We’re back! We’re open for business again! Our October hiatus was much needed, but we’re happy to be back and recording again. Today’s episode covers a little bit about what went on during the month of October, but mostly it’s about the results of those events that make up most of the episode. In a nutshell Kym had a major spiritual awakening. So, we talk about how having a spiritual awakening is no picnic. It ain’t no bed of roses, sun rays, and butterflies. It’s chaos, pain, disturbance…and a wee bit of insanity. The end result is a new self-awareness and inner knowledge that you could never have otherwise, which is amazing. But damn, the process is a corker. We’re all for change and personal growth, but sometimes the Universe has other plans. Sometimes the Universe says, “Miss Kris, Miss Kym, your wake up call is here” and then hits you in the head with a cosmic two-by-four. It’s leveling up in ways the Mario Brothers could only dream of.
Check out “Leveling Up“ episode on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Libsyn, Pocket Cast, Stitcher or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Then all you need to do is 1) subscribe 2) download and 3) listen! AND!!! 4) If you enjoy what you hear, please leave a rating and a review (pretty please?). The more subscribers and reviews we get, the more opportunities we get to grow this podcast and bring you richer content.
And don’t forget to follow us here at themuglytruth.com (click that blue WordPress Follow button on the right side of your screen) so you get notifications every time we post an episode blog! You can also follow The Mugly Truth on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Ok, ok. We need to fess up. This episode isn’t about getting to know you…it’s really about getting to know us. As if anyone who has listened to us for even half an episode doesn’t already know all there is to know about us, we’ve gone ahead and done one of those fun old-timey (can hardly write that without laughing) Facebook “20 Questions” type quizzes. Except this was about 100 question from Sign Up Genius. Don’t worry, we didn’t through them all, we barely broke 30. Some of the questions were real stumpers which made us think a moment. That adds up and these aren’t long episodes. Of course, once all was said and done (literally) we thought of better answers, but isn’t that how life goes? So go ahead, give today’s “Getting to Know You” episode a listen…sit back, sip your java and enjoy learning a little more about The Mugly Truth! And then let us know what YOUR answers are by leaving us a comment here, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or send us an email!
Check out our “Getting to Know You” episode on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Libsyn, Pocket Cast, Stitcher or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Then all you need to do is 1) subscribe 2) download and 3) listen! AND!!! 4) If you enjoy what you hear, please leave a rating and a review (pretty please?). The more subscribers and reviews we get, the more opportunities we get to grow this podcast and bring you richer content.
And don’t forget to follow us here at themuglytruth.com (click that blue WordPress Follow button on the right side of your screen) so you get notifications every time we post an episode blog! You can also follow The Mugly Truth on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Happy Anniversary to The Mugly Truth Podcast! Or is it Happy Birthday? Either way….WHERE’S THE PRESENTS? Aw that’s ok…the greatest gift we could ever get is knowing we may have brought a smile, smirk, giggle, chortle, belly laugh or a thoughtful HUHHH? throughout our ONE YEAR OF PODCASTING! On July 3rd, 2018, we posted our first recording link right here in this blog. Today’s Anniversary Eve episode has no bells and whistles, no “best of” clips…it’s really just more of what we do…we got together and talked down memory lane (see what we did there?) in a retrospective covering our favorite moments, stories, and episodes!
Some of those include:
The very first time we recorded a podcast with our dear friend Paul Wilborn of the Having Beers With Podcast
Our Old Town Orange photoshoot with Kimberly Sickle, photographer extraordinaire!
Our offsite recordings where we battle the elements…like helicopters, howling dogs, leafblowers and ghosts at Kym’s house, up in Big Bear, and on a ghost walk in Orange.
Sitting side-by-side using one mic to record our first few episodes. Cozy!
That annoying, gimmicky cuss jar! We kind of miss it.
Our followers being coined Muglies. Love it or hate it, you’re a Mugly if you listen to us. Cheers mate!
Kym’s amazing drop-the-mic stories including quite a few starring Kym’s granddad, aka Captain Looseass. Don’t fret, there’s a couple new ones in this episode.
Thank you for sitting at our table, having conversations over coffee. Photo by Viktoria Alipatova on Pexels.com
It’s kind of difficult to pinpoint a few favorites…believe us, we tried. But when we start listing them, it’s almost impossible to narrow it down because there’s something we truly enjoyed from each and every show! Honestly, it’s been such a kick for us to get together, ramble, record it, and then put it out into the world and THEN get feedback from YOU saying you enjoy listening! How amazing is that? We feel so blessed and grateful to have an audience to laugh with, talk to and entertain. We certainly intend to continue to do so, and enjoy growing along with you. Thank you for being a part of the Mugly Truth family.
THANK YOU for listening. YOU are the BEST. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Check out “Happy Anniversary To Us!” episode on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Libsyn, Pocket Cast, Stitcher or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Then all you need to do is 1) subscribe 2) download and 3) listen! AND!!! 4) If you enjoy what you hear, please leave a rating and a review (pretty please?). The more subscribers and reviews we get, the more opportunities we get to grow this podcast and bring you richer content.
And don’t forget to follow us here at themuglytruth.com (click that blue WordPress Follow button on the right side of your screen) so you get notifications every time we post an episode blog! You can also follow The Mugly Truth on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
On today’s episode of The Mugly Truth, we talk (well, Kris kind of rants actually) about the effects of social media on adults, teens and kids. See, being products of 70’s and 80’s we remember life without instant answers, not knowing when a message is received, and having a small circle of friends vs 5,000. Back then, we had to go to the library, or crack open an encyclopedia (which was so expensive to boot!), or ask mom and dad for the answer to our questions (and hope they knew). To connect with friends we had to dial a landline (God help you if you had a rotary dial still) and then hope they were home…letting it ring and ring and ring ad nauseum – that is until the magic of the answering machine became a household game-changer around 1984. We’d pass paper notes in class and hope the teacher wouldn’t catch them mid-transmission and worst luck…read them out loud.
If we couldn’t hang out after school, we would make plans to watch MTV at the same time and then talk on the phone for hours as we watched and sang along with our favorite band’s latest videos. Woe to the poor person trying to reach our parents. They would just have to keep trying or give up in frustration from the incessant buzz of the busy signal since call waiting was still pretty newfangled. We personally didn’t have home computers as kids (though others did), hell, we were still marveling over the concept of using a cable box and recording movies on a Vee-Cee-Arr. The closest thing we got to instant photos was using a Polaroid camera, mix tapes were literally recorded from the radio or a record player using a cassette tape recorder, and we listened to those sweet jams later on our Sony Walkmans. We could sit for hours in a quiet corner to read a book for the fiftieth time, but we would have to wait a month for the latest celebrity gossip, makeup tips and photos of our boy-band crushes to be revealed in our teen magazines like Tiger Beat, Seventeen and Bop. Once we started driving, we had a Thomas Brothers map thrown into the back of the car somewhere…usually on the floor behind the passenger seat. And if our car broke down? We’d better have enough change to call Dad (or Automobile Club) from a payphone.
Those.
Were.
The.
Days.
Sort of.
Nowadays…it’s all literally at our fingertips. Knowledge, fellowship, support, photos of loved ones, status updates…face-to-face video chatting just like we watched on Star Trek and Star Wars! It’s all just hanging out in our back pocket, purse or desktop 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s there next to us as we sleep, ready to wake us up for work and then perched somewhere nearby feeding us amazing podcasts (ahem), audiobooks and playlists to get us through our daily grind. We’ve seen the rise of YouTube where anyone can be a worldwide “tv” star in a show of one’s own making. When you’re tired of watching your millionth tutorial, you can binge a favorite blast from the past or latest sensation (and Kris does) whenever and wherever you want – depending on how much money you want to shell out for any combination of Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, and a la carte cable channel apps. We can watch our favorite movie or tv show or sporting event sitting on a bus heading to work. And if we forget the name of that actor in that movie? Google’s got it.
Want to know how long it will take to drive from point A to point B IN ANOTHER COUNTRY? We can look that up in less than a minute. Want to watch your kid drive from point A to point B on a Saturday night next town over? There’s an app somewhere that can help you do that (Black Mirror, anyone)? Speaking of family and friends…it’s amazing how we can see what our loved ones are doing and feeling and who they’re with, even what they’re eating. Whatever they want to share, we can share with them (if their settings allow) in almost real time. Admittedly, this is sometimes to the detriment of our stomach contents (photos of severed fingers and surgery sutures and compound fractures are disgusting…please stop. Please. JUST. STAHP.) If our significant other doesn’t answer the phone, we can leave a voicemail and then send a text to cover the bases. But God forbid we get left unread. Them’s the biggest fightin’ words never spoken or typed.
Chances are unless you are someone who completely lives off the grid (though doubtful since you’re reading this), you have experienced a level of connection like all or some of what we’ve described. You may also have experienced the frustration of the quagmire of political rants clogging your news feeds. Your blood pressure may have risen once or twice (a day or hour) just reading comments from trolls in another clickbait article. Have you ever gotten so riled about a posted story your friend says is true only to discover, thanks to sites like Snopes.com, that the story was literally crap? Yeah. Us too. We have gotten so wrapped up in this miraculous link to the world that we are getting trapped in the FOMO phenomenon (fear of missing out), sometimes absent-mindedly picking up our phone and checking Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat a couple minutes after swiping the apps shut. We try to put the phones away when friends and family sit in front of us, but inevitably we sneak a peek to check What’s App. Or we whip it out to snap that delightful dinner. Or answer that damned question, “WHO was that actor???”
We talk about the good and the bad of social media in this episode…like we said, we love and hate the internet. But mostly we can’t picture living without this connection we have (now that we’ve had it), and we look forward to future technology that will make it even better. We just can’t lose sight of the real world around us. We cannot compare ourselves to the perfection we see on Instagram. We must continue to always understand what we read on a screen is what people present to us to be seen. Like the old saying our folks imparted to us all those years ago, before all this began, “don’t believe everything you read” Oh…and, “don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides.” Mom and dad told us a lot of great stuff.
Remembering this will remind us that the most beautiful, lovely, wonderful things we could possible experience are the eyes of our loved ones, the sound of their laughter…the clouds and sun and fresh air of a perfectly normal day while birds fly across the sky and dogs bark at us from the other side of a fence. We know…sounds like a bunch of sappy crap. Well, maybe Ernest Cline said it better:
“That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.” ― Ernest Cline, Ready Player One
Check out our “Effects of Social Media” episode on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Libsyn, Pocket Cast, Stitcher or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Then all you need to do is 1) subscribe 2) download and 3) listen! AND!!! 4) If you enjoy what you hear, please leave a rating and a review (pretty please?). The more subscribers and reviews we get, the more opportunities we get to grow this podcast and bring you richer content.
And don’t forget to follow us here at themuglytruth.com (click that blue WordPress Follow button on the right side of your screen) so you get notifications every time we post an episode blog! You can also follow The Mugly Truth on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
In what is probably the loudest episode we’ve ever recorded (yes even more than the construction going on below Kris’ apartment), today we have kind of an inception-style show going on. While we were talking about how having expectations can be realistic or unrealistic, with either negative or positive outcomes depending on one’s perspective, there was a gardener doing his job on the property next door, using a leaf-blower as he got closer and closer to us. Literally, as we discuss how important it is to roll with the punches, Kris was losing her ever-loving mind in pure frustration while the constant whine of his equipment neared. Based on previous recordings in the same spot the expectation was that there would be nice ambient noises in the background…birds chirping, dogs barking, an occasional car or airplane. Boy did we have our “walk the talk” tested!! In the end, in post production the noise level was brought way down and the content of the episode was saved.
All in all some good points were made along the way. The biggest takeaway from this week’s epidode:
“Expectations are premeditated resentments.” Oooh. That’s a tough one to digest! But it’s so true!
It’s inhumane to expect another human being to fulfill you. Another person can enhance your happiness, but if you’re not happy with yourself, that other person isn’t going to do it for you.
Hope and expectation have a bit of a crowbar difference between the two, in our humble opinion. Hope seems to have a bit of a readiness to accept an outcome either way. Expectations seem more concrete. Which can leave room for disappointment.
Basing our happiness on the outcome of an expectation is a tricky game to play. Realistic expectations are good – they are based on past experiences that help us believe Doing A = B (like turning on a lightswitch illuminates a room or having that morning cup of coffee brings a sense of ahhhhhhhhhhhhh).
On the other hand, unrealistic expectations are based more in magical thinking, and can be quite damaging. Unreasonable expectations can cause low morale, low self-esteem, and damage relationships. Hey, we’re not citing any specific statement, article, or doctoral paper…we’re talking from personal experience! Trust us.
If you spend time worrying about something, you’re putting yourself through it TWICE. HullOOOO.
If someone says no, it’s because the request made of them does not fulfill their needs and wants at that time – it has nothing to do with the requestor, i.e., don’t take it personally.
Humans are…human. Flawed. We need to give ourselves a break, chill out…forgive ourselves and others when the occasional “failure to comply” occurs. Because it will.
And, in the words of our wonderful Kym, just because someone doesn’t text you back right away doesn’t mean they’re ignoring you…it could just mean they’re pooping. Or, you know, doing other things. Hey, she said it.
Overcoming negative thoughts with positive thinking is vital in maintaining a good, daily mindset. Positive thoughts coupled with action can have powerful results.
Next time someone or some situation doesn’t live up to your expectations, take a moment to reflect…step away – mentally – and try to take in the whole picture. Is it worth yelling, getting angry, frustrated, sad, or resentful? Is it something you can accept and move on from? Learn from? Self reflection and acceptance doesn’t make anyone a doormat. It helps us grow. It helps guide us in making decisions about the people or situation that we are coping with. It also helps prevent knee-jerk reactions that could make the outcome worse.
The Psychology Today article, The Psychology of Expectations by John A. Johnson, PhD., is located here.
Check out our “The Expectation Trap” episode on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Libsyn, Pocket Cast, Stitcher or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Then all you need to do is 1) subscribe 2) download and 3) listen! AND!!! 4) If you enjoy what you hear, please leave a rating and a review (pretty please?). The more subscribers and reviews we get, the more opportunities we get to grow this podcast and bring you richer content.
And don’t forget to follow us here at themuglytruth.com (click that blue WordPress Follow button on the right side of your screen) so you get notifications every time we post an episode blog! You can also follow The Mugly Truth on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
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