The Neverending Story: Identity, Grief, & Healing Through Stories

<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
<v Speaker 1>movies and psychoanalyze them.
<v Speaker 2>My name is Brittany.
<v Speaker 1>Brownfield and I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by.
<v Speaker 3>Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinozo, marriage and family therapists.
<v Speaker 1>We're all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists,
<v Speaker 1>who practice out of Chicago. Even though we are licensed
<v Speaker 1>mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for entertainment purposes
<v Speaker 1>and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture and
<v Speaker 1>all forms.
<v Speaker 4>Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
<v Speaker 4>we aren't your therapist.
<v Speaker 3>If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
<v Speaker 3>a local mental health provider.
<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, we are finally getting onto our luck dragons
<v Speaker 1>and going into the clouds to talk about the never
<v Speaker 1>ending Storyay big surprise for anyone who's watched this movie.
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna be talking about grief. Specifically, We're gonna be
<v Speaker 1>touching upon how it presents his depression, how it can
<v Speaker 1>result in identity problems both within an individual but also
<v Speaker 1>within a family structure. We're also gonna be touching upon
<v Speaker 1>the stages of grief and also experiential and expressive and
<v Speaker 1>expressive therapies, therapies think even, and as always we're talking
<v Speaker 1>about treatment and final thoughts. So The Never Ending Story
<v Speaker 1>is about a ten year old named Bastion who has
<v Speaker 1>recently lost his mother. The movie is vague about how
<v Speaker 1>when I looked it up on the internet it said
<v Speaker 1>car accident, because I was curious if it was a
<v Speaker 1>sudden or not sudden thing. And so we're watching this
<v Speaker 1>little boy go through this post mom's death experience where
<v Speaker 1>he basically feels really lonely, really ignored, and he finds
<v Speaker 1>a book in a bookstore after he's been bullied, and
<v Speaker 1>that is the you know, the rest of the movie
<v Speaker 1>is this kid reading a book and then slowly realizing
<v Speaker 1>that he is a part of this book.
<v Speaker 2>The never Ending Story.
<v Speaker 3>The first thing that we wanted to talk about was depression,
<v Speaker 3>the experience of just not feeling just not really feeling
<v Speaker 3>like yourself and feeling more sad and feeling kind of
<v Speaker 3>like they're the things that you found joy in before
<v Speaker 3>you don't find joy in anymore. That's kind of what
<v Speaker 3>I feel like people experience when I talk to them
<v Speaker 3>about grief in terms of the depression.
<v Speaker 4>Symptoms, loss of hope.
<v Speaker 2>Loss of loss of hope is definitely important. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>I think anytime I think of grief, I think of
<v Speaker 4>Teddy Roosevelt's journal as probably the best simple expression I've
<v Speaker 4>ever seen. You've guys seen that? Whoa you guys no
<v Speaker 4>know this?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know what are you talking about?
<v Speaker 1>His actual journal or a movie that's called Teddy Roosevelt's Journal.
<v Speaker 4>That's a fair question. That's a very fair question. I
<v Speaker 4>appreciate that. We're welcome new band name I call it, Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>but after I explain, it's gonna get sucked up. So
<v Speaker 4>Teddy Roosevelt lost his mother and his wife, oh damn,
<v Speaker 4>on the same day, dark dark, in the same hospital.
<v Speaker 4>He had to go upstairs for the death of each.
<v Speaker 4>His wife died from I think some complication of a childbirth,
<v Speaker 4>and his mom died of TB if I'm remembering. But
<v Speaker 4>in his journal, there's just like a big X, this
<v Speaker 4>is the light has gone out of my life.
<v Speaker 2>Damn.
<v Speaker 4>And that's it. Damn Right.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, Well, I think in this situation, we are seeing
<v Speaker 1>a little boy who seems to have lost like his mom,
<v Speaker 1>seems like she was the joy in his life, not
<v Speaker 1>just as his mom obviously, but also as we see
<v Speaker 1>with the family dynamic that gets set up in the
<v Speaker 1>very beginning of the movie, his dad is just given nothing, which,
<v Speaker 1>to be fair, his dad's going through his own grief,
<v Speaker 1>for sure, and that is just a blip in the movie.
<v Speaker 1>But it does strike me that the mom might have
<v Speaker 1>been the person that was bringing a lot of joy
<v Speaker 1>and caregiving into this kid's life, and now he's being
<v Speaker 1>taken care of by this dad who was never supposed
<v Speaker 1>to be the primary caregiver for this kid.
<v Speaker 4>Which seems accurate for the time period. Yeah, this dad
<v Speaker 4>is clearly lost. He's not used to being the primary caregiver.
<v Speaker 4>He's used to making his stuff and being in a routine,
<v Speaker 4>not caring for a child. I imagine he would be
<v Speaker 4>doing camping trips on the weekends and he's used to
<v Speaker 4>that kind of stuff. But come work with tools with
<v Speaker 4>me in the shed, but not primary caregiving. The dad
<v Speaker 4>seems clearly kind of vapid and lost.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I was telling Hannah it kind of reminds me
<v Speaker 1>of if Ted Wheeler the dad and Stranger things.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I had to become the primary caregiver.
<v Speaker 1>You're right, it's very of the time where there's more
<v Speaker 1>of an understanding that the mom is the primary caregiver
<v Speaker 1>and the dad is secondary.
<v Speaker 4>Which is very different to now where it's pretty balanced.
<v Speaker 4>And it's weird to watch and watching that scene where
<v Speaker 4>the dad and the kid are talking about, well, it's
<v Speaker 4>time to kind of buck up and keep moving on.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so we watched this sad kid in this sad
<v Speaker 1>house with a probably sad leftover parent who is dealing
<v Speaker 1>maybe with their sadness and trying to be a parent
<v Speaker 1>the same way that maybe he runs his business, like
<v Speaker 1>trying to parent the way that he would supervise a colleague.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, he ends that.
<v Speaker 1>He's so flat the whole time he hands the conversation
<v Speaker 1>with this was a good talk.
<v Speaker 2>We should do this more. I'm like, who the fuck
<v Speaker 2>are you talking to?
<v Speaker 1>You're talking to your super sad ten year old kid
<v Speaker 1>and giving no emotionality there.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, your kid who's having dreams about his mom who died. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>and he wants to talk about it and process that,
<v Speaker 4>and Dad's just like.
<v Speaker 1>Well.
<v Speaker 4>We talked about that.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>It gives you the ick. It's so different. It's exactly
<v Speaker 4>the way we would have been raised, or there would
<v Speaker 4>have been someone in our life just like that would
<v Speaker 4>have been raised like that.
<v Speaker 1>It's definitely the style of the older generation. Very pick
<v Speaker 1>yourself up, dust yourself off, keep it moving, is what
<v Speaker 1>the dad's basically telling this kid.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know, it's you know, your.
<v Speaker 1>Mom can't be used as an excuse anymore to not
<v Speaker 1>consider in school, which is wild thing to say, and
<v Speaker 1>you know, reiterating you can have to have your feet
<v Speaker 1>on the ground. There's like no room for anything that's
<v Speaker 1>not pragmatic, and you.
<v Speaker 4>Have to get back into doing things. I'm hearing you didn't.
<v Speaker 4>I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed you didn't even try out for
<v Speaker 4>the swim team.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the dad's not taking into context the grief and
<v Speaker 1>the sadness at all, Like he's like, why did try
<v Speaker 1>for the swim team? It's like, why do you think
<v Speaker 1>he didn't try out for the swim team?
<v Speaker 2>It even makes me.
<v Speaker 1>Wonder are there aspects of having to trial for the
<v Speaker 1>swim team that maybe his mom would have handled, like scheduling,
<v Speaker 1>permission slip.
<v Speaker 2>You know, Like he's making it seem.
<v Speaker 1>Like this kid is is going to be now like
<v Speaker 1>the project manager of his life, when that was probably
<v Speaker 1>a role that mom played keeping that stuff together.
<v Speaker 4>Should have been the one probably going to swim lessons,
<v Speaker 4>should have been the one encouraging him, pep talking him,
<v Speaker 4>talking it up. And also, like we started right at
<v Speaker 4>the top, depression steals your joy and even doing things
<v Speaker 4>doesn't feel good anymore. That's why sometimes you need antidepressants
<v Speaker 4>because they start boosting your serotonin levels. Again, the thing
<v Speaker 4>that works about those is because your brain is no
<v Speaker 4>longer producing enough serotonin, which is your feel good chemical.
<v Speaker 4>So you're not getting a brain cookie for doing something,
<v Speaker 4>and it takes a lot more effort to get that
<v Speaker 4>brain cookie, if at all. And by basic behaviorism, if
<v Speaker 4>something doesn't feel good, do we keep doing it? Nope,
<v Speaker 4>So it extinguishes behaviors really quick because it doesn't feel
<v Speaker 4>good and then compounds with wow, even things that I
<v Speaker 4>like make me feel nothing or bad.
<v Speaker 3>And I feel like I've Also whenever with people who
<v Speaker 3>are experiencing grief or and they're in the depression aspect
<v Speaker 3>of it, I also talk with them about coping skills
<v Speaker 3>because a lot of times the coping skills don't work
<v Speaker 3>anymore either, like they're because they don't have the same
<v Speaker 3>they're not able to focus on it. In the same
<v Speaker 3>way that they were to before, and they have to
<v Speaker 3>pull themselves out of it first in order to use
<v Speaker 3>the coping skills. So a lot of times I really
<v Speaker 3>really talk about coping skills and shifting them or changing them,
<v Speaker 3>trying to be flexible about what things are.
<v Speaker 2>Helpful because it feels so different than it used.
<v Speaker 4>To everything.
<v Speaker 2>Cute.
<v Speaker 4>Your old toolkit might not work or it might not
<v Speaker 4>work as well, and not letting that stack up on
<v Speaker 4>you is huge.
<v Speaker 1>And I could also see where Dad is maybe doing
<v Speaker 1>that thing that definitely people did I assume in that
<v Speaker 1>time period, which is we just got to start getting
<v Speaker 1>back into the things that used to like, and that'll
<v Speaker 1>get you out of this funk, you know, like get
<v Speaker 1>into swim again, get it, like start getting That's basically
<v Speaker 1>what he says in the beginning, like you just have to.
<v Speaker 2>Get back on track.
<v Speaker 1>And this idea that if you go and if you
<v Speaker 1>go through the motions of regular life, it'll snap you
<v Speaker 1>out of it, which is not realistic because what you
<v Speaker 1>guys are saying too, like bereavement related depression is so
<v Speaker 1>big it can pack such like a punch because it's
<v Speaker 1>based in something truly real that's happened to you, that's
<v Speaker 1>changing your life forever. It's more trauma based almost depression.
<v Speaker 1>Something horrible has happened, and you can't just like do
<v Speaker 1>the same things you might be able to do with depression,
<v Speaker 1>where you can kind of like do thought challenging and
<v Speaker 1>things like that to kind of like come out of it,
<v Speaker 1>like there's something truly real that's happened, that's changed the
<v Speaker 1>circumstances of your life potentially. And with a kid like this,
<v Speaker 1>your whole your life is exploded, falling apart.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and Breadman is not a time period where you
<v Speaker 4>should be trying to do a whole lot of treatment
<v Speaker 4>for people. People need space, people need time. Supportive methods
<v Speaker 4>only really are appropriate there. If they want to come
<v Speaker 4>in and talk, it should probably don't. But when they
<v Speaker 4>do come in and talk, you're not trying to reframe
<v Speaker 4>their thoughts, You're not trying to correct their things. You're
<v Speaker 4>just trying to be there and listen and witness their
<v Speaker 4>pain and let them express. That's it.
<v Speaker 1>And bless this kid because he's trying to do that
<v Speaker 1>with his dad. He sure is, and his dad is
<v Speaker 1>not interested, which, like I said, could be because the
<v Speaker 1>dad might be in his own grief. He's also going
<v Speaker 1>through a crazy experience where now he has to take
<v Speaker 1>care of a kid in a way he's never had
<v Speaker 1>to before. But yeah, like it just it is heartbreaking
<v Speaker 1>in the beginning of this movie because you just feel
<v Speaker 1>this kid's insane loneliness on top of losing his mom,
<v Speaker 1>which is going to be lonely anyway. Maybe he's late
<v Speaker 1>to school because he's fucking depressed, and maybe because he
<v Speaker 1>used to make his own lunches now and stuff like
<v Speaker 1>just this, like as we're going to talk about later
<v Speaker 1>with like the stages of grief, Like is this denial
<v Speaker 1>like this almost like stubborn denial that Dad is in
<v Speaker 1>that they kind of allude to in the scene that
<v Speaker 1>they set in the beginning of what's going on with
<v Speaker 1>this kid and not being curious about the reasons why
<v Speaker 1>this kid might be acting differently than he used to,
<v Speaker 1>because that's also what Dad's not tracking. Why is he
<v Speaker 1>late to school? Why is he joining the swim team?
<v Speaker 1>Instead of being curious, he's being accusational.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah he is, because he probably is just as lost.
<v Speaker 4>Dad doesn't begin to know. No set of parents ever
<v Speaker 4>knows fully what the other one does, and the roles
<v Speaker 4>that they fell until they're not feeling it anymore, and
<v Speaker 4>it's heartbreaking to lose that and no one can replace
<v Speaker 4>the mom. So this whole family unit is is completely devastated.
<v Speaker 4>And you're right, no one's looking out for this kid.
<v Speaker 4>They make it quite clear he's kind of invisible except
<v Speaker 4>to the bullies because it's the eighties.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they are ruthless.
<v Speaker 1>And it made me think, like the Bullies and Stranger Things,
<v Speaker 1>if they were modeled after these bullies, Like even in
<v Speaker 1>the way they dressed felt very similar to the bullies
<v Speaker 1>in the first season of Stranger Things.
<v Speaker 4>I'm sure there was a reference. And it's also just
<v Speaker 4>kind of how they were eighties and nineties. There's enough
<v Speaker 4>references to them everywhere.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was a time of bullies. Oh it was
<v Speaker 1>in movies at that time. I mean it was a
<v Speaker 1>time of bullies in the real world. In the real
<v Speaker 1>world also going to that too, there's no one thinking
<v Speaker 1>about like, is this kid late to school every day
<v Speaker 1>because he's getting bullied fucking every day he's going to school,
<v Speaker 1>And is he's not late to school maybe because he's
<v Speaker 1>not leaving for school on time. And I'm having to
<v Speaker 1>like dodge and weave and maybe get stuck in trash cans.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and I feel like it's also but again, you know,
<v Speaker 3>this was the eighties, so it makes sense. But even
<v Speaker 3>like the school coming at him for that and not
<v Speaker 3>asking dad like, hey, it's really weird he's been late
<v Speaker 3>to school.
<v Speaker 2>Something else might be going on.
<v Speaker 3>Have you talked to him, like even like just just
<v Speaker 3>as like just noticing that this kid's.
<v Speaker 2>Behavior pattern is.
<v Speaker 3>Changing after his mom died, Like that fucking makes sense.
<v Speaker 4>Of course it does. And also so to just moving slowly.
<v Speaker 4>One of the symptoms of depression is moving so slay.
<v Speaker 2>That's such a good point.
<v Speaker 4>Right m HM. Formally known as psychomotor retardation or psychomotor agitation,
<v Speaker 4>because sometimes people can't sit still and they can't deal
<v Speaker 4>with anything and they don't stop moving, or other times
<v Speaker 4>they're so glum and grim and down that they just
<v Speaker 4>look like they're walking through molasses and mud, just trudging.
<v Speaker 4>And now I hear Chaucer saying trudging to trudge from
<v Speaker 4>a Night's Tale.
<v Speaker 2>That sounds right.
<v Speaker 3>I was thinking about how I've had different people describe
<v Speaker 3>the way that depression feels as walking on the bottom
<v Speaker 3>of the ocean. Every step and not only are you
<v Speaker 3>under the water, but every.
<v Speaker 2>Step is.
<v Speaker 3>It's such a barrier to being able to complete it
<v Speaker 3>in any kind of quick manner of any kind. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>and then with that too, we see the kid be
<v Speaker 3>late to school fashion because of the bully thing and
<v Speaker 3>the bookstore thing, and we see what then can happen
<v Speaker 3>with this situation where as soon as he realizes he's
<v Speaker 3>really late to school, he just gives up and goes
<v Speaker 3>hides in the attic all day by himself, which is
<v Speaker 3>that's what ends up happening.
<v Speaker 2>Is kids are always picking up.
<v Speaker 1>On what the adults are telling them is important and
<v Speaker 1>then getting stuck on that in his mind. And it
<v Speaker 1>really bummed me the fuck out, going back to like
<v Speaker 1>the invisibility of him in which his dad's like fleeing
<v Speaker 1>out the door when he says that, and he goes,
<v Speaker 1>but yesterday I was it and reply to lady school
<v Speaker 1>like this kid just wants to be recognized. And how
<v Speaker 1>a kid like that in this situation when we also
<v Speaker 1>think about what depression feeling like hopeless and feeling helpless
<v Speaker 1>and feeling bad about yourself potentially that also then you
<v Speaker 1>have this dad that's only pointing out the ways that
<v Speaker 1>this kid is not doing well, but not in like
<v Speaker 1>a curious empathetic way, but more in like a picking
<v Speaker 1>at him kind of way, and not noticing when the
<v Speaker 1>kid is doing things Okay, like you made school yesterday,
<v Speaker 1>Let's try you know, let's try that again.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>How is that kid not going to internalize that, especially
<v Speaker 1>when they're in such a vulnerable place of like, maybe
<v Speaker 1>I'm just suck and like and he doesn't have a
<v Speaker 1>mom anymore to like break through.
<v Speaker 4>That or any trusted adult. He's just getting rub dirt
<v Speaker 4>on it. Talk and do better, which he can't. He
<v Speaker 4>can't depending on how long ago that the death of
<v Speaker 4>his mom was, we don't know what period he's in.
<v Speaker 4>Bereavement last thirty days, right, bereamant ends at thirty days.
<v Speaker 4>That's the period where you're wrecked. Everyone is destroyed, distraught, crying,
<v Speaker 4>shut down because you're adjusting to your world ending as
<v Speaker 4>you knew it. After that phase, I feel like is
<v Speaker 4>where we're picking up this story. It seems like we're
<v Speaker 4>somewhere two months out three months, that's my guess. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>I don't know if that's a base on anybody. He's
<v Speaker 4>not to your point and crying and wrecked. It seems
<v Speaker 4>like the expectation is that, buddy, we're we got to
<v Speaker 4>start moving on now, which I don't think even that
<v Speaker 4>era of dad figure would have said yeah, unless it's
<v Speaker 4>bland before time.
<v Speaker 2>Oh geez, do.
<v Speaker 4>You guys watch that as adults?
<v Speaker 3>Yes?
<v Speaker 2>I watched it not so long ago.
<v Speaker 4>Actually as soon as his mom dies. That one like
<v Speaker 4>Stegosaurus with small spikes, was like, h, kid, life's tough.
<v Speaker 4>I just watched his mom get eaten. Yeh sucks sometimes
<v Speaker 4>to be in be in the world. Good luck.
<v Speaker 2>What is one?
<v Speaker 1>Also just how sometimes just adults can have such a
<v Speaker 1>lack of patience with kids and their feelings and wanting.
<v Speaker 1>There is a lot of situations I've been in as
<v Speaker 1>a family therapist where you can tell the parent, for
<v Speaker 1>whatever reason, could be a very inner, simple reason, just
<v Speaker 1>wants the kid to kind of get over it, and
<v Speaker 1>for maybe because they're got their own suff gone. Because
<v Speaker 1>like I see with this dad him wanting to just
<v Speaker 1>be over it, so he needs the kid to be
<v Speaker 1>over it.
<v Speaker 2>And how deeply.
<v Speaker 1>Unfair that is, especially like a kid that's this. I
<v Speaker 1>mean I tell people this all the time, Like when
<v Speaker 1>you're a kid, your parents are your gods.
<v Speaker 2>They are gods to you, for better or for worse.
<v Speaker 2>And so I've been watching The Crow, have we? Oh
<v Speaker 2>that is from that movie?
<v Speaker 1>Yes it is, and it is true, right, and so
<v Speaker 1>like you have to treat it with that level of
<v Speaker 1>gravitas when something that involves a kid and their parents occurs.
<v Speaker 4>Mother is the name for God on the lips and
<v Speaker 4>hearts of all children.
<v Speaker 2>You can't help yourself, No I can't.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, like there aren't any adults looking out for him,
<v Speaker 1>which is why it's so refreshing and interesting in the
<v Speaker 1>movie when he does run into the bookstore and they
<v Speaker 1>introduced the bookseller as kind of this like crimogeny ominous figure.
<v Speaker 1>But he does do something that I wrote down on
<v Speaker 1>my notes was as Bashian's kind of like running his
<v Speaker 1>mouth like talking to mole a minute about stuff. He
<v Speaker 1>does something that is really good and very therapist y,
<v Speaker 1>which is he grabs onto the important part and he says,
<v Speaker 1>who are you running away from? And I was like,
<v Speaker 1>that guy knows how to talk to kids because he
<v Speaker 1>was able to disperse away from all the gobbledegook and
<v Speaker 1>like find the thing, the right question, and be curious
<v Speaker 1>about this kid. Instead of getting caught up in judging
<v Speaker 1>him or like just like the way that adults can
<v Speaker 1>really just shoot kids down and dismiss them.
<v Speaker 4>It's such a different take on it, but I do agree.
<v Speaker 4>But what I agree fundamentally I hated his affect.
<v Speaker 1>Oh for sure, he definitely, But I feel like that's
<v Speaker 1>the movie trying to do a bait and switch situation,
<v Speaker 1>like they're trying to trick us into thinking this guy sucks,
<v Speaker 1>and he does have a gruff vibe. But I will
<v Speaker 1>say when he asked that question, I think you see
<v Speaker 1>kind of his veneer drop a little bit. And then
<v Speaker 1>obviously when he has the like knowing look at the
<v Speaker 1>end where he is like a fairy godmother figure in
<v Speaker 1>the story.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I mean he's definitely. He's the wise old man,
<v Speaker 4>the fairy godmother, et cetera, the guardian angel. He's all
<v Speaker 4>those things, and he was and he was doing it.
<v Speaker 4>But it's such the eighties boomer even greatest, it's the
<v Speaker 4>greatest generation.
<v Speaker 1>Way, Well, it's like, does everyone have to be shitty
<v Speaker 1>to this kid? For fuck's sake?
<v Speaker 4>Right?
<v Speaker 1>Can someone please throw a fucking smile on their face
<v Speaker 1>and some caring looking eyes.
<v Speaker 4>Right, instead of the grumpy old crimudge what are you
<v Speaker 4>doing here? And the kid clearly warmed up to him,
<v Speaker 4>was trying to prove himself like no, I read there's
<v Speaker 4>all the books I reading. It was obvious he impressed
<v Speaker 4>the bookseller and that he saw himself and the kid,
<v Speaker 4>but he the lack of warming up bothered me, Oh
<v Speaker 4>for sure.
<v Speaker 2>Oh that does bother me as well.
<v Speaker 4>He kept the kid engaged so like, I get it,
<v Speaker 4>and it again the generational differences the way I'm looking
<v Speaker 4>at that now, then that would have been a that's
<v Speaker 4>the way grandpa acted.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I think now it would probably be someone with
<v Speaker 1>a more of like a Mishney approach, Like if they
<v Speaker 1>made this movie now, it'd be someone who's like but
<v Speaker 1>I think they still did a little game with him
<v Speaker 1>of like ooh that book you can't handle reverse psychology
<v Speaker 1>to get him to take it. But yeah, I think
<v Speaker 1>if they made this movie nowadays, it would be a
<v Speaker 1>sweeter probably like Jessica Day type or like a grandmotherly
<v Speaker 1>type character.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I think so. I think it would be a
<v Speaker 4>gentler warm up. There might still be the game, and
<v Speaker 4>little boy might have needed the game, particularly an eighties
<v Speaker 4>little boy.
<v Speaker 2>Mm hmm.
<v Speaker 4>As he would have needed it, But I hated the
<v Speaker 4>lack of warm up.
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, because the way this kid's introduced with his
<v Speaker 1>dad is so fucking brutal that like, from like minute one,
<v Speaker 1>you're like desperate for this kid to have somebody in
<v Speaker 1>his fucking life who seems to give a shit about him,
<v Speaker 1>and it's gonna be fucking next to him, and you
<v Speaker 1>just and a and then with the bully too, Like
<v Speaker 1>I think by that point in the movie, it's only
<v Speaker 1>like five minutes into the movie and you're already like,
<v Speaker 1>can someone please save this kid?
<v Speaker 4>Well, all the other adults were watching him be terrorized
<v Speaker 4>on the street as he's just running through Vancouver or
<v Speaker 4>wherever it was, just trucking, it runs into the other adults.
<v Speaker 4>There's clearly being pursued by three kids looking to do
<v Speaker 4>something not good in every other adult just goes on
<v Speaker 4>about their business, does nothing. Established his a loneness really
<v Speaker 4>well cinematically.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And then also that he's a kid that obviously
<v Speaker 1>spending a lot of time by himself because he knows
<v Speaker 1>exactly where the key to the addict is, how to
<v Speaker 1>get it, how to go up there, Like that isn't
<v Speaker 1>the first time or maybe even like the tenth time
<v Speaker 1>he's hid in that attic space.
<v Speaker 4>No, no, he's been up there a lot. You know.
<v Speaker 3>What else I was thinking is that there aren't any
<v Speaker 3>other Oh, I guess there is the old Lady to
<v Speaker 3>the Little Old Man. I was trying to think if
<v Speaker 3>there were any other women in the story at all
<v Speaker 3>who are loving or warm, because most of the people
<v Speaker 3>that were most of the people that he interacts with
<v Speaker 3>in the real world are men, And just how that's
<v Speaker 3>kind of interesting that there isn't any Like, there's the Empress, right,
<v Speaker 3>and she's really kind and sweet and warm, right, but
<v Speaker 3>there really isn't But there really isn't anyone else.
<v Speaker 2>I was just that just made me. It just jumped
<v Speaker 2>into my mind.
<v Speaker 3>So I was just curious if does that feel like
<v Speaker 3>a thing or But then I remember the little Old Lady,
<v Speaker 3>So I don't know if that if that works, I.
<v Speaker 4>Wouldn't have called her warm though.
<v Speaker 3>Also true, also true, Yeah, she definitely wasn't warm.
<v Speaker 2>She definitely was a gruffin. But I think it could
<v Speaker 2>have been.
<v Speaker 1>I think it could have definitely been like a cinematic choice,
<v Speaker 1>for there didn't be no like feminine warmth in the
<v Speaker 1>movie because it was missing in his life.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, because the thing he needs to sort and find
<v Speaker 4>connection with again is his mom. That's what's missing, that's
<v Speaker 4>what he wants, that's what he's looking for in his story,
<v Speaker 4>is a connection to her. So it wouldn't narratively make
<v Speaker 4>sense for there to be that energy from anybody else. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>it felt like the giant Stoneman was probably more on
<v Speaker 4>the long lines of.
<v Speaker 1>His dead mm, like these big strong hands. Yep, that's yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that's a good point.
<v Speaker 4>I'm just going to sit here and.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, oh god, that's the line from this movie that
<v Speaker 1>makes me cry or almost makes you cry every time,
<v Speaker 1>that scene with the big rock guy looking at his hands. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that is such like a brutal line. And I think
<v Speaker 1>that is the best summation It's like succinct summation of
<v Speaker 1>like what we're talking about with depression and like the
<v Speaker 1>hopelessness and kind of going into like the loss of
<v Speaker 1>identity part two of how when you go through something
<v Speaker 1>like this like grief, not only does it shift your
<v Speaker 1>identity from this from the sense of like I who
<v Speaker 1>am I now that I don't have a mom, or
<v Speaker 1>like what is our family now that there's this missing person?
<v Speaker 1>In it, and like we're talking about with a dad,
<v Speaker 1>like the change in his identity from the secondary breadwinner,
<v Speaker 1>you know, caregiver to now like having to be everything
<v Speaker 1>for this kid. But then also how it can fuck
<v Speaker 1>with our identity as a strong person, a capable person,
<v Speaker 1>a person that can control their life.
<v Speaker 2>Because I think that's a big.
<v Speaker 1>Part with the rock guy is I'm supposed to be
<v Speaker 1>this big shronk thing that holds onto things and keeps
<v Speaker 1>things safe. And I couldn't do that, So what's the point.
<v Speaker 1>And how grief and like big life changes like this
<v Speaker 1>can really fuck with people's sense of self.
<v Speaker 4>And when they lose that, they let go, which sounds
<v Speaker 4>familiar yet again telling breath there, Hannah, Hannah's giving me
<v Speaker 4>a big sight because that loss of identity piece, you
<v Speaker 4>could change loss of identity to loss of purpose.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, really mean.
<v Speaker 4>Loss of meaning. And yet again we're back to Victor Frankel,
<v Speaker 4>and that's exactly what he was talking about in man
<v Speaker 4>Starch for meaning. Is that stone guy I forgot what
<v Speaker 4>his name is, but him sitting there going but look
<v Speaker 4>at these hands, they look like such boogs, strong hands.
<v Speaker 4>I couldn't hold on to people. So now I'll let
<v Speaker 4>the nothing take me.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>But that's what people go through when they're facing that
<v Speaker 4>is I'm just ready to go.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they give up, they do.
<v Speaker 1>I think we see that in Avengers Endgame with Clint
<v Speaker 1>or Divinity War, the last one with Clint Barton, because
<v Speaker 1>he loses his whole family and then he just goes
<v Speaker 1>fucking rogue.
<v Speaker 4>But when he turns to Ronan, yeah, yep.
<v Speaker 1>Like that's a classic example of I'm gonna throw my
<v Speaker 1>whole life away because it's gone anyway.
<v Speaker 2>And who cares.
<v Speaker 1>I think it was a very active version of giving up,
<v Speaker 1>but it's still giving up.
<v Speaker 4>Well then when even when he gets him back, he's
<v Speaker 4>ready to throw himself because he can't face who he became.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And that's a big part of like that existential
<v Speaker 1>lots of identity stuff like also what we sometimes will do,
<v Speaker 1>which could be what's going on with fashion as well.
<v Speaker 1>Like we talked about the acting out of character when
<v Speaker 1>you're caught up in these moments, and then are we
<v Speaker 1>gonna keep being hard on ourselves and judge ourselves based
<v Speaker 1>on this like wild time in our life that is
<v Speaker 1>extraordinary in this abnormal.
<v Speaker 4>Are you asking a question?
<v Speaker 2>I'm just done with my thought.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, they felt like there was a question coming, and
<v Speaker 4>then you looked at me.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, you know.
<v Speaker 3>Something that I talk to clients about a lot when
<v Speaker 3>I talk about their identity because we all know here
<v Speaker 3>that it's such a big aspect of grief, and I
<v Speaker 3>just straight up tell them you are never going to
<v Speaker 3>be the same person that you were when they were alive.
<v Speaker 3>Your life is different now, and that's just the truth.
<v Speaker 3>And I don't do that like right after they lose someone, clearly.
<v Speaker 2>But like it.
<v Speaker 3>But it is something that once their symptoms have decreased
<v Speaker 3>a little bit, we can kind of talk about who
<v Speaker 3>you are now and what do you and what's important
<v Speaker 3>to you.
<v Speaker 4>It's really important to face that because I don't know
<v Speaker 4>if I've said that in the podcast before, but I
<v Speaker 4>have been dealing with physical pain a lot with a
<v Speaker 4>pain disorder I live with. And it's something I learned
<v Speaker 4>NPT that once we get an injury and we start
<v Speaker 4>compensating for it, we learn new neural pathways to compensate
<v Speaker 4>for that injury. There is no going back to the
<v Speaker 4>old neural pathways. You can't sprain your ankle and run
<v Speaker 4>the same way you did before you got hurt. And
<v Speaker 4>that sounds awful familiar to what Hannah just said, but
<v Speaker 4>we never ever, ever have heard it that way before.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's I don't know if it's because of my
<v Speaker 3>own grief experience and that's a part of what really
<v Speaker 3>informed that piece of it for me. But I remember
<v Speaker 3>when I was when I had lost I think my grandparents.
<v Speaker 3>When I lost my grandparents, I.
<v Speaker 4>Was so.
<v Speaker 2>I was I lost, just like we see bashing and
<v Speaker 2>the dad. I was completely lost.
<v Speaker 3>And something that my therapist really helped was like, what
<v Speaker 3>identity are we working on now?
<v Speaker 2>And what is this going to look like?
<v Speaker 3>And something else that I tell people when we're talking
<v Speaker 3>about the loss of identity, I also talk to them about,
<v Speaker 3>here are some things that you shouldn't do in the
<v Speaker 3>next six months. We're not going to make any big changes.
<v Speaker 3>We're not going to do anything that's going to We're
<v Speaker 3>not going to move, we're not going to change jobs.
<v Speaker 2>I'm not going to do any of those things.
<v Speaker 3>Nope, We're going to try and keep everything as much
<v Speaker 3>the same so you can go through the process that
<v Speaker 3>you need to go through in order to get to
<v Speaker 3>the other side.
<v Speaker 4>Of this correct As PI, many people want to just
<v Speaker 4>up and move and up and run away or wait
<v Speaker 4>it out, just like when you sprain your ankle. I'm
<v Speaker 4>just going to wait it out. Then I'm gonna be
<v Speaker 4>away again. And no, sir, no you're not. You have
<v Speaker 4>to retrain your body to be something different post injury,
<v Speaker 4>because your body never unlearns an adaptation to pain, whether
<v Speaker 4>it's physical or mental. So once you sprain that ankle,
<v Speaker 4>your body remembers that ankle got sprained forever and what
<v Speaker 4>to do to compensate for it. You never unlearn that neuropathway,
<v Speaker 4>but you can train a new one. So when we
<v Speaker 4>face grief and loss, Hannah's statement is one thousand percent accurate.
<v Speaker 4>We will never be the same again. We have to
<v Speaker 4>close that chapter and build a new version. That's all
<v Speaker 4>there is. That's what recovery from grief is. And really
<v Speaker 4>I don't even like the word recovery. It's there is
<v Speaker 4>no recovery. There's recovery from bereavement, but grieving I saw.
<v Speaker 4>I can't remember whether it was Elizabeth Cooper Ross who
<v Speaker 4>wrote the Five Stages of Grief. I think it was
<v Speaker 4>her who someone had asked her, So, doctor, when is
<v Speaker 4>it that I get to be done grieving, and she
<v Speaker 4>wrote in her book. My response was, when do you
<v Speaker 4>plan on not living? Damn well end something like that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And I think what we see with him reading
<v Speaker 1>the book, which we haven't really even really talked that
<v Speaker 1>much about the actual story, that he reads a fantasy
<v Speaker 1>part of this movie. I think what we do see,
<v Speaker 1>building on what you're saying, Ben, is I think what
<v Speaker 1>we do see as he's reading this book is he
<v Speaker 1>is through the book figuring out how to be this
<v Speaker 1>different version of himself, the post my mom has gone
<v Speaker 1>version of himself.
<v Speaker 2>We dive into that though.
<v Speaker 1>Let's take a break here, and as always, if you
<v Speaker 1>are a listener at su part of the podcast, you
<v Speaker 1>can leave us a rating and review wherever you listen
<v Speaker 1>to podcasts.
<v Speaker 2>We really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 1>We read all of them and it's the best way
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<v Speaker 1>us via Patreon. If you're a Patreon member, you can
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<v Speaker 1>you are fifty dollars or more patron you can actually
<v Speaker 1>pick the topic of an episode itself.
<v Speaker 2>All right, So, yeah, we.
<v Speaker 4>Didn't we barely.
<v Speaker 2>It's crazy.
<v Speaker 1>We've barely touched upon the actual fantasy element of this
<v Speaker 1>book of this movie, which is that he reads a
<v Speaker 1>book about a kingdom named Fantasia where the world of
<v Speaker 1>Fantasia is being taken over by the Nothing, which is
<v Speaker 1>a metaphor.
<v Speaker 4>For depression of grief, Yes, and grief.
<v Speaker 1>And it's being taken over more than nothing. And how
<v Speaker 1>they're trying to save this world is they get a
<v Speaker 1>young warrior and Nay betray you, who's also a ten
<v Speaker 1>year old boy ish the same age it seems to
<v Speaker 1>be around the same age as Bastionian to go on
<v Speaker 1>this quest to find information, I think, figure out how
<v Speaker 1>to cure cure for the Empress, which is why I
<v Speaker 1>also thought did his mom have cancer Bastion because it
<v Speaker 1>felt like I was like, is there one to one?
<v Speaker 4>Seemed like that would have made sense.
<v Speaker 2>I think that would make more sense in a car accident.
<v Speaker 2>This idea that.
<v Speaker 1>This female figure is dying and that this young boy
<v Speaker 1>wants to figure out a way to save her and
<v Speaker 1>keep the bad thing, keep the nothing from taking over.
<v Speaker 1>Like it's a very obvious metaphor in a way that's
<v Speaker 1>good for kids, like kids watching this metaphor for kids. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's not trying to overcomplicate it.
<v Speaker 4>Even at the beginning, EVA clock this movie cute. She's
<v Speaker 4>so smart and scary, but sometimes she's a shit. But
<v Speaker 4>she's even right when she's being a shit. Is we
<v Speaker 4>were watching this and she's like, where's the mom?
<v Speaker 1>Mom's dead kid watching a Disney movie that was made?
<v Speaker 1>I don't know any I was going to say before
<v Speaker 1>the two thousand but not even dead parents are rife
<v Speaker 1>in Disney movies.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yes they are. Sorry I was we have been
<v Speaker 4>operating under an incorrect assumption. In the book, she dies
<v Speaker 4>from an unspecified illness. Oh okay, while in the hospital
<v Speaker 4>during surgery.
<v Speaker 2>That makes more sense.
<v Speaker 4>In the two thousand and one TV series Tales from
<v Speaker 4>the Never Ending Story, what I no idea.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I'm going to read this book.
<v Speaker 4>I've decided she is critically injured in a car accident.
<v Speaker 1>Oh that must be what why? That's what I found
<v Speaker 1>on the internet Cuz it does feel like it's more
<v Speaker 1>the position that he would also feel as a boy,
<v Speaker 1>as a kid, which is that I should be able
<v Speaker 1>to figure out a way to save my mom. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and that that is the most important mission. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>it's a direct metaphor, like if we can't figure out
<v Speaker 1>how to save this female, this queen, the most wonderful,
<v Speaker 1>powerful female in the world, then the world will be destroyed.
<v Speaker 1>Sadness will overtake it, and everything will be ruined, which
<v Speaker 1>is exactly what happens to this kid. Yeah, is his
<v Speaker 1>queen of his life dies, he can't save her, which
<v Speaker 1>also at his age, though he's old enough that I
<v Speaker 1>think he'd understand. I also don't really know how much
<v Speaker 1>kids what cancer was talked about, how I was thought
<v Speaker 1>about in the eighties. If that's what it is, you
<v Speaker 1>know what I mean, our mysterious illness, But also if
<v Speaker 1>he is a dad, that's this fucking shut down.
<v Speaker 4>Well, if it's mysterious illness, I would assume it would
<v Speaker 4>be something fast like mrsa Oh, or I mean maybe cancer,
<v Speaker 4>but she went in for surgery and then gone, So yeah,
<v Speaker 4>cancer is feasible. Why are you having surgery?
<v Speaker 1>But then yeah, but I guess the long on the
<v Speaker 1>short of his See, I could also see where this
<v Speaker 1>dad maybe uh biffed it in terms of explaining what
<v Speaker 1>happened or what was happening to the mom and where
<v Speaker 1>then a kid's mind can go.
<v Speaker 2>But also, like in the movie A.
<v Speaker 1>Monster Calls, which is also very excellent, but only watch
<v Speaker 1>it if you want to like hysterically sob for real,
<v Speaker 1>like hyperventilated sob like Hannah.
<v Speaker 2>And Rittine did when we saw it together, or were
<v Speaker 2>wet with our tears because it was so it's so beautiful,
<v Speaker 2>but it's really intense. It's really intense.
<v Speaker 1>I sobbed so hysterically, and the only thing keeping me
<v Speaker 1>in check was that it was just the two of us,
<v Speaker 1>me and Hannah and then a mom and daughter and
<v Speaker 1>the kid was probably like ten and under, and I
<v Speaker 1>was like, I can't scare this child's but like fully
<v Speaker 1>whale bobbing in this movie theater. Still it goes only
<v Speaker 1>think giving me together, but I think also the way
<v Speaker 1>that like kids can take on so much perceived responsibility
<v Speaker 1>for their worlds.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, it's certainly possible. Society as a whole totally
<v Speaker 4>biffed it. It happens, we see it. The movie If
<v Speaker 4>is literally a pretty much about that same thing. If
<v Speaker 4>you guys didn't see that, they don't really explain what's
<v Speaker 4>going on with Dad is played by John Krasinsky in
<v Speaker 4>that one. I mean it's still bearded John Krasinsky, So
<v Speaker 4>I'm sure, that's right in your wheelhouse. So, but the
<v Speaker 4>whole adventure of the Ifs is finding lost imaginary friends,
<v Speaker 4>which is very very similar to this movie, except they're
<v Speaker 4>connecting people adults usually who've lost connection to their imaginary friend.
<v Speaker 4>It's actually a beautiful film and it's very very much
<v Speaker 4>a retelling of this just different. Yeah, it's it's absolutely
<v Speaker 4>the same film, and I didn't realize it till right
<v Speaker 4>this second. There's only so many stories. Yeah, well, let's
<v Speaker 4>go on an adventure and a stranger comes to town, and
<v Speaker 4>this one's a stranger comes to town.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And I will also say with this part we're talking
<v Speaker 1>about and I don't want to steal this insight from you, Hannah,
<v Speaker 1>so you can take it from here. Is how Also
<v Speaker 1>this smacks of the bargaining phase of grief, like maybe
<v Speaker 1>I could it in something different, Maybe there was a
<v Speaker 1>world in which I could have found a cure this
<v Speaker 1>idea that the story is telling of, like there is
<v Speaker 1>a way to save what's happening. And then when we
<v Speaker 1>realize by the end of the story that there was
<v Speaker 1>never going to be a way to say Fantasia, like
<v Speaker 1>this is a story that's told in a cycle and
<v Speaker 1>that it was always going to end the way that
<v Speaker 1>it ended.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and so in terms of so, as I was
<v Speaker 3>watching the film, I started to notice that it seems
<v Speaker 3>like Bastian his name is so stupid, do you that's annoying.
<v Speaker 2>It's just a Bastian, like your favorite guy.
<v Speaker 3>But his name isn't just Bastin Bashi Anyway, it doesn't matter, wish.
<v Speaker 4>That's fair.
<v Speaker 2>That's very fucking true, very true. I would have hated that.
<v Speaker 2>Don't bring that up.
<v Speaker 3>So anyway, what I was noticing when I was watching
<v Speaker 3>the film is that it really seemed like Bashtin is
<v Speaker 3>going through the stages of grief in terms of reading
<v Speaker 3>the story, and we kind of see all of the
<v Speaker 3>different pieces and really, I would say more of just
<v Speaker 3>like the five stages. I know now I think there's
<v Speaker 3>seven or nine stages of grief or something.
<v Speaker 4>There's formally six, but people love to add on.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I looked it up a couple times and looked at
<v Speaker 3>it because I was talking to a client about the
<v Speaker 3>stages of grief. So kind of what we see in
<v Speaker 3>the film in terms of stages of grief, we see
<v Speaker 3>denial with his dad, we see him, we see the
<v Speaker 3>depression experience that he has we watch him again. Brittany
<v Speaker 3>pointed out the bargaining that happens, and then at the
<v Speaker 3>end some acceptance of just this is this is what
<v Speaker 3>your life is going to be like now, and what
<v Speaker 3>do you want to do with it?
<v Speaker 2>And how do you want to live it?
<v Speaker 4>And you can still find a little bit of luck. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>but you still see and you see the anger.
<v Speaker 2>Oh in anger. Yeah, I did forget anger.
<v Speaker 4>But you don't see anger until he encounters to trait you.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Anger comes across in two different metaphors. Which is one
<v Speaker 4>of the other female energies we see in the show
<v Speaker 4>is the turtle.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, morla, goddamn that turtle. That's some depression as well.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, that's full on don't give a fuck.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it doesn't matter. Is that what she kept saying? Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it doesn't matter. It's nihilism, It doesn't Yeah. Is that
<v Speaker 2>what she says?
<v Speaker 1>Not that she goes sayings, not that it matters, not
<v Speaker 1>that it matters. After every sentence she says.
<v Speaker 4>Do you know where to find the cure? I do,
<v Speaker 4>Not that it matters? Yeah, go away. Clearly that's a
<v Speaker 4>voice inside of him mm hmmm, and maybe a grandparent. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>that gave him the similar message to dad, I'm just
<v Speaker 4>go ahead and guess or a teacher mmmmm, but some
<v Speaker 4>other adult represented that voice that he internalized in that
<v Speaker 4>book and well.
<v Speaker 1>And also that Morla is also the loneliness too, like
<v Speaker 1>she talks about I've been I've been here for so
<v Speaker 1>long by myself that I use the Royal Wi to
<v Speaker 1>feel less alone.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, because that's how alone it can get.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and then.
<v Speaker 4>We see the anger from betray You at the horse.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, he does get mad at the horse.
<v Speaker 4>Which I found myself wondering if our text was dead.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, like you're just giving up, like can't you fight?
<v Speaker 1>And not just can't you fight?
<v Speaker 3>But I had to fight so I can save you.
<v Speaker 2>You have to try, you have to. I love you.
<v Speaker 2>Oh funny, so brutal. That kid is so good.
<v Speaker 1>In that scene. He is crying sobbing at that horse.
<v Speaker 1>It's like, I know, that's the famous scene that everyone's
<v Speaker 1>probably waiting for us to talk about with this movie
<v Speaker 1>because it ripped everyone's hearts out. Everyone's first trauma was
<v Speaker 1>this movie as kids.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, I think you're right.
<v Speaker 1>Is having someone that you're supposed to depend on you
<v Speaker 1>that you need that's supposed to be more powerful than
<v Speaker 1>you and get you from one place to another literally
<v Speaker 1>and metaphorically.
<v Speaker 4>Carry you on its back.
<v Speaker 2>Reliable. Yeah, yeah, I.
<v Speaker 4>Didn't realize it until we were talking about this movie.
<v Speaker 4>I thought of it a few minutes ago, Like, I
<v Speaker 4>bet our text is dead and that Dad used to
<v Speaker 4>be a stable source of energy, because I feel like
<v Speaker 4>we're sitting on dead probably unfairly because only see him
<v Speaker 4>for thirty seconds in one interaction.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he just makes such bad impression.
<v Speaker 4>I mean did as well.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, but he's probably grieving and.
<v Speaker 4>He's not I mean probably probably you've been like a
<v Speaker 4>signing this, like maybe to him, like maybe dad just sucks.
<v Speaker 2>No, I'd be like, yeah, he's grieving too.
<v Speaker 4>He's destroyed.
<v Speaker 1>He's trying to drink his you know, egg orange juice
<v Speaker 1>and it's not going to be enough.
<v Speaker 4>Not enough eggs in the world. But the image of
<v Speaker 4>losing that and just watching it sink into sadness slowly
<v Speaker 4>and there being nothing children do that. When I'm sad
<v Speaker 4>and my kid wants to play, it looks like that,
<v Speaker 4>I mean, not not ever that sad.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I know what you mean.
<v Speaker 4>When I'm not okay, and she wants to play. She's like, Daddy,
<v Speaker 4>why aren't you playing with me? They try to pull
<v Speaker 4>you out of it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Kids are vibe sensitive, of course they are. That's they
<v Speaker 1>have to be to survive.
<v Speaker 4>They depend on us, yeah, to carry them into the
<v Speaker 4>adventure in the universe. And it's not until some point
<v Speaker 4>life consumes us and we expire that they have to
<v Speaker 4>find their own way or they're old enough and ready. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>but that wasn't Bastian's story. No, he wasn't ready for that,
<v Speaker 4>and somebody already left and then Artech short after just succumbed.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it happens very early in a trey U's journey.
<v Speaker 1>I think I forget how early, which also tracks with
<v Speaker 1>the one to one we're comparing.
<v Speaker 4>Right, He's okay, we're gonna be okay, we're gonna go
<v Speaker 4>on this journey. I don't know what to do. I
<v Speaker 4>don't know where to go. We're getting a little lost here.
<v Speaker 4>And then the person he's going on that journey with
<v Speaker 4>relying on to carry him, it's gone.
<v Speaker 1>During like the first real trial, which sounds about right.
<v Speaker 1>And then he's trying to find like another quote unquote
<v Speaker 1>like adult with this giant turtle that's supposed to be
<v Speaker 1>all knowing, which I think also could be a good
<v Speaker 1>metaphor for how kids do need adults to be stable too.
<v Speaker 1>You know, like this person supposed to have all the
<v Speaker 1>answers and there's supposed to be a source of comfort
<v Speaker 1>and information and reassurance, and instead mor La just like
<v Speaker 1>just pulls this kid into what's going on with her.
<v Speaker 1>It's like pulling this kid into their nihilism.
<v Speaker 4>While also rejecting him.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and sneezing on him.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's a rejection, double rejection. Yeah, I hate that part.
<v Speaker 1>I hate that in like Jurassic Park, I hate any
<v Speaker 1>movie from that time period where a kid is getting
<v Speaker 1>sneezed on and gettings not all over them.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, it's pretty gross and visceral. But this was
<v Speaker 4>so different. Sounds a little funny. This not so much.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And the way this kid has to keep betray you,
<v Speaker 1>has to keep getting himself up, brushing himself off, climbing
<v Speaker 1>back up the tree. Like he's such a resilient kid,
<v Speaker 1>and he's such a determined kid, and he's a kid
<v Speaker 1>that really really kind of radically believes in himself and
<v Speaker 1>believes in the journey he's on and yeah, just keeps
<v Speaker 1>working and working and working at it.
<v Speaker 4>Which realizing the brilliance of this movie is hitting me
<v Speaker 4>now in ways it didn't before. I think the bookstore
<v Speaker 4>guy is the luck Dragon.
<v Speaker 3>Oh sure, yeah, I didn't mean that to sound shitty.
<v Speaker 4>No, I get it.
<v Speaker 3>Like when we were talking about luck Dragon, we were
<v Speaker 3>talking about how it's like the optimism. Yep, it's like
<v Speaker 3>all the optimism in the world that this and this
<v Speaker 3>dragon is just it's a lucky dragon, so lucky things happen.
<v Speaker 2>Like it's just so kind of almost yes, idealistic.
<v Speaker 1>Well, the belief like when he says, like, do you
<v Speaker 1>know where we're going or something like that, and he
<v Speaker 1>says it'll work out, Like just this belief that the
<v Speaker 1>luck dragon has that which a tray you does need
<v Speaker 1>at this point, because so much shit has happened to
<v Speaker 1>him and he's just come across all these.
<v Speaker 2>Authority figures that can't do anything.
<v Speaker 1>They keep letting him down, keep bumming him out, keep
<v Speaker 1>trying to pull him into this adult level nihilism and
<v Speaker 1>sadness and just giving up, you know, and so he
<v Speaker 1>really needed to find well, two things happen, right. He
<v Speaker 1>finds a luck dragon, which is idealism, the belief that
<v Speaker 1>things can work out, that good things can happen to you.
<v Speaker 1>And then also yeah, and then also he runs into
<v Speaker 1>this the scientist couple who take care of him. So
<v Speaker 1>these two things happen at once that he needs and
<v Speaker 1>that Sebastian needs. Sebastian needs Ambassian needs, which is hope
<v Speaker 1>and people and TLC. Yeah, to be taken care of,
<v Speaker 1>to have his wounds dressed, and to be fed, and
<v Speaker 1>to sleep and to rest and to feel safe and
<v Speaker 1>that that that is what carries a tray you to
<v Speaker 1>like the next stage of his journey. So I do
<v Speaker 1>like that, and it doesn't sell this unrealistic idea that
<v Speaker 1>a tray you had to just like keep standing out.
<v Speaker 1>I was on two feet all by himself the entire time.
<v Speaker 1>Like there is this moment in around the middle of
<v Speaker 1>the journey where he does need help and he actually
<v Speaker 1>gets help from others, from other authority figures, which is
<v Speaker 1>what we want Bashen to have, right, He needs someone
<v Speaker 1>to come into his life, which I guess this bookseller
<v Speaker 1>is to create a different story.
<v Speaker 4>Yep. Yeah, And before we start talking about that any further,
<v Speaker 4>hannahs there anything more we want to cover on the
<v Speaker 4>stages of grief.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think so.
<v Speaker 3>I feel like I feel like it was just really
<v Speaker 3>interesting to view the film that way. So maybe, as
<v Speaker 3>you know, our listeners, if you watch the film, really
<v Speaker 3>think about the different stages of grief and see if
<v Speaker 3>you can kind of pick it out, because it's pretty clear,
<v Speaker 3>Like it's pretty like we've talked about, it's a pretty
<v Speaker 3>simple story in a lot of different ways, and so
<v Speaker 3>and just knowing that you know. Something else I'd just
<v Speaker 3>like to let people know about stages of grief is
<v Speaker 3>that it does not go in order, babe.
<v Speaker 4>It goes.
<v Speaker 3>You go back and forth between all the different stages
<v Speaker 3>at different times. It does not go one, two, three, four, five, six.
<v Speaker 3>That is not how it is.
<v Speaker 4>Literally says that in the first chapter of that book,
<v Speaker 4>this was not meant to represent a linear process. It
<v Speaker 4>is not.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, our like western way of thinking has made it
<v Speaker 1>into a linear process.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, right, But Elizabeth Coogler Ross right in the beginning
<v Speaker 4>of her book says what Hannah just said, not linear. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>it is not meant to illustrate that you go from
<v Speaker 4>one to the next. You will move in and out
<v Speaker 4>of them. And one of the things that I've particularly
<v Speaker 4>seen with it is that through my frame of reference
<v Speaker 4>looking at it at the adaptive information processing from AMDR,
<v Speaker 4>is that each time you encounter a familiar stimuli, something
<v Speaker 4>that should be simular, I look at it is each
<v Speaker 4>time you dig up a new box yeah, full of
<v Speaker 4>information affecting the database you have in your head to
<v Speaker 4>still match, and it doesn't. So you have to reprocess it,
<v Speaker 4>and you're going to have the feelings. And you might
<v Speaker 4>work through all the stages again really quick, or move
<v Speaker 4>through any particularly on You might have been fine and
<v Speaker 4>then you hear a song that reminds you that somebody died,
<v Speaker 4>and now you're mad as hell because you were supposed
<v Speaker 4>to be fine today. Fuck or you get wrecked, just tears.
<v Speaker 3>I burst into tears at a grocery store because the
<v Speaker 3>old woman behind the the cashier person was just really
<v Speaker 3>sweet to me, and she kind of looked like my grandma,
<v Speaker 3>and she kind of reminded me of her a little bit,
<v Speaker 3>and I just burst into tears in the grocery line,
<v Speaker 3>like it was just it just happened, right, you know,
<v Speaker 3>it doesn't again, it doesn't. There's not a flag that
<v Speaker 3>goes up or a signal that goes off. That's like
<v Speaker 3>you are now and this stage of grief. That is
<v Speaker 3>not how it works.
<v Speaker 4>Nope. You perceive all information you've ever taken in with
<v Speaker 4>your senses, and then you encode it for relevance with
<v Speaker 4>your emotions, whatever ones you need to feel. That's what's
<v Speaker 4>going to happen, and that might come with tears because
<v Speaker 4>Grandma's energy is represented by this clerk and you realize
<v Speaker 4>I didn't realize I missed that until right now, and
<v Speaker 4>I hadn't thought about that particular aspect of it, but
<v Speaker 4>now I have to because I felt it. And yep,
<v Speaker 4>I'd say.
<v Speaker 1>The one last thing I want to say about the
<v Speaker 1>stages of grief is I do really applaud how this
<v Speaker 1>movie demonstrates what acceptance actually feels like. It's not this
<v Speaker 1>shiny version of acceptance. It's not like acceptance is like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>now we're fine. It's more, I think how the show
<v Speaker 1>in the movie is more when we think of things
<v Speaker 1>like radical acceptance, which is I have to accept what
<v Speaker 1>can longer be changed and try to figure out what
<v Speaker 1>I do have control over still so and that's how
<v Speaker 1>they show at the beginning of this movie, like she
<v Speaker 1>says to him, Fantasia is gone, you know, like we're
<v Speaker 1>not going back to that way of it is, but
<v Speaker 1>you can start to create a new form of your life,
<v Speaker 1>kind of what you were saying before Ben about like
<v Speaker 1>you have to let go of like your body operating
<v Speaker 1>this way it did before. I think with this is
<v Speaker 1>I think when I was a kid, I didn't appreciate.
<v Speaker 1>I think the ending used to kind of I don't
<v Speaker 1>know if it used to like kind of confuse me
<v Speaker 1>as a kid because it doesn't have like the happy ending.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, like the him flying out luck dragon kind of.
<v Speaker 4>Does and he's running the bullies do.
<v Speaker 1>But I do think when I was a kid though,
<v Speaker 1>watching it, the ending did kind of make my brain
<v Speaker 1>sort of like like does not compute because that's not how.
<v Speaker 2>The story's supposed to be, right.
<v Speaker 1>He's supposed to figure out the cure in the nick
<v Speaker 1>of time and then Fintasia lives again or everything goes
<v Speaker 1>back to normal.
<v Speaker 4>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>So I really do appreciate how this is more of
<v Speaker 1>what acceptance does look like, and that life can still
<v Speaker 1>be good. It will have to be a different kind
<v Speaker 1>of good, though, and it won't be the same as
<v Speaker 1>it was before Yeah, yep, And we can't create this
<v Speaker 1>new life until we let go of the old one.
<v Speaker 1>And so it is a really cool message that does
<v Speaker 1>require a level of like sophistication that it's I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>I really respect when kids' movies don't try to dumb
<v Speaker 1>down these more sophisticated ideas.
<v Speaker 4>I agree, because they do sit with it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and she doesn't let him like run from it either.
<v Speaker 1>Like that whole ending scene is so kind of like slow, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and quiet and not like exciting or you know, or
<v Speaker 1>flashy or like hella climactic even it's just he's sitting
<v Speaker 1>with her in the dark pretty much and they're just
<v Speaker 1>talking like this very aarsmr voice, and it's very poignant
<v Speaker 1>and quiet and very different than kids' movies typically are.
<v Speaker 4>It certainly does, all right, So let's take a break here.
<v Speaker 4>So back from break here, our last section we're gonna
<v Speaker 4>talk about before we talk about treatment and final thoughts
<v Speaker 4>is looking at experiential and expressive healing that needs to
<v Speaker 4>happen for grief. And Brittany were just talking about how
<v Speaker 4>much you love when kid movies don't shy away from
<v Speaker 4>the adult topics and kind of let there be an
<v Speaker 4>actual lesson and meaning from the story, which how German
<v Speaker 4>of this story.
<v Speaker 2>It's very German. Kids. You want to feel death. One day,
<v Speaker 2>it will come at your door.
<v Speaker 4>And you must deal with it. I have German heritage,
<v Speaker 4>so I'll forgive you.
<v Speaker 1>Like me when I do a French accent, and I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>I could do it because I'm French.
<v Speaker 4>Right, never mind, I'm sure Germans would disagree with us.
<v Speaker 4>Is where America? See? Are Americans? Okay?
<v Speaker 2>Accent?
<v Speaker 4>Donald say hello? As many as accents as I want.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they're all terrible, that's clear.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, But I mean somebody did tell me they didn't
<v Speaker 4>want me to talk about Batman anymore. So what they
<v Speaker 4>forgot to include was the monkey's pad that it could
<v Speaker 4>become accents. If I don't talk about Batman.
<v Speaker 3>And talk about Batman, then do weird accents.
<v Speaker 4>I'm sure my kid yells at me every time, Daddy,
<v Speaker 4>use your normal voice, because I'll put accents on for books,
<v Speaker 4>and he's like daddy.
<v Speaker 3>Bit more when your kid doesn't like it, But.
<v Speaker 4>She's also like her mohamma and like will troll anything
<v Speaker 4>that I do.
<v Speaker 2>You know, just this is my life.
<v Speaker 4>I need it. It's okay, I can take it, but
<v Speaker 4>AnyWho brain adventure aside. Something I also like is when
<v Speaker 4>you see adult movies do the inverse or shows. And
<v Speaker 4>one of the best examples I ever found to kind
<v Speaker 4>of provide a mirror to what Brittany was talking about
<v Speaker 4>was Scrubs. There's a really powerful episode of Scrubs where
<v Speaker 4>doctor Cox, who's a giant asshole all the time except
<v Speaker 4>to his kid, and this sweet little boy is looking
<v Speaker 4>at him and Daddy, what'd you do today? Tell me
<v Speaker 4>a bedtime story? And so you see doctor Cox, this
<v Speaker 4>gruff but also very very talented carrying doctor just keeps
<v Speaker 4>a gruff, shitty exterior, is kind of a bully but
<v Speaker 4>does it hilariously, which makes it okay in the nineties
<v Speaker 4>right or early two thousands. But what he tells is
<v Speaker 4>a night story, kind of like a fantasy story of
<v Speaker 4>how they were racing to fight against a dragon. And
<v Speaker 4>all throughout the episode there's this parallel of a patient
<v Speaker 4>who's dying and they can't really figure out why, and
<v Speaker 4>all throughout the episode you see these students sitting in
<v Speaker 4>the breakroom studying for their medical exams, and they're looking
<v Speaker 4>at weird diseases that doctor Cox in particularly usually quizzes
<v Speaker 4>them on because sometimes they come through the hospital and
<v Speaker 4>he's telling his kid the story about this golden ring,
<v Speaker 4>because what turns out to be the disease Q is
<v Speaker 4>that this patient has like a brass ring around her iris.
<v Speaker 4>And as he's telling the story to his kid, he's
<v Speaker 4>like working through this and you realize at the end
<v Speaker 4>of this story that she didn't make it. They didn't
<v Speaker 4>figure it out in time. And the kid asked in
<v Speaker 4>the story, Daddy, did they save the dragon or they
<v Speaker 4>save the princess from the dragon, And you see doctor
<v Speaker 4>Cox like swallow and get sad, and just like we'll
<v Speaker 4>say yes in this story, you see him working through it.
<v Speaker 4>And they don't let you off the hook, but they
<v Speaker 4>see him working through it and realizing there's another story
<v Speaker 4>to tell next time by learning that this time, next time,
<v Speaker 4>I can save that patient. And sometimes when we have
<v Speaker 4>this grief, these losses, one of the things we need
<v Speaker 4>is to work through that sadness, to feel that hurt
<v Speaker 4>and assign the meaning to it. And it sucks so
<v Speaker 4>bad and you want nothing more than to avoid it
<v Speaker 4>and get that happy ending where you win every time,
<v Speaker 4>But that is not life. We do not stop death ever,
<v Speaker 4>So sometimes we can delay it, but you'll never stop it.
<v Speaker 4>They tell us in grad school one thing that everybody
<v Speaker 4>floor drops out from under you. Right, What's that thing?
<v Speaker 4>Every therapist hears it day one of grad school.
<v Speaker 2>What they tell you, guys, one of your clients is
<v Speaker 2>going to die by suicide.
<v Speaker 4>One of your clients is gonna die by suicide. It's
<v Speaker 4>going to happen. You will not see it coming. You
<v Speaker 4>will not know, or you'll make a mistake. And ironically enough,
<v Speaker 4>it's doctor Cox and Scrubs that tells the doctors. And
<v Speaker 4>I think in that episode, you will kill a patient.
<v Speaker 4>Every single one of you will kill a patient. It
<v Speaker 4>will be your fault. And in this time it was him.
<v Speaker 4>He didn't catch it. The answer had been in front
<v Speaker 4>of him the whole episode, and it didn't click in
<v Speaker 4>his head until he was playing that back. But when
<v Speaker 4>he told his kid the story, he signed a different
<v Speaker 4>ending to it. Being able to process the meaning of
<v Speaker 4>our grief and our loss is huge because the lessons
<v Speaker 4>we take from it allow us to keep going with
<v Speaker 4>that pain without trying to change it by assigning some
<v Speaker 4>meaning to it to go forward with it. Today, I
<v Speaker 4>was talking to someone who lost a family member to suicide,
<v Speaker 4>and talking to that person was reminding that remember, Mother's
<v Speaker 4>against Drunk Driving really powerful lobby. Why does it exist?
<v Speaker 4>Eyes got wirde of like, oh shit. This person was
<v Speaker 4>had been working on songs, music, writing their own music
<v Speaker 4>to deal with their grief. This client of mine that
<v Speaker 4>I saw today, britt, he's looking at me like not following.
<v Speaker 4>It's okay, right, But Mother's against Drunk Driving exists because
<v Speaker 4>somebody lost their child to a junk driver.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 4>This person's writing songs to express their grief. They couldn't
<v Speaker 4>do it in other ways, but songs to work through
<v Speaker 4>it has been extraordinarily helpful. One of the things we
<v Speaker 4>have to realize with these experiential expressive moments and experiences
<v Speaker 4>like Bashian having to name the Empress. That's the only
<v Speaker 4>thing that can save Fantasia. That's the only thing that
<v Speaker 4>can rebuild the world when the nothing destroys it. Nothing
<v Speaker 4>can stop the nothing except embracing it and rebuilding and
<v Speaker 4>not letting it take the last spark. That's the thing,
<v Speaker 4>that's the only thing. And by expressing, sitting in the grief,
<v Speaker 4>experiencing it, and then expressing the feelings that need to
<v Speaker 4>be expressed. Facing the hardest part, the worst thing. It
<v Speaker 4>take you, but not all of you. That is where
<v Speaker 4>recovery begins.
<v Speaker 1>And I also think with Fashion and how I see
<v Speaker 1>in this movie too, is having to find again what like,
<v Speaker 1>like you're saying, the spark of his own imagination and
<v Speaker 1>creativity and like his fantasia his world internally, and how
<v Speaker 1>like he says at the end when he's really resistant
<v Speaker 1>to that idea, I have to keep my feet on
<v Speaker 1>the ground, which is him repeating what his dad literally
<v Speaker 1>said in the beginning of the movie, And how these
<v Speaker 1>more creative ways to express and work through your grief
<v Speaker 1>can also help you connect to yourself again, like connecting
<v Speaker 1>to the things that we find pleasurable and joyful, like music,
<v Speaker 1>like books, like drawing, writing, that it's also a way
<v Speaker 1>to to find that spark again and to accept yourself
<v Speaker 1>to like. Part of what I think is beautiful about
<v Speaker 1>what we see in the movie is that it's giving
<v Speaker 1>It's not just giving Fashion permission to be his more
<v Speaker 1>authentic self, it's it's actively like encouraging him, like you
<v Speaker 1>have to go deeper into your authentic self and realize
<v Speaker 1>that's good enough. That is better than good enough to
<v Speaker 1>really feel this and get to not get to the
<v Speaker 1>other side of it, but to start, you know, like
<v Speaker 1>we're like, I know, we're trying to stay with the
<v Speaker 1>word recovery, but to start like growing and moving with
<v Speaker 1>this and yeah, and I just think that part is
<v Speaker 1>really beautiful. And it also can help too when like
<v Speaker 1>people have a hard time feeling their feelings, you using
<v Speaker 1>something more expressed and creative can be a way to
<v Speaker 1>connect to your feelings where you don't have to like
<v Speaker 1>talk about them necessarily, which I think can also be
<v Speaker 1>really helpful for well fully helpful for kids, but anyone
<v Speaker 1>of any ages. I used to work with teenagers where
<v Speaker 1>we used to have them bring in songs that they loved,
<v Speaker 1>like lyrics that they felt really spoke to them about
<v Speaker 1>their emotions and experiences. And it's amazing how vulnerable those
<v Speaker 1>exercises can be, especially with like when I used to
<v Speaker 1>work with a lot of like teenagers that have gone
<v Speaker 1>through a lot of trauma and they're pretty like have
<v Speaker 1>a lot of guardedness around them. It was always so
<v Speaker 1>interesting how vulnerable the songs would be that those kids
<v Speaker 1>would bring into the program I worked at, and they
<v Speaker 1>could communicate through those endeavors, but they couldn't find like
<v Speaker 1>the words themselves. And yet it helps you reconnect with
<v Speaker 1>like the vulnerable parts of you yourself and reframe those
<v Speaker 1>vulnerable pieces as a strength, because that's what once again,
<v Speaker 1>just like talking about the versus the scene of the movie,
<v Speaker 1>that's also what's hard is that these parts of Sebastian
<v Speaker 1>I keep saying about him, these parts of Bastian are
<v Speaker 1>being talked about by his dad, but a lot of
<v Speaker 1>grown ups, especially in the eighties and these older movies,
<v Speaker 1>to talk like this, that that kind of like whimsical
<v Speaker 1>childlike vulnerable, emotional, creative part of him is immature, silly,
<v Speaker 1>not gonna be helpful in these moments, like trying to
<v Speaker 1>like squish it in that very way that like adults
<v Speaker 1>can be. And I think in all our cult our
<v Speaker 1>culture can be like hyper pragmatic. This very like pragmatism
<v Speaker 1>is king kind of mentality we can have, and how
<v Speaker 1>it's reflected in this movie and how the actual message
<v Speaker 1>of this movie is like and which I try to
<v Speaker 1>tell clients all the time. I feel like I'm constantly
<v Speaker 1>trying to help people unlearn learn that idea that like
<v Speaker 1>it's better to be logical and rational, and emotions are
<v Speaker 1>for silly, immature gooses, you know, and people who are
<v Speaker 1>out of control. And so I like that this movie
<v Speaker 1>is a way to show that, like you, who have
<v Speaker 1>to go into your emotions and being so pragmatic is
<v Speaker 1>actually like going in the wrong direction.
<v Speaker 4>It's immensely the wrong direction, and we see it over
<v Speaker 4>and over again in clients and people. It's not until
<v Speaker 4>they find something that connects them to both sides. They
<v Speaker 4>must both deal with the gomork and embrace the luck dragon.
<v Speaker 4>Because the thing that is pursuing you relentlessly is assisting
<v Speaker 4>the nothing. That's all it does. It's only purpose is
<v Speaker 4>to pursue you and draw you deeper into the nothing
<v Speaker 4>to assist it in destroying everything. And it's trying to
<v Speaker 4>destroy you. That's what the depression does. That self hate
<v Speaker 4>of your failure tries to pull you into your own darkness,
<v Speaker 4>so you destroy everything and give up, but expressing it, embracing,
<v Speaker 4>letting it out instead of letting it pursue you and
<v Speaker 4>keeping it inside so you can be logical and smart
<v Speaker 4>and just just do the normal things. It's illogical to
<v Speaker 4>be sad and to be whimsical and to imagine. But
<v Speaker 4>when's the last time you put on a logical song
<v Speaker 4>when you were sad?
<v Speaker 2>I know that's right, I know that's fucking right. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>The reasons why so many people and old generations get
<v Speaker 1>shitfaced and then finally talk about their feelings is because
<v Speaker 1>they need to talk about their feelings, and that's the
<v Speaker 1>only way we have been allowed to talk about our feelings.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. But anyway, Hannah author it to you.
<v Speaker 3>So as I'm listening to both of you talk about
<v Speaker 3>the different ways that you do this with clients, I
<v Speaker 3>was thinking about how when I work with people and
<v Speaker 3>we talk about grief, I talk about rituals, which I
<v Speaker 3>feel like is very similar to this in terms of
<v Speaker 3>having a ritual like on the anniversary, or like just
<v Speaker 3>having a ritual for yourself on any day, in terms
<v Speaker 3>of allowing space for the grief, doing something that honors
<v Speaker 3>that grief, and then doing something that helps you feel
<v Speaker 3>a little bit more like yourself. And that's a big
<v Speaker 3>part of when I'm thinking about how I do it.
<v Speaker 3>That's kind of what I'm doing. I would say, it's
<v Speaker 3>like I'm using rituals and helping people figure out a
<v Speaker 3>different way to kind of honor, to honor their grief
<v Speaker 3>and the love that they felt for this person and
<v Speaker 3>for them to be able to really feel that and
<v Speaker 3>really and you do really have to feel it, Like
<v Speaker 3>I know it's really hard and it's kind of awful,
<v Speaker 3>but we really do have to feel it.
<v Speaker 2>The only way is through is through.
<v Speaker 1>And I and I really love what you said about
<v Speaker 1>the honoring part too, because like so much of the grief,
<v Speaker 1>so much of grief is love, right yeah, WandaVision, What
<v Speaker 1>is grief if not love persevering or whatever enduring enduring,
<v Speaker 1>which is also what we see in this which is
<v Speaker 1>him honoring his mom by recognizing her name, like by
<v Speaker 1>just by going into it, and how much resistance we
<v Speaker 1>see to him just even well because of what we've
<v Speaker 1>seen in the very game movie, like that he is
<v Speaker 1>now being taken care of by one person who is
<v Speaker 1>trying to just like head down, get back to business,
<v Speaker 1>almost like your mom never existed kind of, And what
<v Speaker 1>he's been asked to do in this story is that
<v Speaker 1>you know, your mom was like a beautiful, important person,
<v Speaker 1>Like when he says, I'm like, I kind of want
<v Speaker 1>to cry so like when he says, like she had
<v Speaker 1>such a wonderful name. Like it's him like finally having
<v Speaker 1>a space to really think about his mom and to
<v Speaker 1>honor how like precious she was to him, and that
<v Speaker 1>how much he loved her.
<v Speaker 2>And I am crying right now as les we.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, that it allows, like you're saying, it allows
<v Speaker 1>space to feel not necessarily grief, but feel love. Like
<v Speaker 1>I think even Andrew Garfield that the actor was on
<v Speaker 1>he lost his mom not too long ago, and he
<v Speaker 1>was on the Stephen Colbert Show, the Late Show, and
<v Speaker 1>he loves to talk about Colbert, and he talks about
<v Speaker 1>how I just think about my grief is like the
<v Speaker 1>love I have left over then I'll never get to
<v Speaker 1>show her, And like that is what this is too.
<v Speaker 2>It's like we don't the way that we view, as we've.
<v Speaker 1>Talked about before in this podcast, especially in the Midwest,
<v Speaker 1>as like any unpleasant feelings or bad feelings we shouldn't
<v Speaker 1>be having and we should try with all of our
<v Speaker 1>might to ignore them or shut them down or put
<v Speaker 1>them in a box. And how like what it does
<v Speaker 1>is such a disservice to moments like this where grief
<v Speaker 1>is love. Because what I tell clients is if you
<v Speaker 1>didn't grief for them. That means they weren't that important
<v Speaker 1>to you. And so this grief that you feel is
<v Speaker 1>like the cost of admission for loving someone, for someone
<v Speaker 1>being important to you, Like I talked to a client
<v Speaker 1>about that earlier today, and so like I think that's
<v Speaker 1>what's beautiful, Like this story allows him to express not
<v Speaker 1>just talking about his mom, but also how fucking important
<v Speaker 1>she is and was to him that like she is
<v Speaker 1>the lunchpin of this story.
<v Speaker 2>Infantation needs her name to survive.
<v Speaker 4>Corecked managed to wreck each one of us has managed
<v Speaker 4>to wreck ourselves today. Good means we're on the right
<v Speaker 4>path because we're doing the thing we're saying you have
<v Speaker 4>to do. You have to embrace. It's the things that
<v Speaker 4>mean the most to you, the things that give you meaning.
<v Speaker 4>You got to keep those, even that last grain.
<v Speaker 1>And I will also say something I wanted to highlight
<v Speaker 1>in thinking of this story as a way for him
<v Speaker 1>to work through this stuff, is those also the point
<v Speaker 1>in the story with a tray you and going through
<v Speaker 1>the oracle where he has to feel his own worth.
<v Speaker 1>And I wrote down the line where that scientistic guy says,
<v Speaker 1>like fancy armor won't help, which I do think is
<v Speaker 1>a commentary on what we've been talking about with like
<v Speaker 1>the hyper pragmatism and stuff of like this idea of
<v Speaker 1>just being like big and tough and I'm feeling doesn't
<v Speaker 1>save you. What does save you is being your authentic
<v Speaker 1>self and trusting that you're good enough and that you
<v Speaker 1>aren't wrong for having your instincts and your emotions.
<v Speaker 2>And that's really what a tray you helps bash and
<v Speaker 2>figure out.
<v Speaker 1>Like that's really where his end of the story is too,
<v Speaker 1>is he has to trust himself and that it is
<v Speaker 1>that he is right to feel his feelings and that
<v Speaker 1>his dad isn't necessarily right nope to tell him to
<v Speaker 1>put his feet on the ground, and like that is
<v Speaker 1>his trial as well as I have to believe in myself.
<v Speaker 1>And going back to like the identity part that we
<v Speaker 1>talked about earlier in the episode, Like that's so important
<v Speaker 1>for any kid's growth. But I think a kid like
<v Speaker 1>this whose world gets destroyed as they know it by
<v Speaker 1>the loss of a parent is finding your feet under
<v Speaker 1>you too, But not in this like stoic, toxic way, No,
<v Speaker 1>in this more like I I can embrace I can
<v Speaker 1>trust myself, and I can trust that my instincts are good,
<v Speaker 1>and that my feelings are good, and that they come
<v Speaker 1>from a understandable and reliable place within me.
<v Speaker 4>Which is said brilliantly right there. The last thing I
<v Speaker 4>want to tag onto that is the very end of that.
<v Speaker 4>Each moment in this story builds upon itself. It's brilliant
<v Speaker 4>that moment of dealing with the Oracle. The Oracle can
<v Speaker 4>only hold itself together for so long, but it's crumbling,
<v Speaker 4>but it's defenses are still active. But once he gots
<v Speaker 4>through them. The last thing that a tray you has
<v Speaker 4>to get to happen is that that part Bashian created
<v Speaker 4>to be a tray you. He creates a tray you
<v Speaker 4>in the image of something it means some to him.
<v Speaker 4>That Native American warrior on his book, his book bag Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>is how he forms betray You's look.
<v Speaker 2>Which is so eighties.
<v Speaker 1>So eighties, that's what Hannah said, we're watching it. She
<v Speaker 1>was like the fact that we just had like these
<v Speaker 1>stereotype imagery of like indigenous people on all of our
<v Speaker 1>regular stuff. Right, yeah, it's giving Indian in the cupboard.
<v Speaker 4>Well it's thirty year cycles, so that would have been
<v Speaker 4>the fifties, so it makes sense. But where it all
<v Speaker 4>ties together. From your point, right, is the thing that
<v Speaker 4>has to happen is that Bastian has to admit that
<v Speaker 4>he's in the story, the stories about him. He's not
<v Speaker 4>a passive observer to all the emotional activation that's happening.
<v Speaker 4>He fed himself with sandwiches his dad maiden.
<v Speaker 1>I think he made those because they were like that
<v Speaker 1>loaf of bread was next to him on the table.
<v Speaker 2>I clocked that.
<v Speaker 4>Maybe maybe right, okay, but his dad bought for him.
<v Speaker 2>Sure, wonderful.
<v Speaker 4>And then he made himself Yeah wonder Bretter from the
<v Speaker 4>eighties with Gooper Gray. But he had to admit he's
<v Speaker 4>in the story. He is the story. That expressive connection
<v Speaker 4>to the media can't happen until you realize all stories
<v Speaker 4>are about me, and I'm just connecting to something without
<v Speaker 4>my armor in the way. And I won't get the
<v Speaker 4>meaning of the story until I lower my armor, feel
<v Speaker 4>my own worth and realize I and what this story
<v Speaker 4>is about. It's my story told a different way. That's
<v Speaker 4>why it matters. That's why I have to name the
<v Speaker 4>Empress a tray. You can't do it for Bastian. Bastian
<v Speaker 4>has to do it for a tray.
<v Speaker 1>You Yeah, kind of like in therapy where at a
<v Speaker 1>certain point the client has to start answering and ask
<v Speaker 1>asking and answering the questions instead of us supplying answers.
<v Speaker 4>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>And it's like how And I know this has happened
<v Speaker 1>to me today because believe it or not, I kind
<v Speaker 1>of have like a smart ass version of being a therapist.
<v Speaker 1>And I had this client that was like, I fucking
<v Speaker 1>know what you're gonna say. I know what you're gonna
<v Speaker 1>say to one of us, start now. And then I said, well,
<v Speaker 1>what do you think I'm going to say? And then
<v Speaker 1>they have to say it themselves, which is harder than
<v Speaker 1>you know, hearing me say it and then being like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>well you know, and yeah, sidebar, do you think that
<v Speaker 1>Ryan Johnson stole that scene for Star Wars Last SHEDI
<v Speaker 1>where she is to look into her Ray has to
<v Speaker 1>look at herself in that sort of mirrory thing in
<v Speaker 1>the cave ish thing that whole on the island. I
<v Speaker 1>always think of that when I saw that scene, the
<v Speaker 1>first one was like, this is like not running.
<v Speaker 4>Story and it's like Harry Potter and it's like eight
<v Speaker 4>thousand other things that's true.
<v Speaker 2>Looking in a mirror also true.
<v Speaker 4>So did he steal it? Or is it a common trope?
<v Speaker 2>True? Fair right here and will be right back.
<v Speaker 1>So I think the only thing treatment wise I would
<v Speaker 1>add to the idea if you're actually going to do
<v Speaker 1>this with a client other than the examples we gave, Like,
<v Speaker 1>bibliotherapy is the name for this type of therapy where
<v Speaker 1>you have someone read something that is similar to their
<v Speaker 1>story and when you're doing like that version of it.
<v Speaker 1>The way we see in the movie is it allows
<v Speaker 1>for the person reading it to have a bit of
<v Speaker 1>removal kind of like what we were just talking about
<v Speaker 1>that if it's too hard to talk about the grief
<v Speaker 1>specifically head on, then reading a story of it allows you.
<v Speaker 1>It just allows like an arm's length of removal from it.
<v Speaker 1>And the way that like I'm sure you guys do
<v Speaker 1>this too, and I'm sure people do this in their
<v Speaker 1>personal life as well, Like what would you tell a
<v Speaker 1>friend if they told you that story?
<v Speaker 2>You know that when we have removal from something too
<v Speaker 2>long ago.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, when we have removal from something, it allows us
<v Speaker 1>to have like a clear perspective, but also to feel
<v Speaker 1>less intimidated and less resistant to the messaging that some
<v Speaker 1>part of our brain is like I can't handle that yet.
<v Speaker 1>And so a lot of times, especially with kids, you
<v Speaker 1>can ease them into an idea with something like reading
<v Speaker 1>a book. But even adults too, like a lot of
<v Speaker 1>adults that read, like that's the power of stories is
<v Speaker 1>that we see ourselves in them, and then that gives
<v Speaker 1>us inspiration. And so I think what I love about
<v Speaker 1>this version of bibliotherapy is it's like, if you think
<v Speaker 1>about with this book, is that it allows a narrative
<v Speaker 1>that is touching upon all the feelings and giving them
<v Speaker 1>names and ideas. And this is something where if I
<v Speaker 1>was doing, if I was working with bashion and we
<v Speaker 1>were looking at this, we were reading this book together,
<v Speaker 1>maybe we would talk about the nothing. Maybe that's the
<v Speaker 1>way that we would talk about the sadness and depression.
<v Speaker 1>Those words might be a little too especially in the eighties,
<v Speaker 1>a little too flibberty gibber you know what I mean,
<v Speaker 1>Like like they don't like we're still yeah, we're still
<v Speaker 1>in the very early stages of like mental health being
<v Speaker 1>mental health being something that's talked about in like layman conversations.
<v Speaker 1>And so I think then, but even with kids in general, though,
<v Speaker 1>using these terms that they understand so like the nothing
<v Speaker 1>is such like a visceral idea that I think a
<v Speaker 1>kid could wrap their head around versus talking about depression
<v Speaker 1>existential is of grief.
<v Speaker 2>Like all these high.
<v Speaker 1>Falutin ideas right, too much for kids abstract, and so
<v Speaker 1>the nothing and these ideas make it more specific and
<v Speaker 1>concrete and visceral. A kid can grab onto these ideas
<v Speaker 1>and so it can get give you a language like
<v Speaker 1>doing something to bibilio with therapy can also give you
<v Speaker 1>a language with your client that can feel less confrontational
<v Speaker 1>or less clinical than using the more psychological terms.
<v Speaker 4>Right, you can walk them through, yeah, archetypes and existentialism,
<v Speaker 4>But if their armor isn't ready to be in the
<v Speaker 4>experience yet, it's our job as therapists to get them
<v Speaker 4>through their journey, to lower their defenses enough to realize
<v Speaker 4>that the speech with Joker in the dark Knight comes true.
<v Speaker 4>Nothing to do with all that string.
<v Speaker 2>Or your clients. Eight. Like when I used to up
<v Speaker 2>a little little kid.
<v Speaker 1>Like Bruce Wayne, I fucking wish and then I would
<v Speaker 1>stop as Batman shit before it ever started.
<v Speaker 2>I know that's right?
<v Speaker 4>Like, are you saying this is the never ending story.
<v Speaker 1>We're dressing up, like that's babe, what's happening here? He
<v Speaker 1>needs like motherfucker, but all I see his bats. But
<v Speaker 1>with something when you work with kids, though, like so
<v Speaker 1>much of that too is you're trying to find a
<v Speaker 1>shared language that they understand, and so using things like
<v Speaker 1>stories with little kids is such a great way to
<v Speaker 1>almost create like a glossary of words for things. Because
<v Speaker 1>I've like when you work with little kids, like I
<v Speaker 1>remember I had this little girl I worked with Instead
<v Speaker 1>of saying eye contact, she would say looking contact, Like
<v Speaker 1>you really have to learn how to speak their language,
<v Speaker 1>and things like stories and books can be such a
<v Speaker 1>great way to speak their language and also to help
<v Speaker 1>like teach these ideas and teach like empathy and like
<v Speaker 1>open kids' minds to ideas because the world is still
<v Speaker 1>so new to them and so with so with Bashan
<v Speaker 1>even like reading this book, maybe it's the first time
<v Speaker 1>he's seen something like his experience anywhere else, And so
<v Speaker 1>it can also give you that universality component that like
<v Speaker 1>group therapy can give or peer therapy he can give.
<v Speaker 4>Mm h.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, so I think that it's something that we
<v Speaker 1>can definitely always use more of, and we don't need
<v Speaker 1>to shy away from, Like when I talk about movies
<v Speaker 1>with clients and talk about TV shows, like the amount
<v Speaker 1>of times like that stuff comes up. And if you're
<v Speaker 1>watching us talk, you might think we're just like shooting
<v Speaker 1>the shit, but really you can really use those things
<v Speaker 1>as an intervention to talk about some really intense stuff.
<v Speaker 1>And more often than not, when a client brings up
<v Speaker 1>a TV show or a movie to me, even if
<v Speaker 1>they're just trying to like chitchat about it, more often
<v Speaker 1>than not there's something in that, Oh yeah, that does
<v Speaker 1>connect with what we're talking about, And I'd be like, interesting,
<v Speaker 1>have you ever thought to da da da? And then
<v Speaker 1>we're a Sometimes they get annoyed with that. They're like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>can I just talk about a movie with you? Why
<v Speaker 1>does it have to turn into this? And I'm like, Sonny,
<v Speaker 1>but no, I think like this is just a really
<v Speaker 1>great example of how you can apply this idea to therapy,
<v Speaker 1>especially if you're working with kids.
<v Speaker 2>But like we were saying, it can be of any age.
<v Speaker 4>It can and adding out to Britney's ideas here, like
<v Speaker 4>looking at how we can help kids tell a different
<v Speaker 4>story after you embrace the one you don't want to,
<v Speaker 4>or that you've been avoiding. You create this distance to
<v Speaker 4>connect to the realness. And it's even better to let
<v Speaker 4>kids tell you the stuff they're attaching to. I literally
<v Speaker 4>had this supervision session with my current match of baby therapists,
<v Speaker 4>and they have some kids who they're struggling with, and
<v Speaker 4>like I was very encouraged by their development and hearing
<v Speaker 4>them say, you know, like, yeah, I've been going home
<v Speaker 4>and listening to the things that this difficult client is
<v Speaker 4>telling me. To listen to the artists that they like,
<v Speaker 4>the superheroes and characters that they like, because it's helping
<v Speaker 4>me see how they see themselves.
<v Speaker 1>Now, if there's one thing that I guess took from
<v Speaker 1>grad school by my advisor, who was one of the
<v Speaker 1>og play therapists, doctor Fry, is if you're gonna work
<v Speaker 1>with kids, you have to give a shit about shouldn't
<v Speaker 1>say like that, but you have to get invested in
<v Speaker 1>what they're watching listening to that is their world, Like
<v Speaker 1>that is the way that they communicate. And you have
<v Speaker 1>to treat tickets seriously too.
<v Speaker 4>And kids learn through play, and they learn through vicarious learning,
<v Speaker 4>and someone else, once removed, can tell them their story
<v Speaker 4>before they can tell it to themselves, and they need
<v Speaker 4>to see it and believe it. And it can't be
<v Speaker 4>the parent. It needs to be the hero, the infallible
<v Speaker 4>hero who fails, who loses everything. That's why Disney kills
<v Speaker 4>the parents every time. So the kid creates empathy for
<v Speaker 4>the story. And then where we can build on that
<v Speaker 4>is through narrative therapy, whereas is where you have them
<v Speaker 4>write their own story, and that can be done in
<v Speaker 4>a great many ways, where you can have them literally
<v Speaker 4>rewrite what actually happened, or with kids, you might need
<v Speaker 4>to have them write their own hero story where you
<v Speaker 4>don't even directly say it, or you don't directly do it.
<v Speaker 4>It's what separates some of the other expressive therapies from
<v Speaker 4>each other. A psychodrama is probably best for adults, where
<v Speaker 4>you're having people really play out the actual story and
<v Speaker 4>then swap parts. You're in a group therapy setting and
<v Speaker 4>you pick out the person. Okay, your energy most reminds
<v Speaker 4>me of my dad, who's the antagonist of this scene.
<v Speaker 4>So I need you to play my dad, and this
<v Speaker 4>is what you say. I'm going to swap places with
<v Speaker 4>you and show you what my dad did. Then I
<v Speaker 4>want you to carry that energy and be my dad
<v Speaker 4>and then I'm gonna say something different to him, and
<v Speaker 4>you play that out and you release it, and you
<v Speaker 4>let go of that warrior that to tray you inside
<v Speaker 4>of you. You formed to deal with that and at
<v Speaker 4>the same time simultaneously realize that warrior is you. Fucking
<v Speaker 4>brilliant therapy, but hard, hard, hard, hard to get people
<v Speaker 4>to comply with it because it's raw. But sometimes you
<v Speaker 4>can do that same exercise with pen and paper.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I'm with kids.
<v Speaker 1>It could also be like the stereotype of a dollhouse
<v Speaker 1>and having you know, playing with toys with a kid
<v Speaker 1>being in the sand tray, if you will, like exploring
<v Speaker 1>and letting a kid like tell you stories through like
<v Speaker 1>animals and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 4>Right, how did the fox get away from the hawk? Oh?
<v Speaker 4>How did the fox deal with this? What did the
<v Speaker 4>fox do all? Whatever it is?
<v Speaker 2>Or even just like show me a family.
<v Speaker 4>Right.
<v Speaker 1>I used to work with a kid who went through
<v Speaker 1>like insane kind of like the worst case scenarios with
<v Speaker 1>abuse before I worked with her, and she used to
<v Speaker 1>like play out this whole thing with like these little
<v Speaker 1>plastic pigs we had, where like the mama pig was
<v Speaker 1>always like beating up on the mayby pigs, and so
<v Speaker 1>we would do a lot of like, okay, what happened?
<v Speaker 2>What could have happened?
<v Speaker 1>Differently, we have like how can we take care of
<v Speaker 1>the pigs and stuff? And so, yeah, it's really and
<v Speaker 1>kids can like access that. Kids are always kids are
<v Speaker 1>like play, like mister Rogers says, play is very serious
<v Speaker 1>to children's serious business and kids are always processing to
<v Speaker 1>a certain extent through play.
<v Speaker 4>Always. Should we take our last break there, then well
<v Speaker 4>we'll start with final thoughts here, and I guess we'll
<v Speaker 4>start with Hannah.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I probably haven't seen this movie in thirty years
<v Speaker 3>and barely remembered any of it, to be completely honest,
<v Speaker 3>Like I was like, oh, I don't remember this part.
<v Speaker 2>I don't remember this part.
<v Speaker 3>And it still felt the same way in my body
<v Speaker 3>watching it as I did when I was a girl.
<v Speaker 2>Interesting and the and like the softness of the empress. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and it like is so.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if it was all the makeup they
<v Speaker 3>put on that little girl which was so much makeup
<v Speaker 3>or what it was, but like there was a or
<v Speaker 3>if just she's just a good little actress, like in
<v Speaker 3>terms of being able to really feel the warmth of
<v Speaker 3>her and the warmth that we know that now Bashan
<v Speaker 3>can have access to.
<v Speaker 2>And so I really love this movie.
<v Speaker 3>I think talking about it today made me love it
<v Speaker 3>even more and I will definitely I probably will actually
<v Speaker 3>watch this movie again, even though I hadn't seen it
<v Speaker 3>in thirty years, because I feel like there's so much
<v Speaker 3>goodness in there. There's so many different beautiful things that
<v Speaker 3>we just don't see portrayed that way, especially when we're
<v Speaker 3>talking about children. So I really appreciate this film. I'm
<v Speaker 3>really glad that this film exists. And yeah, and I'm
<v Speaker 3>I will definitely watch it again and really let myself
<v Speaker 3>cry this time because I was really focused in on
<v Speaker 3>what to talk about for the podcast.
<v Speaker 4>Yep, the Stages of Grief was one hand idea, and
<v Speaker 4>I don't think either me or Brittany saw it that
<v Speaker 4>way until Hannah said it. So the kudos of brilliance
<v Speaker 4>on that belongs to Hannah. Thank you, Brittany, you want
<v Speaker 4>to go next.
<v Speaker 2>I love this movie.
<v Speaker 1>I appreciate it more and more the older I get
<v Speaker 1>and the more I get into my therapist career. It's,
<v Speaker 1>like I said, it takes kids so seriously, which I
<v Speaker 1>always respect I also just freaking love the practical effects.
<v Speaker 1>Let's get into practical effects again. Put Lee's I'm sick
<v Speaker 1>of CGI. I'm sick of seeing it. And because there's
<v Speaker 1>something so grounded about this movie. When you can tell
<v Speaker 1>that it's like practical effects, practical puppets, it makes it
<v Speaker 1>so that it ages decently and it feels just realer,
<v Speaker 1>like you can tell that you can reach out and
<v Speaker 1>touch all of these characters, no matter how like whimsical
<v Speaker 1>and out there they look. And yeah, so I really
<v Speaker 1>appreciate it now it's talking about it. I think what's
<v Speaker 1>interesting about talking about it is we didn't really touch
<v Speaker 1>upon the things we talked about, very different things that
<v Speaker 1>I thought we would talk about when I wanted to
<v Speaker 1>put this movie on our list, And that was really
<v Speaker 1>cool and really makes me respect how.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, how deep this movie is.
<v Speaker 1>And I really do want to read the book now
<v Speaker 1>and see what the book is like, especially because the
<v Speaker 1>this movie only covers the first half of the book,
<v Speaker 1>so I'm really curious what the.
<v Speaker 2>Whole story is like.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, and I think the Empress was supposed to
<v Speaker 1>be like, uh, she's supposed to be like a thousands
<v Speaker 1>of years old, so I think it's what they were
<v Speaker 1>trying to do is like create that gravitas, like you
<v Speaker 1>were saying, which is amazing that that kid pulled that off.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, I love this movie. I'll watch this movie again.
<v Speaker 1>I'll try to figure out hold my nieces and nephews
<v Speaker 1>need to be before I put this movie onto them,
<v Speaker 1>just because it can be so intense. But also I
<v Speaker 1>think this movie does a good job of it's not
<v Speaker 1>so heavy handed with like the mom grief stuff that
<v Speaker 1>I think at each age you watch it, you just
<v Speaker 1>pick up different things, and so it doesn't necessarily feel
<v Speaker 1>like you can be like too young to watch it necessarily.
<v Speaker 4>Five is the recommendation.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I can see that for sure, as I looked it.
<v Speaker 4>Up before I exposed my seven year old to it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but like I said, this movie doesn't get so
<v Speaker 1>aggressive with like dead mom, dead mom, even though that's.
<v Speaker 2>What it's about. Like I could very younger.
<v Speaker 1>You're probably just picking up on like the silly, whimsical
<v Speaker 1>aspects of it. I guess the dead horse thing is
<v Speaker 1>kind of crazy. You do want to have your kids
<v Speaker 1>be old enough to watch that dead horse scene.
<v Speaker 4>Wolf take a shit out of me as a kid.
<v Speaker 4>Oh yeah, your comments are brilliant. So I love this movie.
<v Speaker 4>I've always loved this movie. I feel like, thinking back,
<v Speaker 4>kind of my memories of this movie is this movie
<v Speaker 4>always found me on the days you needed it most.
<v Speaker 4>It never you'd watch the same series of cartoons on
<v Speaker 4>Saturday morning and then to be a rainy day and
<v Speaker 4>what's up at the one o'clock slot after all the
<v Speaker 4>Saturday morning cartoons are done and there's nowhere to go,
<v Speaker 4>nobody to play with, nothing to do, never any stories on.
<v Speaker 1>I do like the idea that there's like a TV
<v Speaker 1>network programmer somewhere in that time that was like, there's
<v Speaker 1>a kid that's going to need this tomorrow, put it
<v Speaker 1>on the slot.
<v Speaker 4>And the cable channel would have been local at that time,
<v Speaker 4>so that's plausible and it would make sense. But it
<v Speaker 4>always felt like kind of magical to be on that
<v Speaker 4>day that it sucks, and there's always one I always
<v Speaker 4>sat and watched every time, through all the commercials and everything,
<v Speaker 4>I've always watched this. I'd always love this movie. I've
<v Speaker 4>always appreciated, but I feel like after sitting and really
<v Speaker 4>breaking it apart and think about it, I appreciated a
<v Speaker 4>thousand times more and It's one that I thought would
<v Speaker 4>fade to time, but it should never fade to time.
<v Speaker 4>This is brilliant. This film is brilliant. And even though
<v Speaker 4>my kid was a bit of a turd when I
<v Speaker 4>was asking her how she felt about it today, because
<v Speaker 4>that's how she is, because I wanted the answer, so
<v Speaker 4>she wasn't going to give it to me because just
<v Speaker 4>just her humor. But I could see in her eyes
<v Speaker 4>and her behavior when she's into something. She sits and
<v Speaker 4>asks me a thousand questions. It's adorable and I love it.
<v Speaker 4>She like snuggles up to me and watches it with
<v Speaker 4>me and asks me like questions about every single scene.
<v Speaker 4>What's going to happen, Who's happening to this, what's happening here?
<v Speaker 4>Who's that She loved it. She loved it, and I
<v Speaker 4>loved it, and I think it really resonates. And I
<v Speaker 4>want to share something that I was messaging my buddy
<v Speaker 4>because he's messaging me about something else, and I responded
<v Speaker 4>to him here even once we're recording, and I told
<v Speaker 4>him about the the realization about our tacks being dad.
<v Speaker 4>And I'm going to read this quote that he sent
<v Speaker 4>me because it made me laugh really hard. And told
<v Speaker 4>me we're exactly on the right track. I said, bro,
<v Speaker 4>the horses is dead. Chew on that for a bit
<v Speaker 4>and I got back, fuck you, Nope, not thinking about
<v Speaker 4>that tonight. I'm going to bed. Fuck you, you say,
<v Speaker 4>piatric bitch and stop laughing? Bitch?
<v Speaker 2>Hey, what did you mean when you message Bastian?
<v Speaker 4>Is me what I mean when I said, Brittany, yes, First,
<v Speaker 4>I'm gonna ask Hannah, am I wrong?
<v Speaker 2>Don't put me into this. I't had nothing to do
<v Speaker 2>with this. This is now.
<v Speaker 1>When Hannah and I were watching it, did I repeatedly
<v Speaker 1>say wow, I'm just like this kid?
<v Speaker 4>Yes? How she did? Dare you though, Brittany?
<v Speaker 2>Yes?
<v Speaker 4>Because how are you just like that?
<v Speaker 2>I scream at books I'm reading while I'm reading them.
<v Speaker 2>I was telling.
<v Speaker 1>Hannah, this is what I looked like when I was
<v Speaker 1>reading the end of the A Guitar books, just like,
<v Speaker 1>what the fuck?
<v Speaker 2>Getting up, sweating, wogging around.
<v Speaker 4>So I'm curious, why is it that you need my
<v Speaker 4>answer when you already know that.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I already have a therapist. I already a therapist.
<v Speaker 2>I was just curious if that's what you saw, you know,
<v Speaker 2>because you.
<v Speaker 4>Already knew, Yes, what's her name, Brittany.
<v Speaker 1>Moonchild Moonchild, which as a kid, I never figured that out.
<v Speaker 4>Same, Yeah, we would have forgotten this. She'd have been
<v Speaker 4>a childhood like the sixties.
<v Speaker 1>Well, no, I think I remember thinking that I didn't
<v Speaker 1>that you don't hear what he says?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, oh yeah, I couldn't make sense of it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>I just literally saw a meme today or maybe two
<v Speaker 4>days ago. I was like, oh, thank you subtitles for existing,
<v Speaker 4>because I never knew what he said.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I read a piece of trivia that actually what
<v Speaker 1>he mouths is the German equivalent, which is like moon
<v Speaker 1>she something like that, but it has three syllables. And
<v Speaker 1>so what also doesn't help is that so that they
<v Speaker 1>could do it could work for German and American, is
<v Speaker 1>they actually have him mouth like the actual like three
<v Speaker 1>syllable thing, and then they try to use the lightning
<v Speaker 1>strike to kind of camouflage it, to make it kind
<v Speaker 1>of ambiguous. What is mouse doing so it purposely confuses us?
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, that's an assolved mystery, now right.
<v Speaker 4>I guess. So, So with that, watch this movie a
<v Speaker 4>thousand times. It's brilliant. Let your children see it, let
<v Speaker 4>them take from it what they will but never ever
<v Speaker 4>lose this one to time. It's the never ending story.
<v Speaker 2>Never ending story. That's all I know of the words.
<v Speaker 1>AnyWho you can find us to be part of our
<v Speaker 1>never ending story. You can find us at any social
<v Speaker 1>media platform except for X at Popcorn Psychology. You can
<v Speaker 1>find his TikTok, Facebook, Instagram at that handle. You can
<v Speaker 1>also email us if you would like to tell us
<v Speaker 1>what movie has traumatized you as a child at popcorn
<v Speaker 1>Psychology at gmail dot com. As I said up front,
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<v Speaker 2>But yeah, I hope that you
<v Speaker 1>Guys enjoy this episode, and I hope that you can
<v Speaker 1>hold the whimsy in your heart to help you move
<v Speaker 1>through your feelings.