Before You Cut Bangs
Hosted by Laura Quick and Claire Fierman, “Before You Cut Bangs” is full of hilarious conversations about real life, common and uncommon crises, and possible cosmetic errors that come along with it. Through storytelling and therapeutic wisdom, Claire and Laura share how to NOT fuck up your hair (and life) while walking through similar situations,
Produced by Will Lochamy
Before You Cut Bangs
2.12 Chaos: Is It Me or Is It Them?
What if the chaos that keeps finding you isn't random at all? Laura and Claire tackle the uncomfortable question many of us face when drama seems to follow us everywhere: "Is it me or is it them?"
Welcome to, before you Cut Bangs. I'm Laura Quick and I'm Claire Fehrman. I am a professional storyteller and I'm currently working on my first book.
Speaker 2:I have worked in mental health for many years in lots of capacities and this is a really important time to tell you our big disclaimer this is not therapy. We are not your therapists or coaches or anything like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you shouldn't really trust us very much at all, unless you want to and it turns out well, then you can trust us, that's great.
Speaker 3:That sound means we're recording.
Speaker 2:We are recording Another listener wanted to hear the second verse of Christmas Shoes.
Speaker 1:Alright well that episode's over, claire, okay, and that joke is dumb it was great that we both like immediately, like she's describing Christmas.
Speaker 2:Shoes right now. It's nice to recap the previous episode, laura, and it was on Christmas Shoes.
Speaker 1:No, it wasn't remember to hush, and I will say for continuity yeah, just like that last episode and it was on Christmas.
Speaker 3:No, it wasn't Remember to hush. Okay, and I will say for continuity yeah, just like that last episode. This is outside again. This is an outside episode, on the front porch. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1:It's fake spring.
Speaker 3:Today yes, as we are.
Speaker 1:We are at the end of February, where fake spring shows up and tricks us into believing it's going to be 70 and beautiful until it freezes and possibly snows in one week. Okay, um, but we are talking about chaos, which y'all are being very chaotic right now. So is it is it me, or is it them? You?
Speaker 1:definitely right now honestly, it's always been me. I have been the problem. If I look back at my history, it's not like I can be like. No, it was definitely them. When my life was chaotic, it was 100% me. So what do you mean?
Speaker 2:by chaos.
Speaker 1:Well, for me, chaos looked like a bunch of accidental marriages and a lot of friends that I like to be the queen of, and so, in order to be the coolest person in the room, you have to find some real shit shows, and so that's, that's what I mean. What do you mean? Are you, is it you or is it them? Now I don't have a lot of it. Oh, I don't have. Yeah, I don't have chaos now, except for every like couple months I want to start up with.
Speaker 2:Start out with a fun mixer instead of this question. You were like, hmm, I like it when Will's like, where could you go on vacation today? Instead of like, do you want to talk about how you've been the worst actually, I mean, this is the truth. From like 20 to 30, I functioned in. If there's a problem, it was validating, so like I always. I wouldn't even have called it chaos, but there was always like a thing to be upset about or thing to worry about, and that was a decade of exhaustion. There's a lot of therapeutic things that go along with that and I don't feel like it would be prudent to go through all of them, but yeah, it was for sure me. That felt normal, that felt engaging. That's how I got love and attention.
Speaker 1:And I don't even know why we have to do this, but Will.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just have no place for chaos. You know this, I know I think it's just the chaos.
Speaker 2:You know this, I know, I know, I know. I think it's just the cutest, we get it.
Speaker 1:You're a golden retriever and you have no chaos ever. I will say this there's something that really struck me for people there were a couple of people that messaged you around this subject specifically. You know, when you're going through a chaotic moment, for instance, if you have children and they're going through drama, like as your kids go through teenage years, you start to go like what's happening? Am I in the vortex of like wildlife? Well, not you. Well, obviously, your children are also perfect, but um.
Speaker 1:There's no such thing, but I think that when I think back at those things, there can be situations where there's chaos happening, but that is not normal, it's not the regular thing. I think that the is it me or is it them? Scenario is if you keep finding yourself in a repeatable situation where it's like plug and play maybe the characters are changing, but the scenario is really similar.
Speaker 2:What is that? Not for me, thanks, but what is that? What were you going to say?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, just to explain myself, because I talked about this today.
Speaker 2:Sorry, we really have to lighten up on him, that's okay.
Speaker 3:One. I really just don't have the capacity for chaos, like I just really I'll avoid it. So if something is seeming chaotic or whatever, I'll just like pivot and go the other way. But also just the way I think about things is very pragmatic, and so that lends itself to not be chaotic For sure. And so those are the two reasons. One I just think about, even like bad stressful situations, I'm like all right, well, let's just think about how to resolve this, because I want to get it resolved. And then also, if something is chaotic or tumultuous, I just will get away from it, I just want nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1:So that's why I can easily say like, yeah, chaotic, not not in my playbook I think for adults now that's what you're asking like adults that seemingly are always in like drama or a problem with a friend, or like the drama finds you like, because I feel like sometimes people feel that way like god, how does this keep finding me like I moved to another job and now there's like more drama, or I, you know, like my friend group, there's just always some drama, or whatever it has to be them right.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, so we recreate our unfinished business until we get through the business right, and it doesn't even have to be chaos, but that's what we're talking about. So if you find yourself in repeatedly bad relationships, I hate to say, well, it's you, because that sounds shitty. What I mean is… but it was me but.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm just using a lot of work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've done a lot of work, but I think like one, so you don't feel alone. In case you are in that season of your life where you're like, damn, I just keep hitting the same wall. Relationally, I've been there and you can get on the other side of it. So like, don't beat yourself up, just keep listening, don't turn us off.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Lori Gottlieb, who wrote Maybe you Should Talk to Someone, is brilliant and she said something I don't even remember where I read it, maybe it doesn't matter. She said, and boy did it irk me. She said you marry your unfinished business and I couldn't tolerate it and I was like I saw it and I was like that's one thing she's wrong about.
Speaker 2:You know, I hate when people are like people marry their fathers and I'm like what that? I haven't seen therapeutically, but it bothered me because the same pattern from my first marriage has shown up in my second marriage and that is excruciating. So the choice is chaos in my instance would have been running or blowing up the marriage or whatever, or looking into the darkness and walking through it with somebody that I love and trust. So I think that's the relationship piece as far as chaos. Like you will continue to find your unfinished business until you finish the business, and that does have to do with you. On the other hand, if you're like constantly in it with girlfriends, like I hear these stories I cannot imagine having an altercation with a girlfriend at this point in my life.
Speaker 1:I literally just was with someone who told me about a. Like adults like my, between our ages there's a huge, huge age.
Speaker 2:It's huge, it's.
Speaker 1:I'm very old and you're extremely young, thirty eight. You look like an actual eight year old driving your car. So let's just be clear about that. But this person was telling me about this crazy drama that's always happening in a friend group and my immediately thought, my immediate thought, was like I would leave the friend group. I would not stay in a scenario like that, because I absolutely one. It's one thing if, like, an issue happens and we need to talk it through and we need to get on the same page or someone's feelings were hurt or whatever, totally on board with that. It happens, we're all human, okay. But if repeatedly there is a drama like a housewife situation happening, I'm outie 5,000.
Speaker 2:I love that phrase. First, I've never heard it, I made it up. I think it's like a mix of several iterations Never. I hear this so often I'm like, well, we're not talking to her anymore. What Like in?
Speaker 3:middle school. It's wild? No, it's like grown.
Speaker 1:This is a grown people thing, and it's like. What I keep thinking is like I'm so grateful that all of my people are like healing. They're not perfect, they're figuring things out too, but they're like working on themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, have the ability, like with my tier ones. I was mean shocking to Amanda and she's like you really hurt my feelings and I kind of cried. I was like, oh, like I knew, I knew I'd been a little direct. I was like gosh, I'm so sorry. And she was like want to get coffee. Like that's as long as that lasts like 90 seconds. So if in those chaotic situations where it keeps happening, kind of back to what I said in the beginning, where, when there was always a problem, I felt seen important this is cringe worthy to say but somebody was paying attention to me and that is like boosting.
Speaker 2:And so if you're like, oh, I keep finding myself in these situations, like what's the missing link here? So, instead of saying oh, I'm such a piece of shit and keep doing this, maybe it's like what is it that you're seeking? Because you're just knocking on the wrong doors for it, and maybe it's start knocking on a different door which is uncomfortable and it's new and it's vulnerable, but, like, this is not sustainable. Does that answer?
Speaker 1:the chaos. Yeah, 100 percent, and I think it kind of leads into that. And this is like the part where I feel like we do need to unpack which is the like self-awareness versus self-shaming, which is the like self-awareness versus self-shaming, like in this scenario. Let's say, you're the person, you're Laura in her 20s, who's like damn, I keep waking up and finding myself living this groundhog day like, and finally, maybe you're at that place where you're like I need to figure out what is going on in me, because I keep getting married, because I keep getting married and running and moving and taking my child with me, which is obviously not the best part of it.
Speaker 1:And the self-awareness piece was I need some help. Obviously, I can't figure this out on my own, but I shamed myself for so long because what I, what I did, instead of trying to figure it out and getting curious about like where is this coming from and like do I need help or can I figure it out on my own, is I would just run away, I would change scenes and hope that the change of scenery or the change of people or you know, a new wedding obviously would help me heal. You know that that person would make me happy, or that new thing or that new job or that new position or the new business or whatever would check the box and all of a sudden I would be better and the chaos would be gone.
Speaker 2:But alas, You're still you.
Speaker 1:I was Everywhere you go. There you'll find yourself, that's right there you go.
Speaker 2:That's what we like to say.
Speaker 3:I wanna buy, but I think some people like it right, even if they don't know that. They like it, like it's just their life it's programmed chaos and turmoil is just the way that they go about it grew up.
Speaker 2:Probably grew up that way, or they either probably had too much chaos or nobody paid any attention to them, and so how do I get a need met?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and even though they act like oh, this is terrible. Oh girl, I'm so mad about it. Yeah, but that's you 24 hours a day. Obviously, this is you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so what that does? Because they're not connected to self? Is it because they're not connected to self?
Speaker 1:is that disconnect, disconnect, disconnect, and it just further disconnects you from people because you're uncomfortable here and I think and this is something I did too to detach myself from my own chaos, right? So, like, don't look in the mirror. What ended up happening is I would be the fixer for all these other people, like, I'm just that one phone call you make and I'll make it all better, and blah, blah, blah, which is complete, like, I'm sorry, my life is a dumpster fire. Why would you trust me to help you with anything? But OK, so you're making the call to me which makes which lets me escape, right, so not being aware, right, I'm not self-aware, I'm living in shame. The way I'm avoiding my shame is by helping other people, or I'm using the air quotes here, helping other people with their life. And it pushed me further into shame, because then I feel like a fraud.
Speaker 2:This I do see in my practice a lot Women. I'm saying women just because I see mostly women. Yeah, not by design, it just happened, or men are scared of me, I don't know. But women get to this place where they're like okay, I'm seeing the same pattern like owning, I have a part in this, and then it goes into self-loathing, judgment and criticism. Here I go again. Of course I did it that way, not the like tender, of course, but like god damn it. And so then it's like I'll hate this part of me until it changes impossible. So the work is, instead of the shame, it's okay. Of course I did these things. How do I move closer to connection? How do I move closer to? I'm saying connection? Is that landing? Like what I mean by this is chaos, is disconnect, disconnect, not real, like I'm gonna fix you all of that. Connection is I sit with my pain and I have like love around it and I can be light. I can even make jokes about it.
Speaker 1:How you can joke about those parts of your life now which, by the way, which I would historically and in my 20s, even into my 30s, lied wouldn't tell people wanted to hide those parts of myself because I was not on the other side of it. I didn't know how to joke about it because it wasn't funny. It was really hurtful and I felt a lot of shame, and that I mean honestly. When I met Shane, my husband, and he said that to me, he was like you know, shame is like shit on your shoes. I was first of all wanted to literally run 700 miles per hour away from him immediately and second of all was like fuck you, I don't have shame. No one had ever named it like that. And I was like, oh damn. And that was a catalyst for me of like, oh, is this what that is? I have a lot of shame.
Speaker 2:I feel so nervous about my own story so if we decide to not engage in the chaos, that means I'm stuck with myself. So if I hate myself, I'll go back back and reengage in those old patterns. So when I'm saying connect, I mean you have to be with yourself. Clients hate that, like they can't wrap their minds around it because, like a little shame I don't think is that big of a deal, like maybe it pushes you into doing something that you didn't want to do or whatever. But when we think we will grow and heal by hating ourselves, we are misinformed.
Speaker 2:So it's not like I jump from hating myself to self-love. I sit in the tolerance and sit with the intolerable feeling of you get the phone call, can you fix blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm in crisis and your heart goes pitter patter. Like of course I can. It's the pause right there of like gosh, I wish I knew what to tell you. I would call this person or whatever. So it's this like free falling thing of like whoa, I'm going to change the behavior. And it's this like free falling thing of like whoa, I'm going to change the behavior. And it's going to feel bad initially because I haven't engaged in the old chaos, and then I change.
Speaker 1:I, literally just this week, had someone that I know I shouldn't engage with engage with me and ask me to do something that is like my secret favorite thing, like would you come speak to this large group of people? But I shouldn't engage with this person and I'm really proud that, instead of saying absolutely I'd love to, because I knew it was going to put me in a vulnerable situation I'm not really ready for, I said hey, I can't do that, but let me refer you to somebody who probably will and would be a really ready for. I said, hey, I can't do that, but let me refer you to somebody who probably will and would be a really good fit, but the old part of Laura probably didn't love that the old part of Laura wanted to rearrange my life to make this thing.
Speaker 1:that was not going to be a good choice for me work.
Speaker 2:So you had to sit within the discomfort of like man. That sounds like so good, but the better choice is the harder choice. So that's like a long way to say and this is like the hippie yoga part that has to come out. Like it all comes back to like can I pause before I engage in these things? So like will sniffs it out and he's like oh, I don't have time. I Like redirect the mission. It's both of y'all already pause and there's no self-loathing anymore. It's just like no, that's not a good choice for me. What do you do? Make horrible choices?
Speaker 1:I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:So mine isn't chaos. I don't think I have it a lot, but I'll talk I guess about I don't think I have it a lot, but I'll talk I guess about. So I get to this hard part in my marriage where my same stuff is showing up. And I told myself fairly recently and I keep all this very secret inside. Now it's on a podcast, but I've done many therapy sessions between then. But I had to call my therapist. I'm like Megan, I thought we were done. So I have this little war going on where it said you're incapable of being a wife. That's what your history shows. So I tell my therapist Well, immediately she comes up on the screen and I was like I think, and I was so serious, I either need to see a psychic or start ketamine treatment. And she was like okay, well, tell me more. You know Cool. And what it boiled down to was like, internally, I'm telling myself you're such a piece of shit, you can't do this. Blow it up now. Go back to what you know, be alone, be super mom.
Speaker 2:Survive, survive, survive survive because I it is so uncomfortable for me to actually like I just wasn't asking my husband what I needed so he wouldn't know. Clueless, you know, you have chickens, you know like he has no idea, and so that disconnected us.
Speaker 2:So I disconnect. This goes back to that abyss thing. So instead of connecting with my husband, I'm living in this turmoil of I knew I can't do it and I'm not telling him. He has no idea and I'm totally shut down, working my ass off, only focusing on kids' activities and no, like, not a wife, like not a partner, barely a friend. He's like what is happening and I couldn't you know? I'm good, I'm good, I'll figure it out, and inside I'm like we got to pack it up. I guess you know. And that therapist helped me boil down to this has nothing to do with who he is. As a person, you're not able to say what you want, what you need, and instead of doing that, you've told yourself what a piece of shit you are. And when she called me out on it, I was like no, that's not the case.
Speaker 1:Actually I think I'm going to call my psychic. Thank you so much for this call Appreciate you.
Speaker 2:What's funny is one of my friends was like I think I'm going to have a card reader come into my shop. I was like I'd like the two o'clock spot, please. And I didn't go because I was like no, like what am I doing? So so this therapist is like you go to the abyss, you go to this world inside. No one knows about it. So dark, it's so lonely, it's so sad. You disconnect. And she was like what would connection look like? I was like I should probably just eat dinner with my husband, like just anything. And she was like that's exactly right. And so my job, I didn't hate myself into being a better wife. I like got to the part where I was like man, I feel so bad right now. The job was like move, move towards connection, move towards connection. My shame says disconnect, disconnect. And so the work was like as simple as like okay, oh yeah, I can't hate myself into being better, but I can do these like bite-sized things to show up and like you know, clue my husband into how I'm feeling.
Speaker 1:Well, and also you did the brave thing. And the brave thing is you didn't live in that alone. Even though you were ready to call a psychic psychic, you also scheduled an appointment with your therapist.
Speaker 1:They work it's crazy insane what a therapist will actually do for you change your life truly okay. So for somebody who's sitting in this right now because I was just kind of thinking through, like, if you're in that loop of like, damn, I keep finding myself here over and over and over again, what I'm hearing is like one, you cannot, you can't hate yourself into somewhere different Sorry, girls and being the collector of all of the chaos or the crazy of your friend group, of your family, of your whatever, and you're the fixer, then that could just be a medicator keeping you from the work maybe that you need to do to move into more awareness. And then what's the last one? Is there another one?
Speaker 2:Well, I just want to say that I sound really like zen and aware of all this. I wasn't, and I will say I grew up in a house that was like really loud, and like there was addiction and there was chaos, and so there is history that plays a part in this for people. So, like just be aware of that. It doesn't mean you have to like go back and do a bunch of inner child work, but that's awesome too. But my mother is in town right now, which is one of my favorite weeks when she comes and my house was chaos. Like I have two little kids, we have two dogs, like it was wild. My kids are screaming at each other and one of my kids yells at the other one. Maybe you should meditate more. And I was like, yeah, I do it every day.
Speaker 1:And my mom goes see how well it's working for your mother. I was like really working for her Really.
Speaker 2:But the point is like it is bite-sized, itty-bitty pieces. It's not a giant light bulb, it's not a 180. It is like hating yourself gets you nowhere. Sitting with yourself right here out of the abyss gets you everywhere you want to go, even when it feels like futile or useless Totally.
Speaker 1:Hey, thanks for telling us what y'all want to talk about we love it when you do that.
Speaker 2:It's very helpful.
Speaker 1:It's very, very helpful and we love fake spring. Thanks for letting us be on your porch for fake spring.
Speaker 3:Do y'all want to guess what bird? That is real quick. I'm saying blue Bird. Yeah, I'm afraid, okay, yeah app, that's what you're going with it definitely wants to say something I just learned about this app the other day.
Speaker 2:I use it every day. It's Merlin, a Merlin, just Merlin, merlin, mockingbird, mockingbird. It's a northern mockingbird, is it Well?
Speaker 3:I've just seen a blue jay over there too. Oh, the house sparrows responding to him. Right now. It's a northern mockingbird, is it? Well, I just seen a blue jay over there too, which is oh.
Speaker 2:The house sparrows respond into them right now. It's a great app. Wait, what's that? That's cool. It's called Merlin. When the weather's warm, that is my. I will give y'all a little meditation hack. I don't sit quietly on a pillow for 20 minutes. I pour my coffee. I go outside, I listen, drink coffee. Minutes. I pour my coffee, I go outside, I listen, drink coffee, and then I queue up old Merlin and I see who I've been listening to and it's the best, which is amazing, because I went for a walk.
Speaker 1:I'm doing some walks this year with no phone, like that's, like a big part of it is just like completely psychopath level no headphones, no phone or nothing. Um, and I was overwhelmed with how much nature, like I was like, damn, listen to all the things I'm missing out on, because I'm like listening to a podcast or a book or whatever.
Speaker 2:Meditation, walking meditation.
Speaker 3:Good stuff.
Speaker 2:Bye, bye Before you Cut. Bangs is hosted by Laura Quick and Claire Feerman and produced by Will Lockamey.
Speaker 1:Follow along with us everywhere. Please subscribe to the podcast. Find us on Instagram. We're constantly doing polls. We want to know what you think, and I know that you probably know this, but reviewing us and giving us five stars matters more than anything, and we are so grateful to have you here.
