Mental Health Comedy

Ed Crasnick
Mental Health Comedy

Comedians and entertainers talk about their mental health and practice resilience skills. The world’s funniest people with the biggest feelings. We put the funk in dysfunction since 1865.

  1. 07/15/2022

    Karen Duffy & Francis Gasparini - Wising Up

    Two multi-talented people; Karen and Francis have collaborated on a number of books and we talk about their latest WISE UP https://wiseupstoic.com/wise-up/ It’s about building a life worth living inspired by ancient philosophy, and told in letters to Duff’s teenage son Jack. What does modern day Stoicism look like? How does it relate to parenting, to self talk, helping and connecting with others? Asking for a friend. When you’re in survival mode, it can be a challenge to think about these things. To boldly going beyond survival in today’s world, it’s the new Star Trek. Duff also talks about living with pain from a chronic illness. We talk about parenting and how this kind of philosophy finds it’s way into Duff’s home and Francis with his daughter. Jennifer tells us “When kids learn from a phone, they’re getting Dopamine, when they learn from their parents, they’re getting Serotonin.” Serotonin, makes you feel more focused, emotionally stable, happier and calmer. Dopamine, gives you a sense of pleasure, and when it fades, you want to do something to get it again. A little background: Karen has been a model, MTV VJ, actress, correspondent for the Emmy-winning TV Nation, host of HBO’s “The Buzz,” Community Emergency Response Team member, a creator of the Tell a Joke to the Pope campaign, movie producer, and Buddist hospital chaplain. None of it prepared her fully for motherhood. Raising her son Jack, she drew on reserves of wisdom she found in the strangest of places–in the ancient Greek Stoic philosophers. Duff lives with her husband John Lambros, her son Jack Lambros, and her donkeys Jake and Mason. Francis has been a writer for more that 30 years and has worked with Karen Duffy for most of that time. With Duff, he’s written the New York Times bestseller “Model Patient,” “Backbone,” and now “Wise Up.” He’s also had extensive experience in documentary film and television. He has worked with documentarians including Michael Moore, RJ Cutler, Davis Guggenheim and many others. His films have premiered at Sundance and SXSW. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jennifer, daughter Maria Lucia, and a crazy dog named Petunia. More Karen here: @duffynyc More Francis here: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1007061/ and all the skills and thrills of Jennifer and her amazing org https://connectedparenting.com/ #Lookforthegood

    40 min
  2. 07/07/2022

    Martin Olson - Hell Yes!

    What a pleasure it is to have a conversation with Martin Olson. We’re talking Hell and Comedy, the Comedy of Hell and back, the psychology of twisting wicked humor, childlike silliness and imagination. Martin is one of the most respected comedy minds around, one of the founders of the Boston comedy scene and has done so much on shows like Adventure Time, Phineas & Ferb, Rocko’s Modern Life and collaboration with Bobcat Goldthwaite, Kevin Nealon, Steven Wright and many more. No one has such kindness and wicked imagination. Listen for his description of his books The Encylopedia of Hell volumes 1,2 and 3. Jennifer wasn’t present for this talk, but we recorded our chat about the shadow side of us and how we label emotions as good or bad and how emotions are information that send us signals; that what we call negative emotions are signals that we’re off the road, the brain is telling us something’s wrong and needs to be different. But we look at these emotions as the problem, instead of as the information or the symptom of the problem and we ignore them. How do we listen, feel it and let go? That, hell, comedy and how a little kid watching a character comic named Brother Theodore on The Merv Griffin Show, inspired Martin Olson’s brilliant work. Check out some of Martin’s work here https://www.martin-olson.com/adventure-time and his amazing books here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GJZM562/ref=dp_kinw_strp_2, and check out all of Jennifer’s amazing work, services, media, classes, books and community for skills, resilience, parenting, self parenting here: https://connectedparenting.com/ #LOOKFORTHEGOOD

    48 min
4.9
out of 5
24 Ratings

About

Comedians and entertainers talk about their mental health and practice resilience skills. The world’s funniest people with the biggest feelings. We put the funk in dysfunction since 1865.

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