What Are You Grateful For? 44:40

Jan, Jan, Jan, the podcast and show. I'm going to stop staying podcast because it really is just the Jan Arden show. I'm here with Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh. We're going to cut right to the chase because we've got lots to talk about. Last week, near the end of the show, I asked our team if they were frightened, you know, afraid, trepidation about dying. But that's not how I wanted to actually formulate my question because I know we've talked about death on the show before and

And listen, this is a tribute to my mother because she talked about dying like it was a sandwich. Why would I even care about dying? I'm not going to know if I'm dying. I'm not going to know if I'm dead. Well, hopefully I will kind of know if I'm dead because it would be nice to drop in on you and see what you're doing from time to time and have a new body and a nice young body again. I'd like that. So in tribute to my mother, the reason I brought it up about exiting the world is because you guys have kids. I don't have kids.

My biggest worry is like, okay, when Middy dies, my little dog, which I worry about all the time, she's going to be 13 this year.

And if I get another dog now I'm calculating, Oh F am I going to live long enough to live? Cause I don't want to die and have my dog freaked out that I'm dead. And now I've got to be with some crap friend or neighbor that doesn't really love the dog the way I love the dog. And that's not how I cut up their food. And that's not how they like to go to bed. Right. So, so I wanted to ask you guys this a month ago. This is my question.

You know, you leave the world and now you don't get to see the rest of the story of the kids. You don't get to see your girls. I mean, hopefully you'll see them at 65. Like I swear to God, I hope you're an old guy and your kids are 60 and your grandkids are now 17. So I hope you have that story. But isn't there a part of you that wants to selfishly know the story? I want to live forever. Oh, I don't want to live forever. No, thank you. I definitely don't want that.

I'd live forever if it was in the same way as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles villain, Krang. He was a brain that was inside of a giant healthy body. I'd only want to do it if I could be in a healthy body. I wouldn't want to be falling apart and live forever. I want to live forever at this age. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to be like the Crypt Keeper living forever, pointing one long finger being like, when I was a girl. But I don't

I don't know why, and maybe it'll be different when my son eventually comes along, but I kind of like your mom's attitude about,

mostly because do you find, Jan, that her sort of resilience about it and like kind of casual approach to it just being a part of life made you, like, did it make her passing easier for you or did it make talking about it easier? Like, I feel like it might have contributed to your positive outlook in life in general. Oh, she, absolutely. She, I'm telling you, was unflinchingly positive.

I'm relentlessly fine with leaving here. Well, I don't want, don't get me wrong. I don't want to leave tomorrow. I mean, I'd like to finish that lemon square, but I, you know, but she, but my dad was the antithesis. He worried, he lamented, he, he, he was very pensive. He's very consternated about everything.

you know, just, just dying. He was so frightened of it. And the, and I guess the not surprising part of that was that he was such a religious guy, not, not every list. Sorry. He was raised in such a religious way. And I've talked about that before too. He was Mormon until he was in his twenties. And then he left the church and he was an alcoholic and he did everything that the church didn't want people to do. And I'm sure the church was like, told you so. See,

Your drinking has led you down the path of discontentment. But I think he believed that. He's like, yeah, that's why. And that's why bad things. And that's why I'm doing this. And then I think it really twisted his little brain. I think he was a depressed guy. I think he had lots of anxiety problems. But I don't know how the two of them found each other. I don't know how they ended up together. My mom said he was funny.

They met on a blind date. They met at a dance. Oh, he was a dance. He could dance. And, and he was funny. And I, he, he didn't seem to drink that much when I met him, but we all had, we all enjoyed a beer. We all liked having a beer.

and but rum wasn't as strong this is what she actually said to me rum was not as strong uh in those days as it is now i'm like oh my god i think rum's rum i mean ask ask a pirate pirate drank it i think i feel like it was always pretty strong pirates drank it oh my god well i just i feel like that i think that i would want to have a

I would want to have or strive to have kind of a similar outlook, at least forward facing to my son, as your mom did. Mostly so that he, I feel like I only worry about it in the capacity that I feel like it would bum him out.

Like, cause I'm like, I'm dead. I don't know. This isn't for me anymore. I want to like, I want to like leave him with being like, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. Like live a well balanced, happy life. Like don't lament me after I'm gone. Like, I don't know, plant a tree and visit me if you feel like it. But I mean, sometimes I even feel bad. Like I was like thinking about, I was like, if I got a plot, like a great, like a headstone and everything.

then would he feel obligated every year to visit me on my birthday? Cause like, I'm not there. I can't tell. But you can control that. You can control that. You, you and your husband, Adam and his wife, you guys don't have to get tombstones. No, no. You can get a fricking tree. I'll tell you what, we cannot keep burying people in 40 pounds of bloody concrete. And I,

And have these, you know, every time I drive by, there's a McLeod Trail has a beautiful graveyard, cemetery. Sorry, graveyard is very Frankenstein-ish. A cemetery. And it is, oh my gosh, 2,000 acres. And it is prime downtown land. And their hands are tied. They can't do shit.

shish kebab with this man. They, it is there and it is there in perpetuity. And I don't know a lot of the rules of cemeteries. I don't know that in a thousand years, they can't dig that up. I mean, you hear about Roman graves, you hear about Celtic graves, Viking graves, Norman graves being dug up all the time because they're putting in a highway. Yeah.

or they're building a new gas station. Well, Phil and I went to put in the tank and God, we came through and there was a hundred bodies there. And then they've got to get the archaeologists out and people, I don't know if they get corners, they've got to make sure that, but this happens in Europe, Constantinople all the time. Well, they're out of room. So, I mean, and I had always just thought of it from the perspective of,

Does this make them feel obligated on Mother's Day? Is it like a bummer? Like, you know, my poor son and maybe his kids. It's like, go visit grandma's grave now. And look, if you like doing it and it means something to you, great. But I worry about it being obligatory. And I also feel like being like, psst.

Like, I won't know that you're doing that. See, that's where I disagree with you. You and I are going to disagree there because I think you will know. And I think we are. I think that'd be nice. I think we still have free will. I think we still know what we're doing. I feel my parents around me all the time.

Anyway, just to backtrack a bit, I think we should be composted. End of story, full stop. Unless you, my friend's dad just died. God love him. Reg, how you doing, Reg? He was almost 90. Carrie, you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong. He donated his body to the University of, I think, what's the University in Halifax? Oh, Dalhousie. Dalhousie. He donated himself to Dalhousie. Yeah. Wow. Wow.

He had no... He's like, what? Yeah. Yeah.

I wouldn't mind finding out what I died of. Like he's actually thinking in his brain that he's going to look down and maybe he's right. The thing is, there is, we don't know. Anyway, you can be made into a record. You can be literally, they can squish your carb. They can burn you, press you into, you can make a diamond. We've talked about that before. My mom wanted to be a diamond. I wouldn't mind being pressed into a diamond. I said, mom, it's $30,000. Well,

I think I'm worth it. And I said, what would I do with you? Well, you'd wear me around your neck. I'm like, Oh my God, mom. I'm like, I would feel weird, like pooing and stuff hanging around my neck. Well, Jan, I wouldn't, I said, yes, you would know that I was pooing and you would be around my neck.

And I would feel really uncomfortable. Well, if that's what you're worried about, you're completely missing the point. And so we would go around and around like that. And anyway, it did rub off on me. It just makes me laugh. My mom zoomed out of here with the greatest of ease. She had the one eye and she looked at me and boom, we had to go out. She stopped breathing. She gone. I think she is. She just slipped out.

And anyway, I'm not worried about it at all myself. I'm sorry. I had to pick that conversation up from last week because I know I'd asked the question before, but now you know what the context was. Cause I was thinking about your kids.

Yeah. I'm going to try to take on your mom's outlook. I hope you do because we don't talk about it enough. Just as we come back from, you know what? I'll talk about it the next section. Cause I want a little more time for it. My, my friend's brother in law just passed away in Holland. And I don't know what people know about Holland and how they treat death over there, but it is spectacular. And I,

Have we touched on this before? And forgive me if we have. But anyway, he planned his entire funeral. He was 70 years old. And it's my friend Teresa's husband's sister. Not that anyone needs to know that. But he's been dying for quite some time with cancer. But he planned everything, planned his picture, planned his music. He passed away yesterday. His wife bathed him. His son and his daughter dressed him.

the casket is at their house and it will be there for four days on a cooling mat. Everybody comes by and eats food and has a coffee and stands around him. And it is a really celebratory, wonderful thing. It's not a priest standing at the top of a room talking about eternal salvation and, you know, the land, the kingdom. And don't get me wrong, folks out there, I'm not trying to be

judgmental in any way, shape or form. But I'm just talking about the practical, kind, caring, empathic and personal view of dying, where he said home in his house. Anyway, you're listening to the Jan Arden show. We'll be right back. We're going to cheer up. We're coming back. We're cheering up. We're moving on. We'll see you back here in a second.

Welcome back. I know we started the show off with a little bit of, but you know what? It's things that people want to talk about. People do want to talk about. The afterlife is one of the most popular topics that people go on and look at at Google.

They Google what happens to me when I die? What happened to the afterlife? Is there life after death? It is a huge, huge Google search. So it's not just me. Google's not going to have the answer. I hate to break it to everybody. Google has the answers, Caitlin. Google has the answers. They don't know anything. Okay. If I were to go to your homes right freaking now and look at your history, your Google histories, what is the last thing, Adam Karsh, that you searched for?

He's going to look it up. Oh, let's see. I hope I can say what it is. Yeah. Can you put a crock pot in a child's nursery? It's basically just Twitter and Instagram and BuzzFeed articles. There's nothing untoward here. No, it's pretty, pretty boring.

Mine is all related to the nursery. So it's like all of it is, you know, a standing floor lamp, wall sconce options, my baby gift registry. What's this Google search? Yeah, this is more, this is more lamps. Okay. Really exciting. Whatever FBI agent has been assigned to watch me or whoever does that for Canada must be pretty bored. Where, well, things that I search it, I'm just looking at mine right now. It's recipes.

How do you make vegan Nanaimo bars? Oh, that was a good one. Yeah. Like mine's always like, like, how did I screw up my cookies? Listen, I, I, I'm, uh, I am convinced that if people had a more of a casual conversation with their parents, with their kids, I'm not going to dwell on this with their friends about dying. Like, why is it so hush hush? Why is it whisper tones? Why is it like,

Why is it something that like even funerals, I'm sorry, funerals that I've been to in my life and they're, they are getting better. There's some memorials that have actually been kind of fun. My mom and dads were both really fun. We had lots of laughs. But when I was a kid growing up, Holy moly, the thou arts and the thines and the, you know, you're, you're gonna, you know, the, the, the salvation and the fires of hell and, and,

I don't know, internal glory. I just, my gosh, my head spins off. It's nothing about the person. What did she like to do? What was she like? Who were friends? I don't know. Please don't do that to me. If I drop dead, open a beer and just party down. Like, I don't know. Have a bonfire. Burn your brassieres.

It depends on the person. Like if they were a super religious person, then that's kind of what they outline and that's what you end up experiencing. So it always is, it's a bit of a dice roll. I can't remember being to, I've been to, I've been to a fair number of funerals and some have been, you know, like you said, more of a celebration of life than they were a very religious ceremony. It just, it always sort of depends. And I find that often,

I'll talk about, I would talk about death with some people. There are admittedly a lot of people where I'm like, oh, I'll talk about it with you. You're going to bug me.

going to bum me out you're going to get real dark am I that person I'm not because you're a little more light-hearted which is why you can you feel like you can have a more normal conversation but there are some people where I'm like oh I'm going to get into the like depths of your soul like I'm it is Wednesday and I've had a long day I don't want to do it that's the that's the truth some of them just like I don't know I just want to watch a rerun of The Office that's so bad

Well, in, in the next few weeks, next two or three weeks, this is a promise. My friend, Kim Dennis is going to be a guest on our show. Kim is a medium. Um, and she is, I've, I've been to her quite a few times in my life. Uh, she had a television show for a while. She wrote a book.

She, when she, I mean, she can tell you this story, but she's so fascinating. And I thought it would be fun for our listeners to be able to, for one thing, she's going to do little readings for us.

So she will be able to like, Adam, literally, I don't know who she'll pick up on. Like, I can't guarantee you anything, but God only knows she might even pick up your grandmother. Oh, wow. I'm so down with that. I love that stuff. I find that great. I love that. But she talks about like first few times that I sat at her house for these readings and she will freak you out. I'm going to save my experiences for when, when she's on the show. But I did ask her, I'm like, Kim,

how did you start talking? She goes, well, first of all, it started out as she would leave her body and float down the street. I'm not doing this any justice, but when she talks about the afterlife and, and not, not being physically here on the earth and kind of moving on. Oh my gosh. It's so inspiring. Like talking to her, it just makes like, why can't,

We have these kinds of conversations. I'll tell you why. Because of organized religion. Because if you take, you know, the almighty, the kingdom of God, heaven, if you take all of that out and if you completely negate science and physics and, you

if you go down that road, then it becomes really stuffy and stodgy. And a, it's based on if you do everything right, that you make it out of here alive, no pun intended, but you have to follow the rules.

And she just paints this other picture too. That's so whimsical and so lovely. And anyway, I like that. I'm excited for her to join. I'm, I mean, like I'm a fairly, uh, like kind of a practical person, but I still find that stuff fun. Like I do, I like astrology. I get a little into it and I don't take it necessarily, you know, for lack of a better word, I'm not trying to be punny here, but I don't take it as gospel, but I, I definitely like, um,

I think it's interesting. I have found parts of astrology really insightful. Like there are some generalizations that I don't like the daily, like, here's what your day is going to like, that never really pans out that much. But when you get into like, you know, the details of your personal chart, there's some cool stuff in there sometimes. And I've found that entertaining at least. Oh, I think there's a lot to it, but I also know that I have read my long or I,

Well, I've read my long form stuff of the day I was born. And you can get them online. I remember my mom used to buy me those books. Sometimes my 14, 15, it was like your astrology and everything. Sometimes it was so accurate and so dead on. And I have a lot of Virgo friends in my life. My mom was a Virgo. I have dated a lot of Virgos.

I have something going on with Virgos and oh my God, I don't know what it is, but it's, I feel like it's not coincidence. It is something that happens to me over and over and over again. I'm almost afraid to say, what sign are you? If they say Virgo, I don't know if I should run for the Hills or do what, but there's definitely, and I heard a guy on the radio the other day, exactly. I heard a guy on the radio the other day talking about that there was absolutely zero signs

credibility, zero anything to do with astrological signs. He said it's absolutely entertainment and there's nothing real about it. And it broke my heart.

I mean, like if that, if I feel like I'm like, if that's what, if it doesn't resonate with him, like that's fine. But some people really does. And they think it's insightful and it is. I mean, he's like, oh, it's just entertainment. I'm like, I don't know. So is it sports just entertainment? Aren't movies and art just entertainment? Like entertainment is pretty good to me. I don't know. I like entertainment. So consider me entertained by astrology. I'll tell you what I'm entertained by. I am entertained by them freaking dropping that little unit on Mars. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. If you want, if you want to talk about life or death and if you want to, I mean, that's what they're doing right now. This what, what's the little guy's name? It's not Rover. Okay. Can we talk about perseverance when we come back? Are we just about out of time, Adam? No, we're okay. You got about 90 seconds. Oh darn it. Okay. So anyway, in times of COVID, this, the precision of what human beings have done is,

On the top of a rocket, like 80 billion liters of jet fuel, they've launched little Perseverance. Oh, my God, that's cute. And I bet you he's as cute as a crockpot. And they shot him, you know, what is it? 40 million trillion miles away? 300 million. Okay, 300 million. I was close. I don't think you guys need to jump all over me. And they've landed Perseverance.

There's a 90 second really frightening period where they've got to get him onto the planet and anything could go wrong. Anyway, perseverance is there. Let's see when we come, when we come back, let's talk about what they're doing, why they're doing it. And it is the quest for life. Was there life on Mars? And I just think it is one of the most wonderfully fascinating,

whimsical, scientific splendors of the modern age that we've landed something on Mars. You're listening to The Jan Arden Show. We'll be right back. Welcome back to The Jan Arden Show. I'm here with Adam Karsh, Caitlin Green. Perseverance, the newest little guy to be zooming around Mars, has been up there a few weeks. I mean, what a fascinating story to watch. I was glued.

to this entire mission. And I cannot believe they've made something that can do so many things, communicate with us, take footage, send messages, grab samples like, and, and this is the first time this guy is coming back. Yes. That's the goal. So, so this is the goal. So with the Rover, the Rover's not coming back. He sent just data. So he sent a lot of zeros and ones and,

and a lot of readings and atmospheric readings and barometric readings and solar flare, like all that stuff that could be done via the internet. But this guy's coming back with stuff from Mars. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the whole point is to, I believe, try to, they've honed in on this one place where they believe water may have existed on Mars. And so they want to bring back, you know, rock, soil samples, whatever that material is, and see if there are, you know, microbes, evidence of any microbes that were ever there, any kind of life form that was ever on Mars that existed along with water.

which would be so exciting. I mean, I don't know what it means for us in practical terms, but it's pretty cool. Well, that age old question, I mean, talk about life or death, but the age old question of are we alone?

Are we alone out here? And I think maybe that's why we're so obsessed with our mortal lives is because we want to know where we came from and where we're going. And if there's somewhere to go, and if there's somebody else out there that are asking the same questions that we are, I'd like to think whether you have 40 arms, 60 eyeballs and three genitalia, that you still are a creature that is asking about your origins. I don't think that changes anything.

you know, any kind of intelligent creature is going to want to know what the end game is. Yeah. I mean, that was always a funny part of, you know, of, of, I guess like religious teachings, at least to me, because people were always saying, well, how do you explain why, why we've always had some answer for where we came from? Or how do you explain the earliest possible people having, you know, quote unquote God and their version of it. And I always thought, well, we've kind of always been smart enough to ask.

So a lot of people, you know, like kind of always wanted to know. So not necessarily that that was a given all along. It's just that we've always, we've always been curious because we have these giant brains. So that's the way it works. We only use 10% of, I know. I wish we used a little more, just a little more. Some people don't even use 10%. Probably not. I, yeah, I should really, I wish I could use just like, can I just have like 2% more? Just a bit. Yeah.

This, the Perseverance has a helicopter, you guys. It has a, it's the Reconnaissance Orbiter. It's a four pound helicopter and the helicopter and its base station, they've been safe and sound, but this thing lifts off its thing. It's like a Roomba. It's like a really expensive Roomba that goes out and,

That is going to be so great as the weeks wear on to see what the reconnaissance helicopter, what it sees from above. Like I talk about the guy that's working that remote control. Oh my gosh. You know, that would be so fun. Oh yeah. Stressful, but fun. Oh, if you crash it quite stressful. Yeah. Oops. Oh my. Yeah. So they can put,

A helicopter and the perseverance on Mars. But by George, they cannot organize vaccinating the country of Canada. No, my God. Why would they? Israel has done so well. They are light years ahead of pretty much the rest of the world. They have something called a green passport, green card.

And basically in Israel, what this does, it shows that they're vaccinated. It shows that they've tested negative. And if you have your green passport in Israel, who can go...

to dining, to gyms. This has just happened very recently in the last few weeks, but the program has been exceptionally successful. They have not had the kind of blowback of, this is our rights and freedoms and we shouldn't have to, you know, here's a country that's dealt with so much, so much

So many obstacles. You know, the Palestinians and the Israelis have been at war for 40,000 years, let's just be honest. And they deal with things daily that would be so frightening to us. Bombing, border control, a lot of stuff that's not pleasant. But they are all vaccinated and they are all getting back to life. And we're sitting here

um we can't even as a society decide what we're going to do with anti-vaxxers what we're going to do once people are vaccinated where people can and cannot go how is it going to implicate how travel is going to be um allowed like do we not let people fly that haven't been vaccinated do you know what kind of

problems it's going to cause with people that want nothing to do with being vaccinated. I don't know. In Israel, you're not hearing any stories coming out of Israel like that right now.

They've had, I do believe that there was a fair amount of criticism a couple weeks ago for them. And I think it was like a trending topic following some commentary on Weekend Update with Michael Che. And he was talking about the lack of vaccinations for Palestinians living in Gaza.

So I do believe they're still dealing with some pretty serious issues there. But in terms of the rollout, otherwise, yeah, their numbers are quite high. Like, I mean, you look at them, I think Canada fairly recently, at least when I was last paying close attention to the news, I think we were like 34th in the world for vaccine rates.

Yeah, that's not good. We're very, very far behind. And again, when this conversation pops up, it all comes back to investing in science and investing in medicine and not selling off your one vaccine manufacturer, which happened many years ago. And so it was under the

under Brian Mulroney's government that I believe cannot was sold in Quebec. And that was a very like a world leader for producing vaccines. And it wasn't as profitable. So it got sold off. And then obviously all the governments that followed never decided to reinvest in this or to change anything. So it's not just one. It's like lots of people have decided this wasn't a worthwhile area to invest in. And I really, really, really hope that's changed because all you have to do is, I've talked about this before. Probably people are like, I've heard you say this before.

It's true, though. In South Korea, they started out of the pandemic with one of the highest rates of COVID in the world. And they just got on top of it. And that was through their experience with the Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome with MERS. And they learned from it. And we had SARS here and we did not learn from it and we did not invest in it. And nor did we even take the non-science approach of just being quite strict with our lockdowns initially as New Zealand did.

So we really excelled in half measures, but I don't think it's going to be enough. And we know that we're very likely to experience something like this again. And so now is the time to say, spend on science and technology, don't be left waiting in this

consumer lineup for vaccines to be produced by other countries. We have the capabilities here we did before produce it here, you know, make it ourselves. And then we control the distribution and we control how this is produced because it would just be so much better. Well, I think there's a huge misconception with all Canadians of where we stand, not pecking order is not the right word, but where we stand in,

in exactly things like this, you talk about being 34th. I think most Canadians would find that very hard to believe because we often go into things thinking we're kind of number one, or at least the top three globally, like one of the best places in the world to live. You know, one of the best democracies in the world, one of the best healthcare systems in the world. And I,

I think it's been glaringly obvious when you include what's been happening with the coronavirus underneath that healthcare system. It has been fumbled from day one. The messaging has been all over the place, even from province to province. And yes, the numbers have been very different. It's been different experiences, whether you're in Prince Edward Island or in British Columbia.

But still, the messaging, even in Ontario, what you and Adam have dealt with, you are told different things every second day. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. We're going to be right back. And we're going to discuss three good things in our lives. We're each going to talk about three good things in our lives. Don't go away.

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Um, I want to know three good things in your life right now. And the reason that I want to know is that there's a lot of self care things that we talk about all the time, not only just because of COVID, but just in life in general, life is pretty fast with or without COVID being part of our lives, we tend to be racing around. I was reading an article, like in the last four or five days, I just stumbled across it. It was

five ways to stay positive in what is can be perceived as a very negative world and one of the things that it asked me to do right out of the gate was to document three good things in my life and when I started thinking about it it was so amazing that I had so many more things than three so Adam I'm going to start with you like just quickly like three good things in your life

I have a loving family that we are very close, not just the family on my side, but my wife's family. We're all close, so it's great that we can all support each other during these crazy times.

I'm very thankful. I have really good friends and I'm also really lucky that some of my best friends live within five minutes from me. So we've been seeing each other and keeping each other positive during the pandemic. And I think I'm just...

happy to be healthy and living well, all things considered during a global pandemic. So I'm very grateful and I'm very thankful that it's been fairly positive so far. Well, you're grateful and thankful. And that's one good thing right in and of itself. Caitlin, you've

Yeah, mine's probably, I mean, I'm going to lump together the family and friends as one because it's just like, it's the people in your life that I think are so helpful to you. So that's definitely one big category for me. I am left because I was an only child. So I was, I am an only child. I was, but my parents have recently reunited and they...

They've adopted a bunch more. No. So yeah, I have an only child. So I, I think friends are really, really important, have always been very important to me. So I've got a pretty solid group of friends, like some that go back to junior kindergarten with me and we're still really good friends now. We all still live in Toronto. So I think that's been great. And yeah,

I, I don't want to steal all of Adam's answers. So I don't want, I mean, but everyone who has health, I think is thankful for it. And that is just something that you always consider. And I don't just mean like, you know, physical health, but I mean, mental health as well for, for me too. Cause I have a lot of friends and family who've gone through some really rough stuff in addition to the pandemic. So I feel lucky for that sometimes. And yeah,

I guess what's, what's the last one? Sometimes I just feel sometimes I'm baking and I honestly just feel thankful for baked goods. Anyway, I just think there's something nice about it. It's amazing. It's a, it's fantastic to be able to, you know, in a world where we're dealing with billions of people with food insecurities, we have found out during, during this time, what a spectacular privilege it is.

It is to have food in your larder, in your fridge, in your pantry. Boy, oh boy. It didn't last long. That initial thing in March, April, where shelves were bare, a lot of fear. We couldn't find flour. We couldn't find yeast. We couldn't find toilet paper. You know, animal proteins became difficult to find because slaughterhouses rightly so were very affected by COVID. Yeah.

But it's, yeah, it is. It's freaking baking. I'm going to throw that log on my fire too. It's just having nice meals has been so great. And Adam, you know, you often talk about how great food is. The second thing, I mean, there was five things that this writer talked about. I wish I knew his name. I'll try and find it. He talked about how important it was to show kindness to other people. Yeah.

and how that affected your overall life. And I was really kind of gobsmacked by the studies that have been done by a lot of different universities, a lot of different outlets that talk about your idea of kindness and giving it to other people, how that affects everything you do, your health, your wellness, how you do in life, how you succeed.

I don't know if people really understand how their behavior to other people affects their entire lives. Yeah. I,

I completely agree. Like the, like the, you know, off the top of your head, like anyone listening can think of the people that they would most closely equate with kindness and kind behavior. And you probably like them a lot more. You probably wish for better things for them. You probably want to spend more time with them. They probably have a fairly fulfilled life. I would think because you, they, because people are just grabbing, they gravitate towards that.

unkind, negative people, for whatever reason, exist quite prevalently on social media. And

And most of the time I feel for them in a way because sometimes they can't help it, but they tend to be kind of lonely because it's not, you're not gravitating towards it. Yeah. And I don't think they're, they're, they're shown kindness. The act of helping others actually activates the part of your brain that makes you feel pleasure. This is from the Mayo Clinic. It also releases a hormone called oxytocin.

And it helps modulate social interactions and emotion. Literally being kind to other people helps you live longer. It helps your immune system, your blood pressure. It helps you live longer. And this is from a very prominent scientist, Kelly Harding from Columbia University in New York. She penned a book called The Rabbit Effect.

And in a few years ago, she told a news outlet, BBC, it's pretty amazing because there's an ample supply of kindness and you can't overdose on it. It's true. So when you think of just our biology, I think those things fall through the cracks a lot of how decent behavior is

Not only is it beneficial for the person that you're giving it to, even if you don't believe it fully, even if you're like, oh my God, this person doesn't believe me. They don't deserve me being nice to them. It is science. And Caitlin talks about science a lot and the importance of science. That's science. Kindness is science. Yeah, absolutely. While showing kindness to yourself as well. And this was another thing that this writer talked about.

How do you show kindness to yourself? Like, give me an example of that, you guys.

Sometimes I just think to myself, like, yeah, if I'm in a negative headspace or I'm like being like a perfectionist about something for myself, I have to try to flip it around and say, you would never say this to one of your own friends. Like, I'm like, I would never be this hard on one of my friends. If they were telling me they were worried about something or they had to get something done by this time. Or if I had any friend come to me with the same issues that were swirling around in my brain, I'm always like, you know.

never be this hard on them. Why are you being this hard on yourself? I would like totally cut my friends way more slack and I would tell them to like ease off of themselves, but I don't know why I don't take my own advice. Adam, we need to indulge ourselves. I think that's being kind to yourself.

Even if it's something small, I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but all right. Treat yourself to a better bottle of wine. Get the good olive oil. I don't know. Yeah. Treat yourself well. Cynthia Loy should be here talking to us because Cynthia Loy's from our friend from the social talks so much about giving yourself personal pleasure and, and to do doing things that are good for yourself. Once again, there's been all this research done.

to show the positive consequences of being compassionate towards yourself, you know, being kind to yourself.

People that generally are easier on themselves have a better life satisfaction. They have a better emotional intelligence. They have better interconnectedness with others. They have a better sense of wisdom, curiosity, happiness, and optimism. That's people who treat themselves well. That's science. And it's not just one place. It's numerous things. So I think...

It also lessens depression, like when you're not criticizing yourself constantly. It alleviates depression, anxiety. It helps with fear. Anyway, it's just, and this was an article from Psychology Today written by a woman named Mariana Lange.

Pogoison, and she just wrote about the benefits of being nice to yourself. And I've talked about this for years. The longest conversation you're going to have in your life is with yourself. So what kind of a conversation is it going to be? Are you going to kick the crap out of yourself? Or are you going to are you going to cheer for yourself? And as you get older, I have found it gets easier to be nice to yourself.

So for everybody out there who's just, you know, starting down that road, if you're a teenager in your twenties and your thirties, it's never too late and never too early to start a conversation with yourself. That's genuinely easy, kind, be easy on yourself. That's all the time we have for today's show. I don't know where the heck that went to. Anyway, be, be kind to yourself.

And I think when you're kinder to yourself, you're kinder to other people too. You're listening to the Janard podcast. I'm here with Caitlin and Adam. We look forward to seeing, we didn't even discuss what Caitlin's shape of her baby was. This is like the last, I think maybe you'll have it today. Maybe you'll have your baby today. Who knows? Okay. Anyway, to the, to you guys. Thanks for listening. This podcast is distributed by the women in media podcast network. Find out more at women in media.network.