Episode Transcript
Overwhelm
FAWN: [00:00:00] The gall, I can always tell when someone attacks me. I'm me.
MATT: I'm sorry. Should I, should I say I'm sorry right now? N
FAWN: not you. Oh, okay. But I can, when someone's attacking me, I can always tell that they don't listen to the podcast. Uh
MATT: oh.
FAWN: So I got into a, um, altercation. An altercation with the neighbor, like six 30 in the morning.
Yay. Because her very grown son. Bearded son will come to our mailbox, take all of our mail out of our mailbox and start pounding the door like he's gonna knock the door down, terrifying everybody in the house and then hands us our mail or like drops it on the floor and runs away. Yeah. Because we ain't answering that door and runs away.
Um, and it's happened at least four times right? In the last two weeks. So. Six in six 30 in the morning before I'm going to work. I'm like, I gotta calm [00:01:00] myself down. Because honestly, like I, most of the times I feel like I need to center myself and I can't be around people.
I know we have a Friendship podcast.
I saw her, I'm like, tell your son to stop pounding our door and going into our mailbox. It's a federal crime. It's a federal crime, right? It is
MATT: a federal crime.
FAWN: So I'm like, stop it. And she's like, you are crazy.
You are psycho. You are such a hypocrite. You and your podcast all about love and friendship. You're such a hypocrite. And she's screaming at me. Mind you, I did yell. Tell her son not to because I had called her. I called her very, very calmly and said, listen, your son keeps going into our mail, taking our mail, and then.
LL like rattling our door, like pounding on it. And she hung up on me as I was telling her this. So then, yeah, I was yelling at her like, I mean, I was from [00:02:00] far away saying, stop, you know, so, but that's all I did. But then she went off (calling me) psycho, you're crazy. You're such a hypocrite. I'm like. Instead of getting mad, I kind of started laughing to myself.
I'm like, you obviously don't listen to our podcast because I'm not all about love and stuff. I talk about people like you, lady, like how to make this world a friendlier place despite you. Is what I was thinking. But then I just put up my hands and I walked away from the situation. But, um,
MATT: leaving me, thank you very much.
You know what?
FAWN: I did not ask you to come out, Matt. You did not. But were, I had it under control. Were yelling. I had it under control and you made things worse. 'cause then you walk out, you look all crazy. I, you know, all I, all I wanted her to know was I'm upset and I'm, this is the second time I'm warning you.
But you come in and I'm like, Matt, I had already like was leaving and then you come and you [00:03:00] escalate the situation even more. And so little me stop it Matt. So no, that you know some, you know, sometimes I want you to back me up on stuff and you don't, in the times where I don't need you to, you make things worse.
Like at the airport. Thank you. Don't do that. Make things worse, man. Driving me crazy. Anyway. So what does that have to do with our topic for today? I dunno, honestly, guys, I didn't even wanna do an episode because I am just, it did get to me what she said a little bit because. Not because of what she said, but I'm a little bit done with people at the moment and I need to, I need to collect myself.
I'm not in the mood to call anyone. Like Virginia texted me twice yesterday. Mm-hmm. I can't text back. I don't have it in me to talk to anyone right now because I'm on the verge of tears. I'm, I'm [00:04:00] dealing with so many things, trying to take care of the kids with different things. I am maxed out. I don't even know how to talk to a friend or even text a friend at the moment.
And I feel like when we get into situations like that, we have to totally honor it because really what it is, is rest, even if I'm calling a dear, dear friend, texting a dear friend. It takes energy from me at this moment, and I don't have it. I need to cry. I need to, I can't even cry. I'm so upset I can't even cry, but I just need to be quiet.
So I hope you all can understand that. Um, anyway, I think it's important to be still and not for a long time, but. Remove yourself from activities, what do you think?
MATT: Well, there certainly are those moments where it's important. I think I came [00:05:00] to the conclusion a long time ago, like, when I'm overloaded, I need to just change the channel.
I don't necessarily need to stop, but I need to do something else. If I'm all in my head, I need to get all in my body. If I'm all in my head and my body, then I need to get into my spirit and on and on and on. But just sorting things out, just changing things up, and so I didn't have a lot of bandwidth either, but it was like everything felt so serious that I needed levity.
So that was my shift. That was my get getting out of my head, getting out of my own way as I shifted to, to humor.
FAWN: When did you do that?
MATT: Well, for example, for example, no, I don't
FAWN: see anything funny happening.
MATT: Well, me texting, Virginia.
FAWN: Oh, okay. I
MATT: texted her a blurry photo 'cause my camera wouldn't, on my phone, wouldn't take a good picture.
And so I was like, Hey, I'm the greatest photographer ever. Huh. And you can't even read [00:06:00] what the, what it says. I took a picture of a sign, can't read it. But that's just it. I, I need a chuckle. I need to give myself a chuckle when things are serious.
FAWN: Yeah.
MATT: So again, just mixing things up.
Yeah. 'cause life is having this obnoxious habit of being way too serious for me right now.
FAWN: Yeah. For a lot of people. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of serious sh stuff going on right now. Right. Um, I feel like our children are, are under attack. I think parents are under attack. I. Um, there's a lot, there's a lot happening.
Mm-hmm. And, um, parenting right now is incredibly, incredibly difficult for me personally. Um, I'm doing my very best, but I mean, I'm, I'm crying most of the day and I feel like I'm surrounded by people who don't know what they're talking about. And if they do, it's sinister. They are sinister and they [00:07:00] do not have our children's, um.
Wellbeing in mind. Um, so, so, but again, it's
MATT: also like where we focus our attention. 'cause I remember when everything was beyond serious for us. This would be when we, when we left Washington State, for instance. And finding those moments of happiness, levity, and peace inside of that really stressful bubble.
FAWN: I never did. I never did. And even when we were out of the, the danger,
MATT: right.
FAWN: I remember you're like, when we come out of this danger, I promise you we're gonna take a weekend and we're gonna splurge and we're gonna go somewhere nice. For the weekend, remember? Mm-hmm. And we went to this vegan like spa that had vegan food and everything.
It wasn't a spa, it was just like a hotel, vegan
MATT: resort ish, hotel ish thing. Mm-hmm. Yes.
FAWN: And I, um, and we couldn't afford it, but we did [00:08:00] it anyway. And I, I remember I got a massage and I was in such desperate need of comfort that the massage stressed me out. I remember, like, I, like I felt. So beyond dizzy, when I got up, when I got up from the table.
Mm-hmm. Like, I, I'm like, this is worse than I have felt before. Like, sometimes when you're really stressed out and you relax, it's hard to get back into life. Right. And that, that I understand too. So it was that kind of situation, you know,
MATT: I, I totally understand that too. And sometimes, yeah, you're right.
It's really hard to decompress or de-stress. And so for me it's. Again, not about de-stressing, it's about just channeling energy in a different place. And just getting away from it for a minute, for 10 minutes, for half an hour. Well,
FAWN: I'm, I'm gonna need examples of that because I've never been one that has been good at that.
Like, even when I was working corporate [00:09:00] jobs and I needed to take a break, I wouldn't take a break because it was so hard to come back from the break. I couldn't get into that awful groove again. It was hard, right. You know, it was bad enough that I had to wake up super early, do everything I needed to do and show up at the office and then.
To take a break and to, to get over that hurdle of like, okay, I have, I have to go back in again, was so difficult that I was like, you know what? Let me just work all the way through. And unfortunately, you know, I, I didn't eat, I didn't, you know, like it mm-hmm. It was definitely wearing, it was, it was everything was, uh, making me worse.
All the things, you know, like not eating, not taking care of myself. And it wasn't because I was purposely not taking care of myself. I was just doing the best I could. And like even with a screaming neighbor, for her son to come do that to us over and over again.
And then for me to [00:10:00] call her up and like pulling all my effort, all my energy into making sure my voice is very calm when I tell her, look, your son has been coming and going inside our mailbox, taking out all the, like I was explaining to her in this kind of tone, is she still hung up? Right? She hung up on me.
So I'm like, okay, well hopefully she gets it. I don't, you know, but then it kept continuing and then by the time I saw her at a moment where I was like, okay, it's six 30 in the morning, I just wanna calm down. Mm-hmm. I wanna just walk, put my feet on the grass and take some, uh, some breaths of fresh air.
And then I see her, you know, like I didn't have the capacity to collect anything. I had nothing to collect. So what came out was. Yelling. I told you to not have your son come out here and do this, and of course immediately she, 'cause she's not, [00:11:00] well, she just went nuts, right? And you know, her screams were echoing through the neighborhood, calling me a hypocrite, fraud, fake
love and Friendship podcast. I'm like, you don't even know what you're talking about. And that's, you know, I, I, um, how do we keep it friendly? How do we keep our world friendly when it isn't? And sometimes it's not. So I need examples. Matt. I always, you are really good at it. 'cause you, you are good at saying.
You're good at it until you're not. Then it really scares me. And then I have to pull everything together and go, okay guys, let's go out for coffee. 'Cause I know you love your coffee. You know? Or going up to your coffee shop. Even though I'm the one who's like, guys, it's expensive. We've already spent this much this month.
We can't do that. I'm like, okay, let's go to coffee. Even though I'm like, oh God, you know what I'm saying? Or if there's [00:12:00] a parade, I'm like, oh look, Matt, there's a parade. Me. Meanwhile, I, I can't stand parades. I cannot, I feel terrified of them. That and like fireworks. I don't like it.
I don't like it. It's all this stuff. Matt loves that terrify me, so I'm like, okay, let's go. Yay.
MATT: It's not all the stuff.
FAWN: No, it's not all the stuff, but. Parades freak me out. Um, you love good fireworks, right? For 4th of July and stuff, right? Again, for me is terrifying. I'm flyover. I was just gonna say flyovers terrify me because
I come from another country and you know, usually if there are planes going over you like that, it's like, take cover right now. Mm-hmm. Kind of situation. Right. But you know, for you it's like, oh, yay. I'm like, oh my God, I can't, I can't. I'm like a dog that needs one of those vests on to keep them calm.[00:13:00]
During situations where everybody's like, yay, barbecue time. Let's explode some fireworks. Meanwhile, I'm like pulling it together, trying to be as calm as possible, but inside I am screaming. You don't understand Matt?
MATT: Oh,
no, I absolutely do.
FAWN: You do?
MATT: Yes. I do actually.
FAWN: I know you do.
MATT: And I've tried to mellow, but it, it's things like, I have a really boring meeting at work.
I'm gonna go spin Yeah. During the entire meeting, and I'm just gonna leave my microphone off and if I need to talk, then I'm gonna talk and people are gonna hear me go during the meeting if I have to talk. I don't care. I'm not turning on my camera, so you're not gonna watch me boun bouncing. I had a. A VP at one job, she would always be on the treadmill during meetings.
FAWN: Yeah. I wanna say a lot of people do that, though.
MATT: It was freaky to see though because it's like you couldn't see that she was on [00:14:00] the treadmill, but she bounced up and down the whole time as she was on the treadmill.
FAWN: That's when you need to pull the camera back to explain to people without explaining what what is happening.
MATT: She,
she said what she was doing, but then, right. It would just be every, but if you come in and, and you didn't catch that single time, just a little bounce. It was weird. It's, it's things like that, it's, it's things like, uh, taking, I, I have a spot, God bless it. That's like five minutes away. And so in a 10 minute span of time, I can walk there and back and it turns out it's, it's a shift because I wouldn't say we live in the most like suburban of neighborhoods, but there's a river next door and there's a forest next door.
So, wow. That's a nice thing to do, to just take a walk, get outta my own way, get outta my own head space, just focus on step, step, step. Get, get me out of my head.
FAWN: Yeah, [00:15:00] I, I like that you guys do that a few times a day. Mm-hmm. Meaning the whole family goes, except for me, because again, I'm like, if I take a break now.
I'm like, I can't, I can't, I can't get back into what I was doing. It took me forever to reach where I am and if I leave, I can't finish what I'm doing and I'm doing four things at the same time. So to get back into that state of mind mm-hmm is hard for me. When you all go to bed and then I stay up
I finish everything up, and then I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go watch a show because I just wanna shift my complete. Like, I wanna get outta my head. Mm-hmm. I don't wanna listen to my thoughts, I just wanna watch a show. Mm-hmm. I wanna look at something pretty, whatever it is. And most of the time there's, that's my phone.
I'm sorry guys. I got an email. Um, most of the time there's not even anything good on, and I end up watching the home shopping network like an old person. But you know what, they have some really good [00:16:00] things on there and I learn a lot. No. No, hear me out. Hear me out. First of all, that's where I discovered Wolfgang Punk and some other people that are, they took Wolfgang Punk out, but the first time I saw him was like some years ago on HSN, and I couldn't believe how hysterically funny everything was because it was a disaster.
Like he just throws everything around. He's cutting himself, there's blood on his white chef's uniform. He's ordering everybody around. The things that come out of his mouth are so inappropriate. Um, and it, at first I thought it was,
Saturday Night Live, I thought,
I thought it was at an s and l skit.
I really did.
Right. It turned out it was the home shopping
network way. And, but then I got hooked because. If you look around, a lot of the things we have is from the home shopping network, like our vacuum cleaner, our, our thing that cleans the air.
MATT: Air purifier. Air
FAWN: purifier. Actually, we don't have that many things, but.[00:17:00]
I can't believe I actually Oh, the spinning thing. The bicycle. Yeah. Ooh. I really want, they sometimes, anyways, sometimes they show this thing, the Pilates thing that they have. I want that anyway. I know it's not the healthiest choice, but what? I don't know.
There you go. I dunno that in talking to Wendy sometimes helps.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
FAWN: Not sometimes it helps all the time. That's me. Hello. I need to figure out other things and I'll pass it along to you guys. Right. But like, I'm sure you all know better than I do, how to shift your focus when
things don't look good or you don't feel so great. How do you pull yourself out of things, out of that things as in like, how do you pull yourself out of, a negative loop?
MATT: Right? Right.
I kind of already went over that by taking walks and spinning and
FAWN: Yeah. But you said that on several episodes already. Well, it's like I'm looking, looking for something new. They new. They work [00:18:00] really well. Well, I'm glad they work for you, Matt. Taking the same walk. Especially in this neighborhood, everyone is staring at you.
That is true. And looking at you, it's, I want something else
MATT: and, and honestly, I think that that's one of the issues. That I think as a society we're facing is we get so many quick dopamine hits out there in the world. It's hard for us to create our own, as you will. It's much easier to be passive and receive them, and yeah, you're right. I mean, I've taken that walk probably a hundred times by more than a hundred times by now.
Right. It's always a little different. It's a different season. There's random things that happen in the neighborhood. There's random things to see. The river's always at a different level. So you know, things do change, but you have to be observant. You have to pay attention to them.
FAWN: Okay. Alright.
MATT: You know, and the other thing is, is like if I need to get to sleep and I'm having [00:19:00] problems, I'll listen to a meditation.
FAWN: You do?
MATT: I
do
FAWN: what?
MATT: Stoic meditations.
FAWN: Oh God. What?
MATT: Yes.
FAWN: How does that go?
MATT: They're really terrible.
FAWN: What do they say?
MATT: Well, the problem of all
FAWN: life sucks. Oh, well, the 1, 2, 3 breathe. How does no pre tell? How does a stoic meditation work?
MATT: Well, you have to understand your place in the universe. And you have to, haven't you ever heard one of those like meditations where you just kind of like, you like look at yourself from so far away and then further away.
And then further away. And then further away. Yeah. The problem is always the voice with them though. 'cause they always try to be so, okay, now let's relax. And you're like, ah. So you're right, it can be a little vexing
FAWN: Yeah. It's that. That's vexing. Also, another thing that's vexing is [00:20:00] the ones who tell you how all the stress you're feeling is going to cause this disease, that disease and this other disease and, and then it's like 10 minutes of this.
It's like, this is stressing me out even more. Shut up. Do you know what I'm saying? I should, you know what? I should just start our own thing with meditations. I mean, I am a licensed yoga instructor and I had the best classes. Half of the class of every class I taught is purely meditation.
Anyway, so you know what? I think I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna start our own thing.
MATT: I see you heard it here first, folks,
FAWN: because I mean, just like friendship, right? How there are all these experts out there that say, oh, you're gonna die from this heart attack or, uh, Alzheimer's or, it's worse than smoking
how many packs a day if you don't have friends? . It's like, thanks, like that's, and then that's all they say. And they're like, okay, bye. They just leave you out there with even more [00:21:00] stress. How is that helpful? And I think a lot of these meditations are kind of the same way.
There's a huge hurdle to get over to actually get to the meditation. Yeah. It's a problem. I'm gonna fix that.
MATT: Okay. Alright. Sounds good.
Alright. Are we, are we, that's it for today?
I think so.
Alright. Thanks for listening. Thank you for letting me vent about the neighbor. Seriously. Okay.
Have a beautiful everyday guys.
Be well.
