Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Maria Menounos and the Caregiving Crisis

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

On today’s episode of “The Language of Love,” media mogul and television star Maria Menounos joins Dr. Laura Berman for an intimate talk about healing, transformation, and whole-body health. Menounos is a cancer survivor who battled brain cancer alongside her mother. She shares how her mother’s brain cancer deeply impacted her life, and how the diagnosis completely shifted her focus and changed her career. On this episode of “The Language of Love,” you will learn: • How caregiving can be depleting and demanding, and how you can lose yourself entirely as you devote yourself to caring for your sick loved one • How women, in particular, can lose their passion, their wellness, and their power as they selflessly care for both their aging parents and their young children • How caregivers often forgo their own medical appointments and their own health because caregiving take everything out of you • How the Covid-19 crisis left so many people struggling to care for their sick loved ones without any support or assistance for themselves • How you can recapture your lost identity and find space for joy, peace, and even sex even during times when you are holding the weight of the world on your shoulder • How grief can come in waves and leave you feeling guilty, or lost, or even empty after your caregiving role has been taken away and your loved one is gone • How you can look to the universe for support and resources even when you’re at your lowest • How you can lose your faith and struggle to feel your loved one after they are gone This episode will teach you how to find light even in your darkest moments and begin to build joy and magic and passion in your life. Listen now! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm Dr. Laura Berman, a sex and relationship therapist. And for the past three decades, I've been helping people learn how to love and be loved better. That's what we're doing here on The Language of Love, where I get to answer calls and emails from people just like you. My goal with The Language of Love is to help you discover more meaningful emotional and physical intimacy and to help you build more awareness of how precious and sacred your sexuality really is. Be sure to email me or reach out with your very own love sex relationship

questions and I might just answer them live on the air. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. I'm so excited to introduce you to this week's special visitor on the language of love, not that she needs any introduction, Maria Menounos. Say hi, Maria. Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to have you. Now, Maria, obviously, has had a long media career in all sorts of amazing platforms and is really well-known from that standpoint. But over the past several years, her podcast has really become, I think, your heart, wouldn't you say? Better Together with Maria Menounos, which is a lifestyle. I remember you telling me how it started was when your mom

had a brain tumor and then you ended up with a brain tumor and you just started diving into this world that you had no clue how to navigate or understand. And you kind of had this mission on mind, at least at that point, to not only take other people along on the journey, but try to be a translator, the translator you needed of how to live your best, healthiest life and all the possibilities. Because I know you had to and were driven to explore a lot of alternative medical approaches. And then that brought you on that golden path of self-discovery, kind of like quantum love did for me, right? Necessity is the mother of invention, right? so that necessity to kind of help yourself and help your mother really i remember and you tell

me if it's different looking back was the inspiration at first for better together and now it's grown into this entire beautiful lifestyle community where you have access to all the greatest teachers and healers and you're sharing all of that with your audiences which is so cool thank you yeah no you have it right it's a daily life improvement show it was very health and wellness focused while I was trying to help my mom and myself, but really my mom get through her battle with brain cancer and just finding all the alternative ways to get better and to attack it differently, to think of all the things that maybe Western medicine doesn't think of and whatever I could do. But it's funny now looking back, this is a path I've always been on.

when I look at the books I read growing up, it was like chicken soup for the soul and it was all self-help. And then my first book, the every girl's guide to life ended up being in the kind of advice and, you know, life improvement category. So I've always been somebody who's loved finding new systems, new ways, better ways, cheaper ways of living and how to live your best life, like you said. And so Better Together was once a week. And then in COVID, I was like, oh my God, I need to be with everybody. This is such a crazy time thinking it was going to maybe be like three weeks, four weeks, two years later, here we are, everybody. Every day.

Every day. But what's cool is, and Kevin, my husband and I both had the vision to take this to every day at some point, we wanted it to kind of be like the GMA of the new generation, kind of like the digital generation. And so that's kind of what it is. We're covering everything every day and it might be the best nail polish in one minute. And then the next we're talking about like spirituality or new treatments for cancer. It's a little bit of everything. Yeah. And I know you just launched a website that is kind of the same thing. It's about lifestyle enhancement, which is a great way to describe it because you have shopping on there and the products you love and the podcast and articles.

And I think that's so great. And it's beautiful. I checked it out before the show. So great work. Because I know you just watched, right? Yeah, we just watched it. And it's so cool because I never put energy behind a website because I kind of always thought they were like vanity or whatever.

And I just realized, I'm like, I have to create a destination for the show and I couldn't get better together. So I had to have a destination for the show where anybody who's listening could take a minute to go through the site and get the takeaways from that day. So it's like a lot of people are listening to our shows and they're hiking or they're doing it on the subway train or whatever. They don't have time to like maybe take notes.

So I'm doing the condensed aha moments that condense like the massive takeaways in these little blog forms. We're calling takeaways instead of blogs, the clip notes. Yeah. And so we put them on the website. But then also I realized after my mom died, I was like, you know, I was so focused on healing her. I really abandoned a lot of like me, like my lifestyle stuff, the fashion, like the fashion started coming back after my mom died and I was home alone. and I just started putting outfits together to make myself happy and to have some creativity and fun. So I was like, okay, this new website is really going to be like the every girl's guide to life part two, part three, but every day. So every day I'm sharing, whether it's the new

self tanning drops I use that are clean, you know, clean and non-toxic or anxiety solutions or whatever it is, it's stuff that's in my drawers at home. I'm not being paid to say it. Whereas, you know, we know the game in the business. Everybody's got some ulterior motive. And it really breaks my heart sometimes because people go down these rabbit holes of having to buy stuff that isn't necessarily authentic. So I really try hard to toe that line. And I always have. And so yeah, when you see my shop, my favorites, it's stuff that's in my cabinets that you exactly. Yeah, I'm the same way. I'm always saying when people ask me to endorse something, I'm like, if I love it and I really understand the science behind it and it's real and I want to use it on myself, then I share it.

Otherwise, I think it is a slippery slope and there's not a lot of integrity out there. I love that you do that also. And you and I met, I think, for the first time. You may not even remember the first time we met. when I was at Oprah Radio, I remember you and Kevin, your husband now at the time, you had just been together forever, but you weren't yet married. And I think that book, The Girlfriends, I don't remember, what was the title? The Every Girl's Guide. Every Girl's Guide had almost just come out or that's what we were talking about.

And I remember thinking that you were really nice and I was really interested in the book, but I thought of you more as like the host of magazine television and sort of this celebrity that was now moving into what we would now call the influencer space. That word didn't exist back then, but that would have been sort of what I... And so I thought it was so cool when I met you again. I don't know how many years later. I think I just moved to Los Angeles and I came... It was before COVID. It was probably a year or so before COVID. But I just moved and came on Better together. And I just fell in love with you. I think I told you we're going to be friends. Yeah. I just reached out to you, made you come out to lunch with me. But I really loved that

because I could feel and see your heart. And I remember at that point, because I know I came on once and then I came on again during COVID or right at the start of COVID, I believe. But when I first met you and you were first starting, I remember you telling me that your mom had just, I think had recovered for a while and had just been re-diagnosed or something had just come back and you were just gearing up for the insane journey that you've been on for the past five years. That was, oh my God, all together or with her relapse. From diagnosis to when we lost her. Yeah. It was almost exactly five years, two, three months shy. Yeah. And there was a period of time where she was doing better. And when we met on Better Together for the first time, things were

sliding, right? And symptoms were coming back and complications were coming back. You were already healed from your brain tumor, but she was just kind of starting again. And I remember thinking, wow, what helpful timing, right? That as much as we wouldn't have wanted that to happen to you, you had recovered, you had been learning so much, you had been doing better together, And now you were going to have to go on this journey, but none of us knew, I'm sure most of all you. I mean, we knew you were going to dive in with both feet. I remember we talked about that too, this idea of like, how do you keep balance for yourself when you're your parents' caretakers? And at that point, you didn't even have extra help. It was like all you. but I do want to talk about that because so often, and I know you cover this on the show a lot, but so often when we are the caretakers, I was my dad's caretaker as well. He didn't live with me in a way, thank goodness, given my dad, but I was his person and just that responsibility

and navigating everything and caring for everyone. And there's no time to breathe. And you were devoted. I mean, you were very public about it, but looking back on it now, we're also going to talk about the journey since her transition. So I remember that you were recovered from brain tumor yourself. You had learned all of this, all these different alternative approaches, not only to help heal your mom and yourself, and now you are healing her. But as a caretaker, I want to talk about that a little bit. And I know you talked about this a lot on your show, but even when I was my dad's caretaker and I didn't live with him, but just being his person and being the one to have to navigate, explore alternatives, convince him to

cooperate with the alternatives, educate myself, educate him. There's so much. And when someone has a serious medical risk, there's no room at all to do anything. That's a full-time job and you didn't have any help at the time. So looking back on it now, as you look back, what are your thoughts about summarizing what you feel was most important for you as a caretaker. I know you lost your patience at times. We talked about that. We all do, but you were such a loving and devoted caretaker. I just am wondering if you have any insights for people who, because we've all been in that position or will be, right? What are your takeaways from that role? I'm already getting emotional. I think for me, it was like, I feel really lucky that I was

able to take care of my mom. Cause it really helped me with the grief end of it because I know that I did everything and I went above and beyond. I don't know if you ever saw, did you see the little COVID doc I made called mom, dad, it was like a 20 minute piece. I think I did. Was it about like when she went to that, it was all the clips of you and her and helping and all the things that were going down. Yeah. That was really beautiful. It's on YouTube. And I, I put in there a moment that I filmed because I was filming everything. Always. I filmed everything. And there was a moment where I turned the recorder on because I wanted to apologize to her when I was short or I wasn't patient because I needed to get that

off my chest. And, you know, she was just like, come on, Maria, everything you did for me. She's like no the the good outweighs any bad don't worry like she forgave me and she it was a really nice moment but i was so scared to like have to bring it up to say it so what is she gonna say am i gonna feel rejected am i gonna feel even more who knows you know and also someone has brain cancer like their mind is a little altered sometimes too and they can say things that they don't necessarily mean i'm really blessed that my mom was as great as she was through it so i put that in there so that other caretakers would see that and know that it was very easy for people to look at our journey on Instagram and think, Oh my God, she's so perfect. And she's doing everything right.

And she must never get mad at her mom or she must never have a bad moment. So I made sure I put that in so that everybody would know that I did have moments that I was regretful over. And luckily, she did forgive me and I had the opportunity to apologize. But it is a real challenge because to take somebody who gets a diagnosis like glioblastoma and they have a six to 12 month window to survive, which is what they say to everybody. And they get almost five years. And if she didn't get COVID and you know, the COVID is what made her too weak to get her treatments. We were beating this recurrence already. She would still be here. It took a lot of focus and a lot of determination. I was her Tom Brady and I was her coach and her quarterback.

and I figured out ways around things that the traditional medical system maybe couldn't have offered us, but we worked in collaboration with our Western doctors so that we didn't do anything too crazy, but other things that I knew would be helpful for her. And so it was, you know, the research, the work and yes, the caretaking and the, you know, there were moments after when you get radiation in the brain, it can do damage. And I don't want to scare people because other people have to do this, but it's not something I'm a fan of now knowing and having to see my mom through those periods where the radiation did so much damage to her brain. She wasn't herself. Then you combine it with the cancer where everyone says it takes the you out

of you. And she was turning on the flames on the stove and burning the house down almost in the air conditioning units would go full blast or heat, or I had to put tape on everything like childproof locks and it was a lot of stuff and a lot of stress but I kept thinking and this is a tough thing because you also don't want to negate your feelings and how hard it is for you I kept thinking like if this sucks for me and this is painful for me I can only imagine the pain and agony, the everyday person has to go through that doesn't have the ability to just go click, click, click on Amazon and buy the solution. That doesn't have the ability to call someone in their Rolodex and say, Hey, I need help. Can you help me? And let's figure this out and have

access. Yeah. And so that's why the show has been so important to me because I can give that access to people and help them. But the caretaking crisis is real. It's a major crisis. You're seeing the effects of it now with COVID and nursing homes and stuff. What people don't realize is if you want your person to live, it's going to require your 1000% devotion. You can't just lay your care at a doctor's door and think that they're thinking about you 24-7 because they're not they're giving you the standard of care and they're moving on because they don't have the time they have 50 other of you calculating route to avoid seeing poverty turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street then keep right to skip by the lines

of people waiting for food steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away then take the next exit let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty your donations help the United Way fight poverty in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention. Donate today at unitedwaygt.org. And so you have to take ownership and be the CEO of your health, as Tony Robbins is saying in his new book. And it's not that doctors aren't great. They are. But there's also, you know, the facts that everything they're learning in medical school is changing every second. Technology is advancing quicker than we could ever, you know, think of. There are things that they can't say or can't share or can't advise because of lawsuits and

stuff. So it's like, you really have to take the bull by the horn. So then the caretaking part of it is so crushing because it's so expensive. So even for someone of my means, I was out of work. I was like, oh my God, this is excruciating. This is backbreaking to have 24,000 hair giving. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I know they cut. But in terms of Medicare, send someone for a bath once a week. They don't give you. Yes, exactly. Exactly. They don't even cover all the medical treatment. So on top of just paying for the basic medical treatment beyond what insurance pays for, which is often a huge amount. having someone help with care is almost insurmountable. Yeah. I thought about that a lot with my dad. Yeah. Tell me. You're going to die. So there are 43 million unpaid caregivers. That's Time Magazine. 45% of these caregivers didn't have time to book or attend their own medical appointments as a result of caregiving activities, thus putting them at risk of falling

ill. A 2002 Stanford university study found that 40% of Alzheimer's and dementia caregivers actually die from stress related disorders before the ones they're caring for. And I know that there are going to be similar statistics to people taking care of people with cancer or any other other thing, because it takes everything out of you. You have no time for joy. You have no time for anything. And when my mom and dad got COVID, I got my mom a 24 seven caretaker because I couldn't catch COVID at that point. Right? So my husband and I had to protect ourselves. We isolated them in their rooms after they got released from hospitals. And we had the caregivers for about a month until I brought them back East. And then I hired two caregivers around the clock

there. And then I was just there 24 seven in the room because I was the manager. I would see things I would diagnose things, I would come up with the solutions. They were there to make sure she was clean and wasn't alone and all of that. But it's a lot. It's a lot. And I really, really want to figure out how to fix the caregiving crisis. We were talking about the grief journey. I want to talk to you about the grief journey. And your mom died three months after Sammy died. It's a very different kind of grief, obviously, but it's huge grief, the biggest grief I'm sure you've ever had to experience. I know how close you were to her. So as you've moved through it, you know, I know you were saying that you kind

of have been going in these phases where you were excited to have the extra time and to suddenly not be a caretaker. And then it wasn't okay not to be a caretaker and how you felt so deeply connected. It was so beautiful what you were saying about kind of the triad. I'm sure it was included your father and Kevin, everything else, but that triad between you, your mother and God that you were just like, as soon as you asked, say that part again, because that was beautiful. And I don't want to miss that. Yeah. So one of the coolest parts about this journey, and I was always very connected to God because my dad was a severe type one diabetic or is, and would always fall into low blood sugar comas. And so my mom and I, you know, you can use like Star Wars references, like we

use the force. So for us, we were so in tune with him and God would send messages and we just knew and we knew when to find them. We would find him and we would rescue him when we needed to. Okay. Well, then my mom gets sick. So now shift of attention to her. And I cultivated like such a good connection where I would ask God in my dire moments, like, what do I do next with her? I'm so scared. What do I do? And the message would come in some way, shape or form the next day. And I was open and I would pay attention. And when something like a pop-up on my computer sometimes, or a guest on my show, whose wife is in the other room and she had something, it would just come from all different areas. And I'm like, Oh my God. Okay. And I just follow the breadcrumbs and I did

whatever I was supposed to do. And I listened to the messages and it was incredible. I never felt alone. I always felt like I had this resource in God and his help where I was going to be okay. It was painful and it was scary, but it always came. And then when she passed, ironically on Greek Easter, the holiest day for us afterwards, I just felt like nothing. And I didn't, I was really lost. Like there was just no connection. No people. Cause this is what people always say, they're like, Oh my God, but they're with you. And I'm like, shut up. Yeah. Yeah. I know what she feels like. I don't feel her. Stop telling me she's with me, but I know I'm not trying to be mean because I know I can totally find their best. And I don't

want anybody to feel bad who said it, but it's like, no, I don't feel her. And it was so upsetting. and then one day I woke up and I was just like guttural crying and I'm like Kevin I don't feel her I don't feel her and later that evening I went up to the balcony and I sat up there and all of a sudden I'm like what the frig is that this extreme sunset just started like before my eyes. And I'm like, wait a second. I scream for Kevin. He comes upstairs and I go, Kevin, I've never seen anything like this ever in my life ever, ever, ever. And he's like, oh, really? I wonder what that is. And he's like, I know you're fine, but I'm not sure. And so then I called up Violetta who works with us here and she's like a second mom to me. And I, oh man,

She really is just like, I'm so blessed. God sent me another person that's like so much like my mom that she eases a lot of the pain sometimes. And so she came up and we're all looking at this and we all feel her and it's this beautiful moment. And then all of a sudden, Violetta starts breaking down and confiding us about some problem she's been facing in her life that was really breaking her heart. And my mom and her were really close.

and I'm sitting there and I'm like okay mom you just killed two birds with one stone I know you're here and you're making sure we help her because normally my mom would help her through this and now she didn't have my mom so she was feeling the loss so it was really beautiful and now like right on Thanksgiving we were driving to my cousin's house and I was really sad and it was my first Thanksgiving without, or you know what that feels like. And we're driving and all of a sudden I realized this sweater isn't mine. And I remembered that it was my mom's cardigan. I left it in my closet because I said, I want to remember to wear this because I want to have something of hers in my closet. But I totally forgot about it. And when I put it on, I was like, oh, I don't know

where I got this. And then later in the car, I go, cardigan. And then I look at the sunset and it's again, explosive and insane. So I pulled over and took a picture and I'm like, okay, she's with me. So I've since been able to recultivate that and feel it and I'm better with it. And I will say the other part of it. And, you know, I'm sure you've talked about this with your son is just that intense level of shock where you walk around, like I have a picture of her in the kitchen and I would just walk around and be like, how the F are you not here? How is it even possible that everything is still going on and you're not here? Like that's insane. I still have sometimes. Yeah. Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty, turn left to bypass the unhoused

youth sleeping on the street then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away then take the next exit let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty your donations help the united way fight poverty in thousands of ways like providing food shelter and crisis prevention donate today at unitedwaygt.org I think it's so beautiful what you said about that you had this whole, because this is what happens. We have this deep, you know, if we have, we're lucky enough. And I wasn't raised, like you were raised to really cultivate that connection. I learned that on my own later in life. But when you have that deep connection and something horrific happens, it's like you leave yourself and or almost in order to survive it. And I remember when my mother died as well, going to my friend Susan, who was kind of a spiritual life coach. She's also a regular life coach, but she was sort of my person. and I was falling to her saying the same thing. I can't feel her.

I can't feel her. And I could have felt my grandmothers when they went and I felt I could not feel my mother. And I think it was because the loss was so painful and deep that I almost had to leave my receiver, which is our bodies, right? I almost had to leave it to not be with the pain. And once I was able to really be with the pain

and come back into myself, which is probably what that guttural cry was for you where you were really in your body and feeling it again. It's like, that's when we can hear, that's when the antenna is back online because our body is our bridge to the soul. And when Sammy died for many reasons, most of all, because I wanted to stay healthy and I knew what happened when my mom died, I ended up with breast cancer within a year of her dying of breast cancer. I was like, I'm going to stay healthy. And the only way I know to stay healthy is to stay with myself and to feel these horrific, shitty, painful feelings. That is the last thing I want to feel. And I didn't do that with my mother.

I was working. I was doing. I was like, I'm going to be okay. We're all connected. I was devastated about our loss, but I was committed to getting through it. Not that I wasn't committed to getting through Sammy, but it was a different kind of commitment. It was more committing to get through it staying with myself. And I think that's part of the reason I just have felt him all the way through. Unlike my mother, who was very ready to come through, I just couldn't access her until I really let myself feel. So that's just an observation because I do remember struggling with the same thing. And I think it's so beautiful that she came through in the way that she did, you know, and now you can access her.

Yeah. I think it's like, you know, you go through the shocks, you go through, and then like I did a reading with a psychic, Marianne DeMarco, and connected with my mom. And that was like a big hump for me in September. I was able to kind of like get over that because up until then, it was just like, it was really, really hard. And I got over a little hump. And then I'd have sad days and then I'd have good days and just, you just kind of go with it. But

I did the same thing, I think maybe less intentionally, but I was home alone because Kevin stayed in Connecticut with my dad, partly because he didn't want to leave him alone. And also they started a renovation project there. So he had something physical to do and to keep him busy because my dad loves working. So my dad was the most important. I knew I would be okay. I was really worried about my dad and it's a different thing when you lose your partner too you have like everybody you got to think of who has it worse and try to go to them yeah and so I was here alone for six five five months or something and so I really sat in it I sat in it I marinated it I bathed in it I felt it all and I'm still super raw but I feel like

I'm just getting through like everybody deals with it. Everyone's going to deal with it at some point. I've learned a lot that I'm able to help people with. And so I, I just keep saying, and I'm sure you feel the same way. It's like, I'm not going to let her go in vain. I'm going to make sure that I can help as many people as I can. Yeah. And she's an angel on your shoulder. And I know, I think it's so, I just think you're so beautiful inside and out. And this is why I think I fell in love with you when I first met you doing this show is that you are a kindred soul in the heal, learn, teach arena. That everything is healing, learning, and teaching. And that's what you're doing now, right? With the worst pain of your life, you're healing and

you're learning so much about what helps and you're sharing it and she's cheering you on. I know. I mean, I can feel that. I've got the truth chills and I feel Sammy over my shoulder doing the same thing. It's a profound connection. And I will say from where I am, which isn't much further beyond where you are, every day is different, like you said, but I can hold the pain more gently now. It doesn't always... Before, there was no way I could have a conversation like this without being in tears. And I could let myself fall to tears. I'm not restraining them really hard, though. It's like there's a softness to the missing of him now, which I welcome. I mean, certainly on the anniversary of his death or on his birthday or in certain times or just

out of the blue because some huge memory will come back. You feel the deep pain again. But talking to him, and that's different than, for instance, my husband, who would cry in a hot second if talking about him. But for me, seeing those pictures and talking about it and talking about the journey and also talking about, like you're saying, the things that for me that I'm learning and healing and teaching in my realm is, is like a gift from him. It's a way that he keeps living. And I think it's the same for your mom. I know how, how, I mean, you could see, anyone could see how much she loved you and how, and most importantly, I think for those of us who are left behind, how much she knew she was loved. Like to me, that's the most important thing for

those of us who are left behind is like, that was my first question to my friend who's a medium psychic. I was like, just tell me, does he know how much I love him? Does he know? Does he really, really understand that? And your mom, zero doubt, that woman felt loved and appreciated and held, so beautifully held in every cell of her being. And not every daughter, even one she raised, could do that. So I think that is just a glorious, priceless gift. I know it was a gift for you too, but it was a beautiful, priceless gift that you gave her. And so now you are building this website or you've built this website. You're doing better together every day. You're sharing everything you're learning now, not only about healing from

grief, but staying healthy in mind and body and spirit and fashion and all the rest. What comes next in addition to that? Anything or is that plenty for now? Stuff that comes up. I mean, there's fun projects and things that I'm a part of. One, I was doing voiceover for ADR work for today. I can't say, but it's a really, really amazing project. That's going to be on Netflix. There's a bunch of stuff. It's a cool time. It's the first time in my life where I've not had to take care of anybody. I know. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. And so what have you always, yeah, it's a very strange sensation. That was also really hard to adjust to because the caretaker I hired to take care of my mom stayed to take care of my dad because he's type

one diabetic. I couldn't leave him alone a in the grief and I couldn't leave him alone with his condition through the periods of my mom's illness. We took care of both of them. It wasn't just her. Yeah. There's still some stuff I have to do. I have to call and get his supplies when they don't get figured out fast enough or whatever. Cause I can get things done faster than anybody, but there are little things, but for the most part, I am absolutely free. I've never been absolutely free where I can just wake up every day and choose what I want to do and not have burdens on me of calling this doctor. Now I'm just calling my doctors, which, you know, there were a lot of over overdue things that I didn't even realize were overdue. And I have such

a hyper focus on it. And I still forgot to get my mammogram and COVID like many people, because I thought I had done it and I didn't getting all that stuff, like figured out it's a whole new adjustment. And then just so what I've realized is I've been mourning my mom. I've been mourning an old life. I'm having to adjust to a whole new thing. I'm trying to focus on the excitement of it and not just the absence of things. Yeah. I mean, I can see that it feels unnerving. I've been there too. I mean, I just had to stop for a while after Sammy went because I couldn't really even function despite my efforts to try to do so. But there is a pause. And I think that what you're describing is a huge pause as like the tide is about to change

and kind of shift in another new waves of creativity and production. I mean, you still have your baseline creativity you're in the middle of with the website and better together, but that pause around, especially for someone like you and even like me, who's always like,

okay, what's the next thing I'm going to do? What am I going to create now? What am I going to write now? What am I going to make now? You know, to just be in that stillness, maybe for the first time in your entire adult life, it's not only instrumental, obviously, to one's health, but it's going to create so much fertile ground. I always think of it because when I get anxious about it, I think, okay, there are all of these seeds underground germinating.

I don't even know what they are. They could be this thing, that thing. I'm not even putting my intention on that. All I'm doing is fertilizing the ground with rest and rehabilitation and healing and authenticity and being present with it and knowing and trusting once again i guess bringing up god knowing and trusting that i'm held and that those seeds are being cultivated and fertilized and germinating underground and they will and taking root you know and whatever's going to sprout i'll just hold this state of curiosity when the time is right to see what happens. So I can't wait to see what sprouts for you, Maria Menounos next. I know I realized that so many of my prayers were always like around my mom and all these things. And I would spend so

much time at night visualizing shrinking or tumors and doing all this stuff. Then now I'm back to God, take me where I'm supposed to go, show me the way. And I know you have my back. I know everything is happening in the hour it's supposed to happen in the way it's supposed to happen. And So it's a whole new, whole new thing. Yeah. Well, while you're in your downtime, if you want to come play with me in my downtime, you just let me know and we'll get together.

I would love that. Thank you so much, Maria Menounos, you beautiful soul for joining us. You can learn more, obviously follow her on social media. Check out if you haven't already, Better Together podcast, new one comes out every day. Check out mariamenounos.com, her new website with all kinds of great information. Thank you, my love, for joining us.

I love you. I love you too. All I wanna do is take you home with me I wanna make a move, I wanna make a move But I'm too shy I can't fall asleep without your arms around me Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty Turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street Then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food

Steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away Then take the next exit. Let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty. Your donations help the United Way fight poverty in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention. Donate today at unitedwaygt.org.