JENNIE: Chewing the Fat with Big Robb podcast reveals vulnerable side of guests
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF)– A local podcast, “Chewing the Fat with Big Robb” is in its third season now.
Robb grew up in Augusta, got into radio while he was still in high school. Eventually taking jobs in Greenville and Birmingham before making his way back here to the Garden City.
JENNIE: You have worked in television. You act. You do commercials. You love photography. You love cooking. You love your family. You are just you know, you’re just a man of so many different talents. And it’s awesome that you are here. How did you land on the concept of the Chewing the Fat podcast?
Big Robb: “Well, it the original idea actually came about in 2020. We were all shut down. And so as someone who deals with depression and anxiety, that started kind of bubbling to the top because we couldn’t go anywhere. We couldn’t interact, we couldn’t be with people and I felt like I had something I wanted to say because I knew there were other people that felt that way. And I wanted to make sure that they knew that they were not alone in feeling that way. I started in June of 2021 and the premise was all from this quote from J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s like, how do we keep the darkness at bay? I believe it’s in the small, small, everyday acts of kindness and love. It’s something that Gandalf said to the hobbits. But I was like, you know what? That’s what it is. This is a kindness. This is an act of love. Putting this out into the world so that people realize they’re not alone and they’re not stuck in that darkness.”
JENNIE: Well, you’ve just led me to something else that I wanted to bring up, because that is the premise, what do you do to stay out of the darkness when you find yourself in it? What are some of the interesting strategies that you’ve heard from some of your guests?
And speaking of guests, click here to listen to Jennie’s episode of “Chewing the Fat with Big Robb.”
Big Robb: “I think the most surprising one that I’ve heard is people say sometimes I have to sit in it. Sometimes I have to let the darkness kind of come in and really look at it in the face to realize what it is. Not in intention to stay in it, but to recognize it so that I can then move through it. I think that was very surprising to me as someone who my act of trying to get out of the darkness is focusing on other things, not to kind of put it away, but to not spiral into it myself, not to tumble into that well. So I’m a big fan of Lego, so I’ll put Lego together or I, I took up a pottery class or acting. I memorize lines and poems and things like that to focus a different part of my brain on something that I actually enjoy. But yes, having folks say that they sometimes sit in it to recognize it before moving through it was very surprising to me.”
JENNIE: I guess it’s sort of like sometimes when you’re nervous about something and you know, things can go different ways. Sometimes I will just have to go ahead and let myself, okay, what is the worst case scenario? And I’ll let it play out in my head. Worst case scenario. And then you open your eyes and you’re like, okay, well, I’m not dead. I’m still here. And you see, maybe when you when you let it go through, then you can move on. Okay. That’s one alternative. But I’m not going to pick that one. I’m going to try another one. So maybe, maybe it has something to do with that.
You can listen to “Chewing the Fat with Big Robb” on Spotify, Audible YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
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