LIVE FROM WICHITA: Living Life. Getting Unstuck. Making A Move. Showing Up.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Never okay, cast up broad thing, little food for yourself.
Life ain't. Oh it's pretty much. It's pretty beautiful thing.
Laugh a little mouth said, he can't. You're kicking with

(00:30):
fourth with Amy Brown, I actually want to start with
a clip of younger me because she was the actually
the inspiration for tonight. No life is light not. Lots
of people like to open their eyes look at the world,

(00:52):
but I do. Let me tell you something, man, I
do so if you really in you don't have anything
to do, we'll look at my life and you'll find
something really nice to do. Look at me. Oh okay.

(01:17):
So whenever I had that converted that's an old VHS
tape and shout out legacy box, I thought I had
lost that video. Honestly I remember making it because well
you don't see the longer video is my dog had
just had a bunch of puppies and we had a computer,
and I decided to do a whole TV show about

(01:40):
this computer and what it did. I honestly had no
idea what it did. I was just like, it's this
box with all these things, and it really was. It
was this big old box. But anyway, I had my
own little talk show that I was hosting in my
laundry room. But when I found that tape and then
I decided to convert it digitally and I got to
watch it back, I was like, Oh, I wanted to

(02:00):
happen to that version of myself, that me that was
curious about life and obviously thought that my life was
super amazing, because you know, if you didn't have anything
going on, like I wanted you to, you know, just
look at my life. So really, the question for this
first thing when it comes to living life is what
does it look like to really live your life? And

(02:23):
I've been wrestling with that question. If you listen to
the podcast, then you know that the last couple of
years have been a little bit rough, but I haven't
gotten into a lot of exactly why, but it's been
a thing. If you're a loyal listener. Now some of
you might be here tonight randomly because you came with
a friend or someone told you to come, and you're like,

(02:43):
I don't really know what this is. It sounds like
it could be okay, and you don't know anything about me.
Then it's more like I feel like I'm bringing you
into some inside stuff and I just want to be like, Hi,
I'm the problem. It's me. I am someone that has
been through a lot, and I feel as though the

(03:05):
stuff that I've gone through has woken me up in
a way. And this might seem a little bit intimate
to do, especially if you're new here, but I'm just
gonna go ahead and read to you something verbatim that
I recently journaled. When you have no idea, you're sleepwalking
through life, it's hard to know you need to wake up.
Then one day life throws you so far out to

(03:28):
see that you're drowning in the waves. You now have
two choices. Succome to the ocean and continue to drift
away towards death, or call in the coast guard because
you're ready to make it back to shore to put
in the work to live a full, meaningful life. Now,
I honestly feel like we could go up to anyone

(03:49):
in this room and you'd have something heavy that you've experienced.
Maybe you're currently in it or you've gone through it,
so I know I'm not alone in this, but some
of you might feel so far out to see right
now that making your way back to shore seems totally impossible.
And when you heard me read drift away towards death.

(04:09):
Some of you might have been like, well, that sounds dramatic,
but that's honestly where I was. I had some pretty
crazy thoughts around the time frame. Because I was having them,
I kind of thought, well, everybody must have these thoughts,
and I decided to share them with my therapist and
she said, oh no, Amy, not everyone has those thoughts.

(04:35):
And I was like, well, shoot, I better get some help.
And you know, that was just one of my therapists. Um,
when I say coast guard, I really mean like I
had to call in the coast Guard, which was multiple people.
I was trying to add them up over the last

(04:55):
two years, and we'll just stop at ten because that
sounds a lot like a lot, but there really was
like ten different people involved. And I actually ran into
one of them at the grocery store last Sunday and
I couldn't believe it because I had not seen her.
She was involved early on, like in the very early

(05:16):
when I was a mess, Like she saw the lowest
of loads of me, she saw the worst of the worst.
She saw the me that one day, with all of
my clothes on, walked out my back door and into
my pool with my family witnessing because I had I
just wanted it to all stop. I wanted it to
be over, and I didn't know what to do. And

(05:38):
I think that, you know, my family was just like
what just happened? And I didn't even know. Quite honestly,
I came out of the water and was like, Okay,
well now I need to go change. But something about
that felt therapeutic and good and it's what I needed
to do. But she was there during that time, and
I hadn't seen her in a long time. So when
I see her on the cereal aisle with her husband

(06:00):
and her child, like, oh, here she is in the wild, Like,
am I allowed to like hug her? I've not hugged
her before? Am I allowed to talk? I don't know?
So I feel like I, awkwardly do need to hug her.
So I do, And it took everything in me to
not scream from the top of my lungs. I'm better now.
I wanted her to know so badly, like I am

(06:22):
better now. But again, she doesn't. She hasn't seen all
the work that I've done and everything that I've been
through because we ended up having to transition, and that's
why It's not like all these therapists were all at
the same time. There was different things happening that required
different expertise. But anyway, she was a part of the

(06:42):
coastguard that helped me get back to shore. And other
members of my coastguard included Linda, which Linda was a
complete stranger to me that somehow came into my life
and I flew to Virginia not knowing her. She picked
me up from the airport, not knowing what she looked like,
and somehow I found myself in her car and she
was driving me to a hotel where for three days

(07:04):
straight we were going to unpack my life. And I
did that with Linda. Then uh, there was also Dr Levy,
his team of five, Janet, Alex, Tom, The list goes on.
So a lot of the details have been private, but
definitely not secret, and I think for a lot of
his it's important to remember that, especially with social media
and like, you may not have a public job, but

(07:26):
you may have things going on and you're like, oh,
I need to be vulnerable because Burnet Brown says to
be vulnerable and I need to share, which I love Burne.
And it can get confusing because you do want to
open up, and you don't want others to feel alone.
But Cat, what's the thing with that? What's the thing
with Like there's vulnerable? You have that really good saying
information is not vulnerability. There you go, Information is not vulnerability.

(07:50):
So there's some information that can stay private and a
lot of details, like I said, private but not secret,
especially to those that are close in my life, not
a secret at all. Part of my coast guard is
my friends and family as well. But you know, there
are people in my d ms that send interesting notes

(08:11):
to me, Like I could put up a question box
and say, oh, you know, what's your favorite Christmas movie?
And this is what I'll get? These are real? Are
you still married? Are you in active? Allie? Make off topic?
But what brand are your high waisted jeans? Most of
the time they're Abercrombie. And then you know, I'm still

(08:31):
considering the two fifty feet fix because I mean that
seems like that's not a bad gig. There is that
wick wicki feet or something. And this is just an
example of some of the d m s and some
of the emails. And I know that I've opened up
about so much of my life, so sometimes through the
Bobby Bones Show in the podcast, we do share so much,

(08:53):
so then it's some people feel like they get they
want to know every single little detail. And I'm not
in a place and nor may ever be in a
place to share it all. But the things I do
choose to share with you tonight, I do so to
help maybe put some things in life into perspective, to
share with you that sometimes you go through things that
are really painful, but then when you get on the

(09:15):
other side of them, you see how they were divine
and even necessary to help wake you up. And I'll
start with in the spring of last year, when I
had a few months earlier, had to make one of
the most difficult decisions in my life that I was
still grieving and wrestling with and struggling with anyway, my

(09:37):
dad unexpectedly went on life support. And then at that moment,
I thought, how I cannot be dealing with these two
things at the exact same time. I just cannot. But
what I didn't factor in was this other third thing
that was lurking that I was in complete denial about,
complete denial for a very very long time. But with

(09:57):
our dad dying, it became very obvious and clear. And
this third thing was that an intervention needed to happen,
and my sister and I were going to have to
do it on somebody that we loved. And alcoholism addiction,
that's something that is not in our family, that we
foreign to us. We didn't understand it. That's why I

(10:20):
probably we spent so much time in denial. But I
do know this for a fact that if my dad
wasn't dying, I wouldn't have been able to see that
it was completely necessary to now face this other fear,
and my sister and I wouldn't have had the courage
to do it. So I really feel that like sometimes

(10:43):
God has to push us to the edge so that
we start living our life instead of just tiptoeing around it.
Because I really feel like I was just kind of
tiptoeing around things like it's fine. You know, we have
a whole four thing sut like you're wearing it right there.
It's fine, I'm fine, every thing is fine. And that
shirt is sarcasm because like things are not fine, but

(11:06):
that's okay. We can laugh about certain things too, you know,
laughter and pain and joy and suffering those things can
live together at the same time and I'm not saying
that God is making you go through something hard by
saying God has to push you to the edge, but
I'm asking you to look at it this way. Whatever
is going on, what if the purpose is to wake

(11:26):
you up and open your eyes and see how you
really want to live your life? And when I think
of living, my brain instantly goes to one of my
favorite songs, which is titled Living and it is by
one of my favorite artists, Dirk Spentley. Let's have y'all

(11:50):
were on the video shoot for a song called Gold Today,
which is a lot like the song Living Um, which
is one of my favorite songs I've never written. It
was inspired on the road a couple of guys in
the band Ben It off to Walgreens one day at
being Dan Hole Caulter and Ben Helson, and Uh, I
was so shocked they had actually gone off the bus
and done something with their lives, even it was somebody's
still as going to Walgreens. Because I was sitting on

(12:11):
the bus playing Hello video games all day long, and
it kind of maybe realized there's a lot of living
can be done out there, and not just being alive,
actually living. There's a difference between the two, and I
realized at that point that I had been barely getting by.
So the song was kind of a reminder to get
out there and live. Some days you can. Some days
you're just kind of grinding away, and that's just the

(12:32):
way it is. Some days you can do some living,
and that's the song is a good reminder of me
to me to get out there and make the most
of those days when you can. Just gotta get past
the initial inertia. And I don't know, I'd like to
think that this band right here is the epitome of
living when it comes to country music fans, all right,

(12:54):
or as they able to say, the epitome, but that's
actually epitome. All right, Go out there and do some living, y'all.
See you, Some days you're living like you never die,
and the truth is we do die. Some of you
maybe need that nudge, that extra reminder, like I know
I did, to to wake up and live a full life.
And I'm not an expert here at all whatsoever. I'm

(13:17):
someone that is on the journey and so I'm in
this with you, and what I can share, though, are
some some tools that have helped me during this difficult time.
One of those things is journaling, which used to be
so intimidating to me because I wasn't a writer. And
you know, we have the four Things Gratitude journal, which

(13:38):
that's pretty simple and easy. It's not intimidating at all,
but the thought of just journaling pages and pages and
thoughts is a lot um. But I'm thankful for my
friend Ali Fallon, who is an author and a writing expert,
who put together writing prompts for tonight. So all four things,
the living life, the getting unstuck, the making a move,
the showing up, and we don't we're not going to

(14:00):
break into small groups in journal tonight, but I thought
you might want to, you know, journal later in your
own time on all four things or one thing in particular.
And so Ali Fallon put together writing prompts and I'll
share with you later where you can go online to
access everything tonight, from the playlist to the writing prompts

(14:21):
to book recommendations for each thing. Because I do feel
like books have been so helpful to me the last
couple of years. From if I have time to sit
down and read one or download one on audible and
listen to it while I'm running errands or doing stuff
at the house or taking the dog on a walk.
However I could get it in. Information was so helpful

(14:43):
for me from books where people were sharing personal stories
they've walked through this before. That way, I didn't feel alone.
From more scientific type books, so I could understand my
brain and what was happening and others brains in our bodies.
And so I do have book recommendations for each thing.
And another tool has been a reminder to celebrate life,

(15:05):
but not just the big things, the small things and
making sure that I noticed those and when they're happening,
you know, make sure I'm acknowledging them. And I saw
this football life analogy on Instagram the other day that
this woman was talking about how she was at a
football game recently and she noticed how she doesn't really
like sports that much. She was there to support somebody,

(15:26):
and she was like, every time the team got the
ball and they maybe went two yards, people were freaking
out and cheering like crazy, and then they would go
ten yards and get a first down or whatever, and
then they would freak out and cheer like there was
all this cheering, and then obviously the touchdown there's cheering,
but she said it made her think about life and
how why don't we live that way? You know, we

(15:47):
go one yard? Why why are we not cheering and
freaking out for ourselves? And so I thought that was
a really good analogy for life, especially for the like
five men that are here my life that my life football.
We knew there was gonna be maybe some guys here.
But it makes me think of my friend Grace Mockler,

(16:09):
and she is seven on the iniogram. She's all about
celebrating and having fun. And she has come up with
a business which I think is amazing called emergency Confetti.
And what these are four are for those moments in life.
You can like keep them in your glove box, you

(16:31):
can keep them in your purse, you can keep around
the house, and if there's anything that comes up in life,
you know, big or small. But mostly this is time
for us to acknowledge like those small things that are
still really big and worth celebrating, Like you get out
the popper and you bust out your emergency confetti. And
Gracie had this idea for this business a long time ago,

(16:51):
and she'd been dreaming it up or whatever, and we
had a Girl's Night one night, and we were sitting
on my back patio and as she was saying it,
I thought, oh, my gosh, we recently had to tell
me something good on the Bobby Bones show, where it's
this little boy and like his mom had picked him
up from school or something and she told him some
good news and all of a sudden, he pulled all
this confetti out of his pocket and then like threw
it up in the air, and she goes, what was that,

(17:12):
and he goes, it's my emergency confetti. When I told
her that story, she she was like, Oh, that's it.
That's what I'm trying to build. That's the name of
the business. And so anyway, here we are, fast forward,
and she has graciously given us all poppers, So we'll
get to everybody else in a little bit, but we're

(17:33):
just gonna do a quick demo on stage of what
that might look like. And so I brought four people
on stage, so I just want you to like introduce yourself,
say what you're celebrating, and then we're gonna all pop
them together. So and you can say where you're from too.
My name's j C. I'm from Which Talk, and I'm
celebrating going back to school in my mid forties. My

(17:58):
name is Shelley. I'm AC's daughter. I'm from which To
as well, and I'm celebrating graduating from KU this year.
I'm Annie. I'm from Sacramento, California, and I am celebrating
coming here by myself, leaving my kids and my husband
home alone for the first time. Uh and just traveling solo. Hey, no,

(18:22):
with that too, Like I met like a few people
or more, I don't know that came here tonight at
the v I P thing and I just I also
got d MS and emails and people like, hey, can
I come alone? And I loved being able to apply absolutely,
So thank you for doing that for yourself and coming
And yeah, you need a time away from other people. Yes,

(18:45):
I do, especially my husband and my kids. Okay, And
I'm Adeline and I'm celebrating my aunt and her doing
this because it's awesome. Okay, we'll say where you live. Oh,
I'm from Pagosa Springs, but now I go to school
at Sea you Boulder, And um, so sweet that you're

(19:06):
you're celebrating me being here, because honestly, I'm gonna do
a popper too, and I'm just gonna show y'all that
for me, this is kind of a big thing. So
I know we're trying to you can celebrate the big
and the small, But I'm also just did took courage
for me to come and do something like this just

(19:27):
on my own. I've been doing the podcast for a
while now, but I've been with the Bobby Bones Show
for sixteen and a half years, and that is like,
it's so fun. But I feel as though sometimes I
get I'm like, oh, I feel comfortable with other people
and that is how it's done. And I'm trying to
do more to spread my wings and do things on

(19:49):
my own and fly. So I'm also I guess, celebrating
myself being here. Okay, so I'm gonna try the you
this holding a microphone and whatnot, but we're gonna show
you all this. Keep this demo in mind because I
don't want to give anything away. But we're all going
to pop in together later. Okay. So you turned to

(20:12):
the left to the left, like everybody turned their popper
to the left. Are you watching the game? I just
know I got a lot of messages. I even met
a girl at the airport yesterday. She was like, are
you Amy, and I said, yeah, she was here for
your show. I said, yeah, she goes I wanted to come,
but there's a basketball game, so yeah, right, oh it's

(20:34):
a football. Why was I thinking it was basketball? I
guess she said game and I yeah, so a big
sports fan. That's why I purposely put in the football analogy. Okay,
all right, so we're gonna turn to the left, but
on the count of three, like we're celebrating these things.
You're going back to school, you're graduating, you left your family,

(20:59):
and but you're going back and we're here together, so
let's go. Okay, one, two, three, Okay. So fun, so fun.
I feel like now we're it's like a Taylor Swift concert.

(21:23):
We also have fun things inside each thing, like giveaways.
So when it comes to living life, we have a
four Things tote that is our life goals tote, and
the four things that are on there can be good
little mantra or reminder of you know, how you want
to live life. But inside of the tote is tons

(21:45):
of nail polish and a whole nail polish kid from
Olive in June, which is my favorite nail polish company,
and for me sometimes when I'm just maybe this is
not you. So if you don't, if you win this
and you don't like the nail polish, well there's so
many little nail polishes in here. You could give it
to a nail polish to all of your friends and

(22:07):
they'll think you're so generous. But for me, something about
getting my nails done or painting my nails. I just
feel that's one thing that I do for myself. It's like, okay,
I'm live here, we are, look at me living life.
I'm so crazy. So right now I'm gonna draw whoever
is going to get this four things tote and the

(22:29):
nail polished from Olive in June e one oh six. Okay,
well here, yeah, I'll just pass it back, pass it back,
thank you. Do you like nail polish? Oh good? All right.
So you might be thinking, okay, cool, cool, thanks for

(22:52):
you know, hooking me up with writing prompts and book
recommendations and you'll a little reminder to celebrate life. But
I'm feeling stuck and I definitely am going to need
to get unstuck if I want to even start to
think about living my life. And again I said earlier

(23:22):
I'm not the expert. I'm on the journey, and so
forgetting unstuck, I feel like it's necessary to have an expert.
And that's when I would like to welcome my friend
and licensed therapist and host of You Need Therapy podcast,
Cat Depoduc. Okay, I do want to say before we

(23:45):
even start, I know we were nervous about making this
too serious, and you're killing it. You're killing it, Okay.
So when it comes to getting unstuck, the question that
we're going to ask ourselves is what have you not
been able to admit to yourself? And one thing that
took me years to admit, just me personally was I

(24:07):
was stuck because of an eating disorder. And it was
scary because I knew I was stuck, but it was
also comfortable and I knew I needed help. But all
of that was really daunting and yeah, scary, and you know,
I mentioned even doing the intervention that was necessary, but
I was in denial, like we were. The denial is there.

(24:30):
So I feel like a lot of us can be
in that, whether it's it could be a needing disorder,
it could be alcohol. But you know, what are your
thoughts on why do we do that well, Amy, So
I'm glad you started that with that, though, because I
feel like a lot of times what happens when we're
stuck is we have these feelings of like, oh, I'm scared,

(24:53):
and that comes with like, oh, that might mean that
I need some kind of help. You needed ten therapists,
some people need one. Like it's just individual and that
was the extreme circumstances. Yeah, yeah, and they weren't all
at once. We have to remember that. But I think
what happens a lot of times is we feel those
feelings like fear and I need help, and we go whoa, whoa, whoa.
We're told in our culture that like that's bad, like

(25:15):
we don't ask for help. We do things our own.
I'm strong, I'm doing this one woman show. I don't
want guests on my show. I don't need anybody else.
Like that's typically what we're we're surrounded with. And so
I think it's really important to start with I think
that moment when we feel if you listen to anything
I I talk on, whether it's your podcast or mine,
I talk a lot about how like feelings or guides.

(25:37):
So we get these feelings and a lot of times
we're like, how do I get rid of the sadness?
How do I get rid of being lonely? I don't
want to feel this. I don't want to feel that.
When really that's like a guide leading you to a need,
and we actually have to pay attention to it, and
it's not about getting rid of it. It's about listening
to it. And a lot of times when we listen
to our fear, it might be saying, hey, you can't

(25:58):
do this alone. And I think that invites us into
like our humanity, Like I'm a human that's not perfect
and I need help, and that's what you're kind of
talking about, and so I think that's like a perfect
thing to share with everybody. Needing help is actually like
a really sign of strength asking for help, needing help,
but y'all need help, Asking for it signed a strength. Yeah.

(26:20):
When I think of someone that's admitting at a time
where they were lost in really needing help, it makes
me think of Walker Hayes and his sobriety journey. Hey,
what's up, y'all? Walker Hayes? Here? Amy, Brownies, four things, people,
four things, fam whatever, y'all call yourself. I love y'all.

(26:42):
I'm gonna tell you a little bit about Beer in
the Fridge, aiming thanks for featuring it. Beer in the
Fridge is about as true as it gets. Um, it's
on to me that that song is just floating around
to tell you the truth because it's just uh, it's
too just pretty close to home. Him. I'm seven years
will be seven years sober this October. But that song

(27:05):
was written within a couple of weeks of me quit
and drinking, and uh, Quentin, drinking was something that I
never thought, Um, I would do. You know, my wife
and I would have conversations about it, and I would
just I would just be like, there's no way, um,
you know, there's no way I can do life sober.

(27:26):
And that song is about a specific beer that a
friend of mine pointed out to me in my shed, uh,
in this little refrigerator. And when I quit drinking, Uh,
he noticed his name is Scott. He noticed that that
was that beer never went away, and he was like,
that's odd. And I would open up the fridge and
just kind of look at it every day, and it

(27:48):
became somewhat of a battle for me that I could win,
like a very easily winnable battle, you know, and I
would look at that beer every day. And you know,
the song hits on a lot of emotion. Is that
Laney and I went through um talking about quitting and
not being able to and the destruction you know, alcoholism
was doing to our family. So yeah, if you can relate,

(28:12):
you know, um, obviously people can, and UM, I hope
the song is helpful in some way form of fashion.
But again, Amy, thanks for featuring it. That sounds so good.
I was gonna say, it's such a good, such a
good you have to go listen to the whole thing.
But and again all the music and the playlist and everything.
I'll tell you how you can access that later. So

(28:33):
I think that we all have beers in the fridge,
they might just not be beer. So I want you
to tell us what yours is. I think an obvious
one for me, as I mentioned eating disorder earlier, So
so my thing might might beer in the fridge, might
be food and how I used to lock it up
like literally in a food and safe. I ordered it

(28:56):
on Amazon and it was actually a nutrition US had
told me to do it, and so I was like, okay,
actually that was really cool, and I was telling other
people you should buy this food safe and you put
your food in there and you lock it up and
then um, you can't get to it for twenty four
more hours. So I can laugh about it a little
bit now, but I also know that if anybody else

(29:17):
is in similar types of behaviors are doing something, I
want to be sensitive to that and know that there's
no shame or judgment. Really, like honestly anything in life.
You could tell me anything and I'll be like, okay,
I've been there. Cool, I still see you as a
normal person. So with the food safe, I think now

(29:39):
my food getting to live freely in my pantry without
being locked up is sort of my beer in the fridge.
Like I know that there's chips and oreos or whatever
and the different things, and I can trust myself. So
that's an example of beer in the fridge. But you know,
I had to. You know, even Walker was saying like

(29:59):
his life was like I don't know that you drink.
He's like, I don't think I could ever live life sober.
He did not think, but he had an awakening and
his story is much more than just that. But for me,
I kind of had to have a moment too. If
it wasn't for finding different resources and people, Like I
think of my friend Lisa Haim, and she has a
whole course called fork the Noise, and I love the

(30:20):
name of that, and hers was specifically for getting out
of disordered behaviors with food and body image. But it
really could be forked the noise in all kinds of things,
Like we have all kinds of noise. We have noise
in our head, we have broken soundtracks, we have all
kinds of things that can loop in our brain. And
I love that, Like she's saying, no, we're gonna stick

(30:41):
a fork in it, and you did and I did.
But fork the Noise was a huge part of that
recovery process for me. Yeah, And I think that like
if we all kind of take a little bit of
introspection right now, we all have those beers in the fridge,
they don't have to be like I think addiction is like,
oh yeah that, But I can be like, no, I
don't have that, so I don't have a beer in
the fridge. But it could be perfectionism, it could be work,

(31:02):
it could be people pleasing, Like there's all these different
kinds of things that we use to get a certain
kind of need met, and we have our beer in
the fridge, we have our eating disorder, we have our
people pleasing, we have these things, and we say this
to us ourselves all the time. Why do I keep
doing that? Like I know that's not helping. Why do
I keep doing that? And it's a shame thing, right, So,
like that feels really shameful to admit that, Like I

(31:25):
keep doing this thing that I know is holding me
hostage and I know this isn't helping me. I tell
that story because as humans, there's rarely ever things that
we do for no reason. So I want to get
your feedback on this to help us kind of paint
the picture of our own lives of how might that
thing that now we know it wasn't good? Right, Like

(31:45):
that was not helpful? What was in the beginning? Like
how might have your beer in the fridge, you're eating disorder,
whatever behaviors it was for you? Like, how did that
help you? And then after that, how did you actually
realize that it was then hold hostage? Okay, Well, with
a lot of the work that I've done, I can
think of a lot of things, but I feel like, yeah,
it was a safe place for me. It protected me,

(32:08):
it would also numbed me, like numbing was a big thing.
So I don't know if all the different things numb,
but for me in particular, numbing was big. Yeah. Well,
I think that's important that you said that, because often
we hear the word like get numbed, and we're like,
you shouldn't numb your feelings. However, in certain parts of

(32:28):
our lives, we might not have any other option. Like
think about like a kid who doesn't have any other resources,
like if they're in a situation where their family is
not there for them, or maybe they see their parents
fighting a lot, there's some kind of trauma going on there.
We don't have a lot of resources, so all we
can do is go away and find some way to
hide in them and numb from that. And so it's
something that really has helped us in It makes me

(32:49):
think of which I love your videos from when you're
a kid, but it makes me think of you saying
like I want to get back to that, like I
want to get back to that person and start living again.
But like how did I get here? Like how did
I become this person that has all these things? And
then all of a sudden I wake up and I'm like,
who am I am? What am I doing? And this
goes back to like one oh one cat, how I

(33:12):
work as a therapist. And I think that no matter
who you are, no matter where you're from, whatever country,
you are born with these two innate desires, and those
and desires are one to be yourself, right, I mean,
when you're born, you don't literally know anybody else, so
like you're just like, I'm gonna be myself. And then too,

(33:35):
it is to be loved and connected. And how we
know that is like you are actually born connected to
your mom, like we have to cut you apart. We
are born to be connected to other people to sustain
our life. And what happens is after we're born, we
get put into the world and we have experiences, some
like less than nurgerine, right, we have some some little

(33:57):
tea trauma, some big tea trauma. And as that happens,
we feel a threat to our need to feel loved
and and belonging and connection, and that desire, for some reason,
trump's the desire to be ourselves. So we pick these
things up and then we drop some of things so

(34:18):
that we can remain in whatever circle we want to
be in. Maybe it's in your marriage. I don't know
what it is for you. But as life starts to
threaten that belonging, that connection, I will be resilient and
I will do what it takes to manufacture some sort
of love. And that's I think where we get stuck

(34:39):
a lot, where we've actually received this like manufactured connection.
Like I have these people all around me. I wish
I could count how many times I've heard people in
my office be like, I have this big group of friends,
and I have all these Instagram followers, and I have
all of this, but I feel so lonely. And I'm like, yeah,
so delete your Instagram. And they're like, oh, I'm not
going to do that. What if I need some connection.

(35:02):
I'm like, okay, but you just said that. That's not connection.
So that's like like a cycle we get stuck in.
And it makes me think of I had this one
wonderful client. She was like kind of like at the
bottom of the bottom, like at like literally couldn't even
see her way out. She needs some help. Week after
week after weeks, she would come in and she would

(35:24):
tell me, like all these dreams she had. We would
like literally write down, Okay, these are your goals, your
six month goals, your three month goals, your thirty day goals,
and um. We would talk about this stuff and we
would get really excited and then she would leave and
then like every week she would come back and I'd like, okay,
so how did it go? And she'd like, I didn't
do it. And I would say, okay, well let's make
some more goals, and so we would do it again

(35:44):
and she would come back and it would be the
same thing over and over and over again. So I
called her to tell her, Hey, I need you to
put on athletic clothes and I need you to meet
me in the woods. And she said, she said okay,
where And I said, actually, I'll drive you to the woods.
And then she was like okay, And then we signed

(36:05):
whatever releases we needed to sign, and then we went
into the woods together and we really actually went to
this place. It was called Adventure Works, and it is
somewhere that they have like tons of team building activities,
zip lining, ropes, courses, all the things. So we go
and I bring her to this activity called the Leap
of Faith. For those of you don't know what it is,

(36:25):
it's a telephone pole like a very high pole and
there's rungs on it, and you climb to the top
and there's like a ten by ten or twelve by
twelve or like the same thing, wooden block at the top,
and you have to climb the telephone pole, stand on
the top of this telephone pole on this little baby block,
and then the goal is to like jump off. Doesn't

(36:46):
that sound fun? But like with the harness, well, yes,
you're like harnessed in. So I show her this thing.
I said, okay, so this is what we're gonna do today,
and she goes, this is not what we're gonna do today.
And after we sat there for a second, I said,
the truth is, you don't have to do this, and
if you want, like I believe how I work as
like we challenge ourselves by choice, right, So if you

(37:08):
want to climb like four rungs and then come down
and that's your goal, then you met your goal. That's
totally fine. So this is what you can do. You
get to decide what it is that you want to do.
But what I want you to think about is why
I might have brought you here. And she said, okay,
I totally get it, Like she's been seeing me probably
four years at this point, so she kind of knows
how my brain works. She's like, I get what you're doing.

(37:30):
And she thought about it for a while and she said,
I want to climb to the top and I want
to jump off. And I said okay. So we got
her in her harness and she climbed her way to
the top. And for those of you have done this,
you know that, like it's actually so scary. The pole
will like wave in the wind, so you're like, oh,

(37:52):
it's safe, but it's moving anyway. So she gets to
the top and she stands up. She does that totally.
It took her a while, but she did it. She
stands up and she looks down at me and she's like, okay,
actually I changed my mind. I just want to stay here.
And I just said, well, okay, does this feel familiar
to you? And she said like annoyed. I think she

(38:16):
was annoyed because she was getting the metaphor of the
analogy whatever it is, and she was like, yeah, it does.
And she said, I feel really really uncomfortable and I'm
really really scared. Are you sure I'm safe? And I
said I am one thousand million percent sure. You're safe,

(38:37):
Like this has been checked three times. There's like four
safety lines. If one briggs, there's another one. Like you
just asked me any question you needed to know about
how this thing works, I'll tell you. But you are safe.
And I tell that story because I feel like a
lot of us are at the top of the telephone pole. Right.
We've done the planning, We've done all of the like, Okay,

(38:58):
these are my goals. This is my earty day and
this is my ninety day, and this is what I
need to do. And we climbed to the top of
the pole and then we get up there and we
feel so uncomfortable and we say, well, this feels wrong, right,
Because if I'm uncomfortable, obviously that means this is not safe.
And it brings in this idea that I think a

(39:20):
lot of us struggle with. I struggle with this, that
the fear of what's going to happen if I jump
off this pole? Right, unknown, I've never done it before.
I've done it like ten times, but she had never
done it before. So if she were to jump off
this pole, no idea what was going to really happen?
And the fear of that unknown was trumping everything that
she felt in that moment, right, So it didn't really

(39:42):
actually feel that great to be on that pole, and
it didn't feel that great to go to the job
that she hated every day. But she knows that pain, right,
Like we know the pain we live in, we know
the fear we live when we know all of that,
and so I can handle this. I know I can
handle this, but I don't know that, and so we
get stuck there. Going back to Walker Hayes, like, think

(40:14):
about somebody, and some of you might have struggled with
this yourself. If you go back to an alcoholic, somebody
struggling with any kind of addiction. When we're feeling any
kind of feeling, whether it's sadness or loneliness or fear,
it's so comfortable to walk into a bar and like
take a bunch of shots and black out and them

(40:34):
out now feeling sadness, fear, whatever it is for you,
and sitting in that that's that's actually not going to
kill you. That's probably for an alcoholic, one of the
safest places to be. But we forget that and we
tell ourselves like, I've never been here, and I don't
know how this is gonna go when it's probably gonna
go wrong. And so I think one of the solutions
to getting unstuck is retraining our brains to remind ourselves

(40:58):
that comfort does not always equal safety sometimes maybe, but
it doesn't need to be this like always, and and
discomfort does not mean doom and gloom, I mean sometimes
maybe sometimes. Fear really is that thing that's like, hey,
don't walk into oncoming traffic without looking both ways. Yeah,
that's good, listen to that fear. But when it comes

(41:21):
to jumping off this telephone pole where you're harnessed in,
you're okay. When it comes to telling your boss that
you actually hate your job, that's not going to kill you.
Makes me think of my fitness cow in my like
the end of my eating disorder and my disordered behaviors too, Lisa,
when I was forking the noise told me, Amy, you

(41:42):
have to delete my fitness poll, and I'm like, no, no no, no,
I'm good. I've done all the things. I've done everything
you've told me to do. I'm just entering in everything
I eat every day, including an eighth of an egg.
If I shared waffles with my kids or whatever, like
I had to, I felt in such control because the
fear of like not knowing. Even though she was trying

(42:03):
to say there's so much freedom on the other side,
like trust me, when you get through this and you
get to the other side, it's gonna be okay. It
took me forever to believe her. In that first week
without it. It It was almost like I was going to
bed and I was like, I have no idea what
I hade today, Like this is gonna die, right if
we don't do this thing, we might die. But you
were in a whole different right place. So that's just

(42:24):
an example because it's like an alcoholic too. It's like no,
no, no no, no, no, I just need to have a drink.
And then it's like they're not having a drinks, Like
I don't know what to do with myself. I don't
I don't have a drink. But you know you've mentioned
perfectionism and people pleasing and like I gotta please all
the people or else like everything's gonna fall apart. So yeah,
we get stuck in that for sure. Well, and I'm
I'm so excited for everybody to be here to hear

(42:47):
what's going to continue to happen, because I want to
add a question for everybody for this thing. And that
is goes back to what I was saying earlier about
when we dropped these things right, and then we pick
up these other things and we're like, oh, we have
this manu factory love or this manufacturer belonging. I want
you guys to ask yourself when you're trying to get unstuck,
do I want to keep living in a world of

(43:07):
manufactured connection or do I want to take a risk
now that I have maybe some tools and some experiences
that are new and I'm in a different place to
try to find the real deal. And I want to
remind everybody because I think that when we get inspired,
where like my life's going to change tomorrow, and like
it doesn't happen like that. Like going to therapy is awesome,

(43:29):
but a lot of talking isn't a thing that's going
to actually change the chemistry in your brain. And the
reason I took my client to that pole to jump
off was not to like freak her out or like
for her to think, Oh, my therapist is cool, she
takes me on field trips. It was so she could
actually have an experience where she feels all of those
things and she has a new experience where I can

(43:52):
feel really uncomfortable and oh my gosh, this person that
I trust caught me. And so the solution to all
of this, the solution to getting unstuck is making a move. Yeah,
And obviously making a move can be daunting because it's like, Okay,
well I don't know what move to make, So we
are going to get into that next. But before we do,

(44:15):
we do have a book recommendation for this thing, which
is Body keeps the Score. And I feel like when
you stay stuck in something, this is just like a
very solid scientific book that shows you, oh wow, like
if if I stay stuck in this, like it's going

(44:35):
to start showing up for me. Some stuff that was
unfolding and I freaking went to the hospital and got
an echo cardiogram for a lot of money because I
thought I was having a heart attack or something was
wrong with my heart, and that thing came back so clean,
and turns out it was anxiety And I was like,

(44:56):
well what because I thought I had had different anxiety
attacks but it never shown up in a way where
it felt like this pain in my chest. I had
had panic attacks situations, but not the pain. And I
was just driving one day and it was sort of
like it's like I got the opportunity for a little

(45:16):
case study because I got a phone call and then
about thirty minutes after that phone call, that pain came back,
and I thought, I just diagnosed myself, this is anxiety,
and I could have saved. But it was like it
was a reminder too of our bodies send us messages
and tell us things, and it doesn't mean every single
ailment or thing that you have going on, Like if

(45:36):
you work through it and you do the therapy and
you do the work and you face the trauma, that
suddenly it's going to happen. But there are actual stories
in this book of times where they have been able
to do the work and work through some things and
some of the stuff that was going on in their
body went away. Well, if you think about like and
it's just just going off of what I just said, like,

(45:57):
if you have an experience where you feel a lot
of fear, right, if that's the emotion that comes up,
but you like actually almost die, that locks in your
brain as like fear equals death, and so your body
is going to remember that unless you process that trauma
and you teach yourself that fear does not equal death.
You felt fear and you thought you're gonna die. Those
are two different things. Yeah, the book is great, but

(46:18):
it's heavy. I mean it's like you're back, you're in school,
and you know you just take it in as you
can and bite sized page by page. And we've got
a fun giveaway for this thing. And um, this is
from my friend's Sunday's shop in Southern Pines, North Carolina,
and not I'll draw whoever are going to go to? Okay,

(46:38):
well the Lord has spoken F three, isn't you F three? Okay,
Well we can pass it back, pass it back, pass
it back. Okay, this might be too personal and you
can say now, but I we talked at the meat

(47:00):
great and do you mind anything sharing what I said
or or what you said? So I struggled with postpartum anxiety.
I'm only thirty two, but um, and I've always struggled
with like a little bit of anxiety in life, and
I always fell alone, and um, I was just like wow,
like this doesn't make sense, like why why do I
have these thoughts? But postpone anxiety, like I had very
intrusive thoughts, scary thoughts and so I out. As soon

(47:24):
as I was clear to walk, I would walk to
your podcast. And at that time, you and Cat were
talking a lot about therapy, and I went back and
forth a lot. I was like, I don't I don't
need it. I'm fine, I'm fine, and then I'd be like,
you know, I think I do need the help. And
then my husband was very nice and I ran into
a friend who was at therapists and like, call me,
come see me. And so that actually helped me make

(47:46):
Like yours podcast just helped like kind of push me,
like you know, to go and get help. And it
just completely changed it. Like I know, therapy, it could
be like, oh, it's kind of like, oh, they don't
talk about it, but it was seriously life changing for me,
and I feel like I can be such a better mom,
a better coworker. I actually made the jump from a
job that I could not stand and I cried like

(48:09):
three out of the four days. I went home every night,
and it wasn't bad. It helped me grow and I'm
thankful for the experience. But just listening to you guys
talk about your experiences helped me make the changes that
I needed to change. And it's just like the biggest different,
Like I'm so thankful for that because yeah, it wasn't
talked about and it's just like hush hush, like you're fine,

(48:29):
you're fine, But it really helped push me to a
better life. I guess I'm not stuck anymore. So it's
thank you so much for sharing that too, Especially if
you felt with the postpartum anxiety and not a lot
of people were talking about it, I feel like just
you saying that right there, someone else might hear it

(48:52):
and yes, yes, okay, yes okay. So I mean when
people decide to open up and share certain things like
it can be so helpful and encourage other people to
get unstuck. This is just a mental note to make
for yourself, Like anytime you feel like in your depths
of your being and everything that like something is not

(49:12):
right and someone tells you, oh, you're good, red flag.
Well if you're saying I'm not okay and they're saying no,
yeah you are, you can go the other way. Yeah,
just got it the other way. So, you know, Kat,
thank you for being here to talk about getting unstuck.
And like you said earlier, like you've got to make
that move for you. It was calling your therapist friend

(49:33):
and being like, Okay, I'm finally going to do this.
I'm gonna make that move. And I can't think of
anyone better to bring out when it comes to making moves.
Then my sister and I can't think of anyone better

(49:58):
to bring out when it comes to making moves. Then
my sister is also randomly out of nowhere a star
on HDTV Building Roots Christie Doger, Yes, thank you for

(50:20):
having me. I noticed you didn't introduce me as an expert. No. Also,
this setup is really cute. There's a cow hide, a
couple of chairs. She sent me some pictures. She's like,
this is okay. They had to flip over the table
because something had switched out the flowers. I know they're dead.
It's well, it's Building Roots approved. So now we're slippery.

(50:47):
I've got my making the move stuck here. I'm gonna
just ask you, since we were just talking about it
and making moves, and everyone might be processing out there like, oh,
I wonder what what is my beer in the fridge
or what are my beers? I mean, I have I
just gave one example that you sort of I have
more more she has a lot of beer fridge, so

(51:08):
I don't know, do you have a beer in the fridge. Yeah,
I've been thinking about it, and I love that song
by Walker. It's been super meaningful to me. But I
hadn't thought about what my own beers in the fridge are.
And at first I was talking earlier to Cat and
I was like, I think maybe my beer is fear.
Is my beer fear in the fridge in my life

(51:29):
carrying around a twenty four pack in my backpack cooler,
you know, a fear of fear, twenty four pack of fear,
not beer. But then you know, some fear is healthy,
so fear is not bad. But so then I came
kind of started deducing that maybe my fears are more
the people pleasing in the perfection infections. You just said

(51:49):
that straight out, like you knew what my beer was. Okay, Well,
I mean yes, I just was, you know, perfectionism. Not
that I'm ever perfect in an anything, but like I try,
I try to keep everything just so, and maybe if
it can be just so, then maybe I won't have
to like take action on stuff, you know, or maybe
if I can just please people enough or that person

(52:13):
or this person and just please them just right and
just so then I don't have to think about my
own stuff and take action on my stuff. Yeah. I
brought that up specifically about you, because for so long
I was kind of jealous of Christie's perfectionism because I
didn't really have it. And you know, she her house
was always in order, and she always made her bed

(52:34):
every day. And now I'm a bedmaker too. I didn't
never understand it, but I get it now, and it's
more of a discipline thing. I wake up every morning,
I make my bed. Look at me. I can do
hard things, and um, you know, then I go and,
like mel Robin says, I high five myself in the mirror,
and you know, I do all of that, and it's
sort of the checklist than I do my three minutes

(52:55):
of journaling. I make my bed now, but it's still
doesn't like look that great, but it's made. And hers
is like all the pillows and all the things and
the throws and it's all. And then in her living
room the couches there in the curtains and fun fact,
I don't know if you still do this, but you
at one point in time, we're measuring the distance with

(53:15):
the tape measure of the couch to the curtains, because
like when you open and shut curtains, the curtains can
kind of move and then the measurement gets off. But
Christie would measure. She would measure each side, so it
always looked I don't feel like I used to tape measure.
You're exaggerating, Well, what did you use? I just eyeball it,
you know, does it seem sinner picture straight? She measured denial.

(53:40):
She's in denial. Okay. I rarely didn't have a tape
measure on me, and it's always lost. It's an eyeball. Yeah. Yeah,
it's a thing. My day could not start unless I
made my bed. And if if for some reason I
got out of bed in a rush for whatever reason,
and things we're just not going right, I'd just be like, oh, crap,
didn't make my bed. This is the problem. Yeah, so

(54:03):
go back making my bed, restart refresh. Yeah. Making her
bed changes the world. It does. It was chandages the world.
They would stay on it. Yes. So Christie and I
had the privilege of attending a writing workshop a couple
of weeks ago at Donald Miller's house, led by Ali fallon.
They both walked through it. It was so amazing. There

(54:26):
was probably about forty people in the room. Ish it
was so special and intimate. We got to process so much.
And then we would break into these small groups and
talk about what we wrote about. And again, I really
feel like us going to that workshop was us making
a move, like we're like, oh, let's go do this,
see what we can do here, what this brings up.

(54:46):
And Christie wrote about some stuff about our dad well
and yourself, and whenever she read it, I thought, Oh,
that's where we're going to go with making a move,
like this is what we share and and I haven't
decided yet if it's fair or not because our dad
is no longer with us. So it's like when you're
talking about someone's like, this is our experience of our dad.

(55:11):
And I do honestly feel like if he was sitting
right there, everything we say, he would be like, yeah,
like cab the job. I'm proud of y'all. Keep yes,
because because I don't want y'all to think anything we're
saying is like, we don't have any bad feelings towards
our dad, but he did have a very interesting life
and I guess I'll just toss to you when it

(55:33):
comes to that side of things and what you wrote
at the Rite Your Story Workshop when we first started it.
I remember I first wrote, and I started out writing
about my own panic attack I had had right after
Dad died, and um, you know, it felt quite like yours,
but just different. You know, my tongue was numb, my

(55:53):
arms were numb. I thought for sure, I'm having a stroke,
a heart attack. I went to the r I told
them I was, and then later they did all the
tests and then they gave me some at a van
and I was like, oh, I feel better, and they
were like, you were having a panic attack And I
was like, shoot, are you sure? You know? But they
apparently that's what I was having, So it's a real thing.

(56:16):
So then I started processing through just a lot of
what I had walked through with Dad, and like where
my anxiety maybe first started, where my fears first started,
So it's going to be story time basically, This is
sort of the process I started at the Writer's Workshop
where I started wrestling with where did my fear first

(56:36):
inner in? And I think that's something that all of
us can think about, Like whatever you struggle with in adulthood,
like thinking back to your childhood of what I've when
it first entered in is really an interesting process, and
as Ali Fallon says, you know, just the power of
writing it down and writing through it is really therapeutic.
So I'm going to read my short story that I
read at Donald Miller and Alie Fallon's writer's workshop. Not

(57:01):
much was missing from his home, but enough to know
he had packed a bag and a gun. Silver alerts
went out, which is police code for missing elderly, and
highway signs were programmed to flash his truck description. We
side ied the term missing elderly, though he was seventy two.
He was vibrant, energetic, and not at all old. In

(57:25):
between meeting with detectives and combing through his home for clues,
I was breastfeeding my six week old baby, the newest
and youngest of my four kids. Life had been really
hard that year. After a full week of investigating and
fearing the worst, we got the call. He was alive,
he was safe, and he was heading his way back

(57:46):
to us. He was my father. Soon the missing truck
pulled up, and my dad slowly shuffled up the gravel
driveway of my home, nearly unrecognizable. His shoulders were slumped,
his eyes were weird, and his soul was crushed. We
ran out to hug him, thankful to know our worst
thoughts could now be let go. As we helped him

(58:08):
with his things, I noticed the black Duffel bag with
the red trim, and my mind spiraled back to my
own childhood. This bag not only held his belongings, but
also a heavy memory of my own. It was August.
I was thirteen years old and Amy was nine. Our
parents called us into the living room of the house
we grew up in. As my dad looked at us

(58:29):
and told us he'd be going away for a while.
I gave him nothing but tears as I knew this
was way more than a business trip. This was the
beginning of what it felt like to have your dad
walk out on your family. I was crushed. As he
stood to leave us, he grabbed his black Duffel bag,
the black Duffel bag with the red trim, and walked

(58:51):
out the squeaky back door. Fast forward twenty years, I
was now thirty three, and that same Duffel bag was
walking back into my own home. Life had at long
last overwhelmed him too much, and he had hit a
rock bottom. Another failed marriage, his fourth and another failed
business venture sent him on a quest to just end everything.

(59:13):
But something inside told him there was more to the story.
He was making a move, and the first move was
into our house. My dad became a whole other level
of grandpa as he put his love language to work cooking.
He was up early making breakfast tacos or prepping dough

(59:33):
for cinnamon rolls to bake with his grandkids. He often
walked our newborn nightly in the stroller and stayed home
with the kids so my husband and I could sneak
out for a midweek day night. We had to live
in nanny of sorts, a manny, and he had a
love surrounding him that began really rebuilding him from within.

(59:55):
In a way, we were both rebuilding each other. One night,
sitting on my front porch, he told me he wasn't
after the things he used to be, after chasing the
ever elusive happiness in the greener pastures. Everything he needed
was right in front of him. Hearing those words healed
me a little. In the years to come, he showed

(01:00:16):
up in ways I couldn't have expected, and in time
owned the pain he had caused my mom, fully reconciling
with her just days before she passed away from cancer
that took over her body. All the hurt that was
caused years ago was minded a little more in that moment,
as Amy and I sat and watched our dad lean
over our dying mom and apologized for it. In my

(01:00:40):
adult life, most any fear I have can be traced
back to that time of thirteen year old me and
the fear I wrestled with when my dad left. Fear
that I wasn't good enough, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection,
fear of disapproval, fear of criticism, fear of making mistakes,

(01:01:01):
fear of conflict, fear of failure. I spent a lot
of years trying to keep the peace, never letting my
dad see me hurting or said, trying to be good
enough for him to notice, and that trickled into an
endless list of should's in adulthood, things I thought I
should do. Who was telling me I should? No one.

(01:01:23):
I created the list on my own. Somehow, the should's
allowed me to avoid action on my own dreams within
and kept me small and safe in a little box
wrapped perfectly in fear. Soon inherd my now favorite author
Sean and Nicholas, who said life is both about the

(01:01:43):
bitter and the sweet. When life is sweet, say thank
you and celebrate, and when life is bitter, say thank
you and grow. While fear is indeed and important, bodily
response in danger and necessary when you're in the woods
and come upon, say a mountain lion. Most everything I
tend to be afraid of is not dangerous. I've learned

(01:02:06):
to not let irrational fears convince me to stay tucked
away under the covers of safety. And I've learned to
pay attention to my dreams and to take action on them.
It's part of what led us to take the leap
of moving our family to a small mountain town, and
what led us to take a risk to open a
small coffee shop, and also part of what led us

(01:02:30):
to re reinvent our design business, and then subsequently what
led a producer from New York to reach out to
us through following our story on Instagram. I did all
of those things, and I was scared. A TV show
has never been on our dream list, but it sure
has been an interesting turn of events in our story.

(01:02:52):
Every day I have to film, you can bet the
thirteen year old me shows up and says, I'm scared.
I turned to her and remind under of a quote
I've come to lean on from Georgia Dare. Everything you've
ever wanted is sitting just on the other side of fear.
That's it. Amy hasn't heard this story. She's like, can

(01:03:19):
you keep it to four minutes? And I was like,
it's five shoots, that's all. It's got to be five Aby, No,
it's fine and it's perfect. And that's why I wanted
you to share it, because I know making even making
that move to Colorado, there was a lot of fear
with that, making the move to do the TV show,
there was a lot of fear with that. Thinking back

(01:03:40):
to Dad and his thirty forty fifty year old self
and different moves that he was making. But then suddenly
it's seventy two, having this life moment where he realizes,
like it's an aha moment of like, all these moves
I was making, he never wanted to sit down and
do the work in those early years to figure out
if they were the right moves that were actually a
win for him. Or a win by society standards or

(01:04:03):
whatever he was chasing. And so I feel like winning
for Dad at thirty and forty and fifty and even sixty,

(01:04:25):
it was different, like you know, Dad was making some moves.
And I know, even thinking back to the time when
Dad went missing, I remember I was living in North
Carolina the time, and I got a call and I
even called I called Bobby and I was like, I
don't think I could be on the show in the morning,
and I went missing from the show for like a week.
We never talked about it is this weird thing that
also we never talked about. It was like weird dad
personal Dad went missing. We have a half brother from

(01:04:48):
our dad's first marriage, and I have a sister and
have sister Kim David shout out. We love them. Their
mom was Dad's first wife, which is Judy and also Judy,
she's she's Judy. And then our dad was Cliff and
then they got divorced and he married Bobby to Bubby.
But but that that Judy, she got remarried to another Cliff.

(01:05:13):
And then when Dad divorced Bobby, whoever, he married our
mom Judy. And so with our brother and sister Kim
and David. For for about thirteen years or so, there
was Cliff and Judy number one and Cliff and Judy
number two. They were all of our parents and so like.
But now Cliff and Judy number one got divorced and
Cliff and Judy numbers three got divorced, right, and then

(01:05:35):
our dad married Cricket. And also to something fun to
acknowledge us about our dad is eventually, after he had
made the move into this new version of himself, he
started dating my sister's husband's grandma. Gosh. But we decided
they could never get married because then like my father
in law would also be my brother in law, and

(01:05:57):
my father in law and my husband be my cousin.
It was just everything is fine. But I think even
why I even brought that up, I was thinking about
David because when Dad went missing, like our brother was like, okay,
you know, Dad, he's either in Vegas putting it all
on red or he's killed himself, like those were the
two options. Like that's how that's like how severe it was,

(01:06:20):
and that that was that that is the absolute truth.
So that's what we were processing and we're like, okay,
so I thank god turns out. He didn't do either
of those, so we were wrong. But when he did
show back up at Christie's door, and he was in
his seventies until you know, he had his own battle
with cancer, he really was living life differently, and I
feel like he was finally like winning, and you know,

(01:06:43):
he would have looked, he probably looked back on some
of his decisions earlier and been like, uh, I thought
that was winning, but that was actually losing. And that
makes me think of my friend Nicole Galleon, who's a
singer songwriter out of Nashville, and she just put out
an album that is a memoir of her life and
it is the most beautiful album ever and the way

(01:07:04):
she packaged and put it together, I encourage you to
check out the whole thing. It's called Firstborn. But a
song on that album is called Winner. And that's what
we're gonna talk about now. And here's Nicole High four
Things Fan. I'm Nicole Galleon, and I want to talk
a little bit about my song Winner. It's the first
song on my new record called Firstborn, and it is

(01:07:26):
the first song because my record is chronological and I
was born in a town called Winner, South Dakota. UM.
My whole life. Ironically, I've been a chronic overachiever highlight competitive,
always want to try new things and take everything as
far as I can take it. UM. I've got that
blue collar Kansas work hard mentality. UM. And and it's

(01:07:52):
really certainly in my life. I look up at now
thirty eight, and I've gotten to accomplish so much, and
I've been so glossed as a songwriter and just in
the music business all around. But now that I'm thirty eight,
and I have two amazing kids and an awesome husband,
and in a life that I could have never dreamed of, UM,

(01:08:13):
I've had to stop and really redefine what winning looks
like for me. And that's what this song is about.
This UM. This song follows the arc of going from
having something to prove to myself or to someone else
and others, to having really nothing to prove, only living

(01:08:34):
of a life that represents my true values. And so
these days, for me, winning looks more like just getting
dinner on the table for my kids, actually being home
in time for dinner more nights a week, UM, being
the one that gets to do bedtime. And sometimes winning
to me might look like losing to someone else, me

(01:08:55):
saying no to some opportunities or just some music business
events that might look really sexy and cool for someone else.
That might look like to lose um in someone else's eyes,
But for me, it's a win um if I'm just
staying true to my heart. So I hope that when
you hear Winner, it makes you just ask yourself, what

(01:09:16):
does winning look like for you? And how do you
define success um in your heart mind? So I love
that last line that she just said, They're what good
is being a winner? Nobody's even keeping score and it's
it's like assess in your own life if you're keeping
score or you're around others that are keeping score, Like,
that's not how we want to live. And I just

(01:09:40):
love that song so much. And Nicole has assessed her
life and then started making different moves for herself that
look like winds. And when it comes to making a move,
it doesn't mean just get off your button, start making
all kinds of moves all over the place. It's really
taking the time to assess, Like Nicole was saying, your truth,
what lines up with you, what feels good, and to

(01:10:02):
like bring him back into this a little bit he
never took the time to sit and really assess. He
just was always go, go, go. He was making all
the moves. And this type of make a move is
really spending time with it and seeing what move is
going to be a win in your eyes and in
your heart. And Christie, you mentioned your move to Colorado,

(01:10:23):
and you y'all were in Austin, Texas and your kids
were at a great school and you had this great
life and this great business, and you'll make the move
to a small town in Colorado. Like some people might
have been like, huh, that's weird. That seems backwards, Like
why that seems like that's not winning, that's that's losing.
But you know, so much has come from that. So Christie,
thank you so much for talking about making a move,

(01:10:45):
and thank you for the giveaway, and I love you. Okay,
I'm done up good. So the question for this for
thing is how do you want to show up in
the world and how do you want to be remembered
in this one life. We've had wisdom tonight from different

(01:11:08):
artists in country music, which has been super cool. But
these video clips all started with an idea that I
had with one group in particular, and that was a
little big town, and I had this song in mine
for them, and I kind of had the idea of
doing a live podcast, but he didn't really know what
that was gonna look like or how I was even
going to do it, and if I even was because

(01:11:29):
who even listens? And why do I even do this?
And do la la. I'm not I'm saying all that
to ask for that. These are the thoughts sometimes, the
loop that's in my head sometimes. And I ran into
Kimberly Schlapman from a little big town randomly. She was
coming out of somewhere. I was walking in and I
was like, Camberly, hey, and so we hug and I
was having one of those low days where I didn't

(01:11:51):
even know what I was doing in life, and she
just said, Hey, Amy, I'm so glad I ran into
I was just listening to one of your episodes the
other day and it was such an encouragement to me.
So I just wanted to say thank you, and I
was like, you listen to my podcast. And so then
in the back of my mind, I had this little
big town idea, and I thought, well, I just ran

(01:12:13):
into her. What if this is God saying say something.
This is my you know, godwink, angel tap whatever. I
don't know, so I just say, oh, can I run
something by you real quick? And she was like sure,
And I said, well, I have this idea and I
want to do a live podcast, and I can't really
afford to bring a bunch of country artists with me
on the road, so I thought, well, videos might be

(01:12:36):
the next best thing. And music is so therapeutic and healing,
and there's so many songs that have such great messages
and I can just highlight these songs and people can
go home and listen to them later and feel encouraged
or empowered or moved or they need to cry or
laugh or whatever it brings up in them in the
different things. And I said, I have this little big
town song like y'all are the y'all are the only

(01:12:58):
artists I have in my mind right now. Actually, because
I don't even know that I'm ever going to even
do this, but let's say I did. Would you would
you be a part of it? And maybe you could
y'all make like a sixty second video for this song.
And she said, absolutely, we'll do it. She goes, but
I have one thing. We just came out with a
new album and there's a song on it called rich Man.

(01:13:21):
So you know, I'll do whatever song you want, but
I would love for you to go listen to that
and then send me a message and see what you think.
And so I immediately when I left there, I got
in my car and I put on rich Man and
I had like a twenty minute drive and I listened
to it a few times over and over, and I
was like, yes, this is it. All of that worked
out for a reason, because that is exactly the song

(01:13:42):
that is perfect for how do you want to be remembered?
How do you want to show up? And so A
messaged her and well, here's a little big town. Hey,
four things, fam. We just wanted to say hi, and
we're a little big town here, and uh, we're going
to talk about our song rich Man. And want to
let Jimmy talk about it because it's a very emotional

(01:14:02):
song that he wrote about his family, and since I'm
part of his family, I'm included. Yeah, a rich Man. Um,
there's a special song to me. I've got a huge family,
were super close all of us, and um, this song,
I think, especially in the past few years, I feel

(01:14:23):
like all the things that didn't matter as much kind
of fell away and it came back to the focus
of the things that mean the most to you. And
I hope that when you listen to this song that
it takes you to that place too, and makes you
think about the people that are around you that love
you and that you love and that you share a

(01:14:43):
relationship with, that build you up and carries you through
your life, because that's what my family is to me.
And uh, I hope, I hope that when you listen
to this song that you feel all of that the
most important thing. So with that song in mind, I
want you to imagine that it's your last day on earth,

(01:15:05):
who do you want by your side and how do
you hope they remember you or what do you want
them to remember about you? And I remember the final
days with my mom and the revolving door of people
that were coming to my sister's house as we had
her there on hospice, and they were there sharing stories
and saying they're goodbyes. And I don't know if she

(01:15:27):
could even here understand, but they encouraged us to still
share things and say things to her, And so people
were coming by and doing that and they were sharing
things with with Christie and me and the impact my
mom had had on their lives. And when I think
about her opening up to share her journey on the
Bobby Bones Show and how that turned into a whole
movement which was completely organic and unexpected, which is Pimp

(01:15:49):
and Joy. And some of you are here in your
Pimp and Enjoy gear right now, which is super cool.
So it's crazy to think that what it's turned into
and how Pimp Joy is now a part of how
we remember her and it's part of her legacy. I

(01:16:11):
was born in Austin, Texas in nine My mom was
my best friend. I went to her for everything. So
an opportunity came my way to join the Bobby Bones Show,
which is a morning radio show, and I remember going
to my mom and saying, you know, do you think
this is something I should do? Like now is the
time to do it. So she is the reason why

(01:16:34):
I took the job. In two thousand and twelve, my
mom was diagnosed with cancer. The cancer came back a
couple of different times, but once it had returned on
the outside of her skin, and the doctors were saying
there is no cure. That's when you're desperate for anything.
At one of her appointments at M d Anderson, we
went to the chapel to pray, as a lot of

(01:16:54):
people do. My prayer probably would have been like, okay, Lord,
heal me if it was me, but she prayed out
loud and her prayer was the most selfless prayer I've
ever heard, and she just said, Lord, use this cancer
for good, because clearly I'm going through this for a reason,
and I don't want it to be for nothing. So
listeners were very invested in her story. She would let

(01:17:18):
me give updates. People really cared about how she was doing,
and so one day I was like, mom, you should
start a Twitter. I jokingly typed in Judy b pimp
and Joy, and Bobby just said, hey, let's start having
our listeners use the hashtag pimp and joy and they
can share with us on social media how they are
choosing joy for themselves. So that's how Pimp and Joy

(01:17:41):
was born. We realized it was catching on. We had
a friend that did clothing and merchandizing and she said,
I really think like a pimp and Joy hat could
be awesome and all the proceeds could go to whatever cause.
And I have a picture of my mom and she
wasn't really doing great at this point. She's wearing these
left for pro jamas she would always have on because

(01:18:01):
they were so comfortable, and then she's got on the
Pimp and Joy hat and that was her like approval pick.
She's like, I proved this hat. And about two weeks
later she passed away. We never got to launch the
hat while she was alive, but I think she would
probably freak out to know that to this day, Pimp

(01:18:23):
and Joy has been able to donate over two million
dollars to various causes. I think it's brought our listeners together,
given my mom an answer to her prayer, and it's
really it's my mom's legacy. And now that we get
to see her prayer answered all the time is pretty
cool because I know not a lot of people get
to experience something like this. Shout out to Texas Monthly

(01:18:51):
for that video that was part of their Project Optimism,
and it was so so cool for them to do that.
And you know, the shop Forward was mentioned in there
and Pimp and Joy Oi and so that's the that's
the giveaway for this thing, and they're so generous to Um,
we're actually gonna draw four people, four things for people,
and you get to go each pick out one thing

(01:19:13):
from the merch table to take home with you. Whatever item.
It doesn't have to be Pimp and Joy. It could
be four things. It can be that I need a nap,
it could be I'm fine, it's fine, everything's fine. Whatever,
a four things tote whatever you want. But just a
quick note about the merch to some of you probably know,
I've adopted to children from Haiti. Um we brought them

(01:19:34):
home this Christmas. It will have been five years that
they have been with our family and it's crazy. Um
my daughter is fifteen now and our son is twelve,
and it's wild to think how much they've grown in
these last five years. But the orphanage Haiti in general
is not doing well at all. It's not always in

(01:19:55):
the news things that are going on there, but it's
pretty it's pretty bad there. And speaking of Pimp and
Joy and that donation, like, is anybody here part of
the original O G blue Pimp and Joy shirt that
helped build the bakery? Okay, yes, so that bakery that
we built that was because of Pimp and Joy And
it's been a huge blessing to the Orphanage. But right
now diesel prices are crazy there. You have to use

(01:20:19):
diesel to run the generator to run the Orphanage, and
they can't even afford the gas. It's a problem in
the entire country. A lot of organizations we work with
there are struggling right now, but the Orphanage, in particular
the bakery provides jobs for people in the community and
then it provides funds for the Orphanage and also bred
for the Orphanage as well. And so right now of

(01:20:41):
the proceeds from the merch is going to the Orphanage
in Haiti. So just whatever you get tonight, if you've
already shopped, great, if you are like I don't know
if I was gonna shop, or it's not really for me,
Like maybe think in your head, is there anybody that
you're Christmas shopping for? You know, obviously you can order
from the shop forward dot com later, but here tonight

(01:21:03):
you don't have to pay shipping, and it's already here
and you can like check some people off your list,
and just know that all proceeds are going to the Orphanage,
which will always have a special place in my heart,
and we're just always looking for ways to support them
when we can. So thank y'all in advance for that
support tonight. So I will draw E one oh four, yeah,

(01:21:26):
oh oh, And you're wearing Pip and Joy and I
remember you from the meet and greet and you came
here tonight alone. I only point that out because I
feel like that's amazing. Right. If you know anyone who
like struggles with having community or anything like that, like,
really encourage them to do stuff like this, because I
have never been Yes, you came here by yourself. You

(01:21:49):
you came here. You said earlier that you did, and
I've never done anything like this before, and by myself.
I think I've said that like eight times. But it's
it was so liberating to come and do this, and
I mean, this is just so awesome and I'm so
glad I could be here for this. Thank you. Some
of you have probably looked under your seats. I see

(01:22:09):
that you have them speaking of the shop forward and
four things in merch and whatnot. But you see the
puzzles and maybe do you see the popper? Do you
see the emergency confetti popper? Okay, so grab those. We're
gonna use them. In just a second, everybody's getting up
to look under their seat, Houston. So I want to

(01:22:33):
talk about the puzzle before we get to the popper.
I included the puzzle and a big thank you to
the shop Forward in One Country for making the puzzle
possible for each of you. And this is a very
special puzzle to me because well, Mary and I designed
the entire thing, and that's why it seems a little weird,
like it's got a cat and a dog, but that's

(01:22:55):
my cat, Maggie and my dog Cara. And then it's
got a bunch of fun things on it and fun
colors and hidden messages and a chocolate chip cookie which
is baked by Ruth House Coffee. And I'm not even
gonna tell you how many cookies I made Christie bake
to get the right cookie for the puzzle, um, because
some of them didn't look very good, but she wanted.

(01:23:15):
She was all about it. She's a perfectionist. So really,
what the puzzle is here for is some backs around that.
As I used to hate puzzles, but then when I
was going through like that really crazy part in life,
I suddenly found myself at my kitchen table. Uh, doing
puzzles for hours on end and playing bird bingo and

(01:23:35):
bird bingo is. I had my bird feeder right outside
my kitchen window, and I had my bird chart with
all the different birds that would come visit my feeder,
and I'd be like, I saw a tufted titmouse today,
And you know, have y'all seen that name? Where it's
like one day you're just young and carefree and the
next day you like can name birds and it's like, what, Yeah,

(01:23:58):
that was me. So as I was talking with one
of my mini therapists, can't remember which one at this point,
they were like, oh, that's like I really feel as
though there's some depression happening and this is your space
to just be depressed with your puzzles and your birds.
And I was like, well, that's interesting, but she's like, actually,

(01:24:19):
it is interesting and amazing, and you need to keep
doing it, do as many puzzles as you want to do,
because it's actually really really good for your brain and
you're able to like work your brain in a way
that's it is therapeutic and it's it's mindless, but yet
you're exercising it. And then I don't know, for me,
there was a level of excitement every time I would
find like a piece that I've been looking for, and

(01:24:42):
it was like I could celebrate those things, like cat right,
what is the deal with the puzzles? Like why would
that be good for my brain? And then it makes
you when you get dopamine, you want to do it
again and again. And so for me when I would
fill out the puzzle, I kept wanting to do it
again and again. But it was a good distraction for sure,
So I would do the puzzles and lots of them

(01:25:02):
again with kat. I don't know. Metaphor analogy whatever it is,
it's it's a great metaphor or analogy for life, and
like that, our life has all these different pieces, but
when we're putting it together along the way, we can't
see the finished product until we've gone through and and
struggled with trying to fit pieces in the wrong place

(01:25:24):
or figuring out where it was, or if our dog
ate one of the pieces, or you know, chewed it
up and now it doesn't fit right, but like, hey,
it still looks good. That's for what we're talking about here,
Like life is going to take you on a journey,
and there's a lot of different pieces that make it up.
But one of the puzzles I put together, it was
a Dolly parton one and it was Dolly and had

(01:25:45):
a rainbow, and it was like a Dolly quote of
you know, now I'm paraphrasing because I remember exactly, but
just after the storm comes the rainbow. Someone looked that up,
but you get what I mean, like, and then you
know you're in the storm. You've got all the different
pieces and puzzles, and then you put it together. It's like, oh,

(01:26:06):
this all makes sense now. Like I was saying in
the first thing, my life was totally falling apart, Like
the things that were happening I literally could not believe
were happening to me all at the same time because
it seemed completely bonkers and unbearable. And then I now
that I'm on the other side of it, they were
all absolutely necessary and it was so divine that they

(01:26:26):
happened at the same time, and they were used for good.
And you know, even with my mom and Pimp and joy,
like we can see now her prayer like she wanted
her cancer to be used for good. She would also
be a big fan of the paupers and celebrating life,
because you never know when you know, you might get

(01:26:48):
that call that there's cancer or that your dad. Like, honestly,
when my dad ended up on life support, I mentioned
that in the first thing, but he had just moved
in with me. We had years ahead with him. When
I say unexpected, it was unexpected. I mean he had
fallen on my watch, which I still struggle with a

(01:27:08):
little bit. But I was like, ah, what in the
world just happened? Because I when he got into the
ambulance after we called nine one one, and we're like
in the entry way of my house, Like I just
remember being like Dad, and it was COVID so you
couldn't get too close and I couldn't go to the
hospital with him. But I was like, I'll probably pick
you up tomorrow. It's no big deal. You'll be fine.

(01:27:30):
And then when I woke up the next day, the
call was he's on life support and I'm like, Okay, well,
when when are we gonna when we get the tubes out,
when does he come back? And they were like, no,
I don't think you get it, Like I think you
need to call you know, family and friends and they
need to come in, like this is y'all are going
to have to make the decision to to unplug him.
So anyway, it's just you never know when you're gonna

(01:27:53):
get that phone call about a loved one or yourself,
And so I really want to just incur ad you
to just try to move towards living a full life
for yourself. And one of the ways that we get
to do that, just to recap real quick journaling, we
journal through, we process, we get there, then we go
make a move, We read the books, we do all

(01:28:14):
the things, but we also we celebrate life. We celebrate
the big and the small. So that's how we're going
to wrap up tonight is celebrating all together. And I
want you to think in your head, what is one
thing I can be proud of or celebrate in my
life at this moment right now, And we're going to
pop them all together. And I'm not going to use

(01:28:38):
a mic for this, So Elizabeth, come keep your head
set on. This is Elizabeth and this night would not
be possible without her. Three two one pop. Thank you

(01:28:59):
all so much for coming tonight. It means to me
sure and now I'm out of breath, but um, you know,
we started this thing with younger me and it's the
younger me that I want to tap back into. And
I think I filmed that younger me video probably a
year before my dad left, and that younger me was

(01:29:21):
very curious about life. Again, I thought my life was
so amazing. I was creative and I definitely had a
different spirit about me that I didn't realize until later
on looking back of like, I feel like after my
dad left, that was like the first big tea in
my life. So we have big teas and we have
little teas, and those traumas stick with us. And that

(01:29:42):
was when I started to dim my light a little
bit internally. And I think I'm now ready to start
tapping back into that that young, curious, creative me. I
think it's only appropriate that she says by to us tonight,
by so long and tutelu plus thoughts bye bye. Oh gosh. Nope,

(01:30:19):
I ought to fire this people. So y'all saw all
the people help that help it together tonight. But believe
it or not, I didn't. That was my imaginary crew
um that I was going to fire. Nobody was working
with me on that show that I filmed in the
laundry room. But seriously, y'all, are amazing. Here's the living life,
getting unstuck, making moves and showing up. Good night, y'all.

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