🎧 Panic Rooms, Secret Bunkers And Flammable Moats!

This week on Double A Chattery, Amanda Keller and Anita McGregor unpack the rise of panic rooms, secret bunkers, and even flammable moats (yes, that’s a thing).

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
And Amanda jam Nation.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Notice yesterday double a chattery dropped.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
It's a really interesting one because I read an article
about a new industry that's being forged in the States
and it's the panic industry. Companies are helping people deal
with their panic. There's a billion dollar industry. What they're
doing is they are building things like moats that can
be set on fire. People are asking to have fireplaces

(00:25):
built in their house that move to the side and
you go into an underground bunker where there's a gun range.
People are putting panic rooms in their homes. And these
aren't just big richies. These are people who don't have
that much money. But lots of people are living in
a fear, are living in constant fear, and their fear
is really it's about stuff that it's pandemics, financial collapse,

(00:48):
civil unrest, nuclear war, the heightened level of anxiety and fear.
And I think we all feel it. That's the thing.
Even in Australia, if you're not building a bunker, we're
all living with this heightened anxiety at the moment. Do
you feel it? We're all feeling it.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well, yeah, but.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
I've been doing this for a long time, you know,
been reading newspapers and stuff every day. Been in the
media since I was twenty one, and I remember there
was a time when I used to get to me,
but now I sort of compartmentalize everything.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, you're lucky.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
I read the newspaper and I go, well, it's not.
I know how news works. I know what they do
to get you to get in the negative news cells
for example.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Of course, it doesn't makes who you lean in. You
lean in, and people have this in their faces with
social media every day. It's interesting because the podcast I
do with Anita, she's a forensic psychologist, and I love
picking her brains brain on things like this, and she said,
there's a difference between rumination and anger. Rumination is this
is what you do not want to be doing. This

(01:49):
is a constant state of going round and round with
no solution, heightened. All your senses are heightened with no release.
It's a horrible way to be. But if you can
pinpoint what your emotions are around any particular topic, if
it's anger, then you can make your way through.

Speaker 4 (02:03):
So in a strange way, Amanda, anger is a gift.
We don't get angry about things that aren't important to us,
and so I think that if we are at the
very least, we can kind of examine the things that
we get angry about, because really thereafter the things that

(02:24):
are important to it.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
So, for example, if climate change, do you feeling like
you can't do any things winding you up? Even doing
things on a very small level, organizing your recycling, just
these small things that you feel like, or join a
group you feel like you're moving through. It's rumination where
you're stuck. So examine why you're feeling the way that
you were feeling. And I asked her, with all the

(02:49):
world's horror in our faces, is it okay to step away?
Is it selfish to make it about yourself? Because you
can look at Gaza and just want to and then,
as you say, do something that makes you feel better.
Is it selfish not to wear the pain?

Speaker 4 (03:07):
I think that there's a huge difference between being selfish
and self care, and I think self care is a requirement.
There is that all saying about when you're on the airplane,
if those those masks come down, make sure that you
put it on yourself first before you put it on
your child or you know somebody who may be disabled

(03:28):
next to you, because if you can't take care of
yourself and you pass out from us lack of oxygen,
then you can't help anybody else. And I think that
that's an excellent way to move through the world.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
So it's okay to look away, it's okay to look away,
it's okay to take care of yourself. And when you
say take care of yourself, it's not something quite like
have a bubble bath, which it well.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
It might be. It's more, you know, maybe switch off
your phone, go for a walk, reach out to a friend,
do what you need to get out of the rumination.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
You know.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
She kind of also puts it into context that as
a human race and as human beings, we've been through
hard things before.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
We've been through difficult times before and survived. And you know,
like when World War two started, nobody knew what was
in store, nobody knew how or if it was going
to end, and yet it did and people survived through it.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
It's true we've got too much information, perhaps, yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
So, but it's interesting look at why you're feeling the
way you are. I learned a lot from that myself.
Just and if you're feeling angry and you want to
be angry, enjoy it, but if you want to move
through it, there are ways to