And that turned out to be
some of people's favorite stuff is when I'm writing about
me stepping and ship, me and Crow. You know, yeah,
because I think it's very, very attractive when people are
able to not take themselves so seriously, especially in our industry,
because it's it's a byproduct, right, you have to take

(11:08):
yourself seriously at times if you want to get serious
about working, or you want to get serious about accomplishing
whatever your goals may be, So to take yourself seriously
and also at the same time not take yourself seriously
enough that you can't expose the shortcomings or the embarrassments
or the self recrimination. Yeah yeah, I like to call that. Hey,

(11:29):
I think we should take it all seriously, especially the comedy,
especially the screw ups. Take them seriously, do and just
own them and go, yeah, I take that, you know,
the comedy of my own life seriously. Do. So let's
put that up. I take the times when I eat
crow or follow my ass pretty seriously do, and let's
just put that out there as well. It was it. Look,
it was you've written, you put something down on a page,

(11:52):
and you're directing, you're writing, you're the main character. It's cleansing,
I mean, you kind of. It clears up a lot
of things. I found out that I remembered a lot
more than I gave myself credit for. Meaning. I saw
things that I wrote down when I was fifteen, twenty
twenty five and was going like, oh, you're essentially the

(12:14):
same guy, the same person. You've evolved, I believe, I
hope so McConaughey, but you're essentially the same person. Oh
you do remember that. Even though I always like to
see this, I write things down so I can forget
them so they'll be there. You never do that at
the dinner table, and I know when I'll pull out
my phone and I always have to go, hey, I'm
not writing somebody else that's not here. I'm actually writing
a note of something you just said. And then I'll

(12:35):
show it to you and to go, Chelsea, did you
say that? And you're like, yeah, I did. I'm writing
that down so I can forget it and be present
in the situation again, because if I don't write it down,
I'm gonna be thinking the whole dinner. Don't forget that thing,
she said. Don't forget that thing, she shaid. And so
there was a lot of freedom for me in writing
the damn thing and putting it out there. Matthew, are
you sitting in front of two flags right now? Yes,

(12:59):
we have an American flag and a Texas flag. I
love it country, I love it well. You were supposed
to become the governor of Texas at some point, right
all this is supposed to become. I considered considered getting
in that run and then decided no, not for you, No, no, no,
I don't think that's where I can be most useful.
Right now, I'm having too good. At a time, I
got three kids fourteen, thirteen, ten and the adventures were

(13:21):
going on. I'm not going to get them again. And
right now I'm enjoying being a dad, family man. Everyone
says it, but it's true. I got seven more years
and then they're out on their own, hopefully. And then
everyone says, get what you can while that weather in
the house, because it doesn't come back. You don't get
the time again. Yeah. Well, one of the things that

(13:41):
you talk about very emphatically in your book is becoming
a father. That was one of the one thing you
knew about yourself, you say, is that you knew you
wanted to be a father. And that's also a very
nice thing to hear a man say, to be that
passionate about it. And when you talk about your family,
it feels like, you know, we have our first nature,
our personality that we're born with, and then we have
our second nature, our experiences and the people who raise

(14:04):
us and your family sounds a fucking fun and be
like you'll never get away from them for your life.
You are part of that ecosystem. Yeah, and that had
had such such a huge influence on you. Your father,
your values, your morals, your mother, everything that you've been through,

(14:24):
and now as a parent, to try and redistribute that right,
that wealth of knowledge, but in a better way. I'm assuming, right,
you think you can do almost a better job trying.
How is that going for you? I'm happy that I
think it's going pretty well. Not making straight a's, but
I think it's going pretty well. I've got some considerate children.

(14:46):
Hopefully they can get out of the house confident, having
an idea of who the hell they are and who
they're not. Hopefully they can be conscientious. We'd i'd like
to talk about being a renaissance man or renaissance woman
to my daughter, but hey, you know, surfing them morning,
conduct the the orchestra at night, be able to go
from shirtless and no shoes in the mud to a

(15:07):
to a tuxedo on the same day and feel at
home in both those places. We're filling their passports, which,
as you know, I think is one of one of
the best resumes someone can have. You see a full passport,
you've got a pretty good idea that that person has
some wisdom of how the world works and how humanity rolls.
You know, we got, like I said, fourteen thirteen, ten,

(15:28):
we're just getting into those teen years. That's a whole
new roller coaster. You know, more rhyme, no less reason.
And then when you have kids, I noticed or early on,
that it's more DNA than I thought, meaning I thought
it was before I had kids. I thought it was
more the second thing environment, culture, what you're raised around.
And I noticed early on that, oh, these these these

(15:48):
young people are who they are. I can shepherd them,
I can nudge them, I can put in front of
them what lights their fire and try to keep them
from hurting themselves too bad. But other than that, they
are who they are. And so I've had to you know,
I use this line when it comes to discipline in
the family. I'm gonna treat you all fairly, but I'm
not gonna treat you all the same. And it's a
pretty fun one. We have a good time with the

(16:10):
fourteen and thirteen. I'm getting to that age where I'm
starting to become their buddy a little bit, which is cool,
meaning like my daughter a callmeo're and go, hey, why
I want to talk to you about this thing, and
we can just talk where I'm not teaching, I'm not
talking as the parent, we're just jiving where my son
can go flipped on like an NPR the other day
and didn't want to listen to music, want to listen
to I'm at fourteen. I'm like, God, and what do

(16:32):
you get out of this? This this talk? He's listening
to podcast and stuff. I'm going, okay, okay. So I'm
becoming buddies with the older two right now, which is nice. Yeah.
I think that's the thing that's always has scared me
about parenting is having to be a teacher for so long.
That always has been like, oh God, so many questions
that I probably don't have the accurate answers too well.
And the other thing is you get that thing that

(16:53):
happens as parents is they'll ask you that question. Like,
for instance, I got one of the book where my
eldest son comes to me and goes, why is before
Camilla and I were married? He comes to being goes,
why is it? Mama? On McConaughey, Well, those are those
questions where as a parent, you go, I better have
a fucking good answer for this because what I say
right now is going to be branded in their mind.
Or they ask you a big world question and you

(17:15):
go as a parent, and you may be tired, you
may have had a couple of drinks, it's late at night,
and you go like, whoops, I better have a good
answer for this one, because what I say right now
they're going to remember forever. Oh and a good answer. Well,
the good parenting is actually going and finding that answer,
which resulted in you marrying your wife, right, because how'd
he not posited that question to you? Who knows when

(17:37):
you guys would have gotten married if maybe ever or
not ever might have sat there and day and neutral
and not set a date. But that did give me
a kick in the backside to go, you know what,
everything's going great right now, but let's couldn't take this
to another level and started start a new commitment and
adventure together. Yeah, okay, Well, with this book has led

(17:57):
to a very unexpected event, probably unexpected for you two
to a certain degree. You're doing a live event with
Tony Robbins and some other people, Tony Robbins being probably
the most notable one. And it's called the Art of Living.
So let's talk about it. What are you gonna be
on the end? Because life's a verb, that's right, Yeah,

(18:18):
that's how we say it now not living. Yeah, So
that Tony and Dean read the book like the approach
and came to me and said, look, it's a great
approach book. Do you want to dig deeper and maybe
make it more show the process so people can more
personally may have some transformation. And I was like, I'd

(18:38):
love to And they're great at that. So that's what
we're gonna do. On April twenty fourth. We're gonna go
live the two of them, myself, Trent Shelton, Mary for Lele,
and we're gonna get under the hood of green lights
to how share how you can if anyone out there
can make it personal to their lives, how they can
we can understand if we're at a green light, our

(19:00):
highway of life, you know, when things are rolling and
we can't do no wrong, how do we trust that
green light that it's one that's gonna that that's one
that's gonna last longer and feed us for longer. What
do we do it a yellow light? Those pauses in
life where we're like, I gotta I gotta hit him,
my giddy up a little bit, I gotta reconsider. What
do we do? We do we pause and have a

(19:20):
look over our shoulder and go, I'm gonna have a
look for the first time. Why I keep stepping in
that same pile of shit? Or do we say no,
I'm gonna blow this. I'm gonna put the pedal to
the metal and blow this yellow light life because I'm
not gonna give the crisis credit because what comes after
the yell ight the red light, and that's the big
crisis is like pain, loss, Things suck, They feel like
that ends. I have learned, and I think it's true

(19:42):
for everybody that there is a gift in those red lights.
I'm sure y'all getting in times your life for like
there is nothing I can get this is this just sucks.
There's no lesson in this when you're in it, and
then later on go, oh I did get something from
that red light. Oh there was a gift in that.
So we're gonna get under the hood of all that
to make that practical for people to go, how do

(20:06):
I assess my green, yellow, and reds in life? We're
going to talk about defining more. You know, you hear
it all the time people, I want more, I want more,
but we kind of we we forget to say more.
What you know, it's like we want to be relevant,
relevant for what define our more. First admits some truths,
admit some lives that we that we tell, and we

(20:28):
believe in our lives, so we can kind of be
more ourselves. Which you've done a really great job of that, Chelsea.
I mean you've gone and said it seems from the
outside that you've done a really good job of being yourself.
So by hook or by crook, whether what you put
out considered works or doesn't is seen or sales or doesn't,

(20:48):
it doesn't seem like you've been someone who's like, well,
I sold out and I took a chance and I
was somebody I wasn't And that always feels better, I
know for me, and I think it does for everybody.
If you can do something authentically as you're self, if
it works out, hell yeah great. But if it doesn't,
you don't feel like like you settled out to try
and sell something on ourselves. So we're going to talk

(21:10):
about all those kind of things and try to make
them practical transformation for people. Yeah, I related to so
much of everything that you wrote in the book because
you have honored yourself in so many different ways in
your career. And your personal life with your relationship with
your family, and that honor or, that kind of self value,
self honor, self respect and respect for others, because I
don't really think you can respect other people until you

(21:31):
truly respect yourself, right, And I think that the way
that you've demonstrate in the book, like the times were like,
as one example, just walking away from romantic comedies, which
was a fruitful and money and everything that you could
ask for that would make a regular person, would make
them think that they could be happy and exist on
that for the rest of their life, eating popcorn and

(21:52):
not desiring anything beyond that popcorn. And you said no,
and you were offered lots of money, and you still
said no, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not doing that.
And you waited and you waited. And I think the
key ingredient for so many people who want to take risks,
who don't think they have the courage or the balls
or whatever you want to call it, is because it's
just patience, you know, it's really it takes balls, but

(22:16):
it takes patience and knowing that you have to trust yourself,
knowing that you are the person that you can trust. Yeah,
can you believe in those times that time is actually
on your side. WHOA, it's tough, yes, man. And then
we make these plans and then you have babies that

(22:36):
you have to support and they're going Or I have
a friend who's like to get it planned out. At
thirty I'm going to meet the woman for me. At
thirty five, I'll be married and have kids. At forty,
they'll be here thirty. He didn't meet the girl thirty five,
he didn't have the family. He's started getting anxious, you know.
I write about it in the book. Before I met Camilla,
I was on the hunt. I was looking for the

(22:58):
possibility of my mate at every red light, in every
produce section, there's an angle maybe. And I was trying.
I was not being myself. I was not content with
myself to be patient. And then once I became that
man and sat back and trusted and was patient that, hey,
I don't have to keep looking I find it. If

(23:19):
I quit looking so hard, well, that's when she showed up.
I mean, with the career that two years that I
took off, I got wobbley. I like to say it.
That old bottle of my favorite spirit over there on
the counter. I started looking a little bit better. Earlier
in the day, I was like, I would like a purpose.
I didn't have significance. I was like, what am I doing.
I considered other vocations, like maybe maybe I wrote a

(23:41):
one way ticket out of Hollywood. I gotta find another job,
another career, and I hung in there. Luckily I had
Camilla by my side, sitting are going like, this is
non negotiable. We made this choice, and we know it's
true to your soul, so we're not going back. And
there was never a choice of going back, but it was.
It was spooky. And then all of a sudden that

(24:03):
patience paid off. All of a sudden, I was gone
from Hollywood enough to become a new good idea for
the JOm as I wanted to do, and the phone
rang for that, and all of a sudden went and
did all the things that I'd been wanting to do
that that the Hollywood was not offering me years before. Yeah,
we got the reconnaissance. Yeah, the reconnaissance. That's great. Is

(24:23):
that a term? Oh? No, I wish I had People
magazine or something. I would tell you the story about that. No,
tell us, get this out. He jeez. It was some
self marketing. So I'm gonna tell you ride. And I
think I was there with a movie. I had done

(24:44):
Mud and something else, and uh, the guy in this
interview was going, I mean you're you're like, oh, really,
you're on a roll right now. Man, you did this
and this this, it's like it needs a name or something.
I went, yeah, you know, I was talking to this
guy a minute ago and he actually called it the macconnaiss.
I threw it out there right and he goes, Manassan,

(25:05):
I love that. You like that. I go, yeah, it
sounds good, man. So I snuck it. Then some abish
it didn't stick. I made that up in one interview,
and it stuck. It gave it a little a little
song title, a little album. I like the idea of
coining a phrase about yourself. I like that a lot.
I'm also like, most people can't give themselves a nickname,

(25:26):
but now you deserve beyond stuck. Get I got the
I got the wink. Yeah, I love it. Okay, Well, Matthew,
first let me ask you something before we start with
our callers. Have you been to therapy? No? Wow, I
have not been to therapy. I got nothing against therapy,
you know, I was writing about this yesterday. So we
go to therapy, and again I got nothing against it.

(25:47):
I've seen it really work for people, and I might
want to go and need to go later in my life.
But we go to therapy, and we learned to get
objective about ourselves, right. We go to therapy and we
learned to see, like, hey, or who we think we are,
what we're actually putting out is what we're putting out there?
Is that what the world's receiving or is there a
big gap between those? You know what I mean? Are
we living a life where the rubber meets the road.

(26:09):
And it's great because you get an objective sort of
third eye, a Google eye to the world of what
we're doing. But I do think we have to watch
with too much objectivity of awareness of like, well, how
is what we're doing landing? Well, how is it being
is it being received? We have to watch because it's

(26:30):
good if it leads us back to being more subjective.
Meaning what's great is when you just you're you're not
even being objective of all, You're just being the subject
in your life and you're just doing it and it
happens to be reciprocating that's green lights in life. You know,
that's great when it rolls that way and we all
need to hop back and go, hey, let's be considerate
and have a little check out context to the situation.

(26:52):
That's that awareness of objectivity. But I do think we
have to watch the rabbit hole of going and trying
to be too objective for too long that we forget
to be the subjects in our life. So if therapy
leads us back to being a better subject, a better
a better individual without being sort of eating conscious of
what we're doing or what we're what we're doing, how

(27:13):
it's landing, I think it's I think it's very helpful. Yeah,
I hear what you're saying, because when you have too
much self awareness, it's almost like you're not even in
the moment because you're analyzing everything you're doing and how
it's being perceived by others. That's definitely a struggle I
had coming out of therapy. I'm like, fuck, I mean,
when am I going to be able to go back
to me instead of making sure I'm making sure everyone's

(27:35):
okay around my behavior? It can just be paralysis of
analysis almost. It can immobilize us, you know, I mean look,
I got a mother who ninety one, and she's a
great example of the value of denial if you actually
commit to it, okay, if you really commit to it.

(27:57):
And look, she's not shallow. She's not a yellow person.
But I asked her about four years ago because she's
wild ass, rebel, outlaw, and she was doing all these
things that were the opposite of what she had raised
me and my two brothers to do. We're like, I
was like, mom, come on, no one forgives you themselves
quicker than you. I was like, don't you have anything
at the end of the night, we like you go, oh,

(28:18):
I need to do that better. I need to work
on that. And she was like, oh, honey. Every night
I go through a mental list twenty five things, the
things that I could do better, things that I want
to improve on. I go, ah, okay, good, she goes,
you know, Matthew. But the thing is, when I wake
up in the morning, I forgot him all And she
just rolls like that. And like I said, she's not shallow,

(28:41):
but she's there's a beauty in her inconsideration. What bruises
others tickles her, and she is proof that there's a
loophole in the Golden rule doing others you'd haven'm doing
to you. Well, not everyone wants to do what you
want to do, but she just ninety one. She just rolls,
and she's been doing that kind of all her life.
And it's pretty awesome to see that simplicity because she's

(29:01):
not objective at all. She takes no context. She has
a lack of consideration, and it could be a real
pain in the ass sometimes, but ninety percent of the time,
it's like, go girl, no, get it, keep doing what
you're doing. Yeah, she's a real renegade, as your father
was as well. Yeah. Yeah, Okay, So on not note.

(29:22):
We are going to Catherine. You're going to teach up
what we have in store for Matthew today. Absolutely, we've
got some crises of conscience in here. We've got some
confidence issues, some what am I doing next in my life? Okay,
So we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back,
and we're back. We're bad. Well. Our first question comes

(29:48):
from Sage. Sage says, Dear Chelsea, I am desperate for
your help. I feel like I've been stuck in this
identity crisis for years. I've lost sight of not only
who I am, but what's important to me. I feel
like I spend every day going through the motions, then
all of a sudden years have passed. I came to
the realization the other day that I don't actually enjoy

(30:09):
my life. I just get through the days. I feel
like I'm waiting for that light bulb moment or some
type of epiphany to wake me up. But I also
understand that's not realistic. How do I start enjoying life again,
liking who I am, not caring what others think, taking chances,
and living a life of happiness and purpose. I suppose
I don't even know where to start. I'm twenty seven now,

(30:32):
and I know that I'm wasting my youth being lost,
and I don't want any more excuses. I'm ready to
live a life I'm proud of and that's true to me.
But how do I figure out what that is? Thanks
an advanced stage. I'm gonna let Matthew take this from
the top because he seems to be on a real role,
and then I'll follow up after. I just want to
say everyone feels like this at some point in their life,
if not multiple times in their life, so just know,

(30:54):
ay that this is not uncommon and you are not alone. Matthew,
why don't you go first? Well, thanks for saying that first, Chelsea,
because that is such we bypass that as far as
helping somebody out by going hey, just to know it's
not a singular experience. Just to know that, oh, hey,
me too, helps so much sort of just flattens the

(31:18):
everything and takes the air out of the pressure. So
way to start that office saying hey, you're not alone. Look,
I'd say this a lot of this. We all want
to talk about who am I, what's my purpose? What
am I going to do? And we're trying to look
for that first. Don't look for that first, start with
something much easier. Because knowing who you are is fucking hard.

(31:40):
Knowing who you're not is easier. So start off with
the process of elimination. Start eliminating the things in your life,
stags that don't pay you back, the people, the places,
the things that you're doing. What did you eat, drink,
whatever your habits that you know what. They may feel
good at the moment, but the next day they kind
of give you a hangover, or they didn't pay you back.

(32:00):
You were in the debit section the next day, or
you felt like less after you left that group of
friends that maybe talked about certain things that well, maybe
we're funny at the time, it made you feel like
a heel when you left. Start eliminating those things. So
by process of elimination, when we get rid of the
things in our life that don't pay us back, that
don't feed more of who we are by sheer mathematics,

(32:21):
you end up with more room for the things that
will feed you and we'll pay you back. Line up
in front of you. So start with eliminating who you're
not to get to who you are. Yeah, I like
that a lot. I also would like to say, you know,
when you're having all these kinds of feelings that aren't
giving you positive vibes, right, the important thing, I think
the first thing that you need to do is learn

(32:42):
how to get really still and get really quiet so
that you can understand exactly what your desires are and
what and how you want to You know what makes
you excited, what gets your heart rate up, what gives
you excitement When you think about fashion, or do you
think about television, or you think about like what is
your retail whatever it is, there's no judgment on it.

(33:06):
It's whatever your desire is, what draws your attention, what
keeps you interested, what helps you stay focused when you're
on that subject matter, Like, those are the things that
you need to find out about yourself, and the way
to do that is to really kind of go within.
You have to be still with yourself. You have to
give yourself like space and time to be quiet, to

(33:27):
not have noise around you, to not have influence around you,
to really sit down with a book, sit down by yourself,
sit down to reflect, to meditate, however you want to
frame that. But it's about the inner desires because your
body will speak to you. You will speak to yourself
when you've given the time to do that, Like it's
a matter of self respect in a way, you're allowing

(33:48):
your body and your mind to tell you what they want.
And this is all going to sound very spiritual and
big worldy to you if you haven't done this yet,
But I promise you, if you make this a practice
of just trying to get in touch with yourself, there
will be a voice inside your head that is on
your team, that is going to direct you and tell you,
just like there's always a voice telling you that you're
not good enough, that you're not smart enough, that you're

(34:10):
not brave enough. There's a voice, your real voice, that
is centered, that will guide you, and you have to
trust that that intuition, that self, knowing it's there for
each one of us. And the only times we get
separated from that voice is when we're not focused and
we're not centered. And it's easy to disengage, but it's
it's easy also to get back on the track. You know,

(34:32):
it's not It doesn't take that as much as you
think it's going to take. And obviously I can't tell
you what your purpose is. You're going to have to
find out what your purpose is for yourself. But the
more time you spend with yourself with less noise around you,
the more in tune you're going to get with yourself
and you're going to understand what you need to do
to move the ball forward in a direction that's going

(34:53):
to make you excited about your life. And also understand
that you're not always going to be excited about your life,
but you want to be optimistic about your life, and
you want to be you know, challenging yourself and going
to new areas and doing things that scare you or
that you can't and taking risks. You know, all of
these things are part of the equation. So I would
start by doing that. You know, if it's a meditation,

(35:16):
then make it a meditation. But give yourself some time
each morning or each day whenever you can, twenty minutes
and just be still and sit in a garden or
buy trees in nature and just sit with yourself, and
you're gonna come up with more answers than you would
ever even believe that twenty minutes if you hadn't done it.
It feels like hours when you first start. But don't

(35:39):
pull a parachute. Don't back out. What Chelsea's saying is right.
Stick with it. It gets easier and easier. But when
you first do it, you will not like the company.
Every time I go off on one, I do not
like the company. I cannot stand the dialogue that's going
on mad, But be stick with it through that time.
What do you end up realize? You realize that you're
the best company and you're the only company that can't

(36:01):
get rid of them. So we've been trying to freaking
it alone. Yeah, yeah, totally so fun. It's so true,
it's so fucking true. I mean, I can't tell you
how noisy my life was for so long until I
did this and I hated the company. I was like,
you're so annoying this this, and then I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I only want to hang out with you, like you're

(36:22):
the best company. You know, even when I go skiing. Now,
I'm like, I try not to let my friends know.
Like when I'm in my skis, I try not to
let my friends know because I want at least a
few runs by myself. And they can never understand why
I want to ski alone. I'm like, because it's fucking
more fun to be by myself sometimes than to be
around other people. So anyway, start doing that stage stage right. Yes, yes,

(36:45):
keep in touch with us and connect with us. And
when you've had a little bit of an awakening, I
guarantee you it's coming. Just have faith in the knowledge
of yourself and just start practicing some alone time and
real thoughtfulness, and I promise you you're gonna get where
you want to go. Yeah. Absolutely, Like this is what
happens at times in your life, but especially when you're
twenty seven. Like twenty seven, everybody feels this way, because

(37:07):
you're in this like crucks between the young adulthood that
you've just been in and like adult adulthood, and it's
just a weird flection point where you feel so much change.
And I think all the sevens are like that. Twenty seven,
thirty seven, forty seven, there's something about and I think
in Judaism, yeah, seven is a number where pivotal things happen.

(37:28):
So it's all good run towards it. It's all good
exciting because new things are going to happen. Yep. Well,
our next question comes from Sean. Sean says, dear Chelsea.
I'm a thirty seven year old flight attendant from Kansas City, Missouri.
It goes without saying that I am, of course gay.
I've been a flight attendant for five years and people

(37:49):
always say, oh, what a dream job, or that's what
you were meant to do. I enjoy the perks of
my job, but have you met people? I have to
deal with almost three hundred of them for eight hours
inside in a loop. Can no one dreams about that? Sure,
being in Paris or Amsterdam weekly is great, but I
know this is not viable for the long term. I've
thought about taking flight lessons to become a pilot, but

(38:11):
that still feels like settling. Several years ago, some friends
who did stand up informed me that I was funny.
I legitimately had no idea due to my penchant for
thinking I have no valuable skills. They asked me to
do a little set at their show and I agreed. Well,
I killed it. I felt like I was in the
right place for the first time, they laughed when they
were supposed to. They clapped. It was amazing. I did

(38:33):
it again, and I didn't do as well, but still
pretty good. Now It's been years since I've done it.
Because I'm so scared of being disliked, I would be
stuck doing open mic nights in Kansas City. I'm scared
of not only doing poorly, but I'm also nervous about
the rednecks hating me just because I'm gay. Plus I'm
burnt out, so I just don't feel funny or creative.
How do I move through the stress and bullshit to

(38:54):
get back to a place where I can be funny
and confident. I know I'm still young, but I would
hate to look back on my life and regret never
doing anything that was actually difficult I just finished your
special Revolution, available now on Netflix, and it just solidified
that I want to do what you do, Chelsea. I
want to make people laugh and find a way to
find humor in this craziness. Thank you for being you,

(39:15):
and I promise you really are changing the world. Sean Hi,
Sean hi Hi. Our special guest today is Matthew mccataughey.
What a tree. Oh my gosh, Hi, Bucky am I
I know, I know. Look how cute you look too?
How are you? My god? Thank you so much? Get
this gorgeous hair. I'm great. How are you guys? Yeah,

(39:38):
I'm great. You've met Catherine obviously, this is I'm my
co host. Well, it's nice to meet you. You too,
Thank you. I'm gonna go first, Matthew. Okay, I'm gonna
just since this is a stand up comedy question and
you just watched my special, and I've felt like you
before at different times in my life where I'd had
no creativity, I didn't know if I was funny, I

(39:58):
didn't care, I didn't want to work, blah blah blah.
I understand where you're feeling. You have to understand a
how lucky and fortunate you are to know what lights
you up. That's what every person is looking for. Our
last caller was trying to find that light. You know
what lights you up, you know what makes you feel
something that you really want to feel in this life.
And that's the biggest thing, you know what I mean?

(40:19):
You know that now you just have to walk that
avenue to get where you're going. And that's easier than
you ever thought it was. Yes, you're gonna bomb, You're
gonna do badly. People aren't going to always like you.
That's not the point. The point isn't to get everybody
to like you or to succeed all the time, because
there's no growth or learning in either of those things.
That's just a cherry, you know, like that's oh great,

(40:39):
I have that moment. It also doesn't last forever. The
idea is to get really just better incrementally at something,
And in order to get better at something and to
make a career out of it, you need to fucking
start doing it. So you have to start performing. It
doesn't matter if there are rednecks, it doesn't matter if
there are people that don't like gay people. It doesn't matter.

(41:00):
You know, that's even a better challenge to get the
people that won't necessarily be it's predisposed to liking you
to like you, you know what I mean, You're going
to be surprised. A lot of those people are going
to like you, and you're not going to believe it.
But in order to do that, you just have to
start the action. And you're a flight attendant. It's a
great way to practice material on people. You have new
people revolving through your door or your aluminum can, as

(41:23):
you say, which is a very apt description. I don't
know how the fuck you guys do that. But you
have an audience to play with at all times, so
you can be practicing your material at all times. Like
you have all these advantages. I think that you're looking
at as disadvantages and they're not right. That makes sense, Sean.
Where Chelsea's saying you've got an audience on that aluminum can,

(41:45):
sounds like you also have a huge source of your
particular comedy. I mean you're opening question. You know, I'm attendant,
I'm on alumini canists or three hundred people instead of
steel can and without saying it, yes, I'm gay. That's
already so I was already laughing at that, just your
delivery of how you wrote the question, those three hundred people,

(42:06):
the different idiosyncrasies or the ship they do. But she's like,
are you kidding me? That sounds like great material where
you're getting new material with every flight, right, So it
sounds like maybe just keep an ear open for every
one of those things. When you get annoyed at somebody
in seventeen a clockett, Oh that's gonna be a good joke.
Oh that's gonna be a good turn of phrase. Oh

(42:28):
that's I'm gonna use that every time you get annoyed
at somebody, look at him. Go how could that be funny?
Or how could that that actually could be funny if
I'm telling someone else because someone's gonna go, no shit,
I know people do that. They're gonna go. I didn't
know people do that really? Oh shit. I'm like, you've
got great source material in all thirty having many rows
of people, those three hundred people are sitting in. That

(42:52):
makes sense, Matthew. Do you also have some advice on
like how Sean can reclaim that confidence that he felt
the first time he performed? How do you reclaim a
look some of it. I'm gonna go back to what
I was talking about my mom with being a queen
of denial. A lot of it is. Look, I've I've
had thousands of days at work where I'm not confident

(43:13):
and I'm like, I'm just gonna blow through it. I'm
gonna make sure one and I have to convince myself
that eighty percent of me doing the job can showing
up and is getting there. And I've had some of
my better performances when I was not confident walking the Rangers.
That's going, man, I am and then found it in
the performance. But showing up and going and doing record

(43:35):
and what Chelsea was saying, you're gonna bomb huh huh,
no shit, you know you're gonna have lines of man.
When I rehearsed that, it was I was right on
the money. Everybody and I and I and I and
I waited too long or or I got I got
excited and I blew through the pause that set up
the punchline. So what do it the next time? But
it's just I think getting back out there and doing

(43:56):
it and doing it the next time. I'm doing it
the next time and by practice, when I find you
build confidence when you start to get a little better
at something you know, or when you start to feel
a lot of people say I don't like what I'm doing,
you can start to dig it by just purely getting
better at something. It's fun to get better at something,
to improve and become more competent at something you know.

(44:18):
It's also fun to flip the script of your attitude
towards it, Like your nervousness can be excitement, you know
what I mean. You can be like, oh, this is great.
My very first jokes were about waiting tables. When I
started doing stand up because I was I got a
d Y. I had to go to d Y class
where they made everybody get up and give a speech
about their dui. And I was so scared shitless of

(44:39):
public speaking that I would hide in the back of
the class, hoping this guy wouldn't call on me. And
when he did, I got up and told my dy story.
I was twenty one years old and the whole place
was dying laughing, and I didn't get off stage. I
was like, oh, this is fun. And then the dui
guy came up. He's like, hey, listen, this isn't stand up,
Like this isn't as a comedy club. Get off the stage.
And everyone was like, you got to be a stand

(45:00):
up comedian. And I was like, oh, that sounds scary,
and I was like, but I guess I have to.
I had what are my other options? I mean, what
was I going to do? I didn't know. I just
thought I had to be a public person. So I
my whole material was like people asking me what the
specials were and me actually saying what I wanted to
say to people, you know, like, as if you're going
to even remember this fucking meal in seven days, who

(45:22):
gives a shit what the specials are? Figure something out?
You know, my ass in your face is the special. Like,
I just had a whole slew of material about waiting tables.
You can do exactly the same thing that Matthew said
to start and launch your creativity, and you're going to
naturally move and flow and ebb and flow and all
the things and bomb and succeed. You're going to have

(45:43):
it all, but go into it knowing that it's a
full breadth experience and don't expect everything to just go well.
That's not the way we grow, right. I think that's
what's scary is than not doing well. It's I think
because the first time I did stand up, they introduced
me and the crowd was applauding, and I got up

(46:03):
on stage and the very first thing I said was
I kind of expected that to last a little bit longer,
and they like started applauding again, and I was just like,
oh shit, they like they're doing what they tell them
to do, and so it's like this high and I'm like,
I don't want to like, what if I would have
said that? And then they were just like, yeah, well
it's not gonna last long, right, Yeah, But what if?

(46:24):
Because there's there's so many millions of other people that
have your desire and are doing it, do you know
what I mean? Maybe not millions, but thousands definitely that
are doing you. Yes. How much? How much of stand
up is entertaining yourself? A lot? A lot? I mean,
when you think that joke's funny by hook or by crook,

(46:45):
f then the crowd, if they laugh or not a
lot of times it becomes funnier to them because you
enjoyed that joke. You think it's funny, right, Yeah, for sure,
it's hard to if you don't get the reaction, it's
hard to relax and go yes nobody, Yeah, clap from
a center. Whatever that is. You know, I mean, how
much is a lot of it is entertaining yourself. Well,

(47:06):
a lot of it's entertaining yourself, but it's also a
practice of like I tell stories all the time in
my personal life, and when I see that they get
a big reaction, I'm like, oh, that's a story for
the stage. If you know, my stand up is very personal.
Your stand up may be very joke oriented, but I
think anything that comes from your personal truth is valuable
to creativity. You don't want to pretend you're someone you're

(47:26):
not you. Obviously, being a stand up relies on the
audience laughing at some point. You know that is part
of it. So yes, you want to get there. But
you know, Matthew and I discuss this a little bit earlier.
We touched on not taking yourself too seriously. You want
to take everything seriously. But any moment like that is
not a life altering changing moment in a negative way.

(47:49):
It can always be a life altering changing moment in
a positive way. But a moment on stage is just
never going to crush you the way that you are
fearing like your you're letting you yourself be led by fear. Instead,
you got to be like bring it on, Like, let's
bring it on. Let's get the scary parts over with.

(48:09):
Like the sooner you get on stage, and the more
you get on stage, the quicker all of that stuff
is going to be out the back door. So like
get moving. Yeah that makes sense, you know what I mean? Like,
is there somewhere you can go do a set, like
a stand up comedy club where you live? Yeah, there's
a ton of places here in Kansas City that have
like there's like open nights and stuff. Yeah, yeah, do it.

(48:30):
Just start doing it. Makes you make us a commitment
that you're going to do it. What this week? Next week?
When can you get on stage? Yeah? I can, I
can do next week? All right, make that commitment to
us and yourself and go do it. Okay. I may
tell you one thing that my mentor Pinealem, my greatest
mentor this this woman of nineteen years told me, and
it was so liberating. Where I go every day every

(48:53):
job and then every every morning work. But I tell myself,
I tell myself, can I I dare you to screw
up golf? I dare you to screw up? Dare yourself
to screw up. Watch how I found that I screwed
up less when I dared myself to screw up, I
dare you to eat shit here, it just kind of
like popped the bubble and all so much pressure is off.
I'll give myself right there, So try and screw up

(49:15):
there you Okay? I like that. Yeah, even if it
goes badly, it's five minutes in the beginning, so it
doesn't matter. Then. It's just the only thing that matters
is you making the step in the right direction of
what's going to really fill your soul up. And it
sounds like you know what that is. Look at that
as a gift instead of a negative, and just run
towards it, you know. And anytime you have a bad set,

(49:36):
that's like great, because if when you have a bad set,
the next one's always the best one. I speak from experience. Yeah, okay,
thanks for calling shot break a leg I mean sorry, Yeah,
thank you so much. We have one other caller. Her

(50:02):
name is Carrie, a friend of about sixteen years has
recently professed his love for me. I've known he's had
a crush on me for a long time. He always
tells me I'm his type with his recent admission of
being in love with me, I thought, sure, why not,
let's try it. I warned him that he's setting himself
up to get hurt and that I may never get
the feelings for him he has for me, but he
wants to try anyway. I told him I can't just

(50:24):
flip a switch from friendship to relationship, so I asked
him to court me, and he's been trying really hard.
The trouble is he's not my type. I don't really
have a strong physical attraction toward him, but the person
he is and the time we spend together I love.
I'm a bit of a disaster with dating and have
been single most of my life. I'm forty eight. My
longest relationship of three and a half years, was with

(50:45):
a woman. Though I don't identify as a lesbian, it
just felt right at the time. I don't know what
it is with men. I just seem to find fault
in all of them and end up breaking up with them.
So Carrie told me that they dated for about a
month and she finally kissed him or they and she
got the ick and didn't want to continue. But I
think the bigger issue that came out of the conversation

(51:07):
is that Carrie's having trouble finding chemistry in general with
other people that she's dating. So I thought we could
explore that, explore what's wrong with the vibes and what's
going on there. Okay, yeah, Hi Carrie. Hi, Hi there,
This is Matthew McCarney. He's our special guest today. Hi. Hi,
nice to meet you. Hire. You know Catherine. Obviously you

(51:28):
guys have spoken. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So yeah,
so she told you that it went sideways. Well you
had a kiss, right, that was it? Yeah? So we
dated for almost six weeks. We tried the dating thing,
and he was doing because I asked him. I told
him he has to court me because you know, I'm
not just going to date him for no reason. And yeah,

(51:51):
he finally asked me on Valentine's can we kiss? And
I said sure, and honestly, it was like kissing a
family member. Okay, Well, let's go back. You said that
you have problems with intimacy with men, right, is that
what you said? Is it men or you don't have
problems like that with women? Well, it's not so much

(52:14):
with all men. I'm kind of more of the I
like the wine, not the label kind of thing that said.
I've dated more, way more men than women, So I
think with men it's just I do have some trust
issues with men, so it is harder for me to
get closer to them. I also find men over forty
extremely needy, and that is like one of my least

(52:37):
like I just it's so unattractive to me, so that
part is hard as well. Well. I think if you
have self admittingly that you have a lot of guardrails up,
it's very hard to break those down. And I think
that should be your number one objective right now, because
I don't think you can probably clearly even kiss this

(52:59):
guy while you're looking for excuses to not like him,
you know what I mean. And I had the last
guy I dated, I was friends with for fifteen years
and was never attracted to him, And it took a
long time and I did. I fell in love with him,
I became attracted to him. I was couldn't even believe it,
you know, I said, there's no way, there's no way,

(53:21):
and then it happened. So I don't think it kisses
definitively the end or the beginning of anything. I think
that you have some work to do about being open
and not every guy is that needy, Not every guy
is anything. Look at Matthew McConaughey. He's sitting here. He
just wrote this book. Well he didn't just write this book,
but he wrote a book that you should read called

(53:41):
green Lights. I read it. Oh oh great, all right,
so then you know about green lights? Yellow lights exactly, exactly, yeah,
yellow light right now, yeah, exactly. It's nice to hear that,
you know, because I know with you and Joe you
were friends for a long time and then so how

(54:02):
long did it take for you be able to be
able to look at him that way? Well, it's funny
you say that because in therapy, when I was wrapping
up therapy because I needed a break, I said, am
I supposed to be in a relationship? I just don't
feel like the relationship type like that. It's not I've
never been boy crazy, you know. I don't go god,
you know, like when I'm single, I like it. I'm

(54:22):
not trying always to find a guy. And I just thought,
maybe something's off with me. And he said, you have
too many barriers up. You just have roadblocks all around you,
he said, and you have to strip those away until
you're going to see somebody for who they are, not
what they represent, you know, not the fact that he's
wearing Prada jumpsuits that make me sick, or if we're

(54:43):
driving around in Ferraris that makes me cringe. Just I
had to get past all of my bullshit and finally
just see him for who he was, which is a
real person, you know, and those things don't define a person.
And I understand if you don't feel like you have
chemistry when you kiss somebody, it's hard to even think
about kissing them again or anything like that. But this
feels like it's a good opportunity for growth for you

(55:06):
in terms of really kind of trying to strip away
your layers and go into things that make you uncomfortable.
Not to a degree where you have to go of
sex with somebody that you're not interested in, but to
a degree where you're pushing yourself to perhaps go out
with him again and try it again, you know, and
if it's not him, another guy or another woman like whomever.

(55:26):
But as a practice for yourself, not necessarily to be
in a relationship, but in a practice of like tearing
down the things that go look to you when something says,
look to you or you have that feeling, you've got
to make a note of it and go, oh, that's
a yellow light. Is that about me? Or is that
about him or her? Right? Right? And I'm pretty sure

(55:49):
it is about me, because you know, we have all
the things in common. I'm like, if this doesn't work,
how the hell am I going to date anybody else
that doesn't have all these boxes ticked right? And it
was just kind of that all it's lacking is that spark,
you know, when you kiss somebody and then you want
to sleep with them. And that was kind of like,

(56:09):
I don't really want to sleep with you. That said,
I have slept with him in the past, so my bad.
I've maybe sent off the wrong signals exactly. So you
sleep with him past, you know, or not your beat?
One thing? I hear you, I hear you. Kind of
keep doing this. It's what Chelsea was saying. You said
a minute ago, I like the wine, not the label. Yes,

(56:32):
you're but you are labeling exactly what you want and
you have your own labels, which happens all this with maturity.
As we mature, we get kind of set in our ways,
and no, it needs to fit this and this is
how I this is how my life goes, this is
what I expect, and we're less malluable. And what I
hear Chelsea's saying, which I second, is relax your own

(56:54):
labels on yourself and the boxes that he or any
other man needs to absolutely fit for you. So maybe
just enjoy that one without looking at the label a
little bit. And I think that's what Chelsea's saying is
if if it's not just perfect, to cut yourself or
you go, wait, that that didn't fit, that didn't fit,
that didn't go exactly how I wanted it to be.
That kiss didn't make me want to go further. Well

(57:17):
maybe that was all it was needed. Right then maybe
start Sometimes you get to know that you already got
your asset with this guy, is that you already got
a friendship? Well not anymore there, Yeah, it was there.
The last eighteen years are not gone. Whatever y'all formed
over eighteen years, it's not like white outs over it.
It's still there. You want to rekindle that and go.

(57:39):
You want to pick back up and just go have
a freaking cup of coffee and not kiss. You want
to get back at doing some things that we like
we used to like to do just together and just
maybe that's maybe restarting there. And if you know that
if the kiss works, it'll probably be the time where
he doesn't ask you or you don't ask him, and
it just happens exactly and when, and go back when

(58:00):
you were asking me about when it happened for Joe
and me, we had hung out for over a year
before anything happened. And when it happened, I made it
happen because it had to come from me. And I
would suggest hanging out with them with you first of all,
repair whatever damage has been done, which you can easily
do over an eighteen year relationship, and say, let's just
try this again as friends. Let's see if it goes

(58:22):
anywhere in a more natural progression, because I think if
he ticks all these boxes a it's worth another go.
You do you know what I mean? You're saying, all
he has got all these things except for your feelings
towards him, and that can happen. That comes up for
people all the time. They fall in love with their
friends all the time. You can't force it to happen.
It has to naturally organically happen, and you can continue

(58:46):
to spend more time together. You don't have to kiss
each other or fuck each other or whatever, but spend
more time and see if it happens naturally. And also
as a test for yourself, also explore that with other
people too, you know, because I'm glad Matthew said that
about the wine and the label, because as soon as
you made that declaration, it was clear that you're doing
the opposite of what you think you're doing. You don't

(59:08):
have to make declarations about who you are, you know
what I mean. So I think that you might think
you're looking at the wine and not the label, but
it's quite the opposite, right, fair enough. I think right
now is good that this call worked out when it did,
because I was actually thinking of writing him or letter
because right now he's just cut me out of his
life completely, unfollowed me on duo, lingo and good Reads

(59:30):
and Facebook and all the things that we shared common
interest in. And I text him and I was like,
so my biggest fear was losing in the friendship. And
he just said, I can't be friends with you because
I'll always want more. And I thought, okay, so you're
just willing to throw away eighteen years of friendship because
your feelings are hurt. So it's like, at this point,

(59:51):
is it crossing a line to write him a letter
and just be like, hey, maybe we didn't try long
enough or I don't know. At this point sounds like
you're very similar. Maybe just simplify a little bit. And
then if you do write him a letter, which sounds
like you should, because about eighteen years, you don't want
to throw that out like that was a nothing part
of your life. That was real. Whether it works out

(01:00:12):
for you all or not, that was real. You built that.
You don't want to throw that out completely. I mean,
if you do write him a letter, be considerate. I'm
sure he feels like he got bruised or lost or
made an advance and you had it and then you
were like, Nope, that's it. He probably feels a little embarrassed,
a little shame, a little loss, a little less just

(01:00:34):
maybe as a friend. Go man, if this has out
and made you feel I didn't mean to hurt you,
but that's how I felt. This is all so damn complicated,
and you want to go back back back a few
months before we before that kiss, and just start with
when we were high fiving and go have a couple
of coffee or a walk and start right there some
simple shit and maybe maybe cuss each other out and go,
this fucking made me pissed off and this hurt me.

(01:00:56):
That could be it could be fun. You know. Yeah, yeah,
I agree with that, and I think you should definitely
write him a letter, but also acknowledge his feelings. Definitely
acknowledge the fact that he was the way he may
be feeling right now. But you know, as an effort
to retain this friendship, you can say, in the hopes
I want to have these feelings for you, I'm willing
to try this again, but we also have to be adults,

(01:01:18):
and if it doesn't work out, then it doesn't work out.
People have been turned down before and been able to
maintain friendships. You know. Obviously he needs a little bit
of time to get over what he's dealing with. But
I think that you should really definitely focus on some
of the things that we said to you about looking
within yourself and figuring out, you know, what your stipulations
and kind of roadblocks have been and kind of just

(01:01:40):
try to open them up and just kind of be
open to whatever. Don't have it in your head the
way that it needs to look perfectly right. Absolutely, well, Carrie,
let us know how it goes. Okay, for sure, Thanks, Okay,
good luck. Forty eight's great. I just turned forty eight,
and I'm yeah, I'm kind of at that age where

(01:02:02):
it's like, you know, I'm not one of those people
that is desperate to be in a relationship. I actually
quite like being single. And that's probably part of the
problem with dating, is like I'll start dating and then
I'm like, we're actually single. It's not so bad. So yeah,
I'm definitely at forty eight. I'm not even at forty eight.
I'm not in a rush to get into any sort

(01:02:24):
of relationship, but it would be nice. Okay, take care,
nice to speak with you. Thanks. Okay, we're running out
of time, so we're gonna take a quick break and
we'll be right back. And we're back. We're back. That
was awesome, Matthew McConaughey, you were great, has predicted. Yes,

(01:02:47):
thank you so to this event. To Matthew's event that
he's hosting with Tony Robbins. It is a virtual event.
It's called Art of Living Live on April twenty four, Right,
so you can go online and register at art of
livin event dot com and sign up. It's actually free
to attend, so go check it out. Oh yeah, that's awesome.

(01:03:10):
A matter. So it's all free. Yeah, it's all free.
Oh great and online? Okay, awesome. Thanks for sharing today,
Thanks for being here, Thanks for giving advice to our callers.
Appreciate it. I enjoyed that. Okay, enjoy that by Matthew. Bye.
Oh well, great episode, Mabulas and don't forget everybody. My

(01:03:31):
new special Revolution is now streaming on Netflix and it's badass.
And then I'm doing a tour, a little big Bitch tour.
Go to chelseahmma dot com for tickets. I've added some
new dates. I added a date in Monticello, New York.
I'm coming to Colorado to Red Rocks Amphitheater. I'm coming
to Calamazoo, and then I'm coming to a bunch of
places in Tennessee, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. That's May nineteenth, twentieth,

(01:03:54):
and twenty first, and then I'll be in Atlantic City
June tenth, which is almost still doubt So get your tickets.
If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email
at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and be
sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited
and engineered by Brad Dickart executive producer Catherine Law and
be sure to check out our march at Chelseahamler dot

(01:04:14):
com