April 20, 2021 • 40 mins
Amy’s BFF Meri (@TheShopForward) joins Amy for her return episode (after being gone for 2 weeks following the passing of her dad). This is Amy’s ‘5th Thing’ (a bonus episode). ‘4 Things With Amy Brown’ comes out every Thursday, but on Tuesdays Amy shares emails from you guys and answers questions y’all have sent in. On today’s episode Amy & Meri address: the loss of Amy’s dad & the recent Rachel Hollis drama, how to tell someone that you don’t appreciate “diet culture” rhetoric, how it feels to turn 40-years-old, and using gratitude to bond with your friends (which also leads into Amy & Meri’s new @ShopEspwa ‘cool mom’ line - for more on that hit up RadioAmy.com or TheShopForward.com/coolmom - especially if you have some Mother’s Day shopping to do!)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Happy Tuesday, everybody. Welcome to the fifth Thing. If you
listen to my podcast regularly, you may know that I
was out for a couple of weeks and I had
some people filling in, or maybe you heard some reruns.
But this is me back live. We're over halfway through
April at this point, and on April one, I unexpectedly
(00:24):
but kind of became expected, lost my father. So when
he went into the hospital, we did not know which
I guess he entered, maybe late March. He had just
moved in with me. We maybe get into more later,
but I'm just kind of explaining my absence and even
the quote that I'm going to get into for today.
And Mary's here with me. She has been at my
house the last I don't know, over two weeks, and
(00:46):
I had all my siblings in town. It was something
that my dad was living with me for like a
day and then we had to call an ambulance. He
was just having some problems and I thought, oh, well,
I'll pick you up from the hospital tomorrow, and then
that was not the case. He was put on life support,
and then my siblings and I had to make the decision.
(01:08):
So the first email that we get into today. Is
actually one of many emails that I got from some
of you that listen to the Bobby Bones Show and
heard Bobby announced that my father had passed. Because I
haven't been on social media, I kind of had to
go away to a little like retreat for myself because
there's just a lot of things happening in my life
(01:29):
the last several months that it was just another thing
that I realized, like, Okay, I either need to go
take some time to to heal and work through some
things so I can show up and a be a
good mom and then be just be better in life,
or who knows, I just would encourage all this is
just a quick sharing of hope and that you are
(01:51):
worth that type of investment in yourself, whatever that looks like,
maybe it's taking a walk or doing some breathing exercises.
I know you may not have the opportunity to go
away and actually work on yourself, but for me, that's
what I needed at the moment. And I was working
with a woman named Linda, and each morning we would
start off with this pile of cards on the table
(02:13):
and you didn't know what the cards were, and she'd
be like, Okay, let's see what the universe wants to
tell us this morning, and so it would be our
conversation starter for that day. I was doing some intensive therapy.
So one of the days which I'm holding Mary and
I's latest Four Things Gratitude Journal, we each picked up
a quote and Linda picked up hers and she said, Okay,
(02:34):
mine today is from Albert Einstein and it's there are
only two ways to live your life. One is as
though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though
everything is a miracle. And then she talked to me
about the quote for a little bit and I was like, oh,
I know that quote. Yes, boy, Albert, we have that
in our Gratitude Journal. So if you have our journal,
maybe you have come across this one. I'm sure I've
(02:56):
even said this one on the podcast before, but I
thought I would just share this and again today because
I was flipping through the journal, I'm showing Mary that
I'm now using our Four Things Gratitude Journal as a
guest book for when people come over to record on
the podcast, and so far I have one entry and
it's Karen Fairchild because she was my last guest to
be on the podcast, which I didn't even really get
(03:16):
to promote that episode because I had went off social
media by the time it loaded. So if you have
not listened to that episode, I encourage you to do so.
Karen is awesome and she wrote down four things she
was thankful for. And we also have an email about
gratitude coming up. How it can strengthen a friendship if
you kind of get a friend to join you in it. Okay,
(03:39):
now I feel like I'm rambling and Mary's just sitting here,
so I'm gonna have her read the first email, which
is from Linda, but it's a different Linda than the
Linda I've been working with. Okay, so here's the first email. Hi, Amy,
so sorry about your father. Thinking and praying for you all.
I wish I could share words of wisdom since I've
been where you are now, nothing and everything comes to mind.
(03:59):
Cherish the memories, give yourself an other's time and space
to grief. Allow others to take care of you as
you care for them. Maybe this will help. After my
father passed away, a friend cornered me after church. How
are you fine? It had been weeks since the service,
weeks of doing my normal stuff, She stared me in
the eyes and said, no, you're not. I wasn't and
that was okay. As I've heard you yourself say it's
(04:21):
okay to not be okay or fine or normal or whatever.
It takes time and effort to process what is happening.
Give yourself the gift of that time. Please take care
of yourself and your lovely family, Linda, Linda, thank you
for this email and then many others that I got
like this. And one thing that I learned from my
Linda this last week is grief never ends. So Linda,
(04:42):
I'm sorry for your loss and that you've you've been
in my position, and I just want to give everybody
that permission to know that it's okay. There's no timeline
for grief. Everybody grieves differently. And you know, I had
said something to my Linda about how I've already been
through this as my mom, and it's almost been seven
years since she passed away, and I still sometimes have
(05:04):
all of these really intense feelings, and Lenda just said
stop stop. Grieving never ends. So if you feel as
though sometimes you might be stuck in grief, whatever you're grieving,
it doesn't have to be the loss of a loved one.
It could be a number of things, but I just
want to give you that permission that everybody grieves differently.
There's nothing really sometimes you can say. But I did
(05:25):
get a lot of thoughtful emails, and I just wanted
to express my thanks for y'all reaching out and keeping
us in your thoughts and prayers, and um, just know that, yeah,
if you're going through something like this, you're not You're
not alone, and hopefully you have somebody that you can
talk to. You know, we all have different ways that
we deal with grief. In the beginning, I definitely used
the downfall of Rachel Hallis to distract me from my grief. Now,
(05:50):
right around the time that my dad died. Some of
you may or may not know who Rachel Hollis is,
but she's a self proclaimed self help guru and and
she put up this TikTok and then posted it to
her Instagram about how she has this cleaning lady who
cleans her toilets and that she has worked really hard
to have someone come and clean her toilets. And I'm
(06:12):
kind of paraphrasing her video, but that was basically the
gist and how someone had told her she wasn't relatable,
and she said, I don't want to be relatable, and
if I'm ever relatable, then I'm doing it wrong, which
I found to be interesting because I feel like she's
built her whole platform on being relatable. And really, my
fascination with the story that was unfolding during that time
(06:35):
and what was happening with Rachel wasn't about her downfall.
I wasn't like obsessed. I don't I don't enjoy seeing
someone go through something hard publicly, and clearly Rachel's going
through something hard, but she has put herself out there
and sold herself and even her marriage for that matter.
I just I didn't know a lot a lot about her,
(06:55):
So when the story was everywhere, it's like I couldn't
get enough, Like I needed to know where she began,
what all she was about, what happened with her marriage,
and how they were literally selling like marriage conference tickets
over a thousand dollars, yeah a couple maybe or a
so maybe two grand for the couple, depending on like
(07:16):
if you're a v I P or not. But then
when they announced that, of course they're like, oh, we've
been struggling for a few years. So then I was like,
wait what, So then it just it was just interesting
to me how you never know what's really going on,
and even with me sitting here right now, you never
know what's really going on. You may not ever know
what's really going on, even with some of your friends.
(07:38):
And I don't think that Rachel and Dave owed it
to the public to tell them every detail of their life.
But I do think that there is a level of
accountability to where if you're selling people that are in
a vulnerable position and needing to come to a conference
to strengthen their marriage, and your marriage is on the brinks,
like that might need to be disclosed. So that's where
(08:00):
the rabbit hole really started for me. And then I
realized YouTube has a lot. So Mary's been with me
and for about the first week we both were just interested.
But again I want to make sure and reiterate, especially
if you're listening and you're a Rachel Hollis fan. This
is not me even bashing Rachel Hollis one bit. I
(08:20):
am explaining a little bit how I was medicating, almost
with educating myself on what Rachel Hollis has done the
last few years and some of her stuff I found
to be damaging and toxic. And I can even say
that I have done things on my podcasts that are
(08:41):
damaging and toxic. And if you have a public platform,
you have a level of responsibility to people that are
following you and listening to you. And it has been
brought to my attention constructively. I like constructive criticism. I've
had definitely rude notes, but I have had really thoughtful,
thought provoking emails from you, my listeners, that have helped
(09:03):
guide me in a different direction. And I've done a
lot of growth and then realized different things that I
used to do that yes, we're damaging and toxic, and
I'm offering you now. While I have advertisers here, nobody's
really directly paying for my product. Like you, my listener,
You're not paying to listen to me. So that's what
I mean. I guess it's a little different. Is like
(09:24):
Rachel was selling her. She was like her and her
husband their marriage was a product for sale. And that's
why I like some of the deep dives that I
got into on YouTube. There's this one girl, Savvy. She
Savvy writes books on YouTube, and her deep dives were interesting.
She first learned of Rachel because she was reviewing her books.
Because Rachel is an author. She's written like girl Wash
(09:46):
her Face, which is a New York Times bestseller, and
Girls Stop Apologizing a couple of other things. I've never
read her books, although I will say, in a moment
of weakness, Mary and I were at Target and I
was like, I have to buy her latest book, which
is called Yeah, didn't see that coming, which coincidentally came
out the same year that her divorce was announced months later,
(10:06):
but then her divorces worked into the book, which obviously
she had to go back and do the edits, which
there was a preface at the beginning that said, I'm
three days into editing this book and my marriage has ended.
And so I was like, oh, well, and it's like, hey,
didn't see that coming. Like I don't know if it
was a marketing thing. I have no idea. But what
Savvy mentioned when she was reviewing and and breaking down
(10:30):
the fall of Rachel and her marriage and different things
is she's like, I actually feel as though I'm able
to do this constructively because she put herself out There
was a product and it's like I'm leaving a product
review and what I was doing was likely unhealthy. But
I would say, if you are a fan of not
just Rachel anything, even even things I say, I'm gonna,
(10:53):
if anything, be way more careful and how I present things.
I mean as a public figure. Yes, again, It's also
allowed me to reflect on times when I too have
been dangerous to people. And you know, I don't need
to go into all the details of different episodes where
I'm like, oh man, I can't believe I said that,
or things I've said on the Bobby Bones Show like
oh no, I can't believe I said that. And while
I was never yelling at people saying you have to
(11:15):
be this certain way, as kind of was Rachel's attitude,
like she almost she yells a lot. I definitely, again
admittedly have been a part of spreading messages that could
be toxic or triggering for some people. And I'm not
a trained professional. I'll give Outweigh as an example. I
co host Outway with Lisa, who's a registered dietitian that
has immersed herself in the anti diet culture, and she
(11:37):
is very well educated in her field. Now what I
bring to the table is different than her. We can
co host together and I can bring my experience. I
have the personal experience of suffering from a needing disorder
and disordered eating habits. But then I lean into Lisa
for the real, true wisdom. Now, while I've learned a
lot along the way, I would not feel comfortable hosting
a podcast like that without an expert by my eye,
(12:00):
because there's so much I'm still learning and I'm not
going to be perfect along the way. All this to say,
if you're grieving, you may have distractions, and maybe for
some people the medication might be I don't know, alcohol,
and I would try to be aware of that, like,
WHOA am I drinking too much at the moment? Do
I have to have that extra glass wine? That's what
I did when my mom died, And you know, looking back,
(12:22):
I'm like, oh, maybe that was my medication. And then
my Linda informed me that my Rachel Hollis Deep Dive,
which is very deep, was my medication and that it
was okay for me at the time as long as
I had a healthy perspective throughout, because I did need
that distraction. The needless to say, I did buy her book.
It's almost like I used it as a study guide
when I was watching Deep Dives. On YouTube about it,
(12:44):
because whoever was talking about it would say now on
page twenty five, and I would like flip to page
twenty five. There's a podcast that I recommend as well
if you're looking to do research. And I think what
I meant to say earlier, and I I'm rambling and
I got distracted, but was that I might have listeners
that are big Rachel Hollis fans. And I am only
saying some of this stuff that I have learned so
that maybe you can go do some more research. So
(13:06):
maybe you can decide whether or not you want to
continue leaning into what she is saying, and maybe she'll
emerge from this better. Maybe she'll put in the work
and come out of the other side a different person.
I'm still not back on Instagram at this moment at
the time that we're recording this, so I don't know
if she's back on has she posted anything since her apology.
(13:29):
I actually don't know. I'm not sure. Okay, so Mary
has clearly not been obsessed like I was. But I
just wanna challenge you on that. And again, this isn't
a bash Rachel Hollis little segment. I am just sharing
with you how I was distracting myself from grief, but
(13:49):
then it took me down all these rabbit holes. And
the Internet is just such a crazy thing. There's so
much information at your fingertips. And I will say, if
you're a original Hollis fan, she says, she's like, everything
I've learned I learned from Google. And I'm like, okay, yeah,
I Google a lot too, but I'm not charging people
thousands of dollars for my non expert advice. So I mean,
(14:11):
that's a that's a scary statement that. I mean, she's
letting you know, she's empowering you to know that you
have the world at your fingertips. She's also gidding you
all this life changing advice. But a podcast you can
listen to for like, I think a two part maybe
she's even doing Okay, she's doing part three. Is Kate Kennedy.
She is a girl that lives in Chicago. She's an
(14:31):
entrepreneur and Arthur. She has a podcast and she's a
pop culture expert if you will. But her podcast is
called be There in five and I think she did
a really good a look now it heads up. The
podcasts are long, they're like to two and a half
hours long. But in case you needed distraction from life,
You're welcome. For me, Rachel holli Is stuff was like
(14:54):
the gift that kept on giving. But again, I just
want to say before we wrap this part, that I
did it out of a place of like just wanting
to research and more like fascinated with like, oh my goodness,
what is happening, not with a oh wow, like a
gossipy I can't believe this is happening to Rachel and
(15:15):
I'm so like, no, I don't. I don't really have
any feelings on her either way. Other than that I
would just say I don't know. I mean to this day,
like if she was like, hey, can I come on
the podcast and promote something, I would probably be like, oh, shoot, no,
I don't think so. And that's something that I learned,
Whereas a few months ago, if she were to have
maybe wanted to come on the podcast, I've probably have
been like, oh wow, she could probably bring a different
(15:35):
audience and she's got a lot to say. But I
hadn't done this extensive deep dive, So there's that. I
also just thought it was a good reminder to take
what you hear from people that are not experts on
things with a grain of saltwatch hearing what people have
to say from their life and their story is powerful
and you can take different people's stories and learn from them.
But that doesn't mean you should do exactly what they're
(15:57):
saying because their perspective might be different. And she's not
an expert in things. Like somebody was talking, was it
Kate Kennedy? That was she was comparing her to Renee Brown,
And it's like, there's no comparison, Like Renee Brown is
a researcher, she's a professor. She immersed herself in the
research for sixteen years. And it's like I'm listening to
her and that's what I mean. I'm even sitting here saying,
I don't know what you listen to this podcast for.
(16:19):
You listen to the Bobby Bones show for But like, yes,
take it with the grain of salt, Like take what
you're hearing and then see where it applies for you,
if it even applies at all, because it may not. Again,
we oftentimes are having if it's my perspective, I am sharing, yes,
a life experience, but I may have an expert on
But still even I think it's great that you're sharing
(16:41):
your experiences where somebody can relate to that and get
something from it, but you're not putting yourself out there
as the expert. And all right, and yes, I think
I admitted before there are times that I've done that,
and you know, we get calls on the Bobby Bones
Show with people asking us sometimes some pretty serious advice.
And I will say this deep Dive did in the
even my time with Linda, and the woman Linda that
(17:03):
I was working with was a she's like seventy three
years old, like she has years of experience, and she
was so just smart and had so much wisdom on
you know, our bodies and our brains and how we work.
And I would have her on as an expert and
I can listen to her. All I can do is
maybe some days bring you what I learned from Linda
(17:24):
and regurgitate it and share it to you, but credit Linda,
like I'm not just gonna like sell it to you
as something that I'm packaging up with a bow on
it and being like, hey, here you go, yeah, this
is gonna help you. Which sometimes what I learned is
a little bit of what Rachel would do. And I
think that on the Bobby Bone Show of someone were
to call in, like we can give our advice, but
(17:44):
now I think I know I even want to like
preface it or say on the back side, like, hey,
hopefully you have somebody if it's a really serious matter
that you can talk to that knows what they're talking about.
You're not the only advice, right, Like if you're calling
the radio show like great, we love of hearing from
people and we love that there's that connection. Or if
you send me an email to the four Things podcast
(18:06):
for the fifth thing, like I love hearing from you,
and I think that's awesome. But I know there's times
where I've gotten advice that a therapist should answer, and
that's when I reach out to Cat Defatah, who is
on my podcast network that is a licensed therapist that
has a podcast called uniqu Therapy, and she will help
me with the answer. She will actually type up her
(18:26):
thoughts and then I will read her words verbatim and
credit her because I don't feel equipped to be the
one answering that email. There's so many different platforms where
you can hear from people, and that's what's so scary.
That's what I learned from my deep dive and then
those in case you want to get distracted. I think
I shared a few ways that you can deep dive into.
(18:46):
Rachel Hollis, all right, we can get in the second email. Okay,
this is from Andy. I've never thought of myself as
someone with an eating disorder to someone who has battled
her weight her whole adult life. I never heard about
(19:06):
triggers until listening to your podcast and realized that's been
my whole life. My mom was on every fad diet
and that's a big part of my memories growing up.
Dieting was never about being healthy, always about losing weight.
My mom is almost eighty and even now we rarely
have a conversation without the subject of diet recipes or
weight loss coming up. Your episode where you talked about
how to complement someone without talking about their body made
(19:27):
me realize that she always makes comments like quote, you've
lost weight, or you're looking good. What are you doing?
I know she means well, but I think this obsession
has given me a very bad relationship about food, and
I hate it. What is a gentle way to talk
to her about this and how it makes me feel?
I'm so tired of the focus always being about food
and diets. Thanks for caring and for poring into us. Okay, So, Sandy,
this is something that I learned from a girl Cat
(19:49):
who is a licensed therapist. Something someone else is doing
makes you feel a certain way. It is completely fair,
especially since it's your mom and y'all are super close.
For you too, in very loving manner, non confrontational way,
simply say hey, mom, you know when you do this,
and then give her an example of what it is
(20:10):
it makes me feel, and then insert how it genuinely
makes you feel. And that can apply to any scenario,
any relationship you're in, whether it's a friendship of a
working relationship, a significant other. That is a tool that
I learned from Cat, like, hey, when you do this,
like it makes me feel blank, And that way the
other person knows and you're not coming from a place
(20:31):
of like hey, stop doing this, or I can't believe
that you do this, or you're just like hey, when
this happens, this is how it makes me feel. And
then it's up to them to take what you're saying
and then hopefully implement change. So good luck with that, Sandy.
I know that sounds like it's been really hard and
in many, many years and we get conditioned and you know,
your mom being eighties, she's she was probably conditioned long
(20:54):
before you to be immersed in diets. And it's just
sometimes for me, for sure, it was for many many
there's a normal everyday conversation. I mean Mary, I did
it to Mary when we were friends, was before I
was in recovery when we met, and probably how many
different diet things that I talked to you about, You
can be honest, a lot, Yeah, And it just was
(21:14):
an energy suck and a time suck. There's so many
other things that you can be talking about and doing.
And I would challenge anybody listening the same space, what
if all that brain space is like given just I mean,
it's easy to be reflective, I know that, but that's
what we talk about even on outweigh is like your
world is so small when that's all you're focused on
all the time. It's a very small way to live
(21:37):
because it's just all focused on what you're eating, when
you're eating, when you're working out, what you're not eating,
who you're eating with, where you're going. It limits you.
So Sandy, I hope that you can come out of
that like, you know, if you have those thought patterns,
I don't like hearing that. You know, you say, I
have a bad relationship with food and I hate it.
I guess I'm glad that you hate it, but I
(21:57):
hate that you're in that situation. And I know what
it's like to be there, but I also know what
it's like to be on the other side, and it
does take work. But I would just encourage you to
be honest with your mom and approach it in a kind,
loving way, and then hopefully she will hear you. That's
all we can do. What's in our control is what
we say in our our own manner. But then it's
up to the other person to receive and here. And
(22:18):
then if your mom or whoever it is can't hear that,
then maybe it's time to set some boundaries and say, hey, like,
I tried to tell you how this made me feel,
but if I can't come over and and we have
a diet free conversation, then I don't really I'm not
gonna enjoy coming over. We're trying to change the narrative
for the next generation. I never knew diet talk was
(22:41):
toxic because diet we grew up talking diets all the time,
so that's a really valid point, Sandy. I don't know
if you have kids, but that's definitely something we might
be like. I don't know that I can bring my
my daughter over. I'm just using daughter as an example
or son because I want them to have of a
healthy relationship with their bodies and food. So good thing
(23:03):
to bring up. Mary, Okay thirty email Okay, this is
from Christie. Hi, Amy, I would love for you to
talk about how you handled turning forty. I am turning
forty this year and not sure how I feel about it.
I try to remember that I need to be thankful
for turning another year older, and then not everyone gets
to experience this. It's just forty. Are we supposed to
feel a certain way? Can you talk about the feelings
you had, what you did to make it not so hard,
(23:23):
all the things. Thank you for being you. You make
me smile and love everything you stand for and all
you do. Christie, I loved turning forty, and I don't
know if that's what you were looking for or if
you were looking for some like I was terrified and
this is what I did. But everybody has a different experience.
I think turning thirty than probably forty than fifty. There's
these different you know. I remember being scared to turn thirty,
(23:43):
and once I did, I was like wow. And my
thirties were My early thirties were pretty awesome. And then
I experienced some I don't mean early because of I
was younger, but then in my thirties I experienced a
lot of hard things and loss. So I had to
grow and mature, and so it really can be so
circumstantial too. And I entered my forties two weeks before
(24:05):
my dad passed away, and I was excited about forty.
And now I have a really sad memory associated with
being forty. But I love where I am in self exploration.
And I was more equipped to handle my dad's passing
because I did some work when my mom passed. So
(24:26):
what age gives you is experience. And I think that
everybody has different experiences. But if you use different life
events that happened and try to grow from them, then
other things that come out you, you will approach them
completely differently. I've approached my dad's death totally different than
I approached my mom's. I went the unhealthy route, my
(24:47):
eating disorder returned, I was having too much wine, I
was developing unhealthy patterns, I was disconnecting from people, and
what was it, Mary, Like a week after my dad died,
I'm booking a flight to go do a therapy and
two to But I was so proud of you for
doing that, and like realizing that and stepping back and
realizing like I need to do this, and yeah, so
and not that that's what everybody has. That I want
(25:08):
to recognize my privilege and being able to do that
and having the opportunity to step away from work, and
that's not lost on me one bit. But even if
I didn't have the opportunity of the resources to do
something like that for myself, I know I'm still in
a mature enough state at forty and that I could
make other decisions that would be better for myself, like
(25:30):
what other therapy could I get myself into, or what
books could I read? Or what breathing exercise could I do?
Or how many puzzles can I do? And how many
bird feeders can I put in my backyard, which currently
I have Five's not lying, I'm not lying. So I
never thought I'd be puzzle bird lady, but it's good
for my brain. It's good for me and I feel
(25:52):
more confident in my forties than I ever did in
my twenties and thirties, and I'm learning more about myself,
but because I have more life under my belt, which
is leading me again, like I said, to down a
path of self exploration. And I think we should all
be curious about ourselves, be curious about maybe why you're
super terrified to turn forty, and then really look at
(26:14):
are you. Are you scared or has society told you
forties just scary, because it's really not. I feel excited
about the next decade. And Mary will get this. Some
of you may not, but it has to do this
whole exercise that I did with Linda. But I feel
like in my forties, I'm going to spread my wings
like a bird, and you know, I see the sun
(26:37):
and that means like there's bright days ahead for me.
And that is how I feel about my forties. Christie,
So good luck, happy birthday. I hope that my experience
with forty. I'm not saying that this is what it
is for everybody, and I'm not yelling at you that
this is how you need to handle your forties by
any means, but I'm just sharing with you what it
(26:57):
was like for me. And I went to Austin with
my girls. I went somewhere special for me to celebrate,
and she didn't wanted to celebrate. I did not so
not because I was scared of turning forty, but I just, again,
there's a lot going on in my life, and I
just kind of wanted to not acknowledge it, but not
because you weren't. I just wanted to crawl under my
bed and not do anything. But then Mary and my
(27:18):
sister and Andrea, who I've known since I was thirteen,
they all got together and we got a hotel in
Austin and they put a life size cardboard cut out
at George Straight in our hotel room waiting for me.
And we had cake and we went out to eat,
and we went to a Pat Green concert, which we
hadn't been to a concert and forever, and I loved
(27:39):
Texas country music. My friend Django went with us and
he sings, and I'll just say this, it was a
weekend I did not want to do. Then I went
and it was like the best and we played ping pong,
which Mary and I, let me tell you, neither of
us knew that the other person was like, actually pretty
good at ping pong. Yeah, I mean I haven't played
in a really long time, but well I was impressed
(28:01):
with your pain pong skills, so which Mary ultimately ended
up winning. But it was like by one, wasn't it?
Or no? It was close? Well whatever, in my memory
it was my one, but I was the idea you
had skills. We were neck and neck, which then she
reminded me that she played tennis. You want a tennis
tournament and Andy Roddick was in or something, yeah, baby
Aca Poco tennis tournament in Austin, Texas. Uh. Andy Roddick
(28:24):
was playing for the boys. I was playing for the girls. Mary.
If you go down to my laundr groom, yes, and
I had um Andy Roddick autograph it when we were adults.
So Andy Roddick's first time coming in on the Bobby
Bones show. Bobby and him were just becoming friends and
we were in Austin and he came up to promote
something maybe that the Andy Rodic Foundation was doing, and
I was like, oh, Andy Roddicks coming in. So I
(28:45):
went up into my mom's attic and I got all
of my tennis trophies and I lined them up in
front of my microphone so that when Andy Roddick walked in,
I had all my trophies there and I was like,
what up? And then I said, see this trophy first
place baby Alca Poco, you were at that tournament. I
don't even know if I knew he was at that
tournament till he told me on air, because I wouldn't
know because he wasn't even famous then. And I think
(29:07):
he said, oh, I was at that tournament, and I
was like, shut up. So you're telling me if I
had the stuff like tennis, like say I didn't quit,
then I would have been basically a Wimbledon champion or something.
So I'm just saying, I mean yes, and then I
will Another activity that has come up in conversation because
I know Mary wants to try this, but I've done
(29:27):
it as pickle ball. If you have pickle ball near you,
I highly recommend you play because it is so fun.
It's almost like a mix between ping pong and tennis
in a weird way because your racket size is so
small and then you're you're kind of playing with like
this wiffleball thing, but you're on a full size tennis court. Oh,
it is on a full size pretty much. Yeah, like
you're on it. It's it's best played as doubles because
(29:49):
it's hard to cover all the ground with a little
tiny racket. But it's a lot of fun, all right.
Next email, Fourth email, and I think it's from Amanda. Okay,
dear Amy, I've been listening to your podcast for a
few months. Know. I asked my best friend in February
if she would like to do the Gratitude Challenge with me.
She excitedly said yes. Can we start early so that
I can do it as a part of lent. So
we have been sending each other are four things and
(30:10):
it has been so insightful. We have loved being a
part of each other's every day and seeking out the
best part of our lives in these small moments. I
don't remember a time not knowing her, and we were
forty one and forty two. Her husband found out three
years ago he had kidney cancer. Unfortunately, the cure for
him has been worse than the cancer. I try to
see them as much as possible, but I live an
hour away. This Gratitude Challenge has helped us so much
(30:31):
that we have decided to keep going. Words cannot express
our gratitude for this idea. I love hearing how our
four things gratitude practice strengthens relationships. And whether you use
our journal or not, it doesn't matter. You just journal
four things each day, maybe do it with a buddy,
or you can have a group text with friends. I've
gotten emails from people that say they do that where
(30:52):
they each on individually come up with four things that
they're thankful for, and then on the group text there's
four of them and they each send one thing a day.
Instead of like each person sending four and it being
too much, they kind of pick one of the four
things and they all text about it, and it's a
way of holding each other accountable, but then also learning
(31:12):
what's going on in your friends lives in a unique way.
And I'll just say our journals again, we still have
some of these available right the four Things. Our newest
are two point oh version, which is really corals and
pinks and really good for this time of year. But
they support Project Meta Share and we talk about that
on one of the inside pages of the journal, and
(31:33):
how it goes towards education, but also just bring up
to we have a new like cool Mom line. We've
always had a cool Mom sweatshirt and T shirt under
our splaw line, which a spaw means hope in Haitian creole.
But now we're excited to announce we have a cool
Mom line. And the cool Mom line is going to
be supporting Project Meta Share and they are trying to
raise funds to get a new ambulance for their maternity
(31:58):
center and it's how they transport expect tent mothers around
and Haiti doesn't have the best road conditions and the
current one is just not in that greatest shape, so
they would love to fundraise to buy a new little ambulance.
So we are excited to be a part of that.
Things should be up. If you want to check out,
there's so many ways to get access to If you
(32:20):
can go to the shop forward dot com slash cool Mom,
there you go, or you can go to shop Spoa
dot com. But if you want specifically the cool Mom line,
then that's an easy way to do it. We'll have
a banner on top of the page to just click on,
so the shot forward dot com or the shot forward
dot com slash cool Mom and we have cute fullovers
like that, say, I need a nap, so you don't
(32:41):
even have to be a mom to wear that one.
I'm not a mom, and I'm definitely going to get
that one, yes, Stacio and caring it. She said, everyone
needs a nap, even kids, and we have the new
neck label for them, which is my signature. So yeah,
Amy wrote out cool mom in cursive and that's our
new logo. And so that's around the next client to
on one of them embroidered. It's really cute. We have
(33:02):
some new stuff. So if you are looking for Mother's
Day gifts and you want to be a part of
fundraising for the new ambulance for Project Meta Share, then
you can feel really good about your purchase. And I
know that I got a couple of emails. I have
one here specifically from Crystal since we're talking about SPA stuff.
She was curious when the birth year sweatshirts were coming out,
(33:23):
and I don't know why we ended up calling them
born here, but it is your birthier, but we ended
up I could trying to be a little edgier and
different kind of like I do too, So they're born
here and not that it really matters and Charlottage Charlottegne,
the god who's on the Breakfast Club in New York.
He would he would always say, I think he sent
(33:44):
me a text one on my birthday when year I
was like happy born Day, and I was like, oh,
that's interesting, what about born year because it was different.
And really we use even our born your hats as
just any special occasion hat, which I something special that
I now have for my dad is his ninety one
born your hat. He loved to wear that and he
(34:07):
was a model, and that's one of the things he
said before we he even fell ill. We had no
idea he was going to be sick. It's so crazy.
This is the night before he had went to the
hospital and he was his first night at my house.
He was laying in his new room and Mary and
I were on FaceTime. We were yeah, and Mary was like,
do you have a TV? And he was like no.
I was like, Dad, a huge TV right there. He's like, oh, yeah,
(34:29):
I do have one. And he was so excited to
watch Baylor play basketball on it. And he never got
to see that, which he would freak out knowing that
Baylor won the championship because he was a huge Baylor
fan and Mary and I were actually working on cool
Mom on FaceTime when he said he wanted to be
a model for the shot forward, like that was gonna
be his job because he's retired now he's living with me,
(34:50):
and he could put himself to work and he could
represent his age group. And then he never even got
to model. But I have his born Your hat and
Mary it actually just sent him a bunch of new
shirts and they arrived in the mail like the next
day or the day after, but he never got to
wear them. But I still have them and I'm going
to keep them. And Linda, my Linda that I did
(35:10):
therapy with, told me that anytime I am missing him
really badly, that it's totally okay to just put on
one of the shirts and sleep in it or cuddle
with it, or maybe I put on his hat and
wear that, and it'll help you feel close to the person.
It's not something that's intended to make you feel sad,
(35:31):
but if it does, it's okay. Feel that sadness and
acknowledge it, breathe into it, and then see if you
can move on, but don't suppress it. That's what I
would just say. That's coming from experts I've worked with.
I'm not trying to say I'm the expert, but I
think that we need to lean into all of our emotions.
And while the gratitude is great, and thinking positively is great,
(35:54):
and choosing joy is great, but even with pimp and
joy and my mom's message of choosing joy while she
was battling cancer, my mom had a really hard days
and we did not brush those days under the rug.
That's something more than my dad might do, but that's
just it was kind of his way of surviving was
ignoring some stuff at times. But my mom, she really
(36:16):
was in tune with her feelings and if it was
a bad day, we leaned into it and we felt
all of those emotions. It's not that every day I
was like, oh, yeah, have cancer or choose joy. She
also uses an opportunity to not just choose joy, but
spread joy. So maybe it was a hard day for her,
but if she was on the elevator with somebody else,
she was going to compliment their bag or their shoes,
or say hi to them and asked them how they were,
(36:38):
you know, how their day was going, or how their
treatment is going, and talk to them acknowledge them. Some people.
Now this was before COVID. Now people are going through
treatments alone because of COVID, which is just so sad.
But this was yes, seven, eight, nine years ago that
my mom was in treatment and we would be an
appointments and people would be there alone because they had
family members that maybe couldn't take off work, or maybe
(36:59):
they didn't have loved ones that could be there, or
they didn't have people close enough to them, or maybe
they didn't want to let people in on that because
it's really hard. Whatever. Everybody's story is different, but my
mom would be intentional about making sure people felt like
they mattered and they were special and she would spread
joy to them. And so that's kind of the message
of pimp and joy too. And I know that's like
(37:20):
a whole thing in the in the toxic positive, toxic positivity,
it's not toxic positivity. And you'll see that if you
watch savvy writes, books or different things. They're like Rachel
Hollis has these shirts to say we choose joy. And
I think Rachel, from what I can tell online oftentimes
was like choose joy or just kind of yelling that,
like we choose joy. And I was like, oh, shoot,
(37:41):
I really need to clarify that that's not what you know.
Our message of joy is about. It is especially in
times of adversity, like try to look for special moments,
but by no means do we ignore the reality that's
around us, because that's that's toxic and that can be
a false representation and what's really going on. Then you
end up just burying the real feelings and it can
(38:03):
come out in a different way. So manifest is something
else and we don't want that at all. Well, Mary,
thank you for joining me for the fifth thing. I
feel like this is definitely a long one, but it's
my first day back, and honestly, guys, I don't know
what's going to happen on Thursday. I have a four
Things episode that normally goes up, and I can tell
you right now, I don't know if it's going to
be something new or if it's going to be another
(38:26):
awesome rerun that we put together, maybe like the best
of and then I'll return full time next week. I'm
trying to ease myself into work, and that's just a
decision I'm having to make for myself that I think
is healthiest and I know that you'll understand. And Mary
was willing to come up and record this with me
or otherwise I don't know that I would have been
(38:46):
able to do it, but she was like, let's do
it before I fly out. She's flying back home today
and she's literally been here two weeks. So I would
like to say in gratitude that I'm thankful for Mary.
I'm thankful for friendships and thingful for people that show up,
Like the minute my dad was in the hospital. The
first night we all got home, I think my sister
flew in, my half sister flew in, my half brother
(39:08):
was on his way in, and we got home and
Mary had like sent food to the house and I
got home, and so it was just how friends showed
up for us, all different kinds of friends and family
showed up. Was really special. And I just hope that
either you're listening right now, that you can be that
for someone one day, or that if you're going through
something that gosh, I feel blessed, and I hope that
(39:30):
you have people like I have found. And again I
will remind you all that I met Mary on Twitter.
So that's a cool story for another time in case
you're brand new and you're like, wait, what you met
your friend and business partner on the internet, And I'm
like yep. And also I met Lisa on Instagram again,
my Outway co host, and I only met Cat because
(39:53):
she emailed me about being on that way. So yeah,
the internet is cool, all right. I hope you all
have a great rest of your day. Tuesday, whatever day
you're listening to this, You're amazing, and we'll talk to
you later. Might be Thursday, might be next Tuesday. Okay, Bye,
Happy Tuesday, everybody. Welcome to the fifth Thing. If you
listen to my podcast regularly, you may know that I
was out for a couple of weeks and I had
some people filling in, or maybe you heard some reruns.
But this is me back live. We're over halfway through
April at this point, and on April one, I unexpectedly
(00:24):
but kind of became expected, lost my father. So when
he went into the hospital, we did not know which
I guess he entered, maybe late March. He had just
moved in with me. We maybe get into more later,
but I'm just kind of explaining my absence and even
the quote that I'm going to get into for today.
And Mary's here with me. She has been at my
house the last I don't know, over two weeks, and
(00:46):
I had all my siblings in town. It was something
that my dad was living with me for like a
day and then we had to call an ambulance. He
was just having some problems and I thought, oh, well,
I'll pick you up from the hospital tomorrow, and then
that was not the case. He was put on life support,
and then my siblings and I had to make the decision.
(01:08):
So the first email that we get into today. Is
actually one of many emails that I got from some
of you that listen to the Bobby Bones Show and
heard Bobby announced that my father had passed. Because I
haven't been on social media, I kind of had to
go away to a little like retreat for myself because
there's just a lot of things happening in my life
(01:29):
the last several months that it was just another thing
that I realized, like, Okay, I either need to go
take some time to to heal and work through some
things so I can show up and a be a
good mom and then be just be better in life,
or who knows, I just would encourage all this is
just a quick sharing of hope and that you are
(01:51):
worth that type of investment in yourself, whatever that looks like,
maybe it's taking a walk or doing some breathing exercises.
I know you may not have the opportunity to go
away and actually work on yourself, but for me, that's
what I needed at the moment. And I was working
with a woman named Linda, and each morning we would
start off with this pile of cards on the table
(02:13):
and you didn't know what the cards were, and she'd
be like, Okay, let's see what the universe wants to
tell us this morning, and so it would be our
conversation starter for that day. I was doing some intensive therapy.
So one of the days which I'm holding Mary and
I's latest Four Things Gratitude Journal, we each picked up
a quote and Linda picked up hers and she said, Okay,
(02:34):
mine today is from Albert Einstein and it's there are
only two ways to live your life. One is as
though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though
everything is a miracle. And then she talked to me
about the quote for a little bit and I was like, oh,
I know that quote. Yes, boy, Albert, we have that
in our Gratitude Journal. So if you have our journal,
maybe you have come across this one. I'm sure I've
(02:56):
even said this one on the podcast before, but I
thought I would just share this and again today because
I was flipping through the journal, I'm showing Mary that
I'm now using our Four Things Gratitude Journal as a
guest book for when people come over to record on
the podcast, and so far I have one entry and
it's Karen Fairchild because she was my last guest to
be on the podcast, which I didn't even really get
(03:16):
to promote that episode because I had went off social
media by the time it loaded. So if you have
not listened to that episode, I encourage you to do so.
Karen is awesome and she wrote down four things she
was thankful for. And we also have an email about
gratitude coming up. How it can strengthen a friendship if
you kind of get a friend to join you in it. Okay,
(03:39):
now I feel like I'm rambling and Mary's just sitting here,
so I'm gonna have her read the first email, which
is from Linda, but it's a different Linda than the
Linda I've been working with. Okay, so here's the first email. Hi, Amy,
so sorry about your father. Thinking and praying for you all.
I wish I could share words of wisdom since I've
been where you are now, nothing and everything comes to mind.
(03:59):
Cherish the memories, give yourself an other's time and space
to grief. Allow others to take care of you as
you care for them. Maybe this will help. After my
father passed away, a friend cornered me after church. How
are you fine? It had been weeks since the service,
weeks of doing my normal stuff, She stared me in
the eyes and said, no, you're not. I wasn't and
that was okay. As I've heard you yourself say it's
(04:21):
okay to not be okay or fine or normal or whatever.
It takes time and effort to process what is happening.
Give yourself the gift of that time. Please take care
of yourself and your lovely family, Linda, Linda, thank you
for this email and then many others that I got
like this. And one thing that I learned from my
Linda this last week is grief never ends. So Linda,
(04:42):
I'm sorry for your loss and that you've you've been
in my position, and I just want to give everybody
that permission to know that it's okay. There's no timeline
for grief. Everybody grieves differently. And you know, I had
said something to my Linda about how I've already been
through this as my mom, and it's almost been seven
years since she passed away, and I still sometimes have
(05:04):
all of these really intense feelings, and Lenda just said
stop stop. Grieving never ends. So if you feel as
though sometimes you might be stuck in grief, whatever you're grieving,
it doesn't have to be the loss of a loved one.
It could be a number of things, but I just
want to give you that permission that everybody grieves differently.
There's nothing really sometimes you can say. But I did
(05:25):
get a lot of thoughtful emails, and I just wanted
to express my thanks for y'all reaching out and keeping
us in your thoughts and prayers, and um, just know that, yeah,
if you're going through something like this, you're not You're
not alone, and hopefully you have somebody that you can
talk to. You know, we all have different ways that
we deal with grief. In the beginning, I definitely used
the downfall of Rachel Hallis to distract me from my grief. Now,
(05:50):
right around the time that my dad died. Some of
you may or may not know who Rachel Hollis is,
but she's a self proclaimed self help guru and and
she put up this TikTok and then posted it to
her Instagram about how she has this cleaning lady who
cleans her toilets and that she has worked really hard
to have someone come and clean her toilets. And I'm
(06:12):
kind of paraphrasing her video, but that was basically the
gist and how someone had told her she wasn't relatable,
and she said, I don't want to be relatable, and
if I'm ever relatable, then I'm doing it wrong, which
I found to be interesting because I feel like she's
built her whole platform on being relatable. And really, my
fascination with the story that was unfolding during that time
(06:35):
and what was happening with Rachel wasn't about her downfall.
I wasn't like obsessed. I don't I don't enjoy seeing
someone go through something hard publicly, and clearly Rachel's going
through something hard, but she has put herself out there
and sold herself and even her marriage for that matter.
I just I didn't know a lot a lot about her,
(06:55):
So when the story was everywhere, it's like I couldn't
get enough, Like I needed to know where she began,
what all she was about, what happened with her marriage,
and how they were literally selling like marriage conference tickets
over a thousand dollars, yeah a couple maybe or a
so maybe two grand for the couple, depending on like
(07:16):
if you're a v I P or not. But then
when they announced that, of course they're like, oh, we've
been struggling for a few years. So then I was like,
wait what, So then it just it was just interesting
to me how you never know what's really going on,
and even with me sitting here right now, you never
know what's really going on. You may not ever know
what's really going on, even with some of your friends.
(07:38):
And I don't think that Rachel and Dave owed it
to the public to tell them every detail of their life.
But I do think that there is a level of
accountability to where if you're selling people that are in
a vulnerable position and needing to come to a conference
to strengthen their marriage, and your marriage is on the brinks,
like that might need to be disclosed. So that's where
(08:00):
the rabbit hole really started for me. And then I
realized YouTube has a lot. So Mary's been with me
and for about the first week we both were just interested.
But again I want to make sure and reiterate, especially
if you're listening and you're a Rachel Hollis fan. This
is not me even bashing Rachel Hollis one bit. I
(08:20):
am explaining a little bit how I was medicating, almost
with educating myself on what Rachel Hollis has done the
last few years and some of her stuff I found
to be damaging and toxic. And I can even say
that I have done things on my podcasts that are
(08:41):
damaging and toxic. And if you have a public platform,
you have a level of responsibility to people that are
following you and listening to you. And it has been
brought to my attention constructively. I like constructive criticism. I've
had definitely rude notes, but I have had really thoughtful,
thought provoking emails from you, my listeners, that have helped
(09:03):
guide me in a different direction. And I've done a
lot of growth and then realized different things that I
used to do that yes, we're damaging and toxic, and
I'm offering you now. While I have advertisers here, nobody's
really directly paying for my product. Like you, my listener,
You're not paying to listen to me. So that's what
I mean. I guess it's a little different. Is like
(09:24):
Rachel was selling her. She was like her and her
husband their marriage was a product for sale. And that's
why I like some of the deep dives that I
got into on YouTube. There's this one girl, Savvy. She
Savvy writes books on YouTube, and her deep dives were interesting.
She first learned of Rachel because she was reviewing her books.
Because Rachel is an author. She's written like girl Wash
(09:46):
her Face, which is a New York Times bestseller, and
Girls Stop Apologizing a couple of other things. I've never
read her books, although I will say, in a moment
of weakness, Mary and I were at Target and I
was like, I have to buy her latest book, which
is called Yeah, didn't see that coming, which coincidentally came
out the same year that her divorce was announced months later,
(10:06):
but then her divorces worked into the book, which obviously
she had to go back and do the edits, which
there was a preface at the beginning that said, I'm
three days into editing this book and my marriage has ended.
And so I was like, oh, well, and it's like, hey,
didn't see that coming. Like I don't know if it
was a marketing thing. I have no idea. But what
Savvy mentioned when she was reviewing and and breaking down
(10:30):
the fall of Rachel and her marriage and different things
is she's like, I actually feel as though I'm able
to do this constructively because she put herself out There
was a product and it's like I'm leaving a product
review and what I was doing was likely unhealthy. But
I would say, if you are a fan of not
just Rachel anything, even even things I say, I'm gonna,
(10:53):
if anything, be way more careful and how I present things.
I mean as a public figure. Yes, again, It's also
allowed me to reflect on times when I too have
been dangerous to people. And you know, I don't need
to go into all the details of different episodes where
I'm like, oh man, I can't believe I said that,
or things I've said on the Bobby Bones Show like
oh no, I can't believe I said that. And while
I was never yelling at people saying you have to
(11:15):
be this certain way, as kind of was Rachel's attitude,
like she almost she yells a lot. I definitely, again
admittedly have been a part of spreading messages that could
be toxic or triggering for some people. And I'm not
a trained professional. I'll give Outweigh as an example. I
co host Outway with Lisa, who's a registered dietitian that
has immersed herself in the anti diet culture, and she
(11:37):
is very well educated in her field. Now what I
bring to the table is different than her. We can
co host together and I can bring my experience. I
have the personal experience of suffering from a needing disorder
and disordered eating habits. But then I lean into Lisa
for the real, true wisdom. Now, while I've learned a
lot along the way, I would not feel comfortable hosting
a podcast like that without an expert by my eye,
(12:00):
because there's so much I'm still learning and I'm not
going to be perfect along the way. All this to say,
if you're grieving, you may have distractions, and maybe for
some people the medication might be I don't know, alcohol,
and I would try to be aware of that, like,
WHOA am I drinking too much at the moment? Do
I have to have that extra glass wine? That's what
I did when my mom died, And you know, looking back,
(12:22):
I'm like, oh, maybe that was my medication. And then
my Linda informed me that my Rachel Hollis Deep Dive,
which is very deep, was my medication and that it
was okay for me at the time as long as
I had a healthy perspective throughout, because I did need
that distraction. The needless to say, I did buy her book.
It's almost like I used it as a study guide
when I was watching Deep Dives. On YouTube about it,
(12:44):
because whoever was talking about it would say now on
page twenty five, and I would like flip to page
twenty five. There's a podcast that I recommend as well
if you're looking to do research. And I think what
I meant to say earlier, and I I'm rambling and
I got distracted, but was that I might have listeners
that are big Rachel Hollis fans. And I am only
saying some of this stuff that I have learned so
that maybe you can go do some more research. So
(13:06):
maybe you can decide whether or not you want to
continue leaning into what she is saying, and maybe she'll
emerge from this better. Maybe she'll put in the work
and come out of the other side a different person.
I'm still not back on Instagram at this moment at
the time that we're recording this, so I don't know
if she's back on has she posted anything since her apology.
(13:29):
I actually don't know. I'm not sure. Okay, so Mary
has clearly not been obsessed like I was. But I
just wanna challenge you on that. And again, this isn't
a bash Rachel Hollis little segment. I am just sharing
with you how I was distracting myself from grief, but
(13:49):
then it took me down all these rabbit holes. And
the Internet is just such a crazy thing. There's so
much information at your fingertips. And I will say, if
you're a original Hollis fan, she says, she's like, everything
I've learned I learned from Google. And I'm like, okay, yeah,
I Google a lot too, but I'm not charging people
thousands of dollars for my non expert advice. So I mean,
(14:11):
that's a that's a scary statement that. I mean, she's
letting you know, she's empowering you to know that you
have the world at your fingertips. She's also gidding you
all this life changing advice. But a podcast you can
listen to for like, I think a two part maybe
she's even doing Okay, she's doing part three. Is Kate Kennedy.
She is a girl that lives in Chicago. She's an
(14:31):
entrepreneur and Arthur. She has a podcast and she's a
pop culture expert if you will. But her podcast is
called be There in five and I think she did
a really good a look now it heads up. The
podcasts are long, they're like to two and a half
hours long. But in case you needed distraction from life,
You're welcome. For me, Rachel holli Is stuff was like
(14:54):
the gift that kept on giving. But again, I just
want to say before we wrap this part, that I
did it out of a place of like just wanting
to research and more like fascinated with like, oh my goodness,
what is happening, not with a oh wow, like a
gossipy I can't believe this is happening to Rachel and
(15:15):
I'm so like, no, I don't. I don't really have
any feelings on her either way. Other than that I
would just say I don't know. I mean to this day,
like if she was like, hey, can I come on
the podcast and promote something, I would probably be like, oh, shoot, no,
I don't think so. And that's something that I learned,
Whereas a few months ago, if she were to have
maybe wanted to come on the podcast, I've probably have
been like, oh wow, she could probably bring a different
(15:35):
audience and she's got a lot to say. But I
hadn't done this extensive deep dive, So there's that. I
also just thought it was a good reminder to take
what you hear from people that are not experts on
things with a grain of saltwatch hearing what people have
to say from their life and their story is powerful
and you can take different people's stories and learn from them.
But that doesn't mean you should do exactly what they're
(15:57):
saying because their perspective might be different. And she's not
an expert in things. Like somebody was talking, was it
Kate Kennedy? That was she was comparing her to Renee Brown,
And it's like, there's no comparison, Like Renee Brown is
a researcher, she's a professor. She immersed herself in the
research for sixteen years. And it's like I'm listening to
her and that's what I mean. I'm even sitting here saying,
I don't know what you listen to this podcast for.
(16:19):
You listen to the Bobby Bones show for But like, yes,
take it with the grain of salt, Like take what
you're hearing and then see where it applies for you,
if it even applies at all, because it may not. Again,
we oftentimes are having if it's my perspective, I am sharing, yes,
a life experience, but I may have an expert on
But still even I think it's great that you're sharing
(16:41):
your experiences where somebody can relate to that and get
something from it, but you're not putting yourself out there
as the expert. And all right, and yes, I think
I admitted before there are times that I've done that,
and you know, we get calls on the Bobby Bones
Show with people asking us sometimes some pretty serious advice.
And I will say this deep Dive did in the
even my time with Linda, and the woman Linda that
(17:03):
I was working with was a she's like seventy three
years old, like she has years of experience, and she
was so just smart and had so much wisdom on
you know, our bodies and our brains and how we work.
And I would have her on as an expert and
I can listen to her. All I can do is
maybe some days bring you what I learned from Linda
(17:24):
and regurgitate it and share it to you, but credit Linda,
like I'm not just gonna like sell it to you
as something that I'm packaging up with a bow on
it and being like, hey, here you go, yeah, this
is gonna help you. Which sometimes what I learned is
a little bit of what Rachel would do. And I
think that on the Bobby Bone Show of someone were
to call in, like we can give our advice, but
(17:44):
now I think I know I even want to like
preface it or say on the back side, like, hey,
hopefully you have somebody if it's a really serious matter
that you can talk to that knows what they're talking about.
You're not the only advice, right, Like if you're calling
the radio show like great, we love of hearing from
people and we love that there's that connection. Or if
you send me an email to the four Things podcast
(18:06):
for the fifth thing, like I love hearing from you,
and I think that's awesome. But I know there's times
where I've gotten advice that a therapist should answer, and
that's when I reach out to Cat Defatah, who is
on my podcast network that is a licensed therapist that
has a podcast called uniqu Therapy, and she will help
me with the answer. She will actually type up her
(18:26):
thoughts and then I will read her words verbatim and
credit her because I don't feel equipped to be the
one answering that email. There's so many different platforms where
you can hear from people, and that's what's so scary.
That's what I learned from my deep dive and then
those in case you want to get distracted. I think
I shared a few ways that you can deep dive into.
(18:46):
Rachel Hollis, all right, we can get in the second email. Okay,
this is from Andy. I've never thought of myself as
someone with an eating disorder to someone who has battled
her weight her whole adult life. I never heard about
(19:06):
triggers until listening to your podcast and realized that's been
my whole life. My mom was on every fad diet
and that's a big part of my memories growing up.
Dieting was never about being healthy, always about losing weight.
My mom is almost eighty and even now we rarely
have a conversation without the subject of diet recipes or
weight loss coming up. Your episode where you talked about
how to complement someone without talking about their body made
(19:27):
me realize that she always makes comments like quote, you've
lost weight, or you're looking good. What are you doing?
I know she means well, but I think this obsession
has given me a very bad relationship about food, and
I hate it. What is a gentle way to talk
to her about this and how it makes me feel?
I'm so tired of the focus always being about food
and diets. Thanks for caring and for poring into us. Okay, So, Sandy,
this is something that I learned from a girl Cat
(19:49):
who is a licensed therapist. Something someone else is doing
makes you feel a certain way. It is completely fair,
especially since it's your mom and y'all are super close.
For you too, in very loving manner, non confrontational way,
simply say hey, mom, you know when you do this,
and then give her an example of what it is
(20:10):
it makes me feel, and then insert how it genuinely
makes you feel. And that can apply to any scenario,
any relationship you're in, whether it's a friendship of a
working relationship, a significant other. That is a tool that
I learned from Cat, like, hey, when you do this,
like it makes me feel blank, And that way the
other person knows and you're not coming from a place
(20:31):
of like hey, stop doing this, or I can't believe
that you do this, or you're just like hey, when
this happens, this is how it makes me feel. And
then it's up to them to take what you're saying
and then hopefully implement change. So good luck with that, Sandy.
I know that sounds like it's been really hard and
in many, many years and we get conditioned and you know,
your mom being eighties, she's she was probably conditioned long
(20:54):
before you to be immersed in diets. And it's just
sometimes for me, for sure, it was for many many
there's a normal everyday conversation. I mean Mary, I did
it to Mary when we were friends, was before I
was in recovery when we met, and probably how many
different diet things that I talked to you about, You
can be honest, a lot, Yeah, And it just was
(21:14):
an energy suck and a time suck. There's so many
other things that you can be talking about and doing.
And I would challenge anybody listening the same space, what
if all that brain space is like given just I mean,
it's easy to be reflective, I know that, but that's
what we talk about even on outweigh is like your
world is so small when that's all you're focused on
all the time. It's a very small way to live
(21:37):
because it's just all focused on what you're eating, when
you're eating, when you're working out, what you're not eating,
who you're eating with, where you're going. It limits you.
So Sandy, I hope that you can come out of
that like, you know, if you have those thought patterns,
I don't like hearing that. You know, you say, I
have a bad relationship with food and I hate it.
I guess I'm glad that you hate it, but I
(21:57):
hate that you're in that situation. And I know what
it's like to be there, but I also know what
it's like to be on the other side, and it
does take work. But I would just encourage you to
be honest with your mom and approach it in a kind,
loving way, and then hopefully she will hear you. That's
all we can do. What's in our control is what
we say in our our own manner. But then it's
up to the other person to receive and here. And
(22:18):
then if your mom or whoever it is can't hear that,
then maybe it's time to set some boundaries and say, hey, like,
I tried to tell you how this made me feel,
but if I can't come over and and we have
a diet free conversation, then I don't really I'm not
gonna enjoy coming over. We're trying to change the narrative
for the next generation. I never knew diet talk was
(22:41):
toxic because diet we grew up talking diets all the time,
so that's a really valid point, Sandy. I don't know
if you have kids, but that's definitely something we might
be like. I don't know that I can bring my
my daughter over. I'm just using daughter as an example
or son because I want them to have of a
healthy relationship with their bodies and food. So good thing
(23:03):
to bring up. Mary, Okay thirty email Okay, this is
from Christie. Hi, Amy, I would love for you to
talk about how you handled turning forty. I am turning
forty this year and not sure how I feel about it.
I try to remember that I need to be thankful
for turning another year older, and then not everyone gets
to experience this. It's just forty. Are we supposed to
feel a certain way? Can you talk about the feelings
you had, what you did to make it not so hard,
(23:23):
all the things. Thank you for being you. You make
me smile and love everything you stand for and all
you do. Christie, I loved turning forty, and I don't
know if that's what you were looking for or if
you were looking for some like I was terrified and
this is what I did. But everybody has a different experience.
I think turning thirty than probably forty than fifty. There's
these different you know. I remember being scared to turn thirty,
(23:43):
and once I did, I was like wow. And my
thirties were My early thirties were pretty awesome. And then
I experienced some I don't mean early because of I
was younger, but then in my thirties I experienced a
lot of hard things and loss. So I had to
grow and mature, and so it really can be so
circumstantial too. And I entered my forties two weeks before
(24:05):
my dad passed away, and I was excited about forty.
And now I have a really sad memory associated with
being forty. But I love where I am in self exploration.
And I was more equipped to handle my dad's passing
because I did some work when my mom passed. So
(24:26):
what age gives you is experience. And I think that
everybody has different experiences. But if you use different life
events that happened and try to grow from them, then
other things that come out you, you will approach them
completely differently. I've approached my dad's death totally different than
I approached my mom's. I went the unhealthy route, my
(24:47):
eating disorder returned, I was having too much wine, I
was developing unhealthy patterns, I was disconnecting from people, and
what was it, Mary, Like a week after my dad died,
I'm booking a flight to go do a therapy and
two to But I was so proud of you for
doing that, and like realizing that and stepping back and
realizing like I need to do this, and yeah, so
and not that that's what everybody has. That I want
(25:08):
to recognize my privilege and being able to do that
and having the opportunity to step away from work, and
that's not lost on me one bit. But even if
I didn't have the opportunity of the resources to do
something like that for myself, I know I'm still in
a mature enough state at forty and that I could
make other decisions that would be better for myself, like
(25:30):
what other therapy could I get myself into, or what
books could I read? Or what breathing exercise could I do?
Or how many puzzles can I do? And how many
bird feeders can I put in my backyard, which currently
I have Five's not lying, I'm not lying. So I
never thought I'd be puzzle bird lady, but it's good
for my brain. It's good for me and I feel
(25:52):
more confident in my forties than I ever did in
my twenties and thirties, and I'm learning more about myself,
but because I have more life under my belt, which
is leading me again, like I said, to down a
path of self exploration. And I think we should all
be curious about ourselves, be curious about maybe why you're
super terrified to turn forty, and then really look at
(26:14):
are you. Are you scared or has society told you
forties just scary, because it's really not. I feel excited
about the next decade. And Mary will get this. Some
of you may not, but it has to do this
whole exercise that I did with Linda. But I feel
like in my forties, I'm going to spread my wings
like a bird, and you know, I see the sun
(26:37):
and that means like there's bright days ahead for me.
And that is how I feel about my forties. Christie,
So good luck, happy birthday. I hope that my experience
with forty. I'm not saying that this is what it
is for everybody, and I'm not yelling at you that
this is how you need to handle your forties by
any means, but I'm just sharing with you what it
(26:57):
was like for me. And I went to Austin with
my girls. I went somewhere special for me to celebrate,
and she didn't wanted to celebrate. I did not so
not because I was scared of turning forty, but I just, again,
there's a lot going on in my life, and I
just kind of wanted to not acknowledge it, but not
because you weren't. I just wanted to crawl under my
bed and not do anything. But then Mary and my
(27:18):
sister and Andrea, who I've known since I was thirteen,
they all got together and we got a hotel in
Austin and they put a life size cardboard cut out
at George Straight in our hotel room waiting for me.
And we had cake and we went out to eat,
and we went to a Pat Green concert, which we
hadn't been to a concert and forever, and I loved
(27:39):
Texas country music. My friend Django went with us and
he sings, and I'll just say this, it was a
weekend I did not want to do. Then I went
and it was like the best and we played ping pong,
which Mary and I, let me tell you, neither of
us knew that the other person was like, actually pretty
good at ping pong. Yeah, I mean I haven't played
in a really long time, but well I was impressed
(28:01):
with your pain pong skills, so which Mary ultimately ended
up winning. But it was like by one, wasn't it?
Or no? It was close? Well whatever, in my memory
it was my one, but I was the idea you
had skills. We were neck and neck, which then she
reminded me that she played tennis. You want a tennis
tournament and Andy Roddick was in or something, yeah, baby
Aca Poco tennis tournament in Austin, Texas. Uh. Andy Roddick
(28:24):
was playing for the boys. I was playing for the girls. Mary.
If you go down to my laundr groom, yes, and
I had um Andy Roddick autograph it when we were adults.
So Andy Roddick's first time coming in on the Bobby
Bones show. Bobby and him were just becoming friends and
we were in Austin and he came up to promote
something maybe that the Andy Rodic Foundation was doing, and
I was like, oh, Andy Roddicks coming in. So I
(28:45):
went up into my mom's attic and I got all
of my tennis trophies and I lined them up in
front of my microphone so that when Andy Roddick walked in,
I had all my trophies there and I was like,
what up? And then I said, see this trophy first
place baby Alca Poco, you were at that tournament. I
don't even know if I knew he was at that
tournament till he told me on air, because I wouldn't
know because he wasn't even famous then. And I think
(29:07):
he said, oh, I was at that tournament, and I
was like, shut up. So you're telling me if I
had the stuff like tennis, like say I didn't quit,
then I would have been basically a Wimbledon champion or something.
So I'm just saying, I mean yes, and then I
will Another activity that has come up in conversation because
I know Mary wants to try this, but I've done
(29:27):
it as pickle ball. If you have pickle ball near you,
I highly recommend you play because it is so fun.
It's almost like a mix between ping pong and tennis
in a weird way because your racket size is so
small and then you're you're kind of playing with like
this wiffleball thing, but you're on a full size tennis court. Oh,
it is on a full size pretty much. Yeah, like
you're on it. It's it's best played as doubles because
(29:49):
it's hard to cover all the ground with a little
tiny racket. But it's a lot of fun, all right.
Next email, Fourth email, and I think it's from Amanda. Okay,
dear Amy, I've been listening to your podcast for a
few months. Know. I asked my best friend in February
if she would like to do the Gratitude Challenge with me.
She excitedly said yes. Can we start early so that
I can do it as a part of lent. So
we have been sending each other are four things and
(30:10):
it has been so insightful. We have loved being a
part of each other's every day and seeking out the
best part of our lives in these small moments. I
don't remember a time not knowing her, and we were
forty one and forty two. Her husband found out three
years ago he had kidney cancer. Unfortunately, the cure for
him has been worse than the cancer. I try to
see them as much as possible, but I live an
hour away. This Gratitude Challenge has helped us so much
(30:31):
that we have decided to keep going. Words cannot express
our gratitude for this idea. I love hearing how our
four things gratitude practice strengthens relationships. And whether you use
our journal or not, it doesn't matter. You just journal
four things each day, maybe do it with a buddy,
or you can have a group text with friends. I've
gotten emails from people that say they do that where
(30:52):
they each on individually come up with four things that
they're thankful for, and then on the group text there's
four of them and they each send one thing a day.
Instead of like each person sending four and it being
too much, they kind of pick one of the four
things and they all text about it, and it's a
way of holding each other accountable, but then also learning
(31:12):
what's going on in your friends lives in a unique way.
And I'll just say our journals again, we still have
some of these available right the four Things. Our newest
are two point oh version, which is really corals and
pinks and really good for this time of year. But
they support Project Meta Share and we talk about that
on one of the inside pages of the journal, and
(31:33):
how it goes towards education, but also just bring up
to we have a new like cool Mom line. We've
always had a cool Mom sweatshirt and T shirt under
our splaw line, which a spaw means hope in Haitian creole.
But now we're excited to announce we have a cool
Mom line. And the cool Mom line is going to
be supporting Project Meta Share and they are trying to
raise funds to get a new ambulance for their maternity
(31:58):
center and it's how they transport expect tent mothers around
and Haiti doesn't have the best road conditions and the
current one is just not in that greatest shape, so
they would love to fundraise to buy a new little ambulance.
So we are excited to be a part of that.
Things should be up. If you want to check out,
there's so many ways to get access to If you
(32:20):
can go to the shop forward dot com slash cool Mom,
there you go, or you can go to shop Spoa
dot com. But if you want specifically the cool Mom line,
then that's an easy way to do it. We'll have
a banner on top of the page to just click on,
so the shot forward dot com or the shot forward
dot com slash cool Mom and we have cute fullovers
like that, say, I need a nap, so you don't
(32:41):
even have to be a mom to wear that one.
I'm not a mom, and I'm definitely going to get
that one, yes, Stacio and caring it. She said, everyone
needs a nap, even kids, and we have the new
neck label for them, which is my signature. So yeah,
Amy wrote out cool mom in cursive and that's our
new logo. And so that's around the next client to
on one of them embroidered. It's really cute. We have
(33:02):
some new stuff. So if you are looking for Mother's
Day gifts and you want to be a part of
fundraising for the new ambulance for Project Meta Share, then
you can feel really good about your purchase. And I
know that I got a couple of emails. I have
one here specifically from Crystal since we're talking about SPA stuff.
She was curious when the birth year sweatshirts were coming out,
(33:23):
and I don't know why we ended up calling them
born here, but it is your birthier, but we ended
up I could trying to be a little edgier and
different kind of like I do too, So they're born
here and not that it really matters and Charlottage Charlottegne,
the god who's on the Breakfast Club in New York.
He would he would always say, I think he sent
(33:44):
me a text one on my birthday when year I
was like happy born Day, and I was like, oh,
that's interesting, what about born year because it was different.
And really we use even our born your hats as
just any special occasion hat, which I something special that
I now have for my dad is his ninety one
born your hat. He loved to wear that and he
(34:07):
was a model, and that's one of the things he
said before we he even fell ill. We had no
idea he was going to be sick. It's so crazy.
This is the night before he had went to the
hospital and he was his first night at my house.
He was laying in his new room and Mary and
I were on FaceTime. We were yeah, and Mary was like,
do you have a TV? And he was like no.
I was like, Dad, a huge TV right there. He's like, oh, yeah,
(34:29):
I do have one. And he was so excited to
watch Baylor play basketball on it. And he never got
to see that, which he would freak out knowing that
Baylor won the championship because he was a huge Baylor
fan and Mary and I were actually working on cool
Mom on FaceTime when he said he wanted to be
a model for the shot forward, like that was gonna
be his job because he's retired now he's living with me,
(34:50):
and he could put himself to work and he could
represent his age group. And then he never even got
to model. But I have his born Your hat and
Mary it actually just sent him a bunch of new
shirts and they arrived in the mail like the next
day or the day after, but he never got to
wear them. But I still have them and I'm going
to keep them. And Linda, my Linda that I did
(35:10):
therapy with, told me that anytime I am missing him
really badly, that it's totally okay to just put on
one of the shirts and sleep in it or cuddle
with it, or maybe I put on his hat and
wear that, and it'll help you feel close to the person.
It's not something that's intended to make you feel sad,
(35:31):
but if it does, it's okay. Feel that sadness and
acknowledge it, breathe into it, and then see if you
can move on, but don't suppress it. That's what I
would just say. That's coming from experts I've worked with.
I'm not trying to say I'm the expert, but I
think that we need to lean into all of our emotions.
And while the gratitude is great, and thinking positively is great,
(35:54):
and choosing joy is great, but even with pimp and
joy and my mom's message of choosing joy while she
was battling cancer, my mom had a really hard days
and we did not brush those days under the rug.
That's something more than my dad might do, but that's
just it was kind of his way of surviving was
ignoring some stuff at times. But my mom, she really
(36:16):
was in tune with her feelings and if it was
a bad day, we leaned into it and we felt
all of those emotions. It's not that every day I
was like, oh, yeah, have cancer or choose joy. She
also uses an opportunity to not just choose joy, but
spread joy. So maybe it was a hard day for her,
but if she was on the elevator with somebody else,
she was going to compliment their bag or their shoes,
or say hi to them and asked them how they were,
(36:38):
you know, how their day was going, or how their
treatment is going, and talk to them acknowledge them. Some people.
Now this was before COVID. Now people are going through
treatments alone because of COVID, which is just so sad.
But this was yes, seven, eight, nine years ago that
my mom was in treatment and we would be an
appointments and people would be there alone because they had
family members that maybe couldn't take off work, or maybe
(36:59):
they didn't have loved ones that could be there, or
they didn't have people close enough to them, or maybe
they didn't want to let people in on that because
it's really hard. Whatever. Everybody's story is different, but my
mom would be intentional about making sure people felt like
they mattered and they were special and she would spread
joy to them. And so that's kind of the message
of pimp and joy too. And I know that's like
(37:20):
a whole thing in the in the toxic positive, toxic positivity,
it's not toxic positivity. And you'll see that if you
watch savvy writes, books or different things. They're like Rachel
Hollis has these shirts to say we choose joy. And
I think Rachel, from what I can tell online oftentimes
was like choose joy or just kind of yelling that,
like we choose joy. And I was like, oh, shoot,
(37:41):
I really need to clarify that that's not what you know.
Our message of joy is about. It is especially in
times of adversity, like try to look for special moments,
but by no means do we ignore the reality that's
around us, because that's that's toxic and that can be
a false representation and what's really going on. Then you
end up just burying the real feelings and it can
(38:03):
come out in a different way. So manifest is something
else and we don't want that at all. Well, Mary,
thank you for joining me for the fifth thing. I
feel like this is definitely a long one, but it's
my first day back, and honestly, guys, I don't know
what's going to happen on Thursday. I have a four
Things episode that normally goes up, and I can tell
you right now, I don't know if it's going to
be something new or if it's going to be another
(38:26):
awesome rerun that we put together, maybe like the best
of and then I'll return full time next week. I'm
trying to ease myself into work, and that's just a
decision I'm having to make for myself that I think
is healthiest and I know that you'll understand. And Mary
was willing to come up and record this with me
or otherwise I don't know that I would have been
(38:46):
able to do it, but she was like, let's do
it before I fly out. She's flying back home today
and she's literally been here two weeks. So I would
like to say in gratitude that I'm thankful for Mary.
I'm thankful for friendships and thingful for people that show up,
Like the minute my dad was in the hospital. The
first night we all got home, I think my sister
flew in, my half sister flew in, my half brother
(39:08):
was on his way in, and we got home and
Mary had like sent food to the house and I
got home, and so it was just how friends showed
up for us, all different kinds of friends and family
showed up. Was really special. And I just hope that
either you're listening right now, that you can be that
for someone one day, or that if you're going through
something that gosh, I feel blessed, and I hope that
(39:30):
you have people like I have found. And again I
will remind you all that I met Mary on Twitter.
So that's a cool story for another time in case
you're brand new and you're like, wait, what you met
your friend and business partner on the internet, And I'm
like yep. And also I met Lisa on Instagram again,
my Outway co host, and I only met Cat because
(39:53):
she emailed me about being on that way. So yeah,
the internet is cool, all right. I hope you all
have a great rest of your day. Tuesday, whatever day
you're listening to this, You're amazing, and we'll talk to
you later. Might be Thursday, might be next Tuesday. Okay, Bye,
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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