Soul Boom - Whitney Cummings: Is Trauma a Privilege in Disguise?

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

Whitney Cummings (2 Broke Girls, The Female Brain) joins Rainn Wilson on Soul Boom for an insightful and raw conversation about self-respect, vulnerability, and the role of trauma in personal growth. Whitney shares her journey of learning to like herself, the power of naming fears, and the surprising ways animals have contributed to her healing process. They delve into the complexities of people-pleasing, the impact of childhood experiences, and how embracing vulnerability can lead to deeper connections. Join us for an inspiring discussion that challenges conventional wisdom and offers a fresh perspective on mental health and self-worth. See Whitney on tour! http://whitneycummings.com http://instagram.com/whitneycummings Thank you to our sponsors! Pique Tea (15% OFF!): https://piquelife.com/SOUL Hoka: https://bit.ly/HokaSoulBoom Waking Up app (1st month FREE!): https://wakingup.com/soulboom Fetzer Institute: https://fetzer.org/ Sign up for our newsletter! https://soulboom.substack.com SUBSCRIBE to Soul Boom!! https://bit.ly/Subscribe2SoulBoom Watch our Clips: https://bit.ly/SoulBoomCLIPS Watch WISDOM DUMP: https://bit.ly/WISDOMDUMP Follow us! Instagram: http://instagram.com/soulboom TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@soulboom Sponsor Soul Boom: [e-mail] Work with Soul Boom: [e-mail] Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: [e-mail] Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Spring Green Films Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Voicing Change Media Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Soul Boom Generation, I've got a really exciting announcement for you. We've got a substack. If you love the Soul Boom podcast and book and ideas, then you're going to want to get our weekly newsletter substack sent to your inbox. It's magnificent. There's going to be fantastic guest authors. Some are written by me. A lot of them delve into the ideas around the podcasts that we're doing that week. So sign up. Please subscribe. Go to soulboom.substack.com. Thank you. You're listening to So, boo. Someone respects you only as much as you respect yourself. And that took me a very long time to learn because I spent so much time going,

no, I'm going to self-deprecate and make myself smaller and I'll just be a doormat. And then, shocker, people treat you like a doormat. Wow. They take their cues of how to feel about you from you. So when we run around trying to get people's approval, I hope you like me. Do you like me? Do you like me? Do you like me? And they're like, well, you don't even like you. So why would I like you?

Wow. And then I was like, oh, right. I have to figure out how to like myself, and the rest will fall into place. You're dropping so much wisdom. We're not even five minutes into this thing. So sorry. I don't. Can I just scald myself already? Yeah, just stick your face in the coffee.

I'm fogging up my glasses by accident with this. Of course it didn't work. Sorry, guys, I'm doing bits. Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson. And I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy.

Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast. Are you having trouble sipping that? It's just, bring your face down to the coffee. Bring your face to the coffee. I'm sorry. I hate it. You really were about and you're like, can I tell you something?

I'm just going to start with, I'm going to advocate for myself here and claim my space and say, I am nervous. I'm a fan of yours. Yeah. I feel like you should be. I feel like you're one of the cool kids and I'm not. I feel like I have something to prove.

I get a little shaky when I'm doing a podcast that's like with a funny person and we're both kind of not going to try to be funny because we're going to talk about some deep soulful stuff because that's really what you do. We can try and be funny too. We can too, totally. But I also don't want to try too hard

and seem like corny and like I'm trying to get your approval. I know I'm never going to get it. But I really, as I came over here, my intention was a form of my ADD depression, whatever it is and something I get slammed for a lot, fairly so. as I interrupt when I get excited. Yeah.

And comedians, we interrupt, we interrupt. Yeah, yeah. And I usually have my friends on my podcast, so we're, and I realize I just interrupted silently, like, with a behavior. You were talking, and I was trying attention to myself. No, but it's a podcast. We get to cut to my angle. I know, but I'm distracting you. I'm being distracting.

But I just want to say, I'm honored by what you shared and how amazing it is that you gained the skill to go into a situation where you feel a little bit off balance and to lead with your vulnerability, how did you learn to do that? I learned somewhere that if you name the fear you're feeling, it instantly dissipates the fear. So if you say, I'm nervous, you're instantly less nervous because it engages your frontal lobe and then it tells your amygdala to stop producing as much adrenaline, right? So if you say, I'm nervous, I'm scared. And it's something actually that, you know, people, when they approach prey animals, you really learn a lot about yourself

because a lot of times when horses are afraid of you, you're probably afraid of them and you're approaching them in a trepidious way and you're like, please don't hurt me. And then they don't understand why you'd be scared of them because they have no intention to hurt you. So they assume there's a danger somewhere else. So then they're on high alert. They just basically, you beamed your anxiety to them.

They're like, is there a mountain lion? Is there a bobcat? What are we worried about? Is there a nurseway coming? So basically you said comedians are prey animals. We're pigs. I don't know, whatever that is. Swine.

I have pigs, you know. I love pigs. I had pigs for a little while, and I would love to have a billion of them. You wouldn't like to have a billion of them, but you'd like to have three. They are so smart and conscious. And they're so, what I love about them is like horses, they need to know their pecking order. Yep. As do humans, which I think we forget.

So when they move into a space, they need to, you know, they root into you. They kind of nudge you because they want to see if you're going to, you push back and stand up for yourself. And if you do, they respect you. This is what I learned from animals. Someone respects you only as much as you respect yourself. And that took me a very long time to learn because I spent so much time going, no, I'm going to self-deprecate and make myself smaller. And I'll just be a doormat. And then shocker, people treat you like a dormant.

Wow. They take their cues of how to feel about you from you. So when we run around trying to get people's approval, I hope you like me. Do you like me? Do you like me? Do you like me? And they're like, well, you don't even like you. But why would I like you?

Wow. And then I was like, oh, right, I have to figure out how to like myself, and the rest will fall into place. You're dropping so much wisdom. We're not even five minutes into this thing. So sorry. I don't, can I just scald myself already? Yeah, just stick your face in the coffee, and I'm going to... But I want to say, there's a couple of things I want to say, okay.

I'm fogging up my glasses by accident with this. Of course it didn't work. Sorry, guys, I'm doing bits. It didn't work. It worked. You have it on camera. Push in real, push in real tight. There was a... Can we put in a VFX of her glass?

is fogging up to spare her the embarrassment. No, I don't, I'm not ashamed because I just saw what I saw. And do you believe women or do you not? I believe all women. My wife might be watching. Go ahead, have this slurped. No, I don't even want this really. It's a prop, frankly.

It's just something to do with my hands. Okay. I don't drink coffee. I have three things to say. Number one, the big pig is named Snorty, the Baron von Snorty. the Baron von Snortington. He's like 300 pounds of pig. And he'll do that every once in a while.

He will test the limits with me. And like I'll feed him and he'll come up. He'll be like, like, whomaw, like that. And he'll come up and be like, he's kind of like, fuck you, it's my food. Now what are you going to do, bitch? Get out of here. And I have to out Alpha Snorty.

And I will out Alpha the fuck out of him. Like I'll take a bucket and just throw it. And you'll go, we'll get a broom and I'll chase him all right. around the pig yard until he's in the corner and he's like, we, we, we. And you know what? After that, everything is right in the universe. Huge. And I feed him and he's grateful and he does a little bow or a little prance and he eats his food and everything is fine. And you have given him the gift of knowing that you will also protect him when he needs protection. Right. So when we

out alpha, the word alpha I know is tricky. Yeah. Because the alpha sleeps, but like when we do that, it lets the animals that you are, you know, the lead mayor of or the alpha of, feel comfortable and safe because they have anxiety too. And they need to know who's in charge. Am I in charge? Are you in charge? I just need to know who the boss is. You're the boss?

And then that means they can take time off. That's why when people are like, you know, when I show them the way that I, you know, train my animals and stuff, sometimes it looks harsh. But the good news is they always know that they're protected and they don't have to have anxiety because they know that I'm going to solve the problem. But this goes to child rearing. I had friends and they were really struggling with their daughter behavioral issues and they went to family therapy and they said to her like draw your family and she drew the family and she drew herself like literally drew herself like large and out of control in the family structure. And the therapist was saying the same thing.

Like she doesn't want to be that. She wants to be like a normal family. She wants to be the small girl in the family. I'm not saying small like reduced powerless. but just right size, like she's running the family right now. You guys have to limit her, put limits on her, set boundaries with her. It might seem harsh, but it's actually going to be, it's going to let her feel right-sized. So the Baron von Snornington feels right-sized in the barnyard.

He knows like big guy comes in with food. Normally my wife takes care of him, but that I'm equal with my wife. And I think it's the same with kids. And I think this whole new generation of helicopter parents where it's like, oh, Johnny says he wants 40 skateboards and he wants to visit the Kalahari. And these parents are just like letting their kids run the show, these kind of larger than life children. It actually is not doing them any service whatsoever. Insane. As a certified child psychologist, I agree with you.

I No, I just I think like I'm going to say a lot about child psychology stuff but I also, I'm a comedian, guys. I'm just going to preface.

And I'm an unemployed actor and we have podcasts because we're bored. And go. They call me Ho Rogan for this reason. No, but I feel like a little theme is emerging in our conversation

and sometimes my brain needs to herd and wrangle the same way that kids need walls animals need walls. Sometimes I need to put walls around my brain to like focus a conversation because I'm excited to like play with you. I feel like we're like puppies that like get to play with each other finally is that you're saying like, you know, we need to do this with pigs. We need to do this with humans. Like there's no difference to me. And I think to me part of the reason that I was able to sort of surrender to going like, oh no, I can be a parent. I was so afraid that I was going to repeat what I saw and that I wouldn't be able to break the cycle and that there was like too much addiction and mental illness in my family and that I shouldn't, you know, procreate because of it, but I'm so good with animals because of the approach that you just said. And I just went, oh, no, no, we're animals. Humans are animals. We're not really that different except for our opposable thumbs and big brains.

Like, let me just use the same approach. And so I think that when we differentiate, that's when we get in trouble. So it's like when you go to someone's house and their dog is jumping all over you. And they're like, no, no, he's just excited to see you. And you're kind of like, I know exactly what you're. And then they go, oh, oh. spotty, it's okay, it's okay, don't do that. Oh, but yet they're laughing and they're petting him at the same time.

Encouraging the behavior. And let me guess, your kid calls you by your first name. Yeah, and tells you to fuck off. Yeah, your kid's like, Lindsay! Linda, fuck off. Totally. Yeah. So I think that with animals, the reason that I'm able to be, quote, harsh is because

I know it's the best thing for them. So it's like, yeah, like, you know, I've used, because I have really big dogs that have impulse control stuff because what they were bred for. was to, you know, pit bulls, for example, I know it's not a real breed, but, you know, American staffies, like they were bred to chase rats and kill rats. So they don't have impulse controls.

You have to teach them impulse control. So sometimes using the electric collar is actually really beneficial. I have electric collars on our pit bulls. On our children. Yeah. No, but we have two pit bulls. We have electric collars.

When I post and there's a picture, there's a whole litany of people like, that's cruel and it's cruel. Well, not only that, with their impulse control, but most of them are rescues, and they weren't raised right. So they have very serious impulse control stuff that can be dangerous. It's inhumane to put a shot collar on,

opposed to it's humane to let them run into traffic and not be able to stop them because they don't have impulse control. Or see another dog and just go for its jugular because they perceive it as a threat and then you're in a lawsuit. Correct, correct. And then they put your dog down and then it makes the news and now, you know. So, you know, to me it's like a little bit, You know, it's like the same way anyone learns anything.

It's got to hurt a little bit and you have to give, you know, animals, you know, kids, the dignity of their own experience. I think the bigger thing is you have to decide if you're going to be their friend or their protector. And I would way rather have your respect than have your affection. It's not my job to, you know, be your friend. Like I know I'll never be my kid's friend and I see this epidemic of parents trying to get approval from their kids. How confusing must it be? I grew up an alcoholic home with a very emotionally needy mother.

who, if I didn't give her my approval, it, like, destroyed her. And that's so unfair to put that into a child's hand. To give that to an eight-year-old. Yes, exactly. Like, there should be, your child should not be caretaking your feelings. And at a very early age, I felt like I had to take care of my mother's feelings. You know, we have these conversations about, and I feel like by the time this comes out, you know, all the terms are going to be different.

But, you know, borderline personality, you know, incredibly highly sensitive person. Also, alcoholic hungover, like, I don't need to over think, like her reactions. but it was always like, you know, I was always feeling guilt and shame and like I need to make her feel better. And kids should never have to do that, you know. And I think for me, you know, the ones where I will tell is that, you know, I also had a lot of absence of socialization. I was, I think for the most part, neglected as much as is anything. My parents were very busy, you know, honoring and engaging in their addictions. But my mom also worked a lot. She was a workaholic. She had eating disorders. Like all these things that you just like, when you're a kid, you don't even know what they are. So you don't even

know it's like that moment when you have to take your parents off the pedestal and be like, oh, you were anorexic. Like that's kind of a weird thing to think about your parent. You're like, well, I just, because we were also poor. So that's why I assume there was no food in the fridge. But it was also like, you know, like you wanted to be thin. Like, you know, it's just like an odd, odd thing, I think for a lot of people when they realize. It's a fine line between poverty and anorexia. You know what it is? It really, really is. There was like, but then alcoholism. There was a lot of like wine in the fridge. So I was like, God, we are with. You can It was very confusing because I thought like wine and champagne met you were rich.

So I kind of, it was the whole thing was, you know, as a kid, you just try to put the pieces together. And I think that's it. But help me, help me understand you better in this context better. Where did you grow up? Basically Washington, D.C. And then I was no longer allowed to live with my divorced parents. And then so I lived with my aunt in a place. Why were you no longer allowed to live with your divorced parents?

How does that work? I don't really digging in on this podcast. I'm not really digging in. That's a very, this is like a dinner party conversation. I have, I need to air one of my biggest insecurities. And I know this will probably come as a shock to everyone as I just stumbled through the Pipple, um, shock collar thing. I have like a debilitating fear of being boring.

And I feel like talking about that stuff is like boring. But I know on some level it's, it's, it's, when I feel like something is too specific, I'm like this is no one's going to relate to. When I started therapy, it took me six months to start really telling my story because I thought it was the same thing. I thought it was boring. Like my therapist would be like, so tell me about your childhood, like the cliched question. And I'd be like, oh, it's boring. You're like I lived in Nicaragua and had a tape farm.

It's like, I'm on the edge of my seat. It's riveting. Well, that was, those are, that's not boring. But living in Lake Forest Park, Washington and watching mash reruns and having meatloaf is pretty boring. There was more to my childhood than that. But, well, there's two things on the table. One is, thank you for daring to be boring on this podcast. I don't think it'll be boring at all, but I would love to know.

I'm fascinated by comedians and mental health. I'm fascinated by the, and thank you world and universe for giving Whitney Cummings this fractured home and this addiction and all of this trauma at a young age so that, that she could produce awesome Netflix specials and have a great podcast and be an indelible force in the world of comedy in America. And it's kind of true, but, you know.

I do, and this could sound delusional and Stockholm syndrome-y, but I am at the point where I look at trauma as like a privilege. Like, I have trauma privilege, you know? Because it's like, I look at a lot of my friends that didn't have trauma, and they're a mess. They can't get their shit together. They're a disaster, you know,

so, you know, trauma obviously can go either way. I've been, you know, admittedly and really openly in a 12-step program for almost 13 years now. And I've worked really, really hard to try to rewire my brain. And I still make a lot of mistakes. And I still, you know, I'm attracted to toxic situations magnetically a lot. But, you know, I think that the, again, with the theme of what we're talking about is like, you know, I then had to live in a place called Ronew, Virginia. I live with my aunt and uncle. And they had never had kids.

And so I was just still, you know, had to be an adult very young. And your parents, I just want to unpack this a little about your parents were just not willing or not able to take care of you. How does that work? There's a couple versions of the story and I'm not totally sure. And I think a lot of people that are like, oh, I want to unpack what happened to me, but my parents are dead. Both my parents are dead or there's a lot of like family lies and family delusions. Like there's the story in my family of when I was a year old. We went to the neighbor's house and the neighbor had a back surgery.

and there was a Vicodin or Oxycontin on the floor. I was crawling around and I took the oxycontin and I died, went to the hospital, they put charcoal down my throat, and then I came back to life. So it was like the story people will, you know, my dad would make jokes about it. And then I told it to my therapist one day, and she was like, yeah, that's not what happened?

And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, why was a one-year-old at the neighbors who had just had back surgery? Why would someone want to see a tot? Like none of this adds up. And then I asked my uncle one day. And I was like, what was up with that? story where I took the thing.

The oxy thing. He goes, oh, the Kualood you took at the belly dancer's house. And I was like, wait, what? You know, my dad was. There was no neighbor in back surgery. Of course not. You know what I mean? It was, you know, so it was like, you know, my dad was, you know, very rowdy with the women.

And I was- People won't talk about it. It's one of America's kind of hidden tragedies is belly dancer quailude dependency. And we, you know, this is, I hope that here we start. we start finally yeah am i going to be the face of the belly dancer epidemic great great this is my cause you guys um so i think that a lot of us like we have the stories of what happened but that's what our parents told us in through their ego their insecurity their delusions whatever story they had to tell themselves to not you know whatever child services told them they had to say to not get their

kid taken away or whatever through their alcoholic she put a little prelude in her navel when she You know what? And then it fell out and you were like, yay. And this is what we do when things get dark. We make it the funny version. My dad, no, please. Like, I'm doing the same thing. Like, I don't think I could, in any serious, say, like, as a baby, I most died from taking a drug because my dad just left me in a living room while he was having an affair or whatever.

Like, we'll never know. You know, when you're raised by alcoholics, you'll never know. They don't even know what happened. They weren't there. you know, and I think that for a litany of reasons, whether it was child services was involved, I don't know, I caught on fire when I was like six or seven and I went to school. My dad put Vaseline on it and sent me to school, which is, by the way, there's a conf- There's a confluence of like just not having money of like, we're not going to go to the emergency room for this, you know?

Not having money. Is that a form of child abuse, I guess? He just took me to school. It was like, there's a school nurse. This is going to be her job. And then I went and everyone was horrified. I love that the solution to burns on a toddler is Vaseline. Vaseline. Put all Vaseline on it. There's little Vaseline on it, a little Vicks. You know, I mean, it's like, it's not a bad idea. I mean, now I have a kid and I'm like, sometimes you're in a rush, like, you know.

Keep a tub of Vaseline nearby just in case. Water and Vaseline, put some water on it. Put some water on it. I mean, Vaseline really was marketed as kind of the panacea. Did you have char marks on your clothing or your skin when you went to school? So I, so we, again, again, Again, my dad was a very complicated man, and I know a lot of our parents either couldn't afford to pay the bills or just didn't pay the bills. He was very much alike, you know, the government's taken from my, he was QAnon before Q&ON.

He's like, I'm not paying this gas bill. This is a scam. I'm not paying this water bill. And, you know, so we never had heat. And so I would go on to the, I was, again, I was a parentified child. I was like, no one's going to help me. I'm going to solve my own problems, right? And that served me in a lot of ways as an adult.

My work ethic, my sort of, I'm on my own. I'm not going to wait for anyone else to help me do anything. Self-start or whatever. But at a very young age, I was like, I need to make my breakfast. I need to get myself to school. I need to handle this. I need to, you know, figure out how to change while it's freezing in here. And so I got on an oven with the, I would turn a fire on.

Okay. What is it called? The burners. There was like four burners. And I was wearing a long black. I also just remembered this recently. You know, we block things out. Sure.

I think our brain dislodges memories when we're finally ready to kind of cope. So after my dad died a lot. of these memories came up that I think I wasn't able to really process until he died because I was still trying to keep him on a pedestal or my psyche needed to keep him, you know, somebody that I could forgive or someone I could justify like being around. And so, yeah, so I got up on these burners and caught on fire and I was wearing this black. It was a WWF World Wildlife Federation nightgown and it seared into my leg. So I had this like black, like I have, you know, scar on my life from it. And I went to school. And, um, it was a cat.

Catholic school with Catholic uniforms, which by the way, that has to go. That was the biggest form of abuse as far as I'm concerned. That has become so sexualized and weird. Now that I'm like, I would like go to a Catholic school in a Catholic uniform, that's another conversation for another time. But it did reveal because the skirt was so short, the burn and they based, so I think that I might have been removed from the ability to be with one or both parents. And then I was sent to live with my aunt later. Okay. It's unclear. I don't know. It's interesting that you haven't done some sleuthing around that. Well, what is the point of sleuthing if everyone lies?

You know, when my parents were, both my parents had passed, but was I going to be like, what happened? They were just going to lie to me. You know what I mean? So I think for me, I was even, you know, maybe this is why I'm so on my podcast. I'm kind of, how dare you, infamously make fun of improv because I had to do improv for so long. When you're raised by liars and you have to yes and with alcoholics

that are trying to cover their tracks, or don't remember what happened the night before as a kid. You're just like, oh, yeah, that's sure, okay. Like, the yacht and Greece that we're going to go on this summer. Like, yeah, I'll start packing. Like, I had to go along with, like, very grandiose lies from a liar for a really long time. So I think that as a result, I'm sort of, like, have Tourette's about, like, the truth. I haven't heard you making fun of improv, and I think that's hysterical.

What do you? How does that? How does that work? Because I'm not from the improv world at all. And sometimes I love improv and I think it's, but I also think it's pretty. ridiculous. It's so cheesy. They kind of like, okay, we need a place, kind of like, mentality. I, as a, the youngest child, very clearly an accident who had to earn their keep, and as a result became like an A plus codependent obsessed with like, you know, my self-esteem

from productivity, perfectionism and control is my addiction. I am in recovery for all these things. I know, you know, those are things I'm trying to get ahead of. So this is going to seem like a relapse, but doing improv is like, you get up there and you're kind of just, the audience has to do most of the work, the audience comes up with the idea. You guys paid to come watch us entertain you, and they're like, you say something. It's like, then they have to work for, and then you get up there and you do it, and it's fine. And my brain always goes like, guys, that would have been really good if we just took 20 minutes and like rode it out first. Yeah. It's like, I may. And rehearsed it. And put in some joke, punched it up. Everyone here is so talented.

Let's just put on a good show. I remember the time my dad was watching TV, and my whole thing with TV was my dad's watching it. I can't get his attention. I got to get in that box. Wow. Like I got to get in that box somehow. I didn't start with T.

I started with commercials because commercials were on so much back then. I always would be like, you got to eat the Oscar Meyer. And I would practice it. I would practice being on Oprah as a kid. I mean, psycho. And he would watch Roddy Dangerfield, and I would do Roddy Dangerfield impressions. in the mirror. He wrote on SNL, Landshark.

I would be like Landshark. So I would say the things that I saw on TV to him to try to make him laugh. But I remember going up to him one time. And he was very much a workaholic. I look back now and I have so much compassion for him. He would recopy phone numbers in a yellow legal pad just over and over again. We always had this yellow legal pad. I now see what it is.

Who's phone numbers? Just business contacts and, you know. Yeah, okay. Notes and stuff. He was always just writing phone numbers down. copying, writing on the phone. And I went up to him and, you know, tried to get his attention. As a kid, it should be enough that you're just adorable. And, you know, we're sure, I was Shirley Temple, you know. I was a showboat. And I remember walking away and going under

this, like, stairwell and going like, that didn't go well. Like, I need to do something else. And I remember being like, all right, I'm going to go out this time and, like, do it this way. Yeah. And then I like went back and I was like, okay, let me try. Like, I remember. So again, born out of your trauma came the skill set that you used to put on a Netflix. special, essentially. And I need to make it quick. I need to get in there, kill, and get out. There's no room for fat.

Tight 10. Tight 10. Come home. If you have a story about school, that shit can't lag. Because also, when you're dealing with alcoholics, very young, there's only so much time you have before, you know, you can't really get their attention. It's so funny. So when I was doing a lot of intense, more intensive therapy 10 or 20 years ago,

there's this thing called a trauma egg. Have you ever done a trauma egg? No. She's at PCS and she's one of the originators of like the inner child. And she says that we have our original child. Sure. And that's just our healthy, loving, loved inner child. Right.

Then we have our sobbing child. That's the sobbing child that's wounded, traumatized, that's in great pain, turmoil, didn't get the love that it needed. Then we also have our controlling child that tries to watch out for that. sobbing child, which is what you're describing. So the controlling child takes the reins. I mean, like, hey, I got to protect the sobbing child who's in a lot of danger here. I'm going to take the reins.

And I'm going to be the controlling child. I'm going to make everything happen. And I'm going to make it all work out great for the saw. So the sobbing child doesn't need to feel any more pain. And of course, that can't really sustain. It might last for a couple of years. Yeah. Then there's other, there's like the rebellious child, which comes up later.

But it's all these layers of inner children. Like one inner child. It kind of was a game changer for me once I was able to identify my inner teenager. So maybe that's like similar to the rebellious child. Yeah. So it's like when I was like, oh, sorry, I'm having an inner child reaction to this. And it was like because I'm scared or afraid of abandonment. Right.

Because adults can't be abandoned. We have cars. You know, so this is. And then it helped me to go like if I'm, you know, angry or want to retaliate or want to post on Instagram a photo to make the person jealous that I'm hurt me. I'm like, oh, that's my inner teenager. Like it helped me to identify the more sort of petulant, sort of like stop my feet, you know, pugnacious energy.

Yeah. So we do this exercise called a trauma egg, where you draw a big egg, and then you do a picture of the traumas that you suffered as a child. So you don't write it out. You do a picture, like if your dad hit you at prom or something, then you draw a little photo of it.

And then around the outside, you do like, you know, description of your parents, they're good qualities, they're bad qualities, family rules, you know, the roles that you played, your philosophy as raised, you know, what was your personal philosophy? What is it now? You know, there's a lot of work that you do on this chart. It's really fascinating. But I did one, and it was in the roles you play, or rules, it was like, you know, don't make any ripples was one from my family. And it was really interesting because I was in a group with these guys and they're like, but that's all you do.

Like on Twitter, I throw grenades and I have, you know, intense conversations and I'm playing ridiculous characters that are, you know, half naked and falling down the stairs all the time. And like, so what in my life, I have reacted to that home rule by opposing it. I thought that was really interesting that, you know, my life is a lot about, like, I'm always like in the news for saying something or breaking the very rule. thing and like causing ripples. My whole career is about causing ripples in a family that the family rule was don't cause any ripples.

Can I ask, was it written out or was that just implied? No, just implied. Implied rules. Yeah. An implied rule of like don't push it. And was that, do you think, because I had a similar thing, but it was more, no one overtly said don't cause any ripples. It was just that if you needed anything or if you advocated for yourself, it would overwhelm a very

emotional mom or it would basically attract the attention of a dangerous person who would try to help you and then you in my family emotions were bad so other than like pleasant being pleasant and so any kind of like anger depression pain sorrow anguish anything that you would express would cause this kind of like very like suburban Seattle like, do you think it's because it made your parents think they were bad parents or they were embarrassed that other people would see it? They just didn't bless them.

They just didn't have a skill set to know how to deal with emotions. And a lot of parents in the 70s, they didn't know how to deal with human emotion. They weren't taught that. They had depression era. Parents themselves that, you know, the only emotion that was expressed was rage.

Yeah. And so, you know, they just didn't have that skill set. So when emotion would happen, they were like this. So the implied thing is like don't have any large emotions because don't make any ripples. Like just get good grades, be a good boy. And so it was a little different for me. Can I ask a stupid question? Yeah.

Is that like when acting started for you? Like did you have to act like you were fine when you weren't fine? Did you have to act like, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's sort of like that's kind of when your acting training starts in a way, right?

And I think too, like my dad and stepmom, they didn't love each other. And so, and they were together for a shit ton of time, 15, 16 years of not loving each other. So, and I could, you could feel that. You can feel that when you're nine years old and you go into a dinner table and you can tell that people are kind of pretending to love each other and they don't. So then I was like, hey, here's the funny thing that happened to me at school and hey, how was your day, dad? And here's some fun facts I learned. let me show you my A plus on my science report and let me keep the ball in the air and try and bring some love into this room. And then you're an actor and that's all you're trying to do

is bring a little love into the room. Now I'm bringing it into this podcast studio. You know what I love about what you're saying? And again, I'm sorry to go back to this theme of like, you know, when I went to Virginia, I ended up, the good thing that happened was it was a farm and I ended up being able to spend time with animals. And taking words out of the equation and just communicating with energy exchange was the first time I felt seen, heard, or able to communicate. You know, so like when you're saying as a kid, you could tell that there was no love and that there's tension. I think one of the biggest mistakes we make as adults, as parents, as everything, is we think we're getting away with stuff. And one of the biggest gifts and it was,

It was shocking when I went into ACA Allen on adult children of alcoholics, codependence recovery, is like, I thought I was getting away with it all. Like, you know, being like, no, I'm fine. Everything's great. And like, can I help you with that? Everyone knows what you're doing. Everybody knows you're trying to get their approval. And it is so repellent because it boils down to fear.

We think that it's like benevolent to like, I want to make this person like me. But like, you're a vampire. Like you're asking someone else to give you their approval so that you can have high self-esteem. and basically solve this ephemeral. I mean, that's going to just keep, you're a bottomless pit of need. And you're just, I used to think it was like kind in a way that I,

well, I don't like myself. Do you like me? Do you like, because I just was so used to making myself small for narcissists and they enjoyed in a sadistic way, me hating myself, but well-adjusted, integrated people don't enjoy that. They find it upsetting and exhausting.

And, like, they have to solve a problem that they didn't cause. and you're giving them power that they don't want. Like when someone looks to me for their approval, I'm like, I don't want this power, I don't want to be on this pedestal. I don't even know you. How could I approve of you? I have no qualifications to approve of you.

So even if you do get my approval right now, it's fake. Well, you started the conversation saying, talking about your insecurities coming on this show and like, oh, you're one of the cool kids and, you know, this is going to be boring because we're going to have like a, you know, a raw, honest, stripped down conversation. And it's not so interesting like you saying like, oh, you're one of the cool kids because I have always felt like there's this whole world of Hollywood and Hollywood comedians and Hollywood filmmakers.

And I'm just not the cool. I'm like the anti of the cool kids. And like then there's like this weird Rain Wilson, this kind of ungainly. He's not a stand up, but he's kind of funny. He's not an improv guy, but he can improvise. And he's kind of a weird looking actor. and what is he even? And he also talks sometimes about spirituality and God and mental health and the meaning of life.

Like, what the fuck is with this guy? So it's so funny that your perception, whereas I see like, Whitney Cummings. Like you had the show called Whitney. And you, you know, you were like headlining in your pictures. Marongo Casino, it's Whitney. Marongo. And you're in. with all the cool guys.

Well, a couple things. What I will say, I guess our definition of cool everyone's is different. To me, you've always come off so punk rock. But how amazing is it the career that you've built for yourself because I was just reading that, it was a New York Times article just last week about the miracle of YouTube where these people, you know, Theo Vaughn and so countless dozens and dozens of others that they don't need Hollywood. They're just like, fuck Hollywood.

I don't need my agents. I don't need people at NBC or Sony to like me or want to cast me. I'm going to make. Daykeepers. Really good money, just doing my own thing and building my own audience. Is that refreshing for you in a way? Because you are really in the Hollywood game for a long time. And now it's just kind of like, I can do podcasts and I can do Netflix specials and I can be on the road.

And I've got my own ecosystem. Do you have a thought on that for you? Like, are you, did you audition for some stuff and not, and go, like, you know, let me have this other thing where I am not going to get rejected. I'm weird because I've made enough money already from what I've done. And I'm kind of half in, half out of Hollywood. There's some cool movies I've gotten to do and appearances and shows that I've gotten to do. And I'm excited about that. But what used to motivate me was a lot of what you're talking about, a lot of, like, competition.

I've got to prove it. I've got to prove this to them and approve this to them. And that has really evaporated for me. So I'm just kind of in this weird limbo. But I love sitting at this table and having these conversations. If you had told me 20 years ago, oh, you want to be a stand-up? Just so you know, in like 15 years, you're also going to have to, like, show everyone your personality and, like, talk about your trauma.

I don't know if I would do it because I kind of signed up to write something, test it out, make it good, put out a product. And now I kind of like, you know, do a podcast with someone as brilliant as you. And then I leave being like, why did you say that? That was so stupid. Why didn't you, like, you know, me off the cuff, I don't have a ton of pride around yet. But I'm just going, you know what, I'm going to be authentic and I'm going to just tell the truth. And, you know, and people are finding things podcast that I did five years ago.

And like, so dumb that she said that. I'm like, I know it was dumb. It was five years ago. I didn't know what I was talking about. Yeah, it's like looking at a photo of what I was my haircut 10 years ago. Like, of course I would have said that differently, but you got to just go like, you know what? People are finding what they need to find when they want to find it. What's your son's name?

Henry. What's it like being a mother? And how is this changing your whole being? You know, I came off, I'll just be honest, like a manic episode. When I, right before I had a kid, I had lost my dad like five years ago. And then my mom, about a year and a half ago, after they had been in nursing homes, like, we're dying very slowly for a long time.

And by the time they both died, there was like this cannonball out of a canon thing of like, oh my God, I finally get to start my life kind of thing. But there was also a lot of bizarre grief, which I know you talk about a lot. I won't bore people with it. But I then was so sort of high-strung with this new bandwidth of energy

that had previously sort of been dedicated to just worrying and stressing and feeling guilt. and embarrassment and anger towards my parents that didn't take care of themselves, that I had to financially support and take care of while they didn't like love me, really, that I sort of shot out of a canon and everyone was like, you know what, you should try weed? And I was like, you know what, I should? You're right. My addiction is caretaking addicts. Like, it's my turn, you know. Weed is relaxing. You know, I went off birth control, which is, we can

talk about this another time for anyone that's watching this show, like, you know, thinking about your neurochemical, you know, the neurochemistry of your brain and what that does for depression and energy levels and all that kind of stuff. I was on Prozac as well, went off all of that because it was like, well, my parents were my problem, you know, and my migraines that I was taking my birth control for, you know, that was actually caused by them. Doesn't matter why this is true or not. And then I'm going to smoke some weed because that calms everybody down and everyone's doing it and da-da-da. Wheat is not a match for my brain, whether it's ADD, OCD, whatever, however we want to diagnose it, I went straight to looking for Shelley Miscamage and trying to find the

Scientology ships. I got very obsessed. Did you find her? You know what? I haven't found her. Yeah. But. Is she on one of the Scientology ships?

I also don't know if I want to. Is there an app to follow the Scientology ships? Dude, if there was a grinder for Scientology ships, I would be so in. Wow. I would do anything. Would you fuck one of the ships? How would that work? I would ghost them.

I hired a maritime lawyer. This is all true. I started smoking weed, and then I decided, because what happens to me, I guess, when I smoke weed, is these, what is it when you have delusions of grandeur? Where you're like, okay, I guess I'm going to have to clean up the water in Flint. Like, okay, I'm going to do it. What do we do? And I'm, like, trying to figure out how to do it. Like, it was, you know, I think I was caretaking people for so long that I just did.

didn't, you know, have an outlet to caretake. You know, I was rescuing dogs, rescued a giraffe and a fire, was rescuing my parents, was rescuing adults, comics. And then my parents die, and I'm like, okay, great. Now, you know, it's time to clean up the water in Appalachia. And now we have to dig into how the Saudis have put money into Disney. Like, it was just... How much weed were you smoking?

Dude. Was this like Cheech and Chong? Here's the problem is that the weed also don't smoke. weed if you also grew up poor and won't throw anything away, like, I'm the person that won't throw anything away. Like, I will wrap up two gummy bears that, like, if no one's going to finish them, it's got, you know, and so it was like, they give you these pre-roll blunts. You can just order in California, and they come, and I take two puffs, and I'd be like, well, I can't, like, I have to finish it. Like, I have to finish everything. So I would, like, finish this blunt,

and then I would just be like, the Saudis just put money into peacock. Okay. Like, I'm, like, investigating stuff, it was just total madness. So, you know, I quit smoking weed, got sober, got emotionally sober, two very different things. And the whole deal with any kind of recovery is working on your ability to tolerate discomfort or the perceived discomfort of others. So if you're taking something that is, you know, atrophying the muscle of tolerating discomfort in the long term, that's so well said. Smaller things are going to be harder. So to me, it's like life is all about the hard things can be hard. That's the deal. But the easy things shouldn't be hard. But here's the thing.

Weed, honestly, if I go to Austin and hanging out with Rogan in the mothership, I've already done my set. And I'm kind of like, I don't have my son with me. You know what? I'll have a couple puffs of weed. I'm with people. When I start doing it alone, that's when I know I'm in trouble. So for anyone that's trying to figure out, if they're addicted to something.

You're not kind of right for anything? If you start doing anything kind of alone, that's when it's trouble. That's it. It was all well and good. And I was the funest person at the party when I could take one puff, pass it to somebody else and then someone drives me home or I get an Uber. But when I started doing it at home alone, it went from 10 p.m. to fall asleep to 9 p.m. I'm going to fall asleep early to 6 p.m. I've had a hard day to 4 p.m. I guess I'll just cancel that thing. So when I started isolating

when it, so the two things for me when I know something's an addiction because it's not just you know, drugs and alcohol, whether it's shopping, whether it's food, whatever, is when it starts feeling like an obligation and when it stops being fun and when I start doing it in private secretly not with other people right so when something starts feeling like an obligation like I guess I got to jerk off or I got to eat this fifth donut that's you know right or when it starts um you continue doing something despite negative consequences sure right so I'm continuing doing it despite negative consequences like I wake up the next morning and be like I forgot to feed my dogs last night because I was so stone that I forgot to feed my dogs that's a negative consequence and then

the next night I do it again and I'm like I forgot to to give my dog his heart pill. And it's that that's a negative consequence, you know? So, and if I'm not telling anybody about it and doing it secretly. So that started happening, stopped, um, doing it and really had like a come to Jesus with my neurochemistry, just going like, you know what? I have an addictive personality. I just had addictions that are rewarded, you know, rescuing people, workaholism, you know, chopping addictions. Like she's so fashionable. She's where, you know, it's like all these things that, food restricting. You know, you know, It's like they were just all rewarded.

And I was sort of like, oh, gosh, maybe I'm unlucky in that I got the, you know, if I had gotten alcohol, you know, when I was 22, maybe I would have crashed my car and gotten sober that and then gotten a handle on my neurochemistry because there's a lot of sort of very nefarious addictions that masquerade as being really successful and ambitious and, you know, love addiction was a big one. Person addiction. She's just such a good friend. And I'm like, I got to drive my friend to the airport and help her move and get her out of this

relationship. It's like, that's just codependence and addiction. That's just another kind of not having to. feel your feelings, distracting yourself and not, you know, being in your own body and self-care. But you were originally getting towards Henry. So you went through the... So then I finally was like, you know what? You came out the other side of that. And I was like, I'm rescuing all these people. I don't, I no longer have to mother my parents. Because I was a mom, you know, people like, isn't it good to be a mother? I'm like, I was a mother. Yeah.

I mothered my dad and my mom and a bunch of adults. It was toxic and unhealthy, but I had no bandwidth. So that's where I was like, how am I going to ever have a kid? I don't know how to be a mother. And then I'm like, wait, I've been doing this. I can totally do this. You know, got pregnant was, to me, felt like such a miracle. Got pregnant naturally at 40, you know, and you talk a lot about God and whatever you want to say. God, the universe, I don't know, whatever you want to say. It felt kind of like a miracle in a way for me. And then I got super. excited because all of these maladaptive behaviors of caretaking other people, when you have a kid, it's just what you should be doing.

Yeah. So for the first time, I don't feel crazy. Your codependence is now rewarded. It's illegal if this isn't my personality. You know what I mean? It's cool to be like, are you okay? Do you need anything? And it not be a 40-year-old adults, you know?

Like, it's kind of nice to be like, do you like, that's good, you know? So all these things that I've always pathologized so much, it's nice to kind of for them to not toxic for them to actually just be being good at something. What did you learn about yourself having a kid? Because I do think that you have a kid, it changes the whole paradigm of like being alive in the world suddenly shifts on its axes once you have. Yeah. Once you have a child.

We're confronted with stuff when you've got a dependent kid there. I think that's something I learned, and this is hopefully going to not be too underwhelming because I know when people, when kids get involved, people have these amazing like epiphanies. But one for me that was pretty big was like that I was in shock. I think we talk about depression. We talk about anxiety. We don't talk about shock very much. Like I've had a lot of, I've been in, you know, fight, fight, flight, freeze. We don't talk about a ton. And I think I've gone in and out of shock a lot and my ability to disassociate through things. You know, when I'm with my son, I'm not disassociating.

I'm just present and I'm there. Wow. And I think that when we do a drug or drink or have sex or do, we're trying to get present, we're trying to feel something. And I just didn't realize how much I disassociated months and maybe even years because I was in shock. It's hard to explain. But when I'm with my son, I'm kind of like, oh, this is what it feels like to be present.

When I'm on stage performing, I feel present. Maybe it's because it's the perfect neurochemical cocktail of that I'm, was familiar as a kid, the adrenaline and the trying to get everyone's approval, you know, maybe it just feels so familiar that that's where I feel safe and at home, you know, and I think that's something comics, you know, when it's like, how come all comics, we're all comics traumatized? It's like, yeah, their comfort zone is adrenaline, trying to get approval from strangers that are drunk, you know?

Like, that's, you know, obviously what we come from. And so I think for me, my definition of what it means to be present has completely changed. That's beautiful. I think that's profound. I don't even know if I had ever known what it was. until having a son or until having a kid. Wow. Which is pretty wild.

And being in something else, and this is, you know, it is what it is. But there were so many things that I've been working on for so long, being patient, being present, not thinking about myself or, you know, taking contrary action and stuff that I've been working on in programs and stuff. And the second I had my son, I was able to do it. And I don't know if it was because I've been working on it so long. and this is just what crystallized it, or if this happens to everyone.

You hear that kid, if you're struggling with anxiety and being present and have a messed up life, just have a kid. It'll solve everything. Thanks everyone. Good night, everybody. Here's what I've, like, yes and no, you know, you were talking to Bobby about this.

I think, you know, it might be getting a dog. It might mean getting a boyfriend or girlfriend or it might mean volunteering and just like getting out of your own head, the narcissism of what we do, and it's not just us anymore, the narcissism of us being on social media all day and me, me, me, me, and the, you know, we talk in program, obviously, about relief from the bondage of self, you know? So I think that it ultimately was, is like that, you know, just in an IV. Like, I didn't realize I actually like

myself if I'm not thinking about myself all day. If I think about myself like 20 minutes a day, that's like the sweet spot. You know, I think so much of this anxiety and self-loathing is all we do is think about ourselves. And that's one of the things about having a higher person. And that's, power where I think that folks that have a higher power get a superpower, which is that there is something then in existence that is larger than themselves. And when I was higher power less, I was the center of my world. My consciousness, my needs, my experiences, my feelings were were my higher power was my God, you know, selfishness, self-centeredness. That must be the root of our problem. So having a higher power for me was like it's just like the Baron von Snortington.

It's like things were in their right order. Oh, there's me. There's little old weird me and there's something really vast and powerful and mysterious there that I can be and surrender to. And in that act of surrender, I can actually find greater peace and actually greater power in myself by being in a right-sized kind of hierarchy. And I think that's part of the reason that 12 steps works is that surrender piece. I was thinking the same thing. Like you want to get out alphaed by your higher power. Like that feeling when like your pig or your dog or your horse or your kid can

just relax because they know you're in control. Being in control is exhausting. Thinking you're being in control is exhausting. That's where anxiety comes from. Should I be doing this? Should I be doing this? Should I call this person? Should I text this person?

And when in program, they said, you're powerless over other people's behavior. I took a breath for the first. I had no idea that wasn't true. Wow. When you grow up in a home where you're trying to control people all the time, trying to make your, you know, your parents get along, trying to get your, you know, older brother to stop doing this or thinking this way. You're trying to get this.

When you have this false sense of control, it blows your mind when you realize you never had false control and you don't have real control. So when they say you're powerless, I didn't understand what that meant because I spent all this time trying to get power over people, you know, and trying to make them like me, trying to make them owe me, trying to make them care about me, trying to make them not abandon me by being so nice to them that they would feel guilty. You know, it's like that's what I didn't realize about the people pleasing stuff because I always thought I was just really nice. But what you're doing is you're trying to get someone to owe you. You're trying to get someone to like you so they won't leave. You're trying to trap them. It's weird.

You know? And I watched my mom as an unrecovered codependent bring people presents all the time. It had to be like, we have to bring them a present. We have to bring them a gift. Like it wasn't nice. There was like an anger and a stress to it. And then you give the, here's the overpriced candle. And by the way, sidebar, I think the idea that you need to bring a gift to someone's house

when you like go over for dinner, like a wine or a flowers, we have to get rid of that. Let's stop that. It's bullshit. I don't want your bottle of wine. First of all, I don't drink. People give them to my assistant. and like, we have, like, I don't want your shit. Like, just come over.

I want you to come over. What you're saying when you give someone a gift is you're just saying, hi, I'm not enough. I don't believe I'm enough. Here's this thing. Yeah, here's a thing. Some of us love acts of service and I'm a gift person. I do love giving gifts.

It's really, I have to restrain myself. It's really one of my bottom lines. You didn't bring me shit. I didn't bring you shit. Because you know what? You're enough. Agree. Agree.

Get back onto the high. higher power though. So how did this, how does this work for you? The higher power thing to me is just, it's tricky. So for me now, I'm big on just, I'm happy saying God, you know, if you want to say higher power, that's fine too. To me, it's just, it can be oxygen. It can be science. It can be, I can't control what you're thinking of me. You can't control what you think of. You know what I mean? Like, it's just sort of the arrogance of thinking you can control anyone. And so God can kind of be neurology. It can be bio, it can be whatever. I try not to overthink. It's just sort of overthink it too much. Do you pray? I do pray. I do pray. And do you, do visualize something when you

pray or do you just kind of give kind of a yearning to the universe? I do the meta practice pretty inconsistently. I don't know what that is. It is a, so my brain is hard to wrangle. I'm sure, you know, and anyone watching this is of like my brain will just go into autopilot of like, that was stupid. Why did you do that? Or you need to fit, you're falling behind. I mean, like, those are my, like default thoughts. Default thoughts going back to an old resentment of like, I can't believe that person did that thing to you 20 years ago. You know what I mean?

Not that agent that didn't, are you deserved to be on gray? Why aren't you on Grey's Anatomy? I mean, it's just like whatever. It's like this free flowing. I'm so glad you're not on Gray's Anatomy. Yeah. But I would like to be asked.

Sure. Shitty radio station of just negative thoughts, whether they're, and I can now kind of go like, that sounds like my mom or like, hmm, that sounds like the kid that was rejected by my dad and had to come up with that narrative or, you know, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And so I do, it's the met to practice is, I forgive you, you forgive me, I forgive myself. So if someone comes up and it's like, Rain Wilson didn't give me a hug when I left or whatever,

was that because you were weird or should you, you know, whatever that loop is, I'm also on Prozac, my true higher power. And that loop comes up and I'll just go, I forgive you, you forgive me, I forgive myself. That's kind of my default kind of refurb. train now. I do, you send loving kindness to all the people that you have resentment towards. So I wake up in the morning and my brain, first thing when I wake up is who do I need to protect myself against? Because our brains ultimately are just trying to survive, right? And our brains perceive threats, right? So I've got this person and this person that hurt me or

hates me or tweeted about me or didn't give me that job or what is out to get me, whatever the things are. It broke my heart, or didn't like me back, whatever it is. And then I send them, may they be happy, may they be healthy, may they live easily. And I imagine the person. Oh, beautiful. Yeah. It's very Tibetan Buddhist. Oh, is it? Yeah, it's a prayer of the relief of compassion and relief of suffering for all living beings, all sentient beings. And because when we're resentful towards someone, we're tethered to them. It's actually a very intimate connection. And then I imagine a cord being cut, which is something I learned in program so that this person just doesn't run my entire day. Like I just, I hope they're happy, healthy,

live easily and send love to anyone that I feel like maybe it happened during dreams or something, which by the way, about the, sorry to bring up the weed thing again, I also think weed, I didn't dream on weed. And if you're not dreaming, you're not like releasing, you know, like kind of the subconscious catharsis and stuff that your brain needs to do stuff while you're asleep. And if you just put your brain into comatose lamb

where you're not getting delta waves, I'm a neuroscientist. That's why weed is like Hollywood kills your dreams. Because praying is also like, whether you believe in God or don't believe in God, you are making neural pathways that are manifesting something that you want and you'll keep thinking about that more, you know? And so, like, I pray for myself to, like, take a contrary action

or don't just do something, sit there. A lot of my prayers are ACA and Alon adages. Don't have a problem for the solution. If it's hysterical, it's historical. You know, it's, we forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness, but because we deserve peace. I mean, even if these sound like platitudes, they're better to be making new neural pathways

and strengthening than strengthening the, I'm falling behind. I'm never going to make it. You haven't lived up to your potential. You're a piece of shit. You're aging. You know what I mean? Like it's just a contrary thought to try to keep those grooves deepening instead of strengthening

those other thoughts. Wow. Is that prayer? That is. Yeah. I know what that is. I think it's a, yeah, it's that link between prayer and neurology. Neuroathy.

Neurology. Not neuropathy is a disease. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's like thought wrangling because I know that like I can. go into kind of autopilot, I'm doing this thing and I'm doing this, but I have thoughts in the back of my head and what are your, like, what's your inner monologue, your default inner monologue?

You know, my default inner monologue, I'm just trying to make, may they be happy, maybe they be healthy, I forgive you. A lot of it is self-forgiveness of like, forgive yourself for that. Rain Wilson's not mad at you. He doesn't give a shit. He doesn't care. You know, it's like we're obsessed with people think about us until we realize they're not thinking about us.

Yeah. You know, but then there is this big, I remember when I first started getting a handle on these thoughts, like, what do you think about? You know, like, my thoughts for so long was, like, get her a drink and say this so that she doesn't get mad at you and anticipating other people's needs and worrying about what other people think. And then when you get rid of those, there is like a void you have to fill, you know, and you have to decide what you're going to refill it with, you know, so you kind of have to write a new inner monologue. And mine's pretty repetitive at this point. But like, I just, you know, I try to play music now. It's full Christian

gospel. I love gospel music. To me, I'm I mean, this is what church, a lot of what church was is going and sort of getting high. Singing with people. Totally. We're programming our brains with everything we put in them. So I make these playlists of certain music so that, you know, I'm kind of in a, like, trance with it. Yeah. You know, because if I play one song that, like, one Bonnever song comes on and I'm like,

oh. In a, like, you have to know how sensitive you are to music. I put podcasts on. That, to me, is kind of a form of prayer and, you know, meditation. He's rich roll. He's on. Even if I only hear half of it, you know, like this is a podcast I would put on and just have in the background when I'm cooking or something because it's, you know, sometimes

it's hard to sit down and actually pray and actually meditate. But I think that you can do these moving meditations when you're doing mindless things. It's amazing. You also seem like someone who cares. You care. You make an effort. Like you show up and you write and you create and you're, people don't know about you that you're also like a TV creator and showrunner.

and writer besides a stand-up and performer. But do you think that this is a symptom of the world right now is people don't care enough? How do we get people to care, like to show up and care more, a little bit more like to be a little bit more of like the Dwight Shrewt rather than like the gym Halpert kind of to give and care more in a healthy way? Well, caring is scary because you can get rejected.

And the more you care, the more embarrassing it is. If you don't care and you reject me, it's like, well, I didn't try that hard anyway. Yeah. You know, so for me, it's, I think that, you know, it probably... High risk, high reward. Yeah. And, like, I mean, I hate to say, like, have a hard childhood so that it won't hurt that. You care so much because it doesn't hurt that bad when you get rejected.

By the time I got to Hollywood, I was like, oh, what? You're going to say no to me? Like, my dad didn't love me. You think I give a shit? You know what I mean? Like there was something that was kind of like, yeah, yeah, no, I'm I know I'm unlovable. I'm just trying to play the odds here. And, you know, I'm just, I have to try hard.

Like, I didn't, I'm not a trust fund kid who was going to, you know, have a backup plan, you know. And I think that, you know, taking really big risks is, you know, I mean, maybe you have to, I don't know what part is nature and what part is nurture. But like, you know, I think it really also helps to go through the worst case scenario, you know, just to actually give a tool of going like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, go on this date and, you know, tell this person. I like them. You know, I'm going to be a tryhard. I'm going to go to this job interview and I'm to say, I want this job, you know, and I'm going to play this role and I'm going to care, you know. And I think going like, what's the worst going to happen? They could say no, like, okay, what's another no? To me, turn it around. This is the- But if rejection and disappointment and frustration hurts so much and one of the things the younger

generation struggles with is resilience, then caring- Every know is closer to a yes, start getting turned on by no. Like I started, I mean, there's a book called the tools, Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels, and they have this exercise called the reversal of desire where we're so scared of things and we get paralyzed and you actually start craving the things you're most scared of. Like, like, your word, your boyfriend or girlfriend's going to cheat on you. Start like craving that happening, you know, and like put your body in a place where it's going to be able to get through that. Like read the chapter. It really helped me. Like I used to. So you're like visualizing kind of the worst that could happen. It's actually,

It's almost like cognitive behavioral therapy to kind of like play act and Maybe or like going through the worst case scenario and then realizing like you're going to survive that because so much of our fear is of fear. You know, like we're afraid of future fear. We're afraid of pain. But we're putting ourselves, the ironies we're putting ourselves through all this pain to avoid pain. Like it doesn't make any sense logically. You know, and we're just paralyzed by it.

So it's just a way for me like of going like what's the worst that could happen? I could fail. Like, okay. Every failure is closer to a success. Every no is closer to a yes. Like to me, it helped me to go like, yeah, like, I'm going to hear 300 knows before I hear yes. So if I'm at 100, like, I got 200 more to go, you know? So like trying hard and hearing no is like, okay, I'm closer.

I'm closer. Like, you know, getting turned on by rejection because just realizing like, you know, that or also going like making your goals impossibly high because there's less rejection or less competition up there, you know? Like if you're just like, I want my own sitcom. Saying like I want to be on a sitcom, everyone wants to do that. It's saying I want to have my own sitcom that I just create. Like five people were trying to do that. You know what I mean? So I was just so be so delusionally confident that it like confuses people.

You know what I mean? And the worst they can say is no. But if you tried, if they say yes, like, you know, you didn't go like, I want to be number three on a sitcom. And then they say yes. And you're like, oh, now I still have all these other goals. Now I want to, you know, I just went for that one because it was, it was like insane. Just, you're dying. I think also when you've been around death and seen so much death,

we have like 20 minutes left. You know, this is also something that... You mean us as a species or us as individual humans? Like, this is... We're like, the movie is halfway over, you know? And I think that I've been staring at death for the past 10 years, but like if you haven't been, and so you don't have that context or perspective yet,

also in the same book, the tools, there is the death bed exercise, which also helped me, which helps me with my... To get back to your, like, caring. And you visualize yourself on your deathbed and you think about how mad you're going to be at yourself. If you're like, I can't believe I spent all that time worrying about what my roommate thought of me or chasing that girl that I knew was bad for me.

Or in my case, actually it unlocked a lot of my stuff with eating disorders because I did recovery around it in ACA. But I went like, I'm going to be so mad at myself. I go, I can't believe how much time I spent obsessing about food and calorie and day. and like whether my thighs touched or not. And it like unlocked something in my brain, thinking on your deathbed, you know? Yeah. And I and yeah, I think fear of not coming off cool, like no one's cool.

I think it's really punk rock to try. I think it's really punk rock to, you know, and that's what when I said you were the cool, one of the cool kids. Like to me, it was like that's what you are to me. It's like, you know, I think being positive and expecting something to work out is like radical. Like getting married is radically, punk rock at this point.

Do you know what I mean? And being like, I'm going to love someone. I'm going to work on my marriage. I'm going to try this monogamous thing. Like, that is so punk rock to me. I'm like, that's amazing. You know, so I don't know. I like to also know if you get your goal

are you actually going to be happy or not. So if you set it low, you're going to be like, if I get this, I'm going to want more. I think I also, yeah, I'm just rambling at this point. Because I have so much to say around this topic. But I don't know. I think also when you don't know who you are, because you grew up shapeshifting, something cool happens when you're like, well, who do I want to be?

Like, if I can shape shift because I've grown up having to be something different for everyone, if I'm an actor, if I don't, like, why don't I just be the person I want to be? And I want to be the person that tries hard. I think that's cooler. I love that. And if you don't like me because I try hard, like, what's going on with you? Nice. That's just a defense mechanism on your part, right?

Yeah, yeah. I think that you're a delightful and interesting person. I am curious why you asked me to do this. Because you texted me and I was like, I don't know if I have anything interesting to say right now. Kartik and I were talking about how much we love stand-up comics because you can't have this conversation with like an actress. I can't have like Juliana Margulies on the show

and have this kind of insight into the human soul because you've found so much soft. and peace and meaning and done so much amazing work, but you're also kind of like a throbbing nerve, you know? And that's a delight to watch. And I think you have tons to say, and I'm so glad that you shared. I would love to have part two of this.

Thank you for... Because we didn't even get to go from you at age six to age 25 and getting into comedy. There's a whole chapter of your life we're missing. I know, and my OCD always wants to do. end a loop and we didn't talk about the animal thing, but that's just working with animals, your equine therapy experience, taking words out of the equation is what really helped me, because you can tell, like, words are something that take over a lot, and I think most

communication is nonverbal. So I stopped being such a confused child and having, you know, being diagnosed with autism and anxiety and all this stuff is when I started being around animals because horses, that's when I stopped trying to, because humans are so confusing. Humans lie, they lie to themselves. They self-delude, you know, half the time, your parents who weren't getting along and you felt the tension and you knew something was up just by their body language. I think my wife has that same thing with horses where just being around horses is such solace because it's-no-one's lying to you.

It's quiet and you read them and they read you and there's a, you know, there's a beautiful, almost psychic bond and communication and energy. Women and horses have a very ancestral, you know, evolution with each other, fascinatingly. But also, I think if you're the kind of person who, you know, it has to perform to make people like them, and it all boils down to fear. If your results oriented, and when you're around a horse, they're a mirror to like, what's this energy? Because everything boils down to fear.

So it's a way to learn how to just be present and in your skin without, and then you start to go, like, I want to get a picture. And the horse is like, what are you doing? You're like, what was that was weird? Like you're able to really. But you know what the best animal in the world is? And what I would like to do is therapy is donkey therapy. Because donkeys are delightful.

We have a donkey named Chili Beans. Oh. And I die. She is so precious. Donkeys are loyal, kind, wise. They're, they're, it's like dog, horse pig combined into a donkey. And it's like the best, best of dog, best of horse. of pig all into a donkey.

Can I just ask? Get a donkey. I want to get donkeys because, first of all, I'm obsessed with them. I mean, Eeyore... Wake up in the morning and hug a donkey. I can't. That's not a euphemism. There was a donkey at a ranch I was at,

and they also get rid of coyotes. I mean, they're incredibly protective. Yeah, yeah. Like, if you have a donkey on your property, you don't really have to worry about anything. Is that a mule with a horse? I'm sorry, I'm so dumb. No, donkey's their own thing.

It's his own thing. A mule is a house. Half horse, half donkey. Got it. Got it, got it, got it, got it. But a donkey is its own thing. It's its own critter. When you see, there's, I follow this donkey on Instagram, and it's friends with this kid.

And every morning the kid goes and says, hi, and the donkey talks to. Like, I can't. And, like, runs and, like, is happy to see the kid and stuff. I got to get a donkey. Yeah. That's, I can't. It happened here. The Soul Boom podcast.

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