October 28, 2025 • 53 mins
What happens when you finally turn the volume down on the world and sit with your own thoughts? We crack open The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter and dive into an uncomfortable truth: many of us would literally rather take an electric shock than face the noise in our heads. That stat becomes our entry point to a bigger conversation about why intentional solitude is not the enemy of connection—it’s the training ground for it.
We unpack the difference between loneliness and solitude, share candid stories of grief, divorce, and the guilt of needing time alone, and connect it all to research that links chronic loneliness to worse health outcomes. On the other side, we highlight the Harvard findings showing that strong relationships predict long-term happiness far more than money or status. Here’s the paradox we land on: learning to be alone helps you show up more grounded, kinder, and more present in your marriage, friendships, and family life.
You’ll leave with two simple practices you can start today. First, a daily micro-dose of quiet: ten minutes without tech—no music, no podcasts, no scrolling—just breath and awareness. Second, a one-sentence morning note: write one thing you like about yourself. These small reps chip away at the 13-to-1 negativity bias most of us carry, tame runaway worry, and rebuild a steadier inner voice. If you’ve been avoiding the quiet, consider this your gentle nudge to try it and see who you become on the other side.
If this conversation hits home, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a hopeful reframe, and leave a quick review telling us one thing you like about yourself today. Your story might be the spark someone else needs.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hey guys, what's up?
I'm Greg.
I hope you guys are ready tounpack and get into some good
conversations today.
SPEAKER_04 (00:07):
And I'm Jess, and this is our podcast, Baggage
Clay.
Thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_01 (00:17):
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to Baggage Clane.
I hope you guys are doing great.
If it's your first time here,thanks for joining us.
If you're a regular, you knowyou know the drill.
Uh first timers, man, thanks forbeing here.
We're going to just uh grab yourfavorite drink, whatever that
may be.
We're going to circle up aroundthe table, pull yourself up to
(00:40):
the table proverbally, becausewherever you're at or whatever
you're doing, um baggage claimis a place where we just talk
about marriage, relationships,and we're hoping to create some
conversations and some communityaround both those things.
SPEAKER_04 (00:55):
Also, also I'd like to welcome you to episode 35.
SPEAKER_01 (00:59):
Episode okay.
Welcome to 35.
Holy moly.
Before we get into the book.
SPEAKER_04 (01:05):
Yes.
And if you ever hear me gigglein the beginning, this is for
our new friends.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10):
Yeah, everybody knows this who's been.
We all know this.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (01:13):
Literally, that's why I said this is a good thing.
You can tell it to the newfriends.
SPEAKER_00 (01:16):
Tell it to the new friends.
SPEAKER_04 (01:17):
I'm trying to, boys.
SPEAKER_01 (01:18):
Our friends in Canada.
What's up, B?
SPEAKER_04 (01:22):
Oh my gosh.
Y'all.
No.
Every time if I'm gigglingduring the intro, it's because I
know 35 times we're going to dothis.
They the guys do a clap so wecan sync up the audio, video,
all the things.
And it's never not funny to me.
It's literally never not funny.
SPEAKER_00 (01:41):
Maybe if we finally invest in one of those like
little thingies and let Jess doit, maybe it would be better.
SPEAKER_01 (01:47):
Maybe she wouldn't know.
I've asked multiple times forsomeone to send us one to
message me and send me one.
And right now we still don'thave one.
SPEAKER_04 (01:54):
So I still get to laugh at the clap.
SPEAKER_01 (01:56):
Laugh at the clap.
SPEAKER_04 (01:57):
I feel like I'm going to laugh if it no matter
what.
SPEAKER_01 (01:59):
All right.
Before we get way into thistopic, thank you for explaining
your life.
We just want to say our newKindle is because of Dog Hobble,
where uh this past week wecelebrated our 13th uh
anniversary.
And so we spent the day at acouple of our favorite wineries.
SPEAKER_04 (02:20):
In the mountains in northeast Georgia.
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (02:22):
And one of our favorite ones is a place called
Dog Hobble.
And if you know about it, youknow.
And it's an amazing place.
SPEAKER_04 (02:28):
It's one of the newer ones.
SPEAKER_01 (02:29):
Yes.
SPEAKER_04 (02:30):
Sweetest family owns it.
SPEAKER_01 (02:32):
Super cool place.
They just opened another littlespot.
They have a pavilion which isoutside.
They have a little house upside,well, I think it's 21 and older
there.
A really, really, really coolspot.
If you haven't tried out uh doghobble, you don't know about the
Trevor Burrus.
SPEAKER_04 (02:47):
And it's literally what we're saying dog hobble,
but it's all one word.
SPEAKER_01 (02:51):
It's a farm.
SPEAKER_04 (02:52):
It is a huge winery.
SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
Where the dogs hobble.
Yes.
And they have an amazing wineselection.
It's really, really good.
SPEAKER_04 (03:00):
There's sheep you can watch.
SPEAKER_01 (03:02):
Yeah.
I think Zach is the guy wetalked to last time we were up
there and hung out.
But that's where our candle'sfrom.
It's our favorite wine,Triminette, which is ours there.
We love it.
SPEAKER_04 (03:11):
So if you're watching on YouTube, that's what
you're looking at.
SPEAKER_01 (03:14):
And it has a Woodwick candle.
Yeah, if you're not, we have awine bottle on the podcast
that's cut in half.
It's a wine, it's a candle, andit's a wine candle with case.
SPEAKER_05 (03:22):
She's a beauty.
SPEAKER_01 (03:23):
Yeah, she smells like she is a beauty.
So go check them out.
If you happen to go up there,just tell them, hey, we heard
about you on a podcast calledBaggage Claim.
This is um, I don't know.
SPEAKER_05 (03:35):
We're wine club members.
SPEAKER_01 (03:36):
Yeah, we love them up there.
They're great people.
So go check them out if you knowsee what's happened.
So before we get too seriousinto our episode, and um I think
it's time for us to jump into uhReady Question.
SPEAKER_05 (03:51):
You didn't even do it.
Oh, my bad.
SPEAKER_01 (03:56):
I have two relaxed a little bit.
All right, shoot, Jess.
What you got?
We'll go for one and we'll seehow if the first one start with
the best one because if it's notgood, we're gonna skip it.
SPEAKER_04 (04:05):
Oh, that's not the best one I was gonna start with.
My bad.
Okay.
I was gonna start with the easyone.
SPEAKER_01 (04:11):
No, we don't want easy.
SPEAKER_04 (04:13):
Ah, bruh.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (04:17):
Would you rather be a dumb question?
Go ahead.
SPEAKER_04 (04:23):
No, it's actually a good one.
Would you rather have eyes thatfilm everything or ears that
record everything?
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (04:33):
I think I would do ears that record everything.
Why?
SPEAKER_03 (04:38):
Why?
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
I don't know.
Like have you ever heard a uh Idon't know, this might be just
me being weird and being intomusic and stuff, like you ever
hear like a just a mix ofsomething that's just phenomenal
and you just go back to it.
Like something that just soundsgreat.
Or like screaming into the GrandCanyon and just hearing the
natural echoes and naturalreverberations.
(05:00):
Like I've never screamed intothe Grand Canyon.
SPEAKER_04 (05:02):
I've never even seen the Grand Canyon.
SPEAKER_00 (05:04):
What?
SPEAKER_04 (05:05):
No, Greg's never seen it.
SPEAKER_00 (05:06):
It's quite big.
That's why they call it Grand.
It's basically a gully.
SPEAKER_04 (05:10):
It is the Grand Gully.
SPEAKER_00 (05:12):
Just the Grand Gully.
SPEAKER_04 (05:14):
There's a lot of things I've seen on the TikToks
about what Grand Canyon reallyis.
It's like a lot ofextraterrestrial.
SPEAKER_01 (05:22):
Oh no, we're not doing that.
SPEAKER_04 (05:24):
I'm not, I don't remember anything.
I've seen it.
SPEAKER_01 (05:27):
That's so true.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (05:29):
I would rather have eyes that film everything.
SPEAKER_01 (05:34):
Okay.
SPEAKER_04 (05:36):
Because I I'm gonna I wanna see my memories.
SPEAKER_01 (05:40):
Um I would go with the uh record.
I think I I'm I care more aboutthe words than uh the visual.
And I think uh word you just youif you can hear it you focus
more on the words and not thevisual.
Because sometimes in the visualyou lose track of what's
actually being said.
SPEAKER_04 (05:58):
You know what's interesting is that I think it's
what kind of learner you are.
Like I'm a visual learner, so Iwant to see it.
So I are we assuming that if youchoose one you forget how to do
the other?
SPEAKER_03 (06:12):
So I'm a visual one.
SPEAKER_04 (06:14):
No, I'm just saying, like if you choose, you want to
have eyes that film everything.
Does that mean you can't hearanymore?
SPEAKER_00 (06:20):
No.
SPEAKER_04 (06:20):
Or vice versa?
That was not that wasn't thepart of the question.
SPEAKER_00 (06:25):
No, I'm just saying it's interesting.
SPEAKER_04 (06:28):
It's just interesting that you guys both
are like, I want to hear it, butI want to see it.
Because I'm pretending like if Ican't, if I choose, I want to
see or film everything so I cansee memories and see what I've
seen.
That means I can't hear itanymore.
SPEAKER_01 (06:44):
You want to see what you see.
SPEAKER_04 (06:46):
I know.
I didn't know.
SPEAKER_00 (06:46):
Yeah, but then I think of the Larry Fleet concert
we went to, and I was like, ooh,I wish I could hear that again.
Because it was so good.
It was done so good.
SPEAKER_05 (06:54):
Okay, okay.
That was sweet.
SPEAKER_00 (06:56):
God misses Larry Fleet.
SPEAKER_04 (07:01):
Thank you for coming to our hometown.
SPEAKER_00 (07:03):
Yeah.
Yeah, that dude is soft.
SPEAKER_04 (07:04):
It was amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (07:05):
Production team was phenomenal.
Larry Fleet and the guys weregreat, but it it was a great.
All right.
Let's jump in.
Or do you want to hit the secondone?
SPEAKER_04 (07:14):
No, because you all are gonna the second one is the
dumb one.
SPEAKER_01 (07:18):
Okay, okay.
All right.
So let's jump into our uh topicfor today.
Uh we're reading through a bookthat started with We, y'all.
Okay, so Michael and I arereading through a book called
The Comfort Crisis.
Great book, phenomenal byMichael Easter.
SPEAKER_04 (07:33):
I crashed your book talk last night.
SPEAKER_00 (07:37):
A couple of days.
It was just yesterday.
SPEAKER_04 (07:39):
It was like it was a week ago.
SPEAKER_03 (07:41):
It was yesterday.
SPEAKER_04 (07:41):
But I was not participating.
Y'all were talking about yourbook.
I brought my Kindle because I'mrereading Verity by uh by
Freedom McFadden because themovie's coming out soon.
So I was deep into my murdermystery.
It's not really a murdermystery.
Anyway, I wasn't listening toy'all.
SPEAKER_01 (07:59):
So we got into the topic of thank you for telling
us about your murder.
SPEAKER_04 (08:04):
No, it's not by Freedom McFadden.
It's by excuse me, ColleenHoover.
I apologize.
SPEAKER_01 (08:09):
So we were talking about the uh the idea of being
alone.
And then we just we went on arabbit trail and we started
talking about lots of other ideaof thinking about relationships
in our life and the idea ofbeing alone and the idea of
solitude, and then it juststarted spiraling, which led us
(08:30):
to this episode um of justgetting together and saying,
let's let's talk about umsolitude.
Let's talk about being alone.
SPEAKER_02 (08:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:40):
What does that look like?
What does it mean?
How is that helpful?
Because we say here on BaggageClaims so many times that if you
want to be the best husband, thebest wife, the best friend, um,
all those people in your life,if you want to have great, good
relationships, be the bestversion of yourself.
In other words, uh emotionally,mentally, physically, uh
(09:01):
spiritually, those like thosethings be be on top of your
game, you're gonna be great inthose areas.
SPEAKER_04 (09:09):
I feel like I made I made a mistake though like maybe
two times I was listening toy'all's conversation and y'all
talking about being okay beingalone, and I'll just like raise
my eyes out of my kennel.
I was like, I'm not okay beingalone.
It's not a good that's not agood thing for me.
And then it just went down thiswhole thing.
SPEAKER_01 (09:29):
Well, no, that led to us looking at Jess and
saying, So why do you not likebeing alone?
She goes, I'm not gonna talkabout it.
And she stuck her head back intothe candle.
She said, she was like, Don'ttalk to me.
I don't want to talk about it.
Then she tried to act like shedidn't want to talk to us.
You asked the question.
SPEAKER_04 (09:46):
I'm sorry, I'm not here.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (09:48):
I was like, I didn't ask it, you did.
I didn't ask it.
And so it just we we wanted todive into that.
And so there's some there's astudy in the book.
Do you want to Michael Michaelproducer Michael is with us at
the table tonight?
What's up?
Um, because this is aconversation we all have a lot.
Yeah.
Even when we're together, we allhave this.
SPEAKER_00 (10:09):
Even before we even have this book, we've talked
about aspects of this.
SPEAKER_04 (10:12):
Right.
And the three of us have suchgood conversations.
Like even I don't mean to veeroff, but even like when we were
eating dinner together just nowbefore this our routine.
We have dinner together, then wedo this.
We had such a good conversation,and you said out you said, this
is when we need to be recordingright now.
SPEAKER_00 (10:32):
It's like, why aren't we already?
SPEAKER_04 (10:33):
Or which one of y'all said it?
But it was just like that wassuch good conversation.
But we have talks like thisoften, just as a friend group.
SPEAKER_01 (10:41):
Yeah.
So you hopefully just joining usas we it may not be as
structured as we usually are,but this is us three friends
having a conversation about thisin life.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (10:54):
Welcome to our friend group and what
conversations look like.
unknown (10:57):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (10:58):
Yeah.
I think one thing that we shouldmaybe start with, just in in
preface to this, is there is anepidemic in America, even stated
by the U.S.
government, with a problem ofpeople feeling lonely.
Correct.
And, you know, it talks a littlebit as to why is that.
You know, we're in a culturewhere we're around more people
(11:20):
than ever.
Even when we're by ourselves, wehad voices speaking to us,
whether it be a podcast orwhether it be faces on a show or
listening, scrolling throughTikTok, whatever it is, we're
actually never really alone.
SPEAKER_03 (11:32):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (11:33):
No, we're more connected than we've ever been.
SPEAKER_01 (11:35):
Supposedly.
Supposedly.
In all of civilization.
Well, what did you and I justtalk about?
I said last night, I am hookedon this guy.
I don't know.
This Finn, this Finland guy whobought an island and is building
a cabin with him and his wifeand the really cute dog.
SPEAKER_05 (11:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:51):
And I was like, I am obsessed with this guy.
Like, how like there's a guy onTikTok named Bert.
And he's like, hey, my name'sBert and build my house.
I follow Bert.
Oh, yeah, you do love Bert.
SPEAKER_04 (12:00):
Bert is building a huge house.
SPEAKER_01 (12:03):
That's amazing.
First of all, it's like I I'mI'm I'm into those things so
too.
So it's like you're right.
Like, if I have some time andI'm sitting on the couch, I'm
sitting in my chair.
SPEAKER_04 (12:12):
Well, that's where I said after I go in the evening,
after dinner cleanup, familytime, whatever, and I go take a
shower, get ready for bed, doall the skincare crap, and I
come to tell him goodnight,that's what he's watching.
He's either watching Bert buildhis house or the Finland guy
right now.
SPEAKER_00 (12:26):
Which is hilarious because I do the same thing
except for uh this Asian dude isuh building a houseboat on the
book.
Which I'm really intrigued bybamboo.
I'm not sure.
This is nothing but bamboo foreverything.
SPEAKER_04 (12:38):
I'm intrigued by it too, because of all the things
you said that he's doing on thatboat.
SPEAKER_00 (12:42):
Yeah, it's crazy.
But they're like three-hour longvideos, and I like watch every
second of it.
It's insane.
SPEAKER_04 (12:48):
All that to say is even though we're more
connected, and like we we ory'all have connection with these
people that are nowhere near us.
SPEAKER_03 (12:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (12:58):
People are more connected, but then we're also
there's a lot of lonely folks.
SPEAKER_00 (13:02):
Yes, there's a lot of loneliness.
And so I think it comes to andwhat the book talks about is uh
do we actually spend time alone?
Isolated from technology,isolated from everything else in
the world, spend time alone, andpeople don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_04 (13:20):
Aaron Powell Now we're gonna refer to this book.
Let's make sure we talk aboutthe title again and the author,
and we don't obviously own anyrights to it, we don't have any
affiliation to it.
But it's brought about a lot ofgreat conversation between
regular and it's a book studythat y'all have done, and y'all
both have read this book before,but now you're doing it.
SPEAKER_00 (13:37):
No, this is the first time neither of us have
read this book.
No, we've never seen it.
Neither of us have read it.
Okay, so we've literally kind ofgone in blind because normally
we know what a book is moreabout.
SPEAKER_04 (13:44):
But so in my split second of listening to y'all, I
heard y'all say, so y'all musthave read a couple chapters
multiple times.
Yes.
Is what I had heard.
SPEAKER_01 (13:52):
Yes, I've I listen to it and then I read it.
Okay.
SPEAKER_04 (13:55):
So, Michael, you want to just make sure we say
the title and the author.
And again, we don't have anyaffiliation with this.
It's just what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00 (14:02):
No, it's the title is The Comfort Crisis, um,
Embracing Discomfort to ReclaimYour Wild, Happy, and Healthy
Self.
And it is by Michael Easter.
SPEAKER_04 (14:11):
Okay.
Yeah, cool.
SPEAKER_00 (14:13):
It's been great so far.
We're only like maybe a quarterof the way through credit so
far.
Um but it's been great.
So talking about alone.
SPEAKER_01 (14:21):
Yes.
Yeah.
So I don't know if you uh if youguys have seen it either, but
there's a TV show out therecalled Alone.
SPEAKER_00 (14:27):
Oh, it's phenomenal.
I've seen every season.
SPEAKER_01 (14:30):
I love the show.
SPEAKER_00 (14:32):
They're so good.
SPEAKER_01 (14:32):
Yeah.
And because I don't love it forthe fact of saying, um, you
know, what are they going to doto survive?
Blah, blah, blah.
I just love seeing the socialexperience.
SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
Yes, the emotional roller coaster people go
through.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (14:47):
And it's like, uh and Jess and I were talking
about this.
I was like, most of the peoplewho quit the show or or start
the show and then even end, theytake themselves out, almost at a
point where they're just like,yeah, I just don't want to be
alone anymore.
I've gotten what I need to get.
I don't want to be out hereanymore.
I'm uh just I don't like it.
And they leave.
And I was like, uh the sure tailsign of someone's not gonna make
(15:09):
it is if they have a picture oftheir loved one.
Like that's always like, yeah,bro, he ain't gonna make it.
Yeah, I'm just sorry.
It's just like the drama in me'slike, yeah, who's gonna fall out
in the first two days?
Yeah.
It's a crazy show, but it's allabout it's the mental aspect of
that show, is such a battle forpeople, not just to survive,
(15:29):
because you have all of themhave survival skills.
Yeah, very much so.
It's it's the idea of being insolitude by yourself.
Um, is such a radical, crazyidea for people in today's time.
SPEAKER_00 (15:43):
Well, what happens when we're in solitude?
SPEAKER_01 (15:45):
You're you're kind of forced to deal with yourself.
You're kind of forced to dealwith your own thoughts, your own
emotions, your own I mean, allof those things.
You're kind of head-to-head,face to face with yourself.
Aaron Powell Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:56):
Can I read a s from this study?
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (15:58):
Is that all right?
So there's a study that wasdone, and I believe it was uh
from the yeah, the University ofVirginia.
Um by a scientist at theUniversity of Virginia.
And they did a study wherebasically the researcher would
go to the person and say, Hey,you can stay in this room by
yourself for X amount of timeand be alone with your thoughts.
No like technology, just you andyourself and your thoughts.
(16:21):
Or I can stay in here with you.
Like we can talk, do whatever,but you have to be shocked with
electricity every so often forme to stay in here.
Twenty-five percent of womensaid yes, I will take the shock
so that someone's with me.
Sixty-six percent of men saidyes, I will take the electric
(16:43):
shock so that I'm not alone.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (16:46):
That's crazy.
Think about the idea.
A quarter of the women said,I'll take the shot.
Three-fourths of the almostthree-fourths of the guys said,
Yeah, I'll take the shot.
That uh uh like shocked me.
I don't want to be by myself.
SPEAKER_00 (17:00):
That's insane.
Yeah.
That is crazy, actually.
SPEAKER_03 (17:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:05):
And I think it poses the question like, how are we
with our own thoughts?
How are we with ourselves?
SPEAKER_04 (17:13):
Oh, I'm completely uncomfortable with myself, and
I'm completely uncomfortablewith my thoughts by myself
because it goes myself-thinking, my just my own
thoughts go negativeimmediately.
I have a very negativeself-view, and that there's a
lot of aspects to it.
So I would 100% choose you juststand here with me and I'll
(17:37):
shock myself if I need to, justso I'm not by myself.
I literally cannot stand to beby myself.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
That's interesting.
SPEAKER_04 (17:44):
And there's a lot of different phases of my life
where I like where that comesfrom.
SPEAKER_01 (17:50):
Has there ever been a time where you enjoyed
solitude?
You enjoyed being by yourself?
No.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (17:57):
I'd say there's both for me.
Like sometimes there have beentimes I've hated being by
myself, and I do everything inmy world to distract myself,
whether that be just taking mydog out for a walk or doing
something or turning on a TVshow or like going to doing some
build-a-project or something,lit any anything sometimes.
(18:17):
How about you?
SPEAKER_04 (18:18):
He loves I will answer.
He loves being by himself.
unknown (18:22):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (18:22):
Yeah.
Well, not on a regular basis.
You love the the when you get tochoose.
SPEAKER_01 (18:29):
Yes.
I love choosing solitude.
SPEAKER_04 (18:31):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (18:32):
So I would say uh I was talking to a buddy of mine,
Tony.
He listens.
Uh awesome dude.
SPEAKER_04 (18:38):
Susan.
I said share.
What am I talking about?
SPEAKER_01 (18:41):
So it's um great, but we were just talking today,
and I was like, man, um I forgotmy thought.
Oh, I told him, I was like, mydivorce was the best thing that
happened to me and the worstthing that happened to me.
And he's like, Well, that'sinteresting.
I was like, Yeah, I I was like,I was so afraid of being by
myself.
(19:02):
The house I grew up in,everything.
I was surrounding myself withpeople.
I was a class clown because Ialways thought if I could be
funny and get attention, thosekind of things in my life, I
would draw people in, I could beby myself.
Well, when the divorce happened,it kind of forced me into a
place where when I had my kidsfor seven days, I was with my
kids.
When I didn't have my kids, itwas me and my thoughts.
(19:25):
Um, and just it it forced me towrestle to the ground a lot of
things that I had never reallywrestled to the ground with.
SPEAKER_03 (19:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:34):
And it it caused me to look into myself and try to
be like, am I okay with who Iam?
Am I okay with being with theguy that I am?
And am I okay with this guy, ordo I want to change it?
And so it I walked through thatprocess and it it it was it was
not fun, but it was extremelyhelpful.
(19:54):
Now I got to the point where Iactually enjoyed and looked
forward to time with myselfbecause when I was better by
myself, oh, I was a hundredtimes better when I was with
people.
And so realizing that aboutmyself, I was like, okay, I
can't run from these things.
I have to face them head on andunpack them.
SPEAKER_04 (20:15):
And what's sweet and sad now at this point, or not
even I mean, this many yearslater, but once you got to there
and then we met, you were stillyou still craved that alone
time, but then you also feltguilty for taking alone time.
And I think you still battlewith that now.
SPEAKER_01 (20:33):
I do.
I do because I it feels kind ofselfish.
SPEAKER_04 (20:37):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (20:37):
Um but I I know that I need it.
It goes back to that.
SPEAKER_04 (20:41):
Because you were the least selfish husband and father
there ever could be.
And so, yeah, I can see I I haveseen you struggle with that.
SPEAKER_01 (20:50):
And you've said That's why my adventures have
kind of tailed off because Ifeel selfish.
SPEAKER_04 (20:56):
And you've said so many years, man.
And it was just like in aconversation with you, and I
mean I could really use this acouple days in like the woods
camping by myself, and I'm like,go do it.
And I I've never said don't, butyou you you still you ha you
struggle with that, the desireto be by yourself versus Yeah,
(21:17):
because I have that.
SPEAKER_01 (21:18):
It's I've battled that from I don't want to miss
something.
SPEAKER_02 (21:22):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:23):
Which is crazy to think about.
But the whole idea is that umgrowing up, I felt like my dad
missed a huge portion of it, andI don't want to miss anything.
But my kids are grown.
Yeah.
Like they're leading their ownlives.
Like um and so uh that that is ahuge battle for me, and I I
constantly I'm back and forthwith that.
SPEAKER_04 (21:42):
But I know Do you think that you knowing how much
I absolutely detest being bymyself has anything to do with
that?
SPEAKER_01 (21:49):
Yeah, because you tell me every time.
If I do on the last time I wenton a trip, you would tell me uh
I think the last one time I wentto Korea and Russia.
SPEAKER_05 (21:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:59):
And you know it was like a two-week trip.
SPEAKER_04 (22:01):
Well, you still, you know what was worse is when you
were Yes, because when you wentto Korea and Russia, all four of
our kids went to student camp atthe same time for the first
time.
That had never happened.
So all of my babies left me, andthen my husband literally went
to the crazy crowd.
Yes, to the you went to theother side of the world.
(22:23):
So yes, I spent that entire weekto 10 days at my dad and
stepmom's house for dinner everynight crying because everybody
had quote unquote in my heart,in my brain, deserted me because
being alone is by myself andit's bad.
That's my equation to alone.
So yeah, and I feel so bad forthat.
(22:44):
I'll just say I'm sorry in frontof literally all of our however
many listeners we have at thispoint.
I'm sorry that I feel so badlyabout being alone that it makes
you feel bad.
SPEAKER_00 (22:58):
Can I uh can I open up the the paradox of all of
this?
Yes, like because it's like kindof like an oxymoron, right?
So we're talking about howloneliness is a crazy pandemic,
like it's insane the amount ofpeople that feel lonely in the
United States currently.
Um but we're talking about beingintentional to be alone.
SPEAKER_03 (23:20):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (23:21):
How how does that make sense?
Like help help help us makesense of that, because like I'm
sure like we got listenerslistening, is like that's
literally should be the oppositeof what we should be doing,
right?
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (23:34):
Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:38):
Okay, so we have this epidemic of loneliness
going on.
Right.
And we're talking about takingtime to be alone.
Can can I ask a question?
SPEAKER_01 (23:47):
Do you think loneliness is different from
solitude?
Personally, no.
SPEAKER_03 (23:54):
Yes.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (23:56):
Hang on, the essay asked the question again.
Do you think loneliness isdifferent from solitude?
SPEAKER_00 (24:01):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (24:01):
Yes.
Okay.
So do you think do you think youcan choose loneliness or do you
think uh it finds you?
Because you choose solitude.
SPEAKER_04 (24:08):
You do that.
That's where I was gonna go.
You choose solitude.
SPEAKER_01 (24:14):
Do you choose loneliness?
SPEAKER_04 (24:16):
Uh not always, no.
SPEAKER_00 (24:18):
I think you do.
SPEAKER_01 (24:20):
Okay, and help me unback it.
Talk to me.
SPEAKER_00 (24:22):
And I say this because I've I've been there
myself.
Being intentional to surroundyourself with friends, being
intentional to be real withfriends, and in doing so, you'll
in a lot of ways find out truefriends and who's gonna pour
into you and love you and buildyou up.
SPEAKER_04 (24:40):
On the other side of that, let's just say there's or
there have been family memberswho are single adults living
their own life while everybodyelse and their family, friends,
what have you, are living theirlives around them, but there's a
(25:03):
lot of time alone.
That's loneliness.
Not because you don't choose youit's not the act of choosing to
not be included in or not,whatever.
It's just because like life ishappening around you.
SPEAKER_01 (25:18):
Yeah, I get that.
SPEAKER_04 (25:19):
And that's a loneliness that you don't
choose.
SPEAKER_01 (25:22):
But don't you get to choose to be a part of that?
You get to choose to make asense, yeah.
You can choose to sit in yourapartment or sit in your home by
yourself.
SPEAKER_00 (25:30):
I'll say this.
Okay, and this is just reallife, and and y'all are very
much a part of this.
Um when I was going through mydivorce, one of the first things
y'all did, and this is outsideof obviously we worked together
and we met a lot when it came totalking about my divorce as
friends.
SPEAKER_05 (25:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:46):
But you want to know what like got me connected to
you and the rest of your family?
Greg would be like, Hey, this isa Georgia game this Saturday,
come hang out.
And if you remember, like thosefor that first season, I
probably showed up at halftimeevery day.
You did.
SPEAKER_05 (26:01):
You did.
SPEAKER_00 (26:02):
Yeah.
I didn't want to come.
And it wasn't that I didn't wantto hang out with y'all.
No, I was going through hell inmy life.
SPEAKER_05 (26:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:11):
But I just kept remembering I've got to push
past this.
SPEAKER_04 (26:15):
And we actually want you here too.
SPEAKER_00 (26:18):
And I but I just remember, and this is why I say,
and I understand not everyonehas lived what I've lived.
Everyone has differentcircumstances, different things
they've been through.
So I understand there'sdifferences.
But for me, when I was lonely,it was a matter of someone cared
enough to reach out to me andinvite me somewhere.
I might be an hour and a halflate, but I'm gonna go.
SPEAKER_04 (26:39):
You're gonna get there.
SPEAKER_00 (26:40):
Yeah, I'm gonna get there.
And sometimes it was me justliterally sitting on my couch,
not wanting to do anything andwrestling in my mind for that
hour and a half, saying, It'd beso good to go.
But then I'm like, but I'm Idon't want to be around anyone
right now.
SPEAKER_03 (26:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:56):
Then five minutes later, Michael, you really need
to get up and go.
And then I'm like, but I don'twant to talk about anything.
Someone's gonna ask me how I'mdoing, and I'm not gonna be able
to keep it together.
SPEAKER_01 (27:07):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (27:08):
Yeah.
But all in all, and there were acouple of weeks I didn't come.
There were days that I didn'tcome.
Yeah.
But basically, ever since Istarted coming, I'm at every
single home game.
Yeah.
Even the late ones, and I gotearly Sunday mornings.
So you do.
You yeah.
So for me, when I when I sayyes, that is a choice, yeah,
every decision that we makeleads to or away from
(27:31):
loneliness.
SPEAKER_04 (27:31):
It does.
And I love that you brought thatfact up because earlier before
you got here for dinner, we weretalking about my grandmother.
And I probably will getemotional talking about Nanny
because she's just she's myspirit animal, I guess.
I don't know.
But Nanny was very active andvery involved in like social
butterfly.
(27:52):
Social butterfly.
Like she literally retired frombeing a nurse full time when
Thomas was born, who's 24 and ahalf at this point, I guess,
from whenever she would haveretired.
Um and so she retired to keephim, but still like enrolled
both of them in Mother's MorningOut.
(28:14):
And like then Aaron Grace camealong.
Like she was still very socialand then her Sunday school
class, and because at that pointmy grandfather had passed away,
but she was very intentionalabout her friend group, her
Sunday school class, the outingsand serving the community,
keeping the grandkids.
And then when Greg and I gotmarried, she was still coming to
(28:34):
almost every single kid event,birthday parties and holidays,
and just very, very intentionalabout her own community and our
family community too.
Well, as she got older, yes, shewas in her eighties and she had
some like health problems, andshe just had kind of decided
(28:56):
like I'm I'm kinda done beingsocial.
And so that that diminished likeher friend group and her Sunday
school crew.
And then, okay, then anotherlevel came in of like, well, I
can't make it at this birthdayparty, and like it just kept
diminishing, diminishing,diminishing.
And she was making choices tostay home.
And we I remember you and I hadthe conversation with her so
(29:18):
many times.
Don't shut yourself in, don't dothat.
Let's let's keep going.
I know it's hard, I know ithurts, and all these things, but
as soon as she decided I was shewas done like being involved and
being social, that thatloneliness set in, and that kind
of that not kinda, it did, itescalated the process towards
(29:41):
the end for her.
SPEAKER_03 (29:42):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (29:43):
And so those social connections and those
relationships that she hadthrived with for so many years
was what was keeping her going,and she just couldn't see that
at that point.
And so I think a lot of times,like your friend group And I I
have been in these shoes.
Your friend group can be theones that can make or break that
(30:05):
loneliness for you, not becauseyou're choosing it, but because
I would hope that you havefriends in your life like I did
and like you did and like you doand did, to be like, no, no, no,
no, no.
We're not gonna do that.
We're not gonna do that.
I want you to keep coming, keepcoming, even if it's
uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00 (30:21):
Yeah, press will just call me and tell me to stop
being an idiot and show up.
SPEAKER_04 (30:24):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (30:25):
Literally.
I mean, Damon was the guy for mewhen I literally would just show
up at his house, or if I didn'tshow up for something, he would
call me and come find me andbefore.
SPEAKER_04 (30:35):
And Lisa and Chad were that for me.
Yeah, what's going on?
And a few other handful of otherfriends, but they were they were
those people for me.
Like I hope that we had beenthere for you, Michael, of just
be like, no, no, no, no.
I don't care if you want towatch football or not.
I want you to be physically herewith us.
SPEAKER_00 (30:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (30:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:52):
Can I read another study that that comes from this
book that uh Michael Easterbrings out?
He said, This is a study fromscientists at Brigham uh Young
University.
Says it doesn't matter how oldyou are, how much money you
have, being lonely increases therisk of dying within the next
seven years by twenty-sixpercent.
(31:13):
Overall, it can shorten yourlife by 15 years, which is the
equivalent of smoking half apack of cigarettes a day.
SPEAKER_05 (31:21):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (31:22):
That's insane.
Just simply being lonely in yourlife increase the chances of you
dying in the next seven years by26%, which is crazy.
Yeah.
But it can also shorten yourlife by 15 years.
SPEAKER_05 (31:37):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (31:38):
Then it says good relationships, according to
another study done by Harvard,is the creing key ingredient to
happiness across your lifespan,completely blowing fortune and
fame out of the water.
SPEAKER_04 (31:49):
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (31:50):
So for us one thing we can push more than fortune
and fame is good relationships.
Good relationship.
Good relationships.
Absolutely.
That's what's crazy.
Like because it really is true.
Like I I I had the conversationwith someone the other day, and
and I was like, I've had theincredible opportunity to sit
across the table from people whomade stupid money.
(32:12):
I mean like life-changing money,who ran very successful large
companies.
SPEAKER_04 (32:18):
Fortune 500.
SPEAKER_01 (32:19):
Yeah, like big, big companies.
And would just say I everythingI have is in this, I've given
everything to this company.
And this is all I have.
And it's so sad.
I've given my life to my job.
I have tons of money, but Idon't I don't love what I have.
(32:39):
And that's that's a sad thing.
Because I I've met with lots ofyoung people who go, I just want
to make this amount of money.
I was like, you can make thatamount of money all day long.
SPEAKER_04 (32:47):
You're still a good thing.
SPEAKER_01 (32:48):
And it's gonna cost you something.
Like everything costs you.
It's gonna cost you.
And you're probably gonna likethe cost at the end.
SPEAKER_03 (32:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:54):
But the idea is like you can do it.
But I I I guess just sittingaround the table with those guys
always made me look at moneydifferent.
Yeah.
And fortune and fame, and justto go, it's not it's not what
it's all about.
SPEAKER_05 (33:06):
No.
No.
SPEAKER_01 (33:07):
Like it's not because at the end You're not
taking anything with you.
Yeah, well, it just doesn'tmatter.
Like it really doesn't matter.
unknown (33:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (33:14):
And I appreciate that part of you.
That was before you and I met.
But I mean, that's what makespart of baggage claim what it
even is, is because you've livedthat part of with those folks
who make all the money and thatpeople think that they want.
You know, like this portfolio orthis, that, and the other.
(33:35):
I mean, I I'm struggling not toname the name brands who've
you've worked for, but it's somereally big folks.
Or not for, work.
I mean with.
With.
unknown (33:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:46):
I mean, you were I think the the the biggest thing
for me though, like when I lookat all of those things, and I
look at I had a con I had aconversation.
Uh I was talking, I was talkingto Tony.
We've been hanging out a lothere lately, and we're riding
back and forth.
And I was telling them a storyand I was like, yeah, uh, Jess
was sick, and Thomas called meand he says, Hey, you want to go
(34:07):
to Mellow and just have a beer?
And I was like, I can't tell youhow happy.
SPEAKER_04 (34:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (34:13):
Like, that's probably more important to me.
SPEAKER_04 (34:16):
Not probably, it is.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (34:18):
For for that phone call to go sit at the bar, have
a beer, and talk football, justtalk live.
Just have a beer with your son.
Than any amount of money thatyou could shove my way.
Yeah.
Like, because those things fade.
Like, I don't, I'm not, I'm nota material, like, so what?
Stuff just comes and goes, butlike that is huge for me to go.
That if if you want to know whatat the end, when I think about
(34:40):
my life as success, is like ifmy kids want to hang out with
me, yeah, and and that's hugefor me.
Like that's a win all day long.
SPEAKER_04 (34:48):
And so like the fact that all of our kids, our out of
state ones, our busy ones, ouryou know, first responder kit,
like all of them are gonna be intown here with us for
Thanksgiving on one day is I'mover the moon.
Yeah, just as you said about theI'm like, I've scheduled a
(35:10):
photographer.
We're getting a brand new familypicture.
So we can have a family picturewith Lulu in it.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, I am that one dayis my Super Bowl for 2025 and
probably 2026.
Just all of it.
Like that, having them all herebecause they want to be here and
they have made sacrifices to behere is like that's all I need.
(35:35):
Literally.
SPEAKER_01 (35:36):
But the idea of that goes back to good relationships,
yes.
Is way more important than thananything else.
SPEAKER_00 (35:45):
Well, and I think this is this is the whole
purpose of talking about beingalone because when you are alone
in solitude, nothing else goingon.
I'm not talking about, you know,Netflix playing in the
background.
I'm talking about no technology.
You only have your thoughts.
Yep.
Things surface about yourselfthat you may not want to
(36:08):
address.
SPEAKER_04 (36:08):
I will say that firsthand.
SPEAKER_00 (36:10):
1000%.
SPEAKER_04 (36:11):
Firsthand for my own self.
I am better when I am not alonebecause my when I'm alone, and I
mean this has been forever.
I've never enjoyed being alone.
I don't even know what the rootcause of that is, but then with
losing my first husband, whenI'm alone, if Greg's not with
(36:36):
me, I immediately, and I saidbefore in other episodes, like
when we got together and decidedto try to build a future
together, I had to go back tocounseling to work on like not
immediately going to, well, ifhe doesn't respond to me in 30
seconds when I text him, or ifhe doesn't answer the phone when
I call him, he's something'swrong.
(36:56):
Something has happened to him.
Like I had to go through thatback then 13 years ago.
But I still struggle with that.
If I don't and I I kick myselffor this, even now, like these
days, you've been working awayfrom home, uh, about an hour
from home.
And so I I have really had toself-talk myself, even when I'm
(37:21):
teaching.
If I don't hear back from him,if it's been an hour or so, I
have to be like, he's fine.
He's fine, he's okay, he's fine.
So I go through those fearfulthoughts in my own head.
I have very negative self-talkin my own head about my own
self.
And so I very much struggle withstill now, literally today, of
(37:48):
if I'm alone, I go directly inmy own thoughts to negative
town.
And I have I have really foughtagainst that my whole life, but
a lot in the past probablydecade or so.
And I have the hardest timebreaking myself from that, which
(38:10):
is why I don't like to be alone.
I would prefer to be with otherpeople.
SPEAKER_00 (38:15):
Yeah, because you don't have to deal with that.
SPEAKER_04 (38:17):
Because I don't have to think too much.
SPEAKER_00 (38:19):
Well, that goes back, and I know we've talked
about this on the podcastbefore, but like the average,
and this is a give or takenumber.
I don't remember the absolutespecific, but I think it's a 13
to 1 ratio when we have our ownthoughts about ourselves.
It's 13 negative thoughts aboutyourself versus every one good
thought.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (38:37):
That's the average.
SPEAKER_00 (38:39):
That's the average for most people, which is
incredibly disheartening how wethink about ourselves, which
makes complete sense why 25% ofwomen say no, shock me and stay
in the room with me.
And 66% of men say shock me.
I'm a stay in the room with me.
SPEAKER_01 (39:01):
Yeah, I don't know.
Guys, guys just hide their fearsbetter.
SPEAKER_04 (39:05):
Well, okay.
They just hide it better.
SPEAKER_01 (39:06):
Yeah, I could agree with that.
SPEAKER_04 (39:07):
I was really surprised at the vast difference
between the two.
SPEAKER_00 (39:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (39:12):
I really was.
SPEAKER_00 (39:13):
But this is what I have loved about this book so
far.
And this is the the reason whyit talks about being alone, is
because he's encouraging you towrestle those thoughts.
Right.
Work through those thoughts.
Because there's a reason,there's a reason why we have
these thoughts.
Either one, it's because we wishwe would change something about
ourselves.
Right.
Or two, we're believing a lieabout ourselves.
SPEAKER_03 (39:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:35):
So either one, we need to, and and I this is
something I know you hear me saythis all the time, check myself.
SPEAKER_03 (39:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:41):
Check myself.
Okay, is this a lie I'mbelieving about myself?
Finalize that thought.
If I have a negative thoughtabout myself, I need to finalize
it.
Because that thought's gonnakeep coming back and keep coming
back.
If you're anything like me, itdoes.
Right.
But until I take that.
SPEAKER_04 (39:56):
My I don't mean to interrupt you.
I'm sorry.
For me, it's like it's a 50-50.
50% probably is lies I tellmyself or things I believe about
myself that are likely not true,or there's some hint of not
true.
I don't know.
It's hard for me to decipher,obviously.
(40:16):
And then 50% is just fear ofwhat I cannot control.
And that's that's where mynegative thought cycle comes
from.
And I know in just conversationwith me and you, those are
things that you don'tnecessarily identify with
because that's not where yournegative thoughts come from.
SPEAKER_01 (40:39):
No.
I a good book for um if you'rewhere Jess is at, a great book
to listen to and read.
I've read and listened to it acouple of times.
Is Don't Believe Everything YouThink.
SPEAKER_05 (40:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (40:52):
Great book.
I haven't read that yet.
Is that where those statisticswere that you were sharing
earlier?
No, that's a different one.
But it's it is an interestingbecause we talked about I shared
these statistics with these guyswhen we were having dinner, that
it was talking about worry inour thoughts.
Yeah.
And the idea was it says theysurveyed and followed people who
(41:13):
had these worries, and 85% ofthe worries that these people
had never even happened.
And so they just the the thingsthat they were worrying about,
85% of them never happened.
Out of the left the the last15%, only 12% of those worries
that they had turned out waybetter than they actually
(41:34):
thought they would.
So the results were way better.
So basically he said only 3% ofthe things you worry about are
actually ever going to happen.
SPEAKER_05 (41:45):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (41:45):
So you're wasting so much mental capacity and so much
mental stress, all those thingsof life, because you it steals
your present joy.
SPEAKER_02 (41:57):
Oh, how do you think that's a good thing?
SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
Right you have in the everything.
So it's one out of 33 worriesyou have is actually going to
happen.
SPEAKER_04 (42:07):
And what's even more frustrating as a Christian, I
the three of us are Christians,is that I know the power of
prayer.
I know what the Lord haspromised me, and I know that He
will help me take those thoughtscaptive.
And I mean, He wants good forus.
(42:30):
And it's so hard.
It's that battle.
There is literally a battle inmy brain when it comes to when
I'm alone versus when I'm withother folks.
And it it is it's justincredibly frustrating to be in
my own brain sometimes.
SPEAKER_01 (42:48):
Well, it's just for all of us.
I mean, even our listeners rightnow are listening going, yeah,
it's frustrating.
I get that 100%.
And this is not an easy thing.
No, that's why no one reallydoes it, because it's easy.
We create this comfortable placein our lives where we don't have
to deal with it.
I can turn on TikTok.
I can watch my Finnish guy, myguy in Finland on an island
(43:10):
build a cabin not have to worryabout it.
Yeah.
We can watch your guy build hisbamboo house.
SPEAKER_04 (43:14):
I was talking to y'all earlier, like with my
first graders, I can watch likethe ASMR videos of slime or sand
and like all these likesatisfying videos.
I'll sit on the carpet and youknow, zone out with them.
And I and I said, I'm like, orif I could break myself out of
(43:35):
this cycle, I could pick a bookto read out loud with them and
not at the last five minutes ofmy day not zone out with them.
Like it's just so frustrating.
SPEAKER_00 (43:50):
Yeah, it's hard.
SPEAKER_04 (43:51):
So what do we do with that?
So let's let's go.
What do we do?
SPEAKER_00 (43:54):
Can I say the purpose of why he's talking
about being alone?
Yes.
Yes, very much.
So he says, maybe, just maybe,if you can master the art of
being alone, then you can bringmore value to the friendships
and communities you have.
Wow.
Yeah.
And that's brilliant, becausethat makes me think of like,
(44:15):
okay, because we don't likebeing alone because we bring no
value.
We only get devalued when we'realone.
So if if we can't bring value tothe time that we have with
ourselves, how are we supposedto bring value to the time that
we have with others?
That's your mic drop momentright there.
Yeah, yeah.
(44:36):
Okay, yeah, yeah.
So it's huge.
So and even ask, like, okay,what what kind of friendships do
you have?
What what kind of relationshipsdo you have?
And I think it does make us lookinward to say, okay, well, what
kind of value can I even bringmyself?
Yeah.
And it this is not a uh it's nota look down on yourself.
SPEAKER_04 (44:56):
This is not to be a I was just gonna say, in a full
transparency moment, that makesme feel like I should be like,
I'm sorry, Greg, for what youhave to repeat yourself over and
over again to speak into thevalue of what you see of my own
self that I don't see in me.
Because I would imagine that Imean it could be annoying.
SPEAKER_00 (45:18):
It is, it it like kind of hurts to hear that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (45:21):
But it does.
SPEAKER_01 (45:23):
So here's here's here's something I have for
unpack.
SPEAKER_05 (45:26):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (45:27):
I want it to be simple, but I think it's there's
two things I want people to do.
SPEAKER_04 (45:32):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (45:33):
Um you you can agree or disagree.
We haven't talked about this atall.
SPEAKER_04 (45:36):
No, we have not.
Literally, it's just it's myhandy dandy notebook has hardly
nothing in it for today.
SPEAKER_01 (45:42):
This is a thought that came to me while we're
doing this podcast.
One thing I want you to do.
I want you to practice solitudethis week.
And you may be like, Greg, Idon't know how.
If you're in the car, cut theradio off.
Don't play music, don't playanything.
Just ride in silence whereveryou're going.
Just be with your thoughts.
SPEAKER_05 (46:04):
That makes me very uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01 (46:06):
That's the point.
So, whatever that is, if you canuh if you can choose to be, if
it's ten minutes or if it's anhour, choose to be, choose to
solitude.
And then the second thing I wantyou to do is I want you each
day, each morning you get up,either on your phone, send a
text to yourself.
What is one thing I like aboutmyself?
SPEAKER_00 (46:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (46:30):
What is one thing I like about, and then maybe after
your time of solitude, maybeit's something to think about on
solitude.
What's one thing I like aboutmyself?
If you can't find one thing youlike about yourself, bro, you
you need to spend some more timeand like digging into yourself.
Like surround yourself with somepeople.
SPEAKER_04 (46:49):
Okay, one thing for a person who does it.
One person who has a hard timefinding positive things.
One thing a day or one thingperiod.
What's our goal?
SPEAKER_01 (47:02):
Each day, right?
One thing.
SPEAKER_04 (47:05):
Gosh.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (47:06):
Do it.
All I'm asking you to do is doit for one week.
SPEAKER_04 (47:08):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (47:09):
So you need seven things that you really like
about myself.
SPEAKER_04 (47:11):
You're challenging me.
SPEAKER_01 (47:12):
I'm challenging all of us.
No, I'm just saying though, likeAnd we can all text each other
in our group and say, Okay,here's one thing I like about
myself today.
I think that's good.
And here's uh finds uh for youguys who are listening, somebody
who's your friend, your spouse,uh, whoever may be your best
friend, yeah, text them and say,here's one thing I like about
it.
Drop a comment, man.
Like seriously, we I'd love tohear that.
SPEAKER_00 (47:34):
I would literally love people think through that.
SPEAKER_04 (47:35):
Or if you want to direct any of our socials.
Um any of the places.
Yeah.
If you if you're listening andyou follow us on all the things,
literally send us a one thingyou like about.
You don't have to do it a day,just one thing in general that
you like about yourself.
SPEAKER_01 (47:52):
Yeah.
Because it's going to make yourrelationships better the more
you love yourself.
The Bible, the Bible says thethe the greatest commandment is
to love your Lord your God withall your heart, with all your
soul, with all your mind, and tolove your neighbor as you love
yourself.
(48:13):
And learn to love yourself, andyou're gonna love your neighbor,
your wife, your spouse, allthose people so much better.
And that's just that's justtruth.
SPEAKER_00 (48:24):
And whether you whether you believe it or not,
it's truth.
And so and can I encourage,because honestly, in in some of
these ways, this is somethingwe've been practicing as we've
been going through this book,things we've talked about before
in ministry, but it also seemsvery, very like small.
It's like, oh my gosh, so Ireally have to write down
(48:44):
something I like about myself.
You know, but when you thinkabout all of these things that
we uh wrestle with internally,mentally, and our health and
emotional and mental health, wenever put to practice these
kinds of things.
No, no, and I I think of littlebaby Lulu, sweet little girl.
Grandpa yesterday at the doggame, man, she was getting
(49:05):
everywhere.
She's starting to walk.
Oh my gosh.
But the reality is she didn'tjust get up and run a marathon.
SPEAKER_05 (49:11):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (49:12):
No, she had to take one step.
She had to crawl ten feet, thentake one step.
SPEAKER_04 (49:18):
No, no, baby girl.
SPEAKER_00 (49:19):
Maybe if if you're looking at it and you're like,
oh, that's a silly exercise.
I want to encourage you, like,maybe this is that first step.
SPEAKER_04 (49:26):
Yeah.
Have you ever watched a babylearn how to walk?
Yeah.
It's huge.
And like adorable.
It is the sweetest thing.
And she gets so excited with herlittle hands up.
Honestly.
SPEAKER_01 (49:40):
That's our that's our journey though in life.
Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04 (49:44):
That's where I'm going with that.
I wish and I hope for, and Imaybe you boys can help me be
accountable that as I am 47 andtrying to take steps to finding
one thing or two things that Ilike about myself, I should feel
by feel like baby Lucy andcelebrating like with her hands
(50:08):
up, maybe I can learn to do thatfor my own self or our friends
that are listening can do thattoo.
SPEAKER_01 (50:13):
Like and then learn that makes my heart happy to
think somebody out there wouldsee something in themselves.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That it's dude, g give me fiveminutes with you.
Uh the five minutes with thepeople that are around you who
love you and care about you.
They can tell you seven thingsjust like that that they that
(50:34):
they that they think you'reamazing at.
SPEAKER_04 (50:37):
And so Can you name that maybe three things that you
like about your own self?
SPEAKER_01 (50:42):
That's all.
SPEAKER_04 (50:43):
And maybe we're gonna share a video of baby Lulu
learning how to walk.
And I want you to feel that sameexcitement.
SPEAKER_01 (50:48):
Yeah.
There you go.
SPEAKER_04 (50:49):
About your own self.
SPEAKER_01 (50:51):
Well, what a fun, deep, yeah, encouraging, fun
conversation.
It is.
Yeah.
Um practice some solitude asshort, as long as you can.
Um and and write those thingsthe one day, one thing each day.
And um let's take those littleloosey first steps.
unknown (51:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (51:13):
And uh and let's learn to let's learn to run, but
we gotta learn to walk first.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so this is part of theprocess.
SPEAKER_04 (51:20):
So yeah, thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01 (51:22):
Yeah, thank you guys for joining us.
SPEAKER_04 (51:24):
We appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (51:25):
We're still growing.
SPEAKER_04 (51:26):
We picked up another another country today that we
cannot pronounce.
SPEAKER_01 (51:30):
Yeah, so it's just it's fun.
Thank you guys, love you guys somuch.
Interact with us, tell us whatyou want to hear, tell us what
you want us to talk about.
SPEAKER_04 (51:39):
Our local friends are very good at that.
We would love to hear from someof you people that are
listening, all of these wide.
SPEAKER_01 (51:48):
From Washington to California to Pennsylvania to
Michigan, Maine, all over theplace.
SPEAKER_04 (51:54):
Yeah, to the foreign countries that are crazy.
SPEAKER_01 (51:57):
Yeah, you guys that are in um Canada.
Yeah, Malaysia.
You guys are in Malaysia.
Singapore.
Yeah.
Who are y'all?
There's what you want to hear.
SPEAKER_04 (52:07):
There's so many downloads there.
Please just send us a messageand just say hello.
Yeah.
You don't even have to have aquestion or a comment.
Just say hello.
And that I mean, I wouldprobably lose my whole mind if
that was the case.
But thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01 (52:26):
But anyway, um, love you guys.
Thank you so much.
I hope Baggage Claim is a placewhere you do feel connection and
conversations and community andaround relationships, and you
grow from that.
So we do.
SPEAKER_05 (52:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (52:42):
Take your first steps this week.
SPEAKER_05 (52:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (52:44):
And as we always say, go down.
SPEAKER_03 (52:47):
Go down.
SPEAKER_00 (52:59):
The music intro is so good.
I can't even think of it rightnow.
What is it?
SPEAKER_05 (53:03):
Where everybody knows your name.
Yeah.
And they're always glad youcame.
You wanna go where everybodyknows your name.
SPEAKER_00 (53:26):
Oh my gosh, that's great.
I love that.
Hey guys, what's up?
I'm Greg.
I hope you guys are ready tounpack and get into some good
conversations today.
SPEAKER_04 (00:07):
And I'm Jess, and this is our podcast, Baggage
Clay.
Thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_01 (00:17):
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to Baggage Clane.
I hope you guys are doing great.
If it's your first time here,thanks for joining us.
If you're a regular, you knowyou know the drill.
Uh first timers, man, thanks forbeing here.
We're going to just uh grab yourfavorite drink, whatever that
may be.
We're going to circle up aroundthe table, pull yourself up to
(00:40):
the table proverbally, becausewherever you're at or whatever
you're doing, um baggage claimis a place where we just talk
about marriage, relationships,and we're hoping to create some
conversations and some communityaround both those things.
SPEAKER_04 (00:55):
Also, also I'd like to welcome you to episode 35.
SPEAKER_01 (00:59):
Episode okay.
Welcome to 35.
Holy moly.
Before we get into the book.
SPEAKER_04 (01:05):
Yes.
And if you ever hear me gigglein the beginning, this is for
our new friends.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10):
Yeah, everybody knows this who's been.
We all know this.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (01:13):
Literally, that's why I said this is a good thing.
You can tell it to the newfriends.
SPEAKER_00 (01:16):
Tell it to the new friends.
SPEAKER_04 (01:17):
I'm trying to, boys.
SPEAKER_01 (01:18):
Our friends in Canada.
What's up, B?
SPEAKER_04 (01:22):
Oh my gosh.
Y'all.
No.
Every time if I'm gigglingduring the intro, it's because I
know 35 times we're going to dothis.
They the guys do a clap so wecan sync up the audio, video,
all the things.
And it's never not funny to me.
It's literally never not funny.
SPEAKER_00 (01:41):
Maybe if we finally invest in one of those like
little thingies and let Jess doit, maybe it would be better.
SPEAKER_01 (01:47):
Maybe she wouldn't know.
I've asked multiple times forsomeone to send us one to
message me and send me one.
And right now we still don'thave one.
SPEAKER_04 (01:54):
So I still get to laugh at the clap.
SPEAKER_01 (01:56):
Laugh at the clap.
SPEAKER_04 (01:57):
I feel like I'm going to laugh if it no matter
what.
SPEAKER_01 (01:59):
All right.
Before we get way into thistopic, thank you for explaining
your life.
We just want to say our newKindle is because of Dog Hobble,
where uh this past week wecelebrated our 13th uh
anniversary.
And so we spent the day at acouple of our favorite wineries.
SPEAKER_04 (02:20):
In the mountains in northeast Georgia.
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (02:22):
And one of our favorite ones is a place called
Dog Hobble.
And if you know about it, youknow.
And it's an amazing place.
SPEAKER_04 (02:28):
It's one of the newer ones.
SPEAKER_01 (02:29):
Yes.
SPEAKER_04 (02:30):
Sweetest family owns it.
SPEAKER_01 (02:32):
Super cool place.
They just opened another littlespot.
They have a pavilion which isoutside.
They have a little house upside,well, I think it's 21 and older
there.
A really, really, really coolspot.
If you haven't tried out uh doghobble, you don't know about the
Trevor Burrus.
SPEAKER_04 (02:47):
And it's literally what we're saying dog hobble,
but it's all one word.
SPEAKER_01 (02:51):
It's a farm.
SPEAKER_04 (02:52):
It is a huge winery.
SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
Where the dogs hobble.
Yes.
And they have an amazing wineselection.
It's really, really good.
SPEAKER_04 (03:00):
There's sheep you can watch.
SPEAKER_01 (03:02):
Yeah.
I think Zach is the guy wetalked to last time we were up
there and hung out.
But that's where our candle'sfrom.
It's our favorite wine,Triminette, which is ours there.
We love it.
SPEAKER_04 (03:11):
So if you're watching on YouTube, that's what
you're looking at.
SPEAKER_01 (03:14):
And it has a Woodwick candle.
Yeah, if you're not, we have awine bottle on the podcast
that's cut in half.
It's a wine, it's a candle, andit's a wine candle with case.
SPEAKER_05 (03:22):
She's a beauty.
SPEAKER_01 (03:23):
Yeah, she smells like she is a beauty.
So go check them out.
If you happen to go up there,just tell them, hey, we heard
about you on a podcast calledBaggage Claim.
This is um, I don't know.
SPEAKER_05 (03:35):
We're wine club members.
SPEAKER_01 (03:36):
Yeah, we love them up there.
They're great people.
So go check them out if you knowsee what's happened.
So before we get too seriousinto our episode, and um I think
it's time for us to jump into uhReady Question.
SPEAKER_05 (03:51):
You didn't even do it.
Oh, my bad.
SPEAKER_01 (03:56):
I have two relaxed a little bit.
All right, shoot, Jess.
What you got?
We'll go for one and we'll seehow if the first one start with
the best one because if it's notgood, we're gonna skip it.
SPEAKER_04 (04:05):
Oh, that's not the best one I was gonna start with.
My bad.
Okay.
I was gonna start with the easyone.
SPEAKER_01 (04:11):
No, we don't want easy.
SPEAKER_04 (04:13):
Ah, bruh.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (04:17):
Would you rather be a dumb question?
Go ahead.
SPEAKER_04 (04:23):
No, it's actually a good one.
Would you rather have eyes thatfilm everything or ears that
record everything?
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (04:33):
I think I would do ears that record everything.
Why?
SPEAKER_03 (04:38):
Why?
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
I don't know.
Like have you ever heard a uh Idon't know, this might be just
me being weird and being intomusic and stuff, like you ever
hear like a just a mix ofsomething that's just phenomenal
and you just go back to it.
Like something that just soundsgreat.
Or like screaming into the GrandCanyon and just hearing the
natural echoes and naturalreverberations.
(05:00):
Like I've never screamed intothe Grand Canyon.
SPEAKER_04 (05:02):
I've never even seen the Grand Canyon.
SPEAKER_00 (05:04):
What?
SPEAKER_04 (05:05):
No, Greg's never seen it.
SPEAKER_00 (05:06):
It's quite big.
That's why they call it Grand.
It's basically a gully.
SPEAKER_04 (05:10):
It is the Grand Gully.
SPEAKER_00 (05:12):
Just the Grand Gully.
SPEAKER_04 (05:14):
There's a lot of things I've seen on the TikToks
about what Grand Canyon reallyis.
It's like a lot ofextraterrestrial.
SPEAKER_01 (05:22):
Oh no, we're not doing that.
SPEAKER_04 (05:24):
I'm not, I don't remember anything.
I've seen it.
SPEAKER_01 (05:27):
That's so true.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (05:29):
I would rather have eyes that film everything.
SPEAKER_01 (05:34):
Okay.
SPEAKER_04 (05:36):
Because I I'm gonna I wanna see my memories.
SPEAKER_01 (05:40):
Um I would go with the uh record.
I think I I'm I care more aboutthe words than uh the visual.
And I think uh word you just youif you can hear it you focus
more on the words and not thevisual.
Because sometimes in the visualyou lose track of what's
actually being said.
SPEAKER_04 (05:58):
You know what's interesting is that I think it's
what kind of learner you are.
Like I'm a visual learner, so Iwant to see it.
So I are we assuming that if youchoose one you forget how to do
the other?
SPEAKER_03 (06:12):
So I'm a visual one.
SPEAKER_04 (06:14):
No, I'm just saying, like if you choose, you want to
have eyes that film everything.
Does that mean you can't hearanymore?
SPEAKER_00 (06:20):
No.
SPEAKER_04 (06:20):
Or vice versa?
That was not that wasn't thepart of the question.
SPEAKER_00 (06:25):
No, I'm just saying it's interesting.
SPEAKER_04 (06:28):
It's just interesting that you guys both
are like, I want to hear it, butI want to see it.
Because I'm pretending like if Ican't, if I choose, I want to
see or film everything so I cansee memories and see what I've
seen.
That means I can't hear itanymore.
SPEAKER_01 (06:44):
You want to see what you see.
SPEAKER_04 (06:46):
I know.
I didn't know.
SPEAKER_00 (06:46):
Yeah, but then I think of the Larry Fleet concert
we went to, and I was like, ooh,I wish I could hear that again.
Because it was so good.
It was done so good.
SPEAKER_05 (06:54):
Okay, okay.
That was sweet.
SPEAKER_00 (06:56):
God misses Larry Fleet.
SPEAKER_04 (07:01):
Thank you for coming to our hometown.
SPEAKER_00 (07:03):
Yeah.
Yeah, that dude is soft.
SPEAKER_04 (07:04):
It was amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (07:05):
Production team was phenomenal.
Larry Fleet and the guys weregreat, but it it was a great.
All right.
Let's jump in.
Or do you want to hit the secondone?
SPEAKER_04 (07:14):
No, because you all are gonna the second one is the
dumb one.
SPEAKER_01 (07:18):
Okay, okay.
All right.
So let's jump into our uh topicfor today.
Uh we're reading through a bookthat started with We, y'all.
Okay, so Michael and I arereading through a book called
The Comfort Crisis.
Great book, phenomenal byMichael Easter.
SPEAKER_04 (07:33):
I crashed your book talk last night.
SPEAKER_00 (07:37):
A couple of days.
It was just yesterday.
SPEAKER_04 (07:39):
It was like it was a week ago.
SPEAKER_03 (07:41):
It was yesterday.
SPEAKER_04 (07:41):
But I was not participating.
Y'all were talking about yourbook.
I brought my Kindle because I'mrereading Verity by uh by
Freedom McFadden because themovie's coming out soon.
So I was deep into my murdermystery.
It's not really a murdermystery.
Anyway, I wasn't listening toy'all.
SPEAKER_01 (07:59):
So we got into the topic of thank you for telling
us about your murder.
SPEAKER_04 (08:04):
No, it's not by Freedom McFadden.
It's by excuse me, ColleenHoover.
I apologize.
SPEAKER_01 (08:09):
So we were talking about the uh the idea of being
alone.
And then we just we went on arabbit trail and we started
talking about lots of other ideaof thinking about relationships
in our life and the idea ofbeing alone and the idea of
solitude, and then it juststarted spiraling, which led us
(08:30):
to this episode um of justgetting together and saying,
let's let's talk about umsolitude.
Let's talk about being alone.
SPEAKER_02 (08:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:40):
What does that look like?
What does it mean?
How is that helpful?
Because we say here on BaggageClaims so many times that if you
want to be the best husband, thebest wife, the best friend, um,
all those people in your life,if you want to have great, good
relationships, be the bestversion of yourself.
In other words, uh emotionally,mentally, physically, uh
(09:01):
spiritually, those like thosethings be be on top of your
game, you're gonna be great inthose areas.
SPEAKER_04 (09:09):
I feel like I made I made a mistake though like maybe
two times I was listening toy'all's conversation and y'all
talking about being okay beingalone, and I'll just like raise
my eyes out of my kennel.
I was like, I'm not okay beingalone.
It's not a good that's not agood thing for me.
And then it just went down thiswhole thing.
SPEAKER_01 (09:29):
Well, no, that led to us looking at Jess and
saying, So why do you not likebeing alone?
She goes, I'm not gonna talkabout it.
And she stuck her head back intothe candle.
She said, she was like, Don'ttalk to me.
I don't want to talk about it.
Then she tried to act like shedidn't want to talk to us.
You asked the question.
SPEAKER_04 (09:46):
I'm sorry, I'm not here.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (09:48):
I was like, I didn't ask it, you did.
I didn't ask it.
And so it just we we wanted todive into that.
And so there's some there's astudy in the book.
Do you want to Michael Michaelproducer Michael is with us at
the table tonight?
What's up?
Um, because this is aconversation we all have a lot.
Yeah.
Even when we're together, we allhave this.
SPEAKER_00 (10:09):
Even before we even have this book, we've talked
about aspects of this.
SPEAKER_04 (10:12):
Right.
And the three of us have suchgood conversations.
Like even I don't mean to veeroff, but even like when we were
eating dinner together just nowbefore this our routine.
We have dinner together, then wedo this.
We had such a good conversation,and you said out you said, this
is when we need to be recordingright now.
SPEAKER_00 (10:32):
It's like, why aren't we already?
SPEAKER_04 (10:33):
Or which one of y'all said it?
But it was just like that wassuch good conversation.
But we have talks like thisoften, just as a friend group.
SPEAKER_01 (10:41):
Yeah.
So you hopefully just joining usas we it may not be as
structured as we usually are,but this is us three friends
having a conversation about thisin life.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (10:54):
Welcome to our friend group and what
conversations look like.
unknown (10:57):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (10:58):
Yeah.
I think one thing that we shouldmaybe start with, just in in
preface to this, is there is anepidemic in America, even stated
by the U.S.
government, with a problem ofpeople feeling lonely.
Correct.
And, you know, it talks a littlebit as to why is that.
You know, we're in a culturewhere we're around more people
(11:20):
than ever.
Even when we're by ourselves, wehad voices speaking to us,
whether it be a podcast orwhether it be faces on a show or
listening, scrolling throughTikTok, whatever it is, we're
actually never really alone.
SPEAKER_03 (11:32):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (11:33):
No, we're more connected than we've ever been.
SPEAKER_01 (11:35):
Supposedly.
Supposedly.
In all of civilization.
Well, what did you and I justtalk about?
I said last night, I am hookedon this guy.
I don't know.
This Finn, this Finland guy whobought an island and is building
a cabin with him and his wifeand the really cute dog.
SPEAKER_05 (11:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:51):
And I was like, I am obsessed with this guy.
Like, how like there's a guy onTikTok named Bert.
And he's like, hey, my name'sBert and build my house.
I follow Bert.
Oh, yeah, you do love Bert.
SPEAKER_04 (12:00):
Bert is building a huge house.
SPEAKER_01 (12:03):
That's amazing.
First of all, it's like I I'mI'm I'm into those things so
too.
So it's like you're right.
Like, if I have some time andI'm sitting on the couch, I'm
sitting in my chair.
SPEAKER_04 (12:12):
Well, that's where I said after I go in the evening,
after dinner cleanup, familytime, whatever, and I go take a
shower, get ready for bed, doall the skincare crap, and I
come to tell him goodnight,that's what he's watching.
He's either watching Bert buildhis house or the Finland guy
right now.
SPEAKER_00 (12:26):
Which is hilarious because I do the same thing
except for uh this Asian dude isuh building a houseboat on the
book.
Which I'm really intrigued bybamboo.
I'm not sure.
This is nothing but bamboo foreverything.
SPEAKER_04 (12:38):
I'm intrigued by it too, because of all the things
you said that he's doing on thatboat.
SPEAKER_00 (12:42):
Yeah, it's crazy.
But they're like three-hour longvideos, and I like watch every
second of it.
It's insane.
SPEAKER_04 (12:48):
All that to say is even though we're more
connected, and like we we ory'all have connection with these
people that are nowhere near us.
SPEAKER_03 (12:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (12:58):
People are more connected, but then we're also
there's a lot of lonely folks.
SPEAKER_00 (13:02):
Yes, there's a lot of loneliness.
And so I think it comes to andwhat the book talks about is uh
do we actually spend time alone?
Isolated from technology,isolated from everything else in
the world, spend time alone, andpeople don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_04 (13:20):
Aaron Powell Now we're gonna refer to this book.
Let's make sure we talk aboutthe title again and the author,
and we don't obviously own anyrights to it, we don't have any
affiliation to it.
But it's brought about a lot ofgreat conversation between
regular and it's a book studythat y'all have done, and y'all
both have read this book before,but now you're doing it.
SPEAKER_00 (13:37):
No, this is the first time neither of us have
read this book.
No, we've never seen it.
Neither of us have read it.
Okay, so we've literally kind ofgone in blind because normally
we know what a book is moreabout.
SPEAKER_04 (13:44):
But so in my split second of listening to y'all, I
heard y'all say, so y'all musthave read a couple chapters
multiple times.
Yes.
Is what I had heard.
SPEAKER_01 (13:52):
Yes, I've I listen to it and then I read it.
Okay.
SPEAKER_04 (13:55):
So, Michael, you want to just make sure we say
the title and the author.
And again, we don't have anyaffiliation with this.
It's just what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00 (14:02):
No, it's the title is The Comfort Crisis, um,
Embracing Discomfort to ReclaimYour Wild, Happy, and Healthy
Self.
And it is by Michael Easter.
SPEAKER_04 (14:11):
Okay.
Yeah, cool.
SPEAKER_00 (14:13):
It's been great so far.
We're only like maybe a quarterof the way through credit so
far.
Um but it's been great.
So talking about alone.
SPEAKER_01 (14:21):
Yes.
Yeah.
So I don't know if you uh if youguys have seen it either, but
there's a TV show out therecalled Alone.
SPEAKER_00 (14:27):
Oh, it's phenomenal.
I've seen every season.
SPEAKER_01 (14:30):
I love the show.
SPEAKER_00 (14:32):
They're so good.
SPEAKER_01 (14:32):
Yeah.
And because I don't love it forthe fact of saying, um, you
know, what are they going to doto survive?
Blah, blah, blah.
I just love seeing the socialexperience.
SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
Yes, the emotional roller coaster people go
through.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (14:47):
And it's like, uh and Jess and I were talking
about this.
I was like, most of the peoplewho quit the show or or start
the show and then even end, theytake themselves out, almost at a
point where they're just like,yeah, I just don't want to be
alone anymore.
I've gotten what I need to get.
I don't want to be out hereanymore.
I'm uh just I don't like it.
And they leave.
And I was like, uh the sure tailsign of someone's not gonna make
(15:09):
it is if they have a picture oftheir loved one.
Like that's always like, yeah,bro, he ain't gonna make it.
Yeah, I'm just sorry.
It's just like the drama in me'slike, yeah, who's gonna fall out
in the first two days?
Yeah.
It's a crazy show, but it's allabout it's the mental aspect of
that show, is such a battle forpeople, not just to survive,
(15:29):
because you have all of themhave survival skills.
Yeah, very much so.
It's it's the idea of being insolitude by yourself.
Um, is such a radical, crazyidea for people in today's time.
SPEAKER_00 (15:43):
Well, what happens when we're in solitude?
SPEAKER_01 (15:45):
You're you're kind of forced to deal with yourself.
You're kind of forced to dealwith your own thoughts, your own
emotions, your own I mean, allof those things.
You're kind of head-to-head,face to face with yourself.
Aaron Powell Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:56):
Can I read a s from this study?
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (15:58):
Is that all right?
So there's a study that wasdone, and I believe it was uh
from the yeah, the University ofVirginia.
Um by a scientist at theUniversity of Virginia.
And they did a study wherebasically the researcher would
go to the person and say, Hey,you can stay in this room by
yourself for X amount of timeand be alone with your thoughts.
No like technology, just you andyourself and your thoughts.
(16:21):
Or I can stay in here with you.
Like we can talk, do whatever,but you have to be shocked with
electricity every so often forme to stay in here.
Twenty-five percent of womensaid yes, I will take the shock
so that someone's with me.
Sixty-six percent of men saidyes, I will take the electric
(16:43):
shock so that I'm not alone.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (16:46):
That's crazy.
Think about the idea.
A quarter of the women said,I'll take the shot.
Three-fourths of the almostthree-fourths of the guys said,
Yeah, I'll take the shot.
That uh uh like shocked me.
I don't want to be by myself.
SPEAKER_00 (17:00):
That's insane.
Yeah.
That is crazy, actually.
SPEAKER_03 (17:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:05):
And I think it poses the question like, how are we
with our own thoughts?
How are we with ourselves?
SPEAKER_04 (17:13):
Oh, I'm completely uncomfortable with myself, and
I'm completely uncomfortablewith my thoughts by myself
because it goes myself-thinking, my just my own
thoughts go negativeimmediately.
I have a very negativeself-view, and that there's a
lot of aspects to it.
So I would 100% choose you juststand here with me and I'll
(17:37):
shock myself if I need to, justso I'm not by myself.
I literally cannot stand to beby myself.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
That's interesting.
SPEAKER_04 (17:44):
And there's a lot of different phases of my life
where I like where that comesfrom.
SPEAKER_01 (17:50):
Has there ever been a time where you enjoyed
solitude?
You enjoyed being by yourself?
No.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (17:57):
I'd say there's both for me.
Like sometimes there have beentimes I've hated being by
myself, and I do everything inmy world to distract myself,
whether that be just taking mydog out for a walk or doing
something or turning on a TVshow or like going to doing some
build-a-project or something,lit any anything sometimes.
(18:17):
How about you?
SPEAKER_04 (18:18):
He loves I will answer.
He loves being by himself.
unknown (18:22):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (18:22):
Yeah.
Well, not on a regular basis.
You love the the when you get tochoose.
SPEAKER_01 (18:29):
Yes.
I love choosing solitude.
SPEAKER_04 (18:31):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (18:32):
So I would say uh I was talking to a buddy of mine,
Tony.
He listens.
Uh awesome dude.
SPEAKER_04 (18:38):
Susan.
I said share.
What am I talking about?
SPEAKER_01 (18:41):
So it's um great, but we were just talking today,
and I was like, man, um I forgotmy thought.
Oh, I told him, I was like, mydivorce was the best thing that
happened to me and the worstthing that happened to me.
And he's like, Well, that'sinteresting.
I was like, Yeah, I I was like,I was so afraid of being by
myself.
(19:02):
The house I grew up in,everything.
I was surrounding myself withpeople.
I was a class clown because Ialways thought if I could be
funny and get attention, thosekind of things in my life, I
would draw people in, I could beby myself.
Well, when the divorce happened,it kind of forced me into a
place where when I had my kidsfor seven days, I was with my
kids.
When I didn't have my kids, itwas me and my thoughts.
(19:25):
Um, and just it it forced me towrestle to the ground a lot of
things that I had never reallywrestled to the ground with.
SPEAKER_03 (19:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:34):
And it it caused me to look into myself and try to
be like, am I okay with who Iam?
Am I okay with being with theguy that I am?
And am I okay with this guy, ordo I want to change it?
And so it I walked through thatprocess and it it it was it was
not fun, but it was extremelyhelpful.
(19:54):
Now I got to the point where Iactually enjoyed and looked
forward to time with myselfbecause when I was better by
myself, oh, I was a hundredtimes better when I was with
people.
And so realizing that aboutmyself, I was like, okay, I
can't run from these things.
I have to face them head on andunpack them.
SPEAKER_04 (20:15):
And what's sweet and sad now at this point, or not
even I mean, this many yearslater, but once you got to there
and then we met, you were stillyou still craved that alone
time, but then you also feltguilty for taking alone time.
And I think you still battlewith that now.
SPEAKER_01 (20:33):
I do.
I do because I it feels kind ofselfish.
SPEAKER_04 (20:37):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (20:37):
Um but I I know that I need it.
It goes back to that.
SPEAKER_04 (20:41):
Because you were the least selfish husband and father
there ever could be.
And so, yeah, I can see I I haveseen you struggle with that.
SPEAKER_01 (20:50):
And you've said That's why my adventures have
kind of tailed off because Ifeel selfish.
SPEAKER_04 (20:56):
And you've said so many years, man.
And it was just like in aconversation with you, and I
mean I could really use this acouple days in like the woods
camping by myself, and I'm like,go do it.
And I I've never said don't, butyou you you still you ha you
struggle with that, the desireto be by yourself versus Yeah,
(21:17):
because I have that.
SPEAKER_01 (21:18):
It's I've battled that from I don't want to miss
something.
SPEAKER_02 (21:22):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:23):
Which is crazy to think about.
But the whole idea is that umgrowing up, I felt like my dad
missed a huge portion of it, andI don't want to miss anything.
But my kids are grown.
Yeah.
Like they're leading their ownlives.
Like um and so uh that that is ahuge battle for me, and I I
constantly I'm back and forthwith that.
SPEAKER_04 (21:42):
But I know Do you think that you knowing how much
I absolutely detest being bymyself has anything to do with
that?
SPEAKER_01 (21:49):
Yeah, because you tell me every time.
If I do on the last time I wenton a trip, you would tell me uh
I think the last one time I wentto Korea and Russia.
SPEAKER_05 (21:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:59):
And you know it was like a two-week trip.
SPEAKER_04 (22:01):
Well, you still, you know what was worse is when you
were Yes, because when you wentto Korea and Russia, all four of
our kids went to student camp atthe same time for the first
time.
That had never happened.
So all of my babies left me, andthen my husband literally went
to the crazy crowd.
Yes, to the you went to theother side of the world.
(22:23):
So yes, I spent that entire weekto 10 days at my dad and
stepmom's house for dinner everynight crying because everybody
had quote unquote in my heart,in my brain, deserted me because
being alone is by myself andit's bad.
That's my equation to alone.
So yeah, and I feel so bad forthat.
(22:44):
I'll just say I'm sorry in frontof literally all of our however
many listeners we have at thispoint.
I'm sorry that I feel so badlyabout being alone that it makes
you feel bad.
SPEAKER_00 (22:58):
Can I uh can I open up the the paradox of all of
this?
Yes, like because it's like kindof like an oxymoron, right?
So we're talking about howloneliness is a crazy pandemic,
like it's insane the amount ofpeople that feel lonely in the
United States currently.
Um but we're talking about beingintentional to be alone.
SPEAKER_03 (23:20):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (23:21):
How how does that make sense?
Like help help help us makesense of that, because like I'm
sure like we got listenerslistening, is like that's
literally should be the oppositeof what we should be doing,
right?
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (23:34):
Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:38):
Okay, so we have this epidemic of loneliness
going on.
Right.
And we're talking about takingtime to be alone.
Can can I ask a question?
SPEAKER_01 (23:47):
Do you think loneliness is different from
solitude?
Personally, no.
SPEAKER_03 (23:54):
Yes.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (23:56):
Hang on, the essay asked the question again.
Do you think loneliness isdifferent from solitude?
SPEAKER_00 (24:01):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (24:01):
Yes.
Okay.
So do you think do you think youcan choose loneliness or do you
think uh it finds you?
Because you choose solitude.
SPEAKER_04 (24:08):
You do that.
That's where I was gonna go.
You choose solitude.
SPEAKER_01 (24:14):
Do you choose loneliness?
SPEAKER_04 (24:16):
Uh not always, no.
SPEAKER_00 (24:18):
I think you do.
SPEAKER_01 (24:20):
Okay, and help me unback it.
Talk to me.
SPEAKER_00 (24:22):
And I say this because I've I've been there
myself.
Being intentional to surroundyourself with friends, being
intentional to be real withfriends, and in doing so, you'll
in a lot of ways find out truefriends and who's gonna pour
into you and love you and buildyou up.
SPEAKER_04 (24:40):
On the other side of that, let's just say there's or
there have been family memberswho are single adults living
their own life while everybodyelse and their family, friends,
what have you, are living theirlives around them, but there's a
(25:03):
lot of time alone.
That's loneliness.
Not because you don't choose youit's not the act of choosing to
not be included in or not,whatever.
It's just because like life ishappening around you.
SPEAKER_01 (25:18):
Yeah, I get that.
SPEAKER_04 (25:19):
And that's a loneliness that you don't
choose.
SPEAKER_01 (25:22):
But don't you get to choose to be a part of that?
You get to choose to make asense, yeah.
You can choose to sit in yourapartment or sit in your home by
yourself.
SPEAKER_00 (25:30):
I'll say this.
Okay, and this is just reallife, and and y'all are very
much a part of this.
Um when I was going through mydivorce, one of the first things
y'all did, and this is outsideof obviously we worked together
and we met a lot when it came totalking about my divorce as
friends.
SPEAKER_05 (25:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:46):
But you want to know what like got me connected to
you and the rest of your family?
Greg would be like, Hey, this isa Georgia game this Saturday,
come hang out.
And if you remember, like thosefor that first season, I
probably showed up at halftimeevery day.
You did.
SPEAKER_05 (26:01):
You did.
SPEAKER_00 (26:02):
Yeah.
I didn't want to come.
And it wasn't that I didn't wantto hang out with y'all.
No, I was going through hell inmy life.
SPEAKER_05 (26:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:11):
But I just kept remembering I've got to push
past this.
SPEAKER_04 (26:15):
And we actually want you here too.
SPEAKER_00 (26:18):
And I but I just remember, and this is why I say,
and I understand not everyonehas lived what I've lived.
Everyone has differentcircumstances, different things
they've been through.
So I understand there'sdifferences.
But for me, when I was lonely,it was a matter of someone cared
enough to reach out to me andinvite me somewhere.
I might be an hour and a halflate, but I'm gonna go.
SPEAKER_04 (26:39):
You're gonna get there.
SPEAKER_00 (26:40):
Yeah, I'm gonna get there.
And sometimes it was me justliterally sitting on my couch,
not wanting to do anything andwrestling in my mind for that
hour and a half, saying, It'd beso good to go.
But then I'm like, but I'm Idon't want to be around anyone
right now.
SPEAKER_03 (26:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:56):
Then five minutes later, Michael, you really need
to get up and go.
And then I'm like, but I don'twant to talk about anything.
Someone's gonna ask me how I'mdoing, and I'm not gonna be able
to keep it together.
SPEAKER_01 (27:07):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (27:08):
Yeah.
But all in all, and there were acouple of weeks I didn't come.
There were days that I didn'tcome.
Yeah.
But basically, ever since Istarted coming, I'm at every
single home game.
Yeah.
Even the late ones, and I gotearly Sunday mornings.
So you do.
You yeah.
So for me, when I when I sayyes, that is a choice, yeah,
every decision that we makeleads to or away from
(27:31):
loneliness.
SPEAKER_04 (27:31):
It does.
And I love that you brought thatfact up because earlier before
you got here for dinner, we weretalking about my grandmother.
And I probably will getemotional talking about Nanny
because she's just she's myspirit animal, I guess.
I don't know.
But Nanny was very active andvery involved in like social
butterfly.
(27:52):
Social butterfly.
Like she literally retired frombeing a nurse full time when
Thomas was born, who's 24 and ahalf at this point, I guess,
from whenever she would haveretired.
Um and so she retired to keephim, but still like enrolled
both of them in Mother's MorningOut.
(28:14):
And like then Aaron Grace camealong.
Like she was still very socialand then her Sunday school
class, and because at that pointmy grandfather had passed away,
but she was very intentionalabout her friend group, her
Sunday school class, the outingsand serving the community,
keeping the grandkids.
And then when Greg and I gotmarried, she was still coming to
(28:34):
almost every single kid event,birthday parties and holidays,
and just very, very intentionalabout her own community and our
family community too.
Well, as she got older, yes, shewas in her eighties and she had
some like health problems, andshe just had kind of decided
(28:56):
like I'm I'm kinda done beingsocial.
And so that that diminished likeher friend group and her Sunday
school crew.
And then, okay, then anotherlevel came in of like, well, I
can't make it at this birthdayparty, and like it just kept
diminishing, diminishing,diminishing.
And she was making choices tostay home.
And we I remember you and I hadthe conversation with her so
(29:18):
many times.
Don't shut yourself in, don't dothat.
Let's let's keep going.
I know it's hard, I know ithurts, and all these things, but
as soon as she decided I was shewas done like being involved and
being social, that thatloneliness set in, and that kind
of that not kinda, it did, itescalated the process towards
(29:41):
the end for her.
SPEAKER_03 (29:42):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (29:43):
And so those social connections and those
relationships that she hadthrived with for so many years
was what was keeping her going,and she just couldn't see that
at that point.
And so I think a lot of times,like your friend group And I I
have been in these shoes.
Your friend group can be theones that can make or break that
(30:05):
loneliness for you, not becauseyou're choosing it, but because
I would hope that you havefriends in your life like I did
and like you did and like you doand did, to be like, no, no, no,
no, no.
We're not gonna do that.
We're not gonna do that.
I want you to keep coming, keepcoming, even if it's
uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00 (30:21):
Yeah, press will just call me and tell me to stop
being an idiot and show up.
SPEAKER_04 (30:24):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (30:25):
Literally.
I mean, Damon was the guy for mewhen I literally would just show
up at his house, or if I didn'tshow up for something, he would
call me and come find me andbefore.
SPEAKER_04 (30:35):
And Lisa and Chad were that for me.
Yeah, what's going on?
And a few other handful of otherfriends, but they were they were
those people for me.
Like I hope that we had beenthere for you, Michael, of just
be like, no, no, no, no.
I don't care if you want towatch football or not.
I want you to be physically herewith us.
SPEAKER_00 (30:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (30:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:52):
Can I read another study that that comes from this
book that uh Michael Easterbrings out?
He said, This is a study fromscientists at Brigham uh Young
University.
Says it doesn't matter how oldyou are, how much money you
have, being lonely increases therisk of dying within the next
seven years by twenty-sixpercent.
(31:13):
Overall, it can shorten yourlife by 15 years, which is the
equivalent of smoking half apack of cigarettes a day.
SPEAKER_05 (31:21):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (31:22):
That's insane.
Just simply being lonely in yourlife increase the chances of you
dying in the next seven years by26%, which is crazy.
Yeah.
But it can also shorten yourlife by 15 years.
SPEAKER_05 (31:37):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (31:38):
Then it says good relationships, according to
another study done by Harvard,is the creing key ingredient to
happiness across your lifespan,completely blowing fortune and
fame out of the water.
SPEAKER_04 (31:49):
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (31:50):
So for us one thing we can push more than fortune
and fame is good relationships.
Good relationship.
Good relationships.
Absolutely.
That's what's crazy.
Like because it really is true.
Like I I I had the conversationwith someone the other day, and
and I was like, I've had theincredible opportunity to sit
across the table from people whomade stupid money.
(32:12):
I mean like life-changing money,who ran very successful large
companies.
SPEAKER_04 (32:18):
Fortune 500.
SPEAKER_01 (32:19):
Yeah, like big, big companies.
And would just say I everythingI have is in this, I've given
everything to this company.
And this is all I have.
And it's so sad.
I've given my life to my job.
I have tons of money, but Idon't I don't love what I have.
(32:39):
And that's that's a sad thing.
Because I I've met with lots ofyoung people who go, I just want
to make this amount of money.
I was like, you can make thatamount of money all day long.
SPEAKER_04 (32:47):
You're still a good thing.
SPEAKER_01 (32:48):
And it's gonna cost you something.
Like everything costs you.
It's gonna cost you.
And you're probably gonna likethe cost at the end.
SPEAKER_03 (32:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:54):
But the idea is like you can do it.
But I I I guess just sittingaround the table with those guys
always made me look at moneydifferent.
Yeah.
And fortune and fame, and justto go, it's not it's not what
it's all about.
SPEAKER_05 (33:06):
No.
No.
SPEAKER_01 (33:07):
Like it's not because at the end You're not
taking anything with you.
Yeah, well, it just doesn'tmatter.
Like it really doesn't matter.
unknown (33:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (33:14):
And I appreciate that part of you.
That was before you and I met.
But I mean, that's what makespart of baggage claim what it
even is, is because you've livedthat part of with those folks
who make all the money and thatpeople think that they want.
You know, like this portfolio orthis, that, and the other.
(33:35):
I mean, I I'm struggling not toname the name brands who've
you've worked for, but it's somereally big folks.
Or not for, work.
I mean with.
With.
unknown (33:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:46):
I mean, you were I think the the the biggest thing
for me though, like when I lookat all of those things, and I
look at I had a con I had aconversation.
Uh I was talking, I was talkingto Tony.
We've been hanging out a lothere lately, and we're riding
back and forth.
And I was telling them a storyand I was like, yeah, uh, Jess
was sick, and Thomas called meand he says, Hey, you want to go
(34:07):
to Mellow and just have a beer?
And I was like, I can't tell youhow happy.
SPEAKER_04 (34:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (34:13):
Like, that's probably more important to me.
SPEAKER_04 (34:16):
Not probably, it is.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (34:18):
For for that phone call to go sit at the bar, have
a beer, and talk football, justtalk live.
Just have a beer with your son.
Than any amount of money thatyou could shove my way.
Yeah.
Like, because those things fade.
Like, I don't, I'm not, I'm nota material, like, so what?
Stuff just comes and goes, butlike that is huge for me to go.
That if if you want to know whatat the end, when I think about
(34:40):
my life as success, is like ifmy kids want to hang out with
me, yeah, and and that's hugefor me.
Like that's a win all day long.
SPEAKER_04 (34:48):
And so like the fact that all of our kids, our out of
state ones, our busy ones, ouryou know, first responder kit,
like all of them are gonna be intown here with us for
Thanksgiving on one day is I'mover the moon.
Yeah, just as you said about theI'm like, I've scheduled a
(35:10):
photographer.
We're getting a brand new familypicture.
So we can have a family picturewith Lulu in it.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, I am that one dayis my Super Bowl for 2025 and
probably 2026.
Just all of it.
Like that, having them all herebecause they want to be here and
they have made sacrifices to behere is like that's all I need.
(35:35):
Literally.
SPEAKER_01 (35:36):
But the idea of that goes back to good relationships,
yes.
Is way more important than thananything else.
SPEAKER_00 (35:45):
Well, and I think this is this is the whole
purpose of talking about beingalone because when you are alone
in solitude, nothing else goingon.
I'm not talking about, you know,Netflix playing in the
background.
I'm talking about no technology.
You only have your thoughts.
Yep.
Things surface about yourselfthat you may not want to
(36:08):
address.
SPEAKER_04 (36:08):
I will say that firsthand.
SPEAKER_00 (36:10):
1000%.
SPEAKER_04 (36:11):
Firsthand for my own self.
I am better when I am not alonebecause my when I'm alone, and I
mean this has been forever.
I've never enjoyed being alone.
I don't even know what the rootcause of that is, but then with
losing my first husband, whenI'm alone, if Greg's not with
(36:36):
me, I immediately, and I saidbefore in other episodes, like
when we got together and decidedto try to build a future
together, I had to go back tocounseling to work on like not
immediately going to, well, ifhe doesn't respond to me in 30
seconds when I text him, or ifhe doesn't answer the phone when
I call him, he's something'swrong.
(36:56):
Something has happened to him.
Like I had to go through thatback then 13 years ago.
But I still struggle with that.
If I don't and I I kick myselffor this, even now, like these
days, you've been working awayfrom home, uh, about an hour
from home.
And so I I have really had toself-talk myself, even when I'm
(37:21):
teaching.
If I don't hear back from him,if it's been an hour or so, I
have to be like, he's fine.
He's fine, he's okay, he's fine.
So I go through those fearfulthoughts in my own head.
I have very negative self-talkin my own head about my own
self.
And so I very much struggle withstill now, literally today, of
(37:48):
if I'm alone, I go directly inmy own thoughts to negative
town.
And I have I have really foughtagainst that my whole life, but
a lot in the past probablydecade or so.
And I have the hardest timebreaking myself from that, which
(38:10):
is why I don't like to be alone.
I would prefer to be with otherpeople.
SPEAKER_00 (38:15):
Yeah, because you don't have to deal with that.
SPEAKER_04 (38:17):
Because I don't have to think too much.
SPEAKER_00 (38:19):
Well, that goes back, and I know we've talked
about this on the podcastbefore, but like the average,
and this is a give or takenumber.
I don't remember the absolutespecific, but I think it's a 13
to 1 ratio when we have our ownthoughts about ourselves.
It's 13 negative thoughts aboutyourself versus every one good
thought.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (38:37):
That's the average.
SPEAKER_00 (38:39):
That's the average for most people, which is
incredibly disheartening how wethink about ourselves, which
makes complete sense why 25% ofwomen say no, shock me and stay
in the room with me.
And 66% of men say shock me.
I'm a stay in the room with me.
SPEAKER_01 (39:01):
Yeah, I don't know.
Guys, guys just hide their fearsbetter.
SPEAKER_04 (39:05):
Well, okay.
They just hide it better.
SPEAKER_01 (39:06):
Yeah, I could agree with that.
SPEAKER_04 (39:07):
I was really surprised at the vast difference
between the two.
SPEAKER_00 (39:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (39:12):
I really was.
SPEAKER_00 (39:13):
But this is what I have loved about this book so
far.
And this is the the reason whyit talks about being alone, is
because he's encouraging you towrestle those thoughts.
Right.
Work through those thoughts.
Because there's a reason,there's a reason why we have
these thoughts.
Either one, it's because we wishwe would change something about
ourselves.
Right.
Or two, we're believing a lieabout ourselves.
SPEAKER_03 (39:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:35):
So either one, we need to, and and I this is
something I know you hear me saythis all the time, check myself.
SPEAKER_03 (39:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:41):
Check myself.
Okay, is this a lie I'mbelieving about myself?
Finalize that thought.
If I have a negative thoughtabout myself, I need to finalize
it.
Because that thought's gonnakeep coming back and keep coming
back.
If you're anything like me, itdoes.
Right.
But until I take that.
SPEAKER_04 (39:56):
My I don't mean to interrupt you.
I'm sorry.
For me, it's like it's a 50-50.
50% probably is lies I tellmyself or things I believe about
myself that are likely not true,or there's some hint of not
true.
I don't know.
It's hard for me to decipher,obviously.
(40:16):
And then 50% is just fear ofwhat I cannot control.
And that's that's where mynegative thought cycle comes
from.
And I know in just conversationwith me and you, those are
things that you don'tnecessarily identify with
because that's not where yournegative thoughts come from.
SPEAKER_01 (40:39):
No.
I a good book for um if you'rewhere Jess is at, a great book
to listen to and read.
I've read and listened to it acouple of times.
Is Don't Believe Everything YouThink.
SPEAKER_05 (40:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (40:52):
Great book.
I haven't read that yet.
Is that where those statisticswere that you were sharing
earlier?
No, that's a different one.
But it's it is an interestingbecause we talked about I shared
these statistics with these guyswhen we were having dinner, that
it was talking about worry inour thoughts.
Yeah.
And the idea was it says theysurveyed and followed people who
(41:13):
had these worries, and 85% ofthe worries that these people
had never even happened.
And so they just the the thingsthat they were worrying about,
85% of them never happened.
Out of the left the the last15%, only 12% of those worries
that they had turned out waybetter than they actually
(41:34):
thought they would.
So the results were way better.
So basically he said only 3% ofthe things you worry about are
actually ever going to happen.
SPEAKER_05 (41:45):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (41:45):
So you're wasting so much mental capacity and so much
mental stress, all those thingsof life, because you it steals
your present joy.
SPEAKER_02 (41:57):
Oh, how do you think that's a good thing?
SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
Right you have in the everything.
So it's one out of 33 worriesyou have is actually going to
happen.
SPEAKER_04 (42:07):
And what's even more frustrating as a Christian, I
the three of us are Christians,is that I know the power of
prayer.
I know what the Lord haspromised me, and I know that He
will help me take those thoughtscaptive.
And I mean, He wants good forus.
(42:30):
And it's so hard.
It's that battle.
There is literally a battle inmy brain when it comes to when
I'm alone versus when I'm withother folks.
And it it is it's justincredibly frustrating to be in
my own brain sometimes.
SPEAKER_01 (42:48):
Well, it's just for all of us.
I mean, even our listeners rightnow are listening going, yeah,
it's frustrating.
I get that 100%.
And this is not an easy thing.
No, that's why no one reallydoes it, because it's easy.
We create this comfortable placein our lives where we don't have
to deal with it.
I can turn on TikTok.
I can watch my Finnish guy, myguy in Finland on an island
(43:10):
build a cabin not have to worryabout it.
Yeah.
We can watch your guy build hisbamboo house.
SPEAKER_04 (43:14):
I was talking to y'all earlier, like with my
first graders, I can watch likethe ASMR videos of slime or sand
and like all these likesatisfying videos.
I'll sit on the carpet and youknow, zone out with them.
And I and I said, I'm like, orif I could break myself out of
(43:35):
this cycle, I could pick a bookto read out loud with them and
not at the last five minutes ofmy day not zone out with them.
Like it's just so frustrating.
SPEAKER_00 (43:50):
Yeah, it's hard.
SPEAKER_04 (43:51):
So what do we do with that?
So let's let's go.
What do we do?
SPEAKER_00 (43:54):
Can I say the purpose of why he's talking
about being alone?
Yes.
Yes, very much.
So he says, maybe, just maybe,if you can master the art of
being alone, then you can bringmore value to the friendships
and communities you have.
Wow.
Yeah.
And that's brilliant, becausethat makes me think of like,
(44:15):
okay, because we don't likebeing alone because we bring no
value.
We only get devalued when we'realone.
So if if we can't bring value tothe time that we have with
ourselves, how are we supposedto bring value to the time that
we have with others?
That's your mic drop momentright there.
Yeah, yeah.
(44:36):
Okay, yeah, yeah.
So it's huge.
So and even ask, like, okay,what what kind of friendships do
you have?
What what kind of relationshipsdo you have?
And I think it does make us lookinward to say, okay, well, what
kind of value can I even bringmyself?
Yeah.
And it this is not a uh it's nota look down on yourself.
SPEAKER_04 (44:56):
This is not to be a I was just gonna say, in a full
transparency moment, that makesme feel like I should be like,
I'm sorry, Greg, for what youhave to repeat yourself over and
over again to speak into thevalue of what you see of my own
self that I don't see in me.
Because I would imagine that Imean it could be annoying.
SPEAKER_00 (45:18):
It is, it it like kind of hurts to hear that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (45:21):
But it does.
SPEAKER_01 (45:23):
So here's here's here's something I have for
unpack.
SPEAKER_05 (45:26):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (45:27):
I want it to be simple, but I think it's there's
two things I want people to do.
SPEAKER_04 (45:32):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (45:33):
Um you you can agree or disagree.
We haven't talked about this atall.
SPEAKER_04 (45:36):
No, we have not.
Literally, it's just it's myhandy dandy notebook has hardly
nothing in it for today.
SPEAKER_01 (45:42):
This is a thought that came to me while we're
doing this podcast.
One thing I want you to do.
I want you to practice solitudethis week.
And you may be like, Greg, Idon't know how.
If you're in the car, cut theradio off.
Don't play music, don't playanything.
Just ride in silence whereveryou're going.
Just be with your thoughts.
SPEAKER_05 (46:04):
That makes me very uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01 (46:06):
That's the point.
So, whatever that is, if you canuh if you can choose to be, if
it's ten minutes or if it's anhour, choose to be, choose to
solitude.
And then the second thing I wantyou to do is I want you each
day, each morning you get up,either on your phone, send a
text to yourself.
What is one thing I like aboutmyself?
SPEAKER_00 (46:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (46:30):
What is one thing I like about, and then maybe after
your time of solitude, maybeit's something to think about on
solitude.
What's one thing I like aboutmyself?
If you can't find one thing youlike about yourself, bro, you
you need to spend some more timeand like digging into yourself.
Like surround yourself with somepeople.
SPEAKER_04 (46:49):
Okay, one thing for a person who does it.
One person who has a hard timefinding positive things.
One thing a day or one thingperiod.
What's our goal?
SPEAKER_01 (47:02):
Each day, right?
One thing.
SPEAKER_04 (47:05):
Gosh.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (47:06):
Do it.
All I'm asking you to do is doit for one week.
SPEAKER_04 (47:08):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (47:09):
So you need seven things that you really like
about myself.
SPEAKER_04 (47:11):
You're challenging me.
SPEAKER_01 (47:12):
I'm challenging all of us.
No, I'm just saying though, likeAnd we can all text each other
in our group and say, Okay,here's one thing I like about
myself today.
I think that's good.
And here's uh finds uh for youguys who are listening, somebody
who's your friend, your spouse,uh, whoever may be your best
friend, yeah, text them and say,here's one thing I like about
it.
Drop a comment, man.
Like seriously, we I'd love tohear that.
SPEAKER_00 (47:34):
I would literally love people think through that.
SPEAKER_04 (47:35):
Or if you want to direct any of our socials.
Um any of the places.
Yeah.
If you if you're listening andyou follow us on all the things,
literally send us a one thingyou like about.
You don't have to do it a day,just one thing in general that
you like about yourself.
SPEAKER_01 (47:52):
Yeah.
Because it's going to make yourrelationships better the more
you love yourself.
The Bible, the Bible says thethe the greatest commandment is
to love your Lord your God withall your heart, with all your
soul, with all your mind, and tolove your neighbor as you love
yourself.
(48:13):
And learn to love yourself, andyou're gonna love your neighbor,
your wife, your spouse, allthose people so much better.
And that's just that's justtruth.
SPEAKER_00 (48:24):
And whether you whether you believe it or not,
it's truth.
And so and can I encourage,because honestly, in in some of
these ways, this is somethingwe've been practicing as we've
been going through this book,things we've talked about before
in ministry, but it also seemsvery, very like small.
It's like, oh my gosh, so Ireally have to write down
(48:44):
something I like about myself.
You know, but when you thinkabout all of these things that
we uh wrestle with internally,mentally, and our health and
emotional and mental health, wenever put to practice these
kinds of things.
No, no, and I I think of littlebaby Lulu, sweet little girl.
Grandpa yesterday at the doggame, man, she was getting
(49:05):
everywhere.
She's starting to walk.
Oh my gosh.
But the reality is she didn'tjust get up and run a marathon.
SPEAKER_05 (49:11):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (49:12):
No, she had to take one step.
She had to crawl ten feet, thentake one step.
SPEAKER_04 (49:18):
No, no, baby girl.
SPEAKER_00 (49:19):
Maybe if if you're looking at it and you're like,
oh, that's a silly exercise.
I want to encourage you, like,maybe this is that first step.
SPEAKER_04 (49:26):
Yeah.
Have you ever watched a babylearn how to walk?
Yeah.
It's huge.
And like adorable.
It is the sweetest thing.
And she gets so excited with herlittle hands up.
Honestly.
SPEAKER_01 (49:40):
That's our that's our journey though in life.
Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04 (49:44):
That's where I'm going with that.
I wish and I hope for, and Imaybe you boys can help me be
accountable that as I am 47 andtrying to take steps to finding
one thing or two things that Ilike about myself, I should feel
by feel like baby Lucy andcelebrating like with her hands
(50:08):
up, maybe I can learn to do thatfor my own self or our friends
that are listening can do thattoo.
SPEAKER_01 (50:13):
Like and then learn that makes my heart happy to
think somebody out there wouldsee something in themselves.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That it's dude, g give me fiveminutes with you.
Uh the five minutes with thepeople that are around you who
love you and care about you.
They can tell you seven thingsjust like that that they that
(50:34):
they that they think you'reamazing at.
SPEAKER_04 (50:37):
And so Can you name that maybe three things that you
like about your own self?
SPEAKER_01 (50:42):
That's all.
SPEAKER_04 (50:43):
And maybe we're gonna share a video of baby Lulu
learning how to walk.
And I want you to feel that sameexcitement.
SPEAKER_01 (50:48):
Yeah.
There you go.
SPEAKER_04 (50:49):
About your own self.
SPEAKER_01 (50:51):
Well, what a fun, deep, yeah, encouraging, fun
conversation.
It is.
Yeah.
Um practice some solitude asshort, as long as you can.
Um and and write those thingsthe one day, one thing each day.
And um let's take those littleloosey first steps.
unknown (51:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (51:13):
And uh and let's learn to let's learn to run, but
we gotta learn to walk first.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so this is part of theprocess.
SPEAKER_04 (51:20):
So yeah, thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01 (51:22):
Yeah, thank you guys for joining us.
SPEAKER_04 (51:24):
We appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (51:25):
We're still growing.
SPEAKER_04 (51:26):
We picked up another another country today that we
cannot pronounce.
SPEAKER_01 (51:30):
Yeah, so it's just it's fun.
Thank you guys, love you guys somuch.
Interact with us, tell us whatyou want to hear, tell us what
you want us to talk about.
SPEAKER_04 (51:39):
Our local friends are very good at that.
We would love to hear from someof you people that are
listening, all of these wide.
SPEAKER_01 (51:48):
From Washington to California to Pennsylvania to
Michigan, Maine, all over theplace.
SPEAKER_04 (51:54):
Yeah, to the foreign countries that are crazy.
SPEAKER_01 (51:57):
Yeah, you guys that are in um Canada.
Yeah, Malaysia.
You guys are in Malaysia.
Singapore.
Yeah.
Who are y'all?
There's what you want to hear.
SPEAKER_04 (52:07):
There's so many downloads there.
Please just send us a messageand just say hello.
Yeah.
You don't even have to have aquestion or a comment.
Just say hello.
And that I mean, I wouldprobably lose my whole mind if
that was the case.
But thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01 (52:26):
But anyway, um, love you guys.
Thank you so much.
I hope Baggage Claim is a placewhere you do feel connection and
conversations and community andaround relationships, and you
grow from that.
So we do.
SPEAKER_05 (52:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (52:42):
Take your first steps this week.
SPEAKER_05 (52:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (52:44):
And as we always say, go down.
SPEAKER_03 (52:47):
Go down.
SPEAKER_00 (52:59):
The music intro is so good.
I can't even think of it rightnow.
What is it?
SPEAKER_05 (53:03):
Where everybody knows your name.
Yeah.
And they're always glad youcame.
You wanna go where everybodyknows your name.
SPEAKER_00 (53:26):
Oh my gosh, that's great.
I love that.
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