Matrimony Mony, An Epic Love Podcast. Episode 1: Brachnolia.
Epic Love team takes on the powerful 90’s cult film Magnolia in Episode One of Matrimony Mony, an Epic Love Podcast. Magnolia is a film by Paul Thomas Anderson, and one that happened to have a large impact on the life of Epic Love Visionary, Zach Jones, is an epic 90’s family melodrama with some love story elements and beautifully interwoven themes of masculinity, abuse and the effects of generational trauma.
In this podcast, we explore those examples in our own lives. For Brittany, the film uses Claudia’s character to create a theme of an abusive father who only admits it at the end of his life. For Zach, the film changed the course of his life, after seeing the film in a class at University of Michigan. His path forked from B-school capitalist fever to film school snowflake lib, at a vulnerable moment in his early years as he painfully struggled to uncover his authentic life path. Zach reflects on the shame he feels from a history of masculinity rife with examples of power hungry and exploitative men. In Magnolia, Tom Cruise’s character epitomizes “shit” male behavior, pushing men to see women as objects and the way to “obtain” them is through abuse and degradation of women’s self-esteem.
“Vulnerability is a panty dropper,” Brittany relays to Zach, who, of course, does not resemble Magnolia’s example of toxic masculine behavior. As the conversation blossoms around this point, Zach is confronted with the feeling that his shame does not end with recognition that he is, for lack of a better phrase, a “good man”. His shame lingers, begging the question, is there toxicity within me?
This conversational reflection on the deep themes in Magnolia gets intense for both of our storytellers. In a great conclusion about the power of masculine energy, Brittney relates to listeners what her sense of productive, powerful and loving masculine energy is. I must quote her here, “what matters is not that a man can kill the robber, but how well her feelings and emotions are protected”.
Magnolia shows a realistic picture of the chaos and misunderstood traumas in one’s life. We suggest that everyone watches this groundbreaking 90’s film. Here is the entire transcript of the podcast.
FULL PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Zach 00:05
Hello there, my fellow hopeless romantics. Oh you love sick dreamers. I am 1/3 of the dynamic power trio of truly epic proportions. My name is Zach. And I am joined by my co-host and the incredibly beautiful, insanely talented love of my life, Brittany.
Brittany 00:28
Hello, hello everyone.
Zach 00:34
Welcome to Matrimony Mony, an Epic Love podcast, as we endeavor to see through the veil of illusion of mendacity and we rediscover the magic of a world pregnant with true love hiding below the hollow facade. We’re exploring the nature of love, here, what it is from a million different angles, approaches, tones to weave a complexity blossoming pattern of love, but hopefully from a new angle maybe with a little more authenticity or even touching upon some taboo themes. And most importantly, we feel somewhat qualified to speak on the nature [of love]–well, there are many reasons, but one important one is that we are in the business of love. That’s right. We are wedding filmmakers and Brittany is a wedding hair…
Brittany 01:37
Oh, I’m a wedding hair and makeup lady.
Zach 01:40
That’s right. And this is our first episode. And we are fading the music..
Brittany 01:54
That’s the spot!
Zach 01:58
And so for this first inaugural episode: we have a special little treat here we did something kind of fucked up. And we watched a mind-blowing in my opinion, thematically relevant, film magnolia. And we haven’t talked about it yet.
Brittany 02:21
Yeah, we haven’t talked about it since we it’s really hard for me when you get to know me. I don’t hold anything in. So we had a rule; Zacks rule: like ‘do not talk.’ After you watch this. I’ve been holding my breath for 30 minutes while we recorded this intro. Because it was I was shocked. It was a pretty crazy film,
Zach 02:40
Three and a half hour long epic from the 90s kind of about the theme of love. And at least for me, it was pretty central and many things including this wedding business that that we share.
Brittany 02:55
Yeah, I mean, when relating it to weddings, I never I guess I wasn’t thinking about that, but I was watching it. Well, I’m
Zach 03:03
so kind of thinking about this as a podcast about love and telling stories of love. And from all the different angles that that that love manifests and I feel like there’s a lot of pain in that film.
Brittany 03:18
Yeah
Zach 03:19
And trauma. This for me, it’s about love. And it’s like a teaching film for me. It always has been
Brittany 03:27
Yeah, that that resonates with me I would say it’s the part of love I’ve been hiding from it’s the dark side that I still judge is horrible and painful. And you don’t really get that rom com touchy feel good feeling that you know you kind of get touched in the wrong place a little bit you know? And and but that’s–
Zach 03:53
No no place.
Brittany 03:54
The “no no place.” This was a “no no place” love, literally. And I just did not want to relate to this as much as I did.
Zach 04:03
Yeah, I–to give a little bit of a backstory really quickly–Brittany knows this, but you all don’t know really about my story at all, or Brittany’s story. But this was a formative film for me and a reason why I’m in, like, the wedding business and for, you know, simply the reason that, like, had I not seen this when I was 20 years old and had my, you know, like, world turned upside down, I wouldn’t have gone to film school. I was a business guy struggling at University of Michigan and I’d seen this film and watched it several times in theaters and, like, as a kid I was very into filmmaking, and then fell away from it in high school like a rebellious teenager usually does, and was interested in making a lot of money in business, and got to University of Michigan and overwhelmed with all the really smart kids trying to get into the B school and because there was a film class that I took as a prerequisite that had Magnolia on the syllabus, I took that class and ended up switching my majors because of this genius who kind of tore the film apart, talked about it from many–like, my favorite film at that time. And I switched majors and when I got a film degree, and had been kind of inspired by that my whole life but, like, more importantly–I feel like–than that it taught me a lot about cyclical family trauma that I’ve been through personally, and ways to kind of try to see that, heal from that, and embrace true love. So that’s my real quick story about what Magnolia sort of did for me, but real quick, I just want to say before we actually get into this, if you have not seen Magnolia, spoiler alert, and you don’t want spoilers in this one, please go and watch the film. So okay, we’re back in and again, I’m going to actually start from so we actually just lost a whole bunch of I thought really great stuff because we’re rookies here during this podcast but we’re gonna try to recreate what we literally just didn’t record.
Brittany 06:25
You guys missed, while I was describing the blow job I just gave him, in the experience he had but it’s all gone now. All the beautiful vulnerability.
Zach 06:35
All the seedy details of that brilliant cock-waxing blow job. I don’t know if this is…is this Epic Love Matrimony Mony friendly?
Brittany 06:53
I think so. I think blow jobs are a huge part of marriage and Magnolia and everything we’re talking about right now. It’s–
Zach 07:01
So, I don’t even know if we got to the point of…we did… Okay, we did. We said they’re spoilers. That’s where we were at. So real quick, we’re going to do a synopsis, because I was a male asshole that actually, we were getting right into the vulnerability, and then I decided to interrupt it by talking about a bunch of intellectual structural shit about this film. I don’t even know really… So like, I think quickly. Let’s do the synopsis, which is Magnolia is a deconstructed family melodrama set in San Fernando Valley on Magnolia Boulevard with all these male, patriarchal, powerful men, sort of in Hollywood, that have been passing down generational trauma, toxic masculinity, through the generations abusing women and children. And I don’t think it’s any mistake that it’s it’s about the media, we saw some things come to light recently, within the last seven years or so, with the media, so but I think more and more importantly, this is about–it’s like a tapestry of Americana, and American trauma that gets passed down from generation to generation. So there’s all these characters that are passing this down. I mean, that’s the quick, the quick synopsis.
Brittany 08:40
Yeah, it’s just passed down generation to generation, you see the cause and effect of the trauma and how it effects or affects? Is it affects? He’s the ‘Word Nazi.’ Yeah, it affects their lives. And as it’s passed down, they hate their father for what their father did, but they became the a monster, or they shut down and had no life at all. So because of the resentments and holding on to the past… So it was really such a crazy film. Like me personally, and I know Zach, relating to it, and how our lives have been affected. I think millennials, I think the millennials, in my opinion, were the feeling creatures, putting them into a non feeling world. And we didn’t know how to belong here because we were punished for feeling but I think men in particular, the reason why they’ve become these monsters, not all men, but I don’t think anyone’s a monster at their core. I think everyone’s beautiful and they became this way because they were punished for vulnerability and, and being able to speak that vulnerability and that emotion to–suppressed emotion leads to child molestation leads to cheating leads to hiding secrets leads to having the bitch wife at home. I relate to being that bitch wife, because I can’t get that connection with you. So we scream, and we stomp. And we’re mean, but the men can’t do it because they’ve been told they can’t. And you know, there’s so many different points in this movie. That was just one perspective, that really stuck out to me amongst many.
Zach 10:28
And then really quickly, just to set it up, because I don’t think this was on the original recording, I told my story with the film, and then I’m going to ask you sort of your experience, having watched it emotionally. For me watching this film, as a young 20 year old man, I’d started out–and this is partly why this is relevant, in my opinion, for our inaugural episode–I watched this at a time in my life, when I was just sort of coming to an awareness of what I didn’t like about being a man, and what I was ashamed of, to be a man. And it really not only spoke to me in that way, but it was also just such a powerful film that moved me in ways that, like, I hadn’t been moved since I was a youngster, I’d sort of got away from film and loving film as a kid, I was making, you know, making films with all the neighborhood kids and got away from it in my 20s Embrace business was trying to get to University of Michigan Business School got there, it was crazy, decided to take this film class because Magnolia was on the syllabus. And that had messed me up so thoroughly that I was like, I gotta take this just as a prereq requisite. And because business school is so overwhelming, I just like was like I’m I love. I love what this professor is inspiring me to think about by talking about my favorite film in that way. And it sort of led me along a path of, that’s why I got my film degree. And that’s why I’m making wedding films today because I got that film degree. And so that’s the importance of one of the importance of of this film relating to this podcast about love. But more importantly, I think it is a film about love. And I think it’s a film about–that forced me to sort of–at a time in college when I was like questioning my own masculinity, my own male lineage of trauma that had been passed down for generations and generations and that was inside of me, even though I wasn’t manifesting it physically, I felt that the pull to that womanizing sort of force that was sort of lurking in my lineage, and many I think many men probably have these cycling traumas of unconfronted trauma really, that they pass down to the next generations. And so for me, I was, I had mentioned this before about like, going on the trip with my father, right after college. And I had, I was rejecting my masculinity, probably mostly because of this film. What that put on my, you know, put it on my radar as sort of men are bad. That’s what I felt. I felt that like, I’m a man, and I don’t want to be a man. And I was sort of rejecting my masculinity saw the Suv, like the psychic in Sedona, Suvasini, she said that I need to become I am man. And men aren’t necessarily evil, and that I needed to draw my boundaries and become a warrior of what I thought was good in masculinity, and a warrior doesn’t have to fight for nefarious means and can sort of be a warrior for positivity. And so then I started sort of that journey of confronting these traumas inside of myself these masculine wounds, and I’m still I’m still struggling with it to this day. and I’m curious what this film was like, emotionally for you. I know we did this one time…
Brittany 14:04
Well, I have some questions about what you said, though. You struggled when you denied being a man. What is that? You denied…is…did you shut down? Did you decide not to date? Like when you say–
Zach 14:18
I know that I I actually felt sexually ashamed to animalisticly be masculine in a way, and I thought sex had to be this like very loving, almost, like, feminine thing. And so I wasn’t very good at sex. It wasn’t very, like tapped into my animal masculinity. I was very ashamed of it. And I think I became a lot more in touch with my feminine side at that time and really, not like I wanted to be gay or anything. It was more like I was relating with my creative, nurturing part of myself and, and sort of wasn’t really healthy but in the way that I was just, like, rejecting all that. It wasn’t like I was connecting with who I was in a deeper way. So I just think there’s all kinds of other problems that can come about when you’re a man, like, doesn’t know how to be a man doesn’t know how to be feeling masculine man if you don’t have a model.
Brittany 15:17
It’s gonna lead… And that’s totally it. ‘Cause if any males can relate out there to what Zack just said, a lot of times from, from what I’ve noticed, is males who don’t feel safe in what I call the false masculine of what you guys have been told you should be as a male don’t, you know, talk your feelings, speak your feelings and stuff like that, what happens is when you completely reject that, your body gets so ridden with anxiety, and you feel so unsafe because you don’t feel safe, because you’re not using that masculine energy to protect yourself and provide for yourself. So it’s a lot of…you don’t ever feel protected in your body suit. And you’ll hear us talk about body suits a lot. That’s, that’s what we are. It’s these body suits.
Zach 16:04
Meat-suits.
Brittany 20:32
Meat-suits. Yeah. But um, yeah, I would say my experience with this film brought up a lot of emotions. I kind of just based on, Zack set me up for this film that was so important to him. And I could tell he was so so excited, like, for me to see it. And it was so sweet. So I kind of like had my poker face on like, “yeah, this is cool. Sure, sir. I’ll watch it.” But I knew it was really important to him. I actually deep down was super excited. But I didn’t want to. I don’t know why I don’t want to show him the vulnerability because I have rejected that feminine side within myself. I think that I have felt I’ve had to be a man for myself, because I haven’t trusted men, because of the way I view men. And I didn’t know this about myself, because on the surface, I’d say men are great. But it’s because I was walking around as one, essentially, because I didn’t feel I could be protected by one. I didn’t let them. But I’ve rejected my feminine side, which is soft and receptive. And all these things because it felt unsafe to be a woman. So watching this movie was crazy to me because it painted a picture that I felt guilty, admitting within myself about how I view males. They scare the shit out of me. Zack scares the shit out of me. They all scare the shit out of me. And it’s not because I’m afraid they’re gonna hit me. Not like that. It’s more. I don’t feel safe with them emotionally, emotionally. And this film with Claudia. I related to her the most I would say having this patriarch father who you end up finding out he molested her as a child. And she never got vindicated for it with truth that it happened until right before he died. But for me, I always feel guilty for saying Oh, my dad did this or my my granddad did this to my dad. Most of my dad did this behavior to me, I always justified it. So I’ve suppressed my stepdad was horrible to us, me and my brother. And I’ve always justified it will hurt people hurt people. And so the past few weeks what I’ve noticed, and this is going to get back to the film, by the way, what I’ve noticed is all this shame being in this relationship with Zack, a man who’s probably one of the safest men I’ve ever been around. I can’t trust it, though. And Claudia related to this and the movie with the police officer. What’s his name? Jim curring. It’s like she’s like, can we just be honest and upfront, okay, are you going to love me? Okay. She’s just like checking. She’s like, Are you safe? Are you safe? Are you safe? Are you safe? And I just started feeling all this anger I’ve like because I’ve been healing. And right now at the surface for me, it’s shame and anger and all those motherfuckers that I felt guilty for blaming because I know resentment holds us back. But I’m fucking mad at them. All the men out there and I don’t want to stay in this but I need to get this out. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you for hurting a little girl. Like fuck you. I don’t care if you were hurt. Like I have so much trauma and you know it’s on the millennials and these black sheep to fucking release it and I don’t want to release it much like the Tom Cruise character and all the ones it’s like, Fuck you dad. Fuck you because I don’t feel safe in this body. Fuck you. You look down on me now because I’m mentally ill off and on in my life because I’m this feeling creature that hasn’t been allowed to feel. I’ve been shamed for it. been told I was crazy. And I logically want to justify their behavior a lot like these characters in the movie. So I just really connected to the children in this movie that were hurt by their fathers. And I was angry. And I’ve been this anger though, just like those characters has manifested through me. And my current relationship with my children and my partners at everything. He says, I’m looking for something to punish him constantly. Because I’m like, he’s going to hurt me. He’s going to hurt me. He’s going to cheat on me just like the father’s in that movie. He’s going to cheat on me. I don’t give a fuck what he says. He’s going to hurt me. He’s unsafe, he’s going to be a misogynist, who, who’s going to degrade me. In some way or another in the future, I’m never going to find out just like the women in this film. I’ll find out right before he dies. And I’ll find out he cheated on me or he hurt me. And somehow there’s a justification because I’m mentally ill, and I’m fucked up. That’s constantly in my system. He’s going to be my dad, he’s going to be my dad, he’s going to be my dad. And I can’t just turn it off. So like, this film just really spoke to me, but also spoke about eventually we got it, we got to heal this, or it’s going to repeat. And I’m going to keep doing this to Zack, who potentially could be someone because he reminds me of that character, Jim Carrey, Jim curring, who is so sweet. And it was just like, I just want to love you. I just want to love you unconditionally. And I’m like, fuck off. Like, you’re your enemy number one.
Zach 21:31
And it’s fair, based on what we’ve seen in this world in this culture for so long.
Brittany 21:39
But it makes me hate myself. Like, and this is just real real. It doesn’t mean I should. It’s not beneficial to hate myself, but it makes me hate myself when you have this sweet man across from the table and you’re just kicking and screaming and punching in your energy like, “fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.” You’ve all hurt me, you’re just gonna hurt me again, is to is just it always happens that way is how it’s happened for hundreds of years. I can’t believe this is true. Because there’s no evidence. There’s no evidence that it’s true. So it’s constantly walking on water. Wanting to believe that this man really could love me and not cheat on me that if he believed but he’s gonna blow up, ladies and gentlemen, just so you know, and all these women are gonna be after his dick. I’m terrified. I’m terrified. We go to weddings together. This is so embarrassing. I’m constantly terrified. Because I’m afraid he’s my dad. He’s gonna be my dad. And he’s gonna be all the other men I’ve protected myself from, I’m so scared. So I’m not–I’m pushing him away. And I’ll never find out. I’m just so scared. Sorry.
Zach 22:58
It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful.
Brittany 23:02
This movie brought that out for me. And the anger is labeled the shame that I’ve been projecting at you; it you gave it a definition. And I’m so blessed that you, you brought me to this movie.
Zach 23:15
And then for me as a man…it’s hard…because it’s easy for me to see that narrative, and to feel shame, as a man, to be a man even if I’ve never cheated, which I haven’t; I feel shame to be a man; I have for a long time, and it’s easy for me to see that narrative, and for me to… And I feel like partly somehow that shame is preventing me from healing in some way. Accepting maybe the good parts of being a man and, like, you know, and preventing me from loving myself enough to be in the moment and feel in the way that would be conducive to our connection, you know, like, so it’s just an interesting thing. The awareness of of it for me still hasn’t allowed me to heal. And I don’t know what that is. And I don’t know exactly how to hug that wound.
Brittany 24:30
Like a porcupine. It’s like we’re supposed to hug it. And it’s like biting the fuck out of you while you’re trying to you know, all little porcupine pricks trying to prick you while you’re trying to hug something that physically shakes you
Zach 24:44
I’ve only–not only, but mostly seen examples in this culture of men that I don’t trust, that I don’t… that, I…in the same way that you don’t–like I…that’s what…that’s partly why this movie was so affecting for me originally, and I…just it made me so ashamed to be a man and it made me feel like eventually this is my fate.
Brittany 25:08
And, like, I just want to speak to that. And I totally understand just because like, I’m now admitting my, this is a new revelation. I’m admitting out loud…because usually I feel so guilty for saying this about men, I’ve been such a defender of men because I felt sorry for you guys, because you haven’t felt safe to be the true divine masculine, the true masculine feminine, both leading with the masculine, but being able to feel so I feel for you and I have empathy for that. But there is resentment; there is build up. But this is the thing I have to say about Zack is…he may be afraid of that masculine, all of you should be afraid of that masculine, it needs to be loved. It needs to be no longer be accepted. But that is not true masculine energy. That isn’t that’s that’s a facade; true masculine energy protects his–the people he loves.
Zach 26:00
fearful traumatized masculinity,
Brittany 26:03
and that’s not who you’ll ever be. That’s not you, you’re quite the opposite…if anything you’re…
Zach 26:10
It feels like it’s, it’s in me though, sometimes, you know, like, just in the sense of–not in a way for you to be afraid of–just in the way that I see… Because it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s it’s not been safe for a man as a man for me to–see, I’m even using depersonalizing language now, talking about myself in third person–but it’s not been safe for me growing up to express emotion. And even when I do, there’s still an insecurity about being vulnerable in that way. Because it was so programmed into me that it wasn’t safe for a man. You were going to be lowest on the pecking order…is, is, you know, I was, I was raised at a time when that was still true that like, if men smelled blood, you were the weakest link in the Wolfpack or whatever, you know.
Brittany 27:03
Yeah.
Zach 27:03
And like that is still in me and it’s still part of, like, even now talking about the emotion; I feel my intellect talking about it, as opposed to, like, feeling it from a heart space.
Brittany 27:14
I relate to that.
Zach 27:15
I don’t know why it’s so hard.
Brittany 27:16
It’s hard like being a masc–in a false masc–
Zach 27:20
And that’s what I am, I do believe.
Brittany 27:22
Yeah, I relate…
Zach 27:23
Yeah.
Brittany 27:24
I’m so heavy on logic and actually I heard a podcast on this, I think it’s really interesting is…I think the the boomer culture before the millennials, so the culture…the different generations before the millennials where all…
Zach 27:39
Before the Gen Xers: my generation.
Brittany 27:41
Yeah.
Zach 27:41
Yeah, way back. Oh, those boomers, those fucking boomers… Little Boomer hate for all you Zoomers.
Brittany 27:45
Fucking Boomers, man, it’s all your fault. Well, the thing is, it was all… Yeah, it was all heavily logic based. There wasn’t a lot of feeling going on at all.
Zach 27:58
It wasnt allowed, though.
Brittany 28:00
No, it wasn’t allowed. So it wasn’t allowed. So this is this is how it was then the millennials come in. And the end of the Gen X…is the millennials… Some of the Gen Xers are starting to try to turn it around… The Gen X, then you have the millennials, and then forward… And you have people who are feeling and to the Boomers and earlier they’re like, “we got punished a lot.” The younger ones because it was like “what’s wrong with you?” “Why are you asking those kinds of questions?” It just is what it is because of one plus one equals two. And we’re just like, but that doesn’t feel right. That hurts when you say that. The suck it up thing? That was trauma.
Zach 28:25
The tough love.
Brittany 28:40
The tough love traumatized us because for some reason, and we can get into the “Woo Woo” stuff later, I have some opinions on this little…
Zach 28:48
We’re talking about twin flames?
Brittany 28:50
Ooh, and ETs and Twin Flames…
Zach 28:54
All the Woo.
Brittany 28:55
All the Woo. But there’s some Woo action going on I think. And Indigo Children and different things like that…
Zach 29:01
Love we’re talking about this on on a wedding films Podcast. I’m so all about this, by the way…
Brittany 29:06
Okay.
Zach 29:06
No, no, no, no, I love it. Yeah, well, I want to get fucking weird here.
Brittany 29:10
Yeah, we’re definitely–I don’t think we can help but no, but I gotta get to like, was so ironic, ladies, is men are scared to feel because the other wolves of the wolf pack that had penises were like, “you’re not a man if you feel.” But like, vulnerability is a panty dropper. If a male…God…when Zach comes to me, and it takes a lot of energy for him because it’s scary as fuck for a male, but when he comes to me and goes, “okay, here’s the truth. I did this because I’m scared of this. This terrifies me so I said this, this, this, and this because I’ve been hiding from this.” There is something in me that instantly softens, instantly senses–because women were very heavily feeling-safety-driven creatures–we’re like, “whoa, that’s safe.” In his vulnerability, we let go. And we become more attracted and connected to you instantly like glue.
Zach 30:08
Especially you Pleiadians.
Brittany 30:11
so
Zach 30:13
we’re not going there.
Brittany 30:14
Okay.
Zach 30:15
We just joke that she’s a Pleiadian. Maybe more on this later.
Brittany 30:20
Yeah, yeah, but..
Zach 30:23
I don’t know how woo…was…we were safe to get.
Brittany 30:23
I mean we can get straight woo.
Zach 30:27
We’ll not go now. We’ll save that. We’ll tease it, yeah we’ll tease it for future episodes…
Brittany 30:33
Yeah, so I mean breaking cycles and families, these traumatic cycles that you and I…I think we’re relating more and more everyday ,and I need to have more understanding with you that like it’s not easy to connect being a man and it’s not easy for me to feel being this protected woman.
Zach 30:56
Part of the thing that it’s I think it’s hard to trust. You have an ‘On’ for me? I see her. We’ve outed her on air. She’s an ‘On’ addict
Brittany 31:08
Brought to you by… “warning, this product contains nicotine; nicotine is an addictive…”
Zach 31:13
All you at home, please do not use ‘Ons.’ It’s a it’s a nefarious substance.
Brittany 31:21
They’re all over the bedroom. I… like, he finds them: little surprises.
Zach 31:25
It’s really, become cute now for me. I found the ‘Ons’ stuck to that water bottle or whatever it was I was drinking. Used “Ons” are little tobacco packets for those of you who don’t know,
Brittany 31:40
Yeah, I quit smoking years ago and I started sucking because I like to suck on these Ons and
Zach 31:49
only on the “Ons.”
Brittany 31:50
Only on the “Ons.” And they…there’s cinnamon, they put some kind of sugar on it and I’m an addict at heart so they do it for me. I can look classy, and people have no idea. I got a little bit of white trash in there.
Zach 32:03
Just a touch.
Brittany 32:04
Yeah.
Zach 32:05
Just to touch a white trash; just the right amount.
Brittany 32:07
Yeah. It’s it’s a cancelable to say white trash. We’ll talk about white people, right?
Zach 32:13
It’s certainly probably not all that…
Brittany 32:17
No, it’s white. So we can be mean.
Zach 32:21
We have no problems with any forms of trash.
Brittany 32:25
No, all trash. All colors. Of trash. But anyway, no, we actually… we’re very loving people. I think
Zach 32:34
You were making fun of yourself is what you were trying to do, not the white trash community.
Brittany 32:38
No, No.
Zach 32:38
We’ve got a lot of love…
Brittany 32:39
No, no. Well, that’s the one thing like I realized like even in this movie, like the people who who’ve been through so much shit,
Zach 32:49
Nice segue. Gotta bring it back. Back. Bring it in, reign it in, reign it right in.
Brittany 32:57
Yeah. No, but the people who’ve been through the most out there, and who have survived it, it feels like sometimes like you’re going through hell. But when you see other people who let’s say like some of these characters, snorting cocaine and sleeping around and then escaping, you just see them and you instantly relate and empathize and you’re some of the least judgmental people. So it’s like to my white trash brothers and sisters
Zach 33:27
Bring it back.
Brittany 33:29
I love you.
Zach 33:29
Bringing it full circle. So basically, what I was about to say though, as a man, the one of the most confusing things is because even after all the self awareness and meditation, the therapy, like knowing the issue, knowing what I need to do, because of all the programming that’s like hardwired into my nervous system from a young age over and over, it’s really, even when I know the problem, it does feel like I’m victimized by it. But I don’t believe that I am. I know there’s a way out. There’s a way to level up here, but it can feel like it’s happening to me, like I don’t know how to get out of the unfeeling masculine, sometimes. Even when I try, like, even when I’m getting vulnerable and talking about it now. It’s like I feel a wall in me that I don’t know how to take down, and I know there’s a way you know. Perhaps…
Brittany 34:19
Find a girlfriend who screams, kicks, and yells, and throws a bitch fit because little Brittany is like, “no, no, no, I want you to feel!” And finally you get so angry, you’re like….
Zach 34:29
Not you. You?
Brittany 34:30
I feel you feel something, “fuck you,” and then you… I break open. I break open the bridge of feelings,
Zach 34:37
She’s a perfect girlfriend.
Brittany 34:40
Yeah, I am. I’m perfectly crazy. The past….since he’s moved here from Michigan. It’s been it’s been pretty intense.
Zach 34:49
We both have our demons. Let’s face it. Yeah, yours may be louder. But I think mine are more of the quiet unemotional, detached guy gaslighting type, if I have a form of–
Brittany 35:03
And then mine is more of a shaming, judgmental, loud screaming, yelling, because we both are feeling abandoned. And the more abandoned–if I’m correct–you feel, you shut down more. And then the more he shuts down, the more I feel abandoned,
Zach 35:15
It doesnt feel safe. So I detach from emotion and she leans into emotion.
Brittany 35:18
Yeah, so I’m like, I feel energetically because I’m very sensitive. I’m like, “he’s pulling away, he’s pulling away,” and it feels like he’s leaving energetically. And I get more and more scared. And then I go to self preservation, and I’m just like, “fuck you, I’m out!” And then physically, because I feel energetically he left, I want to run. Because I’m like, I’m not going to be hurt by my father, again. I’m not going to be hurt. I’m not going to. I just, I can’t I can’t do this. I get so scared. And like his more internal. Mine’s more external. We’re always opposite.
Zach 35:54
And I think we see all of these patterns…just to bring it back to the movie, Magnolia. I think we see all of these patterns playing out between men and women in the film.
Brittany 36:05
Yeah, I mean, if you–
Zach 36:07
Because even when Claudia–I think who we both sort of, Brittany, I don’t know if this was on the part that we recorded or not, but if it is sorry, for repeating ourselves–Britanny feels kind of connected, or that Claudia’s character is sort of similar to her, and I feel that Jim Kurring, the police officer, weirdly, Mr. Super Square…like maybe not all of the square aspects of him…
Brittany 36:07
He corrects her.
Zach 36:25
He’s constantly was, but he’s sort of a good, like father figure in a way, like he has a good heart. There’s something hopeful about his masculinity, and his willingness to, like, see that sometimes people need to be forgiven. And sometimes he needs to forgive himself. And sometimes he needs…and he ends up being vulnerable with Claudia in a beautiful way.
Brittany 36:53
He does. He says, “I don’t want to judge the person. But unfortunately, because I’m an officer of the law, I have to take action on the the things, the actual objects have to be judged,” but he didn’t judge the person he actually wanted good for everyone. But he knew there had he had to take people to jail sometimes and some people: he needed to let them have forgiveness. But ultimately, he loved everybody. And yeah, he was vulnerable with her at the dinner. And he admitted, you know, he probably always felt like a pussy his whole life. He probably always felt that because he’s very sensitive. And he wasn’t like the other police officers that were just like taking people to jail. And like, he’s
Zach 37:36
He’s embarrassed that he lost his gun and was vulnerable about that with Claudia.
Brittany 37:36
And he was afraid he wouldn’t be man enough for her to actually respect him because he didn’t respect himself. And no one respected him. And all she wanted was a safe man. She just wanted a safe man to be with. That wouldn’t be her dad who molested her.
Zach 37:56
And it was so heartbreaking, before, that was confronted, how she was resisting a good man that really was trying for her. She couldn’t even sort of face her own trauma. (inaudible)
Brittany 38:12
She just started she was like, can we just be honest with each other? Can you just… do we really have to hide things? You know, cuz like both our parents…
Zach 38:19
and all the piss and shit.
Brittany 38:21
And yeah, can we just skip all the piss and shit?
Zach 38:22
He gets all like prudish and he’s, like, piss and shit
Brittany 38:22
Piss and shit, oh my…
Zach 38:28
He judges her, you know, in an unfortunate way, that he kind of immediately takes back.
Brittany 38:34
It broke his heart to judge her. He was, like “wait.” Yeah, he always wanted to protect her. I think he chose her as soon as he saw her. There’s something in you men. I think you’ll have that…like you see that woman, and you’re like, “I want to protect her.” Yeah, like, “I don’t know what it is about her. I don’t know anything about her. But she’s the one I want to protect.” And he chose her. He didn’t know she was snorting lines of cocaine in the bathroom. He actually… I think if she didn’t tell him any of that stuff ever, it wouldn’t have mattered to him. He just wanted to be… he felt blessed because he thought Jesus or something sent him a woman and he just said, “I promise I won’t waste this. I’ll take care of her.” And then he, she’s had no examples of this her whole life. Yeah. And she sees it and she’s terrified. She’s like, there’s no way
Zach 39:23
which you relate with.
Brittany 39:25
Oh, my God.
Zach 39:26
In this relationship.
Brittany 39:27
Every time I see him, I’m scared. And like Zach’s even said, “is this even healthy?” Sometimes we both say that and I’m like, I feel feelings of terror because it’s like, I don’t have any evidence that this could be true. It’s all blind faith. Like if you knew this man–even when he picks things apart because we both are OCD–he does it like this character in the movie, Jim Kurring. I have such a hard time…
Zach 39:53
In a loving way.
Brittany 39:54
It’s all love! Like, and when he sees it hurts me, he instantly is just like that character and goes, “oh, babe, no, no, no, no, no,” like…
Zach 40:02
I’m sorry.
Brittany 40:02
No, no, no, no, no, I just want you to know, you’re like that character, you’re like, it’s the last thing you want to do is hurt me. And it’s the first thing I want to do when you hurt me.
Zach 40:12
And it’s interesting, because in a way, he still has this tiny seed of that toxic masculinity in him that he’s transcending. And I relate with that. I relate with, like, it’s almost like you can’t escape it completely, because of the culture we were raised in….that fear of it’s, you know, the judging is this wall, I think that, that you hide behind those a man, you know,
Brittany 40:40
yeah, and I don’t think… I think you put a lot of pressure on yourself. Like I do. Like, that’s part of the reason it gets so big inside, and I think I want to escape my body. Because I’m like, there’s so much shame wanting to be projected at the person I say I love; I want to hurt him so bad sometimes and punish him, because he terrifies me. And then I hate myself for having to be Brittany. And because I’m still me, and then I have all this shit to heal. And it’s all at the surface, it’s very overwhelming.
Zach 41:13
And the shame sometimes exacerbates the cycles of trauma in a way; it makes it sort of so you continue to play out some of that toxicity. And the same for me, like my shame of…
Brittany 41:32
We’ve connected our identities with that, because that’s the difference between shame and guilt. Shame is our identities attached to this thing we don’t want to be attached to. Guilt is we don’t like what we did. But that’s not who I am. So it’s like, I know my–
Zach 41:51
Interesting. So shame is… Say that again. Trying to process this.
Brittany 41:56
Shame is that you’ve connected your identity, your “I am,” to the things you don’t want to be anymore.
Zach 42:05
And guilt is feeling bad for your behaviors?
Brittany 42:07
And guilt is just feeling bad for your behaviors, knowing that you’re accountable to change them, but that’s not who you are. And you know that.
Zach 42:14
So you think guilt is healthier than shame?
Brittany 42:16
Yes. Because there’s action.
Zach 42:18
And remember, also Earl Partridge, the dying patriarch that is becoming aware of his own toxic masculinity talks about regret. Regret. It’s okay to regret. “You regret!” He regrets having been a womanizer to his…
Brittany 42:34
The love of his life.
Zach 42:35
The love of his life, Lily. Did you notice all the women are named after flowers? We have Lily, Rose… Well, not all of them…
Brittany 42:41
Number of special ones. Yeah.
Zach 42:43
Yeah. And I think Magnolia, a flower…I don’t think that’s a mistake, you know, that there was this theme of women flowers that are you know… I think there’s a lot of in this film, what I really… one thing I really connected with, besides just the themes of love and seeing these toxic patterns playing out that I wanted to confront in my own life, as a man, it’s also just this idea of how beautiful the feminine impulse is, the creative, nurturing, soft, gentle, vulnerable, like the most beautiful, divine feminine qualities of the flower, the gentle, the gentle flower that creates and nurtures and to me that’s true and that’s what I wanted to cultivate in myself while also being a man and and somehow still, like intertwining, weaving those, the masculine with the feminine, and it’s just been such a challenge.
Brittany 43:47
Well, I can say for me, I start feeling like a flower when… I’ll speak for me and maybe not for all women. Because I I love my masculine Zach so much. And I have blocks because of fear of, of what could be, but I love this man, and I feel like a flower with him. I want him to pluck my flower.
Zach 44:17
See, we said we might go into some taboo subject matter.
Brittany 44:23
Bow chicka bow wow. But I feel that when I feel my emotions, and my feelings are protected. It’s not about him beating someone up for me. It’s not about him getting in a fistfight. Being an animal, an unhealthy animal, because animals are beautiful. But it’s not about that for me–feeling protected or that he could kill the robber that came in the house–for me it’s when you protect my feelings and they matter to you–it’s not that you take them on; it’s not that you have to do what I say–it’s that my feelings are protected they matter. They’re listended to, there’s validation, it’s important to you, and there’s action, because masculine energy is action, forward movement. And when that happens, and I feel validation, like I can speak like, this really bothers me, this hurts. And when he’s present with that, there’s something in me, that instantly relaxes. Like, if he repeats back I know, this is what you’re saying. And I know he’s really meaning it, I instantly relax, It’ss not even no action taken except that you understand me. You got it, even if nothing changed. It’s just that you understand and it matters. A woman can feel safe and become the flower. And it’s like, Oh, my God…
Zach 45:42
What’s interesting is, as a man, is how challenging that still is. Because it’s what I don’t always do. And if… Sometimes if… And it’s funny how it cycles with us, because when you’re not feeling protected, or your emotions aren’t feeling protected or understood or heard, it can bring that protective masculine out in you in a way that you take….you’re using your emotions to attack, and then I close up even more and more, you feel less safe, and more, using your emotions in that way. And it makes…And it’s interesting, I do, I’ve noticed that like when I can just like, be that love, and listen, it does turn things, so sometimes it does feel like the fulcrum of our healing is on me. And it’s a lot, because I don’t know how to do it always, because it’s easy for me to feel hurt too. And…
Brittany 46:40
No, it’s not all on you. Like I don’t I don’t know, sorry, I don’t mean to… I don’t think it’s all on you. I think you should be talked to with respect, and I get so I have a lot of trauma. So like it builds up in me if I haven’t rested or eaten right… It builds up so big that it wants to get out like a force. And if I feel he’s not paying attention to me, or it’s not being understood, or or it’s not important to him, and there’s no action being taken on it that shows importance that, “hey, my woman is hurting and I don’t want her to hurt anymore. So how can we meet in the middle of fix this?” I feel like it’s not important and I get more and more mad. But that gives me no right. It’s just so frustrating because I just like it’s just she’s sometimes validation just being listened to and heard and like, trying to connect to it. Because then like solutions will pop up in a man’s mind. “Okay, this crazy woman’s feeling all this illogical shit. So this will solve everything.” Boom. “Okay, are you happy with that woman? Cool.” Like, now she’s like, “Oh my god, he heard me!’ Oh, like it could be “Okay, she wants more time with me; you want to go dinner tonight?” And instantly, we’re like, “he heard me! Oh, I feel so safe with him!” Oh, but it’s like… I attack you I become the masculine and I try to protect myself against you. And it shuts you down more. Yeah, we repeat it over and over and over again.
Zach 48:11
And what’s interesting is… So this podcast folks was originally about the wedding business, and it will end up being about love and telling stories of love for our couples. But also, it’s about telling our story of love. And we want to tell as many different kinds of stories as lot of love as we can. And I just had this instinct that this podcast could be a way for us to talk in a healthy way that will sort of bring out that flower and you that will allow me to sort of confront some of these things because you know, part of making a podcast public and talking about this is where we are wanting to have ourselves so it’s allowing us to kind of talk in a way that we maybe don’t always find easiest to do
Brittany 49:08
We have mouth chastity belts on….Filters. We have our best Sunday best on ladies and gentlemen as soon as we get off [the air]… “Fuck you asshole!”
Zach 49:15
It’s really healthy; I feel us healing here talking about this, and watching that film. Yeah, you know about all of these themes of how hard it is to find real genuine love between men and women. I really I don’t know I just feel really like this is guided not to get all–
Brittany 49:38
It is guided.
Zach 49:39
Woo and Fate. And all these things but it does feel like a bit of a download that that we started with a film like that talking about some real vulnerable stuff.
Brittany 49:55
Yeah, it’s epic.
Zach 49:57
It was epic,
Brittany 49:58
It’s Epic Love.
Zach 49:59
Is it not an epic film?
Brittany 50:00
It was epic. That was a good title: epic.
Zach 50:03
I mean, like,
Brittany 50:04
if I’m crying and my stone cold heart is crying…. It’s… We were both sobbing next to each other holding hands like an old married couple
Zach 50:13
It was really beautiful.
Brittany 50:14
It was beautiful, because like I got to see it wasn’t just like… Not to call you out, Zach…
Zach 50:21
No…
Brittany 50:21
Like, it was like, it wasn’t… I could feel him; we’re very in tune with each other’s energies…very in tune and..
Zach 50:27
can be a part of the problem sometimes.
Brittany 50:28
Yeah. And I could feel his pain and like his frustration and all the pain he’s working through that he wishes wasn’t there and I got to–
Zach 50:41
Shame as a man.
Brittany 50:43
Yeah, and it’s just like… It’s like when you love someone you… If you think you forgotten you love someone? When they go through pain, you remember. I just wanted to get a straw and suck it all up out of him.
Zach 50:59
You wanted to suck it all out of me, folks in Podcast Land.
Brittany 51:04
I hate when you hurt. No matter how mad I am….when you go “I’m hurt,” I instantly go to my feminine comes out and I’m just like, nurturing like, just want to cuddle you…Like no. And I don’t want you to hurt so yeah, it was nice. We both connected this movie of of pain from whatever memories… Because both of us don’t want to call our parents out. Neither one of us wants to….
Zach 51:30
I mean, we love our families.
Brittany 51:32
We love our families. We want relationship…
Zach 51:35
It’s toxic programming that’s been passed down.
Brittany 51:37
They… And that’s that’s where we find forgiveness is hurt people do hurt people, but a lot of times we bypass the anger part. The people who weren’t good people, we feel guilty for being angry. And it’s like No, for me, for me at least, when I met you you call me out on this. You were like, your relationship with anger isn’t… I don’t think it’s you know, it wasn’t healthy. I felt so much guilt.
Zach 52:01
I had a trajectory with having a toxic relationship with anger myself…throughout the years.
Brittany 52:07
Yeah, and for me, I never got angry until I met Zack
Zach 52:12
Wow, is this a good thing, you guys? Is this okay?
Brittany 52:15
I feel sorry for you. But it’s been very… Imagine an emotion that’s actually healthy. When…like, you’ve always told me is when it’s when it’s properly merged with love, anger is very healthy. And imagine taking it away completely how much that’s manifested in illness within me and things… So I meet you and you say it’s okay, you’re safe Brittany. Like as a woman, I’m like… “You’re safe to be angry.” And then I’m like, Okay. And then I couldn’t turn it off. Because
Zach 52:15
Because I was I did I did like that I liked you to be able to express these things. Like, I knew somehow on some intuitive level that you needed to get these emotions out.
Brittany 52:59
35 years of suppression. And unfortunately, especially when you love someone… God, there’s a whole…I feel the shame right now. It all has been dumped on him and my children. The people you feel safest with that you also feel the unsafest with, which is ironic. I’ve dumped it on him. And I don’t know how to turn it off sometimes. Because I’ve been running from it. And so I’m so lucky; he’s been so supportive. I think if we saw that couple on the movie…Claudia and Jim… Like, I could see her, when they move in together, having some anger spells…
Zach 53:37
I love to actually think about the characters after the film…is a fun fun game.
Brittany 53:42
Oh yeah, you know she was doing this shit I do to you. Like, I can’t trust you! No, you’re too–
Zach 53:46
For at least a year
Brittany 53:47
At least a year. But I bet he got the best sex he’s ever had, that man. I had–
Zach 53:53
That’s, for sure, true. Some real crazy wild riden that D.
Brittany 54:02
Gee Golly.
Zach 54:04
Is this okay with Christ?
Brittany 54:05
Is this okay? I gotta go to do a, “Oh, father, son, holy spirit… she just, I just, I just smacked her ass..”
Zach 54:14
She’s bringing out his wild animal.
Brittany 54:16
Yeah. Now I’ll just say, like, you talked about your yours being ashamed of like, you know, certain parts of sexuality. You know, the more gentle side which is beautiful. But I also understand how that more, like, persona of… We have names; it’s Mr. Wolf and Baby Bunny. And Mr. Wolf…
Zach 54:38
We’re gettin’ into it.
Brittany 54:39
Mr. Wolf, when we roleplay, he is that masculine Dominator and Baby Bunny is where I feel safe to be the female. The flower, the flower. I’m just realizing that that’s the only place I feel safe to be my feminine fully
Zach 54:54
Is in that dynamic.
Brittany 54:56
In that dynamic.
Zach 54:57
Sexual dynamic.
Brittany 54:58
Yeah. No wonder I want sex all the time because I’m wanting to be feminine. Jesus. Why does this have to happen in front of you guys?
Zach 55:09
Although I think it’s such a beautiful thing that it is happening in front of everyone here in Podcast Land. Yeah, it’s an inaugural episode.
Brittany 55:18
Yeah, yeah. No
Zach 55:19
I’m a good guy.
Brittany 55:21
Oh yeah, you’re a good guy.
Zach 55:23
Is that not what you mean?
Brittany 55:24
No, he’s also a good guy.
Zach 55:25
Are you saying? Are you talking about some taboo things that we…
Brittany 55:36
Just saying like if you gentlemen…if you need a book on the honeymoon night, “how to please your woman,” you know after the wedding… Zach, because in his essence, he’s so safe and loving, but then you have this guy who like takes control mixed in with that safe energy that you know your heart’s protected and that he is the last thing on his mi…he would ever do is hurt you. And when he does, he actually hurts itself in unhealthy ways. Like probably emotionally. Because it’s the last thing he wants to do is not protect me. So you get into these worlds of dominance and the taboo nature of things and you have a healthy male dominating, dominating you in whatever way you please. Me. I like it rough. And I love it.
Zach 56:22
We’re really going in on the first episode; we’re talking about some S&M themes, here, I think, already, which I’m glad that we’re doing this on our wedding themed…
Brittany 56:37
You know what you were getting into…
Zach 56:39
Or, you know, a wedding films’ sponsored… No, I want it to be a different kind of podcast about about love and marriage. I wanted to be a little spicy. Not that we’re married.
Brittany 56:51
We’ll have to have a team meeting. I’m little so I know not to talk about the big things.
Zach 56:56
Oh, dear. You’re gonna be bashful.
Brittany 56:59
Oh, gee, golly.
Zach 57:01
Well, Jim Kurring coming out there.
Brittany 57:03
Oh, man.
Zach 57:04
I’m sorry. Midwestern. Ah, shucks.
Brittany 57:10
I don’t know. I think it’s the rebellious nature trying to get him to blush.
Zach 57:14
I feel–Am I blushing? No. Am I–
Brittany 57:17
Hopefully there’s spankings later for being so bad.
Zach 57:20
Oh, dear. I like the sounds of all this.
Brittany 57:24
Lord Jesus. Hail Mary one.
Zach 57:30
No, this is great. I wanted it to be about all these things. Have we stayed on topic? I mean, so here’s the thing. Is there any way we can bring this back to the film? Because, so, a beautiful film about cycling male trauma that is very old and primitive that’s been programmed into our culture.
Brittany 57:52
What would we tell people? What advice would we give them? People–like, what are we doing to get out of these cycles ourselves?
Zach 58:00
It’s interesting in the film, so this didn’t get recorded. This was part of what was lost in our in our SD card mishap on our first episode.
Brittany 58:08
Wah…wah…wah.
Zach 58:09
I know, there’s a button for ‘wah wah wah.’ I don’t know which one of those…because I think we have it but soon we’ll have some weird fun fun with podcasts fun with audio. I think it’s here it is. Here’s a sad trombone… So bringing it back to Magnolia if we can here: a beautiful film that changed changed the trajectory of my life. And I don’t know made me want to be a more or less toxically masculine but still masculine presence. How can we how can we… Magnolia.
Brittany 58:59
Did you see how bad Claudia needed that? Yes, what I noticed. I related to her.
Zach 59:11
How he still needed… She still needed the masculine?
Brittany 59:14
She gave up on it like and then she wasn’t expecting to meet him. And was like, I think like whether I can’t speak for everyone else. I’ve wanted that. I’ve been waiting for you. Even though it’s scary. I think she was waiting for him.
Zach 59:35
Someone who still is masculine…
Brittany 59:37
So she could finally not be scared hiding in her apartment.
Zach 59:40
A more divinely masculine presence. Because, I feel like their story is the sympathetic, hopeful story in the film that, like, we end on that story. You know, we end on the hope of Jim Kurring coming in and listening to Claudia in a vulnerable way but still as a man.
Brittany 59:57
Changing the whole story. To me, it seems like we know that that it’s going to end the toxic cycle. It’s our decisions.
Zach 1:00:05
Yes.
Brittany 1:00:06
That ends the cycles with a choice. It’s not that it feels good.
Zach 1:00:09
That’s beautiful.
Brittany 1:00:10
It’s not that it…. Yeah, it’s not that it feels okay. It’s not that your body’s screaming, you know, run, yeah, my body’s screaming up, I’m going to make a different decision. And then you get evidence over time and you heal. And you could breathe a little bit more every day. Like in our relationship. It’s like, we go through waves, like, “Oh, this is good. This is good. Oh fuck! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Okay, this is good.”
Zach 1:00:31
Then it drops us down. And then when we’re dropped down into the cycles of trauma again, it gets so scary. And it gets so hard to see yourself out of a seeming hell situation, sometimes, when we start spiraling on the on the trauma again, and it’s–
Brittany 1:00:48
Yeah, because I want to leave constantly, and I throw it in his face. Like I’m leaving. I could see her doing that. I’m leaving.
Zach 1:00:55
By the way, in this story…
Brittany 1:00:56
Totally, totally.
Zach 1:00:56
After this ends…100%.
Brittany 1:00:58
She fucking slams that door in his face.
Zach 1:01:01
I know you alluded to that. But..
Brittany 1:01:03
Yeah, totally. She leaves many, many times. And he’s just sitting there. And she’s probably beating herself up like I do with you. Because the more she’s mean, the more she knows in her heart he’s not like those men.
Zach 1:01:14
And she’s just pushing him away and pushing him into a more probably toxic masculinity. But not that it’s her fault, because he can always make a decision. And I actually feel like he’s, he would always make that decision to be the more divine masculine. And I actually think…I think they end up okay. Yeah, don’t you?
Brittany 1:01:34
Yeah, I do.
Zach 1:01:35
I think they make it through through the trauma. I think they confront their trauma. Like you and I will.
Brittany 1:01:41
Yeah,
Zach 1:01:41
And we are, and like this podcast is a part. I feel…I feel this happening.
Brittany 1:01:47
Yeah.
Zach 1:01:47
For all you listeners out there in Podcast Land, we are sort of putting our relationship out there for you to hear, sort of, the real picture of what’s happening, not just a pretty picture. It might have sounded… You might have thrown up in your mouths a few times hearing the sweet stuff, but really it’s ugly like the movie..
Brittany 1:02:06
It wasn’t this Rom Com that I… Like, it wasn’t my beloved Sleepless in Seattle.
Zach 1:02:13
Yes, we will talk about some of these fun Rom Coms, too, sometimes.
Brittany 1:02:17
But I’m saying it’s like our relationship…. We were painted…. If it doesn’t look like those. It’s not healthy. This movie Magnolia. This is love. This is what you guys are living in, in the western fucking culture. This is when…
Zach 1:02:33
We all are. This is the water we swim in.
Brittany 1:02:34
This is the water we swim in. This is reality. And these are the toxic cycles we have to break and it’s not pretty, you’re going to hurt each other and you’re going to have to hang tight and start listening and communicating and trying to not beat yourself up when you don’t do it perfect.
Zach 1:02:49
All of us.
Brittany 1:02:50
All of us.
Zach 1:02:50
This is still in us. We’ve come out of a very dark time in humanity. And we’re… Some of us are… Many of us are starting to wake up in the younger generations. And you can see hope for humanity. But it’s still so… This programming is still so in all of us.
Brittany 1:03:06
Yeah, I think the younger generation’s just accepted that’s not who we are. We’re going to feel and we’re going to not really respect time, because we are in the moment we do what we want and that can go to an extreme. But with the millennials, and the Gen X-ers is like I think the hard part for us is we’re recovering.
Zach 1:03:27
That’s right. We’re in a weird transitional point from, like, the Boomers still have a lot of that toxicity, a lot of that closed off to emotion and stuck in the trauma. And I think we’re at this interesting point where we didn’t come into this world at a time when it was completely okay and safe to be completely vulnerable. The way it’s easier for I think some of the Zoomers and the Millennials, well younger Millennials and Zoomers to do. We’re sort of at this fulcrum point of things… As Eddie Gillman would say if you’re listening out there, Mr. Eddie Gilman, the Baton Passers. He talks about the cultural Baton Passers.
Brittany 1:04:10
I think we took the hits. I think we went through the battlefield to go against the grain.
Zach 1:04:15
We have to process the trauma for the collective. I think we’re doing a lot of processing, you know.
Brittany 1:04:22
One I want to just say like, if you’re gonna do this processing in a relationship, just watch this movie and get a realistic viewpoint and stop preaching out there that it should be this way or that way because like, relationships rather because it’s not pretty. When you’ve been through trauma. You’ve been molested or you’ve been emotionally abused as a child. You find the person you love, and you don’t always just feel peace. You feel terror. And it’s not just any terror. It’s a nightmare. It’s the weirdest paradox. You meet the man of your dreams, but you’re living in a hell. So this movie is just like more of a realistic portrait of it. Like, you know, it’s like the little kid in the movie. I mean, his dad was so hard on him. And you know…
Zach 1:05:13
Stanley.
Brittany 1:05:14
Stanley, he was so hard on Stanley.
Zach 1:05:17
The boy genius interesting like, with Donnie, Quiz Kid Donnie Smith. His character, the more I watched this film, resonates with me. Just like such a sweet character that has so much love to give and doesn’t know where to put it. To me. It’s so heartbreaking. He describes love, remember in the bar, like, “love is a bunch of like, nerves in acid on fire. That’s what love is.” Do you remember him saying? Like, yeah, it’s like a bunch of nerves and that’s, that’s, it’s okay. And that’s, that’s what my love is. And to me, that’s what love feels like often times, scary, violent, almost. Like, like, like nerves in a bucket of acid.
Brittany 1:06:02
It is. It’s like when people are like, love is peaceful. It’s like, okay, if it’s something new though, our bodies are designed to reject it. Yeah, we’re only accepting the familiar if all you’ve known is pain, and rejection, and unacceptance then love and acceptance comes in… Do you think that’s gonna feel great? No, because we need
Zach 1:06:23
We to learn to love ourselves, which is the cliche, Oprah dictum..that is really I think sometimes cliches are cliches because they’re true. And it seems cheesy sometimes to talk about them so I’m sorry y’all. But see I’m a Georgian; I’ve moved from Michigan
Brittany 1:06:44
Oh, my God.
Zach 1:06:45
And I am saying y’all now.
Brittany 1:06:47
Oh my god, this is great. I kind of got turned on. No, I don’t… I want… I kind of like your Yankee…
Zach 1:06:57
Yankee ’cause I’m from the north, which I don’t know if there’s some Mason Dixon kind of Confederate/Union old
Brittany 1:07:05
Yankees talk different… and I don’t care if you’re above. I’d say if you’re Virginia and up your Yankee maybe I don’t know. I’m not sure above the
Zach 1:07:13
Mason Dixon Line. Okay, that’s historical.
Brittany 1:07:17
You’re so smart.
Zach 1:07:21
Don’t tell anyone.
Brittany 1:07:22
He’s doing a “chuck chuck chuck” with his hand. He’s drawn the line out. You gotta speak, you’re like uhh–
Zach 1:07:30
It’s a little bit–so that’s one of the problems we have in the relationship is she has this sweet Georgian Southern Belle charm and she talks about how–
Brittany 1:07:38
You talk to me like a Magnolia. And he comes in “get out of here, you’re ridiculous,’ and I’m like (‘gasp’)–
Zach 1:07:44
A little insensitive with my–
Brittany 1:07:46
I don’t think he’s–I think you’re just talking the language of your people.
Zach 1:07:50
Of my people.
Brittany 1:07:51
Of your people, yeah. We got into that today, but like no no, you just start speaking how you’re used to speaking and then everyone here is so delicate usually. And so–
Zach 1:08:01
Which I love. It is starting to change me in a really beautiful way being here.
Brittany 1:08:06
And he’s… I’m changing and getting a bit more direct which is funny.
Zach 1:08:10
The Yank–sometimes the Yankee comes out in you, the the northern…
Brittany 1:08:13
Come back, come back.
Zach 1:08:17
So this was, I think, a really fun foray into podcasting. What do you think, Brittany?
Brittany 1:08:25
Hey, I enjoyed it. Was it good for you?
Zach 1:08:28
It was good for me. It was good for me, and it was really fun to watch the film with you.
Brittany 1:08:33
Yeah, I’m glad you shared this with me and I can see why it changed her life in so many different ways of inspiration.
Zach 1:08:40
Watch the film you guys I don’t think we actually said anything in the version that we lost. I think there were a few spoilers; we have been careful to not talk about any of the…
Brittany 1:08:51
Frogs?
Zach 1:08:51
Charles Fortean themes. Wow, she went there ladies and germs. But there were a lot of Charles Forte…. I don’t think… I think that got lost on the cutting room floor when we lost that SD card. But there’s themes of Charles Forte and the supernatural that are woven through in a really… He was a really interesting, really scientifically minded thinker exploring some of these supernatural, you know, crazy things that honestly…look it up. Frogs falling. There’s… This is scientifically corroborated. Science has weird explanations about weather and doesn’t really make any sense. No one can…. It’s a rare phenomenon. The Raining Frogs… It really exists.
Brittany 1:09:41
Where do they come from?
Zach 1:09:42
No one really knows. Science talks about, like, weather sucking them up into certain vortexes and dropping them. That’s how science explains the rain frogs, like science, but like Charles Forte was exploring all those kinds of weird synchronous things. Like, remember in the beginning [of the film] there were all those crazy stories that were like, you know, the, the Son, the suicidal Son whose parents argued… That was one of the craziest ones to me. And like… They always argued and she always pulled a shotgun out, the wife, and you know his mother, and he, he basically loaded the gun knowing their tendency to fight. And right as he’s committing suicide… This is real. This is like a real story. It’s wild. So like he jumps off the building to commit suicide. As they’re fighting, she’s wielding the loaded shotgun that he loaded for them to kill each other because he couldn’t take the arguing anymore. And as he’s trying to commit suicide, as he’s passing the window, in which, you know, they live in, as he jumps to his own death, tries to commit suicide, the shotgun accidentally goes off that he loaded for them to kill each othe–and it hits him, and it turns the unsuccessful suicide into a homicide as he passing, and had he not loaded the gun, he wouldn’t have actually died because there was a net installed for painters or window washers or something right below him, so he actually wouldn’t have died, the net would have caught him and it’s just these kinds of weird karmic synchronicities. How does that happen?
Brittany 1:11:04
That was nuts.
Zach 1:11:13
Something just came to me: change is inevitable. Yeah.
Brittany 1:11:31
These cycles will break.
Zach 1:11:33
Yeah.
Brittany 1:11:33
Change, a different decision will happen whether we like it or not, and we’re all interconnected…through our minds. We do things automatically and we think that we’re just doing it–
Zach 1:11:47
But we’re going through time, maybe on this planet when change is inevitable energetically…
Brittany 1:11:51
These cycles are going to break whether we like it or not…
Zach 1:11:52
And we’re just here at a time when it’s happening…
Brittany 1:11:53
And these ideas we have in our head, we think they’re just from… They’re just constructed by us. I think these ideas come to us sometimes to break these cycles. I don’t get it all into that.
Zach 1:12:07
We’re getting so fucking Woo here.
Brittany 1:12:10
I know we are supposed to be wrapping it up.
Zach 1:12:12
We are supposed to be wapping it up. It’s kind of a fun part. What a great movie. How about that?
Brittany 1:12:16
Bless your heart.
Zach 1:12:17
Can we end it with…. that we fucking had a good time on this podcast. And we want to thank all of you for, you know, who, we don’t know if there’s going to be an all of you, but there could be a few of you. And being there on our journey here together, our Twin Flame journey… That’s gonna be more talked about on future Podcasts… and we’re gonna talk about aliens. Talk about the Pleadians and Mantis beings.
Brittany 1:12:50
And some couples getting married: awww.
Zach 1:12:53
Right! And their stories of love! We want to talk about not just Woo, not just Wild, not just Taboo, but also just our couples who are getting married. And…
Brittany 1:13:03
Also like just things like my husband… My original… Like I’ve been married one time; he passed away; so we’re gonna get into some of the shadow sides of love that we don’t…the things I’m rejecting; I just want the Fluffy Unicorns as Zach said. We can.. Actually the grave site is two miles up the road.
Zach 1:13:20
We should visit that for an Episode.
Brittany 1:13:23
Do some Woo. But anyway.
Zach 1:13:25
We don’t have an outro planned. I think we’re gonna do this first episode without an outro, but you know follow us at Epic Love Wedding Films on Instagram and Facebook. Follow Brittany: Epic Love Wedding Hair and Makeup on Instagram and Facebook. Probably going to have a Matrimony Mony YouTube channel and start taping our hopefully not too self conscious mugs….
Brittany 1:13:51
See what we look like as we talk about blow jobs–
Zach 1:13:54
Not just… I… They’re…
Brittany 1:13:58
I love doing this to him. He’s not…
Zach 1:14:01
I am a little bashful talking about blowjobs here; don’t worry, we’re not gonna, we’re not going to turn this into a porno podcast but we might talk about it.
Brittany 1:14:14
He won’t let me.
Zach 1:14:16
So anyway, thank you for listening to this inaugural episode of Matrimony Mony. I might make an outro here in post because I’m not good on this unit. But for now, thank you, to all of you in Podcast Land for listening and we are out this bitch. Ahhhhh!
Brittany 1:14:40
Oh my God!
Zach 1:14:41
Right, that was fun.
FIN.