SPEAKER_01 0:00

We all have a story, not just the one we tell other people. But the one we we tell ourselves you know, in those quiet sometimes very quiet moments, repeatedly. Sometimes even without realizing it. The story about why things went wrong, why we took that decision, why it all happened to us, about what we deserve, about who we are based on what we have done or what was done to us. And here's the thing about that story, listeners, it shapes everything. How we sleep, how we love, how we move through the day. And today I am talking to someone who has spent decades writing stories for Hear Me Out, some of the most iconic shows on television, and who knows firsthand that the most powerful story you will ever write is the one happening inside your own head. I am your host, Sana, and this is the place where we have honest, grounded conversations about what it really takes to feel well. Not just feel always good, not perfect, just genuinely sustainably well. So, listeners, my guest today, he is an Emmy nominated TV writer and award-winning novelist whose work spans House, Pretty Little Liars, Law and Order, CSI Miami, and many more. Yes, really prominent names in there, listeners. So introducing Matt Whitten, he has spent over 20 years crafting stories about the human condition. And today he's here to explore something a little more personal. The stories that we carry inside us and how they quietly shape our mental and emotional health. So let's get started. And Matt, welcome to Healthy Man, Healthy Life. I'm really, really honored having you here with us.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Thank you. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Super. Matt, uh, before we get into the meat of this, I I want to ask you something that I don't think many people ask a TV writer. I mean, in all the years that you have been inside other people's stories, fictionally and professionally, did you did you find it ever like it made it easier for you or maybe harder to look honestly at your own?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

That's a really good question. And you're right. Nobody's asked me that before. Has it made it easier or harder to look at my own stories? Oh my goodness, I have a terrible answer for you. I'm not sure. I'm sorry. That's the best I could do. Maybe. If maybe by the end of this conversation, I will be more uh enlightened. It'll be able to give you an actual answer.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Absolutely, absolutely. I know, I know. It's it's it's actually quite a quite a tough one. Yeah. But okay, let's let's talk about the stories that we tell ourselves. I think a lot of people assume that it means, you know, affirmations, positive self-talk, all that kind of you know, motivation thing. But then from where you sit, Matt, you know, having written deeply complex, flawed human characters, you know, for decades, what what do you think most of us we are fundamentally misunderstanding about the inner narratives that we are living inside?

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Wow, what do we misunderstand about the inner narratives that we are living inside? Those are those that's good questions. What do we fundamentally misunderstand about the narratives we tell ourselves? Well, I think sometimes we blame things for things we blame ourselves for things that are out of our control. I think when our parents are having problems and they act in a certain way, I think we tend to find ourselves to blame for it. And that's something that we have to understand. So there's I think a certain kind of guilt we have sometimes that is not really real or or or merited.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Okay, okay. And I I think it's it's not that we are lying to ourselves exactly. I mean if we look if I look at, you know, from my own perspective, I think it's it's kind of the accepted or the normalized version of of events that you know, because you know, we we say that the the num the more you tell the lies, the more it sounds like the truth, the ultimate truth, you know, kind of that. That it has been repeated so many number of times that we kind of accept it as our, you know, version of truth. And it's to feel like a fact for us.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know, I guess what I really like, you know, with storytelling is that we find out that we're not alone. Uh I think a lot of times people feel like, oh, I'm the only person with this problem and and nobody else will really understand it. And then when you write something, you find out that, you know, if you write about a problem that you have, that your character has, so many people identify with it. So for instance, you're talking about uh flawed characters. My last novel, not the one that's coming out in in late April, but my last novel was called Killer Story, and it was about a woman who's a newspaper reporter, and she had been laid off from her last four jobs in a row. And it was just because the newspaper business is is crazy. In the United States, it's people are getting fired right and left. They're getting laid off, you know, last uh hired, first fired. And she just, you know, takes it in and she doesn't know what she's gonna do. And am I doing something wrong? And how am I gonna, you know, survive this business? And and and she, you know, she gets desperate and she starts making some bad choices about her next her next jobs. And these are choices that wind up uh landing her in tremendous trouble and uh even in prison ultimately. And you know, I told that story because, you know, as a TV writer for 20 years, you have so many pressures, you know, so many, you know, different things that can come up. You're you're you're you get a new head writer and you get laid off from the job. You get you know, you you don't click with the head writer and you get laid off from the job. You write a screenplay and the producer says, thank you very much, and then they hire somebody else to write the next draft. Happens all the time. So, you know, writing this was a way to, I don't know, it was a way to like, what's the word, but exercise those demons. It was a way to to do that. And, you know, it just did, yeah, it felt good to share. In a way, that was my story. The one funny thing about this character was I loved this reporter. I just thought any mistakes she made, anything she did that was morally wrong, you know, didn't bother me at all because I just related to her. And some people read it and they said, Wow, this this character is really terrible. She's just doing all these evil things. And I was like, No, you know, when you're under stress, you know, you act a certain way. But uh I had enough people fall in love with her that that um the you know was a good experience too.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

So wow. Not not the you know, kind of the parasocial kind of relation with the character, not like that. No, but but uh it absolutely makes sense. And yes, when we get into the the grand scheme of things, looking, you know, especially at the industry. Yeah, I mean to a lot of extent, I think writers, lyricists, songwriters, kind of you know, mainstream wise, I think it kind of gets overpowered more by the business decisions, not probably by the creative decisions. I mean, I'm not trying to generalize anything here, but that's kind of you know the increasing trend that we are seeing right now. So I mean sometimes you know we have to find ways just to kind of get that frustration out. And I think that's that's how you know either you kind of express it through through fictions or maybe non-fictions, books, blogs, articles, or or through a certain character. You just try to kind of channelize your own frustrations.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah, absolutely. And the crazy thing about writing TV is you tend to be writing other people's passions. You tend to be trying to fit your own writing into what the show is or what the what the head writer wants or the studio or the network wants, you know, which is great. You know, I put my kids through college and I don't have any regrets about it. But you're not you're not always writing from your heart. You know, you're not or you're not all you try to, and you try to find stories that you can write in TV that are from your heart, and sometimes you do. But what I've really found is that writing novels, I get to write stuff that's straight from my heart. And if you talk about things that are, you know, where I'm really telling, you know, my story. You know, like I wrote a book called The Necklace, which is a thriller about a diner waitress who who lost her her child. She was murdered 20 years ago, and now she's trying to get justice for her. Well, she's been trying all along, but now something comes up and she tries to get justice for her. And I think that that's related, you know, to having kids and just worrying what might happen to them. And I have specific reasons to have been worried at one point with one of my kids. So, you know, it came out in this book. And my book that's coming out in April, it's about something that's been bothering me. It's called 51%. It's about something that's been bothering me for like 40 years, which is this is maybe not exactly so personal. It's more political and social. But what's been bothering me is that in the United States, like corporations have been getting so much more powerful. You know, these corporations, they can they can, you know, they obviously they create the climate crisis. My house in Los Angeles burned down last year, and it was because these big corporations have created the climate crisis. And then, you know, there are friends of mine who don't have decent health insurance in the United States because all the money goes to rich people. They gave them all tax breaks last year. So, anyway, in any case, like more things are going private like for the last 40 years. Like schools are going private, public schools are losing money, parks are getting privatized, roads, there are a lot more private policemen than there used to be as opposed to public policemen. Like everything's getting privatized. The post office is getting less and less business because Federal Express is getting it all in UPS, and eventually the post office will be gone. So it just really, really bothers me. I'd like to see, you know, a government that does things, you know, for people and not big corporations having all the power. Now, is that a personal story? For whatever reason, I care about it. It's it's I don't know why it's deeply personal to me, but I got like when I was I started getting into politics when I was like nine years old and I got into it. So, you know, if you and I were to talk, I couldn't really give you a reason. But I just, I just it really bothers me that we have these these rich people that are that are you know privatizing everything and eventually the big corporations are going to own, you know, unless we unless we turn things around, are just getting more and more powerful. So anyway, those are just those novels are just three examples of like stories that I was able to tell when I when I kind of took a step back from TV writing to write what I really you know love the most. So anyway, that's that's sort of what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

It is going on. It is going on. And you know, people keep on saying that, okay, okay, fine, but at least is there anything positive that is going on? Because, you know, especially the discourse online, I mean, you know, when when you get to uh realize that, you know, the the actual the actuality you know behind that facade, that everything is going fine, everything's just happening for the good, it can be overwhelming for some people, it can be obvious for some people, or you know, some of them won't even care. I don't I don't you know give enough about that.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Uh well I guess the attitude I try to have is you know there's an old saying that i you know in every generation a new I I use the word Hitler but but and some people do, but you could use a a new evil arises. In every generation a new Hitler arises, or in every generation a new evil arises. And in every generation, you know, you know, we fight them, we fight it back. You know, in every generation we have to fight it off. And it's just happened time and time again over the past, you know, millennia. Some some some tyrant will arise and then people will will beat them down. And and eventually, you know, the world has gotten better. I mean, over the past, this is my opinion, over the past 2,000 years or 5,000 years, you know, people live longer. There's fewer, uh, God forbid, babies dying young. Um I think that um I mean, even stuff honestly, just this is just me talking, but I think music has gotten better. I think art has gotten better, and I think that there are fewer hungry people. Uh there are way too many hungry people in the world, I know that. But I've been reading the statistics about hunger, and over the last uh 70 years, the number of people in the world who are hungry ha has decreased a lot. It used to be 800 million. Most recent figure I read was 450 million, and that's way too many, obviously. It's terrible. We have many things we need to do, but but you know, uh, you know, so so I when I try to feel good, that's that's what I say. The world is getting better, and maybe it'll keep getting better.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree, I agree with you, Matt. And and yes, I mean, and first of all, nine years, I mean, that's that's too young, Matt, to be, you know, kind of keep yourself or getting introduced to politics. That's uh but I I think it's it's kind of very uh interesting to see, you know, how it that shaped your way of looking at at the world, at people, their their lives.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Well, when I was nine years old, my uh older brother educated me about the war in Vietnam. And and uh and ever since then I've uh it's been that kind of thing has been important to me.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Yeah, that makes sense. Absolutely makes sense. Okay, okay, uh moving on, uh Matt also, I mean, talk let's talk about guilt and regret because as a writer, you understand better than most of how guilt and regret, you know, live inside a person. You have we have written characters carrying enormous weight from the past. You gave some examples in there as well in your previous work. But then what I mean, you know, as as humans, we kind of, you know, we always want to see some kind of pattern in there, or we kind of go into that analytics mode to see, you know, is this a pattern or is this just a random happening? Like what are the patterns you see in people, maybe in yourself, when an old story about something you did or you didn't do, it keeps coming back.

(Cont.) How Inner Narratives Shape Your Mental Health, with Matt Witten

SPEAKER_00 15:25

You know, uh let me let me just say something else first, and then I'll try to think about the answer to that. I would say the the thing that has helped me the most over the years in in overcoming those kinds of feelings is to realize that everybody has them. I used to be locked up in my own self and think I was all alone. Nobody else has this worry or this worry or you know, feels like that. And then I started to become much more social when I was in my late 20s. And because I used to be a real loner, just you know, in my own room by myself. Good for a writer, but sometimes that good uh good for emotional health. And and just the fact of learning, oh my God, everybody else has these problems. You know, there's an expression in the United States, we're all bozos on this bus. You know, we're all clowns on this bus. We don't know what we're doing. And I thought when I was younger, I thought that when I got older, I would be smarter and I would have more wisdom. And that may be true, but what I've realized is everybody else is is is kind of dumb too. It's not that I became smarter, I realized that everybody else was equally as dumb as I am. So that was the one thing that really helped the most as to what patterns I've seen in others. I don't know, or myself. To me, my probably my biggest uh weakness is just uh blaming myself for anything that goes wrong, you know, when it might not be my fault. And then just like being being obsessive. Like my biggest difficulty as a writer is, you know, I'll just spend, you know, two hours trying to decide if I should use the word this or that. And you know, it doesn't matter that much. I should just move on. So like a little bit of perfectionism. And for other writers, well, that's interesting, you know. For other writers, you know, some some have some are some have that perfectionism, and then some are some are the other way. I have some writer friends, and one in particular I was talking to two days ago, and she has this issue of she'll start something, it'll get like it'll get like 80% good, you know, and then she'll put it down and do something else. And then she'll do something else and do something else. And I'll say, you know, why don't you finish this? You know, give this, if you really get this all the way done, do the rewrite. Get it really terrific, because it's a great idea, and a lot of it is great already. And then you can give it to, you know, get an agent to give to a head writer for in TV, because she wants to be a TV writer. I said, you can do this, you can do that, you'll you'll have writing samples that are really good you can show people. But for some reason, you know, she just keeps moving on. And so that's that's the other side of it. Like I'm a little bit too, I don't know, perfectionist or something, but she's like, she just she does all these things. You know, she she doesn't really finish one thing. So, you know, that's an issue too. And then the other thing I notice with with writers, and I'm talking about writers because I don't know, it's just on my mind now, but also I think it relates to people. I found that writing is like a great way to if you can if you can deal with like some of the issues come up with writing, you you know, you have to be really psychologically sound. And what I mean is if you give your work to somebody else to critique so you could do a second draft, which you pretty much have to do because your first draft is never going to be perfect, you really have to be able to hear their comments and and know which comments make sense and and like not you can't be too defensive. If you're too defensive, then you don't make the changes, or you think you're making the changes, but like, you know, if they say cut your book, they say, Oh, you say, Oh, okay, good idea. And then you cut like maybe 10 words out of it, or maybe you should really be cutting 10,000 words. So you could be too defensive, or you can go the other way. You could say, Oh my god, I have to really change the whole thing and da-da-da-da-da-da. And really, all you need to do is make some relatively minor adjustments. So you really have to be like emotionally solid to be able to take those comments on something that you've maybe spent a year of your life working on and and be able to be comfortable with it and and do the right thing. And that's you know, that I think is is is that's that's one of the biggest challenges. And it's really a way to work on yourself psychologically. But in the process of of of getting those comments, I think writers develop just good uh psychological skills too. So that's those are some of the issues that I see in writers, and I think they relate to issues that that everybody feels.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Absolutely. I mean, I may not be a writer, but I I can I absolutely make sense of it, you know, especially this sometimes this obsession uh and and you know, especially in in the creative field, because this makes me recall another conversation. I think it was with a songwriter, a singer. So his most uh uh famous work or creation was the one that he felt initially is too good. I mean, there's no change or nothing to nothing required. And when he actually went in to the producers in there, he got rejected. He said no. I mean, they said no, this is this is not you know not going to work out. But then he he kind of had to digest it, you know, because as as a as a creator, you kind of become, you know, once again, you develop this parasocial relationship with the work that you're doing. And yes, you are absolutely right, Matt. You have to be like emotionally sound and probably in the right state of, you know, because now you're going to hear uh very either harsh or very direct criticisms, which maybe looking at the overall picture is going to, you know, enhance your work. And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yes, absolutely. And sometimes you may get uh very different opinions from two or three different readers. So then you have to sort through them.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Yep, that's true. That's true. Okay, uh moving on, man. I know we are short on time, but yeah, it's it's it's a very interesting conversation. So let's see. Okay, I I want to kind of you know ask you about, you know, because storytelling is is also about rewriting as we discussed that, and it kind of connects. You know, to like the in inside the inner work of us. So like let's say even if you know people have who have done real inner work, maybe they have genuinely, genuinely, you know, began to shift their narrative, will sometimes find the old story trying to come back, you know, especially in stressful moments or hard seasons, you know, they may resort to the older narratives. That's what I mean to say. So how do you hold that without it becoming like this, you know, sign or a signal that nothing has really changed, nothing is going to work for me because I'm once again going back to my old version.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Well, the way I look at this kind of thing is, you know, I've got certain, you know, things from my childhood or whatever, or certain views of myself that are just a little bit crazy, or just certain thoughts or whatever that are crazy. And I'm never going to get rid of them. They're always going to be there. But what I can do is when one comes, I can recognize it, and I will imagine it off to the left of me, off of my, off on my left shoulder, like maybe I'm holding my arm out now, but you can't see it. But maybe about uh two and a half feet away from me. And and so I imagine it out there, and I so I can look over it and I say, Yeah, okay, you know, there it is, you know, but I don't have to obey it. You know, I can just look at it and see that it's there. And, you know, so anyway, that's my personal strategy for dealing with those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

So it means like, you know, you acknowledge the presence. It's like this old version of you standing there in the corner, like this, you know. I I don't want to kind of sound at, you know, remorse for for our listeners, but this dark, you know, kind of old version of you standing there in the corner, you are acknowledging, accepting the presence of it, but you're not, you know, allowing it to empower you.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Okay, great. Uh Matt, uh, before we wrap up, is is there any particular message that you would like to leave right now, you know, for someone listening who has been carrying work to me about.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm gonna give you a different answer because I laughed because I, you know, I'm I'm in such a marketing head right now. So the message I would leave people with is read my book, buy my book. It's called 51%, and it comes out on April 28th, and it's it's really fun. It's uh it does talk about all those issues I talked about, but it's also a thriller. You know, it uses all my TV thriller skills, and and it's it's also you know funny, actually. And so that's my message. Now let me let me try to give a more serious answer to your question. What message would I would I leave people with? Yeah, just that you know, you're not alone. We're all bosos on this bus. Any problems you have, other people have the same. Yeah, it's just the way life is, and and good luck to you.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

I love that. Yeah, and listeners, yes, Matt's book is coming out on April 28th. So to get access to it, just refer to the show notes, find them attached along with this episode on whichever platform you are tuning into, your Healthy Mind Hill Life podcast right now. And Matt, thank you so much for this absolute honest, raw conversation. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Uh thank you very much. I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

And yes, listeners, thank you to all of you for being such a wonderful part of the Healthy Man Hill Life community. And yes, keep tuning in to all the shows from Healthy Man Healthy Life and do share this episode with someone you feel they need it. And yes, until next time, this is a host Sona signing off. Thank you so much.