Episode Transcript
FAWN: [00:00:00] I say this from personal experience of having sleep deprivation, burnout, stress, illness, caretaking, financial strain, emotional overload, that when the soul is tired, the world looks broken. Not because the world is broken beyond repair even, but because fatigue clouds perception.
We each have two sides to us, a spiritual and a physical. And today, we discuss what all that means and how we can see everything better. Here we go.
Welcome back to Our Friendly World, everybody.
MATT: Hello, everyone.
FAWN: So,
we have two sides to us. There is a spiritual side and there's a physical side. The physical side needs food, it needs rest, it needs air to breathe, it needs all the things that are physical. And then there's the other side of us that can [00:01:00] see way beyond everything, that is connected to other realms, and it's connected to a higher power, all of that.
And because we're human beings and we are physical f- in physical bodies,
we need certain things. And because of that,
if all our needs aren't met, and, you know, most of the time they're not. You know, we go back and forth, things can happen. So let's just, let's begin with the soul. It sees, it naturally sees meaning, connection, hope The divine sparks in the world. But when our material selves, the material side.. that side becomes louder when we're depleted.
Fear grows, irritation grows, judgment grows, hopelessness grows. Lack of rest affects [00:02:00] spirituality. Emotional exhaustion changes interpretation. Stress makes people assume the worst. Fatigue makes the idea of friendship feel harder. It makes friendship harder when you're tired. Overwhelm shrinks compassion on every level.
So the advice I have from personal experience, don't make permanent conclusions from temporary exhaustion. And, but when we're exhausted, we don't even realize it's just temporary.
Our mind has the power to guide our heart, not suppress it, not shame it, guide it. So when we notice... I'll say it like this, like when we notice everyone is against me, nothing is working, the world is awful, people are terrible, I can't do this, let's pause and [00:03:00] ask, "Is this truth or is this exhaustion talking?"
And then looking at friendship, like the angle of friendship. When people are tired, they misread tone. They assume rejection. They withdraw, become reactive, lose patience, stop seeing goodness in others. So maybe we need a nap. Maybe it's nourishment that we need, honesty, grace. Um, I've noticed how exhaustion creates a kind of personal concealment.
Beauty becomes harder to notice. Gratitude just disappears. Joy feels inaccessible. Connection feels missing, like it will never show up. So please drink water, and I'm saying this from personal experience. Drink water, rest, ask for help, go outside and get some [00:04:00] fresh air, pray, light candles, sit quietly, breathe, all before reacting.
Stop the cata... How do you say this word? Stop the catastrophic-
MATT: Catastrophic ...
FAWN: catastrophic conclusions. Thanks, honey. When we're tired and exhausted, just stop all of that when you're tired and exhausted. Not every dark thought deserves a microphone. They, they come in, they come in because that's what they do, and it wants to know which, which way are you gonna go?
Are you gonna choose the dark or the light? Because h- we're always being tested. Choose a better way. A tired spirit, uh, you know, like a tired heart can mistake temporary darkness for permanent truth. Maybe the world is not asking us to become harder. Maybe it's asking us to become more and [00:05:00] more of-- more and more aware of when our souls are tired.
Because when we rest,
reconnect, and breathe again, we often discover that hope was still there. Hope was there all along. That's what I've noticed the past week, and on so many levels. Like, um, just nothing looked good. Nothing. And then when you have the crazy Cathys next door-
MATT: Oh, dear ...
FAWN: coming in in front of you, you tend to think, I tend to, I, I started to think the whole world is crazy Cathy.
So the world is against me. I'm at war with crazy Cathy world. And as I went outside and I was working and I was photographing and I was doing other things and meeting other people and seeing the landscape of the land, I'm like, "Wow, I shouldn't let this crazy Cathy become my whole world." [00:06:00] She, she's not.
She's not powerful like that. She would like to be, and she would want me to see her as the ultimate power because that's what she seeks. This is just one example, by the way. Um, but the... it's not the truth. But when you're tired, the person cutting you off, right? The person who's mean to you or said something, you can m- maybe, maybe they did say something terrible, but also maybe you picked up a different tone that wasn't even there because the tone was already in you because you're tired and because, because the negative influence is try- trying to manipulate the everything in you.
Anyway, that was me this week. What do you think?
MATT: Okay. So for those of you with kids or those of you who have ever babysat for that matter, what do you do when the [00:07:00] baby's screaming? What do you do when the baby's crying? What do you do? You are now external. You have this emotional force. Uh, it's almost like you have your own emotional baby inside of you And hopefully most of the time it's calm and it's happy and it's doesn't need a diaper change and it smells good.
But when-
FAWN: Well, hopefully you're together enough to be able to take care of it. I mean- And there you
MATT: go ...
FAWN: I think that's when there are bad people that will do terrible things to the baby, right?
MATT: Right. But then if you take it external to yourself, how do you calm a baby? Well, you check to see what's wrong.
However, what I found as a good almost first measure was changing the environment. Just change the environment. Go out for a walk, turn off the TV, turn off the computer, turn off the phone. Take a minute, stare at a painting. It doesn't even matter what you do. Look at a cloud in the sky and try and figure out if it, it really does [00:08:00] look like Abraham Lincoln.
Who knows? Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's about removing you from the, from the temporary situation you're in to try and force you to ground. Ground yourself. And by grounding yourself, I mean, you know, stand up, put your hands on your hips in a superhero pose, sink, bend your knees just a little, connect with the earth, you know?
I mean, there are terms like hangry. What do you do when you're feeling hangry or hungry and angry? Well, gosh darn it, eat something. Change your environment. That's what that really means. Now, eat something's a very direct change to the environment, but change it. You know, try and understand that things are temporary.
You know, when, when my whole life is blowing up, when it feels like things are blowing up all over my world, [00:09:00] apologies to Elon Musk, but I think I might have coined it first. You kind of go over into ludicrous mode where nothing makes sense, and so getting comfortable just a little bit with the fact that nothing's gonna make sense and it's a really bad time to make decisions.
You know, permanent or temporary, it's a just a bad time. You know, this is why-
FAWN: And, and can I just interject for one second? Can you keep your train of thought, though, for the next part of the sentence you were just gonna say? Mm-hmm. Shoot. Now I forgot what I was gonna say. Wait, hold on.
Could you repeat what you just said?
MATT: Wow, there was a lot going on. Hangry, eat something, environment, change. It's a change to your environment. You know, apologies to Elon. When everything gets crazy, stop making decisions. You're probably gonna have a hard time making good ones-
FAWN: It was after that you said
MATT: something- I know
that I was gonna comment on. I know when I'm, you cut me right then. Oh, no. As soon as you started talking, I [00:10:00] have to listen to what you're saying instead of thinking of what I'm saying. I'm
FAWN: sorry. Okay, I'll just let it go. But I- Yeah ... I just had an example of that very thing you said, and now I, I just blanked out.
I'm sorry. Did, did I totally disrupt your ki? Can you continue?
MATT: Slow down. Just slow down. You don't have to get everything done today.
FAWN: Oh, this is what I was gonna say. Yeah, ideally, but then what do you do when you have to work and someone demands your appearance or you, you've made a commitment and you can't?
I had to do that this week, and I said, "I'm sorry, I have to cancel this photo shoot," with one of the clients, right? And, um, first of all, it was a client that was... It, it was a space where I'm photographing, so no one has signed up yet for a photo shoot. So because no one had signed up, I'm like, "Let's just cancel it."
And she got all bent out of shape, I feel like. It could be I misread her tone, but then I [00:11:00] got all mad at her because I, the first time I took... I, I made an effort to actually take care of myself because my body was falling apart. Not only was my spirit had already fallen apart into a million pieces, I w- I was hurting, physically hurting.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
FAWN: And I thought, "You know what? I need to take care of this machine because this is how people end up in the hospital." So I'm gonna cancel it, and I need to just be still and take that one day to, even though I still have oth- other responsibilities, to maybe just, just l- lie in bed for an hour longer or th- those two hours and cry if I need to.
But she... It, it felt like there's such a demand on us that it's hard to just take that time.
MATT: So you have to take a page from the prophet, the sage, the, the, the [00:12:00] wise man, my former coworker, Paul Simitis, and you remember when we told him our woes? And what did he say? He said, "F them." Who cares? You know what?
If I'm content with who I am, the rest of the world is the rest of the world. Don't care. Don't care. Now, that's a hard thing to say. It's a harder thing to believe. But you can, you can say it and you can believe it in the short term, certainly, until you believe it in the long term, because that's all life is, is a series of short terms that turn into long terms.
You know, when somebody wants to give you their stress, most of the time you don't have to accept delivery And it's a hard thing sometimes to not accept delivery 'cause somebody's gonna try really hard to make you feel like crap for doing it.
FAWN: Especially since it's work and money related, right? [00:13:00]
MATT: But at the end of the day, you don't really have to accept it.
You know, you always have choices, and sometimes those choices seem like end of all, but you always have choices, and understanding that and, and living inside of these choices.
FAWN: That's where you become the boss because this other person, at the end of the day, doesn't care or feel me in the hospital. Who cares?
MATT: Right.
FAWN: Do you know what I'm saying? Absolutely. They're selfish on their end. So take care of yourself.
MATT: Easier said than done, but please try. You know, and, and for the love of God, when you're feeling, let's call it weak, when you're feeling susceptible, when you're feeling... Avoid echo chambers. Avoid... Maybe you need to avoid the news cycle.
Maybe you- What's, what's an
FAWN: echo chamber?
MATT: An echo chamber is basically, it's a term. It's... Think of it as a room where everything you say gets echoed back to you. But what it means, uh, in contemporary [00:14:00] parlance is, um, you know, if you go looking for heaven or hell, you will find it. So for the love of God, stay off of social networks.
Stay off of your LinkedIn, stay off of your Facebook, stay off of your Insta, sta- stay off of your Twitter, stay off of your, who knows, TikToks, the rest of it, and-
FAWN: Get off the treadmill ...
MATT: and, and for the love of God, avoid the news cycle. Stay off of, you know, news sites. Stay off of, um, you know, stay off of TV.
FAWN: Whatever gets you even more emotional, because when you're tired like that, you don't have energy for any emotion. You already are completely maxed out. So that's when you need to, uh, let the emotion out rather than taking more on. So when you hear bad news, when you hear the news, when you talk to people that are not positive, you're taking on even more.
You're [00:15:00] carrying even more and not even realizing it. So just being quiet and getting away from that. That's what I meant about- Just being still ... getting off the treadmill. Yeah, being still. Get off that... What's that thing that rats run around on or, or guinea pigs, that circle thing that they run on? It's like a-
MATT: Hamster wheel is
FAWN: one term.
A hamster wheel is what I was thinking about. I said treadmill, but same thing, right?
MATT: Yeah, it's exactly the same thing. So try and try and keep these things in mind. And, and for all our manly men, you know what? I have a site. I go to PostSecret every once in a while. It really nails me emotionally, and it's good to release.
It is good to release your emotions. I don't care how manly you are.
FAWN: It's good to cry.
MATT: It's good to release. I sweat, I don't cry. Ugh.
FAWN: Your eyeballs sweat?
MATT: My eyeballs sweat. I don't cry. You're crying. But it's good to release.
FAWN: I'm not crying, you're crying. Yeah, totally. [00:16:00] Yeah. Sometimes I feel constipated in the eyes, though.
Like I really need a good cry, but the tears don't come out and I get even more frustrated. And then something happens, someone's really nice to me or a bird is nice, and then all of a sudden it's just all of a sudden it's a thunderstorm out from my eyeballs.
MATT: Well, that's 'cause you won't let me play "Cinema Paradiso."
FAWN: No, you don't understand. I-- That's- ... that's getting even more emotion. And now that I'm a mom, I can't watch that movie. It was my favorite movie, but I can't do it. I can't.
MATT: Anyways, that's what I've got. So, you know, I think the most important thing to realize is that, when you're going through H. E. double hockey sticks, as I've said on a number of occasions, keep going.
Keep going. Don't stop. And realize you will get through.
FAWN: Yeah.
MATT: And realize sometimes the people around you can't help you. You just need [00:17:00] to slow down and, and yeah, you need to slow down and, and yet keep traveling. That's kind of an oxymoron, but sometimes you need to go slow to go fast. Sometimes you need to take time for yourself, and sometimes, yeah, you just need to.
FAWN: And even if you do have some people in your life, like sometimes there's not a friend you can call a- at all. But even if you do, like for example, with me, I did call a friend in the middle of all this, and I was crying hysterically, like hyperventilating crying, trying to explain why I'm crying, and she couldn't even understand the words that were coming out of my mouth.
And she was trying to help, but nothing was really helping. And it took a while, and then I felt guilty 'cause I'm taking time away from her. She's also going through stuff. So, uh, I was like, "Oh my God," thinking like, thinking to myself, "This was a mistake." And I-- But in the end, it worked out. I mean, she actually...
I could hear her. She [00:18:00] could finally understand something, and she gave good advice, which was stop thinking ahead too much, and right now just be in the moment and think what, what you need to do right now, and don't think about all the things that need to be taken care of that are all, have gone astray, right?
And so that helped, but, but in the end, I was thinking about it, like in that moment when it, it is such overwhelm, I think for me personally, you guys, the best thing I can do is just be quiet and pray And, you know, if that turns some of you off about like, I'm not being religious, I'm just saying just connecting to the higher power and asking for help.
And it totally works. Even if you don't believe it, just try. Try it. Be quiet and while you're crying or while you want to cry desperately, say, "I need [00:19:00] help." It will work.
MATT: And remember, how I'm gonna... I might get-
FAWN: Is it another pithy saying?
MATT: I, I might get the last word. You know what? If you being an A-hole, gives you the space you need to stop being an A-hole, then for the love of God, be an A-hole. Blow someone off. What does that
FAWN: mean?
MATT: Blow someone off. Tell them you're not gonna do whatever it is they want you to do.
You know what? That's what it is, okay? Take care of yourself first.
FAWN: It is quite liberating once you get over the guilt.
MATT: And that's just it. Don't feel guilty.
FAWN: That's hard too, actually. It's hard, it's hard to do. You know what I'm saying? When you feel it, you feel it. You cannot not feel something.
MATT: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Practice, practice, practice. So get over yourself, get over your guilt, get over your... Take care of yourself, okay? Take care of [00:20:00] yourself.
FAWN: I was gonna say, say to yourself, "Who cares?" Obviously they don't. So you care for yourself, for your own sanity, and that will help them in the end because what's it going to accomplish,
when you end up doing things out of obligation when you know you're, you've gone beyond capacity. So thanks, honey. All right. Are we done for today?
MATT: The arms are folded.
FAWN: Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, we'll talk to you in a few days. Have a, have a good every day. We'll talk to you soon.
MATT: Have a good week. Be well.
Bye-bye.
