September 2, 2024 • 26 mins
This week is extra fun because we are literally talking about… fun. In this episode, Kat introduces us to “The Fun Scale” which helps to widen our view on fun so we can have more of it! Sometimes the fun of an experience isn’t in the experience at all- which may sound confusing to you but we promise once you listen to this epsiode it will all start making sense!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I started to realize that not being an expert isn't
a liability, it's a real gift. If we don't know
something about ourselves at this point in our life, it's
probably because it's uncomfortable to know. If you can die
before you die, then you can really live. There's a
wisdom at death's door. I thought I was insane. Yeah,
(00:31):
and I didn't know what to do because there was
no internet. I don't know, man, I'm like, I feel
like everything is hard.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey, y'all, my name is Kat. I'm a human first
and a licensed therapist second. And right now I'm inviting
you into conversations that I hope encourage you to become
more curious and less judgmental about yourself, others, and the
world around you.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome to You Need Therapy. Hi, guys to Welcome to
a new Monday episode of You Need Therapy Podcast. My
name is Kat. I am the host, and quick reminder
before we get into the episode today that although this
is called You Need Therapy and I am a licensed therapist,
this podcast does not serve as a replacement or a
(01:17):
substitute for any actual mental health services. But we also
always hope that it helps in some way, somehow on
whatever journey you were on. Now today is going to
be a fun episode because we're actually talking about something
called the fun Scale. Some of you guys might know
what that is. I'm not sure if I've ever talked
(01:39):
about it on here. It's actually something that I used
to reference a lot, but then I stopped referencing it
and the information kind of emptied from my brain and
I kind of forgot about it, as things tend to do.
But it came up in a session this week and
I thought to myself, Hey, I used to reference this
a lot and talk about it a lot, and that
(01:59):
must have been because it was useful. So maybe this
might be something that you guys would want to hear about.
And again, maybe some of you guys already know what
this is, but for those of you that don't, I'm
about to give you a little fun piece of information
or pieces of information. And I've been trying to figure
out where I learned about this first, because I thought
it was from my coworker when I was in an
(02:21):
adventure therapist, but now I also don't know if it
was taught to me by a guy that I dated
a while ago who was very outdoorsy, and I can't
remember because this is actually something that is used generally
with outdoor activities. It's in that I don't know what
to call that, Like obviously I'm not an outdoorsy girl
(02:43):
that whole world out there like outdoorsman adventure community, but
the types of fun are often referenced there when they
talk about the different things that they do, like climbing
and hiking and camping and all of those crazy things
that go into being the outdoor human. AnyWho, I say,
(03:03):
we just get into it. So let's start with what
is the fun scale? So the fun scale is a
scale of fun that that goes from one to two
to three that identifies and helps classify different types of
fun or different types of activities. It's really simple. There
are three types, and you'll see the pattern as I
(03:23):
talk about each one, and you'll see that. You know,
fun isn't always just in quotes fun, Stress and challenge
can oftentimes be a part of that, and I think
that is something that is very valuable to talk about
because a lot of times when we think about fun,
we literally just think about one type of fun and
we're gonna talk about three. One of the reasons like
(03:46):
I said, I find this so helpful with talking with
clients that I work with and just in my own life.
Is it widens our view of fun, it widens our
view of enjoyment, and it widens our view of pleasure.
And I did a couch talks at the time a
while ago talking about pleasure and taking pleasure seriously, and
it was inspired by a post from the Angry Therapist.
(04:09):
I don't know if you guys follow him on Instagram,
but he put that up a while ago, and then
I talked about it on here, but he actually just
recently reposted it, which is kind of timely and interesting.
But I want to just read a little part of
that post, just to refresh us from what he said
back then, and he wrote, pleasure doesn't just fall into
our laps. We must seek it, create it, and lean
(04:32):
backwards into it with our eyes closed and our arms folded,
like it's a trust test, because it is, and if
you fail, your relationship with your life will be on
thin ice, your world will be small, your shoulders hunched,
knuckles white. There is more to life than building your empire.
There is more to life than finding love. There's more
to life than raising children. There's more to life than
(04:55):
finding a purpose. A complete life also means to experience pleasure.
And I read this that was the end of it.
But I read this to remind us all that experiencing
fun and pleasure are essential to having a full life.
And part of this podcast is created to help people
access the tools and the ideas and the things that
(05:15):
they need to live the fullest life they can because
we all know we just get one of them, and
we all deserve to have the most full life that
we can have. And the interesting thing about fun and
pleasure is there's so much guilt that comes with purposely
doing things for the fun of it. You know, you
get the I should be doing this, or I could
be doing that, and all those ideas come into play,
(05:36):
and it just feels like is it even worth it
if I have to then feel like I should be
doing something differently, or I don't deserve this, or I
didn't work hard enough for this. In this episode is
a just I just wanted to be a wonderful, good,
healthy reminder that one of the most common regrets of
the dying. We learned this. I've learned this through the
(05:56):
podcast and I've through conversations on the podcast, continuing to
share this information with you all over and over because
I think it's so valuable. But when when looking at
the most common regrets of the dying, two of the
most popular ones were and have been I wish I
didn't work so much, and I wish I would have
let myself be more happy. We think of things like
(06:16):
pleasure and fun as privileges, which they are to an extent.
This isn't a black and white conversation, but pleasure and
fun also don't have to involve what you initially think about,
these lavish vacations, expensive dinners, concerts that cost a bajillion dollars.
That's not just fun and that's not just pleasure, And
it kind of like bleeds into that self care conversation
(06:37):
of like self care only involves these lavish things like
massages and facials and trips and this, and that's not true.
I want to widenari idea of what fun is, what
pleasure is, and what we can get out of both
of those things, because the truth is, we really get
to be fun into our stories. This is not always
a privilege, it's a right as a human. Now, again,
(06:58):
the other part of this conversation is how fun can
look different and it's not that simple. Which fun sounds
really simple? Right? Sometimes fun isn't really fun at all.
And I'm sure you've said before, I don't understand how
that could be fun for someone or man, we have
different ideas of fun. If that's fun for you, I've
said that before, I've thought that, I've heard that when
(07:20):
talking to someone. And there are a couple of reasons
for that. One, because we're why you're different. Just like
we like different foods, we might like different activities. The
other is you may be thinking about one type of
fun when somebody else is thinking about another type of fun,
and they're different and they all get to be fun.
So let's dive into the three types. So type one
(07:42):
Type one fun is more enjoyable fun when it's happening
like it's simply just fun. Type one fun applies to
activities that you just generally enjoy when you're experiencing them
in the moment. This could be eating at your favorite restaurant,
having Marguerite's on a patio with your friends, game night
(08:02):
with your friends, or family, laying out by a pool.
Think of anything that sounds fun just in the moment,
like you want to be in that moment. These are
oftentimes leisure activities or activities that don't take too much
physical strain or mental toughness. They have a lot to
do with preferences too. So, going back to what I
(08:23):
said right before, we got into the types. You might
love watching a movie on a Friday night, why somebody
else might be like, that's so boring. I want to
go take a painting class, or I want to go
to this trivia night at this restaurant. Also think about
like vacations. Your favorite vacation might be an inclusive resort
in Mexico, and your friends might be skiing in Colorado.
And you know what, there's no way that I want
(08:43):
to go skiing in Colorado. If I'm going on a vacation,
I will go to Colorado. But that's not my idea
of fun. But take me to an inclusive resort in
Mexico leave me there for a month. So different strokes
for different folks, you know. So that's type one. It's
just very simple. There's not like a ton to be said.
It just is fun for the sake of the activity.
Now let's move on to type two. Type too, fun
(09:06):
is when a task is difficult at the time but
feels rewarding afterwards. Often this is because it challenges you
to test your limits and it produces growth in you
that you appreciate. And I'm not sure how much I
would grow by drinking and margerita by the pool. You know.
That's why that's type one fun. It's fun for the
(09:27):
sake of being fun. Type too fun includes things that
are more challenging and may not be as pleasant at
the time. They become pleasant and they become gratifying when
you are reminiscing on them and thinking back on them
and looking at what you gain from them. This would
include things like a workout class. Maybe it didn't feel
pleasurable when you were going when you were at that class,
(09:51):
but when it was over, it was really fun to
see progress you made, or to see the commitment you
made to yourself. I mean, think about if you start
going to a word workout class and you can't do
one pull up, and then a couple months later you
end up doing three in a row without a break.
That is type two fun. It's this you get this
gratifying feeling of Wow, I'm so proud of myself. I'm
(10:11):
glad I did that, and that can be applied to
a range of physical measures. That doesn't just have to
be with pull ups, you know, it could also be
like an art project that's extensive and tedious. And I know,
for me, I like creative things like I like doing
I remember when I was planning my friend's bacherette party
back it was in October. It was actually so fun.
(10:32):
I was very proud of myself because I'm not a planner.
I don't enjoy planning things. I don't enjoy being in
charge of an extravagant situation like that, but I like
being in the experience. So it was fun for me
to create that experience. And I did all of these
like artsy projects. The theme was my friend's name is
(10:53):
kiro So the theme was Camp Kira. We did it
in Ashville. We got this cabin and made this huge
backdrop with all these different like felt cutouts, and I
did this big like pendant sign to hang from the
house that said welcome to Camp Kira. And I didn't
enjoy the experience of making that for the sake of
(11:13):
making it, because I just don't like those tedious kinds
of tasks. But it was fun. For me to look
back and see what I did and see the dedication
and see how, you know, somebody being important to me
can encourage me to do something that I don't love
doing all the time, and then I actually loved doing
it because I was doing it for that person. And
then it was also really fun to look at what
(11:33):
it gave us, Like putting it all together, like this
individual pendant that I made wasn't the fun, but it
was putting all this stuff together and seeing the final product.
So that's a long way of saying it could be
like an art project that is really extensive and tedious,
and maybe you filling in all the little dots and
the da da da da isn't the fun part. But
when you look back at what you did and the
(11:54):
dedication you had, that was fun. It can be a
problem solving situation too, And it makes me think of
escape games. For some people, that's type one fun. For me,
that's type two fun. I don't want to be in
this escape game. I want it to be figured out.
We actually got one of those. It's not like a
murder mystery party. It was like a detective game. We
got Patrick and I got one from his sister for Christmas,
(12:16):
and we had our friends over and did it and
it was so tedious. There are so many details, and
there are some people that came over that were like
in it to win it, and they loved it and
did all this stuff. And I was the person who
was on my phone looking up the answers. And then
it was fun once I found the answer and once
we got to the end of it. But I'm not
somebody that likes to be in the nitty gritty. Some
people like that, so for me, an escape game type
(12:37):
two fun. Type two fun is something that is sometimes miserable.
When I ran my first full marathon, Oh my gosh,
When I ran my first full marathon, I immediately said
to my friend that was there, do not ever ever
(13:00):
let me do that again. I had trained meticulously, I
had this perfect, beautiful training board. I did all these runs.
It did my rest days. I trained. I was so ready. However,
the day that the race came, it just so happened
that it was pouring rain the whole time, and my
(13:20):
headphone stopped working because of the rain. Honestly, this memory
is a little fuzzy. I don't know if they stopped
working or I got scared that I was going to
get electrocuted for using headphones while I was raining, which
I don't know if that's something I should be afraid of,
but I might have been. So I chucked my headphones
and my phone to my sister when I saw her,
like in the first three miles, And so I ran
for four hours without any music, without any sound except
(13:43):
the voice in my head, and near the end of
the race, I could already feel my muscles getting tight.
I was like sore before the race ended, and it
felt like I was almost like running backwards or in
slow motion at the end. And when I finished, it
was my head. I remember saying, do not ever let
me do that again. But then a couple of days
(14:05):
go by and you are sitting less with the physical pain,
and the challenge feels farther away, and the feelings of
accomplishment and excitement start to pump back in. So I
look back at that and I think that was fun.
And you know, I did another one, and it was
that same idea. I didn't rain. It was a much
more pleasurable experience, also somewhere where the road was much
more flat. However, right after it was done, I did
(14:28):
not want to run another one. I wanted it to
be over rather than you know, when you're on the
beach with your friends, you want that to keep going
on that type one fun. This I wanted to be over.
But then I also, after I had those feelings of
accomplishment and challenge and seeing where my limits were and
learning more about myself, it encouraged me to want to
do something like that again. Another example of type two
(14:49):
fun would be like hiking up a mountain that is
not easy, but then you get to see this beautiful view.
And hike is strenuous and maybe not the most pleasurable experience,
but the experience becomes pleasurable due to the hard work,
and you learn about the power of working and experiencing
something good, and how effort becomes worth the effort because
(15:10):
of that reward. And I say this, and I harp
on this, especially I harp on type two fun because
so often people say like, oh, sorry, that's like not
worth it. I'd never run a marathon, I'd never go
to hike. That's okay, you don't have to do either
of those things, but I don't want people to miss
out on the goodness that type two fun brings just
because the initial part doesn't sound exciting. There is power
(15:32):
in working for a reward, and sometimes the reward you
get from Type two fun isn't even what you think
you're gonna get. There are so many benefits to this
type of fun and having this type of fun and
making sure you have this type of fun in your life.
And some of those benefits would be increase self esteem,
Like to see what you can accomplish and to learn
(15:52):
what your limits are versus what you assume them to
be is huge. The memories you get. I have so
many good fond memories, not just of things like running
a marathon, but memories of doing these hard things that
have bonded me with people, bonded me with myself, bonded
me with God. The memories are things that I cherish
(16:13):
a lot of times more than being in that moment.
Like I was saying with the Type one like, you
just want to be in that moment. But a lot
of those Type one fun experiences, some of them have
great memories, but some of them it's just me, Like again,
land on the at the pool by myself. That's fun,
But I don't hold on to that memory as something sacred.
Usually other benefits to this type of fun I kind
(16:35):
of harped on this, but just the self discovery and
this one is just so I don't know what it means
a lot to me because you cannot know if you
can do something until you do it. And the lessons
that these experience, these experiences give you, they're just I mean,
what's the word for, I mean infinite. There's so many
and you never really know what you're gonna get. You
(16:56):
can get to know yourself so much better in these situations,
and you learn what I actually can do versus what
I don't want to do or what I think I
don't want to do. What you can learn what's important
to me. You learn about what's meaningful to you, and
you experience feelings that you might have never felt before
if you didn't give yourself the shot to feel those.
The other thing that is so huge for type two
(17:19):
fun is the resiliency that it brings. And in this
type of fun, you have to walk out of your
comfort zone and you get into this stretch zone. You're
not in a panic zone here. You walk from your
comfort to the stretch zone and you really get to
learn more about what you are capable of. And I
know for me the live shows that I did with Amy,
(17:41):
that might have been type one fun for Amy. That's
what she does. She talks in front of people. She
is a host of personality. That's what I think that
she might thrive on. That I don't I need to
ask her because I'm assuming this. But that was not
type one front for me. That was very much me
walking straight out of my comfort zone. And looking back
on those experiences to me is more satisfying than being
(18:02):
in them. I'd rather see the accomplishment than like, do
it again, although I'm sure we're going to be doing
them again. But I learned so much about my capabilities,
my strengths, my feelings throughout that experience, and I know
what I can handle. And one thing about resiliency that
seems to be unknown to a lot of people or
just not thought about, is that the only way to
(18:25):
build resiliency is to go through something where you have
to be resilient. That's the only way to be resilient.
To build resiliency, which we all need, it is a
very helpful thing to have in your life. You have
to go through challenge. And so when we think about
having the most full life that is going to have
to include challenges in things that we don't expect and
(18:48):
things that we always don't want to do because we
have to be to actually build that threat defense system.
For our nervous system to be really strong, it has
to feel threat so then it learns how to work right.
Has to be activated. So if we want our nervous
system to be resilient, it has to be activated, It
(19:09):
has to learn, it has to have experiences. And so
type two gives us a lot of opportunity to build
that resilience without it pushing us too far into that
panic zone that would be like hey, firefire, Like we
got to get out of here.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
You might think that sometimes, but Type two fund doesn't,
in my opinion, include a life or death situation. And
then the last thing that I mean, there's way more.
But the last thing I'm going to say that type
two fun really brings us is gratitude, which again is
one of those things that it seems like it's said
all the time, but it's such an important thing to
hold onto and to cultivate in our lives. And not
(19:47):
only do you build gratitude for your body and your
mind and your spirit for keeping you and pushing you
and sharing you. Through the toughness of the experience, you
get to build gratitude for the ease of life as well,
and knowing how hard something can be allows us to
be more present in the even moments of life, the
(20:08):
mundane moments of life that actually can be a lot
of the goodness of our lives. The only way to
truly have gratitude for our mountaintop moments is by knowing
that the valleys exist and by experiencing the valley and
of running a marathon wasn't hard for me, I don't
know that I would appreciate the accomplishment so much, and
I also wouldn't appreciate my nice, short, leisurely runs as
(20:30):
much these days either. So to wrap that whole section up,
Type two fun is really a type of fun that
is so fun because of the growth that it creates
for us and the opportunity for growth that it creates
for us. And discomfort is a key ingredient for growth,
and that is why that's a big part of this
(20:52):
type of fun. But discomfort can still be fun. Let's
move on to type three fun, the last type of fun,
and I I gotta say this is my least favorite
type of fun. It's a fun that I do would
never look forward to, and I don't really want to
always have in my life, but I need it. It's
actually not fun at all, which is kind of confusing
(21:14):
in this whole conversation. But it's something that is not
fun in the moment, and you never want to do
it again. The pleasurable part of this type of fun
is getting to tell the story of it, which might
sound weird, but we've actually all been here and we
all have these types of fun. It's when we have
those dreadful experiences that turn into the classic like dinner
table story that leaves you and your friends like dying
(21:37):
laughing hysterically, or like zoned in waiting in awe of
like the next thing that will happen, but you don't
want this experience to happen again. And it can be
something physical like you hiked I don't know, the Appalachian
Trail and you got caught in some kind of natural
disaster and maybe you did have this life or death situation,
maybe you encountered a deadly animal. Or it can be
(21:59):
something like the time you fell off the treadmill at
the gym in front of a bunch of people, which
I know those are like viral videos that are going
around on Instagram and TikTok and stuff like that. But
I say that because I have a friend who's notorious
for falling, and I think that she would probably choose
to never fall in public again. But she has one
story where she fell off of a treadmill at a
(22:21):
workout class. Repeatedly. It's like she fell and then she
tried to get up and like just walk it off,
but then she fell again and it was just a
whole thing. And I know that she doesn't want that
to happen again. That would be kind of crazy for
her to desire that, but it also has brought us
some of the best moments of laughter, and we reminisce
on that story over and over again. And honestly, I
(22:43):
wasn't even there. I just heard about it. The trainer
actually came up to me the next day and was like, Hey,
is your friend okay, And I was like, what are
you talking about. He was like, oh, you didn't hear.
So it's just become this like famous story in our
front group. And so again that's an example of yeah,
not something you really look forward to. But it's those
things that you're glad that they happened. It can also
(23:05):
be a grueling experience physical well, and I will say
those things that you're glad that they happened. Not all
the time you're like, yes, I'm glad that I fall
off the treadmill. But there's something to there's some pleasure
to be gained in being able to tell a story
like that. And again, it can be a grueling experience
physically or mentally. Maybe a story about the time you
broke a bone playing a sport, like you don't want
(23:26):
to break a bone, but maybe there's this crazy story
that you get to tell the story or get this
glory from this experience. Or it's something like I don't know,
you dropped your phone in the ocean while you're on
an out of country vacation and then you're stranded without
a phone and you have to do all this stuff
to figure out how to contact and get a new one.
And it's a great story. But we hope that never
(23:47):
happens to us again. So those are the three types
of fun. That is the fun scale. And I believe
that to live fully we need a nice mixture of these,
maybe not a balanced mixture, but a mixture. Maybe you
have more Type one, a little Type two, and a
pinch of Type three in your life. That's okay, it
doesn't have I don't think it should be. Probably, I
(24:08):
don't think we need as many Type threes as Type ones.
But I think a combination of these helps us create
the best versions of ourselves, along with giving us a
chance to live the most full lives. And obviously I
enjoy at a baseline and look forward to Type one
fun than most, but it's really Type two fun that
I have the fondest memories of and I tend to
(24:28):
appreciate more often than not. I think Type one fund
also allows me to have the energy and the mental
capacity and the mental strength at times. It's kind of
that regenerating fun that allows me to engage and more
of the Type two activities. Again, it's not about doing
one of these more than the other. It's about engaging
in all of them in order to allow ourselves to
(24:50):
have the best experiences we can have in our lives.
So when you think in your head, ugh, that sounds horrible,
I'm not doing it, or I can't understand how anyone
will call that fun. I want you to take a
second and wonder about what makes something fun. Sometimes it's
the present moment of the experience, but sometimes it's what
you get out of the experience that makes it so desirable.
(25:12):
And we need to take that into consideration when we
are saying yes and when we are saying no to
opportunities in our lives. So I hope that you enjoyed
this fun episode of You Need Therapy Podcast. You can
follow me at Kat dot defoda on Instagram and at
You Need Therapy Podcast where you'll get all the podcasts info.
You can email me Catherine at You Need Therapy Podcast
(25:35):
if you have any feedback or comments, or if you
have questions that you want me to answer on Wednesday's episode,
which are called couch Talks, which are episodes that I
answer questions that you guys sent in to me, which
you sent in through that email, so you can send
those whenever. I love getting them and until Wednesday. I
hope you guys have the fun to day you need
(25:56):
to have bott
I started to realize that not being an expert isn't
a liability, it's a real gift. If we don't know
something about ourselves at this point in our life, it's
probably because it's uncomfortable to know. If you can die
before you die, then you can really live. There's a
wisdom at death's door. I thought I was insane. Yeah,
(00:31):
and I didn't know what to do because there was
no internet. I don't know, man, I'm like, I feel
like everything is hard.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey, y'all, my name is Kat. I'm a human first
and a licensed therapist second. And right now I'm inviting
you into conversations that I hope encourage you to become
more curious and less judgmental about yourself, others, and the
world around you.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome to You Need Therapy. Hi, guys to Welcome to
a new Monday episode of You Need Therapy Podcast. My
name is Kat. I am the host, and quick reminder
before we get into the episode today that although this
is called You Need Therapy and I am a licensed therapist,
this podcast does not serve as a replacement or a
(01:17):
substitute for any actual mental health services. But we also
always hope that it helps in some way, somehow on
whatever journey you were on. Now today is going to
be a fun episode because we're actually talking about something
called the fun Scale. Some of you guys might know
what that is. I'm not sure if I've ever talked
(01:39):
about it on here. It's actually something that I used
to reference a lot, but then I stopped referencing it
and the information kind of emptied from my brain and
I kind of forgot about it, as things tend to do.
But it came up in a session this week and
I thought to myself, Hey, I used to reference this
a lot and talk about it a lot, and that
(01:59):
must have been because it was useful. So maybe this
might be something that you guys would want to hear about.
And again, maybe some of you guys already know what
this is, but for those of you that don't, I'm
about to give you a little fun piece of information
or pieces of information. And I've been trying to figure
out where I learned about this first, because I thought
it was from my coworker when I was in an
(02:21):
adventure therapist, but now I also don't know if it
was taught to me by a guy that I dated
a while ago who was very outdoorsy, and I can't
remember because this is actually something that is used generally
with outdoor activities. It's in that I don't know what
to call that, Like obviously I'm not an outdoorsy girl
(02:43):
that whole world out there like outdoorsman adventure community, but
the types of fun are often referenced there when they
talk about the different things that they do, like climbing
and hiking and camping and all of those crazy things
that go into being the outdoor human. AnyWho, I say,
(03:03):
we just get into it. So let's start with what
is the fun scale? So the fun scale is a
scale of fun that that goes from one to two
to three that identifies and helps classify different types of
fun or different types of activities. It's really simple. There
are three types, and you'll see the pattern as I
(03:23):
talk about each one, and you'll see that. You know,
fun isn't always just in quotes fun, Stress and challenge
can oftentimes be a part of that, and I think
that is something that is very valuable to talk about
because a lot of times when we think about fun,
we literally just think about one type of fun and
we're gonna talk about three. One of the reasons like
(03:46):
I said, I find this so helpful with talking with
clients that I work with and just in my own life.
Is it widens our view of fun, it widens our
view of enjoyment, and it widens our view of pleasure.
And I did a couch talks at the time a
while ago talking about pleasure and taking pleasure seriously, and
it was inspired by a post from the Angry Therapist.
(04:09):
I don't know if you guys follow him on Instagram,
but he put that up a while ago, and then
I talked about it on here, but he actually just
recently reposted it, which is kind of timely and interesting.
But I want to just read a little part of
that post, just to refresh us from what he said
back then, and he wrote, pleasure doesn't just fall into
our laps. We must seek it, create it, and lean
(04:32):
backwards into it with our eyes closed and our arms folded,
like it's a trust test, because it is, and if
you fail, your relationship with your life will be on
thin ice, your world will be small, your shoulders hunched,
knuckles white. There is more to life than building your empire.
There is more to life than finding love. There's more
to life than raising children. There's more to life than
(04:55):
finding a purpose. A complete life also means to experience pleasure.
And I read this that was the end of it.
But I read this to remind us all that experiencing
fun and pleasure are essential to having a full life.
And part of this podcast is created to help people
access the tools and the ideas and the things that
(05:15):
they need to live the fullest life they can because
we all know we just get one of them, and
we all deserve to have the most full life that
we can have. And the interesting thing about fun and
pleasure is there's so much guilt that comes with purposely
doing things for the fun of it. You know, you
get the I should be doing this, or I could
be doing that, and all those ideas come into play,
(05:36):
and it just feels like is it even worth it
if I have to then feel like I should be
doing something differently, or I don't deserve this, or I
didn't work hard enough for this. In this episode is
a just I just wanted to be a wonderful, good,
healthy reminder that one of the most common regrets of
the dying. We learned this. I've learned this through the
(05:56):
podcast and I've through conversations on the podcast, continuing to
share this information with you all over and over because
I think it's so valuable. But when when looking at
the most common regrets of the dying, two of the
most popular ones were and have been I wish I
didn't work so much, and I wish I would have
let myself be more happy. We think of things like
(06:16):
pleasure and fun as privileges, which they are to an extent.
This isn't a black and white conversation, but pleasure and
fun also don't have to involve what you initially think about,
these lavish vacations, expensive dinners, concerts that cost a bajillion dollars.
That's not just fun and that's not just pleasure, And
it kind of like bleeds into that self care conversation
(06:37):
of like self care only involves these lavish things like
massages and facials and trips and this, and that's not true.
I want to widenari idea of what fun is, what
pleasure is, and what we can get out of both
of those things, because the truth is, we really get
to be fun into our stories. This is not always
a privilege, it's a right as a human. Now, again,
(06:58):
the other part of this conversation is how fun can
look different and it's not that simple. Which fun sounds
really simple? Right? Sometimes fun isn't really fun at all.
And I'm sure you've said before, I don't understand how
that could be fun for someone or man, we have
different ideas of fun. If that's fun for you, I've
said that before, I've thought that, I've heard that when
(07:20):
talking to someone. And there are a couple of reasons
for that. One, because we're why you're different. Just like
we like different foods, we might like different activities. The
other is you may be thinking about one type of
fun when somebody else is thinking about another type of fun,
and they're different and they all get to be fun.
So let's dive into the three types. So type one
(07:42):
Type one fun is more enjoyable fun when it's happening
like it's simply just fun. Type one fun applies to
activities that you just generally enjoy when you're experiencing them
in the moment. This could be eating at your favorite restaurant,
having Marguerite's on a patio with your friends, game night
(08:02):
with your friends, or family, laying out by a pool.
Think of anything that sounds fun just in the moment,
like you want to be in that moment. These are
oftentimes leisure activities or activities that don't take too much
physical strain or mental toughness. They have a lot to
do with preferences too. So, going back to what I
(08:23):
said right before, we got into the types. You might
love watching a movie on a Friday night, why somebody
else might be like, that's so boring. I want to
go take a painting class, or I want to go
to this trivia night at this restaurant. Also think about
like vacations. Your favorite vacation might be an inclusive resort
in Mexico, and your friends might be skiing in Colorado.
And you know what, there's no way that I want
(08:43):
to go skiing in Colorado. If I'm going on a vacation,
I will go to Colorado. But that's not my idea
of fun. But take me to an inclusive resort in
Mexico leave me there for a month. So different strokes
for different folks, you know. So that's type one. It's
just very simple. There's not like a ton to be said.
It just is fun for the sake of the activity.
Now let's move on to type two. Type too, fun
(09:06):
is when a task is difficult at the time but
feels rewarding afterwards. Often this is because it challenges you
to test your limits and it produces growth in you
that you appreciate. And I'm not sure how much I
would grow by drinking and margerita by the pool. You know.
That's why that's type one fun. It's fun for the
(09:27):
sake of being fun. Type too fun includes things that
are more challenging and may not be as pleasant at
the time. They become pleasant and they become gratifying when
you are reminiscing on them and thinking back on them
and looking at what you gain from them. This would
include things like a workout class. Maybe it didn't feel
pleasurable when you were going when you were at that class,
(09:51):
but when it was over, it was really fun to
see progress you made, or to see the commitment you
made to yourself. I mean, think about if you start
going to a word workout class and you can't do
one pull up, and then a couple months later you
end up doing three in a row without a break.
That is type two fun. It's this you get this
gratifying feeling of Wow, I'm so proud of myself. I'm
(10:11):
glad I did that, and that can be applied to
a range of physical measures. That doesn't just have to
be with pull ups, you know, it could also be
like an art project that's extensive and tedious. And I know,
for me, I like creative things like I like doing
I remember when I was planning my friend's bacherette party
back it was in October. It was actually so fun.
(10:32):
I was very proud of myself because I'm not a planner.
I don't enjoy planning things. I don't enjoy being in
charge of an extravagant situation like that, but I like
being in the experience. So it was fun for me
to create that experience. And I did all of these
like artsy projects. The theme was my friend's name is
(10:53):
kiro So the theme was Camp Kira. We did it
in Ashville. We got this cabin and made this huge
backdrop with all these different like felt cutouts, and I
did this big like pendant sign to hang from the
house that said welcome to Camp Kira. And I didn't
enjoy the experience of making that for the sake of
(11:13):
making it, because I just don't like those tedious kinds
of tasks. But it was fun. For me to look
back and see what I did and see the dedication
and see how, you know, somebody being important to me
can encourage me to do something that I don't love
doing all the time, and then I actually loved doing
it because I was doing it for that person. And
then it was also really fun to look at what
(11:33):
it gave us, Like putting it all together, like this
individual pendant that I made wasn't the fun, but it
was putting all this stuff together and seeing the final product.
So that's a long way of saying it could be
like an art project that is really extensive and tedious,
and maybe you filling in all the little dots and
the da da da da isn't the fun part. But
when you look back at what you did and the
(11:54):
dedication you had, that was fun. It can be a
problem solving situation too, And it makes me think of
escape games. For some people, that's type one fun. For me,
that's type two fun. I don't want to be in
this escape game. I want it to be figured out.
We actually got one of those. It's not like a
murder mystery party. It was like a detective game. We
got Patrick and I got one from his sister for Christmas,
(12:16):
and we had our friends over and did it and
it was so tedious. There are so many details, and
there are some people that came over that were like
in it to win it, and they loved it and
did all this stuff. And I was the person who
was on my phone looking up the answers. And then
it was fun once I found the answer and once
we got to the end of it. But I'm not
somebody that likes to be in the nitty gritty. Some
people like that, so for me, an escape game type
(12:37):
two fun. Type two fun is something that is sometimes miserable.
When I ran my first full marathon, Oh my gosh,
When I ran my first full marathon, I immediately said
to my friend that was there, do not ever ever
(13:00):
let me do that again. I had trained meticulously, I
had this perfect, beautiful training board. I did all these runs.
It did my rest days. I trained. I was so ready. However,
the day that the race came, it just so happened
that it was pouring rain the whole time, and my
(13:20):
headphone stopped working because of the rain. Honestly, this memory
is a little fuzzy. I don't know if they stopped
working or I got scared that I was going to
get electrocuted for using headphones while I was raining, which
I don't know if that's something I should be afraid of,
but I might have been. So I chucked my headphones
and my phone to my sister when I saw her,
like in the first three miles, And so I ran
for four hours without any music, without any sound except
(13:43):
the voice in my head, and near the end of
the race, I could already feel my muscles getting tight.
I was like sore before the race ended, and it
felt like I was almost like running backwards or in
slow motion at the end. And when I finished, it
was my head. I remember saying, do not ever let
me do that again. But then a couple of days
(14:05):
go by and you are sitting less with the physical pain,
and the challenge feels farther away, and the feelings of
accomplishment and excitement start to pump back in. So I
look back at that and I think that was fun.
And you know, I did another one, and it was
that same idea. I didn't rain. It was a much
more pleasurable experience, also somewhere where the road was much
more flat. However, right after it was done, I did
(14:28):
not want to run another one. I wanted it to
be over rather than you know, when you're on the
beach with your friends, you want that to keep going
on that type one fun. This I wanted to be over.
But then I also, after I had those feelings of
accomplishment and challenge and seeing where my limits were and
learning more about myself, it encouraged me to want to
do something like that again. Another example of type two
(14:49):
fun would be like hiking up a mountain that is
not easy, but then you get to see this beautiful view.
And hike is strenuous and maybe not the most pleasurable experience,
but the experience becomes pleasurable due to the hard work,
and you learn about the power of working and experiencing
something good, and how effort becomes worth the effort because
(15:10):
of that reward. And I say this, and I harp
on this, especially I harp on type two fun because
so often people say like, oh, sorry, that's like not
worth it. I'd never run a marathon, I'd never go
to hike. That's okay, you don't have to do either
of those things, but I don't want people to miss
out on the goodness that type two fun brings just
because the initial part doesn't sound exciting. There is power
(15:32):
in working for a reward, and sometimes the reward you
get from Type two fun isn't even what you think
you're gonna get. There are so many benefits to this
type of fun and having this type of fun and
making sure you have this type of fun in your life.
And some of those benefits would be increase self esteem,
Like to see what you can accomplish and to learn
(15:52):
what your limits are versus what you assume them to
be is huge. The memories you get. I have so
many good fond memories, not just of things like running
a marathon, but memories of doing these hard things that
have bonded me with people, bonded me with myself, bonded
me with God. The memories are things that I cherish
(16:13):
a lot of times more than being in that moment.
Like I was saying with the Type one like, you
just want to be in that moment. But a lot
of those Type one fun experiences, some of them have
great memories, but some of them it's just me, Like again,
land on the at the pool by myself. That's fun,
But I don't hold on to that memory as something sacred.
Usually other benefits to this type of fun I kind
(16:35):
of harped on this, but just the self discovery and
this one is just so I don't know what it means
a lot to me because you cannot know if you
can do something until you do it. And the lessons
that these experience, these experiences give you, they're just I mean,
what's the word for, I mean infinite. There's so many
and you never really know what you're gonna get. You
(16:56):
can get to know yourself so much better in these situations,
and you learn what I actually can do versus what
I don't want to do or what I think I
don't want to do. What you can learn what's important
to me. You learn about what's meaningful to you, and
you experience feelings that you might have never felt before
if you didn't give yourself the shot to feel those.
The other thing that is so huge for type two
(17:19):
fun is the resiliency that it brings. And in this
type of fun, you have to walk out of your
comfort zone and you get into this stretch zone. You're
not in a panic zone here. You walk from your
comfort to the stretch zone and you really get to
learn more about what you are capable of. And I
know for me the live shows that I did with Amy,
(17:41):
that might have been type one fun for Amy. That's
what she does. She talks in front of people. She
is a host of personality. That's what I think that
she might thrive on. That I don't I need to
ask her because I'm assuming this. But that was not
type one front for me. That was very much me
walking straight out of my comfort zone. And looking back
on those experiences to me is more satisfying than being
(18:02):
in them. I'd rather see the accomplishment than like, do
it again, although I'm sure we're going to be doing
them again. But I learned so much about my capabilities,
my strengths, my feelings throughout that experience, and I know
what I can handle. And one thing about resiliency that
seems to be unknown to a lot of people or
just not thought about, is that the only way to
(18:25):
build resiliency is to go through something where you have
to be resilient. That's the only way to be resilient.
To build resiliency, which we all need, it is a
very helpful thing to have in your life. You have
to go through challenge. And so when we think about
having the most full life that is going to have
to include challenges in things that we don't expect and
(18:48):
things that we always don't want to do because we
have to be to actually build that threat defense system.
For our nervous system to be really strong, it has
to feel threat so then it learns how to work right.
Has to be activated. So if we want our nervous
system to be resilient, it has to be activated, It
(19:09):
has to learn, it has to have experiences. And so
type two gives us a lot of opportunity to build
that resilience without it pushing us too far into that
panic zone that would be like hey, firefire, Like we
got to get out of here.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
You might think that sometimes, but Type two fund doesn't,
in my opinion, include a life or death situation. And
then the last thing that I mean, there's way more.
But the last thing I'm going to say that type
two fun really brings us is gratitude, which again is
one of those things that it seems like it's said
all the time, but it's such an important thing to
hold onto and to cultivate in our lives. And not
(19:47):
only do you build gratitude for your body and your
mind and your spirit for keeping you and pushing you
and sharing you. Through the toughness of the experience, you
get to build gratitude for the ease of life as well,
and knowing how hard something can be allows us to
be more present in the even moments of life, the
(20:08):
mundane moments of life that actually can be a lot
of the goodness of our lives. The only way to
truly have gratitude for our mountaintop moments is by knowing
that the valleys exist and by experiencing the valley and
of running a marathon wasn't hard for me, I don't
know that I would appreciate the accomplishment so much, and
I also wouldn't appreciate my nice, short, leisurely runs as
(20:30):
much these days either. So to wrap that whole section up,
Type two fun is really a type of fun that
is so fun because of the growth that it creates
for us and the opportunity for growth that it creates
for us. And discomfort is a key ingredient for growth,
and that is why that's a big part of this
(20:52):
type of fun. But discomfort can still be fun. Let's
move on to type three fun, the last type of fun,
and I I gotta say this is my least favorite
type of fun. It's a fun that I do would
never look forward to, and I don't really want to
always have in my life, but I need it. It's
actually not fun at all, which is kind of confusing
(21:14):
in this whole conversation. But it's something that is not
fun in the moment, and you never want to do
it again. The pleasurable part of this type of fun
is getting to tell the story of it, which might
sound weird, but we've actually all been here and we
all have these types of fun. It's when we have
those dreadful experiences that turn into the classic like dinner
table story that leaves you and your friends like dying
(21:37):
laughing hysterically, or like zoned in waiting in awe of
like the next thing that will happen, but you don't
want this experience to happen again. And it can be
something physical like you hiked I don't know, the Appalachian
Trail and you got caught in some kind of natural
disaster and maybe you did have this life or death situation,
maybe you encountered a deadly animal. Or it can be
(21:59):
something like the time you fell off the treadmill at
the gym in front of a bunch of people, which
I know those are like viral videos that are going
around on Instagram and TikTok and stuff like that. But
I say that because I have a friend who's notorious
for falling, and I think that she would probably choose
to never fall in public again. But she has one
story where she fell off of a treadmill at a
(22:21):
workout class. Repeatedly. It's like she fell and then she
tried to get up and like just walk it off,
but then she fell again and it was just a
whole thing. And I know that she doesn't want that
to happen again. That would be kind of crazy for
her to desire that, but it also has brought us
some of the best moments of laughter, and we reminisce
on that story over and over again. And honestly, I
(22:43):
wasn't even there. I just heard about it. The trainer
actually came up to me the next day and was like, Hey,
is your friend okay, And I was like, what are
you talking about. He was like, oh, you didn't hear.
So it's just become this like famous story in our
front group. And so again that's an example of yeah,
not something you really look forward to. But it's those
things that you're glad that they happened. It can also
(23:05):
be a grueling experience physical well, and I will say
those things that you're glad that they happened. Not all
the time you're like, yes, I'm glad that I fall
off the treadmill. But there's something to there's some pleasure
to be gained in being able to tell a story
like that. And again, it can be a grueling experience
physically or mentally. Maybe a story about the time you
broke a bone playing a sport, like you don't want
(23:26):
to break a bone, but maybe there's this crazy story
that you get to tell the story or get this
glory from this experience. Or it's something like I don't know,
you dropped your phone in the ocean while you're on
an out of country vacation and then you're stranded without
a phone and you have to do all this stuff
to figure out how to contact and get a new one.
And it's a great story. But we hope that never
(23:47):
happens to us again. So those are the three types
of fun. That is the fun scale. And I believe
that to live fully we need a nice mixture of these,
maybe not a balanced mixture, but a mixture. Maybe you
have more Type one, a little Type two, and a
pinch of Type three in your life. That's okay, it
doesn't have I don't think it should be. Probably, I
(24:08):
don't think we need as many Type threes as Type ones.
But I think a combination of these helps us create
the best versions of ourselves, along with giving us a
chance to live the most full lives. And obviously I
enjoy at a baseline and look forward to Type one
fun than most, but it's really Type two fun that
I have the fondest memories of and I tend to
(24:28):
appreciate more often than not. I think Type one fund
also allows me to have the energy and the mental
capacity and the mental strength at times. It's kind of
that regenerating fun that allows me to engage and more
of the Type two activities. Again, it's not about doing
one of these more than the other. It's about engaging
in all of them in order to allow ourselves to
(24:50):
have the best experiences we can have in our lives.
So when you think in your head, ugh, that sounds horrible,
I'm not doing it, or I can't understand how anyone
will call that fun. I want you to take a
second and wonder about what makes something fun. Sometimes it's
the present moment of the experience, but sometimes it's what
you get out of the experience that makes it so desirable.
(25:12):
And we need to take that into consideration when we
are saying yes and when we are saying no to
opportunities in our lives. So I hope that you enjoyed
this fun episode of You Need Therapy Podcast. You can
follow me at Kat dot defoda on Instagram and at
You Need Therapy Podcast where you'll get all the podcasts info.
You can email me Catherine at You Need Therapy Podcast
(25:35):
if you have any feedback or comments, or if you
have questions that you want me to answer on Wednesday's episode,
which are called couch Talks, which are episodes that I
answer questions that you guys sent in to me, which
you sent in through that email, so you can send
those whenever. I love getting them and until Wednesday. I
hope you guys have the fun to day you need
(25:56):
to have bott
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