Speaker 1: I think in our society we're given a lot of
Speaker 1: things to do instead of feel. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of things to consume instead of feel, and yet that's
Speaker 1: how we stay bound and addicted and unhappy.
Speaker 2: On this episode of the Psychology Podcast, I chat with
Speaker 2: Emma Sepola about reclaiming yourself and setting yourself free. Sounds good, right.
Speaker 2: I've known Emma since grad school and she consistently puts
Speaker 2: out good vibes and teaches us how to have healthy
Speaker 2: bodies and minds. In this episode, we discussed what Emma
Speaker 2: refers to as sovereign, which is designed to emancipate you
Speaker 2: from the many ways in which you knowingly or unknowingly
Speaker 2: subjugate yourself at every level of your existence, from yourself,
Speaker 2: to your emotions, to your mind, to your relationships, to
Speaker 2: your intuition, and to your body. Emma shows us how
Speaker 2: we bind ourselves and how we can reach claim our sovereignty.
Speaker 2: Emma is a very wise and compassionate human and I
Speaker 2: think you'll learn stuff in this episode you can apply
Speaker 2: in your life right away to reconnect with yourself in
Speaker 2: a very healthy way. So, without further ado, I'll bring
Speaker 2: you Emma Cepola Emma, Emma, Emma.
Speaker 3: Hi Scott, how you doing.
Speaker 1: Good to see you, Good to hear you, Good.
Speaker 3: To see you too.
Speaker 2: Congrats in your new book, Sovereign Reclaim your freedom, energy
Speaker 2: and power in a time of distraction, uncertainty, and chaos. Wow. Well,
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people are really yearning from
Speaker 2: that right now. So you know, this major theme of
Speaker 2: this new book is setting yourself free, and it's opposite state,
Speaker 2: which you refer to as the bound state, where through
Speaker 2: life experiences, fear and trauma, we start to disconnect from ourselves.
Speaker 2: So you're really contrasting these these things, and hopefully we
Speaker 2: can help our listeners and viewers, if they're watching the
Speaker 2: YouTube channel right now, help them, help them set themselves free.
Speaker 2: No one can do it but themselves, right, We can't
Speaker 2: do it for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so true, and that's that's the whole goal of
Speaker 1: this book.
Speaker 2: I know I read your book.
Speaker 1: You are awesome, Scotty.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. Go on and stop.
Speaker 2: So what's where do we even start with this this?
Speaker 2: Can you can you describe to me that how you
Speaker 2: conceive of the concept of energy. I mean, there's so
Speaker 2: many places to start in this discussion, but I see
Speaker 2: that word interwoven quite a bit throughout the book, and
Speaker 2: can you just kind of tell me what you think
Speaker 2: of that word.
Speaker 1: I love that as a first question, Scott, because in
Speaker 1: many ways, as I'm contrasting this the balance state and
Speaker 1: the sovereign state, the bound state is really everything that
Speaker 1: trains us of our energy. It's the beliefs we hold,
Speaker 1: the behavior patterns we have, the addictive behaviors that we have,
Speaker 1: the ways we conceive of ourselves and the ways we
Speaker 1: interpret the world that drain our energy, the ways that
Speaker 1: we interact with people that drain our energy. And when
Speaker 1: we're in a sovereign state, that's the opposite. We're filling
Speaker 1: our own tank, we're maintaining it, but we're also filling
Speaker 1: others tanks. So it's a pattern in that goes through
Speaker 1: all of the different chapters. You know. As one example,
Speaker 1: just as one belief that drains us is you know,
Speaker 1: whenever I've asked audiences how many people are self critical,
Speaker 1: almost every single person raises their hand. And as you
Speaker 1: as you know, self criticism the psychological definition is that
Speaker 1: it's a form of self loathing. And when you think
Speaker 1: about that, just you know that the majority of people
Speaker 1: are walking around with this. You could think of it
Speaker 1: as social conditioning or programming, like viral programming that runs
Speaker 1: in families and runs in societies and does us no
Speaker 1: vapors and drains us of our energy. That's one example.
Speaker 2: How do we get bounded, you know, and disconnected from ourselves?
Speaker 2: And you know, throughout the course of our lives, can
Speaker 2: our relationship with ourselves change depending on life circumstances.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And I think that's the journey, right, that's the
Speaker 1: journey of and it starts with awareness, like being aware
Speaker 1: of the many ways that we engage with behaviors or
Speaker 1: thought patterns that drain our energy. Another example is our emotions.
Speaker 1: And I know you think about this a lot too,
Speaker 1: and that most people when you ask, well, what have
Speaker 1: you learned about what to do with your emotions, your big,
Speaker 1: bad negative ones, people will say, let's just suppress them, right,
Speaker 1: just suck it up, butter Cup, That's that's pretty much
Speaker 1: what everyone is up to. I mean there's some exceptions,
Speaker 1: you know, in some Latin cultures in southern Italy, But
Speaker 1: even then there are certain emotions that are just not
Speaker 1: acceptable and that are suppressed. And when we look at
Speaker 1: the research suppression basically increases the negative emotion, and it's
Speaker 1: more likely to come out somatically, you know, through health stuff,
Speaker 1: or it's going to explode or come out as passive
Speaker 1: aggression and destroying both ourselves and others in the process.
Speaker 1: So that's just sort of one example of that. And
Speaker 1: how the journey towards becoming more sovereign with regards to
Speaker 1: our emotions is to learn to actually feel them, just
Speaker 1: like a child will feel their emotions one hundred percent
Speaker 1: and then it moves through them. Just like so going
Speaker 1: back to that theme of energy, the child lets the
Speaker 1: energy of the emotion move through them and then they're
Speaker 1: done a few minutes later, as opposed to adults who
Speaker 1: can hold on to an emotion forever. Not to say
Speaker 1: that I'm encouraging exploding our emotions all over the place,
Speaker 1: but the ability to feel, and I think, I think
Speaker 1: in our society we're given a lot of things to
Speaker 1: do instead of feel, you know, a lot of things
Speaker 1: to consume instead of feel, and yet that's how we
Speaker 1: stay bound and addicted and unhappy.
Speaker 2: What does a healthy self esteem look like?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I always just ask, like, you know,
Speaker 1: what are some of the things that people say to
Speaker 1: themselves when they make a big mistake. Right when you
Speaker 1: ask people that, they usually say where it's like, you're
Speaker 1: such an idiot, you don't belong here, not good enough,
Speaker 1: those kinds of words. And you know, whenever I hear that,
Speaker 1: it's just so heartbreaking to hear how people talk to themselves.
Speaker 1: When during the pandemic, I would teach on Zoom and
Speaker 1: I would ask this question, what do you say to
Speaker 1: yourself when you make a big mistake? And people would
Speaker 1: write it in the chat and you'd see one thing
Speaker 1: after another of these heartbreaking words that people tear themselves,
Speaker 1: tear themselves up with, And when you think about it,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense because what would you say
Speaker 1: to your best friend? You would say, what would you
Speaker 1: say your best friend? You would say, Oh, you're okay,
Speaker 1: everything's everybody makes mistakes, You're totally fine. We'd be so
Speaker 1: encouraging and loving to them. Why do we have a
Speaker 1: self destructive relationship with ourselves? You know, we talk about
Speaker 1: toxic being in a toxic relationship or toxic workplace. Most
Speaker 1: people are walking around with a toxic relationship with their
Speaker 1: own self? What about that makes sense? It doesn't, but
Speaker 1: it keeps people bound this. One study found that eighty
Speaker 1: percent of millennials endorse the belief I am not good
Speaker 1: enough with regards to most areas of their life. Can
Speaker 1: you believe that? It's so heartbreaking? And so I always
Speaker 1: think what would happen to this world if every single
Speaker 1: person had a sovereign relationship with themselves? I mean, how
Speaker 1: would they show up? They would be able to show
Speaker 1: up within their full potential, be their freaking best selves
Speaker 1: and rock stars like Scott Barry.
Speaker 2: Kauffman, Well, thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, you got
Speaker 2: me thinking that. I think I might start using the
Speaker 2: phrase instead of self esteem. What we really need is
Speaker 2: a healthy self relationship. I like, yeah, I just thought
Speaker 2: of that phrase self relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so.
Speaker 1: Totally why wouldn't you? I mean, the only relationship you're
Speaker 1: guaranteed for the rest of your life is with yourself.
Speaker 1: Might as well make it a good one, right, or
Speaker 1: a friendship, a romance and what happens then? You know?
Speaker 1: I just you know, I always think, like, how are
Speaker 1: you going to show up on the battlefield of your life?
Speaker 1: Are you going to show up, you know, limping because
Speaker 1: you kicked yourself there? Or in brands spanking new, shining
Speaker 1: armor because you loved your way there. You know, where
Speaker 1: are you? How are you going to be strongest? And
Speaker 1: and yeah, so that's just something I think about. And
Speaker 1: Maya Angelo has this beautiful quote where she says, I've
Speaker 1: learned a long time ago that the only thing that
Speaker 1: forgetting now the exact quotes I've learned a long time ago,
Speaker 1: but the only thing that makes sense to be on
Speaker 1: my own side. Something like that. And then Audrey Lordie
Speaker 1: has another really great quote and she says, or self
Speaker 1: care is not self indulgence, it's an act of political warfare.
Speaker 1: So powerful. And she was a self described uh, a
Speaker 1: gay black woman in a white, straight man's world, you know,
Speaker 1: so she just was she was battling a lot of
Speaker 1: battles as an activist and writer and so forth. But
Speaker 1: it's so powerful what she said. It's it's that's how
Speaker 1: you're going to show up. You're going to show up
Speaker 1: powerfully if you show up with that self care.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's really powerful. Emma.
Speaker 2: You know you've done some terrific, groundbreaking research in our
Speaker 2: field on the neuroscience of emotion regulation. I'd be remiss
Speaker 2: not to have you review some of your most recent
Speaker 2: findings or your most the highlights of some of your findings.
Speaker 2: You know, what are some of the highlights of your
Speaker 2: findings and why as adults well, and also why don't
Speaker 2: children learn learn this stuff? We're never taught this, I know.
Speaker 1: Scott, It's so weird. I always just think, like, no
Speaker 1: matter how many mds, PhDs, black belts, you know, dishes,
Speaker 1: you know how to cook, languages, you know how to speak,
Speaker 1: most people are running around with as much education about
Speaker 1: how to handle their big, bad, negative emotions as a
Speaker 1: five year old, which is basically no formal education. I
Speaker 1: mean you're supposed to you know, like the two hardest
Speaker 1: things we're supposed to manage in our life, which are
Speaker 1: emotions and relationships, we never get any training on. And
Speaker 1: they caused so much pain, you know, And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we were looking specifically, I was looking at
Speaker 1: a trauma. So after nine I was living in New
Speaker 1: York during nine to eleven, and I had a lot
Speaker 1: of anxiety after that day, and I tried a lot
Speaker 1: of things to help me at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: I tried mindfulness. I'd go to like hot yoga and
Speaker 1: I do all this stuff. And I was still shaking.
Speaker 1: You know, it's still shaking at eight thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1: And then I walked into a breathing class called it's
Speaker 1: called sky Breath Meditation, which was a breathing class that
Speaker 1: was offered at Columbia by some fellow students through an
Speaker 1: organization called Art of Living. And I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what is this And I learned the breathing practices and
Speaker 1: then I felt wow, like I feel like I can
Speaker 1: move on. I regained my sovereignty over my anxiety. So
Speaker 1: fast forward then, you know, I did my doctoral program
Speaker 1: in psychology and I was doing a postdoc and working
Speaker 1: with veterans with trauma or coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq,
Speaker 1: and many of them had gone through traditional therapeutic or
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical treatments and they hadn't helped them. They were self medicating,
Speaker 1: like in their basement, smoking weed or drinking, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And so I thought, you know, this helped me so
Speaker 1: many years ago. Let's see if we can help them
Speaker 1: with breathing. And that was one of the first studies
Speaker 1: that we ran with a breathing protocol, with doing on
Speaker 1: the sky breath meditation for a week and then we
Speaker 1: looked at their anxiety pre post, one month post, and
Speaker 1: one year post, and we also looked at physiological measures
Speaker 1: of startle response and so forth. And what we found
Speaker 1: was that after one week their anxiety had normalized, I
Speaker 1: mean compared to the country role group, they they had
Speaker 1: really uh, some of them no longer qualified as having
Speaker 1: post traumatic stress. And then when we looked at the
Speaker 1: physiology of it, we saw really strong correlation between their
Speaker 1: reduction in in startle response and their reduction in anxiety.
Speaker 1: So correlation was zero point nine. Now this is something crazy.
Speaker 1: And then one month later and yeah, one month later
Speaker 1: and one year later, they they had maintained they they
Speaker 1: were they had maintained what they had experienced after that
Speaker 1: first week, so their anxiety was normalized. And it was
Speaker 1: interesting because many of them hadn't continued their breathing practice,
Speaker 1: and so that was really cool. It was like as
Speaker 1: if you know, there's a way to sort of stabilize
Speaker 1: the nervous system even if you have gone through trauma
Speaker 1: through breathing. And I think, to me, that makes sense
Speaker 1: in the because a lot of psychological approaches are through
Speaker 1: the mind, like change your thoughts, change your mind, change
Speaker 1: your life, you know, and I think that can work
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, and I think I think it
Speaker 1: does work, you know, being grateful and so forth. We know,
Speaker 1: oh that that works. But when there is a really
Speaker 1: intense trauma, really intense anxiety, it's lodged in the body,
Speaker 1: the memory is I'm just thinking about one veteran he
Speaker 1: would he said, you know, I'll stand in front of
Speaker 1: the mall, and I'm here in Madison, Wisconsin, and I
Speaker 1: know there's no danger in the mall, but I still
Speaker 1: have to brace myself for twenty minutes before I can
Speaker 1: go in. Because his mind is doing fine. It's just
Speaker 1: that the trauma in the body, the memory in the body,
Speaker 1: is bringing up so much anxiety. And so what we
Speaker 1: think is happening is that through breathing there's this combination.
Speaker 1: You're not just addressing the mind, you're also addressing the
Speaker 1: nervous system.
Speaker 2: Tell me a little tell me a little more about that,
Speaker 2: because I've been critical of the trauma obsessed culturally living
Speaker 2: now and also the obsession with the body keeps the score.
Speaker 2: So I actually would like to hear more about this.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, no, I'm fascinated by myself because we've run a
Speaker 1: number of other studies subsequent to this and found some
Speaker 1: really interesting stuff. So yeah, I mean, one thing we
Speaker 1: think is happening is this is that as the veterans
Speaker 1: are doing their breathing practice, they go into this deep
Speaker 1: parasympathetic state of just calm, and in that moment, it's
Speaker 1: sometimes these memories come up. They can come up in
Speaker 1: the form of the flashback, they come up in the
Speaker 1: form of simply a smell, of feeling, of physiological sensation,
Speaker 1: but they're in a deep parasympathetic state. So when usually
Speaker 1: when they're having a flashback or a memory, they're back
Speaker 1: in sympathetic activation as if they were in the trauma
Speaker 1: that they experienced. And that's why post traumatic stress doesn't
Speaker 1: allow you to move on, because it's as if that
Speaker 1: trauma is still right there in front of you right
Speaker 1: now or every time it's triggered, right and so, and
Speaker 1: they're not able to sleep for that reason. They're constantly
Speaker 1: in high activation. And what happens with the breathing we
Speaker 1: believe is that as they're going into this parasympathetic state
Speaker 1: and the memory maybe coming up, there's like a decoupling
Speaker 1: that happens between the physiological activation and the memory. And
Speaker 1: so what they have said to us is I remember
Speaker 1: everything that happened, but I can move on. And they
Speaker 1: get off got off their met their sleep meds, anxiety meds,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, sometimes I get in touch
Speaker 1: with them because like a reporter wants to talk to
Speaker 1: them or something, and some of them are like, I'm
Speaker 1: not I honestly don't remember what that was like. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe you don't remember what that was like
Speaker 1: cause you were living in your basement going through a
Speaker 1: divorce and you couldn't even know about work, you know,
Speaker 1: so talk about sovereignty, you know, how can we regain sovereignty?
Speaker 1: So many people have gone through trauma, and you know,
Speaker 1: many psychological approaches do work and do help, and exposure
Speaker 1: health therapy does help, you know, in some cases and
Speaker 1: in other cases, there are people that fall through the cracks,
Speaker 1: and many veterans have fallen through the cracks. And there's
Speaker 1: been a very very high suicide rate, as you probably
Speaker 1: know daily. It's a horrible amount. And and I wanted
Speaker 1: to see is there another is there another way that
Speaker 1: we can bridge that gap, that we can catch those
Speaker 1: that are falling, And we subsequently ran another study with
Speaker 1: the Palo Alto Va the larger a larger group of
Speaker 1: veterans including both men and women, and and it was
Speaker 1: a it was a design where you uh, that where
Speaker 1: it was side by side with the gold standard therapeutic treatment,
Speaker 1: cognitive processing therapy, and the design was such that we
Speaker 1: wanted to see if the breathing intervention was it was
Speaker 1: at least as good as that one. I'm forgetting the
Speaker 1: name of it now and off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: but it's that's what the statistical uh, what the stats
Speaker 1: are that you're you're conducting on it, and that's what
Speaker 1: was found that was at least as good as the
Speaker 1: gold standard therapy. And then but then looking at just
Speaker 1: the physiology too of emotion regulation, those that had gone
Speaker 1: through the THING program as opposed to the therapy showed
Speaker 1: better emotion regulation at the physiological level. So again because
Speaker 1: I think what's happening with breathing is that you're actually
Speaker 1: something is going on at the nerve with the nervous system.
Speaker 1: It's not just cognitive and so so that's just really fascinating.
Speaker 1: And then another study we ran here at Yale looking
Speaker 1: at so Yale undergraduates tend to have worse and worse
Speaker 1: mental health as the semester goes on in their height,
Speaker 1: you know, type A, and just getting more and more
Speaker 1: anxious and depressed with the with time. And so we
Speaker 1: want what do.
Speaker 3: You say, my personal experience?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you remember that, Scott we met at Yale all
Speaker 1: those years ago. Oh it was so fun. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: uh exactly. So what we wanted to see is can
Speaker 1: we provide a buffer to prevent this from happening. So
Speaker 1: we randomly assigned students to It was about two hundred
Speaker 1: students I think. We randomly assigned them to one of
Speaker 1: three well being interventions or control group. So it was
Speaker 1: either this sky breath meditation, the breathing or it was
Speaker 1: mindfulness based stress reduction, or it was emotional intelligence which
Speaker 1: is mostly cognitive skills, or the control group. And we
Speaker 1: wanted to see which one of these was going to
Speaker 1: do to help the students most. And what we saw
Speaker 1: was that the breathing group had the most impact of
Speaker 1: all and I think it's because it probably brings together
Speaker 1: a lot of the elements from the others. Has both
Speaker 1: the physiological breathing component, but also brings together the mindfulness.
Speaker 1: Because what we saw is that mindfulness scores increased thanks
Speaker 1: to the breathing, and then it has some cognitive you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're better able to take in any kind of
Speaker 1: cognitive information when you're you've addressed the anxiety that's at
Speaker 1: the level of the body. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Can you give our listeners a concrete practice? Can you
Speaker 2: teach us something?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, absolutely, so you know what you know, what
Speaker 1: we researched is a program that takes a couple to learn,
Speaker 1: is like a whole protocol, like a twenty minute protocol.
Speaker 1: But what I can teach you now is something real
Speaker 1: simple that you can keep a.
Speaker 2: Back stuck in the past. You've taught me stuff in
Speaker 2: the past to help me get through my flying anxiety
Speaker 2: you have.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, fantastic.
Speaker 3: I don't remember that while ago ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh good? Did it help?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear that. Okay. So a real simple
Speaker 1: thing that people can take away from from just listening today.
Speaker 1: So when you breathe in, your heart rate increases, and
Speaker 1: when you breathe out, it slows down. And if you're
Speaker 1: you know, if you're in a nurse's office, you can
Speaker 1: really scare them by exhaling for a really long time
Speaker 1: and seeing what happens to your heart rate. But what
Speaker 1: we're going to do today is I can lead us
Speaker 1: through a real Do you want me to lead us
Speaker 1: through an exercise? Yeah, I'll lead us through a short
Speaker 1: extras Okay, what we're just going to do is lengthen
Speaker 1: our exhales for a while with our eyes closed. So
Speaker 1: before we start, before we start changing our breath, you
Speaker 1: can just close your eyes and have your palms open
Speaker 1: on your lap, and then you want to breathe in
Speaker 1: for account of one, but hold on before you start breathing. Sorry,
Speaker 1: before you start breathing, I just want to assess where
Speaker 1: you are right now, So just assessing your level of energy, noticing,
Speaker 1: you know, how many thoughts are going on in your
Speaker 1: own mind, so you could have a lot of traffic,
Speaker 1: a lot of thought traffic, or not a lot. Just
Speaker 1: sort of noticing your own state of mind first, so
Speaker 1: you can see if there's a shift from before to after.
Speaker 1: And then for the breathing, you want to breathe in
Speaker 1: for account of one, two, three, four, hold and then
Speaker 1: you can breathe out for two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
Speaker 1: So you're breathing out for either twice as long or
Speaker 1: a time and a half as long as you breathe in.
Speaker 1: You want to do that for about five minutes and
Speaker 1: then reassess sort of where you're at and then and
Speaker 1: that's a practice that you can take take with you.
Speaker 1: Do you want me to guide us through it or.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm doing it right now.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'll keep guiding us then for a few minutes. Okay,
Speaker 1: So breathe then two three four, hold and breathe out
Speaker 1: two three four, five, six seven eight. Breathe in two
Speaker 1: three four, hold and breathe out two three four, five
Speaker 1: six seven eight. Breathe in two three four, hold and
Speaker 1: breathe out two three four, five, six seven eight. Breathe
Speaker 1: in two three four, hold and breathe out two three four, five,
Speaker 1: six seven eight. One more time deep breath in two
Speaker 1: three for hold, breathe out two three four, five six
Speaker 1: seven eight, and then come back to normal breath and
Speaker 1: just assess any shifts or changes in the state of
Speaker 1: your mind. And then when you're ready, you can open
Speaker 1: your eyes and notice how you feel with the eyes open.
Speaker 2: I opened my eyes already. I'm gotta admit amazing. Yeah, No,
Speaker 2: it's it really does help do something to my parasympathetic
Speaker 2: nervous system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's a way to gain sovereignty, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, look all the time throughout the day, we
Speaker 1: have so much media coming at us, We have so
Speaker 1: many things, so many people, so many demands, and sometimes
Speaker 1: you can just rush through the day and there's all
Speaker 1: this stuff in our head from everything we've been accumulating.
Speaker 1: And then you you're right, sum are either at your
Speaker 1: office and you want to just be focusing, or at
Speaker 1: home and you want to be focusing on your loved ones,
Speaker 1: but your mind is completely cluttered with everything that's been happening,
Speaker 1: and you're not able to be present with what you
Speaker 1: want to do. And you know, having sovereignty of our
Speaker 1: mind is being able to bring it back into a
Speaker 1: place where it can be aware and present with what's
Speaker 1: going on, in calmer and able to you know, we
Speaker 1: know from research that when you're calmer, you're a better
Speaker 1: decision maker, you have better emotional intelligence, you're more focused,
Speaker 1: better attention, better memory, and you're more creative. Right, so,
Speaker 1: all the things.
Speaker 3: That's true, that's true.
Speaker 2: The emotion regulation and trauma narrative link is really interesting
Speaker 2: to me because I feel like trauma has exploded in
Speaker 2: our society, where it was once confined to like veterans
Speaker 2: and others would diagnose post traumatic stress disorder. Now it's
Speaker 2: every student I teach, it's everyone on TikTok, everyone and
Speaker 2: everything is blamed on their trauma as well.
Speaker 3: So to a.
Speaker 2: Certain degree, you know, trauma is a higher level, conscious
Speaker 2: construction of an event. It's it's a label that we're
Speaker 2: putting on an event. And of course you are quite
Speaker 2: right to point out that there are bodily uh uh
Speaker 2: top you know, bottom up effects. You know, there's top down,
Speaker 2: but there's also you know, bottom up effects that that
Speaker 2: can linger, especially under triggering situations that are related. But
Speaker 2: now everyone's being triggered by everything. You're a very very
Speaker 2: compassionate I mean, I've known you a long time, Emma.
Speaker 3: You are very very that.
Speaker 2: You have like a very like motherly way of being
Speaker 2: to the work, to the world at large. Just my
Speaker 2: observation just now, I am not you. I think some
Speaker 2: people need to toughen the fuck up, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Now, work with me, here, work with me, let's meet,
Speaker 2: Let's meet in the middle.
Speaker 1: Let's resolutely let's meet in the middle. Because you know,
Speaker 1: one thing I talk about also is you know, yes,
Speaker 1: things may have happened to you. To to most people,
Speaker 1: something's happened. You know, you've had a car accident, you
Speaker 1: had a tough youth, you had a tough breakup, you've
Speaker 1: had your morning. You know, yes, those things happen. And
Speaker 1: in that sense, we are victims of those situations. And
Speaker 1: yet I do, really, from the bottom of my heart,
Speaker 1: believe that when we hold onto that victimhood, we are
Speaker 1: keeping ourselves in a bound state because we are not
Speaker 1: we are. It kind of keeps us in that place like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll share. You know, for myself, I wasn't an abusive marriage, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I know what. I know what it's like to
Speaker 1: be in a situation like that. And yet if I
Speaker 1: stay in that I'm a victim of you know, a
Speaker 1: domestic violence. I am. I am identifying with a disempowered
Speaker 1: position as opposed to I am. You know, I lived
Speaker 1: through that, I learned through that, I grew through that.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm stronger for it, and I'm more
Speaker 1: sovereign now. But sovereignty, I think is really reclaiming that
Speaker 1: post traumatic growth, not so much focusing on the victimhood,
Speaker 1: which can painfully keep us in a place of feeling abused.
Speaker 1: And you know, this is it's a this is a
Speaker 1: tricky line to walk because I'm not saying no, you
Speaker 1: didn't have trauma. Yes you had trauma, and yet it
Speaker 1: is in your favor to identify with the fact that
Speaker 1: you have survived it, you're growing from it, and you're
Speaker 1: stronger for it, and you're not having that happen to
Speaker 1: you ever again.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, well, love what you're saying. The idea though,
Speaker 2: that trauma is something objective as opposed to a subjective.
Speaker 3: Thing.
Speaker 2: Though, you know, it's interesting because there's so many different
Speaker 2: definitions of trauma in the psychological literature. It's not like
Speaker 2: we all agree in the literature. You know that on
Speaker 2: this term. And you know, if a student is traumatized
Speaker 2: that they have homework, is that a fair use of
Speaker 2: the word trauma?
Speaker 3: Do you know? Do you know there's just the word.
Speaker 2: Trauma is being used now like everyone's being traumatized as
Speaker 2: opposed to I'm upset or I'm anxious. It's now I'm traumatized.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Now I think there are things we can all I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a list of things we can all agree. I
Speaker 2: think the ACE checklist is still valid, you know, but
Speaker 2: there are so many things now that fall are falling
Speaker 2: under that purview for young people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what are your thoughts of that?
Speaker 1: Well, they're not by by going deep into that as
Speaker 1: a victim, they're disempowering themselves. And that's a problem, you know,
Speaker 1: because then they're not accessing, you know, their inner core
Speaker 1: strength and belief in themselves that Yeah, like this is
Speaker 1: hard for me, and I can get through this, and
Speaker 1: I'm a freaking warrior. You know. We've all been through
Speaker 1: hard times, and even just looking back on it, you
Speaker 1: can be like, wow, I'm I went through that, and
Speaker 1: I can do this. You know, I can do this again.
Speaker 1: And I could do it with more wisdom, I could
Speaker 1: do it with more compassion. I can do it. I've
Speaker 1: gone through suffering and I'll continue to go through suffering
Speaker 1: because that's human life, and I can do this.
Speaker 3: Well, that's lovely. That's a lovely actually, I mean you are.
Speaker 2: You are very forward looking, which is which is why
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm very much in line with that.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 2: Your research has spanned multiple areas you've also studied intuition
Speaker 2: and got feelings. You know, you aregue we have an
Speaker 2: instinct for self preservation that we often ignore, but you
Speaker 2: do argue that we can make better decisions in our
Speaker 2: lives if we can gain some sovereignty over that. Could
Speaker 2: you elaborate a little more on your research relating to that.
Speaker 2: You know that I'm so curious about that instinct for
Speaker 2: self preservation because my hero, Carl Rodgers called it the
Speaker 2: we have an organismic valuing system in our body is
Speaker 2: what he argued. I have renamed that in my coaching
Speaker 2: program too. We have a self actualizing compass.
Speaker 3: In our body.
Speaker 2: So it's even more than self preservation. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Well that's sovereignty, right, self actualization is sovereignty. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely so. I think you know when else at grad student,
Speaker 1: I was a grad student and James Gross's lab at Stanford,
Speaker 1: which was the Emotion regulation Lab.
Speaker 3: He's amazing.
Speaker 1: I love him. He was an amazing mentor. He is
Speaker 1: an amazing I mean to this day, he's my hero.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the studies that was really
Speaker 1: interesting was that in the lab we looked at suppression.
Speaker 1: What happens when you suppres emotion. Now, when someone is
Speaker 1: suppressing anger, Let's say I were suppressing anger and I'm
Speaker 1: talking to you and I'm pretending I'm not anger. I'm like, nope,
Speaker 1: I'm fine, everything's fine. Right. Let's say that your heart
Speaker 1: rate would increase, so in cognitively you wouldn't understand, okay,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't understand why you're feeling not so you want
Speaker 1: to back away or you want to get out of there.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes you have that feeling like I don't
Speaker 1: I can't explain it, but I just don't have a
Speaker 1: good vibe. I need to move, I need to get
Speaker 1: out of here. Well, what happens is that physiologically, you've
Speaker 1: already registered that I'm suppressing emotion. You've registered inauthenticity, and
Speaker 1: inauthenticity from an instinctual point of view, registers this threat.
Speaker 1: So even animals, I'll give you an example with equine
Speaker 1: facilitated therapy. So when a therapist uses a horse to
Speaker 1: work with a let's say a child with anxiety, right,
Speaker 1: and the child pretend not to be scared of the horse,
Speaker 1: the child will come up and be like, I'm not
Speaker 1: scared of that horse. I'm just fine. But if that
Speaker 1: child is scared. The horse is moving all over the
Speaker 1: place and is anxious, and the horse doesn't understand English, right,
Speaker 1: but the horse is registering inauthenticity and that registers this threat.
Speaker 1: And so and we have the same thing, and we
Speaker 1: register in authenticity as threat, whether we realize it cognitively
Speaker 1: or not. Our heart rate is going up. So I
Speaker 1: thought that was really fascinating. And then that and we
Speaker 1: have so we have an instinct which we can think
Speaker 1: of intuition as instinct. We can think of it as
Speaker 1: you know, putting the pieces of putting the pieces of
Speaker 1: information together in the back of our mind. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are many ways that we can conceive of it.
Speaker 1: Joseph Michaels, who is my colleague at Stanford, he looked
Speaker 1: at decision making and he thinks about intuition as your feeling.
Speaker 1: You know, you say, I have a feeling this is
Speaker 1: a good idea or not. And what he found was
Speaker 1: that when decision making is complex, when you're weighing a
Speaker 1: lot of things, you're going to make a better dey
Speaker 1: decision if you go with your feelings rather than just
Speaker 1: thinking through it reasonably. If the matter is simple, no
Speaker 1: big deal. But if it's complicated, you're going to make
Speaker 1: a better decision if you go with your gut feeling.
Speaker 1: I think that's just really fascinating. That also ties into
Speaker 1: you know what you and I. Yeah, what you and
Speaker 1: I are really interested in with the whole idea of
Speaker 1: the creativity. Where do you get your creative insights? Again,
Speaker 1: it's from a place of relaxation, right, So you could
Speaker 1: think of it as, oh, my brain's putting together a
Speaker 1: puzzle in the back, in the background, and I'm not
Speaker 1: realizing it. Or you could think of it as receptivity
Speaker 1: like Einstein, you know, he he would go and play
Speaker 1: Mozart and then it would come, the ideas would come
Speaker 1: to him. How does that happen? However we think about it,
Speaker 1: it's it's a way of being receptive in a non
Speaker 1: cognitive way that can really that can save our lives.
Speaker 1: Like my friend Kushel was on nine to eleven. He
Speaker 1: walked into the second Twin tower to get into his
Speaker 1: office and then the building was hit or that I
Speaker 1: don't know remember which tower was, but anyways, building was
Speaker 1: hit and the guards were giving orders to stay in
Speaker 1: the building, and Krushill hesitated for a moment and he
Speaker 1: ran out of there and he saved his life by hair.
Speaker 1: And what would have happened if he hadn't listened to
Speaker 1: his gut? How many people in that building had the
Speaker 1: same gut feeling and didn't go with it? Right, So
Speaker 1: this is an area of research that I think is
Speaker 1: going to be going to grow a lot. It's already growing.
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of interest, and the military has
Speaker 1: been researching it for decades under different names. But and
Speaker 1: there was a movie that made fun of it called
Speaker 1: Men Who Stare At Goats? Did you see that movie?
Speaker 3: Well that it was kind of.
Speaker 1: Making fun of that. But they're always starting new programs
Speaker 1: again because so many service members came back from Iraq
Speaker 1: and Afghanistan having reported using gut feelings to like save
Speaker 1: their lives or save other people's lives. Oh, we didn't
Speaker 1: go down that road because I had a feeling, you know.
Speaker 1: So now they're studying it again. It's sort of top
Speaker 1: secret and nobody would nobody wants to talk about it,
Speaker 1: but it's happening, and I know it. I have I
Speaker 1: have some I have some some intelligence from that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so interesting.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know, But my my dissertation
Speaker 2: was on impulsit learning.
Speaker 1: No, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and it's relationship to creativity, so I think
Speaker 2: I'm all about uh harnessing that power. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: tell me tell me about that well, the the regularities
Speaker 2: and statistical probabilities that we learn automatically and unconsciously throughout
Speaker 2: the course of our day. There are individual differences in it.
Speaker 2: I found some people are better at impulsit learning than others,
Speaker 2: and that was unrelated to their IQ score, So they
Speaker 2: could have do well on IQ tests and see those
Speaker 2: patterns explicitly and consciously, but not be as good as
Speaker 2: at seeing the tacit areas of life.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Found implicit learning was correlated with openness to experience the
Speaker 2: personality trait makes sense, and yeah, it was which that
Speaker 2: in turn was correlated with creative achievement. But I so, yeah, No,
Speaker 2: I think that's really good. And you would argue that's
Speaker 2: important to distinguish between just like a blind faith in
Speaker 2: one's emotions, right, and a more honed expert intuition.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, because our feelings are always changing. It's not like
Speaker 1: you can just I'm just going to always go with
Speaker 1: my feelings. That could also make you really wishy washed.
Speaker 1: She like you, we definitely have logic and reason there.
Speaker 1: And I like how Joe Michael says. He says, you know,
Speaker 1: when I have to make a big decision, of course
Speaker 1: I use my reason, but I also consult my feeling.
Speaker 1: And I think just that even just that invitation to
Speaker 1: consult one's feeling has been absent from our discourse, absence
Speaker 1: from our education. Pooh poot is not like magical thinking.
Speaker 1: But actually, you know, even when you're like mother's intuition,
Speaker 1: there's a word for that, like we know what's going
Speaker 1: on with our kid better than you know anyone else.
Speaker 1: And I also think that you know, making time for
Speaker 1: those moments. And I know, Scott, you and I have
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot, about those moments of you know,
Speaker 1: the awful wave of moments in our lives where we
Speaker 1: are in a more relaxed state, you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: through meditation or contemplation, or being out in nature or
Speaker 1: playing music, listening to music, whatever it is that allows
Speaker 1: us to go into a more serene space, that's when
Speaker 1: you're more likely to sort of access those insights. And
Speaker 1: you also want to make sure that you're not they're
Speaker 1: not being colored by your trauma or fear. Right, it's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I have a got feeling I shouldn't go on stage. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe you're just really afraid to go on stage. But
Speaker 1: if you went up there, you'd be a rock star
Speaker 1: and you'd be helping people, So you should do it right.
Speaker 1: So we have to make sure that we're not you know,
Speaker 1: we're not. We have to make sure that that our
Speaker 1: feeling really is is is an intuition? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2: You know you've you've tied a lot of the stuff
Speaker 2: to leadership too, right, m hm.
Speaker 3: And what do you think? What do you think are like?
Speaker 2: Do you can you give an examples of any sovereign
Speaker 2: leaders people you would say, Oh, they're sovereign, they're sovereign,
Speaker 2: they're not bound.
Speaker 3: Trump is bound. Do you think Trump is bound?
Speaker 1: Oh that's hilarious. I can't speak to I have no idea.
Speaker 1: He is definitely doing his own thing. But whether he
Speaker 1: is a sovereign I don't know. Because you know, a
Speaker 1: sovereign state is one in which you're not caught up
Speaker 1: in addictions. Whether that's addiction to fame, or addiction to
Speaker 1: money or pleasure, all those things are bound. Those are
Speaker 1: bondage and it sounds like from his history you may
Speaker 1: have some of that. But yes, I I once met this. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was actually supposed to escort this woman, her name
Speaker 1: is Lindaton to a stage and I hadn't met her before,
Speaker 1: and within minutes of her sitting next to me, seconds
Speaker 1: maybe tears start rolling down my face. Scott, this is
Speaker 1: embarrassing here. I'm her host. I'm supposed to bring her
Speaker 1: to the station going to speak at Stanford Business School.
Speaker 1: And she looks at me, She's like, I'm making you cry,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what is happening to me? And I
Speaker 1: had this flash of insight at that moment that I
Speaker 1: had never met a woman who owned her sovereignty so
Speaker 1: completely in my life, and it almost shot a pang
Speaker 1: of pain in me, not just for myself, but for
Speaker 1: all women in particular. This was what this was about
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, and it was sort of a maybe
Speaker 1: a flash of insight, you know, one of those wow
Speaker 1: you know. And she is an incredible woman. Talk about
Speaker 1: working with her intuition. She definitely moves with her intuition,
Speaker 1: but she's also brilliant. But she and she in fact,
Speaker 1: this is an intuition story herself, so she went She
Speaker 1: lost her father when she was in her teens and
Speaker 1: experienced firsthand what it was like to have a main
Speaker 1: provider pass away in the family, and so she got
Speaker 1: herself to Yale on a tennis scholarship, and then at
Speaker 1: Yale once she got married at Yale and then was
Speaker 1: pregnant shortly thereafter and a single mom, so she had
Speaker 1: to somehow support her child. And she went to Wall
Speaker 1: Street in the eighties as a woman. So she became
Speaker 1: financially successful, but was sexually harassed by both her colleagues
Speaker 1: and her clients constantly. So she finally decided to retire
Speaker 1: in her thirties, thinking that's it. I'm out of here,
Speaker 1: and she moved to Florida, and then she had an
Speaker 1: intuition that came to her as a dream, and her
Speaker 1: father came to her and said, this is not what
Speaker 1: I had in mind for you, and she realized there
Speaker 1: was something else she was meant to do, and she
Speaker 1: decided to make sure that no other families that she
Speaker 1: could help whatever, have to deal with losing a main
Speaker 1: p and so she bought these companies that other people
Speaker 1: had given up on as you know, a lost cause.
Speaker 1: And turn them around. So I think companies like Style
Speaker 1: a Makeup, you know, like, these are companies that even
Speaker 1: the consulting companies had given up on. She bought them
Speaker 1: just to make sure that people would lose their jobs.
Speaker 1: And she turned around all these companies. She's called the
Speaker 1: Turnaround Queen. She at one point had seven hundred thousand employees.
Speaker 1: And this woman is incredible, and she dances to her
Speaker 1: own drum and has thereby shown up with at her
Speaker 1: full potential and made such a difference. So it's just
Speaker 1: one example. And I do believe, you know, yes, there
Speaker 1: are extraordinary people, but we all have extraordinary gifts, every
Speaker 1: one of us if we allow them through. And that
Speaker 1: comes through when we are sovereign, as opposed to caught
Speaker 1: up in ways of thinking and behaving that keep us bound.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, well them, well.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean. And you know, I was teaching
Speaker 1: a group of undergrad a yel undergrads the other day
Speaker 1: and asking them what's your definition of success, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're all like, well, you know, make a lot
Speaker 1: of money or do this or that the other and
Speaker 1: I said, okay, so I want you to think about
Speaker 1: the most wonderful people in your life. You know, think
Speaker 1: about the people that were there for you and mentored
Speaker 1: you and just saw you for who you were and
Speaker 1: just helped you along. And then says, how would you
Speaker 1: describe those people? And they would say, oh, they were
Speaker 1: loving and warm and caring, you know, they use those
Speaker 1: kind of words. And I said, would you say that
Speaker 1: those people have had a successful impact on your life?
Speaker 1: And they were like, yeah, so what is success? Isn't
Speaker 1: it that ability to show up for people and you know,
Speaker 1: support them and just be there completely present in that
Speaker 1: kind of a loving way. I mean, you know, we
Speaker 1: really have to think about what that is. And Lynn,
Speaker 1: she has a lot of love in her heart. I
Speaker 1: can tell you that. And she's showing up as a badass,
Speaker 1: like she's she's a badass, you know, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: mess with her, but she's making such a difference we
Speaker 1: should have on your podcast.
Speaker 3: I would welcome an intro. I would welcome in absolutely.
Speaker 2: Well, I've really I've really asked the main questions that
Speaker 2: I want to ask you today.
Speaker 3: Is there anything else?
Speaker 2: Is there anything you would like to add?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, I'd love to talk about relationships. Scott, what
Speaker 1: do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1: You know, relationships is another area of our life where
Speaker 1: we just don't have we don't get a manual for
Speaker 1: and we want we want to have good relationships, and
Speaker 1: we suffer in relationships, you know. And it's it's really
Speaker 1: interesting to me because oftentimes relationships are also obviously places
Speaker 1: where we can kind of project all of our own
Speaker 1: fears onto other people who they haven't done anything, and
Speaker 1: here we are, you know, creating all the suffering. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people have talked about that.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into that in so much detail,
Speaker 1: but there is a new field of research that is
Speaker 1: really amazing called positive. It's on positive organizational scholarship. You
Speaker 1: familiar with it a little bit, I'm sure you are.
Speaker 2: I yeah, yeah, I love that that Amy wear, Nest
Speaker 2: Fernski and Jane Dunnan, Jane Dunnan and all that.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love this, So I guess i'll share. I'll
Speaker 1: start with a story. So my friend, it tells she's
Speaker 1: an environmental activist and she's often in the African jungle
Speaker 1: or in the South American jungle doing undercover investigations on
Speaker 1: deforestation and child labor. And then she'll like write to
Speaker 1: these companies and tell them that what they're doing is illegal.
Speaker 1: And then anyway, she does amazing stuff.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So she was once in an African country in the
Speaker 1: jungle doing this investigation when her car disappears, right, and
Speaker 1: her driver is gone, and she's told to get in
Speaker 1: the car with these two muscles strapped guys in military
Speaker 1: apparel and weapons, and she knows that the government is
Speaker 1: in cahoots with the rubber company that she's investigating because
Speaker 1: they're getting kickbacks. They don't want to tell there she
Speaker 1: has she has three hours. She's three hours away from
Speaker 1: the airport, so she had no choice but to get
Speaker 1: in the car with these guys who are her hitmen, right,
Speaker 1: and inspead of those three hours, not only did she
Speaker 1: did they say, did they not kill her? But she
Speaker 1: made friends with them. They even at one point held
Speaker 1: up a little sheet so she could relieve herself by
Speaker 1: the side of the road so she wouldn't go into
Speaker 1: the jungle and get bit by snakes, okay, And they
Speaker 1: and she had got confirmation that they were meant to
Speaker 1: kill her when they when she got to the airport
Speaker 1: and they said to her, do not ever come back here.
Speaker 1: You are not safe here. At all. But if you
Speaker 1: do come back, come over a land border under our
Speaker 1: protection and stay with us.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: So what happened here? Etel has something called positive relational energy.
Speaker 1: She knows how to connect with people in such a
Speaker 1: way that is life giving. And I think we all know,
Speaker 1: you know, this concept of energy vampires has been around
Speaker 1: for you know, two decades, and there's so much talk
Speaker 1: about it. But what we don't realize is that there's
Speaker 1: another type of relating which is not one that sucks
Speaker 1: you dry. It's energy enhancing and that's the key to
Speaker 1: positive relational energy. And so Kim Cameron and some of
Speaker 1: his colleagues did research on large organizations and saw that
Speaker 1: there were these pockets within the organizations that were hyper productive.
Speaker 1: It's like, what was going on here At the center
Speaker 1: of each of these was one person. He said, there
Speaker 1: was one person, and that person was giving life to
Speaker 1: everyone around them. It was like and so he called
Speaker 1: them like positive, positively energizing leaders, and that is really
Speaker 1: incredible and it's something that can be taught, and Kim does.
Speaker 1: He trains people in us. He trains leaders and turns
Speaker 1: them around. You can become a positive you can have
Speaker 1: what it tel had now a story was extraordinary, by
Speaker 1: the way, And I'm not saying that you know, other
Speaker 1: people who are in hostage situations didn't have this, because
Speaker 1: that's not true. I mean, she was very much a
Speaker 1: particular case, and she was in the process of connecting
Speaker 1: with them able to explain what she was doing, and
Speaker 1: they realized also how she was trying to help their
Speaker 1: villages and so forth. I just want to give that caveat.
Speaker 1: But positive relational energy is something that can be trained
Speaker 1: and that anyone can learn, and that it can really
Speaker 1: catapult both relationships and work relationships. And it has a
Speaker 1: lot to do with the values that you have and
Speaker 1: how you live, but it also has to do with
Speaker 1: your ability to have fill your own tank and have
Speaker 1: a have a positively energizing relationship with your own self.
Speaker 1: So I just want to add that.
Speaker 2: That's really cool. I love the phrase positively energizing leaders.
Speaker 2: I just wrote that in my notes. Good stuff. Well, Emma,
Speaker 2: thank you so much. Is there anything else you want
Speaker 2: to add?
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm super grateful to chat with you, Scott. You know,
Speaker 1: so we go, we go way back and.
Speaker 3: Me too, me too, Thank you, Emma, Thank you, Scott.
Speaker 3: Good luck with the book, thank you,