Show NotesQuestions for Reflection
Each episode we offer you a few prompts to think about how that day's conversation applies to you. You might pause the podcast and answer them right then and there, but if you keep a journal (Steph and Beth both do), you might find one of these PDFs useful. Choose the orientation that fits best in your journal.
Transcript
Beth Demme(00:03):
Welcome to the Discovering Our Scars podcast. Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:06): Where we have honest conversations about things that make us different. I'm Steph. Beth Demme(00:09): And I'm Beth. Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:10): I've been in recovery for 14 years and am the author of Discovering My Scars, my memoir about my mental health struggles, experiences and faith. Beth Demme(00:17): I'm a lawyer turned pastor who's all about self-awareness and emotional health because I know what it's like to have neither of those things. Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:23): Beth and I have been friends for years, I have gone through her recovery program together. And when I wanted to start a podcast, she was the only name that came to mind as cohost. Beth Demme(00:31): I didn't hesitate to say yes because I've learned a lot from honest conversations with Steph over the years. Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:36): We value honest conversations, and we hope you do too. Beth Demme(00:40): That's why we do this, and why we want you to be part of what we were discussing today. On today's show, we're going to have an honest conversation about making room for silence. Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:51): Then we'll invite you to reflect on the conversation in your own life with Questions for Reflection. Beth Demme(00:56): And the show will close with slice of life. And if you wonder what that is, stay tuned until the end. So Steph, normally when we record, there is a lot of silence because we need time to process our thoughts, but you usually edit that out. Are you going to do that this time? Stephanie Kostopoulos (01:12): Yes. I'm a big fan of chopping it up, editing and making it a really good listening experience. And so I feel like that's super scary to have dead silence in a podcast because it's like, "Oh, well it's done. I'm done listening." So I usually cut that out and only leave enough that it is important or impactful, I'll leave that. Stephanie Kostopoulos (01:36): But I normally cut it out. But I thought today, since our episode is all about silence, if there is silence between us, I thought maybe I will leave it. I'll try to leave it in. I'm not going to guarantee every single silent moment because there are times when the doorbell rings and there's a whole long thing. So we'll take those out. But yeah, let's try it. Beth Demme(01:57): Let's see how it sounds. Stephanie Kostopoulos (01:58): Let's see how it sounds and give us feedback. Let us know, was that too much silence for you? Did it make you uncomfortable? If so, why? Beth Demme(02:08): Why does silence make people uncomfortable? What do you think is the root of that? Stephanie Kostopoulos (02:12): Well, I think when people are talking, you know what they're thinking. Like, as I'm talking, you can hear what I'm saying and you can see my engagement. But if I just- Beth Demme(02:27): I feel like this is a test that I'm going to fail. When you go silent, it's like, "Oh, now it's my turn." Right? So then, "Oh, I have to say something. I have to jump in." Stephanie Kostopoulos (02:34): But why do you feel like you need to jump in? Beth Demme(02:38): Because it's a conversation. Stephanie Kostopoulos (02:40): Why do you feel like you have to fill that space? Do you feel uncomfortable when there's silence? Beth Demme(02:48): I think that part of it might be thinking that you're ready for a response. So I'm worried about what the expectation of the other person in the conversation is. And not just you specifically, but whoever I'm talking to, is expecting then a response. And it's like, "Okay. Well, now it's my turn." And if I don't talk this isn't going to be a conversation. It's just going to be two people not conversing. Stephanie Kostopoulos (03:19): I think I've talked about this before. When I worked for Apple, I had a very extroverted boss and he was very much … when he was processing something, he would just say everything he was processing out loud and he'd just talk and talk and talk. And when I would process, I would be quiet. He would fill up that space, but I would not be listening because I'd be processing. Stephanie Kostopoulos (03:38): And then I would say something brilliant and he'd be like, "Whoa." And I was like, "Yeah, that's what I do when I'm thinking and not talking." So he started to learn that leave room for silence because there's something that's coming next. And so he learned that through observation and having that conversation together. So for me, I definitely am a normal human being. Stephanie Kostopoulos (03:59): I can understand the feeling of, if I'm with somebody that I don't really know and I'm having a conversation, I don't know how they feel about silence. So if it's silent for a moment, I want to fill that space too. Exactly. Because I feel like what you just said, like if there's a space, then it's my turn to say something. Stephanie Kostopoulos (04:16): But it's usually when we feel that pressure to say something what we say isn't really adding too much to the conversation I feel like. I feel like we're trying to process what to say next out loud. And so we're just saying noise. And so I feel like if we did embrace that silence, if culturally we embrace silence, I feel like there would be way more value in the words that we actually end up saying than the words we fill silence with. Beth Demme(04:42): I definitely think some people, probably like that person who used to work for at Apple, some people are verbal processors. And in some settings I'm like that. If it's my husband and I and I'm trying to figure something out, I do tend to have verbal diarrhea. It's just words, words, words, words. Stephanie Kostopoulos (04:58): Gross. What a visual. Beth Demme(05:00): So all I mean by that is that I tend to just think out loud and that in hearing my thoughts out loud, it actually can help me process them and help me to get to conclusions or help me to have new awarenesses. But I recognize that it's not productive or healthy to do that with everyone. So I have my safe space where I can operate that way, but- Stephanie Kostopoulos (05:22): With me, I'm your safe space, right Beth? Beth Demme(05:24): You are a safe space, but I would not barrage you with all my words. Stephanie Kostopoulos (05:27): Really? Well, thank you so much. Beth Demme(05:29): Does it feel like I barrage you with all my words? Stephanie Kostopoulos (05:31): No. No, I feel like you're a super … we've gotten a really good working conversation going throughout the 49 episodes. Beth Demme(05:40): True. Stephanie Kostopoulos (05:41): This is our 49th. So I totally get that, the verbal processing. So that's more of silence within a conversation with another person. But how about silence with yourself? How do you feel? Like how often do you just allow for silence in your life, Beth? Beth Demme(05:56): I actually have a lot of silence in my life because when I am working, I don't have anything on in the background. I don't play music, I don't turn on the TV or anything like that. So I actually spend most of my day in silence, unless I'm on a Zoom call or on the phone or in a meeting, then it wouldn't be silent. But other than that, I'm at a point where I just work in silence. Stephanie Kostopoulos (06:23): Wow. Beth Demme(06:23): What do you do? Stephanie Kostopoulos (06:24): Well, when I'm home, I typically have music playing. If I'm editing, there's obviously sound because I'm editing audio. Mac is usually whining in the background. So there's definitely noise around me. But I do try to make room for silence. And one of the places I go really to be silent is to the woods. I've been doing that for over five years. When I moved back to Tallahassee, I found the perfect woods, and it's huge and there's so many trails. Stephanie Kostopoulos (06:52): Although, since I've been going so long, I know like every trail and I take people to the woods with me and they're like, "Where are we? I have never seen this tree before." I'm like, "I know where we are. It's fine. We're going this way." Which is cool. I feel like it's my woods. And it is, just by the way. I just don't have the deed yet, but- Beth Demme(07:12): Because it's public property, but okay. Stephanie Kostopoulos (07:14): The darn city of Tallahassee, whatever. So I go to the woods and that's where I find silence and peace. I don't know, for me, when I actually have silence, I have so many brainstorming things and ideas that I don't have other times. When I intentionally make time to listen and be by myself, I do have … like rich time by myself. Not just like I'm watching TV. That's not helpful. Beth Demme(07:42): That's a different thing. Stephanie Kostopoulos (07:42): Exactly. And that's important. I don't hate on TV, but yeah. So when I do allow for the silence with just me, there's a lot of ideas and processing that happens that doesn't normally. Beth Demme(08:01): One place I don't like to have silence is if I'm in the car. So anytime I'm in my car, which honestly with COVID is very little, I'm really at home quite a lot these days. But when I'm in my car, I want to have a podcast on, or I want to have music on, or I want to have some … even if I'm in the car alone or especially when I'm in the car alone, I want to have something that's in the background. Beth Demme(08:26): But when I'm working at home, that isn't necessarily true. I don't know if you know, I have never talked about this, but I actually have a pretty bad case of tinnitus. So I have a constant ringing in my ears. So silence is relative in that way, right? Because it's never really, truly silent. There's always a high pitched beep. Well, it's not a beep because it doesn't end. What is that? A tone, I guess. Stephanie Kostopoulos (08:49): Tone, yeah. Beth Demme(08:51): Yeah. So in that way, it's not silent, but- Stephanie Kostopoulos (08:53): A frequency. Beth Demme(08:54): Yeah. Because it's always there, it's like that is part of my silence. Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:04): How long have you had that? Beth Demme(09:07): I don't know, but it feels to me like it's been getting worse over the last four years. And I've been to the ENT and they basically say, "Yeah, that's a thing. That's a thing." Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:21): I know someone that actually got that in the military and has that constant sound, which I have no idea what that must be like, because I don't hear constant sounds, but that's got to be really like … is it stressful? Do you notice it or? Beth Demme(09:39): I do notice it. And sometimes I do want just quiet and honestly it feels like it gets louder when that happens. Because I think that what is happening is my brain is trying to process sound that's not there. And so it's replacing the sound. So the quieter it is, like when I have to go to the ENT and they put me in the booth where they close out all sound, it's so loud then. Beth Demme(10:00): It's so loud because there's no sound for my brain to process. All of that is a tangent just to say, when I say I'm in silence, I'm in my silence. But there is always a very high pitched sound and it's unchanging. So it's not even interesting to listen to. Stephanie Kostopoulos (10:19): Wow. So it's always the same frequency. Beth Demme(10:22): Yes. Stephanie Kostopoulos (10:22): It's just a certain like, "Hmm." Beth Demme(10:25): Much higher pitch, but yeah. Stephanie Kostopoulos (10:26): "Hmm." Beth Demme(10:28): Much higher. Stephanie Kostopoulos (10:29): Oh Gosh. Beth Demme(10:30): More like that. Stephanie Kostopoulos (10:30): Oh my goodness. No, thank you. Beth Demme(10:36): I don't know that everyone is comfortable with silence. I can think in my head, just have a few examples of folks who ... the TV is always on. And that that becomes part of their background noise, kind of like when I'm in the car and I want to have something on, right? It's the same thing, but it's like that for them when they're at home. I don't know exactly what that is. Stephanie Kostopoulos (11:05): Yeah. I know people that just always have the TV on or can't fall asleep without the TV on. I don't understand that at all. That would be so overwhelming to me to always have noise. Also, I think like there's some people that I know that, if there's a moment of downtime, they're on their phones on social media and they're swiping and they're looking and they're- Beth Demme(11:27): Yeah. I'm that way too. Stephanie Kostopoulos (11:27): Yeah. Well, yeah. And it's just constant, like they have to have some kind of constant- Beth Demme(11:34): Stimulation. Stephanie Kostopoulos (11:34): … stimulation. Exactly. Yeah, I don't know. I don't feel like I can get stuff done if I was constantly trying to fill every moment with something. Because for me, when there is silence, I find I have like new ideas for projects or new ideas for my book or a new book. All these ideas that I wouldn't have been able to really process or understand before, I can when I just allow nothing else to be happening. Beth Demme(12:07): Yeah. And it must be that some people process better when there's something going on in the background. Right? Like it must- Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:12): Do they though? Beth Demme(12:13): I think they must. Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:15): I don't know. That's interesting. Can people really process with constant simulation? Or really have ideas and … I don't know, maybe that is the type of person that can, but I don't know. Beth Demme(12:32): I wonder if silence has, in some ways, a negative connotation. Because this episode will release on September 11th. Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:40): Oh yes, yeah. Beth Demme(12:41): A day that we don't ever want to forget what happened on that day. It has marked a couple of generations. And when I think about events like September 11th and I think about remembering them, right? It's appropriate to pause and have a moment of silence. And that silence is heavy and that silence has a very … it has a sense of gravity about it. Stephanie Kostopoulos (13:07): Yeah. Beth Demme(13:08): And so I wonder if in some ways that gives silence in general, a heavy or negative connotation. Stephanie Kostopoulos (13:21): I do think within society, there's this negative connotation to silence. Almost a sadness to silence. Which is what you just described, like when you feel so much and it's so hard to fathom, like with 9/11, all we can do is just be silent. There's no words that are going to fix or fill that space. There's just silence. ... But I think silence maybe can be scary or negative because you want answers. We all want answers. We want like, well, what's the answer to this? How do I answer it? You're not saying anything. Beth Demme(14:01): Good point. Stephanie Kostopoulos (14:02): And sometimes there is no answer. Sometimes the answer is we just need to be silent and we need to reflect. We may not get anywhere, we may not fix anything, but sometimes we just need to process and be in that moment. And so I think there is a heaviness to living in a moment. When's the last time you really felt like you lived in a moment? Stephanie Kostopoulos (14:28): I could say for me the last time I really remember living in a moment was when my grandmother was telling me about the last time she … the moment my Pappou passed away. She was explaining to me what that felt like in holding his hand. I was living in that moment of her describing that. I can still remember everything about that moment. But how often do we do that? Stephanie Kostopoulos (14:52): How often are we just quiet and take everything in which I think is part of what we need to do on 9/11 is, not just keep putting out noise, but just reflect on that. I don't know if you've ever been to the 9/11 Memorial in New York, but there's nothing to say. You just walk around silently in there and just take it in because it's so heavy, but it's so important. Stephanie Kostopoulos (15:22): I've done it once and I don't … I would do it again for sure, but it's definitely something where you have to silently observe and just take it in. Stephanie Kostopoulos (15:36): So silence in conversation, silence when we're alone. How about silence in church? Beth Demme(15:45): Silence in church is really hard right now because church is online. I know some churches are meeting in person. I just am serving in a church that isn't, and it's really hard to work silence into a live stream because people will think you're frozen or people will think that their sound has cut out or your sound has cut out. Or they're just not present in the moment in the same way as when we're all in the same room together. Beth Demme(16:16): And so silence is hard in an online format. But silence in church can be very powerful, and yet it is rarely done. Actually, I'm thinking this through out loud, as you can tell, I'm verbal processing right now. But I think we tend to do it with more like some music in the background. Stephanie Kostopoulos (16:43): Well, I'm thinking about when I used to work for a church, I actually ran the sound. So the noise. And I remember there was times when there would be an interlude in a song and it would be just some music playing. But I remember there were times when the worship leader would fill that silence, would that time of reflection with just words or a prayer, or just kept talking. Stephanie Kostopoulos (17:13): And I just remember thinking like, "Could we just stop talking and let me be in that moment and let me reflect in my own head. Why are we filling up every moment?" That was something that I felt like I missed a lot when I worked for a church and just growing up in churches is like, can't it just be silent? Why does every moment of the service have to be filled with something? How powerful would that be if we just sat in 10 minutes and no words were said, but we're all there together as a community? Beth Demme(17:49): There definitely are contemplative prayer services that I've participated in that really maximize the silence, maximize the power of the silence and use it as a sacred moment. But you have to really nurture that and explain it and create space for it. Which sounds a little bit strange to me in a way, because I think people think of silence as empty and yet it's something that we need to nurture and create space for because it's actually quite full. It can be. Stephanie Kostopoulos (18:29): And I know when there's silence, like when there's a moment of silence or there's silence somewhere, I know I've experienced a process of like, "Oh, it's very quiet. What do I do? What is everyone doing? Should I be doing that too? It's very quiet." I go through this process of like … and then if there's enough silence, I can actually get to a place where I'm actually hearing something and feeling something that I wouldn't without that freedom. Beth Demme(18:57): Yeah. Or how long is this silence going to last? Stephanie Kostopoulos (18:59): Yeah. Beth Demme(19:00): What if I start thinking about something and then they start talking, but I'm still thinking about what I want to think about. And by the time I figure all that out, the moment of silence is over. Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:07): This was a stressful moment. Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:10): I think that's very normal, very human. Beth Demme(19:13): I can remember- Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:14): Which is why I think it takes practice. I think it needs practice. It's important that we almost like set aside, "Okay. This is my quiet time. This is my boredom time." When was the last time you were bored, Beth? Beth Demme(19:25): I don't like to be bored. That's what I got my phone for, I don't need to be bored. That's where I can go and get- Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:33): What if you scheduled boredom time? Beth Demme(19:35): … on Twitter? Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:35): Okay. We need to take your phone away. But what if you scheduled everyday 10 minutes to be bored? Beth Demme(19:42): I don't think I would be bored. Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:47): If you scheduled 10 minutes where you did nothing? Beth Demme(19:52): I think I would use that time- Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:54): No, you schedule time where you literally, I do nothing in this time. This time I can't do any work. I can't do anything. It's just my boredom time. Beth Demme(20:05): I don't know. I can't envision it. Stephanie Kostopoulos (20:07): Yeah. Beth Demme(20:07): I can't envision that. There are times in the day or times in the week where I don't do anything, I'll get on the raft and I'll float in the pool. Nothing is happening then, except for me floating. But I'm not bored. I am ecstatic. Because boredom sounds negative to me. Like it's a mental space you don't want to be in. It's transient. I'm bored, I'm going to go do something. So I don't remember the last time I was bored, but I hear from my teenagers that they're bored. Stephanie Kostopoulos (20:38): I was going to say like I've heard it so many times from my niblings, "I'm bored." Beth Demme(20:43): Yes. Stephanie Kostopoulos (20:43): It's like, "Well, go do something. Then find something to do." And ultimately, like I was bored a ton as a kid. My mom didn't sit there and entertain us. She was a stay at home mom, but her job was not to entertain us. Me and my friend, we made a whole band out of cardboard once. Beth Demme(21:03): That's awesome. Stephanie Kostopoulos (21:04): And we had a little club that we put together in the shed in the backyard. My brother and I dug a really big hole in the backyard. You could fit a whole person standing up in it and you couldn't see their head. It was great. We wouldn't have done that if we weren't bored. Dig a freaking hole in the backyard? Come on. Beth Demme(21:23): That does probably take a special level of boredom, right? Stephanie Kostopoulos (21:25): Exactly. Exactly. But when we were doing it, we weren't bored. But those are things that we wouldn't have been able to think of or do. I have the memories of being with my brother. I don't have a ton of great memories of us getting along. And yet I have these memories of me and him digging this hole. And it was dirt. It was really hard dirt. It wasn't easy. It was just with a shovel and we were digging this hole. I have these memories, great memories of digging a hole. Beth Demme(21:53): Why were you doing that? Stephanie Kostopoulos (21:54): We were bored and my mom said, "Go do something." And we were like, "We'll dig a hole." "Fine." And we did. I have great memories of that hole. It was a long time. It wasn't just one day. We were bored a lot, and we would dig a hole. Beth Demme(22:06): So it was a long term project. Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:07): It was a long term project. And ultimately the hole got filled in. Beth Demme(22:12): I would hope so. Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:13): Well, we raised bunnies and some of those bunnies died at certain points and they went in the hole. Beth Demme(22:22): Wow. Another dark turn on Discovering Our Scars. Wow. Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:28): There's a lot of dead animals in that yard. We don't live at the house anymore. Because we had gerbils and we had bunnies. We raised bunnies, we had two litters, I guess you call, of bunnies. I don't know what you call them. But we had like a male and female bunny and they made five bunnies in the first one and six bunnies in the second one. We had lots of bunnies. Beth Demme(22:50): But eventually you filled it in with dirt, I would hope. Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:53): Yes. Yeah. We put dirt over the dead animals. Beth Demme(22:56): Well, you made it just sound like a mass grave. Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:59): No, no. And it wasn't a whole bunch of bunnies. I think it was like one, I don't think … yeah, they didn't mass die. But we had an issue sadly with a neighborhood dog that terrorized our bunnies. And one of them did bad things and our bunny passed away. Beth Demme(23:13): That's sad. Stephanie Kostopoulos (23:15): And some died of old age. We had a ton of them. This is over a long span. And because my mom wouldn't let me have a cat, we had a million bunnies. Beth Demme(23:23): Somehow this is your mom's fault. I hear. Stephanie Kostopoulos (23:25): It always is. And then we finally got a cat, and then we got another cat. And then I decided I'm not a cat girl. And now I have a dog. Beth Demme(23:34): I wonder if one of the reasons that we do not make room for silence is that we try to avoid loneliness and silence feels lonely somehow. I think that, like I said, that when I'm in my car, I always have some sound. And I think that's at the root of that that I am like, "Oh, I'm in my car and I'm by myself. I don't want to be by myself. Oh, I'll have this sound on so that I feel less lonely." Maybe that's a bigger issue too, that we perceive loneliness to be bad. Stephanie Kostopoulos (24:04): Yeah. I would agree. I would think that some people don't like to be by themselves. Yeah. Don't want to hear what is said in the silence and the thoughts that might happen in those silent moments. Because I'll tell you, I've struggled with depression for many years. And there was times when I didn't want to be in my own thoughts and in my own head because it was a scary place and I didn't want to be there. Stephanie Kostopoulos (24:35): So I definitely think there's some fear of like, "If I allow for silence, what will I hear in those silent times?" And it also, I think takes a little bit of work. Because it's easier to just turn on the TV. It's easier to be with people. It's easier to not reflect on life. It's easier to just go on with the status quo. Beth Demme(24:58): I think you're right. I think we allow ourselves to be distracted because self-awareness is hard and doing the work of self-improvement is hard. And so it's easier just to not think about it. And I think that we go immediately from alone to loneliness, even though they're really two different things. I wouldn't be surprised if you got this some as a single person. That, "Why are you single? Why aren't you married? Why are you alone?" Stephanie Kostopoulos (25:28): Yeah. People saying like, "I could never live by myself. Oh my gosh. I'd be so bored." I had somebody say like, "What do you have for dinner? Do you just like-" Beth Demme(25:39): Eat cereal every night? Stephanie Kostopoulos (25:39): Yeah. And I was like, "No. I'm a person. I make a meal for me." "Just for one person. I can't even imagine." I was like, "What? I'm a real human being and I deserve everything that everyone else deserves. What do you mean? No, I make dinner for me." Actually, lately me and my mom have been eating every meal together. During the quarantine, we just ended up doing that. Stephanie Kostopoulos (26:02): I would normally eat dinners alone, but we've pretty much been eating dinners together just because when it comes to meal time, she's always like, "Oh, it's mealtime. What do I do?" I'm like, "Okay. Well, we'll have food and we'll figure it out." So I've just been her keeper for a while and she knows that. If she hears this, mom, you know that. And I know you're okay with that. Beth Demme(26:20): Well, she was your keeper for quite a while. Stephanie Kostopoulos (26:22): That's true. But she made me dig a hole. Beth Demme(26:25): You chose to dig a hole. Stephanie Kostopoulos (26:27): It's true. That was true. So Beth, how do we end this episode? Beth Demme(26:32): Well, what's your takeaway? Stephanie Kostopoulos (26:33): Oh my gosh. Beth Demme(26:33): That was supposed to be silence. Stephanie Kostopoulos (26:38): Oh, Beth. You'll learn for next time. So how should we end this episode, Beth? Stephanie Kostopoulos (26:46): And now it's time for questions for reflection. These are questions written about today's show that Beth will read and leave a little pause between each for you to pause the podcast and answer to yourself. Or there's a PDF available on our website at dospod.us. Beth Demme(27:01): And stay tuned for Slice of Life. Question for reflection number one, are you uncomfortable with silence in conversation? Reflect on that. Number two, do you tend to process your thoughts out loud or in silence? Why? Number three, if silence is hard for you, is it possible you're afraid of what you will hear? Number four, when is the last time you sat in silence? What did you hear? And number five, if it's been a while since you made room for silence, reflect on what you might be avoiding. Speak truth to yourself. Stephanie Kostopoulos (27:46): You may not be listening to this episode the day this episode comes out, but it actually is being released on a Friday as they always are, but it happens to be September 11th. And we mentioned that briefly in this episode, and I did want to just give a shout out to a friend of mine that actually wrote a book about her experience during 9/11. Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:05): She lived in New York and she was right near the towers when it happened, her apartment was near the towers and it's a great, great book. I highly recommend it. It's called Out of the Shadow of 9/11: An Inspiring Tale of Escape and Transformation. It's by Christina Ray Stanton. It is a great read. I highly recommend it. We'll put a link to that in the show notes. Beth Demme(28:24): So my house is a little bit more silent these days, a little bit quieter these days. Just moved my oldest into his college dorm a few hours away from here, a few hours South down in Lakeland. So that's a big change that we're going through, but we're one weekend and everybody seems to be adjusting. He's adjusting especially well to not living at home. So I guess I feel good about that. I feel like that's part of my job, right? Was to get him ready for that. But yeah, so our house is feeling a little bit different these days. Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:57): Do you feel like an empty nester? Beth Demme(28:59): Not yet because- Stephanie Kostopoulos (29:00): Because of your daughter? Beth Demme(29:00): Yeah. Yeah. I still have a high school junior. Stephanie Kostopoulos (29:05): I think you mentioned in one of the episodes that she was going back to school, like face-to-face school. Is that going well? Beth Demme(29:12): It's going well. So far every day we get a different update from the school. They only give us updates when someone has tested positive for the virus. So on the second day of school, we got a message that a staff person had tested positive, but that they had not been at school on the first two days. Beth Demme(29:29): And so it was like, okay, well that's interesting information, but okay. Yesterday in the morning we got an update that a student had tested positive. And then yesterday afternoon, we got a message that students, plural, had tested positive. Stephanie Kostopoulos (29:42): But not how many? Beth Demme(29:43): But not how many. Stephanie Kostopoulos (29:43): Just we pluraled on that one. Beth Demme(29:44): Yeah. Stephanie Kostopoulos (29:45): It could be two, it could be 200. Beth Demme(29:46): It could be. So they said, "You'll get a call from the health department if this affects you." I guess the health department is doing the contact tracing for the schools. Stephanie Kostopoulos (29:53): Interesting. Beth Demme(29:55): We live in a college town and so I think there's a little bit of anxiety around town just about how that's going to impact numbers. And then with schools, the public schools being back in face-to-face, we'll just see. I wasn't very optimistic they were going to be able to stay open even the first week and it's gone way better than I had feared. Stephanie Kostopoulos (30:18): This has been the first week, right? Beth Demme(30:19): Yeah, yeah. Stephanie Kostopoulos (30:19): Yeah. Beth Demme(30:20): Yeah. We're at the end of the first week. So by the time this episode releases, they'll be at the end of the second week. Stephanie Kostopoulos (30:23): Yeah. Hopefully school will still be in session. Beth Demme(30:26): Hopefully they'll still be in face-to-face. Stephanie Kostopoulos (30:28): So I wanted to mention something that I have started doing. I'm actually making these short videos on my Stephanie Kostopoulos YouTube channel. And it was an idea I had pre-pandemic. I was like, "I love going in the woods, wouldn't be cool if I made short form videos where I talk about my book or the process of writing my book and do it from the woods?" So I finally did it and I did it quietly so I could see if I would actually do it and enjoy doing it. Stephanie Kostopoulos (30:58): And I do enjoy doing it. So I've done three. The one I just filmed yesterday actually is similar to the topic we just talked about today. So I talked about silence and embracing that silence. And there's some great sounds of the nature that you'll hear in the video. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes to check that out. Beth Demme(31:16): I can't wait to watch it. That'll be good. Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:17): Yes, exactly. You have to start at number one, because it's the whole thing. Like one, two, and then three. Beth Demme(31:23): I can follow rules. No problem. I will start- Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:25): Don't watch three without one. They build. Beth Demme(31:26): I will start at number one. I will do them sequentially. Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:29): Awesome. Beth Demme(31:30): And consecutively. Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:31): Very good. Very good. All right. Well, thank you guys for joining us. This has been the Discovering Our Scars podcast.
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Meet StephMental Health Advocate. Author. Podcast Host. DIYer. Greyhound Mom. 
Meet BethI'm a mom who laughs a lot, mainly at myself. #UMC Pastor, recent Seminary grad, public speaker, blogger, and sometimes lawyer. Learning to #LiveLoved. 
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