The Chris Cuomo Project - Cuomo On The Couch: Control What You Control

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

In a candid, unfiltered talk from his living room couch, Chris Cuomo discusses the pitfalls of toxic positivity, how to cope with self-loathing, and the importance of loving yourself. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm Chris Cuomo, and welcome to another episode of Couch Potato. That should work. First, you see I have my free agent merch on. Please buy it. It's not about just building some brand. It's about having an open heart, an open mind, listening to what you disagree with. And I want us to be able to crowdsource contributions. Okay?

So that's what it's about because I believe when you're doing good for others, it does just as much for you. Now, I believe that maybe there's a reason to share struggle. So I have some things that I've learned in my own life that I hope will help you avoid making mistakes in yours. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from Sundays. Now, comes from sundaes now we got a problem in the cuomo house we got three dogs who now like sundaes better than the other food that i was giving them sundaes is healthy dog food easy to store

okay very tasty very nutritious because sundaes is fresh dog food made from a short list of human grade ingredients. No, not humans. Human grade. Sundaes was co-founded by Dr. Tori Waxman, practicing vet, tests and formulates every version of each recipe. No, the doctor doesn't eat it. They test it for pets. What is wrong with you? So I got this stuff, and I like that it's kibble, man, because I got to tell you, I've tried other foods that are wet foods, and you got to have a whole refrigerator for them.

This, you store it just like all the other kibble. And I got to tell you, they loved it. All right? I got these three savage rescues. They eat an incredible amount of food. And I actually had to get a special bowl for one of them because he was eating the Sundays too fast. And if you're a dog owner, you know that that can go sideways on you. And I love it because it makes me feel like I'm doing them right.

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The idea that, oh, Chris is going to teach us. No, Chris is learning. Chris is struggling. Chris is flawed. Chris is talking about himself in the third person. All right, that's already a problem. I just believe that part of an extension of what I do professionally is sharing. And it's so hard for people to talk about their failures and their lapses and their losses unless it's somehow a function of how they came back or how they're

on top now or what their book is about. And that's all cool. That's all fine. But I don't have any book. I'm not selling any solutions. I'm not really sure of any. But I did take an opportunity that was foisted upon me, which is when I lost my job. Now, first of all, I had never not had a job since I was like 14. So that was weird. But of course, the surrounding circumstances made it, you know, quite the cataclysm. And I decided to dive into it. Once I realized, and I'm lucky, I got people around me who care about me. I had already had a therapist who I met with all the time.

You know, sometimes I would duck it. There's a lesson in that also. But he became kind of a life coach. So I got people who love me. I got friends who support me, who tell me the truth. And I realized from them and from myself that I was kind of falling in on myself. I was getting more and more quiet, less and less active, signature traits of depression. And it made sense that I would

have a lot of suppressed anger and emotions and confusion and upset and indecisiveness and emotional up and down. You know, a lot of you know what I'm talking about. A lot of us feel this. It doesn't mean you have a clinical diagnosis, by the way. You can feel depressed and not just merely be sad and not have clinical depression, right? So I took the opportunity to really kind of look at myself and work on what wasn't working.

Now, this is not some admission of guilt, because I don't know how many times I can say it. I've made lots of mistakes in my life, but I did not do what I was accused of doing. And I think the people who accused me of it know that, by the way, which is frustrating. But you only control what you control. And that's what I focus on. So here's a few things that I now know and that I'm working on that I hope helps you, one, avoid some pitfalls, accelerate your own advance on things. First thing is, don't get caught up in fancy talk about feelings, okay? It doesn't matter who said this, but this is a famous person who a lot of people look to for advice. Toxic positivity stigmatizes negative emotions. When people admit struggles, they feel

shame. Healthy support allows unpleasant emotions. When people express pain, they feel seen. Compassion is not telling people how to feel. It's showing you care by giving them space to share. That's true and constructive, but it's also symptomatic of a little bit of a problem with our self-help industry, which is it's got to sound clever. And it has to seem complex and somehow like some secret or some key or some cheat code. And that's just not necessary and often not real. Reality is basic. Realities are obvious. Problems are obvious. Solutions less so, but you have to figure out what you're going to do about a situation that you're in. And that was a huge thing for me because it's easy to get caught in your feels. It's easy to get caught in just processing the past and what happened.

Resentment, regret, anger, wanting revenge, you know, all these emotions. Here's the problem. They don't really get you where you want to be, unless where you want to be is like in jail. What I did was I decided to figure out what was holding me back in dealing with what I was going through, because I was really struggling. And, you know, I know some of the media, you the media took this the wrong way, but I kind of wanted them to, so I could make a larger point. When I talked about, hey, I stopped drinking, I knew that they were going to say I had a problem with alcohol. And they'd say it with single quotes on each side so that they could basically lie to you about it. That's a little

cheat code for you. That's a real one. You see single quotes on the side of anything in any newspaper or anything online, it's not a quote. It's a real one. You see single quotes on the side of anything in any newspaper or anything online. It's not a quote. It's a characterization. It's just their embellishment of what they want you to believe. I don't have a drinking problem. And I'm not going to cheapen having a drinking problem by pretending I do so that I can have sympathy for me or I can overcome something falsely. I was just drinking too much when I had problems. And that's not helpful. And also, I was put on an antidepressant by my doctor to help me with this kind of malaise that I was in and these hard feelings that I couldn't really get past or that they would keep coming back. And the alcohol interacts with the antidepressant and

blunts it. So it's like, if I'm taking this medicine to make myself feel better, why am I going to do something that, you know? So I had to make that choice. And here's what I came up with. What you do often is what you're going to do well. Okay? What you do often is what you're going to do well. Routine matters for change, okay? You have to have

structure. I don't like structure. I don't like having to do things at the same time. I don't like being told what to do. I have like a real problem with authority. Shock that I would wind up being someone who tests power. If you want to change, you need structure. You need a routine. You need to have things that you can achieve that helps you getting where you want to be, that gives you that forward momentum. You need it. You need it. You may not want it, but you need it. Now, the flip side of that is what you do often, you will also do worse, meaning negative habits. Okay? You get up every morning, you have a bagel and cream cheese. You got to change that habit unless, you know, you don't want to be as fit as you can be. Interestingly, a lot of people said, wow,

you got in great shape. That's not true. I actually fell out of shape. I've always been in shape. That's not arrogance. That's effort. You know, I've always been in shape. That's not arrogance. That's effort. You know, I mean, I work out. I have for many, many years. I basically watch what I eat. I actually didn't do that that well over those many months that I was figuring out what to do with my life.

I actually got in worse shape, even though I was working out more because my diet sucked and I was drinking a lot. And I was upset. And the body keeps the score. Man, that book is dense, but it is so spot on. The Body Keeps the Score. You think you're not processing and dealing with something, but you are. You think you're just putting it away. You're not. Body Keeps the Score. So what you do often, you're going to do well or you're going to do worse,

meaning what you do repeatedly is going to be formative of you. So think about that. Now, here's a big one that's not easy for me to talk about, but it's true. All right. I am a self-loather. I always get a kick out of people describing me negatively as arrogant. me negatively as arrogant. Arrogant means that you think that you are better than others. That is almost an impossibility for my personality type. I am driven by feeling less than. I am not ambitious. I do not have a five-year plan.

I don't know why I'm doing this in terms of my success and what I want out of it. I don't know. I don't know what I want to do with News Nation or what I want that to be or where. I don't know. I don't know. I just know what I do and what I think is helpful.

And I want to do those things. And apparently, that creates an emergency. No, it's New York City, man. I don't know what to tell you. I hear sirens all the time here. Maybe it's because I live out at the beach and I haven't been here on the regular, but I feel like I hear them a lot more often.

And I don't think that's because there's so much crime. I'll talk to you about that another time. But is crime up? Yes. Are we living in Thunderdome? No. You know, yeah, you've had some bad things happen on the subway. I see cops all over the place when I'm on the subway.

I think they had like half a dozen homicides. Look, one is too many, obviously, for the families involved. But you got three million people a day on the subway. We make up problems. See, that's a form of self-loathing also. The Chris Cuomo Project is supported by Cozy Earth. Why? Because I like their sheets. That's why. A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep for a lot of reasons. One of the ones that you can control is bedding. One out of three of us report being sleep deprived. Okay, well, what is it? Well, it stresses all kinds of things, but the wrong sheets can make you hot, can make you cold. I'm telling you, I don't even believe it either, but Cozy Earth sheets breathe. And here's what I love about them. Cozy Earth's best-selling sheep is a bamboo set, okay?

Temperature regulating. Gets softer with every wash. I'm not kidding you, all right? Now, so if you go to CozyEarth.com and you enter the code, enter the code Chris, and you can get up to 35% off your first order. CozyEarth.com and the code is Chris. Look, no shame in my game. I've been using AG1 for over five years. Why? It works, it's easier, and it's less expensive. That's why. Since 2010, they've been getting their formulations right

and tweaking their formulas. Why? Because the science changes, okay? It's not like politics where people decide to believe one thing and no matter what happens with the facts, they never shift. This is the opposite. Ooh, prebiotics work with probiotics, but in this way. D works with K, and this type of B works with that. They have the scientists doing it, so I don't need all the bottles.

I don't have to spend all the money, and I don't have to figure out when to take what and why. More importantly, it's not just the regular list of vitamins. It's the extras, okay? The adaptogens, the prebiotics, the probiotics that support your body's universal needs. Gut optimization, immune support, stress management. That's what foundational nutrition is about. And these are the people at AG1 who've been doing the work to get it right. Okay. I tell friends, I tell family, I get no complaints. Okay? If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Try AG1.

You get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five free AG1 travel packs, okay? That's what happens with your first purchase. So make it. Go to drinkag1.com slash CCP. Drinkag1.com slash CCP. Check it out. So, why am I a self-loather? It's easy.

Keeps expectations low. It self-protects against criticism, against bad outcomes. I knew it was going to happen. I knew it was going to happen. I knew it was going to happen. It is kind of a codependency with anxiety. It's kind of a partner in crime of anxiety. Like you're worried about something that's happened and you keep telling yourself it will

because you deserve it to happen. I used to say something all the time that I got from my father, also a self-loather. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. My father said that, and I always found it interesting and humble, and I liked it.

It's not what it is. It's not just humble. It's meaning that you don't deserve good things, which one should immediately make somebody suspicious. Like, what does this guy know about himself that makes him think that he should get bad outcomes? It is not wrong to take care of yourself. And in fact, it's wrong not to. And I don't just mean about making sure that you're getting the medical treatment and psychological treatment and the physical treatment that you need. If you think you're

a piece of garbage, if you are down on yourself, it is very unlikely that you will be able to support anybody else in a healthy way. Now, you may become obsessed with somebody else and kind of live through them and project onto them. That's called codependency. That's not healthy. You got to love yourself. You've got to believe in yourself. You've got to think good things. You have to think what you want to have happen. Not that you're going to think it into existence, except that's not necessarily magical thinking, by the way. If you set your intentions and you keep putting yourself in that direction, there's a much better chance that that thing happens than if it doesn't. For instance,

when you're sitting there and you know you want to eat something and you start thinking about it and you keep thinking about it, now I'm going to get that Chinese food. And when that Chinese food goes bad, the chance that you're not going to get Chinese food starts to plummet. You've got to care about yourself. I made this mistake for such a long time. And I'll be honest with you. I still make it. I am not a fan of myself.

I do not want to hear compliments. I see them as counterproductive. It makes me question people's judgment. I just want to know what can I do better? What did I do wrong? My practice of stoicism has been immeasurably helpful to me. Not that I do it well. I am shocked by my consistency of inconsistency.

My inability to do things the way I want to three days in a row staggers me. It absolutely staggers me. I am in awe of my inability sometimes. Oh, he's self-loathing again. No, that's just the truth. But here's the fix. You got to read about stoicism for yourself. I can't explain it. It's not some cult. It's not a religion. You don't have to believe anything bizarre. It is shockingly basic, okay? Be kind. Worry about what you control. No matter what happens, there's an opportunity in that. And you got to live like you don't know how much time you have. That's really it. They're cardinal virtues. What? They're things that you've always known are right.

Courage, wisdom, temperance, discipline. The idea of justice, but justice not just as fairness under law, but justice meaning doing the right thing as you see it. And I tried to boil everything down to the most basic things I could to get myself back on track so that I could be the father I have to be, the partner I have to be, the friend I have to be,

the sibling I have to be. Why do I have to be? Because I don't understand what I'm doing here if I'm not connected to something bigger than myself. And I owe the people in my life so effing much for sticking with me through a hard time that I really wish I had never put them in. That's my one regret. I don't have a regret that, oh boy, I wouldn't have done this. I wish I could have done this differently. Hey man, if you're my people and you're in trouble i'm there that's how it is that's how it is i'm not going to help you do bad things but i'm there for you i got one family so i can't i can't apologize for that but my regret is that i put my family in a position that I didn't even see coming. And I hate that. I hate that I did that. So I owe them. And I can't keep tearing myself down all the time because it's

convenient and it's safe and it's comfortable and it makes me so much less likely to be disappointed. makes me so much less likely to be disappointed. Don't do that. Don't be like me. Love yourself. Tell yourself good things. See the positives. They're absolutely as true as the negatives. It'll help you be kind. It'll help you be there for people. It's hard to be at your best when you're thinking that you're the worst. It takes a lot of energy. You know, I joke with some of my buddies sometimes, they'll say, oh, you know, one in particular. We'll talk about how good he looks. He doesn't. But I will say, hey, if you don't do what I do, then you're nothing because I'm the standard. I am the minimum requirement.

Duff, what is that? What is that? Why would you do that to yourself? Give yourself a chance to succeed. Better than I deserve. You deserve the best. Why don't you? Well, because I'm bad.

I do this wrong. I do this wrong. Hey, welcome to humanity. If somebody is telling you, follow them and you'll lead the good life, don't follow them. They're selling something. Life is pain management. And you manage that pain by finding a sense of purpose, by being positive, by being there for other people, by doing good things. What you do often, you will do well. Do good things.

Give people compliments. Compliment yourself. Negativity is not a proxy for insight. Get off the damn social media. It's not reality. It's a toxic crucible. I learned these things. I keep it really, really basic. Now, look, I'm still a little messed up. I'm still going through a transition. I'm still dealing. I'm still hurt. I'm still upset with myself.

I'm still a little lost, even doing the show. I mean, you guys have been so generous about News Nation and about the podcast. And I dig that and I'm trying to let it in. But I just know how to do what I do. I prepare like crazy. You know, that's part of the upside of the self-loathing and the fear and the thinking you're less than

is that I prepare and prepare and prepare. You know, people are like, oh, I don't know where you came up with that. This is all I do is think about this stuff. There are no accidents, but I know this now. You keep it simple. You try to be kind. It's just as much energy as it is to be any other way.

It feels good when you make people feel good. It feels bad when you make people feel bad. And if it doesn't, you got a real problem. And I'm looking at you, Twitter. Be good to yourself. Believe in the best for yourself. Create routine and structure for yourself that gives you a sense of affirmation and momentum.

Talk yourself up. Doesn't make you a braggart, especially if it's true. Feel good about your successes. See your challenges as challenges, not as shortcomings. Love yourself. It's one of my favorite lines from the Idols. If someone talked to you the way you talk to you, I'd put their teeth through. Love yourself. Put their teeth through. You got to love yourself.

It allows you to love others. I have great examples of this around me with my kids and my wife and the people in my life. They have been really patient because it's a lot to have a big brooding hurt bear in your midst. Keep it simple. St, be kind, have a purpose, and get after it. And if something wrong happens, see an opportunity in it. And if good things happen, feel grateful. It's taken me a long time to understand how real and useful these basic ideas are. I'm going to end with this. The philosophy we see from the Stoics makes living simple enough.

Say no to distractions, to destructive emotions, to outside pressure. Ask yourself, what is it that only I can do? This is about having a purpose. What is the best use of my limited time on this planet? Try to do the right thing when the situation calls for it. Treat other people the way you would hope to be treated and understand that every small choice and tiny matter is an opportunity to practice these larger principles. is an opportunity to practice these larger principles. Every small choice and tiny matter is an opportunity to practice these larger principles. How to live.

Ryan Holiday, the Daily Stoic. It's not a cult. Oh, Cuomo's into the... I'm telling you, it's just common sense. It really is. Easy to understand, hard to do. But learn from me.

I'm in this struggle just like you. I may be older than many of you. I've certainly likely gone through some things that are different. Although I have great perspective on the fact that whatever challenges I have had are nothing compared to what I have seen. Now, that doesn't cheapen my own. It used to, but all pain is personal. Remember that.

If it matters to you, it matters. Oh, my side hurts. I can't jog. Do you know how many people have bone cancer? Hey man, that's not necessary, okay? Have sympathy for people who have bone cancer. It doesn't mean that your pain doesn't matter. Don't do that to yourself.

That's what I do. Don't do that. Love yourself. Keep it simple. Have routine. And I hope it helps you get to a better place. Just to be clear, I'm not coming at you with the answers. I'm coming at you as somebody who's asking the questions and trying to find the answers. And I look forward to continuing the

struggle with you. That's what Let's Get After It is all about. Not an outcome, an effort. Thank you very much for listening to this. I hope it's of value because it's the only reason I do it. The free agent merch given to others is given a gift to yourself as well. That's what we're going to do with the money. Be a free agent.