The Devil You Don’t Know
In The Devil You Don’t Know, Lindsay, Cleveland, and their guests discuss personal growth and development by taking chances and getting out of your comfort zone. Topics range from whimsical to serious and everything in between but are always relevant to growth and development.
The Devil You Don’t Know
Creating Calm Amid Life's Unexpected Twists
This episode navigates the complexities of emotional fatigue and the overwhelming nature of modern life. Through personal stories and discussions on societal expectations, we explore acceptance, the dangers of information overload, and the importance of living authentically.
• Discussing the challenge of accepting unexpected returns in family dynamics
• Reflection on emotional toll from personal experiences and holidays
• Exploring the phenomenon of news fatigue and its mental impact
• The role of social media in fostering exhaustion and anxiety
• Addressing job dissatisfaction in the current socio-economic climate
• Highlighting the importance of self-care and community connection
• Practical takeaways for listeners to combat fatigue and reclaim energy
- Resources recommended for further exploration in personal growth and mental health.
Please email us at Gettoknowthedevil@gmail.com
This is Cleveland, this is Lindsay. And this, after another long break and I swear this will be the last one, but it was the holidays and we had a lot of stuff going on is another episode of the Devil, you Don't Know how are you doing today, lindsay?
Lindsay Oakes:I'm good, I'm good. A lot of things going on here, a lot of things, All of the things, all of the adult children in the tiny house.
Cleveland Oakes:You know what's crazy is many, many years ago, before I met you, I remember thinking I was divorced, I was a single dad, I was living in Bed-Stuy, brooklyn. I was hip. It was happening and I swore, because this is how it goes, I swore that it was just going to be me and Tyler, because I was like everybody moved out Like that it was just gonna be me and tyler, because I was like everybody moved out like it's gonna be good. And you know what happened in the year in here no, no, no, before I moved.
Cleveland Oakes:No, this is one of the reasons why I moved in here. Is everybody moved back in? Oh, you jinxed it. I know because, yes, you know the oswego queen because that's what I'll call her Oswego queen came back from Oswego. Yeah, heaven Sent, heaven Sent, came back from Oswego. The young Republican was still trying to find himself and I just knew that dude was going to be gone, and an old man, papa Hunt, also, and I was like this is not what I planned.
Lindsay Oakes:Yeah, and you know what our next episode should be called Empty Nest.
Cleveland Oakes:I think our next episode should be on acceptance and accepting when things don't go how you plan, Because you know where I feel like I'm having deja vu, because we thought the queen mom was going off to school. She is going off to school. She is. So we thought she was going off to school and we were going to be living alone, living alone and then tim huckleberry, for mysterious reasons that we still don't know, has come back, has returned, but we're thankful to have the prodigal son back, believe it or not.
Lindsay Oakes:Maybe well, I think you know we should actually reflect on that in the coming weeks yeah, welcome.
Cleveland Oakes:I, I think it's gonna be. You know, it was nice to meet, uh, the young lady that he met that was that was that they were living with and she really had a good report about him. So I'm not super worried about him, but I am. You know, we do necessarily seriously for those out there and any of you in this anxious generation of kids have kids that are very anxious not only themselves, but cause you anxiety. Oh yeah, is we have to just give this guy structure?
Lindsay Oakes:yeah, he needs to be like on the utah program yeah because he really does very well when he has structure and a daily routine.
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah, daily routine and structure and that's, that's that, and that's that's, that's that's important, that's like vital, that's super important, that's super vital, um, and I think that is. I think that is like the key. I think that's really important and vital having that structure.
Lindsay Oakes:Yeah, and he and he thrives in that structure. So, but you know, we're just back from our annual uh, christmas vacation to Naples, florida. Naples, florida was a good time, great time, where we hope to maybe spend a little more time.
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah, I've started. I've started full time my therapy practice. I'm also doing some other stuff on the side, you know, because that's what you do when you work for yourself. You work for yourself all day. A friend of mine, Kurt Davis, who's going to be doing a fundraiser soon and I'll probably promote it. Kurt's writing a script for a motion picture called Stopwatch, which is going to be a time travel murder mystery movie. I would like to see it. He's going to actually start promoting it on Monday. What's today?
Lindsay Oakes:Today's Sunday.
Cleveland Oakes:July, january, january 5th today, and he's going to start promoting it Monday, january 6th and maybe in a future episode. I'll share that link. But one of the things that Kurt, you know, said to me was like man, unexpected stuff happens all the time and this was a very unexpected, you know an incident.
Lindsay Oakes:It was, it was, but it's going to be all right, yeah, and I think, and if not, I'm going to buy a one way ticket out of here and you're going to call me when it's resolved. What?
Cleveland Oakes:It's going to be resolved. He's a good dude, I think, you know, I think he's a good dude and I think he just needs some direction and some structure.
Lindsay Oakes:But what else else is going on? And we just came back from vacation. Yeah, we had a great time, it was. Uh, finally we were. We were really owed a warm christmas there. Every year we go and every year it's freezing. So this year I should have known when we rented the airbnb without a pool. That is the key. Next year I'm renting without a pool again, because then it guarantees the hot weather and you wish you had a pool yeah, so, so.
Cleveland Oakes:So, before we dive into the the Florida vacation that we just came back from, I do want to explain a little bit and this is also also an apology to Lindsay's that we we keep on saying and I saw our last episode had a lot of downloads. So thank you, you guys that have been enjoying the show, and I know you're probably wondering where the heck we are. We will try to be back more regularly. But, but in my defense, um, I did go away to north carolina, um, december 14th came, came back and then, right away the next week, we went to go celebrate lindsey's birthday and the catskills. We did bring the recording equipment with us to the hotel lillian, which was very lovely, and where was that that? Tannersville, yeah, tannersville, up by Hunter Mountain, but the day that we were supposed to record I did it was a lovely fireplace down there and maybe I had one libation.
Lindsay Oakes:Too many.
Cleveland Oakes:Too many and failed to record. And then after that we came back, like, seriously, the very next day we came back on Sunday Monday, we were home. And the very next day we were back on Sunday Monday, we were home. And then the very next day we were back on a plane and it was crazy heading to Florida.
Lindsay Oakes:So but it was beautiful. We had a great time, got to see mom and dad and enjoy the warm weather. We got to also see our friends Patty and Aaron, who came over from the East coast, and all in all it was a great vacation. It was a little too short for me because we only did six days, but next time 2025,.
Cleveland Oakes:Uh, we are going to plan a longer time. I will bring the 2025 now, yeah, but December of 2025.
Lindsay Oakes:Oh, oh, next Christmas, you mean, yeah, next Christmas.
Cleveland Oakes:Are you planning for it? Listen, I was planning. Listen, come on. You've been married to me for six years now and you've known me for eight. Going on nine years and what don't I plan? I plan for the unplanned. Your boy always has a plan.
Lindsay Oakes:Yeah, so we are going to record more because Cleve is going to have to commit to waking up in the morning and doing the recording before all of the other people in the house are milling about. Yeah, a couple of them are leaving.
Cleveland Oakes:Maybe I don't know. I'm not having a lot of faith. The queen mom when we're talking to her about colleges as well. I need to live within 90 minutes of home and I need to come home every weekend and I'm like what?
Lindsay Oakes:I just say, okay, that's what I do. I just say okay because I know full well if she goes to the culinary Institute she's never coming home because she can be working all the weekends. So I'm just not saying anything and I'm not telling her that if she goes to the other school of her choice, that I'm not driving to pick her up. I'm not driving to pick her up every week. And now you get it, she'll be fine.
Cleveland Oakes:She will adjust. That is our, that's going to be our time. That's our time the one thing I do want to say before we get into the the the main uh bulk of this episode is I do want to give a commercial endorsement because life is a commercial, because you know, when you watch a commercial and people are like recommending things to other people, that is an actual thing, that happens in real life.
Lindsay Oakes:If you, my friend, are a frequent traveler, tsa, pre pre-check will save your life, Lindsay, what Well not if you tell everybody to go get it?
Cleveland Oakes:But most people ain't going to pay. Listen, we have people that will not pay. I was talking to my supervisor the other day that will not pay a $10 copay. He was flabbergasted because he was talking about a fellow. He said yo man, yo man cleve. This dude made like six figures and when his insurance changed and I told him, hey guy, your insurance changed, you have to pay a ten dollar copay. The guy was like I'm out. No, there's a lot of people that will not pay.
Lindsay Oakes:78 for tsa pre-check that is true, but it definitely did save us on the way to florida because we parked, we took the air train, jfk is a mess with the construction and Christmas Eve at JFK at 5 am was insane, insane in the memory and you were rudely pushing in front of people and that nice, lovely Jamaican woman corrected your behavior.
Cleveland Oakes:And then when?
Lindsay Oakes:I told you not to do that. She said don't worry, honey, I already took care of it and reprimanded him for you.
Cleveland Oakes:Yes, she shut it down and she did. She did, went straight Mama Jean mode on me and I actually complied. But you know what we made it on? We made it on our trip and that's it. But let's get to the main topic, because I feel like you're getting tired of my banter and the episode is called, aren't you tired of this? And so Lindsay, tell the folks what what this is about and how we came up with it and what the thought process is.
Lindsay Oakes:Well, this is really, um, you know, something that you and Dave, your pal, have joked about. Aren't y'all tired of this, right, and? And we joke about how? Well, what is it you're tired of? It doesn't even matter, right? Everybody's tired of something, and we've been talking amongst ourselves about it. Just like just life, right it's. There's so many things going on right now in the country, in the world and our workplaces, or with the people that we work with, and we're observing all of these things, and it's it's exhausting. It is exhausting. It's some days you just want to check out and aren't you just tired of it?
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah, I I, you know, just for transparency, you know I've. I'm normally a happy chipper, you know person. Um, and I've been going through like a little bit of a struggle recently. After you know not even recently, I would say I went on the grand jury about two years ago and had to listen to some horrible cases and New York being New York, it's like hey, thank you guys for your service. And we know that you just sat the last 30 days and listen to the most horrible things. We wish that we could give you therapy. We can't, but goodbye, good luck with that.
Cleveland Oakes:And I think what has really impacted me especially was a moment in Florida where I was in the car and you asked me what was wrong and I said to you some days I just want to burn it all down. Right, yeah. And I got that idea because when I used to work for my other employer, I saw a report on MSNBC where a reporter said that folks who were voting for Trump are voting for him not because they think he's a savior, but because they're tired and they want to burn it all down. And I can tell you.
Cleveland Oakes:And I yeah, and I can tell you personally from my work and I'll kick it back to you and with my clients, a lot of folks who I'm working with they are tired and they do want to burn it all down and it's really hard to encourage them to keep going, because Mate Gabor talks about this in a lot of his work. And you're a CI, you're training in CI Almost a graduate, almost a graduate.
Lindsay Oakes:Congratulations Applied to the mentorship for full certification I just applied today. Oh, congrats, thank you.
Cleveland Oakes:I'd like to talk to you about it, because one of the things Gabor says is that us, as psychotherapists, it's important to help people understand that their depression, their anxiety, their tiredness is because it's a struggle to live in a toxic culture.
Lindsay Oakes:And it is also okay. It is okay to not be okay, and that is something that people have a really hard time with. I think I told you I had a client last week who said, well, I just, I just can't take it, I just don't want to feel like this and I just want to feel better. And I was like, well, you know what? Like buckle up because you're not going to feel better today, right, right, but go, you know, after the session, go, relax, reflect on things, process it, sit with it, because it's not until you're really comfortable with being uncomfortable that the change starts to happen.
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah, and I've worked with a lot of folks, too, that are uncomfortable with being uncomfortable, right, they don't understand why they're tired. They don't understand why they're fatigued. They don't understand why they're upset, why they're tired. They don't understand why they're fatigued. They don't understand why they're upset. Now, one of the interesting things that Mate talks about in the book the Myth of Normal is he compares psychic injuries to physical injuries. Right. So if you're physically tired because you ran a marathon or because you worked out or because you hurt yourself, that's acceptable. People understand that it is a visible tiredness, right. But people do not understand psychic tiredness, like why are you talking?
Lindsay Oakes:you know I I've said, we're taking in so much all the time. Right, and I know people you know sometimes think it's hokey or weird, but we are taking on the energy of other people. Right. When other people are angry and projecting on us or screaming right or unhappy somewhere, we take it on. The news is constantly pumping us full of stuff we don't really need to know and we take that on to this point, like you're saying, of just it starts to like impact you, it sits with you, you start to become anxious, you become depressed, you wait for these things to happen, whereas if you never even heard them in the first place, you wouldn't have been impacted by them.
Cleveland Oakes:No, that's right, you know, and that's.
Cleveland Oakes:And that brings us into what something I wanted to talk about this segment was news fatigue and declining ratings.
Cleveland Oakes:Right, I used to work in an entertainment industry, so this is something I've actually followed, and I want to ask you your opinion, because one of the things that you always and when I go out, I do sometimes like to talk about politics or current events, and it's something that I'm getting out of now. Right, because, as these key statistics that I just looked up, cnn's primetime ratings have decreased by 45 percent and they're averaging only about 400000 viewers, like weekly. After the Trump presidency, msnbc has had an even further decline, with 55 percent of drop in viewership, when they're only averaging 620,000 viewers a week. This is less than like a million people. Surveys have shown that two thirds of American adults now realize that they need to limit their consumption of political news due to fatigue, and so I want you to kind of reflect on that and like what have you encountered as somebody who's in compassionate inquiry, like well, I don't watch the news, and that's a big one for me.
Lindsay Oakes:I never watched the news, do you? I don't know if you remember last week I went to put a movie on on the weekend and a news story came up and it might've been New Year's day and it was right after what happened in New Orleans, because when we put our TV on, even though we don't have cable, it automatically goes to some random news station until you click into the Netflix or the Hulu or whatever it is. So when I put it on, I found myself sitting there with a cup of coffee just watching it, not even realizing that I was watching this coverage of this attack in New Orleans on New Year's Eve. And then, all of a sudden, I was like, what am I doing? And you were still sleeping. And at that point I was like, ok, no, I'm not watching this anymore and I turned it off.
Lindsay Oakes:But for me, it gives me anxiety. I don't need to know everything that's going on everywhere and, as Tara Brock says, a lot of the things that are happening around us we can't change. So you have to be able to focus your attention and your energy on yourself and on the things where you can make a positive impact, or have a positive impact, or make a change.
Cleveland Oakes:What's interesting to me and I want to just co-sign on that.
Cleveland Oakes:I just read Jason Parge and Jason Parge and if you, if you listen to us, you know we talk about Gabor, mate, jack Kornfield, tara Brock and I like to talk about Jason Parge and Star Trek and a lot of other things.
Cleveland Oakes:But Jason Parge just wrote a great book called I think I'm starting to worry about this big black box of doom, which was a departure for him, because he normally writes cosmic horror or sci fi, and this was like a straight up kind of action adventure commentary and it was a commentary like a satire on what, everything that is wrong with our modern culture today.
Cleveland Oakes:Right, and accompany me with that on his personal vlog that he does like daily, he put out a challenge to his followers for 2025, which was when confronted with something that makes you upset or makes you anxious or makes you want to argue, simply say to yourself or the person that's asking you for your opinion. I do not have enough information to form an opinion on that subject. He was like if you do that every day with the things that you're worried about or concerned about, it will change your life. And I want to ask you, lindsay, why is that Like if you just say to yourself I do not have enough information to inform, to make an informed opinion on that topic? Why is that liberating?
Lindsay Oakes:Well, I think it unburdens you, right. It lifts off this pressure of having to feel like you have to know about it, and then you start this doom scrolling to figure out more. Right, it allows you to just say like, oh, you know what? This is not mine, I'm not attached to this.
Cleveland Oakes:Right, I want to move on to something, and I know you probably won't have a lot of opinion on this, but I just want to just nerd out on this for a second. I listened to a great episode of this American Life many years ago I think it was 2017. It was an episode called the Other, mr President, and it was an episode about Vladimir Putin and his rise to power, but I found this very interesting. Right, information overload as a tool for control. And before I get into what that is, I want to ask you, lindsay, what do you think that is like it, just listening to that information overload as a tool of control?
Lindsay Oakes:Well, I think that we almost feel out of control when everything is being pumped into us, right? So it's like that media and all that kind of engagement is making us feel powerless, right and out of control. Is that what you?
Cleveland Oakes:yeah, that's kind of what it is right if you ever read comic books. Superman has this villain called the parasite, and the parasite is like one of superman's most dangerous villains because the parasite can just come in and suck up all his superman's powers. Frequently when they go to the parasite, what do you think they do? They overload him with so much power that he can't contain it and he he'll explode or he tires himself out.
Lindsay Oakes:Well, it's like a burnout, right it's you take in so much and you're doing so much and so much and so much and all of a sudden you're like I just cannot do it anymore and then you shut down completely. That's a habit that I have. But you know, I also was thinking another example of if you're in college and you've taken some really boring classes I'm sure I have and you sit in a lecture and it's like you try to tune in because you know it's important and there's going to be a test. But I think in grad school I had this professor that was so it was just awful, it was so boring and nobody in the class would engage.
Lindsay Oakes:I almost felt bad for her because I think she had no idea that she was such an awful professor. But everybody tuned out and then what she would do was go down the roster and call names to answer the questions in order of the roster, because no one was paying attention. And then she was like well, you can pass if you want, and everyone's like I'll pass, I'll pass. And it was because everybody had checked out, checked out, right. So it's like you take in and you take in and you take in, and then all of a sudden you're at capacity and you're like I got to go somewhere else mentally.
Cleveland Oakes:One of the great things that I learned in becoming a mental health counselor was that mental health, that not everybody in this field is here for the betterment of humanity, right, and there are many countries and other foreign actors and I'm not trying to call anybody out and I won't call anybody out but there are many corporations, companies even here in our late stage capitalistic society, that use their knowledge of mental health to manipulate people, society that use their knowledge of mental health to manipulate people.
Cleveland Oakes:And I think what you said was spot on, because I just want to talk about this episode of this American Life called the Other, mr President, and use a historical example of information overload In the Soviet regime. One of the things that Vladimir Putin has done successfully is that he has flooded the state approved news with so many stories, so many contradicting messages, so many misleading statistics that it has caused a climate of confusion where the Russian people, where they went from, like having no truth, you know where they had no information to. Vladimir Putin was like give them everything. And what do you think that happens to people where you give them all the information? What do you? I don't want to just say it again, you just said it they, what do they?
Lindsay Oakes:do they just shut down?
Cleveland Oakes:They shut down they stop listening. They check out Now, when you, when I can tell you, when I sit down with clients, especially those who are obsessed with social media, a lot of them have checked out.
Lindsay Oakes:Right no-transcript.
Cleveland Oakes:Joseph Goebbels did the same thing. He hit people with propaganda. Propaganda was like it was relentless repetition across radio, film, newspapers, and even today the strategy in Russia is called fire hose of falsehood, where the government employs disinformation as a tactic to just hit people with rapid value messages and hide messages that are contradictory. There's conspiracy theories, there's this and that, and we see that here in America. Like Jason Pargin in that episode, in that blog he posts is like I'm not listen.
Cleveland Oakes:Drones I'm not an expert on drones. I'm not an expert on the economy. I'm not an expert on what's going on in Ukraine. I'm not an expert on political policy. I'm not an expert on any of these things. But this is all to distract you and keep you from the work of developing yourself. Yep, absolutely. And Mate talks about that in the Myth of Normal, that in a late stage capitalist society, that this disinformation is purposeful because it keeps you off balance, it keeps you from discovering yourself, it keeps you unaware and it keeps you spending, spending, spending, consuming, consuming, consuming. And, Lindsay, I do want you to talk about like why that is dangerous and what's wrong with that.
Lindsay Oakes:Well, because you lose the connection with yourself, right, you start to forget who you are Although most people, I think, never discover that in this lifetime, unfortunately but you become so obsessed with this that you actually right, I've had clients in the past who will see something that's so traumatic that they keep searching for more and more and more and more. They almost become so fixated on it. But that's also an escape, yeah, right, that's an escape from looking at your pain, from sitting in your own stuff, from trying to figure out who you are and what you want, right, and so I, as an example, you know what I follow. I only follow vegan people. Yeah, because I'm like, oh, this is so nice and happy, look. Only follow vegan people. Yeah, because I'm like, oh, this is so nice and happy, look at the cute little animals at the sanctuary who were rescued.
Lindsay Oakes:I only follow happy things like, oh, look at that nice vegan recipe, we'll try that, but that's the stuff that like. I like that, I enjoy that. I don't ever look for. You know more and more information on negative news. I'm not researching things like what happened in new Orleans after news. I'm not researching things like what happened in new Orleans after that I don't think I talked about it again with you, yeah.
Cleveland Oakes:You know, and one of the dangerous things I want to talk about, like this virus. I want to talk about how mental health is like a almost like a virus right that it's contagious disease, cause I had a buddy we don't we're not talking anymore Um, because I told him a certain expectation that used to send me like vile pictures right that that that we didn't, that you know that we're not like. When he stopped sending that, he started sending me like Twitter articles of, and another friend of ours was like I'm out, I can't deal with this guy anymore. He started sending me like Twitter articles of, of, of, of people, of, of, like the most violent depictions of, like people getting murdered or beheaded or like the horrible things, and it was like actually would actually upset me, like, why would you send me? Like, like, why would you send me something that made you upset and now send it to me to make me?
Lindsay Oakes:it's an assumption that other, you know people want it's, it's this whole thing right of like attracts like. Or you want like misery loves company. People want to draw you into what they are in on. Yeah right, they want to share all of this with you because, in reality, they want your opinion, they want your approval. They don't know who they are.
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah and I was upset at first when this person, when we had a falling out, what um, and I'm you know what. You know what this guy used to just send me like viral nonsense anyway, and so he stopped with one type of thing and then started sending like other things.
Lindsay Oakes:But another thing about that is is that when you put up a boundary for someone that you can learn a lot about them by how they accept it or not. I told you what I like and what I don't like and you continue to do it. That's disrespectful to me.
Cleveland Oakes:And you pointed that out to me recently in what you were talking about, like social obligations Right, and I think you know you can speak to it more because I learned it from you but like saying no to a social obligation because I have my own goals and this thing that you're trying to get me to go to or do is going to take me away from what well, that was actually a little bit frustrating for me.
Lindsay Oakes:If I can be transparent with you, um, I didn't say it to you before right now, so be transparent, that's what we're here for I tell you these things and this is a pattern that we have in our relationship is where I tell you something and you don't really honor what I say until you hear someone else say it. And then that was what happened with this situation as well is that there's not social obligations, there's social consequences, Right, and that's what the woman was talking about.
Cleveland Oakes:And then you were like oh now, oh, okay, oh, that's what you're saying In my defense if you watch, everybody Loves Raymond, that's every wife to every husband, everywhere is you do not listen to what I say, and so I'd like to thank all my friends who used to listen, who still listen to the show and have told me the show is low key. Marriage counseling.
Lindsay Oakes:But when you have goals for yourself and you say yes, when you mean no, which sometimes I do because I feel pressure from you and I will never do that again you know, then it becomes a social consequence, and this woman happened to be talking about her own like fitness and wellness goals and how she, if she says yes, then she ends up like you know, kind of derailing from what those goals are and the path that she's on.
Lindsay Oakes:And I often say the same thing to you is that I have a capacity for socialization and it is. It's not big, but I have a very like, very low capacity right For socialization. Um, and it's when you go out and you meant you didn't want to, and you say yes anyway, and you go, you know you first it just ends up, you know you end up, you, you drain yourself, you're taking on all this energy of people that you didn't really want to be around, or you're eating things that you shouldn't be eating or that you don't want to eat because there's nothing else there for you, and so you're basically putting yourself in a situation where you're like you know what? I'm just going to go and not be happy.
Cleveland Oakes:Well, number one I love you, I love you. And number two, I apologize. Number three, having read the myth of normal and having listened to Gabor talk about the importance of authenticity versus attachment and how frequently it's more important to be authentic than attached, I apologize for making you do social things that you did not feel like you wanted to do.
Lindsay Oakes:Right, I mean most of the time. I'm pretty open with not wanting to.
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah, well, I you know what, now that I've got my master's degree and I understand that more, I and I think about it, I think about my interactions with you how I would tell a client and I would tell a client if this and I'm very clear on boundaries Now I would tell a client, if this is a boundary for you, if this is something that you do not want to do, then it is absolutely fine. It is absolutely 100% fine to not overload yourself. And I want to just keep it on the theme of overload. It is absolutely 100% fine to not overload yourself, because that's what this whole segment was about was overloading ourselves with things, and just I'm not going to do that.
Lindsay Oakes:Well, and for me it's it's the taking on like we were talking about earlier of the energy of all of the other people and all the things they talk about and the social group kind of. In our neighborhood there's a couple of people who cannot stop themselves from talking about politics and they get so worked up animated and they're so opinionated and you're right, so worked up that they.
Lindsay Oakes:It's like you start to take it on and then you get agitated. I don't need to talk about that, like can we just go and talk about others? Like happy things, right. But but it's a perfect example because you know, the people that I'm referring to don't really do anything, right. Right, they don't have anything. You know that they do individually, they don't have hobbies and interests and spend time together, and that's something that you and I really make a priority in our lives is to listen to each other, to support each other Um, you know and to when the other person is kind of down is to be like you know what, let me just kind of hold some space and, like, let the person feel their feels and, you know, come out on the other side. I mean, you try to bring me down with you sometimes, but I didn't go the last time.
Cleveland Oakes:Well, you know what? Here's the thing is we love each other and I think, at the end of the day, when you think about Gottman and everything that we've learned um as couples, counselors, um, everything that I've learned from the Bible and other holy books, um, even my first marriage and the person that married us, is like listen, marriages have ups and downs. And it's not and Gottman says, it's not the frequency of how you argue, it's not the frequent or the intensity of the argument, it's how you make up right, it's how you communicate, it's if you have a genuine respect of one another.
Lindsay Oakes:Well, and I realized yesterday when we were doing that, when you were helping me out with my application for the program, that you and I have the same negative core belief yeah, that we're not heard Right. And so it's like you often write what bothers you and the other person is the exact same thing that you're dealing with, and Gabor says that as well. And so when you said that yesterday, I was like, yeah, I could relate to that 100 percent.
Cleveland Oakes:And what's crazy, though and this is something I got from Jason Parge and before we move into the next segment from his book, I'm starting to worry about this big black box of doom is that frequently we reject partners who are on our level, both physically, emotionally, mentally and we reject them because we have this crazy idea that I deserve the hot guy or the hot girl that I've seen on TV, Whereas you might be a five, my friend, or a six, my friend, and you have your own problems, but you reject in a partner all the things that are wrong with you, and always, we always attract people in our lives who have the same problems that we have. I can tell you as a therapist.
Lindsay Oakes:Right. Gabor Amante says that we attract partners who are at the same level of emotional intelligence as we are.
Cleveland Oakes:Right, right. And I can tell you, and even my supervisor in the practice, that we both work at laughs at my clients and he's like wow, your clients are a particular brand of crazy.
Lindsay Oakes:And he said that to me this week. He said wow, he goes. You've got all the clients with the exact same pattern of behavior. Right, and it's interesting too, as a therapist, you attract clients who really trigger you. Yeah, yeah.
Cleveland Oakes:And it's like I think part of what my struggle has been in the last couple of months is I you know, and it's interesting and it's I'm going to talk about it and I don't want to go too far off the field because we've been like really tight on this episode but, like Gabor Mate talked about, in the myth of normal, when he went to the Temple of Light.
Lindsay Oakes:Oh, the Temple of the Way of Light, temple of the Way of Light In Peru.
Cleveland Oakes:Yes.
Lindsay Oakes:Which would just give a little background is a. It's a retreat center in the jungles of Peru. I mean hours from society. You're gonna do it one day. We're when, when the queen mom goes to college, you and I have an agreement that we are going to take the three-week ayahuasca retreat. It's like the two-week retreat with the week of recovery after it. Um, yeah, we are going to do that together. That's something that's been on our radar for a really long time and we've been wanting to do that. But I think we need to have that experience when no one else is home. Oh my God, tom.
Lindsay Oakes:Huckleberry here to watch the dogs, or he'll be got a built in or he will be all that he can be in the army. Right so, but Gabor, are you going to tell the story? No, you can tell the army, right so, but Gabor, are you going to tell?
Cleveland Oakes:the story?
Lindsay Oakes:No, you can tell the story he talks about this story often and if you Google him you can find it.
Lindsay Oakes:But he took a whole group on retreat and he's a physician first and foremost and he got into mental health and psychology work with his patients because he found that they could not afford and find proper mental health care. And so that's how he kind of got into the mental health field and he went on this retreat and he took people on this retreat and to do ayahuasca. And you know, it's led by this group of like healers. These shamans that are don't even speak English. They speak some dialects from the villages that they come from and they, you know, that's, it's all these ceremonies and things.
Lindsay Oakes:And from the moment he got there, they had pulled him aside and basically said to him Ooh, like your energy is really bad, right, and that you you need to go into isolation. And he had been going with all these people to lead a retreat and these people paid to go on retreat with him, and all the healers were like can't be here, and they put them into like a solitary cabin out in the jungle and they told him they needed to work with him individually, right. So it's like even healers need to heal.
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah, even healers need to heal. Yeah, even healers need to heal. Even healers need to heal. We cannot overload ourselves. Um, and I really I think you that's succinctly there and that is one of the things that mate talks about in that chapter is that the healers are like we've never seen medicos. They were like we, as medicos, do not overload ourselves, we do not take in any information that is not helpful and when we work with other people, we clear that out. They were like you guys are the darkest people that we've ever met because you have taken on all these burdens, you have overloaded yourself with too much information, but too much from other clients and you have not cleared yourself out. And I think, at the end of the day, when, as we close this segment out, it's important to avoid that information overload, as many people are, are, are are, as MSNBC and CNN are finding out. It was too much, it's too much.
Lindsay Oakes:We can do a whole episode on that, right, because we we do take on so much, but we take on so much because, as a society and as the American culture says, is like you need to keep working and do more and more and more and more and more, because it's just not even affordable to live and you have to work so much to keep up and it's like just to make ends meet.
Cleveland Oakes:Right. One of my clients joked um, and he's a young dude and I and I'm very somebody I'm very, very, very proud of because he's young and he's got his master's degree and he's working in finance and he's come a long way but he was like man. Have you noticed that everything in America now is on a subscription model, that you can't buy anything outright anymore, that they want to like milk you dry for everything? And that made me think like taxes until you die is like we're paying a subscription to live here. It's like when do I stop paying for this subscription, sir?
Lindsay Oakes:You know like. Well, not only that, I mean we live in one of the most expensive cities right In America, Right, and this summer we were in Nashville. I was great. Two weeks ago, not even a week ago, we were in Naples.
Cleveland Oakes:It was great.
Lindsay Oakes:And the cost of housing in these places is the same or more than we paid for this house.
Cleveland Oakes:And there are no jobs.
Lindsay Oakes:And what do you do for work in those places? To be able to pay your mortgage, to make ends meet, to pay all of your bills, to have a car, to feed your family, right, right, and it's crazy because who can really afford, I mean, who can afford a tiny $800,000 house in Naples with a job working at like Trader Joe's or Publix?
Cleveland Oakes:So we're talking about overload Right, and so you already overloaded from that Right, and that's what Mate talks about in the myth. Well, that's what I was saying is that that's what we take on.
Lindsay Oakes:Is this we have there's such a pressure that's pushed upon us to do more, to be more, to make more money. You have to do that, and the cost of living is constantly going up. Right, and then that means our workload is constantly going up.
Cleveland Oakes:But now think about adding all the overload from the media BS.
Lindsay Oakes:Right. So it's like you're already stressed, You're already stressed and now you're taking on all of these things that are put out there specifically to cause anxiety, to cause depression, To stress you. Right they are. And then what do the politicians come in? They come in and you're like well, I have to go ahead and support this person even though you don't agree with anything they say, because you have to have faith in something or somebody.
Cleveland Oakes:But even what Mate says in there. And for those of you and I've been writing about Mate all month- I love him.
Cleveland Oakes:I actually apologized in my blog post. I was like, hey for you guys. But even Mate, when he talks about politicians, are saying that we put our faith in people who are fundamentally broken themselves Right. Politicians and actors and all these people and athletes. These are people whose their level of success is a fundamental reflection of their level of brokenness, and a lot of these people have achieved because they come from very broken environments.
Lindsay Oakes:Yet this is who our overloaded minds praise, these people who are themselves overloaded, and it comes back to this crazy feedback loop of just right, well, because imagine the pressure on those people because they always have to be better and then they constantly have to be better than everyone else in order to keep a place on the team. Yeah, right, so there's a level of of like kind of overexertion that comes with that, and there's also a level of trauma, right, right, of kind of having to be pushed to that yeah, and that's what he talks about in that book.
Cleveland Oakes:He talks about uh, trudeau. He talks about the, the prime minister of canada before today does he talk about donald trump?
Lindsay Oakes:he talks about donald trump.
Cleveland Oakes:He talks about hillary clinton and he talks that many politicians come from a place of extreme trauma and the people I mean think about what politics is.
Lindsay Oakes:It's like control.
Cleveland Oakes:It's control, and I've, I've and I've counseled people in politics and they have told me it's one of the most toxic environments that they've ever been in. This is who we choose to follow. I want to move on to our next topic, and it's something that, for many of you guys that are out there on and thank you for following along so far is job dissatisfaction and a sense of direction, a directionless I want to throw some Directionlessness, directionlessness I'm sorry, that is some of their houses and me coming out. I want to throw some statistics out there for you, lindsay, and I want you to kick back to me. There are some key statistics. Sixty two point seven of the US workers report being satisfied with their job leaving nearly 40 percent dissatisfied, so I bet you more than 40.
Lindsay Oakes:I think it's more than 40. Yeah, their jobs. So I bet you more than 40 percent. I think it's more than 40.
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah, their jobs.
Lindsay Oakes:No, because I don't think that people are happy, because, even if you like what you do, right, there is a level of kind of like propaganda and programming in the hierarchy of work Right, right.
Cleveland Oakes:Because I've read an opposite poll that said that only that 35 percent of only 35 percent of Americans are satisfied with their jobs.
Lindsay Oakes:Well, these surveys are probably done by companies, and people are afraid to be honest, yeah, and then 70.
Cleveland Oakes:Now, this is one that I do believe in, because I've had multiple clients that 70 believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and reflect a deep um sense of malaise. Now here's one for you, lindsey, and I put this down for a minute. I want to quote the jimmy buffett getting paid by the hour and older by the minute, older by the minute. What does that mean, lens, when you think about what's going on in the world today?
Lindsay Oakes:Well, I mean, it's like you're working and working and working, right, and so it's like it's aging you, it's killing you and you're spending so much time, you know, in this one place that is not even really that important, right, right? I mean, think about how much time people spend working and all the time that they can't get back for family and for friends and for that emotional connection with people, for socialization socialization that they want to have.
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah, Even though you, you you mad at the kids right now, I will say, oh, you're not mad at them why would I be mad? I'm talking about my kids no, I'm not mad oh okay.
Cleveland Oakes:so I want to say something that hunt said to me the other day about you that he was like the one thing I love about lindsey is that she is all about her self-care and she will make sure that she goes on a vacation and she will not throw herself into a job 100% for the sake of just I need to do this job. And he was like I have come to respect her for that and I've come to value her for that. And he was like I hope you value her for that too.
Lindsay Oakes:Well, I won't do. I mean, you know, you always wanted me to go to a full-time classroom job or work in a clinic or something, and I won't do it.
Cleveland Oakes:And I won't do it because it doesn't align with me and I don't want to do it, and I won't go and work with people in an environment where I know I can't be present, right, and so when Hunt gave you that compliment, it really made me think and I'm going to quote Mate again that in this late stage capitalist culture our next podcast might be on this we do not teach children to do.
Lindsay Oakes:What that becomes and we saw it during COVID as well as it becomes this great socioeconomic divide right, where there's a group of people that can keep up and even if they can't, their families can afford the resources to help them keep up Right. And then we push this competitiveness right which we see with our friends, with their daughter now in college because of where she goes to high school. Is this competitiveness right, which we see with our friends with their daughter now in college because of where she goes to high school? Is this competitiveness of like? I have to go here, I want to do this. Even someone I work with said her daughter is only applying to schools where there's a 14% or lower acceptance rate. Right, and it's like, which means that that kid at 17 or 18 is putting such a huge pressure on herself. Right, and we put this focus on that, but we don't ever ask people well, what do you really want to do? What do you like?
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah, jordan Herbinger actually talked about that in an episode a couple of months ago where he said he had somebody write in and was like that his mom was putting a lot of pressure on him only to go to these certain schools and Jordan is somebody who rejected all of that. He him only to go to these certain schools and Jordan is somebody who rejected all of that. He went to law school, he went, he's a lawyer and none of that ish made him happy.
Lindsay Oakes:None of it Because he didn't like it, because it was not. It was not his voice telling him to do it, it was the voice of somebody else.
Cleveland Oakes:Right, and so I want you to speak to that a little bit right. So so, speak to that. So job, the satisfaction and a sense of directionless what you? There's something you say and I'm going to misquote it, and I want you to quote it correctly why is it dangerous to live the Dharma of another, can you?
Lindsay Oakes:just it's that you know it's better to live your own Dharma poorly than the Dharma of another. Well, because the Dharma of another invites great danger, which is, basically, it is better to live your own life and make all the wrong choices for yourself, but they're authentic choices for you, for you right, and for you to suffer the consequences of those choices or to reap the benefits of them. Then it is for you to live the life that another person wants you to live, because that great danger is really the unhappiness and all of the mental health stuff that comes along with it.
Cleveland Oakes:What's, what's crazy, and I want to talk about that for one second. I want to deviate for one second because we as parents and mate talks about this we have all screwed our kids up. Because we all, we all know what has messed us up and because we know what's messed us up, we tried very, very, very, very hard to tell these kids hey, don't do that dumb ish that I did, and it's hard not to. So how do you not push that on your kids? Or how do you not push that on other people, the dharma of another?
Lindsay Oakes:I think, for what we do in this household. Right, and this is something that you've been struggling with a little bit more, I think, than me, as your kids are older but one thing I will not do is tell my kids what to do with their lives Right, I will not do is tell my kids what to do with their lives, right, I will not. I mean, I will say yes so hard. I will say, yes, you do need to work or go to school or do a combination of both, but I will never say I wanted to say, as a therapist, it's hard to, it's hard not to tell these people this is not so hard.
Lindsay Oakes:for me, I think, because it was my experience, is that I got the degree I wanted, you know, regardless of my parents approval of it and, um, well, actually I should say disapproval.
Cleveland Oakes:So I but dad did say in Naples he was like you're the only one of your siblings that could probably, if that don't need money.
Lindsay Oakes:Right. Well, and so the thing is is that you know, I've made a very conscious effort with my kids. Whatever you want to major in, major in, it's your life and it's not forever. You can go and work in a field for five or 10 years and say you know what? There's something actually that I've learned that interests me more. I will not tell my kids what to do with their lives I will not. But I do give them plenty of material for therapy and I do tell them that I give them plenty of material for therapy and I do tell them that I give them plenty of material for therapy. But I think the difference with us is that you and I are both very open about the trauma that we, you know, were raised with and our experiences, and so that helps our kids to say like, eh, you know it's a little messed up here, but yeah, it's all all right, right.
Cleveland Oakes:But you said it clearly and one of the final messages in the book I'm almost finished the book is you should do what? If you can't find direction, then you should find direction in doing what makes you happy.
Lindsay Oakes:Right, absolutely Right. I think Kenny Chesney says right, we're a little.
Cleveland Oakes:A little messed up, but we're all all right.
Lindsay Oakes:We're a little messed up, but we're all all right, right, and so that's the thing, right? Isn't it great to live in a world where you are a little bit messed up and it's accepted, right? And that's the problem is that we don't accept that, yeah.
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah.
Lindsay Oakes:We start to label people, we manipulate people. People are gaslight, gaslighted right, and gaslit is that the word, gaslit? And then you know it's like people and this is where all these issues come from. It's the same stuff with the programming the more that you are told something, the more that you start to freak out about it.
Cleveland Oakes:Right, right, I want to, I want to. I want to digress for a second and I want to say gaslighting is what Joanne's dog was doing yesterday, gaslighting, but you are, as you're, making faces at me. No, you're absolutely right to bring it back that. That is what all the programming is. Mate talks about that in the myth of normal, that in the late stage capitalist society. The goal of a late stage capitalist society is to keep you activated, is to keep you off balance, is to keep you not in touch with yourself and to keep you spending money and to keep you as a hamster on the wheel, consuming products and things mindlessly.
Lindsay Oakes:Right, and it's true, right when you said someone said that we live in a subscription society. How many times have we gone to Amazon and just I swear, subscriptions are made so that you can just spend money and have 85 of the same things in your house and never use them and never use them, and we live in a subscription based society where I am going to make you subscribe Things that you used to own outright.
Cleveland Oakes:You now have to subscribe to it. I can't even buy my car. I want to buy my car, and they're like, ah well, if you buy it, it's going to cost you more than leasing a new one, and it's crazy. I want to move on, though, and I want to just as as we move on, as we're starting to wrap it up, I do want to bring out some insights from Gabor that we've really talked about in depth.
Cleveland Oakes:Um Gabor, and it really goes into what, what, what we just said as a former physician, as someone who's primarily a physician, who moved in the mental health space, is.
Cleveland Oakes:He highlights how, in Western societies, despite advanced health care, we are seeing a rise in chronic illness and mental health issues due to the unaddressed trauma in toxic environments, and he also critiques the expectation, and what we just talked about, that celebrities and politicians can soothe our societal pain and politicians can soothe our societal pain, and I really think that and you see this all over the world, and this will be a very quick topic because I just want to get your point on it and move on, is that you see, all over the world and Mate talks about this is that people and Jason Pargin also says the same thing is that people are looking for strongmen all over the world. They're looking for these dictatorial leaders because they do not want to take responsibility for their own decisions, or they have been. As Jason Pardes would say, they have been so inundated with so much information that is too much. Let this other person decide for me. Why is that dangerous?
Lindsay Oakes:Well, what I was just going to say is that the more, the more that people tell you something and then you do it, you do get mad at them because you're like I did it because you said so, right, I did it because of this, I did it because of this, and it's just. It's because you're just not doing what you want to do and you don't have a mind of your own or you don't have the capacity within yourself to choose or to make a decision right, I mean personal choice of what is it that I want? What do I want to do? Because when you do what other people want you to do, then you have a person to blame when it goes wrong. How many?
Cleveland Oakes:clients have you sat with that don't know themselves.
Lindsay Oakes:Oh, most of them. Most of them, I mean, I would probably say that there's maybe one or two that do know themselves.
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah, mate brings out this point when it, when it, when it um. One of the insights in the book is that we often assume our personality is who we are. Why is that dangerous to somebody? Or why is that wrong?
Lindsay Oakes:is somebody who is is is practiced in ci well, our personality is is is typically a result of our trauma, right? We basically grow up in a household where our personality characteristics form based on, you know, the experiences that we have. So I'll use an example for myself, right, I grew up in a household that was, you know, I mean it was two parent household. There was, you know, some instability there. It was not always the greatest environment and there was always kind of a message of like not wanting to hear what I had to say. Right, and we even saw some of that at Christmas too, with the sighing and the eye rolling Tell the story. I like you. No, I'm not. I don't want to tell a story. No, I'm not here, but for for a couple of reasons.
Lindsay Oakes:But when you grow up in a household and there are all these things going on around you, you start to form these negative core beliefs about yourself, right, and so other people's actions make you behave a certain way, like I used to have a client who, for example, was told that children are seen and not heard, and then she went to preschool and got a bad report because she wasn't social enough, and then her mom was yelling at her. And this poor kid at three, four years old has no idea. You know what's going on. She's confused. Well, I'm told I shouldn't do this. But now I'm told I should. And I'm in trouble because I don't do it. But I'm doing what my mom said, and now I'm in trouble. And so what happened for her? She shut down, right Like I. For myself, I became, when I got the message that what I had to say wasn't important. I just became a very introverted person.
Cleveland Oakes:I have a good friend of mine who is um, who is of Jewish faith, and he struggles a lot with depression and anxiety and he told me it was it co-signs with that that one of the first songs that he remembers in school is it could be worse, it could be worse.
Lindsay Oakes:Right and so, and what happened? So people tell us things and they put these thoughts into our head and then we form negative core beliefs around them and then we become that person and that's how our personality develops. And what Gabor says in an analogy that he used, was that you get a puppy and then you start to beat the puppy and then the puppy is scared of you, and then the puppy eventually, if you keep beating the puppy, is scared of all human beings that are big right, all adult sized human beings. And then he asks is it the puppy's fault? Yeah, yeah, is it the puppy's fault? Yeah, yeah, is it the puppy's fault?
Cleveland Oakes:I'm scared of all latinas now is the puppy?
Lindsay Oakes:is it the puppy's fault? No it's not because what was the puppy doing? The puppy was adapting to its environment and so as human beings. Right, I'm sorry, I didn't find that funny because I was talking.
Cleveland Oakes:No, because that's, I'm talking about my ex-wife, because my kids, my kids, will like never marry another latina. But it's's, that's the trauma.
Lindsay Oakes:Excuse me. So what he says is that then what happens to the puppy? Right? Is it the puppy's fault? No, the puppy was adapting to its environment, and so we develop personality traits based on how we had to adapt to our environment as children and then as adults.
Cleveland Oakes:What happens is, unfortunately, those personality traits and those characteristics don't serve us anymore, and now we don't know how to be anything else yeah, mate calls that, and even though I made that joke, I was actually serious about that because it was a lot of things that my ex put me through that made me messed up for a long time on on various things and I've let them go and mate would call those things our stupid friend and these are things.
Lindsay Oakes:It's a super ego, it's your stupid friend. He says right, the super ego. The function of the super ego is that when you are a child, right, or when you're in some traumatic situation, that it helps you adapt to that situation and be accepted.
Cleveland Oakes:Right, but these things as adults, and we and we do have these traumas that happen to us as adults, you know, and my dad had to help me break out of it because there was a long time and I just I will use my ex as an example, who I don't have any problems with now, but my dad really tried and I love my dad very much really tried very hard and think, and it's thanks to my dad that I met you, because I was convinced for a long time that this one person who hurt me and this is what we do, this is what we all do, but, like that puppy, I am convinced that this one person who hurt me in this incredible way represents every person out there. And my dad was like you had one bad experience with one woman. That does not represent all women, nor does it represent all women of a certain race or ethnicity, nor does it represent humans. You need to go out and experience somebody else and thank God for Papa Cleve because I met you.
Lindsay Oakes:Oh, thank you.
Cleveland Oakes:Yeah, so I want to wrap it up here. So some practical takeaways that we can take away are limit news consumption, which we're already doing. Prioritize self-care, self-care to combat fatigue. Reconnect with local communities I started going to church recently, um, you know, and and doing some other things. I always suggest to folks to go out and volunteer, um and foster resilience and to counter disengagement, cause the most important thing is to be engaged in your own life and to be engaged with with other things. Anything else that you'd like to add as we wrap up?
Lindsay Oakes:No, I don't think so.
Cleveland Oakes:So some additional resources that I definitely would like you guys to go back and look at.
Cleveland Oakes:The Myth of Normal was a great book by Gabor Mate, which is which is really, I would tell you, really changed how I look at things like depression, drug addiction, anxiety, trauma, childbirth.
Cleveland Oakes:There's a great episode of this American Life that I talked about the other, mr President which talks about the rise of power to Vladimir Putin and articles on news fatigue and job satisfaction and finding out the fire hood of the fire hose of falsehood, which is one of the things that Trump has also used to rise to power, that there's so much misinformation and disinformation and crazy information out there. I sure is. I would tell you to take Jason Parge's advice before you form an assumption on something. If you are not a Rhodes Scholar, or if you do not know, if it's not a peer review general, you need to tell yourself I do not have enough information to form an opinion on that. I'd like to say that this episode gave us an eye-opening view of how fatigue shapes our world and what we can do to fight back. Yep, okay, so that's it. This has been Cleveland and Lindsay, and this has been another episode of the devil, you don't know. Thank you,
