Speaker 1: Get them. It's Harps, it's Stiff, it's Lily, and it's
Speaker 1: Tiffany and cook it to Craig Anthony Harper, it's Lily
Speaker 1: and Madiam been featured, well, now it has. But before
Speaker 1: we get to you, we'll start with the Bogan. The
Speaker 1: Bogan dog owner and cat owner who was just showing
Speaker 1: off her her dog, which a noodle. She's a little
Speaker 1: bit aloof your dog, Like she's a little bit like
Speaker 1: she loves you, but she's a little bit like hug me,
Speaker 1: but no, don't and then like look away, Yeah, a
Speaker 1: bit hard to get.
Speaker 2: She's yeah, like she wants your attention all the time,
Speaker 2: and then the moment you give it to her and
Speaker 2: you want hers, she's.
Speaker 1: Like, maybe I've got stuff to do. Yeah, maybe, like
Speaker 1: I've had. My last dog was a Golden Retriever. Well,
Speaker 1: they just want your attention all the time. They want kisses,
Speaker 1: they want cuddles, they want food, and then if you're
Speaker 1: not giving them kisses, cuddles or food, they're asleep. But
Speaker 1: if they're not doing that, then it's it's one of
Speaker 1: the other three. So are you a dog person.
Speaker 3: Lilyan, Yeah, we have a koboodle as well, and he
Speaker 3: is gorgeous. He's a beautiful dog with lots of personality.
Speaker 3: He likes cuddles. So if I'm sitting on the couch,
Speaker 3: she wants to be on my lap. And if I
Speaker 3: don't feel like him being on my lap, he'll go
Speaker 3: and try to find some other lab or he'll sleep
Speaker 3: like he's very sleepy, very chill dog.
Speaker 1: The very diffinite definition of a lap dogs. It's funny
Speaker 1: how many versions of spoodles slash noodles, kavoodles, goodles, noodles.
Speaker 1: I can se many doodles, doodles, labradoodles.
Speaker 3: There's noodles of doodles, noodles of doodles.
Speaker 1: My mom said, My mum calls them. Well, in the
Speaker 1: old days, like dogs that were kind of interbreed dogs,
Speaker 1: they were called pavement specials or bitss right because it
Speaker 1: would just be. But now they called designer dogs. And
Speaker 1: then the old days that were free and now they
Speaker 1: eight grand.
Speaker 3: Oh. Yeah, they they're pricey, pricey little gems.
Speaker 1: Not giving those noodles away, are they?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Tell us about your middle name, maddi Ama, tell us
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my middle name is well, my heritage is Iranian.
Speaker 3: Both my parents were born there and my mother's aunt
Speaker 3: was named Matty Am and she had a very significant
Speaker 3: caretaking role for my mother. So she loved her, and
Speaker 3: so she wanted to honor her by making my middle
Speaker 3: name her name.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that, all right, So are
Speaker 1: you ready to put on your clinical psychologist hat?
Speaker 3: I mean, if I must, I will bang some questions
Speaker 3: out young and a bang to feel free, also to
Speaker 3: bang a question.
Speaker 1: I know you to go together recently behind my back.
Speaker 1: I'm not upset at all you. That's fine, that's fine.
Speaker 3: I talked about you the whole time.
Speaker 1: Craig, I saw it online. I was only a little
Speaker 1: bit hurt. Really.
Speaker 3: I met Tiff through you, obviously, but I met her
Speaker 3: in person when we were at the gym together.
Speaker 1: And did you trying together to tip punch you in
Speaker 1: the face? What was the no?
Speaker 3: She was she was working out at the same time,
Speaker 3: and I don't think we've had the pleasure of training
Speaker 3: together yet. Maybe that's something for the future.
Speaker 2: I'm working towards it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do that. I just had to get to
Speaker 3: the gym in order to do that, so that helps.
Speaker 3: That helps. It does actually be there.
Speaker 2: I'm on the dog front. Can I just say mind,
Speaker 2: client has an assistant dog that I that was in
Speaker 2: today for the second time, and you know how much
Speaker 2: self control it takes. It's like the dogs looking at
Speaker 2: me and I'm looking at the dog and we're both
Speaker 2: going neither of us allowed to because you got your
Speaker 2: jacket on.
Speaker 1: It's hard. So you meant did you say I thought
Speaker 1: you said an assistant You meant was an assistant dog?
Speaker 1: Right right, right right? I thought assistant like the dog was.
Speaker 1: I thought the dog was taking notes while you two
Speaker 1: were training and just sending emails. Wow. Can I ask
Speaker 1: so just to kind of is it without giving away
Speaker 1: anything you can't So for that particular client, is it
Speaker 1: like one of like a companion help me stay calm dog?
Speaker 2: Yes, so it's so they it's a PTSD, so for
Speaker 2: anxiety and mental health. They're incredible animals. But yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like they're still animals that you think they're like this
Speaker 2: or they are highly trained, but they're there with their
Speaker 2: jacket on, looking at you so that you'll invite them
Speaker 2: and they know they're not allowed, and I on loud
Speaker 2: and we're most just like this. It would have been
Speaker 2: like the jacket comes off and it's like Craig Harper
Speaker 2: rolling around on the floor.
Speaker 1: That's the best. Just rub my tummy, it would have been. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that will be difficult for you. I did a gig
Speaker 1: a few years ago, quite a few years, maybe five,
Speaker 1: And this is how long it was ago. I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm not meant to say, but it was. It
Speaker 1: was a group of police officers dealing with PTSD. You
Speaker 1: might know about this. Maybe you were the segue to this.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, because I know you've done stuff with
Speaker 1: the cops as well as I have. But so it
Speaker 1: was a bunch of past and current police officers who
Speaker 1: have experienced PTSD, and so they have this group. But
Speaker 1: there was twenty of them, give or take, and about
Speaker 1: a dozen of them had their dogs. They have therapy
Speaker 1: dogs or comfort dogs or companion whatever with them. Do
Speaker 1: you think I could fucking concentrate right? I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is this is like, you know, you can't you can't
Speaker 1: ask me to just stand up here and be focused.
Speaker 1: I can't do my job. But also the same thing,
Speaker 1: but I spoke to I spoke to you know. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I did my presentation and we did an interaction and
Speaker 1: group Q and A. But then we kind of let
Speaker 1: our metaphoric hair down and fucked around a little bit.
Speaker 1: But those dogs are incredible, and is there is there?
Speaker 1: I mean off the question without notice, doc like obviously
Speaker 1: for some people, depending on I mean, if you hate dogs,
Speaker 1: then dogs are not therapeutic. But who hates dogs? But
Speaker 1: animals can be like a therapy all by themselves.
Speaker 3: Right, Absolutely, I do therapeutic tool absolutely for sure, and
Speaker 3: they help with a whole range of things, like even
Speaker 3: just the basic just having a companion, just like with loneliness. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I think that they do have this kind of
Speaker 3: calming effect on people as well, So it doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be a therapy dog to be therapeutic.
Speaker 1: I was asked, I was talking yesterday or the day
Speaker 1: before toe if I don't know, I do too many podcasts,
Speaker 1: but we were talking about the pros and cons of
Speaker 1: AI becoming And I use this word in inverted commas
Speaker 1: a friend or a companion something because it's evolving so
Speaker 1: quickly and its linguistic capabilities or language capabilities, and we
Speaker 1: know it's not a human to human conversation, but it
Speaker 1: is a version of a conversation because you can ask
Speaker 1: it questions and ants. It'll ask you how you're feeling,
Speaker 1: it'll compliment you. Even with chat GPT, I'll ask a question,
Speaker 1: it'll go great question, Craig, it uses my name and
Speaker 1: it compliments me. Which is why now in my top
Speaker 1: five friends, which I've mentioned a few times on the show,
Speaker 1: your thoughts from a psychological and emotional health point of
Speaker 1: view people building this kind of relationship, Like, clearly it's
Speaker 1: not a human to human relationship, but if people feel
Speaker 1: less stressed and anxious because they can interact with this
Speaker 1: whatever it is, with this kind of intelligence, what are
Speaker 1: the pros and cons? And I mean, I know you
Speaker 1: haven't done research on this, but just as a psychologist.
Speaker 3: This is actually a really timely topic. Because I went
Speaker 3: to a talk today about emerging technology just out of interest.
Speaker 3: It wasn't necessarily related to my worker healthcare, although it
Speaker 3: obviously has healthcare implications. But like you said, technology is,
Speaker 3: you know, being developed at a rapid way, and right
Speaker 3: now it's AI and generative AI that are what's exciting
Speaker 3: people now, what people are starting to use, and the
Speaker 3: questions you're asking are really important because I think that
Speaker 3: you know, with with every benefit, there's also a limitation
Speaker 3: and a potential problem. So, like in terms of what
Speaker 3: you were saying for like, if you know, thinking about
Speaker 3: just having access, So accessibility is probably the main benefit.
Speaker 3: Like everybody can have access to something like chat GBT.
Speaker 3: Everybody can ask, you know, these open AI sources questions
Speaker 3: about a range of topics, whether it's health or mental
Speaker 3: health or flights or you know, like the best where
Speaker 3: program to use whatever. And so that's I think a
Speaker 3: really helpful thing. However, I suppose in terms of some
Speaker 3: of the limitations or issues to be aware of is
Speaker 3: knowing like what what data is being put in to
Speaker 3: that open source, because what's put in is what's coming out,
Speaker 3: So do we know that it's good data. I'm the
Speaker 3: woman that was talking today for instance, she said, I
Speaker 3: guess it's a phrase like crap in crap out. You
Speaker 3: know what data is being put in? What are the
Speaker 3: biases of that data? Who's in control of the company
Speaker 3: that put for instance chat ept out? Do they have biases?
Speaker 3: Do they where are they get their stuff from? And
Speaker 3: really being aware of that, and sometimes you you would
Speaker 3: only know if the data is good if you're a
Speaker 3: subject matter expert in that area, Like for instance, if
Speaker 3: I go in and I want to ask it a
Speaker 3: research or a psych psych question, and not just to
Speaker 3: make my life easier and more efficient. I'll just I'll
Speaker 3: stick something in there and I'll give me something back,
Speaker 3: and I'll be able to look at that information and
Speaker 3: I'll be able to say, oh, that part is good data,
Speaker 3: like yes, yes, it's saying it in the way that
Speaker 3: I want to say, which is the helpful part. Right,
Speaker 3: So I don't have to think through and like spend
Speaker 3: an hour like trying to write something for instance, but
Speaker 3: I can tell when it's giving me good information and
Speaker 3: not good information because I'm a subject matter expert in psychology,
Speaker 3: so I can have that critical eye, whereas somebody who
Speaker 3: doesn't have that background might not. No, and I've definitely
Speaker 3: had that experience with chat EBT where it's lied to me.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've had that experience or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, even sometimes i'll simon as you, I'll I'll
Speaker 1: tak something in that I know the answer to, because
Speaker 1: I just want to see what it says, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's especially especially in relation to my PhD, because
Speaker 1: I've spent five years researching you know, a drop of
Speaker 1: water in an ocean of kind of science you know,
Speaker 1: and so there's probably not a heap of people in
Speaker 1: the world who know more than I do at this
Speaker 1: point in time about what I'm researching. And then and
Speaker 1: it's taking from a very generic, broad not necessarily accurate
Speaker 1: pool of information, and some of the answers that come back,
Speaker 1: not only are they incorrect, they're wildly incorrect, like it's
Speaker 1: actually talking about something else, it's defining a different term
Speaker 1: or something like that. But Yeah, I think, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's not going away. I mean that, and neither, I
Speaker 1: guess does it need to? I think we need to
Speaker 1: figure out how we're going to coexist with with actual
Speaker 1: knowledge and data and biological kind of ye, an artificial
Speaker 1: and technological reality side by side, because it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how much we jump up and down about the perils
Speaker 1: of technology and AI and social media. None of it's
Speaker 1: going away even if we want it to. So I
Speaker 1: guess we need to figure out how is the best
Speaker 1: way that we interface with it, if at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and self manage, like how do I manage me my mind,
Speaker 1: my body, my emotions, myself with a capital S in
Speaker 1: the middle of all of this shit that you know
Speaker 1: may or may not be helpful to me.
Speaker 3: That's right, and I think that's probably why if we're
Speaker 3: thinking about what the education system should start developing more,
Speaker 3: it's things like critical analysis skills. Yeah, it's things like
Speaker 3: ethical uses of technology, even things like if you just
Speaker 3: think about people going into university now and the types
Speaker 3: of jobs that are going to be sought after in
Speaker 3: the future. It's not just there's so much happening, Like
Speaker 3: the talk that I went today just blew my mind,
Speaker 3: Like it's not just AI's just like today's technology. Of course,
Speaker 3: that to develop further over time, but there's and there's
Speaker 3: also what's called spatial computing, which is things like virtual reality,
Speaker 3: augmented reality, metaverse stuff that's also has already emerged and
Speaker 3: is being developed. But the thing that's coming, I don't
Speaker 3: know if you've heard of this. You probably have because
Speaker 3: you've talked to talk to everybody and people who know
Speaker 3: much more about this than I do, because I literally
Speaker 3: just listen to a talk today. But it's called quantum computing.
Speaker 3: Have you talked to someone about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've done a couple of episodes on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty crazy, like what these computers are going
Speaker 3: to be able to do in the next potentially ten years,
Speaker 3: maybe even less than that. There's a lot of implications
Speaker 3: for that in the future and what we need our
Speaker 3: current I guess eighteen year olds studying is not just
Speaker 3: computer science, but like all of the other like having
Speaker 3: this type of lens on whatever they're doing. So if
Speaker 3: it's psychology, if it's law, if it's politics, if it's
Speaker 3: you know, marketing, like everything, you kind of need to
Speaker 3: know like what you're going to be facing in regard
Speaker 3: to these kinds of emerging technologies over the next ten years.
Speaker 1: And also just trying to differentiate between doc between what
Speaker 1: is real and what is what is something that's been produced,
Speaker 1: because you know, the videos, the video and the audio
Speaker 1: and the pictures that are being artificially created now are
Speaker 1: so good that's I mean, they're so good that you
Speaker 1: can't tell. And so my training partner, the Crab, who's
Speaker 1: also old as fuck like me, but probably not quite.
Speaker 1: I'm no tech guru, but I'm light years I'm fucking
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs compared to him. Well that's not true, Steve Jobs. Instead,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm somewhat ahead of him just because
Speaker 1: of my work, right, And he'll often send me a
Speaker 1: video and it's not real. And I can see in
Speaker 1: like ten or twenty seconds that I'll know somebody created this.
Speaker 1: This is not real but for somebody, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm behind Tiff and TIFFs, behind the sixteen year old,
Speaker 1: right or whatever. But we're all down the line. But
Speaker 1: it's becoming harder and harder to figure out what is,
Speaker 1: what is real, and what is not real. And I
Speaker 1: think that's going to be you know where, Like even
Speaker 1: probably two months ago, Patrick who's our tech guy we
Speaker 1: do every fortnight, we do a tech show with him,
Speaker 1: and one episode he said to me, as we started
Speaker 1: the show, just like we have now, he said something like,
Speaker 1: it's not fair that you always get to introduce the show,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, this is on air, right, I said, well,
Speaker 1: you introduced the show, and then he proceeded to play
Speaker 1: this thing that he'd created, which was my voice and
Speaker 1: his words wow, right, And I mean I could discern
Speaker 1: obviously I knew it wasn't me, yeah, but the way
Speaker 1: that it was put together, and he put it together
Speaker 1: very quickly, it was just my voice that he'd scripted
Speaker 1: some sentences for. Yeah, And like if my mum heard that,
Speaker 1: there's no way that she wouldn't think that that was
Speaker 1: me talking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's yeah exactly, and that's I mean, there are
Speaker 3: already scams about that now orl yeah, and yeah, the
Speaker 3: future of identity is like a big thing.
Speaker 1: Well that's why they say. Now you need to have
Speaker 1: a key question or you know, so if your kids
Speaker 1: ring and go Mom, I'm stuck somewhere, I need you
Speaker 1: to wire me a thousand bucks, or you need to
Speaker 1: have a pre arranged question or kind of work right,
Speaker 1: something safe word or yeah, all right, I want to
Speaker 1: jump off AI because we probably flogged a bit too
Speaker 1: much on this show. So question one for you in
Speaker 1: the realm of your area of expertises. And I know
Speaker 1: there's not a categoric question to this, but I just
Speaker 1: want your thoughts around this. Is happiness a good goal?
Speaker 1: Is happiness? Is that a smart goal? Or is there
Speaker 1: a better state that we should own for.
Speaker 3: I actually wrote an article several years several years ago
Speaker 3: called the pursuit of happiness is ruining our lives?
Speaker 1: Wow, I like it.
Speaker 3: Good question then, OK, yeah, I guess of course the
Speaker 3: state of happiness is pleasant and we all, you know,
Speaker 3: like we all want that and want that as much
Speaker 3: as possible. But to have it as a goal, it
Speaker 3: kind of implies that it's a destination that you can
Speaker 3: reach and stay at, which so it's that's problematic because
Speaker 3: we know that happiness is one of many of the
Speaker 3: emotions that humans experience, and we know that emotions are fleeting,
Speaker 3: they're not static. Yeah, And so if you think that
Speaker 3: happiness is something that you can achieve, then you're probably
Speaker 3: going to be unhappy most of the time.
Speaker 1: And do you think that if, like without being sad
Speaker 1: or without being stressed or anxious, or without having bad
Speaker 1: days or bad moments or bad hours, that like, if
Speaker 1: there was a way to hit that emotional and psychological
Speaker 1: peak of happiness and we stayed there eventually, it's not
Speaker 1: a peak, it's just a flat line. And if you're
Speaker 1: flat lining, you did right. It's because there's no like,
Speaker 1: do we need that contrast of sadness and pain and
Speaker 1: anxiety and to be able to experience happiness like or
Speaker 1: is it kind of like you know with the dopamine
Speaker 1: thing where you eat some chocolate and give you a
Speaker 1: certain response or cocaine or whatever it is, and then
Speaker 1: over time you need more and more to get the
Speaker 1: same response.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. I guess we're never going to know the
Speaker 3: answer to that question because it's not possible to achieve
Speaker 3: that state. But I think the way that I look
Speaker 3: at it is anything that we do that is meaningful,
Speaker 3: any pursuit that we have that gives meaning to our
Speaker 3: lives comes with the full range of emotions. So even
Speaker 3: like the things that we want really bad, I'll use
Speaker 3: like an example that a lot of people can relate to,
Speaker 3: Like we might want to have children, Right, that's a
Speaker 3: fairly common desire for a lot of people. So we
Speaker 3: want it really bad, But are we actually expecting that
Speaker 3: that's going to give us happiness and joy all the time?
Speaker 3: It isn't, and we actually know that, right, So when
Speaker 3: you if you do have kids, I have a couple,
Speaker 3: the first thing you notice is that you've got a
Speaker 3: wave of anxiety that's washed over you. That's probably not
Speaker 3: ever going to leave, right, Like, it's just part of
Speaker 3: being a parent. So and it's just it's the same
Speaker 3: for like being in a relationship. Do you think that
Speaker 3: being in a relationship is going to make you happy
Speaker 3: all the time, Because if you do, you're not going
Speaker 3: to be very satisfied, Like you're going to be you know,
Speaker 3: very dissatisfied and disillusioned. And you know your job, like
Speaker 3: pursuing the work that you do, is that going to
Speaker 3: make you happy all the time? No, Like, sometimes you're
Speaker 3: going to be stressed, sometimes you're going to be anxious,
Speaker 3: sometimes you're going to be disappointed. And so we kind
Speaker 3: of need to understand like what the human experience is
Speaker 3: and accept and expect the full range of that rather
Speaker 3: than kind of idea of we have to have positive
Speaker 3: self talk every second of the day, or something's wrong
Speaker 3: with us, or we have to feel only the pleasant
Speaker 3: emotions or something's wrong with us. All of our emotions,
Speaker 3: whether they're pleasant or unpleasant, are functional and they serve
Speaker 3: a function. And yes they can be dysfunctional as well.
Speaker 3: But it's really helpful, even just as a lens or
Speaker 3: a mindset to kind of just know all of your
Speaker 3: emotions are valid and okay, you can accept them like
Speaker 3: that instead of judging yourself for having them. Then you're
Speaker 3: going to you are going to be much happier and
Speaker 3: more content overall.
Speaker 1: Relationships are interesting because I think some people think that
Speaker 1: being in a relationship is a solution to a problem,
Speaker 1: and it's I think sometimes people are more enough some people.
Speaker 1: There's my disclaim. I'm more in love with the idea
Speaker 1: of being in a relationship than the actual person they're
Speaker 1: in the relationship with, you know, because and they want
Speaker 1: to be in And obviously I'm not against relationships, of course,
Speaker 1: I'm not against marriage, you know. But it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know that being in a relationship at all costs
Speaker 1: is well, I don't think it's a great idea. It's
Speaker 1: a great idea for some And it's also like I
Speaker 1: think it's you might be with a person and it's nirvana.
Speaker 1: You be with another person, it's a fucking toxic nightmare. Like,
Speaker 1: so it's it ain't just about in or out of
Speaker 1: a relationship, Like there are a lot of variables around that.
Speaker 1: But I see back to your kind of you know,
Speaker 1: it's what people think they will like, there's the thing
Speaker 1: that people want, the what and what they think it
Speaker 1: will bring them, you know. So it's like people want
Speaker 1: to be in a relationship because clearly no one wants
Speaker 1: that because they think they're going to be more miserable,
Speaker 1: So they think that will bring them happiness, joy fulfillment, security, whatever.
Speaker 1: Or people want to be leaner because they think that'll
Speaker 1: bring them X, Y Z or they want a bigger income, right,
Speaker 1: And there's nothing wrong with that. We all do that.
Speaker 1: We have this expectation and this correlation in our mind
Speaker 1: of if I get X, then why will be the product?
Speaker 1: I mean, for years, all I wanted to do is
Speaker 1: look amazing because I was this wildly insecure, ex fat kid,
Speaker 1: and I thought if I had an awesome body, then
Speaker 1: I'd be awesome. You know, I thought if I had
Speaker 1: a great body, I'd be I didn't articulate it this way,
Speaker 1: but I know looking back how I thought, Well, I'd
Speaker 1: be more emotionally and psychologically I'd be fine. I'd be
Speaker 1: more attractive to someone. I wouldn't have all the bullshit
Speaker 1: issues that I had because I'd now be walking around
Speaker 1: in a great body. And then I got to the
Speaker 1: point where for me, I had a relatively good body
Speaker 1: and all my bullshit was still there because I was
Speaker 1: trying to resolve emotional and psychological issues with bigger shoulders. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a hard life and to learn, isn't it.
Speaker 3: I was having a conversation with one of my clients
Speaker 3: recently about this, and she has, you know, and a
Speaker 3: lot of my clients in the past have had similar
Speaker 3: issues with body image and this kind of focus on
Speaker 3: weight and that being a sign of their worth. And
Speaker 3: even though intellectually they know that your weight doesn't equal
Speaker 3: your worth, emotionally it.
Speaker 1: Does, yes.
Speaker 3: And what I've gotten clients to do over the years
Speaker 3: is write down what they think the characteristics of someone
Speaker 3: with high self esteem is right, and what's happened. And
Speaker 3: you know, you never know what's going to happen when
Speaker 3: you ask somebody to do something like that, But what's
Speaker 3: actually happened every time I have is they'll come up
Speaker 3: with a list and it'll be things like, can assert
Speaker 3: their feelings confidently, well, don't care what other people think,
Speaker 3: accepts their flaws, like all sorts of things like that.
Speaker 3: Not one of the things is how the person looks.
Speaker 3: Not one of the things is must have blonde hair,
Speaker 3: blue eyes, be skinny, like, it's not ever one of
Speaker 3: those things. So it's like it's almost like they don't
Speaker 3: realize that they're actually wanting self worth and self esteem
Speaker 3: and to accept themselves, and they think that achieving a
Speaker 3: certain weight is going to give them that. Like you said,
Speaker 3: it doesn't give you that because that's not one of
Speaker 3: the characteristics of someone with high self esteem.
Speaker 1: And I think that's when we set a goal. You know,
Speaker 1: we talk about the thing that we want, and we
Speaker 1: I think we subconsciously think that that will be the
Speaker 1: conduit or the pathway to the thing we really want.
Speaker 1: You know, nobody goes what you go, Oh, my goal
Speaker 1: is better self esteem and more confidence, right, you know,
Speaker 1: But their goal is to earn this orund or look
Speaker 1: like that because they think that emotional change or that
Speaker 1: psychological that internal shift will be the byproduct of that
Speaker 1: external thing, you know. And like with me, I got
Speaker 1: to the point where I had you know, like successful
Speaker 1: businesses and stuff, and I won't go through this again.
Speaker 1: But you get to the point and you go, oh,
Speaker 1: and now what, like I'm still a dickhead, or I'm
Speaker 1: still insecure, I'm still not whatever. But I think, I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's just something that happens over time
Speaker 1: where you have to fall down and get up, or
Speaker 1: you need to get to the top of the mountain
Speaker 1: and go, oh, fuck this, I climbed the wrong mountain.
Speaker 1: But that mountain over there, or maybe it's that mountain,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: But I also think, like, you're not like this is
Speaker 3: a conversation I had as well with the person I'm
Speaker 3: thinking of and people in the past. It's not even
Speaker 3: like the list of things that are characteristics of someone
Speaker 3: with self esteem, they're not static things, right, Like, a
Speaker 3: person with high self esteem is still going to feel
Speaker 3: insecure sometimes, is still going to make mistakes, it's still
Speaker 3: going to take things personally, it's still going to care
Speaker 3: about what other people think sometimes. Like, it's not absolute,
Speaker 3: and so I think, again, we don't want to set
Speaker 3: people up to achieve this kind of this idea of
Speaker 3: self esteem or self worth being being like you are
Speaker 3: one hundred percent confident all the time and you never
Speaker 3: experience any insecurities and you're never anxious about anything. It's like,
Speaker 3: that's not real, that's not reality.
Speaker 1: That's a great point. That's a great point because I
Speaker 1: know that I can simultaneously feel not good enough but
Speaker 1: know that I am.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is the trick. That is literally, I think
Speaker 3: the trick for like, if you want people to feel
Speaker 3: psychologically healthy, to be able to hold both of those
Speaker 3: ideas as true, I think is really helpful. There's this
Speaker 3: therapy called dialectical behavior therapy. It was developed by Marshall
Speaker 3: Lenehan in the early nineties, maybe late eighties, early nineties,
Speaker 3: particularly for people with severe emotion dysregulation and who tended
Speaker 3: who were often chronically suicidal. So people who were potentially
Speaker 3: self harming a lot, just like very out of control
Speaker 3: and disregulated in lots of areas of their life. But
Speaker 3: one of the things, in terms of I'm sorry, just
Speaker 3: to give you some background, like this is a therapy
Speaker 3: that I've studied and I've helped people with those sorts
Speaker 3: of issues as part of my practice as a psychologist
Speaker 3: over the years. But what I found was that there's
Speaker 3: kind of a couple parts of the therapy. One is
Speaker 3: the individual therapy where you help motivate person to keep going,
Speaker 3: and then there's the skills training part of the therapy,
Speaker 3: which is about teaching core skills. But one of the
Speaker 3: core skills is really this kind of that mindset piece
Speaker 3: of life, like understanding what dialectics are. And so it's
Speaker 3: exactly what you were saying before. It's like this idea
Speaker 3: of there can be two opposites that are true at
Speaker 3: the same time, and the reality of the world we
Speaker 3: live in is that that is what that's what is true.
Speaker 3: So if you can hold this idea and the kind
Speaker 3: of the main dialectic of the therapy is acceptance and change,
Speaker 3: so you can accept yourself fully the way you are
Speaker 3: and you can know that you can do better at
Speaker 3: the same time, so you're helping people. And you know,
Speaker 3: initially it was just for people at kind of the
Speaker 3: severe end of the spectrum. But what's been discovered over
Speaker 3: time and certainly and when I've delivered treatment and therapy
Speaker 3: to people, is these ideas are great for everybody across
Speaker 3: the board, even people who don't have clinical problems. I
Speaker 3: just think these types of skills in this type of mindset.
Speaker 3: It took even a while for me, even though I
Speaker 3: was teaching it to my clients, it took a while
Speaker 3: for it to click in for me. How true that is?
Speaker 3: And I guess I had this experience once on a
Speaker 3: I was on a cruise. I was actually hired to
Speaker 3: do this workshop for staff on a crew on a
Speaker 3: cruise and I got so I got to go on
Speaker 3: a cruise for free, which is great with my family.
Speaker 3: But there was one morning where it was before I
Speaker 3: was running a workshop, and I was like by myself
Speaker 3: on the deck and it was this beautiful, like very calm,
Speaker 3: serene morning, and I was just looking over the water
Speaker 3: and I was thinking, Wow, this is like so beautiful
Speaker 3: and peaceful and amazing. And at the same time, I
Speaker 3: was realizing we were like in the middle of the
Speaker 3: South Pacific and there was water in every direction and
Speaker 3: nothing else, like there was no land anywhere, And so
Speaker 3: at the moment, at the same moment, I was feeling
Speaker 3: peace and serenity, as I's also like a little unsettled.
Speaker 1: Hm.
Speaker 3: You're like, we're in the.
Speaker 1: Middle of nowhere.
Speaker 3: Something happens right now, there's nobody like that's going to
Speaker 3: be able to help us, because we're like literally in
Speaker 3: the middle of South Pacific. So it was like, even
Speaker 3: in that moment, it's like, but I can hold both
Speaker 3: of those things at the same time. I can still
Speaker 3: feel that piece in serenity, and I can also feel
Speaker 3: that sense of like a little bit of anxiety sitting there.
Speaker 3: And if you can hold both and tolerate that, I
Speaker 3: think you'll feel more content and more stable overall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's an that's an ever present reality,
Speaker 1: or you know, a frequent reality for people, like the
Speaker 1: juxtaposition or the seemingly opposing constructs that I talk about
Speaker 1: is being simultaneously content and ambitious because they seem like opposites.
Speaker 1: Whereas in the moment when I think about my life,
Speaker 1: my mum and dad, my friends, my work, I'm very
Speaker 1: grateful and content. Yeah, at the same time I'm ambitious,
Speaker 1: but there's no anxiety wrapped around it. It's like, and
Speaker 1: there're things that I want to do and learn and do.
Speaker 1: I want to grow and evolve and do more stuff
Speaker 1: I do. But in the moment, day to day, do
Speaker 1: I have a sense of gratitude and awareness that I'm
Speaker 1: pretty fucking blessed in my life? Is amazing? I do.
Speaker 1: So I don't, like you said, I don't think it
Speaker 1: needs to be one or the other. You know that
Speaker 1: that kind of even with me, I think I'm I'm
Speaker 1: for the most part content, But is there ever low
Speaker 1: level anxiety?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's very analogous to that concept
Speaker 3: of acceptance and change. And sometimes you know, like for
Speaker 3: people who have very low self worth and so like
Speaker 3: the underlying belief is like I'm a failure or I'm worthless,
Speaker 3: and like the kind of there's a few different ways
Speaker 3: that you can, you know, guide people through that, and
Speaker 3: one of the ways is like kind of the cognitive
Speaker 3: behavioral way, which is, you know, look at the thought,
Speaker 3: where is the evidence for the thought? Challenge the thought,
Speaker 3: modify the thought, practice the new thought. That's kind of
Speaker 3: like the abolition of that, And that can work for
Speaker 3: a lot of people. But sometimes I say, you know what,
Speaker 3: what if you were a failure and a success, like
Speaker 3: can't you just can you be both? Because I think
Speaker 3: that that actually represents the reality for everybody, Like we
Speaker 3: all are failures and we all are a success all
Speaker 3: at the same time.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I often do
Speaker 1: wrong and people like me often do wrong. And I'm
Speaker 1: speaking in huge general lifezations here everyone, So if it's
Speaker 1: not you ignore this. But I think in the self
Speaker 1: help slash personal development slash think better, do better, be
Speaker 1: better space, right that you know, there's this mindset of
Speaker 1: constant and never ending improvement, of perpetual growth and learning
Speaker 1: and evolution and development. And one that's not realistic, and
Speaker 1: two it's also fucking exhausting. It's okay to have a
Speaker 1: day where you just goof off and produce fucking nothing. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, And it's like when people go to me,
Speaker 1: what are you up to today? Even I still feel
Speaker 1: compelled to give them a bit of a shopping list
Speaker 1: of all the amazing shit I've got on And it's
Speaker 1: just sometimes it's not true. I go, I've got fucking
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I might wash some clothes. Then I'll see
Speaker 1: where I go from there. You know, so big day.
Speaker 1: And I say that sometimes I don't know why people
Speaker 1: are surprised I wash my own clothes, like I'm some
Speaker 1: fucking movie star that can't use a washing mission. But
Speaker 1: I think giving ourselves permission to have, you know, as
Speaker 1: long as it's not a thousand days in a row,
Speaker 1: but days where we're not productive, we're not absolute right,
Speaker 1: we're not producing great outcomes. We maybe made a few
Speaker 1: fucking dumb decisions. We may be said on the couch
Speaker 1: with a box of pizza. It's like, it's not the
Speaker 1: end of the world.
Speaker 3: You know, I totally agree with you. I have so
Speaker 3: many clients that are like really driven people, and that's great, right,
Speaker 3: achieving things, growing, accomplishing, But it's not great necessarily if
Speaker 3: your belief is you must be productive or you are
Speaker 3: worthless yes, or you are doing the wrong thing yes,
Speaker 3: And so part of what I help them understand and
Speaker 3: realize if they want to. Is that exactly what you
Speaker 3: just said, you know, challenge that belief. Where are you
Speaker 3: getting that from? A lot of people are getting that
Speaker 3: from how they grew up, right, the messages from their
Speaker 3: families of origin, the people who are taking care of them.
Speaker 3: There are maybe in generations before maybe that was a
Speaker 3: more pervasive belief and it still is obviously, but that
Speaker 3: if you you must be productive, you must be doing
Speaker 3: something productive all the time. Yeah, And we internalize those
Speaker 3: beliefs and then we live those beliefs, even if it's
Speaker 3: not serving us, and it's like, well, maybe have a
Speaker 3: look at your beliefs and see if that's how you
Speaker 3: want to live your life and if it's healthy for you,
Speaker 3: and if it's taking you down you know, the roads,
Speaker 3: the paths that you want to actually go down. And
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm really good at doing nothing. I
Speaker 3: have no problem doing nothing, and I have no problem
Speaker 3: telling people I'm doing nothing. And you know, the more,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of days where I come home, if
Speaker 3: I'm working outside the home, I'll come home and I'll
Speaker 3: as soon as I get home, I put my pajamas.
Speaker 3: I don't want to go anywhere and do anything. If
Speaker 3: I want to sit down on the couch for two hours,
Speaker 3: I have like zero guilt about that. But that's not
Speaker 3: the case for most people, I don't think. I think
Speaker 3: a lot of people struggle with just even sitting and
Speaker 3: doing nothing for ten minutes or like thirty and it's
Speaker 3: just like, yeah, it's like even just that's a practice
Speaker 3: that people can experiment with a little bit more and
Speaker 3: see if they can tolerate being uncomfortable with not being productive,
Speaker 3: even if it's just for a few minutes.
Speaker 1: I feel like when I talk to a lot of
Speaker 1: people about their goals in the next one two five
Speaker 1: years of their life and what they want to change
Speaker 1: in the short, medium, long term, when you get through
Speaker 1: the kind of the the obvious stuff, I want more
Speaker 1: of this and less less of that, or I'd like
Speaker 1: to achieve this or tick that box, or i want
Speaker 1: to undo this healthy habit, or like a lot of
Speaker 1: what people want when for me, anyway, when we get
Speaker 1: down to it, is they just want to be less anxious.
Speaker 1: It seems like everyone is anxious and they want of course,
Speaker 1: they want to make dough and you know, be physically
Speaker 1: healthy and all of that. But like so many people
Speaker 1: just want calm, calm. It's like, I just want to
Speaker 1: be calm. I can't. I worry about everything. I worry
Speaker 1: about this, I worry about that. And then when there
Speaker 1: is nothing to worry about, then they create something to
Speaker 1: worry about because something might happen in the future. It's
Speaker 1: not happening now, but in case it does happen in
Speaker 1: the future, I've got to prepare for it now. And
Speaker 1: oh my god. And it's like, really, it ain't about things.
Speaker 1: It's about it ain't about anything really external. It's a
Speaker 1: bit maybe, but it's really more about that internal state.
Speaker 1: And I know this sounds cheesy, but you know that
Speaker 1: emotional and psychological and spiritual bank balance, you know, rather
Speaker 1: than the stuff because how many people do you know
Speaker 1: tif No, I know that from the outside looking in,
Speaker 1: you would call them by all normal conventions like successful.
Speaker 1: You go, wow, they're successful. And what we're saying is
Speaker 1: they're making lots of money, they're successful, or they're doing
Speaker 1: great in their career, or you know, they're ticking all
Speaker 1: these boxes and that obviously that's not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: But does that equate to joy and happiness and calmness
Speaker 1: and contentment? And you know, maybe maybe not. I think
Speaker 1: for a lot of people the answer is is not.
Speaker 3: Oh, and definitely the research is showing that it isn't.
Speaker 3: I mean, like you said, anxiety is skyrocketing, and that's
Speaker 3: across the board, like from the really young people. Youth
Speaker 3: is probably skyrocketing even more than everybody else, but more
Speaker 3: and more. Like I talk to a lot of business owners,
Speaker 3: I'm around them a lot and more and more, it's
Speaker 3: I can't sleep, I can't my mind is racing all
Speaker 3: the time, I feel stressed. My life is out of balance. So, yes,
Speaker 3: they might be really successful and financially, but they're not
Speaker 3: feeling intent, they're not enjoying their life. And so what
Speaker 3: is the measure of success really when we think about it,
Speaker 3: is that it's having a contentment and joy and fun
Speaker 3: and good relationships. And if you are focused on kind
Speaker 3: of just one version of success, which is often that
Speaker 3: press desion, status and money aspect, you are not paying
Speaker 3: attention to the other parts. And the other parts are
Speaker 3: the ones that actually will make you happy or help
Speaker 3: you feel content most of the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Do you think in general terms that being more resilient,
Speaker 1: whatever that means, but being more mentally and emotionally resilient,
Speaker 1: it equates too less anxiety generally.
Speaker 3: Well, I think with resilience, from what I know about resilience,
Speaker 3: the way to have high resilience you kind of need
Speaker 3: three factors. One is like good, solid, positive, supportive relationships
Speaker 3: is number one, and then the second is like your mindset,
Speaker 3: like how much you believe in yourself and your capabilities.
Speaker 3: And then the third is like the skills that you need.
Speaker 3: And so if you have those relationships in place, if
Speaker 3: you believe in yourself and that, and you know that
Speaker 3: you're capable of doing things that you want to do,
Speaker 3: and if you have the skills or people around you
Speaker 3: who can model those skills that you need to achieve
Speaker 3: what you want in life, then you will be less anxious.
Speaker 3: So they are. I think they're definitely related to each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like this is my theory. You can't
Speaker 1: really build resilience when you always choose the easy option,
Speaker 1: right like, when you always take the comfortable, the quick fix,
Speaker 1: the alleged painless, the magic pill, the reward without work option,
Speaker 1: you're not really building resilience because you're not doing anything hard. Yes, Now,
Speaker 1: I don't think life needs to be a perpetual slog
Speaker 1: or battle. But it's like saying I want to build
Speaker 1: physical strength, but I'm not going to work against resistance.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to lift any weights, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go to the gym, I'm not going to sweat well.
Speaker 1: How you get strong physically is literally working against resistance.
Speaker 1: And I feel like how you build mental and emotional
Speaker 1: strength or resilience or grits or you know, these are
Speaker 1: interchangeable terms to an extent as it you have to
Speaker 1: be able to in an intelligent, not reckless, but intelligent way,
Speaker 1: expose yourself to a level of stress, you know, so
Speaker 1: that you can, Like if you avoid pressure always, then
Speaker 1: how the fuck can you perform under pressure? And life
Speaker 1: is pressure and some people are not going to like you,
Speaker 1: and some things are not going to work out, and
Speaker 1: even if you're a great person, bad things will happen
Speaker 1: to you because that's the human experience. And if we're
Speaker 1: always you know, mum or Dad's always molly coddling us,
Speaker 1: or we're always like the skills that you talk of,
Speaker 1: I agree, But where the fuck do they come from?
Speaker 1: Like they have to come Like, how do you learn
Speaker 1: to be good at something that you never do. How
Speaker 1: do you overcome your fear of speaking in public. It's
Speaker 1: by speaking in public's right, Yeah, yeah, muscles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the main treatment for anxiety is it's called exposure therapy,
Speaker 3: so it literally is what you're saying. And I think
Speaker 3: that that is a really important skill to impart to
Speaker 3: young people, you know, like children from a very early age.
Speaker 3: It is like when you're scared of something, unless it's
Speaker 3: actually dangerous or unsafe, approach it. If you approach things
Speaker 3: that you're afraid of, that if it goes well, you
Speaker 3: build confidence. If it doesn't go well, you build resilience.
Speaker 3: So it's a win win sure, and then the next
Speaker 3: time you do it it'll be even less anxiety provoking
Speaker 3: and the next time even less so. And like you said,
Speaker 3: if you can do that, you build resilience and you're
Speaker 3: less anxious over time. But at the same time, you
Speaker 3: have to expect a certain level of stress and anxiety
Speaker 3: in your life because that's just been a human Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think just about in general with people, you know, kids,
Speaker 1: grown ups. You know the idea of like kids playing
Speaker 1: on monkey bars. Yep, someone's going to break an arm Yep,
Speaker 1: that's going to happen. So do we ban monkey bars?
Speaker 1: Do we never let children climb a tree? And I
Speaker 1: know there's an element of risk and I know, but
Speaker 1: I wonder, and I'm not stating anything, I'm wondering out loud,
Speaker 1: what is the cost of nurfing the world with kids?
Speaker 1: Of course you want to protect them, of course to
Speaker 1: a point, But then where's the line and how much
Speaker 1: do you let them fall down and learn and make mistakes?
Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, you came last in the race,
Speaker 1: and that's okay, we love you, you're awesome, but you
Speaker 1: came last. And it's okay that you came last. We're
Speaker 1: not going to pretend that you didn't. Like It's to
Speaker 1: me that stuff where because when you leave the parental nest,
Speaker 1: you're going to come last at something. You're going to
Speaker 1: fuck up, you're going to get embarrassed, you're going to
Speaker 1: be you're going to get rejected, you're going to like
Speaker 1: And if we're not teaching kids about this when they're kids,
Speaker 1: while still loving them and protecting them, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: if they come out of the nest at eight nine
Speaker 1: and twenty and then they got pushed out into a
Speaker 1: reality they're ill prepared for. Yeah, that's fucking that's dangerous too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's actually really important for kids to learn how
Speaker 3: to feel their emotions, identif by their emotions, express their emotions,
Speaker 3: validate their emotions, and so we're protecting them from disappointment
Speaker 3: or embarrassment. Then they don't learn how to manage those
Speaker 3: emotions and maybe even think that they're wrong to have
Speaker 3: them in the first place. Like your example of like
Speaker 3: coming last, I think this is something like, I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm sure I've done this too. Like you don't want
Speaker 3: to see your kids disappointed, so you might say, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, it's you know, it's fine, or you know,
Speaker 3: or this happened and that's why you came last. You
Speaker 3: make excuses for it or whatever. But the child knows
Speaker 3: they came last. So in some ways you're invalidating their experience,
Speaker 3: their experiences that they came last, and they're disappointed by that.
Speaker 3: But then you come in and you try to, you know,
Speaker 3: like you said, make it better, and so they don't
Speaker 3: get to express how disappointed they are because the message
Speaker 3: they're getting is I shouldn't feel sad or disappointed, or
Speaker 3: there's these other reasons why this occurred, or.
Speaker 1: It's okay though it's oh, you're disappointed.
Speaker 3: That's okay, Yes, exactly, it is okay to be it's actually, yeah,
Speaker 3: it makes sense for you to be disappointed when you
Speaker 3: come last. Actually, it does make sense. It's a painful emotion,
Speaker 3: but it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Well, this is coming from a kid too, an next
Speaker 1: kid that came last a lot like I came last
Speaker 1: a lot. I would have stood there fifty sixty seventy
Speaker 1: times as teams were being picked. Yeah, and being the
Speaker 1: last one picked, and that wasn't a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: But like, I know why I was the last one
Speaker 1: picked because I was the worst athlete, because I was
Speaker 1: morbidly obese. And I get it. And people go, oh
Speaker 1: my god, oh my god, But I get it. It's
Speaker 1: like I, oh, okay, Craig Will, I want good athletes.
Speaker 1: And at this point in you know, later on, I
Speaker 1: lost some weight and I became an okay athlete and
Speaker 1: things changed a bit. But I know for me anyway,
Speaker 1: and don't I wouldn't recommend that to anyone, what I
Speaker 1: went through. And I understands it makes people cringe and
Speaker 1: all of that, but and my experience, as no one else's,
Speaker 1: I get all of that. But for me, it made
Speaker 1: me really fucking motivated. Eventually, Eventually I got to the
Speaker 1: point I went, oh, well, I'm going to keep coming last,
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep getting embarrassed, I'm going to keep
Speaker 1: being socially invisible. I'm going to fucking hell. And I
Speaker 1: could silk and winge and complain, but at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I was the problem because I was
Speaker 1: the one eating all the food. I was the one
Speaker 1: that you know, my mum wasn't forced feeding me, you know,
Speaker 1: and I was the one not exercising, and so you know,
Speaker 1: it was painful, but it was also for me. It
Speaker 1: was it was also a lesson and I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: any other kids to necessarily go through that. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I think that I don't know, like
Speaker 1: a little bit of messiness and a little bit of
Speaker 1: discomfort and you know, and by the way, it's it's
Speaker 1: never going to stop happening. So we need to teach
Speaker 1: kids and grown ups how to cope.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do, and in lots of different ways. Like
Speaker 3: you know, with my kids when they because they're they're
Speaker 3: teenagers now, but you know, they when they turn like thirteen,
Speaker 3: they start getting embarrassed by like everything, so like you
Speaker 3: play the music too loud in the car with the
Speaker 3: windows up, turn the music down, you know, like there's
Speaker 3: and I like, so I will purposefully embarrass them, like
Speaker 3: because I think it's good for them, And I will
Speaker 3: tell them that. I'll be like, it's good for you
Speaker 3: to be embarrassed. You need to practice like being embarrassed.
Speaker 3: So I'll just and it's not like it's not being spirited,
Speaker 3: it's like literally so that they are resilient with that
Speaker 3: emotion because there's so much, so much time and energy
Speaker 3: wasted on feeling awkward, embarrassed, anxious. And if they don't
Speaker 3: learn how to tolerate that now, even though they get
Speaker 3: super annoyed by it, then what is it going to
Speaker 3: be like in the future. Like, I'd rather them just
Speaker 3: learn to be embarrassed now as a lesson, and so
Speaker 3: then I get to enjoy it as well. I get
Speaker 3: to enjoy it embarrassing it from time to time.
Speaker 1: What about the idea of parents who are like in
Speaker 1: Inverted Comma's best friends with their kids. Is that a
Speaker 1: dumb idea? I don't know that.
Speaker 3: I feel like I don't know. It's just depends on
Speaker 3: what you mean by that.
Speaker 1: Well, you know how I've heard it. Moms say it
Speaker 1: more than dad's. But I'll say with their you know,
Speaker 1: by my daughter and I have best friends, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe that's a good idea. I just
Speaker 1: I done well.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think yeah, I think, gosh, I think
Speaker 3: this is like a it's fraud. I think, like I
Speaker 3: would like to think. But my daughter's seventeen. Now we
Speaker 3: have a really open communicative relationship, but also a regular
Speaker 3: mother daughter relationship where we get annoyed with each other
Speaker 3: and all that sort of stuff. When she's older, I
Speaker 3: would like her to considering me a best friend. I
Speaker 3: feel like when you're both adults and you've gone through things.
Speaker 3: But I do say that it's not just that though
Speaker 3: you're always going to be their mother, but potentially, and
Speaker 3: I haven't gotten to this stage yet so I don't know,
Speaker 3: but potentially, when as they get older, you're doing a
Speaker 3: lot less mothering, so there's more room for the friendship
Speaker 3: side to develop. What when they're children and adolescens, your
Speaker 3: primary role is mother like guidance, boundary, lessons, and friendship
Speaker 3: is if it's there, it's secondary. It can't be the
Speaker 3: primary Because I don't know. It depends on what kind
Speaker 3: of friends you have. Like you if your friendships are
Speaker 3: about you know, advice giving and setting boundaries and you
Speaker 3: like teaching lessons and stuff, maybe that's your version of
Speaker 3: friendship and that's what it means to you. But I
Speaker 3: guess I think that you can It's one of those things.
Speaker 3: Maybe you can be both at the same time, but
Speaker 3: at different stages of their development. One is going to
Speaker 3: come out a lot more than the other.
Speaker 1: Do you ever talk to your patients Do you call
Speaker 1: them patients or clients? Patients call them clients. Do you
Speaker 1: ever talk to your clients about about their own thinking?
Speaker 1: You know, like metacognitive like where you just oh when
Speaker 1: you think that, do you ever hit the pause button
Speaker 1: then go wow, where did that thought come from? Or
Speaker 1: why do I think that? Or where did that belief
Speaker 1: come from? Does that serve me or sabotage me? Where?
Speaker 1: You know, we try to understand our own mind and
Speaker 1: the processes of our own mind, just to create a
Speaker 1: bit of space between me and my mind, me and
Speaker 1: my thoughts. Do you ever talk to people about that
Speaker 1: kind of metacognitive kind of process.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's kind of the foundation of most
Speaker 3: of the therapy that I do. I would say it's
Speaker 3: the foundation of cognitive behavioral therapy to be aware of
Speaker 3: your thoughts, to challenge your thoughts potentially, to understand where
Speaker 3: they come from, the origins of your thoughts, modify them. Also,
Speaker 3: you know, a core skill is mindfulness, not of CBT
Speaker 3: so much, but you know, the kind of third wave
Speaker 3: CBT therapies like acceptance and commitment therapy and dialectical behavior
Speaker 3: therapy include mindfulness as a core skill, and part of
Speaker 3: that can be mindfulness of your thoughts. Like I've I recorded,
Speaker 3: I record I don't know if you know this, but
Speaker 3: I've recorded like like three albums of relaxation and mindfulness
Speaker 3: exercises over the years, and one of the ones that
Speaker 3: I recorded is called mindfulness of thoughts like clouds in
Speaker 3: the sky and what that The purpose of that is
Speaker 3: so that people can observe their thoughts non judgmentally and
Speaker 3: so without trying to change anything. So so helping people understand,
Speaker 3: like be able to see their thoughts from a distance
Speaker 3: as an observer and not necessarily attached to them and
Speaker 3: hold on to them or even engage them in any way,
Speaker 3: not like not even challenge them or anything, just literally
Speaker 3: just watching them go by, just like you might watch
Speaker 3: the sky and see the clouds go by, or sometimes
Speaker 3: people like to imagine like leaves on a stream. Sometimes
Speaker 3: that can be extremely helpful for anxiety and stress management,
Speaker 3: and especially the non judgmental peace of mindfulness. I think
Speaker 3: that that's people often talk about mindfulness as being in
Speaker 3: the present moment, which it is, but they're forgetting the
Speaker 3: other part of it, which is the judgmental part. It's
Speaker 3: observing things in the present moment nonjudgmentally. That makes it
Speaker 3: a really helpful practice. And when you can do that,
Speaker 3: and that's probably one of the hardest things to do,
Speaker 3: then you can again to achieve I guess more emotional
Speaker 3: and cognitive stability.
Speaker 1: Do you think people are aware of the space between
Speaker 1: the thing that's happening and their story about the thing
Speaker 1: that's happening, you know, like the reality, the objective reality
Speaker 1: of the event or the situation or the circumstance versus
Speaker 1: our interpretation of it. You know, it's like when someone
Speaker 1: listens to me and I say fuck, and they think
Speaker 1: I'm offensive than their experiences, they are offended. Yes, when
Speaker 1: someone else hears the ex or is impacted by the
Speaker 1: exact same stimulus me saying fuck, and they think it's
Speaker 1: amusing their literal experiences. They're amused, right, and so whatever
Speaker 1: their story is about that, I'm just using that word
Speaker 1: because people can relate, you know, because people are going
Speaker 1: to respond one way. Oh that's offensive, that's funny, that's inappropriate,
Speaker 1: that's appropriate. Oh that's craig, you know, Like people have
Speaker 1: a story and then they believe their story and that
Speaker 1: becomes their experience. So for them it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is just my personal response. They're like, no, that
Speaker 1: is categorically offensive. No, bro, it's just offensive to you
Speaker 1: because there's nineteen other people who are not offended. Yes,
Speaker 1: is that kind of opening the door on becoming more
Speaker 1: self aware of our own ability to create a subjective
Speaker 1: experience in the middle of the objective whatever that's going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that your question about whether most people
Speaker 3: are aware of that maybe not. Again, that's like a
Speaker 3: foundational foundation of CBT is this idea that our thoughts
Speaker 3: are what and our interpretations and our perspectives impact how
Speaker 3: we feel and what we do. So if we understand
Speaker 3: what the difference is between the facts of the situation, yes,
Speaker 3: and our interpretation of the facts. Yes, then we can
Speaker 3: do a lot with how we not just the content
Speaker 3: of what we think, but our patterns of thinking. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's not just like I'm like, I'm offended because you know,
Speaker 3: my beliefs or this or that, But it's also like,
Speaker 3: do I have a pattern of thinking that is full
Speaker 3: of shoulds all or nothing? Black or white? Thinking? Over
Speaker 3: generalizing all of these kinds of patterns that we all
Speaker 3: have to some extent, But for some people they have
Speaker 3: a lot more. And because they're not aware, they don't
Speaker 3: realize how much it's impacting their life and how they
Speaker 3: interact with the world and how and how it actually
Speaker 3: impacts them internally.
Speaker 1: I think also too, when when you think so in
Speaker 1: way about something, or you have a certain idea or
Speaker 1: ideology or philosophy or belief about a certain thing and
Speaker 1: you've believed that or you've thought that about that for
Speaker 1: a very long time and you're sure about that, that
Speaker 1: gets into woven with your identity. And so when I
Speaker 1: challenge that thought or that idea, then for you, I'm
Speaker 1: challenging your identity. Yeah, you know so. And it's like
Speaker 1: the idea of being open minded is easy. The reality
Speaker 1: the reality is another thing.
Speaker 3: Right, totally. I agree with that and for sure, like
Speaker 3: there have been many times where I'm like, my thought
Speaker 3: process has been more like I'm right or wrong. And
Speaker 3: that's with awareness, right, that's with knowing.
Speaker 1: That's you being a clinical psychologist who's smart. Yeah, of course, and.
Speaker 3: I'm being willful right in that moment, I know that
Speaker 3: I'm being wilful and stubborn and irrational at the same
Speaker 3: time as I would like to express that I am
Speaker 3: correct and you know nothing.
Speaker 1: And as I've said many times, when you think or
Speaker 1: I think on a particular matter that I am unequivocally right,
Speaker 1: then I also believe concurrently that everyone in the world
Speaker 1: who disagrees with me is wrong.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: No, that's a big stand. Hey, we've got to wind
Speaker 1: up because Tiff and I have got another show in
Speaker 1: a little while. I wish we had more time, but
Speaker 1: I love chatting with you. How can people connect with you,
Speaker 1: doctor Lillian.
Speaker 3: Well, they can have a look at the website Doctor
Speaker 3: Liliannaja dot com and if they want to work on
Speaker 3: their worries and anxiety can go to Contain your Brain
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 1: Awesome, we appreciate you. It's always fun chatting to you.
Speaker 3: Great type of you, guys.
Speaker 1: You've splain over there, just man handling. Oh I nearly
Speaker 1: said something terrible, bear, and I wasn't even trying to
Speaker 1: be funny.
Speaker 3: Craig her cat exactly well exactly yes, Thanks TIV, Thanks guys. Bye,