Baggage Claim

The Solitude Paradox: How Being Alone Makes You Better Together

• Greg and Jess • Season 1 • Episode 33

Share episode

Send us a text

What happens when you finally turn the volume down on the world and sit with your own thoughts? We crack open The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter and dive into an uncomfortable truth: many of us would literally rather take an electric shock than face the noise in our heads. That stat becomes our entry point to a bigger conversation about why intentional solitude is not the enemy of connection—it’s the training ground for it.

We unpack the difference between loneliness and solitude, share candid stories of grief, divorce, and the guilt of needing time alone, and connect it all to research that links chronic loneliness to worse health outcomes. On the other side, we highlight the Harvard findings showing that strong relationships predict long-term happiness far more than money or status. Here’s the paradox we land on: learning to be alone helps you show up more grounded, kinder, and more present in your marriage, friendships, and family life.

You’ll leave with two simple practices you can start today. First, a daily micro-dose of quiet: ten minutes without tech—no music, no podcasts, no scrolling—just breath and awareness. Second, a one-sentence morning note: write one thing you like about yourself. These small reps chip away at the 13-to-1 negativity bias most of us carry, tame runaway worry, and rebuild a steadier inner voice. If you’ve been avoiding the quiet, consider this your gentle nudge to try it and see who you become on the other side.

If this conversation hits home, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a hopeful reframe, and leave a quick review telling us one thing you like about yourself today. Your story might be the spark someone else needs.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey guys, what's up? I'm Greg. I hope you guys are ready to unpack and get into some good conversations today.

SPEAKER_04:

And I'm Jess, and this is our podcast, Baggage Clay. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_01:

What's up, everybody? Welcome to Baggage Clane. I hope you guys are doing great. If it's your first time here, thanks for joining us. If you're a regular, you know you know the drill. Uh first timers, man, thanks for being here. We're going to just uh grab your favorite drink, whatever that may be. We're going to circle up around the table, pull yourself up to the table proverbally, because wherever you're at or whatever you're doing, um baggage claim is a place where we just talk about marriage, relationships, and we're hoping to create some conversations and some community around both those things.

SPEAKER_04:

Also, also I'd like to welcome you to episode 35.

SPEAKER_01:

Episode okay. Welcome to 35. Holy moly. Before we get into the book.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes. And if you ever hear me giggle in the beginning, this is for our new friends.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, everybody knows this who's been. We all know this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Literally, that's why I said this is a good thing. You can tell it to the new friends.

SPEAKER_00:

Tell it to the new friends.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm trying to, boys.

SPEAKER_01:

Our friends in Canada. What's up, B?

SPEAKER_04:

Oh my gosh. Y'all. No. Every time if I'm giggling during the intro, it's because I know 35 times we're going to do this. They the guys do a clap so we can sync up the audio, video, all the things. And it's never not funny to me. It's literally never not funny.

SPEAKER_00:

Maybe if we finally invest in one of those like little thingies and let Jess do it, maybe it would be better.

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe she wouldn't know. I've asked multiple times for someone to send us one to message me and send me one. And right now we still don't have one.

SPEAKER_04:

So I still get to laugh at the clap.

SPEAKER_01:

Laugh at the clap.

SPEAKER_04:

I feel like I'm going to laugh if it no matter what.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. Before we get way into this topic, thank you for explaining your life. We just want to say our new Kindle is because of Dog Hobble, where uh this past week we celebrated our 13th uh anniversary. And so we spent the day at a couple of our favorite wineries.

SPEAKER_04:

In the mountains in northeast Georgia. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And one of our favorite ones is a place called Dog Hobble. And if you know about it, you know. And it's an amazing place.

SPEAKER_04:

It's one of the newer ones.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_04:

Sweetest family owns it.

SPEAKER_01:

Super cool place. They just opened another little spot. They have a pavilion which is outside. They have a little house upside, well, I think it's 21 and older there. A really, really, really cool spot. If you haven't tried out uh dog hobble, you don't know about the Trevor Burrus.

SPEAKER_04:

And it's literally what we're saying dog hobble, but it's all one word.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a farm.

SPEAKER_04:

It is a huge winery.

SPEAKER_01:

Where the dogs hobble. Yes. And they have an amazing wine selection. It's really, really good.

SPEAKER_04:

There's sheep you can watch.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I think Zach is the guy we talked to last time we were up there and hung out. But that's where our candle's from. It's our favorite wine, Triminette, which is ours there. We love it.

SPEAKER_04:

So if you're watching on YouTube, that's what you're looking at.

SPEAKER_01:

And it has a Woodwick candle. Yeah, if you're not, we have a wine bottle on the podcast that's cut in half. It's a wine, it's a candle, and it's a wine candle with case.

SPEAKER_05:

She's a beauty.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, she smells like she is a beauty. So go check them out. If you happen to go up there, just tell them, hey, we heard about you on a podcast called Baggage Claim. This is um, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05:

We're wine club members.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we love them up there. They're great people. So go check them out if you know see what's happened. So before we get too serious into our episode, and um I think it's time for us to jump into uh Ready Question.

SPEAKER_05:

You didn't even do it. Oh, my bad.

SPEAKER_01:

I have two relaxed a little bit. All right, shoot, Jess. What you got? We'll go for one and we'll see how if the first one start with the best one because if it's not good, we're gonna skip it.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, that's not the best one I was gonna start with. My bad. Okay. I was gonna start with the easy one.

SPEAKER_01:

No, we don't want easy.

SPEAKER_04:

Ah, bruh. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Would you rather be a dumb question? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04:

No, it's actually a good one. Would you rather have eyes that film everything or ears that record everything? I know.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I would do ears that record everything. Why?

SPEAKER_03:

Why?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know. Like have you ever heard a uh I don't know, this might be just me being weird and being into music and stuff, like you ever hear like a just a mix of something that's just phenomenal and you just go back to it. Like something that just sounds great. Or like screaming into the Grand Canyon and just hearing the natural echoes and natural reverberations. Like I've never screamed into the Grand Canyon.

SPEAKER_04:

I've never even seen the Grand Canyon.

SPEAKER_00:

What?

SPEAKER_04:

No, Greg's never seen it.

SPEAKER_00:

It's quite big. That's why they call it Grand. It's basically a gully.

SPEAKER_04:

It is the Grand Gully.

SPEAKER_00:

Just the Grand Gully.

SPEAKER_04:

There's a lot of things I've seen on the TikToks about what Grand Canyon really is. It's like a lot of extraterrestrial.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh no, we're not doing that.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm not, I don't remember anything. I've seen it.

SPEAKER_01:

That's so true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I would rather have eyes that film everything.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Because I I'm gonna I wanna see my memories.

SPEAKER_01:

Um I would go with the uh record. I think I I'm I care more about the words than uh the visual. And I think uh word you just you if you can hear it you focus more on the words and not the visual. Because sometimes in the visual you lose track of what's actually being said.

SPEAKER_04:

You know what's interesting is that I think it's what kind of learner you are. Like I'm a visual learner, so I want to see it. So I are we assuming that if you choose one you forget how to do the other?

SPEAKER_03:

So I'm a visual one.

SPEAKER_04:

No, I'm just saying, like if you choose, you want to have eyes that film everything. Does that mean you can't hear anymore?

SPEAKER_00:

No.

SPEAKER_04:

Or vice versa? That was not that wasn't the part of the question.

SPEAKER_00:

No, I'm just saying it's interesting.

SPEAKER_04:

It's just interesting that you guys both are like, I want to hear it, but I want to see it. Because I'm pretending like if I can't, if I choose, I want to see or film everything so I can see memories and see what I've seen. That means I can't hear it anymore.

SPEAKER_01:

You want to see what you see.

SPEAKER_04:

I know. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but then I think of the Larry Fleet concert we went to, and I was like, ooh, I wish I could hear that again. Because it was so good. It was done so good.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, okay. That was sweet.

SPEAKER_00:

God misses Larry Fleet.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you for coming to our hometown.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, that dude is soft.

SPEAKER_04:

It was amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

Production team was phenomenal. Larry Fleet and the guys were great, but it it was a great. All right. Let's jump in. Or do you want to hit the second one?

SPEAKER_04:

No, because you all are gonna the second one is the dumb one.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, okay. All right. So let's jump into our uh topic for today. Uh we're reading through a book that started with We, y'all. Okay, so Michael and I are reading through a book called The Comfort Crisis. Great book, phenomenal by Michael Easter.

SPEAKER_04:

I crashed your book talk last night.

SPEAKER_00:

A couple of days. It was just yesterday.

SPEAKER_04:

It was like it was a week ago.

SPEAKER_03:

It was yesterday.

SPEAKER_04:

But I was not participating. Y'all were talking about your book. I brought my Kindle because I'm rereading Verity by uh by Freedom McFadden because the movie's coming out soon. So I was deep into my murder mystery. It's not really a murder mystery. Anyway, I wasn't listening to y'all.

SPEAKER_01:

So we got into the topic of thank you for telling us about your murder.

SPEAKER_04:

No, it's not by Freedom McFadden. It's by excuse me, Colleen Hoover. I apologize.

SPEAKER_01:

So we were talking about the uh the idea of being alone. And then we just we went on a rabbit trail and we started talking about lots of other idea of thinking about relationships in our life and the idea of being alone and the idea of solitude, and then it just started spiraling, which led us to this episode um of just getting together and saying, let's let's talk about um solitude. Let's talk about being alone.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

What does that look like? What does it mean? How is that helpful? Because we say here on Baggage Claims so many times that if you want to be the best husband, the best wife, the best friend, um, all those people in your life, if you want to have great, good relationships, be the best version of yourself. In other words, uh emotionally, mentally, physically, uh spiritually, those like those things be be on top of your game, you're gonna be great in those areas.

SPEAKER_04:

I feel like I made I made a mistake though like maybe two times I was listening to y'all's conversation and y'all talking about being okay being alone, and I'll just like raise my eyes out of my kennel. I was like, I'm not okay being alone. It's not a good that's not a good thing for me. And then it just went down this whole thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, no, that led to us looking at Jess and saying, So why do you not like being alone? She goes, I'm not gonna talk about it. And she stuck her head back into the candle. She said, she was like, Don't talk to me. I don't want to talk about it. Then she tried to act like she didn't want to talk to us. You asked the question.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm sorry, I'm not here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I was like, I didn't ask it, you did. I didn't ask it. And so it just we we wanted to dive into that. And so there's some there's a study in the book. Do you want to Michael Michael producer Michael is with us at the table tonight? What's up? Um, because this is a conversation we all have a lot. Yeah. Even when we're together, we all have this.

SPEAKER_00:

Even before we even have this book, we've talked about aspects of this.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. And the three of us have such good conversations. Like even I don't mean to veer off, but even like when we were eating dinner together just now before this our routine. We have dinner together, then we do this. We had such a good conversation, and you said out you said, this is when we need to be recording right now.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like, why aren't we already?

SPEAKER_04:

Or which one of y'all said it? But it was just like that was such good conversation. But we have talks like this often, just as a friend group.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So you hopefully just joining us as we it may not be as structured as we usually are, but this is us three friends having a conversation about this in life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Welcome to our friend group and what conversations look like.

unknown:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I think one thing that we should maybe start with, just in in preface to this, is there is an epidemic in America, even stated by the U.S. government, with a problem of people feeling lonely. Correct. And, you know, it talks a little bit as to why is that. You know, we're in a culture where we're around more people than ever. Even when we're by ourselves, we had voices speaking to us, whether it be a podcast or whether it be faces on a show or listening, scrolling through TikTok, whatever it is, we're actually never really alone.

SPEAKER_03:

No.

SPEAKER_00:

No, we're more connected than we've ever been.

SPEAKER_01:

Supposedly. Supposedly. In all of civilization. Well, what did you and I just talk about? I said last night, I am hooked on this guy. I don't know. This Finn, this Finland guy who bought an island and is building a cabin with him and his wife and the really cute dog.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I was like, I am obsessed with this guy. Like, how like there's a guy on TikTok named Bert. And he's like, hey, my name's Bert and build my house. I follow Bert. Oh, yeah, you do love Bert.

SPEAKER_04:

Bert is building a huge house.

SPEAKER_01:

That's amazing. First of all, it's like I I'm I'm I'm into those things so too. So it's like you're right. Like, if I have some time and I'm sitting on the couch, I'm sitting in my chair.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, that's where I said after I go in the evening, after dinner cleanup, family time, whatever, and I go take a shower, get ready for bed, do all the skincare crap, and I come to tell him goodnight, that's what he's watching. He's either watching Bert build his house or the Finland guy right now.

SPEAKER_00:

Which is hilarious because I do the same thing except for uh this Asian dude is uh building a houseboat on the book. Which I'm really intrigued by bamboo. I'm not sure. This is nothing but bamboo for everything.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm intrigued by it too, because of all the things you said that he's doing on that boat.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's crazy. But they're like three-hour long videos, and I like watch every second of it. It's insane.

SPEAKER_04:

All that to say is even though we're more connected, and like we we or y'all have connection with these people that are nowhere near us.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

People are more connected, but then we're also there's a lot of lonely folks.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, there's a lot of loneliness. And so I think it comes to and what the book talks about is uh do we actually spend time alone? Isolated from technology, isolated from everything else in the world, spend time alone, and people don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_04:

Aaron Powell Now we're gonna refer to this book. Let's make sure we talk about the title again and the author, and we don't obviously own any rights to it, we don't have any affiliation to it. But it's brought about a lot of great conversation between regular and it's a book study that y'all have done, and y'all both have read this book before, but now you're doing it.

SPEAKER_00:

No, this is the first time neither of us have read this book. No, we've never seen it. Neither of us have read it. Okay, so we've literally kind of gone in blind because normally we know what a book is more about.

SPEAKER_04:

But so in my split second of listening to y'all, I heard y'all say, so y'all must have read a couple chapters multiple times. Yes. Is what I had heard.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I've I listen to it and then I read it. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

So, Michael, you want to just make sure we say the title and the author. And again, we don't have any affiliation with this. It's just what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00:

No, it's the title is The Comfort Crisis, um, Embracing Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, and Healthy Self. And it is by Michael Easter.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay. Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_00:

It's been great so far. We're only like maybe a quarter of the way through credit so far. Um but it's been great. So talking about alone.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Yeah. So I don't know if you uh if you guys have seen it either, but there's a TV show out there called Alone.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it's phenomenal. I've seen every season.

SPEAKER_01:

I love the show.

SPEAKER_00:

They're so good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And because I don't love it for the fact of saying, um, you know, what are they going to do to survive? Blah, blah, blah. I just love seeing the social experience.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, the emotional roller coaster people go through. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's like, uh and Jess and I were talking about this. I was like, most of the people who quit the show or or start the show and then even end, they take themselves out, almost at a point where they're just like, yeah, I just don't want to be alone anymore. I've gotten what I need to get. I don't want to be out here anymore. I'm uh just I don't like it. And they leave. And I was like, uh the sure tail sign of someone's not gonna make it is if they have a picture of their loved one. Like that's always like, yeah, bro, he ain't gonna make it. Yeah, I'm just sorry. It's just like the drama in me's like, yeah, who's gonna fall out in the first two days? Yeah. It's a crazy show, but it's all about it's the mental aspect of that show, is such a battle for people, not just to survive, because you have all of them have survival skills. Yeah, very much so. It's it's the idea of being in solitude by yourself. Um, is such a radical, crazy idea for people in today's time.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, what happens when we're in solitude?

SPEAKER_01:

You're you're kind of forced to deal with yourself. You're kind of forced to deal with your own thoughts, your own emotions, your own I mean, all of those things. You're kind of head-to-head, face to face with yourself. Aaron Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Can I read a s from this study?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Is that all right? So there's a study that was done, and I believe it was uh from the yeah, the University of Virginia. Um by a scientist at the University of Virginia. And they did a study where basically the researcher would go to the person and say, Hey, you can stay in this room by yourself for X amount of time and be alone with your thoughts. No like technology, just you and yourself and your thoughts. Or I can stay in here with you. Like we can talk, do whatever, but you have to be shocked with electricity every so often for me to stay in here. Twenty-five percent of women said yes, I will take the shock so that someone's with me. Sixty-six percent of men said yes, I will take the electric shock so that I'm not alone. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

That's crazy. Think about the idea. A quarter of the women said, I'll take the shot. Three-fourths of the almost three-fourths of the guys said, Yeah, I'll take the shot. That uh uh like shocked me. I don't want to be by myself.

SPEAKER_00:

That's insane. Yeah. That is crazy, actually.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think it poses the question like, how are we with our own thoughts? How are we with ourselves?

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, I'm completely uncomfortable with myself, and I'm completely uncomfortable with my thoughts by myself because it goes my self-thinking, my just my own thoughts go negative immediately. I have a very negative self-view, and that there's a lot of aspects to it. So I would 100% choose you just stand here with me and I'll shock myself if I need to, just so I'm not by myself. I literally cannot stand to be by myself.

SPEAKER_01:

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_04:

And there's a lot of different phases of my life where I like where that comes from.

SPEAKER_01:

Has there ever been a time where you enjoyed solitude? You enjoyed being by yourself? No. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

I'd say there's both for me. Like sometimes there have been times I've hated being by myself, and I do everything in my world to distract myself, whether that be just taking my dog out for a walk or doing something or turning on a TV show or like going to doing some build-a-project or something, lit any anything sometimes. How about you?

SPEAKER_04:

He loves I will answer. He loves being by himself.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Well, not on a regular basis. You love the the when you get to choose.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. I love choosing solitude.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

So I would say uh I was talking to a buddy of mine, Tony. He listens. Uh awesome dude.

SPEAKER_04:

Susan. I said share. What am I talking about?

SPEAKER_01:

So it's um great, but we were just talking today, and I was like, man, um I forgot my thought. Oh, I told him, I was like, my divorce was the best thing that happened to me and the worst thing that happened to me. And he's like, Well, that's interesting. I was like, Yeah, I I was like, I was so afraid of being by myself. The house I grew up in, everything. I was surrounding myself with people. I was a class clown because I always thought if I could be funny and get attention, those kind of things in my life, I would draw people in, I could be by myself. Well, when the divorce happened, it kind of forced me into a place where when I had my kids for seven days, I was with my kids. When I didn't have my kids, it was me and my thoughts. Um, and just it it forced me to wrestle to the ground a lot of things that I had never really wrestled to the ground with.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And it it caused me to look into myself and try to be like, am I okay with who I am? Am I okay with being with the guy that I am? And am I okay with this guy, or do I want to change it? And so it I walked through that process and it it it was it was not fun, but it was extremely helpful. Now I got to the point where I actually enjoyed and looked forward to time with myself because when I was better by myself, oh, I was a hundred times better when I was with people. And so realizing that about myself, I was like, okay, I can't run from these things. I have to face them head on and unpack them.

SPEAKER_04:

And what's sweet and sad now at this point, or not even I mean, this many years later, but once you got to there and then we met, you were still you still craved that alone time, but then you also felt guilty for taking alone time. And I think you still battle with that now.

SPEAKER_01:

I do. I do because I it feels kind of selfish.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Um but I I know that I need it. It goes back to that.

SPEAKER_04:

Because you were the least selfish husband and father there ever could be. And so, yeah, I can see I I have seen you struggle with that.

SPEAKER_01:

And you've said That's why my adventures have kind of tailed off because I feel selfish.

SPEAKER_04:

And you've said so many years, man. And it was just like in a conversation with you, and I mean I could really use this a couple days in like the woods camping by myself, and I'm like, go do it. And I I've never said don't, but you you you still you ha you struggle with that, the desire to be by yourself versus Yeah, because I have that.

SPEAKER_01:

It's I've battled that from I don't want to miss something.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Which is crazy to think about. But the whole idea is that um growing up, I felt like my dad missed a huge portion of it, and I don't want to miss anything. But my kids are grown. Yeah. Like they're leading their own lives. Like um and so uh that that is a huge battle for me, and I I constantly I'm back and forth with that.

SPEAKER_04:

But I know Do you think that you knowing how much I absolutely detest being by myself has anything to do with that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, because you tell me every time. If I do on the last time I went on a trip, you would tell me uh I think the last one time I went to Korea and Russia.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And you know it was like a two-week trip.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, you still, you know what was worse is when you were Yes, because when you went to Korea and Russia, all four of our kids went to student camp at the same time for the first time. That had never happened. So all of my babies left me, and then my husband literally went to the crazy crowd. Yes, to the you went to the other side of the world. So yes, I spent that entire week to 10 days at my dad and stepmom's house for dinner every night crying because everybody had quote unquote in my heart, in my brain, deserted me because being alone is by myself and it's bad. That's my equation to alone. So yeah, and I feel so bad for that. I'll just say I'm sorry in front of literally all of our however many listeners we have at this point. I'm sorry that I feel so badly about being alone that it makes you feel bad.

SPEAKER_00:

Can I uh can I open up the the paradox of all of this? Yes, like because it's like kind of like an oxymoron, right? So we're talking about how loneliness is a crazy pandemic, like it's insane the amount of people that feel lonely in the United States currently. Um but we're talking about being intentional to be alone.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

How how does that make sense? Like help help help us make sense of that, because like I'm sure like we got listeners listening, is like that's literally should be the opposite of what we should be doing, right? Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so we have this epidemic of loneliness going on. Right. And we're talking about taking time to be alone. Can can I ask a question?

SPEAKER_01:

Do you think loneliness is different from solitude? Personally, no.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Hang on, the essay asked the question again. Do you think loneliness is different from solitude?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Okay. So do you think do you think you can choose loneliness or do you think uh it finds you? Because you choose solitude.

SPEAKER_04:

You do that. That's where I was gonna go. You choose solitude.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you choose loneliness?

SPEAKER_04:

Uh not always, no.

SPEAKER_00:

I think you do.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, and help me unback it. Talk to me.

SPEAKER_00:

And I say this because I've I've been there myself. Being intentional to surround yourself with friends, being intentional to be real with friends, and in doing so, you'll in a lot of ways find out true friends and who's gonna pour into you and love you and build you up.

SPEAKER_04:

On the other side of that, let's just say there's or there have been family members who are single adults living their own life while everybody else and their family, friends, what have you, are living their lives around them, but there's a lot of time alone. That's loneliness. Not because you don't choose you it's not the act of choosing to not be included in or not, whatever. It's just because like life is happening around you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I get that.

SPEAKER_04:

And that's a loneliness that you don't choose.

SPEAKER_01:

But don't you get to choose to be a part of that? You get to choose to make a sense, yeah. You can choose to sit in your apartment or sit in your home by yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll say this. Okay, and this is just real life, and and y'all are very much a part of this. Um when I was going through my divorce, one of the first things y'all did, and this is outside of obviously we worked together and we met a lot when it came to talking about my divorce as friends.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But you want to know what like got me connected to you and the rest of your family? Greg would be like, Hey, this is a Georgia game this Saturday, come hang out. And if you remember, like those for that first season, I probably showed up at halftime every day. You did.

SPEAKER_05:

You did.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I didn't want to come. And it wasn't that I didn't want to hang out with y'all. No, I was going through hell in my life.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But I just kept remembering I've got to push past this.

SPEAKER_04:

And we actually want you here too.

SPEAKER_00:

And I but I just remember, and this is why I say, and I understand not everyone has lived what I've lived. Everyone has different circumstances, different things they've been through. So I understand there's differences. But for me, when I was lonely, it was a matter of someone cared enough to reach out to me and invite me somewhere. I might be an hour and a half late, but I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_04:

You're gonna get there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'm gonna get there. And sometimes it was me just literally sitting on my couch, not wanting to do anything and wrestling in my mind for that hour and a half, saying, It'd be so good to go. But then I'm like, but I'm I don't want to be around anyone right now.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Then five minutes later, Michael, you really need to get up and go. And then I'm like, but I don't want to talk about anything. Someone's gonna ask me how I'm doing, and I'm not gonna be able to keep it together.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. But all in all, and there were a couple of weeks I didn't come. There were days that I didn't come. Yeah. But basically, ever since I started coming, I'm at every single home game. Yeah. Even the late ones, and I got early Sunday mornings. So you do. You yeah. So for me, when I when I say yes, that is a choice, yeah, every decision that we make leads to or away from loneliness.

SPEAKER_04:

It does. And I love that you brought that fact up because earlier before you got here for dinner, we were talking about my grandmother. And I probably will get emotional talking about Nanny because she's just she's my spirit animal, I guess. I don't know. But Nanny was very active and very involved in like social butterfly. Social butterfly. Like she literally retired from being a nurse full time when Thomas was born, who's 24 and a half at this point, I guess, from whenever she would have retired. Um and so she retired to keep him, but still like enrolled both of them in Mother's Morning Out. And like then Aaron Grace came along. Like she was still very social and then her Sunday school class, and because at that point my grandfather had passed away, but she was very intentional about her friend group, her Sunday school class, the outings and serving the community, keeping the grandkids. And then when Greg and I got married, she was still coming to almost every single kid event, birthday parties and holidays, and just very, very intentional about her own community and our family community too. Well, as she got older, yes, she was in her eighties and she had some like health problems, and she just had kind of decided like I'm I'm kinda done being social. And so that that diminished like her friend group and her Sunday school crew. And then, okay, then another level came in of like, well, I can't make it at this birthday party, and like it just kept diminishing, diminishing, diminishing. And she was making choices to stay home. And we I remember you and I had the conversation with her so many times. Don't shut yourself in, don't do that. Let's let's keep going. I know it's hard, I know it hurts, and all these things, but as soon as she decided I was she was done like being involved and being social, that that loneliness set in, and that kind of that not kinda, it did, it escalated the process towards the end for her.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And so those social connections and those relationships that she had thrived with for so many years was what was keeping her going, and she just couldn't see that at that point. And so I think a lot of times, like your friend group And I I have been in these shoes. Your friend group can be the ones that can make or break that loneliness for you, not because you're choosing it, but because I would hope that you have friends in your life like I did and like you did and like you do and did, to be like, no, no, no, no, no. We're not gonna do that. We're not gonna do that. I want you to keep coming, keep coming, even if it's uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, press will just call me and tell me to stop being an idiot and show up.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Literally. I mean, Damon was the guy for me when I literally would just show up at his house, or if I didn't show up for something, he would call me and come find me and before.

SPEAKER_04:

And Lisa and Chad were that for me. Yeah, what's going on? And a few other handful of other friends, but they were they were those people for me. Like I hope that we had been there for you, Michael, of just be like, no, no, no, no. I don't care if you want to watch football or not. I want you to be physically here with us.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Can I read another study that that comes from this book that uh Michael Easter brings out? He said, This is a study from scientists at Brigham uh Young University. Says it doesn't matter how old you are, how much money you have, being lonely increases the risk of dying within the next seven years by twenty-six percent. Overall, it can shorten your life by 15 years, which is the equivalent of smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day.

SPEAKER_05:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

That's insane. Just simply being lonely in your life increase the chances of you dying in the next seven years by 26%, which is crazy. Yeah. But it can also shorten your life by 15 years.

SPEAKER_05:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Then it says good relationships, according to another study done by Harvard, is the creing key ingredient to happiness across your lifespan, completely blowing fortune and fame out of the water.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So for us one thing we can push more than fortune and fame is good relationships. Good relationship. Good relationships. Absolutely. That's what's crazy. Like because it really is true. Like I I I had the conversation with someone the other day, and and I was like, I've had the incredible opportunity to sit across the table from people who made stupid money. I mean like life-changing money, who ran very successful large companies.

SPEAKER_04:

Fortune 500.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, like big, big companies. And would just say I everything I have is in this, I've given everything to this company. And this is all I have. And it's so sad. I've given my life to my job. I have tons of money, but I don't I don't love what I have. And that's that's a sad thing. Because I I've met with lots of young people who go, I just want to make this amount of money. I was like, you can make that amount of money all day long.

SPEAKER_04:

You're still a good thing.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's gonna cost you something. Like everything costs you. It's gonna cost you. And you're probably gonna like the cost at the end.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But the idea is like you can do it. But I I I guess just sitting around the table with those guys always made me look at money different. Yeah. And fortune and fame, and just to go, it's not it's not what it's all about.

SPEAKER_05:

No. No.

SPEAKER_01:

Like it's not because at the end You're not taking anything with you. Yeah, well, it just doesn't matter. Like it really doesn't matter.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And I appreciate that part of you. That was before you and I met. But I mean, that's what makes part of baggage claim what it even is, is because you've lived that part of with those folks who make all the money and that people think that they want. You know, like this portfolio or this, that, and the other. I mean, I I'm struggling not to name the name brands who've you've worked for, but it's some really big folks. Or not for, work. I mean with. With.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, you were I think the the the biggest thing for me though, like when I look at all of those things, and I look at I had a con I had a conversation. Uh I was talking, I was talking to Tony. We've been hanging out a lot here lately, and we're riding back and forth. And I was telling them a story and I was like, yeah, uh, Jess was sick, and Thomas called me and he says, Hey, you want to go to Mellow and just have a beer? And I was like, I can't tell you how happy.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Like, that's probably more important to me.

SPEAKER_04:

Not probably, it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

For for that phone call to go sit at the bar, have a beer, and talk football, just talk live. Just have a beer with your son. Than any amount of money that you could shove my way. Yeah. Like, because those things fade. Like, I don't, I'm not, I'm not a material, like, so what? Stuff just comes and goes, but like that is huge for me to go. That if if you want to know what at the end, when I think about my life as success, is like if my kids want to hang out with me, yeah, and and that's huge for me. Like that's a win all day long.

SPEAKER_04:

And so like the fact that all of our kids, our out of state ones, our busy ones, our you know, first responder kit, like all of them are gonna be in town here with us for Thanksgiving on one day is I'm over the moon. Yeah, just as you said about the I'm like, I've scheduled a photographer. We're getting a brand new family picture. So we can have a family picture with Lulu in it. Yeah. Like, I mean, I am that one day is my Super Bowl for 2025 and probably 2026. Just all of it. Like that, having them all here because they want to be here and they have made sacrifices to be here is like that's all I need. Literally.

SPEAKER_01:

But the idea of that goes back to good relationships, yes. Is way more important than than anything else.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and I think this is this is the whole purpose of talking about being alone because when you are alone in solitude, nothing else going on. I'm not talking about, you know, Netflix playing in the background. I'm talking about no technology. You only have your thoughts. Yep. Things surface about yourself that you may not want to address.

SPEAKER_04:

I will say that firsthand.

SPEAKER_00:

1000%.

SPEAKER_04:

Firsthand for my own self. I am better when I am not alone because my when I'm alone, and I mean this has been forever. I've never enjoyed being alone. I don't even know what the root cause of that is, but then with losing my first husband, when I'm alone, if Greg's not with me, I immediately, and I said before in other episodes, like when we got together and decided to try to build a future together, I had to go back to counseling to work on like not immediately going to, well, if he doesn't respond to me in 30 seconds when I text him, or if he doesn't answer the phone when I call him, he's something's wrong. Something has happened to him. Like I had to go through that back then 13 years ago. But I still struggle with that. If I don't and I I kick myself for this, even now, like these days, you've been working away from home, uh, about an hour from home. And so I I have really had to self-talk myself, even when I'm teaching. If I don't hear back from him, if it's been an hour or so, I have to be like, he's fine. He's fine, he's okay, he's fine. So I go through those fearful thoughts in my own head. I have very negative self-talk in my own head about my own self. And so I very much struggle with still now, literally today, of if I'm alone, I go directly in my own thoughts to negative town. And I have I have really fought against that my whole life, but a lot in the past probably decade or so. And I have the hardest time breaking myself from that, which is why I don't like to be alone. I would prefer to be with other people.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, because you don't have to deal with that.

SPEAKER_04:

Because I don't have to think too much.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that goes back, and I know we've talked about this on the podcast before, but like the average, and this is a give or take number. I don't remember the absolute specific, but I think it's a 13 to 1 ratio when we have our own thoughts about ourselves. It's 13 negative thoughts about yourself versus every one good thought. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

That's the average.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the average for most people, which is incredibly disheartening how we think about ourselves, which makes complete sense why 25% of women say no, shock me and stay in the room with me. And 66% of men say shock me. I'm a stay in the room with me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I don't know. Guys, guys just hide their fears better.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, okay. They just hide it better.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I could agree with that.

SPEAKER_04:

I was really surprised at the vast difference between the two.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I really was.

SPEAKER_00:

But this is what I have loved about this book so far. And this is the the reason why it talks about being alone, is because he's encouraging you to wrestle those thoughts. Right. Work through those thoughts. Because there's a reason, there's a reason why we have these thoughts. Either one, it's because we wish we would change something about ourselves. Right. Or two, we're believing a lie about ourselves.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So either one, we need to, and and I this is something I know you hear me say this all the time, check myself.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Check myself. Okay, is this a lie I'm believing about myself? Finalize that thought. If I have a negative thought about myself, I need to finalize it. Because that thought's gonna keep coming back and keep coming back. If you're anything like me, it does. Right. But until I take that.

SPEAKER_04:

My I don't mean to interrupt you. I'm sorry. For me, it's like it's a 50-50. 50% probably is lies I tell myself or things I believe about myself that are likely not true, or there's some hint of not true. I don't know. It's hard for me to decipher, obviously. And then 50% is just fear of what I cannot control. And that's that's where my negative thought cycle comes from. And I know in just conversation with me and you, those are things that you don't necessarily identify with because that's not where your negative thoughts come from.

SPEAKER_01:

No. I a good book for um if you're where Jess is at, a great book to listen to and read. I've read and listened to it a couple of times. Is Don't Believe Everything You Think.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Great book. I haven't read that yet. Is that where those statistics were that you were sharing earlier? No, that's a different one. But it's it is an interesting because we talked about I shared these statistics with these guys when we were having dinner, that it was talking about worry in our thoughts. Yeah. And the idea was it says they surveyed and followed people who had these worries, and 85% of the worries that these people had never even happened. And so they just the the things that they were worrying about, 85% of them never happened. Out of the left the the last 15%, only 12% of those worries that they had turned out way better than they actually thought they would. So the results were way better. So basically he said only 3% of the things you worry about are actually ever going to happen.

SPEAKER_05:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So you're wasting so much mental capacity and so much mental stress, all those things of life, because you it steals your present joy.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, how do you think that's a good thing?

SPEAKER_00:

Right you have in the everything. So it's one out of 33 worries you have is actually going to happen.

SPEAKER_04:

And what's even more frustrating as a Christian, I the three of us are Christians, is that I know the power of prayer. I know what the Lord has promised me, and I know that He will help me take those thoughts captive. And I mean, He wants good for us. And it's so hard. It's that battle. There is literally a battle in my brain when it comes to when I'm alone versus when I'm with other folks. And it it is it's just incredibly frustrating to be in my own brain sometimes.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's just for all of us. I mean, even our listeners right now are listening going, yeah, it's frustrating. I get that 100%. And this is not an easy thing. No, that's why no one really does it, because it's easy. We create this comfortable place in our lives where we don't have to deal with it. I can turn on TikTok. I can watch my Finnish guy, my guy in Finland on an island build a cabin not have to worry about it. Yeah. We can watch your guy build his bamboo house.

SPEAKER_04:

I was talking to y'all earlier, like with my first graders, I can watch like the ASMR videos of slime or sand and like all these like satisfying videos. I'll sit on the carpet and you know, zone out with them. And I and I said, I'm like, or if I could break myself out of this cycle, I could pick a book to read out loud with them and not at the last five minutes of my day not zone out with them. Like it's just so frustrating.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's hard.

SPEAKER_04:

So what do we do with that? So let's let's go. What do we do?

SPEAKER_00:

Can I say the purpose of why he's talking about being alone? Yes. Yes, very much. So he says, maybe, just maybe, if you can master the art of being alone, then you can bring more value to the friendships and communities you have. Wow. Yeah. And that's brilliant, because that makes me think of like, okay, because we don't like being alone because we bring no value. We only get devalued when we're alone. So if if we can't bring value to the time that we have with ourselves, how are we supposed to bring value to the time that we have with others? That's your mic drop moment right there. Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. So it's huge. So and even ask, like, okay, what what kind of friendships do you have? What what kind of relationships do you have? And I think it does make us look inward to say, okay, well, what kind of value can I even bring myself? Yeah. And it this is not a uh it's not a look down on yourself.

SPEAKER_04:

This is not to be a I was just gonna say, in a full transparency moment, that makes me feel like I should be like, I'm sorry, Greg, for what you have to repeat yourself over and over again to speak into the value of what you see of my own self that I don't see in me. Because I would imagine that I mean it could be annoying.

SPEAKER_00:

It is, it it like kind of hurts to hear that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

But it does.

SPEAKER_01:

So here's here's here's something I have for unpack.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

I want it to be simple, but I think it's there's two things I want people to do.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Um you you can agree or disagree. We haven't talked about this at all.

SPEAKER_04:

No, we have not. Literally, it's just it's my handy dandy notebook has hardly nothing in it for today.

SPEAKER_01:

This is a thought that came to me while we're doing this podcast. One thing I want you to do. I want you to practice solitude this week. And you may be like, Greg, I don't know how. If you're in the car, cut the radio off. Don't play music, don't play anything. Just ride in silence wherever you're going. Just be with your thoughts.

SPEAKER_05:

That makes me very uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the point. So, whatever that is, if you can uh if you can choose to be, if it's ten minutes or if it's an hour, choose to be, choose to solitude. And then the second thing I want you to do is I want you each day, each morning you get up, either on your phone, send a text to yourself. What is one thing I like about myself?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

What is one thing I like about, and then maybe after your time of solitude, maybe it's something to think about on solitude. What's one thing I like about myself? If you can't find one thing you like about yourself, bro, you you need to spend some more time and like digging into yourself. Like surround yourself with some people.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, one thing for a person who does it. One person who has a hard time finding positive things. One thing a day or one thing period. What's our goal?

SPEAKER_01:

Each day, right? One thing.

SPEAKER_04:

Gosh. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Do it. All I'm asking you to do is do it for one week.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

So you need seven things that you really like about myself.

SPEAKER_04:

You're challenging me.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm challenging all of us. No, I'm just saying though, like And we can all text each other in our group and say, Okay, here's one thing I like about myself today. I think that's good. And here's uh finds uh for you guys who are listening, somebody who's your friend, your spouse, uh, whoever may be your best friend, yeah, text them and say, here's one thing I like about it. Drop a comment, man. Like seriously, we I'd love to hear that.

SPEAKER_00:

I would literally love people think through that.

SPEAKER_04:

Or if you want to direct any of our socials. Um any of the places. Yeah. If you if you're listening and you follow us on all the things, literally send us a one thing you like about. You don't have to do it a day, just one thing in general that you like about yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Because it's going to make your relationships better the more you love yourself. The Bible, the Bible says the the the greatest commandment is to love your Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and to love your neighbor as you love yourself. And learn to love yourself, and you're gonna love your neighbor, your wife, your spouse, all those people so much better. And that's just that's just truth.

SPEAKER_00:

And whether you whether you believe it or not, it's truth. And so and can I encourage, because honestly, in in some of these ways, this is something we've been practicing as we've been going through this book, things we've talked about before in ministry, but it also seems very, very like small. It's like, oh my gosh, so I really have to write down something I like about myself. You know, but when you think about all of these things that we uh wrestle with internally, mentally, and our health and emotional and mental health, we never put to practice these kinds of things. No, no, and I I think of little baby Lulu, sweet little girl. Grandpa yesterday at the dog game, man, she was getting everywhere. She's starting to walk. Oh my gosh. But the reality is she didn't just get up and run a marathon.

SPEAKER_05:

No.

SPEAKER_00:

No, she had to take one step. She had to crawl ten feet, then take one step.

SPEAKER_04:

No, no, baby girl.

SPEAKER_00:

Maybe if if you're looking at it and you're like, oh, that's a silly exercise. I want to encourage you, like, maybe this is that first step.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Have you ever watched a baby learn how to walk? Yeah. It's huge. And like adorable. It is the sweetest thing. And she gets so excited with her little hands up. Honestly.

SPEAKER_01:

That's our that's our journey though in life. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04:

That's where I'm going with that. I wish and I hope for, and I maybe you boys can help me be accountable that as I am 47 and trying to take steps to finding one thing or two things that I like about myself, I should feel by feel like baby Lucy and celebrating like with her hands up, maybe I can learn to do that for my own self or our friends that are listening can do that too.

SPEAKER_01:

Like and then learn that makes my heart happy to think somebody out there would see something in themselves. Absolutely. Yeah. That it's dude, g give me five minutes with you. Uh the five minutes with the people that are around you who love you and care about you. They can tell you seven things just like that that they that they that they think you're amazing at.

SPEAKER_04:

And so Can you name that maybe three things that you like about your own self?

SPEAKER_01:

That's all.

SPEAKER_04:

And maybe we're gonna share a video of baby Lulu learning how to walk. And I want you to feel that same excitement.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. There you go.

SPEAKER_04:

About your own self.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, what a fun, deep, yeah, encouraging, fun conversation. It is. Yeah. Um practice some solitude as short, as long as you can. Um and and write those things the one day, one thing each day. And um let's take those little loosey first steps.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh and let's learn to let's learn to run, but we gotta learn to walk first. Yeah. Yeah. And so this is part of the process.

SPEAKER_04:

So yeah, thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, thank you guys for joining us.

SPEAKER_04:

We appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01:

We're still growing.

SPEAKER_04:

We picked up another another country today that we cannot pronounce.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so it's just it's fun. Thank you guys, love you guys so much. Interact with us, tell us what you want to hear, tell us what you want us to talk about.

SPEAKER_04:

Our local friends are very good at that. We would love to hear from some of you people that are listening, all of these wide.

SPEAKER_01:

From Washington to California to Pennsylvania to Michigan, Maine, all over the place.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, to the foreign countries that are crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you guys that are in um Canada. Yeah, Malaysia. You guys are in Malaysia. Singapore. Yeah. Who are y'all? There's what you want to hear.

SPEAKER_04:

There's so many downloads there. Please just send us a message and just say hello. Yeah. You don't even have to have a question or a comment. Just say hello. And that I mean, I would probably lose my whole mind if that was the case. But thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01:

But anyway, um, love you guys. Thank you so much. I hope Baggage Claim is a place where you do feel connection and conversations and community and around relationships, and you grow from that. So we do.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Take your first steps this week.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And as we always say, go down.

SPEAKER_03:

Go down.

SPEAKER_00:

The music intro is so good. I can't even think of it right now. What is it?

SPEAKER_05:

Where everybody knows your name. Yeah. And they're always glad you came. You wanna go where everybody knows your name.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh, that's great. I love that.

Head Shot

Greg & Jess

Host