Goes Without Saying - mental health: in your twenties, empty and trying

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

TW: suicide & mental health. we’re 24 going on depressed, anxious and existential in this episode of Goes Without Saying. join us (sephy & wing) for another chaotic conversation. this week we're discussing mental health, social media, and questioning: can happiness ever be sustainable? from toxic positivity to instagram facades to cbt therapy, come join the convo and feel seen. brb calling our therapists. join the conversation every monday. speak your mind on our instagram! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Nature. I've got a gay rooster named Francois. Is so gay. These rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals. Does that mean I'm gay?

So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts.

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Hello, you're listening once again to Goes Without Saying with Sefi and Wing. We are literally so happy to have you here, if you're here, which you are. There's a quick trigger warning for this episode about suicide, mental health. So if that's not something you can hear, please just leave. That's absolutely fine. And we'll see you in the next one. Enjoy. Okay, so we got a message that I loved. And this person said that their biggest problem with mental health is thinking that being self aware means that they're in growth and recovery because being self-aware is a helpful step but it's not equal to you growing or recovering you can be aware of all

your problems but you're not necessarily moving on from them yeah or with them oh i love that i've also been thinking quite a lot about this recently in the self-awareness isn't always great as much as it's like we preach self-awareness it's great to know what's going on to call it by its name look it in the face and say yeah that's fucking that i know what's going on but also ignorance is bliss people have been fucking telling us this sometimes to be a bit deluded a bit naive is fucking helpful it allows you to move through the world with a little bit more like softness rather than constantly interrogating and self-awareness yeah isn't kind of the be all and end all cure it's not the universal cure of of life to be aware of all these problems okay then we're done it's like no we can

be aware of all of the problems and then we need to start fixing them maybe might be a start and that's the beginning but it is true yeah too much navel gazing is dangerous and not even that you have to be completely deluded or ignorant to be living in bliss but if you start like i can find a problem in anything give me 10 minutes i'll find a hole yeah i think if you're left to your own devices and you interrogate anything enough you will find problems there of course you will you'll find a way to take everything personally a direct it being a direct insult to you a direct triggering thing yeah leave it to me i will find a way to be insulted i will find a way to worry about something it's almost just like don't confuse self-awareness with just picking yourself apart you don't need to pick yourself apart then no one asked you to do that

not every moment needs to be dedicated to like searching for this better version of yourself improving yourself who am i why did i do that sometimes you don't need to be that improved even though we're working on ourselves we're doing all this stuff but it's like sometimes you're okay just to be like the complete fucking sloppy mess that you are that's fine to be in chaos if you're not comfortable with chaos you're never going to be comfortable chaos is a ladder some may say chaos is a ladder a wise man once said a wise man in a dress once said awful an ugly man once said horrific man you know i saw him little finger yeah we're talking about sir peter baileys from game of thrones where did you see him on the tube oh my god and i said oh my god it's little finger and

he was just slightly up and he was like fuck off it was really lame with me but i it was in the height of my got days i was obsessed it was like i think it's like season five times also he's got a distinct face he's kind of oh hello there sansa he daren't open his mouth because then the whole fucking tube would have turned around and looked at her yeah yeah yeah so what do you think how do you think we move from self-awareness to like growing like self-awareness to recovery you've got to implement stuff it's not enough just to be aware i think it's about actually finding tools that you can actually use i think this is why therapy is helpful yeah not just therapy therapy maybe cbt i think for a lot of

people is in terms of tools exactly if you're going to talk about um coming up with like specific mechanisms of things that can help very specific things. I mean, I'm essentially a CBT saleswoman at this point. Stan. Stan. But also CBT would be useless if you haven't had like optimum talk therapy before. Like you need, you need that self-awareness to start maybe.

I think it's like, yeah, self-awareness isn't recovery, but can you have recovery without self-awareness? Probably not. No, because you don't know what you're recovering from if you're unaware yeah then you're living in ignorance but not ignorant bliss you're kind of living in ignorant nightmare I almost think we're always going to be slightly deluded like you're never going to actually have completed self-awareness because surely your only awareness of yourself will always be out of date just in the way that it's like okay I can have full self-awareness because surely your only awareness of yourself will always be out of date just in the way that it's like okay i can have full self-awareness of myself now but that's only who i was up until today yeah like i haven't started analyzing who i was today yet i haven't got there

yet i'll only start doing that kind of next week thinking about who i was last week right so you're constantly um like two steps behind trying to catch up with your current self. Don't go navel gazing. And also you're filtered through the lens of someone that's biased. You're an unreliable narrator. Oh, completely. Nick fucking Carraway. Is that his name?

Yeah, Greg Gatsby. This is the second time we've had this conversation and I said, is Nick Carraway, is that his name? I think it is. But you are because it's very common for people to think they're presenting in a way that they are absolutely not presenting so the self awareness is not there you are an unreliable narrator to yourself you are unaware of many of the behaviors that you exhibit to other people you're not to be trusted in a lot of ways so you're

interrogating the thing that you are it's like that's counterintuitive to me it's kind of it's so human it's like can a dolphin interrogate a dolphin can a dolphin interrogate itself it's like that's counterintuitive to me it's kind of it's so human it's like can a dolphin interrogate a dolphin can a dolphin interrogate itself it's kind of like that to me seems like a fucking tricky job and that's what we're constantly trying to do like interrogate okay so am i being to this am i being to this am i working hard enough am i thin enough does my boyfriend still love me blah blah blah it's like actually you're you're looking on such a small scale that's literally your skin and bones inside your own body it's like that is a harder job that's why people recruit literal professionals to help them well and also it's like yeah a dolphin could do that but should

they i don't know probably not like they could but it's busy do they need to no it wants to eat some krill do they eat krill yeah what is krill um i've heard that in finding nemo what's his name plankton i'm sure that's an actual breed of like that's an actual species but i'm like what's his name the character and he has a gf he kind of did the movie her 2013 but like 10 years previous joaquin phoenix joaquin phoenix yeah and scarlett johansson wait what because he has a he has a girlfriend who's like a machine right he's with a computer what film are you talking about oh yeah in her plankton what's plankton plankton from spongebob i've never ever seen spongebob what what i was talking about finding nemo i've literally never ever ever seen um who's plankton and finding nemo just an extra

well no no there are some things and they they swim inside that disgusting whale they swim inside and they like it's got like loads of fucking disgusting bristles in there and its tongue is rank kind of shark tail that's another one yeah probably plankton's in those as well um if you've got mental health problems guys watch these sea creature films and it will all be fixed and also going back the behaviors that you exhibit are only being subject to everyone else's perceptions anyway so your self-awareness can only be accurate against what are you measuring it against how other people perceive you which is also down to their own bias everything really is completely

subjective so why don't you just give up but don't give up in the sense of give up why don't you just give up with the performance of it living for others maybe that might be a start like i was thinking this there is kind of something in just give up though and not give up as in give up on life but give up with the bullshit give up as in let go let go relinquish the control you don't have to live in any specific way like isn't that quite crazy it's like you actually don't have to do that all of us struggling with mental health just heard you say you don't have to live dot when we stop the podcast in any specific way in any specific way you're just trying to make me say that coolswell sucks so coolswell sucks that's a monster

scooby-doo two monsters unleashed reference yeah it's true you don't have to live in any specific way but it's really hard to remember that oh it's impossible to remember that it's absolutely impossible me saying that i definitely don't remember that any other time other than right now like you'll like catch me at midday today living in a very specific way that i've been trained to live in my entire life yeah it's impossible to remember that i think i saw this on i don't know where the fuck i saw it but it's like you don't have to diet like it's quite crazy it's like imagine you genuinely don't buy into that stuff and i know it's like fuck okay you don't have to diet but it's like you actually no one can force you you can live your life eating whatever you want and no one can do anything and nothing force you you can live your life eating whatever you want and no

one can do anything and nothing happens yeah you can live your life never having a friend in your life if you want to do that you can do that you've always got us you can relieve yourself of the social pressures you've always got us but you never have to go to a party again you never have to participate in any way that you don't want to you don't have to do any of it actually don't it will be a fucking hard life it's going to be difficult you're going to have a lot of people going uh actually what are you doing but you don't have to do shit quite liberating it is completely liberating fucking hard yeah it is but then we also come back to the thing of like is it manifesting or is it privilege like is it of course we would say you don't have to do anything guys kiss kiss kiss see you next

week jay of course we would do anything nothing at all life's so easy bye it's groundbreaking but i completely agree with you it is because you get so you're just completely indoctrinated into a way of life that is not of your own and that's not to say that this way of life that you're prescribing to is completely wrong for you i'm sure it's largely. But there are bits and pieces that you can tweak and shift to make your life more pleasant for you, right? And also, this is what I wanted to say in this podcast is that I think we mentioned this previously. Unfortunately, all of the like myths and like stories that you're told about mental health and like how to feel

better. Look, I hate to say it, but they're true. I don't want to say your skin will clear up if you drink more water. Don't make me say it. Don't make me say it. but they're true. I don't want to say your skin will clear up if you drink more water. Don't make me say it. Don't make me say it. But it's true. I've been really finding this recently as well of like, if you do yoga, you'll feel happier. Yeah, you're loving yoga these days, right?

I'm fucking obsessed with yoga at the moment. I cannot stop doing it. I'm doing it like three times a day. It's like actually a bit manic of me. Like it's not really that healthy. Here we go. She's got a yoga spreadsheet. I've been on notion

no i've actually been really fluid with it but it's it's that i literally some days like the other day i didn't do any at all but the next day today i'm doing it three times i am actually a bit spreadsheet but no i just know that i'm doing it this evening and i've also do it every lunch i do meditation and yoga with my housemate and i've already done the sun this morning but i think it's just genuinely that i want to be doing it that much at the moment it is very fluid which isn't something that I'm usually very good with I completely know what you mean by it's it was all fucking true if you go outside you feel better if you don't eat shit you feel better and I don't want to be saying this we want to tell you to go and eat super noodles and watch Game of Thrones

all day we're angry at this truth but it's true i feel it in myself if i spent a day eating super noodles and watching game of thrones i'm not feeling as good as the day that i do yoga eat really nice whole foods eat my fucking salad that i don't want to eat and i go on a fucking walk fuck off i don't want to do any of that but at the end of the day i'm feeling good annoying yeah i'm pissed off at it and i think it's there there is the self-awareness of knowing are you feeling good as we've said before are you feeling good because you're subscribing to all of these rules in life that you've been taught about capitalism and patriarchy and etc etc or are you feeling good because it actually feeds your soul and i think in so many ways it does feed your soul to like nourish your body and take care of yourself and go outside and get fresh air like

of course it does i mean it's just a massive realisation that I've had personally that I think a lot of people need is knowing that you have to hold yourself accountable at some point. There are lots of things that you can't control, but what you can, it's nice to know in yourself that you're doing your best.

And of course your best is more than good enough. And sometimes trying looks like you're not doing anything at all. But I think you know if you're holding yourself accountable or not and i think especially when things when you're really struggling it's hard to be the person that you need yourself to be like you need someone talking to you in a certain way or encouraging you to do certain things i think sometimes it's easier to like pretend that you don't know what's going to make you feel better but ultimately if there are things that you can control try it and it's hard like it's actually fucking hard like if you've found

this podcast because we're getting people that have found us not through our instagram which is sephian wing but people that have found us through goes without saying the podcast that you are listening to at this precise second in time if you found this through like a search through mental health and stuff it's like this is fucking hard like you're you're doing well to even be listening to this like when i'm in a shit place i'm not listening to a podcast on mental health and stuff it's like this is fucking hard like you're you're doing well to even be listening to this like when i'm in a shit place i'm not listening to a podcast on mental health i'm the duvet's over me and i'm going to bed so i think we're fucking trying so give yourself some credit that you're even listening to this one of the obvious things that comes up when you talk about social um fuck i gave it away when you talk about mental

health is social media but that just sums up they're kind of interlinked in the way that... Part and parcel, the mayor of London may say. They're the same thing. If you go on social media, your mental health's going to go down. According to the pros, I don't know. But it's kind of one of those things that when you say, in the same way that drink more water, do some exercise, like talk to people and go off social media.

But none of us can seem to do it because it's obviously built to be so addictive. think i'm doing it at the moment oh yeah you said the other day that you're quite off social media i'm really quite which is brilliant thing as we run social media platform together i am quite off social media i'm well i'm not off social media obviously but i'm really managing my social media usage without even noticing. I hadn't even noticed that I'd made a massive difference. So what I've done is actually in our 14 day empowerment program, there's I think maybe more than one page on this about social media usage. But one of the things that we spoke about or that I put on the story before on our Instagram

was that I set up time limits on my apps. We got a lot of messages being like, is this is one hour enough it's two hours too much how much is the right time and i was like listen babe i don't know i don't know your life whatever feels right to you so i put i think an hour an hour and a half on instagram yeah and like 40 minutes on twitter etc etc i put time limits on my apps and if i'm gonna it comes up with a thing saying you've gone over your you've used up all your time and i can say okay i'm gonna have 15 more minutes and i'll have 15 more minutes and on a really crazy day i'll ignore it and i just binge social media oh my god yeah i go all in on the scrolling but it's really good to have like a little thing that pops up and says like give it a fucking rest no one needs you here

and then also what i'm doing is i turned off my notifications which means whenever you try and contact me i do not see it she'll never know it's just going straight to me and i'm going hey guys and everyone's saying stop sending shit i'm not gonna lie it does cause problems i honestly i'll take some problems in my life like it's fine it makes a big difference with me not because on an iphone you can see um pickups oh how many times you pick up your phone in a day what you pick up your phone and what you click on first wow oh my god i didn't know that so like you're you're always going to find and pick up instagram like 200 times a day that's that's disgusting for me that's too much yeah to me i'm gonna be sick for me personally yeah to me i need

to go and go and lie down that's crazy yeah and i feel like i've got into quite a good routine of just just pushing away slightly that's really nice i'm not living in a bubble so much i think one of the worst bits of social media is the passivity of it because there's a very it's very very different when i intentionally pick up my phone to reply to you guys and intentionally pick up my phone to go on the story and look at polls and things like that or just kind of generally looking around in that realm but when i'm on my personal instagram scroll scroll scroll that is a different fucking game that is wait i've been here for 20 minutes i don't know what i've done i don't know why i picked this thing up that's terrible yeah that needs to go for me i i don't give a shit about a lot of the people that i follow I'm really sorry I don't if you're not in my life

actively I probably could could go without seeing could give or take you I could give or take seeing a picture of a sunset that you've looked at I could give or take seeing your brunch yeah it's like it's it's really nice to see some people that I knew from like lives ago or people that were at uni and things like that but I really could it does not affect my life seeing a picture of them sitting next to their mom at a table well unfortunately on the wrong day it will affect my life seeing them sat with their mom on the table it will make me feel a way that i don't want to feel for whatever reason and they should continue to post it oh absolutely it's nothing about them they should continue to post it it's on me i need to manage the fact that i don't care hold yourself accountable so i should not be looking it's on me completely and that's the trick of social media that i'm

trying to wake up without it that's my thing yeah it really sets the mood of the entire day oh boy does it if you have already you haven't even your feet haven't hit the floor and you have already consumed jason who you used to fancy with his new fucking girlfriend fuck off jason yeah literally that picture name of someone i don't know well it's literally like you wake up and you've handed over your life into the hands of somebody else it's like i've woken up and i've rolled a fucking wheel of fortune roll the dice and am i gonna consume a kid being held at gunpoint in a country that i'll never visit or Or am I going to consume a beautiful walk? I'm going to see a sea shanty on TikTok.

Yeah, yeah. Who fucking knows? The well-amended... Yeah, who fucking knows? It's like, honestly, you should be able to decide these things. And the problem is you can. It's just really hard. It's really, really fucking hard.

It's not easy because they've been built to make it not easy and that you feel that you're missing out yeah did you watch that thing what's it called the social dilemma no i never watched that yeah it's all right it's one of those things it's like yeah okay i'll watch that but when am i in the mood to get depressed never yeah so i won't well that's it it's doesn't it's not there's nothing groundbreaking it's everything you already know basically just but just confirmed just just shown to you in a little edited thing but the thing is it's like the things that i already know i don't really want them confirmed

because they're so bad it's like yeah you're listening oh fuck you are listening yeah shit i knew it so the link with social media and mental health is hardly like a groundbreaking no link to be drawn it's like if you're staring at a screen you're listening thinking what oh my god it's bad for my health never heard of that before it's like get out're staring at a screen you're listening thinking what oh my god it's bad for my health never heard of that before it's like get out of here run run as fast as you can your little legs can take you what specifically what kind of impact does it have on your mental health if you don't mind sharing with the audience what are the feelings i think it's changed over time definitely definitely when i was younger and i was in more of a tumblr and kind of the very

beginnings of instagram maybe some twitter in there not even facebook because i feel like facebook the beginnings were pretty healthy weirdly quite wholesome but the the tumblr age and the blog times beginnings of youtube that was comparison that was pure comparison i want to be these girls these girls are beautiful they've all got kind of a cigarette hanging out their mouths and they're all got baggy eyes and like dark smoky eyes i need to be these girls and they're listening to like arctic monkeys oh my god i need to be these girls yeah so that was comparison but i think now it's the complete waste of my own life it's like you're you're throwing away a precious thing on shit just just quite heavy things like that you're throwing away a precious thing on shit cool cool um you know what one of my favorite quick you

forget yourself you forget yourself it makes me forget myself takes you out of your body and not in a good way yeah it takes me so it takes me into another realm that i i honestly i don't like the realm that i'm in i'm in a different dimension it takes me i think to like a kind of christopher nolan realm where the world is folding in on itself and i'm looking up at the sky but it's actually the ground and i'm like what the fuck i think it just makes me forget i just forget and also i said this i said this to you the other day with social media we're so um you become embodied in other people's lives in a way that has never been you become invested in things that actually you would have never known and i think recently

as well what helped me come away from social media just subconsciously was what i said to you is that people people's echo chambers have been broken slightly within the the small portion of the instagram that we are in that sephian wing as an account is in there's been some fragmentation in the echo chamber and it's really uncomfortable i think for so many people to suddenly be like fuck i built my whole personality off of like six women if they hate each other what am i suddenly you are reminded that you need to form your own life and also like you can be a good person without being a good person on the internet or you can be hot without being hot on the

internet you can be smart without being seen as smart on the internet you can be a lot of things without the validation of the online realm and space behind you backing you up for it because it could go away at any moment that is the healthiest reminder of all time that what you have built is not in fact sort of a big community of loving people know what you've built is a facade that people are into yeah that's great it's not that it's not a bad thing to have a facade that people are into but that's the limit of it you've built a great place where people have bought into things but as we know people are only showing their highlights blah blah blah but you're actually more than highlights you're actually showing a very curated highlights

and some little lows in there just for good measure just for a bit of sprinkle of fake authenticity share the curated lows yeah digestible lows so people have this illusion that they know you and it's not so much of like oh my god a model on instagram posting bikinis oh my god they're only showing their highlights it's like no but you think you know these people we see them now eating dinner and also we're doing it too it's not just a model doing it you are suddenly the celebrity you are the star that's that's that's not even a niche reference doesn't count as a reference basically there was these things in like the late 90s they were like video it was like vcr i can see you rolling your eyes it's like nothing i just

started drinking my tea i'm like okay okay here we go great time for a tea break the thing in the 90s where you could put your face like on a cartoon and it was called you are the star oh yeah do you remember jib jab jib jab no jib jab jib jab it was a thing like that but you could edit yourself it was though had a big viral one every christmas called elf for yourself oh right and you'd be like break dancing else that's quite later that's the internet i'm talking pre oh wow but this is the 90s oh god okay yeah yeah yeah i'm talking about jib jab and then the beginning would be these two men and they one would say jib the other one would be jabbed a bit jib jab people would edit the jonas brothers faces over them they would edit who the jonas brothers my kings everyone Everyone know Joe, Nick and Kevin?

And the other one, Frankie. And Frankie. But he's not Jonas Brother, but he is a brother of Jonas. He's viral. He is viral. And rightly so, he's a cool guy. Yeah, TikTok king. I also think social media is a bit scarier when it comes to...

It's almost a bit of a breeding ground for social... For social media, fucking hell. Social media is a breeding ground for social media. Listen to my podcast. Social media is a breeding ground for social media listen to my podcast social media is a breeding ground for mental health problems acas powers the world's best podcasts here's a show that we recommend nature i've got a gay rooster named Francois. Is so gay. These rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals.

Does that mean I'm gay? So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer. and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. In the way that, as well, when it comes to navel-gazing, it's like you could have lived your whole life having something. Having something existing, having some sort of experience. If you've suddenly got a label on it, whoa.

It could turn your whole world around. Like, it could suddenly make you... It can make it your whole personality. All these girls didn't know they had, quote-ununquote hip dips until hip dips were a thing on instagram etc it's like this should never have been introduced to you sometimes you can know too much often i think often often often it's so true even with that with the idea of new things being introduced to you new labels for things being introduced to you you kind of introduce labels for yourself in this branding way the idea that now you have to have a brand to be honest makes me fucking heave that is disgusting absolutely disgusting your own like sort of sacred fucking life your experience as a

human being is being branded and marketed fuck off it's disgusting even just a static sense of identity it's like don't let's shall we not do that to ourselves? Shall we not? In the way that you box everybody else, what you want to do that to yourself as well. Not helpful. Please don't do that. Not helpful. You don't have to be a morning person.

You don't have to be a Capricorn moon. You don't have to be a schedule maker or a list maker. Some days you want to be that, some days you don't. Or a risk taker. Just live and see what happens. We've said this before i think we spoke about this quite a lot in our kind of new year episode of just like your hobbies your interests don't have to be compatible you can be a ballet dancer that also loves driving trucks

you don't need to be um hipster girl that makes earrings on the side um has like a record collection you don't need to be that fuck off that's not real if it is real cool but do you also want to cook enchiladas like what do you fucking want to do oh that sounds good someone ate enchiladas tonight as well i was thinking i was gonna say we're making enchiladas tonight are you yeah what a coincidence yeah i never really think about enchiladas that often no neither except we had them like not that recently we thought keep that in mind next time we want enchiladas you're doing vegan enchiladas oh no i'm eating meat now yeah yes i'm doing vegan i know i'm asking you like what like what's the vibe like what's the beanie vibe it's a beanie vibe what's the cheese vibe it's a fake cheese vibe yeah but how epic mature epic mature the via live epic mature epic mature i

had that on my life changing vegan cheese ball at Yeah, it's good. I eat that so often with corn cakes. Corn cakes? Like rice cakes that are corn. Oh, corn. I heard corn, right, yeah. Like a rice cake, but corn. Nice. Well, it's kind of cheese and crackers.

When I first watched Soul, it was a big cheese and crackers vibe. Exactly, that's what I'm thinking. It feels quite lavish. Thing is, it's like, it feels lavish, but it's actually total abnegation. Abnegation? You stole my joke!

Basically, oh no, I can't even tell you basically we had a big old plate of like we spent this is back when we were students we spent 20 pounds on vegan cheese and not like a whole host of vegan cheeses we bought two two camemberts two vegan camemberts for 20 pounds i think it was at 18.99 and seffy was serving me up a big plate of cheese and i said thank you for my plate of abnegation if you're familiar with divergent you'll get it if not to be honest if not honestly don't worry about it please don't worry your life goes on it's not that good you don't need to know but it's true these things don't have to define you you don't have to pick a label and let it define and rule your whole life because it will only cause problems when you start finding holes in it when you find that you're not compatible with the

life that you've kind of curated for yourself you don't need to be compatible also your life is going to change so much yeah miley cyra she wakes up every day and says goodbye yesterday's me i'm a new gal now it's so true that's That's already outdated info. And also when things change, they change really fast. Things, when things start, when things start going, things change. Good King Wenceslas last night.

Went to town. Went to town. It's because you said wents, but you didn't mean to say wents and I just picked, I'm just throwing the whole fucking thing. It's because I'm feeling quite festive. You know our tree only came down yesterday.

It's the 27th of January. Oh my God that's the worst luck sorry that i only start feeling festive on the afternoon of christmas day like i need to keep up the festive fairy light vibe you need to let it go mid-jan you need to let it go it's a mince pie that's not good but when things change they change really rapidly and i think that's one of the things of remembering that when you're in a stagnant place and you feel like fuck this isn't going well you can lose years of your life you have nothing really happening and feeling stagnant and be 50 years old and thriving like things change that you're going to be a different person each fucking decade if you're the same person when you're 20 and when you're 80 you haven't lived you haven't done well i don't think that's when you're 80, you haven't lived. You haven't done well.

I don't think that's possible. You can't. You won't. I'd like to see you try. You should welcome the change of you're going to struggle sometimes. You're going to be thriving sometimes. And it's about the give and take. And it is quite stunning to remember that things pass.

Your life is going to go in a way that you cannot predict. As much as you may have a notion spreadsheet on the go. Five year plan. You can't predict it. You could end up cleaning out horses when you're older you could own a water park when you're older oh can we come you could live many stunning lives yeah you could live stunning lives and you cannot predict them yeah you can't so let that happen don't waste this time worrying and also with the gaze either too far external looking at other people or too far internal it needs to be like a give and take of just allowing things to be that's so stunning a message that we got that obviously just completely fucking shattered my little heart

but i thought it should shatter all of your hearts as well so stay tuned i'm gonna read it um they said i don't have a problem with contacting a therapist but my family thinks i'm making up my depression and aren't used to the idea of a psychologist because of their old fashioned mentality my best friend has told me that my problems are quote too heavy for her god and i'm too much to deal with even though i haven't asked for anything ever my other friends don't like my quote negative energy and negative outlook on life quote it's like no it's not negative energy it's depression so basically don it's like no it's not negative energy it's depression so basically don't want to be depressed anymore for their own benefit this is where the toxic positivity thing really actually ends up ruining everyone's fucking lives and

friendships you've got negative energy it's like yep i do bitch and you do too you should have a look at it sometime you're pretty fucked up and so am i don't lie to yourself and me yeah well that's a really gutting message because it just sounds like you're surrounded by a load of people that just really have a lack of understanding about mental health people that don't really understand therapy and mental health do fucking piss me off because it's just sort of like you need need need to get up to date because this is why especially from an older generation it's like this is why you're you all fucking depressed like this is why so don't burn shit on this generation for actually wanting a bit better yeah i think you're your best friend saying that your problems are too heavy for her

and you're too okay and you're too much to deal with that second part we need we're cancelling that because you can't be too much to deal with they might not be um what's the word competent yeah but there's a lethal word that i'm looking for equipped this is like the other episode where we couldn't think of clitorally yeah clitorally someone messaged us and it's clitorally thank you so yeah your best friend obviously doesn't sound like they are equipped to handle much to be honest although i'm sure i'm sure she's great but when you say i've never asked for anything ever and you're being told that your problems are too heavy i mean it's only going to teach you to not ever reach out again isn't it

but i also think this shows the benefit of social media that we've just been shitting on for half an hour log off apart from this podcast stay on stay tuned yeah apart from stay here because also on social media you're surrounded by people that are showing you that you're not too much to deal with and your problems aren't too heavy. And that actually your struggles are- Completely normal. Largely universal.

Yeah. We say this every time, but like truly, when we ask for stuff on the stories and you come back with your experiences and your insights and blah, blah, blah, obviously you're all your own people and your own individual, right? Beyond your role in our little podcast. but the struggles that you are dealing with are so mimicked you're

mimicking one another you're all living the same life yeah you forget it you really forget it i was reminded of it so i i've had nightmares for like two or three nights in a row now like quite not even like horrific nightmares but like bad dreams i had one where this owl's face was getting like kicked in and i was like leave the owl alone i'm an owl you are an owl but it didn't look like now it's like a purple thing purple's my color and i was like trying to call the irs pca that's awful there's teenage weird teenagers and like weird shit like that and then i i was kind of like fuck like this is so annoying and i went on a walk sorry is this in your dream or is this real life this is real life this is real life now and i was walking walking walking past this like coffee shop and there was these two girls in conversation i was feeling really sorry for myself like fuck i can't like

couldn't sleep blah blah blah and one of the girls was like oh i just like haven't been sleeping i keep on having bad dreams and like was talking it's like i'm not alone me too bitch me too i'm not alone in this yeah especially during coco times you forget that there is a world outside of your bedroom your social media lists of who you're following your life your house your friends your family there's stuff outside and to pass these two girls that were having the exact same one of them was having the exact same thoughts as me it's like fuck yeah there is a world outside i forgot i fucking forgot it's a scam and also the fact that we're told to not speak about our problems. So you'll never know if your best friend

is going through the same thing as you. Yeah. Because neither of you are talking about it. Have you ever had one of those crazy conversations where it's someone that you're close with in life and you bring up a problem that you think that you're the kind of only one struggling with and then they'll be like,

no, I literally have the exact same thing. Yeah. Those are so crazy. Those moments where you're just like, fuck. Or even you could have it with like a celebrity on social media. You think you're the only person with something. And then you watch an interview and they say it. And it's like, I admire you.

Yeah. And you deal with the same thing. Oh my God. That was me and Sophie Turner. And I fell in love with her. And I'm still obsessed with her to this day. Oh yeah. Why don't you tell that?

There's nothing really to tell apart from the fact that I love her. But I was watching her on a podcast with Dr. Phil and she was saying that like, she was just, to be honest, saying the most ridiculous things. Obviously her mental health struggles aren't ridiculous, but the things that she was saying really put her in my student house,

in my seminars, in my life, so that she became this really like tangible, real life human being, not just like this, kind of the queen of Game of thrones yeah because i remember and i remember specifically what really put it into like what really um nailed it in ran it home for me was that she said she was like and i would be on like like shooting like game of thrones and i'd be thinking like oh where's the camera because it's like gonna shoot my nose like from a weird angle like do my corset tighter because i let everyone saying i look fat and it's like fuck you are my friend like my mates say that and you have everything

and you're still thinking that so it's almost like okay if what who i think is a so stunning person sophie turner is thinking badly about herself i can't really think badly about myself because chances are i'm all right too and this is just a fucking joke like this whole thing has just been taught to you and that your mental health will have you thinking these crazy things because i never used to get the thing of like just know you're not alone i think i know i'm not alone shut up it didn't like click for me it's not about like taking comfort in the sadness of others it's hardly comforting that more people are suffering yeah it's not about that it's the fact that like it puts things into perspective for you that your struggle isn't an isolating experience and everyone else can do it and you have done it up until this point so you will continue to do it

i think that's so powerful i think it's so it's so true that when you can identify things that you think i'm like joe jonas is fucking you and you don't like your nose and you're embarrassed about the way your nose looks i'm going it's not fucking no i'm not buying it it's not real it's not real yeah i think that's what shows it when you see that people that you admire struggle with things that you struggle with so i do admire her more than just she's being fucked by joe jonas by the way i just want to make that really clear but it is a main factor but it's so true people you admire struggling with the same things as you it does put things into perspective in a way that's like you you the god that i see you as felt has felt like this the scum that i view myself as what like it like doesn't compute and that's so powerful because it flips the narrative

completely and it's just like maybe i'm not scum maybe i'm a god and then you can go down that road and it will be brief it will be fleeting you'll fall you'll fall back down into the the abyss of kind of where society wants you to be but you might get to a place of contentment yeah but i think it's like you should you should cling on to those moments of realization even though they don't last when you realize oh my god i'm not living a shit life i'm actually living a great life i've just been scammed throughout my entire life to think i should be striving for this unattainable vision of success you should hang on to those moments because they are fleeting but they are epiphanies and like a few of them can give you some groundwork to actually work from without them without

realizing that sophie turner also doesn't like her nose like now you know literally and you can see yourself in in your goddess like that's a lot completely i also think it's a thing of we suddenly are all obsessed with happiness and like being amazing yeah it's like you don't have to feel amazing all the time like you're not toxic for just being a bit negative you don't have to fully embrace happiness at all moments. You can just live with a sense of contentment in your life and it's okay. There's a book about this that I actually never read, but my therapist actually told me about this called,

I think it's called The Happiness Trap. And I never read it because the title was enough for me to just know it all, but I will read it. In my naive self a few years ago, I heard that title and thought, I think I've nailed it already. I get what that's about. Yeah, I get the gist.

Don't judge a book by its cover, but do judge a book by its title. And I do know it all. It's a trap. Happiness is a trap. Contentment is the goal. To be kind of mildly okay and have ups and downs

that are naturally fall within that. That's the goal. Striving for permanent happiness is a trap. Even just to experience a range, a whole spectrum of emotions is such a privilege it's a gift it's actually a gift there was something i think this was something we were talking about the other day with just like allowing yourself to be sad and i was actually going to read one of the messages that relates to this let me just see if i can quickly find it they said i'm not shaming myself for having bad days and not forcing myself to push through or be

resilient and it's like yeah you don't have to push through whoever told you you have to suddenly turn your sadness into happiness was lying to you or you don't have to even lean into your sadness you don't have to make it i'm having a sad day but you can just watch the feeling go by you don't have to suddenly whip out your fucking quilt and get in front of the tv and watch like a depressing movie and listen to depressing music and eat horrible food have a good cry yeah you just just watch the feeling go by just live in it for a bit and see what happens just be a bit softer with yourself it's the thing of acknowledging the feelings there and move on what do you want to do about that there's no point in being like right how can i convert this sadness into a productive

happiness that's compatible with capitalism and society and it also needs to make me look beautiful no you don't have to do shit you don't have to do fucking shit yeah just let your day go as your day is gonna go you can't control it emotions are temporary they pass their fluid just go just go for it i can i completely think it's just you're you're doing better than expected and i think you're doing better than you think you are in where they put you and what they gave you and what you have and what you're dealing with you're doing better than expected it's above average performance from you so just let it be man of the match whoa man of the match you know what's really sad Frank Lampard has been fired did you see that this is big news in my house at the moment I don't even know anything about who fucking frank fucking lampard is who is that i don't mind frank

lampard but it's john terry that i don't like i feel like that's my old next door neighbor was frank lampard i'm pretty sure his name was frank lampard john terry i don't like because he listen to this this is crazy goss guys it's about 15 years too late but it's footy goss you'll be shocked if you don't know this yeah john terry had sex who are these people john terry cheated on hit this might be completely wrong he cheated on his wife his wife's listening like this is false john terry's wife is like you're spreading shit this is my blur john terry cheated on his wife with his teammate's wife. When he was captain, by the way. Some captain, I say.

Some captain? Some captain. That's so what the men shout at the TV. Some captain, Terry. Terry. What's his name? Terry. What is it, Terry?

He's your neighbour. John Terry. Fuck. John Terry. He's confusing you because he's got two first names. It's like two different people, Fred and George. Yeah, well, he is two different people to his wife. What snake what a fucking slithery snake cancel him cancel him it's not too late cancel john terry i learned the offside rule the other day i thought it'd be

quite a good skill to learn when men try and mansplain things thing is i did have to have it mansplained to me but i'm thinking if i'm ever in a group of men playing football it's quite good to whack out uh sorry it's not as useful as you think because it only looks like you're being like I know the offside role but actually you don't know who Frank Lampard is so true so true so true doesn't mean much does it how are you going to use that well just when I'm being patronized just to be like uh I've never used knowing it never ever oh well maybe it's not that useful but I'm kind of thinking I think I think I've stored that info for an occasion I think it will come up at a good point in my life okay you know it's like i

need to know that info for something and i don't know what it is yet but it will all be revealed maybe it's a future footy pod maybe you'll be a pundit one day hi guys welcome to football with sephie doesn't sound all that dissimilar to what we do now hi guys we don't know how to do an intro still after after all this time always another message that i thought was really good because it was kind of echoed all over instagram and i feel like we've spoken about it before so they said i find it easy to ask for help i actually hate myself okay i find it easy to ask for help from official channels e.g getting free counseling from my uni talking to my director of studies when things get overwhelming etc etc. That's good. But struggle to be vulnerable around my friends. But because I'm aware of this,

I sometimes end up overcompensating by oversharing. Case in point, earlier today, I almost told some random girl in a class. Case in point, earlier today, I almost told some random girl I'm in a class with that I've been putting on... Jesus! Case in... Just slow down. It's fine. It's all good. in point earlier today i almost told some random girl i'm in a class with that i've been put on sleeping pills for two weeks like literally did she ask lol literally did she ask yeah did she ask and i just think oversharing is such a trend and it comes back into the like self-deprecating jokes it's like suddenly you're trying to win people over by telling them really personal like private information about yourself oversharing is really

complex because it's kind of got that millennial vibe to it it's kind of almost adulting it's like oh god i'm an oversharer and when i hear people say that in the similar way to the self-deprecating humor it's like that's not a good thing it's not a good thing the key word being over well i just did it i when i was just reading that out i like stuttered like twice and i was like i fucking hate myself and it's like here we go with the self-deprecating humor like shut up it's not good also i hate myself but i really don't it's not a good trait it's not a good um practice to get yourself into it's not a good it's not a good habit to get yourself into yeah because we've all done it we've all done it where you kind of feel the eyes on you and you you kind of feeling

awkward so you decide to kind of go outrageous and then you say something like bizarre that's like and it makes everyone sit back i've never done that i've never overshared ever you're kind of the complete opposite though you're an undersharer yeah if anything you're quite you live in quite secrecy well i'm just really selective with who i give info which i think there can be a balance there's a difference between being an oversharer and just sharing people know when they want to weaponize your shit because i'm open about my life but i will not be giving god knows who god knows what info about me because also there are things that you don't want to hear there are things that i don't want you to know i've lived

a whole life in here this is not your business but also that's boundaries yeah absolutely it's funny for a generation that's so obsessed with setting boundaries and no one is doing it i also think when you're in social settings like you can have all these rules to yourself like i have boundaries blah blah blah like i can do this but when you're in a social setting where things are fast paced things are coming out people aren't thinking before they speak suddenly before you know it you've overshared and you don't know what to do with that if it's a deflective tactic that you use quite often in a social setting things can just come out absolutely you can have all the prep you can know your boundaries and all

this stuff but on the spot can you really do it it's fucking hard i don't know if i can always do it at this point there's the worst thing you can do is beat yourself up about it you've revealed information that you didn't want to reveal in hindsight you've done it now that's fine yeah it's okay you're only human it's fine to give people too much sometimes it's okay i also think it's quite nice like you don't want to say like i've been on sleeping pills and it's something that you're not comfortable with and then suddenly like oh yeah if you're not comfortable with it but I think there's something about sharing potentially humorously but also quite sincerely be vulnerable with people yeah I think that's really nice but once you've got a bit of a grip on it yourself if you're going to use humor in there make sure that you've got a grip on it that it's funny to

you because to me it doesn't sound like saying that you've been on sleeping pills would be that funny to you and then you're using it as if it's funny and it's quite obvious to the person you said it to that it wasn't funny to you and now you're in a situation where it's like you've used humor to deflect but actually everyone's just a little bit uncomfortable yeah i do that too completely it's very common a lot of us do it too you've just got to acknowledge that that's not honoring yourself at all it's not honoring how you truly feel yeah it's completely that it's and it's just like don't convince yourself that you're being vulnerable when you're actually being terrified yeah when you're almost being quite violated by yourself yeah by yourself and and

with an audience that's not being vulnerable also you shouldn't trust these people like identify who you can trust place trust in those people be um vulnerable with those people and also trust quite freely i think don't be like really um hold on to i can only trust three people and be quite strong with that be quite loose and soft with it all yeah but also be suspicious as well like there are people that will weaponize your vulnerability back at you later people do store information and people aren't to be trusted because people have huge insecurities themselves their own best interests at heart yeah so say that i go and say something that's really personal to me and then i say in a group of people that i don't really know and i say it as a as humorous thing i should expect

that that will leave that circle that will go out that someone will say something to someone and that personal information is no longer personal when you've made it public it's public and you shouldn't trust the public absolutely and even if it doesn't go anywhere and the public were completely trustworthy, it's your own mind that's the problem often. It's like not necessarily what they do with the information. It's what you do with the information in somebody else's head when you know they have it. Because you can imagine all of these things that are happening that might not be true, but it's not necessarily the reality that's affecting you. It's the fact that it doesn't feel right to have someone that you don't really know know something that you don't really want them to know about you yeah whether or not they reveal it to someone or use

it against you or don't you will feel yeah away about it about it yeah how do we tackle that line between oversharing and vulnerability because so many people struggle to be vulnerable without it being a performance of vulnerability as well i think it's about thinking about what is actually natural for you what's actually natural and what's not just like weirdly learned behavior were you just in a group of people at school that would always talk really in depth about things so you've just adopted that behavior think about what you actually want to share who you actually want to share it with i don't think it's actually more complicated than that i think it's just think about the information think about who you want to share it with why you want to share that what will you get from sharing that and are you comfortable with other people knowing that because i would just assume that that person if it's really

juicy goss that you're going to tell them i would just assume that they're going to tell people or just use it to perceive you it then becomes a part of you i also think you don't owe anyone explanation or justification of your life or your being you don't owe anyone this personal information so yeah it's just completely what is right for you but you can absolutely benefit from being vulnerable with people well so what how are we doing the work then from now on doing the work you came up with a good one earlier yeah earlier i said let's make note of how you feel every day don't do anything about it just understand it today i'm feeling a bit overwhelmed tomorrow i'm feeling fine the day

after i'm feeling a bit sad whatever just make note yeah i think that's a pretty um beginner's activity you don't need to change it that's so um meditation that's so something that is like just acknowledge the feeling you can say i'm feeling a bit overwhelmed is that pleasant or unpleasant just watch it float by it's headspace 101 hi i'm andy i used to be a buddhist monk i used to be a monk and now I own an app and now I'm a capitalist fraud now I have a show on Netflix yeah he's like what do the Buddhist monks think about this Andy and welcome to headspace okay well should we do that then next week we're doing the work we're taking note of how we feel that's so beautiful it's lovely I can't wait how are you feeling

right now should we do one now okay i'm feeling honestly i'm still feeling pretty good i'm on my 2021 buzz still oh yeah you are of course i really am like when i said new year new me you meant it i don't know what happened like i think i did something i don't know what spell i cast she hacked the system i i found a loophole and it actually worked you really have been though for like quite a long time now yeah i really have been every time i speak to you she's like brilliant and also i've had hurdles thrown at me i've had fucking hurdles by the way like and i still feel good so i'm feeling grateful actually for that but i'm feeling pretty positive i'm feeling just overall a sense

of excitement that's been my overall feeling. That's really nice. Yeah, what about you? I'm setting quite high. Just know that I'm usually in the deepest despair. So don't be jealous. I feel quite jittery at the moment. I think for the last week or so, I always say this thing where it's like,

I want to go ice skating. I need to be on ice. I need to be shooting around a r ice skating i need to be on ice i need to be shooting around a rink yeah i need to be going jenna rink big time magazine editor do you know that for is it from 13 going on 30 yeah i am jenna rink though i'm jenna ice rink and i need to be shooting around i need to be dancing i need to be in an outfit i need to be on ice 30 flirty and thriving that's stunning there's no better place to be but also it's kind of from a nervous energy i sometimes go between a little bit of mania in my life and then just

like extreme exhaustion and i'm in i'm definitely in a more in a bit of a manic state a chaotic vibe at the moment restless vibes which is quite yeah very very restless which isn't that pleasant but also um it's fine did you know this sounds irrelevant but it's very relevant to you and you only seffy i hope you don't mind me saying that you're you're from oxford right you're from oxfordshire can we reveal that yeah we can reveal i'm from oxfordshire did you know that oxfordshire is ruled by capricorn is it yeah oh my god i know and i thought well my voice just went crazy i know i'm literally reduced to tears at it i thought i can't wait to tell her oh my god what does that mean so what each place in

in the world is ruled by a different side well so they say so someone said on a buzzfeed article one so they say there's also i was gonna say this earlier there is danger in like identifying with something because since i found out i'm a pisces moon boy am i so if i'd found out that i was a fucking capricorn moon i'd be different it's so fucking true you become what you tell yourself so tell yourself nice things just try at least like it's fucking hard but just try yeah i hope you i really want you to feel good after listening to this i hope you do please just know that life it's a scam we didn't ask to be here non-consensual life we've arrived here we might as well just try there was no pressure yeah my nan said no child asked to be born and she was really on to something we didn't ask for this but we're here and we might as well do something i

hope you feel like we're with you because we are with you emotionally i'm invested in your life like i'm fucking rooting for you so keep us updated let us know how things are going we're always here see you next week apes doing the work doing the work