September 19, 2023 • 63 mins
In this heartfelt episode, Lindsey and Britt celebrate their 16th wedding anniversary and reflect on their journey of love and commitment.
They share stories from the early days of their relationship, including how they found love over a mixed CD. However, they also acknowledge that they lacked the tools for a conscious relationship and struggled with communication and personal growth.
They did not know the importance of communication, accountability, and personal growth, and they found themselves navigating the complexities of marriage without a solid foundation.
Despite the challenges, they express gratitude for their journey and emphasize the importance of commitment and understanding in staying together. Throughout the episode, Lindsey and Britt express their deep love and appreciation for each other, highlighting the joy and evolution their relationship continues to bring.
If you're interested in the dynamics of lasting love and relationships, this episode offers relatable anecdotes and valuable insights.
Want to know our three steps for staying connected and conscious in partnership?
Get the guide here!
Join Lindsey and Britt as they take you on a rollercoaster of emotions, laughter, and reflection, leaving you feeling inspired and hopeful for your own journey of love.
Touching Into Creativity: a 2 hour online workshop to re-awaken your creative essence from within. Join Lindsey on October 19th for this live workshop — you’ll learn how to connect with your felt sense, get curious and open to the creative flow.
This workshop is for you if you’ve always wanted to be creative but didn’t think you could be OR you have a creative project that you want more ease and freedom around.
Spots are limited so snag yours today and get ready to feel your creative flow.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lindsey (00:14):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Can We
Start Over podcast.
My name is Lindsay.
And my name is Brit.
And this is the sensual edition.
I stole your joke.
Now you say it.
This is
Britt (00:27):
our third take, so.
I made a lot of jokes on thoseother takes, real good ones that
we're not using.
Lindsey (00:34):
And then I stole them.
And then she stole the worstone.
I stole the worst one.
And now I think it's funnybecause I said it.
Britt (00:44):
That's kind of been her thing lately, stealing my lines.
Lindsey (00:47):
Really?
Oh shit.
I'm sorry.
Britt (00:50):
That's okay.
You'll find your own shit soon.
Lindsey (00:55):
Well, maybe not.
Maybe not.
It's been long enough.
Yeah.
That's kind of what we talkabout today, is that we've been
married a long time.
We've
Britt (01:05):
been stealing each other's shit for 18 years
Lindsey (01:07):
now.
Yeah, we're coming in hot rightin the intro with a lot of S
bombs.
F bombs and sensuality.
F bombs.
No more, we need to chill.
Should we start over?
Britt (01:19):
Calm it down.
No, no, this is good.
This is real life 101.
This
Lindsey (01:24):
is good, but really.
Shout out Julian.
Britt (01:28):
It's my cousin's tv show, Real Life 101.
Why?
Lindsey (01:31):
Why?
I don't know.
Oh, I do have a question.
Is there anything else you wantto shout out at the beginning?
Do you
Britt (01:40):
want to shout out anything else?
I want to shout out love, I wantto shout out freedom, I want to
shout out that dude from CNCMusic Factory.
I think his name is Freedom orAmerica
Lindsey (01:51):
or something.
I think his name is Freedom.
Britt (01:53):
Um, I would like to, to shoot out, uh, Pepsi Cola.
Lindsey (01:58):
Don't say shootout
Britt (02:01):
We should mention we just put our kids to bed and by this
time I'm asleep in bed withFalling asleep
Lindsey (02:10):
because I'm a tired little boy.
I did almost fall asleep inthere with the boys and I had
this like sort of vision of Mudand my foot was gonna slip in it
and then it had had that feelingof like slipping in a dream Oh,
did you jerk?
Yeah, and then I was like, oh Ineed to get up.
Yeah But it was I've neverexperienced it like that.
(02:32):
It's always something Yeah, somud.
One
Britt (02:36):
time that happened to me and, uh, we were laying in bed
and I said, uh, dog food doesn'ttaste good or something like
that.
Do you remember that?
No.
Yeah, I woke myself up bytalking about how the dog food
didn't taste good.
Yeah.
Lindsey (02:50):
That is so funny.
Britt (02:51):
It was really weird.
Yeah, so this is, uh, Tired Usedition.
Lindsey (02:55):
Yeah, and I need to tell you something unrelated to
the podcast.
Remember when I said the thing Iwanted to see was a clown?
Yeah.
Well, I was just reading a bookto the boys and there was a
clown.
Britt (03:06):
What do you know?
Kid's book had a clown
Lindsey (03:08):
in it.
There you go guys, that's proof.
Lindsay
Britt (03:11):
was
Lindsey (03:11):
manifesting a clown that the universe is listening
to you.
It happened.
Because of a clown.
This episode that you haveprobably turned off because it's
too bonkers bananas is all aboutour relationship.
This is our 16th anniversarythis week.
And so we wanted to talk aboutWhy we've stayed together just
(03:34):
to shed some light on what it'slike to be married a long time
and Really?
I think what's interesting aboutit to me is that we didn't have
a conscious Relationship wedidn't have good communication
We didn't have awareness of eachother really on a deep level and
(03:54):
then we like worked through ourown Stuff and then we did so
it's In defense of stayingtogether.
Yeah,
Britt (04:04):
there were, there were multiple times, even a few times
I forgot about until we startedrecording this episode, where we
could have called it quits.
Lindsey (04:11):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, not like in big wayswhere we're like, yeah, this is
it, but in ways where it waslike, oh.
Like, it could have slipped awayfrom us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I'm glad it didn't.
So that's why we're having thisepisode.
It's about starting over in ourown relationship.
And we talked about it a littlebit, but this was like us really
(04:33):
wanting to get into the timesthat were hard and the times
that we look back and think, Oh,we could have done that way
differently.
And also how it's all justperfect.
And it all happened exactly theway it should have.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And you know what, Brett, I loveyou.
(04:54):
Oh, and I'm glad that you stuckaround with me through all my
deep.
Healing, unaware, whatever ness,you really gave me some chances.
And I'm glad you kept me around.
Yeah, thank you.
And I appreciate you now morethan ever.
(05:15):
And I have more fun with you nowbecause you're cooler.
That's not true.
Hashtag neck gang.
Britt (05:27):
You'll, you'll catch that in
Lindsey (05:28):
the episode.
And even though we're old fartsand we've been married 16 years,
it just keeps getting more funand I like can't wait to see
what we do next.
Britt (05:39):
Oh, well, thanks for keeping me around and keeping me
laughing.
For so many years.
I love you.
I also just wanted to let y'allknow that we talked about
miscarriage Around minute 28 tominute 36.
So if that's a sensitive subjectfor you, feel free to just skip
right past it We love
Lindsey (05:58):
you before we get into the show.
I want to talk to all mycreative friends out there and
as Pam grout says Are youbreathing?
Because if you are, you'recreative.
But maybe you feel like you'restuck in a rut, or maybe you
struggle to find some flow withyour creativity, and maybe
(06:19):
you're sick of that, because youknow there's something in there
that wants to be born, andyou're just sitting on it.
Waiting for the perfect time,but the perfect time is now
because I'm hosting a workshopon October 19th called Touching
Into Creativity.
In this workshop, we're going todo some somatic movement, some
(06:41):
inner inquiry.
Some automatic writing and somesource connection to dissolve
all those blocks that you haveto your creativity.
So you can get back into flow.
It's an intimate workshop.
It's two hours long.
You'll be in community withother creative, amazing people,
(07:02):
and it's going to be fun.
So connect to your joy, connectto your creativity, and then
actually Show up to yourcreative essence.
It's on October 19th.
Find the details in the shownotes.
And book your spot because thespaces are limited.
Alright, well let's get
Britt (07:20):
into today's
Lindsey (07:20):
episode.
Here's the show.
Britt (07:25):
We're here today to talk about our
Lindsey (07:27):
relationship.
Yeah.
Hooray.
I know you've all beenwondering.
You've all been wondering.
Britt (07:32):
When will they talk about their relationship?
They're always just talkingabout other
Lindsey (07:36):
things.
When are they going to get intothe sexy stuff?
The bedtime?
The feathers?
Well, if you're here for that,you should leave.
DM us later.
And if you're not here for that,don't worry, because we're not
going to hear to talk aboutfeathers.
It's our anniversary.
(07:56):
We got married 16 years ago,that's why we're doing this
episode.
Brett's already forgotten.
That's the whole point of thisepisode.
Britt (08:03):
Oh,
yeah.
Lindsey (08:05):
And, yeah, we've been married 16 years, as the time
you hear this roundabout.
We could just call it 16 years,and that's a long time.
We wanted to do an episode aboutwhy we've stayed together for so
long, what it looks like to bein a relationship where you've
been married for 16 years andbeen together for 18 years.
(08:27):
And we're only 57, y'all.
Just kidding, and no shame toanyone that is 57.
We're 40 years old, we gotmarried pretty young, and...
We've done a lot of cool stufftogether but really in the last
few years is kind of when ourrelationship like took this
Really cool turn.
So we thought it was cool totalk about like how that
(08:49):
happened because it's reallyeasy to get Stuck in a rut when
you're in a relationship and itis so so super easy to Blame the
other person in the relationshipfor why it sometimes doesn't
feel good And when I say that,I'm not talking about anybody
(09:09):
that's experiencing any abuse orlike there's lots of actual
relationships that need to endbut our experience was there was
a lot of times when we probablycould have thrown in the towel
and said, fuck this, we don'twant to do it anymore because
that would have been easier thanactually being accountable for
how we were showing up.
Absolutely.
(09:29):
So that's what we're here totalk about today.
Beautiful way to put it.
Feathers.
Or not.
I don't know.
Feathers be damned.
What is this feather thing?
What do you do with a feather?
I was just imagining liketickling you with a feather and
then you being like, like, youknow, some kind of foreplay
thing.
Are you 57?
Britt (09:46):
No shame to
Lindsey (09:47):
57 year olds.
I am 57.
I, I'm, I'm very into kink rightnow.
I got those like furry, fakehandcuffs.
This is making me souncomfortable.
Britt (09:59):
Uh, we're on a cruise
Lindsey (10:00):
right now.
We're on a cruise right now.
We do have feathers.
We do have, Furry handcuffs, andwe are 57, and my name is
Gladys, and your name is Ron,and we are here to open up our
relationship.
So the first thing we want totalk about is just tell the
story of how we met, gotmarried, and all that fun stuff.
Britt (10:21):
We met in 2005, I believe.
I think so.
When I moved to the town of FortWorth, Texas.
Uh, Lindsey and I are both fromsuburbs of Fort Worth, but at
this time we were both living inthe big bad city.
It's weird to say that now, it'snot that big of a
Lindsey (10:37):
city, it's just a regular city.
I also have no idea what thishas to do with anything.
Hey Brit, uh, let's pull up theWikipedia for Fort Worth.
These people want to know thedetails of Fort Worth and the
surrounding, the outlying areas.
Can you please?
Britt (10:50):
Alright, okay, so we met in a place at a time.
It's not important.
You can say where it is.
It was 16 years ago.
No, it was 18 18 years ago?
It was 18 years ago.
We met, and I guess we likedeach other.
Lindsey (11:08):
I mean, yeah, gosh, thinking about 18 years ago when
we met, I think we met just likehow everyone, well, I don't
know.
It's different for everybody.
I think we met when we met.
I was at a time when I was like,being single is awesome.
I'm going to do my own thing.
And so I was like feeling good.
I was feeling alive, happy to bealive.
(11:31):
22 or whatever.
What about you?
Britt (11:33):
That's fantastic.
I was at a point where I waslike, I want a girlfriend.
Oh, God.
Gotta go out and find agirlfriend.
Oh, God.
Lindsey (11:42):
And I got sucked in.
Probably.
Britt (11:44):
I don't know.
I think that's how I felt.
I don't know.
Really?
Probably.
What a weird way to feel.
I Like, I gotta get a
Lindsey (11:50):
girlfriend, man.
Are you admitting to me rightnow that you just sucked me in
because I was the next girlaround?
The next, yeah.
I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
Um...
Okay, so when we met, yeah, Iwas like, oh, he's nice, he's
cute, he's funny.
And also, personally, I was justlike, I'm here to do my thang
thang.
(12:11):
I'm having fun being whatever Iwas with friends.
And I wanted to reel her in.
I wanted to reel her in.
Let's tell that story.
So I,
Britt (12:22):
yeah, I met her and it was cool.
And I liked her a lot.
And so I, uh, made a mix CD forher.
I don't know if any of you know.
Lindsey (12:29):
Just tell the story.
You don't have to.
It's a
Britt (12:31):
mix CD.
And I just carried it aroundwith me for like a few months.
Hoping that I would see her.
It was in my bag.
I had a bike bag.
So it wasn't like I put it in mypocket.
It probably wasn't like throwingsomething in your purse.
I was like, next time I see herI'm gonna give her this.
So finally I see her and I waslike, Hey, I made you this CD.
She goes, what is this, yourstupid fucking band?
Lindsey (12:55):
Which is funny to think about, me nagging you like a
pickup artist, because...
I'm sorry.
Well, It worked.
But I was just ribbing you.
And that's what I do with peopleI like.
I rib them.
I'm like, hey, is this yourstupid fucking band?
And what I remember about thatis that you said, oh, I've just,
(13:17):
I made, I'm giving this CD toeverybody.
I just think this band is soawesome.
Britt (13:22):
Yeah.
Well, it was three people.
Lindsey (13:24):
So.
You were one of them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So did you like make a list oflike, I got to give it to this
person, this person and thisperson?
And that's really sweet becauseyou just weren't on my radar
like that, like, I'll make you aCD.
Yeah, well, I'm
Britt (13:38):
glad I got there.
You got
Lindsey (13:40):
there.
And then, when we firstexchanged phone, when you first
got my phone number, we'dalready known each other for
like, five months just randomlyseeing each other around the
part of the town where the youngpeople see each other.
And then we were at the chatroom and we went to a party down
the street and we were likehaving so much fun and we were
(14:00):
laughing and we were joking andit was like obvious that there
was like this little spark andthen you asked for my phone
number.
And that was like, for me, thatwas like the moment of like, Oh,
like we're like, something'shappening here.
Oh, that's great.
Do you not remember that?
No, I do remember that.
Okay.
And at the time I was stilllike, let's keep this very
casual.
Mm.
Britt (14:20):
Fast forward
Lindsey (14:21):
to two months later.
Fast forward to two monthslater.
We went on some, we went on somedates.
We kept it casual.
Fast forward to two monthslater.
We went to...
a bike jousting party.
Again, it's a thing young peopledo when they're young.
And what happened?
Britt (14:36):
We decided we were going to get married two months into
it.
Probably not at that party, butthat was, that was
Lindsey (14:44):
pretty much, well, it was something happened at that
party.
Like, I think everyone knows thefeeling when you're like, Oh,
this is a relationship.
And so then we were like, are weboyfriend girlfriend?
We, whatever, had that talk in away that I don't remember, but
wasn't that corny.
And then, do you remember?
I don't remember.
Okay.
(15:04):
Um, but we were just like, yeah,we like each other.
We love each other.
I mean, I think we could getmarried.
And then we just had arelationship until we did get
married.
Mm-hmm.
two years later.
And that was kind of, it seemsyoung now, but also it made
sense.
Then.
I don't know why
Britt (15:25):
should we rename this episode?
Why
Lindsey (15:28):
so, why the fuck did we get married?
I don't mean, I don't know why Ido.
I guess I just was like, oh, Iwanna marry this person.
That's what the, I mean, I don'tknow why, because it wasn't like
it.
Here's what I don't know.
It wasn't before like, I wasn'tthe kind of person that was
like, I'm going to get marriedand I'm looking for this and I
want, you know, like this, Iwant a husband, none of that at
(15:53):
all.
So that's what I mean when I sayit doesn't make sense because
looking back, I'm like, Oh, wewere young.
We could have done a lot ofthings, but we got into this
relationship and we were havingso much fun.
And we were in love and it wasfun and great and awesome and
joyful.
And so it was like, oh, yes, ofcourse we're going to get
married.
Then how did it progress?
(16:14):
How did it progress?
The reason why it's important toknow that we got married young
and why we got married as peoplewho at then, at that point,
identified as we just like tohave fun, we're young, and we're
like going full force young,having fun, is that we had no
idea.
Any of the things that arerequired for a conscious
(16:38):
relationship.
True.
Right?
Yeah.
And when, before we weremarried, it was like...
We were just like swept up inthe fun of it all.
And then after we got married,it, it kind of was like, Oh,
we're married.
Nothing's different.
But this is, you know, it'slike, this is forever question
mark without the like foundationand the skills to communicate,
(17:03):
to be accountable, to be better,like to take care of ourselves.
There was just like not thatfoundation.
I had no idea you were supposedto do any of that shit.
True.
What about you?
Britt (17:16):
Absolutely the same.
Especially, especially thecommunication part.
I was not a good communicator.
I still feel like I'm working onthat.
But, uh, it's most important.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In a relationship with apartner.
Lindsey (17:27):
Right.
So, when we got, I think that'sanother reason why it's
important to say, we got, why wegot married a long time ago, and
in the early 2000s, maybe when alot of people were listening,
that are listening were, I don'tknow, four, or who knows, maybe
57, that like healing andPersonal development, all this
stuff that's like such a hotbutton issue right now were like
(17:52):
non existent in our world.
Right.
Maybe it was happening in LA andprobably in a lot of places
that, but it was just adifferent world without like
access to people that youweren't face to face with.
Britt (18:06):
And there wasn't social media.
We weren't on email lists.
You know, we didn't have acommunity of people that were.
Mindful of those
Lindsey (18:13):
things.
Right, right, right.
So it was just like not in ourawareness at all.
We had no awareness of it.
So without awareness, you, we, Imean, I just kind of like went
into this relationship thinkinglike you're either, you're happy
and it's a good relationship oryou're not happy and that means
it's a bad relationship.
And that's not true.
Britt (18:34):
And I should, I should add that neither of us had
families that modeled a good
Lindsey (18:39):
relationship.
For sure.
My personal experience wascoming from like heavy
dysfunction and like realresentment for each other.
Same.
And so, we have all thisbaggage.
We're young.
We live in the pre social mediaera or like, well, it's not
(19:00):
really pre because there wasMySpace and there was Facebook,
but not the way it is now forour experience.
So those three things, I mean,we kind of just went through
marriage for a few years.
Just kind of stagnant and reallyfocused on work.
What do you want to say aboutthat?
Britt (19:20):
We did.
We were completely focused onwork and fun, and that was it.
Yeah.
There was no self maintenance.
Right, right.
Or
Lindsey (19:28):
relationship maintenance.
Yeah, it was like there was twobuckets.
There was like the money bucket,which comes from work, and it
has to, and all of these, oh mygosh, it has to be hard work,
and it has to be a lot of workto fill up the money bucket.
And then the fun bucket kind ofbecame the same thing.
It's like.
To feel good, you have to fillup this fun bucket and the fun
has to be like heavy and hard,just like the work, right?
(19:52):
That's wild, wild.
And I did, and none of this isconscious.
Like, so we're both operating inthis, you can call it a
partnership.
And it was a partnership becausewe like, you know, we still had
fun together.
We.
Paid bills.
We did all the things, butwithout awareness of each other.
(20:15):
So really like kind of runningside by side, almost.
There was just no, and there wasno like intimacy on the level of
like the inner being, you know,there's physical intimacy, but
we were never like talking aboutlike, what's your dream?
(20:36):
Never.
What do you need?
Yeah.
Like, what do you need?
Yeah.
Or like.
Here's what I'm feeling.
Like we never did that.
Yeah.
We're having
Britt (20:44):
goals.
How do we get to this point in
Lindsey (20:47):
anything?
And right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it was just very much like inthe cycle of work party or
whatever.
Rinse, repeat.
Britt (20:57):
Yeah.
And I'm sure this is very commonand this was probably the first
time we could have just
Lindsey (21:03):
called it quits.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause there was definitely timeswhen I was like that was a time
when for me, I was heavy.
on Brit is this, Brit does thisand, you know, like this
recurring story was that Brit isdoing something to make me
(21:23):
unhappy, which is such fuckingbullshit again, because it's not
like you're, you're not likeabusing me or anything.
And it was just my perceptionand my lack of communication of
my own needs and my lack ofbeing accountable for how I'm
showing up.
What about you?
Same.
Britt (21:42):
Yeah.
We did not communicate well ourwants or needs.
And how can you be with somebodyand not completely be with
somebody?
Yeah,
Lindsey (21:54):
yeah, yeah, yeah.
On every level.
Right.
You know?
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so we did that for a while.
We just kind of like wentthrough the motions.
And
Britt (22:04):
uh, all through this building our businesses too.
Yeah.
So I think that kind of becamethe main thing was.
Keeping these businesses runningwell and Lindsey is a
perfectionist.
Would you say that?
I guess.
Lindsey (22:18):
I mean, I also think I'm like so sloppy too, so it's
hard to be like, I'm aperfectionist when I stink and
my hair's dirty right now, butthere are a lot of things that I
want done right.
Exactly.
Britt (22:34):
So I, I think, and I was just trying to make my
businesses exist, right?
And so between all of that, alsowhile working for Lindsay, too,
at the restaurant, which isanother time we could have...
Called
Lindsey (22:49):
it quits.
Right, yeah, because that wasreally hard.
It's hard to be in a stressfulsituation with no healthy outlet
and your partner is a part of itwho also has no healthy outlet.
Britt (23:02):
And then we're just both having the same problems, the
same interactions with the samepeople, but still not helping
each other work that throughthat.
Yeah,
Lindsey (23:13):
yeah.
We're just kind of clinging on.
And that's, so that's the thingof like being in constant, um,
reactivity and like your nervoussystem constantly being
activated is like you don't havebandwidth for anybody else.
So when you're in that, whenlike, when it's all about
business or it's all aboutwhatever, you're not going to
(23:34):
have the bandwidth for yourpartnership, especially if you
don't have the bandwidth to eventake care of yourself, you know,
and then self care was this likeweird, I don't even know what I
thought self care was buying.
A piece of clothing and gettinga pedicure.
What did you think self care was
(23:55):
at
Britt (23:55):
the time?
Buying a guitar and, uh,drinking with my friends.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah.
Lindsey (24:01):
And friends are the best.
Friends can be self care.
But friends are self care.
Community is self care.
But, yeah, it was self care.
Yeah, yeah, yes.
Britt (24:08):
Yes.
Not taking care of my
Lindsey (24:10):
problems.
Forgetting my problems.
Right.
Like, disassociating from thereality is like, that's self
care.
I'm really caring for myself.
I could be doing anything else.
I'm talking about me.
I'm talking about both of us.
Yeah.
But we just kind of did that fora while and I'm not even saying
that it was bad or wrong.
We just didn't know.
(24:31):
And there, you're right, therewere times, that's not like we
really ever like, we need to getdivorced or like, we're going to
separate.
But it was just never to thislevel of like, like something
deeper.
If now looking back, you can seethat that was missing because if
it hadn't been missing.
then we wouldn't have beenneeding to like forget our
(24:52):
problems.
Yeah.
We'd be on Mars right now orsomething.
Yeah, exactly.
Britt (24:57):
Wow.
Think of, think of people thatare just getting together after
knowing these things, you know,like that sounds amazing.
Lindsey (25:04):
It's amazing.
Starting a healthy relationship.
Also, you have to be likeeverything, like the way to look
at life is to say Everythingthat happened to me, past,
present, is right.
Yeah.
And like, there is a reason thatI am here with all of these
(25:25):
experiences, and hopefully, Ihave the courage to use them.
Britt (25:30):
We were each other's lessons, and we still
Lindsey (25:33):
stuck through that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And really, it's our own, youknow, that's the thing is it has
less my lesson.
There was me having resentmenttowards you was bullshit because
the as much as I judge mypartner is as much as I'm
judging myself as much as I havenegative thoughts or opinions
(25:59):
about my partner.
It's just as much as I'm likenegative self talking myself.
We're just looking for a way tolike get it out.
And so that's what we're, that'swhat people are doing all the
time in relationship.
And then also just being like,look at this asshole in line
with this.
Purple shirt.
Purple shirt.
(26:19):
Purple shirt wearingmotherfucker.
Britt (26:23):
I've had that thought.
Not specifically purple, but,shirt, but just like, yeah, God.
Yeah.
Think of how much that saysabout you when you're just like,
Sitting there squinting youreyes at some guy in line for
Lindsey (26:37):
no fucking good reason.
Right.
And I think even the pur thelike, purpose and the lesson
there is just to be like, Lookat me doing that.
And not be like, Oh no, no, Ineed to like, you know,
reprimand it out of myself.
Anyway, we were married.
Britt (26:54):
So this goes on for 10 years?
Lindsey (26:58):
I don't think, no, uh, like eight years, seven years,
seven years.
Then we were like, uh, we'realmost, we're 30.
Let's start trying to have ababy.
And also we're like.
Really going over seven yearswhere we did have so many fun
adventures together.
We did so many awesome thingstogether.
It was hard to run a businessand we fucking did it.
(27:19):
And there was so much fun and somany times where we're like,
life is amazing.
So we don't, I don't want anyoneto think that we just for seven
years we're like sloggingthrough it.
No, no, no, no, no.
It wasn't there was that.
And we definitely didn't haveself care, but man, we had some,
we had mostly.
Amazing times,
Britt (27:38):
right?
But also didn't know what wewere missing,
Lindsey (27:41):
right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And our relationship wasn'tsomething that we like
consciously cultivated at allbeyond let's go on a trip,
right?
And you need that.
So that's important.
Seven years in, we say, let'sstart trying to have a baby.
And we do.
(28:02):
Again, end of story podcastover.
But we, yeah,
Britt (28:05):
we did that and we went through some hard times with
that too.
We had a few miscarriages and Ithink for me, that's when I
started becoming aware ofLindsay's
Lindsey (28:17):
needs.
Oh, yeah.
Tell me more about that.
Britt (28:21):
Uh, well that's a very emotional time and I think you
and I, since, I think we hit ouremotions a lot.
Yeah.
I think maybe that's justsomething in our families, hide
your emotions.
And, so, I don't think I wasever aware of your emotions as
much.
But when something like thatgoes down...
(28:43):
It's
Lindsey (28:43):
just like spilling out.
Yeah,
Britt (28:45):
it's just spilling out.
And it's like, wow.
I don't know how to comfort her.
I don't, I don't know how toshow up right now.
And then it's all like, oh mygosh, what have I been doing?
In this whole relationship.
Lindsey (28:58):
Right, right.
Britt (29:00):
now.
Am I seeing
Lindsey (29:07):
that?
Now that it's messy, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And even, yeah, there was, man,so much came up for me during
that time where there was like,that was definitely a first, I
think, you start over a milliontimes and there's this, there,
but you know there's those timesin life where there's like a,
(29:27):
like a, things click and youknow something's shifting.
And first, first miscarriage wehad, It like brought up this old
trauma for me and then I waslike I'm gonna go to therapy and
so I was like doing a lot ofclearing even though there was
still like a basement underneaththat needed to be cleared, but
(29:48):
it just shows the it shows thetruth that like.
I needed that experience.
Like even think of amiscarriage, which is so hard
for so many people, but it'sjust a clearing.
It's like your body's just likeclearing some shit out that is
not going to work.
And if we could culturally likeshift our perspective.
(30:08):
around that and hold space forgrieving while still being like,
let it be okay.
Anyway, that it, it allowed meto like, go into my emotions and
to start doing some inner workwhile also still kind of being
like, Okay, now I need to like,get the baby.
(30:32):
Okay, I had a miscarriage, gotthat out of the way, and, and
I'm healing, and I was, I mean,I was like doing some work at
that time, but on this mindset,and, and only people that have
tried to have a baby know whatthis feels like.
Where you're like, it is yourfucking soul focus, can be,
where you're like, When am Iovulating?
(30:52):
How many times are we going todo it in that window?
And like, just checking,checking, checking, and it's so
consuming.
And it sucks.
Yeah, when it
Britt (31:02):
becomes a job.
Yeah.
That takes a toll on arelationship for sure.
Yeah, and that's exactly...
Trying to make a baby does not,it becomes not fun when it's...
Like a chore and you're havingto do it when you're not happy
about it.
You're just like
Lindsey (31:19):
trying to make it happen.
Right.
Yeah.
And you haven't really even, Imean, I was like holding space
for the grief of the firstmiscarriage, but you're not
really if you're like, and nowlet's do it again.
And like, I remember my midwifebeing like, Well, y'all can like
start trying again, I don'tknow, like in, in a few weeks
and now I'm like, God, that'slike, like, take a break, you
(31:41):
know, take a breath.
Anyway, we did start tryingpretty soon after we had a
second miscarriage and I, that'sanother, it's one of those
moments that I remember.
It was like I was holding on tohope for so long and there was
this moment before I knew when Iknew and I was like, I'm so
fucking done with this.
I was honestly relieved not tohave a miscarriage, but to know
(32:08):
because that waiting time ofyou're pregnant, is it going to
be viable?
And just like feels like you'regripping on to the like side of.
And
Britt (32:20):
soon after that we had a, what we thought was a third
miscarriage, but it was like afalse positive.
Oh, I don't even remember that.
I think you shut out, we bothprobably shut out a lot from
that time, but there was a thirdtime when we were pretty sure we
were going to have a miscarriageand it turned out to be a false
positive.
Lindsey (32:38):
Really?
Yeah.
Are you sure about that?
What
Britt (32:40):
happened?
We ended up going to the doctorand they were like, yeah, that's
a false positive.
Lindsey (32:45):
I don't remember that at all.
Britt (32:47):
That's how you block out trauma.
Lindsey (32:51):
But that was another, that was a turning point when I
was like, I'm fucking donetrying to have a baby.
This is nonsense.
I'm going to keep working onmyself and now I can see how I
then went way into like, Takingcare of myself may be a little
too extreme.
Definitely not enough takingcare of the relationship at that
(33:14):
point.
Would you say that's true or?
Yeah, I'd say that's true.
But I was feeling good and I wasstill in therapy.
I was taking really great careof my body and I was not trying
to have a baby for like thefirst time in a year.
And I was feeling amazing.
Taking care of
Britt (33:30):
yourself is the best way to take care of other people
too.
That's true.
I know we say that a lot, butit's
Lindsey (33:36):
true.
That is true.
That is true.
And, like, checking in, though,makes a big difference.
I was taking care of myself, butI mean, again, I just didn't
know that you should be like, Wewere also having, that was a
good year, once we like got thatsecond miscarriage out of the
way and then it was like thefreedom of not trying to have a
baby, which again is the hardestthing and I know there's people
(33:59):
hearing this that might are inthat situation right now or that
have been there and man itfucking sucks, it sucks, when
it's not happening, it can suck,maybe you're loving it, I don't
know, then We had like, yeah, wehad six months, eight months of
(34:20):
just like, again, great time,taking care of ourselves, doing
our thing, and we got pregnant.
Britt (34:29):
Then we went in.
Maybe, I, honestly, I was kindof expecting another miscarriage
at that point.
Oh really?
Lindsey (34:36):
Yeah, we went in.
It was, wait, we took a bigbreak from trying and then we
were like, okay, we'll, we'lltry this month.
Is that what happened?
Something like that.
This is way more about, it feelslike it's way more about
fertility than it is ourrelationship, but it's a big
deal to have kids, y'all.
Yeah.
Anyway, we started trying again,but with this, like, very loose,
like, let's have fun, let's swimin the lake, let's whatever.
(35:00):
Yeah, and
Britt (35:01):
I think going into it, waiting for the doctor to come
back in, we were both kind ofexpected, or we were prepared if
there was going to be anothermiscarriage.
Yeah.
But instead, she said, you knowwhat?
There's two heartbeats.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And we were both a littleamazed, but I, I also felt a
little reserved.
I couldn't completely.
(35:21):
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Enjoy that.
Cause I was like, uh, I was kindof shielding myself from
Lindsey (35:28):
disappointment.
Yeah.
You know, what's so weirdthinking about that, looking
back at that time is how littletrust I had for my own inner
knowing.
I knew I was pregnant.
I knew that it was going to befine.
And I even knew, like, oh yeah,it's twins.
(35:48):
Okay.
That make, that tracks.
Like, all of those thingsweren't like, whoa! Nothing blew
the doors off for me, but I keptmyself in a state of fear
because even though I was liketaking care of my body and going
to therapy, I still wasn'tworking on like my nervous
system or taking care of mylike, full being health in a
(36:09):
larger way.
So I like kept myself in thisstate of fear of like, well,
what if they don't?
What if it wouldn't, wouldn't,wouldn't?
And anyway, we had two kids atthe same time.
They're called twins.
Ever heard of it?
Britt (36:23):
It was great.
And the kids were perfect.
Lindsey (36:25):
Yeah, well they were in the NICU.
That was stressful.
Yeah, it was very stressful.
Britt (36:29):
Yeah.
Lindsey (36:29):
So there was a lot more stress.
Yeah, I, it's weird because Ididn't track, another thing, I
didn't track the whole birthexperience as traumatic until
like two years later.
When I was like, oh, that wasinsane.
Um, of course it's a wonderfulmagical experience, but then we
ended up, you know, having a csection.
(36:51):
They had to be in the NICU fortwo weeks and three weeks.
Both of those things areunexpected, yeah.
Unexpected, and those are big,that's a big deal.
Especially if you just gavebirth and then you're like, go
home, go to the hospital, gohome, go to the hospital, go
home.
And you're like doing this backand forth thing.
I must say
Britt (37:07):
that I was very impressed by when we first started at the
birthing center.
Late at night, it was gettingpretty late, it was in the
middle, I think a tornado endedup coming through Fort Worth
that night.
Crazy storms, and the midwifewas like, You're not
progressing, go home and sleepand then come back.
And this was after being inlabor for a while.
(37:28):
So we're on our way to go home,and then Lindsay has a feeling,
Let's just go to the hospital.
And at that point, that wasn'tin our plan, but it felt right
to both of us immediately.
Like, let's go to the hospital.
So we go to the hospital.
Same thing, not progressing, butstill in labor.
And the next step was, hey,maybe we should, we should push
(37:49):
this thing along with, what,Pitocin?
Yeah.
Is that what they use?
I don't fucking know anymore.
Which was also not in our plan,but we were like, okay, let's do
it.
It's time.
Immediately we were like, yeah,that's fine.
Keep going.
And what, 24 hours later, maybe,still in labor.
But not progressing.
And the doctor says, well, oneof the baby's heart rates is
(38:11):
slowing down.
Maybe we should do a C section.
And we were both like, yeah,let's do that.
Because we both knew, we weretrusting the way it was going.
It's so true.
We knew right then that that wasthe right decision.
There was no second guessing.
Lindsey (38:25):
And that really speaks to us together.
When, when the shit goes down,we can know exactly what to do
and not in a way of like, ah,let's panic.
But just like, no, this is theright thing to do.
And you're right.
That's like a really, that's oneof those moments where like, oh,
we trusted ourselves because wecould have been like, they said,
(38:48):
go home.
I don't know.
Let's go home.
But I was, I think you, I thinkyou're downplaying your part in
that too, because We weren'tdriving home yet.
We were in the parking lot andwe looked at each other and we
were, or this is my memory.
We said, we're not going home.
Yeah.
That sounds dumb.
Britt (39:03):
Yeah.
There's,
Lindsey (39:04):
there will be no sleep.
We didn't want to, but we wantedto leave there.
Yeah.
And I think we didn't say thatto each other, but we knew it
was time to leave there becausewe could have been like, no, we
want to stay here and like spendthe night at the birthing
center.
And they would have let us.
But we were like, yeah, sure.
Okay, we'll go.
And then as soon as we got inthe car, uh, we're like, fuck
this.
(39:27):
Go to the hospital.
What is this?
What?
No, we're not going home.
And again, people do that and noshame.
And that wasn't our, we, thatwasn't our path because it
couldn't be because then one ofour babies needed like emergency
NICU care.
And that's the way it playedout.
And, and the other one too, andthe other one too, but one
(39:48):
needed to go to the NICUimmediately.
Right.
And.
And Eli, it was like, he wasokay ish, and then he needed to
go to the NICU later.
Britt (39:57):
And then they lived there in the NICU
Lindsey (39:59):
for two and three weeks.
Two and three weeks.
Yeah.
So that was like a very.
It was a time when we really hadto like swoop in and really be
there for each other in a waythat we didn't, that actually we
did know how to do.
We just didn't know that we knewhow to do it.
It was a completely newexperience, but there were
definitely other times in ourrelationship.
(40:19):
Again, when like, when a bigthing happened, we would be
like, all right, what do youknow?
We're on the same team.
And I think like teamwork issomething we've always known how
to do, even if we were drivingeach other crazy.
And that's pretty cool.
Yeah.
So we're parents of twins.
It's a fucking rollercoaster.
(40:41):
It's insane.
Have you ever had one baby?
Try to, it's wild and businessrunning business.
And I was not prepared at all.
I can't believe how much peopleprepare for like pregnancy and
birth.
And then there's like so littlepreparation for what's going to
happen afterwards.
Anyway.
(41:02):
We did that for like a coupleyears and but think that's when
really for me things felt likeslogging through Major mud major
depression all this old traumaactivated Just a real sense of
confusion and like talk aboutnervous system being like
(41:22):
stretched beyond I wasconstantly feeling that way and
then having this business that Iwas like, oh now I need to care
about this thing and You justcan't I couldn't anyway, I don't
know, right?
Britt (41:36):
And then what changed?
Lindsey (41:38):
Well, what changed for me is somewhere around the boys,
when they turned, after theyturned three, it took three
years for me to feel morenormal, I think, after twins.
After two years, I was like,okay, I think I'm getting it
back.
You know, maybe it's like firstyear.
Okay.
Second year.
(41:58):
Okay.
I'm feeling more like myself.
Third year.
Okay.
Something's awakening in me.
And I don't actually know whatsparked this, but I kind of do
in those little tiny ways wheresomething shows up and you're
just like, I'm being ledsomewhere.
And this has nothing to do withour relationship, but it does
(42:19):
because I remember specifically,we were on a camping trip for
your birthday and it was like somuch fun.
We remember we took the camperto Purdon Allis.
Oh yeah.
And it was like the boys, it wasjust so much easier than we
tried to take them camping whenthey were one.
What?
We tried to take them camping.
We went on the camping trip toColorado when they were two.
(42:40):
It was so hard.
And then this trip was justlike, this is, feels like a
breeze.
I was reading, which I hadn'tdone in years and little shifts
started happening.
Reading was one of them.
I was reading Mark Marin's bookat the time, which is not any
kind of like wellness orspiritual or anything, but it
(43:01):
cracked something open in mewhere I was like, Oh, feeling
And like.
person, human, and I startedthis like personal healing
spiritual journey kind of on myown.
That's true.
Britt (43:21):
Yeah.
I had nothing to do with it atfirst.
Lindsey (43:23):
Yeah.
And I think pretty quickly,something unlocked in me where I
had.
space, like I had a little morespace just starting to meditate
or starting to read Ram Dass orwaking up early in the morning,
not drinking also, we didn't, I,that was the first time when
(43:44):
that I was like, I think I'mjust going to like not drink
other than obviously beingpregnant, breastfeeding, all
that stuff.
I was like, I think I'm justdone with alcohol.
And that took me on like a.
journey of a few years of selfdiscovery in a way that I didn't
do in my twenties because I wasfocused on work and because I
(44:05):
was already married.
Like if you're married, youfound your person.
And so you don't, there could bethis idea.
It's like, I don't need to likework on myself.
I already found the person, youknow, like the reasons that
normally people in modern day dosome inner work maybe because
they want to be in arelationship or they want to
make money.
And I was kind of doing allthose so I was like, but
(44:26):
something's missing because Istill feel shitty and I did that
for a few years and I thinkthere was a shift there in our
relationship because little bylittle I just like was able to
drop shit.
Would you say that's true or no?
Britt (44:46):
That is true.
I would say in the beginning.
He's like, no.
No.
Put the vodka down, Lindsay.
Um, I would say I pushed back alittle in the beginning when you
started with the spiritual stuffbecause I was heavily not
Lindsey (45:04):
spiritual.
Mmm.
I want to hear more about that.
Intentionally not
Britt (45:07):
spiritual.
Lindsey (45:08):
Intentionally.
I was intentionally not wantingto be supported by anything.
Britt (45:14):
Yeah.
Well, I, I was, Atheist my wholelife, right?
Right.
And then...
From birth.
From birth.
First thought.
Never loved it.
Never, never cared for it.
Religion that is.
And so when Lindsay starteddabbling in spirituality, I just
equated that with religion.
And I was like, what?
(45:34):
Is she joining a cult?
What is, um, like, God's notreal.
Why the f what?
Are we going to have to get adivorce?
Really?
Yeah, that's how...
Wow.
That's how, um...
Off, it felt to me.
Wow.
Um, but then I started seeinghow much better you felt about
yourself.
And like I've said in the past,you were listening to a lot of
(45:56):
Ram Dass talks and every timethat was on, I was like, this
makes
Lindsey (46:02):
all the sense.
Like there's nothing really toargue
Britt (46:04):
with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and I mean, not even likethe religious aspect of it.
It's just.
It made me realize thatspirituality is a whole thing
that even transcends religion.
Lindsey (46:15):
For sure.
You know what I mean?
I mean, that's the whole deal.
Right.
Yeah, that's what we're tryingto say.
Britt (46:21):
Right.
So, um, I still never becamereligious, but I am definitely
so, like, deeply spiritual now.
Yeah.
Open to whatever
Lindsey (46:31):
that ends up meaning.
Right.
So that's an interesting thing.
Relating this all the way backto relationship because maybe
we've gotten really off topicbut us being married for a long
time and you like me tryingsomething totally new but you
can and you're like not about itbecause it's not what you're
used to but you can like seethat there's like something
(46:54):
seeding and so you give me thespace to do it.
And that's really cool.
And that was intentional.
Yeah.
Yes.
That's really cool becauseyou're like, something is
working here, but I don'tbelieve it.
And so we kind of did that for acouple years.
I like got in.
Well, it's funny because I'm
Britt (47:15):
like, something is working, but she doesn't know
that it's just her.
She's fixing herself.
And it's funny because that isthe truth.
But it's like, but I wasthinking about it in like a
weird, bad, like backwards way.
Yeah.
That you are everything, youknow what I mean?
Right, right, right.
Where are
Lindsey (47:32):
you going with that?
It's like, you're making it allup, and I'm like, we're making
it all up! Yep.
And it's like, just the reframeof like, letting it be shitty or
beautiful, right?
And that really goes back torelationship, because that's
when, in that time, fastforward, fast forward,
Government shut down and that'swhat we really want to talk to
(47:53):
you guys about today is thatthere has been a conspiracy
theory against this Americanfree republic just kidding shut
down so I'm like two years intomy spiritual practices and
therapy and healing and whateverand not drinking and journaling
and like literally everythingyou can think of today.
(48:16):
That is for me, like deeplyhealing and shut down.
We loved because we were, wewere like, it was like a coming
back together for us.
At that point, you had stoppedworking at the restaurant.
That was a hard thing that Idon't think we have time to talk
about.
Dang it.
We don't know.
(48:37):
Should we talk about it?
Okay.
That wasn't.
I left the,
Britt (48:39):
I left the.
The restaurant was a little pushfrom Lindsay because it wasn't
working out.
I didn't need
Lindsey (48:47):
to be working.
We do need to talk about thisbecause that was a brown lot
time.
It was when the boys wereturning three and it was like, I
could just feel that somethingwas off.
And I knew at that point, Ididn't know that I needed to get
out of the restaurant.
But I was like, I think Britneeds to get out of here.
And actually, I think that'slike divinely fucking guided.
(49:09):
Because what if in my whateverineptitude at that time, if I
had been like, I need to leave.
Like, it would have been a hotmess.
No.
Yeah.
So, I didn't do it skillfully.
And I do apologize for that.
And I have apologized for that.
But I was basically just like,Brit, I think you need to like,
go do something else.
That was your
Britt (49:28):
surrogate.
Wow.
What do you mean you needed toleave so you I
Lindsey (49:33):
mean I didn't know it at the time but don't you think
that's probably what I needed tostart the process and I actually
did know pretty soon after likeI need to completely change the
my relationship with this placeand the first step is like my my
partner needs to not be in herewith me because I need to just
(49:54):
change the way, you know, I needto like put a lot of boundaries
around work.
I had no boundaries with work.
And that was a rough patch.
Britt (50:01):
That was a rough patch.
And then I started a new jobthat, um, I loved.
Yeah.
And it was
Lindsey (50:07):
great.
That all happened around thesame time.
So we had that big, it wasn'teven, I mean, I wouldn't call it
big, but it was big.
It wasn't like a blow up where Iwas like, you should just leave.
I was like, I've been thinkingabout this for a while.
And like, I think you shouldn'twork at Spiral anymore, and it
was hard.
It was hard for you, I know itwas so hard for you, and it was
(50:28):
so hard for me because that wasa scary thing
Britt (50:31):
to say.
I also knew it deep down that Ineeded to go.
Right.
But wasn't accepting it.
Right.
You know?
To me it meant something else,to me it was like a jab.
Yeah, yeah.
Even though I knew I didn't
Lindsey (50:42):
need to be there anymore.
And I think at the time, I mean,talking about communication,
like, I didn't know, now I wouldbe like, Let's like talk about
how we feel about being here.
And at the time I didn't really,I didn't know how to do that.
So I was just like, you have togo.
Yeah, you have to go.
And so that happened and thatwas all around the same time
(51:04):
because.
Those little things happenedwhere then we went I think maybe
that's why the camping trip wasgood because we had that like
that had already happened and itwas like we had already like
kind of started cleaning it upthis kind of big decision in our
relationship that wasn't adecision that you wanted
consciously.
(51:25):
And then we went on this campingtrip, and then we went to
Mexico.
Always Mexico's gonna makeeverything better, y'all.
Before we got pregnant with Eliand Jack, we went on an awesome
trip to Mexico, too.
So a little bit of Mexico alwaysdoes us right.
Um, and that summer is reallywhen I was like, I'm gonna start
meditating, I'm gonna stopdrinking.
You were free to go do your ownthing.
(51:46):
So it wasn't like I was attachedto like, how, how does Brit feel
about work?
Cause that's a whole otherbaggage to carry.
Ugh, you know, how do you feelabout work, um, when, when, when
work says something about me?
Yeah.
You know, because when I, if youdon't feel good about it, it
means you don't feel good aboutme.
(52:07):
Right.
Anyway, fast forward, governmentshutdown.
So we had these like two yearsof like.
Blah, blah, blah.
We're working on ourselvesseparately.
We're doing cool things.
We're doing cool work.
We're healing.
And then we have governmentshutdown.
And it was amazing.
For us.
For us.
(52:27):
We were at home.
We were with our kids.
They were five.
Five is so fun.
And it was every day just like,let's get up.
Let's take a walk.
Let's meditate more.
Let's read more.
I don't have to be anywhere.
We were, that's when we werelike.
Speaking of intimacy, we werebeing intimate a lot because we
were just home all the timetogether.
(52:48):
It was so fun.
And that's when we reallystarted talking about what do
you feel?
What do you want to do in life?
And all this possibility openedup in a way that in our
relationship and in The thingswe could do personally and
together in a way that we neverexperienced.
(53:09):
True.
What do you have to say aboutthat?
Britt (53:11):
I was, I was no longer running from anything because we
were at home together.
I wasn't escaping anything bygoing to work every day.
There was a numbness to going towork every day and not being
with my family.
Taking the kids to school, goingto work, coming home, eating
dinner and going to bed.
I felt like I was numbing out.
(53:31):
When we were at home together, Isaw what life could be.
I was like, why was I runningfrom any of this?
Lindsey (53:36):
Um, wow.
Britt (53:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I would say, I mean, thatsounds harsh.
I wasn't running, but there wasdefinitely a lot of regular life
stuff that I was avoiding there.
Lindsey (53:47):
Right, right.
It's all there and it's allbeautiful.
Yeah, but that's when westarted, like, I think that was
really when we started, like,committing to, like, okay, we
need to sit down andcommunicate.
And that's when we startedsaying, we're gonna talk.
And we'd done it before, like,we're gonna have a meeting.
And we did that and it did help.
But this is, like, We're justgoing to talk.
We had two meetings a week.
(54:08):
One was like, tell me how youfeel.
And every time y'all, it was soawkward at first because we
weren't modeled communication.
So we would sit down to theselike scheduled feelings meetings
and be like.
Well, I'm fine.
That's my impression of Brit.
I'm fine.
Nothing.
I don't have anything.
(54:29):
I don't have anything.
And then it would like startunfolding and start unfolding.
And it was so key because thatwas when we started sharing our
feelings without being like, youare making me feel this way.
And I feel this way because youdid this, it would just be like,
(54:51):
I feel nervous or I feel, youknow, uh, sad or I don't feel
appreciated, but without theconnection of like what someone
else is doing.
And it was so freeing that itjust brought this new level.
It felt like we, it honestlysometimes feels like we've only
(55:11):
been in a relationship fromthen.
Yeah.
Like this feels like we've beenmarried for three years instead
of 16 years.
Because there was a majorturning point there where we
kept
Britt (55:24):
up with all those that was the key thing Yeah, just to
keep up with it.
Right maintenance,
Lindsey (55:30):
right maintenance, but also grace because we keep up
with it But we don't you know,it's not like we're we aren't on
our shit like that hardcore Andwe need to have grace for each
other.
The difference in the way thatwe like can have a disagreement.
Now y'all, we had a disagreementthis morning and we were almost
(55:51):
like, we don't wanna record.
Britt (55:53):
Yeah.
I was like, we're not doing thisepisode.
Lindsey (55:54):
I know.
And then I was like, we aredoing this episode second
perfect time to do this episode.
Um, but we had a disagreementthis morning and you know what
it was, we were both feelingshitty about ourselves.
It had so little to do with theother, with the other person.
Would you agree with that or?
Agree.
Like, if I'm, I just, I cannotice my things so much quicker
(56:19):
and hopefully stop them.
And something that I'mremembering that someone just
said to us a couple weeks ago islike, in relationship, not
finding a resolution sometimesis.
So freeing.
Like, free yourself from theidea that you always need to
have a resolution.
It doesn't mean that theredoesn't need to be some kind of
(56:39):
repair.
Trust
Britt (56:42):
that your bond is so good that you don't need to figure it
out right then.
Right.
You're not gonna break up justfrom walking away for a
Lindsey (56:51):
minute.
Yeah, yeah.
Because so often when we'relooking for a resolution is what
we're actually looking for isthe other person to agree with
us.
And
Britt (56:59):
thank you Jamie and Lacey for imparting that wisdom on us.
It's true, it's true.
You'll hear that in a futureepisode if we talk
Lindsey (57:06):
about it.
You guys are the best peopleever.
But the thing is...
Just knowing that you can likewalk away and it's okay and that
you don't have to stay there andnecessarily you can when you
feel resourced be like, okay,I'm going to let's stay and like
talk about it and figure it out.
But sometimes you can just belike, we're going to like take a
(57:28):
moment.
A lot of moments.
I'm going to go do somethingtotally different and actually
not think about this.
So, even a day that we have adisagreement, it's like, I mean,
Jonathan, don't you always,every time that we have a
disagreement or like a whateverin our relationship, I always
hear Jonathan Richman.
He says, couples, couples mustargue.
Couples must fight, baby.
(57:50):
I mean, from time to time, youmust clear the air and, and
Jonathan is like a third partyin our relationship.
He's been there since thebeginning.
That's true.
So.
Thank you, Jay Rich.
Yeah, the things that we, oncewe did enough.
healing work and like wentthrough enough hard shit
together, we were, now we'reable to come back and, and still
(58:15):
have disagreements.
It's not like we're like, wecommunicate all the time and
we're, and now we just don'tever argue.
Like we argue way less becausethere's not a need to.
And when we do argue, for me, Ican usually, hopefully, I can
usually see, Oh, I'm like in mybullshit right now.
(58:36):
Yeah.
We have the tools now.
And I can be accountable for howI show up.
And I want to just make sure wegot all this.
Um, so the thing about beingmarried for 16 years, that has
worked for us is probably beingdumb for a lot of it.
But what that we had, we didalways have great teamwork, even
(58:58):
when we didn't know how tocommunicate.
And what is so important to mein a relationship now is that It
can feel boring, and it's likerelationship, no, I don't mean
boring, like, it's just likethe, the fairy tale idea that we
might have of a relationship isthat it's like a cheap romance
(59:20):
novel, and that's not truebecause there doesn't need to be
like volatile to be longstanding, like the mundane is
actually where the real beautyis.
Not the like That's why that's acheap novel.
Yeah.
That's why it's cheap.
You gotta get It's emotionallycheap.
You gotta get the, the goodnovel.
(59:41):
We had so much fun together whenwe were in our unconscious
partnership, but it is way morefun now.
Like we laugh When we're, whenwe're just saying we, we have
less time where it's just thetwo of us because we're always
with kids, but we make eachother like laugh so much more
that you think old me thinkslike, oh, you laugh and you have
(01:00:04):
a good time when you go out withfriends or when you're having
some drinks.
And now I'm like, oh, I do thatway more now when I'm not.
Not partying or that's not evenpart of my life than I did
before.
So I like the laughter, not thegoing out.
It's not that.
Britt (01:00:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a real joy
Lindsey (01:00:24):
there.
Yeah.
So being married 16 years,what's your commitment to this
year going forward?
Be more
Britt (01:00:33):
present.
I want to enjoy every momentwith my family.
I don't want to be thinkingabout work.
I don't want to be thinkingabout what's next.
I just want to live for now,baby.
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
What about
Lindsey (01:00:46):
you?
Okay, so I have three things.
Okay.
Britt (01:00:50):
Hurry up, because we've got to go pick up the kids and
jump Nate's car.
That's true.
Lindsey (01:00:54):
We'll be fine.
One is...
I wish, and I'm going to prefacethis, but I, I wish there was a
different word for likespiritual connection, but like
deepening our, the way we relateto each other in a spiritual
way.
Nice.
That's a commitment for me thisyear.
Number two is telling each otherwhat we want to do more or
(01:01:15):
because we did that.
We had this amazing journey.
We went on this big trip andalso we want to, I want to stamp
this whole episode by saying, wewouldn't have been able to do
it.
any of that shit like sell ourhouse and leave and just trust
that we could travel and now behere and trust that we can just
like start creative businessesand that they'll thrive as we're
just crossing our fingers andhoping we would not be able to
(01:01:38):
do any of that shit if we hadn'tturned around whatever turned
our ship around those years agowe would still be in the town.
that we are from.
And that's fine for anybody thatwants it, but we obviously
didn't.
So telling each, I want to makesure that we tell each other
like what our dreams are moreand that we're like for it, that
(01:02:02):
we're each other's cheerleaders.
Because it can be really easy toassume that the other person in
the relationship just kind ofknows.
Like, oh, they must know what Iwant to do because you kind of
think that once you're withsomeone for a long time, you can
still get into that like sharedbrain where you think that the
other person must know.
So like really setting asidetime to where we talk about
(01:02:25):
like, what's a wild ass dreamthat you have.
And making it a reality becauseit's just so much more fun to
live in in a relationship and alife where you're like, let's
make these like big dreams real.
And the third for me is a moredeeper commitment to my personal
health so that I don't then havea disagreement because I just
(01:02:49):
feel shitty about myself.
Ooh, nice.
I'll take those all on.
Yeah.
We'll do those together.
Those are our commitments for2023.
And to 2024 and beyond andbeyond in our yearbook.
All
Britt (01:03:04):
right.
Thanks, guys.
We're going to go take care ofour
Lindsey (01:03:06):
family now.
We love you.
Bye.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Can We
Start Over podcast.
My name is Lindsay.
And my name is Brit.
And this is the sensual edition.
I stole your joke.
Now you say it.
This is
Britt (00:27):
our third take, so.
I made a lot of jokes on thoseother takes, real good ones that
we're not using.
Lindsey (00:34):
And then I stole them.
And then she stole the worstone.
I stole the worst one.
And now I think it's funnybecause I said it.
Britt (00:44):
That's kind of been her thing lately, stealing my lines.
Lindsey (00:47):
Really?
Oh shit.
I'm sorry.
Britt (00:50):
That's okay.
You'll find your own shit soon.
Lindsey (00:55):
Well, maybe not.
Maybe not.
It's been long enough.
Yeah.
That's kind of what we talkabout today, is that we've been
married a long time.
We've
Britt (01:05):
been stealing each other's shit for 18 years
Lindsey (01:07):
now.
Yeah, we're coming in hot rightin the intro with a lot of S
bombs.
F bombs and sensuality.
F bombs.
No more, we need to chill.
Should we start over?
Britt (01:19):
Calm it down.
No, no, this is good.
This is real life 101.
This
Lindsey (01:24):
is good, but really.
Shout out Julian.
Britt (01:28):
It's my cousin's tv show, Real Life 101.
Why?
Lindsey (01:31):
Why?
I don't know.
Oh, I do have a question.
Is there anything else you wantto shout out at the beginning?
Do you
Britt (01:40):
want to shout out anything else?
I want to shout out love, I wantto shout out freedom, I want to
shout out that dude from CNCMusic Factory.
I think his name is Freedom orAmerica
Lindsey (01:51):
or something.
I think his name is Freedom.
Britt (01:53):
Um, I would like to, to shoot out, uh, Pepsi Cola.
Lindsey (01:58):
Don't say shootout
Britt (02:01):
We should mention we just put our kids to bed and by this
time I'm asleep in bed withFalling asleep
Lindsey (02:10):
because I'm a tired little boy.
I did almost fall asleep inthere with the boys and I had
this like sort of vision of Mudand my foot was gonna slip in it
and then it had had that feelingof like slipping in a dream Oh,
did you jerk?
Yeah, and then I was like, oh Ineed to get up.
Yeah But it was I've neverexperienced it like that.
(02:32):
It's always something Yeah, somud.
One
Britt (02:36):
time that happened to me and, uh, we were laying in bed
and I said, uh, dog food doesn'ttaste good or something like
that.
Do you remember that?
No.
Yeah, I woke myself up bytalking about how the dog food
didn't taste good.
Yeah.
Lindsey (02:50):
That is so funny.
Britt (02:51):
It was really weird.
Yeah, so this is, uh, Tired Usedition.
Lindsey (02:55):
Yeah, and I need to tell you something unrelated to
the podcast.
Remember when I said the thing Iwanted to see was a clown?
Yeah.
Well, I was just reading a bookto the boys and there was a
clown.
Britt (03:06):
What do you know?
Kid's book had a clown
Lindsey (03:08):
in it.
There you go guys, that's proof.
Lindsay
Britt (03:11):
was
Lindsey (03:11):
manifesting a clown that the universe is listening
to you.
It happened.
Because of a clown.
This episode that you haveprobably turned off because it's
too bonkers bananas is all aboutour relationship.
This is our 16th anniversarythis week.
And so we wanted to talk aboutWhy we've stayed together just
(03:34):
to shed some light on what it'slike to be married a long time
and Really?
I think what's interesting aboutit to me is that we didn't have
a conscious Relationship wedidn't have good communication
We didn't have awareness of eachother really on a deep level and
(03:54):
then we like worked through ourown Stuff and then we did so
it's In defense of stayingtogether.
Yeah,
Britt (04:04):
there were, there were multiple times, even a few times
I forgot about until we startedrecording this episode, where we
could have called it quits.
Lindsey (04:11):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, not like in big wayswhere we're like, yeah, this is
it, but in ways where it waslike, oh.
Like, it could have slipped awayfrom us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I'm glad it didn't.
So that's why we're having thisepisode.
It's about starting over in ourown relationship.
And we talked about it a littlebit, but this was like us really
(04:33):
wanting to get into the timesthat were hard and the times
that we look back and think, Oh,we could have done that way
differently.
And also how it's all justperfect.
And it all happened exactly theway it should have.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And you know what, Brett, I loveyou.
(04:54):
Oh, and I'm glad that you stuckaround with me through all my
deep.
Healing, unaware, whatever ness,you really gave me some chances.
And I'm glad you kept me around.
Yeah, thank you.
And I appreciate you now morethan ever.
(05:15):
And I have more fun with you nowbecause you're cooler.
That's not true.
Hashtag neck gang.
Britt (05:27):
You'll, you'll catch that in
Lindsey (05:28):
the episode.
And even though we're old fartsand we've been married 16 years,
it just keeps getting more funand I like can't wait to see
what we do next.
Britt (05:39):
Oh, well, thanks for keeping me around and keeping me
laughing.
For so many years.
I love you.
I also just wanted to let y'allknow that we talked about
miscarriage Around minute 28 tominute 36.
So if that's a sensitive subjectfor you, feel free to just skip
right past it We love
Lindsey (05:58):
you before we get into the show.
I want to talk to all mycreative friends out there and
as Pam grout says Are youbreathing?
Because if you are, you'recreative.
But maybe you feel like you'restuck in a rut, or maybe you
struggle to find some flow withyour creativity, and maybe
(06:19):
you're sick of that, because youknow there's something in there
that wants to be born, andyou're just sitting on it.
Waiting for the perfect time,but the perfect time is now
because I'm hosting a workshopon October 19th called Touching
Into Creativity.
In this workshop, we're going todo some somatic movement, some
(06:41):
inner inquiry.
Some automatic writing and somesource connection to dissolve
all those blocks that you haveto your creativity.
So you can get back into flow.
It's an intimate workshop.
It's two hours long.
You'll be in community withother creative, amazing people,
(07:02):
and it's going to be fun.
So connect to your joy, connectto your creativity, and then
actually Show up to yourcreative essence.
It's on October 19th.
Find the details in the shownotes.
And book your spot because thespaces are limited.
Alright, well let's get
Britt (07:20):
into today's
Lindsey (07:20):
episode.
Here's the show.
Britt (07:25):
We're here today to talk about our
Lindsey (07:27):
relationship.
Yeah.
Hooray.
I know you've all beenwondering.
You've all been wondering.
Britt (07:32):
When will they talk about their relationship?
They're always just talkingabout other
Lindsey (07:36):
things.
When are they going to get intothe sexy stuff?
The bedtime?
The feathers?
Well, if you're here for that,you should leave.
DM us later.
And if you're not here for that,don't worry, because we're not
going to hear to talk aboutfeathers.
It's our anniversary.
(07:56):
We got married 16 years ago,that's why we're doing this
episode.
Brett's already forgotten.
That's the whole point of thisepisode.
Britt (08:03):
Oh,
yeah.
Lindsey (08:05):
And, yeah, we've been married 16 years, as the time
you hear this roundabout.
We could just call it 16 years,and that's a long time.
We wanted to do an episode aboutwhy we've stayed together for so
long, what it looks like to bein a relationship where you've
been married for 16 years andbeen together for 18 years.
(08:27):
And we're only 57, y'all.
Just kidding, and no shame toanyone that is 57.
We're 40 years old, we gotmarried pretty young, and...
We've done a lot of cool stufftogether but really in the last
few years is kind of when ourrelationship like took this
Really cool turn.
So we thought it was cool totalk about like how that
(08:49):
happened because it's reallyeasy to get Stuck in a rut when
you're in a relationship and itis so so super easy to Blame the
other person in the relationshipfor why it sometimes doesn't
feel good And when I say that,I'm not talking about anybody
(09:09):
that's experiencing any abuse orlike there's lots of actual
relationships that need to endbut our experience was there was
a lot of times when we probablycould have thrown in the towel
and said, fuck this, we don'twant to do it anymore because
that would have been easier thanactually being accountable for
how we were showing up.
Absolutely.
(09:29):
So that's what we're here totalk about today.
Beautiful way to put it.
Feathers.
Or not.
I don't know.
Feathers be damned.
What is this feather thing?
What do you do with a feather?
I was just imagining liketickling you with a feather and
then you being like, like, youknow, some kind of foreplay
thing.
Are you 57?
Britt (09:46):
No shame to
Lindsey (09:47):
57 year olds.
I am 57.
I, I'm, I'm very into kink rightnow.
I got those like furry, fakehandcuffs.
This is making me souncomfortable.
Britt (09:59):
Uh, we're on a cruise
Lindsey (10:00):
right now.
We're on a cruise right now.
We do have feathers.
We do have, Furry handcuffs, andwe are 57, and my name is
Gladys, and your name is Ron,and we are here to open up our
relationship.
So the first thing we want totalk about is just tell the
story of how we met, gotmarried, and all that fun stuff.
Britt (10:21):
We met in 2005, I believe.
I think so.
When I moved to the town of FortWorth, Texas.
Uh, Lindsey and I are both fromsuburbs of Fort Worth, but at
this time we were both living inthe big bad city.
It's weird to say that now, it'snot that big of a
Lindsey (10:37):
city, it's just a regular city.
I also have no idea what thishas to do with anything.
Hey Brit, uh, let's pull up theWikipedia for Fort Worth.
These people want to know thedetails of Fort Worth and the
surrounding, the outlying areas.
Can you please?
Britt (10:50):
Alright, okay, so we met in a place at a time.
It's not important.
You can say where it is.
It was 16 years ago.
No, it was 18 18 years ago?
It was 18 years ago.
We met, and I guess we likedeach other.
Lindsey (11:08):
I mean, yeah, gosh, thinking about 18 years ago when
we met, I think we met just likehow everyone, well, I don't
know.
It's different for everybody.
I think we met when we met.
I was at a time when I was like,being single is awesome.
I'm going to do my own thing.
And so I was like feeling good.
I was feeling alive, happy to bealive.
(11:31):
22 or whatever.
What about you?
Britt (11:33):
That's fantastic.
I was at a point where I waslike, I want a girlfriend.
Oh, God.
Gotta go out and find agirlfriend.
Oh, God.
Lindsey (11:42):
And I got sucked in.
Probably.
Britt (11:44):
I don't know.
I think that's how I felt.
I don't know.
Really?
Probably.
What a weird way to feel.
I Like, I gotta get a
Lindsey (11:50):
girlfriend, man.
Are you admitting to me rightnow that you just sucked me in
because I was the next girlaround?
The next, yeah.
I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
Um...
Okay, so when we met, yeah, Iwas like, oh, he's nice, he's
cute, he's funny.
And also, personally, I was justlike, I'm here to do my thang
thang.
(12:11):
I'm having fun being whatever Iwas with friends.
And I wanted to reel her in.
I wanted to reel her in.
Let's tell that story.
So I,
Britt (12:22):
yeah, I met her and it was cool.
And I liked her a lot.
And so I, uh, made a mix CD forher.
I don't know if any of you know.
Lindsey (12:29):
Just tell the story.
You don't have to.
It's a
Britt (12:31):
mix CD.
And I just carried it aroundwith me for like a few months.
Hoping that I would see her.
It was in my bag.
I had a bike bag.
So it wasn't like I put it in mypocket.
It probably wasn't like throwingsomething in your purse.
I was like, next time I see herI'm gonna give her this.
So finally I see her and I waslike, Hey, I made you this CD.
She goes, what is this, yourstupid fucking band?
Lindsey (12:55):
Which is funny to think about, me nagging you like a
pickup artist, because...
I'm sorry.
Well, It worked.
But I was just ribbing you.
And that's what I do with peopleI like.
I rib them.
I'm like, hey, is this yourstupid fucking band?
And what I remember about thatis that you said, oh, I've just,
(13:17):
I made, I'm giving this CD toeverybody.
I just think this band is soawesome.
Britt (13:22):
Yeah.
Well, it was three people.
Lindsey (13:24):
So.
You were one of them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So did you like make a list oflike, I got to give it to this
person, this person and thisperson?
And that's really sweet becauseyou just weren't on my radar
like that, like, I'll make you aCD.
Yeah, well, I'm
Britt (13:38):
glad I got there.
You got
Lindsey (13:40):
there.
And then, when we firstexchanged phone, when you first
got my phone number, we'dalready known each other for
like, five months just randomlyseeing each other around the
part of the town where the youngpeople see each other.
And then we were at the chatroom and we went to a party down
the street and we were likehaving so much fun and we were
(14:00):
laughing and we were joking andit was like obvious that there
was like this little spark andthen you asked for my phone
number.
And that was like, for me, thatwas like the moment of like, Oh,
like we're like, something'shappening here.
Oh, that's great.
Do you not remember that?
No, I do remember that.
Okay.
And at the time I was stilllike, let's keep this very
casual.
Mm.
Britt (14:20):
Fast forward
Lindsey (14:21):
to two months later.
Fast forward to two monthslater.
We went on some, we went on somedates.
We kept it casual.
Fast forward to two monthslater.
We went to...
a bike jousting party.
Again, it's a thing young peopledo when they're young.
And what happened?
Britt (14:36):
We decided we were going to get married two months into
it.
Probably not at that party, butthat was, that was
Lindsey (14:44):
pretty much, well, it was something happened at that
party.
Like, I think everyone knows thefeeling when you're like, Oh,
this is a relationship.
And so then we were like, are weboyfriend girlfriend?
We, whatever, had that talk in away that I don't remember, but
wasn't that corny.
And then, do you remember?
I don't remember.
Okay.
(15:04):
Um, but we were just like, yeah,we like each other.
We love each other.
I mean, I think we could getmarried.
And then we just had arelationship until we did get
married.
Mm-hmm.
two years later.
And that was kind of, it seemsyoung now, but also it made
sense.
Then.
I don't know why
Britt (15:25):
should we rename this episode?
Why
Lindsey (15:28):
so, why the fuck did we get married?
I don't mean, I don't know why Ido.
I guess I just was like, oh, Iwanna marry this person.
That's what the, I mean, I don'tknow why, because it wasn't like
it.
Here's what I don't know.
It wasn't before like, I wasn'tthe kind of person that was
like, I'm going to get marriedand I'm looking for this and I
want, you know, like this, Iwant a husband, none of that at
(15:53):
all.
So that's what I mean when I sayit doesn't make sense because
looking back, I'm like, Oh, wewere young.
We could have done a lot ofthings, but we got into this
relationship and we were havingso much fun.
And we were in love and it wasfun and great and awesome and
joyful.
And so it was like, oh, yes, ofcourse we're going to get
married.
Then how did it progress?
(16:14):
How did it progress?
The reason why it's important toknow that we got married young
and why we got married as peoplewho at then, at that point,
identified as we just like tohave fun, we're young, and we're
like going full force young,having fun, is that we had no
idea.
Any of the things that arerequired for a conscious
(16:38):
relationship.
True.
Right?
Yeah.
And when, before we weremarried, it was like...
We were just like swept up inthe fun of it all.
And then after we got married,it, it kind of was like, Oh,
we're married.
Nothing's different.
But this is, you know, it'slike, this is forever question
mark without the like foundationand the skills to communicate,
(17:03):
to be accountable, to be better,like to take care of ourselves.
There was just like not thatfoundation.
I had no idea you were supposedto do any of that shit.
True.
What about you?
Britt (17:16):
Absolutely the same.
Especially, especially thecommunication part.
I was not a good communicator.
I still feel like I'm working onthat.
But, uh, it's most important.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In a relationship with apartner.
Lindsey (17:27):
Right.
So, when we got, I think that'sanother reason why it's
important to say, we got, why wegot married a long time ago, and
in the early 2000s, maybe when alot of people were listening,
that are listening were, I don'tknow, four, or who knows, maybe
57, that like healing andPersonal development, all this
stuff that's like such a hotbutton issue right now were like
(17:52):
non existent in our world.
Right.
Maybe it was happening in LA andprobably in a lot of places
that, but it was just adifferent world without like
access to people that youweren't face to face with.
Britt (18:06):
And there wasn't social media.
We weren't on email lists.
You know, we didn't have acommunity of people that were.
Mindful of those
Lindsey (18:13):
things.
Right, right, right.
So it was just like not in ourawareness at all.
We had no awareness of it.
So without awareness, you, we, Imean, I just kind of like went
into this relationship thinkinglike you're either, you're happy
and it's a good relationship oryou're not happy and that means
it's a bad relationship.
And that's not true.
Britt (18:34):
And I should, I should add that neither of us had
families that modeled a good
Lindsey (18:39):
relationship.
For sure.
My personal experience wascoming from like heavy
dysfunction and like realresentment for each other.
Same.
And so, we have all thisbaggage.
We're young.
We live in the pre social mediaera or like, well, it's not
(19:00):
really pre because there wasMySpace and there was Facebook,
but not the way it is now forour experience.
So those three things, I mean,we kind of just went through
marriage for a few years.
Just kind of stagnant and reallyfocused on work.
What do you want to say aboutthat?
Britt (19:20):
We did.
We were completely focused onwork and fun, and that was it.
Yeah.
There was no self maintenance.
Right, right.
Or
Lindsey (19:28):
relationship maintenance.
Yeah, it was like there was twobuckets.
There was like the money bucket,which comes from work, and it
has to, and all of these, oh mygosh, it has to be hard work,
and it has to be a lot of workto fill up the money bucket.
And then the fun bucket kind ofbecame the same thing.
It's like.
To feel good, you have to fillup this fun bucket and the fun
has to be like heavy and hard,just like the work, right?
(19:52):
That's wild, wild.
And I did, and none of this isconscious.
Like, so we're both operating inthis, you can call it a
partnership.
And it was a partnership becausewe like, you know, we still had
fun together.
We.
Paid bills.
We did all the things, butwithout awareness of each other.
(20:15):
So really like kind of runningside by side, almost.
There was just no, and there wasno like intimacy on the level of
like the inner being, you know,there's physical intimacy, but
we were never like talking aboutlike, what's your dream?
(20:36):
Never.
What do you need?
Yeah.
Like, what do you need?
Yeah.
Or like.
Here's what I'm feeling.
Like we never did that.
Yeah.
We're having
Britt (20:44):
goals.
How do we get to this point in
Lindsey (20:47):
anything?
And right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it was just very much like inthe cycle of work party or
whatever.
Rinse, repeat.
Britt (20:57):
Yeah.
And I'm sure this is very commonand this was probably the first
time we could have just
Lindsey (21:03):
called it quits.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause there was definitely timeswhen I was like that was a time
when for me, I was heavy.
on Brit is this, Brit does thisand, you know, like this
recurring story was that Brit isdoing something to make me
(21:23):
unhappy, which is such fuckingbullshit again, because it's not
like you're, you're not likeabusing me or anything.
And it was just my perceptionand my lack of communication of
my own needs and my lack ofbeing accountable for how I'm
showing up.
What about you?
Same.
Britt (21:42):
Yeah.
We did not communicate well ourwants or needs.
And how can you be with somebodyand not completely be with
somebody?
Yeah,
Lindsey (21:54):
yeah, yeah, yeah.
On every level.
Right.
You know?
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so we did that for a while.
We just kind of like wentthrough the motions.
And
Britt (22:04):
uh, all through this building our businesses too.
Yeah.
So I think that kind of becamethe main thing was.
Keeping these businesses runningwell and Lindsey is a
perfectionist.
Would you say that?
I guess.
Lindsey (22:18):
I mean, I also think I'm like so sloppy too, so it's
hard to be like, I'm aperfectionist when I stink and
my hair's dirty right now, butthere are a lot of things that I
want done right.
Exactly.
Britt (22:34):
So I, I think, and I was just trying to make my
businesses exist, right?
And so between all of that, alsowhile working for Lindsay, too,
at the restaurant, which isanother time we could have...
Called
Lindsey (22:49):
it quits.
Right, yeah, because that wasreally hard.
It's hard to be in a stressfulsituation with no healthy outlet
and your partner is a part of itwho also has no healthy outlet.
Britt (23:02):
And then we're just both having the same problems, the
same interactions with the samepeople, but still not helping
each other work that throughthat.
Yeah,
Lindsey (23:13):
yeah.
We're just kind of clinging on.
And that's, so that's the thingof like being in constant, um,
reactivity and like your nervoussystem constantly being
activated is like you don't havebandwidth for anybody else.
So when you're in that, whenlike, when it's all about
business or it's all aboutwhatever, you're not going to
(23:34):
have the bandwidth for yourpartnership, especially if you
don't have the bandwidth to eventake care of yourself, you know,
and then self care was this likeweird, I don't even know what I
thought self care was buying.
A piece of clothing and gettinga pedicure.
What did you think self care was
(23:55):
at
Britt (23:55):
the time?
Buying a guitar and, uh,drinking with my friends.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah.
Lindsey (24:01):
And friends are the best.
Friends can be self care.
But friends are self care.
Community is self care.
But, yeah, it was self care.
Yeah, yeah, yes.
Britt (24:08):
Yes.
Not taking care of my
Lindsey (24:10):
problems.
Forgetting my problems.
Right.
Like, disassociating from thereality is like, that's self
care.
I'm really caring for myself.
I could be doing anything else.
I'm talking about me.
I'm talking about both of us.
Yeah.
But we just kind of did that fora while and I'm not even saying
that it was bad or wrong.
We just didn't know.
(24:31):
And there, you're right, therewere times, that's not like we
really ever like, we need to getdivorced or like, we're going to
separate.
But it was just never to thislevel of like, like something
deeper.
If now looking back, you can seethat that was missing because if
it hadn't been missing.
then we wouldn't have beenneeding to like forget our
(24:52):
problems.
Yeah.
We'd be on Mars right now orsomething.
Yeah, exactly.
Britt (24:57):
Wow.
Think of, think of people thatare just getting together after
knowing these things, you know,like that sounds amazing.
Lindsey (25:04):
It's amazing.
Starting a healthy relationship.
Also, you have to be likeeverything, like the way to look
at life is to say Everythingthat happened to me, past,
present, is right.
Yeah.
And like, there is a reason thatI am here with all of these
(25:25):
experiences, and hopefully, Ihave the courage to use them.
Britt (25:30):
We were each other's lessons, and we still
Lindsey (25:33):
stuck through that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And really, it's our own, youknow, that's the thing is it has
less my lesson.
There was me having resentmenttowards you was bullshit because
the as much as I judge mypartner is as much as I'm
judging myself as much as I havenegative thoughts or opinions
(25:59):
about my partner.
It's just as much as I'm likenegative self talking myself.
We're just looking for a way tolike get it out.
And so that's what we're, that'swhat people are doing all the
time in relationship.
And then also just being like,look at this asshole in line
with this.
Purple shirt.
Purple shirt.
(26:19):
Purple shirt wearingmotherfucker.
Britt (26:23):
I've had that thought.
Not specifically purple, but,shirt, but just like, yeah, God.
Yeah.
Think of how much that saysabout you when you're just like,
Sitting there squinting youreyes at some guy in line for
Lindsey (26:37):
no fucking good reason.
Right.
And I think even the pur thelike, purpose and the lesson
there is just to be like, Lookat me doing that.
And not be like, Oh no, no, Ineed to like, you know,
reprimand it out of myself.
Anyway, we were married.
Britt (26:54):
So this goes on for 10 years?
Lindsey (26:58):
I don't think, no, uh, like eight years, seven years,
seven years.
Then we were like, uh, we'realmost, we're 30.
Let's start trying to have ababy.
And also we're like.
Really going over seven yearswhere we did have so many fun
adventures together.
We did so many awesome thingstogether.
It was hard to run a businessand we fucking did it.
(27:19):
And there was so much fun and somany times where we're like,
life is amazing.
So we don't, I don't want anyoneto think that we just for seven
years we're like sloggingthrough it.
No, no, no, no, no.
It wasn't there was that.
And we definitely didn't haveself care, but man, we had some,
we had mostly.
Amazing times,
Britt (27:38):
right?
But also didn't know what wewere missing,
Lindsey (27:41):
right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And our relationship wasn'tsomething that we like
consciously cultivated at allbeyond let's go on a trip,
right?
And you need that.
So that's important.
Seven years in, we say, let'sstart trying to have a baby.
And we do.
(28:02):
Again, end of story podcastover.
But we, yeah,
Britt (28:05):
we did that and we went through some hard times with
that too.
We had a few miscarriages and Ithink for me, that's when I
started becoming aware ofLindsay's
Lindsey (28:17):
needs.
Oh, yeah.
Tell me more about that.
Britt (28:21):
Uh, well that's a very emotional time and I think you
and I, since, I think we hit ouremotions a lot.
Yeah.
I think maybe that's justsomething in our families, hide
your emotions.
And, so, I don't think I wasever aware of your emotions as
much.
But when something like thatgoes down...
(28:43):
It's
Lindsey (28:43):
just like spilling out.
Yeah,
Britt (28:45):
it's just spilling out.
And it's like, wow.
I don't know how to comfort her.
I don't, I don't know how toshow up right now.
And then it's all like, oh mygosh, what have I been doing?
In this whole relationship.
Lindsey (28:58):
Right, right.
Britt (29:00):
now.
Am I seeing
Lindsey (29:07):
that?
Now that it's messy, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And even, yeah, there was, man,so much came up for me during
that time where there was like,that was definitely a first, I
think, you start over a milliontimes and there's this, there,
but you know there's those timesin life where there's like a,
(29:27):
like a, things click and youknow something's shifting.
And first, first miscarriage wehad, It like brought up this old
trauma for me and then I waslike I'm gonna go to therapy and
so I was like doing a lot ofclearing even though there was
still like a basement underneaththat needed to be cleared, but
(29:48):
it just shows the it shows thetruth that like.
I needed that experience.
Like even think of amiscarriage, which is so hard
for so many people, but it'sjust a clearing.
It's like your body's just likeclearing some shit out that is
not going to work.
And if we could culturally likeshift our perspective.
(30:08):
around that and hold space forgrieving while still being like,
let it be okay.
Anyway, that it, it allowed meto like, go into my emotions and
to start doing some inner workwhile also still kind of being
like, Okay, now I need to like,get the baby.
(30:32):
Okay, I had a miscarriage, gotthat out of the way, and, and
I'm healing, and I was, I mean,I was like doing some work at
that time, but on this mindset,and, and only people that have
tried to have a baby know whatthis feels like.
Where you're like, it is yourfucking soul focus, can be,
where you're like, When am Iovulating?
(30:52):
How many times are we going todo it in that window?
And like, just checking,checking, checking, and it's so
consuming.
And it sucks.
Yeah, when it
Britt (31:02):
becomes a job.
Yeah.
That takes a toll on arelationship for sure.
Yeah, and that's exactly...
Trying to make a baby does not,it becomes not fun when it's...
Like a chore and you're havingto do it when you're not happy
about it.
You're just like
Lindsey (31:19):
trying to make it happen.
Right.
Yeah.
And you haven't really even, Imean, I was like holding space
for the grief of the firstmiscarriage, but you're not
really if you're like, and nowlet's do it again.
And like, I remember my midwifebeing like, Well, y'all can like
start trying again, I don'tknow, like in, in a few weeks
and now I'm like, God, that'slike, like, take a break, you
(31:41):
know, take a breath.
Anyway, we did start tryingpretty soon after we had a
second miscarriage and I, that'sanother, it's one of those
moments that I remember.
It was like I was holding on tohope for so long and there was
this moment before I knew when Iknew and I was like, I'm so
fucking done with this.
I was honestly relieved not tohave a miscarriage, but to know
(32:08):
because that waiting time ofyou're pregnant, is it going to
be viable?
And just like feels like you'regripping on to the like side of.
And
Britt (32:20):
soon after that we had a, what we thought was a third
miscarriage, but it was like afalse positive.
Oh, I don't even remember that.
I think you shut out, we bothprobably shut out a lot from
that time, but there was a thirdtime when we were pretty sure we
were going to have a miscarriageand it turned out to be a false
positive.
Lindsey (32:38):
Really?
Yeah.
Are you sure about that?
What
Britt (32:40):
happened?
We ended up going to the doctorand they were like, yeah, that's
a false positive.
Lindsey (32:45):
I don't remember that at all.
Britt (32:47):
That's how you block out trauma.
Lindsey (32:51):
But that was another, that was a turning point when I
was like, I'm fucking donetrying to have a baby.
This is nonsense.
I'm going to keep working onmyself and now I can see how I
then went way into like, Takingcare of myself may be a little
too extreme.
Definitely not enough takingcare of the relationship at that
(33:14):
point.
Would you say that's true or?
Yeah, I'd say that's true.
But I was feeling good and I wasstill in therapy.
I was taking really great careof my body and I was not trying
to have a baby for like thefirst time in a year.
And I was feeling amazing.
Taking care of
Britt (33:30):
yourself is the best way to take care of other people
too.
That's true.
I know we say that a lot, butit's
Lindsey (33:36):
true.
That is true.
That is true.
And, like, checking in, though,makes a big difference.
I was taking care of myself, butI mean, again, I just didn't
know that you should be like, Wewere also having, that was a
good year, once we like got thatsecond miscarriage out of the
way and then it was like thefreedom of not trying to have a
baby, which again is the hardestthing and I know there's people
(33:59):
hearing this that might are inthat situation right now or that
have been there and man itfucking sucks, it sucks, when
it's not happening, it can suck,maybe you're loving it, I don't
know, then We had like, yeah, wehad six months, eight months of
(34:20):
just like, again, great time,taking care of ourselves, doing
our thing, and we got pregnant.
Britt (34:29):
Then we went in.
Maybe, I, honestly, I was kindof expecting another miscarriage
at that point.
Oh really?
Lindsey (34:36):
Yeah, we went in.
It was, wait, we took a bigbreak from trying and then we
were like, okay, we'll, we'lltry this month.
Is that what happened?
Something like that.
This is way more about, it feelslike it's way more about
fertility than it is ourrelationship, but it's a big
deal to have kids, y'all.
Yeah.
Anyway, we started trying again,but with this, like, very loose,
like, let's have fun, let's swimin the lake, let's whatever.
(35:00):
Yeah, and
Britt (35:01):
I think going into it, waiting for the doctor to come
back in, we were both kind ofexpected, or we were prepared if
there was going to be anothermiscarriage.
Yeah.
But instead, she said, you knowwhat?
There's two heartbeats.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And we were both a littleamazed, but I, I also felt a
little reserved.
I couldn't completely.
(35:21):
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Enjoy that.
Cause I was like, uh, I was kindof shielding myself from
Lindsey (35:28):
disappointment.
Yeah.
You know, what's so weirdthinking about that, looking
back at that time is how littletrust I had for my own inner
knowing.
I knew I was pregnant.
I knew that it was going to befine.
And I even knew, like, oh yeah,it's twins.
(35:48):
Okay.
That make, that tracks.
Like, all of those thingsweren't like, whoa! Nothing blew
the doors off for me, but I keptmyself in a state of fear
because even though I was liketaking care of my body and going
to therapy, I still wasn'tworking on like my nervous
system or taking care of mylike, full being health in a
(36:09):
larger way.
So I like kept myself in thisstate of fear of like, well,
what if they don't?
What if it wouldn't, wouldn't,wouldn't?
And anyway, we had two kids atthe same time.
They're called twins.
Ever heard of it?
Britt (36:23):
It was great.
And the kids were perfect.
Lindsey (36:25):
Yeah, well they were in the NICU.
That was stressful.
Yeah, it was very stressful.
Britt (36:29):
Yeah.
Lindsey (36:29):
So there was a lot more stress.
Yeah, I, it's weird because Ididn't track, another thing, I
didn't track the whole birthexperience as traumatic until
like two years later.
When I was like, oh, that wasinsane.
Um, of course it's a wonderfulmagical experience, but then we
ended up, you know, having a csection.
(36:51):
They had to be in the NICU fortwo weeks and three weeks.
Both of those things areunexpected, yeah.
Unexpected, and those are big,that's a big deal.
Especially if you just gavebirth and then you're like, go
home, go to the hospital, gohome, go to the hospital, go
home.
And you're like doing this backand forth thing.
I must say
Britt (37:07):
that I was very impressed by when we first started at the
birthing center.
Late at night, it was gettingpretty late, it was in the
middle, I think a tornado endedup coming through Fort Worth
that night.
Crazy storms, and the midwifewas like, You're not
progressing, go home and sleepand then come back.
And this was after being inlabor for a while.
(37:28):
So we're on our way to go home,and then Lindsay has a feeling,
Let's just go to the hospital.
And at that point, that wasn'tin our plan, but it felt right
to both of us immediately.
Like, let's go to the hospital.
So we go to the hospital.
Same thing, not progressing, butstill in labor.
And the next step was, hey,maybe we should, we should push
(37:49):
this thing along with, what,Pitocin?
Yeah.
Is that what they use?
I don't fucking know anymore.
Which was also not in our plan,but we were like, okay, let's do
it.
It's time.
Immediately we were like, yeah,that's fine.
Keep going.
And what, 24 hours later, maybe,still in labor.
But not progressing.
And the doctor says, well, oneof the baby's heart rates is
(38:11):
slowing down.
Maybe we should do a C section.
And we were both like, yeah,let's do that.
Because we both knew, we weretrusting the way it was going.
It's so true.
We knew right then that that wasthe right decision.
There was no second guessing.
Lindsey (38:25):
And that really speaks to us together.
When, when the shit goes down,we can know exactly what to do
and not in a way of like, ah,let's panic.
But just like, no, this is theright thing to do.
And you're right.
That's like a really, that's oneof those moments where like, oh,
we trusted ourselves because wecould have been like, they said,
(38:48):
go home.
I don't know.
Let's go home.
But I was, I think you, I thinkyou're downplaying your part in
that too, because We weren'tdriving home yet.
We were in the parking lot andwe looked at each other and we
were, or this is my memory.
We said, we're not going home.
Yeah.
That sounds dumb.
Britt (39:03):
Yeah.
There's,
Lindsey (39:04):
there will be no sleep.
We didn't want to, but we wantedto leave there.
Yeah.
And I think we didn't say thatto each other, but we knew it
was time to leave there becausewe could have been like, no, we
want to stay here and like spendthe night at the birthing
center.
And they would have let us.
But we were like, yeah, sure.
Okay, we'll go.
And then as soon as we got inthe car, uh, we're like, fuck
this.
(39:27):
Go to the hospital.
What is this?
What?
No, we're not going home.
And again, people do that and noshame.
And that wasn't our, we, thatwasn't our path because it
couldn't be because then one ofour babies needed like emergency
NICU care.
And that's the way it playedout.
And, and the other one too, andthe other one too, but one
(39:48):
needed to go to the NICUimmediately.
Right.
And.
And Eli, it was like, he wasokay ish, and then he needed to
go to the NICU later.
Britt (39:57):
And then they lived there in the NICU
Lindsey (39:59):
for two and three weeks.
Two and three weeks.
Yeah.
So that was like a very.
It was a time when we really hadto like swoop in and really be
there for each other in a waythat we didn't, that actually we
did know how to do.
We just didn't know that we knewhow to do it.
It was a completely newexperience, but there were
definitely other times in ourrelationship.
(40:19):
Again, when like, when a bigthing happened, we would be
like, all right, what do youknow?
We're on the same team.
And I think like teamwork issomething we've always known how
to do, even if we were drivingeach other crazy.
And that's pretty cool.
Yeah.
So we're parents of twins.
It's a fucking rollercoaster.
(40:41):
It's insane.
Have you ever had one baby?
Try to, it's wild and businessrunning business.
And I was not prepared at all.
I can't believe how much peopleprepare for like pregnancy and
birth.
And then there's like so littlepreparation for what's going to
happen afterwards.
Anyway.
(41:02):
We did that for like a coupleyears and but think that's when
really for me things felt likeslogging through Major mud major
depression all this old traumaactivated Just a real sense of
confusion and like talk aboutnervous system being like
(41:22):
stretched beyond I wasconstantly feeling that way and
then having this business that Iwas like, oh now I need to care
about this thing and You justcan't I couldn't anyway, I don't
know, right?
Britt (41:36):
And then what changed?
Lindsey (41:38):
Well, what changed for me is somewhere around the boys,
when they turned, after theyturned three, it took three
years for me to feel morenormal, I think, after twins.
After two years, I was like,okay, I think I'm getting it
back.
You know, maybe it's like firstyear.
Okay.
Second year.
(41:58):
Okay.
I'm feeling more like myself.
Third year.
Okay.
Something's awakening in me.
And I don't actually know whatsparked this, but I kind of do
in those little tiny ways wheresomething shows up and you're
just like, I'm being ledsomewhere.
And this has nothing to do withour relationship, but it does
(42:19):
because I remember specifically,we were on a camping trip for
your birthday and it was like somuch fun.
We remember we took the camperto Purdon Allis.
Oh yeah.
And it was like the boys, it wasjust so much easier than we
tried to take them camping whenthey were one.
What?
We tried to take them camping.
We went on the camping trip toColorado when they were two.
(42:40):
It was so hard.
And then this trip was justlike, this is, feels like a
breeze.
I was reading, which I hadn'tdone in years and little shifts
started happening.
Reading was one of them.
I was reading Mark Marin's bookat the time, which is not any
kind of like wellness orspiritual or anything, but it
(43:01):
cracked something open in mewhere I was like, Oh, feeling
And like.
person, human, and I startedthis like personal healing
spiritual journey kind of on myown.
That's true.
Britt (43:21):
Yeah.
I had nothing to do with it atfirst.
Lindsey (43:23):
Yeah.
And I think pretty quickly,something unlocked in me where I
had.
space, like I had a little morespace just starting to meditate
or starting to read Ram Dass orwaking up early in the morning,
not drinking also, we didn't, I,that was the first time when
(43:44):
that I was like, I think I'mjust going to like not drink
other than obviously beingpregnant, breastfeeding, all
that stuff.
I was like, I think I'm justdone with alcohol.
And that took me on like a.
journey of a few years of selfdiscovery in a way that I didn't
do in my twenties because I wasfocused on work and because I
(44:05):
was already married.
Like if you're married, youfound your person.
And so you don't, there could bethis idea.
It's like, I don't need to likework on myself.
I already found the person, youknow, like the reasons that
normally people in modern day dosome inner work maybe because
they want to be in arelationship or they want to
make money.
And I was kind of doing allthose so I was like, but
(44:26):
something's missing because Istill feel shitty and I did that
for a few years and I thinkthere was a shift there in our
relationship because little bylittle I just like was able to
drop shit.
Would you say that's true or no?
Britt (44:46):
That is true.
I would say in the beginning.
He's like, no.
No.
Put the vodka down, Lindsay.
Um, I would say I pushed back alittle in the beginning when you
started with the spiritual stuffbecause I was heavily not
Lindsey (45:04):
spiritual.
Mmm.
I want to hear more about that.
Intentionally not
Britt (45:07):
spiritual.
Lindsey (45:08):
Intentionally.
I was intentionally not wantingto be supported by anything.
Britt (45:14):
Yeah.
Well, I, I was, Atheist my wholelife, right?
Right.
And then...
From birth.
From birth.
First thought.
Never loved it.
Never, never cared for it.
Religion that is.
And so when Lindsay starteddabbling in spirituality, I just
equated that with religion.
And I was like, what?
(45:34):
Is she joining a cult?
What is, um, like, God's notreal.
Why the f what?
Are we going to have to get adivorce?
Really?
Yeah, that's how...
Wow.
That's how, um...
Off, it felt to me.
Wow.
Um, but then I started seeinghow much better you felt about
yourself.
And like I've said in the past,you were listening to a lot of
(45:56):
Ram Dass talks and every timethat was on, I was like, this
makes
Lindsey (46:02):
all the sense.
Like there's nothing really toargue
Britt (46:04):
with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and I mean, not even likethe religious aspect of it.
It's just.
It made me realize thatspirituality is a whole thing
that even transcends religion.
Lindsey (46:15):
For sure.
You know what I mean?
I mean, that's the whole deal.
Right.
Yeah, that's what we're tryingto say.
Britt (46:21):
Right.
So, um, I still never becamereligious, but I am definitely
so, like, deeply spiritual now.
Yeah.
Open to whatever
Lindsey (46:31):
that ends up meaning.
Right.
So that's an interesting thing.
Relating this all the way backto relationship because maybe
we've gotten really off topicbut us being married for a long
time and you like me tryingsomething totally new but you
can and you're like not about itbecause it's not what you're
used to but you can like seethat there's like something
(46:54):
seeding and so you give me thespace to do it.
And that's really cool.
And that was intentional.
Yeah.
Yes.
That's really cool becauseyou're like, something is
working here, but I don'tbelieve it.
And so we kind of did that for acouple years.
I like got in.
Well, it's funny because I'm
Britt (47:15):
like, something is working, but she doesn't know
that it's just her.
She's fixing herself.
And it's funny because that isthe truth.
But it's like, but I wasthinking about it in like a
weird, bad, like backwards way.
Yeah.
That you are everything, youknow what I mean?
Right, right, right.
Where are
Lindsey (47:32):
you going with that?
It's like, you're making it allup, and I'm like, we're making
it all up! Yep.
And it's like, just the reframeof like, letting it be shitty or
beautiful, right?
And that really goes back torelationship, because that's
when, in that time, fastforward, fast forward,
Government shut down and that'swhat we really want to talk to
(47:53):
you guys about today is thatthere has been a conspiracy
theory against this Americanfree republic just kidding shut
down so I'm like two years intomy spiritual practices and
therapy and healing and whateverand not drinking and journaling
and like literally everythingyou can think of today.
(48:16):
That is for me, like deeplyhealing and shut down.
We loved because we were, wewere like, it was like a coming
back together for us.
At that point, you had stoppedworking at the restaurant.
That was a hard thing that Idon't think we have time to talk
about.
Dang it.
We don't know.
(48:37):
Should we talk about it?
Okay.
That wasn't.
I left the,
Britt (48:39):
I left the.
The restaurant was a little pushfrom Lindsay because it wasn't
working out.
I didn't need
Lindsey (48:47):
to be working.
We do need to talk about thisbecause that was a brown lot
time.
It was when the boys wereturning three and it was like, I
could just feel that somethingwas off.
And I knew at that point, Ididn't know that I needed to get
out of the restaurant.
But I was like, I think Britneeds to get out of here.
And actually, I think that'slike divinely fucking guided.
(49:09):
Because what if in my whateverineptitude at that time, if I
had been like, I need to leave.
Like, it would have been a hotmess.
No.
Yeah.
So, I didn't do it skillfully.
And I do apologize for that.
And I have apologized for that.
But I was basically just like,Brit, I think you need to like,
go do something else.
That was your
Britt (49:28):
surrogate.
Wow.
What do you mean you needed toleave so you I
Lindsey (49:33):
mean I didn't know it at the time but don't you think
that's probably what I needed tostart the process and I actually
did know pretty soon after likeI need to completely change the
my relationship with this placeand the first step is like my my
partner needs to not be in herewith me because I need to just
(49:54):
change the way, you know, I needto like put a lot of boundaries
around work.
I had no boundaries with work.
And that was a rough patch.
Britt (50:01):
That was a rough patch.
And then I started a new jobthat, um, I loved.
Yeah.
And it was
Lindsey (50:07):
great.
That all happened around thesame time.
So we had that big, it wasn'teven, I mean, I wouldn't call it
big, but it was big.
It wasn't like a blow up where Iwas like, you should just leave.
I was like, I've been thinkingabout this for a while.
And like, I think you shouldn'twork at Spiral anymore, and it
was hard.
It was hard for you, I know itwas so hard for you, and it was
(50:28):
so hard for me because that wasa scary thing
Britt (50:31):
to say.
I also knew it deep down that Ineeded to go.
Right.
But wasn't accepting it.
Right.
You know?
To me it meant something else,to me it was like a jab.
Yeah, yeah.
Even though I knew I didn't
Lindsey (50:42):
need to be there anymore.
And I think at the time, I mean,talking about communication,
like, I didn't know, now I wouldbe like, Let's like talk about
how we feel about being here.
And at the time I didn't really,I didn't know how to do that.
So I was just like, you have togo.
Yeah, you have to go.
And so that happened and thatwas all around the same time
(51:04):
because.
Those little things happenedwhere then we went I think maybe
that's why the camping trip wasgood because we had that like
that had already happened and itwas like we had already like
kind of started cleaning it upthis kind of big decision in our
relationship that wasn't adecision that you wanted
consciously.
(51:25):
And then we went on this campingtrip, and then we went to
Mexico.
Always Mexico's gonna makeeverything better, y'all.
Before we got pregnant with Eliand Jack, we went on an awesome
trip to Mexico, too.
So a little bit of Mexico alwaysdoes us right.
Um, and that summer is reallywhen I was like, I'm gonna start
meditating, I'm gonna stopdrinking.
You were free to go do your ownthing.
(51:46):
So it wasn't like I was attachedto like, how, how does Brit feel
about work?
Cause that's a whole otherbaggage to carry.
Ugh, you know, how do you feelabout work, um, when, when, when
work says something about me?
Yeah.
You know, because when I, if youdon't feel good about it, it
means you don't feel good aboutme.
(52:07):
Right.
Anyway, fast forward, governmentshutdown.
So we had these like two yearsof like.
Blah, blah, blah.
We're working on ourselvesseparately.
We're doing cool things.
We're doing cool work.
We're healing.
And then we have governmentshutdown.
And it was amazing.
For us.
For us.
(52:27):
We were at home.
We were with our kids.
They were five.
Five is so fun.
And it was every day just like,let's get up.
Let's take a walk.
Let's meditate more.
Let's read more.
I don't have to be anywhere.
We were, that's when we werelike.
Speaking of intimacy, we werebeing intimate a lot because we
were just home all the timetogether.
(52:48):
It was so fun.
And that's when we reallystarted talking about what do
you feel?
What do you want to do in life?
And all this possibility openedup in a way that in our
relationship and in The thingswe could do personally and
together in a way that we neverexperienced.
(53:09):
True.
What do you have to say aboutthat?
Britt (53:11):
I was, I was no longer running from anything because we
were at home together.
I wasn't escaping anything bygoing to work every day.
There was a numbness to going towork every day and not being
with my family.
Taking the kids to school, goingto work, coming home, eating
dinner and going to bed.
I felt like I was numbing out.
(53:31):
When we were at home together, Isaw what life could be.
I was like, why was I runningfrom any of this?
Lindsey (53:36):
Um, wow.
Britt (53:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I would say, I mean, thatsounds harsh.
I wasn't running, but there wasdefinitely a lot of regular life
stuff that I was avoiding there.
Lindsey (53:47):
Right, right.
It's all there and it's allbeautiful.
Yeah, but that's when westarted, like, I think that was
really when we started, like,committing to, like, okay, we
need to sit down andcommunicate.
And that's when we startedsaying, we're gonna talk.
And we'd done it before, like,we're gonna have a meeting.
And we did that and it did help.
But this is, like, We're justgoing to talk.
We had two meetings a week.
(54:08):
One was like, tell me how youfeel.
And every time y'all, it was soawkward at first because we
weren't modeled communication.
So we would sit down to theselike scheduled feelings meetings
and be like.
Well, I'm fine.
That's my impression of Brit.
I'm fine.
Nothing.
I don't have anything.
(54:29):
I don't have anything.
And then it would like startunfolding and start unfolding.
And it was so key because thatwas when we started sharing our
feelings without being like, youare making me feel this way.
And I feel this way because youdid this, it would just be like,
(54:51):
I feel nervous or I feel, youknow, uh, sad or I don't feel
appreciated, but without theconnection of like what someone
else is doing.
And it was so freeing that itjust brought this new level.
It felt like we, it honestlysometimes feels like we've only
(55:11):
been in a relationship fromthen.
Yeah.
Like this feels like we've beenmarried for three years instead
of 16 years.
Because there was a majorturning point there where we
kept
Britt (55:24):
up with all those that was the key thing Yeah, just to
keep up with it.
Right maintenance,
Lindsey (55:30):
right maintenance, but also grace because we keep up
with it But we don't you know,it's not like we're we aren't on
our shit like that hardcore Andwe need to have grace for each
other.
The difference in the way thatwe like can have a disagreement.
Now y'all, we had a disagreementthis morning and we were almost
(55:51):
like, we don't wanna record.
Britt (55:53):
Yeah.
I was like, we're not doing thisepisode.
Lindsey (55:54):
I know.
And then I was like, we aredoing this episode second
perfect time to do this episode.
Um, but we had a disagreementthis morning and you know what
it was, we were both feelingshitty about ourselves.
It had so little to do with theother, with the other person.
Would you agree with that or?
Agree.
Like, if I'm, I just, I cannotice my things so much quicker
(56:19):
and hopefully stop them.
And something that I'mremembering that someone just
said to us a couple weeks ago islike, in relationship, not
finding a resolution sometimesis.
So freeing.
Like, free yourself from theidea that you always need to
have a resolution.
It doesn't mean that theredoesn't need to be some kind of
(56:39):
repair.
Trust
Britt (56:42):
that your bond is so good that you don't need to figure it
out right then.
Right.
You're not gonna break up justfrom walking away for a
Lindsey (56:51):
minute.
Yeah, yeah.
Because so often when we'relooking for a resolution is what
we're actually looking for isthe other person to agree with
us.
And
Britt (56:59):
thank you Jamie and Lacey for imparting that wisdom on us.
It's true, it's true.
You'll hear that in a futureepisode if we talk
Lindsey (57:06):
about it.
You guys are the best peopleever.
But the thing is...
Just knowing that you can likewalk away and it's okay and that
you don't have to stay there andnecessarily you can when you
feel resourced be like, okay,I'm going to let's stay and like
talk about it and figure it out.
But sometimes you can just belike, we're going to like take a
(57:28):
moment.
A lot of moments.
I'm going to go do somethingtotally different and actually
not think about this.
So, even a day that we have adisagreement, it's like, I mean,
Jonathan, don't you always,every time that we have a
disagreement or like a whateverin our relationship, I always
hear Jonathan Richman.
He says, couples, couples mustargue.
Couples must fight, baby.
(57:50):
I mean, from time to time, youmust clear the air and, and
Jonathan is like a third partyin our relationship.
He's been there since thebeginning.
That's true.
So.
Thank you, Jay Rich.
Yeah, the things that we, oncewe did enough.
healing work and like wentthrough enough hard shit
together, we were, now we'reable to come back and, and still
(58:15):
have disagreements.
It's not like we're like, wecommunicate all the time and
we're, and now we just don'tever argue.
Like we argue way less becausethere's not a need to.
And when we do argue, for me, Ican usually, hopefully, I can
usually see, Oh, I'm like in mybullshit right now.
(58:36):
Yeah.
We have the tools now.
And I can be accountable for howI show up.
And I want to just make sure wegot all this.
Um, so the thing about beingmarried for 16 years, that has
worked for us is probably beingdumb for a lot of it.
But what that we had, we didalways have great teamwork, even
(58:58):
when we didn't know how tocommunicate.
And what is so important to mein a relationship now is that It
can feel boring, and it's likerelationship, no, I don't mean
boring, like, it's just likethe, the fairy tale idea that we
might have of a relationship isthat it's like a cheap romance
(59:20):
novel, and that's not truebecause there doesn't need to be
like volatile to be longstanding, like the mundane is
actually where the real beautyis.
Not the like That's why that's acheap novel.
Yeah.
That's why it's cheap.
You gotta get It's emotionallycheap.
You gotta get the, the goodnovel.
(59:41):
We had so much fun together whenwe were in our unconscious
partnership, but it is way morefun now.
Like we laugh When we're, whenwe're just saying we, we have
less time where it's just thetwo of us because we're always
with kids, but we make eachother like laugh so much more
that you think old me thinkslike, oh, you laugh and you have
(01:00:04):
a good time when you go out withfriends or when you're having
some drinks.
And now I'm like, oh, I do thatway more now when I'm not.
Not partying or that's not evenpart of my life than I did
before.
So I like the laughter, not thegoing out.
It's not that.
Britt (01:00:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a real joy
Lindsey (01:00:24):
there.
Yeah.
So being married 16 years,what's your commitment to this
year going forward?
Be more
Britt (01:00:33):
present.
I want to enjoy every momentwith my family.
I don't want to be thinkingabout work.
I don't want to be thinkingabout what's next.
I just want to live for now,baby.
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
What about
Lindsey (01:00:46):
you?
Okay, so I have three things.
Okay.
Britt (01:00:50):
Hurry up, because we've got to go pick up the kids and
jump Nate's car.
That's true.
Lindsey (01:00:54):
We'll be fine.
One is...
I wish, and I'm going to prefacethis, but I, I wish there was a
different word for likespiritual connection, but like
deepening our, the way we relateto each other in a spiritual
way.
Nice.
That's a commitment for me thisyear.
Number two is telling each otherwhat we want to do more or
(01:01:15):
because we did that.
We had this amazing journey.
We went on this big trip andalso we want to, I want to stamp
this whole episode by saying, wewouldn't have been able to do
it.
any of that shit like sell ourhouse and leave and just trust
that we could travel and now behere and trust that we can just
like start creative businessesand that they'll thrive as we're
just crossing our fingers andhoping we would not be able to
(01:01:38):
do any of that shit if we hadn'tturned around whatever turned
our ship around those years agowe would still be in the town.
that we are from.
And that's fine for anybody thatwants it, but we obviously
didn't.
So telling each, I want to makesure that we tell each other
like what our dreams are moreand that we're like for it, that
(01:02:02):
we're each other's cheerleaders.
Because it can be really easy toassume that the other person in
the relationship just kind ofknows.
Like, oh, they must know what Iwant to do because you kind of
think that once you're withsomeone for a long time, you can
still get into that like sharedbrain where you think that the
other person must know.
So like really setting asidetime to where we talk about
(01:02:25):
like, what's a wild ass dreamthat you have.
And making it a reality becauseit's just so much more fun to
live in in a relationship and alife where you're like, let's
make these like big dreams real.
And the third for me is a moredeeper commitment to my personal
health so that I don't then havea disagreement because I just
(01:02:49):
feel shitty about myself.
Ooh, nice.
I'll take those all on.
Yeah.
We'll do those together.
Those are our commitments for2023.
And to 2024 and beyond andbeyond in our yearbook.
All
Britt (01:03:04):
right.
Thanks, guys.
We're going to go take care ofour
Lindsey (01:03:06):
family now.
We love you.
Bye.
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