DIRECTOR'S CUT: Therapist Reacts to KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE
Added 2023-10-16 15:00:05 +0000 UTCHow do you rekindle your passion?
Licensed therapist Jonathan Decker and filmmaker Alan Seawright return to the Ghibliverse to react to Kiki’s Delivery Service. Or as Jonathan calls it, How Kiki Got Her Broom Back! They talk about Kiki losing her ability and passion to fly and how it relates to making work out of our hobbies and interests. Jonathan talks about the psychology of losing your passion and getting over self-doubt. Alan can relate to Kiki and opens up about his struggle to pursue filmmaking professionally. As usual, they are a little confused by the plot and universe, but they appreciate Studio Ghibli's special brand of whimsy.
Comments
How do you get out of a slump? I have some experience with this. At the age of 21, now I'm 31, I decided to start playing piano and discovered that I was really good at it. I loved loved learning pieces that made me feel like I've climbed a mountain top and I never felt like that ever before. That was for the first couple of years and then I decided I will try to make this a profession for myself, to be a piano teacher. I didn't get very far. I started studying for the exams and felt immense pressure to perform. And to be a teacher you really need to be credentialed and to know what you're doing when teaching so it's quite necessary. And after that I felt like giving up, and I did. I didn't know what to do with myself for years. I played piano here and there but I never enjoyed playing again even just for myself, until recently. Going through different career choices and trying out different jobs I've realized there isn't much else I really should be doing, or want to do other than be a piano teacher. I am good at it and I know I am. My problem was a severe lack of trust in myself and an inability to deal with uncertainty in general. Thats why I've always gone with the safe options in life because of fear and avoiding taking risk or responsibility. My decision to learn the piano at 21 was my first serious attempt to stand up for myself to give myself the gift of enjoying whats worth living for in life. It also helped me to deal with my trauma and emotional problems by dedicating myself so many hours to learning the piano and learning to love music, and I would like to share that with others who may also be hurting inside by teaching them to play music in the same way that when I was younger I sought out teachers to learn from to find a way to deal with my pain. It honestly makes me really emotional and cry thinking about that, that I could get to share with others how I've dealt with my pain and that I might be able to help others in the same way. I got my groove back with my love for piano because I feel much more myself when I'm sitting down playing and learning, and that I recognize how much I ignored that part of myself for the past 8 years or so. Now I have more faith in myself that I am able to get through the piano examinations, that I am more capable of dealing with what I was afraid of confronting than I once imagined. It's absolutely miserable to live life through fear and avoidance, and I would rather work towards something thats meaningful even if its scary rather than to fear to experience what I might be able to accomplish and to share with others.
Gandalf The Grey
2024-05-01 02:39:44 +0000 UTCYes, more Hayao Miyazaki!!!!
Heather George
2024-01-25 03:55:11 +0000 UTCI'm a visual arts student. And I'm very much working through doing this exact thing for myself right now. It can be quite terrifying to fall out of love with something thats such a core part of your identity. it makes you question everything about yourself. It's been tough not self victimizing and breaking out of the depressive cycles that this kind of situation brings. What I'm trying to do right now is understand the root of the insecurities and take small steps towards doing that. for instance, I'm taking an Improv class and a vocal techniques class to work on my social skills so i can collaborate with others better and improve self confidence. I'm planning out smaller art projects just for myself that can renew my passion and make art fun again. It's a tricky thing to do and requires lots of reflection and effort but I do feel happier even having just started the process of keeping myself accountable to... myself essentially.
Kalp Bhavsar
2023-10-21 19:55:23 +0000 UTCAmazing as always, but to answer Alan's question about the firemen trampolines they did use to have them, briefly, bc people trapped in fires were far more scared to jump than to stay causing them to pass away more than being saved, they even hired humans flies (professional jumpers) to try and show it was safe to no avail. Eventually ladders became the method to save people and it worked far better
Dylan Mancy
2023-10-20 19:48:54 +0000 UTCAs a baker what I do to bring my passion back I'll sit down and watch a film that involves cooking for example my favorite cooking film "Julie and Julia" I love watching it because it inspires me to keep going no matter how rough or tired I get and I go and just cook for friends and make anything I dish up for them and just seeing them smile and be happy eating what I make also brings me back to the reason I am a pastry chef
Rena nice
2023-10-19 15:03:28 +0000 UTCThe only thing I have an issue with this movie is the fact that Disney took out a lot of Gigi's lines in this movie because in the Japanese version and in the original Fox English version Gigi had a lot of lines in this movie and Disney took out a lot of it which didn't make sense to me and it also kind of took out the comedy of him with it but besides that I absolutely love Kiki's delivery service
Rena nice
2023-10-19 14:01:45 +0000 UTCFrom someone who once was an anxious young person just starting out, thank you for being a “work dad” and/or “work brother” to the kids. It does help. It helps so much it tends to turn us young-uns into the next generation of work fam (the detox variety). 🖤
jeneskew
2023-10-18 01:41:54 +0000 UTCI adore Kiki's Delivery Service. We watched it with our kids (who are both teens) recently, and even as older kids, they both loved its wholesomeness. I actually am going through a slump right now with my writing, because of the industry and having received so many rejections this year and zero story sales after receiving a lot of sales last year. I've decided to just not write, unless I find something to write about that brings me joy (like fanfiction or poetry), and I've been doing a lot of sewing for Halloween and trying my hand at water color painting and reading and watching movies. Filling up my creative well will, hopefully, help me find my groove again.
Amanda B Cook
2023-10-18 01:08:20 +0000 UTCI’m so glad! You definitely aren’t alone, and it’s nice to know that my hard learned lessons can be used by someone else.
Jimmy Danielle
2023-10-18 00:54:37 +0000 UTC@JimmyDanielle I am SO thankful for this comment, the new-to-me term “feed the bite” (I knew the act, because yay pets, but not the term), and the phrase “you can’t strong arm your way through needing a break.” I’m a technical-creative at the front of middle age. I have more on my plate than I’ve ever had in my life. And I’m cooked. Stick a fork in me, I’m DONE. Burnout is no joke. I’ve tried so many fixes to keep going… the only thing that puts a beam through the dark is joy. Learning to kindle that joy is hard AF, but as our friend Bukowski says “nobody can save you but yourself and you're worth saving / it's a war not easily won but if anything is worth winning then this is it.” Literature, art, craft, and rock-n-roll saved me so many times! I don’t know who the hell I thought I was to set that “romance” with my life aside when what I needed most was the vitality they provide. Thank you so much for giving this such a great context.
jeneskew
2023-10-18 00:51:33 +0000 UTCI felt like I was in a slump for the last few years until late last year. I had the first major injury that I had ever dealt with, and before that I was completely indestructible. Once that healed I got a great job, but had kind of lost my mojo because I was still traumatized from a year of pain and surgery and rehab. Just when I started to feel better, covid hit and I got laid off. Got a new gig and was a nervous wreck by that time, and I kept trying to force things. Eventually I realized that all I can do is the best I can, and that I can't control things that are out of my hands. Now I'm almost kind of zen about things, and just started a new job with young co-workers that are just out of college. They have the same anxiety I did when I was starting out, but now I have the opportunity to be the older guy that can calm them down and reassure them. I just tell them to let it go, just do your best and the rest will fall into place. If something happens then we'll figure it out together, don't press, just let things flow.
Ryan3000
2023-10-18 00:11:51 +0000 UTCArtistic slumps are the *hardest* and it makes it hard to identify as an artist at all. I've done inktober for years, and this year I just don't have it in me to prioritize making art daily. And it makes me wonder - am I still an artist? Am I past this phase? I've barely drawn at all the last two years. How long is too long? The older I get the more I wonder if a previous passion or hobby was just a phase, and whether or not I should let it go. Artistry takes work. I wrote a novel and halfway through the second one I lost steam and now it's just too much effort to pick it back up, it feels like work. Plus picking something up that's two years old means you're not where you were when you left off, and maybe don't want to stay in that space but the story is stuck there now. Tricksy shit, precious.
Nova Villmark
2023-10-17 19:45:46 +0000 UTCWhen I'm having a hard time. Feeling like I'm in a slump. I tend to slow down for a bit. Take walks. Enjoy a story, written or visual, maybe several. Immerse myself in something else for a time. And then sometimes I come back and find joy in whatever it was again, and sometimes I don't. And usually that's alright. Hard to do with work. My slumps at work tend to be much more environment driven than internal, so there's usually something I can fix to make it go away.
Danielle Dupuis
2023-10-17 03:42:02 +0000 UTCThis is crazy, I actually watched this movie on repeat to help me get out of my slump! When COVID hit it destroyed my dissertation and I had to move home but couldn’t return to my previous job, and I was completely lost. I alternating between watching this and Howl’s Moving Castle on repeat and working myself to death. The more burnt out I got the worse everything became until I took the movie’s advice and just stopped. Once I relaxed a bit, I ended up connecting with some professional contacts and everything slowly started to piece itself back together. I think people really underplay the damage burn out does long term if it goes unchecked, and when you have a helping job it can compound with guilt surrounding taking time for yourself. Creative and thinking heavy jobs seem to come with more ability-focused failure struggles. I’ve taken a “feed the bite” mentality in recent years, because you can’t strong arm your way through needing a break. Romanticizing and falling in love with your life is a great place to start when you’re rebuilding, and Ghibli films are great for that.
Jimmy Danielle
2023-10-17 00:36:02 +0000 UTCI think I’m still working on getting myself out of slumps. Usually I just try to find something to unwind myself. Usually it’s music, getting outside, anything where my mind allows me to wander free and not have to worry about stuff. Even a long deserved vacation. Also, ever since watching this movie for the first time in my late twenties, I had to ask why is it that in the world of Harry Potter, you can’t expose your magic to muggles? But when it comes to the world of Kiki, you get a job for exposing your magic to muggles?! Whatever the case is, I’d rather send my kids to a Japanese Wizarding School over a British one!
Sean Goettsche
2023-10-16 22:36:41 +0000 UTCYAAAAAAS! When I was a kid my mom used to take me to Blockbuster every weekend to pick a movie and I distinctly remember her saying to me “Kim, you’ve picked this movie too many weekends in a row. Pick a new one.” The movie in question? Kiki’s Delivery Service. ❤️
KimberKimbo
2023-10-16 18:40:42 +0000 UTCI LOVE Kiki's Delivery Service, but also I hadn't seen it in about 20 years... and now I have a 3-year-old and I cannot imagine what kind of society I would have to be in where it's okay to send her off to make her own way in the world in just 10 years from now??? I run into the same issue when I rewatch Little Mermaid and Ariel declares she's an adult at 16 and then her dad just... let's her stay human to GET MARRIED and like, never see her family again?
Abigail Friedman
2023-10-16 17:15:06 +0000 UTCLeaving home as a kid is a huge anime thing! Pokemon had Ash leaving at ten! For DECADES. 😅 I very much do my grownup job (surgical staff), so I can do my fun job/hobby of princess/character appearances. I like both jobs for sure, but I light up way more when I'm in a floofy dress, enchanting a bunch of pre-schoolers . 🤭
Smidge
2023-10-16 16:55:30 +0000 UTCHow do I work my way out of a slum? Whenever I feel I was in a slum I usually take a step back and find gratitude in the mess or gratitude in the trial. For example, I LOVE playing Jazz Piano and I LOVE being a Software Developer but there are times when I hate playing piano or coding due to whatever reason was going on at the time. I would still play piano but try something I used to play that I know I can do without thinking much about it. Or I would watch a movie that speaks to me (Ahem, Kiki's Delivery Service). Or I would go for a walk more frequently since my job as a software engineer allows me to do that. As Jono said, I would also remind myself of how far I have come and find gratitude in the journey it has taken me to get where I am today. I feel like I forget that a lot. Forgetting the things I have accomplished and focusing on what I cannot do NOW has affected my confidence. What brings back that confidence for me is remembering the things I am grateful for and not comparing myself to others but to my own journey. I hope this makes sense 😅
Trevor Neri
2023-10-16 16:47:17 +0000 UTCLove Kiki's it's very well watched at my house. My children and grandchildren were raised with Ghibli
Linda Herbert
2023-10-16 15:21:37 +0000 UTCYay, hope you enjoy the episode!
Cinema Therapy
2023-10-16 15:03:12 +0000 UTCThe way I smiled so wide so quick! Kiki’s Delivery Service is my favorite Ghibli movie and my go-to comfort film after a bad day at work. 🥲 So excited to see what y’all think of it!
Sami Phu
2023-10-16 15:02:10 +0000 UTC
