The Neverending Story: Identity, Grief, & Healing Through Stories

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
movies and psychoanalyze them.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
My name is Brittany.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Brownfield and I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinozo, marriage and family therapists.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
We're all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists,
who practice out of Chicago. Even though we are licensed
mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for entertainment purposes
and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture and
all forms.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
we aren't your therapist.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
a local mental health provider.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Hello everybody, we are finally getting onto our luck dragons
and going into the clouds to talk about the never
ending Storyay big surprise for anyone who's watched this movie.
We're gonna be talking about grief. Specifically, We're gonna be
touching upon how it presents his depression, how it can

(01:09):
result in identity problems both within an individual but also
within a family structure. We're also gonna be touching upon
the stages of grief and also experiential and expressive and
expressive therapies, therapies think even, and as always we're talking
about treatment and final thoughts. So The Never Ending Story

(01:30):
is about a ten year old named Bastion who has
recently lost his mother. The movie is vague about how
when I looked it up on the internet it said
car accident, because I was curious if it was a
sudden or not sudden thing. And so we're watching this
little boy go through this post mom's death experience where

(01:52):
he basically feels really lonely, really ignored, and he finds
a book in a bookstore after he's been bullied, and
that is the you know, the rest of the movie
is this kid reading a book and then slowly realizing
that he is a part of this book.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
The never Ending Story.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
The first thing that we wanted to talk about was depression,
the experience of just not feeling just not really feeling
like yourself and feeling more sad and feeling kind of
like they're the things that you found joy in before
you don't find joy in anymore. That's kind of what

(02:31):
I feel like people experience when I talk to them
about grief in terms of the depression.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
Symptoms, loss of hope.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Loss of loss of hope is definitely important. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
I think anytime I think of grief, I think of
Teddy Roosevelt's journal as probably the best simple expression I've
ever seen. You've guys seen that? Whoa you guys no
know this?

Speaker 2 (02:53):
I don't know what are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (02:55):
His actual journal or a movie that's called Teddy Roosevelt's Journal.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
That's a fair question. That's a very fair question. I
appreciate that. We're welcome new band name I call it, Yeah,
but after I explain, it's gonna get sucked up. So
Teddy Roosevelt lost his mother and his wife, oh damn,
on the same day, dark dark, in the same hospital.

(03:18):
He had to go upstairs for the death of each.
His wife died from I think some complication of a childbirth,
and his mom died of TB if I'm remembering. But
in his journal, there's just like a big X, this
is the light has gone out of my life.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Damn.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
And that's it. Damn Right.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yes, Well, I think in this situation, we are seeing
a little boy who seems to have lost like his mom,
seems like she was the joy in his life, not
just as his mom obviously, but also as we see
with the family dynamic that gets set up in the

(04:01):
very beginning of the movie, his dad is just given nothing, which,
to be fair, his dad's going through his own grief,
for sure, and that is just a blip in the movie.
But it does strike me that the mom might have
been the person that was bringing a lot of joy

(04:22):
and caregiving into this kid's life, and now he's being
taken care of by this dad who was never supposed
to be the primary caregiver for this kid.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
Which seems accurate for the time period. Yeah, this dad
is clearly lost. He's not used to being the primary caregiver.
He's used to making his stuff and being in a routine,
not caring for a child. I imagine he would be
doing camping trips on the weekends and he's used to

(04:55):
that kind of stuff. But come work with tools with
me in the shed, but not primary caregiving. The dad
seems clearly kind of vapid and lost.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, I was telling Hannah it kind of reminds me
of if Ted Wheeler the dad and Stranger things.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, I had to become the primary caregiver.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
You're right, it's very of the time where there's more
of an understanding that the mom is the primary caregiver
and the dad is secondary.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
Which is very different to now where it's pretty balanced.
And it's weird to watch and watching that scene where
the dad and the kid are talking about, well, it's
time to kind of buck up and keep moving on.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, so we watched this sad kid in this sad
house with a probably sad leftover parent who is dealing
maybe with their sadness and trying to be a parent
the same way that maybe he runs his business, like

(05:58):
trying to parent the way that he would supervise a colleague.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
I mean, he ends that.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
He's so flat the whole time he hands the conversation
with this was a good talk.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
We should do this more. I'm like, who the fuck
are you talking to?

Speaker 1 (06:13):
You're talking to your super sad ten year old kid
and giving no emotionality there.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
Yeah, your kid who's having dreams about his mom who died. Yeah,
and he wants to talk about it and process that,
and Dad's just like.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well.

Speaker 4 (06:36):
We talked about that.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
It gives you the ick. It's so different. It's exactly
the way we would have been raised, or there would
have been someone in our life just like that would
have been raised like that.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
It's definitely the style of the older generation. Very pick
yourself up, dust yourself off, keep it moving, is what
the dad's basically telling this kid.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, you know, it's you know, your.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Mom can't be used as an excuse anymore to not
consider in school, which is wild thing to say, and
you know, reiterating you can have to have your feet
on the ground. There's like no room for anything that's
not pragmatic, and you.

Speaker 4 (07:17):
Have to get back into doing things. I'm hearing you didn't.
I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed you didn't even try out for
the swim team.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah, the dad's not taking into context the grief and
the sadness at all, Like he's like, why did try
for the swim team? It's like, why do you think
he didn't try out for the swim team?

Speaker 2 (07:41):
It even makes me.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Wonder are there aspects of having to trial for the
swim team that maybe his mom would have handled, like scheduling,
permission slip.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
You know, Like he's making it seem.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Like this kid is is going to be now like
the project manager of his life, when that was probably
a role that mom played keeping that stuff together.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
Should have been the one probably going to swim lessons,
should have been the one encouraging him, pep talking him,
talking it up. And also, like we started right at
the top, depression steals your joy and even doing things
doesn't feel good anymore. That's why sometimes you need antidepressants

(08:22):
because they start boosting your serotonin levels. Again, the thing
that works about those is because your brain is no
longer producing enough serotonin, which is your feel good chemical.
So you're not getting a brain cookie for doing something,
and it takes a lot more effort to get that

(08:43):
brain cookie, if at all. And by basic behaviorism, if
something doesn't feel good, do we keep doing it? Nope,
So it extinguishes behaviors really quick because it doesn't feel
good and then compounds with wow, even things that I
like make me feel nothing or bad.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
And I feel like I've Also whenever with people who
are experiencing grief or and they're in the depression aspect
of it, I also talk with them about coping skills
because a lot of times the coping skills don't work
anymore either, like they're because they don't have the same
they're not able to focus on it. In the same

(09:28):
way that they were to before, and they have to
pull themselves out of it first in order to use
the coping skills. So a lot of times I really
really talk about coping skills and shifting them or changing them,
trying to be flexible about what things are.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Helpful because it feels so different than it used.

Speaker 4 (09:45):
To everything.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Cute.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
Your old toolkit might not work or it might not
work as well, and not letting that stack up on
you is huge.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
And I could also see where Dad is maybe doing
that thing that definitely people did I assume in that
time period, which is we just got to start getting
back into the things that used to like, and that'll
get you out of this funk, you know, like get
into swim again, get it, like start getting That's basically
what he says in the beginning, like you just have to.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Get back on track.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
And this idea that if you go and if you
go through the motions of regular life, it'll snap you
out of it, which is not realistic because what you
guys are saying too, like bereavement related depression is so
big it can pack such like a punch because it's
based in something truly real that's happened to you, that's

(10:42):
changing your life forever. It's more trauma based almost depression.
Something horrible has happened, and you can't just like do
the same things you might be able to do with depression,
where you can kind of like do thought challenging and
things like that to kind of like come out of it,
like there's something truly real that's happened, that's changed the

(11:05):
circumstances of your life potentially. And with a kid like this,
your whole your life is exploded, falling apart.

Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yeah, and Breadman is not a time period where you
should be trying to do a whole lot of treatment
for people. People need space, people need time. Supportive methods
only really are appropriate there. If they want to come
in and talk, it should probably don't. But when they

(11:36):
do come in and talk, you're not trying to reframe
their thoughts, You're not trying to correct their things. You're
just trying to be there and listen and witness their
pain and let them express. That's it.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
And bless this kid because he's trying to do that
with his dad. He sure is, and his dad is
not interested, which, like I said, could be because the
dad might be in his own grief. He's also going
through a crazy experience where now he has to take
care of a kid in a way he's never had
to before. But yeah, like it just it is heartbreaking
in the beginning of this movie because you just feel

(12:08):
this kid's insane loneliness on top of losing his mom,
which is going to be lonely anyway. Maybe he's late
to school because he's fucking depressed, and maybe because he
used to make his own lunches now and stuff like
just this, like as we're going to talk about later
with like the stages of grief, Like is this denial
like this almost like stubborn denial that Dad is in

(12:30):
that they kind of allude to in the scene that
they set in the beginning of what's going on with
this kid and not being curious about the reasons why
this kid might be acting differently than he used to,
because that's also what Dad's not tracking. Why is he
late to school? Why is he joining the swim team?
Instead of being curious, he's being accusational.

Speaker 4 (12:52):
Yeah he is, because he probably is just as lost.
Dad doesn't begin to know. No set of parents ever
knows fully what the other one does, and the roles
that they fell until they're not feeling it anymore, and
it's heartbreaking to lose that and no one can replace
the mom. So this whole family unit is is completely devastated.

(13:18):
And you're right, no one's looking out for this kid.
They make it quite clear he's kind of invisible except
to the bullies because it's the eighties.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, they are ruthless.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
And it made me think, like the Bullies and Stranger Things,
if they were modeled after these bullies, Like even in
the way they dressed felt very similar to the bullies
in the first season of Stranger Things.

Speaker 4 (13:39):
I'm sure there was a reference. And it's also just
kind of how they were eighties and nineties. There's enough
references to them everywhere.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, it was a time of bullies. Oh it was
in movies at that time. I mean it was a
time of bullies in the real world. In the real
world also going to that too, there's no one thinking
about like, is this kid late to school every day
because he's getting bullied fucking every day he's going to school,
And is he's not late to school maybe because he's

(14:12):
not leaving for school on time. And I'm having to
like dodge and weave and maybe get stuck in trash cans.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Yeah, and I feel like it's also but again, you know,
this was the eighties, so it makes sense. But even
like the school coming at him for that and not
asking dad like, hey, it's really weird he's been late
to school.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Something else might be going on.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
Have you talked to him, like even like just just
as like just noticing that this kid's.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
Behavior pattern is.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Changing after his mom died, Like that fucking makes sense.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
Of course it does. And also so to just moving slowly.
One of the symptoms of depression is moving so slay.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
That's such a good point.

Speaker 4 (14:58):
Right m HM. Formally known as psychomotor retardation or psychomotor agitation,
because sometimes people can't sit still and they can't deal
with anything and they don't stop moving, or other times
they're so glum and grim and down that they just
look like they're walking through molasses and mud, just trudging.

(15:24):
And now I hear Chaucer saying trudging to trudge from
a Night's Tale.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
That sounds right.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
I was thinking about how I've had different people describe
the way that depression feels as walking on the bottom
of the ocean. Every step and not only are you
under the water, but every.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Step is.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
It's such a barrier to being able to complete it
in any kind of quick manner of any kind. Yeah,
and then with that too, we see the kid be
late to school fashion because of the bully thing and
the bookstore thing, and we see what then can happen
with this situation where as soon as he realizes he's
really late to school, he just gives up and goes

(16:06):
hides in the attic all day by himself, which is
that's what ends up happening.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Is kids are always picking up.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
On what the adults are telling them is important and
then getting stuck on that in his mind. And it
really bummed me the fuck out, going back to like
the invisibility of him in which his dad's like fleeing
out the door when he says that, and he goes,
but yesterday I was it and reply to lady school
like this kid just wants to be recognized. And how
a kid like that in this situation when we also

(16:35):
think about what depression feeling like hopeless and feeling helpless
and feeling bad about yourself potentially that also then you
have this dad that's only pointing out the ways that
this kid is not doing well, but not in like
a curious empathetic way, but more in like a picking
at him kind of way, and not noticing when the
kid is doing things Okay, like you made school yesterday,

(16:58):
Let's try you know, let's try that again.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
How is that kid not going to internalize that, especially
when they're in such a vulnerable place of like, maybe
I'm just suck and like and he doesn't have a
mom anymore to like break through.

Speaker 4 (17:11):
That or any trusted adult. He's just getting rub dirt
on it. Talk and do better, which he can't. He
can't depending on how long ago that the death of
his mom was, we don't know what period he's in.
Bereavement last thirty days, right, bereamant ends at thirty days.

(17:34):
That's the period where you're wrecked. Everyone is destroyed, distraught, crying,
shut down because you're adjusting to your world ending as
you knew it. After that phase, I feel like is
where we're picking up this story. It seems like we're
somewhere two months out three months, that's my guess. Yeah,

(17:57):
I don't know if that's a base on anybody. He's
not to your point and crying and wrecked. It seems
like the expectation is that, buddy, we're we got to
start moving on now, which I don't think even that
era of dad figure would have said yeah, unless it's

(18:18):
bland before time.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Oh geez, do.

Speaker 4 (18:23):
You guys watch that as adults?

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (18:24):
I watched it not so long ago.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
Actually as soon as his mom dies. That one like
Stegosaurus with small spikes, was like, h, kid, life's tough.
I just watched his mom get eaten. Yeh sucks sometimes
to be in be in the world. Good luck.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
What is one?

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Also just how sometimes just adults can have such a
lack of patience with kids and their feelings and wanting.
There is a lot of situations I've been in as
a family therapist where you can tell the parent, for
whatever reason, could be a very inner, simple reason, just

(19:10):
wants the kid to kind of get over it, and
for maybe because they're got their own suff gone. Because
like I see with this dad him wanting to just
be over it, so he needs the kid to be
over it.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
And how deeply.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
Unfair that is, especially like a kid that's this. I
mean I tell people this all the time, Like when
you're a kid, your parents are your gods.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
They are gods to you, for better or for worse.
And so I've been watching The Crow, have we? Oh
that is from that movie?

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yes it is, and it is true, right, and so
like you have to treat it with that level of
gravitas when something that involves a kid and their parents occurs.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
Mother is the name for God on the lips and
hearts of all children.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
You can't help yourself, No I can't.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
And yeah, like there aren't any adults looking out for him,
which is why it's so refreshing and interesting in the
movie when he does run into the bookstore and they
introduced the bookseller as kind of this like crimogeny ominous figure.
But he does do something that I wrote down on
my notes was as Bashian's kind of like running his

(20:21):
mouth like talking to mole a minute about stuff. He
does something that is really good and very therapist y,
which is he grabs onto the important part and he says,
who are you running away from? And I was like,
that guy knows how to talk to kids because he
was able to disperse away from all the gobbledegook and

(20:41):
like find the thing, the right question, and be curious
about this kid. Instead of getting caught up in judging
him or like just like the way that adults can
really just shoot kids down and dismiss them.

Speaker 4 (20:56):
It's such a different take on it, but I do agree.
But what I agree fundamentally I hated his affect.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Oh for sure, he definitely, But I feel like that's
the movie trying to do a bait and switch situation,
like they're trying to trick us into thinking this guy sucks,
and he does have a gruff vibe. But I will
say when he asked that question, I think you see
kind of his veneer drop a little bit. And then
obviously when he has the like knowing look at the
end where he is like a fairy godmother figure in

(21:27):
the story.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
Yeah, I mean he's definitely. He's the wise old man,
the fairy godmother, et cetera, the guardian angel. He's all
those things, and he was and he was doing it.
But it's such the eighties boomer even greatest, it's the
greatest generation.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Way, Well, it's like, does everyone have to be shitty
to this kid? For fuck's sake?

Speaker 4 (21:46):
Right?

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Can someone please throw a fucking smile on their face
and some caring looking eyes.

Speaker 4 (21:51):
Right, instead of the grumpy old crimudge what are you
doing here? And the kid clearly warmed up to him,
was trying to prove himself like no, I read there's
all the books I reading. It was obvious he impressed
the bookseller and that he saw himself and the kid,
but he the lack of warming up bothered me, Oh

(22:13):
for sure.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Oh that does bother me as well.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
He kept the kid engaged so like, I get it,
and it again the generational differences the way I'm looking
at that now, then that would have been a that's
the way grandpa acted.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Well, I think now it would probably be someone with
a more of like a Mishney approach, Like if they
made this movie now, it'd be someone who's like but
I think they still did a little game with him
of like ooh that book you can't handle reverse psychology
to get him to take it. But yeah, I think
if they made this movie nowadays, it would be a
sweeter probably like Jessica Day type or like a grandmotherly

(22:53):
type character.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
Yeah, I think so. I think it would be a
gentler warm up. There might still be the game, and
little boy might have needed the game, particularly an eighties
little boy.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (23:07):
As he would have needed it, But I hated the
lack of warm up.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Well, yeah, because the way this kid's introduced with his
dad is so fucking brutal that like, from like minute one,
you're like desperate for this kid to have somebody in
his fucking life who seems to give a shit about him,
and it's gonna be fucking next to him, and you
just and a and then with the bully too, Like
I think by that point in the movie, it's only
like five minutes into the movie and you're already like,
can someone please save this kid?

Speaker 4 (23:34):
Well, all the other adults were watching him be terrorized
on the street as he's just running through Vancouver or
wherever it was, just trucking, it runs into the other adults.
There's clearly being pursued by three kids looking to do
something not good in every other adult just goes on

(23:57):
about their business, does nothing. Established his a loneness really
well cinematically.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah, And then also that he's a kid that obviously
spending a lot of time by himself because he knows
exactly where the key to the addict is, how to
get it, how to go up there, Like that isn't
the first time or maybe even like the tenth time
he's hid in that attic space.

Speaker 4 (24:22):
No, no, he's been up there a lot. You know.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
What else I was thinking is that there aren't any
other Oh, I guess there is the old Lady to
the Little Old Man. I was trying to think if
there were any other women in the story at all
who are loving or warm, because most of the people
that were most of the people that he interacts with

(24:48):
in the real world are men, And just how that's
kind of interesting that there isn't any Like, there's the Empress, right,
and she's really kind and sweet and warm, right, but
there really isn't But there really isn't anyone else.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
I was just that just made me. It just jumped
into my mind.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
So I was just curious if does that feel like
a thing or But then I remember the little Old Lady,
So I don't know if that if that works, I.

Speaker 4 (25:16):
Wouldn't have called her warm though.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
Also true, also true, Yeah, she definitely wasn't warm.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
She definitely was a gruffin. But I think it could
have been.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
I think it could have definitely been like a cinematic choice,
for there didn't be no like feminine warmth in the
movie because it was missing in his life.

Speaker 4 (25:37):
Yeah, because the thing he needs to sort and find
connection with again is his mom. That's what's missing, that's
what he wants, that's what he's looking for in his story,
is a connection to her. So it wouldn't narratively make
sense for there to be that energy from anybody else. Yeah,

(26:00):
it felt like the giant Stoneman was probably more on
the long lines of.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
His dead mm, like these big strong hands. Yep, that's yeah,
that's a good point.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
I'm just going to sit here and.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Oh, oh god, that's the line from this movie that
makes me cry or almost makes you cry every time,
that scene with the big rock guy looking at his hands. Yeah,
that is such like a brutal line. And I think
that is the best summation It's like succinct summation of

(26:40):
like what we're talking about with depression and like the
hopelessness and kind of going into like the loss of
identity part two of how when you go through something
like this like grief, not only does it shift your
identity from this from the sense of like I who
am I now that I don't have a mom, or

(27:01):
like what is our family now that there's this missing person?
In it, and like we're talking about with a dad,
like the change in his identity from the secondary breadwinner,
you know, caregiver to now like having to be everything
for this kid. But then also how it can fuck
with our identity as a strong person, a capable person,

(27:23):
a person that can control their life.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Because I think that's a big.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Part with the rock guy is I'm supposed to be
this big shronk thing that holds onto things and keeps
things safe. And I couldn't do that, So what's the point.
And how grief and like big life changes like this
can really fuck with people's sense of self.

Speaker 4 (27:47):
And when they lose that, they let go, which sounds
familiar yet again telling breath there, Hannah, Hannah's giving me
a big sight because that loss of identity piece, you

(28:15):
could change loss of identity to loss of purpose.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah, really mean.

Speaker 4 (28:20):
Loss of meaning. And yet again we're back to Victor Frankel,
and that's exactly what he was talking about in man
Starch for meaning. Is that stone guy I forgot what
his name is, but him sitting there going but look
at these hands, they look like such boogs, strong hands.

(28:41):
I couldn't hold on to people. So now I'll let
the nothing take me.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:46):
But that's what people go through when they're facing that
is I'm just ready to go.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah, they give up, they do.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
I think we see that in Avengers Endgame with Clint
or Divinity War, the last one with Clint Barton, because
he loses his whole family and then he just goes
fucking rogue.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
But when he turns to Ronan, yeah, yep.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Like that's a classic example of I'm gonna throw my
whole life away because it's gone anyway.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
And who cares.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
I think it was a very active version of giving up,
but it's still giving up.

Speaker 4 (29:26):
Well then when even when he gets him back, he's
ready to throw himself because he can't face who he became.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, And that's a big part of like that existential
lots of identity stuff like also what we sometimes will do,
which could be what's going on with fashion as well.
Like we talked about the acting out of character when
you're caught up in these moments, and then are we
gonna keep being hard on ourselves and judge ourselves based

(29:52):
on this like wild time in our life that is
extraordinary in this abnormal.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
Are you asking a question?

Speaker 2 (30:05):
I'm just done with my thought.

Speaker 4 (30:07):
Okay, they felt like there was a question coming, and
then you looked at me.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
I'm like, you know.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
Something that I talk to clients about a lot when
I talk about their identity because we all know here
that it's such a big aspect of grief, and I
just straight up tell them you are never going to
be the same person that you were when they were alive.
Your life is different now, and that's just the truth.

(30:34):
And I don't do that like right after they lose someone, clearly.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
But like it.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
But it is something that once their symptoms have decreased
a little bit, we can kind of talk about who
you are now and what do you and what's important
to you.

Speaker 4 (30:56):
It's really important to face that because I don't know
if I've said that in the podcast before, but I
have been dealing with physical pain a lot with a
pain disorder I live with. And it's something I learned
NPT that once we get an injury and we start

(31:17):
compensating for it, we learn new neural pathways to compensate
for that injury. There is no going back to the
old neural pathways. You can't sprain your ankle and run
the same way you did before you got hurt. And
that sounds awful familiar to what Hannah just said, but

(31:43):
we never ever, ever have heard it that way before.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
Yeah, it's I don't know if it's because of my
own grief experience and that's a part of what really
informed that piece of it for me. But I remember
when I was when I had lost I think my grandparents.
When I lost my grandparents, I.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
Was so.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
I was I lost, just like we see bashing and
the dad. I was completely lost.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
And something that my therapist really helped was like, what
identity are we working on now?

Speaker 2 (32:16):
And what is this going to look like?

Speaker 3 (32:18):
And something else that I tell people when we're talking
about the loss of identity, I also talk to them about,
here are some things that you shouldn't do in the
next six months. We're not going to make any big changes.
We're not going to do anything that's going to We're
not going to move, we're not going to change jobs.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
I'm not going to do any of those things.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
Nope, We're going to try and keep everything as much
the same so you can go through the process that
you need to go through in order to get to
the other side.

Speaker 4 (32:47):
Of this correct As PI, many people want to just
up and move and up and run away or wait
it out, just like when you sprain your ankle. I'm
just going to wait it out. Then I'm gonna be
away again. And no, sir, no you're not. You have
to retrain your body to be something different post injury,

(33:10):
because your body never unlearns an adaptation to pain, whether
it's physical or mental. So once you sprain that ankle,
your body remembers that ankle got sprained forever and what
to do to compensate for it. You never unlearn that neuropathway,
but you can train a new one. So when we

(33:33):
face grief and loss, Hannah's statement is one thousand percent accurate.
We will never be the same again. We have to
close that chapter and build a new version. That's all
there is. That's what recovery from grief is. And really

(33:54):
I don't even like the word recovery. It's there is
no recovery. There's recovery from bereavement, but grieving I saw.
I can't remember whether it was Elizabeth Cooper Ross who
wrote the Five Stages of Grief. I think it was
her who someone had asked her, So, doctor, when is
it that I get to be done grieving, and she

(34:18):
wrote in her book. My response was, when do you
plan on not living? Damn well end something like that.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, And I think what we see with him reading
the book, which we haven't really even really talked that
much about the actual story, that he reads a fantasy
part of this movie. I think what we do see,
building on what you're saying, Ben, is I think what
we do see as he's reading this book is he
is through the book figuring out how to be this

(34:53):
different version of himself, the post my mom has gone
version of himself.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
We dive into that though.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Let's take a break here, and as always, if you
are a listener at su part of the podcast, you
can leave us a rating and review wherever you listen
to podcasts.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
We really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
We read all of them and it's the best way
for new people to find us. You can also support
us via Patreon. If you're a Patreon member, you can
get early United access to some of our episodes. If
you are fifty dollars or more patron you can actually
pick the topic of an episode itself.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
All right, So, yeah, we.

Speaker 4 (35:28):
Didn't we barely.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
We've barely touched upon the actual fantasy element of this
book of this movie, which is that he reads a
book about a kingdom named Fantasia where the world of
Fantasia is being taken over by the Nothing, which is
a metaphor.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
For depression of grief, Yes, and grief.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
And it's being taken over more than nothing. And how
they're trying to save this world is they get a
young warrior and Nay betray you, who's also a ten
year old boy ish the same age it seems to
be around the same age as Bastionian to go on
this quest to find information, I think, figure out how

(36:08):
to cure cure for the Empress, which is why I
also thought did his mom have cancer Bastion because it
felt like I was like, is there one to one?

Speaker 4 (36:17):
Seemed like that would have made sense.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
I think that would make more sense in a car accident.
This idea that.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
This female figure is dying and that this young boy
wants to figure out a way to save her and
keep the bad thing, keep the nothing from taking over.
Like it's a very obvious metaphor in a way that's
good for kids, like kids watching this metaphor for kids. Yeah,

(36:46):
it's not trying to overcomplicate it.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
Even at the beginning, EVA clock this movie cute. She's
so smart and scary, but sometimes she's a shit. But
she's even right when she's being a shit. Is we
were watching this and she's like, where's the mom?

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Mom's dead kid watching a Disney movie that was made?
I don't know any I was going to say before
the two thousand but not even dead parents are rife
in Disney movies.

Speaker 4 (37:14):
Yeah, yes they are. Sorry I was we have been
operating under an incorrect assumption. In the book, she dies
from an unspecified illness. Oh okay, while in the hospital
during surgery.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
That makes more sense.

Speaker 4 (37:35):
In the two thousand and one TV series Tales from
the Never Ending Story, what I no idea.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Well, I'm going to read this book.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
I've decided she is critically injured in a car accident.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Oh that must be what why? That's what I found
on the internet Cuz it does feel like it's more
the position that he would also feel as a boy,
as a kid, which is that I should be able
to figure out a way to save my mom. Yeah,
and that that is the most important mission. I mean,

(38:11):
it's a direct metaphor, like if we can't figure out
how to save this female, this queen, the most wonderful,
powerful female in the world, then the world will be destroyed.
Sadness will overtake it, and everything will be ruined, which
is exactly what happens to this kid. Yeah, is his

(38:32):
queen of his life dies, he can't save her, which
also at his age, though he's old enough that I
think he'd understand. I also don't really know how much
kids what cancer was talked about, how I was thought
about in the eighties. If that's what it is, you
know what I mean, our mysterious illness, But also if
he is a dad, that's this fucking shut down.

Speaker 4 (38:53):
Well, if it's mysterious illness, I would assume it would
be something fast like mrsa Oh, or I mean maybe cancer,
but she went in for surgery and then gone, So yeah,
cancer is feasible. Why are you having surgery?

Speaker 1 (39:10):
But then yeah, but I guess the long on the
short of his See, I could also see where this
dad maybe uh biffed it in terms of explaining what
happened or what was happening to the mom and where
then a kid's mind can go.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
But also, like in the movie A.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Monster Calls, which is also very excellent, but only watch
it if you want to like hysterically sob for real,
like hyperventilated sob like Hannah.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
And Rittine did when we saw it together, or were
wet with our tears because it was so it's so beautiful,
but it's really intense. It's really intense.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
I sobbed so hysterically, and the only thing keeping me
in check was that it was just the two of us,
me and Hannah and then a mom and daughter and
the kid was probably like ten and under, and I
was like, I can't scare this child's but like fully
whale bobbing in this movie theater. Still it goes only
think giving me together, but I think also the way

(40:11):
that like kids can take on so much perceived responsibility
for their worlds.

Speaker 4 (40:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's certainly possible. Society as a whole totally
biffed it. It happens, we see it. The movie If
is literally a pretty much about that same thing. If
you guys didn't see that, they don't really explain what's
going on with Dad is played by John Krasinsky in

(40:44):
that one. I mean it's still bearded John Krasinsky, So
I'm sure, that's right in your wheelhouse. So, but the
whole adventure of the Ifs is finding lost imaginary friends,
which is very very similar to this movie, except they're
connecting people adults usually who've lost connection to their imaginary friend.

(41:08):
It's actually a beautiful film and it's very very much
a retelling of this just different. Yeah, it's it's absolutely
the same film, and I didn't realize it till right
this second. There's only so many stories. Yeah, well, let's
go on an adventure and a stranger comes to town, and

(41:29):
this one's a stranger comes to town.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
And I will also say with this part we're talking
about and I don't want to steal this insight from you, Hannah,
so you can take it from here. Is how Also
this smacks of the bargaining phase of grief, like maybe
I could it in something different, Maybe there was a
world in which I could have found a cure this
idea that the story is telling of, like there is

(41:55):
a way to save what's happening. And then when we
realize by the end of the story that there was
never going to be a way to say Fantasia, like
this is a story that's told in a cycle and
that it was always going to end the way that
it ended.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
Yeah, and so in terms of so, as I was
watching the film, I started to notice that it seems
like Bastian his name is so stupid, do you that's annoying.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
It's just a Bastian, like your favorite guy.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
But his name isn't just Bastin Bashi Anyway, it doesn't matter, wish.

Speaker 4 (42:44):
That's fair.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
That's very fucking true, very true. I would have hated that.
Don't bring that up.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
So anyway, what I was noticing when I was watching
the film is that it really seemed like Bashtin is
going through the stages of grief in terms of reading
the story, and we kind of see all of the
different pieces and really, I would say more of just
like the five stages. I know now I think there's

(43:17):
seven or nine stages of grief or something.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
There's formally six, but people love to add on.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
I looked it up a couple times and looked at
it because I was talking to a client about the
stages of grief. So kind of what we see in
the film in terms of stages of grief, we see
denial with his dad, we see him, we see the
depression experience that he has we watch him again. Brittany
pointed out the bargaining that happens, and then at the

(43:44):
end some acceptance of just this is this is what
your life is going to be like now, and what
do you want to do with it?

Speaker 2 (43:53):
And how do you want to live it?

Speaker 4 (43:55):
And you can still find a little bit of luck. Yeah,
but you still see and you see the anger.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Oh in anger. Yeah, I did forget anger.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
But you don't see anger until he encounters to trait you.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:14):
Anger comes across in two different metaphors. Which is one
of the other female energies we see in the show
is the turtle.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Oh, morla, goddamn that turtle. That's some depression as well.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (44:28):
Yeah, that's full on don't give a fuck.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, it doesn't matter. Is that what she kept saying? Yeah,
it doesn't matter. It's nihilism, It doesn't Yeah. Is that
what she says?

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Not that she goes sayings, not that it matters, not
that it matters. After every sentence she says.

Speaker 4 (44:45):
Do you know where to find the cure? I do,
Not that it matters? Yeah, go away. Clearly that's a
voice inside of him mm hmmm, and maybe a grandparent. Yeah,
that gave him the similar message to dad, I'm just
go ahead and guess or a teacher mmmmm, but some

(45:10):
other adult represented that voice that he internalized in that
book and well.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
And also that Morla is also the loneliness too, like
she talks about I've been I've been here for so
long by myself that I use the Royal Wi to
feel less alone.

Speaker 4 (45:28):
Yeah, because that's how alone it can get.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yeah, and then.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
We see the anger from betray You at the horse.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yes, he does get mad at the horse.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
Which I found myself wondering if our text was dead.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Oh, like you're just giving up, like can't you fight?
And not just can't you fight?

Speaker 3 (45:55):
But I had to fight so I can save you.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
You have to try, you have to. I love you.
Oh funny, so brutal. That kid is so good.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
In that scene. He is crying sobbing at that horse.
It's like, I know, that's the famous scene that everyone's
probably waiting for us to talk about with this movie
because it ripped everyone's hearts out. Everyone's first trauma was
this movie as kids.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
But yeah, I think you're right.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Is having someone that you're supposed to depend on you
that you need that's supposed to be more powerful than
you and get you from one place to another literally
and metaphorically.

Speaker 4 (46:36):
Carry you on its back.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Reliable. Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (46:41):
Didn't realize it until we were talking about this movie.
I thought of it a few minutes ago, Like, I
bet our text is dead and that Dad used to
be a stable source of energy, because I feel like
we're sitting on dead probably unfairly because only see him
for thirty seconds in one interaction.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Yeah, he just makes such bad impression.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
I mean did as well.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
But yeah, but he's probably grieving and.

Speaker 4 (47:05):
He's not I mean probably probably you've been like a
signing this, like maybe to him, like maybe dad just sucks.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
No, I'd be like, yeah, he's grieving too.

Speaker 4 (47:16):
He's destroyed.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
He's trying to drink his you know, egg orange juice
and it's not going to be enough.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
Not enough eggs in the world. But the image of
losing that and just watching it sink into sadness slowly
and there being nothing children do that. When I'm sad
and my kid wants to play, it looks like that,
I mean, not not ever that sad.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
Yeah, I know what you mean.

Speaker 4 (47:44):
When I'm not okay, and she wants to play. She's like, Daddy,
why aren't you playing with me? They try to pull
you out of it.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Kids are vibe sensitive, of course they are. That's they
have to be to survive.

Speaker 4 (47:57):
They depend on us, yeah, to carry them into the
adventure in the universe. And it's not until some point
life consumes us and we expire that they have to
find their own way or they're old enough and ready. Yeah,
but that wasn't Bastian's story. No, he wasn't ready for that,

(48:19):
and somebody already left and then Artech short after just succumbed.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Yeah, it happens very early in a trey U's journey.
I think I forget how early, which also tracks with
the one to one we're comparing.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
Right, He's okay, we're gonna be okay, we're gonna go
on this journey. I don't know what to do. I
don't know where to go. We're getting a little lost here.
And then the person he's going on that journey with
relying on to carry him, it's gone.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
During like the first real trial, which sounds about right.
And then he's trying to find like another quote unquote
like adult with this giant turtle that's supposed to be
all knowing, which I think also could be a good
metaphor for how kids do need adults to be stable too.

(49:12):
You know, like this person supposed to have all the
answers and there's supposed to be a source of comfort
and information and reassurance, and instead mor La just like
just pulls this kid into what's going on with her.
It's like pulling this kid into their nihilism.

Speaker 4 (49:33):
While also rejecting him.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
Yeah, and sneezing on him.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Yeah, it's a rejection, double rejection. Yeah, I hate that part.
I hate that in like Jurassic Park, I hate any
movie from that time period where a kid is getting
sneezed on and gettings not all over them.

Speaker 4 (49:53):
I mean, it's pretty gross and visceral. But this was
so different. Sounds a little funny. This not so much.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
Yeah, And the way this kid has to keep betray you,
has to keep getting himself up, brushing himself off, climbing
back up the tree. Like he's such a resilient kid,
and he's such a determined kid, and he's a kid
that really really kind of radically believes in himself and

(50:28):
believes in the journey he's on and yeah, just keeps
working and working and working at it.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
Which realizing the brilliance of this movie is hitting me
now in ways it didn't before. I think the bookstore
guy is the luck Dragon.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
Oh sure, yeah, I didn't mean that to sound shitty.

Speaker 4 (50:53):
No, I get it.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Like when we were talking about luck Dragon, we were
talking about how it's like the optimism. Yep, it's like
all the optimism in the world that this and this
dragon is just it's a lucky dragon, so lucky things happen.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Like it's just so kind of almost yes, idealistic.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Well, the belief like when he says, like, do you
know where we're going or something like that, and he
says it'll work out, Like just this belief that the
luck dragon has that which a tray you does need
at this point, because so much shit has happened to
him and he's just come across all these.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Authority figures that can't do anything.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
They keep letting him down, keep bumming him out, keep
trying to pull him into this adult level nihilism and
sadness and just giving up, you know, and so he
really needed to find well, two things happen, right. He
finds a luck dragon, which is idealism, the belief that

(51:56):
things can work out, that good things can happen to you.
And then also yeah, and then also he runs into
this the scientist couple who take care of him. So
these two things happen at once that he needs and
that Sebastian needs. Sebastian needs Ambassian needs, which is hope

(52:18):
and people and TLC. Yeah, to be taken care of,
to have his wounds dressed, and to be fed, and
to sleep and to rest and to feel safe and
that that that is what carries a tray you to
like the next stage of his journey. So I do

(52:39):
like that, and it doesn't sell this unrealistic idea that
a tray you had to just like keep standing out.
I was on two feet all by himself the entire time.
Like there is this moment in around the middle of
the journey where he does need help and he actually
gets help from others, from other authority figures, which is

(53:04):
what we want Bashen to have, right, He needs someone
to come into his life, which I guess this bookseller
is to create a different story.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
Yep. Yeah, And before we start talking about that any further,
hannahs there anything more we want to cover on the
stages of grief.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
I feel like I feel like it was just really
interesting to view the film that way. So maybe, as
you know, our listeners, if you watch the film, really
think about the different stages of grief and see if
you can kind of pick it out, because it's pretty clear,
Like it's pretty like we've talked about, it's a pretty
simple story in a lot of different ways, and so

(53:46):
and just knowing that you know. Something else I'd just
like to let people know about stages of grief is
that it does not go in order, babe.

Speaker 4 (53:53):
It goes.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
You go back and forth between all the different stages
at different times. It does not go one, two, three, four, five, six.
That is not how it is.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
Literally says that in the first chapter of that book,
this was not meant to represent a linear process. It
is not.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Yeah, our like western way of thinking has made it
into a linear process.

Speaker 4 (54:19):
Yes, right, But Elizabeth Coogler Ross right in the beginning
of her book says what Hannah just said, not linear. Yeah,
it is not meant to illustrate that you go from
one to the next. You will move in and out
of them. And one of the things that I've particularly

(54:40):
seen with it is that through my frame of reference
looking at it at the adaptive information processing from AMDR,
is that each time you encounter a familiar stimuli, something
that should be simular, I look at it is each
time you dig up a new box yeah, full of
information affecting the database you have in your head to

(55:02):
still match, and it doesn't. So you have to reprocess it,
and you're going to have the feelings. And you might
work through all the stages again really quick, or move
through any particularly on You might have been fine and
then you hear a song that reminds you that somebody died,
and now you're mad as hell because you were supposed

(55:24):
to be fine today. Fuck or you get wrecked, just tears.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
I burst into tears at a grocery store because the
old woman behind the the cashier person was just really
sweet to me, and she kind of looked like my grandma,
and she kind of reminded me of her a little bit,
and I just burst into tears in the grocery line,
like it was just it just happened, right, you know,
it doesn't again, it doesn't. There's not a flag that

(55:55):
goes up or a signal that goes off. That's like
you are now and this stage of grief. That is
not how it works.

Speaker 4 (56:01):
Nope. You perceive all information you've ever taken in with
your senses, and then you encode it for relevance with
your emotions, whatever ones you need to feel. That's what's
going to happen, and that might come with tears because
Grandma's energy is represented by this clerk and you realize

(56:22):
I didn't realize I missed that until right now, and
I hadn't thought about that particular aspect of it, but
now I have to because I felt it. And yep,
I'd say.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
The one last thing I want to say about the
stages of grief is I do really applaud how this
movie demonstrates what acceptance actually feels like. It's not this
shiny version of acceptance. It's not like acceptance is like, okay,
now we're fine. It's more, I think how the show

(56:53):
in the movie is more when we think of things
like radical acceptance, which is I have to accept what
can longer be changed and try to figure out what
I do have control over still so and that's how
they show at the beginning of this movie, like she
says to him, Fantasia is gone, you know, like we're
not going back to that way of it is, but

(57:16):
you can start to create a new form of your life,
kind of what you were saying before Ben about like
you have to let go of like your body operating
this way it did before. I think with this is
I think when I was a kid, I didn't appreciate.
I think the ending used to kind of I don't
know if it used to like kind of confuse me
as a kid because it doesn't have like the happy ending.

(57:37):
I mean, like the him flying out luck dragon kind of.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
Does and he's running the bullies do.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
But I do think when I was a kid though,
watching it, the ending did kind of make my brain
sort of like like does not compute because that's not how.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
The story's supposed to be, right.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
He's supposed to figure out the cure in the nick
of time and then Fintasia lives again or everything goes
back to normal.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
So I really do appreciate how this is more of
what acceptance does look like, and that life can still
be good. It will have to be a different kind
of good, though, and it won't be the same as
it was before Yeah, yep, And we can't create this
new life until we let go of the old one.
And so it is a really cool message that does

(58:24):
require a level of like sophistication that it's I don't know,
I really respect when kids' movies don't try to dumb
down these more sophisticated ideas.

Speaker 4 (58:36):
I agree, because they do sit with it.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Yeah, and she doesn't let him like run from it either.
Like that whole ending scene is so kind of like slow, yeah,
and quiet and not like exciting or you know, or
flashy or like hella climactic even it's just he's sitting
with her in the dark pretty much and they're just

(59:01):
talking like this very aarsmr voice, and it's very poignant
and quiet and very different than kids' movies typically are.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
It certainly does, all right, So let's take a break here.
So back from break here, our last section we're gonna
talk about before we talk about treatment and final thoughts
is looking at experiential and expressive healing that needs to
happen for grief. And Brittany were just talking about how
much you love when kid movies don't shy away from

(59:38):
the adult topics and kind of let there be an
actual lesson and meaning from the story, which how German
of this story.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
It's very German. Kids. You want to feel death. One day,
it will come at your door.

Speaker 4 (59:52):
And you must deal with it. I have German heritage,
so I'll forgive you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Like me when I do a French accent, and I'm like,
I could do it because I'm French.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
Right, never mind, I'm sure Germans would disagree with us.
Is where America? See? Are Americans? Okay?

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Accent?

Speaker 4 (01:00:19):
Donald say hello? As many as accents as I want.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Yeah, they're all terrible, that's clear.

Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
Yes, But I mean somebody did tell me they didn't
want me to talk about Batman anymore. So what they
forgot to include was the monkey's pad that it could
become accents. If I don't talk about Batman.

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
And talk about Batman, then do weird accents.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
I'm sure my kid yells at me every time, Daddy,
use your normal voice, because I'll put accents on for books,
and he's like daddy.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Bit more when your kid doesn't like it, But.

Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
She's also like her mohamma and like will troll anything
that I do.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
You know, just this is my life.

Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
I need it. It's okay, I can take it, but
AnyWho brain adventure aside. Something I also like is when
you see adult movies do the inverse or shows. And
one of the best examples I ever found to kind
of provide a mirror to what Brittany was talking about
was Scrubs. There's a really powerful episode of Scrubs where

(01:01:39):
doctor Cox, who's a giant asshole all the time except
to his kid, and this sweet little boy is looking
at him and Daddy, what'd you do today? Tell me
a bedtime story? And so you see doctor Cox, this
gruff but also very very talented carrying doctor just keeps
a gruff, shitty exterior, is kind of a bully but

(01:02:01):
does it hilariously, which makes it okay in the nineties
right or early two thousands. But what he tells is
a night story, kind of like a fantasy story of
how they were racing to fight against a dragon. And
all throughout the episode there's this parallel of a patient

(01:02:22):
who's dying and they can't really figure out why, and
all throughout the episode you see these students sitting in
the breakroom studying for their medical exams, and they're looking
at weird diseases that doctor Cox in particularly usually quizzes
them on because sometimes they come through the hospital and

(01:02:43):
he's telling his kid the story about this golden ring,
because what turns out to be the disease Q is
that this patient has like a brass ring around her iris.
And as he's telling the story to his kid, he's
like working through this and you realize at the end
of this story that she didn't make it. They didn't
figure it out in time. And the kid asked in

(01:03:05):
the story, Daddy, did they save the dragon or they
save the princess from the dragon, And you see doctor
Cox like swallow and get sad, and just like we'll
say yes in this story, you see him working through it.
And they don't let you off the hook, but they
see him working through it and realizing there's another story
to tell next time by learning that this time, next time,

(01:03:29):
I can save that patient. And sometimes when we have
this grief, these losses, one of the things we need
is to work through that sadness, to feel that hurt
and assign the meaning to it. And it sucks so
bad and you want nothing more than to avoid it

(01:03:50):
and get that happy ending where you win every time,
But that is not life. We do not stop death ever,
So sometimes we can delay it, but you'll never stop it.
They tell us in grad school one thing that everybody
floor drops out from under you. Right, What's that thing?

(01:04:13):
Every therapist hears it day one of grad school.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
What they tell you, guys, one of your clients is
going to die by suicide.

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
One of your clients is gonna die by suicide. It's
going to happen. You will not see it coming. You
will not know, or you'll make a mistake. And ironically enough,
it's doctor Cox and Scrubs that tells the doctors. And
I think in that episode, you will kill a patient.

(01:04:40):
Every single one of you will kill a patient. It
will be your fault. And in this time it was him.
He didn't catch it. The answer had been in front
of him the whole episode, and it didn't click in
his head until he was playing that back. But when
he told his kid the story, he signed a different
ending to it. Being able to process the meaning of

(01:05:02):
our grief and our loss is huge because the lessons
we take from it allow us to keep going with
that pain without trying to change it by assigning some
meaning to it to go forward with it. Today, I
was talking to someone who lost a family member to suicide,

(01:05:25):
and talking to that person was reminding that remember, Mother's
against Drunk Driving really powerful lobby. Why does it exist?
Eyes got wirde of like, oh shit. This person was
had been working on songs, music, writing their own music
to deal with their grief. This client of mine that

(01:05:48):
I saw today, britt, he's looking at me like not following.
It's okay, right, But Mother's against Drunk Driving exists because
somebody lost their child to a junk driver.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:06:03):
This person's writing songs to express their grief. They couldn't
do it in other ways, but songs to work through
it has been extraordinarily helpful. One of the things we
have to realize with these experiential expressive moments and experiences
like Bashian having to name the Empress. That's the only

(01:06:25):
thing that can save Fantasia. That's the only thing that
can rebuild the world when the nothing destroys it. Nothing
can stop the nothing except embracing it and rebuilding and
not letting it take the last spark. That's the thing,
that's the only thing. And by expressing, sitting in the grief,

(01:06:50):
experiencing it, and then expressing the feelings that need to
be expressed. Facing the hardest part, the worst thing. It
take you, but not all of you. That is where
recovery begins.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
And I also think with Fashion and how I see
in this movie too, is having to find again what like,
like you're saying, the spark of his own imagination and
creativity and like his fantasia his world internally, and how

(01:07:30):
like he says at the end when he's really resistant
to that idea, I have to keep my feet on
the ground, which is him repeating what his dad literally
said in the beginning of the movie, And how these
more creative ways to express and work through your grief
can also help you connect to yourself again, like connecting
to the things that we find pleasurable and joyful, like music,

(01:07:54):
like books, like drawing, writing, that it's also a way
to to find that spark again and to accept yourself
to like. Part of what I think is beautiful about
what we see in the movie is that it's giving
It's not just giving Fashion permission to be his more

(01:08:16):
authentic self, it's it's actively like encouraging him, like you
have to go deeper into your authentic self and realize
that's good enough. That is better than good enough to
really feel this and get to not get to the

(01:08:38):
other side of it, but to start, you know, like
we're like, I know, we're trying to stay with the
word recovery, but to start like growing and moving with
this and yeah, and I just think that part is
really beautiful. And it also can help too when like
people have a hard time feeling their feelings, you using

(01:08:59):
something more expressed and creative can be a way to
connect to your feelings where you don't have to like
talk about them necessarily, which I think can also be
really helpful for well fully helpful for kids, but anyone
of any ages. I used to work with teenagers where
we used to have them bring in songs that they loved,

(01:09:19):
like lyrics that they felt really spoke to them about
their emotions and experiences. And it's amazing how vulnerable those
exercises can be, especially with like when I used to
work with a lot of like teenagers that have gone
through a lot of trauma and they're pretty like have
a lot of guardedness around them. It was always so

(01:09:40):
interesting how vulnerable the songs would be that those kids
would bring into the program I worked at, and they
could communicate through those endeavors, but they couldn't find like
the words themselves. And yet it helps you reconnect with
like the vulnerable parts of you yourself and reframe those

(01:10:02):
vulnerable pieces as a strength, because that's what once again,
just like talking about the versus the scene of the movie,
that's also what's hard is that these parts of Sebastian
I keep saying about him, these parts of Bastian are
being talked about by his dad, but a lot of
grown ups, especially in the eighties and these older movies,

(01:10:23):
to talk like this, that that kind of like whimsical
childlike vulnerable, emotional, creative part of him is immature, silly,
not gonna be helpful in these moments, like trying to
like squish it in that very way that like adults
can be. And I think in all our cult our
culture can be like hyper pragmatic. This very like pragmatism

(01:10:46):
is king kind of mentality we can have, and how
it's reflected in this movie and how the actual message
of this movie is like and which I try to
tell clients all the time. I feel like I'm constantly
trying to help people unlearn learn that idea that like
it's better to be logical and rational, and emotions are
for silly, immature gooses, you know, and people who are

(01:11:09):
out of control. And so I like that this movie
is a way to show that, like you, who have
to go into your emotions and being so pragmatic is
actually like going in the wrong direction.

Speaker 4 (01:11:23):
It's immensely the wrong direction, and we see it over
and over again in clients and people. It's not until
they find something that connects them to both sides. They
must both deal with the gomork and embrace the luck dragon.

(01:11:45):
Because the thing that is pursuing you relentlessly is assisting
the nothing. That's all it does. It's only purpose is
to pursue you and draw you deeper into the nothing
to assist it in destroying everything. And it's trying to

(01:12:09):
destroy you. That's what the depression does. That self hate
of your failure tries to pull you into your own darkness,
so you destroy everything and give up, but expressing it, embracing,
letting it out instead of letting it pursue you and

(01:12:32):
keeping it inside so you can be logical and smart
and just just do the normal things. It's illogical to
be sad and to be whimsical and to imagine. But
when's the last time you put on a logical song
when you were sad?

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
I know that's right, I know that's fucking right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
The reasons why so many people and old generations get
shitfaced and then finally talk about their feelings is because
they need to talk about their feelings, and that's the
only way we have been allowed to talk about our feelings.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
Yeah. But anyway, Hannah author it to you.

Speaker 3 (01:13:10):
So as I'm listening to both of you talk about
the different ways that you do this with clients, I
was thinking about how when I work with people and
we talk about grief, I talk about rituals, which I
feel like is very similar to this in terms of
having a ritual like on the anniversary, or like just

(01:13:31):
having a ritual for yourself on any day, in terms
of allowing space for the grief, doing something that honors
that grief, and then doing something that helps you feel
a little bit more like yourself. And that's a big
part of when I'm thinking about how I do it.

(01:13:53):
That's kind of what I'm doing. I would say, it's
like I'm using rituals and helping people figure out a
different way to kind of honor, to honor their grief
and the love that they felt for this person and
for them to be able to really feel that and
really and you do really have to feel it, Like
I know it's really hard and it's kind of awful,

(01:14:15):
but we really do have to feel it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
The only way is through is through.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
And I and I really love what you said about
the honoring part too, because like so much of the grief,
so much of grief is love, right yeah, WandaVision, What
is grief if not love persevering or whatever enduring enduring,
which is also what we see in this which is
him honoring his mom by recognizing her name, like by

(01:14:44):
just by going into it, and how much resistance we
see to him just even well because of what we've
seen in the very game movie, like that he is
now being taken care of by one person who is
trying to just like head down, get back to business,
almost like your mom never existed kind of, And what

(01:15:05):
he's been asked to do in this story is that
you know, your mom was like a beautiful, important person,
Like when he says, I'm like, I kind of want
to cry so like when he says, like she had
such a wonderful name. Like it's him like finally having
a space to really think about his mom and to
honor how like precious she was to him, and that

(01:15:26):
how much he loved her.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
And I am crying right now as les we.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
And yeah, that it allows, like you're saying, it allows
space to feel not necessarily grief, but feel love. Like
I think even Andrew Garfield that the actor was on
he lost his mom not too long ago, and he
was on the Stephen Colbert Show, the Late Show, and
he loves to talk about Colbert, and he talks about

(01:15:51):
how I just think about my grief is like the
love I have left over then I'll never get to
show her, And like that is what this is too.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
It's like we don't the way that we view, as we've.

Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
Talked about before in this podcast, especially in the Midwest,
as like any unpleasant feelings or bad feelings we shouldn't
be having and we should try with all of our
might to ignore them or shut them down or put
them in a box. And how like what it does
is such a disservice to moments like this where grief
is love. Because what I tell clients is if you
didn't grief for them. That means they weren't that important

(01:16:23):
to you. And so this grief that you feel is
like the cost of admission for loving someone, for someone
being important to you, Like I talked to a client
about that earlier today, and so like I think that's
what's beautiful, Like this story allows him to express not
just talking about his mom, but also how fucking important
she is and was to him that like she is

(01:16:46):
the lunchpin of this story.

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):
Infantation needs her name to survive.

Speaker 4 (01:16:53):
Corecked managed to wreck each one of us has managed
to wreck ourselves today. Good means we're on the right
path because we're doing the thing we're saying you have
to do. You have to embrace. It's the things that
mean the most to you, the things that give you meaning.

(01:17:17):
You got to keep those, even that last grain.

Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
And I will also say something I wanted to highlight
in thinking of this story as a way for him
to work through this stuff, is those also the point
in the story with a tray you and going through
the oracle where he has to feel his own worth.
And I wrote down the line where that scientistic guy says,

(01:17:45):
like fancy armor won't help, which I do think is
a commentary on what we've been talking about with like
the hyper pragmatism and stuff of like this idea of
just being like big and tough and I'm feeling doesn't
save you. What does save you is being your authentic
self and trusting that you're good enough and that you

(01:18:08):
aren't wrong for having your instincts and your emotions.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
And that's really what a tray you helps bash and
figure out.

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
Like that's really where his end of the story is too,
is he has to trust himself and that it is
that he is right to feel his feelings and that
his dad isn't necessarily right nope to tell him to
put his feet on the ground, and like that is
his trial as well as I have to believe in myself.

(01:18:38):
And going back to like the identity part that we
talked about earlier in the episode, Like that's so important
for any kid's growth. But I think a kid like
this whose world gets destroyed as they know it by
the loss of a parent is finding your feet under
you too, But not in this like stoic, toxic way, No,

(01:19:02):
in this more like I I can embrace I can
trust myself, and I can trust that my instincts are good,
and that my feelings are good, and that they come
from a understandable and reliable place within me.

Speaker 4 (01:19:21):
Which is said brilliantly right there. The last thing I
want to tag onto that is the very end of that.
Each moment in this story builds upon itself. It's brilliant
that moment of dealing with the Oracle. The Oracle can
only hold itself together for so long, but it's crumbling,

(01:19:42):
but it's defenses are still active. But once he gots
through them. The last thing that a tray you has
to get to happen is that that part Bashian created
to be a tray you. He creates a tray you
in the image of something it means some to him.
That Native American warrior on his book, his book bag Yeah,

(01:20:05):
is how he forms betray You's look.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
Which is so eighties.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
So eighties, that's what Hannah said, we're watching it. She
was like the fact that we just had like these
stereotype imagery of like indigenous people on all of our
regular stuff. Right, yeah, it's giving Indian in the cupboard.

Speaker 4 (01:20:25):
Well it's thirty year cycles, so that would have been
the fifties, so it makes sense. But where it all
ties together. From your point, right, is the thing that
has to happen is that Bastian has to admit that
he's in the story, the stories about him. He's not

(01:20:46):
a passive observer to all the emotional activation that's happening.
He fed himself with sandwiches his dad maiden.

Speaker 1 (01:20:56):
I think he made those because they were like that
loaf of bread was next to him on the table.

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
I clocked that.

Speaker 4 (01:21:01):
Maybe maybe right, okay, but his dad bought for him.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):
Sure, wonderful.

Speaker 4 (01:21:07):
And then he made himself Yeah wonder Bretter from the
eighties with Gooper Gray. But he had to admit he's
in the story. He is the story. That expressive connection
to the media can't happen until you realize all stories
are about me, and I'm just connecting to something without

(01:21:27):
my armor in the way. And I won't get the
meaning of the story until I lower my armor, feel
my own worth and realize I and what this story
is about. It's my story told a different way. That's
why it matters. That's why I have to name the
Empress a tray. You can't do it for Bastian. Bastian

(01:21:50):
has to do it for a tray.

Speaker 1 (01:21:51):
You Yeah, kind of like in therapy where at a
certain point the client has to start answering and ask
asking and answering the questions instead of us supplying answers.

Speaker 4 (01:22:05):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):
And it's like how And I know this has happened
to me today because believe it or not, I kind
of have like a smart ass version of being a therapist.
And I had this client that was like, I fucking
know what you're gonna say. I know what you're gonna
say to one of us, start now. And then I said, well,
what do you think I'm going to say? And then
they have to say it themselves, which is harder than
you know, hearing me say it and then being like, oh,

(01:22:29):
well you know, and yeah, sidebar, do you think that
Ryan Johnson stole that scene for Star Wars Last SHEDI
where she is to look into her Ray has to
look at herself in that sort of mirrory thing in
the cave ish thing that whole on the island. I

(01:22:52):
always think of that when I saw that scene, the
first one was like, this is like not running.

Speaker 4 (01:22:56):
Story and it's like Harry Potter and it's like eight
thousand other things that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
Looking in a mirror also true.

Speaker 4 (01:23:01):
So did he steal it? Or is it a common trope?

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
True? Fair right here and will be right back.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
So I think the only thing treatment wise I would
add to the idea if you're actually going to do
this with a client other than the examples we gave, Like,
bibliotherapy is the name for this type of therapy where
you have someone read something that is similar to their
story and when you're doing like that version of it.

(01:23:34):
The way we see in the movie is it allows
for the person reading it to have a bit of
removal kind of like what we were just talking about
that if it's too hard to talk about the grief
specifically head on, then reading a story of it allows you.

(01:23:55):
It just allows like an arm's length of removal from it.
And the way that like I'm sure you guys do
this too, and I'm sure people do this in their
personal life as well, Like what would you tell a
friend if they told you that story?

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
You know that when we have removal from something too
long ago.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
Yeah, when we have removal from something, it allows us
to have like a clear perspective, but also to feel
less intimidated and less resistant to the messaging that some
part of our brain is like I can't handle that yet.
And so a lot of times, especially with kids, you
can ease them into an idea with something like reading

(01:24:37):
a book. But even adults too, like a lot of
adults that read, like that's the power of stories is
that we see ourselves in them, and then that gives
us inspiration. And so I think what I love about
this version of bibliotherapy is it's like, if you think
about with this book, is that it allows a narrative
that is touching upon all the feelings and giving them

(01:24:57):
names and ideas. And this is something where if I
was doing, if I was working with bashion and we
were looking at this, we were reading this book together,
maybe we would talk about the nothing. Maybe that's the
way that we would talk about the sadness and depression.
Those words might be a little too especially in the eighties,
a little too flibberty gibber you know what I mean,
Like like they don't like we're still yeah, we're still

(01:25:22):
in the very early stages of like mental health being
mental health being something that's talked about in like layman conversations.
And so I think then, but even with kids in general, though,
using these terms that they understand so like the nothing
is such like a visceral idea that I think a
kid could wrap their head around versus talking about depression

(01:25:43):
existential is of grief.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
Like all these high.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
Falutin ideas right, too much for kids abstract, and so
the nothing and these ideas make it more specific and
concrete and visceral. A kid can grab onto these ideas
and so it can get give you a language like
doing something to bibilio with therapy can also give you
a language with your client that can feel less confrontational

(01:26:08):
or less clinical than using the more psychological terms.

Speaker 4 (01:26:15):
Right, you can walk them through, yeah, archetypes and existentialism,
But if their armor isn't ready to be in the
experience yet, it's our job as therapists to get them
through their journey, to lower their defenses enough to realize
that the speech with Joker in the dark Knight comes true.

(01:26:38):
Nothing to do with all that string.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
Or your clients. Eight. Like when I used to up
a little little kid.

Speaker 1 (01:26:48):
Like Bruce Wayne, I fucking wish and then I would
stop as Batman shit before it ever started.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
I know that's right?

Speaker 4 (01:26:54):
Like, are you saying this is the never ending story.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
We're dressing up, like that's babe, what's happening here? He
needs like motherfucker, but all I see his bats. But
with something when you work with kids, though, like so
much of that too is you're trying to find a
shared language that they understand, and so using things like
stories with little kids is such a great way to

(01:27:18):
almost create like a glossary of words for things. Because
I've like when you work with little kids, like I
remember I had this little girl I worked with Instead
of saying eye contact, she would say looking contact, Like
you really have to learn how to speak their language,
and things like stories and books can be such a
great way to speak their language and also to help
like teach these ideas and teach like empathy and like

(01:27:41):
open kids' minds to ideas because the world is still
so new to them and so with so with Bashan
even like reading this book, maybe it's the first time
he's seen something like his experience anywhere else, And so
it can also give you that universality component that like
group therapy can give or peer therapy he can give.

Speaker 4 (01:28:00):
Mm h.

Speaker 1 (01:28:01):
And yeah, so I think that it's something that we
can definitely always use more of, and we don't need
to shy away from, Like when I talk about movies
with clients and talk about TV shows, like the amount
of times like that stuff comes up. And if you're
watching us talk, you might think we're just like shooting
the shit, but really you can really use those things

(01:28:23):
as an intervention to talk about some really intense stuff.
And more often than not, when a client brings up
a TV show or a movie to me, even if
they're just trying to like chitchat about it, more often
than not there's something in that, Oh yeah, that does
connect with what we're talking about, And I'd be like, interesting,
have you ever thought to da da da? And then
we're a Sometimes they get annoyed with that. They're like, oh,
can I just talk about a movie with you? Why

(01:28:45):
does it have to turn into this? And I'm like, Sonny,
but no, I think like this is just a really
great example of how you can apply this idea to therapy,
especially if you're working with kids.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
But like we were saying, it can be of any age.

Speaker 4 (01:29:02):
It can and adding out to Britney's ideas here, like
looking at how we can help kids tell a different
story after you embrace the one you don't want to,
or that you've been avoiding. You create this distance to
connect to the realness. And it's even better to let
kids tell you the stuff they're attaching to. I literally

(01:29:23):
had this supervision session with my current match of baby therapists,
and they have some kids who they're struggling with, and
like I was very encouraged by their development and hearing
them say, you know, like, yeah, I've been going home
and listening to the things that this difficult client is
telling me. To listen to the artists that they like,

(01:29:44):
the superheroes and characters that they like, because it's helping
me see how they see themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:29:52):
Now, if there's one thing that I guess took from
grad school by my advisor, who was one of the
og play therapists, doctor Fry, is if you're gonna work
with kids, you have to give a shit about shouldn't
say like that, but you have to get invested in
what they're watching listening to that is their world, Like

(01:30:13):
that is the way that they communicate. And you have
to treat tickets seriously too.

Speaker 4 (01:30:20):
And kids learn through play, and they learn through vicarious learning,
and someone else, once removed, can tell them their story
before they can tell it to themselves, and they need
to see it and believe it. And it can't be
the parent. It needs to be the hero, the infallible

(01:30:41):
hero who fails, who loses everything. That's why Disney kills
the parents every time. So the kid creates empathy for
the story. And then where we can build on that
is through narrative therapy, whereas is where you have them
write their own story, and that can be done in

(01:31:01):
a great many ways, where you can have them literally
rewrite what actually happened, or with kids, you might need
to have them write their own hero story where you
don't even directly say it, or you don't directly do it.
It's what separates some of the other expressive therapies from
each other. A psychodrama is probably best for adults, where

(01:31:24):
you're having people really play out the actual story and
then swap parts. You're in a group therapy setting and
you pick out the person. Okay, your energy most reminds
me of my dad, who's the antagonist of this scene.
So I need you to play my dad, and this
is what you say. I'm going to swap places with
you and show you what my dad did. Then I
want you to carry that energy and be my dad

(01:31:46):
and then I'm gonna say something different to him, and
you play that out and you release it, and you
let go of that warrior that to tray you inside
of you. You formed to deal with that and at
the same time simultaneously realize that warrior is you. Fucking
brilliant therapy, but hard, hard, hard, hard to get people

(01:32:06):
to comply with it because it's raw. But sometimes you
can do that same exercise with pen and paper.

Speaker 2 (01:32:15):
Well, I'm with kids.

Speaker 1 (01:32:16):
It could also be like the stereotype of a dollhouse
and having you know, playing with toys with a kid
being in the sand tray, if you will, like exploring
and letting a kid like tell you stories through like
animals and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (01:32:33):
Right, how did the fox get away from the hawk? Oh?
How did the fox deal with this? What did the
fox do all? Whatever it is?

Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
Or even just like show me a family.

Speaker 4 (01:32:47):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
I used to work with a kid who went through
like insane kind of like the worst case scenarios with
abuse before I worked with her, and she used to
like play out this whole thing with like these little
plastic pigs we had, where like the mama pig was
always like beating up on the mayby pigs, and so
we would do a lot of like, okay, what happened?

Speaker 2 (01:33:07):
What could have happened?

Speaker 1 (01:33:08):
Differently, we have like how can we take care of
the pigs and stuff? And so, yeah, it's really and
kids can like access that. Kids are always kids are
like play, like mister Rogers says, play is very serious
to children's serious business and kids are always processing to

(01:33:30):
a certain extent through play.

Speaker 4 (01:33:33):
Always. Should we take our last break there, then well
we'll start with final thoughts here, and I guess we'll
start with Hannah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:46):
Okay, I probably haven't seen this movie in thirty years
and barely remembered any of it, to be completely honest,
Like I was like, oh, I don't remember this part.

Speaker 2 (01:34:00):
I don't remember this part.

Speaker 3 (01:34:01):
And it still felt the same way in my body
watching it as I did when I was a girl.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
Interesting and the and like the softness of the empress. Yeah,
and it like is so.

Speaker 3 (01:34:25):
I don't know if it was all the makeup they
put on that little girl which was so much makeup
or what it was, but like there was a or
if just she's just a good little actress, like in
terms of being able to really feel the warmth of
her and the warmth that we know that now Bashan
can have access to.

Speaker 2 (01:34:46):
And so I really love this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:34:49):
I think talking about it today made me love it
even more and I will definitely I probably will actually
watch this movie again, even though I hadn't seen it
in thirty years, because I feel like there's so much
goodness in there. There's so many different beautiful things that

(01:35:10):
we just don't see portrayed that way, especially when we're
talking about children. So I really appreciate this film. I'm
really glad that this film exists. And yeah, and I'm
I will definitely watch it again and really let myself
cry this time because I was really focused in on
what to talk about for the podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:35:31):
Yep, the Stages of Grief was one hand idea, and
I don't think either me or Brittany saw it that
way until Hannah said it. So the kudos of brilliance
on that belongs to Hannah. Thank you, Brittany, you want
to go next.

Speaker 2 (01:35:47):
I love this movie.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):
I appreciate it more and more the older I get
and the more I get into my therapist career. It's,
like I said, it takes kids so seriously, which I
always respect I also just freaking love the practical effects.
Let's get into practical effects again. Put Lee's I'm sick
of CGI. I'm sick of seeing it. And because there's

(01:36:11):
something so grounded about this movie. When you can tell
that it's like practical effects, practical puppets, it makes it
so that it ages decently and it feels just realer,
like you can tell that you can reach out and
touch all of these characters, no matter how like whimsical

(01:36:34):
and out there they look. And yeah, so I really
appreciate it now it's talking about it. I think what's
interesting about talking about it is we didn't really touch
upon the things we talked about, very different things that
I thought we would talk about when I wanted to
put this movie on our list, And that was really
cool and really makes me respect how.

Speaker 2 (01:36:53):
Yeah, how deep this movie is.

Speaker 1 (01:36:55):
And I really do want to read the book now
and see what the book is like, especially because the
this movie only covers the first half of the book,
so I'm really curious what the.

Speaker 2 (01:37:05):
Whole story is like.

Speaker 1 (01:37:08):
But yeah, and I think the Empress was supposed to
be like, uh, she's supposed to be like a thousands
of years old, so I think it's what they were
trying to do is like create that gravitas, like you
were saying, which is amazing that that kid pulled that off.

Speaker 2 (01:37:23):
But yeah, I love this movie. I'll watch this movie again.

Speaker 1 (01:37:26):
I'll try to figure out hold my nieces and nephews
need to be before I put this movie onto them,
just because it can be so intense. But also I
think this movie does a good job of it's not
so heavy handed with like the mom grief stuff that
I think at each age you watch it, you just
pick up different things, and so it doesn't necessarily feel

(01:37:48):
like you can be like too young to watch it necessarily.

Speaker 4 (01:37:51):
Five is the recommendation.

Speaker 2 (01:37:52):
Yeah, I can see that for sure, as I looked it.

Speaker 4 (01:37:56):
Up before I exposed my seven year old to it.

Speaker 1 (01:37:59):
Yeah, but like I said, this movie doesn't get so
aggressive with like dead mom, dead mom, even though that's.

Speaker 2 (01:38:05):
What it's about. Like I could very younger.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
You're probably just picking up on like the silly, whimsical
aspects of it. I guess the dead horse thing is
kind of crazy. You do want to have your kids
be old enough to watch that dead horse scene.

Speaker 4 (01:38:17):
Wolf take a shit out of me as a kid.
Oh yeah, your comments are brilliant. So I love this movie.
I've always loved this movie. I feel like, thinking back,
kind of my memories of this movie is this movie
always found me on the days you needed it most.

(01:38:40):
It never you'd watch the same series of cartoons on
Saturday morning and then to be a rainy day and
what's up at the one o'clock slot after all the
Saturday morning cartoons are done and there's nowhere to go,
nobody to play with, nothing to do, never any stories on.

Speaker 1 (01:39:00):
I do like the idea that there's like a TV
network programmer somewhere in that time that was like, there's
a kid that's going to need this tomorrow, put it
on the slot.

Speaker 4 (01:39:10):
And the cable channel would have been local at that time,
so that's plausible and it would make sense. But it
always felt like kind of magical to be on that
day that it sucks, and there's always one I always
sat and watched every time, through all the commercials and everything,

(01:39:31):
I've always watched this. I'd always love this movie. I've
always appreciated, but I feel like after sitting and really
breaking it apart and think about it, I appreciated a
thousand times more and It's one that I thought would
fade to time, but it should never fade to time.
This is brilliant. This film is brilliant. And even though

(01:39:54):
my kid was a bit of a turd when I
was asking her how she felt about it today, because
that's how she is, because I wanted the answer, so
she wasn't going to give it to me because just
just her humor. But I could see in her eyes
and her behavior when she's into something. She sits and
asks me a thousand questions. It's adorable and I love it.

(01:40:15):
She like snuggles up to me and watches it with
me and asks me like questions about every single scene.
What's going to happen, Who's happening to this, what's happening here?
Who's that She loved it. She loved it, and I
loved it, and I think it really resonates. And I
want to share something that I was messaging my buddy
because he's messaging me about something else, and I responded
to him here even once we're recording, and I told

(01:40:36):
him about the the realization about our tacks being dad.
And I'm going to read this quote that he sent
me because it made me laugh really hard. And told
me we're exactly on the right track. I said, bro,
the horses is dead. Chew on that for a bit
and I got back, fuck you, Nope, not thinking about

(01:40:57):
that tonight. I'm going to bed. Fuck you, you say,
piatric bitch and stop laughing? Bitch?

Speaker 2 (01:41:04):
Hey, what did you mean when you message Bastian?

Speaker 4 (01:41:07):
Is me what I mean when I said, Brittany, yes, First,
I'm gonna ask Hannah, am I wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:41:17):
Don't put me into this. I't had nothing to do
with this. This is now.

Speaker 1 (01:41:20):
When Hannah and I were watching it, did I repeatedly
say wow, I'm just like this kid?

Speaker 4 (01:41:24):
Yes? How she did? Dare you though, Brittany?

Speaker 2 (01:41:27):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:41:29):
Because how are you just like that?

Speaker 2 (01:41:31):
I scream at books I'm reading while I'm reading them.
I was telling.

Speaker 1 (01:41:37):
Hannah, this is what I looked like when I was
reading the end of the A Guitar books, just like,
what the fuck?

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
Getting up, sweating, wogging around.

Speaker 4 (01:41:46):
So I'm curious, why is it that you need my
answer when you already know that.

Speaker 2 (01:41:52):
Okay, I already have a therapist. I already a therapist.
I was just curious if that's what you saw, you know,
because you.

Speaker 4 (01:42:03):
Already knew, Yes, what's her name, Brittany.

Speaker 1 (01:42:08):
Moonchild Moonchild, which as a kid, I never figured that out.

Speaker 4 (01:42:14):
Same, Yeah, we would have forgotten this. She'd have been
a childhood like the sixties.

Speaker 1 (01:42:18):
Well, no, I think I remember thinking that I didn't
that you don't hear what he says?

Speaker 4 (01:42:24):
Yeah, oh yeah, I couldn't make sense of it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:42:27):
I just literally saw a meme today or maybe two
days ago. I was like, oh, thank you subtitles for existing,
because I never knew what he said.

Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
Well, I read a piece of trivia that actually what
he mouths is the German equivalent, which is like moon
she something like that, but it has three syllables. And
so what also doesn't help is that so that they
could do it could work for German and American, is
they actually have him mouth like the actual like three

(01:42:57):
syllable thing, and then they try to use the lightning
strike to kind of camouflage it, to make it kind
of ambiguous. What is mouse doing so it purposely confuses us?
So yeah, that's an assolved mystery, now right.

Speaker 4 (01:43:12):
I guess. So, So with that, watch this movie a
thousand times. It's brilliant. Let your children see it, let
them take from it what they will but never ever
lose this one to time. It's the never ending story.

Speaker 2 (01:43:30):
Never ending story. That's all I know of the words.

Speaker 1 (01:43:36):
AnyWho you can find us to be part of our
never ending story. You can find us at any social
media platform except for X at Popcorn Psychology. You can
find his TikTok, Facebook, Instagram at that handle. You can
also email us if you would like to tell us
what movie has traumatized you as a child at popcorn

(01:43:58):
Psychology at gmail dot com. As I said up front,
if you want to show your appreciation, you can do
so by leaving us a rating interview wherever you listen
to podcasts, or you can support us monetarily through Patreon
or to public where you can find merch.

Speaker 2 (01:44:12):
But yeah, I hope that you

Speaker 1 (01:44:13):
Guys enjoy this episode, and I hope that you can
hold the whimsy in your heart to help you move
through your feelings.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Neverending Story: Identity, Grief, & Healing Through Stories

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

The Neverending Story: Identity, Grief, & Healing Through Stories

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist