Midlife Uncensored
Midlife Uncensored-Real Life Discussions from Over the Hillis the no-holds-barred podcast you didn’t know you needed. Hosted by Joel Poppert, aka Poppy—the friendly Sasquatch with an epic beard—and his fiery co-host, Emanuela Messineo, aka E, this show unapologetically dives into the chaos, comedy, and WTF moments of midlife. If you’re 35-55 and ready to embrace the rollercoaster of aging, this podcast is your new home base.
Poppy and E tackle everything from modern dating disasters in the hilarious sub-series The Love Laugh Lounge (the “festivus” of dating) to real-life shit like divorce, mental breakdowns, balding, sagging tits, and figuring out how to parent while still figuring yourself out and maybe dealing with an unhinged ex. With a blend of interview episodes and no-expert-needed banter (except when we bring on experts), these two cut through the BS and get real about midlife—no filters, no sugarcoating, just pure, unfiltered truth with a heavy dose of humor. Expect raw, relatable stories, unfiltered guidance, tough love, easy happiness, and a few episodes where the comedy comes from alcohol infused banter, because who give a fuck, right?
Whether you’re dealing with the joys of aging, trying to keep your sanity while raising kids, or attempting to find love in a sea of idiots, Midlife Uncensored has your back. Expect a few F-bombs, some belly laughs, and a whole lot of honesty as Poppy and E rip the band-aid off midlife and give you permission to thrive in this beautifully messy chapter. It's not just about surviving midlife—it's about unfucking it and owning it! This is your community; we are in it together!
Midlife Uncensored
Conditioning Yourself to Identify and Process Emotions in Real-time
In our 19th episode, we not only share a laugh about confusing Memorial Day with Veterans Day, but also take a moment to honor the profound significance of these dates. Huddled within the enchanting walls of Emanuela's unicorn cave, we're thrilled to bring you a conversation that's as heartfelt as it is hilarious. Join us as we navigate the often turbulent waves of personal development With every anecdote and shared experience, we aim to fortify that invaluable bridge between us and you, our listeners.
Navigating life's emotional currents can be as tricky as dodging wayward bumper cars during rush hour traffic. But fear not, for we're here to equip you with an emotional compass. In this session, I bare my soul about my quest for emotional intelligence, revealing the lessons learned from facing my father's loss and the upheaval of divorce. As we unpack the ways in which minor irritations can morph into emotional tempests, we also illuminate the path to harnessing those very emotions for growth. Therapy, reflection, and sometimes a cheeky sprinkle of humor, it's all about becoming adept at the art of emotional regulation for the sake of mental tranquility.
Finally, we address the elephant in the room—or should I say, the Sasquatch? Personal growth can shake the foundations of our relationships, prompting the metamorphosis of a "new Joel" and the bittersweet farewells to friendships that no longer serve us. It's a journey through the thorny brambles of setting boundaries and the sometimes lonely pursuit of mental well-being. But the rewards? A richer, more authentic circle of companions. We end by asking ChatGPT for "her" advice and again she ends up being the smartest cohost of us all! And just before we sign off with a nod to our AI counterparts, we extend a warm invitation: follow, text, share, and become part of our ever-growing tapestry of mythical creature banter and genuine connection.
How to Engage with Us
- Email us at joel@owningalonepodcast.com
- DM us on Instagram midlifeuncensored
- Follow Joel on IG jpoppert
- Follow Emanuela on IG emanuela5683 or accountability_with_e
Thanks for joining the Owning Alone community, I certainly appreciate you!
Hey y'all, you're listening to another episode of the only alone podcast hosted by your favorite middle-aged sasquatch dual popper, aka poppy. Yeah, that's me and denver's very own italian unicorn, emmanuela messineo, and it is a fine fucking Wednesday night in Denver, colorado. We're not in the Sasquatch cave. I left this evening to come over to the unicorn cave. That's right.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it's a nice night in Denver. I'd love to do this on your patio, but there's too many noises out there. Emanuela, we are on episode 19. We're about to hit 20. We're super popular. I think like the whole world listens to our podcast now who wouldn't um I'm taking. We're taking people's lives into our hands literally with our advice, so we need to be a little bit more careful about what we say I completely agree fuck.
Speaker 1:That's very serious, by the way. I'm gonna say fuck because I realized that I had it. Click the explicit box for all these times. Oh, shut up. If you swear, once you're like, you can get your podcast taken out. So this morning you didn't know this, I didn't tell you this, but I had to go back and mark explicit on all of our things. So we have a little tag. Now we're like I don't know, straight out of Compton.
Speaker 2:Too funny, I love it.
Speaker 1:So how's your week been going?
Speaker 2:My week is going good. I'm ready for Memorial Day weekend and, yeah, it's a slow week. I just had some visitors in town this month, so I feel like I'm detoxing a little bit, just getting back into my routine. Yeah, so just like a good week.
Speaker 1:Can you believe it's? What is it?
Speaker 2:Memorial Day oh my gosh, it's wild.
Speaker 1:Is that the one where we celebrate? We have day in september, right?
Speaker 2:that's labor day but labor day veterans day, I think is in october or november what is memorial day then?
Speaker 1:memorial day is this weekend. No, what do we celebrate?
Speaker 2:why are you asking me hard questions? I don't know. Get your Google machine out.
Speaker 1:Oh, you don't know either, that makes me feel a lot better.
Speaker 2:Memorial Day in memory of people that served our country.
Speaker 1:How is that different from Veterans Day?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I sound like an asshole now it might be the same thing, but then I'm all about celebrating our veterans, but I'm legitimately. I forgot what the difference is. I'm going to sound like an asshole. All Republicans now are going to stop listening to the show.
Speaker 2:Oh boy, oh boy. There goes all of our listenership. I don't think I was joking. So apparently we have some homework to do.
Speaker 1:Well, we could google it, but um, while you're googling this, no, my phone is preoccupied taking photos of us tonight you have your phone we need to trade you to do the intros now, because I forgot this whole part. Which because I I want to tell all our listeners now, like before, until the end, because if they probably don't listen to the whole thing because we're not that cool, you guys need to follow us, you need to reach out to us, you need to share with your friends, you need to rate us. We're on apple, we're on amazon, we're on all the podcast, streaming things.
Speaker 2:Tell us what you like. Tell us what you're on the instagram at owning alone.
Speaker 1:Please follow us. You can now like text us through right through the app so, like, wherever you're at, you can text us, ask us questions, what you want to hear about, like what topics you want us to address.
Speaker 2:Wait, how do they text us?
Speaker 1:I don't know. It's a new thing on Buzzsprout. It's. They text us and it doesn't go to. It comes to our phone, but they don't actually get our phone number, which is good because I know some of our listeners are a little bit cuckoo, but we love you.
Speaker 2:We've also had a little bit of wine already.
Speaker 1:We've always had a little bit of wine Sasquatch and unicorns get together and they drink wine.
Speaker 2:I doubt it.
Speaker 1:How else do you talk into a microphone?
Speaker 2:and be loose. We can do it. Sober, we've done it.
Speaker 1:We've done it. We have done it. Everything's a little less fun sober, yeah it's okay.
Speaker 1:So the topic for today just so you guys know, after you know, because we're going to banter for a little bit more that's our jam the topic for the day is the benefits of it's a very serious topic for owning alone, but we do that sometimes the benefits of conditioning yourself to identify and process emotions in real time and kind of all the things that go along with that, and I think that's a it's a fun topic for Emanuela and I, because I think we've done a lot of work to get there and it's a very it's a superpower. It's a superpower. You're implying that I have it. I, you do have it. I don't know. I don't want to take that away from you, I don't know. If you don't, then I'll just talk to you all now so anyway, what else happened to you this week?
Speaker 1:I know you you're dealing with Forever Chemicals.
Speaker 2:Oh God, yeah, Can you talk about your work online? Just some work drama.
Speaker 1:Just some work drama.
Speaker 2:Forever Chemicals Gotta exclude them from coverage. It's not fun. Let's not talk about work.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's go. We'll go to my gardening.
Speaker 2:So I did a bunch of yard work this week because I'm very resourceful. This is my new word for cheap okay.
Speaker 1:So I had a bunch of succulents and natural things growing and I did a bunch of yard work. This week, broke my back, did a bunch of stuff that I've been meaning to do for like years. I even went and did stuff at the other house which we won't talk about, but I moved rock and did all this stuff. And then I have all these garden boxes and my mom is I've always wanted to procreate Russian sage, but I don't want to go just buy it. I want to like.
Speaker 2:I'm very into growing and seeding stuff and growing.
Speaker 1:If you've seen my grass, it's been this five-year progression. But now it's like golf course. Course, I have the most immaculate grass now and it just grows naturally. So I want to do that with rust and sage. So I have eight things in my kitchen seedling cups, yeah, and then I sprinkle it all over my yard in places I want it to grow and just hope it grows, which has worked successfully for me, like, but I Russian sage is so beautiful and once it sticks it's gonna stick. That's all. That's where I'm trying to get my yard to is like where another five years from now, I can wake up in the spring and everything just goes and I just have to deal with weeds. So, yeah, no, I'm trying to deal with that.
Speaker 1:I grew some vegetables too, but every time I go and buy seedlings from, like, the landscaping place, I spend $200. Half of them die. Yeah, the dog eats the other third, the squirrels eat the other third, and I'm left with nothing. So I'm done buying pregrown plants. I'm like either the seeds work or they don't. There's not a lot of loss.
Speaker 2:A lot lower investment. Yeah, like 20 bucks worth of seeds.
Speaker 1:Okay work or they don't. There's not a lot of loss. Lower investment yeah, like 20 bucks worth of seeds. Okay, I go out there and I spray them. I love mowing my lawn though what do you spray them with? Water, love, yeah, love. And then I yell my dog every morning stop, get out of the fucking garden box. I don't know why she needs to be in the guard box, because she's not supposed to be there like literally looks back at me she knows where I'm looking through the window in my kitchen, If you've been in my house my dog is like a human.
Speaker 1:She looks back at me and she like basically flicks me off with her tiny little paw. My dog's paws and her head are too small for her body. It's weird. She's dainty.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's like a good time of year to do that Like little refresh, refresh, get things ready. I don't have a yard but I'm doing. I'm selling a bunch of stuff that I don't want and buy new stuff for my patios, got my new you don't have a yard, but you have a beautiful patio I know, but I'm just saying I have my little patio off here.
Speaker 2:I have the one upstairs, but fake. It's like some of my neighbors have plant boxes up on the roof and I don't even know how they last. I think everything just gets torched up there. So I have fake plants that still don't last. They get torched. The wintertime just always wreaks havoc. So just doing all that cleanup it's a nice time of year to do that and spring cleaning time and what are you doing for memorial day?
Speaker 2:I'm staying in town. I had like loose plans but nothing like really set in stone. So tomorrow my brother and I are going to, which is early. It's's Thursday night tomorrow, so uh, not quite the weekend. But we're doing a golf simulator tomorrow night and then barbecue Friday. It's like iffy weather this weekend, so I don't know, might do an art show, might end up randomly going thrifting or go to a movie, or I don't know. Let's see where the wind takes me. And then my friend's son's kindergarten graduation party is on Monday, so Any excuse to Drake, that's right.
Speaker 2:It's also his birthday coming up, so I think it's a combo and they just moved. So it'll be nice to go celebrate, little man, and his graduation.
Speaker 1:I mean, before you know it, there'll be, like my niece, my oldest niece who is? I'm going back to Wisconsin in a week from this weekend to see my niece graduate high school.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is crazy to me.
Speaker 2:It's awesome.
Speaker 1:She's a very smart girl and, yeah, she got into Madison. That's awesome. I'm also very much excited to move into the adult relationship phase with my nieces and nephews.
Speaker 1:So, she'll be the first one to leave the house and you know how it was when you left the house. You just become an adult and that's a fun journey for any kid. So I'm excited for her, I'm excited to celebrate and before I go out to Wisconsin, minnesota, my whole trip, I'm going up to Buena Vista this weekend and I'm doing paddle fests, which I've done every year for like years and reconnect for the season with my boating community and get the rafting going and the kayaking and yeah. So I'm excited for that. But and I think the weather will be fine I've had paddle fests where it snows on me and a paddle like raging high water oh yeah this is a kind of a mild.
Speaker 1:Water levels are good, so it'll be fun to get on the boat and see my friends and go from there. But yeah, let's dive into the topic. So this sort of this was my topic. This was my choice.
Speaker 1:Emmanuel and I like switch every other week with who picks the topic, so just to give you a sort of a background with my if you've lived into other episodes, you know my journey where I leaned into my therapy and mental health and old Joel was pretty anxious, pretty passive sometimes and angry at times and just like not you know kind of a boiling pot of emotions.
Speaker 1:And I've done a lot of work. I did a lot of work after my divorce and after my dad died to get a grip on my not just my mental health, but like to very much elevate my emotional EQ, iq, emotional awareness. And after years of this work I one of the biggest benefits I guess I get from this is my ability to identify emotions in real time and process them and gain perspective where I think let me give you an example I think a very normal example that anybody can relate to is somebody cuts you off on your commute to work, flicks you, off which there's a whole series of emotions that come with that world war three yeah, there's disrespect yeah there's particularly for a man.
Speaker 1:There's an ego driven part. There's a whole thing. There's a lot of things that are uncontrolled and that happens in a flash and then you don't think much of it, but the rest of your day, even maybe two days, there's, you're off right you're off and you don't know why, because now it's not really, you're not associated with that experience or that incident, right?
Speaker 1:And then there's more complex ones, where maybe you have a complicated relationship with your mother or your father or your sister or your family relationship with your mother or your father or your sister or your family, and maybe they said something to you and it lingers in it. In it it was a gut punch to your, to your, to you or what you're trying to do, and it knocked you off your sort of it, knocked you off your path and these things, these sort of occurrences, happen daily to us, right, and some are minor and some are major, and they typically happen with the people closer to us and they also happen with strangers and all these things and things just happen right. Or maybe like your car broke down and it cost you an extra $2,000. And it just puts you into depression for the rest of the week and for people that have anxiety, this is very handicapping right.
Speaker 1:And I had anxiety. I had anxiety. I've had anxiety in my life. I don't consider myself an anxious person, I'm not going to diagnose myself, but everybody struggles with anxiety and when I didn't have this awareness, my anxiety would debilitate me and make me handicapped and make me unproductive because I couldn't deal with this.
Speaker 1:I've worked really hard to get to this place where it's actually like pretty amazing at this point that something will happen to me.
Speaker 1:I'll realize that I'm not chi let's just use this stupid word but'm not chi, right, and I, and so I very quickly, like pivot, take the time to get to the incident process what happened, put it into the perspective it needs to be put in and move on, and there's different levels of things and there's different amount of times that it takes me for to work through this. But I can tell you that it's pretty quick and it allows me to function in this world very efficiently and my anxiety has gone from. You know, the doctors asked you what's your pain level? My anxiety level. Old Joel was my anxiety level. Old Joel could get to the nines and maintained itself at probably a six or seven all the time, and now, outside of driving, I don't get terribly upset and angry much anymore. Sometimes people really are forceful into my circle and that's a different conversation, but for the most part, like I'm very quick to process things and it doesn't dramatically change my life, so I think.
Speaker 2:I wrote down some, yeah, so let me ask you a couple of questions.
Speaker 2:So the okay, so you, anxiety is one response to a situation, but you could also have anger or associating or also just like removing yourself, so like more of an avoidant type of reaction to that fight, flight freeze response to situations. So obviously things can impact you a little bit, more or less, depending on what they are. Okay, so you've talked about anxiety, though specifically is what you're referencing. So do you feel like anxiety is something you've always dealt with in some regard or not?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:And now you feel like you have a handle on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so like your point would be like, because I think I have a handle on it because I've done a lot of work with my therapist, on my own, with the books I read, to get to put things into perspective that's not important. Or the cliche of if I can't control it, then why am I letting it debilitate me? Or if I'm doing everything in my power to make that situation better, is it really helping me to stress over it when I'm doing everything I can? So the perspective side gives us the strength to to be more efficient about remediating the problem.
Speaker 1:that that is created, some are external and some are moving yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do want to.
Speaker 1:I know I'm talking a lot, but I want to make sure that it's not just anxiety.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that anything that happens to us throughout the day or any thought that we allow to come into our head can elicit any type of emotion.
Speaker 1:So it's not just anxiety, it can be shame, it can be doubt, it can be sadness, it can be doubt, it can be sadness, it can be anger, it's all these things it's going. It's what I'm trying to get to, from the topic perspective, is the ability to recognize that emotion was elicited by something and then recognizing that, processing it, putting it into an appropriate perspective and moving on. Yep, and if it's very serious, then maybe we don't move on. We talk to our therapist, we talk to our friend, we do the things we need to do to deal with it, to put it into the appropriate perspective and live our lives.
Speaker 1:Because I was one of those people when I didn't have this skill, that would get very debilitated and handicapped. And then that's a downward spiral because you're just swimming in the pool of fucking emotion, in just, and if you have an addiction problem, you maybe you drink and do drugs and all these things, and this is where people go, so you get triggered by something and then there's a response right, and it could be anxiety, it could be something else.
Speaker 2:So you're just you want to talk about like just the awareness around the fact that there is a response to something stressful or whatever, and like having the awareness around. So just having the awareness, like getting to a point where you can recognize the type of responses that you have to stressful situations and trying to put some space between how you respond to it so that you can do it from a more like clear headed space, is that what you're talking about, exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think it's we can go through it in stages, but like when did you like, feel like, was there like a tipping point for you when you went from more reactionary in that to more proactive?
Speaker 1:I think there was a. I think like anything, this is a, this is an exercise, right Like when we go to the gym and or if you're playing a sport to get better.
Speaker 1:you have to work at it and I think for me it's been exercise. It's taken years. It's taken years of therapy. I've obviously had a really good therapist. That helps me put in things in perspective. I've read books to give myself perspective and the training and just I've worked at it and I've worked very hard at it. I've recognized when I'm slipping and take the time to bring things back in perspective. And there have been times over the last two years where I've had to deal with very serious concerns in my life, middle age, whatever it is, and things that would have normally debilitated me and things that would have normally debilitated me. And I've just continued to train myself, continued to remind myself that the easiest place to start is to remind yourself that you're doing better than somebody else. You're always doing better than somebody else, but that's a cop-out. That's not like the real perspective. It's choosing. Are you remind? Like asking yourself are you doing what you wanted to do? Are you a good person? Do you feel like you're a good?
Speaker 1:person did you set the boundary with the person or the people that you needed to set? Did you? Are you doing the things that you know you should do to be the person that you want to be?
Speaker 1:to say it's like having self-confidence really is, I think, maybe why you're talking yeah, having self-confidence being secure in who you are but it's, for example, today I got in and I got an argument with an old and I said something that I got called out on.
Speaker 1:I didn't think I was wrong and I still don't know necessarily my intent wasn't wrong from my head, but it made somebody feel a certain way and old Joel would have held his ground forever. Old Joel would have held his ground forever and made it not. But then what I did is I said OK, this person's feeling this way and communicated that to me, even though I don't feel like I did something wrong. I accepted that and I apologize, not in a condescending way, I and I apologized, not in a condescending way. I said I apologize, it wasn't in my intent to make you feel that way and I will consider that the next time I say something and was very sincere and I didn't do that to make myself feel better and I didn't do that to make that person feel better. I did that because it was the right thing to do and it was respectful for both of us and we both moved on and I feel like it's dealt with.
Speaker 2:Is that right? I'm not carrying guilt, I'm not carrying yeah, guilt, yeah.
Speaker 1:For what I did. They're not feeling hurt anymore because their feelings were validated.
Speaker 2:Heard, yeah, validated.
Speaker 1:And I accepted that I wasn't 100 percent right, I wasn't 100% right, I wasn't 100% wrong, but that there's two sides of everything and we're going to move on. And I did it very quickly.
Speaker 2:I did it within 20 minutes of it happening and very vulnerably, and that was it, but it also sounds like you're taking it to heart and processing it in a way that, like you genuinely didn't feel, like you weren't trying to make the other person feel bad. It came across one way and that, like we can have misunderstandings or things can be taken a different way or might be. Somebody might be sensitive to something. So it sounds like you're just like you're hearing the other person out apologizing for how that made them feel.
Speaker 1:And I think I'm like recognizing that, because if I didn't do anything, the reality would be that there'd be a part of me that knows I was wrong, and then I should. There'd be a part of me that knows I was wrong, and then I should, there'd be a part, and I would feel there would be a range of emotions that would linger regardless. And it's not like the hey I'm sorry. When you're in a relationship you can do the whole hey I'm sorry, just love me thing which I did most of my marriage, but like the sincerity of it, I'm very sincere.
Speaker 1:I'll give you another example. I was on a flight to I think this was a flight to Hawaii, and I'm a big guy, right, so I it's intolerable to me when people push their seat back on my knees. There's no room for it, right. And this woman was trying to push her seat back and I was tired I think it was a red eye flight or something and she's trying to push her seat back and she keeps pushing violently against my knee and I'm like pushing back with my knee and it turns into this whole thing and her husband's there and he's being very passive about it. I feel for this guy he probably should have stepped up for his wife, but whatever, like it was a weird situation for him I don't want to fight this for her to be in and it just turned into this thing and I like was kicking.
Speaker 1:I was basically being very violent with her back of her seat. Yeah, it was very passive, aggressive. There were passive aggressiveness going on, but both sides and this happened and I'm just sitting in my chair this is new Joel and I'm sitting in my chair and I'm like I'm so ashamed of myself for not just being like hey, ma'am, I'm a big dude and I'd really appreciate it if we could just not have your seat back. And she eventually put her seat back up. I think she gave in blah, blah, blah. And I tapped around her seat after about 30 minutes of this lingering this, because I'm not I'm a good person, right like this.
Speaker 1:Doing that type of shit makes me feel like ass.
Speaker 1:So I tap her on the shoulder and I said, look man, I'm like I'm really sorry that that was like that's not me, that was very immature of me and I'm feeling a certain way about it and and I just want to apologize I dealt with that very passive, aggressively and I'm just sorry.
Speaker 1:And she you could see it I almost, she almost started crying Cause I think she felt the same way that there was this like this built up emotion of I didn't want to do that to him, he didn't want it to do it to her, and this is it's the same thing of driving how, how we get so like you're rationally angry about things. But I brought it upon myself to reach around to the stranger and just say I'm sorry, and both of us almost started crying because we were just like what a human moment to do that and old Joel probably wouldn't have done that. Old Joel was too proud, but we were both a little bit wrong. And that's where I realized that the emotional response I was having to that was so ridiculous. There's like a story.
Speaker 2:There's a story we tell ourselves in those scenarios, right so like she goes to put her seat back and and the story starts in your head, right and then you're kicking back and the story starts in her head in a different way. You guys are. You're like working yourself up with whatever, like past experiences being. This lady doesn't need the extra space.
Speaker 1:I mean the reality. We should I have a six hour flight.
Speaker 2:I have a six hour flight. I can't handle whatever.
Speaker 1:I mean, her husband really should have said something, but I'm not going to. He sat there the whole time looking at the big dude.
Speaker 2:He's like I ain't going there, I'm not going to mess with him.
Speaker 1:I put him in a weird pizam, but her and I like yeah, no, it was fine, it was actually a moment we had. I could see it in our eyes Like we were both. Just. I appreciate that you said that and I'm sorry too, and but this is where I rebound from that situation quickly.
Speaker 2:It sounds like you did. Is really great too and I think that's what you're trying to touch on too is we may still have these things that happen, that sort of elicit some sort of response in us, but having the awareness around oh, I'm responding, I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling angry, whatever having the awareness around that.
Speaker 1:I think the first step is to recognize it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely it is. And then is to be able to give yourself a moment to break so that you're not just reacting in to whatever those emotions are, because I think our brains are just wired to remember past experiences that elicit like a similar response, and so we get very quickly from like A to Z and it's not fair to that person that you're having that experience with in that moment. And so being able to take a step back, take a deep breath and be able to do that, like to be thoughtful about your response, or, if you do react, being able to just take a step back after you've responded to say I'm really sorry for how I acted there, or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, I think those are all wonderful traits to have.
Speaker 1:But let's talk about for a second the people that don't have any awareness, right? Because I think that I, before I, really worked on this. I think these types of things it's not just about interactions with other people, it's losing a contract or something didn't go right, trying to fix something. It can be a million things that I guess the sort of first step is if you're feeling off, sit down by yourself and try to go back to what happened to you today in the last hour the last week and pinpoint what.
Speaker 1:What made you, try to figure out what made you off. That's the first exercise, I think, in getting better in this. It was my first exercise is pinpointing the incident that made me feel off Right, because once you pinpoint the incident, you can start to put it into perspective or you can put it in your journal. If you're a journaler, I'm not a journaler.
Speaker 2:I was just going to ask you are you a journaler?
Speaker 1:I'm not, but I see my therapist enough that it's top of mind. So I think over the last two and a half years I was seeing my therapist enough that I didn't have to journal. I just knew like I could pinpoint my stuff and I trained myself to remember it and I brought it up and we dealt with it and some of this stuff went all the way back to my childhood yeah, so the store some of this stuff is very superficial and easy, and some of this stuff goes all the way back to childhood.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, mom, if you're listening to this, you were a wonderful mother. Dad was a wonderful father and this isn. And this isn't like. You fucked me up by raising me, there's all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:We all have effects. We all grew up we all grew up.
Speaker 1:We get bullied, we lose a game in soccer, we do all these things in our back of our lives.
Speaker 2:Well, nothing's perfect.
Speaker 1:Even childhoods that are perfect are imperfect for that fact, so no, no, but we can take it back to the root and then we can take it back to the incident and this is the exercise right.
Speaker 1:This is how you become a professional emotion processor is that you catch the incident process. It take it back, bring it forward, take it back, bring it forward, take it back, bring it forward. And the more and more you do this, the more and more it becomes very swift and that's where I've gotten to now. Somebody asked me the other day like, how do you like? Because dating, for example, dating is not for the faint of heart, and I think a lot of people struggle with dating because they don't have this skill for the faint of heart. And I think a lot of people struggle with dating because they don't have this skill and they can't put.
Speaker 1:It's just one example. But like, the reason that I'm so calm and fine with dating and all the rejection that goes along with it, is because I just have really good perspective around life and why things happen and why things happen to me and why and all the things, and then, on top of it, realizing that there's a lot of good things happening in my life and I don't need to do the. I'm better than the next guy or that guy's in a wheelchair and blah, blah, blah. Like I think that's a it's super, it's not right.
Speaker 1:You have to like, you have to compare yourself to your life and what you wanted for.
Speaker 2:That's where that's the perspective, I think it's. I think comparison to other people can be really sort of have a lot of like negative effects, right, if we're comparing to other people. But I do think sometimes when you're down or you feel like things are stressful, it is good to have perspective and to know that sometimes things can be worse and to just have gratitude around what you do have, even if things are difficult. So flipping that instead of saying, oh, at least I don't have it as bad as this person, just flipping it and making it more positive and having more of a gratitude type of approach to it we should put picture posters of homeless people in our condos to oh geez make us feel better come on, no come on.
Speaker 1:I had to inject a little comedy.
Speaker 2:I can just drive down the street to do that.
Speaker 1:You just walk out the door. Yeah, it's temper. I do think those types of scenarios, I feel, are bridges to the real corruption. I'm not going to lie to you. I think one of the biggest emotional traps for me is the Joneses. I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 1:I fall under the Joneses traps. From time to time it's like why don't I have that? I work so hard. Or blah, blah, blah. Why don't I have that? Why am I not married? Why don't I have kids? Yeah, like I can step in those traps all the time.
Speaker 1:Those traps are easy for me to get out of, but when I'm in a big trap, I totally get you. I'm like you know what? I've got all my limbs, I'm six foot five, I'm a good looking dude, I've got a career, I've got a head on my shoulders and I live in a city where there's a ton of people that are more unfortunate than me. So that's an easy bridge. But I think the next level in this exercise is when you're like you're so principled and sure of like yourself and we're never fully sure of yourself Anybody that tells you they're 100% sure of themselves is full of shit. But like when you're going back, when you're making decisions around your emotions relative to knowing yourself right, and that's the ultimate goal is to be, is to process, put yourself into perspective. It's always about you.
Speaker 2:It's always about you.
Speaker 1:It has to be about you what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1:me huh it's all about you it's about me, daniel's on, daniel's on. What do I mean by that? Maybe the best way to explain it's through examples. But knowing yourself right, and let's say you get cut off in the road and you're super angry, I know myself well enough to know that I don't fucking care. The only reason I care is because somebody temporarily disrespected me, but at the end of the day I don't know that person. Blah, blah, blah. So knowing myself is you don't care, quick, you don't care. So you go back to being not stressed out about it.
Speaker 2:Rather than because I think what happens is that can trigger some level of.
Speaker 1:Well, the emotion is driving you.
Speaker 2:Stories in your head, yeah, but it's like those neural pathways that it's like oh, I've been here before, I'm going to go zero to a hundred.
Speaker 1:Or remembering, or just remembering that, that like when you're keeping up with the joneses, like when the joneses are making you anxious, particularly who are the joneses? By social media nobody put this together. Social media is the joneses, that's they just should call social media the joneses is like when I see somebody yeah like the joneses are on vacation with their fucking family in their whatever, their nanny and their au pair, you remember?
Speaker 2:that, like, you chose not to have that I am a very I'm convictions person.
Speaker 1:I'm a principal person. I my every decision I've made in my life has made me who I am. I'm a good person and I love my life and I love the person that I am. I am imperfect in a beautiful way and I sometimes, every day, all day, remind myself that you're an adult with very good mental health and very good awareness. That's making the decisions that are important for you. Because, at the end of the day, life is short and life is, and the most beautiful thing about life, the most beautiful thing you can do, is to do what fulfills you and what you can do. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that we all get the same opportunities, because we don't. But if you know yourself and you're convicted and you know your principles and who you are and you can fall back on that as your foundation and you're always falling back on that foundation then you should be quick to get there during these emotional situations and the more and more again we work at it.
Speaker 1:Like just practice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I think the next step of this conversation is how does that, how has that impacted my relationships with others and my ability to interact with others, which I think that's the next big gift, is that I have all this capacity now to let certain people into my circle and be very meaningful to them. I guess is the word, because I can. Anybody can say anything to me about anything, if I understand them and love them, and I can process that without it impacting me. And that's very powerful, I think.
Speaker 1:And that ability to be so unbiased and so open and thoughtful and a very true listener allows them to come closer to being to this sort of emotion, this perspective thing that we're talking about, this ability to process emotions, because that's really what it's about. It's about creating a safe space with yourself and creating a safe space for others, right and being able to self-regulate, right.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm going to react in a certain way and just be able to take a moment, like creating a space in between something happening and you reacting, so that you can be thoughtful in that response. But I think that really gives you the opportunity to build some really good, like respectful, thoughtful relationships going forward. So, like, how do you feel like that? Do you still? What are some things that might still rile you up a little bit, that you feel like it's like hard to manage yourself?
Speaker 1:there's still people in my life that know old joel yeah, and I guess it's like they haven't taken the time to get to know new joel that can like boundary boundary crossing. My circle is so much smaller now because I'm still a pretty passive person. I was a very passive person most of my life. I don't know why, but I am, and I don't like controversy. I don't like conflict. I avoid it. I'll deal with it if I have to. I own my own business. I own a private equity company.
Speaker 1:I have to negotiate, I have to hold my ground and be stern.
Speaker 2:Business relationships and conversations can be very different than friendships, family, romantic relationships. Those are emotional right.
Speaker 2:Think the relationships that we have through work, while you can build good friendships and things with coworkers or people that you know, customers or whatever relationships that you have through your business they're not as emotionally connected as you're going to be with friends, romantic relationships and family, like there's a different level of emotion. I think if you treat there's someone recently that like talks about okay, I'm going to handle these people or treat these people the way I do in business relationships and that's great Like basically, what you're saying is, you're removing the emotion. Right, you're removing the emotion. I'm going to handle this exchange in a very sort of matter of fact way. So I think if, like getting I don't know, like getting triggered through a work situation is different, it's good practice, but for me, I can handle myself very well with controversy in work and still struggle with personal relationships.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I get it. I think you asked me what irritates and what can really get me going. I think my boundary is getting crossed.
Speaker 1:I think misunderstanding and maybe I'm not always communicating, but my circle has gotten smaller but so much more meaningful, as I've worked on my mental health, because I found myself feeling not as much liberated from being more mentally healthy but more isolated, and I think it's because there's a whole lot of people that choose not to address their mental health. And when you get a certain amount of awareness and anybody that's worked really hard on their mental health and their awareness struggles with the fact that most of society hasn't and it creates friction.
Speaker 2:It's a normal friction between two people.
Speaker 1:When, when somebody works, when you talk about working and exercising mental health, it's just like exercising your body. It's exercising your mind in a very thoughtful way. To have based more meaningful relationships with your people and I have very more meaningful relationships with most of the people, but I also have more friction with certain people and I don't know what to do about that, except for just be like I love you and I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:But like you're over here now and you're not here, and I can't be the person to tell you why you're over here anymore like that, because that's a very maybe.
Speaker 2:That's not even the plate, like maybe that's not even for you to tell them or whatever.
Speaker 1:I feel like it creates animosity yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's hard. We are all in a different, we can all be in a different place. And still I empathize with you in this because I feel like I've been in like a self-help journey a majority of my life to unpack things. And I look back and I'm like, wow, I'm no longer friends with certain people that I was very close with long time ago and sometimes it was their decision to walk away and it's probably because of where I was like I wasn't where, where they were maybe a few steps ahead and it's that's okay, that's just where I was and I was doing my best at the time. And so I would just say I think, even though we want other people to be in the journey with us and in the same place, sometimes they just aren't and it doesn't mean down the line you can't pick that back up and go with them again, but they just might not be in a place where they want to change or need to change, and I think and they don't necessarily need to change.
Speaker 1:That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:No, I know, I'm just saying but you're in a different place because you are growing and changing, and they might be staying put and or going a different direction, even, or whatever that is. There's no dig in there. You just might be going a different direction or be in a different place than where you were before, and so I think it's just I have that too, and sometimes you end up picking those up down the line again too, and sometimes there's people that you separate with, and that's it.
Speaker 1:Animosity is not really my jam. That's not my thing.
Speaker 2:No, it's not. I can tell that, like you, If anything, I'm like the opposite.
Speaker 1:I'm still like friends with my ex-wife, who is a wonderful human being, but it's the people are important to me. People are important to me and I particularly. I'm a very loyal person like my. Probably greatest strength is loyalty. If you break my loyalty, I'm probably not gonna come and kill you, but I'll have somebody else come kill you.
Speaker 1:But loyalty is one of my biggest strengths it's one of my most important traits I'm an authentic person and I think people trust me and they should trust me because I'm a trustworthy person. I'm not a bullshitter. I can talk and I can get excited and get people excited about stuff, but I don't bullshit and I'm smart enough to know better than to lie, and but I it's a powerful trait. But my thing is loyalty. I'm not like mafia loyalty, like shoot that person because I told you to.
Speaker 2:No, you're very genuine, and I think you're very genuine and you want to invest in the relationships that you have and you want that to be reciprocated to. I think you want genuine relationships all around, get people to talk and open up, and that's not something that a lot of people have, which is a skill, that which is we are very mere.
Speaker 1:We are very similar people in this way, because I see it in your friends, because you and I have met in the last year and a half and I've met your friends, you've met some of my friends, but this is a very similar quality, which I think is going to make this podcast wonderful.
Speaker 2:It's like it's a gift, it's a gift that we have.
Speaker 1:It's also there's a curse to it too.
Speaker 2:I prefer to see the positive side of it, but there is a little bit of oh my God, you have to deal with people at such a deep level. I'm laughing, because I feel like I probably struggle with it, maybe more than you do sometimes. Right now, I feel like, yeah, it can be For me. I used to think I was more extroverted than introverted and lately I feel like I'm the opposite, where I naturally gravitate.
Speaker 1:Like I can talk to anybody. But yeah, and that's where I think I've had to dial it in, because it can be a little exhausting for me when you add in our personality where people gravitate towards us, and then you sprinkle in the people pleaser which I'm not a people pleaser I tend to like. I enjoy making people happy but I'm not. I don't go to bed at night being like I didn't please that person.
Speaker 2:I'm not that way as much anymore, yeah, but yeah, I'm like not that much, but I also think that it comes with a lot of it comes with a lot of management.
Speaker 1:I think I just have linger.
Speaker 2:I think I have lingering exhaustion from years of doing it. So I'm not doing it now, but I think I'm still like catching up on the exhaustion that I've had a majority of my life of being a people pleaser. So anyways, let's get back to the topic at hand.
Speaker 1:Oh, we're like an hour into it at this point.
Speaker 2:I think now it's part three.
Speaker 1:It's part fun time oh.
Speaker 2:I think we dealt with.
Speaker 1:I think we dealt with this topic pretty well. I think I'd like to come back to this with. I think we dealt with this topic pretty well. I think I'd like to come back to this.
Speaker 1:I actually, when I listed this topic the first time, I listed it as lesson one I think there's a perspective series to be had with owning alone, and how this ties into our overall thesis, which we haven't figured out yet, is, I think, it's to to own your alone. Own the relationship with yourself Like this is like a pro skill. This is a pro skill as a human is to the ability to literally like a catch, like you're a little kid running around with a net catching insects and butterflies.
Speaker 1:This is a you need to create the most efficient net to catch your emotions and process them. You need to grab them most efficient net to catch your emotions and process them. You need to grab them and process them. Yeah, go to therapy so that you can get the skills to figure out like what in your foundation, in your past because we're not just talking about road rage and shit like we're. What I'm really getting at is there is very people.
Speaker 1:We all have very complex emotions, some more than others, and some of them are rooted in certain things that go way back, and you got to get there. You got to get there and you got to have perspective on that. You got to understand that and you got to be able to pull from this arsenal of your history and your personality and knowing yourself and all these things so that you can get really efficient at why do I feel this way? What made me feel this way, and does it fucking matter at all? And 90% of the time, it does not matter at all. We're going to keep. We're going to come back to this at some point.
Speaker 2:I would say one other thing I want to add to that is like. It's not. It's going to. It's like an evolving process throughout life. So just do your best and keep chipping away at it. It's not. Oh, I got here and now I'm perfect. I think there's just it's something to just be aware of and just start chipping away at it, just like little by little.
Speaker 1:Oh, it takes so much time. It takes practice. So just be and be kind to yourself.
Speaker 2:Like it starts with being kind to yourself too.
Speaker 1:It is, it's just like learning any other skill. You have to practice at it and you're going to have to fail and succeed and fail and succeed, and it's a skill. It's like learning a language or anything else. I swear to God, that's been my fucking journey with it. Is it's been. It's just it's like deciding that you want to do something speak Spanish or play tennis and then decide and then picking up and doing it.
Speaker 1:So we're gonna move on now to part three chat gdp, fun time. Chat gdp fun time. We asked chat gdp in a hundred words. Can you tell me the benefits of conditioning ourselves to identify and process our emotions in real time? Conditioning ourselves to identify and process emotions in real regulation of emotional responses, preventing escalation like road rage. It fosters greater self-awareness and self-control, leading to improved decision making and problem solving capabilities. Additionally, real-time emotional processing supports mental health by reducing anxiety and depression symptoms, encouraging a healthy psychological state. Overall, it cultivates resilience, enabling individuals to adapt to challenges and maintain emotional stability in various life situations. Once again, ChatGP is the smartest person in the fucking room, that fucking room.
Speaker 1:Oh, we're all out of jobs in two years.
Speaker 2:This is ridiculous we could have just done this at the beginning of the episode. Yeah, we could have, but that wouldn't not have been as fun?
Speaker 1:no, no, not at all tdp doesn't drink, so she's so serious yeah, I didn't ask her to ask her to make it funny I did, did I did so you can see.
Speaker 1:Can you make? I stopped it. Can you make? Because I thought this podcast was this was more serious for us, and I think we can be serious sometimes. I think we're always underbelly serious, but I want to give our listeners skills to be, to build. These are parts of building better relationships with ourselves. Still haven't dated a girl from Boulder and with that we this what are we supposed to do now?
Speaker 1:I forgot how to end this thing. Oh, we appreciate all our listeners. I appreciate you, manuela. Remember that we need you guys to engage. We want to follow. It's super important that you scribe and rate us and share. This goes a long ways, mom, if you're listening, but you can follow us on Instagram, at owningalone. We both have our own personal Instagrams and you can email us at Joel at owningalonepodcastcom and apparently now you can text us through the app and we love you. And the Sasquatch is out. He's out. It's a unicorn. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Unicorn.
Speaker 2:All right, love you guys. Bye.
