January 4, 2022 • 12 mins
This is Amy’s ‘5th Thing’ (a bonus episode) where she answers your questions every Tuesday! ‘4 Things With Amy Brown’ comes out every Thursday, but on Tuesdays Amy answers questions you’ve emailed in. On today’s episode Amy answers all your questions about: how to NOT use the word YOU when having difficult conversations or confrontations...puts people on the defense when you don’t mean to or want to, how Amy is feeling physically & mentally while in recovery from her eating disorder, a new mascara she discovered during COVID-19, and lastly she talked about her obsession with pulling her hair out and shared a device that people might want to get if they do the same thing.
Best places to find more about Amy: RadioAmy.com + @RadioAmy
Please send emails for the 5th thing to 4ThingsWithAmyBrown@gmail.com
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Happy Tuesday, everybody. This is the fifth Thing. It's my
Q and A episode to my four Things podcast, which
four Things is every Thursday, and then the Q and
A is every Tuesday. And I always start this episode
off with a quote. Today's quote is unknown, but it's
let your smile change the world, but don't let the
world change your smiles. And I feel like right now
(00:25):
our smiles look really different because we might be smiling,
but we're underneath a mask. So I would just try
to smile extra big. That way, you can smile with
your eyes, like maybe if you're checking out at the
store or you're picking up coffee or food, just make
sure you're still smiling at people. And maybe if you
want them to know that you're smiling, you could even
tell people like, Hey, I'm smiling under my mask, and
(00:48):
then they'll feel that vibe from you. I just feel
like smiles bring such good energy and we might be
missing out on a lot of smiles because of our masks. Also,
just wanted to use this time to remind you to
wear your masks. That would be amazing. First question comes
from Megan. She said, Hey, Amy, on a recent episode,
(01:09):
you talked about having difficult conversations and how you shouldn't
use the word you or you need, like if you
have to have a hard conversation with someone or confront
them about something you don't want to like pinpoint and
make it like you you do this and you need
to do that, that sort of thing. Back to the email,
she said, I have a hard time not using you,
So what do you suggest we say instead of that?
(01:29):
I still want to be able to get in my feelings.
So okay, Megan, I feel you on this And I
found this suggestion on family education dot Com and I'm
gonna share it with you now. I think it will
really help not only you, but others listening that might
find it hard not to use the word you, including myself. Now,
what I found from family education dot Com was this too.
(01:52):
Many arguments breakdown into yelling, screaming, and accusing sessions or
accusation sessions. Excuse me, you did this, you did that,
you made me feel awful. Now, these are fighting words
and are very likely to put your partner on the defensive.
Sentences starting with you are by definition accusatory. They also
(02:12):
don't inform your spouse or your partner or your friend
or whomever. How you're feeling, But sentences starting with the
word I have the opposite effect. I feel this way
I was hurt when I get frustrated by now. These
phrases help your partner sympathize with how you feel and
are the first step to resolving conflicts. It's easy for
(02:35):
your partner to be on your side when you say
how you feel. It's much harder for your partner when
he or she feels defensive. By following this simple rule,
you can make your arguments productive by helping the other
person understand how you are feeling. So I hope that
that helps Megan. I think it's great. I mean for
me personally. I know that I use you to my
(02:56):
husband and he definitely gets defensive and doesn't like it
and then feels like I'm nagging. But if I explain
how I feel, it's a totally different conversation. So definitely
try that out. Next question is from Joy. I love
the Outweigh series that you and Lisa did. I was
wondering with you being in your recovery and having more freedom,
how are you feeling physically and mentally. I just started
(03:19):
learning about all of this, and I'm in the beginning
of the recovery phase, there's still a lot of fear
in giving myself freedom. Did that go away for you? Okay? Well, Joy,
I still have fear. You are normal. I think that
you have to just continuously, as Lisa would say, fork
the noise. Anytime that fear pops into your head, you
(03:39):
just got to shut it down. And I think the
more we do that, the easier it's going to get.
And I feel like some days are easier than others,
but we're rewiring our brains. And I guess I should
say too that if you don't know what the Outweigh
series is, it's something that Lisa, who is at the
Well Necessities on Instagram, she and I did a four
(04:00):
part series. It lives on the Four Things podcast. If
you go back to I Guess the month of April,
you'll see every Saturday for the month of April, we
put out a new episode with experts and therapists and
people just like you sharing their stories of their eating
disorder or their disordered eating and how they recovered from that.
(04:22):
And we just wanted to be there for people. I
want you to know you're not alone if you're going
through this. I guess I'll just tell you here, I
feel like a million pounds has been lifted off of
me life is it's so much better not being shackled
to a needing disorder, which I was hand in hand
with for years and years and years, and I didn't
(04:43):
even realize how much it was weighing me down and
preventing me from having like a good relationship with food,
real meaningful relationships with people, things I used to avoid
because of food and insecurities that I had about my body. Uh.
So I hope that you get their joy and anybody
else listening to like, we're here for you. You're not
alone at all, and it's okay to still have fear,
(05:04):
no doubt. Next question is from Hannah. Hey, Amy, I
was wondering if you have any recommendations for a good mascara.
I used to have lash extensions, but the upkeep was
too much and with coronavirus just not really happening these days.
So Hannah, I have found one. Actually, when all of
my lashes came off during UH quarantine in the beginning,
I have started to go back up to my lash
(05:27):
girl because she's got protocol in place, and we wear
masks and all the things, and I just got a
shout out to my girl Amy, who owns Lash Nashville,
and it's on Instagram. It's actually the reverse of that.
It's at Nashville Lash. If y'all are in Nashville and
you want to check them out, They're amazing and they're
following all the protocol and I feel super safe when
(05:48):
I'm there. But when all my lashes had fallen out
and I was looking for a mascara, I ordered one
from the Thrive Cosmetics. You know the company Thrive or
you can order all kinds of things from like food,
and I really enjoy getting things from them. But I
had no idea that they had amazing mascara. But I
heard about it from a friend and it really is awesome. Uh.
(06:09):
It gives length and volume, but the best part is
when you wash your face, it just comes right off.
Whatever I was using the past. I know that I
recommended um Loreal voluminous I think is what it's called before,
and I always loved that one um But then when
someone recommended this Thrive Cosmetics one to me, I love
this one even more because the way it comes off.
(06:31):
Now it's more expensive than the Laurel, which is a bummer,
but it'll last a long time. And for me being
able to just wash my face with my normal face
wash and not having like scrub my eyes, I love
that it comes off. I have my lash extensions back in,
but I still put some of the Thrive cosmetics on
my lower lashes and it washes right off. I don't
(06:53):
feel like I have smudge black stuff all over my eyes,
and I felt that way with the with the Loreal stuff.
But Loreal is still the luminous. Still my still a
top tier. So if you're at Target or you want
something cheaper than I would pick up that one. And
I like to get the blackest black. I love black, black,
black or jet black. Everyone has different names. Next question
(07:23):
is from Jennifer. I was listening to the Bobby Bones
Show podcast and heard you talk about pulling your hair out.
Do you have trick otilla mania. I don't know if
I'm saying that right, but I know it's something along
the lines of that it's a compulsion to pull out
your hair. I have not been officially diagnosed, but I've
been pulling out my eyebrows and eyelashes since I was
a kid, and occasionally pull out the top of my head.
(07:46):
I heard you describe that it feels so good, and
I can relate to that. I'd love to hear your thoughts, Jennifer.
I don't think I have is severe. I don't know
if there's different levels of the trick o till a
mania or what where it is. The first time I
ever heard of that was my freshman year of college.
I would sit on my couch and while I was
(08:07):
studying or watching TV, I would pull out my hair
and my roommates started to notice it. And then Oprah
or some talk show I don't know had some people
on that had the trick out to Lumania or whatever,
and they were pulling out their hair, their eyebrows, their
eyelashes like you explain. In my roommate, I was like,
(08:27):
that's you, that's you. You have that you pull out
your hair. Because I was pull they would notice me
pulling out my hair way more than I noticed myself
doing it. I just do this one certain patch in
my hair, which I definitely have less hair where I
do it because even though I've stopped doing it a
lot the last several years because I'm super aware of it.
(08:47):
But I don't know that that area will ever really
recover for me. And now I just kind of get
the satisfaction of pulling at the hair but then not
actually pulling it out out. But then yes, when I
do at really just go for it and I pull
it out, something about it is so satisfying to me.
So I do feel like, yes, I have a certain
level of that, but not as severe as pulling out
(09:09):
my eyebrows or my eyelashes. I know for short people
call it t TM, so I'll just start calling at that.
But if you happen to have t TM or you
struggle with that, I'm going to let you know about
this really cool bracelet that I heard about. And it's
called habit aware dot com or that's the website where
you can get it, habit aware dot com. And they
(09:29):
have this Keen smart bracelet that senses your specific behavior
that you do and then it will give you a
gentle vibration to halt you and maybe redirect you to
go do something else. You can make a conscious decision
to be like, okay, stop, I'm not going to pull
out my hair. Sort of like my roommates were noticing
I was pulling out my hair more than I noticed,
(09:50):
because I just was doing it. Sometimes I didn't even
realize what I was doing. But this bracelet can help.
If it's got the sensation that you've lifted up your
hand towards your hair or eyes or wherever to do something,
it'll vibrate, and I think that it's something worth checking
out if you're looking for some sort of recovery from
(10:11):
that or help or I don't even know necessarily what
to call it, but you might want to check out
this bracelet. I personally haven't used it. This isn't any
sort of endorsement. I don't know anything other than that
I heard about it and I thought at least it
was worth sharing with anybody else. I know that the
bracelet also works for nail biting and maybe picking at
your skin, so it can also vibrate if it catches
(10:34):
you doing that, So hab it aware dot com and
I hope that that's helpful for some of you. Um Again,
we're all here just trying to get through this thing
we call life like and all of our our habits
and our different ways and our disorders and our how
we argue with people, and we're all different, and we're
all trying to figure out how to be the best
(10:54):
versions of ourselves. So I love that y'all feel comfortable
to email me some of these things and trusked me
with your questions, and I want you to know that
you are not alone in any of it. I feel
that's the driving factor behind why I even do my podcast, because,
to be honest, sometimes I'm sitting here doing the podcast
or putting it together, I'm like, why am I even
doing this? Nobody cares or what I have to say
(11:17):
isn't necessarily that important, or why are people coming to
me for advice? But I want you to know I
don't consider myself to be an expert by any means.
That's why I try to bring in experts to come
on my podcast. I bring in friends that know more
than me. I look stuff up for you guys, and
I source it, and I put things together and I
tell you about it. I just feel like I'm away
(11:38):
for you to get information and someone to talk to,
like a like a friend, so that you don't feel alone.
But I'm obviously I don't feel like I need to
give a disclaimer and then I'm not a doctor, but
I'll just go ahead and give that since some of
the stuff that we do touch on is serious stuff
and you may need to get legit help from a professional,
but I'm here to encourage you to do that if
(11:59):
that's what you need to do, and know that it's
normal and fine and there's nothing wrong with you. Again,
we're all just trying to figure out this life and
the different things that we do in it, and how
we can be the best versions of ourselves. All right,
Those are the items I wanted to discuss before I
said my official goodbye. But I hope you'll have a
great rest of your day and I'll see you again
(12:21):
on Thursday. Bye.
Happy Tuesday, everybody. This is the fifth Thing. It's my
Q and A episode to my four Things podcast, which
four Things is every Thursday, and then the Q and
A is every Tuesday. And I always start this episode
off with a quote. Today's quote is unknown, but it's
let your smile change the world, but don't let the
world change your smiles. And I feel like right now
(00:25):
our smiles look really different because we might be smiling,
but we're underneath a mask. So I would just try
to smile extra big. That way, you can smile with
your eyes, like maybe if you're checking out at the
store or you're picking up coffee or food, just make
sure you're still smiling at people. And maybe if you
want them to know that you're smiling, you could even
tell people like, Hey, I'm smiling under my mask, and
(00:48):
then they'll feel that vibe from you. I just feel
like smiles bring such good energy and we might be
missing out on a lot of smiles because of our masks. Also,
just wanted to use this time to remind you to
wear your masks. That would be amazing. First question comes
from Megan. She said, Hey, Amy, on a recent episode,
(01:09):
you talked about having difficult conversations and how you shouldn't
use the word you or you need, like if you
have to have a hard conversation with someone or confront
them about something you don't want to like pinpoint and
make it like you you do this and you need
to do that, that sort of thing. Back to the email,
she said, I have a hard time not using you,
So what do you suggest we say instead of that?
(01:29):
I still want to be able to get in my feelings.
So okay, Megan, I feel you on this And I
found this suggestion on family education dot Com and I'm
gonna share it with you now. I think it will
really help not only you, but others listening that might
find it hard not to use the word you, including myself. Now,
what I found from family education dot Com was this too.
(01:52):
Many arguments breakdown into yelling, screaming, and accusing sessions or
accusation sessions. Excuse me, you did this, you did that,
you made me feel awful. Now, these are fighting words
and are very likely to put your partner on the defensive.
Sentences starting with you are by definition accusatory. They also
(02:12):
don't inform your spouse or your partner or your friend
or whomever. How you're feeling, But sentences starting with the
word I have the opposite effect. I feel this way
I was hurt when I get frustrated by now. These
phrases help your partner sympathize with how you feel and
are the first step to resolving conflicts. It's easy for
(02:35):
your partner to be on your side when you say
how you feel. It's much harder for your partner when
he or she feels defensive. By following this simple rule,
you can make your arguments productive by helping the other
person understand how you are feeling. So I hope that
that helps Megan. I think it's great. I mean for
me personally. I know that I use you to my
(02:56):
husband and he definitely gets defensive and doesn't like it
and then feels like I'm nagging. But if I explain
how I feel, it's a totally different conversation. So definitely
try that out. Next question is from Joy. I love
the Outweigh series that you and Lisa did. I was
wondering with you being in your recovery and having more freedom,
how are you feeling physically and mentally. I just started
(03:19):
learning about all of this, and I'm in the beginning
of the recovery phase, there's still a lot of fear
in giving myself freedom. Did that go away for you? Okay? Well, Joy,
I still have fear. You are normal. I think that
you have to just continuously, as Lisa would say, fork
the noise. Anytime that fear pops into your head, you
(03:39):
just got to shut it down. And I think the
more we do that, the easier it's going to get.
And I feel like some days are easier than others,
but we're rewiring our brains. And I guess I should
say too that if you don't know what the Outweigh
series is, it's something that Lisa, who is at the
Well Necessities on Instagram, she and I did a four
(04:00):
part series. It lives on the Four Things podcast. If
you go back to I Guess the month of April,
you'll see every Saturday for the month of April, we
put out a new episode with experts and therapists and
people just like you sharing their stories of their eating
disorder or their disordered eating and how they recovered from that.
(04:22):
And we just wanted to be there for people. I
want you to know you're not alone if you're going
through this. I guess I'll just tell you here, I
feel like a million pounds has been lifted off of
me life is it's so much better not being shackled
to a needing disorder, which I was hand in hand
with for years and years and years, and I didn't
(04:43):
even realize how much it was weighing me down and
preventing me from having like a good relationship with food,
real meaningful relationships with people, things I used to avoid
because of food and insecurities that I had about my body. Uh.
So I hope that you get their joy and anybody
else listening to like, we're here for you. You're not
alone at all, and it's okay to still have fear,
(05:04):
no doubt. Next question is from Hannah. Hey, Amy, I
was wondering if you have any recommendations for a good mascara.
I used to have lash extensions, but the upkeep was
too much and with coronavirus just not really happening these days.
So Hannah, I have found one. Actually, when all of
my lashes came off during UH quarantine in the beginning,
I have started to go back up to my lash
(05:27):
girl because she's got protocol in place, and we wear
masks and all the things, and I just got a
shout out to my girl Amy, who owns Lash Nashville,
and it's on Instagram. It's actually the reverse of that.
It's at Nashville Lash. If y'all are in Nashville and
you want to check them out, They're amazing and they're
following all the protocol and I feel super safe when
(05:48):
I'm there. But when all my lashes had fallen out
and I was looking for a mascara, I ordered one
from the Thrive Cosmetics. You know the company Thrive or
you can order all kinds of things from like food,
and I really enjoy getting things from them. But I
had no idea that they had amazing mascara. But I
heard about it from a friend and it really is awesome. Uh.
(06:09):
It gives length and volume, but the best part is
when you wash your face, it just comes right off.
Whatever I was using the past. I know that I
recommended um Loreal voluminous I think is what it's called before,
and I always loved that one um But then when
someone recommended this Thrive Cosmetics one to me, I love
this one even more because the way it comes off.
(06:31):
Now it's more expensive than the Laurel, which is a bummer,
but it'll last a long time. And for me being
able to just wash my face with my normal face
wash and not having like scrub my eyes, I love
that it comes off. I have my lash extensions back in,
but I still put some of the Thrive cosmetics on
my lower lashes and it washes right off. I don't
(06:53):
feel like I have smudge black stuff all over my eyes,
and I felt that way with the with the Loreal stuff.
But Loreal is still the luminous. Still my still a
top tier. So if you're at Target or you want
something cheaper than I would pick up that one. And
I like to get the blackest black. I love black, black,
black or jet black. Everyone has different names. Next question
(07:23):
is from Jennifer. I was listening to the Bobby Bones
Show podcast and heard you talk about pulling your hair out.
Do you have trick otilla mania. I don't know if
I'm saying that right, but I know it's something along
the lines of that it's a compulsion to pull out
your hair. I have not been officially diagnosed, but I've
been pulling out my eyebrows and eyelashes since I was
a kid, and occasionally pull out the top of my head.
(07:46):
I heard you describe that it feels so good, and
I can relate to that. I'd love to hear your thoughts, Jennifer.
I don't think I have is severe. I don't know
if there's different levels of the trick o till a
mania or what where it is. The first time I
ever heard of that was my freshman year of college.
I would sit on my couch and while I was
(08:07):
studying or watching TV, I would pull out my hair
and my roommates started to notice it. And then Oprah
or some talk show I don't know had some people
on that had the trick out to Lumania or whatever,
and they were pulling out their hair, their eyebrows, their
eyelashes like you explain. In my roommate, I was like,
(08:27):
that's you, that's you. You have that you pull out
your hair. Because I was pull they would notice me
pulling out my hair way more than I noticed myself
doing it. I just do this one certain patch in
my hair, which I definitely have less hair where I
do it because even though I've stopped doing it a
lot the last several years because I'm super aware of it.
(08:47):
But I don't know that that area will ever really
recover for me. And now I just kind of get
the satisfaction of pulling at the hair but then not
actually pulling it out out. But then yes, when I
do at really just go for it and I pull
it out, something about it is so satisfying to me.
So I do feel like, yes, I have a certain
level of that, but not as severe as pulling out
(09:09):
my eyebrows or my eyelashes. I know for short people
call it t TM, so I'll just start calling at that.
But if you happen to have t TM or you
struggle with that, I'm going to let you know about
this really cool bracelet that I heard about. And it's
called habit aware dot com or that's the website where
you can get it, habit aware dot com. And they
(09:29):
have this Keen smart bracelet that senses your specific behavior
that you do and then it will give you a
gentle vibration to halt you and maybe redirect you to
go do something else. You can make a conscious decision
to be like, okay, stop, I'm not going to pull
out my hair. Sort of like my roommates were noticing
I was pulling out my hair more than I noticed,
(09:50):
because I just was doing it. Sometimes I didn't even
realize what I was doing. But this bracelet can help.
If it's got the sensation that you've lifted up your
hand towards your hair or eyes or wherever to do something,
it'll vibrate, and I think that it's something worth checking
out if you're looking for some sort of recovery from
(10:11):
that or help or I don't even know necessarily what
to call it, but you might want to check out
this bracelet. I personally haven't used it. This isn't any
sort of endorsement. I don't know anything other than that
I heard about it and I thought at least it
was worth sharing with anybody else. I know that the
bracelet also works for nail biting and maybe picking at
your skin, so it can also vibrate if it catches
(10:34):
you doing that, So hab it aware dot com and
I hope that that's helpful for some of you. Um Again,
we're all here just trying to get through this thing
we call life like and all of our our habits
and our different ways and our disorders and our how
we argue with people, and we're all different, and we're
all trying to figure out how to be the best
(10:54):
versions of ourselves. So I love that y'all feel comfortable
to email me some of these things and trusked me
with your questions, and I want you to know that
you are not alone in any of it. I feel
that's the driving factor behind why I even do my podcast, because,
to be honest, sometimes I'm sitting here doing the podcast
or putting it together, I'm like, why am I even
doing this? Nobody cares or what I have to say
(11:17):
isn't necessarily that important, or why are people coming to
me for advice? But I want you to know I
don't consider myself to be an expert by any means.
That's why I try to bring in experts to come
on my podcast. I bring in friends that know more
than me. I look stuff up for you guys, and
I source it, and I put things together and I
tell you about it. I just feel like I'm away
(11:38):
for you to get information and someone to talk to,
like a like a friend, so that you don't feel alone.
But I'm obviously I don't feel like I need to
give a disclaimer and then I'm not a doctor, but
I'll just go ahead and give that since some of
the stuff that we do touch on is serious stuff
and you may need to get legit help from a professional,
but I'm here to encourage you to do that if
(11:59):
that's what you need to do, and know that it's
normal and fine and there's nothing wrong with you. Again,
we're all just trying to figure out this life and
the different things that we do in it, and how
we can be the best versions of ourselves. All right,
Those are the items I wanted to discuss before I
said my official goodbye. But I hope you'll have a
great rest of your day and I'll see you again
(12:21):
on Thursday. Bye.
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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