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
Building Connection Through Chaos: Finding Community in Unexpected Places
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What happens when you blend the chaos of a kitchen flood with the warmth of a vegan Friendsgiving? Join us as we share our latest escapades, from Cleveland's ponderings of a PhD amidst his return to the office grind to Lindsay's unwavering resolve to steer clear of academia. Our Thanksgiving tales range from serene home-cooked vegan roasts to the bustling camaraderie of Friendsgiving, all while juggling Cleveland's quirky feats of knowledge and his hilarious domestic faux pas.
Have you ever wondered how finding your "sangha" could transform your life? We explore the profound impact of nurturing genuine connections and how communities rooted in shared values can counter feelings of isolation. With insights drawn from cultural touchstones like "Wicked" and anecdotes from engaging support groups, we emphasize the beauty of building authentic relationships. Whether it's a nod to therapy's healing power or the joy of shared interests, like veganism, our stories illustrate the essence of feeling truly seen and supported.
Please email us at Gettoknowthedevil@gmail.com
Wicked and Arugula
Speaker 1This is Cleveland.
Speaker 2This is Lindsay.
Speaker 1And this is another episode of the Devil. You Don't Know. I feel like I kind of have on my after dark voice.
Speaker 2Yeah, I was actually about to comment on that. I don't know what's going on. I don't think you're in the right place for that voice, probably not.
Speaker 1Okay, how are you? I'm good. I'm good. We had a really good weekend. Sorry for those of you that we missed last week. As Lindsay said to me this morning when we were talking about recording today and uh, and our little breakfast, look that we really do have to you just slept in to not record yeah, that we really do have to start making a specific time in which we are going to record, so that we can just make sure that we're regular, because life I'm not the problem.
Speaker 2I mean, I can get up at 5 am and do it with my coffee, but you just like sleeping well. Well, it was good.
Speaker 1You know it was a busy week. I mean, you know I might be going back into a corporate office soon, in addition to thinking about doing my PhD soon, in addition to seeing like a stupid amount of clients.
Speaker 2You know who's never doing a PhD? Who Me? Oh, you never know. No, I'm not going back to school, I'm going to let you get a PhD so I can be a housewife.
Speaker 1Oh that's also cool.
Speaker 2I have a plan. Oh, you do have a plan. I do have a plan. We had a great Thanksgiving. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Yeah, I hope you all guys had a great.
Speaker 1Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2Yeah, it was really nice. So the queen mom went to see her dad, uh-huh, and college drop-in went also College drop-in. So we were alone over here, which was nice, wonderful, always good times. Didn't have to cook a whole lot of stuff, just a couple of vegan roasts, which we did not. Last week we went to a friend's giving. That was really fun that was fun.
Speaker 1We met a lot of fun people. I got to talk about comic books. Yeah, it's always weird People even my classmates in grad school always talk about the weird breadth of knowledge that I have, because I can go on one topic and talk about geopolitical or socioeconomics or SES, or I can talk about ultimate Spider-Man and absolute Superman and dark side and apocalypse and professor X and Xavier and the wheels of the wheel of time and a whole bunch of assorted nonsense that most people don't have.
Speaker 2Yeah, you really do have a breadth of knowledge about a lot of really interesting and strange things Strange.
Speaker 1I would say, strange yeah.
Speaker 2You just know a lot of weird facts about things that I'm not even sure I think you just listen to things and read. I just get a lot of my own knowledge from you.
Speaker 1I get Well, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's give credit where credit is due. I get most of my life skills and common sense knowledge from you, because Lord knows that I sure I don't think the message is coming in clear enough, because you're not really.
Speaker 2I mean, you lost the top of my new milk machine.
Speaker 1I am so sorry, but hey, here's the thing. I looked at the email today. They sent you a whole top chamber for $200, that they took the $200 off. So now you're going to have like extra pieces so that you know it just doesn't happen again.
Speaker 2Well, I'm going to have extra pieces except for the top. I'm just going to have the one, so hopefully you don't lose it. No, the other top is going to show up. So you have this knack for just being completely like unaware when you're doing housework and you just move things around and stick things in places and then they can't be found. And in this one was a big error, because this is a brand new that I got m1 milk maker makes wonderful milk too.
Speaker 1It makes great nut milks and oat milks and I had some cashew blueberry, uh, cardamom. Oh, there's our favorite guest star today. It's a. It's a rugel of the caddies back. But go ahead, let's finish doing this commercial phenomena.
Speaker 2So we have this nama m1 milk maker that cleve bought me for the new kitchen. And well, last week there was a big faux pas, huge bunch of psyllium husk down the sink because he doesn't ask me questions and it clogged up the sink and overflowed into the entire kitchen.
Speaker 2It was like a comedy show and I came downstairs, took one look at the kitchen with the river running through it the brand new kitchen, I might yeah, it was like a comedy show and I just said what happened and then I was like you know, I'm just gonna go back upstairs and continue my gilmore girls marathon and I'm gonna come back when this is cleaned up you have been gilmoring it up, though I have them almost done now almost wait.
Speaker 1Wait, the revival which you swear that you've never watched.
Speaker 2But I'm telling you, you watched it yeah, well, I'm very busy, so I think sometimes I do things and forget I did them. He just fell off the couch so remember we talked about, I think, this kitten the last time when we had him, when we had to watch him, when they were going away in october. So our friends from the school carpool went away again and left the cat with us.
Speaker 2Well, they call him leo, but I've named him arugula which he answers to because he remembers he remembers me, and now he's really, really rambunctious, and none of the other cats that live with us regularly are enthused by this at all no, none of them.
Speaker 1I know this is a family show so I won't curse, but none of them F's with him. No.
Speaker 2And he's really very, very cute, but my God, he's annoying. He's annoying, he is just. He's good though, biting everything, eating everything, climbing. I mean yesterday he spent four hours jumping up one side of the sofa, running across the back and then jumping down the other side and I thought don't, it's like a baby, why isn't he sleeping?
Speaker 1But life is amazing at that age, you know.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, I guess so, but I love a good nap, so anyway.
Speaker 1Anyway. So here's the interesting thing, just how life works out. Before we get into our main topic, is that we were supposed to see Wicked. We cause we totally forgot that we agreed to take leo slash arugula back and so we're sitting here. So we went and normally cleave is good about times and show times and appointments and for some reason I thought that we I had bought tickets to the 10 35 a showing of wicked, which did not exist, because when we got to the theater um the alamo draft hosts and Yonkers, which is a great dine in spot, you know, they've got these new reclining seats we actually showed up and the guy was like oh, you can't come in. The show's been on for 20 minutes, which it actually had not been, cause I timed it. When we actually did go back, it was probably like it probably had just started, because there's like 40 minutes, like 30 minutes of previews.
Speaker 2Regardless, they wouldn't let us in. They wouldn't let us in. So we had to switch our tickets for To Saturday. Saturday which actually worked out because I got to go to HomeSense and we got to bring Lori. We got to bring Lori Elston With us and I love Lori.
Speaker 1So, and Lori loved Wicked, I loved Wicked. Lindsay, let are not going to follow the crowd and follow the hype and just say that this was amazing. Well, lindsay, what were your problems with Wicked?
Speaker 2Okay, well, it was a little too long, I would agree. That was one of the issues I had, and the other issue was and I actually researched it online today I was just so distracted by how skinny Ariana Grande is. I mean, she was so skinny. You could see these shoulder bones where her arms connect, just popping out of her shoulders. You could see every bone in her chest, and I was. It was so distracting and I was just so disgusted by it that I thought, like this is a role model for young women.
Speaker 1Did the word. Were you alone in that observation, I'm sure?
Speaker 2Because when we came out of the movie Lori actually said she was distracted by it and I had whispered to you in the movie. I was like she looks so skinny, it's disgusting. And then I Googled it and you know there's a lot of articles that they say that she and then um, what's the other?
Speaker 1Cynthia yes, they both lost a lot of weight.
Speaker 2Well, they said that she's lost the weight since the film, but that they both um, there's concerns that they have like an eating disorder, and then, of course, there's the opposite. That's like stop saying that you don't know what it's like, but she was so skinny in the movie that you could see every bone in her body and it was disgusting to me.
Speaker 1Yeah, it was a distraction, it's amazing and, before we get started, listen, we're not judging folks and it definitely is mental health experts.
Speaker 2We want to be mindful of folks out there who have eating disorders, because there are a lot of people that have eating disorders, I think the concern for me is, like it just that people look up to people and you know, and young women especially, and it's it kind of sets this precedent that you have to be a certain size definitely do an episode on body dysmorphia, because body dysmorphia is something that in the olden days, which was the 90s, in the early 2000s, was something that only women suffered with.
Speaker 1But body dysmorphia is actually on the rise in in men also, in that they watch. You know, you go see this avengers movie and you go see this marvel movie and you go see and wicked was a great movie. Um, in its own right, I do agree it's a little overly long they took. They took a three-hour play and changed into six hours of content, so there's a lot of filler could have just been shorter yeah right certain parts we didn't need so much context on and, but otherwise I thought it was great.
Speaker 2Um, I'm not a big musical fan, but I did find the music to be great and catchy and I would definitely see part two yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1Part two comes out in November.
Speaker 2So yeah, and what else? What else has been going on with you? What did you eat this week?
Speaker 1Oh, rugal, is going to sleep. Oh, thank God, oh, thank God. I think he's a the soothing dulcet. It's the after dark voice. I had to do it, so in that Arugula would settle down.
Speaker 2I'll just get up again. I'll just, I'll just not move an inch.
Speaker 1I'll just do like this for the rest of the podcast. Every time you move, the cat moves. I think it's my dulcet voice so what have you eaten lately?
Speaker 2we got a really great rebel cheese box, the thanks living box yeah, the thanks, living box is great yeah, did you like it?
Speaker 1it was good. It was good. We went to um laurie and dave's house for for thanksgiving, which was interesting, we had um. I brought that cranberry field. What was it in the?
Speaker 2pastry, oh yes, the uh field roast, the field roast like wrapped in a pastry or something like a puff pastry, with my um, yeah, it was really. What do you mean was interesting? The roast? Yeah, the roast was good. I always like it, it's interesting great and we love laurie and dave, so it was really nice to go to their house and hang out with them and, to be super low-key, you were able to wear your sweatsuit.
Speaker 1I said, well, yeah, I was like hey, is this dress up or soft pants? Lori, Lori is a big fan of soft pants.
Speaker 2So we, you know you were able to wear the soft pants. And then on Friday we had a great day. We went upstate to New Paltz and walked around. I wanted to do a little bit of boutique shopping for the holidays and I got myself some goodies. And then we went to one of my favorite places, that the lagustas luscious, which cleve calls the overpriced chocolate shop. But it's this vegan cafe and chocolate shop and they hand make all of the overpriced chocolate as he calls it.
Speaker 1This time I had a really good sandwich. I had that really interesting. Uh, I don't remember what the name of my drink was, but it was like a coffee with beets and rosé and oat milk.
Speaker 2Oh, it was like probably like a oh darling, oh my darling. Yeah, oh my darling. Yeah, it was like with oat, milk and stuff, right, yeah, it was really good. Yeah, so yeah, really great little spot. Oh, it was so good.
Speaker 2And we brought home a lot of it before the queen mom, yeah. So, uh, that was really nice. I got some earrings, a hat, some gloves, and then we went and met our friends up at uh, hilltown yeah, hilltown was good distillery, that was great. And then we went over to roby barrow, which we also love.
Speaker 1Pictures were taken. Investigations may take place later on.
Speaker 2It was a great day and then we went to Arthur Avenue. I mean, who doesn't love a night on Arthur Avenue?
Speaker 1And in exciting news, I finally, after two months of being the only person in this house without a pre-TSA number oh yeah, yes, I can die now.
Speaker 2I thought you were hiding a criminal past from us when we all got our number within 24 hours and yours didn't come for two months two months.
Speaker 1Well, man, that's and that's all.
Speaker 2That's not necessarily say hidden, but I remember what the queen mom said. It was like she was like we'll see you at the gate see you at the gate.
Speaker 1I was so my saturday when I got that email. I think it was friday, it was like two months on the dot. I just think that the investigation or whatever they were doing just timed out and they were like we can't find anything on this guy, let him go um before we start. Uh, I know we always do what we're eating or what we've eating. What is something interesting that you've watched uh, lately that's oh, nobody wants this on netflix.
Speaker 2What a great show. What a great show. Oh, such a great show. Oh, such a great show. Yes, with what's her name? Jack Shepard's wife.
Speaker 1Dax Shepard's wife. That's what I said, kristen Bell.
Speaker 2Shepard's wife Kristen Bell. Yes and oh, what a fantastic show that was Really good show.
Speaker 1Really good show we're late, we're late.
Speaker 2Very funny, we're gilmore girls. Survivor oh, I always watch survivor, just because I've been watching since season one shrinking, oh, shrinking is so good.
Speaker 2I love shrinking, I love shrinking. You know, when I went to see the premiere with, uh, jason siegel and brett goldstein, one of the things that they said was that the show was written jason siegel said so that every single character could be the main character. And it's so great because they all have these really great intricate stories. But I think it's it's interesting because you get to learn a lot about every character, whereas a lot of shows you don't have that Right. So there's a lot of focus on different characters, on different episodes and all the things that go on in their lives. So it's it's interesting to see a show that takes all of those pieces together into one show.
Speaker 1Yeah, what I really like I think it was episode six. What was great about episode six episodes? Every episode is great. Episode seven was good because it was the. It was the continuation of what that shocking ending of episode six. But I really like to prove your point. I really like what they did with episode six is you have this character that's been in the show since season one, but he's like one of those characters that you only see in the background and if he's on an episode, you see him for maybe five or six seconds in an episode where he's a patient that's walking into Jason Seagal's character's office. And they took an episode and they made and they wrapped an episode around him.
Speaker 1And I was like this show is brilliant. I was like this show took a background character and made him a pivotal piece and an important part of an episode yes, and it was funny, it was and it was very well done and he was really good in the role.
Speaker 2So, yeah, it's a fantastic show. If you don't have apple tv, it's worth a. It's worth a watch or your free trial just to watch the show yeah, until the season's done, then you can watch them all. Then you can watch it all. Um, yeah, great show other than that. I mean, you know we're just getting ready for the holidays, gonna do a little trip to naples, florida, as we always do and your boy's graduating next week.
Speaker 1Yeah, last week of school very busy month.
Speaker 2Last week of school the uh, the graduation we're gonna go down and to the graduation we're gonna go away. For my birthday weekend gonna go to. Oh, should we talk about that? Funny note.
Speaker 1Oh, we can talk about some family trouble we can talk about, but this is why you shouldn't open other people's mail. So, lindsay, for her birthday, I got her something and I.
Speaker 2It's not a surprise, because Lindsay tells Cleve what she wants, because otherwise he would buy something outrageous that I'm not looking for, that he would want.
Speaker 1Unfortunately for me, well, unfortunately for me. Well, unfortunately for me, december is a big month for me because it's Lindsay's birthday, it's our anniversary and it's Christmas. So I kind of screwed the pooch there on that. So I got to get like three gifts and not three small gifts, like three major gifts in a row. But I think I hope easy to please. But I hope one of them is the hotel, is the, is the? Is the trip to the Catskills? I hope the hotel.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's my birthday gift. I guess not. No, it's not my birthday gift. Oh, that's not my birthday gift. Do you not want to go yeah?
Speaker 1I do want to go.
Speaker 2So that's not my gift If you're enjoying it too.
Speaker 1That's not my birthday gift, but anyway, let's segue back to what happened. Have no birthday? Oh yeah, so so the queen mom. So I got something from lindsey, from tiffany's.
Speaker 2This is something that she's very much suggested, very enthusiastic, for the last several years, several years, and I finally went out and got it. So go ahead. So. So the tiffany's bag is on the table and I know what it is, but I'm not opening it because it's not my birthday, right, and it hasn't been given to me. And also, cleve has told me 15 times that he's going to put it in his luggage.
Speaker 2I finally did for the birthday weekend. Well, you did the other day because I told you you're going to forget it yes, it is, it's in there along with my regalia so what regalia?
Speaker 1uh, for my graduation. Oh, but that's not the same trip. Yeah, but they'll be in there.
Speaker 2I'm just gonna carry it from trip to trip until I finally remember to bring it out and give it to you so so the queen mom and her friend are here and, uh, she's having a little birthday party and we'd ordered pizza for them and they're all having their pizza. And she says, what's this on the table? And I was like, well, I don't know. But I knew, but I was, you know, it was for me, so I wasn't going to open it yet. So I said, oh, I don't know, and we were also on a little bit of a spat that day, so I was kind of pissed at you. Yeah, um. So she opened the card and it said happy birthday.
Speaker 1Now get ready for the sex. I didn't say what type of sex it could have been, you know vanilla to which point she started just gagging and becoming very dramatic well, she nobody told her and her friends were laughing so hard and she said to them are you okay?
Speaker 2and they said it's your parents, are you okay?
Speaker 1oh, he just woke arugula up. He's like I'm okay, oh, I'm okay, don't wake the camera, I'm okay but, that was.
Speaker 1That was it. It's really interesting week, good movie. I actually, if you follow me on on on linkedin, if you follow me on linkedin, if you're not following me, you can find me at cleveland oaks at linkedincom. I actually wrote an article that's going to come out tomorrow about what here's. Here's the thing. This is going to freak lindsey out. I wrote an article based on what if elfphaba, who is the Wicked Witch of the West, was Gabor Mate's client and how would he help her deal with her childhood trauma? Because Wicked definitely very, very, very much is, and especially in that final closing scene, which is probably one of the best scenes of the movie and defying gravity, is about childhood trauma, would you agree? It's about childhood trauma. It's about finding yourself and it's about, and most of most importantly and this is where it's from the minute she was born.
Speaker 2They, you know, cast her aside and she wasn't good enough for them.
Speaker 1Right. So, and and most importantly and this is where this is going to dovetail into our main topic it's our main topic. It's about us, about finding your people, um, and that's what it's about. And so today's episode is finding your sangha, the power of community and spiritual and personal growth. Uh, one of lindsey's favorite songs and I'm gonna I don't want to get just get a musical strike against me, so I'm gonna probably sing it badly is drew holcomb. Uh, drew holcomb's song find your people, which is find your people, the ones that make you feel all right, find your people who let yourself be be yourself. Tonight.
Speaker 2That's good, that's good enough, something like that, but anyway, yeah, it's just about finding the people that you connect with right, the people that you know will be on your side, no matter what when you lose control. If you want to stay up all night and hang out, the people that understand, connect with right, the people that you know will be on your side, no matter what when you lose control. If you want to stay up all night and hang out the people that understand you and no one else does Right, and so that I love that song so much.
Speaker 1So why did you choose that song and why is finding Sanga so important to you? And even though ultimately I know Wicked was a little long for you, we all did agree All three of us agreed at the end of the movie that it was really important about this idea that Elphaba was on this journey to find her people and find herself, and so why is this topic so important to you?
Speaker 2Well, because I think that when you surround yourself by the right people and by the right people I mean the people who support you no matter what, who hold space for you when you're down, and who hold space for you when you're up and doing well, right, that that is your Sangha, and that is like, really, all that you need is to surround yourself by the right people.
Speaker 1First of all, for those of us that don't don't, don't know, because not everybody's educated what is Sangha and where's that term derived from? What is that exactly?
Speaker 2Yeah, well, the Sangha is, you know, a Sangha is really a community. It's a community of people who are, you know, embody awareness, who, you know, understand each other and who love each other, no matter what, right. So it's it's kind of like a collective group of people. So I always say, like, when we go on retreat, it's your sangha. These are these people that you know. You can go on a retreat, for example, and when I go on retreat with Saraswati, typically, right, we have these moments where some people are like a complete mess and crying and going through it. And then there's other people who have a completely opposite experience, who are, you know, really joyful and, you know, find it freeing. And it's this whole group of people that, no matter what you're going through, you're all kind of going through it together, the good, the bad, the ugly.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's interesting, right, because oftentimes we think of a sangha when you, when you think of sangha in that term, sangha should be your family, but I think a lot of times when we sit down with clients, family is absolutely not Sangha.
Speaker 2Yeah, this is something we've talked about a lot and you know family, family can be Sangha. There's some families that are very supportive and there are some families that really kind of try to push or impose their you know views and opinions on other people in the family. So a lot of times you know you can kind of choose your. You know your sangha can be like your, your family, that you choose.
Speaker 1You know there's a couple of. I know you shared an article with me a couple of months ago, um, that I read and we were supposed to actually record this a while ago and we're going to and, for guys who, thank you for being patient with us, we will be back regularly recording we have people in and out of the house every day.
Speaker 2It's so hard, it's very challenging and I feel like we're still going to be renovating, probably for the next two to three months uh, not the next a couple of weeks at least, because we're waiting for some pieces.
Finding Connection in Modern Life
Speaker 1But you know, look at, look at arugula, so we got to do a video podcast of people. So this is very and we'll call this the arugula show anyway. Let's carry on. But there's a couple of kinds of sanghas. There's the monastic sangha, which is the community, which is officially like a community of ordained monks, who folks, who are teachers, who support each other. There's the ira sangha, which is the noble ones, but it's spiritual practitioners. You could think of this as your therapist or your college professor, of someone who's realized deeper truths and now impart those to others. And then there's lay Sangha, which is everyday people, which is us. It's the everyday people who come together to support each other in mindfulness. And the interesting thing in that article that you shared with me, this is one of the principles of the three jewels of Buddhism, which is so it would be community, which is Sangha, buddha the teacher, and Dharma, which is the teachings.
Speaker 2Yeah, dharma is kind of the path that you take in life, right, and I think it's this kind of collection of people helps you to, kind of, when you have a sangha.
Speaker 1It helps you to reconnect with your roots, right right, and to be okay with who you are one of the interesting things about in this idea of sangha and I want to say what sangha is not right. Sangha is not toxic people in your life who suck up your life. One of my go ahead right.
Speaker 2The sangha is people that, like they, hold space for you. You could be going through the worst right. You can be, you know, down and feeling horrible and going through awful things, and the people around you just still continue to support you and love you despite all of that.
Speaker 1And it's not and I want to just clarify it's not an emotional vampire, right? So, so so, and to define emotional vampire, and emotional vampire is someone who's in your life, who, when you hang out with them and you finish hanging out with them, at the end of the day you feel drained, Like you, you feel, you feel, Is that me? No, you can't find me.
Speaker 2I'm just saying like I think one of the things that's been such a challenge for me in my adult life is to find that sangha and I've have. I do have good people in my life, but I think I could use like a lot of the people that we know have and I and a part of it is where we live and you know our kind of our daily lives but it's it's very hard for me in my adulthood because it's hard to find those people that really understand you and get you and are there for you, no matter what Cause.
Speaker 1I've worked with people. Um, that and this is always crazy to me, and I always tell folks when I'm working with them listen, I don't agree with you. I don't have to agree with you. That's not what you, that's not what I'm here for is to agree with you. My, my job as a therapist is to help you live with the decisions that you've chosen to make for yourself, right?
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think that having a song right gives you kind of a taste of liberation, right, or freedom, right. You have this. There's these people that have this awareness, this understanding, this acceptance, and it really creates a community and they accept you the way that you are. You don't have to be something else to fit in, and that's and that's really important, because I think that we live in a society where we are very rootless and isolated because we don't have that real personal connection with people. And when we do find interests, if it's not, you know, interests that are, you know, beneficial to everybody in the community, then we're not accepted, right. Or if we view things differently and right, what's going on in the country right now is a perfect example of it. I think a lot of people do feel kind of isolated and, you know, rootless, and we have to find those people that make us feel grounded, even when we're not.
Speaker 1Right. One of the things that I'm bringing back to Wicked again and then it was going to go back to the connection that I was making is one of the things I appreciated about Elphaba, especially at that scene at the party where she came in and she did her own dance and then eventually, Glinda the Good was like ah, you know what she's suffering, Let me go out there and dance with her. Is this idea of let me try to please people that actually don't benefit me with me? And I've actually sat down and I've sat with clients and struggled especially clients with people pleasing tendencies Like this is not your sangha, Like this person that you literally feel drained after you associate with them, after you hang out with them, this boyfriend, this platonic friend, this family member that you feel like, oh, that is not your Sangha, Like when you are going out to please people and not be refreshed. How is that different from Sangha? That's what I just want to get you to touch on.
Speaker 2Well, I think that continues to make you feel isolated, and I just said that a Sangha isn't like that Right there's. With a Sangha, you feel kind of connected and rooted, you know, in in understanding and awareness and you're allowed to be who you want to be.
Speaker 1So tell me more about the Sangha in modern life, and what does that mean?
Speaker 2What is sangha in the modern world? Well, I think that, if you mean, like, you know what is it? It's kind of connection. It's connection right to whoever. It is that you want to be connected with, all right, and it's being able to help people to you know kind of form, a familial atmosphere, so to speak, with whoever's around them, and it's it's a kind of a second chance in a modern world for people to have that connectedness, to reduce the feelings of alienation and to be able to provide support for personal transformation. And I think this is a newer thing. I think in the past and I'm not saying it's correct, but in the past there was a lot of you need to do what the family says you should do, right, and in more of a modern kind of perspective, it's you need to do what is authentic to you.
Speaker 1So let's say, if I'm not inclined to Buddhism or a monastic practice, what are some ways that I can?
Speaker 2I mean? I mean Sangha is just the Buddhist term Right, but it's. It doesn't mean you have to be a Buddhist to have a Sangha Right. I mean the Sangha itself is a community of people. We're surrounded by communities of people.
Creating Supportive Communities for Healing
Speaker 1OK, so like, give me some examples of Well here I'll start you off, because when I think of Sangha, I had to read the shop. When I was in grad school I had to read the shop and how a cure. I don't know if you read that when you were in NYU and it's about group counseling. It's a very interesting and messy book about very interesting and messy people who have very interesting and messy dynamics, but in their messiness and their dynamic with one another they're actually able to help each other out.
Speaker 1It reminds me of the great line and I know we had told folks that we're not going to curse on this podcast, but I do have to curse in this moment because it reminds me of a moment in shrinking. I think it was episode five, where Harrison Ford's character says you know what the amazing thing is about? Fucked up people is fucked up people really know how to fix other fucked up people. And I think, when I think of sangha and I think of recovery groups and I think of what I learned from irving yalom's um yalom's schopenhauer cure is, yes, sometimes messed up people are really good at helping other messed up people well, don't you think most people become therapists because of their own experiences?
Speaker 1in life I.
Speaker 2I know that's why I became one Right, because it's your own experiences, make you very relatable to clients and I always tell my clients I'm not healed. I got a lot of stuff I'm working on Right and that's that's that connection with people that you have, and so you know your modern day sangha. Like I said earlier, an example is when I go on retreat all of those very like-minded people, the vegan people who practice yoga and meditation and breath work and you know that's my Sangha right. Or if people who regularly go to spiritual groups here in New York city right Yoga classes, meditation, things like that, you develop a Sangha. You get to know the same people who are practicing a lot of similar things.
Speaker 1Right, right, right. I know one of your favorite questions is and it comes from Gabor Amante which is who do you talk to? Who did you talk to? One of my questions is I ask and I think this is important and I know you ask this because this is a standard intake question is who's your support group?
Speaker 2And what is your support group? Right, what is your support system? And I mean, who did you talk to? Is is a question that often invites a lot of tears, at least from my clients. Right, Because it's this whole thing of you're growing up and you're learning these things and you're feeling all of these things, and they are a little bit different than what's going on in the home that you were raised in. Right, right, right, right.
Speaker 2And there's a lot of fear when it comes to telling people, right, I mean, you know, I think the standing joke in my family is my family. I've never gone to my family and said like I don't want to be a Christian. I love, you, know Buddhist principles and meditation, yoga and breath work, but they know I do and they definitely don't align with that. But you know, one of the funniest things is is my father will send a group text and he'll, like, say hello to everyone else and then he'll say, hey, namaste Linz, Right, and so it's like they know it, but it's not, it's not really kind of talked about, so to speak. But a lot of what happens with people is that you're experiencing all these things and all of these feelings and and, and it doesn't necessarily align with what's going on around you, and so there's a lot of confusion and fear and feeling that isolation, like I was talking about earlier.
Speaker 2And so the question is like, who do you talk to? Who do you tell about that? And you know, I would say almost every one of my clients, like they sit there and you see their eyes well up and I'm like, yeah, right, the same person that I talk to. Nobody, right, Nobody. It's the same thing with my like, I've had clients in the past who were sexually abused. Who did you talk to? Nobody, right. Like, and and you and I talked about this yesterday, right, when we were in the car, was it two days ago? When we were in the car and we talked about how, when you grow up in a certain type of home and you and I grew up in very different homes, but that's what you think family and belonging are right and you don't think that you can really stray away from that, and so when you start to do that, it almost becomes threatening for the other people for you to have your own independence and autonomy and your own thoughts and views on the world.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm going to bring it back to Jimmy Buffett for a second, your favorite philosopher and monk and weed smoker and wine drinker. One of the quotes that one of his favorite, it's from your song. Please Don't Say Manana. It's from his song. Please Don't Say Manana. I call it your song because it's one of his favorite. It's from your song. Please don't say manana. It's from his song. Please don't say manana. I call it your song because it's one of your favorites.
Speaker 2I love it.
Speaker 1It's about tortola yeah, but he says try to describe the ocean if you've never seen it right. Yeah, and for. And I've had and I've sat down with multiple clients who complain about their relationships today, their fight, their lack of community today, their lack of being able to find strong friends and strong relationships or finding their people. And I asked them and it goes back and this is goes back to Mate, and I've learned from you to ask them well, who did you talk to when you were a kid? And a lot of them will be like well, I didn't have anybody to talk to and I'm like well, try to describe the ocean if you've never seen it Right. And I know. Like, well, what does that mean? And I was like you, tell me what it means.
Speaker 2If you try to talk to other people about how you feel and they can't relate or they don't get it Right. There's this fear, there's a fear and that's why people don't talk to anyone.
Speaker 1Or if you've never learned what a sangha was, if you come from a family that was either overly or mashed Right. It's either you fit in or you don't.
Speaker 2Right, and it doesn't go beyond the family. Right, it's the family is, and I this is something you run into with every single client you'll ever see right is that they feel somehow attached to family, despite how they have been treated or how they've been unaccepted or, you know, criticized for their own opinions and views. Yeah, is that. And the biggest messages is like you can create your own family that can be your sangha, right? Right, I mean nobody that I go on a retreat with is a biological relative of mine. Right, but they all have similar stuff. Right, as you meet more and more clients Right, because you're newer to this than I am you start to realize, wow, people are messed up.
Speaker 1Yeah, right, people are so messed up.
Speaker 2You start to realize, wow, people are messed up. Yeah Right, people are so messed up. Parents pull their kids in one direction or push them in another and try to force them to be who they want them to be, mostly because of their own inadequacies and their own, you know, kind of self-criticism. Oh well, you know what, like I'm going to push my kid to be this or that. And nobody ever asked the question like hey, what do you want? What do? Question like hey, what do you want, what do you like? What do you connect with?
Speaker 1so, so a good song, or a song that you're in, or a good community holy crap, that was messed up. So so so he's playing dead. He's playing dead. So just for those of you, this was a video podcast the roogala who's who's who's guesting is is is playing, and veronica, who is our, who is the cat that actually one of the cats that lives here was actually asleep on the couch and arugula is diving from end to end on the couch and fell, dived head first into veronica and woke her up and she wasn't very happy about it, but but since arugula has learned, and now veronica has left to nap elsewhere.
Speaker 1So, but since arugula has learned, and now Veronica has left to nap elsewhere. So, but since Arugula has learned how to hiss, he was like, well, I didn't do anything and his back at her. That's, that's not how Sangha is supposed to work.
Speaker 2But, but, but. But. We're all living together here somehow.
Speaker 1Yeah, but we're all living here together somehow. But yeah, but that's the point. Like, sangha is community, sangha are people that support you. Sangha does not tear you down, but Sangha will tell you when you're effing up, right.
Speaker 2Right. But in this, in the Sangha right, there's a level of awareness that, hey, it is okay to not be okay, it is okay to be going through the things that you're going through and there's no judgment here. And I think that that's the most important point to drill into people is that the people that support you and love you don't criticize and they just hold that space when you are down and it's bad and you can't climb out of the hole. Those are the people that are like, hey, it's still okay, we love you, right. And that's what often doesn't happen in life.
Speaker 1One of my mentors.
Speaker 2Um who I, who I love, and who I, who I speak with frequently, I won't talk won't say the name, but one of the things he says is you only fly as, as as as high as your five closest friends in the terms of Sangha. What does that mean? Well, I mean, you know, in the terms of Sangha, that's. You know.
Speaker 1You pretty much are you're okay, no matter what it's. It's what I just said and it's. You know, those people hold you to a certain standard, but even if you're not there, it's OK. So they give you that time and space to develop and be who you are. So I want to move on to building your own song, because I think we've all worked with folks who are in search of of of themselves and also a community that would support them and buoy them. For those of those, for those of our clients that do not have support. So what? What are some practical pieces of advice that you would offer folks that are looking for their own sangha?
Building Authentic Communities for Connection
Speaker 2Well, what I often talk to people about is what are the things that you do enjoy? Because that's where you're probably going to find the people that you align with, right, when you, when you go and you look for that breathwork class or that yoga class or that running group or you know, whatever it may be, that's where you're going to find your people, right? I mean, for me, a big thing is veganism. I always say to you like I would love to have a whole bunch of vegan friends, right, oh God, this cat is so annoying sometimes, but he's so cute's so cute, but continue, right, it's you have to go to the places that you enjoy, right, find those people that embody what you are about.
Speaker 2Yeah, and when you find that, that's you know, that is kind of that finding your own sangha, and it happens naturally, right, it's not like you have to go out and be like I need a friend. I need a friend who does this Arugula, you don't eat crackers. Go, go take the cat, god, so sorry. Okay, so you know, it's about just being able to be who you are and enjoy the things that you enjoy, and that's how you develop that sangha and meet those people.
Speaker 1Yeah, so start with shared values, right.
Speaker 2Right A hundred percent.
Speaker 1I would say that even when it comes to like romantic relationships, cultivate authenticity, take small steps right. So one of the things I love the movie A Field of Dream by Kevin Costner, which is if you build it, they will come Build a Dream by Kevin Costner, which is, if you build it, they will come. And taking a small step might be hey, if you're looking for people, you start your own people, right. You start your own group, you start your own meditation circle, you start your own book club or you start doing what we did. What we did the other day when we went to Friendsgiving is you just bring over a bunch of like minded people, in this case nerds.
Speaker 2Wasn't it a great time? Yeah, we had a great time and everybody just kind of hung out and talked and got along. Right, I met somebody immediately who was like I love gardening and I'm like me too, right, and then you started talking about a show that you've been watching and everyone's like I love that and it was such a nice group of people and what I loved about it was everybody was different shapes and sizes and nationalities, and yet we came together and we'd never met. I mean, I'd met a couple of them, but Sorry, cat, again, the I'd met a couple of them. But you know, you get together and immediately you connect and click with these people, with these people. And that was like a really, really lovely evening that they put together for Friendsgiving because we were able to really kind of connect and have conversations. And you know I'm I'm kind of an introverted person. So one rule that you know about me is like don't leave my side. But there you were able to leave my side.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's never you say that's the rule, but when I walk away and come back you always very social people. This young lady that you were talking to, the other couple that we met, she like boom instantly.
Speaker 2She was probably so happy to find somebody who enjoyed gardening as much as she did.
Speaker 1Yeah, because I think everybody else there was like talking about video games, naruto, absolute Batman, absolute Superman, arcane, whatever you're watching MCU, all bunch of stuff. But it was a great, great time. It was a great time. So that brings me to our next segment, which is the Sangha and the ripple effect. And and this idea of the Sangha and the ripple flag kind of goes back to what to John C Maxwell talked about in his book I think it's success 101 or either how to think like successful people, that when you join a community, that there's several kinds of people in a community.
Speaker 1There's adders, which we all want to be because we want to add to other people. There's subtractors we've all been friends with subtractors. Those those are people that take away from your life and and complain. There's dividers. Some people might say that donald trump is a divider. Some people might say kamala harris is a divider. But there are dividers, which are people that cause divisions.
Speaker 1And then there's multipliers and and one one of the interesting things is a sangha should be full of multipliers, and a multiplier is a person who not only takes a sangha or takes friendships and makes it better like an adder, but now multiplies. An example of multipliers that he spoke about John C Maxwell in that book were Jesus Christ, malcolm X, martin Luther King, steve Jobs, bill Gates people, or Mark Zuckerberg people who not only, hey, here's this thing that I'm giving you, but now this thing is going to multiply. So that is kind of what I think of as a ripple effect. When you think of Sangha and a ripple effect, what do you think Sangha? What do you think of Sangha and a ripple effect?
Speaker 2Well, I think it's that the more that you are authentic, then the more that people feel that they can also be authentic around you, right? So it's that whole thing of it just takes one person Right or one thing to kind of create this effect Right, this kind of mass effect on people. And so if you are OK with being who you are, right and then you share that with other people, then they become OK with being who they are because they know that you'll accept them for that, and then it becomes greater and greater and greater. And you know, I think it's it's it's. It can be very hard in today's world because I think there's a lot of fear in really being who you are.
Speaker 1Yeah, I listened to a doctor speak a couple of weeks ago and he was talking about the problem with men. This was Dr Alok Kanogia, and one of the things I'm probably butchered his name, but he, he. He runs an organization on how to raise healthy children and how to raise healthy gamers. As he said, part of the problem with men in modern culture, especially in America, is they do not have a sense of community, like they do not have a sense of purpose. There is no one there to show them the right way to be men.
Speaker 2Also, what is the right way? Isn't there more than one right way?
Speaker 1Yeah, but that's the, that's what he's saying, but there's actually what he was saying there's no community for men at all.
Speaker 2Right, and that's something that I would agree with, that and I always said with, um, you know, with our oldest or my oldest, that there's no community for parents who are struggling with kids who have mental health problems or who are really struggling with their own like kind of learning disabilities and things.
Speaker 2And I think it's very hard.
Speaker 2Right, the communities are there, but I think what happens is it's hard to find them because people are not so comfortable with just being forthright about what's going on in their lives, right, and a perfect example of that comes with men and emotions, right, right, when you, you know it's if you now are able to kind of create that because you are a leader in the field, yeah, so right, so you're able to talk to all of your clients and all the people you know about emotions and you're able to.
Speaker 2You know, you've written a lot of articles and things like that because it's like you've given, like you know what it is OK to feel this way, right, and you've also kind of stepped outside of the bounds of your family and said like, hey, I understand this and I respect this about you, but that's not who I am at this point in my life, and so you're a role model for people and you get to, you know, open those doors for them to say, hey, oh, ok, this guy does it, I could do it too, right, so you almost have like an opportunity to start your own kind of sangha of men.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's one of the things you've often encouraged me about, right, and so I went to church today. Um, and one of the and it was interesting cause. This is kind of what the, the, the, the sermon, was about. It was about who do you associate with Right, and it was like it was like it was. I think it was a scripture in Corinthians was like do not be deceived, that you cannot hang out with people that are not good for you and that not rub off. But here's the vice versa, and this is where Sangha comes in, because if you hang out with a community of good people or a community that's doing things that, and then by association, they will drag you forward and by association they will drag you forward. One of the things that the doctor talked about and I've heard Tim Geddes say this on Tim Geddes is one of the hosts of a of of a video game podcast that I that I listen to, kind of funny, and he talked about being a kid in school and talking about doing some certain things and doctor, and the doctor kind of said the same thing is, when you're in a community, the community will correct bad behavior, right?
Speaker 1Dr Eric Redwine, who used to run my kid's school called it positive peer pressure, right. So it's not the kind of peer pressure that the Bible talks about, which is like hey, bad association spoils, spoils useful habits, or a little bit 11, uh, ferments the whole loaf. This is in the reverse direction. This is reverse osmosis, where if you're in a good sangha, that sangha now drags you forward. Right, a strong community not only and that's kind of what I think of when I think of this ripple effect that a strong community not only transforms individuals, but brings these individuals in this community forward together. I want you to speak on that a little bit, and how compassion and mindfulness.
Speaker 2Well, because it's like okay, you're allowed to be who you are, so come on in and join me. Right, and there's no judgment here with what works for you.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sangha, for us there's empathy.
Speaker 2Yeah Well, because you know, I mean anytime that you're able to like be in a place where you can allow people to be who you are. There's empathy, right, Because empathy is like imagine if you're walking in the shoes of another person, right, and often we're judged. We judge or we're judged for our decisions and how things that go on in our lives, but very frequently nobody says to us like, oh, like I can't imagine what it's like to be you or to go through that or experience that yeah, as we're coming up on the uh on the close of the show.
Speaker 1Oh god, rugel has finally disappeared.
Speaker 2I think he's no, he's probably gonna be back in a second. Don't say that. I found a ball earlier and I entertained him for like an hour kicking it and I don't know where the ball went.
Speaker 1Well, I like I like what he does when he does this thing, where he thinks you know, ok, I'm going to disappear for a second, they're going to forget that I'm here and I'm going to creep slowly back on the couch and then I'm going to launch myself onto the table.
Speaker 2Yes, that's probably what's happening.
Speaker 1I think that's just eight though.
Speaker 2So he probably has to use the litter box. That's probably, and he'll be back. I think you'll be worried. I promise you he's not sleeping. Yeah, I promise you he's not sleeping. Yeah, okay, but he hasn't slept since he got here.
Speaker 1Oh no, he hasn't slept in like three days straight, but thankfully I think he's getting picked up tonight at six o'clock. But I love this cat. But in closing, when we think about 2024 and we think about the last four years, and we think about not even the last four years 2024 or 2025. Well, think about 2024 and all the the election shenanigans and the wars and the stuff in the world and the stuff that's going on with Israel and Gaza and stuff that's going on like all over the world China and Taiwan, and all these divisions. What is it that seems to be the fundamental flaw that most cultures and most societies seem to have today and what are they not living?
Speaker 2Because people are afraid to be inauthentic like authentic, they cannot live in their authentic lives. Nobody wants to speak up for what they believe in and who they think that they are and what their interests are, because they are afraid that they will not be accepted. And that is the biggest flaw, because I can guarantee you you can find a community of people out there who have the same views as you and who understand you and accept you, no matter what. Right and I think that that is the biggest flaw is that people have such a high level of fear that they are afraid to be who they authentically are.
Finding Your Sangha
Speaker 1Yeah, and they're afraid to find their people. And I and one of the things I've told you and one of the things I always sit down and tell a client that, hey, there's like there's nobody else like me, there's nobody, there's nobody. No, trust me, bro, if, if, listen, I'm 51 years old and hopefully I will live not another 50 years, because I don't know if I want to live another 50 years in this crazy world, but at least another 20 to 30 years, and I will tell you in 50 years of of things, trust me, if there's a group for it, if there is an interest, there is a group out there for it. You just need to find it right. You just need to find it. I have been around, just need to find it.
Speaker 2I have been around, but you can find it just by being who you are Right, because I do think that like attracts, like Right. Right and that's something Dharmamitra always said is that you like, attracts, like you do attract the people who are like you and have the common interest. So you just have to be aware and be on the lookout for them. They're out there.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. And so, as we wrap this episode up, I want to do, I want to just drop this key insight is if you can look at it through a Buddhist lens or a modern perspective. Sangha is about finding the people who walk beside you, those who support your growth and those who inspire you to be yourself. Lindsay, if you had a call to, if I was a client, was a client and we were ending the session and we needed to go about what's next, or a call to action. What would you tell me is a call to action?
Speaker 2Find your people right. Whatever that takes for you is just be OK with who you are and what you do, right. So whatever it is that you connect with, practice it Right, find a group of people who also practice it and go for it right. I mean, last week we went to was it last Friday already? My gosh, time flies. It's almost the end of the year already, almost the end of the year. But we went into the city to see Krishna Das right, and we went to the church and they had that lovely like Hindu devotional chanting and you know, like those are my people Right, even though I don't know any of them. That's like my space where I feel comfortable and not judged, and like I can just be me, yeah, and you look around there and I would bet that everybody in that room felt the same way.
Speaker 1Yeah, Recently and I just want to touch on this I recently wrote an article about understanding and about communities reaching out to each other, kind of like sanghas different sanghas reaching out to each other, and in that article, I mentioned. Hey, I went to church. I did not grow up going to church. The only true religion, like so many religions do, was like I can't believe. Hey, that was a great article that you wrote on communication and fellow understanding, but I'm so mad at you that you went to a church and I'm like bro how?
Speaker 2because in your family, if you go to a church, it has to be the one that they go to. And that is not your Sangha. That didn't. You didn't connect with that right. That experience didn't align with who you are.
Speaker 1But how can communities talk to each other if, if no community wants to understand the other?
Speaker 2Well, you can't change ignorance, Right, right, and so it's like, that's why it's so important to find your people, right.
Speaker 2But also the thing with a song, right, cause Buddhism is really about peace and love, right, so you know, and that song is a Buddhist term, but it's, if you do find your people, then you don't really care what's going on around you and you don't care about those people and you can look at someone like your brother and be like, thanks for sharing, right, but that doesn't align with me, right, cause that's a struggle that you've had since I've met you with your family and even recently, oh, go to the church, go to the church, go to the church.
Speaker 2And you're always like, okay, okay, okay, I'll come, I'll come to the church, okay, but then you don't go to the church. So you just lie because, right, and sorry to put you on blast, right, but you lie to your mom because you don't want to go to the church, but instead you can just say, hey, that doesn't align with me, but, like, I respect that, it aligns with you, right, there's not only one way to follow Jesus If you believe in that, yeah, and it's not only one way to follow Jesus.
Speaker 1If you believe in that, yeah, and there's not only one way to live, right? So here's the thing, and even though we talked about that in church today, when Jesus was like there's only one path to God, jesus wasn't necessarily saying like, hey, you got to follow just this specific, very stringent set of rules to get to God. You have to follow a path of salvation that lies with within. So you have to find a community that that is moral, right? I'm not going to say, I'm going to say this, these are the rules and this is anything that you learn in therapy.
Speaker 1You, as a therapist, you have to follow a moral standard, you have to follow a legal standard, you have to follow a civil standard. So you need to be in a community of people, a sangha, that is both moral, that is morally acceptable and legally acceptable, right, yeah? And Once you find that and that community is productive, that is all you need. But you also need to, as you said and I wrote an article about this, because I went to a Star Trek convention and Todd Stashwick, who played Captain Leon Shaw in the most recent episode, a most recent season of Star Trek, Picard, talked about understanding each other's stories or understanding each other's communities, and you took it a step further, lindsay, where you were like no, it's about respecting each other's community.
Speaker 2A hundred percent. You don't need to understand why people make the decisions that they do and why they do the things that they do. What you need to do is respect. That is their choice. It is not mine. I don't agree with it, but they get to have that Right. And it's like if you don't have a say in the matter, why get involved and why get yourself aggravated?
Speaker 1Right, right. And I think the challenge is is I don't believe in new year's resolutions and I think Lindsay and I, in our next episode, we will do an episode about a new year's resolutions and why they do not work, or we will, yeah, I think so, and one of them them we're going to be traveling, a lot. We're going to be traveling, so we need to record a bunch of episodes.
Speaker 2We're really traveling a lot through july, yeah great well, we'll take the equipment with us.
Speaker 1Take you on a three-week endless pto and and and maybe endless pt. I can't wait to do who. All this is going to surprise everyone, for all these who follow my endless pto hashtag is in this pto, the back to work edition.
Speaker 2That's going to be really funny well, and you know, if you do the back to work edition, that's fine, it works for you. But I will be staying on that three-week trip to the bvi, whether you are there or not, I'll be there.
Finding and Creating Your Community
Speaker 1I'll be there. I'll be there. I'm gonna just say we booked it. I'm just gonna say we booked it already.
Speaker 2I think you will but we will be traveling quite a bit, but we love to travel and, um, you know, we've set up our lives so that we can travel and work and we can find our people. Yeah, we, we can find our people. You know, like, I mean, the biggest thing is that you're my people. Oh, you're my people too. I mean, you are my people, you are, you are really my people. The cat just fell asleep and now we have to leave for the airport to get the queen mom.
Speaker 1You gotta get the queen mom. So, as we wrap up, I just want to just thank you so much for bringing this very important topic to us. Um, I do want to give you folks, for those of you who want to explore this topic, more I'm going to give you listen to the song by drew holcomb and the neighbors find your people, because that is a fabulous song it is a fabulous one.
Speaker 2You know those people hold you up when you're feeling down, right, they don't. They don't care about what you partake in, they are just there for you, right?
Speaker 1I think zach brown's same boat is also yeah, we're all in the same boat. Yeah, a good song Also also to the some books that you can explore are the Art of Community by Charles Vogel I Linz. What you very wanted me to make sure that I pronounce this gentleman's name correctly, so maybe you can oh Thich Nhat Hanh. Thich Nhat Hanh. And what is the book that?
Speaker 2Thich Nhat Hanh wrote Friends on the Path, living Spiritual Communities, oh there you go. Or the Miracle of Mindfulness, and you know I love mindfulness.
Speaker 1And he also has a book called the Heart of the Buddhist Teachings, which also he has a lot of books that are upstairs in our bookcase. Yeah, I got to start reading some of them. There are apps and tools, there's the Insight Timer, there's Calm, there's online communities and some inspirational quotes that I found. This is one by Helen Keller, who said alone we can do so little, together we can do so much, which reminds me of the Peloton hashtag together, we go far.
Speaker 2Right Because, as a group, right you you were able to conquer more things than one people. One person can conquer alone One people.
Speaker 1I said yeah, yeah, no, no, you did it. You said it right.
Speaker 2I think it's the one people you said right, you know you can conquer more as a group. Right, you're strong. Strength in numbers is another one right yeah.
Speaker 1And a final thought from Thich Nhat Hanh is a Sangha is more than a community. It is a deep spiritual practice.
Speaker 2Right. It's a refuge and a source of transformation. So, on that note, we shall go pick up the queen mum from the airport and we will leave Arugula asleep.
Speaker 1I don't think we need to put him up. I think he'll be fine. I think he's okay.
Speaker 2I think he's okay, I love you very much, as always.
Speaker 1And I love you very much, as always, and thank God, thank you.
Speaker 2Once again, I'm going to do a commercial for the Nama M nama, thank you. I think it was brian and greg that. Yeah, that thing is the bomb. If anybody out here that listens to us is vegan and you want to cook everything and make everything at home the way I do, because I don't believe in processed foods- oh yeah, you can make some fantastic can make some amazing nut milks in this machine.
Speaker 2Last week I made you a pecan pie milk, before like a blueberry cashew cardamom milk peak. Yeah, so there's lot of options. I think I made you strawberry milk too, didn't I?
Speaker 1Yes, you did before I lost the top to the machine. That's correct. Yeah, but thank you, brian and Greg from Nama.
Mindfulness and Love
Speaker 2And now all of our milk is gone, so I need to wait for the new machine to come so that I can make the new top. And now, cleve is forbidden. I am forbidden forbidden.
Speaker 1I am from the machine, here's, the here's do not touch it, don't wash it, don't do a thing with it, do not do um household chores with, uh, with a vodka tonic. Well, but I think what's gonna happen?
Speaker 2actually not tonic, so I don't let you have sugar, it's club soda, I only let you have club soda. But I think the that actually what we should do is maybe have a little series of you starting to practice mindfulness and awareness, because the biggest issue that I have with you in our relationship as a whole Well, I think the biggest one you have with me is that I'm bossy, super, but that's OK, I forgive you for saying that it's so we don't have a problem later. But the biggest issue I have with you is that you do things mindlessly, yes, and you don't think about doing them, and so you run around in a frantic frenzy doing things and then all kinds of things get lost. Or, like I said to you last week, if you open a cabinet and you shove a bowl on top of a pile of plates, if you don't see any other serving bowl in there, it means it doesn't go there but here's the thing as we wrap up, you know who my sangha is in this house all the crazy cats that are just like me.
Speaker 1So that's why Arugula loves me, why.
Speaker 2The queen mom said last week the cat was acting so crazy, your cat Betty, was acting so crazy. Also, I think she affectionately calls Fatty or Chubs or something, because she's a big, rotund cat, don't fat shame my cat um I said to the queen mom one morning wow, his cat is just like him, erratic, and she goes, and without boundaries and without boundaries.
Speaker 2So but we both love you very much, you know that. Um, but you, your lack of awareness, is a real struggle for me in this house and I do do believe that you know we should start you on a track of mindfulness and we can monitor it on the show. We'll do it 2025.
Speaker 1And then we'll see how many things you lose in 2025 after you become more mindful If it's the back to work edition you don't have me to worry about for three days out of the week. Maybe you do because you're going to come find me.
Speaker 2Oh, I'll say before we go and then we're out. But the one thing I have to say about you is like and I think it annoys you is like I get so excited to see you at the end of the day, like I love you so much and I and I think that that's a problem in relationships is that people spend so much time fretting on these really kind of like minute things that shouldn't even be an issue and it's like like at the end of the day, even though you leave tissues all over the house and never have rinsed a dish in the eight years I've known you and I still take them out of the dishwasher and rewash them Um, and the fact that you like lose things all the time, like I'll find like a pair of socks in the draw with the coffee maker, but I still like just love you so much and I just accept you, like we're a sangha together and you so much and I just accept you like, we're a sangha together and I think I think you stole my line.
Speaker 1I was going to say the most important sangha when you're married is your wife.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think what's really cool is that with our kids all of them, right Like they will all come to us and tell us the craziest things, even if we don't want to hear them, because they feel comfortable, because we're just like all right, that's cool, right, we'll. We'll hold space for you and let you try that out, and with that I mean I can't.
Speaker 1There's nothing else I really need to add other than that. Then you are my sangha. Happy birthday coming up, happy anniversary. I hope we're going to record before that?
Speaker 2Well, our anniversary is like a week from today.
Speaker 1Happy Christmas. I'm just getting it in early. I'll say it next time. I hope you made plans for next Sunday.
Speaker 2Yeah, you did, because that's why I couldn't go to Santa Kristen's shower.
Speaker 1Because you made special plans for us, because I made special plans next Saturday, you're the best.
Speaker 2No, it's Sunday and the 8th?
Speaker 1Isn't the 8th a Saturday? What's today the 7th? Oh, shoot, next Sunday. So we've made special plans.
Speaker 2Well, you do made special plans. Well, you made special plans on what they are. You are my son.
Speaker 1I love you. Okay, I love you too, and this has been another episode of the devil, you don't know. This has been Cleveland and Lindsay, and we'll see you next time. Oh, the worst best thing, oh, the worst, best thing that's ever happened to you.
