Welcome back to “Another Way to Think About It,” where we ditch the idea of right answers and have real conversations that dig into life’s messy and beautiful questions. We’re your hosts, Lynn and Cynthia—two longtime friends who've had our fair share of life’s curveballs, and who believe a little humor and a whole lot of heart can go a long way. In this episode, we’re diving deep into what it takes to keep our hearts open (especially when life makes us want to shut down), the importance of staying present, and the imperfect art of supporting each other through all of it.

This week, we lean right into the challenges of the holiday season, reflecting on what hardens our hearts and how we come back to ourselves when things get tough. From the realities of caregiving and family stress to pulling out our tried-and-true tools for support, you’ll hear us get personal—sometimes serious, sometimes silly, and always real—about navigating fear, anger, and overwhelm. Lynn Kindler shares raw memories of dissociation and self-medicating in tough times, as well as the power of relationship support and learning to ask for help. Cynthia Zeito gets honest about the distractions that steal our presence, the necessity of compassion, and learning to apologize with action, not just words. Together, we figure out (in real time!) how grace, laughter, and clean Pilates butts help us keep showing up as our truest selves.

What We Discussed

1. The struggles of keeping our hearts open when overwhelmed or afraid
2. Why presence is so easily lost—and ways to recognize when you’re checked out
3. Personal stories about dealing with anxiety, panic, and old coping mechanisms
4. Navigating relationship conflict, intimacy issues, and the work of real communication
5. The difference between reaching out for support and seeking someone to “fix” us
6. The role of friendship, support systems, and vulnerability (even if it’s uncomfortable!)
7. Using recovery tools and therapy to ground ourselves in the present
8. The importance of apologizing genuinely, and the many ways women say “I’m sorry”
9. Lighthearted lessons from Pilates, clean butts, and going off on silly tangents
10. Encouragement to do your inner work during the “lulls”—before crisis hits

If this episode gave you another way to think about your own heart (or at least made you laugh or feel a little lighter), we’d love for you to hit subscribe and join us for more honest, imperfect, and heartfelt conversations. The holiday season can be tough, but you don’t have to navigate it alone—come hang out with us and let’s keep finding another way to think about it, together. See you next time!

Welcome to another way to think about it where real conversations replace right answers. We're Lynn and Cynthia, longtime friends, exploring life's messy questions with humor and heart.

So, you know, we're gonna spend the next 30 minutes, something like that with each other. It's the, the holiday season. Last week we had a session. That session was how to keep our together.

You know, when. Yeah, when.

Oh, little, little sky. Does that make one and a half. That means more in sign language. More, more. Anyway, so sweet. So we're gonna on that vein. We're gonna keep continuing. Right now we're going to be talking about heart's opening, softening your heart up when it's hardened because it.

I'm telling you, we all just want to fight and get in there and duke it out. And we're going to work on that because I've gone through my little share just in the last three weeks taking care of a one and a half year old. Whoa, baby.

What causes hardening of the heart for you?

It is not allowing present or when you're taken out of your presence, so to speak. Always, always, always.

What takes. Usually takes people out of their presence. And how do you know that's happening?

It's everything out here. We're like, not only are we going, oh, oh, oh, look at the oh, oh. Good or bad or whatever, it takes us out. It's a distraction. And I've noticed that about myself and Jim and our relationship and how we're kind.

Yeah.

A little bit. And back the off. All right. I love you and I'm committed to, you know, like back and forth and to give each other space when we're really up against it. Our, our stuff is coming out. One person has to take the high.

Road as an engage. Oh, that's a good one. And it engages fear. That's what's happening.

That is exactly all of that stuff, like overwhelmed. The family said this at the dinner table. You know, know any of that kind of stuff. It is. I think we react regarding fear. We might get angry. But what's underneath anger anyway besides pain and fear? And you know, we're so what if. What if you just.

What about just a moment? Just a moment to breathe? So we've been doing a lot of that. We've been doing a lot of that and. Yeah, and tears too, so.

Oh, yeah, sure.

What about you? What do you do like when it's in real time happening?

Well, I've had to do a lot, I mean a lot of work on myself. The way it feels in Me is I'm halfway out of my body. I feel like I learned how to disassociate for myself because it was so painful way back when I was 10 years old and my parents were going through divorce and dad was going to go to Vietnam. And I remember sitting on the Curb at about 5 o' clock looking towards her house and I had to keep saying, I'm here, but I'm not here. I'm here, but I'm not here. I'm here, but I, I wasn't. I was disassociated. And I could feel it as a little kid.

And I was like, what? What? And then I got really good at it as a teenager. The first step for me was to be aware of not feeling. I mean, this sounds so obvious, but not feeling good in my body, you know, like I just. Fight or flight, man. I just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge. Just however I need to do it, get me out of here. Which is, I believe the reason that I imbibed in all kinds of stuff was self medicating so I wouldn't have to feel it.

Yeah.

And then, you know, working through therapy and doing 12 step programs, I've had to learn, like with David. You know, I, I've told you that the first three years of our marriage were utter hell because, you know, we're very strong personalities and I had huge intimacy issues. I didn't know what the to do with intimacy. I didn't realize it until I got married.

Yeah.

You know, so when we would fight, David would get quiet, which. You want to make somebody like me crazy, get in a fight with me and shut up and, and pout. And I told that to him once and he would, he would drop me off at the house and drive away, et cetera. And. Well, what we realized when we talked about it was that we were. David used to say, I don't believe in divorce, but I do believe in murder. But we realized that we wanted, you know, he was being funny. Oh my gosh, in a weird way it was romantic.

But we learned that, you know, if we wanted to have any kind of a good relationship for the long haul, we had to not keep, you know, doing these little bitty night razor blade things with our words because you cannot take back the spoken word.

I know.

So for a while there it looked like when I would get angry at him, I would, I would just start and not let any sound out but toning. And I mean, I get that a couple times, Cynthia, we started cracking up a lot.

Talk about present. Like something that's happened recently. What you do not.

Well, when David had hard stuff going on and I was scared to death, and we've been together 35 years and he's living my life.

I love that.

I mean, I was just scared to death. So I called my very good people like yourself or texted y'. All. Oh. Oh, that's something I want to say though. Getting a hold of you, Kat, My baby brother and my sister in law in Sandy Prom, I could feel Yalls prayers because all of a sudden I felt completely held.

And you doing that, I tell Jim. And Jim's like holding David as well, too.

Yeah. So it helped us a lot, you know, just being able to do that. Because I. I feel like in the relationship once, you know, when something like this is going on, it would be very selfish of me if I just got all into being anxious and afraid while David's feeling very weak and doesn't know what's going on. It's like it's up to me to step up to the plate. Right. And get the support I need. But when I'm with him, it's not that I'm being fake, but it's like I'm putting on my big girl panties, you know, And I'm just, you know, I care for him.

Yeah.

You know, because my God, when I was going through my health stuff, he. I mean, can you imagine? There was one time I was. I was on the toilet having really bad diarrhea. Sorry, y'. All.

Yeah.

And then vomiting at the same time. And then I passed out. And David's like right there, he's like, you know, and. And he was scared to death, but he. He kept a solid. Because if he. And I'm sure parents probably go through this. Cynthia.

I don't know, because I've never been a parent, but if he had been anything less than giving me strength, that would have freaked me out.

Yeah.

Yeah. So. But today what I do, I really asked for the God of my understanding misunderstanding to give me the words. And what was happening in the. In the. What is the word I want Transition from being a total.

You like that word, didn't you?

Because I had to ask God. And I remember one time, I don't even know what was setting me off, but I was getting. I just was building up this thing in my head when I pulled up to the house and I was getting so mad at David for something, and I felt like God came into me and goes, you know what, Lynn? That's not true. He really really loves you. And what if he was coming at this from this loving way instead of this other way that you're seeing? And I went in and I was, I responded with him as if he loved me and as if. And it was like, true. So that's really being really, really aware of your thoughts and what you're doing with your thoughts and how you're letting that be with your life. You know, I was, I've been, by the way, I've been listening to podcasts, Cynthia, because I feel like we're onto something good.

And I think that I really want us to let people get to know us and have fun with us.

That's right.

I was listening to Amy Poehler. I forget the name of her podcast, but I love her. And she was interviewing Andy Sandberg and oh my God, I love the flow of that. They were so real and hilarious and everything else. Am I calling you this? Because it doesn't even matter. Just, I mean, it's just about, it's just about, you know, being real and, and being aware of your. Oh, if this, if this. Okay, the way I've always looked at things, if this is all there is and that's a miracle.

If this isn't all there is, then that's a miracle at a miracle. Right? So if this, you know, all I know right now I have moments of woo, woo and magic or whatever that, you know, happens in my life, but all I really know is what I'm seeing in front of myself right now. So why wouldn't I want to have as good a life as I can be part of? Right?

God damn it. That's the bingo word, right? Yes. No, I'm serious. But, but it, it's also all the chatter around us. Not necessarily. We own that, you know. You know, like you're talking about, you're coming back to you. It's hard to do it when it's real intense coming at you, but it's our job to do it.

Otherwise we're going to be at our loved ones throats with little, those little cuts and those little jabs and it's like, huh, I love what you're saying. That's really, really far.

Well, it's, it's, it's, you know, that's the way I want to live my life. But it's not easy. Know, sometimes I want to just go this sober. I would be high 247 because.

No, you wouldn't.

Well, I mean, sometimes it's just like, it's just hard.

Yeah, yeah, it's Hard.

But, you know, it takes reminding, and I have to keep remembering to pick up my tools. Like, you know, when I didn't know what was going on with David, I didn't know what was happening. Okay, call my support systems. Let them in. Let them know that I was, you know, feeling squirrely and, you know, Cat picked up the phone and called me when I was driving to the hospital once. They would have gotten in this room. Yeah. You could hear it in my voice.

She could hear the fear. You know what I'm like when I'm absolutely.

And you're scared under there big time, honey.

And I didn't want. I did. I. I don't want people to see that part of me, by the way. But the other thing is, there's a difference, too. With Cynthia. Maybe you can help me expand this a lot. There's a difference when you meet.

Reach out to people, not as an energy vampire for them to save your whole life, because you've learned tricks and tips on how to regulate yourself, how to take care of yourself. So when I reach out to people, it's like a partnership and support, right? Yeah.

You don't need fixing. You need loving.

That's it. That's it. And there have been times in my past, I think of some of the people that when I was having my really big rolling panic attacks when I was in my 20s and my anxiety. I just say blessings to some of the older women that I work with at clinpath labs or 10 pipes. 10 years older than me. Cherry Jones, God bless her, man, she would stay on the phone with me for a long time while I was just positing this thing and positing that thing. And, you know, I don't know that I would have the patience to do that for somebody not without any tools. You know, it's different for me when I'm sponsoring people and there's lots of tools I can make sure that they're doing and then I'm right there with them if they're helping themselves in their recovery.

But just helping somebody and they have no tools or no, you know, guidance point towards where they're going. That's insane. Shit. That's hard. And a lot of us are like that.

No, I disagree. I think there's people that are naturally like that. Not many. I mean, you were very patient with me. What the was that about? You loved me. You were patient with me a lot of times.

Oh, honey. But you've always been working on yourself.

Yeah, that. That is true. I mean, not necessarily when when we first met and all that.

Yeah.

I was working on my education and getting work in the world and what is it to be like in the world? And let's go get stoned now. Okay, let's go out in the world. Oh, look at that man. Oh, look at that. Boy. You know, you know, it was like that for us. So we were navigating the best, but we always had each other. And I don't know, even when we had our little riffs and stuff for a few months or whatever, we always came back to the love.

Yeah.

I don't know, honey. I don't know how that works with people.

Well, if we've lived other lifetimes, we came into this lifetime completely really forgetting all this stuff. I can't imagine what my soul was thinking on some of the stuff. But, you know, I, I what I have to be careful of being an older person when you can look back historically. And also in the tool set programs we do the four step, which is when you look personal moral inventory, you look at your stuff. But sometimes if I'm in a not a good place, which means clue to Lynn. If you're not in a good place and you're reviewing what you've done in the past and you're shifting, shouting on myself, don't. That's probably not a good time to do it. But I'll sit there and I'll look, you know, like, oh, my God.

And then I made this stupid choice, and then I made that stupid choice, and then I did this stupid choice. And then it's like. And it's like a whole bunch of work. I get to the place where I'm like, how am I still even alive?

You know, that brings the point, how are you still alive? How we just judge ourselves so radically too. No, I mean, we get hardened. Speaking about, how do you keep your heart open and, you know, not go hard, like having a hardened heart. It's like we're our own criminals, you know, we're the one putting ourselves in jail, you know, so. Yeah, so. So compassion and grace, as we talked about, towards yourself and towards others. What that, what else? I can't figure everything out, but I know how to go within more criminals.

That needs to be a song line.

How dare he does that?

Yes, well, just like I was saying last time, having grace for ourselves and for each other. But responsibility is to recognize when we're off the beam. You know, I always think of Olga Corbett on the beam and doing all this stuff she did. I was just flabbergasted by her when I was younger, watching her. But, you know, you can feel it when you're kind of. You're not there. You're not connected. Yeah.

And that's really when you need. Like you were saying, you need to stop, take a deep breath, step back.

And it's hard to do when you know certain. There are certain things where it's extremely hard to do because you.

You have.

Because of the emergency situation. You have to be in action, action, action. And it's like action after action after action. 24 7. For just a short period of time. That is really, really hard.

So who.

It's really hard. One person has to take the high road. That thing.

Ghostbusters are go, go.

Yeah. So it's Ghostbuster. Yeah.

Oh, no, you're right. That's really interesting, Cynthia. Because it's hard. That's why it's good. Okay. In the middle of the lulls, you know, it's not crazy. That's when you start putting things in place, like cleaning out your psychological shit, getting the support you need, making sure you're staying hydrated, making sure you're getting enough sleep, making sure you're eating right. Start working on your support system, building people around you.

Yeah. By the way, plug for 12 set programs. Besides everything. Someone. I mean, I've met some of the most incredible people in my life that are there, there for me, you know? But I've had to work on those relationships, y'. All. It wasn't just like, it flowed into place. I had to get out of myself.

I was scared to call people up. I was embarrassed to call people up. I was shy to call people up. So, you know, and then to be vulnerable with people and let them see, you know, your smelly pit side of.

Your life and your smelly bud.

Yeah.

Ew.

So I never want to have a smelly butt when I'm doing Pilates. What? What? What do you mean?

Do they get that close to your butt?

Well, sometimes, like, you can be laying there with your butt up in the air. You know, your legs are up and your butt's just like, hi, here's Lynn's butt. No, they're changing the springs and the. And the teacher will come right up there. She's changing the bend. There's your butt, and it better be clean. I mean, I. I would be more.

I know. It's a thing women have. It's such a weirdest thing. They're cooters.

No. I remember my dad teaching me. That was something, you know, he was like, you don't want to have that smell.

Well, I mean, you know, our. Our men love us, so they. But stanky. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Represent. Represent womanhood with clean stuff. Well, we degraded ourselves. We went right from spiritual high, and here we are talking about.

Hey, do no harm, honey.

Do no harm. That's what I'm talking about. Keep yourself clean and you won't. That's right.

That's right.

Anyway, you know, doing exercises. You know, keep, Get. Do all the stuff you can when you're in a good place and life is good because it's going to come barreling back again. Okay. You think you can handle that? What about this?

Yeah. It's even not just in a good place where you have to do it when you're not well.

That's the ultimate goal.

Yeah. Because that.

You have to really. You know, because my. I think both of us are the same way. Where we want to be able to do it. That's how we show up for life.

Yeah. And. Yeah. For the people we love and for our own selves and stuff. And I think one thing that we do miss a shitload is we don't apologize fast enough. Like, oh, God, I'm so sorry. I. I'm sorry.

I said that. I'm. I'm sorry. But sorry with action behind it. Like, let's not revisit that.

Like, my therapist, a lot of females, Cynthia, will say I'm sorry for just being alive. I mean, they will say I'm sorry all the time. So there's different ways that you can take responsibility for your part. Oh, I see that. That I see from your facial expression that I just hurt you. I didn't want to hurt you.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, there's different ways you can talk about it. And by the way, right when I was first getting Alan on, I had no idea that there wasn't like three feelings like love, fear, hatred. And we had this little One Day at a Time book that we were encouraged to read every day. And at the back there was an index with all the topics. And that's how when I was really feeling intense feelings and I would pull out my One day at a time and I would go to the back and I would guess at what it might be. I would read on some of those things and be like, yes, this is it, or no, it's not, so that I could understand what I was feeling. You know, like, frustration, disappointment, all that stuff. Lots of gray.

Well, I think that we've had a really, really, really good session today.

Really, really, really, really, really, really good session.

Yes. And I want to just tell you all or thank you all for being with us today. And. And if this episode gave you another way to think about heart hit, subscribe and join us. And we'll keep continuing next during the month of December because it is sometimes challenging for people. We love you.