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HELLO NED DISCOUNT CODE JOY
email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com
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This is Joy & Claire: 99: Signs From the Universe if You Want Them
Episode Date: November 4, 2021
Transcription Completed: November 12, 2021
Audio Length: 44:05 minutes
Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.
Claire: And this is Claire.
Joy: And this is Joy and Claire.
Claire: Welcome.
Joy: Hi. Hello. Not going to talk about the date. I’m not going to take about the date. I saw a really funny – God, what did we do without the internet and memes and GIFs and funny tweets?
Claire: What were we doing with our lives?
Joy: There’s one I read today. Our friend Jess posted it. It made me think of me last week and actually this entire past two months. Is if we can just get through this month, we have one more month to go before we need to get through another month. [laughing] That was from @oldfriend99, Josh ‘Letterman.’ If we can just get through this month, we only have one – so it just made me think about the passage of time and how hard it is for me right now to stay present. Because to have that looming thing with Cadet, which is getting more intense every day. The hot tip I’m doing for myself right now is truly just stay present. Do not think ahead. Because if I think too much about it, it’s just making me sick to my stomach. I did have a good dream a couple nights ago. Which by the way, I’ve been sleeping like a champ thanks to Ned. We’ll get there in a second. I had a dream that Cadet was in turn-in. It was a really positive dream. I’m just taking that – even if it means nothing. I’m grasping at straws here to make it not as painful to let her go.
Claire: It totally means something if you want it to Joy.
Joy: Yes. It’s true, it’s very true. So we have three going away parties for her this week with the donor, the gal who named her – because we keep in touch with her- and our puppy raiser community, and then our neighbors. And Cadet’s sister is coming over, so we’re having a neighborhood little goodbye party this weekend. It’s going to be really, really good.
Claire: Aw, Cadet.
Joy: I know.
Claire: Do you remember – well, obviously you remember the episode of Girls Gone WOD that we did with Michelle, the medium, where we talked about – that I personally don’t really believe in signs from the universe, and I also really don’t hold it against anyone else. I’m not going to argue with someone about whether or not those type of capital “U” Universe things are true because at the end of the day, it’s meaningful to you if you believe it’s meaningful to you. You can have those moments. You can have those signs from the Universe if you need them, if you want them.
Joy: Yeah, exactly. Everyone’s going to make fun of me right now and I don’t even care, but I do love the Long Island Medium. I do love Theresa Caputo, and I do listen to her podcast every week. Even though half the time, it really is just a conversation for her and that person, like in terms of the person that is on the other end of that phone call really gets this special, special gift. It’s amazing to listen to her channel. This is not a dig on her at all, but she ends up using the same language all the time, just to communicate the same kind of message. Overall theme is always the same. She’s so cute. Every time, she’ll say something like, “If you see a symbol or something that’s meaningful to you,” she always says, “it means that your loved one was with you at that exact moment.” She says it in this east coast accent. “Your loved one was with you at that exact moment.” I always say that to my mom because we always talk about signs from our loved ones. I’m like, “Mom, it means they’re with you at that exact moment.” Speaking of making meaning out of things that you just kind of have to. It just matters that it does something for you is – I think of an example from this summer. I was struggling with my next step and what I wanted to do, and I kept seeing this freaking butterfly hanging out around my house every single day. The same butterfly would come over and hang out with us when we were playing with the dogs. And by hang out, I mean it would just fly right in front of my face, and it would just hang out on a tree. Because we saw it every single day, it became this joke between my neighbor and I. We’re like, “Where’s the butterfly?” So I took meaning from that, of things are going to be okay. Because I had to. It meant something to me, and I don’t care if it was just a butterfly flying around. It meant something to me, and it kept me going.
Claire: Honestly, I feel like there is so much to that, and there is so much to any type of spirituality, ritual, any of that. If you want it to be meaningful, then it is. I think the cool thing is that it kind of goes both ways. If you’re seeing something – if you have a dream or you’re seeing a butterfly and there’s something that comes to mind and you want it to be meaningful, then it is. And also, you can make things meaningful just because you want them to be. And the other direction – you can create a ritual where there wasn’t a meaningful thing before. Or you can give meaning to a piece of jewelry or create a little alter, create meaning around a candle or anything you want.
Joy: I mean, if you see my desk right now as you’re talking, my desk is full of things that are full of meaning. It is a mess and Scott makes fun of me. I’m like, no, there are so many little tchotchkes on my desk and cards and thing that when I look at it, it has meaning, and it reminds me of that person that gave that to me or whatever. But this also reminds me of the conversation we had with Casper. Making rituals. Which by the way, you can still get his daily ritual planner.
Claire: I think about that conversation all the time. If you guys still haven’t read that book or listened to the book, it’s so interesting. It’s called The Power of Ritual. If you go back around this time last year, we had him on the podcast. His name is Casper ter Kulie. He also used to host the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. But this book was so, so, so interesting. I think about that a lot around this time of year, especially as we’re going into the holidays. It was just Halloween. After that conversation with Casper, I started learning more about my Celtic ancestry and learned a lot about Halloween. So a lot of Celtic rituals became what is now known as pagan and wiccan rituals. The last day of October, in that time frame, is the end of harvest festival in the Celtic tradition, and it’s also the New Year festival, and it’s also pretty much so many of those – I mean, Halloween in America draws from a lot of different historical ancestor ritual. But it has a lot of components of what we consider to be Halloween. You also see the same thing in Día de los Muertos where there’s just the belief that the physical world and the spiritual world are as close as they ever get on that night. And so I was reading a lot about that on Halloween and just thinking about that belief, that there are different times throughout the year where maybe our ancestors are more available to us. I don’t know really that I believe that, but it’s cool to think about. And just because I don’t believe it doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting and cool to think about and interesting and cool to connect with that cycle of rituals and beliefs. I was looking at, okay, how do you create a little alter. It’s like, open a jar and fill it with some dirt to symbolize the earth and some leave to symbolize the changing of the season, a black candle to symbolize the spirits. It’s just really interesting, and I think that as we go into the holidays – like last year, I know we asked a lot of people, what are some of your favorite traditions that you either have or that you want to do, and I think that was a cool thing and has been a cool thing about the pandemic and people being at home more is being able to focus more on that. I’ve been trying to think about, again, as we’re going into the holidays, what kind of holiday traditions do I want to make for my kids. And that’s also super fun.
Joy: Yeah. Well you think about belief in children and how children believe in magic. That’s I think why it’s so fun to talk to kids about Santa Clause or the Easter bunny or just watching movies that have magic. I think that’s why even adults still love Disney Land – at least I do. Because that whole magical wonder is so fun to believe in, just because it’s fun. It’s fun to think of characters walking around. It’s fun to go into the haunted mansion and see, are there really ghosts – it’s wonder, it’s something that you make up in your head maybe. But to think that there might be something out there is exciting. I think we all experience and express it in different ways, whether you talk about in the religious sense. I’ve talked about this on the Casper episode about how important it was to me when I was traveling – when I was in college or even when I would go visit friends in the States, but I was traveling abroad in college, and I would go to Catholic churches because it felt like home, even though maybe I wasn’t necessarily a practicing Catholic. Going to mass felt like home because that is what I was raised on, and just the ritual of mass is the exact same no matter where you go. So in a different language, just having the ritual and routine was like, I don’t know what they’re saying but I know exactly what’s going on. I think that’s just really important for each person. I know that that is very personal to each individual. I think it’s really cool to hear about people’s traditions and the things that they pass down from their families or that they decided to create with their own families. Especially this time of year because it’s the holiday season and there’s so much wrapped up in that.
Claire: On Halloween, I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, the number one thing I looked forward to was coming home and jumping out all of my candy and sorting it.
Joy: Yep. I did the same thing. Dumped and sorted.
Claire: I would sort mine, not only by the specific types of candy but also by candy type. So chocolate went on the left and then it slowly evolved into hard fruit candies, like on a spectrum. For example, a tootsie roll would be in the middle because it’s chocolate, but it’s chewy, and chewy I think is more of a fruit candy characteristic in my opinion.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: So last night we were trying to coach Miles on sorting his candy, and he didn’t care. He was like, I just want to eat it.
Joy: I think I did just chocolate and the rest is all I cared about.
Claire: Chocolate and other. We told the kids on Halloween, “Okay, you can have three pieces of candy before you go to bed.” So Evie picked three tootsie roll pops. It would have taken her an hour to eat those things. I was thinking three little miniature KitKats. Which also, I would like to say miniature KitKats are my favorite.
Joy: Yeah, I had one today and it was delicious.
Claire: Never in my life would I be like, “You know what I want to do right now? I want to sit down and have five full-size KitKats.” But I will gladly sit down and have like 12 kid miniature… like s’more, it’s the same amount in my brain.
Joy: The fun size. Ben Schwartz just did a tweet about this too. The most fun-size thing that has happened about… God, I’m messing it up. Basically he said the most fun thing fun-sized candy did was not list the calories on it. The most fun thing. We don’t need to know that. Who cares?
Claire: I’ll sit down after eating a bunch of KitKats and I’m like, why do I feel so bad? I’m like, oh, it’s because I just sat down and inhaled the equivalent of four full-size KitKats bars. Which in my normal adult life, I’d be like, “Claire, this is going to make you feel like crap.” Because they’re tiny –
Joy: It’s like wine tasting.
Claire: Yes, it’s exactly like wine tasting. Or like getting a beer flight where you’re like, “Why am I drunk?” Because Claire, you just drank the equivalent of six beers.
Joy: Totally.
Claire: But they were in tiny glasses.
Joy: It happens so fast. It just happens so fast.
Claire: It’s also why I feel like people get so full without realizing it on sushi. Because you were like, it’s just a tiny –
Joy: Just a tiny little roll and you just keep eating them. You just keep popping those in your mouth.
Claire: And next thing you know, you’ve had like two cups of rice.
Joy: Yeah, how does that happen? So sushi, I feel like that happens. I feel like cereal, you could just keep eating cereal and never really get full. And then all of the sudden you’re like, oh my gosh, what did I just do?
Claire: You remember that Mitch Hedberg joke about spaghetti. He’s like, “I don’t like spaghetti because I’m never hungry enough to eat a thousand of something.”
Joy: [laughing]
Claire: Oh Mitch Hedberg.
Joy: Oh Mitch.
Claire: Yeah, it was so funny when we were like, “You can have three pieces of candy.” And Evie, you know, she’s 2.5, so they say that rules don’t really make a lot of sense to her yet. Or if we were to say, “You can have three pieces of candy.” Miles is like, “Okay” and immediately starts searching through. And she’s like, “Oh, three” and just picks up three tootsie rolls. And then I’m like, “You can’t have three tootsie roll pops. It’s going to take you an hour.” So I was trying to explain to her, and she’s looking at me like, “Mom. You said three.”
Joy: Yeah, those are the rules.
Claire: And it just kicked off – honestly the hardest thing about Halloween is trying to put your kids to bed after trick-or-treating.
Joy: It’s so much sugar and so much activity. They’re just wound up.
Claire: Sugar, activity, they’re completely out of their routine. What other night of your life does dinner end and then you get dressed up, go walk around your neighborhood –
Joy: Oh my gosh, so fun. This brought back so much fun memories as a kid because our dining room table was in the front of our house so the front window in the kitchen faced the street, so we could see all the kids hanging out outside. And we’d be sitting at the dinner table and my dad would shut the blinds. He’s like, “We’re having dinner without interruption.” And then we’d be like, “But Cindy’s outside.” So then especially on Halloween, we would barely sit down like half a butt cheek on the seat and hurry up and eat our food so we could get outside. But I have to recap just for the fans the neighborhood party we had with Pablo the pig. So if you’re not following along on Instagram, which is @joyandclaire_, I will on occasion post pictures and stories of our neighborhood pig Pablo. Our neighbors have, I think it’s three Jack Russell Terriers, and then Pablo the pig. Pablo the pig, he likes visitors, so – I said this before – the neighbors built up a fence to where it’s almost like a petting zoo where you can just go and visit Pablo, you can feed him vegetables, say “hi,” whatever. So he’s kind of turned into this neighborhood celebrity. This year the neighbors decided to have a pumpkin carving party for Pablo, so they had a bouncy castle for the kids, they had candy apples, they had pizza, the whole nine. Music, fire pit, hay bales to sit on. It was great. It was so much fun.
Claire: It was like Pablo Fest, basically.
Joy: It was Pablo Fest, one thousand percent. So I got my werewolf onesie. I was all excited. Scott and I walk over there. I see all the neighbors that I knew. I start talking to them. Bouncy castle is going. It’s like this huge spaceship. I’m like, where’s Pablo? Because I didn’t see him in the Pen. And my neighbor Lisa turns around. She’s like, “He’s right there.” I looked through the crowd and the sea parts, and he’s sitting in his basket. Because they also have a Pablo mobile. It’s a huge bicycle with a huge built-on cage to take him on bike-rides.
Claire: Because Pablo is a big guy.
Joy: Oh, he’s 120 pounds. Yeah, he’s pretty big. I think he’s potbelly size. I don’t know much about pigs, but he’s not like a huge hog. I want to say 120 is what I overheard. So he was sitting in his little basket, just sitting there with an octopus costume on, and I about lost my marbles. I was beside myself. So anyway, they lined up all the pumpkins. The whole neighborhood carved pumpkins for Pablo. They put them in a circle. Everyone stood behind their pumpkin, and then Pablo, they lifted him out of his cage and he went and picked his pumpkin. And the winner was a pumpkin – it was genius. The family had carved a little piggy face and put an apple as the nose. Claire, your idea was right. I should have filled it with something. To be fair, he kind of sauntered that way right away when he got out of his basket. So any of us on the other side were screwed.
Claire: He’s like, “I’m meant to be over here.”
Joy: He’s like, “I’m going over here.” And immediately he saw the apple and he bit into it and they won. It was just so cute. I got to be the judge for the costume contest. And the kids got little stuffed piggies. The two costumes that I thought were the best was one little girl was dressed up like the queen on Alice and Wonderland. She had the cutest outfit, so I picked her. And then I picked this other little kid that was dressed as a minion. He got so excited when I picked him. It was the cutest thing ever. The whole night was just – this needs to be my Halloween every year. Or nothing, because I quit after that. Yeah, it was so pure. So that was my Halloween. And then I went home and handed out candy. Then we also watched – what’s the Freddie Kreuger dream? Is it Friday the 13th that we watched? Nightmare on Elm Street, thank you. Nightmare on Elm Street, we watched the original, which isn’t even that scary. It’s very 80’s scary. So I’m glad that I checked that off my list because I felt like I was doing a disservice to the 80’s because I never saw Nightmare on Elm Street. But I wasn’t really allowed to watch super – I didn’t want to watch super scary movies, even as a teenager. So that was our night. Yay Halloween.
Claire: My favorite costume I sent you that I saw on Instagram was the Michael Myers-Briggs.
Joy: Oh my God, that was so freaking funny. Please describe.
Claire: Okay guys, in case you’re like me and you’re like, “Myers-Briggs, that sounds familiar,” it’s the ENFJ –
Joy: Deep, very-involved, personality-type test.
Claire: And somebody was dressed up as Michael Myers-Briggs. So he was Mike Myers with the mask and the jumpsuit, but then on the back of the jumpsuit it said, “ENFP” because obviously he loves people.
Joy: It was so funny.
Claire: And he had a little name tag that said “Briggs” on it. That was my favorite costume I’ve ever seen.
Joy: That was genius. Yeah, I’ve never laughed so hard. When you sent that, I was dying.
Claire: If you saw some good pun costumes, please send them our way. I love a pun costume. I really, yes.
Joy: I love watching people’s brains come up with the most amazing costumes that you’re like, that is hilarious. Michael Myers-Briggs, please call us and tell us how you came up with that.
Claire: So today was my first day at my new job.
Joy: Congratulations and tell us about it.
Claire: So today, obviously we’re recording on Monday. I started my new job today. Here are some dispatches from onboarding remotely.
Joy: Good, because I have to do that in like three weeks.
Claire: It’s a lot. It’s fine. It’s just weird so far because – well also because my boss is off these next couple days. Which also happened to me the last time I joined. The company, my boss just so happened to have some PTO when I joined. So the weird thing about it is I feel like when you are onboarding, those first couple days are pretty slow. But when you’re at the office, you can kind of fill that time by, “Hey, if you have 30 minutes, can you come over here and walk me through how to put in a purchase order” or walk me through how to invoice something or walk me through how to load this thing into the database. Whatever, insert example for your profession. But when you’re working remotely, you don’t have those opportunities to grab people in your down time. So everything is a lot more formal. It will be interesting once I really get more in the groove of the actual things I’m doing instead of just going into new hire orientation Zoom jail. Will be those moments of, oh my gosh, I remember that they explained how to do this and I don’t remember what the next step is. And not being able to just lean over to the person next to you and b like, “Hey, I’m so sorry. Can you show me this one more time?”
Joy: Right.
Claire: So yeah, it’s a little weird.
Joy: Do you have Teams group or Slack or anything to chat with all your coworkers?
Claire: No, they use Zoom chat.
Joy: Oh. What?
Claire: What? I know. They have Teams, but they don’t use it. They use it basically as [UNCLEAR 00:21:27.01] a way to get stuff onto your point. But anyway –
Joy: Wait, Zoom chat doesn’t…
Claire: Zoom has a chat. When you open it, it has –
Joy: Like an ongoing, forever and ever, you can use it?
Claire: Yeah, not just when you’re in the meeting. Because right, we’re all familiar with the chat function when you’re in the meeting.
Joy: Right.
Claire: But there’s also –
Joy: Like an app that you can use.
Claire: If you’re on enterprise Zoom on a corporate Zoom account.
Joy: Didn’t know that. I think ours is going to be on Slack, so I’m very excited.
Claire: I thought we were on Slack, but no. My last company was on Teams, which is also fine. So anyway, you know, that is what it is. It’s interesting. Today felt very – I don’t want to say disorganized because the meetings that I did have were very well organized, very to the point, had clear this is what we’re going to accomplish in this meeting, this is what we’re going to teach you, here’s what you’re going to learn. But my down time has just been the Jeopardy theme song. I guess I could clean the kitchen, I don’t know.
Joy: I anticipate that my first week too. Because they already told me there’s certain meetings that I attend. But other than that, I’m not going to be seeing clients for at least until they get me onboarded, so I’m going to have a lot of down time. Which is fine. Ease into it. But still, it’s hard to get used to. Because usually you’re at work and you’re like, I’m going to get my office put together. Oh, I’m going to go check out the kitchen.
Claire: Right. At least I know I’m going to go out to lunch with my team.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Right? Or whatever. So that’s been weird. I feel like the requisite first-day lunch with your team, I definitely wish that I was going to have. But their office is technically located in Denver. Their office is still technically closed. They’re anticipating potentially opening it in January, but everyone I’ve talked to is like, it probably won’t. It will probably be pushed. But even once the office is open, I still won’t be going in every day by any means. My team is going to remain remote/hybrid. It’s just interesting because – I know Joy is going to edit it out, but I just had a big mid-sentence yawn.
Joy: I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you yawn while you were recording.
Claire: I’m tired. It was a day. All of the sudden.
Joy: Sorry to bore you, Claire.
Claire: Like when your AirPods are running out of battery and they’re like “dee de de due.”
Joy: [laughing] That noise. “Dee de de due.” That’s the weirdest noise, and it startles me every single time. I’m like, how dare you?
Claire: I feel like that’s what my body just did. Ding ding ding ding.
Joy: That’s a great sound effect for what just happened. Okay.
Claire: Okay. Back to my first day. But I’m excited for the job. I’m excited to get up and running. It’s just weird to be on remote onboarding where that dead time truly is like, “Hello?”
Joy: I’m still here. Is everyone okay?
Claire: Do you need anything? Snacks? Condoms? That’s a Mean Girls reference. I’m not bringing condoms to my coworkers. Please do not call HR.
Joy: Please do not call HR.
Claire: But I’m excited. It’s been good. It was nice over the weekend to not have anything I had to get done. There was nothing in the back of my mind, until I remembered that I never submitted my final expense report. So I’m going to have to figure that out. I decided to go to Vegas two days before I left.
Joy: Yeah, got a big expense.
Claire: Yeah, I got to do that. So anyway, yeah, it was a good first day. I’m excited for it. I think the biggest thing that I… I feel like it’s weird to talk about salary, and obviously I’m not going to use real numbers. The big thing that I think is so interesting about this job is that I’m making twice as much as I was at my last job. The reason that I bring that up is because at my previous job, it was one of the places that has a great culture, very open-door policy. There’s a lot of perks. And they’re kind of known for not paying all that well. And then to go to another job where there’s also a great culture and a lot of perks. And a super competitive salary. Just really to me makes me realize it’s not all about money, it never is all about money, but money matters also. And if you have every thought to yourself, oh there’s no such thing as making as much as I want to make at a workplace that’s not going to completely ruin my life, I would challenge that a lot. Granted I’ve only worked here for one day, but I know a lot of people who also work for this company that have nothing but amazing things to say about their culture. So I’m really hopeful. I’m excited about that for me. I’m saying it also as a challenge for anyone out there who thinks they can’t get paid more. Or that if they want to get paid more, they’re going to have to sacrifice the “perks.”
Joy: Yeah, that’s a really good point. I feel like this could be a conversation for a whole five episodes because there’s so much wrapped up in this too of education and networking and who you know. Because I can just hear people being like, “Yeah, but.” Which I understand. I also think I’m very aware because I’m reading the book Maid right now that I’m just like, oh my gosh, there’s a lot of inequity in pay in a lot of areas. But just on the larger scale, generally speaking yes, because in my last position I felt the same way where I had limiting beliefs around it because in behavioral health you just kind of settle for a “life of poverty” – I’m saying this totally quote unquote – because it’s usually seen that if you work in behavioral health, you’re not paid a lot. It really depends on a lot of factors. But you can make money in this field, and you don’t have to settle for work cultures that are toxic. I’m speaking from my previous place of employment. Now I’m in a space where I’m like, oh, they have really competitive pay, they walk the walk. Granted, I haven’t started yet. But again, I reached out to people who were like, “This is the first place that I actually feel like it checks all the boxes.” To just keep looking, even if you’re not in a place to leave your current role, just to keep looking. I think there’s a lot of benefit to that
Claire: If you want to. If that’s something you feel –
Joy: Yeah, if you want to. But I think it’s important to talk about it. I’ve talked to the gal who runs School of Betty all the time, Bri – and maybe we should have her on another time just to talk about money. Because it doesn’t have to be the main thing, but you can get to a point where you’re like, I just really want to be able to pay my bills and not stress about paycheck to paycheck every month. So larger conversation for a different day, but I think that’s important for you to bring up because it’s something that’s okay for us to strive for.
Claire: And I want to make it more okay to talk about. I think that’s the other huge thing is that particularly women we feel very shush shush shush. You’re not supposed to ask about how much money people make. You’re not supposed to talk about it. It’s rude. I just think we’re always doing ourselves a disservice if we’re not talking about wanting money because it makes you feel like you’re not allowed to want more. And if you are, you’re being selfish.
Joy: Exactly.
Claire: And if you are, you’re not grateful for what you have. We’ve talked about that fallacy of if you are looking for something else, it means you’re not grateful for what you have.
Joy: Right, right.
Claire: And that’s a belief that a lot of us grew up with. That is something that we really have to be intentional about challenging in a variety of places in our lives. That just because you want something more doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re ungrateful for what you do have. It just means that I like what I have and I want more of it, or I like what I have but I want something different. And it’s okay.
Joy: And being confident to ask. A lot of the times when I was in a position where I’m like, oh, I want to ask for a raise or I want to ask for more money, I would think, what would a male do in this situation? And when I was applying to the current company that I’m going to be working for, I just asked some question – I guess I don’t want to give details. But I asked some questions around either raises or bonuses or something along those lines. And they were like, we don’t do that because we’re very committed to pay equity and making sure that every person is paid within the same range, whatever gender you are. And I really respect that. I think that’s another reason why I love – well, it’s a double-edged sword with Colorado with pay transparency where they’re listing salaries or –
Claire: Required to list salaries.
Joy: They’re required to list the salaries, yeah.
Claire: And then companies outside of the state don’t want to do that are like, “And if you’re from Colorado, you can’t apply.”
Joy: Yeah, you can’t apply, which I think is so silly. I appreciate that also because that is where we’re trying to –
Claire: And that tells you right then and there everything you need to know about that company.
Joy: Yes. Totally. I remember seeing a job from Nike where it was like, “Colorado don’t apply,” and I was like, Nike, do better. You just had the whole thing with Allyson Felix.
Claire: I know.
Joy: It drives me crazy. So Nike, do better.
Claire: Just do better.
Joy: Yeah, just do better.
Claire: Did you get my “just do it” pun?
Joy: I did get it.
Claire: Okay. Just making sure.
Joy: I got it. I was like, “Just do… better.” I think the moral of my story is be confident and ask for what you want. I know it’s easier said than done.
Claire: I want to go back to what you said earlier. I don’t want to take away from the fact that there are a lot of real barriers out there for people. I think without minimizing that reality, the point I’m trying to make is there might be such a thing out there for you and there likely is such a thing out there for you as a job that pays better and has the culture that you want. It’s not either-or anymore.
Joy: On that note, let’s take a quick break and hear from out amazing sponsors Ned.
Claire: And by “hear from them,” you mean talk about them.
Joy: Talk about them and rave about them, yes. I’m going to go ahead and repeat myself because I’ve been using the sleep blend. It’s a newer product. It’s amazing. I’ve been taking it a half hour before bed. I follow the instructions. You just take a little dropper under your tongue, and I sleep like a baby. Hotel sleep. I feel really good. I actually have a Sleep Number bed, so I track my sleep score every morning when I wake up. It’s just data. And I’ve been getting amazing sleep, so please support the podcast by supporting our great sponsors, Ned.
Claire: Be both use it. We both love it. If you guys go to our Instagram, I did one of those reels last week where I point to words – only for Ned would I make a reel like that. If you’re not familiar with CBD, I explained a little bit about it in the caption on that post. Also, just as a reminder, you can go to helloned.com. Go to their FAQ page. They answer a ton of questions about using CBD, about what it’s used for, who can use it, how it works. Go to their website. Check that out. They have a lot of awesome education on there. One thing that we love about Ned is that they third-party test every single batch of all of their products. So unlike a lot of other CBD companies, which will put averages of the content of their products on the label, they actually third-party test every single batch. So you know exactly what you’re getting, and it’s third-party verified, meaning it’s not just them tooting their own horn. It’s a really objective look at exactly what you’re getting in the product, which is so important. Any time you’re taking something that’s a supplement – which CBD is just another herb and botanical, it’s just another type of supplement. When we think about it that way, we really are thinking about the quality. We’re thinking about the sourcing. We’re thinking about that third-party testing. And we love Ned for providing all of that right on their website.
Joy: If you want to try the new destress blend from Ned or the sleep blend, a brand that we love and trust, we have a special code for our audience. Every order over $40 qualifies for 15% off plus a free destress blend sample. Go to helloned.com/JOY or enter JOY at checkout to take advantage of this offer. That’s helloned.com/JOY to get 15% off plus a free destress blend sample on any order over $40. Thank you, Ned, for sponsoring our podcast and offering our listeners a natural remedy for some of life’s common health issues. Thank you, Ned. So next, do we want to talk a little bit about stuff? No. Do we want to dip the toe into the diet culture, or do we want to have a little update on just November being a really big month? Which way do we want to go?
Claire: I feel like they’re related. So a couple weeks ago we talked about how diet culture is coming. The holiday diet culture is coming for you and for me and for everyone. A piece of that conversation though that we often hear from you guys but don’t always really address because it’s so complex is the question of, but what if I want to lose weight? What if I want to go on a diet? What if I want to take up a physique course? What if I want to run a marathon every day for the next hundred days? What if insert goal in here. Oh – I’m getting a visitor.
Evie: Hi, mommy.
Claire: Hi, sweetie pie. We talk a lot about avoiding diets and not being made to feel like you have to go on a challenge or you have to worry about your holiday eating or winter layer, whatever it may be. One thing that we don’t talk a lot about but that we get a lot of questions and comments about are people saying, I get it. I don’t have to buy into diet culture. I don’t have to shrink my body. I don’t have to do any of these things. But what if I want to? What if I want to go on a diet? What if I do have physique goals? And what if I want to lose weight? What if I can accept the fact that maybe I don’t need to “do it for my health,” but I just want to do it?
[Evie chatter in the background.]
Claire: There’s a little Evie feedback in the background – It smells good? – So what if I want to do it? Is there a healthy way? In the immortal words of our friend Laura Ligos, I think the answer is, it depends.
Joy: Yeah, it depends. I was just going to say that.
Claire: I do think there is space for that. There is totally space for you wanting to do a challenge just for at the sake of having some routine in our life or try different things in your diet just for the sake of getting information about your body – She’s sitting on my lap, so if you hear any small voices, that’s what’s going on. You’re not hallucinating – I’ve been thinking about that because recently – I mean, I’ve talked about this a million times, but I don’t like working from home. It feels very isolating to me. It zaps my energy. And one of the biggest things that helps is getting really regular movement. But it’s so easy for me to talk myself out of that because of the busyness of my day, the fact that there’s a two-year-old on my lap right now. There’s a million reasons that I can talk myself out of it every single. And not even “making excuses” or taking rest. The reasons that I’m not doing it don’t fall into any of those categories. It’s just that I talk myself out of it. Can I combat that by setting a goal and saying I want to work out three times a week for at the rest of the year? Or we’re going into the darker time of the year where it’s harder to feel energetic anyway, so can I set a goal to help myself with that? Then I hear those voices in my head that are like, don’t do it, Claire. You don’t have to do a program. I don’t know. It’s this weird kind of reverse –
Joy: I think the diet culture has been the big, bad monster for years and years and years. I think each person is going to handle this differently, but we just don’t want to fall into a trap of hating ourselves and doing it from a place of hate. But like with anything in our life that we “use,” whether it be a substance or food or exercise, there’s really nothing wrong with exercise. There’s nothing wrong with food. There’s nothing wrong with substances. It’s a relationship to it. So if you have a relationship that is “I have to do this” or “I have to do this because I’m such a horrible person” or “I have to do it to fit into whatever jeans or piece of clothing because I don’t like how I look.” I feel like the narrative around it is what I personally have an issue with because I just want everybody to be happy, whether you exercise or not. It doesn’t have to be in your life. I think that, to quote Laura Ligos again, she would say, it depends. For someone who has a history with eating disorders, it might be something to say maybe work with a therapist on that. Or not. It’s not our job to police that. I think especially with a recent post that we made a comment on. A, you don’t have to comment about that because they’re making a choice. But kind of where I had an issue with this particular post was, this person is kind of stepping out of their lane. I have an issue with that because I think it would be harmful to others. So to each his own, but especially with influencers. We’ve said this before. When they take a stance and they act as a professional that they can guide people to weight loss, I think that’s a big problem. I think that is a huge problem. That feeds into the diet industry, and I have a problem with the diet industry and the messages that it feeds. That is separate from just exercising and wanting to live a life that makes you feel good, in whatever way that looks.
Claire: Yeah, I think that’s a good point. Where is it coming from? What is the motivation behind it? And really, only you can tell that for yourself. Is this coming from a healthy place? Are you in a place mentally where you can actually arcuately judge if it’s a healthy place?
Joy: So I think just going into this season is just to be mindful of that and to remind yourself that you don’t have to change your body if that’s a goal of yours. We can’t police the internet. As much as I want to say, please just don’t feed into the diet culture, but move your body if it feels good. My rule of thumb every morning when I wake up is, what do I feel like doing? If I feel like doing nothing, I do nothing. If I feel like moving, I move. And there’s no “you should.” There’s no schedule. Every once in a blue moon, I think about running a race again. And I don’t have rules around that either. I just think, that might be fun, but I’m not sure if It’s the best for my body. I think back to what happened with Graves’. You know, so I think these are all thoughts that I still have. I don’t feel negative about it, and I don’t feel the “shoulds” around it, and I think that’s what’s the difference between the old me and the new me.
Claire: Something you said there too about waking up and asking your body what does it need, it also reminded me of the question we get a lot about people who are starting intuitive eating, which is if I’m going to intuitive eat, then that just means I’m going to eat a whole cake every day. For some people if you were to say, only exercise if you feel like it, they’d be like then I’m never going to leave the couch. Sometimes that’s how I feel. If I waited to want to exercise, I would never exercise. But then if I’m honest with myself, I do feel my best when I’m get movement. So how do I reconcile those two beliefs? The way that I reconcile them is realizing that actually if it was up to me, I would want to move my body. Maybe it wouldn’t be to do a yoga class on an app or something. But I would want to move. My preferred types of movement are not always available to me because they’re logistically intensive to get out of the house and go hiking or whatever. So what can I do in place of that that is in my garage that might not be my first choice but still accomplishes that goal? I think for me I struggle a lot more with that mindset than I do with any type of mindset around food. Yeah, it’s definitely just a conversation that I have with myself constantly.
Joy: I think we can all relate to that. Okay, so let’s just be our assignment for this community is for everybody to send us your thoughts and feelings about maybe stuff that’s coming up around the holiday season that we can all start this dialogue together. It doesn’t have to be black or white, and if you’re struggling with something around diet culture, or if you’re like, yeah, I’m really struggling because I do want to lose weight, or I want to gain weight, or I want to change the look of my body. I think it’s just something that we want to talk more about because we don’t want to make it like this taboo subject because I think it’s nuanced and it’s different for every single person and every single body. I’d love to hear from what everyone is either struggling with or dealing with. Maybe it’s not even a struggle, just something that you’re kind of going through. Or maybe something comes up for you around the holidays that you want to tackle. Let’s talk about it.
Claire: I feel like that’s kind of the end of our time.
Joy: We’re leaving with an open-ended question.
Claire: We are.
Joy: So you can email us.
Claire: Email us as an assignment. If you so choose. Should you choose to accept it, your mission is to email us with your thoughts about that question. Alright guys, thank you for joining us again for another week of This is Joy and Claire. Don’t forget, you can listen to either of our other two podcasts, Girls Gone WOD, which is focused on health and fitness with a lot of interviews with amazing people with different expertise. Different experts from around the fitness world. And On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! which is our weekly podcast following along with The Great British Baking Show. This week, I’m supposedly going to make a baclava. So we’ll see how that goes. Please don’t forget to support our sponsor, Ned, helloned.com. Discount code is JOY. Thank you to Ned and thank you to you guys for supporting the brands that support our podcast. Follow us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. Don’t forget to tag us in your Instagram stories. That is a super easy, really impactful way to get our name out there and help us continue to grow this community, continue to grow this podcast, continue to do what we love. Just get onto Instagram stories, write a little note about what you liked about this episode, tag us so that we can repost it, and that is super helpful. So that is another way that you can help us out. Thank you guys so much, and we’ll talk to you next week.
Joy: Have a good one. Bye, guys.
Claire: Bye.
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