Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Start your week smiling with your friends. Kathy's aunt and Michelle Frechette. It's time to get ready for some weekly motivation with WP motivate.
Happy Friday, Cathy.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Happy Friday, Michelle. How are you?
[00:00:17] Speaker A: I'm, I'm okay. I'm not going to say I'm great. I'm not going to say I'm terrible. I'm okay. I'm holding my own. I'm. It's been almost three weeks since I got back from Wordcamp Asia and I'm still coughing, still having issues, you know, still using my inhaler and nebulizer and all that. So it's just, I think it's just a slow heal. So I'm exhausted and I think that being exhausted because you don't, you know, when you're coughing all night, you don't sleep well.
I think being exhausted can really play on everything. Not just how your body feels but emotions and everything else. And I'm just like, man, I just want to go to bed.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: I'm so sorry. That sucks. Yeah. Last year I started wearing a fitness tracker to track, not my fitness but to track my sleep because I was realizing how stress was kind of piling onto me and that it was really telling of like how poorly I was sleeping. And now it's more of a fitness tracker. Now it's like, go girl, look what you're doing.
Measurement is helping me like better be aware of my body and I'm trending upwards in terms of help health and in terms of sleep, so. Yeah, but when you're not sleeping, I read a statistic that when, when people decide to exit. Yes. That they typically, it's typically after a period of no sleep. Like it can really screw with your brain.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: I can, I can understand that. I, I have always been an insomniac and if I go to bed early then I'm up super early because like four or 5 hours of sleep at night, unless I'm sick or jet lagged or something, is what my body thinks it needs. And so I'll wake up.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: If I go to, I usually go.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: To bed around two in the morning and I wake up around seven. So about 5 hours of sleep. Um, the other day, not last night, the night before I was so tired I was falling asleep on my couch at like 730. So I was like, I'm just gonna go lay down in my bed where it's way more comfortable than a couch. And I slept until three and then I was wide awake. Like just wide awake. And that day I was up from three till whatever time I went to bed again because my body doesn't think it needs more than that. And so I just wake up and.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: No matter what I do to try.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: To go back to sleep, I just lay there thinking. So I get up and do other stuff instead.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: But thinking, boy, hate thinking in the middle of the night, right? Hate it. Like, you think you're going to solve all this now?
No.
But for some reason, 03:00 a.m. Is my brain's favorite time to like. Now let's talk about this thing.
Like, what thing? It's sleep time. It's like to tell my husband when he wakes me up in the middle of the night, it's shut the f up time. Yeah, or shut the f up o'clock. That's what I told him. I'm just like, no, this is not that time for a conversation that goes for my brain too.
Stfu.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: I'm convinced. I'm convinced that I do solve all my problems at 03:00 a.m. But I fall back asleep and forget what the solution was.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Oh, man, at least I told myself so.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Really.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: All of the things that have gone wrong lately, this is all your fault because you didn't write it down.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Apparently.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: Apparently.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: So, speaking of all the things that gone wrong and emotions and stuff like that, man, I have seen so much negativity in our community, the WordPress community lately. Whether it's on slack channels, different slack channels, whether it's on Twitter or just in talking to people, people are really down lately. And I'm, and sometimes I think, sometimes I think that when you are experiencing, whether it's emotional crisis, maybe crisis is a little heavy of a word, but just depression or blues or whatever you want to call it, that sometimes it's easier to strike out at other people than it is to deal with your own stuff. Right? And so I don't know if that's what's happening, you know? Like, you, you and I were talking before we started recording. We got these eclipses. Like, talk about that. You were talking about that a little bit. Like there's more. I didn't realize there was more than one.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Oh, they always come in pairs. So there was a lunar eclipse on the 25th on Monday, like middle of the night. And then there's this solar eclipse that's happening on April 8. So we're in eclipse season and the same thing will happen in the fall. We'll have like a solar and a lunar eclipse and they show up in different areas. I've been watching it for, well, you know, kind of watch those things anyway. Yeah. When eclipses are happening, a really brilliant astrologer told me. He says, when. So you've got the luminaries, you've got the sun and the moon, and they give the most light, but when they get blocked, you can see the stars. So you see the truth of a situation. So things get eclipsed out of your life that you don't normally like. Things that are constant sources of light get eclipsed. They get blocked so that you can see the truth of a situation. So you might have. And I've noticed as I've been watching all of it because I'm like, I wonder why there were all of these, you know, tons of older belief systems that when the eclipse happen, you're supposed to, like, you know, things happen or, and, you know, my husband's stroke happened around the time of an eclipse. Like, all of these things happen. My dog died in 2017 when that big eclipse went across the country. And so, like, I'm scared of them. So then I want to dissect them and figure them out. I can understand we're in the middle of this time, and I think, you know, big things happen.
The bridge collapse that happened, and there's so much, like, stuff happening. Wars start, like, all kinds of bizarre things. And I'm not, like, soothsaying or anything like that, but I think this is a time where people take stock of things and assess things. And I think there's a lot of, and I think there's a lot of people. Like, I mean, some of the negativity I'm seeing is, you know, there's people wondering, you know, is WordPress even viable as a plus? Like, okay, exactly. People are getting, like, super drastic about stuff.
My whole thing, I'm just, like, sad because somebody said, there's a dog that's been dumped in our neighborhood and I want to go save it. And I realize I can't save it. And so I'm crying about this dog and, like, hugging on my dogs. Like, yeah, I can't save them. I've got to save you. I'm like, I'm just a mess about that kind of stuff. And then a friend's father passed, and I cried this morning about that, and I never even knew him, but just, like, I started crying. Yeah, tears can be good, right? Tears are good. They're cleansing.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: Yeah. They say salt water is good for the spirit, whether it's in tears or the ocean or. I don't know. There's a saying that says three things, and I don't remember what the third thing is, but, yeah, salt is cleansing, and it's. We need it to survive. Like, you can't survive without salt. You don't want to do it too much, but you can't survive without salt and water. And it's like a magic combo, I think. Yeah.
Excuse me. Yeah, it's, um. It's one of those things. And, like, my dad died two years ago and two years and two weeks ago, because I saw in my facebook, hey, on this day a beautiful thing I wrote. It was really poignant, and it was so beautiful, I cried again this morning. So, you know, hey, it's things like that. And I wrote in that post something along the lines of, you know, to be gentle with others because we're still grieving long after you've forgotten that we had a loss.
And I think that that's true for everybody in every situation. There are probably people who talk to you on a daily basis and don't remember what you're going through with caregiving in your home. There are people who don't remember that my dad died two years ago and that I still think about that sometimes, or that I. Dealing with ailing parents in another, you know, a town over that I can't physically caregive for, which means there's monetary expenses and everything else, and it's. There's, you never know. People only show you their public Persona most of the time. It's our good friends and family members that sees the inside of things. It's just a good. A good reminder to always be kind to others, for sure.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Kindness and, you know, I don't know, whenever I see anybody going through something, it's just kind of like this.
There but for the grace of God go I type of thing of just, like, could happen. Bad things can happen to everyone. And so I get, like, super empathic and I'm like, I'm feeling it with them. And I have to watch myself sometimes because I do empathize too much, but, yeah, tons of people going through all sorts of stuff and, yeah, it's just so, of course people are going to be, I don't know, I think we just need to give people space and trust them and leave that open dialogue. Let's let people have a little bit of steam off, but then at the same time, like, invite dialogue. Because I think if you can help one person just kind of shift their perspective just a little bit. And you do this a lot for me, just, like, shift your perspective just a little bit. And that kind of gift is something that it comes back to us tenfold. You know, if you can help somebody see, okay, it's not exactly how you. You know, you're not as limited as you think you are, or this situation isn't as bad as you think it is. And, like, having those opportunities for open dialogue where people can feel a little more freedom of movement and just in terms of how they see something can really be so instrumental.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: And, you know, you make me think of the idea of safe spaces. I saw somebody post somebody from high school posted this morning that if you are a gay person and you're in the closet and that's your safe space, I'll guard the door for you. If you need one person to come out to, I will be that safe person for you. And that's not just about the LGBTQ community. That's all of us. Right? So there's. We all have things that are raw for us that we keep inside because it's too raw to share to the world. There's emotion, there's issues. There's whatever we're going through. And to have one person, like, you're that person for me, too, right? I probably have three people in this world that I could call up and say, I just need to talk. And they'd be like, all right, here's the zoom. Here's my phone number. Here's whatever.
No matter what time of day that I could be, like, just, like, let it all out to, you know, to be that safe space for somebody else is a privilege, and to have somebody as a safe space is just such a blessing.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I heard something recently. I think it was Simon Sinek. You know, the leadership. I love him because he's so cool.
He's so cool. But he said something about how he and his friends have a code word because somebody said something about how it only takes eight minutes of a conversation to completely shift somebody's mindset. And so his friends. He and his friends have a code word where they'll say, do you have eight minutes? And that's when his friends know, drop everything. I really need you. And maybe we all need a little bit of a code word like that, you know, like, other than just, like, mayday, mayday, mayday, mayday, mayday. Yeah. Or something.
Because sometimes we do need. We're all. It's. We are now. Nobody's alone. But I know a lot of times, especially, like, with the digitization of communication being so prevalent now, people feel really alone. But I'm only a phone call away. I'm only a, you know, a TikTok. Share away. You know, it's like, that close, but. Yeah, but it's still. There's a distance there. It's not like being in the same room. It's not like having a conversation. And I think maybe having a code word of, like, hey, I need you. You know?
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: I'm sure there's a meme that goes here, but, no, I just need you.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: I need you.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: And we need that interdependence. We are interdependent people. It's why we're so afraid of being alone, you know? It's because that is part of who we are. We are one, but we are all. I'm gonna start, you know, going into a.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: No, but you're right.
Absolutely. And I think about, like, it's so easy to share triumphs and wins and victories and happiness. It's so much harder to share the struggles and the depression and the negative thoughts and those kinds of things because we're so afraid of being judged. Like, when we're judged for good things, it's always judged, or 99% of the time, it's judged as something to celebrate. It's so much harder to open yourself up to being judged in a negative way. And that's why those people that don't that, like, I may say something stupid, and you may have a thought, like, oh, Michelle, or whatever, but you would never say that part to me. You would still, like, listen to what I have to say and help me talk through it or think through it in a non judgmental way when we all have immediate reactions to things, but that's not the same as being judgmental.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I don't share a lot of what's going on just because I know a lot of people can't handle what I'm going through. Like, I don't need to go into details, but I'll just say the day before yesterday was four loads of laundry.
I understand what that means for one person.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: It was not a pleasant day.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: I'm sure it was not. I feel like I need to send you Febreze.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: You know, I can't even really tell my kids about that because I don't want them to compete with the idea of everything that I've had to deal with. Just, like, how, you know, how did this happen? Like, I thought it was going to be a nice, easy. Oh, good morning. What the. What the heck happened in here?
Life is just. Life is just hard sometimes. And I can't really go into a lot of details with a lot of people because, you know, nobody wants to talk about that, right? But it's part of life. And I'm sure there are other people.
I'm sure there's, first of all, I'm sure there's some people who are like, oh, I like you. I know exactly what you're talking about. And I know what B's, what compost you just went through. There's other people who are just like, hmm, what are you doing, girl? Letting this happen in your life? That is that something you send to the nursing home? And, you know, that's just like, don't even. They can't even fathom it, right? So I just keep it a lot. I keep it a lot to myself because it's just the way it is.
There's a lot of people who have. That absolutely have to keep it to themselves.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: And we do use code words anyway, right? Like, the other day, I was like, well, I'm having a little tummy trouble. Like, you know what it means when I tell you I'm having tummy trouble? Like, we all know what that means, but nobody's gonna say what that means kind of thing. But, yeah, the meds and everything else I've been on, it's like, it's not just that I'm coughing a lot, it's that I can't sleep. It's that my stomach's upset. All of it goes together, and all you have to do is say, I'm going to be late. I have tubby trouble. And you're like, okay, I'll see you in 15. Yeah, or whatever it is.
Oh, my goodness. And we do. I think humor is important. I think that we deal with a lot with humor.
You know, you and I said memes and TikToks and Instagram reels and things that just make us laugh out loud. But it's not just that surface stuff. And we understand, between our friendship, we understand that there's so much more underneath that surface. I'm reminded of if you go to Corey Miller's Twitter account, you'll see he's had a pinned tweet at the top for a long time, and it's the iceberg. And he talks about mental health a lot and how you only see that tip. What is floating above the water in an iceberg is like, I can't remember exactly, but, like, ten to 20% of the total thing. And the rest of, like, that's what we see on people is just that little part that's sparkling and white and glistening in the sunlight, but it's what's underneath that water that's dangerous and tumultuous and just what makes up the human being. And that's the part that we don't always share with everybody. And, yeah, we need to remember that we're more than the 20% that people see and that others are more than the 20% that we can see of them as well. Yeah, sure.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Yeah, very true. Yeah. I think just when we're going through these big kind of shifts, the times where a lot of emotions are raw and people are, I think we just all need to give each other a little more compassion because, yeah, no, you don't really know what everybody else is going through or what, you know, somebody might be complaining about something with WordPress, but something's going on elsewhere, you know?
And.
Yeah, and a lot of times I do think that, well, my, one of my guiding philosophies is that everything that happens in my life, no matter how crappy it is, I need to trust that it's for my highest good and for the good of everyone.
That even means the b's. That means the compost is good too, because, yeah, compost grows flowers. Right.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: It does.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: So a lot of this stuff, though, if we are not allowing it to come up, if we want to, like, put this veneer of happiness over our life and pretend that everything is okay. Mm hmm. It's like, it's so much work. Yeah, it is.
Just pretend everything's okay and just like, put on that happy face.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: Truer words have never been spoken.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Eventually these things that we're trying to keep below the surface that we're working so hard to keep down, eventually they're going to just pop up. And if we just let that happen, everything else starts to pop up too. It's like, your happiness starts to pop up and it's like, I was in one.
My husband did NLP work with people. And so it was like, therapeutic session. And there was this group session. It was happening at our house. And this person was like, going through immense tears and just like, trauma. And then somebody cracked a joke and they were the one laughing the loudest. And the guy who was leading the session said that your happiness is just. It's always there. The good stuff is always there. But if you're trying so hard to keep the sadness away or trying to be perfect and hold all of that back, your happiness isn't going to come out until the sadness can come out. So, yeah, I thought it just. I saw it happening, you know, it was just like they were laughing the loudest because it's just like they weren't allowing themselves to feel anything because they couldn't deal with the negativity. They couldn't feel the gravity of the hard things that they were going through in life was holding back all of their joy, too. So, yeah, your happiness come out anyway.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: Your happiness has had us our package deal.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Yes, they are.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: You got to feel them both in order to not. Yeah, because you're right. If you hold down one, you're holding on the other. It makes perfect sense.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: And as somebody who deals with anxiety on a regular basis, I know that to be 100% sure, I got to deal with all of it in order to just deal with any of it. So. Yeah, makes sense to me. Well, here's hoping for a lot fewer loads of laundry in your weekend ahead.
That would be nice.
That would be nice.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: I will say he was hilarious, because my son's coming down next week, and so I told husband that Max is coming for a visit, and he's like, oh, good. Well, if he's here, we might as well get married.
You gotta love that he's watching him. He's really, really into. Love is blind right now. Like, he's. He's watched a couple seasons, and he's, like, on it, right? So he's loving, and he's just like.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: He was.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: He's a big, softy romantic.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: I loved.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: You know, one of the things I loved about him is that he is, like, mister tough guy on the outside, but heart of gold and just like. But I see more of that now. So, you know, I'm not going to say, like, my life is completely horrible because he's still just, like, mister romantic and just. Yeah, so I might be getting married again next week.
I just thought it was hilarious.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: I'll fly down and be your maid of honor.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Of course, me being the motivator, I'm like, you know, if you want to get married, I would love for you to just, like, walk down the aisle instead of being in the wheelchair. Can we do some physical therapy?
[00:21:53] Speaker A: Ooh, that's motivating.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: About five minutes.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: I hate you.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: You sent me. I think it was reels on Instagram, but I see the same trend on TikTok all the time of these paint parties now where you're supposed to paint your partner or paint your spouse. And first of all, where are these people coming up with all these easels? Normal people don't have five easels in their house. But that's another story.
But it's always like, one person paints the other pretty well, and then they turn around, and it's like, I look like an ogre. How did you make me look like I don't have three eyes, you know, like, all of this guys. And I saw one that I'll have to look back through some of them and send some other ones to you. But you said to me, I wonder what Vicki looks like? And I died.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Well, what I said to you, the girl, the woman was. She was so artistic, and she, like, made her husband, like, he was quite good. He did so wonderful. And that reel went on and on and on, and I'm like, oh, I got to see what happens with her. And she just looks like, I think, you know, like a mangled muppet. Maybe she looked horrible in his art.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: My favorite comment. She's like, what did you do to my dimple?
[00:23:16] Speaker B: That was so funny. We're gonna have to post a link to that, because it was so funny.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: It was so good, and I saw.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: It, and I'm just like. I. I mean, he can't even write his name properly right now, so it's. I was just wondering, like, what would I. My art wouldn't be that great, but his would be just, like, pretty comical. I thought so.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: So get him to describe you. Put it into Dolly. I want to see what AI generates based on Mark's description of his. Okay, that would be funny. Of either Kathy or Vicki. I want to know.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: So the woman who comes in every week and helps me make sure he gets showered and cleaned up and everything, remembers her name every single time. Every single time remembers her name.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: The bastard.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: I can trick him into saying my name.
If I say. If I say, I love you, Mark Ryan, he comes back with I love you, Kathy's aunt every single time. That pattern never got interrupted. But just like everything else.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: The brain is so bizarre.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: We're going through Netflix. His name is Vicki. We just put.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: I love it. I love it.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Like, if I say, claire, can you go see what Vicki wants?
[00:24:36] Speaker A: Oh, that's hysterical.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: The joke is, if he can't call me my name, if my name's not Vicki and he's calling me Vicki, then.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: Then he can be Vicky.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: Vicki. I'm gonna call you Vicki until you stop calling me Vicki.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: I don't blame you. I don't blame you. Well, whoever Vicki is, she's not getting paid enough.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Well, whatever your code words are out there, whatever you're experiencing. We do hope that you take some time to live your authentic self. Let some of it out. Let the negative out so you can let the good out, too. But as always, just be kind to one another. Remember that other people are going through things you have no idea about and you don't even know the depths of. So Kathy and I talk about what we're going through, and I can't feel her emotions. I can only understand them, but I can't feel the depths of what she experiences on a day to day. And she can't experience the depths of what I experienced on a day to day. And that doesn't stop us from having empathy and sympathy for one another and being there and being safe spaces. So be the safe space for somebody. Find your safe space, and we wish you an amazing, amazing week. And I guess we'll see you next week, I hope. Right? So thanks. Bye bye.
This has been Wp motivate with Kathy Zant and Michelle Frechette. To learn more or to sponsor us, go to wpmotivate.com.
