Two Peas on a Pod

What does it take to stay best friends for twenty years, across three coasts, and a loss neither of you saw coming?Meet Today's Peas: Rory O'Malley is a Tony-nominated Broadway actor known for The Book of Mormon and Hamilton, and for co-founding the marriage equality nonprofit Broadway Impact. Jenny Kanelos co-founded Broadway Impact alongside Rory and the late Gavin Creel, mobilizing thousands of artists around marriage equality, before becoming a nurse at UCLA.Rory and Jenny met twenty years ago working on Happy Days: The Musical at the Falcon Theatre, and knew almost instantly they were meant to be friends. They talk with Dr. Miriam about the vulnerable year that cemented their bond (Rory getting sober and moving cross-country, Jenny losing the grandmother who raised her), the codependency that came with leaning on each other so hard early on, and the boundaries it took to become two whole people who still choose each other. They open up about building Broadway Impact with Gavin Creel during the fight for marriage equality, about losing Gavin to cancer and what his friendship taught them both, and about how Jenny's pivot from theater to nursing changed the way Rory sees his career, his marriage and his son. It's a conversation about twenty years of showing up, on opposite coasts and through the hardest days, for the person who still gets under your skin like nobody else can.Pull up a chair. This one is for the friend who becomes family.-- Your friendship questions deserve answers. Reach out at [email protected], on social media or, pick up the phone and call or text with your friendship story or questions at 615-PODLINE (That's 615-763-5463). Stay in touch with us: @thetwopeasonapod @miriamkirmayer www.miriamkirmayer.com -- Two Peas on a Pod is hosted by Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Executive produced by Zoe Travis, Matthew Hoffman, Katya Kaminsky, and Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Produced and edited by Podcast Nation (Producers: Madison Brit and Alesha Pannier, Audio Engineer: Miles Carter). Original music by Sarah Walk. Created by Zoe Travis and Matthew Hoffman. Two Peas on a Pod is recorded in Montreal and Los Angeles. Cover photo by Katya Kaminsky. Today's show contains information that is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This program is not a substitute for psychological or medical advice. Please seek out your own support and research as needed.Take care, friends. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if connection didn't have to be something you reinvent from scratch every single time?Gretchen Rubin has made a career out of asking one big question: what makes us happy? She's the bestselling author of The Happiness Project, Better Than Before, The Four Tendencies, Life in Five Senses, and most recently, Secrets of Adulthood, with millions of copies sold in over 30 languages. She hosts the podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin, co-hosts the advice podcast Since You Asked, and co-founded the award-winning Happier app.In today's Office Ours, Dr. Miriam and Gretchen dig into the science of habits and why joining or starting a group might be the most important connection habit you can build. Gretchen explains why relationships sit right alongside sleep and exercise as the foundation of a happy life, and why friendship was never meant to feel easy or natural, just worth it. They talk about how a group takes the endless planning out of seeing people, why repetition and shared interests (the more niche, the better) help acquaintances become real friends, and how to break out of the cycle of avoidance and into the cycle of approach. Plus, Gretchen shares the idea of the "exit ramp," which is deciding ahead of time how you'll know something isn't for you, so you can give a new group a real try without feeling stuck in it forever. This one is for anyone ready to stop treating connection like a one-off and start treating it like a habit.Pull up a chair, Office Ours are in session.--Follow your new friend: @gretchenrubinYour friendship questions deserve answers. Reach out at [email protected], on social media or, pick up the phone and call or text with your friendship story or questions at 615-PODLINE (That's 615-763-5463). Stay in touch with us: @thetwopeasonapod @miriamkirmayer www.miriamkirmayer.com -- Two Peas on a Pod is hosted by Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Executive produced by Zoe Travis, Matthew Hoffman, Katya Kaminsky, and Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Produced and edited by Podcast Nation (Producers: Madison Brit and Alesha Pannier, Audio Engineer: Miles Carter). Original music by Sarah Walk. Created by Zoe Travis and Matthew Hoffman. Two Peas on a Pod is recorded in Montreal and Los Angeles. Cover photo by Katya Kaminsky. Today's show contains information that is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This program is not a substitute for psychological or medical advice. Please seek out your own support and research as needed.Take care, friends. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if that embarrassing thing you did as a teenager turned out to be exactly what brought your oldest friendships back to life?Meet Today's Peas: Jessica, Ayden, Janet, and Mary have been friends since they were kids, and even forming their own girl band as teenagers called X-Cetra. Ayden, now a professional actor, directed the group's reunion documentary, Summer 2000: The X-Cetra Story, which just won Best Documentary Feature at SXSW. Jessica, Janet, and Mary reunite alongside her on screen and on this episode, all four picking back up a story, and a friendship, they started as kids.In the late '90s, these four friends spent their afternoons making homemade movies and dance numbers before deciding to write and record their own music together. But right before high school, they buried the tapes and the band, and the friendship slowly faded. In 2020, one of them Googled the old band on a whim and found their teenage recordings being reviewed on an underground music forum. A record deal followed, along with the surreal opportunity to reunite the band in their 30s and make a documentary about the whole reunion. Dr. Miriam sits down with all four to talk about what it actually took to revive their friendship after twenty years. They discuss the discomfort of getting honest about the guilt and drifting they never talked about as kids, the way nostalgia can be either a hiding place or a foundation to build from, and how returning to something purely creative and playful, with zero stakes attached, reconnected them to themselves as much as to each other.Pull up a chair. This one is for anyone who needs the reminder that it's never too late to get the band back together. --Follow your new friends: @x_cetraYour friendship questions deserve answers. Reach out at [email protected], on social media or, pick up the phone and call or text with your friendship story or questions at 615-PODLINE (That's 615-763-5463). Stay in touch with us: @thetwopeasonapod @miriamkirmayer www.miriamkirmayer.com -- Two Peas on a Pod is hosted by Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Executive produced by Zoe Travis, Matthew Hoffman, Katya Kaminsky, and Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Produced and edited by Podcast Nation (Producers: Madison Brit and Alesha Pannier, Audio Engineer: Miles Carter). Original music by Sarah Walk. Created by Zoe Travis and Matthew Hoffman. Two Peas on a Pod is recorded in Montreal and Los Angeles. Cover photo by Katya Kaminsky. Today's show contains information that is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This program is not a substitute for psychological or medical advice. Please seek out your own support and research as needed.Take care, friends. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the friendship you needed most as a kid never showed up, so you built it for millions of others instead?Jaymes Black is the CEO of The Trevor Project, the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ young people. Jaymes spent childhood and adolescence without a friend group who truly understood, including being outed in high school and ultimately deciding to leave. Today, Jaymes leads the organization built to make sure other LGBTQ+ young people don't have to live that same story.Dr. Miriam and Jaymes talk about what happens when you build the friendship you needed instead of waiting for it to show up: a crisis line that saves lives every day, and TrevorSpace, where hundreds of thousands of young people are finding their first queer friends online. They get into the research that changes how you think about showing up for someone, like the fact that one affirming adult can lower a young person's risk of a suicide attempt by 40%. It's the kind of conversation that ends with Jaymes's own words to any young person who feels alone: you're not in the wrong story, you're just not yet in the right room.This one is for the one affirming adult who has no idea how much they matter.Pull up a chair, Office Ours are in session.--Follow your new friend: @thejaymesblackLearn more about the Trevor Project: @trevorprojectYour friendship questions deserve answers. Reach out at [email protected], on social media or, pick up the phone and call or text with your friendship story or questions at 615-PODLINE (That's 615-763-5463). Stay in touch with us: @thetwopeasonapod @miriamkirmayer www.miriamkirmayer.com -- Two Peas on a Pod is hosted by Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Executive produced by Zoe Travis, Matthew Hoffman, Katya Kaminsky, and Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Produced and edited by Podcast Nation (Producers: Madison Brit and Alesha Pannier, Audio Engineer: Miles Carter). Original music by Sarah Walk. Created by Zoe Travis and Matthew Hoffman. Two Peas on a Pod is recorded in Montreal and Los Angeles. Cover photo by Katya Kaminsky. Today's show contains information that is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This program is not a substitute for psychological or medical advice. Please seek out your own support and research as needed.Take care, friends. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What does real friendship look like beyond the highlight reel?Before they were two of the most recognizable faces in early YouTube pop culture coverage, Joslyn was a host at ClevverTV and Lily was her unpaid intern, commuting hours from Thousand Oaks and working restaurant shifts on the side just to be in the room. What started as an intern-and-boss dynamic dissolved almost immediately into something else entirely, and today Joslyn and Lily join Dr. Miriam to unpack how a working relationship became one of the steadiest friendships either of them has.They talk about being opposite-energy friends (dog vs. cat energy) who somehow share every value that matters. They get honest about an industry that loves to pit women against each other, and why neither of them has ever once felt like they were competing with the other. Joslyn shares the heartfelt moment that changed their friendship, they talk candidly about the years Lily spent working through chronic pain and stepping back from public life, and what it took for the friendship to hold steady through it, even after the company that brought them together shut down overnight.Dr. Miriam ties it back to her own framework for connection and reminds everyone that real friendship is supposed to be a little inconvenient. But just ask Joslyn and Lily, and they'll tell you the drive is never the hard part.Pull up a chair. This one is for the friend who's already clapping before you finish the sentence.--Follow your new friends: @joslyndavis & @lily_marstonYour friendship questions deserve answers. Reach out at [email protected], on social media or, pick up the phone and call or text with your friendship story or questions at 615-PODLINE (That's 615-763-5463). Stay in touch with us: @thetwopeasonapod @miriamkirmayer www.miriamkirmayer.com -- Two Peas on a Pod is hosted by Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Executive produced by Zoe Travis, Matthew Hoffman, Katya Kaminsky, and Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Produced and edited by Podcast Nation (Producers: Madison Brit and Alesha Pannier, Audio Engineer: Miles Carter). Original music by Sarah Walk. Created by Zoe Travis and Matthew Hoffman. Two Peas on a Pod is recorded in Montreal and Los Angeles. Cover photo by Katya Kaminsky. Today's show contains information that is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This program is not a substitute for psychological or medical advice. Please seek out your own support and research as needed.Take care, friends. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.