Embracing Fiction: A Journey Through TV, Music, and Scent with The English Sisters

Have you ever felt a twinge of guilt while indulging in a TV series binge, wondering if perhaps your time could be better spent? Welcome to our world, where we embrace the escape of fiction and debate its role in our real lives. From the royal intrigues of Bridgerton to the spacefaring voyages in Star Trek: Enterprise, we consider the slow burn of character development and the fast pace of our modern existence. Guilty pleasures? Maybe. But we argue that these narrative journeys are more than mere escapism—they're a deep dive into the human condition, offering lessons and empathy that transcend the screen.

Turn up the volume and inhale deeply as we explore the sensory powerhouses of music and scent in our latest podcast episode. A simple melody or the whiff of a rose can catapult us back in time or alter our mood in an instant—such is the magic we unpack this episode. As The English Sisters, we extend an invitation to share your current media loves, whether they be the shows that captivate your evenings or the songs that soundtrack your life. With texts pouring in, we wrap up with love and smiles, our hearts full with the shared joy of the stories and tunes that touch us all.

Hypnotherapy coaching sessions can help if you are struggling with anxiety.  Please email us at englishsisters@gmail.com if you would like help with an issue, mentioning this episode of our podcast for a special discounted rate. We work with clients worldwide over Zoom or Skype. Buy our Book Stress Free in Three Minutes available on Amazon and Kindle, to help support our work. Thank you!

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Love and smiles from The English Sisters.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Have you got a favourite TV programme or book that you're reading? Yes, I do, and I do too, and that's what we're going to be chatting about in this week's episode of Get Real With Us, english Sisters, and there's some exciting news, because you can now text the show. So you can text Get Real With English Sisters. Just go on your app, the app wherever you're listening, so you can text Get Real With the English Sisters. Just go on your app, the app, wherever you're listening, and underneath in the description, at the top, you'll find text the show and you can text us and we will receive the text and answer you and read it. Yeah, great, we'll be happy, we will be, indeed. So that's very exciting. It's like a direct connection with us. So, yeah, you'll be Right.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Yeah, we're going to be talking about, um, not just our favorite television shows and the ones in the past that we used to watch, or whatever, but the surprising effects, that actually dwelling into this imaginary world what it can actually have and teach us in our real worlds which is something that you wouldn't really expect, would you? Well, you think a lot of us think. Well, I do sometimes, but not really because I'm quite selfish in that respect. But what do you mean? Like, if I'm binging on a tv show, sometimes I think I should be doing something else, but not really because I don't really do that. What's that got to do with being selfish, though? I don't understand, because it's like I think I should be like working or doing something different and it's like just me time. Well, who cares? I mean, obviously, binging on it, like I'm not. Oh right, you should be doing something else. I should be going to bed, because it's like in normally, I go to bed at midnight and it's past midnight and I'm still watching another. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that that's a bit of a problem. Yeah, that can be an issue with me as well, but what I mean? Yes, obviously we have to have some control on that, because you know there are those shows that they have those cliffhangers, and then you just want them. Well, not all of them, some of them like, yeah, they don't have them, but a lot of them do. Now I've just been watching a bridgeton again because it's a new season, right? Yeah, that was cute.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Yeah, I wanted to re-watch it and just, and, and I got hooked onto it again, but it was a beautiful world, though, because, yes, yeah, yes, yes, that's quite relaxing, isn't it dream? I mean, it does make me dream, does it Like the English gardens and the teas and everything? I mean it's very inspiring. All the sets and everything, all the cakes, yes, yeah, and the dresses and the lifestyle they had. And do you know what you can learn from some of these TV shows that are are like historic? It's that the slower passing of time. Because you'll see the setting where the ladies and the gentlemen are in these rooms and things are like, they're just that the things are slower. Even in those kind of tv shows they look as if they're slower compared to our normal lives. Exactly, they're not on their own, no, their phones or computer, no, they're just like looking after the world.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Rather a nice day, isn't it today? Maybe I'll take a pleasant walk and then you join me for a walk, will you join me for a ride? And then they might be going outside and you can just see images of them looking at the grass and the wind blowing in their hair, and it's kind of like a reminiscence of a past life that you know, you, we all used to have. Well, no, no, not that, no, I mean a walk. A walk is something that we could. How many people would could benefit from walls when they had to work in the workhouses? Oh yeah, obviously they weren't. It was a privilege that could go for a pretty little walk. Yes, people, yes, but I imagine even in the country, you suppose no, because in the countryside you're working hard. One day they had, yeah, to get the potatoes out of the earth. The Sunday they had off, yeah, but Promenade, promenade. There you go. Yeah, so, but anyway, but anyway, yeah, no matter whatever show it was.

Speaker 1: 4:19

I mean, I'm re-watching that Star Trek show, the Enterprise. I know you have re-watching that Star Trek show, the Enterprise. You have discussed that. I have, have I, because it's where they go and they go and investigate all the different planets, yes, and with all the different, like creatures of these planets and the extra terrestrial inhabitants. But you know what you know, you think, am I wasting my time watching this? No, I'm not.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Well, I might be, but the whole point of this podcast is that when we do watch or read books, even the written word is even more powerful. Yeah, because you will go into this imaginary world and you can learn from it more than what you would sort of think you learn from it. You're just being entertained, don't you don't think you're learning, but you are learning. You're learning how to empathize with other people, with, uh, the poor bridgeton girl or whatever, and all her happenings and her love life, etc. And you go into that world. Thus you're empathizing, you're caring about somebody, and your experience of feelings won't you for the person. So they're real feelings, even though it's not you actually there, it's. It's through empathy, through empathizing with the personalities and the tv characters or the, the book personas, so what they're called protagonists? Well, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, the book, uh, the people in the book, you know, the protagonist. Is that what they're called? Yeah, the main character, the characters, yeah, characters, are the protagonists. That is already quite a posh word.

Speaker 1: 6:08

Yes, we're going back in time, aren't we here? We should have started off with that TV show. We can use a cup of tea now in China. Oh, yes, I never use those China cups, do you? The little tiny ones? When we go to England, sometimes I do prefer a mug. Well, I think drinking tea out of a little China cup is kind of special though, isn't it? We've got them at home, but we never use them. Do you know why? Because they're too small. If they have the china mugs, we don't make them in the teapot anymore, do we? No, I think that's a problem Because if we made a big pot of tea With loose tea, it has had three with loose tea. Yes, oh right, yeah, no, because actually the loose tea variety is really quite nice and it does taste lovely.

Speaker 1: 6:54

No, you could read the tea leaves at the end afterwards. They do read them, people, really in England they do it, do they? Yeah, I suppose it's here. They like tell your fortune from them, don't they? I don't know, do they? Yeah, well, I've never had it done, but really I thought that was from coffee leaves, but no, you're right, it's the tea leaves. Yeah, the coffee. Like in italy it could be, maybe because they didn't drink much tea before. Now they drink more, but not really here in italy time now they at five o'clock.

Speaker 1: 7:35

Some people do have tea. Now, very rare, come on. Yeah, a lot of the times if you say would you like a cup of tea, they say oh, no, thank you, I'm not sick. That's a very common. I've actually seen a lot of people in rome have tea. Really, yeah, maybe green tea and all these more modern teas popped up. They do. They don't have milk tea? No, definitely not milk tea.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Anyway, the mind is amazing. Because the mind is amazing scenarios for you. You read. You're actually having to create pictures in your mind, and this is what we studied in neuro-linguistic programming that we always create pictures in our mind all the time, and sometimes we create scary pictures, and then we can shrink them down, can't we? We can imagine them changing into different colours or shrinking down to make them less scary, so, like, if you have a problem, you can actually shrink it down. Well, that's, yeah, that. That is one technique that is very helpful, actually. Yeah, the amazing thing is that our brain is like, um, I mean, it can imagine whole scenarios.

Speaker 1: 8:43

And if I read that book, my scenario in my head would be totally different to what you're imagining. Yes, that's the beauty of it, the book, the beauty of actually reading a book is well, that's why a lot of people, when they see the film version, they say, oh, that's not as good, because in when you were reading it, you imagined it in a certain way, or you imagine that person to look like that. And then when you see it, and and it's isn't it powerful. How you can imagine it just by the written word. Well, obviously they use a lot of description, but in the end, it's up to us to make the pictures. We actually make pictures in our mind yeah, we, the bedroom or wherever they are exactly, and those pictures are references that we already have.

Speaker 1: 9:28

So if they say to somebody there was a frilly bedspread, you'll go back to think about a frilly bedspread that you might have seen somewhere in your life and that frilly bedspread is going to be different to the one that somebody else is envisioning, even though you might say the frilly bedspread had blue flowers on it, but my blue flowers are going to be different to your blue flowers. Anyway, the point is, I've got roses. What have you got? Tulips? There you go. Yeah, I saw blue tulips just when I said that, and when you said it to me, I saw blue roses. Well, there you go, yeah, so it's very powerful and that is one simple thing that we have said.

Speaker 1: 10:10

But also, when you're going through like when, the, when, the, um, the character is experiencing feelings, heartbreak, uh, whatever they're going through, you can experience them and in a way, it's, it's cathartic, yes, healing, it's healing. It's healing for you because you can see wow, I mean especially if they're like inspiring stories and the person you know gets overcomes this and becomes even more powerful. Well, usually they do. It's usually the hero's journey, isn't it when they have? Yeah, you're right, yeah, the hero's journey. Yeah, the protagonist has a problem. Yes, he's over the problem, and then in the end they see the light. Usually, yeah, problem, yes, over the problem, and then in the end they see the light. Usually, yeah, they don't. No, no, no, but a lot of the times it's like that, whatever it is, yeah, most of the films, yeah, yeah, and there's more to be.

Speaker 1: 11:05

You know that I, I sometimes I used to think more, oh, I'm wasting my time here watching these things, but now I find that I'm getting quite inspired by some of them. Well, I get really inspired. Yeah, like, not just even from comedies, for example. They're great, yeah, well, first of all, they make you laugh, so they change your states and they make you feel good and they're a lot deeper than what you think. They are a lot of the time like the big bang theory. Now I've just re-watched that again for about your favorite. Yeah, about the third time, and every time I watch it there's always some nuance, there's something subtle.

Speaker 1: 11:40

I learn about the various. What about the young sheldon? Wasn't that good? Oh, that was brilliant. I love that as well. Yeah, that was really good. And his twin sister, and how the whole family had to like evolve around the genius of the child and how many families are like that. When there is one person in that family, that is particular. And how the sister gets kind of put to one side you know, it's kind of the whole dynamics is very, very interesting, and that is classified as a comedy too. So true, so true, yeah, so real. In the end, it's like we can all see aspects of that in our real life and learn from it too. So, yeah, definitely now, at the moment, what have I just finished watching? You just finished watching ten lessons. Oh, yeah, you, you told me to watch that. That was really good. So what? How were you inspired by that?

Speaker 1: 12:40

It's just about their lives, isn't it? I mean all of their lives, how they can make it, how, how it's about footballers and this wonderful american coach, the grief that she has at the beginning because her husband leaves, and how, yeah, the manager revenge, but then in the end she realizes it's not important. Yeah, she, who is she? She's like the um, the manager of yeah, she's one of the main characters. She's one of the main characters. Yeah, no, this beautiful lady, and she has. She owns the club, doesn't she? This football club, because it was given to her by her ex-husband, who betrayed her and then she cheated on her. He cheated on her, oh, yeah, and so then she wanted revenge and she wanted to make it fail, didn't she? Yeah, she said, right, the whole club's gonna fail and she gets in this American coach, a soccer coach, who doesn't know anything about English football, yeah, yeah, and it's interesting how much he cares, though, and how he's so sweet to her. His attitude, his attitude. He brings her biscuits every morning.

Speaker 1: 13:48

The whole thing is really bizarre and unusual. It's kind of quaint and cute, isn't it? It's a bit like I mean, it's a bit stereotyped like what England is supposed to be like, but there's a lot of there's a lot of truth in it, though. There's a lot of truth. There is a lot of truth, yeah, and there's a lot of truth in his side of the perspective as well. He's also suffering a lot because he's left his wife behind, he's divorced, and he's suffering from panic attacks. So there's a lot to. And he's got therapies identified with the therapist. Yes, yes, yes, so there's a lot. There's a lot you can identify with and learn from as well. And it's so well done as well. The acting is amazing, yes, it is, and you learn about the footballers lives and and I think the same their challenges music as well.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Music can inspire you so much. Your favorite singers. Music is almost like instant. In three minutes, that's the average length of any song. You put a three minute song on and you will change your internal mental state it's and your external one, because if it's, if it's something you want to, you might even cry, if you feel emotional, or you might actually want to move and start dancing, and it's instant. Music is like whoa. Music goes fast into the brain. It's almost, I would say.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Music and a sense of smell are almost. You know, probably, yeah, scientists will probably know exactly the time that they go in, but music is one of those things that you know. It gives you goosebumps and it's fast, isn't it? Yeah, and it's like that smell that you smell that you haven't smelled for a long time, a perfume of something the roses, the roses, or cookie smell, or fresh home-baked bread or something whatever. So we'd love to hear from you. So do text us and tell us what your favourite show that you are watching at the moment is, or your favourite song, and tell us if you agree that there's something to be learned from these, from these fiction and this imaginary world that we go into, and maybe we shouldn't all feel so guilty about spending time on it, including me. So give us a text, send us a text, and we look forward to reading them. Lots of love and smiles from the english sisters. Bye.