Everything Everywhere All at Once: Intergenerational Trauma & Nihilism

Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster movies and psychoanalyze them.
My name is Bernie Brownfield and I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by
Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists. We're
all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists who practice out of Chicago.
Even though we are licensed mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for entered
him in purposes and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture in all forms.
Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists, we aren't
your therapist. If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find a
local mental health provider. Hello everyone, and welcome to our sixth season.
Today we're recording the newly Oscar winning film That Wanted Almost every category, everything,
everywhere, all at once. This is a story of how a family
makes meaning out of their everyday lives and heals from trauma in the most spectacular
film I've ever seen. We will discuss intergenerational trauma, extentialism, and nihilism
in this episode. So how do you all want to get started? Okay?
Whale? This is one of your favorite movies, Hannah. Oh,
great, is why I got on the top of this list. Yes,
I did, And I know we're going to start with intergenerational trauma, which
I think we see as a theme almost immediately, or at least the impact
of the generations of the family of this movie. Yes, because as we
see, the grandfather Gongang is staying with Evelyn, and you can feel this
kind of well, you can feel the stress vibrating off of her period,
Yes, but you can really feel the stress of her prioritizing his approval almost
immediately, which we then find out later on in the film is somewhat against
her will. Yeah, that she's getting calls from China that he's not doing
well and now he's here. Oh, I've I've seen this movie three times
and I've missed that every single time. I feel like so much is going
on in this movie. It's almost like there's a reason it's called I'm holding
onto it with my fingertips. The plot, and not in a bad way.
I think it's just so stimulating this movie that I'm not shocked that there's
plot points that I've missed, even though I've watched it more than once.
Yeah, yep. Well, looking at the impact of intergenerational trauma, you
see how he refused to give his approval to Evelyn, and now Evelyn won't
give her approval to Joy, and she is using Evelyn's using her father's old
or more traditional viewpoints as as was where I'm looking for as the reason why
she's withholding some of her approval from Joy. Like there's a few moments in
the movie where she's like, well, I can't because Gong won't like that,
and eventually Joy says, stop trying to basically use weaponize his belief system
as a way for you to not be approving of me, which I think
was pretty on par well, was I like that note from Joy? Yep?
It just resonates over and over again that we can't escape our biology,
and it takes conscious effort to undo the biological need to appease our parents,
no matter how awful they have been to us. We have it hardwired in
our systems that we need to seek their approval because it will be easier or
because that's what you're supposed to do, and that's what we were taught to
do. And you see it in films like this one that have made it
their theme to hit at how hard this comes across in some cultures versus others,
Chinese culture being one of them, with so much emphasis on showing respect
to your family, respect to your elders, respect to your ancestors, and
there's so much reverence for that, and then add the extra complicated layer of
being born a daughter when they can only have one child. The scene in
the movie where they're like, I'm sorry, it's a girl. I'm sorry,
it's a girl, but still looking at despite that, she's been behind
the eight ball her entire life simply for being born a female. She knows
she can never fully get his approval, but can't stop herself from activating all
of the cultural and societal based learning that we must honor them, and we
must honor our parents, and we must honor our family, and even when
it comes between her and her daughter, she's trying desperately to not be repeating
this, but can't stop herself in the moment, and it's so powerful because
it happens that quick. The scene where they're standing outside of the car after
they had the fight, where Evelyn refused to acknowledge her daughter's relationship and said
good friend when in the very beginning, Yeah, one of the first scenes
she went out there, her body language said she was going out there to
say I'm sorry, I know, and then she was awful. She was
she was so mean, She was so mean, and you could tell that
Joy was just crushed, destroyed. Yeah, because you could tell them that
exchange, like you're saying, Ben, that they were so close to it,
and I think they both could feel it, Like Evelyn could feel that
you almost wanted to, you know, she wanted to stay in the different
enjoy held in that moment as if she was finally going to hear something different,
and they both were like deflated when it went the way that I'm sure
it's gone hundreds of times before. Yeah, yep. But looking at when
they start fast forwarding back or rewinding for those of us who remember what those
terms mean, or may have had a little car thing that you put the
tape in so you don't burn up one of those sound But how many times
she reached out for her father's approval and couldn't get it, that it must
feel so foreign to her that she can't do it either, And you just
you watch how over and over again it's biologically hardwired to keep giving approval to
these people who were going to hurt you in a way that you can't win
from, because those people are the most likely to make sure you're alive when
you're a small person, no matter what. And we can't break that or
fight that easily. As we become big people with our own problems on our
own family, we still can't break away easily to take care of our own
family and not repeat that and still cater to it. Would be easier to
appease Grandpa if he just if you just had a good friend for today,
Can you just have a good friend for today, not a girlfriend, a
good friend? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think what's so hard?
I mean a lot of my thoughts are lighting up with what you just all
that you just said, Ben, is that I think something I noticed right
off the bat with Evelyn, and this is I think true in all the
examples you're giving is prioritizing the immediate need and not being cognizant or aware or
letting yourself be aware of the sacrifice what you're sacrificing while you're still driving towards
that singular need. And so with Evelyn, what we see almost immediately,
is her trying to be the person her dad will approve of, is sinking
her marriage, is sinking, her relationship with her daughter, her daughter self
concept, and is sinking you know, even like I would argue the business
there, and because she's never fully throwing herself into what's actually going on in
her life. She's like she's somewhere else and and like you can even see
with her husband weymand like how much she's trying to be there for her and
how much she's trying to grab her attention and help her. Really, if
you really, like now that I've watched a few times, I've noticed the
third time, I notice how much he's genuinely trying to help her and she
won't allow it because she's so locked into this almost like forward movement, Like
she's like trying to make this lane work because at the end of that lane
is her father's al and she can't quite like take herself off of that track
and not and it's just not aware of how destructive that track and track is
in its own way. And you're right in that. I think this is
a big theme going on across cultures right now, which is this generational divide
that I think is leading to a lot of art that we're not saying,
because this is like the third movie of this kind that we've talked about,
like like in Kanto's one, we haven't talked about Turning Red, but that's
also very similar, which is now this whole genre of movies being made by
people our age where their parents apologize because bloomers don't apologize. Yeah, And
so I think what we're noticing within her, which I think is very Ingrand
like said of cost cultures of you are forever indebted to your parents, no
matter what they do or what your relationships like, you always have to be
grateful and appeasing and striving for their approval no matter how they treat you.
And then if you're not abiding by that script sort of, it's really uncomfortable
for I think the older generation and now the younger generation, so like Joy's
age and around that age, are finally approaching it differently, and it's causing
a lot of strife and disturbance because there's a version of the story if this
took place twenty years ago, thirty years ago, where Joy would take it
on the chin in her own way. And so I think we're seeing this
change now happen, and it's causing a lot of distress in the older generation
of why can't my kids just like all these people in more Evelyn's age who
are shocked that their kids are going to no contact or not having a relationship
with them because they're breaking that long held generational script of you always prioritize your
parents, no matter what. Blood is sticker than in water, which is
you know, as you know with Shakespeare, like, that's actually only half
the quote, and what it really says is that family's garb. The relationships
you choose are actually the ones that are strong and so, which is funny
that people use it in that way and they don't actually understand what they're quoting.
Wait, what people misquote thing hearted hair first on psychology to get here.
And I would even argue, when I'm interested in what both youth would
say is I would also argue that Evelyn would not consider her situation trauma.
I think if you told Evelyn you have in your stuff you're suffering with intergenerational
trauma, she would say, trauma, what are you talking about? I
got everything I needed, you know what I mean? And so I think
even that concept like identifying that the relationship is traumatic is an totally different idea
that feels, I don't know, like doesn't mesh with this thought process.
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think that because I think one
of the things that we're all kind of pointing out about Evelyn, and she
just doesn't have the awareness, nor does she nor does it seem like she
wants to, or maybe she doesn't have the capacity to have the awareness.
I feel like she's so overstimulated and overwhelmed, like how we meet her.
Yeah, that it also makes me wonder how much she's been able to slow
down to even be cognizant of It's almost like she's like letting life happen to
her in a lot of ways, keeping her head above water. And when
that's going on, like you don't really have time to slow down and be
like, what's not working? Correct? I mean that's the whole point of
the film, right. It's almost like the title, Yeah, it was
perfect, and the film was perfect, But also looking at that exact concept,
if you're constantly in a state of threat, you can never regulate your
body enough to calm down, process readjust strategize, digest, and move your
life out of a state of constant survival and into a state of thriving.
Survive and thrive do not exist in the same space. No, they can't.
They can't. It's not possible to be strategic when you're trying to survive.
People who see me will know that. I break it down to real
simple terms over and over on purpose of is there a tiger trying to eat
you right now? Yes, to help people understand what's going on in their
body. Is your body doesn't come equipped with enough circuitry to differentiate types of
threat, like it does differentiate between mortal threat and non mortal threat. So
it does have that much circuitry capacity. However, it doesn't separate out beyond
that. So unable to please Dad, unable to ever get Dad's approval,
is a constant threat that keeps her constantly disregulated, unable to attend to the
present, unable to be focused on anybody else's needs because she's in that constant
go go, go go. But the bitch of intergenerational types of traumas is
you're chasing a target that is both moving and standing still at the same time.
You can never ever ever catch it, no matter how fast you go,
no matter how well you do, it's like a dream where the target
keeps getting just ahead of you no matter how fast you run. And like
we saw an encanto, it's what Mirabelle eventually realizes is that none of us
can ever be good enough for you, And I don't think Evelyn could ever
be good enough for her father. And that's where she kind of comes to
at the end for herself, when she's finally like this is Becky, Becky
is Joy's girlfriend, YadA YadA, you know, is that she has that
realization because she goes through you know, obviously the mind meld this movie,
No, But I think something you highlighted too that I wanted to touch upon
as well, is this idea that you'll always, like you said the movie,
the targets always moving because we always, no matter how hard we try
to fight it, there's always going to be a part of us that wants
our parents approval. And so when I do this work with clients, a
lot of our work together is something I'll talk about later, which is like
you just have to acknowledge that radically, accept that there's going to be a
part of you that's always going to want that, and because you're wanting that
doesn't mean you have to behave in a way that's chasing that. And I
think that's the part that's hard for people to piece apart understandably so is if
the desires hanging out with me, how do I not act upon it and
feel driven by it? And so the work I do with people is you
can both have that desire, acknowledge that, and multaneously, like wise mind
acknowledge that that's not healthy for me or that's a well, that's dry,
Like I both want this from my mother, I want this from my father
and they can't give it to me right and truly truly acknowledging that, you
know, and really just making a joker brushing it off, yeah, and
really holding onto it and really being able to hold onto it and when they
have to and moments and being able to because it. And it's also an
increase in awareness. This is an increase in being aware of being in that
situation again and being in this place and having realizations that my behavior keeps bringing
me to the same feeling, the same place, and no matter what I
do, it never works, Yeah, which means that you keep striving for
it because tying like all these ideas together. So long as one of your
parts has identified something as a need, its mission is to fulfill that need,
and it's not going to let it go until that need is either met
or resolved. This entire movie is literally set up on the concept of parts
work. Every choice you make in life sets up another multiverse, another version
of you that made the opposite choice that lends to the exact point I'm making
That somewhere inside of you, a version that did everything differently at every decision
point you ever made exists. However, in most cases we resolved that once
you made a choice to go to a school or start a job path,
you stopped thinking about the other one. Once you resolved it. You don't
go back and pay off. I should have gone back to that school,
unless you do. I shouldn't have made this choice. I should have made
that one. And the part of you that still replays that choice moment over
and over again is now suspended in a reality where it's torturing itself by playing
the movie forward of every other choice being different in their life, which is
what we see in this film. Right like all the different versions of Evelyn,
had she not gone with Wayman and left China to go to America.
She could have been Michelle Yo. Michelle Yo. Yeah, she could have
been a kung fu master movie star because she would have gotten attacked and then,
yeah, you know, I had someone step in and feel motivated enough
to take that path, but she didn't. But people do that over and
over again because once apart inside of you identifies a need, until it's resolved,
it doesn't let it go. It just keeps bringing it up to you.
You should have done this, you shouldn't have done that, And we
can torture ourselves with that. But where it gets to be a bigger problem
when we're looking at how a parents trauma impacts a child and that then impacts
their child is now we're looking at Gongang's need to have a son to pass
on his legacy never got met, which would have been important to him,
and so he remained bitter and angry because that part of him that wanted that
he never resolved it. He never accepted I had a daughter and she can
be amazing. Yeah, Instead he reminded her constantly because the part of him
that resented that remained active and was not solved. Then she's chasing her tail,
and she can never please him, but she keeps trying because she has
to. But then her need never gets met to be good enough, so
she never believes she's good enough. So she teaches her daughter that you must
keep working always because you'll never be good enough, and she never issues acceptance
until the end, when she sees through all the clouds of all this bullshit
and realizes, if I let all of that go and live from this point
forward, all of those parts shut up and I can just move forward with
my life. Which is oversimplifying it, but that's where the movie left us.
Well, Ben, you've mentioned parts a few times. I think for
people who maybe haven't listened to another episode where we talk about that might be
helpful to define what you mean by a part or parts. I think we
should take a break before I do that, all right, So what are
parts? Our consciousness is not linear. We have one body, but our
mind is capable of splitting into different subfunctions of our personality that are capable of
responding to whatever survival situation presents itself, allowing us to separate out from what
our whole might want in order to do whatever is necessary to survive. The
moment, whatever we've interpreted that is. That doesn't have to be exactly what's
happening, but however it's perceived is how it will be responded to. So
to put that in an example terms, every one of us can probably think
about what would happen if somebody who wasn't supposed to be in our house came
into our house in the middle of the night, and whatever suspension, whatever
kind of person you are, whatever you believe kindness or giving to others who
are in need, or questioning things before acting, somebody shows up in your
house that's not supposed to be there in the middle of the night. You
already know they're probably not leaving without holes in them, and that's your fight
part. There's not going to be questions asked. You're not going to be
asking why are you here. You're going to be yelling. You might be
running, you might be hiding, you might be locking yourself away, you
might be attacking them, But there will not be questions asked, especially not
if you do ask questions and they're not responded to. If you're in a
dark alley and someone starts chasing, you're going to stick around to ask them
why are you following me? Are you going to run? Whatever parts of
you exist that could run, or might be curious, or maybe this person
needs help. All those things get shut off when you interpret danger and they
say run, and your flight part activates. So we can turn off different
functions of our personality to match the needs of survival. Fight might turn on.
You might be a compassionate person who cares. But I will tell you
right now, if someone comes into my house where my child and wife are
sleeping and they're not supposed to be here, there will be no questions.
It's going to be attack immediately. I may not try to kill them immediately,
but I will seek to incapacitate instantly. And that Mama bear or Papa
bear mode. Let's look at what would you do if someone hurts your child?
Are they going to live another day? No matter what kind of person
you are, you're gonna find that primal mode. And the same thing can
be true for people like to talk all the time of I'd do this or
I do that if something happened, if you perceive in the moment that you
are actually at a substantial disadvantage, like let's say, in that metaphor the
person who busted into your house is seven foot one of brick shit house and
has a chainsaw. You're probably not going to charge them. Well, yeah,
example, You see how it changes though. Yeah, Like I had
weather up there and then i'd run, right, I had your fight part
all queued up, and then you see seven foot one brick shit house chainsaw
and you go like nope, yep, yep, and it shuts down fight.
It shuts down the need to protect your homes, and you're going to
run. We have various parts of ourselves that evolve to meet whatever needs are
presented, so they're the standard ones that they often talk about as example,
are we have a fight part, but your fight and your submit parts can't
exist at the same time. You cannot fight someone to the death and give
up at the same time, So one of those has to turn on or
off, and the parts of you that exist in your whole contain all of
them. When the dangers presented itself, you have to do one or the
other and tell the others to shut off because you only have enough function to
turn one on in the moment and fight, flight, freeze, fawn,
cry for help. These kinds of things, you can't run all those at
the same time. In the moment when you're calm, when you're thinking,
you can selectively choose from any or all of those, unless there's a mortal
threat that requires you to operate in a mode that doesn't have time to think,
it doesn't have the luxury of safety to choose your response. If shooting
starts in a neighborhood you're in, you'd better start running, and your body's
going to do care of that for you. It's going to dissociate away from
whatever you're doing and say time to go. Understanding that people have as many
parts as they need to survive their life is really important understanding how this whole
system works, because the more you perceive danger, the more you're going to
operate out of a system that you have created to specifically survive that threat.
We all have a child part that responds to our parents in the ways we
were taught to respond to our parents, in the adaptive ways we were taught
to respond to our parents. That will spontaneously show up at Christmas. But
I think that's a great example because I think what's important to note, based
on what you've just shared, is that those parts don't only exist in those
extreme examples you're giving that when you're talking about parts in the context of this
movie, you're talking about which when you do parts work as a client or
even as a therapist, is more identifying, like all the different people that
almost that live inside of you, that get dinged during certain situations that developed
over time. And so you're right, like, there is the child part
of you. I think people always remark about how everyone regresses a little bit
when they go home for the holidays or when they're with their siblings, Like
that's an example where the part of you that's still that age, it kind
of comes to the surface because it knows how to operate within that environment,
which is why we can get a little immature, if you will. When
we're around our siblings kind of play with each other as if we're still young,
or fight with each other as if we're still young in a way that
if we had like a ciferent other coming with us, they'd be like,
what the fuck was that? Like, maybe see a version of you that
feels really out of character that only emerges under specific conditions. Yeah, right,
and right, we have as many of these as we've needed, and
they're not all they're not all extreme, yeah, but they all are adaptive
to certain things. Like there's a work version of you that's different than the
you you are with your friends. There's a version of you that deals with
your grandma, and there's a version of you that deals with your parents.
And you may be on the phone with your parents, and that might be
a subfunction of your submit part, like okay, mom, whatever you need,
yes, and like hating everything, and it's might be some combination of
your like checking out and giving them access to only a safe mode basically like
mom gets Mom has hurt me so many times, she only gets a safe
mode version of me. She doesn't get access to the full version of me
anymore because she has not demonstrated herself to be We live in a city,
guys, so car alarm just then hawking of horns. But it happens.
It happens. But looking at like that safe mode version of you, you
might be operating in a dissociated state that people can only talk to so much
of you, but you won't ever let them into what's really going on.
And that's what we see with Evelyn and Wayman and what he's talking trying to
tell her is you only pay attention to me when there's an emergency, because
the only time she's outside of her head in this dissociated world, running in
like safe mode to stay on top of all this shit that she's trying to
manage it internally, no one else can access her during that time, and
so Wayman gets safe mode version of her all the time, or he gets.
Honestly, I think sometimes he gets fight mode version of her too,
because also one of the few times that she really gives him attention is to
bicker at him, to demean him in a lot of ways. And even
when in the scene in the beginning when you see him in the background that
he's changed and now he's like Alpha Wayman and he's doing all those flips and
ships on the security camera. She says, and she says this more than
once in the movie to different people, you know, your father's always screwing
everything up. Like She's very lit up in a specific way in regards to
him, not just towards him, but to everybody. He triggers a very
specific part in her. I think that she looks at him the way that
she thinks that Gongong looks at him. Oh, that's probably true. Probably
and then I would also say too with Joy once she's gotten to this m
this place where she's so disconnected. M yeah, I say she probably also
with Joy, like it's also second generation girl only girl, and now she's
a loves man and she's Americanized, you know what I mean, And Grandpa's
here and Grandpa's here, and so I think all those factors are probably You're
right, Hannah, which I think is that she is viewing probably Wayman and
Joy through that how will my father perceive them and judging them accordingly? Unfortunately?
Well, and tie that together with what you said earlier of like you
think Wayman gets fight version of her, You're right, he's getting some version
of fight version of her. But what he he said is critical to why
is because the only time he actually gets any attention from her is when there's
a problem, which means that fight mode needs to override her internal bullshit and
turn it off so she can respond to that crush it. Yeah, so
it stops being a problem, so she can go back to managing her impossible
one, because what is their relationship matter? If they can't eat or they
can't thrive, their business can't thrive. You know what I mean, and
I don't think they're like when people are in this mode that she's Like we
said before, I don't think they're very cognizant that they're doing that. No,
that they in those moments like if they were in an office doing a
couple's therapy and Wayman brought this up, I think Evelyn would vary honestly like
this is what we Her honest thought would be, how can you ask me
to do a date night or to slow down? When if I do this,
we will die, we will perish, like we will fall apart because
she can't chill out enough, she can't deactivate, as you would probably say
that enough to feel like she's not in that constant stative threat where what does
it matter if their marriage is working quote unquote what does that even mean?
And if it's not working, there's a way that she could argue that it's
his fault, which she will because her One of the things that is really
challenging is when you get your teenage fight part on, which is incapable of
acknowledging its own role in things because it's egocentric. Yeah, and when you
have I know that part of myself, Yes, yes, yes, I
know that part of myself of your Yeah, I say, I think you
both know that part of myself anyway, Sorry Ben, No, No,
it's okay, But just parts is a deep, long, detailed conversation that
can take forty hours of training to barely scratch the surface of and understand.
But looking at it in simple terms is understanding. We have internal multiverses that
we operate, and there is no internal TVA to shock your ass back to
the sacred timeline and get you where you're supposed to go that shocks the variant
out and gets you back. What happens is we have this really adaptive system
that tries to protect our ego, our core self, the core vulnerable person
inside of us that we all are. When we are calm and online,
that part of us takes the skills from all the different versions of ourselves and
is able to apply it strategically in context. Is a starting to sound like
this movie a little bit? Maybe, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And
when it is calm and strategic and able to do that, we can operate,
especially when we're either calm or even more so in flow states. Right.
Flow state is when you're in the zone, when you're able to spontaneously
access everything you've ever known and apply it immediately. Musicians get like, wow,
I don't even know how I played that solo, but I just tore
it up. Our athletes spontaneously remember if I do this exact move at this
time, and do that, combine it with this move, and do this
thing that nobody's ever done before, I can. There is a Troy Polamalo
from the Steelers. Is great. I know I'm not speaking your guy's language
with this guy. Would he realized if all of these guys on this line
are about to chop block and dive down at the knees of everybody else,
and I can jump on a stack of boxes that are forty two inches high.
If I wait until they dive, and as soon as the ball snapped,
I jump over all of them, I can block the kick. I've
never heard so many words said together that I have no context for. But
I trust you and what you're saying, and I'm sure other people listening get
it. I mean, anybody who you know a football fan in the two
thousands, Yes, would have watched this man, like this Hawaiian dude with
his long flowing hair hot just jump over all of these dudes, and like
block kicks are like tackle quarter backs. Before anything happens, you just jump
over everybody, and nobody ever thought of that before. But that spontaneous generation
of like I can combine all these skills right now into something that's going to
work. That's what flow is. And when we're in that, we can
draw from all the skills of our parts, which is where Evelyn and what
JOBU does is operates sees through the truth of all of it. That is
all the same shit. So it doesn't matter which thing you pull, but
the ability to do that happens to us. When we're in flow states.
We pull from all of our parts, all of our everything, every experience
ever, we can pull from it. But when it's a survival situation,
we don't have time for that because I think and I wonder what you both
think about this, because it's just a thought that's coming to me in the
moment. Isn't really based on like, you know, literature, if you'd
say, but in order to you have to have a sense of self,
like a confidence. In order to get into things like flow state, you
have to have a sense of like yourself, who you are, what you're
good at all, those kind of things and at least in that moment.
Yeah, And I think what we see when you're in a fight or flight
mode that will survive a mode all the time, trauma mode, you know,
and or like this version that Evelyn struggling with, like generational trauma,
is where are you developing that sense of self that feels confident to do things,
to kind of let go and integrate all the skills that you have,
Because I think what's so hard about Evelyn, like the worst quote unquote worst
Evelyn as they sort of call her in the movie, is that because she's
been striving so much for her father's approval and then kind of chasing that on
top of never really fully immersing herself in any of the things that she likes.
It feels driven by which they talk about like first at the audit,
you know, like a lot of hobbies, nothing into fruition. And then
you have a daughter that's pushing you and defying you, and you're kind of
passing down that self hatred mode. Then where is the part of you that
trust yourself to know that I could handle this or I could not, just
like I could make it till tomorrow, which I think is what she believes,
I could make it till next week, but truly that, like I
know, I have things inside of me that are good that if I really
let myself feel it and trust myself, that we can get to a place
where it's working and I feel good. And I think that's what's so hard
and why people have to go no contact with their parents sometimes or have a
lot of distance where we're seeing the things that have breaking generational curses. As
everyone saying nowadays, is that recognition. I think that in order to stay
in this relationship and well, in order for me to fully actually like to
more actualized, to be to figure out who I am, to have a
sense of identity, I have to, at least for now, maybe not
forever, but for now, have to separate myself from you in order to
have the space to do that. And I think that it's sort of taken
a different context, but I know Joy at the end of this movie,
she kind of has her version of that where she tells her mom, like
we're hurting each other, maybe we need to let each other go. I
know she's in a more nihilistic state, but I think it's idea of that,
Like right now, it's just it's not working. We're together, we
need space to grow if we can, and and it doesn't have to be
seen in like a form of punishment, which I think is unfortunately how it
gets received and how it's talked about right now culturally. When kids have to
make that adult children have to make that distance. But I think that's what
is really missing for this version of Evelyn that we see this, you know,
is that she doesn't have she doesn't have confidence to really feel like I
think she thinks she's not good at anything. I would think that she has
I would argue that she has no sense of self. Yeah, I guess
what, Yeah, that's what I mean. Huh Yeah, that makes sense
to me. Yeah, And you're you're right on with it. And if
you look at it with these inter generational things, right like this movie does
a good job of showing like boomer to X to millennial millennial and looking at
exactly how things started to change because the exers were far more dependent on the
Boomers than later millennials were on the xers. Because the amount of information available
and contact between people opened up in infinite ways that did not exist before.
They never had access to that. Many people to know my story actually isn't
that unique or shameful, and I don't have to keep it. Some people
still are stuck with that, but these zoomers and the younger millennials, unfortunately
for us elder millennials, we can still identify with the Breakfast Club and watch
that and go like oh no, daggers right right in the neck, even
though that was you know, released right about when we became alive. Yes,
yes, but I know what you mean, like looking at that,
But what's happening now is that because these older generations represent that state of threat
constantly that can't be resolved. People who are starting to get adaptive, like
we're seeing joy due of like you know what, we can go no contact
with you because we actually aren't as dependent on you as you are on your
parents. And this narrative that you adhere to where family keeps you safe,
well you don't keep me safe. You actually are the only thing that prevents
me from being the version of myself that can access flow. So I'm going
to extricate you from my life and then I'm going to be in this more
comfortable state where I can be the me I intend to be without fear that
you are going to knock me off my flow because you're always a threat,
which means I always then leave this calm, integrated state and can no longer
function the way I want to. So if you're the one that make me
feel that way, fuck you, act right or get out of my life.
Yeah. And Evelyn can't tell her dad fuck you. Nope, it's
not in her wiring. No, And she doesn't want that to be in
her wiring too, which I think is part of witnessing that version of like
intergeneration. Hamma feels so sad too, is that she and I well,
and Joyce has this as well, which is going back to that you'll always
want your parents approval, you know. Is I'm trying out to be too
corny but about to say, but, like, you know what, it's
so moving in the movie when Joyce says, you know, I still want
you to understand me. Like I went through all this, I saw everything,
I saw literally everything, and I at the end of that road,
I still wanted my mom to see it too and to understand me. And
what a beautiful thing is it is that children want so much that from their
parents, and so it's genuinely sad with like the Gong Goog situation where you
know, she's putting so much into him energetically, emotionally and he cannot see
it. And I'm sure he has his own generational trauma too, you know,
where God knows what his parents were like, you, right, and
and all that cultural stuff of like having a girl versus a boy. Right,
And so it feels truly tragic when I really get, you know,
melodramatic within myself about it. The hard wiring of that is beautiful in theory,
and then how much it's just can't be felt or appreciated because of the
trauma that we've all felt to certain degrees, some way more than others.
Yeah, I like to conquertice these things. So look at Gongang, right,
If Gongang created a part of him that was only going to be valid
and be able to carry on his name if he had a son, Let's
just assume that that was a message given to him by his family, you
better have a son so you carry on this name and this dynasty, our
family. And then he didn't. But he never resolved that, which means
that every time he sees Evelyn throughout his life, he's reminded because he didn't
resolve his shit that was placed there for him, unfortunately in whatever version of
the cave metaphor exists for him, and how he was programmed to think,
well, then he can never be good enough and just trickles all the way
down. Yeah, because there's no way that Gongang had A didn't have a
trauma. Oh no, he would have been alive during the entire revolution that
took place in China. Yeah. So when we talk about innergenerational trauma,
we know also that it didn't start with Gongang Oh no, who knows how
long? Who knows how long people that has been going on since the human
beings. I mean, and and you're absolutely right, it didn't start with
him. That was created by years and years and years of so very many
things that people were helpless against. It's not that it's always people's fault that
they've been traumatized, but it's that people don't resolve the thing that was unresolvable
and assign it as unresolvable so that they can close it down. Because our
brains do have the ability to accept it. We can't control everything, but
so long as we assign fault to ourself for why we weren't able to complete
that task or fault to something other than ourselves. But without just accepting this
is unresolvable, it's not solvable. People will keep some part of them,
will stay fractured from their course and resentful that they were not good enough in
that, and that will keep showing up time after time after I'm in multiple
universes as an antagonist. Yeah, I mean, and I think something to
going off of what you guys are both saying about how everybody, if you
go back from everyone has something and that's what's created the thing for them,
and now they're unfortunately passing down or that's staying with them, And I think
unfortunately, how we've learned to deal with that, and my anecdotal experience as
a therapist is we will use that then as a way to invalidate ourselves and
to encourage continued mistreatment. What I mean by that is, well, he
went through something, so it makes sense that he acts like that, So
you have to just suck it up. You know. You see a version
of Evelyn doing that to Joy, you know, where she's like where they
excuse the generational behaviors because of the context, right, and the simultaneously,
and we see Joy do this too, which is but I I give you,
I'm not giving you a hard time about liking girls. You know,
she's clearly not okay okay with her being gay, no, because she thinks
that her first her like literal first thought, when she finds out that Joebu
is Joy, she's like, oh, you're why my daughter dates girls.
And she's like, are you fucking serious, Dudeka. Of all the things
going on, this is what you're still worried about. And and I think
with and I think that's also what keeps people from really working through these things,
is they'll give themselves a pass because they're not as bad as their parents
were about something. You know, when I would work with younger kids in
pretty heightened settings, and I would try to very delicately explain to a parent,
like, actually, what you're doing is abusive behavior, and they had
their own generational trauma, they would say they would get really upset with me,
And it was really hard to not get to that place in this conversation
where it would be upsetting because I would trigger them, you know, no
matter how I said it, And I'd usually followed up with some version of
and they would follow up with some version of well, I don't say them
yep, my dad would hit me just because I scream at them. I
could be hitting them, and I'm like, I know that you could be
hitting them, and I know that you aren't doing that, which is good.
That is progress, and that doesn't mean that everything you're still doing is
okay yeah, or isn't having its own detrimental impact. You know, everything
gets viewed in this relative way that it's just hard. It's part of that
whole idea like I talked about before, of like holding the dialect of like
holding multiple thoughts at once, which is that you can be doing a better
job than your parent and it's still causing a negative impact on your child or
it's still not enough, you know, and you have to sit with that
discomfort. I think that's what's really hard with some of the more like the
boomer generation, when they get this really hard feedback from their kids is well,
I'm doing I was such a better parent than my parents, and I
made a lot of effort to not be like my parents, And how dare
you then put me in the same wheelhouse as them? I think that's where
that park gets activated too, where it goes to that extreme mode of like,
now you're putting me in the same abuse pucket bucket as my parents who
abused me, which is the last thing I can ever let into my identity
because it's the one thing I told myself I was never for gonna be.
Yeah, And so that leads to so with Joy, I mean, Evelyn,
I think the work she'll probably continue to have to do if we if
we ground this movie into you know, our world is sitting in that discomfort
that she's still gonna fux them stuff up and Joy might still have hard feedback
for her, and that doesn't mean that she's still not working really hard.
And Joy's not seeing that too, you know, it's still trying to keep
it out of this black and white box of like either you're a good parent
or you're a bad parent. Yeah. Well, and look at how parts
would work. Sometimes they isolate painful information away from our core. Motonite did
an excellent job of displaying that I created you. You're not supposed to see
this. I created you so you didn't have to feel this, which was
a goof and writing in my opinion, because the way it would really work
is yes, I created you saw. I don't have to feel this.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They didn't talk to anybody before they wrote that
show. They didn't talk to anybody. No, No, it was close,
so close, and so wrong. Part of why that that's sitting in
an idea why intergenerational trauma continues to happen is because people that created a part
of them that knows who their abuser are and how their abuser behaves then labels
that is shameful and pushes it away from their consciousness so hard that they cannot
tolerate sitting in the information that yes, you are doing the same exact thing.
You may not be doing it to the same degree, yeah, but
you are doing the very thing you swore not to be. But because it's
been isolated away as a shameful thing, whatever protective part comes in and swoops
that right away from the consciousness and doesn't let it have it. And then,
because people operate in such a dissociated mess, sometimes they never sit down
and reintegrate that so that they can face the truth of I did that and
it felt bad for me. Instead, what they do is that protective part
comes swooping in and grabs it and says, well, no, your dad
would mean to you like that so that you would be better. This is
a particularly true thing for Asian culture. So I'm going to make sure we
hit it is that disapproval is my parents were hard on me so that I
would do better, so that I would do good enough to be the best.
Yeah, because only the best is good enough, and they were hard
on me that. So I have to be hard on my kids because it
took my parents being hard on me for me to become that. And the
truth is always that No. Them being hard on you might have been necessary
to set boundaries, but the lack of care that that provided wouldn't That part
of you that's protecting and swooping isn't acknowledging all the hours you spent crying,
feeling awful, and feeling you aren't good enough. And that was the whole
point of Joey's character is to show this is what that does to people,
is it makes them feel so broken that they, like Hannah said, don't
have their own identity that they can even invest in, because nothing that they
do is ever good enough. And that would make sense why she would become
the foil for herself and become the embodiment of nihilism later. M Yeah,
I just I'm having a reaction to I hate the mentality. I mean I
didn't have that from my parents though, shout out to mom and dad.
But the mentality of you have to sort of like brate your kids into success
and that then then you over identify with that as an adult. And then
you also have to make it this will be slipped into our next thing,
make that, make meaning have meaning to it, and so then you continue
it to perpetuate the meaning for yourself and that it'll work. But what's what
you're talking about is like two in this movie is what Evelyn can't get out
of her own head to notice is that, babe, it did not.
Are you feeling successful, Evelyn? So it didn't work, So why are
you then doing it to your kid? You know? It's that trap that
people get stuck in where they don't know how, they don't know how to
get off the roller coaster for themselves, right right, because it doesn't ever
synthesize. Yeah, they never get out of the reactionary state that is incapable
and has no biological need to digest the information because it's still trying to survive
it. It has no use for digesting and storing information. It just needs
to survive till tomorrow to just do better. Then we won't have this problem
anymore. But that push that you're talking about of sit in your discover for
feelings exist to communicate meaning from our experiences, and we don't get to pick
and choose which ones we need them all. You cannot eat a meal where
you go I'm going to have steak, potatoes, asparagus, rice, and
a cup of fruit, and say, but I'm only going to digest the
fruit and the vegetables. I'm not going to digest the steak. Whatever goes
into your body must be broken down into a usable form for eating. We
have stomach acid enzymes for digestion and breaking down a food that then goes through
our whole system and becomes usable nutrients, and we poop out the rest.
For emotional experiences we have or for lived experience. We have emotions to be
the enzymes to digest the information and feeling like tears or what sort of cathartic
expression that's the way I'm looking for, an outward expression of things we no
longer need. We then let go and we cry out, We talk about,
we yell about, we go into the woods and scream at God and
curse his name. Wolverine, a good wolverine, kneels knee on the ground,
cry to the moon, right, something like that or you know,
like that. I don't know if you guys saw the video of me and
Hannah and the Rade room just beating the fucking shit out of some computer equipment.
Yeah, it was not about the computer equipment always, not even a
little bit. And I would get mad at technology a lot, and it
was not about that. But it channeled some shit to come right out,
didn't it. Sure did. Both of us had to be gout, like,
both of us had to calm down. I was like, I gotta
take a break. I feel my fight part coming out and it doesn't feel
good. Like I was like encouraging head of like get in that. She's
like, okay, so I'm losing my shit right now and like and then
a few minutes later I felt the same thing. I was like, oh,
because I channeled something and it found an avenue to come out of my
body through and I went, oh, that's been stuck for a while.
But I wasn't ready for that. And then I got disregulated and realizing,
like intergenerational trauma is a deep, deep, deep hole that we could probably
talk about for hours. But if you can understand that these things get stuck
in us, and once they come into our body, we then must break
them down into usable form, and until we do, they're gonna sit there.
And the only way to do that sometimes is to bring yourself to a
state of relative safety again and sit in the discomfort, realizing just because it
still feels uncomfortable doesn't mean it is still dangerous. That I am still in
the same situation that produced a bad feeling. And the ability to pair a
relaxed muscle body with a distressed feeling is how we heal from trauma, and
there is no other way. You cannot just keep staying activated, to stay
in control of shit, to make it all stop, so then you can
calm down and then you'll process. But you'll be just fine. You won't
have to do the processing. You'll just be fine because everything will stop.
That's what Everlton is doing, and it doesn't work. I don't know how
many times does that work, Hannah. No times, never times, never
Times's never gonna work never ever, never ever, no britt do you concur?
I concur because I'll tell you this. Watching this movie, even in
like the first beginning scenes, like even evil and behaving that way was making
me feel like who, Like I was like stop, like everything which is
happening at once, like one thing at a time, like but she feels
like but she can't do that at that time, and neither can anybody else?
Can anybody else? Because like that, something's gonna not work out.
But bringing yourself back to a point where you can calmly process teach yourself,
you can sit in it. And just because it hurt you before and it
still hurts now, doesn't mean it's always going to hurt that way. But
it will continue to hurt until you deal with your shit. And I just
watched The Lion King with my child today and like, man, the scene
with Raffiki and Simba where he basically says exactly those things where hits him in
the head is it doesn't matter it was in the past, like it still
hurts. So ah, yes, the past can hurt looking at that,
but we can choose to continue hurting from it or to learn from it.
And I think that's a great segue into our next topic, I would take
a break here. Okay, So the kind of big I think the big
idea from this movie other than what we've talked about is existentialism versus nihilism,
and I guess first what we should do is explain the difference between those terms.
So existentialism, I feel like I'd never explain this as well as I
like too, so you guys can back me up and add to it.
But how I explain it's a clients because I like to dumb everything down to
it's not dumb in a mean way, just make it bite size. Is
that it's this idea that you have to give something meaning from yourself. It
comes from Victor Frankel, who I'm not Frankle, but he's a big proponent
of it, which is this idea that because he was in Ashwitz, he
lost his faith in God because of that horrible experience and then he was like
now what, like how what drives me now? And so the concept behind
it is that you have to provide meaning to yourself and that is enough,
you know, I think, because people really struggle with something outside of me
has to give me meaning, and so people do find that, you know,
religion is a big obvious version of that. But existentialism is this concept
of like, how can I you know, how can I give that to
myself? Or how do I make meaning of the life that I live?
Which can be like I said, things we're talked about already. And then
nihilism, which is nothing means anything. There's no big thing outside of me
telling me what's up. So nothing matters because there's no meaning to anything.
So it's kind of I always think of it. You guys, let me
know what you think, but I always think of it as like similar,
it's starting at a similar place but coming to a different conclusion with the same
information. I think that is definitely one way to interpret it, Like existentialism
is, in order to create meaning out of nothingness, we must be able
to find meaning, find purpose, yeah, in our suffering, and we
must confront the ideas that maybe things don't matter. But if I can assign
my own meaning to them, I can find peace in what I can't control
and make peace with it while directing my attention back onto that which I can.
And nihilism would be the radical acceptance that nothing at all matters. Yeah,
so why should I fear anything? Existentialism is particularly existential psychology focuses on
we all have some base fears because our core or fear is that we stop
being alive. Yeah, it's existential, dread, existential angsial threat, all
those kind of concepts that I'm either alive or I'm not and anything that makes
me not alive makes me scared. Yeah, And nihilism, would you know,
existentialism is that the argument is make peace with those things and accept that
you never had control of them anyway. Your last day is not something you
get to know. You don't get any control over one or how But if
you abandon trying to control other people and things, that you will find more
peace. Nihilism just says fuck all that, and nothing matters. It doesn't
matter. You don't matter, so it doesn't matter if you die, So
why are you worried? It doesn't matter. This person doesn't like you because
you said fuck you to their face. Well, they don't matter, so
what's it matter? They don't matter neither do you. Yeah, And how
I interpret nihilism when I work on it with clients is more of like the
depressive mode of that, which is nothing has meaning. So I'm gonna sleep
for twelve hours a day and lay in the dark and not try because who
cares? You know. It's like, I think that's how I've encountered it
as a therapist. Is that very like, Well, if something isn't going
to give me meaning, if something's not going to come into my life and
make it worthwhile or make it make sense, then nothing matters. Why try?
And And some clients come into sessions like come into treatment, which I
kind of find ironic because if you're going to start therapy, it means something
inside of you thinks that something's worth something. Wait, are you saying,
oh, you brought up dialectics a couple times? I am today? What
is it that enables dialectics to be possible? I feel like it's a true
question answer. I feel like I'm being pop quiz and my friend's like,
oh no, did we just find your freeze part Britney? Maybe Hannah?
What is it that allows dialectics to be possible? What allows it to be
possible? Why is it that we can have two thoughts at the same time
and both be valid because we hold multitudes? Yes, because we have to
ask questions anymore. I think that's the Here's I'll say that we can do
a little psychoanalytic on me. Is I think in that moment, I got
anxiety because I have good student anxiety, is what I call it. That's
my part that wants to make sure I'm giving people the right answer. And
in that moment when you ask you that question, I was like, there's
the right answer. I don't. I don't feel confident that I have it,
so I'm not gonna say anything. Look a lot works, guys in
real time. There we got in real time, in real time. And
what I'm gonna do You're gonna get mad at me and I'm sorry, I
love you? Is yes? Is you just repurposed your anxiety into something positive
and called it good student anxiety, which prevented you from answering a question you
knew the answer to but because you weren't sure. Yeah, you're freeze part
quent. Oh, but we could get it wrong better than I answer at
all. It's not a fuck, It's not a total fuck. And you
see, it happens that fast even an environment where we are safe and we
can edit this out. And this is why, and this is why when
people ask me, but you're a therapist, why do you go to therapy?
I go because they my nose is at the painting, my nose is
against the painting. I cannot see the force for the trees here, buddy.
But yeah, I mean, but wait, wait, wait, you
got you gotta Why is it that we can have two perception something at the
same time and both be true. Because that's real, that's the that's the
gist, that's reality. But the reality is that there's multiple realities, Yeah,
which we have parts. I just wanted to point that out. I
wasn't counting on like the freezing and all that stuff happening. But that's just
because it happened to Brittany, right, I just want to be super clear,
just because it happened to Brittany in this moment does not Brittany, and
Brittany is less than That's the same thing that happens to everybody. It's not
like I got you, Brittany. It's no, it's we all have our
things that will cause that same response in us and go, uhh, this
feels like it's inconsistent with the version of Well, I'll piggyback on it and
say the reason why I could resolve it that quickly and even articulated like that
is because I've worked on the part of me that struggles with being vulnerable and
and being okay with making a mistake. So then the secondary part, like,
yeah, anyway, we could go on about this all day, right,
we could, but just want to point out like that idea of that
multiple things can be true at the same time is because you have multiple perceptions
going on at the same time, and just because you're feeling multiple things about
it doesn't mean they're wrong. They might be coming from different points of view
that are both equally valid, and they could both be points of view that
exist inside your own head that are spawned from different experiences. You have sides
of view that we're answering question wrong has gone poorly and been embarrassing, and
then there's been other times where answering question wrong has had absolutely no impact on
anything and sparked a fun discussion. But which one was going to win out
in that second for anybody? Do do do brain chooses? And because I'm
in a heightened state where i know I'm being recorded and I'm going to be
heard, so it adds upstay Auntie in terms of my activation. Right,
So if you would asked me that, like on your couch where we're not
recording a podcast, I might have been able to to answer it, right,
Yeah, when you weren't playing the role of expert. Yeah, is
that interesting? Guys kaw, we're all learning together by doing the are we
really are? But I guess going back into the movie though, to like,
I do think Joy or Joe Bo, Joe Bu, Chewbacca, Yes,
she miss names are one point in the movie. She's adopting that full,
like more nihilistic standpoint. I've seen everything and I've decided it doesn't matter.
But what she doesn't realize is she's decided it doesn't matter. She's just
she just thinks that it really doesn't matter, and that's the facts of it.
So let's just dive into nothingness together. But what she doesn't really realize
is she still wants her mom to be there and to hold her hand through
that, which I think is the part that can't truly be nihilistic within her.
Yep, all right, I loved this Joe Bu character so much watching
this is you know who she is. She's this type of character, this
type of villain, this type of antagonist that has reached this point of hyper
awareness of the full truth all the time. The best villain ever has the
same awareness. Just say it, Just say it already. I love that
you guys already know. But you also know that I'm right. I don't
even know what's funny is I don't know who you're talking about. I just
know, yes, what the genre is going to be, the universe they
live in. It's Joker, really, Joker isn't insane? He is nihilistic?
Is Joker insane? Is he insane? Is he's unwell? He's sure,
but he's not well, babe, he's not well. He's nihilistic.
Yeah, I mean it's that's the point of like if we're getting in the
dark night like that category that yes, definitely that version version of him burning
the cash version, all versions, I mean that version was in particular one
the version I'm aware of because you know me, I've been watching the movies
and that's about it, right, And that's fine. But like looking at
like what he typically stands for is he has hyper rationality. He doesn't dissociate
into different parts of himself. He's the same all the time, and he
doesn't feel that switch. Depending on which version you're seeing, but most of
the versions of Joe you don't see a switch. He's always the same.
He sees the truth in people's behaviors. He's Ledgers was really good at explaining
it through his anarchist point of view, which is nihilism basically. But looking
at that, nothing matters, None of it matters, and people will always
do at the core what they do regardless of the situation. And watch,
none of it matters. But the Joe bo and that version of Joy that
has fully adopted this nihilism when you meet her and she's antagonizing this particular version
of Evelyn that's failed at everything. Yeah, it has this constant acknowledgement of
the truth all the time, that it's all wired from the same shit.
There was the one scene where she's like where they start doing the thing where
they're really multiversing really actively, and they did some really cool effects on it.
But where she's reaching in through the universe and like allowing whatever weapon she's
having to change forms rapidly. Oh yeah, because and she tells her mom
like you see now you feel it like I do that it's all the same.
It's all the same, no matter what you're trying to grab a whole,
it's all the same, It just changes context, like a hammer is
equally useful and useless depending on what situation we're And that wasn't exactly like what
she said, but like watching her change things, you realize these are all
built of the same stuff and you can change it to make it into an
adaptive form for what you need it to be. Right now, Joker is
like that where he sees the chart the full truth all the time and he
doesn't alternate and associate into things. And Jobu much like that did that,
And that's what makes her so scary, that that nihilistic it nothing matters.
But she can also see truth that people who are bound to what their parts
tell them cannot, And you see that like conflict between it before Evelyn goes
nova. She's so bound by trying to survive her reality and this tax thing
and how she can get back to solve this tax problem. That's they're going
to threaten her business and make her look bad in the eyes of her dad.
That she can't even see that her husband she wrote this note that her
other problem on a divorce decree. Yeah, and she hasn't even realized it
yet. He's trying to get her attention to divorce her. And also this
version of her daughter just killed six men with giant floppy dildos because nothing matters.
So what difference would it make. I can kill them equally well with
samurai swords or bullets or floppy dildos or glitter. She makes the one guy
peek up glitter and then he explodes into glitter. Right, that seeing that
hard truth all the time is what makes that nihilism such a valuable trait in
a villain. Yeah, is there something you are wanting me to say that
I'm no, I've just been talking a lot. Oh, okay, Hannah,
what do you see in this existentialism versus nihilism fight in this movie?
I mean, everything that you guys both said make a lot of sense,
and it doesn't feel like there's anything to add. I guess no, No,
this is your favorite movie. It is my favorite movie. What I
want to say about Joy and her presentation and these concepts. I think that
Joy definitely presents as having nihilism. I think that she I think that she
has a m So I think that it makes a lot of sense that Joy
is nihilistic because I feel like that is based on experiencing all the inner generational
trauma that she's experiencing from her mother. So I think it makes a lot
of sense for her to be that way. I think it makes a lot
of sense for her to even when she can see everything, that she still
needs her mom. I think it makes Like, I think that it makes
a lot of sense that this is where Joe bo is. I'm gonna tie
it back to the Joker just to be obnoxious, but like, despite Joker
being someone who sees the truth of everything all the time of stays hyperrational,
much like Joy, who does he need Batman? He needs Batman? Doesn't
he? Joy needs her mom? There's something we have if nothing matters,
but you still need something that you're not getting. Huh. Sounds kind of
like a paradox, doesn't it. Well, I'll say this is Joy and
maybe you can pick piggyback on this is Joy. I assume based on what
the little they kind of provide about this, seems like she's struggling with maybe
depression. Yeah, and I guess what are what it like? And so
we see that in the movie because I don't even maybe I'm just reading into
it, but I know there is the scene where Evelyn's holding her hands.
Joy's hands in that sex room also describe it sex engine, and she's like,
I know, you have a lot of feelings and they're like sad,
and she's trying to connect with her in that moment, and so I think,
I think what's interesting about this movie is that how much is Joy's depression
and this trauma influencing her perception of seeing everything right, and how that what
she takes from that is that sort of very defeatist, nihilistic approach and then
can't still doesn't have the self awareness, which I think is also where she's
caught up in her depression. Still that she's still striving for her mother's approval.
She still wants her mommy to come with her to the bagel temple,
look into the bagel and understand her yea. Even within her very intense nihilistic
approach identity, she still wants her mom to say, I get it and
to comfort her. Right, even when most of her has locked into this
idea that we find peace in being both so locked into nothing matters, that
we enable our absurdist side to take over that if nothing matters, I may
as well do it in the most ridiculous way. I can think of and
entertain myself while reinforcing the message that nothing matters anyway. But yet she still
can't ignore or you can't turn off the part of her that needs her mom.
Yeah, and the second that gets an avenue to grab on and reactivate.
Who's staring at that everything, Bagel? Who's she tracking down the version
of her mom that can give her what the mom from her universe can't because
she's gone. Yeah, and she could never ever stitch that wound, So
she seeks the first way that she can. And if she can't get it
from those other evalence, what does she do? She kills them. She
kills them, She kills them in every other universe. But why does she
do that? Because she can't tolerate it, right, She can't sit in
the discomfort. She can't sit in the discomfort of the situation, and so
she's not getting what she needs, and so she gets rid of the she
executes them. Yeah, she's still chasing something but trying to behave as if
she's not, and she's stuck in that. She's still trying to convince herself
that she doesn't really need her mom, because that's how she keeps herself.
What safe. Yeah, it's the story she's telling herself. And because we
all have stories you're telling ourselves. That's why, like I said, therapist,
go to therapy, is we need someone outside of us a lot of
the times to give us that feedback that you know, you're telling me this
and your actions are actually not aligning with what you're saying. What's that about?
And I think if I said that to Joebu, they would just,
I don't know, slice me in half with a banana probably well. And
then and then what's interesting is that her dad has found meaning. Yeah,
her dad has meaning, and that he believes in kindness and he believes in
and you can just tell that he is. What was really interesting about the
opening scene in the laundromat is that you see Evelyn respond to all of these
people in this very specific way that's kind of like short tempered, annoyed,
frustrated. And then you see Waymond come in and he reacts with all these
people in completely different ways. He has a personal relationship with people. He's
dancing with them, he's joking with them, he's talking to them, he's
enjoying them, and that's because he has found meaning. And so it's really
interesting to have Joy who's only who's in some ways only responding to her mother
and not as much responding to her father and what he's about. And I
don't know if that's and maybe that's because we only saw that part of the
story, and because because the story is about the two of them and not
necessarily about also about her father, but really interesting that he has found meaning
that has made his life, and for him to have a daughter who doesn't
believe in anything, and how just how interesting that would be when you have
someone who's so clearly dedicated to something and you're not able to see past the
stuff that happens with momm which I think is why throughout time, Nietzsche and
Nihilism remains an interesting study, particularly for nineteen year old college students taking philosophy
courses to debate while they're so up their own asses that they actually still believe
that they could create a reality where nothing matters. Yeah, I don't,
I don't you know, use like paper tender, I barter for all the
things that I need. That's my impression of a nineteen year old who just
discovered knows because money doesn't actually matter, and none of this matters so like
I should be able to trade rock our rules? What are pants? Why
I go to claslaw time? And yeah, I think that that's where joy
is, which I think also says how much or Joe bu how much of
her child part is still activated? Because that is like a younger perspective of
it is, you know, than fuck it and I'm gonna, you know,
act out she's because what she's doing is she's acting out yep to get
her mom's attention so that her mom can tell her because I because it does.
I don't know. I this is more of a something I'm contemplating in
the moment now when she's with her mom and they're standing next to each other
in that temple staring at the bagel. You know, I wonder how much
of it is And well, I think she does kind of say this,
so remind me if I'm forgetting this part how much she wants her mom to
agree with her versus how much she wants her mom to give her meaning and
actually tell her no, stuff does matter and it's something I don't know whatever
it is, like, I don't think it's exassary list was the answer there?
But you know, of how much sometimes when we think we want someone
to agree, we actually want them to say the opposite. So annoying human
psychology, right, because at our core, we don't want people to agree
with us blindly, because there's no value to that. Yeah, but we
do want to be validated, comforted with that that even if we're wrong,
our perspective and feelings are real. And when the first thing out of somebody's
mouth is trying to fix, contain, manage, or control somebody's feelings,
they're taking away their right to have an experience of life. And people really
don't like that. They really don't like that at all. And I think
the most powerful scene of this whole movie that demonstrated that is when when Evelyn
finally got power back over the situation and got it she turned them both into
rocks, sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon where they were both so
incredibly bland, and I believe they were gray. There's no sound, no
sound in music underneath them, a score, nothing, and they just sit
and acknowledge, and they sit in each other's feelings. And the most change
that happens in that relationship is right then, where they slow everything down and
cut through all the bullshit and realize that they are contending with this ever evolving
cycle of parts that aren't meeting each other's needs and are constantly at war to
get those needs meant, and will do whatever they have to define the world
in a way that enables that part to do its function to get its need
met. And for the child, pardon, I have a five year old,
I assure you if you ignore them, they will get absurd really quick.
If they have a need, they will get absurd until you meet that
need, and they will increase the levels of absurdity to get their need met.
As a child therapist, I've also witnessed this phenomenon let you speak of,
have you? Yes? Yes, I'm sure as a person who's dealt
with adult humans you've also noticed this phenomenon. Yeah, we're going to take
a quick pull here, and I think, so. What's still so interesting
about that, which is why I wonder it's making me think of how much
depression plays in this, is that even when her mom kind of does agree
with her and gets on board with it and is in common and ground with
her about the nihilism, she's still not looking satisfied. Joe bo like she
almost looks further irritated now that her mom is on board with it. And
I think it's that part of us that thinks that, especially if we struggle
with depression. But it's gonna be other things too, that if I just
get this one thing, that little everything will make sense or everything off into
place, that magical thinking we've talked about in numerous episodes. Yes, and
so it's interesting to kind of watch that passover Joe bo in that way,
because what you were talking about, Hannah, is that you're right that she
does have a parent that has found meaning in his life. You know,
Like his whole monologue about being kind is him trying to tell Evelyn and everybody
else that is enough, Like being kind is beautiful and meaningful, and that
is powerful, and it's not necessarily this like weak passive strength, like when
he's the movie star version of himself and he's saying it is strategic. It
is. It's not me just taking it on the chin all that and being
weak. It's I'm making an active choice. It's an alignment with my value,
with my meaning, and that is also a way to fight. And
then Evelyn figures that out too. But I wonder with joy with Joe Boo.
Actually, more is I wonder how much she's actually looking for really looking
for meaning, and how much of her like sadness is infecting how she's perceiving
all these realities. And then and her like kind of canceling out her father,
And I'm searched now, She's witnessed so many people who have found meaning
and have made it worthwhile, and she's canceling out all that information to fit
her confirmation bias, which is that it's all meaningless. I think she's doing
exactly that. She's active rejecting it because she has identified a world where she
can have hope and something matters, or she could be like her dad and
just show people kindness. Anyway is just another pathway to paint for her,
and she can't accept that because I think joy much like and especially Jobu,
much like Evelyn, views his silliness, his investment in making little things that
quote unquote don't matter just happy, like putting little googly eyes on the laundry
or moving a bag because that didn't seem happy. They're happier upstairs. They're
happier upstairs, which is a ridiculous statement, But why does it matter?
And if it felt that way, then why not do that? But to
her that would be weakness beca because that would be allowing another thing that could
be taken away from her when no matter what, it's still not good enough
for mom. And I think the way that that shown over and over is
brilliant and I'll cover it more in final Thoughts a little bit. But like
the way that Dad is our Grandpa has shown is having this mind gone dementia
and then shows up in this rocket powered wheelchair driving as a central antagonist or
secondary antagonist behind the things that even in that universe for Evelyn, she's still
not good enough for him because she won't kill her daughter to take away an
avenue for Joebu to destroy the world through and that's the only way to fight
her. And even still she can't be good enough, which means she can't
let Joy be good enough. And you just see this like endless cycle,
over and over, this movie finds ways to slap you with it over and
over and over again that it does feel this hopeless, it is this powerful,
it is this omnipresent, and no matter what, there's no win.
But for Joe Bo, she's created this narrative for herself that nihilism is the
only way to protect myself from it and nothing matters. But yet the part
of her that still needs her mom wins out anyway, Yeah, because because
I think the version of nihilism she wants to adopt, similar to the nineteen
year olds that we're making fun of earlier, is wanting it to make it
so that you're almost like above the fray. You're above the pain. Yeah,
you're above it all. Yeah, because you see it for what it
is. And this is very like cool kid energy and she wants to be
that. Joe bu wants to be that, and she like masquerades behind all
these crazy costumes and cool girl kind of energy, and she can't leave her
mom alone. I mean, that's what I've and says at the very end,
she goes, what does it mean then that through all this shit,
you know, we still end up together and we want to be together.
Like that has to mean something, you know, even if and that's going
back to like existentialism, like nothing's giving it meaning from outside. We are
deciding it has meaning because our actions are dictating that. Because we can admit
that to ourselves, and that is enough, and that's why throughout time,
even in the darkest moments, those who have a thing to believe in,
those who have a way to connect to their why can endure any how?
Which, ironically enough, do you know where? Do you know where who
Franco was quoting? And it's usually Franco who gets assigned the quote of a
man who has a why can endure anyhow? Do you know who he's quoting?
Nope, Nietzsche, no shit, no shit. Even Nietzsche himself eventually
in his own books argued why nihilism is bullshit because of existentialism, and that
true piece is only found in assigning meaning to that which we can control and
letting go of what we cannot, so that we can be the best version
of ourselves that can exist now, free from the burdens of what failures we
had in the pastor mistakes we made, but empowered with the knowledge of how
to not do it again. And that's exactly what happened. At the end
of this movie. We see a version of Evelyn that has been a failure
over and over and unburdens herself from all of that, letting it go.
When you see that smile kind of crack across her face as you watch her
let it all go m yeah, like the very very last scene where she's
finally starting to take to feel it, like to feel the beauty of the
minutia of life, if you will. That's how we bring these big flighty
concepts, you know, existentialism. It's like a such a huge ass word,
like like literally and conceptually is like, how do we bring that into
our actual lives in a way that helps us? Is that sort of mindfulness
practice? Is like how can we be present? Because the juxtaposition of then
and now too, like the first scene and the last scene is how she
it's not this I like it in that the setting is no different, the
characters are no different, you know what I mean, and all actualities that
it's all the same. It's how she is interpreting it, and how she's
being present with it too, Yeah, And that she no longer needs to
fracture to be strong enough to handle it. And it doesn't have to be
anybody's fault and it doesn't have to be who do we have to deal with
in order to get on the other side of this, because it's like,
I mean, the corny thing people say is like, it's not the destination,
it's the journey. But I think that's true with this too, is
like that that concept is this is the part that matters, is what you're
doing day to day. And she's so caught up in the journey, and
I think so is Joe Boo too, the destination. She's caught up in
the destination. That's what I mean. I'm sorry, Yeah, the destination
is they're not being cognizant of what's actually occurring. Because what's cool? What
is cool that Joe Boo's missing. It's more like the absurdism approach, which
I don't know a ton about, but I like it, so I'm gonna
learn more about it. Is like if nothing matters, which is kind of
how they end on the that ending scene too, when they're the parking lot,
then why not have fun? Why not enjoy each other? Why not
seek pleasure? You know what I mean? Why not we're the funny costumes?
Not because who gives a shit in that very like nothing matters till we
die energy, but more to like nothing matters it how fun in a way
that's not harmful, because I think that's what with the interpretation of nihilism,
at least how Joe Booth takes it as like nothing matters, so who cares
who we hurt? Whereas I think, from what I understand it Absurdisin's approach
is more like individual and that nothing matters, So do with it what you
will in a way that's like life's absurd. Let's laugh at it. We're
not going to harm people because who gives a shit? Right? I mean,
look at David Bowie, especially when he evolved, especially when the Ziggie
start Ust time period, where like he was so androgynous at that point in
time. That's ah, so many no nos. Yeah, for masculinity and
being famous as a man, especially somebody has such a deep, rich English
voice, you know, like for him to take those risks and like point
out the absurdity of it, and I'm going to be as absurd as possible.
Yeah, But look at the number of people that criticized him and live
by like against everything that he stood for, that knew his name and know
his songs, And who's the one that's famous, the one that did the
absurd thing? Are the one that conformed and realizing sometimes that success does not
come from conformity, Success does not come from adhering to rules that one cannot
win, Like you're playing a game you can't win, and adhering stronger to
the game you can't win doesn't make you win it any better. And I
think we're going through an interesting time right now. Like we keep referencing where
people are on that tip of like nihilism absurdism, which is finally identifying how
much of what we are dictated by our constructs. Well, how many people
are out there, like having absurdist hairstyles that are Banana's colors and like have
whatever piercing occurred to them, not like the ones that society to determine where
acceptable, but like I want to get pierced somewhere on this line of my
neck below my ear because I feel like it, and you're just gonna have
to deal with it. It doesn't matter why I got it, Like like,
oh, well it's okay to get your ear pierced, your eyebrowed pierced,
Why would you get your neck piercer? Watch people get all bent out
of shape with it and them going, who gets a shit my body?
And do what the fuck I want? Yeah, And I think there is
a strong movement that's reaching that point that people are realizing, no matter how
strongly I adhere to the rules of boomers society, I can't fucking win the
game. So fuck the game. Yeah, and I'll do what I want,
and I will do it in whatever way occurs to me, which I
was connecting, and then we can wrap this up because I know we're kind
of going on a tangent is the Near Times I believe it was in New
York Time. It's just recently released an article that people have been talking about
on like TikTok and stuff, which is our millennials having midlife crisises now that
they're old enough to have them. Yes, and people are saying no,
not in the way that they have been because of what you're bringing up that
we that there isn't this. There hasn't been like that. We've been in
constant against crisis. So we're not having it the way we did because of
there's this breaking down, because we're not buying into the rules that have been
in play, because like you said, they haven't worked out. And so
now it's more like we are examining things in a different way. We're breaking
down constructs the generation below us even more so because of this thing you're bringing
up, So it's kind of flipping on its head even in like these articles
of like because midlife crisis is existentialism, Like I'm having an existential panic,
existential freak out, existential crisis, whatever, and I think it's we're in
an evolving state right now around this stuff, and it's really interesting to witness.
Interesting is too small the word for it. Well, it's it's abandonment
of social norms on a mass scale to the point that they can't be enforced
anymore to control. How many of us were told we can't get tattoos or
certain haircuts because you won't even be able to get a job at McDonald's.
Yeah, hold on, Yeah, you're selling ten dollars hamburgers to fifty people
in a half hour because you're so efficient at it, at a margin of
six dollars per ten dollar hamburger of profit, and you got four people working
in this store as six dollars an hour. These zennials looked at them and
went, fuck you. Yeah, you want me to make money for you,
you pay me a livable wage, or I don't work and break your
system and I love it and I don't. You will have to hire me
with whatever fucking tattoo. I want visible wherever I want. And they are
taking power back where we were still suckling at the power teat trying to play
the game and win and in the situation. But we have been, we
have been. But this midlife crisis that the millennials are hitting is watching what
these zoomers are doing and going, you know what, Mom, I'm not
taking your shit anymore. You know what, Boss, I can work for
myself now the avenue. You're gonna fire me the second you don't need me
and restructure the company and you're not going to pay me shit, So why
should I work for you anymore when I can work for myself? Hannah?
Did it? You make more money now? And you ever made your whole
life? Don't you? Sure do? So? I have more thoughts on
this, But this is gonna this is going to like delve into more treatment
territory. So we should we take a break. Yeah, yep, all
right? So I think what's what just piggybacking on the whole discussion we're having
is in me thinking about treatment instead of thinking about a specific character. But
I guess this could work for Evelyn or Joy, maybe more Joy, because
I don't know. I'm just gonna pick that is, I do have clients
because of all the things happening in the world right now, climate change especially,
but also the economy stuff like that. Like I have a lot of
clients, a lot of younger clients, like teenagers coming in with a this
very like defeatist, nihilistic mindset that's feeding into their anxiety depression YadA YadA,
right, yeah, and then like and even older people too, Like what
do I do because it seems meaningless? Right, Like that is something that's
coming up in therapy a lot for people. And so when I do that
work with people, and maybe I would in this work with Joy if she'd
come in pre JOBU, right, is well one do psycho education, existentialism
and nihilism that stuff, And then I talk about how do we make meaning?
Because it's like we're talking a lot about like you have to just have
to make meaning, but how do you actually go about doing that? So
what I do with clients is, first I will obviously we always to make
sure that they feel safe. So you have to make sure that none of
these things that are causing these issues or things that they have to be safe
from, like on a day to day safety level. Then two, I
what I like to do with people. It depends on where they're at,
but is we will talk about like what do you care about? Like what
does give you meaning? What are your values? Sometimes I'll do like a
values inventory with them. You can just google that and find different versions of
it, and sometimes I'll actually do There's one that I do with people that's
from the DBT Handbook, which is what are my actual values? Which is
what are my ideal values? So what are the things that I tell people
I care about versus like how I actually spend my time? And a lot
of times those things are not matching. Yeah, when I do that work
with people, when I think to do it, which is what cogno dissonance
actually is, which is another great a term people is wrong. There's a
difference between what you say and do. Yeah, And so first thing we
have to do is what can give you meaning? What does feel true to
you? When I like lay a bunch of values in front of you,
what hits you as like, oh that feels important? And then being mindful
of how do I actually practice those values? And that can be a place
to start for some people. Another work I do with people too, is
talking about radical acceptance, which you referenced Ben earlier, which is I'll have
them draw a circle, ironic because this movie like the vegel, and I
will say, inside the circle, we're going to put all the things that
you have control over, which is really just yourself and your actions and your
behaviors, and that's pretty much it, and your boundaries and your limits that
kind of stuff too, and then outside of that circles everything else. And
so it's kind of like a not a joke when I do with people,
because it doesn't really change from that, but I think it helps to write
it out, to have like a visual of it, and then to really
work on radically accepting that other people the future multiverses in which it could have
gone this way, it could have gone that way. You know, all
these things are out of our control, will never be able to manage for
those, they'll never be able to do so much, work, so hard,
whatever, that those things aren't out of your control to certain extent.
And I also tell people like your emotions too, like you'll have an emotional
reaction and you're still in control of how you engage with those emotions, right,
And I think that helps people also figure out like where am I putting
my energy? You know? With Joy, I think we would have to
really focus on that your mom is outside of that circle. Your mom is
not in that circle, and how do we work on that and sit in
the discomfort of that, and then why does it matter about your mom?
And that then tide of values work so you can do sting in there too.
So it's as much as I can get into lofty kind of processing with
people in tertims that is helpful to gain insight. I think what I like
about this is that I give people like we have practical exercises we do that
really helps them understand what they're doing because they can say all the right things.
A lot of times people complain within like therapy that my therapist ism socilf
alware like I know enough, Like I know why I do the things I
do? Yeah, and what are you going to do about it? And
so I like these approaches because it helps it challenges my clients or in this
situation, Joy to actually be you're telling me these are your value. You
tell them you don't give a shit, you know whatever, and you keep
trying to do this. So we have to reconcile that, like what's getting
in the way of really acknowledging that you know and so. And then what
I like about existentialism when I practice it with clients is that ideally it will
empower them, you know, like you can find meaning, you get decide
what's meaningful to you. So when I work with clients and they're struggle with
at nihilism, I will say, like, there are a lot of things
that are of our control, so validating that too, because there's a lot
of real stressors that I'm sometimes like, am I going to bring them up
to me? I'm like you, I don't, I know it? And
do we want to get involved with the social justice group? Do you want
to do something about like climate change on the ground level? You know,
like connecting it in a place where you do feel like you have action that's
tied to meaning and that you're just not floating on a rock and hoping nothing
happens along the way. You know. I think that nihilism part has so
much disempowerment in it when people are struggling with it, it does. And
when you're stuck in that spot of everything's going to just blow upon me eventually,
well, like the world's just gonna you know, like melt into lava.
Basically, well, good luck telling your body that it can be calm
when you're telling it, it's going to broil a eyeven lava, and you're
just like, well it doesn't matter, just gonna happen anyway, Like Okay,
well you're you're not less afraid of it because of that, aren't you.
No, I need to be keeping afraid of and keep being watching it
like hmmm. And then part of that existential work is that we've talked about
for like building up a sense of identity. So with Joy, you know,
I would also maybe challenge her of like what do you like that's just
you and building up a sense of the things that you like and how do
we attach that to values and meaning and all that work. So's other like
little minutia things I could do with Joy. But I think if she or
someone like care in my office, I would start doing those exercises with her
and that and I like that because I do work with people where we have
to radically accept that ads of right now maybe forever, your parent isn't going
to change, and if we keep being our head against the wall, we're
gonna like we already like it's just bringing us suffering. So how do we
find control, find empowerment and things that are actually in our control? And
then things sometimes we'll fall into place after the fact that we can't know that,
we can't know the future, so we just have to radically accept that
too. It's all radical acceptance, sitting in discomfort and being mindful of like
what is meaningful to you and let's attach action to that. So that's my
treatment, well said Hannah, you want to go first, you want me
to go, I'll go, yeah, Hannah. So as I was thinking
about this film, I was thinking about what it would be like because I
do think that Evelyn and Wymond would benefit from couples therapy. And I think
at the same time, which is what I've kind of talked about before,
is that I don't know how far it could go before Evelyn just got sent
to her own individual therapy. Not very Yeah, I don't think it would
go very far. And I also just wanted to talk about in general,
how we do see her changing some of her behaviors on her own because she
has had this major insight, this meaning change that she now has meaning in
her life, and there is a chance that couples therapy could work, but
I think it would be the assessment that I would do. I think could
rule could rule it out, but I'm not really sure. It would be
a little bit different. It'd be interesting to see if she could, if
she could continue those behaviors. A lot of times when I have couples who
come in and they'll say that they tried to do something and that worked for
a month, then they stopped doing it, or they always say it's going
to be better, and then they do it for a couple of weeks and
then they don't, and then they stopped doing it. And so I think
it would be interesting to see if Evelyn could hold onto the momentum and the
connection that she has with Waymond when once she's had this final realization. And
one of the other things I wanted to bring up talking about divorce when I
have a couple in my office. In general, divorce is not allowed to
be on the table while we are doing work, active work towards helping the
relationship, and that would be a discussion that I would have with Evelyn and
Waymond, especially with him filing that this can't go any further, and that
has to be a neutral place in this room, because if that, if
divorce is being used as a threat, that there's no work to be done
in the relationship. I can't hold a relationship up when the rug is getting
pulled out from underneath it whenever they have a big fight or whenever something happens.
And I have had couples who have still used the word divorce after when
we were working together, and I've had to have a come to Jesus talk
with them, even though I don't believe in any of that shit about what
are we doing here? What the fuck are we doing here? Because if
you're just going to threaten divorce, then this is no longer a safe space.
This is no longer a place where we can discuss the relationship because you've
already made a decision. And so but I do think that some of the
work that could be done, especially because, like I said, Evelyn just
seems so much more connected to Waymond and wants to be connected to him.
And you even see that a little bit before she changes, before she kind
of has her final realization. You see that when they're talking about the divorce
and she starts to realize how serious this is, and that seems to have
a pretty big impact on her. She said, we made a promise or
something she did she said, she said, we made a promise. And
I think that she is just very disconnected, like we've been talking about,
she's very disconnected from everything, and so it could also be the case where
they coming into my office and she's still really disconnected about other parts of her
life that make it really hard to work on her relationship. So, like
I said, there's a chance that Evelyn would I would have to send her
to to individual or I would not be able to see them at all,
which sometimes happens. Sometimes sometimes I can't say that that's what needs to happen,
but sometimes I have to say something like I think that I don't think
we can go any further in this until both of you get individual therapy and
then you come back to me and however long that is, and then we
can do the work. So just remember, when you're a couple's therapist and
when you're working with people, that assessment that we do in the beginning is
really fucking important. And it's also important to continue to assess the relationship as
you're working with the couple, because part of the reason why I think people
don't like working with couples is because it's like hitting your head against the wall.
It takes a while for them to get for them to trust and believe
you, which is natural and normal, and they can never get to that
point. There's a lot more work that's done in couples besides the communication skills
that I teach, because really what I'm trying to do is help them hear
each other because kind of like we already said today, being able to be
heard and validated is the only thing we really want as humans. Because what's
still left open ended in this movie, which they would have to talk about
in couples is why did it get to the point where you felt like you
had to file for divorce for Evelyn to hear you? Yeah, which she
demonstrates even in him telling her why is she argues it with him over his
own feelings. Yes, she does, and that will sink a marriage so
fast. And it's why I think a lot of people have exactly that of
Nope, couples, No, because it's so much that it's so much parts,
it's so much intersecting, intercycling parts that are just screaming to get ancient
needs met. Another part of the work that I do is we talk about
what are the traumas that you're both bringing to the table here, What are
the traumas you both experience in your families that has had this kind of an
outcome, And now here you are together, both coming from different types of
traumas, different types of experiences, and now you're trying to merge those into
one, and you can't do it because it's just not because a part of
it is just acknowledging that each of you would have has had different experiences as
similar as they maybe they also maybe very very far aparked. So that's what
I would do with Avalne and Wayment. I want to take Jobu, of
course I do. Who's got the worst story? That's the one I want.
But that's where people often have the room for the most growth and also
need the most acknowledgment of their existence and help seeing that yes you can be
safe again, Yes you can tolerate being vulnerable again. And if you want
to have a complete experience with life, you have to be able to get
out of war mode. And for Jobu, why I am particularly intrigued by
her as a potential client. Is she has herself so looped into this identity,
this narrative she tells herself of how she's going to keep herself safe and
all of the rules that she has to follow and all of the dissociation she
has to do to enable herself to just callously exterminate anything that counters that narrative,
because that's how she's keeping herself safe. Well, in a reality where
you can't time travel except internally, the ability to exterminate all your threats doesn't
exist. But if that's the only narrative you entertain, is the message I
have to be hostile to all of my threats, Well, you have to
stay pretty dissociated to operate that mode all the time, and that takes a
whole lot of energy. That leaves you fucking exhausted in a moment where nobody
sees you, and you shut down for days and have no energy to do
anything anybody or yourself barely get out of bed. And I think the thing
we haven't acknowledged for JOBU, why she's on her mission, we haven't even
said it, is the person who fractured her mind by driving her so hard.
Was her version of Evelyn who was the most successful version and that alpha
Wymon and this version and Jobu both simultaneously looking for her to find jobs,
looking for every version of Wayman's looking for the least successful one to find the
one that has the most growth to make to be the one that couldn't stop
this existential threat. This movie's writing is so brilliantly in touch with all of
it, all the time and everything that they were doing. That the way
they depict job as this person, she is that dude in college that was
so fucking exhausting that everybody like for some reason, would still have in their
group, Like nothing matters anyway, So can I play a devil's advocate for
a second? Like, right, like communism actually works as a concept,
and it would just go like two orioles, right, and orioles actually make
me happy, exactly, Communism doesn't because human evil is still real and you
can't actual if we could just extra create human evil from like well you can't,
sure can't. So like you'll just have the same problem in a different
way, like not to take it into political argument, just like understanding it's
all the same at the root of it, right, Like it's all the
same, and that's what this point is doing, and what Joebu misses is
by trying to tell herself it's all the same and if you could, just,
if you could, just she keeps herself so dissociated that she can operate
a version of herself where she can make that true and keep her needs met
except for the one she needs met most. But if she can just keep
that one contained, which she can't, then she can get all her other
needs to stop by terminating all of her central antagonists and all the versions in
which she exists. And people try to do that in their mind. Yes,
this is a metaphor, but people try to do that in their mind.
I'm going to shut out every memory of my mother. She won't have
any excess to me, and then she can't hurt me anymore, because if
I exterminate her from my life now and every memory of her, I don't
think about her everm That sounds like it takes a lot of energy to lock
her out of everything. With a brain that spontaneously accesses information as it sees
fit and is needed, so if somebody triggers a memory of your mom,
your brain's gonna go. Ah. We have a reference file for this and
throw it right back in your brain no matter what you've told it, because
it's gonna say, ah, this is relevant to your survival because it references
file QXZ seventeen ninety seven, and that's relevant right now. And then you're
fighting everyone again. You made me think I'm going to get you out of
my life, and all of a sudden, you're this intergenerational being that's connected
to nothing and no one, and nothing feels good because the one need that
you have you won't acknowledge and make yourself vulnerable to again. So I think
doing treatment with her on a very very existential basis and a lot of person
centered, We're going to create space for you to sit in your own bullshit.
And I'm not going to sit here and try to bust it because if
I do, then you'll beat me with whatever hilarious object occurred to you in
the moment until I'm dead, but you'll still have the same problem. And
I think I would take a very rudge arian approach almost with this person and
like work in existentialism to tolerance, but this idea of like I'm gonna let
you sit in your own contradictions without becoming another antagonist for you. But I'm
just going to point it out and go. So you're saying you feel driven
to spend all of your energy time traveling through all of existence and infinite multiverses
that have no end to kill every version of your mother. Yeah, she's
the kind of client that would argue with your reflection of what she just said.
Yeah, potentially, Yeah, I'm gonna be able, I'm gonna solve,
I'm gonna get to the end of the thing. But you have knowledge
that it's also infinite multiverses that have no end. I'm wondering when infinite wins.
And you'd have to be very careful with how you play that and slow.
But I think I would take that kind of approach of like, I'm
just going to reflect your bullshit back to you and let you start out,
because eventually it will defeat itself. I mean, she'll need more care than
that, But that would be the direction I want to go. And why
because I think finding those kinds of cases is most interesting to me to see
how intertwined into these dependent realities people get that throw them they're so desperately fighting
a catch twenty two that they throw themselves into another one and don't realize that
it's a trap. I think it's a good approach. It's almost like the
therapy version of malicious compliance, where I'm like, you're right, your mom
can't sounds like she really hurts you. And then you don't say else and
you're just like validating, agreeing, and then the fight in them starts to
do they have to send the discomfort of it's not going to be a fight,
which means surf fight part can't solve their problem this time. Ye.
But sometimes yet they'd try it anyway and they go like, well, you're
a fucking terrible therapist. I hate you. I didn't say that my mom
was a bitch. I'd be like, well, I didn't say him.
You're right, I didn't you know, you didn't say your mom was a
bitch. And then they're like you know, and then you earn a butt
plug trophy. Yeah, oh god, that it was hysterical. I mean,
I guess that we can find it if we can go into final thoughts.
All right, we'll take one last break here. Okay, Well,
I'll go first with final thoughts. So I've seen this movie three times now.
I saw in theaters with Hannah then I've seen it two times since,
and I will say every time I've watched it, it's grown for me,
and that, to be quite honest, it is not a cool kid opinion.
When I first saw it, I thought it was a good movie,
but I didn't feel moved by it the way that I could that way I
could see it was obviously moving other people, which was interesting for me.
And I think the more I watch it, the more I want to understand
the literal plot, because I think the first time I saw it too,
I was so like trying to figure out what was happening literally that I think
it didn't allow me to kind of fall into it enough to be kind of
moved by it emotionally, because I think I was like, what is happening?
And so the more the more I watch, I think because I'm getting
I get more comfortable with the actual plot itself, that sort of allows me
to enjoy it more and to get into it more. So I would say
it's a I mean, I think it's a beautiful movie. I think it
definitely deserves everything At one I don't know if I would necessarily seek it out
to watch it again, like on my own I might watch it if someone
else, if they wanted to watch it. But so it's not necessarily like
a comfort movie for me the way that I think it's become for a lot
of people. No, but I would say it's beautiful. I love that
it's different and weird. I love that it's being acknowledged, like critically,
even though it's so different and so weird. And I think the acting is
beautiful. I think it's Yeah, it's just a splendid movie. And I
also love nothing else. I love the costuming of Jobo and her makeup and
Stephanie shoe. I hope that she keeps getting really cool roles because I think
she is a star and I'm excited to see what she continues to do.
You know, Aquafina was supposed to play that part and she had to drop
out, I think or something like that, so they had to recast it,
which I was like the universe right there, because I don't think she
could have no offense to her Aquafina, but I don't think she could have
pulled off the sort of like genis aquality, the magic Stephanie brought to the
role and how she played her, how like weird and like extend trick.
She kind of played her. And if you watch the audition for the part
that you can find online, so many of the choices she makes in the
movie as Joe Bou she was already doing in the audition, which tells you
so much about how perfect she was for the role. Even at one point
she's saying, she says sucked into a bagel. Just she says it,
and the director off camera goes, can you sing that? And she does
the actual melody that they keep in the movie. She was sucked into a
bagel, like she just off the top of her head. Seemed like she
was just fully in line with what the directors were looking for. So I
love everything about that. So I think it's a beautiful movie. Like I
said, I don't know if not necessarily like watch it over and over again
like other movies. But I'm really glad it exists. I'm glad it's won
all the awards and everything like that. So I'll throw it too. Authink
Hannah should be last because she loves this movie. Okay, So Ben,
as the first time watcher of this movie, I'm interested in what you thought.
I loved it. It spoke to me immediately. It took me.
It took me in two starts to get through the beginning. It's so jarring
and stimulating. It's like, Okay, this is not one I can watch
it my normal time to watch movies, which is late as fuck. Yeah,
when everything is stops for me and everyone goes to sleep and no one
needs anything for me, it's when I can finally unplug and suspend reality and
like watch a movie the way I want to, Especially to do this,
and especially with a movie like this, I was like, Okay, we're
gonna have to not do that this way with this one was like what?
And also I was like, oh, this is gonna be a tough sell
for my wife because like that's to me so much chaos that she's gonna be
like and not like it. But I just absolutely adored this film because it's
so much of my world and therapeutic view like all wrapped up into one thing.
Of like like I almost like feel that like deal with your bullshit that
just like ekes out of this of like stop being afraid of everything and thinking
you can control everything, and accept for fuck's sake that you are not an
all powerful being contending with some exact right path you have to find to beat
the universe just doesn't exist. If you can filter out some of these things
that make you feel not okay and realize I is I am am enough,
and that it's okay to choose something that makes you happy being the answer.
It's okay to try to be pleasant, like without having to be false.
Like if you're not okay, don't be okay. But if you have an
option, don't be a dick. I think it's so powerful looking at all
the way all these things intersect at once, like we all have endless multiverses
that we are constantly trying to explore, looking for some restorative experience in them
that we will never get. And if you give yourself permission to let that
go and live your life from this day forward, how freeing that gets to
go. Okay, I'm going to learn from the bad things that happened,
but not fear them anymore as best I can. Because it sounds so easy
and it's not. It's not perfect. There's no perfect way to do it,
but to be better more often and give yourself permission to recognize, Ah,
I'm doing the thing again which we see Evelyn do right at the second
where she pulls from all she's ever been and feels are stuff slipping into it
and then snaps right back. And the way the movie just snuck these things
in by you know, how people can change forms and pull from different parts
of the realities. All they have to do a hardcore grounding exercise before they
can change modes, don't they. Yeah, just golf clap, so in
your body, so in your body. But in order to do that,
in order to access this intergenerational stuff, you have to have to stuff,
to stop everything and do something so fucking weird that it gets you back into
your body right now so that you realize, oh, I need a different
tool for this situation. Now, that's a good point that that is technically
I didn't even think about that. That is a grounding exercise, because that's
what is grounding is like trying to get yourself like in back into your body
by almost playing it. Not a trick on your body, but like doing
something. That's why people do things like dunk their head and ice because you're
trying to like shock your system right into paying attention to what's in front of
you right now. And this movie did that to us by being so ridiculous
that we paid attention, and I just love everything about it. The way
they did it, the way they tricked you, the way they both threw
it in your face and did it in metaphor and did in a way you
can't avoid. All at the same time, it's what all of the therapies
that I've really come to love and like do, because they go like and
if that ain't your body regulating itself in the face of your worst moments,
and you're starting to feel better, But the only time you actually got to
feel that better again is when you stopped hiding from those worst moments. The
therapist the trauma work. That's what could trauma work is is we got to
teach you to stop running and realize that you're okay now, while also simultaneously
acknowledging you were very much not okay then, and that's okay, that you
weren't okay and that that hurt you, and let's give that air and let
that breathe and let that hurt. But also at the same time realize that
as a past edition of me and I no longer have to wait in the
mail for a new one to come. Like all before I can be a
cool kid again. I can choose that right now and choose to have a
different, better life right now by investing in not needing to run away from
everything that makes me uncomfortable, but just go Okay. Sometimes I don't have
enough, but when I do, it's okay for me to be uncomfortable a
little bit without feeling like I'm going to be wrecked again. It's just so
much of everything, everywhere, all the ones. It is funny how much
the title you do want to say it as you're ye about it. Yeah,
I agree, but I absolutely love this. It instantly catapulted to among
my favorite films. Oh great, the movies like this one that like work
in so many things to like break you. It definitely is a movie I've
been telling clients to watch or referencing with clients, you know, absolutely like
I did. There are some clients where you just want them to watch this
and go, like, just just absorb it. I don't even want to
explain it to you. You'll feel it. You'll do it all by itself.
And the brilliance of this movie of like changing your sensory experiences so much
that you have to attend to hit God, damn brilliant, just brilliant,
all right, Hannah. So, I think one of the things that has
just been really nice is that I could is that we could talk about it
on the podcast. It's been really fun just talking about it with the two
of you, because I love this movie so much. Yeah, I of
this film. I've probably watched it twenty times, if not more than that.
I think that it really as someone who has a lot of intergenerational trauma
as well as um just regular trauma, fashioned trauma. Um. I think
that. Any I think the way that they did this film made me learn
something about myself that I didn't know yet. And I think that and that
every time I watch it, it's almost like I get to relearn that and
that feels really nice. And so that's a part of why I've watched it
so many times. Um. I think that. And I love the final
message, which to me is that kindness, being kind is a good way
to live and has made me really think more about having more kindness towards myself
as well as other people. And so I love so I love this movie.
I love the music. I've listened to the soundtrack. I can tell
where the music is in the film because I've watched it so many times.
I really enjoy the way that they present all of this information to us,
and I think it was done just absolutely beautifully and I'll probably watch it a
million more times. And they definitely deserve all the awards that they got.
And I was so excited when this movie came out, and we came out
in January of last year, and I remember thinking, I hope that people
remember this film when it comes to the Oscars, because sometimes films that come
out in January get pushed to the side. If something really good comes out
in December, there can be a lot less hype about things. It doesn't
always happen. But in my experience of paying attention to the Oscars, which
are you know, mostly white people doing stuff, is that movies get forgotten
and get pushed to the side for whatever reason. And I was really glad
that this movie did not get pushed to the side because of all the different
parts of it. Yep. And you know, there's one thing I want
to tag onto what you said is that even with a person who has by
her own admission, had a bunch of shit that this movie covers with the
big old capital te word and the little t word. But even in the
way that they covered such heavy, heavy material. Yeah, in the way
that they did it, they made it accessible and safe to experience in a
way that feels like you're empowering yourself against it in the future. And if
that's not therapy, I don't know what is. Yeah, and I will
say too, and then we can do we can wrap up. Is that
I meant to bring this up earlier is the director Daniel Kwan when he won
his Oscar, when they won the Oscar, he and his speech said,
Hey, son, if you're watching, I don't expect you to win an
Oscar. Don't worry about it. I just want you to have like a
good time. So basically they didn't quite say it like that, Yeah,
but basically was trying to live the message of the movie, which is that
your dad achieved something wild. Don't worry. This isn't supposed to be something.
This is not normal. I think that's what he said. He goes,
this is not normal to win an Oscar. Yeah, so you don't
have to live up to this standard. That's not an expectation in this family
just because I did it, which I thought was sweet in a way to
like he was living his values in that moment. All right, well,
let us know what you think about everything, ever where, all at once,
as always. You can find us at Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok
at Popcorn Psychology. You can find us on Twitter still hanging on at about
Twitter that is a pop at Popcorn Underscore psych You can always email us at
Popcorn Psychology at gmail dot com. Um if you can leave us a review
wherever you listen. That's the best way for other people to find us.
We really appreciate it and we read them if you write us one as well.
Yeah, and so that's that, everything, ever where, all it
wants Baby, Season six,