E87: Are We Making You Uncomfortable?

Show Notes

The farting (sneezing?) episode

Questions for Reflection

In each episode, we offer you a few prompts to think about how that day's conversation applies to you. Our supporters over at Buy Me a Coffee now have exclusive access to the PDF versions of all our Questions for Reflection. Join us today!  

1. Take the time to reflect on a long term project, job, or hobby. What’s still motivating you? What needs to change?
2. When you listen to a podcast, watch TV, or read a book, what do you want to get out of it?
3. What’s your favorite episode of Discovering Our Scars? Why?
4. If you were to start a podcast, what would it be about? Who would do it with you? 

Transcript

 
Beth Demme (00:03):
Welcome to the Discovering Our Scars podcast.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:05):
Where we share personal experiences so we can learn from each other. I'm Steph.
 
Beth Demme (00:09):
And I'm Beth.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:09):
I've been in recovery for 15 years and am the author of Discovering My Scars, my memoir about how what's done in darkness eventually comes to light.
 
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 friends for years, have gone through a recovery program together and when I wanted to start a podcast, she was the only name that came to mind as cohost.
 
Beth Demme (00:30):
I didn't hesitate to say yes because I've learned a lot from sharing personal experiences with Steph over the years.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:35):
We value honest conversations and we hope you do too.
 
Beth Demme (00:38):
On today's show, we're going to have an honest conversation titled, Are We Making You Uncomfortable?"
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:43):
Then we'll share a slice of life and the show will close with questions for reflection where we will invite you to reflect on the conversation in your own life.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:51):
Happy Anniversary!
 
Beth Demme (00:52):
Happy podcast anniversary.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:54):
Yoo hoo!
 
Beth Demme (00:54):
Podcastiversary.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:54):
Postcastiversary.
 
Beth Demme (00:57):
Yeah, we are two years-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:58):
Two years.
 
Beth Demme (00:58):
In.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (00:58):
Yes.
 
Beth Demme (01:00):
Two years.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (01:01):
Wow. Can you remember before we even started when we were planning and planning and planning?
 
Beth Demme (01:06):
Yes.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (01:07):
We had all these grand ideas of what the podcast would be.
 
Beth Demme (01:10):
I do. I remember. I also remember your initial pitch to me, which was like, "You won't have to do anything but show up."
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (01:17):
I would not have said that. I don't think that would have been a pitch.
 
Beth Demme (01:21):
I think that's how I remember it though.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (01:22):
I know I wouldn't say that. I'm somebody that overshares the negatives of something. I've noticed that about myself, which I think is great. If I'm going to be asking someone to do something like watch my dog or something, I'm going to tell you all the bad things that could happen-
 
Beth Demme (01:43):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (01:43):
So that you're ready, so that when it's pretty easy you're like, "Oh, I don't know what she was talking about."
 
Beth Demme (01:48):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (01:48):
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have said, "Okay, so you're just going to show up and then I'll do everything else."
 
Beth Demme (01:52):
Okay, okay, maybe you didn't say that.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (01:55):
I probably did say, "I have no idea of what it involves, but [crosstalk 00:01:58].
 
Beth Demme (01:58):
Well, because we didn't know. I mean-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (01:59):
It didn't.
 
Beth Demme (01:59):
We've learned a lot in these two years together.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (02:03):
Yeah, and nothing major's happened in the world in those two years.
 
Beth Demme (02:06):
No, it's not like we had an international pandemic or everything about life changed for a good long period.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (02:14):
Yeah, nothing like that. I feel like if we can survive a pandemic, we're good to go. If our podcast, if we were able to keep it going through all of the CDC recommendations, and now we're allowed to lick each other so, I mean, the CDC's like, "Hey, go meet everybody. Go hug everybody. Lick them."
 
Beth Demme (02:34):
I keep saying, "I'm living like it's 2019 again."
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (02:39):
Well, the CDC wants us to live that way. That's what this episode's about, but I am not.
 
Beth Demme (02:43):
Except the director of the CDC showed up to testify at Congress-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (02:47):
With a mask?
 
Beth Demme (02:47):
And she was wearing a mask.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (02:50):
Of course. Beth, I think today I kind of want to just live into this two years. I think it's important to reflect. When you've been doing something for a certain amount of time to take a pause and reflect on it. I know for me and my mom running mother-daughter projects, every year we sit down, reflect and write some goals. We write three scary goals for the year. We work on them. We don't get upset if we don't achieve them, but I think it's always a good idea to reflect. I think that would be neat to do and, hopefully, I don't make you too uncomfortable. Actually, should we explain the title?
 
Beth Demme (03:32):
Yeah. I'm always uncomfortable when I don't know the answer.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (03:36):
Oh, that's interesting.
 
Beth Demme (03:36):
That's been part of my learning at CPE at the hospital.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (03:39):
That's so interesting because I rarely know the answers. When we first started the podcast, we spent months planning on how we were doing things, and one of the things is we came up with a box and we wrote in the four corners what each episode needed to encompass. Each episode needed to have one of these four corners, at least, in order to be a topic that we talk about. One of them is. could it make someone uncomfortable, the conversation. If it could make someone uncomfortable, that's a motivation to do an episode, and [crosstalk 00:04:13] not in any crude way-
 
Beth Demme (04:14):
Right, right, right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (04:14):
But in a way where it's not something that you typically talk about like our farting episode could make someone uncomfortable.
 
Beth Demme (04:21):
Excuse you? I don't think of that as the farting episode. I think of it as the sneezing episode.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (04:25):
I know, but it sounds more uncomfortable when you say the farting episode.
 
Beth Demme (04:29):
100%, it does.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (04:30):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (04:30):
100%.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (04:31):
The sneezing episode. Sorry, yes. Now it feels like a silly episode now that we're talking about it. It was a good episode. We'll put a link back to that one. That was a good episode.
 
Beth Demme (04:42):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (04:42):
It was just a couple of weeks ago.
 
Beth Demme (04:43):
We're talking about this in terms of our podcast, but we recognize that if you're listening, you may not have a podcast, but you probably are involved in some sort of long-term project or maybe you've set a goal and it's time to pause and reflect on that, so we would invite you in, in that way. We're just doing it through the lens of having had our podcast for two years now.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (05:04):
Exactly.
 
Beth Demme (05:05):
Do you think we've made people uncomfortable? I mean, it is one of our core ideas or goals, or purposes. Not really to make [crosstalk 00:05:14] people uncomfortable, but to talk about things that make people-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (05:17):
That could make people uncomfortable.
 
Beth Demme (05:17):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (05:17):
Yeah, exactly. I think we probably have. I don't want to speak for people and say, "Yes, you have been uncomfortable with these conversations.", but I feel like we've had some difficult conversations for me to talk about that I was uncomfortable in the concept of talking about, so I would think if I was uncomfortable about it, but was able to do it, then it might have also made someone uncomfortable.
 
Beth Demme (05:43):
What were the episodes, or the episode ideas, that made you the most uncomfortable?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (05:48):
I think the "Is Steph Asexual?," that one was tough.
 
Beth Demme (05:51):
I was going to say that one, too.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (05:52):
Yeah. That was a tough one, although I was the one that said let's do this episode.
 
Beth Demme (05:57):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (06:00):
I think that was the most revealing one for me. I think I know the episode that made you the most uncomfortable. Do you want me to tell you what it was?
 
Beth Demme (06:08):
Yeah, what do you think it was?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (06:09):
I think your most uncomfortable episode was the period episode.
 
Beth Demme (06:12):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (06:12):
Or the one you were like, "I don't want to do this."
 
Beth Demme (06:14):
Yeah, I wasn't-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (06:15):
But I want you to do it because you want to.
 
Beth Demme (06:16):
Yeah, I wasn't real onboard with that one, although I think it turned out well and I was excited that my daughter, Hannah, got to be our guest for that one. I ended up being okay with it, but I was definitely uncomfortable as we were planning it and even as we were doing it. Also, the one about "Self-injury, an honest conversation," that one I remember being uncomfortable because I was worried that it would upset you, like "Is Steph Asexual?" I was worried that would upset, and those were both your ideas.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (06:48):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (06:48):
You wanted to do those episodes, but still, I was uncomfortable.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (06:51):
I remember because we went to lunch to talk about that episode to preplan it before COVID when you could do that. I remember you really pushing back, and I was like, "What? Do you not want to do this? What?", and she's like, "No, I just don't think you want to do it.", and I was like, "What do you mean you don't think I want to do it? I brought it up. I want to do it.", and she's like, "I'm not sure that you want to do it.", and I was like, "Okay, well first of all, all I keep saying is I want to do it-
 
Beth Demme (07:16):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (07:17):
So I'm not sure what part of me is telling you that I don't want to do it."
 
Beth Demme (07:21):
I thought that you thought you should do it because-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (07:25):
Oh, you know I don't get-
 
Beth Demme (07:26):
It's tied to the book, but-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (07:27):
Oh.
 
Beth Demme (07:27):
But maybe-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (07:29):
I did think we should do it at some point. Actually, there's currently an episode that we have scheduled because I think we should do it, and I want to do it, but it's a really heavy one, and we haven't done it.
 
Beth Demme (07:41):
We have put it off.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (07:42):
We've been putting it off.
 
Beth Demme (07:42):
We keep moving in on the calendar-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (07:44):
Yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative).
 
Beth Demme (07:44):
Making it later and later, so stay tuned.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (07:46):
Yeah. If we ever do it.
 
Beth Demme (07:50):
That one's coming. Maybe.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (07:50):
Yeah, it will be there. I have recognized when I'm in the right space to talk about certain things and when I'm not. I think actually that might be the only episode, well, there might have been one before that we've, let's push this off, but most of the ones we've push off were because we needed to put something current event in there because we just couldn't ignore what was happening.
 
Beth Demme (08:09):
Speaking of current events, that was one thing we said we weren't going to do-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (08:11):
Yes.
 
Beth Demme (08:11):
Because we wanted to have evergreen episodes-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (08:14):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
 
Beth Demme (08:14):
But then COVID.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (08:16):
Yeah, and then it couldn't be ignored. There was no way. We even had two or three episodes already recorded when COVID hit-
 
Beth Demme (08:25):
Yes, that's right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (08:26):
That we had to push back because we were like this doesn't make sense. We're talking about loving yourself and COVID's happening, and no, this doesn't make sense, and we couldn't ignore it so we had to go week-to-week when COVID happened. Actually, because were every other week before, then we went to week-to-week with COVID and then we never stopped. How do you feel about that?
 
Beth Demme (08:45):
Well, I still worry, even though we've been doing week-to-week for more than year. I still worry that it's not sustainable.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (08:54):
Mmm.
 
Beth Demme (08:56):
You have told me that we have the freedom to go back to-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (08:58):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (08:59):
Bi-weekly.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:00):
We have the freedom to do anything. We're in charge.
 
Beth Demme (09:02):
Because this is our podcast-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:04):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (09:04):
And we can do it the way we want.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:05):
Yeah. Well, you're going to be starting a new job soon-
 
Beth Demme (09:08):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:08):
Because you've actually had three different jobs during this podcast?
 
Beth Demme (09:11):
Yep.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:12):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (09:14):
In two years, which makes me sound-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:15):
No.
 
Beth Demme (09:15):
Highly flaky, but that's not-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:17):
It's a pastor.
 
Beth Demme (09:17):
The case.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:18):
She's a pastor.
 
Beth Demme (09:18):
It's a Methodist church thing.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:20):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (09:20):
You get moved around.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:20):
She's a pastor and that's a thing.
 
Beth Demme (09:22):
Yes.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:23):
It's not like she's moving from completely different jobs.
 
Beth Demme (09:26):
Right, and each job was a type of training.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:28):
Yeah. You're going to be starting a whole new job being a lead/head pastor at a church.
 
Beth Demme (09:35):
Right, which I'm very excited about.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:37):
Yeah, which is awesome, but-
 
Beth Demme (09:38):
Yes.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:38):
You might not be able to spend the time that you could before on the podcast, so we might need to make some changes. I think that's what makes it sustainable is not be so ridged that we can't change this. If we were to say like, "No, we can't change it." Well, but life happens-
 
Beth Demme (09:56):
Right, right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (09:57):
Then it's just going to dissolve.
 
Beth Demme (09:58):
Right. Yeah, so the general principal would be that flexibility is important.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (10:03):
Yes.
 
Beth Demme (10:04):
It's important to be open to changes that need to happen.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (10:07):
Yeah. Well, I think that's what COVID taught us because we were doing every other week and we were specifically not doing current event stuff-
 
Beth Demme (10:15):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (10:15):
And the COVID hit and we had to make a change because life changed and we had to change with it, and we did. We started recorded just a couple of days before we released the episode, so it was like-
 
Beth Demme (10:28):
Yes, we did.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (10:28):
Very timely. It wasn't too bad. It was like a quicker edit than we had been doing before, and we just changed with the times, and so if we have to go back to less episodes a month, then we change with the time. I don't think it would be for anybody to just say, "We have to do every week. If we can't do every week, then it doesn't matter, we still have to do it."
 
Beth Demme (10:53):
Right, or the way we had this idea in mind, and if we deviate from this idea-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (10:56):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (10:56):
Then we're not doing what we intended-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (10:58):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (10:58):
And somehow we've failed. No, change is okay, and it's okay to be adaptive.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (11:03):
Yeah. Well, and-
 
Beth Demme (11:04):
It's important to be adaptive.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (11:05):
Well, and so we started talking current events with COVID and then when the Black Lives Matter protest-
 
Beth Demme (11:13):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (11:13):
Started, we could not ignore that. That was something that we couldn't just go on with our scheduled podcasting because we do plan weeks in advance, months in advance, and we just had to move episodes around and actually, that might be one of my favorite episodes was the episode with Ashley about Black Lives Matter.
 
Beth Demme (11:33):
Yes.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (11:35):
That felt very timely necessary, but also very-
 
Beth Demme (11:40):
Authentic.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (11:41):
Authentic, yeah. I was very nervous about that because I'm someone that I do like planning and I do like process, but we put that together so quick. The protesting was happening, I saw that Ashley posted some stuff, I was like, "Hey, would you be on the podcast?" It all happened so quickly that I didn't even have time to wrap my mind around it, so I was just in a fog like, "What's happening?" Yeah, I think that might be one of my favorite episodes. Well, it is one of my favorite episodes.
 
Beth Demme (12:08):
Yeah, we've had some good guests on in the last two years.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:11):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (12:11):
I don't know that I could have fully predicted how much I really have enjoyed that part of it.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:17):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (12:17):
Getting to talk to people and a couple of people who've written books, a couple of people who just have really interesting life experiences, a couple of people who had something to teach us.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:27):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (12:28):
That has been really good, too.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:29):
I think one of your least favorite guests, I think I know. I think I know your least favorite guest.
 
Beth Demme (12:35):
Uh-oh. Who do you think is my least favorite guest?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:37):
You ready? You want to say it at the same time?
 
Beth Demme (12:39):
No.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:40):
One-
 
Beth Demme (12:41):
I don't want to say at the same time.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:41):
Uh-oh.
 
Beth Demme (12:44):
I don't want to say it at all because-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:45):
Oh.
 
Beth Demme (12:45):
I so appreciate everybody who's been a guest.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:47):
Oh.
 
Beth Demme (12:47):
I wouldn't want anybody to feel unappreciated.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:49):
I think your least favorite guest was my bro, Daniel-
 
Beth Demme (12:53):
No.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (12:53):
On the Can a Liberal and a Conservative Have an Honest Conversation. I think that was your least favorite episode. Come on. He's not your least favorite person, but-
 
Beth Demme (13:02):
He's not my least favorite person.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (13:03):
I think that was your least favorite episode.
 
Beth Demme (13:05):
It was a frustrating conversation.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (13:06):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (13:06):
I will say that.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (13:07):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (13:08):
I know that it was frustrating to edit, and it required a lot of editing, if I recall correctly.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (13:14):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (13:14):
I think we recorded for about two hours.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (13:16):
Yes. Daniel is not short-winded. Is that a word?
 
Beth Demme (13:20):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (13:23):
That's got to be your least favorite. Come on. What's kind of fun is as we're looking through the list of podcast titles, we've done so many. We're on 87.
 
Beth Demme (13:32):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (13:33):
So we've done 87 episodes and I'm looking through the list and some of them, I'm like, I don't know what the episode's about, but that title makes me want to listen. I'm like, ooh, that sounds good. I've no memory of what happened in the episode. I know we did it, because it's written down, but it makes me want to re-listen to them.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (13:50):
What's your least favorite, or what do you think is the most controversial episode we've done?
 
Beth Demme (13:54):
I think my least favorite episode, I can't think of which one it is, but it would probably be one where I would look back and go, oh, I should have said more, or I said too much, or why didn't I say that?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (14:05):
When did you say too much?
 
Beth Demme (14:08):
I don't know.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (14:09):
If you felt like you said too much, you would have told me to edit it out.
 
Beth Demme (14:11):
Well, sometimes I think I have said things that needed to be said. I can't think of an example, so this is not going to make a lot of sense, but I can imagine that there have probably been times where I've said things and thought, oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that, and then when the episode came out, I was like, okay, well, it made sense-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (14:25):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (14:25):
In the context of the episode, or I felt like I needed to say it even if I didn't really want to say it.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (14:31):
Hmm. There's a lot that I've edited out that I thought weren't necessary to the conversation.
 
Beth Demme (14:38):
Yeah, and once it gets edited out, I forget that it happened.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (14:40):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (14:41):
I mean, it's like any conversation you would have in your normal life.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (14:43):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (14:44):
Do you remember everything that gets said in every conversation? No.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (14:46):
Not me.
 
Beth Demme (14:47):
No, not really. We just did an episode a couple of weeks ago called, "What's Wrong With Me?", where we talked about labels. When it was all said and done, I realized I didn't talk about the fact that, like you, my daughter has dyslexia and how helpful that is to know as a parent, or to know that my son has ADHD and how it's powerful to know that and to access the tools for working with them in the way that their minds work, right? I was like, oh, I didn't say any of that. That could have been helpful. It could have been meaningful.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (15:26):
I think you talked about your son.
 
Beth Demme (15:27):
I didn't.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (15:28):
It's hard to remember what is exactly in an episode and what's not, too.
 
Beth Demme (15:31):
It is. It really is. Is there one that you think is controversial?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (15:34):
Wait, you didn't answer the question. What do you think is controversial that we've done?
 
Beth Demme (15:38):
Well, you asked me a two-part question.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (15:41):
You kind of answered the first one. I don't think this should be controversial, and I'm [inaudible 00:15:45] thing should, but I do think possible the episode we had with David about his coming out story-
 
Beth Demme (15:52):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (15:53):
Could be seen as controversial depending on people's views of human sexuality, I guess.
 
Beth Demme (15:59):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (16:00):
I think that could be controversial, but to me, it's not at all. I guess-
 
Beth Demme (16:04):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (16:04):
And I think part of why we can't figure out what's controversial is because if we've talked about them, then we probably, it's what we think-
 
Beth Demme (16:14):
Right, yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (16:15):
And it's what we believe, and so we think it's important to talk about them.
 
Beth Demme (16:17):
Yeah, and if somebody wasn't willing to have a conversation about it, or participate in a conversation about it, or listen to a conversation about it, they wouldn't have listened to the episode, so the feedback that we get is never like, "You shouldn't have had that conversation."
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (16:29):
The divorce one might be controversial.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (16:31):
I don't know. For each of these, I'm thinking about comments that we got where somebody's was like, "Oh, I got something really helpful."
 
Beth Demme (16:36):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (16:36):
Out of that episode.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (16:37):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (16:37):
Then it's like well, that wasn't controversial-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (16:39):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (16:39):
It was helpful. It was good that we did that.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (16:40):
I do remember the episode that I thought, oh, I don't know if this fits, was the episode where I talked about working at Disney and how it took 10 years off my life when I had to push the E-stop button when a kid ran onto the track.
 
Beth Demme (16:54):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (16:54):
I remember when we talked about it, I was like does this fit our box? Is this-
 
Beth Demme (16:59):
Hmm.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (17:00):
And we got so much feedback on the episode where people really liked it-
 
Beth Demme (17:03):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (17:03):
And were just really interested in that. I was like, okay. That's something I've learned is if I'm questioning an episode, like is this any good, it's probably really good. Also, if I think an episode is really good, maybe it's not. It usually the opposite of what I think, so that's what I've learned.
 
Beth Demme (17:23):
What was the one where you asked, this was recently, at the end, you asked, "Did we just jump the shark?" Was that the "Excuse You" episode?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (17:29):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (17:30):
Okay, yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (17:30):
Yeah. I think that's the one that I'm still unsure whether there was value on that.
 
Beth Demme (17:37):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (17:39):
I don't know. I mean, they can't all be winners. I think of it that way. They can't all be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
 
Beth Demme (17:46):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (17:46):
They can't all be the best. When we do an episode, we feel like this is valid and it's important to have a conversation about.
 
Beth Demme (17:56):
Yeah, and that's one of the ways we will know when it's time to stop. How we will know when it's time to stop-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (18:03):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (18:03):
Is when we don't have anymore conversation topics. Right? If it's really hard for us to figure out-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (18:08):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (18:09):
What an episode should be, or what the next several episodes should be, then we probably will be like, "Oh, I guess we're at the end of this." I don't know.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (18:16):
That's so sad.
 
Beth Demme (18:17):
Yeah, I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about it, but-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (18:19):
Well, what keeps you going, because there is a lot of work involved? What's kept you going this whole time? Two years.
 
Beth Demme (18:27):
I mean, mainly you.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (18:30):
Me, being like, "Okay, it's time. Let's do it."
 
Beth Demme (18:33):
Well, I like having this time with you-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (18:34):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (18:34):
And I think that it is something valuable, but your attention to timelines and goals, and details, I hope that we have kept each other committed, but I would say I know for sure that you have kept me committed, especially since we've been weekly.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (18:54):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (18:54):
It's like okay, we've got to do this because we really want to do an episode every week, so we've got to really work on it.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:00):
Yeah. Well, and I would say the exact same thing. You are what has kept me committed to this. There was no way I could have done this alone. The motivation, me being motivated would not have been enough. I also think that's part of it, you're never inconvenienced by-
 
Beth Demme (19:19):
Oh, I know.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:19):
The podcast. You're never like, "Well, I have a lot to do that day. I'll try to squeeze it in." There's certain people that I'm friends with that when you try to make plans for something, it sounds like it's such a inconvenience or they're so busy. We did an episode about busyness.
 
Beth Demme (19:36):
Busyness.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:36):
We're all busy.
 
Beth Demme (19:37):
For sure.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:40):
We're all busy in our ways and doing our own things, and I try to be conscious with that. When somebody asks me to do something, I don't tell them all the days I can't do it, I tell them the day I can do it-
 
Beth Demme (19:51):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (19:51):
And when it will make sense, and I don't try to squeeze it in. I'll put you between these two things. I try to really honor people's times that way, and I feel like you do that really well-
 
Beth Demme (20:02):
Thanks
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (20:03):
With the podcast. You don't make it feel like it's an inconvenience because I think that would really be a burden. We record on all different days. We're not very strict with it. We typically record on Friday mornings, but sometimes, like we're recording tomorrow, Saturday morning-
 
Beth Demme (20:17):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (20:18):
Or Saturday afternoon, so we both are really flexible and willing to do that and not make it seem like a hardship.
 
Beth Demme (20:26):
Yeah, it is good we're able to both be flexible with our calendars.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (20:30):
In our thinking.
 
Beth Demme (20:31):
Right. I think the fact that we're both committed to it, that we do it together, that we're consistent, and [crosstalk 00:20:38]-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (20:37):
And hold each other accountable thing.
 
Beth Demme (20:39):
Right, right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (20:40):
There's times where I just don't want to do it-
 
Beth Demme (20:42):
Well, that's true-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (20:43):
But I know that you're going to be here and I'm like, okay.
 
Beth Demme (20:46):
Yeah, and I don't want to let you down.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (20:47):
Yeah, and I don't want to let you down-
 
Beth Demme (20:49):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (20:49):
Even though I'm not feeling it, I'm not going to say that. I'm just going to do it because maybe she's really into it this time. There's probably many times where one of us is not into it, yet-
 
Beth Demme (20:59):
We wouldn't say that-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (21:00):
We don't know.
 
Beth Demme (21:00):
Because-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (21:01):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (21:01):
Yeah, because-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (21:02):
We're there for, maybe that's what it is, we're here for each other-
 
Beth Demme (21:05):
For each other, right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (21:05):
And even if we're not into it, and I always will get into it and be there.
 
Beth Demme (21:12):
Right, right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (21:13):
That's definitely a cool concept of a partnership is-
 
Beth Demme (21:17):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (21:17):
Having that person to help you get motivated.
 
Beth Demme (21:21):
I think that could be true in any kind of a project. That it's helpful to have someone to encourage you, or someone that you feel like you're somewhat accountable to, to really keep you going. Has there been an episode where you learned more about me than you expected?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (21:41):
Ooh. Hmm. I do like the episodes that are you focused. I feel like we-
 
Beth Demme (21:46):
See, I like the ones that are you focused.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (21:48):
Gosh. I feel like we've done more episodes me focused, and I feel bad about that. Sometimes I'm like, okay, we've got to figure out how to like focus Beth in here and I bet you don't feel that way.
 
Beth Demme (22:00):
No.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:01):
I don't know.
 
Beth Demme (22:02):
Well, and I mean, our motivation, our excuse-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:04):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (22:04):
At least for starting this podcast to begin with was because we really want people to read your book.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:08):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (22:09):
We really want people to get Discovering My Scars. I think it makes sense that-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:13):
Yeah. I really like every episode. I think that's also what's so cool is to have both of us are pretty task oriented people and don't like to waste our time, and so we get to learn so much about each other by just having conversations, but also record it and share it with people, so it feels like we're doing something when we're talking, but it feels like we have action behind our talking. We wouldn't have gotten together this often if we weren't doing the podcast.
 
Beth Demme (22:43):
Right, we didn't get together this often before-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:44):
No.
 
Beth Demme (22:44):
We were podcasting.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:45):
Maybe every few months, if that.
 
Beth Demme (22:49):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:49):
I really like the cancer episode that we did early on.
 
Beth Demme (22:53):
Mmm.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:53):
I was surprised about the rage episode that we did-
 
Beth Demme (22:56):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:56):
Because I didn't know that that was such a struggle for you-
 
Beth Demme (22:59):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (22:59):
With me as well. I like the episode about your kids. Honestly, I knew your kids were adopted, but I never knew the full story. I don't know, I always feel like when people have adopted kids, I have a certain perception of why people adopt out of the country-
 
Beth Demme (23:18):
Mmm.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (23:18):
And you completely blew my perception out of the water. I always thought people adopted out of the country they want to save a child.
 
Beth Demme (23:28):
Oh.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (23:28):
That might be a reason. They want to save a child, they want to seem like a great person because they adopted out of the country. That cliché is there's so many kids in our country that need to be adopted, but these people go to these other countries and make it look like-
 
Beth Demme (23:43):
Hmm.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (23:43):
You know, and that was like-
 
Beth Demme (23:45):
Like white saviors.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (23:46):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (23:46):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (23:47):
I didn't really put that specifically on you. I never was conscious of oh, she wanted to go save a kid. It was never like that, but that was kind of my perception, but after talking to you, I realized I had no idea, especially at the time when you adopted there was no option but having an open adoption in this country and you were very open that you just couldn't handle that.
 
Beth Demme (24:08):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (24:08):
That was something that you couldn't handle, and explained the whole process and, oh, my gosh. Even if someone wants to save a kid, if they're willing to go through all of that, okay, good job. You did save a kid. It's a lot. It's strapping money to your body. Oh, my gosh. That was like-
 
Beth Demme (24:24):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (24:25):
Classic.
 
Beth Demme (24:26):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (24:26):
I probably learned the most about both you and Stephen in that episode.
 
Beth Demme (24:29):
In that episode, yeah. Yeah, the thing about our decision to adopt internationally, it was like we made that decision together, but also on the advice of our social worker and some adoption-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (24:39):
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.
 
Beth Demme (24:39):
Professionals, so it wasn't-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (24:41):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (24:41):
It wasn't an offhand decision, but now I get to say to my kids, "I searched the whole world for you.,"
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (24:47):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (24:47):
Which I kind of love.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (24:48):
Yeah. That's the whole the point of the podcast, is to be able to dig into those stories because I feel like we all have preconceived notions about people, about things, adoption, things like that, that we don't even consciously know. I don't think I was even super conscious that I had this perception, and I also thought like, oh, it's something you're not supposed to ask people about, or how do you bring that. That's the whole point of why we want to do this podcast is to be able to have that open dialogue in a safe space.
 
Beth Demme (25:23):
Well, I learned a lot about you in the episode that we called, "Finding Out My Dad's Not Superman" because I didn't know that your dad had a daughter other than you-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (25:35):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (25:36):
Until we did that episode, and I was like huh, I never knew that. I've known your mom longer than I've known you.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (25:42):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (25:42):
I've known you a long time, I've known your mom even longer, and I never knew that, so I thought that was pretty cool that you were willing to share that on the podcast.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (25:50):
Hmm. Well, and I think that goes to show that you can know somebody for forever and you only know what people are willing to share with you, and willing to share with you in the kind of relationship that you're open to and allowing, and things like that. I really try to create a safe space with my friends and allow them to say whatever they want, whatever they want to share with me, be able to share that with me and not feel judgment. I'm not the best at it at all. Actually, in the episode right before this, you heard my story with Megan. I haven't been always good at creating a safe space. Right there.
 
Beth Demme (26:31):
When you were a teenager-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (26:33):
Yes.
 
Beth Demme (26:33):
You were maybe not so good at it.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (26:34):
No, not so good.
 
Beth Demme (26:35):
Who's good at it as a teenager? Come on.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (26:36):
Well, I know, and you have to learn.
 
Beth Demme (26:38):
Yeah, it's a learned behavior.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (26:39):
Exactly.
 
Beth Demme (26:40):
I think that that episode, though, about your dad, I think that we did a good job of holding true to one of our, sort of, core principles, which is that you never try to tell someone else's experience, right? It was really about your experience of finding out this information. When I talk about my kids, I don't talk about their experience as people who are adopted, I talk about my experience as their adoptive mom. I think that we have tried to really hone in on that, that we don't speak about other people's experiences, which has been hard sometimes.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (27:21):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (27:22):
We did an episode about the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, and I have a lot of strong feelings about the people who participated in that, but I try to reflect on my experiences as an American watching the coup, or attempted coup. I don't know, sometimes that's hard.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (27:41):
Yeah, I think that was one of the episodes that I really didn't want to have to do, but we had to. It couldn't be ignored. I think that's one of our new pieces to the puzzle is current events that can't be ignored.
 
Beth Demme (27:53):
Yeah, we've gone from a box to a pentagon. We have five corners now.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (27:57):
Yeah. We're working on the design of it. We'll share it in our show notes.
 
Beth Demme (28:03):
We know you want to know.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:05):
What our box looks like. Well, it's not a box anymore.
 
Beth Demme (28:07):
What shape we're on. Who knows? In five years, we may be on an octagon. There's no telling.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:12):
I was going to say we'll be a stop sign soon enough.
 
Beth Demme (28:13):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:15):
What do you think of our episode where we had mimosas? That was-
 
Beth Demme (28:18):
What did we talk about that episode?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:22):
It was, "Is This the New Normal?," I believe. It was for the New Year.
 
Beth Demme (28:27):
Oh, at the beginning of 2021?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:29):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure-
 
Beth Demme (28:29):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:30):
Or at the end.
 
Beth Demme (28:31):
I was resistant to do that because I've heard something similar done on another podcast and I didn't really enjoy it, but I actually had a lot of fun doing it-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:40):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (28:40):
So, I was glad that you pushed for it, kind of encouraged me like, "No, no, let's just do it and see what happens.", and I was like, "Okay," and then we actually had a lot of fun.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:48):
I thought it was good. Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (28:49):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:51):
We should have done that today, actually.
 
Beth Demme (28:52):
We should have.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:53):
I thought we would [crosstalk 00:28:55]=
 
Beth Demme (28:55):
[crosstalk 00:28:55] should on ourselves.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (28:56):
We wanted to. Yeah. No, I thought about it, but I didn't go get anything.
 
Beth Demme (28:59):
Instead we're drinking Liquid Death.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (29:02):
Liquid Death, yeah. That's our new mimosa, which is, again, it's water. What guest did you learn the most from?
 
Beth Demme (29:11):
Probably Des. Yeah. Desaree Stage, the suicidologist we had on. I learned a lot from her about the importance of language, she talked about, but also how sometimes we don't have language for things, and we just sputter around and can make things worse. One of the things that we talked about in that episode was that rather than saying someone committed suicide, that it's really better to say that they died by suicide. And that came up recently in a clergy group that I'm on Facebook where someone was preparing to do a memorial service for someone who had died by suicide and she was actually asking what's the right terminology here? How do I honor this person with my words, so it was really helpful to me to be like, "well actually, I've talked to somebody who actually knows something about this, and who is an expert in it, and 'died by suicide' is the way to go," so it was a practical thing, but an important thing.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (30:14):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (30:15):
I really learned a lot from Des. What about you, other than Des?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (30:20):
That is really tough, because we've had a lot of good people on. I feel like I've learned something from everybody. Also, I've had some good friends on, and I knew a lot of those stories, so it's hard to say.
 
Beth Demme (30:31):
Right. Right, right, right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (30:32):
You know? I don't know. I don't know if I can say anyone specifically. Oh, maybe Ashley, the-
 
Beth Demme (30:40):
Yeah we just had [crosstalk 00:30:40]
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (30:40):
Black Lives Matter episode. Yeah, and one of the big things was finding out that her brother had been in jail-
 
Beth Demme (30:46):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (30:46):
For 20 years, 30, like forever-
 
Beth Demme (30:50):
A long time.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (30:50):
For a small drug charge. That, I think, was like really eye opening to realize this is somebody I know that their brother was put away for something so small.
 
Beth Demme (31:04):
That was one episode where later I learned more things and I was like, oh, if I could do that conversation again-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:08):
Hmm.
 
Beth Demme (31:08):
I would ask her about it, because I didn't really know the full story of what had happened in Tulsa, but it would be interesting to talk to her again now that I know about what happened in Tulsa.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:21):
She's not from Oklahoma, so she-
 
Beth Demme (31:23):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:23):
She-
 
Beth Demme (31:24):
She might not know.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:25):
No, she, I mean [crosstalk 00:31:26] I know she's an educator [crosstalk 00:31:27].
 
Beth Demme (31:27):
No, I'm sure she knows-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:27):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (31:27):
But I mean, she might not-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:29):
Might not be a super connection to it-
 
Beth Demme (31:31):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:31):
Because she's there for work. The only reason she moved to Oklahoma was for work purposes, and she likes it okay. I don't think she'll be there forever, but she just got a new house and it's been cool to see the whole journey. It's very nice.
 
Beth Demme (31:42):
It is.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:43):
It's very nice.
 
Beth Demme (31:43):
The changes she's made.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:45):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (31:46):
Yeah, she's made some really [crosstalk 00:31:48]-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:48):
She did a whole-
 
Beth Demme (31:49):
[crosstalk 00:31:49] changes
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:49):
Master closet custom build-in. It's so cool. She's done a great job.
 
Beth Demme (31:55):
Yeah, you can see all of that at smashingdiy.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (31:58):
On Instagram.
 
Beth Demme (31:59):
We had my friend, Christi, on, who talked about divorce, her experiences as a person who is divorced, but also as a divorce lawyer. We had Betsy on. We were talking about how important it is to let go of ideas that don't work. I remember feeling like she said some pretty profound things in that episode.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (32:20):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
 
Beth Demme (32:20):
Then, I also really enjoyed our conversation with Samuel-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (32:24):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (32:24):
Who wrote, Can You See My Scars, which we thought was a cool tie-in, but also that was special to us because he reached out to us.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (32:31):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (32:32):
He wanted to be on the podcast-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (32:32):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (32:32):
So that was really fun.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (32:33):
I think him and Desaree are the only people that we didn't know at all.
 
Beth Demme (32:38):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (32:38):
Neither of us knew them.
 
Beth Demme (32:39):
Right. Yeah, because we had Pam and Patty Bates on, but you had met them.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (32:43):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (32:43):
Yeah, lots of good-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (32:44):
We had a lot of good guests.
 
Beth Demme (32:44):
Lots of good connections with guests.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (32:46):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (32:46):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (32:46):
Yeah, and we have a lot more coming up as well. We're going to try to do one guest a month.
 
Beth Demme (32:51):
Actually, if you'd like to be on the podcast, or you know somebody who you think would make a great guest, please reach out to us and let us know.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (32:57):
We have a link in the show notes. There's a form that we've created on our website for you to fill out and let us know. We've put some episodes that we want to do, but we don't have experience with them that we'd like to have people on. I don't remember what they are, but they're all listed there.
 
Beth Demme (33:09):
Yes.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (33:09):
There's a link in the show notes.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (33:11):
Beth, thinking back to day one, is there anything you would do differently if you could go back to that, and what you know now, if you could go back, is there anything you would change?
 
Beth Demme (33:22):
No, because I like where we are, and if we changed something, we might not be where we are.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (33:27):
I'm pretty good at planning, but I'm not really at seeing the future. I know there's a lot of people that are great that-
 
Beth Demme (33:34):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (33:35):
So I had no idea where we would be in a month, two months, two years.
 
Beth Demme (33:41):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (33:41):
I had no idea.
 
Beth Demme (33:42):
Did you think we'd still be doing it two years later?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (33:44):
I had no idea. No, literally, I couldn't have told you. I could tell you where we are today, and that's kind of how I live my life is in today, and not in five years from now. We're talking about when we will be done with the podcast, I have no idea. I know where we are today, I know we're still enjoying it, I know we're still committed to it, and that's all I can tell you. I'm more pleasantly surprised. I feel like we've gotten more comfortable with it.
 
Beth Demme (34:12):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (34:12):
I do feel like there's more to edit out now because we're so comfortable that we talk a lot and then we have to edit. Every episode is over an hour.
 
Beth Demme (34:20):
That's true.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (34:20):
We've got to cut that sucker down.
 
Beth Demme (34:22):
That's true. We did have shorter episodes at the beginning.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (34:25):
Yeah, be we were very strict.
 
Beth Demme (34:26):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (34:26):
Okay, only say what's going to be in the episode, which I enjoyed-
 
Beth Demme (34:29):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (34:29):
Editing, but-
 
Beth Demme (34:30):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (34:31):
I think it's good, thought, during an episode, you don't hear this, but we'll sometimes go off for 20 minutes on something that's completely unrelated, and then we'll get back into it, and I think that's a good thing. It's kind of like stream of consciousness, like our brains go off to another area. We've got to get that out before we can finish.
 
Beth Demme (34:50):
Well, and this is meant to be a conversation.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (34:52):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (34:52):
Even when we have a guest on, we never want it to be an interview. We always want it to be a conversation-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (34:57):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (34:57):
And so there are going to be those bunny trails.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (34:59):
The guest episodes are the hardest ones for me because I want to ask the right questions, I want to contribute the right amount in finding that balance. It still makes me uncomfortable, but I feel like the more we do them, the better and more comfortable we'll get. I also think there's nothing wrong with having a little bit of anxiety and nervous-
 
Beth Demme (35:20):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (35:20):
Energy.
 
Beth Demme (35:21):
Right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (35:21):
I think that shows that we're human and that we're committed to whatever the thing is.
 
Beth Demme (35:26):
That it's important.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (35:26):
Yeah. I don't think that's a bad thing.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (35:33):
One thing that has changed, Beth, from the very beginning is about halfway through, we created a Buy Me A Coffee page. It's kind of like a Patreon page.
 
Beth Demme (35:46):
Right, right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (35:46):
If you've heard of Patreon where we will post some behind the scenes pictures, some videos, and we post the questions for reflection in PDF form, and it's a way for you to support us in a financial way. You can be a monthly subscriber, or you can give a one-time donation, and that goes to supplying us with coffee and tea. Guess who is what?
 
Beth Demme (36:10):
Well, I am not the tea. I like-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (36:13):
I'm the tea.
 
Beth Demme (36:15):
Cold tea, but-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (36:15):
I like hot tea. I like cold tea.
 
Beth Demme (36:16):
Steph is a-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (36:17):
I like all tea.
 
Beth Demme (36:18):
Steph is a cup tea over there, y'all.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (36:20):
Oh yeah, I'm drinking one right now.
 
Beth Demme (36:22):
That's right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (36:23):
This was provided by me, not Buy Me a Coffee, but I created it myself. If you want to support us on Buy Me a Coffee, there is a link down in our description.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (36:36):
Again, as Beth mentioned, this whole podcast started because I wrote a book a couple of years ago called Discovering My Scars. It seems pretty obvious, but it took us weeks to realize we were going to call the podcast, or even a year, call the podcast Discovering Our Scars. Just changing one word.
 
Beth Demme (36:55):
You say you wrote it a couple of years ago, which is true, but didn't it come out in 2021?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (37:00):
Yes. The copyright date is... No, no 2020. The book came out in 2020. In January of 2020 was when it was officially released.
 
Beth Demme (37:10):
You would know.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (37:10):
I would know. You are, literally, forgetting a whole year. Yeah. No, my book came out in January 2020. I went to the premiere event for authors-
 
Beth Demme (37:22):
Oh, that's right. Right, because COVID was happening.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (37:22):
With my publishing company-
 
Beth Demme (37:23):
That's right.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (37:24):
In March of 2020 for all the books that were published in wintertime, I think is what it was considered. Then yeah, so I know.
 
Beth Demme (37:34):
It's tough to remember.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (37:36):
A year did happen that we've all like, oh, that's a forgotten year. Anyways, I was going to say that's how this all started. If you want to read where this all started, that book is available on Amazon. It's available in e-book, audio book, or paperback, and it's available on my website, smkauthor.com.
 
Beth Demme (38:00):
I don't have a new slice of life for you today. I have an actual slice of life. I like bringing you funny new stories-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (38:07):
Okay.
 
Beth Demme (38:08):
And there have been some funny things that have happened, but I have to tell you about what happened to me yesterday.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (38:12):
Okay. This is a you new story?
 
Beth Demme (38:15):
This is the [crosstalk 00:38:16].
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (38:15):
You're breaking the news on this?
 
Beth Demme (38:17):
This is all about me.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (38:18):
Okay.
 
Beth Demme (38:19):
Well, let me just say that in December, Steven and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary and he gave me a really gorgeous pair of diamond earrings, very special. I was doing laundry yesterday and I was moving clothes from the washer to the dryer. I got all of the clothes out of the washer, and then saw something shiny in the washer, and it was one diamond earring.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (38:41):
Oh, was it really clean?
 
Beth Demme (38:42):
It was super clean, but there was only one.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (38:45):
Oh.
 
Beth Demme (38:47):
I thought maybe this came out of my daughter's clothes, and maybe it's not my real diamond earring, so I literally ran from the laundry room to the place where I keep my earrings. I had put the box away because I keep them in the box. That's how special how they are. I opened the box and there were no earrings in the box.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (39:07):
Ooh.
 
Beth Demme (39:09):
I started crying because I was really upset with myself because these earrings are special and I had not treated them well, and I was like it's gone forever because it's been washed-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (39:19):
Well, you had one.
 
Beth Demme (39:19):
In the laundry, so I had one.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (39:20):
Yeah. Did you run back to get the one and put it in the box?
 
Beth Demme (39:24):
I did.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (39:24):
Okay.
 
Beth Demme (39:24):
Well, I took it with me.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (39:25):
Okay.
 
Beth Demme (39:26):
I put it away, so then I went back to the laundry room and there was this part of me that was like, what would Steph do? I got down on the ground and I took the filter out of the washing machine-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (39:35):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (39:36):
Right, and I sopped up all the water as it was coming out and I was like, my earring is going to be in here. It's going to be in here. I got the filter out. The filter was clean-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (39:45):
Yeah, good.
 
Beth Demme (39:45):
By the way, and there was no earring in it.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (39:47):
Mm-mm (negative). That would have been intense for it to be in there.
 
Beth Demme (39:52):
Then I went and got my husband and we took the drain hose off and he blew compressed air through it thinking maybe it was in the hose somehow, and then I did find a YouTube video where a woman had found her ring and it had been caught in this corrugated piece that connects the drain hose to the filter, and so I was like, okay, we have to find that piece. We had to tilt the washer up and he got under and looked and he felt in the corrugated tube and he didn't feel anything. He's like, "You just get down here and check because we just both need to know that it's not in there." I did, and as I was under the washer, and I was all up in this corrugated tube, and I couldn't feel anything, and then I just pivoted my head up a little bit and looked, and I found the earring sitting under the dryer.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (40:43):
oh!
 
Beth Demme (40:43):
I guess when I took the clothes out-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (40:44):
Oh.
 
Beth Demme (40:46):
It had fallen-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (40:47):
Wow.
 
Beth Demme (40:48):
But I never would never have seen it if I hadn't gotten under the washer.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (40:51):
Yeah. Did they have the backs on them?
 
Beth Demme (40:53):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (40:55):
What had happened? Had you put them in a pocket or something?
 
Beth Demme (40:57):
Yeah.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (40:57):
Why?
 
Beth Demme (40:58):
I don't know.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (40:59):
Oh.
 
Beth Demme (40:59):
I don't remember doing it. Most of my clothes, I mean, don't have pockets, which is pretty aggravating, so in all of the laundry that had been in that load, there was only one pair of pants that pockets in it-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (41:10):
Wow.
 
Beth Demme (41:11):
And I don't even remember wearing these earrings with those pants, but obviously I did, and must have put them in the little pocket, and the little pocket zips but I guess I didn't zip it. Anyway, it was a very stressful time. We had just our carpets cleaned and I was like what if instead of putting these away, like I left them on the counter and then one got swept into the dirty clothes, but then one ended up in the carpet, and the carpet cleaning guy sucked it up? I contacted him-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (41:39):
Oh, my gosh.
 
Beth Demme (41:39):
And asked him, and he was like, "I don't think I would think I would have it if it was in there, but I definitely didn't see it." Anyway, it was such a relief to find that little sucker, and now I'm like almost afraid to wear them because I don't trust myself with them-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (41:53):
Oh.
 
Beth Demme (41:53):
Hopefully, I'll be able to move past that, but it was a very stressful moment.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (41:59):
Well, I'm glad that the story has a good ending. You found it.
 
Beth Demme (42:02):
I found it. My earrings are reunited, and they're properly put away, and they're very clean.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (42:07):
Was Steven mad?
 
Beth Demme (42:08):
No. To his credit, he was not mad. He was [crosstalk 00:42:12]-
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (42:11):
Just disappointed?
 
Beth Demme (42:12):
No, he was worried for me about how upset I was, you know?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (42:17):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (42:18):
He was like, "You didn't do this on purpose. Sometimes these things just happen. It'll be okay. We'll figure it out."
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (42:25):
Yeah.
 
Beth Demme (42:25):
He said all the right things.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (42:26):
Yeah. Good. Brownie points for Steven.
 
Beth Demme (42:28):
Right. That's my weird news.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (42:32):
Weird news. All right.
 
Beth Demme (42:33):
My earring was under the dryer.
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (42:38):
At the end of each episode, we [inaudible 00:42:39] questions for reflection. These are questions based on today's show that Beth will read, and leave a little pause between, and you can find a PDF on our Buy Me a Coffee page.
 
Beth Demme (42:47):
Number one: Take the time to reflect on a longterm project, job or hobby. What's still motivating you? What needs to change?
 
Beth Demme (42:56):
Number two: When you listen to a podcast, watch TV, or read a book, what do you want to get out of it?
 
Beth Demme (43:04):
Number three: What's your favorite episode of Discovering Our Scars? Why?
 
Beth Demme (43:09):
And Number four: If you were to start a podcast, what would it be about? Who would do it with you?
 
Stephanie Kostopoulos (43:16):
This has been the Discovering Our Scars podcast. Thank you for joining us.