Episode Transcript
Hidden Art of Starting Over
FAWN: [00:00:00] everybody. Welcome to our Friendly World. Hi.
MATT: Hello.
FAWN: Okay, I'm gonna tell you something really important. I want you to remember this. So take note. At all times. Everybody's starting over. We're all starting over.
There's so many of us who are in this quiet. Quiet, terrifying feeling. I don't know if terrifying is the right word, but uneasiness, Matt, you always say it. You notice it more with the general public when it's the season like around September, October, November.
MATT: Yes.
FAWN: People freak out. Yeah, because no matter what kind of climate you live in, there's a change.
And I guess especially where we live, I guess, in the western countries, because that's when school starts all over again. Even with businesses, right? It's the last quarter , there's a lot of pressure. And things are in flux. A lot of people get fired from their jobs or have to start new work or you're [00:01:00] just in limbo
MATT: and, and certainly again, in America, we are dealing with
things like, we have a lovely holiday called Thanksgiving, which is when families come together, and that can be a really challenging time for a lot of people.
FAWN: Yeah. That's when the, the Holli, I'm putting it into quotes, the holidays are now coming up and, and the
MATT: whole, you gotta have New Year's resolutions
FAWN: and or you're gonna see people and you wanna be seen, but you don't wanna be seen and maybe you don't wanna see these people or you're not where you wanna be in life and everything is changing.
there's a lot happening, but the focus today is on change. When you are feeling in that flux, like you don't know what's gonna happen, you don't know where that job is that you need, you don't know when you're going get the break you've been working so hard for Hello? I'm talking to myself. You just don't know.
You don't know. Everything is in flux and it can be completely de depleting. What's the word? Depleting.
MATT: [00:02:00] Depleting is a good word for it.
FAWN: I mean, personally, I'll speak for myself. I feel exhausted. So tired. And that's when all the aches and pains start coming up. And, the insecurities and the fear, the anxiety.
Did I say anxiety already? Mm-hmm. You know, all of that. I did, I did say that already.
MATT: You, no, actually you didn't. But I was having my own inner dialogues too, which is the weird part. Especially again, northern hemisphere, it's harder to like go out and go and, you know, gain some perspective because it's cold or it's rainy or it's other things snowing.
FAWN: Here's what I want everyone of us to remember, that yeah, everything is in flux, but guess what? When you walk, when you breathe. That's in flux. Think about every step you take, like you're just gonna take, if you walk, you take one [00:03:00] step, going from left foot to right foot or right foot to left foot in between your other foot, touching the ground,
you are in a complete state of flux and imbalance, but you have faith that you are going to step on. The next step. Like you're in the middle of it. You have to have trust. Yes. That you're going to put your, Matt is furiously taking notes about something. I don't know what, but you're, you're, you're in that total trust mode while you're in the air.
'cause there is a split second where you're just floating, but you know, you are, you are in the process of the next step. Right?
MATT: Yes.
FAWN: So you're not sitting there going, oh no, how am I gonna end up on the right foot or on the left foot? But you do. And guess what? As soon as you do, you have to start all over again.
You, our bodies are the same way. I don't know the months for each organ. But our bodies, our cells are [00:04:00] constantly regenerating. Even our brains, they used to say, your brain doesn't regrow, and they found out that that's not true. You have an entirely different body with different organs every few months.
It's amazing. So we're always in transition. We're always in flux. We're always in the state of change. And if we were to. Freak out about all of that, we would die.
MATT: Oh dear.
FAWN: I don't know what would happen.
MATT: I don't know.
FAWN: Uh, we, we, we could, you couldn't live. It's, it's un, it's unlivable to have that kind of stress.
We are already stressed out about all the other stuff like money, habitation. What else are we stressed out about, Matt?
MATT: Well go through MAs off's Hierarchy of needs. Right. Um, physical protection. We're concerned about our kids not having enough to eat. We're concerned about the survivability of our kids and on and on and on.
FAWN: Health, insurance, health, like every, it's nonstop, right? I mean, it's caused [00:05:00] me to have over 10 years of, um, what do you call it? I can't sleep.
MATT: Insomnia.
FAWN: Insomnia, okay, so don't freak out.
MATT: To me, it's about fixing your intention and you know, what you focus on grows, as we've said so many times before. But it's true.
FAWN: I just rolled my eyes. I'm like, please stop saying that. It's a trope now. But yeah,
MATT: and, and to quote a Simpson song,
FAWN: okay,
MATT: A stranger is your best friend.
You just haven't met.
FAWN: That was one of our quotes. We had little postcards when we first started our friendly movement. Um, true. Okay, so let's talk about what starting over actually feels like micro restarts. How we begin again and again in tiny ways every single [00:06:00] day. Then of course, friendship during reinvention, because all this is basically that.
We are reinventing ourselves. Our lives are being reinvented, our ideas are being reinvented. Our thoughts, everything, the temperature, the seasons, everything is being reinvented constantly,
MATT: right? For sure.
FAWN: So how do we stay connected with someone that's changing or, and when we're changing, we talk about this all the time, but that also falls into this line of
starting over
and of course, the emotional toll. The secret excitement of becoming, becoming again. What is that?
Sometimes you lose yourself. Like I've lost myself. I feel like. I felt so beaten down by all the turmoil that we went through a few years ago. And, before that we went through a lot of turmoil as [00:07:00] well. But I just feel like I kept going and going and going. And then the last thing that broke me was when you got sick, Matt.
I just was like, I don't know. I had, I felt the lowest of the low. Like I couldn't, I was just functioning to take care of the kids,
MATT: right.
FAWN: But I don't know what happened. Little by little I got my energy back and I got my spark back and one day I put on my aviators again and it was a, a couple weeks later, Holly came to visit and then I put all the aviators and she's like, there she is. Santa Monica is back. And Santa Monica, definitely, I felt vibrant and like it was all coming together. Like I understood things. I started to understand the way of things a little bit and I had, I just had that [00:08:00] flare. I felt like my energy, my energy was like. Even though everything was still in flux, I was like, what's the word for it? Where I, like the aviators helped, like the avi, the Aviator, the, those sunglasses were like a symbol of, this attitude and this strength and this flipness do
MATT: you know? Do you
FAWN: understand what I'm saying?
MATT: I'm, yes, I do understand what you're saying. I just worry that my interpretation might take us too far. No, no, go for it. Too far afield. But like what's your interpretation? I was literally telling our oldest yesterday that when I walk, I walk with intention.
I shoot energy out right in front of me and everybody reacts to it. That's what I do. I pur, I have a very purposeful walk and a very purposeful stance, and a very purposeful posture, and my eyes are on a swivel, and I am just, everybody knows that I'm a coming
FAWN: What do you, what do you mean your eyes are on a swivel?
What does that
MATT: mean? I mean, I'm looking everywhere. I'm looking at everything and every, [00:09:00] everyone is particularly useful when you're in a parking lot or, but yeah, it's a very, very, very, very purposeful stride.
FAWN: yet You fell the other day. Maybe
MATT: I was not purposeful. I was curious at that moment,
FAWN: but I, it was a
MATT: different state.
FAWN: But what did I say though? So I said, okay, everybody. We're going through a major transition right now. Right. The seasons have changed. Um, we're changing jobs, we're trying to, you know, our bank account was pretty much depleted. We were like, whenever we're starting over again, it feels like once yet again starting over again.
And I've noticed that when we move into these states, and it's interesting, I just said move because.
Usually like in the past, you would roll your ankle or something. Every time we moved, Matt, it's like a pattern, and so here you are in another transition and you fell and [00:10:00] you come home, you ripped your nice slacks. There was blood everywhere. Like, oh my God, what? So I said. Make sure you ground yourself.
Everyone in this house ground yourself right now because when you are going through such change, that is obvious. I'm not talking about the micro changes I'm talking about where like you really don't know. You don't know anything. All of a sudden you're just in flux. The thing I want you to remember, every one of us, including myself, I'm, you know, also talking to myself, ground yourself, and what, so a long time ago I studied, energy healing.
There's a school that teaches surgeons, doctors had to become medical intuitives. And so one of the things that was key was grounding yourself and the head instructor, the owner of this school, always said, all you have to do is just say, I am grounded, [00:11:00] and you're immediately grounded.
Or you can picture yourself like a tree having roots come out from the bottom of your feet and going inside the earth. Roots all over so you don't get knocked over by wind or someone who comes by, no one can push you over. We learned about this in Aikido. You send ki. you build your ki and they would have us hold our arms out and these aggressive, strong men would try to come and push your arm down and they couldn't
MATT: the, uh, unended alarm for sure. You send key out and you send energy out of your palm of your hand sometimes, or just your fingers, like hundreds of miles. Is, is, is kind of how you think about it. It's not, you're not just sending it to the wall or sending it, you know, six inches in front of you.
No, you're sending it hundreds of miles, thousands of miles. And that perspective all of [00:12:00] a sudden now you are just a, you are a mountain, you are a fixture. You are here and you're not going anywhere. And you bend your knees just a little bit. You connect more with the ground. You're not on the front of your feet.
You're not on the back of your feet. You're just planted. You're not going anywhere. You've always been here, and you always will be.
FAWN: And the key to that, another key is. That you don't become unbendable, like you can't be knocked over, but you can still bend. But if you're so rigid, you don't wanna break, right?
You wanna be like, what's the tree? They would you, you, you wanna be like bamboo, right? The bamboo will bend, will sway in the wind, but is it. Would they say Oak? You don't wanna be oak.
MATT: Yeah,
FAWN: because it it will snap
MATT: it. It might've been oak. Might've been willow. It doesn't matter. But yes, one a tree that is firmly fixed.
And yeah,
FAWN: there's a difference. There's a difference between being so rigid and [00:13:00] set in your way that you're unbreakable, you will be broken. But to be unbreakable, you need to be grounded. That way you can still sway and bend, but you're always grounded. I think that's the key to remember. And thank you by the way, for like the thing about you have a purpose around you.
I tend to leave my body and be like in another stratosphere somewhere, and I think people can take advantage of that. Like today we were driving, I was with the kids, we were driving. And out of the blue, this car comes to mess with me. It was, it was scary. I didn't know what to do because we were, going up this, highway and we were, for a while it was just the two of us.
This my car and this other car, and he purposely went in front of me and. Slowed down. So then I slowed down 'cause I think he [00:14:00] wanted me to go in front of him, which was ridiculous because I was in the slow lane.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
FAWN: He was in the fast lane. Mm-hmm. He purposely went cut right in front of me, slowed down, and instinctively I knew not to do that.
He, he almost stopped. So then I almost stopped and then I thought, okay, this is crazy. I have to get away from it. I almost thought about calling the police. I felt danger. Mm-hmm. And then, um, then he sped up. So then I started speeding up to like a normal speed. And then he did it again. And then thank God this other car showed up.
'cause I was about to go around him. I'm like, well forget. Mm-hmm. I'll just go in front of him.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
FAWN: Um, and then. It broke up the energy, but I was thinking, oh, and then the kids saw the person stick out their middle finger from the window intended towards me. I didn't see it, the kid saw it, but like that kind of like he, this person wanted a fight.
I didn't know this [00:15:00] person, but I think my energy was so open that they thought, oh, here's an opening to, um. Get into some sort of a confrontation with someone Right. To release whatever rage they had that had nothing to do with me. Right. You know? But, um, thankfully it was cleared, you know, almost immediately, but oh my god.
So, yeah, I didn't have that, that sense of purpose in me, of that, that field of protection, you know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. And I certainly didn't feel grounded. I felt very much like how we started the show today. Like feeling the change of everything and feeling uneasy about it, feeling unsettled, this unsettled feeling.
It's, it's an awful feeling, you know? That's when you don't have trust in anything. That's when you are just like, you could go into a negative head space, like, oh, things are looking bad, or things gonna get worse, and you know, you can just really spiral,
MATT: right?
FAWN: [00:16:00] So
Taking it back to friendship. It's interesting because the whole idea of change, like you were saying, your best friend, you, you don't discuss politics ever,
MATT: right?
FAWN: Because you know where.
MATT: Because I believe, I know, yes.
FAWN: Yeah. You believe, you know where he stands
MATT: on everything.
Right. And we do have some disagreements, as is normal and natural. But,
FAWN: and, but it, but it, that's dangerous. Like, the people who aren't as close to me assumed I was. A, B, and C.
MATT: Right.
FAWN: And lately I've
evolved into something else because the world is evolving. What used to be, my friend always says, what used to be down is now up. What used to be up is now down. Everything has switched
MATT: and, and we have to afford ourselves the opportunity to grow and to change for sure.
FAWN: Right. And there's so much change happenings.
There's so much flux that if you were to assume that your friend is still thinking the [00:17:00] same way. Putting that on them, that's a death of a relationship. But, and we've talked about this before, when you assume someone is a certain way. And it's all from pure assumptions,
MATT: right? It's, for me, it's more a case of I just don't wanna get into conflict on that subject because I already feel like he knows where I'm at.
I know where he's at. Fine. We've just like, we have this, we have a Berlin Mall going,
FAWN: and, and, but by saying that, you're saying things never change. People's minds never change. Their lives never change. They're always the same. So in a way, you've put, uh, a death sentence on a relationship.
MATT: Well, I put a death sentence on our political views for sure.
FAWN: And I think
MATT: that's, but that's only a part. It's only a fragment of somebody. I mean, you know, I like the music. I like, I've always liked the music I like, but that, and I will always like the music that I like, but that fragment,
FAWN: that fragment always changes. Matt, you know, it's like a growing biological entity, a a body like a, if, if one cell dies and [00:18:00] doesn't reproduce, then I think you get more cells that end up dying from that cell dying.
I think. I'm, I'm man's looking at me crazy. Okay,
MATT: well, no, no, no. I do you know what I'm saying? Like yes, but I'm saying I, I enjoy. You know, I enjoy my friend on all, well, on 27 different levels, just, that's just the level we choose not to go to. But
FAWN: you're cutting him off there though.
MATT: But that's just it.
Neither one of us particularly wants to go there.
FAWN: I know, but maybe you should because you don't know.
MATT: Right. But that that could, I don't know. I don't know. Well, welcome. It's, I mean, welcome to compartmentalization and, and, and just knowing full well that, you know, if there's, you know, if there's a risk, do I want to take it?
And the answer is no.
FAWN: Yeah. And that's, and, and in a way that can become a superficial friendship because that part will eat away at other parts of the friendship. I mean, let's just take politics for example. If you're going to think about politics and this person is [00:19:00] politically this way and you hold them to that, um,
politics, much like everything else can, seep into every aspect of life. True. It could politic politics, can touch food. It can touch the air, the environment, education, families, it can touch like the clothes you wear. It's your whole life experience. I never thought this when I was a little kid, like, oh, I'm not political.
I'm not gonna get involved in politics. But as I'm learning, as time goes by and I'm learning, I'm learning, wow, it really affects everything. It does. The people in control, they hold strings and it's like a puppet. Show
MATT: it. It can be for sure. But in any case, as soon as you have a society with more than two people in it, you're going to have politics.
FAWN: Well, hello. Isn't that what I was trying to say? So it seeps into everything.
MATT: This is me making it succinct.
FAWN: We still need to [00:20:00] understand that everybody's evolving, everybody's changing, everything is in flux. Much like we have a new heart, a new lung, a new liver, every few months
Our thoughts, our ideas, our worlds are always changing. True. It's, it's quite a shock, and people get offended when you meet someone when you see them again or have another conversation with them, and you're like, wait a minute. They're not at all. They're not at all who I thought they were. And then you get all offended, right?
Or people get offended.
MATT: I, I don't get offended, but yes.
FAWN: No, but people do, or okay. You get surprised.
MATT: You get surprised for sure. But, but that just did, you know,
FAWN: know where you stand anymore.
MATT: I've always been comfortable myself with having friends who are very different than me. I never look for sex.
FAWN: I understand that, Matt, but what I'm talking about is if you don't talk about a particular thing because you're compartmentalizing, you could get surprised.
True and it won't be a [00:21:00] happy one. Sometimes, you know, sometimes you know it'll be like, then you start thinking, well, do I really know this person? Or did I ever know this person? Because you didn't look at them holistically. You didn't give them the opportunity to let them discuss their views with you because you didn't wanna offend anybody.
They didn't wanna offend you. It's hard though. It's hard these days because how do I explain what's going on today? You all know what's going on today.
MATT: Well, people, people are gonna have there, there are a lot of families that break up over Thanksgiving, for instance, which is when the political stuff comes out or when people catch up on each other's lives.
FAWN: We're all going through change.
MATT: Yes,
FAWN: it is happening every nanosecond. So the one thing that I, I will share that I was given during one of the worst times in my life was I met this person. He was like, I have one word for you. Will [00:22:00] solve everything. I'm like, what? Mm-hmm. And um, he said, it's, it's trust.
You have to trust no matter what is happening, you just focus on that word trust. That's all you have to do. Just trust, just full abandonment of everything else. Just abandon all of it and go with trust, trust that everything's going to work perfectly, that you'll end up on the right foot, the left foot, right, left, right, left, left, right, trust that you're moving through, and that's it for me today.
What do you think?
MATT: Trust the process for sure.
FAWN: Sometimes you hate the process though. Oh yeah. I gotta say I hate it sometimes.
MATT: Well, you, every time I get sick, I just wanna be better right away. But it takes time sometimes.
FAWN: Sometimes, I mean, you're in the spiral of a tornado of events , it's so scary that it's hard to breathe, but that's when you can acquire Gracefulness and go, okay, I might as well look good in the process of [00:23:00] all this crap and look good. It means to me like, look good means appearing calm and trusting, I hope that helps a little bit. We're all going through it change, from one thing to another. My gosh.
MATT: Indeed.
FAWN: Starting new job, all of it. Or ending a job.
It's like the ocean. Up and down. It comes in, it goes out. There's lots of water. There's no water.
There's a hurricane. It's crazy. Alright. That's it.
MATT: Okay.
FAWN: Have a beautiful every day.
MATT: Be well everyone.
