Show Notes
In this episode of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice, hosts Patricia and Nicole cover more practical communication skills, focusing on how to choose the right environment and timing for difficult conversations. We also share some book recommendations, including an inspiring new release.
Mentioned on the show:
- EEDA Pod Website
- Bookshop Affiliate Storefront (links below are affiliate)
- Become a patron! Patreon.com/eedapod
- Subscribe to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Newsletter
- Our merch shop is open!
- Here’s a 10% discount to get Brick and start your journey of digital health!
- All About Allergies: Everything You Need to Know About Asthma, Food Allergies, Hay Fever, and More by Zachary Rubin MD
- ATK Cherry Streusel Bars Recipe (no login required for the next 30 days)
- Moss’d in Space by Rebecca Thorne (out June 30th)
- Body Electric: The Hidden Health Costs of the Digital Age and New Science to Reclaim Your Well-Being by Manoush Zomorodi
Find the full show notes with all the books mentioned in this episode and official transcript on our website: https://eedapod.com/
Follow the show on Instagram & find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts!
Sound editing by Jen Zink
Transcript
Music: [Intro Music]
Patricia: Hey there, cutie patooties. Welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle.
Nicole: And this is my circus, which I guess means these are my monkeys. I’m Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We’re recording this show on May 2nd, 2026.
Patricia: Reminder that this podcast is independently run and we’re hoping to be supported by listeners downloading, sharing, giving us reviews and ratings are free ways to show us support. If you don’t have the spell slots to write something, we understand. Thank you so much for those five star ratings. Those also help tremendously.
Nicole: And if you have a few bucks to donate, our Patreon memberships start at $3 a month and there are three tiers to choose from and you can gift a subscription. So if there’s someone else in your life who you think would benefit from hanging out with us on Patreon, you can gift it to them.
If you’re looking for other ways to support us, we recommend heading on over to our website, that’s eedapod.com, we’ll link to that in the show notes. And on our webpage you can find links to our bookshop where we have a link to purchase any book we’ve ever mentioned on this show. And from that, we get a little kickback. You can also support us by subscribing to the EEDA Newsletter, which also, if you subscribe to our second tier of Patreon, you can get the newsletter and Patreon access and save a dollar from purchasing them independently.
And lastly. And most importantly, we have a merch shop where you can buy stickers
Patricia: and a window prism right now. But, uh
Nicole: Oh, it is the perfect time of year to get a window prism in the northern hemisphere as it’s starting to get sunnier. And if you would love our faces to shine rainbows along whatever room you put our faces in the window from head on over and get a window prism.
Patricia: I need to add more things to the merch shop. I have so many ideas and so little time.
Nicole: We’ll get there.
Patricia: We’ll get there.
Nicole: But go get yourself a sticker and a window prison.
Patricia: In the meantime, it’ll give me motivation.
So I wanna tell y’all about a product I bought. I did a capitalism, and they are not paying us to advertise for this at all.
Nicole: But if they want to
Patricia: But if they want to
Nicole: we are open to talking
Patricia: Yeah, I’ve been getting an ad on Instagram. It’s from a company called Brick and also they did give, like I do have a referral code since I bought one, so I’m gonna put a referral code in the show notes and you get 10% off.
But it’s like Brick and what do is you, when you set it up you either set it for only allowing certain apps on your phone or for blocking certain apps on your phone, and you could do different modes. So different ones do different things.
Basically, I am getting lost in like Instagram and Blue Sky and Facebook Marketplace way too much. So what I did is I set it up so that when I tap my phone to this little device, it will block those apps, and I have to physically go and tap my phone to the device if I want to unblock those apps to use them.
I have tried everything. I have tried hiding these apps on my phone so that it’s harder to find them. I’ve tried all of the different apps that make me ask a question and this and that. And Forest worked for a long while, but then it stopped working for me. Unfortunately, because of both this show and because of my day job, I can’t completely take these apps off my phone. I do need to use them for work and things.
And the idea is that you put this little device, which is magnetic, you put it somewhere that’s really annoying to get to. So I actually have ours magneted, inside of our bread box. Which isn’t like that annoying to get to, but I do have to stand up and go over there to unbrick, my phone.
And you know what? It is working so far. I’ve had it for about a week as of this recording. I’ve been able to, like, I’ve written six pieces of mail. I was even able to like lay in bed for 20 minutes one day and just zone out, which I never have time to do because I’m also like, if I’m not on my phone, I don’t necessarily wanna fill every waking moment with productivity. So I’m like, what can I do to rest? What can I do that is fun? And it’s just been surprisingly helpful.
Nicole: I sit across from you on the couch and will just randomly hear you exclaim, oh, go back to real life.
Patricia: Um, yeah, so the thing is, is that if my phone has the brick activated and I try to go to Instagram, which I apparently mindlessly do all the time, it’s just a habit. Like my finger is just like, pick up my phone, go to Instagram. But what happens is a thing comes up and it says, Instagram is blocked, and there’s a button that says back to living, which is incredibly withering thing to read when I just am mindlessly gonna scroll social media. It’s like back to living.
I’m like, ugh, ugh. And so it’s, it’s been good. It’s been good. It also, you know, that button, definitely it shames me back into like putting my phone down. So…
Nicole: Yeah, I don’t know. When you told me you were getting a brick, I thought we were getting ready for pride. So…
No, turns out it’s a thing that keeps you off social media and whatever else you don’t want to do, and makes it sound like you’re gonna get bread a lot more often.
Patricia: I know you hear the
Nicole: I hear the bread box open like, ooh, ooh, we getting some sourdough?
Patricia: No.
Nicole: No.
Patricia: It’s just me trying to unlock my phone or lock my phone.
Another thing I may have mentioned on this show that I think we both read a book that came out earlier this year called All About Allergies: Everything You Need to Know About Asthma, Food Allergies, Hay Fever, and More by Zachary Rubin MD who does a lot of like medical and allergy content online on you know, TikTok and Instagram.
And so I have a lot of environmental allergies. I’m allergic to everything, everything except for mold. Like it’s easier for the allergist to say what I’m not allergic to, as opposed to listing all of the things I am allergic to. Dust, pollen, trees, grasses, cats, dogs, like all the, all the thing.
And I’ve gone to multiple allergists for years. I’ve tried every medication. I have two inhalers. I have had multiple allergists just tell me to stay inside,
Nicole: like with the windows closed, air filters on.
Patricia: Like just
Nicole: don’t go outside.
Patricia: Be the girl in the bubble, I guess.
Nicole: That’s not sustainable.
Patricia: No, that’s terrible. And so it wasn’t until we read this book by Zachary Rubin that I considered allergy shots.
And then once I mentioned it, all kinds of people were messaging me and they’re like, oh, those changed my life. Like allergy shots have changed my life, so I’ve been going to the doctor a number of times, getting ready to get all the testing and stuff like that, and I’m gonna start getting allergy shots.
Nicole: I think we are both very excited for this.
Patricia: Yes, very excited, but also I’m allergic to so many things. It sounds like each visit I’m getting four shots, maybe.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: So the way it works is for the first six to eight months, I’m gonna go every week, like once a week, and I’ll probably get four shots at a time, six to eight months.
And then you taper down to once a month, and that’s for three to five years. So it is an investment. I do need to call our insurance to see like, am I paying 30 bucks each time? Am I like, I need to see like what the cost is.
Nicole: Yeah, still very excited to not see you sneeze and have asthma attacks so much.
Patricia: Yeah, I was like sneezing when driving to, like, I’m sneezing when driving and like that’s really scary.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah.
Patricia: Especially if it’s like a big sneeze.
Nicole: This spring has been a particularly rough one.
Patricia: Yeah.
And finally, if you’re new here, then you may not know it is fruit picking season where we are and we go cherry picking every year.
And recently I baked with the last of the cherries we had in the freezer from last year.
Nicole: It was so good.
Patricia: And I made some cherry streusel bars that from America’s Test Kitchen. I could put the link in the show notes, but it’s only, it’s behind a paywall. I could make it accessible for 30 days. So if you want it, grab it.
But I made that, I made a dark chocolate cherry crisp.
Nicole: That was also really good.
Patricia: Yeah.
And then in a few weeks we’re going cherry picking.
Nicole: Which is also really fun because the ripest of ripe cherries fresh off the tree is delicious. Like, I’m sure we’ve talked about this in past years, but like even cherries at the farmer’s market is like, oh, these are disappointing in comparison.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: There’s nothing like fresh fruit right off the tree.
Patricia: Definitely one of the privileges we have working here.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Or working here. Well,
Nicole: working and living in California
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: near agricultural regions.
Patricia: Yeah. Where, where we’re allowed to pick our own stuff too.
Nicole: Yes.
Music: [Music]
Patricia: Let’s get into it. We’re gonna talk about more communication skills. These are more like communication considerations.
Nicole: Okay, so before we get into it, just as a, a reminder, most people don’t get any kind of formal education in communication skills. Most of us learn from the people who raised us and from other adults in our lives, like teachers or coaches.
We also learn from other siblings or cousins, but none of this guarantees that what we learn growing up are actually good communication skills. That being said, there’s nothing preventing us from learning better communication skills in adulthood, like right now.
Patricia: Yeah. We learn communication skills. Can’t guarantee they’re good ones.
Nicole: Right?
Patricia: So what we’re talking about today, like some of our past communication content is based on some of the things I used to teach when I taught sex educators. When I worked at the switchboard, so many questions boiled down to communication. Like, how do I talk to my child, parents, spouse, partner, et cetera, about X, Y, Z?
Or how do I get my partner to do X, Y, Z? Like everything boiled down to communication.
Nicole: It’s so funny. People ask us, like how is our relationship so good? And I swear like the number one thing is communication.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Above everything else.
Patricia: Well, communication and as we’ll mention down the line, like also approaching things in good faith.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: So the things we’re gonna talk about might be super obvious for some of you, and if they are cool, but for others this might be new information. Also just wanna put it out up front, due to various types of neurodivergence, your mileage may vary with some of these.
Patricia: Yeah. Again, take what’s best, leave the rest.
Nicole: Oh yeah.
Patricia: So let’s start with, you have something to share with someone or something you wanna talk about, discuss. Somehow there’s a conversation to be had. One of the things we want you to consider is the environment. Wherever you are, is this the right place to have this conversation?
Nicole: Are you at a restaurant or other public place where people may overhear?
Are you at a library where you’re gonna get shushed?
Patricia: Imagine having hard conversations at the library.
We need to talk.
Nicole: I don’t know if that’s an appropriate thing to do right now.
Patricia: Oh, like are you, are you at a wedding? Are you,
Nicole: oh gosh.
Patricia: And some people do think, like have talks or whatever in public places on purpose, like public marriage proposals where they know the other person isn’t on board. Incredibly manipulative.
Nicole: Yeah, like, oh, let’s have this and if you say no or anything, it’s gonna be hella awkward for everyone and they’re all gonna see.
Patricia: Yeah. And then you look like the bad guy, right?
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Like, no, don’t do that.
Are you in a car where someone doesn’t have the freedom to walk away and may feel trapped? This is a favorite tactic of abusers everywhere.
Patricia: Yeah. I definitely have some trauma-llama-ding-dong from getting yelled at in the car growing up.
I think it’s important to like try not to have hard conversations in the car where you can’t even look at each other.
Nicole: Yeah, not looking at each other may be the reason they’re having the conversation in the car. Either way, there’s no way both people can be fully present for a serious conversation in a car.
And again, back to the can’t get up and walk away. What if you get like dysregulated in some way and need to step back, you gonna do lean the chair back?
Patricia: Stick your head out the window.
Nicole: Try to climb into the backseat. This is not good.
Patricia: Yeah, no, it’s so awkward. And then you’re just in the car both fuming or sad or, I don’t know. It’s just…
Nicole: Having, having big feelings and like what you turn on the radio and it’s like, it’s that happy song.
Patricia: No, it’s a So you had a bad day.
Nicole: I was also thinking tonight’s gonna be a good night.
Like
Patricia: I was also thinking like some people, like they have a car, like they go for a drive, then they park somewhere and then they’re like gonna have the talk. And it’s like even if you’re parked and a person wants to get out of the car and get some space, you still have to get back into the car to leave.
Nicole: Yeah, you gonna call an Uber up to make out lookout or whatever?
Patricia: Who’s having tough conversations at make out lookout?
Nicole: Again, be considerate of the places you choose to have a tough conversation.
Patricia: Yeah, there’s so many bad places to have conversations.
Another one. Are you on vacation? Again, someplace where someone can feel trapped?
Nicole: On the cruise ship?
Patricia: No, on the cruise ship.
Or just like on vacation, far away.
Nicole: Camping. What are you gonna do angrily slam the flap of the tent?
Patricia: I’m gonna zip the flap really aggressively.
Nicole: Are you at an event like a music festival?
Patricia: Ah, people pick the most inopportune places.
Let’s talk about timing. Is it the right time to start this conversation?
Is it after 1:00 AM and you’re both sleepy or inebriated, or are you in bed about to go to sleep? There’s so many times you’re in bed gonna turn the light off and one person turns the other and they’re like, can we talk? Like what? No.
Nicole: Is it during a holiday?
Patricia: Hmm.
Nicole: I was just thinking like 4th of July. The fireworks are really lovely tonight. Yeah. I think we need to have a conversation. Like what?
Patricia: Wow, look at the fireworks. I think we should open up our relationship.
Nicole: Isn’t it fun watching the kids open presents on Christmas? I think I need a break.
Patricia: Sorry.
Nicole: You may be, we’re laughing. You may be laughing, but sometimes this happens because it’s the only time certain family members see each other.
So there are some tough conversations that rarely go well. Sometimes they might. But like Thanksgiving dinner, we should talk about dad’s will.
Patricia: Or you know, I think,
Nicole: can you pass the Turkey?
Patricia: Pass the Turkey. Now I’m just thinking about Linda Belcher.
I think also conversations around not saying that Thanksgiving’s not the place to have conversations around politics and stuff like that.
Just like recognize what you’re doing.
Nicole: Yeah
Patricia: I can, like, I’m gonna, sometimes I’m like, yeah, I’m gonna ruin this holiday.
Nicole: But it’s not typically you ruining the holiday.
Patricia: That’s true.
Nicole: It’s the person that won’t stop trying to have the political conversation
Patricia: or, or the person who says something crappy. Right.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: And you call them out, so, yeah.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: But I think it’s, again, depending on the conversation you’re looking to have, thinking about that timing.
Oh, another one is in the morning, like is it in the morning when someone’s getting ready to leave for work or school? They’re grabbing their keys. They’re about to walk out the door.
Nicole: I’m brushing my teeth.
Patricia: Yeah, yeah. This is not, brushing your teeth, this is not a time to start a conversation. Or related, is it at work and five minutes before the work day is over and people are trying to get ready to go home, don’t walk over to your coworker’s desk and be like, hey, can we talk about that email you sent?
Like what?
Nicole: No.
Patricia: No. It is four minutes to leaving time.
Nicole: Yeah, no, don’t do that.
A long timing, other thing to consider, is it when emotions are already high about something else?
Patricia: Yeah, and I feel like a lot of people’s emotions are high a lot right now just because of the state of things. And at the same time thinking about is someone in a fresh wave of grief, or are they really angry about something. You know, did someone just have a bad review or get fired from their job or something like that. And then you wanna talk about like how they washed the dishes.
Nicole: Yeah. Did they get some unfortunate medical news and you wanna talk about why they’re not vacuuming enough?
Patricia: Right? Related to emotions is the third bucket we urge you to think about. Is the person you plan on communicating with in the right space for this conversation? I’ve said it numerous times, and I’ll say it again. Just because it’s a teaching moment for you doesn’t mean it’s a learning moment for them.
Nicole: That’s such a good, axiom? I don’t know. That’s a good thing to just keep in mind, like, do, does the person even wanna have this conversation. We’re not saying that you should always avoid talking to someone about something if they don’t wanna hear it. But it’s something to notice before you go into it.
Patricia: Another thing, I feel like this is one of the first things, have you both eaten? Is either of you incredibly hungry? Hangry? Cranky? There are many conversations you shouldn’t have on an empty stomach.
Nicole: Yeah. Also, are they incredibly stressed or have other things going on that might make a tough conversation even harder?
Are you incredibly stressed and have other things going on? Are you in the right space for this conversation or are you just riled up and wanna have a talk?
Patricia: Yeah.
While these are all things you may want to consider, we recognize often there’s no perfect time to have a hard conversation, and sometimes people put conversations off waiting for the perfect circumstances to have this conversation.
There’s never gonna be a perfect time. We just want you to notice these things unless you block out a monthly hard conversation time on the calendar or something. But that can sound incredibly anxiety inducing to some people.
Nicole: Yeah, please don’t do that.
Patricia: I’m just gonna randomly put on your calendar, we need to talk.
Nicole: That’s not gonna go well.
Patricia: I’m just kidding.
Nicole: Because you’re gonna be like, it’s time for the monthly hard conversation and I will probably already be crying. Let’s not do that.
Like we said earlier, with these things, your mileage may vary. Neurodivergence, communication skills gaps, tendencies to not approach things in good faith. There are so many variables that feed into how these conversations go. Some of these things are under your control, some of them are not, and a lot of things we just talked about are things that you have some semblance of control over. Particularly the when, the where, the how are you doing. The how are they doing you have less control over, but can maybe adjust your timing on.
Music: [Transition Music]
Nicole: Patricia, what do you want people to take away from this? What’s the bottom line?
Patricia: The bottom line is read the room. But I think people throw that phrase around so much, like read the room and no one actually defines for people, like what does that mean? And so like a bunch of the things we just mentioned are some of the steps that go into reading the room.
Nicole, what’s your takeaway?
Nicole: I think it’s just as important to note if you are in a good place to have a conversation as it is to know if the other person is too. Pay attention to where you’re at.
Patricia: So I’m going to take a couple extra minutes because I wanna know what you’re reading or if you’ve read anything good lately.
Nicole: Hmm. You know, I’ll, I’ll talk about this book, I just finished last night, Moss’d In Space by Rebecca Thorne. I like Rebecca Thorn’s books. She wrote the Tomes and Tea series, which is really like just fun, cozy fantasy.
Patricia: Yeah. That one starts with Can’t Spell Treason and Without Tea.
Nicole: Yes. I was trying to remember what that was. That’s a four book series. It was just really nice. Not anxiety producing, but cozy fantasy. Moss’d In Space is more cozy sci-fi, and I am not taking a leap in saying this ’cause it is totally in the blurb on the book, it also has some like murder bot vibes, but
Patricia: mmm, mm-hmm
Nicole: not so murdery.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: More cozy. It has some, some similar vibes to that.
Patricia: Do you remember the publish date on that? Because I don’t think it’s out yet.
Nicole: Ooh, uh, I will have to look it up and
Patricia: Okay
Nicole: put it in the show notes. ’cause
Patricia: Yeah
Nicole: otherwise you’ll hear me click clacking around.
Patricia: No problem.
Nicole: Okay.
Patricia: We will, uh, but we will link, we’ll link it in our bookshop and we’ll put a bookshop link in the show notes so that you could pre-order it or ask your library to order it or whatever.
Nicole: Oh, June 30th!
Patricia: June 30th. Ooh, that’s a ways out there.
Nicole: Sorry, everyone. Pre-order it!
Patricia: Pre-orders help authors so much.
Nicole: Yeah, go to your local bookstore, or if you’re getting ’em in Libro pre-order it.
Patricia: Or our bookshop link too.
Nicole: Go to our bookshop link, you can pre-order it there, or you can often go in Libby and kind of save it for when it comes out, and it’ll notify you when it’s released in Libby.
What about you, Patricia? What do you wanna tell us about that you’ve been reading?
Patricia: I’m gonna try not to take up the next five hours talking about this book. Every once in a while there is a nonfiction that comes along and rewires my brain, at least the way I think about certain things. You know, we’ve talked a lot on this show about How to Winter by Kari Leibowitz, PhD and that one has changed the way that we do a lot of things. Especially cold dreary days or cold dreary months.
And a book, I think it comes out on May 5th, so by the time you’re hearing this it should be out already. It’s called Body Electric: The Hidden Health Costs of the Digital Age and New Science to Reclaim Your Well-Being by Manoush Zomorodi. So Manoush Zomorodi wrote one of my other favorite books, which is called Bored and Brilliant.
And Body Electric actually was a six part podcast series that she’s done with NPR. Manoush Zomorodi is a journalist, she’s a tech journalist who like, her beat is basically like tech and the mind and the body and how they all interplay and, and affect each other.
So the Body Electric, she was basing this off of research done by a group at Columbia University about, you know, a lot of us have day jobs where we sit all day, very sedentary lifestyles. And the research was around like what is the bare minimum amount of movement one could do to combat the awful effects of this sedentary lifestyle? And so they come up with a number, which is actually five minutes every half hour. And it’s not like strenuous exercise or movement even, because it can be walking two miles per hour.
I recognize some people are wheelchair users and she recognizes that too. So it could also be like chair dancing, moving your arms, like some kind of movement. The movement could also be folding laundry, putting away dishes, dancing, like a number of things. It doesn’t have to be like capital E exercise. It’s just movement.
And so they actually put it out to the NPR audience and they got about 20,000 people signing up for this study. And obviously it’s all self-reported, but people’s blood sugar numbers were going down, people’s moods were improving, sleep was improving, and so I listened to the podcast series and then I recently read the book that just came out and it has completely changed my days. My work days especially.
I’m getting up, I’m moving. Um, if I’m in the middle of a meeting and it’s a meeting, I could turn my camera off, I’m turning off my camera and marching in place. I am having more focus at work. I’m getting more done at work, but also my mood is better. And sometimes I’m like, ugh, I hate when it works.
But this is one of those ones that I’m just gonna be really annoying about and just tell everyone to read Body Electric by Manoush Zomorodi. And I will also link that in the show notes because it’s It’s pretty amazing.
Nicole: Yeah, it’s on my TBR.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: I’ll be listening to that soon.
Okay. Patricia, what has been filling your cup lately?
Patricia: Well, you know what, it’s related to the book. It’s the frequent movement breaks. I actually like between that and bricking my phone apps, I’m actually feeling a lot better and it is filling my cup.
So Nicole, what’s been filling your cup?
Nicole: I’ve been listening to music a little more. Sometimes in the car, sometimes on the trains.
Listening music more, singing along a little more.
Patricia: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: Yeah, it’s been, it’s been filling a little spot for me. I wouldn’t say it’s like, you know, giving me buckets for my cup, but it’s slowly filling it up again.
Patricia: Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com. We’ll leave a link to that in our show notes.
Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E-E-D-A-P-O-D dot com. There, you can also find a link to our Patreon, our bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing, Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram and Bluesky at EEDAPOD, and email us at eedapod at gmail dot com.
Patricia: If we are nothing, if not consistent.
Nicole: We would also love it if you would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts that allow for ratings. It really helps other people find us. Also, just tell other people about the show.
Patricia: Please!
Nicole: Share with them how much you love us.
Patricia: Please!
We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support is going to help us keep the show going, especially without ads. We really don’t want to be shilling vitamins and protein powder. You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod.
In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself, drink some water and read a book. We’ll be talking to you soon.
Nicole: At this point, I’m pretty sure I applied the take what’s best and leave the rest to my dating life when I locked you down in marriage. Sorry, y’all. I took what’s best. Y’all get the rest.
Patricia: Wow.