Goes Without Saying - out-growing your old life: podmas #1

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

on the first day of podmas sephy & wing gave to me... reflections on childhood trauma and evolving out of the pain. join the conversation every monday.shop our merch: sephyandwing.co.ukcome and chat in our book club.speak your mind on the @sephyandwing 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 Welcome to Podmas. Merry Podmas, everybody. Merry Podmas. I wish you a happy Podmas every day it's podmas this is iconic maybe we'll have some little bells oh that would be jingling away that would be fun really fun so this is a new this is um an unannounced thing you didn't know this was gonna happen no neither did we really

but i'm but i'm excited we were talking about this as if it's almost like your advent calendar there's hopefully gonna be one every single day a little chocolate for you to unwrap um and it's your little christmas advent calendar we're at the top of your christmas list perfect the little angels on your tree oh i guess that's all we really need to say let's do a five minute intro of what it is that's kind of it you kind of get the gist well i guess just to make it clear the intention is we'll see you again tomorrow we're hoping we're gonna be checking in every day just keeping things festive and happy yeah and also you were saying i when you kind of were pitching the idea to me you were saying like christmas is a were pitching the idea to me you were saying

like christmas is a tough time for people and all of this stuff and it's like yeah yeah i would fucking love if i was having a shit christmas i would fucking love two fucking nutters popping up hey mary padmas checking in on me talking about deep topics i would love it yeah you also did say we were going through some of the potential topics um for the next well we're hoping it's going to be 12 days of podmas with sephie and we're talking about some of the potential topic ideas and you were saying like i've been saving these for a rainy day like some of them are quite um hard hitters they're so hard hitting but just now i said i don't want to do that one because i don't want to get annoyed at you and i saw your face like

tense i was like i've gone too far i've gone too far i just know but i was tense because i was trying i just sometimes i don't know what to say to make you feel better do you know what i mean like i want to ease the situation i'm just a mental about certain things well sometimes i can see you getting further and further away from me and i'm trying to lasso you yeah no i completely see it that was about veganism by the way maybe coming hopefully maybe not depending if i get over my shit or not um but some of them i think will be quite deep. But I think it will just be a nice intimate little combo between us to get us through the festive season. So I hope you're in for the ride on our little sled. Sleng?

Yeah. Sleng. Hop on board. Shall we get straight in? Yeah. So what are we talking about today? I've already forgotten. Today we're hopefully going to be talking about outgrowing your old life.

Yeah. So have you outgrown your old life um yes thank you for asking i feel like sometimes you get the itch you know and it's kind of what we were saying the last episode of like it is always at the end of the year and you love your new start oh i do i do yeah but i think also i also kind of thought this would be quite a timely episode so cue all of the messages saying how did you know this is exactly where i am at in my life right now blah blah blah um which we love to see but i feel like it can often come with maybe going back home for the end of the year like

a break in between uni visiting your family being around old friends i feel like often the end of the year and whether or not you celebrate christmas specifically but it's also seffy's birthday which you should all be celebrating 27 capricorn gal i feel like it's really that time where you are often pushed into spaces that you haven't been to in a long time and that can be really jarring and i think it's especially jarring when there's this kind of um overwhelming sentiment or narrative from the rest of the world that is saying how much fun you should be having and how how much love there is everywhere and how amazing things are and it's also positive and sometimes you just don't feel that way for whatever reason yeah i think rarely you feel that way like even though the general vibe of christmas is it's the best season ever like oh my god it's so so fun like it's

presents it's food it's family sometimes all of those things are hard like oh my god food and family those are two things that are pretty hard like i would say in certain ways um presents that's fine i can cope with that but it's like money it's a whole fucking thing oh my god it's not exactly a stress-free time for anyone i know really yeah yeah do you feel comfortable talking to us about a little festive stress that you've had or not really yeah i think i can let me think well i think i always have the thing of like going home also mine is coinciding with I'm literally moving out of London in like a few days I think on Sunday so funny look forward to that podmas episode that's gonna be crazy we're gonna need to pre-record that because that's a van

arriving between the hours like it was cheaper if you could like do longer longer window so i've done i'm going to a party the night before hopefully if the party goes ahead and i really hope it does because i'm excited to get out of this fucking house after being so yeah i've gone the window is from 7 a.m to i think like 2 p.m so it's like that's a long time to just be like awake the day and hung over i'm kind of ready to go at any moment so that's gonna be fun yeah so i think with the idea of like going home with a van of stuff and then also like just family stresses of like arguments and my family is chaotic at the fucking best of times um there's a lot of get it from yeah literally there's also like a lot of

autism in my family um and i do think it's something that everyone has their own additional needs that need to be managed and when we're all together not everyone in my family has autism but there's a few of my key players that do me included and i think there's main character always i think there's like a lot of a lot of needs that need to be managed like some people like to like to sit on the left hand side of the table but some people need also to sit on the left hand side of the table but they're not enough like but they also need like there's stuff that needs to happen and I do find that really stressful and I know everyone finds it stressful and also my family's highly emotional me included and tears are a thing that we will do as early as breakfast I would say

breakfast lunch and dinner um so that's something that's like kind of I have phone calls before Christmas every year with like my again key players of my family otherwise known as my family members and the key players my key players well there's a few minor players as well of course yeah not in my close family but you know my extended yeah gutted for you minor players but like we have phone calls like right okay this time let's all just try let's just try and like keep it calm yeah when we see this happening let's just keep it calm guys keep it calm so i think it's and does that work does that work um i think when we all make an effort to be like really sensitive to each other's stuff it yeah i think when i think i'm one of the people that struggles to be most like accommodating to things that i think are

silly but so i think it's a real note to myself of like just go with the flow more like if someone um says something that you think is like ridiculous maybe just let it slide like maybe just let it slide okay you don't need to fucking pick up on every fucking thing yeah i like that so i think that's something that for me it's like let's really make a conscious effort to keep this calm i think something as well we've had this conversation quite a bit where sometimes you're around could be family could be anyone um who maybe you don't spend as much time with now as an adult but you kind of grew up around and things like that and so in my experience i think i grew up around a lot of hostility and kind of controlling or like very

quick tempered, hot headed nurse. And I find it to just be a little bit like irrational and silly. Silly. Yeah. Very, very silly. Like, why are we getting angry about car keys being in the wrong place? Why are we getting angry about someone keys being in the wrong place why are we getting angry about someone still having their shoes on why are we getting angry about someone not liking this kind of food like there's no reason for people to be stropping the way i'm seeing them strop yeah and i think something you know no no go on go on well i was just gonna say something that we always say well something i always say to you and I always think it is as difficult as it is sometimes to be around it also can be a nice reminder of how amazing it is that you aren't

like that because I think sometimes it can be really difficult when I see people in my family people that raised me maybe that I love so much obviously and goes out saying they're amazing and wouldn't change it for the world however sometimes being around that really uncomfortable or difficult or jarring environment is a nice reminder of okay i outgrew that and that's actually a really good thing that's a testament to me i developed my own character and i'm not i haven't just carried that on I'm not stroppy like that or I'm not difficult like that and I'm you know I have all these other positive traits I'm sure I have lots of negative traits too but sometimes I think when you're in a really difficult situation and the people are bringing you down it's nice sometimes they love to do it honestly they've

been waiting all year for it but sometimes it's really nice to to remind yourself that i'm finding this really really difficult and finding this really hard is actually upsetting me but it's also a lovely reminder that i don't live like this my day today doesn't look like this and i am maybe more mature in certain ways or more compassionate or understanding or all of these things also a lot of that is often like quite triggering from your childhood because it's almost like you those behaviors like when you see someone i thought what you were going to say is crying over crumbs which is something that it's like you think someone's being like why are there crumbs on this table it's like you think you're crying over crumbs but you're actually

crying about your divorce is what we for example yes um back back back in the day i think but it well it's like you're crying over the car keys but you're actually crying because your wife left you exactly like why is no one respecting the rules of my house you've all walked like that is really what's going on here but you're pretending it's about car keys yeah so someone else the car keys symbolizes freedom my car like like yeah just ridiculous my adult life oh my god but i think also like it's triggering from your childhood when you realize it's like when you go back into a situation people are for example screaming about car keys and it's like oh god i didn't realize that i've actually worked to outgrow these behaviors like yeah i remember a time when i realized that the way i was brought

up wasn't normal like i remember when i went to uni and i don't think my family will mind me saying this but like the idea of like um for example there's someone's shoe in the living room that no one knows whose it is it might be the instinct in my family for someone to go there's a shoe in the living room whose shoe is in the living room right up the stairs like it's a big fucking deal most people would probably say nothing about the shoe and then when they pass you in the hallway be like is that your shoe in the hallway that might be what happened and i think i realized oh my god shouting isn't like a normal thing. The done thing. It's like, do you want a glass of water?

It's not normal. Yeah. And I think when I go into my house now, I'm reminded by like, oh my God, it's actually like, I think I find it triggering the just the volume, the sheer volume of my family. And it's fine. But like, it's just the volume is like turned up my family and it's fine but like it's just the volume is like turned up um by like seven notches in my house yeah love it yeah podmas is going well so far amazing okay so can i ask you a question yes of course you can obviously going home and

going back to old places can trigger it can just it can make you realize it's quite confronting sometimes of like oh shit a lot has changed since i've last been here yeah but sometimes i think there's a subtlety to the ways that we grow month to month week to week day to day yeah that in our waking life we are outgrowing or evolving or moving into a new space and sometimes we don't realize it had a bit of a shaken stevens and thought oh shit actually this isn't where i want to be right now yeah 100 i feel like i live my life jarred like i'm just a jarred person like oh fucking hell it's not very comfy in this in this life life yeah i think i mean for example me leaving London I think that there's been so many points over the last few months where I've thought no this is not right for right now and

it's not even um like specific moments but just I think for me there have just been so many things where it's like you're completely fine like it's just content fine whatever but it's like you have the option to I don't know if I said this in the last episode but it was almost like if you stay here i can tell you exactly what your next year will be and it will be nice it will be fine but i can literally script out what your year will be yeah do you want to do that again or do you want to take a risk and do you want to try something else and i can't tell you what that year is going to look like and even more that even though that's more scary that also feels more fun to me which i'm gonna go into do you think you're would you describe yourself as a risk taker yeah i was actually

saying this in my journal to myself and what was it saying back to you to my journal can you show me do you know anything about the chamber yeah yeah i i was writing i think i'm someone that really i don't think i enjoy playing it safe in my life i think i um also it's all fucking um relative like so many people would look at me like i think my sister looks at me as someone that really plays it safe what a square she my family call me a square like they're like you're so square really they always call me as my dad always says oh god you're so square i wonder why well i just have what do you think this is so funny she thinks the person i remind her of the most is angela from the office which i don't see at all for myself

that's so interesting or like claire from fleabag and i'm like no i'm fleabag yeah you're definitely fleabag it's so funny like, I think I'm a real risk taker. 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 Do you think you're a risk taker?

Like, what would you say for yourself? I think I... It's's hard i remember once i do you remember i had that psychic um experience which one you've had so many um i've had so many but when we went it was actually i remember it was on my little brother's birthday and she started bringing up my little brother and i was like yeah yeah i do i do remember so she literally said the words little brother i was like i mean it's his birthday how did you know like just went crazy that was crazy though that was quite crazy um but she was saying to me god you're a risk taker girl and i was like how interesting i see it for me too now but i think at the time it kind of threw me i was like hmm she was like you disagree and i was was like i think and she was kind of listing all these things that have happened in my life that show

that i take risks yeah and i said to her which i still think is kind of true something scary that i might have done in my mind was riskier to not do it yeah yeah as scary as something might be as risky quote unquote as something might be if it's riskier for example for me to stay if it's riskier for me to not do it is it riskier for me to live my whole life thinking oh shit i probably should have got the fuck out of there for example yeah and i feel like i um do you remember a few episodes ago you were saying like you're quite good at doing things you want to do and not doing things you don't want to do that sort of thing i still stand by it yeah i think i can be quite um headstrong like if i see something that i want to do i'll do it like and

i'll be quite um determined with things and i think i'm not opposed to yeah taking risks that some people might see as risky some people would think i'm a fucking square and i am in loads of ways i think i enjoy oh god it's my favorite thing just like peace and stability and quiet yeah just um comfort and like love and peace like i just think it's so sacred but just like your peace like god to live a life where you're surrounded by love and your peace isn't being challenged isn't that it's really lovely it's completely the goal and i think tying back to childhood and christmas and all of that shit i think i really grew up thinking it was my job to keep the peace or bring the peace and so i think now in my life when i'm with people that

i love and i'm living in a space that i like and i'm doing things that i enjoy and it feels peaceful i think i just really appreciate not having to like fight to create the peace in my life like it feels like such a gift to have peace and you're like i really don't take it for granted yeah and i think as well like i'm sure people have that all the time in their own ways like for example you then being at uni and being like oh shit people aren't showering at me because my shoes are in the hallway for example i think i'm sure lots of people have experienced things like that in their own way but i think we definitely can appreciate certain things in life yeah anyone that's from

kind of a stressful potentially non i don't know what am i looking for not non-traditional just like not nuclear perfect families not happy families just like difficult yeah exactly like when you look at i don't know and also i think no one's family is fucking perfect like everyone's got shit going on but if you come from somewhere that it's messy and it's stressful and all of this stuff and where you potentially feel unsafe, when you come away from it, there is nothing like being like, well,

I'm going to appreciate every moment where I don't feel unsafe. Yeah. It's massive. Like there's nothing. I think that's been one of the biggest things being like, not only by living on your own, essentially, do you get independence?

You get the like peace of mind of like, like i'm safe here yeah which is fucking everything have you ever been around people and been like not necessarily family but like friends for example and been like i think we're in different spaces now you know what actually i think is quite a common turn of phrase is when people say like if we met tomorrow would we still be friends that sort of thing i feel like that's like a marker of friendship for a lot of people it's kind of something that i hear quite a bit like oh like obviously i love her but like if i'm if we had never met we didn't have all of our history and we met tomorrow i don't know if we'd really be friends we don't have a lot of in common anymore blah blah blah how do you feel about that i think i see it in a lot of relationships that i have like i think i definitely see that that like a

shared history and a shared respect what do you say i said with me i think i said i want names i wish i said i want names no but i definitely think i see that with so much that's like yeah we have a shared history and a mutual respect and all of this stuff i don't know if i met you today would we be friends but our relationship isn't about almost our relationship is so much based in this like huge history of stuff that we've been through together that that is that is the basis so that who you are today i still accept because i love every phase that you've been in yeah if i met you today i'd think fucking knob but i know that you're a knob because of all these fucking things exactly well this is why i think it's a really i've said it before i'm sure many times but i think it's also a really closed and almost like quite a sad thing that we say sometimes of like oh like i

really obviously i you know i love her like you know been friends for ages but if we met tomorrow i don't know if we'd be friends because it's almost i think like a bit of a sad reminder of yeah because when we meet people we and we don't give them a chance we close off yeah all this potential i'm being so cringe today but all this potential love and like the experience that you could have with this person that obviously you know nothing about until you've given it a chance but do you think that's what i almost feel like when people are saying that it's almost like they're using what they're really saying is i don't like the person no 100 they're just saying i don't like this person of course yes i'm tied to them because of that yes yes like they don't it's basically if you're saying that about someone

you probably don't like the person but i think obviously that's complete it is such a valid and human experience to go through your life ebbing and flowing with people around you yeah because i also think it's i will hold my hand i think i'm so easily influenced by the people around me like i'm not one of these people that's naive to the ways that i'm influenced by others like i really think i'm totally the product of everyone that i'm around and it's very intentional i try and be quite intentional with who i'm around um and so often but then often i'm in these situations where i'm around people that aren't like my friend or whatever just meeting people and i'm really confronted by our differences in for example our beliefs or like our priorities or our ethics and things like that

yeah so i find that quite hard but that does say to me that you sorry that says that you do have a really strong sense of who you are that you're able to be there and be like i disagree with your ethics yeah like you're not just molding to them you're like no but you're fucking wrong but i'm so molded by like you for example and like the people close to me like person to be no the best the best because i always say you've got this outrageous sense of self and that just oh rub that right all over me just it's such a um i think you just lift people it's really nice you say every time and every time it's so nice but it's so true but i and i always say it back to you that i do think you have that as well like it's completely different though but like i agree that like everyone is molded by everyone yeah there's no fucking way like i think

i used to be no one's exempt as you say naive to like yeah of course of course the massive influence that these people that you see fucking every day like the people that you love have over you but you kind of think like well i'm autonomous like i don't listen to anyone i'm not doing what anyone else is doing it's like i think it sometimes is so subtle but it's so ingrained in us the ways that we just mirror everyone that we're around until we don't i do think you like to even be able to say that and like see that i think shows that you don't do that because no one's saying that like no one's sitting around going oh god guys aren't we just so molded to each other they don't notice it yeah the fact that you have even the perspective to kind of float outside it

for a second and be like oh i can identify that right now i am molding to be like this person yeah i think i have great perspective i really do you do i do but i also think like it's taking back to childhood again i think it's i was i really learned from a young age that life is about misery and being angry with the people that you apparently love and like just having so much negativity there's so much negativity in here right now but i just was yeah but i was just brought up around like oh life is about being miserable and like glum yeah and i think people that's what people a lot of fucking people that i know believe that yeah yeah have you seen um lady shatterley's lady chatterley's lover please love i wouldn't say lady shatterley but in the film they say lady chatterley's yeah i saw the one um was that one

with richard madden i haven't seen the new one i'm not not his biggest fan, as you know. I know you're not because you're homophobic. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. Goodness. That's a casual one. No. I don't know why I said that. Because I'm team John, not team Rob. I don't know who's gay. Is he gay?

I don't think it's confirmed, but. So actually you're outing someone. So I'm actually being homophobic. That's what's going on there. I'm not very festive. Yeah, go on. There's a bit in Lady, I'm going gonna call it lady shatterley's lover where emma corinne is talking to her husband and emma corinne is talking to their husband oh fucking hell look we're now you're cancelled emma corinne's no i actually

don't know but yeah yeah lady shatterley is talking to her husband yeah and she's saying like what do you think life is about blah blah blah and he says right it's about he's like a writer and he's like like writing is about kind of like realizing that life is like meaningless like yes the meaning of life is to realize alan rickman plays that character in the other version yeah i think i prefer that yeah it just i don't know it's very solemn it was a two-star film from from me oh i know that's low that is low that's a stinker i didn't finish it i didn't i literally like 10 minutes away from the end i was like i just can't with this wow it's just a lot that i didn't like but like she says i can't

remember what she says but she goes out and she's having sex with this fucking stunning guy that i think is the guy from skins but i can't remember his name um a lot of penis in the film like it's very nude if you like the sound it's on netflix um but like the whole film i feel like is about her sort of countering that idea that like life is about learning the meaningless and like the misery and relentlessness of life and he's like scarred by the war all of this stuff yeah but she's like it's about pleasure it's about fun and all of this stuff and it's like i feel like the process of like growing up and like outgrowing my old life for example has been that um transition that transition potentially in a less sexual way than lady chatley but i would say

realizing that it's not about just like getting through life and life is just life and that's just the point in that and realizing oh my god life is so fucking fun when you commit to making it fun obviously it's the shit they're shit in every pearl they're shit in every pearl as they say lady shatley lady shatley um that's a beautiful place to end but i've got one more thing to say because you just reminded me it's actually something that i say to you all the time and i'm sure we can get onto this conversation more at a later date but i feel like obviously everyone has the right to be fucking miserable god yeah i feel like i know that maybe more than anyone i'll fight that corner i really do think everyone has the right obviously

to feel as many emotions as they can if tons of them are negative then so be it like of course people experience shit at every level of society but something i always say to you and something i always think about us being able to have a podcast and have the luxury of getting paid money for having conversations with each other that is something that's insane objectively insane actually like laughable laughable but you call that your job haha yeah it's insane something i always and i've said before i have an insane ability to make amazing things really stressful and shit for myself and i'll take something amazing and convince myself that i don't deserve it and i'm ruining it and i'm yeah exactly and i end up ruining these amazing experiences and i actually think it's about, for me personally, acknowledging that the least I can do is enjoy it.

Because when you have this life, guys, if you're sad, be sad, please. I want to make that so clear. Your feelings are valid. However, Mr. Chatterley needs to know. I think that there are so many commiserations in life obviously but if you have the luxury of living in a big mansion with an amazing wife and you're a fucking writer of all things then the least you can do is enjoy it and he is also paralyzed from the legs down like he's he has he's like survivor of war like he's been through shit okay fine but still you're with emma corrin yeah he's like you can't complain

too much yeah and of course he can but i almost just mean i used to say it to my friend and i don't i think this is controversial it is controversial but i let me give you give you the context and i'm going on now i grew up in a working class situation where it was not gonna be there was just no chance in hell i was ever gonna go to a private school just wasn't gonna happen like how would that have happened for me just never could have happened when i went to uni and i met loads of people who had gone to private schools some of them would be embarrassed and like try and blah blah blah or even like do the whole um you know when you find a rich girl and like a rich horse girl and she's pretending to do the whole chav thing and it's like you're appropriating my culture it's rude

i remember when encountering this for the first time and being like yeah this is kind of strange it's sad but i would always say to people like don't why are you diminishing this luxury that you had like it's it's more insulting to me it's like the least you could do is enjoy it like the least you could do is just be like yeah i went to a private school and i got a great education if that's your truth please don't deny it to me because it's insulting is jealous of that everyone wants that education like it's a gift it's a massively obviously it's it's a leg up like of course it's you but and such is life if we have the luxury of having a podcast the least we could do is have fun and i think you can find those little moments

across everything in life and also if your situation at the moment is looking quite dire and you know you're not having the festive season that you wanted and things like that try and find that little slice that little moment of amazingness the least you can do is try and enjoy it right for yourself so good i love it i even think that with such small things though at the moment that i'm trying to be like cup of tea yeah no i was about to say a pair of socks you've gone to the effort of making a cup of tea it was almost insulting to your time of making it and to the tea bag like it's insulting to everything here the last bit of milk that you use from the fridge gone into your tea it's insulting the least you can do for yourself enjoy it like actually enjoy it like like you're gonna fucking um watch a tv show what you're gonna watch on your phone like no the least you can do

is enjoy it what a luxury you've got half an hour now to watch the office enjoy it and looking back at all the spaces that i've outgrown and for example my family home my upbringing the situation that i was in as a kid around christmas i would look at you know i was a child and if i could go back i would look at those adults that were in that house and i would say look you have a beautiful life you have an amazing daughter actually the least you could do on this gorgeous christmas well you've only got one kid to buy for like a grip the least you can do is enjoy it i just think go and fucking play with this kid i'll do it yeah yeah go talk to this kid she's great she's got some

great thoughts in there i agree right see you tomorrow wow okay podmas at one done this is that's fun so i hope you all had a great day and a happy new year this is so fun freaking hi people okay are we saying assume the worst in this i think so cool or should we say something a bit merry is there like a christmas pun we can put on it if you don't ho from us if you don't hear from us assume the worst assume the worst god