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 reap 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 bring
Speaker 2: you Emma Cepola Emma, Emma, Emma, Hi Scott, how you doing.
Speaker 1: Good to see you, Good to hear you.
Speaker 2: Good to see you too. Congrats to your new book,
Speaker 2: Sovereign Reclaim your Freedom, Energy and Power in a time
Speaker 2: of distraction, uncertainty, and chaos. Wow. Well, I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people are really yearning from that right now.
Speaker 2: So you know, this major theme of this new book
Speaker 2: is setting yourself free, and it's opposite state, which you
Speaker 2: refer to as the bound state, where through life experiences,
Speaker 2: fear and trauma, we start to disconnect from ourselves. So
Speaker 2: you're really contrasting these these things, and hopefully we can
Speaker 2: help our listeners and viewers, if they're watching the YouTube
Speaker 2: channel right now, help them, help them set themselves free.
Speaker 2: No one could 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 2: Well, thank you. Go on stop. So what's where do
Speaker 2: we even start with this this? Can you can you
Speaker 2: describe to me that how you conceive of the concept
Speaker 2: of energy. I mean, there's so many places to start
Speaker 2: in this discussion, but I see that word interwoven quite
Speaker 2: a bit throughout the book, and can you just kind
Speaker 2: of tell me what you think of that word.
Speaker 1: I love that as a first question, Scott, because in
Speaker 1: many ways, as I'm contrasting the balance state and the
Speaker 1: sovereign state, the bounce state is really everything that trains
Speaker 1: us of our energy. It's the beliefs well, the behavior
Speaker 1: patterns we have, the addictive behaviors that we have, the
Speaker 1: ways we conceive of ourselves and the ways we interpret
Speaker 1: the world that drain our energy, the way that we
Speaker 1: interact with people that drain our energy. And when we're
Speaker 1: in a sovereign state, that's the opposite. We're filling our
Speaker 1: own tank or maintaining it, but we're also filling others tanks.
Speaker 1: So's it's a pattern, and that goes through all of
Speaker 1: the different chapters. You know, as one example, just as
Speaker 1: one belief that drains us is you know, whenever I've
Speaker 1: asked audiences how many people are self critical, almost every
Speaker 1: single person raises their hand. And as you as you know,
Speaker 1: self criticism the psychological definition is that it's a form
Speaker 1: of self loathing. And when you think about that, just
Speaker 1: you know that the majority of people are walking around
Speaker 1: with this, you could think of it as social conditioning
Speaker 1: or programming, like viral programming that runs in families and
Speaker 1: runs in societies and does us no vapors and drains
Speaker 1: us of our energy. That's one example.
Speaker 2: How do we get that bounded, you know, and disconnected
Speaker 2: from ourselves? And you know, throughout the course of our lives,
Speaker 2: can 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 don't 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, bad,
Speaker 1: negative ones, people will say, let's just suppress them, right,
Speaker 1: just suck it up, butter cups. That's pretty much what
Speaker 1: everyone is up to. I mean there's some exceptions, you know,
Speaker 1: in some Latin cultures in southern Italy, But even then
Speaker 1: there are certain emotions that are just not acceptable and
Speaker 1: that are suppressed. And when we look at the research
Speaker 1: suppression basically increases the negative emotion, and it's more likely
Speaker 1: to come out somatically, you know, through health stuff, or
Speaker 1: it's going to explode or come out as passive aggression
Speaker 1: and destroying both ourselves and others in the process. So
Speaker 1: that's just sort of one example of that. And how
Speaker 1: the journey towards becoming more sovereign with regards to our
Speaker 1: emotions is to learn to actually feel them, just like
Speaker 1: a child will feel their emotions one hundred percent and
Speaker 1: then it moves through them. Just like so going back
Speaker 1: to that theme of energy, the child lets the energy
Speaker 1: of the emotion move through them and then they're done
Speaker 1: a few minutes later, as opposed to adults who can
Speaker 1: hold on to an emotion forever. Not to say that
Speaker 1: I'm encouraging exploding our emotions all over the place, but
Speaker 1: the ability to feel, and I think, I think in
Speaker 1: our society we're given a lot of things to do
Speaker 1: instead of feel, you know, a lot of things to
Speaker 1: consume instead of feel, and yet that's how we stay
Speaker 1: 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 words like you're such
Speaker 1: an idiot, you don't belong here, not good enough, those
Speaker 1: 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: Kaufman, 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 1: Yeah, and so totally why wouldn't you? I mean, the
Speaker 1: only relationship you're guaranteed for the rest of your life
Speaker 1: is with yourself. Might as well make it a good one, right,
Speaker 1: or 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
Speaker 1: ago that the only thing that makes sense to be
Speaker 1: on my own side, something like that. And then Audrey
Speaker 1: Lorde has another really great quote and she says, or
Speaker 1: self care is not self indulgence, it's an act of
Speaker 1: political warfare. So powerful. And she was a self described uh,
Speaker 1: a gay black woman in a white, straight man's world,
Speaker 1: you know, so she just was she was battling a
Speaker 1: lot of battles as an activist and writer and so forth.
Speaker 1: But it's so powerful what she said. It's it's that's
Speaker 1: how you're going to show up. You're going to show
Speaker 1: up powerfully if you show up with that self care.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's really powerful. Emma. You know you've done some terrific,
Speaker 2: groundbreaking research in our field on the neuroscience of emotion regulation.
Speaker 2: I'd be remiss not to have you review some of
Speaker 2: your most recent findings or your most the highlights of
Speaker 2: some of your findings, you know what, what are some
Speaker 2: of the highlights of your findings? And why as adults well,
Speaker 2: and also why don't children learn learn this stuff? We're
Speaker 2: never taught this, I know, Scott.
Speaker 1: It's so weird. I always just think, like, no matter
Speaker 1: how many mds, PhDs, black belts, you know, dishes, you
Speaker 1: 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 mean,
Speaker 1: you're supposed to you know, like the two hardest things
Speaker 1: we're supposed to manage in our life, which are emotions
Speaker 1: and relationships, we never get any training on and they
Speaker 1: cause so much pain, you know. And so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we were looking specifically, I was looking at a
Speaker 1: trauma so after nine I was living in New York
Speaker 1: during nine to eleven, and I had a lot of
Speaker 1: anxiety after that day, and I tried a lot of
Speaker 1: things to help me at the time, you know, I
Speaker 1: tried mindfulness, I'd go to like hot yoga and I
Speaker 1: do all this stuff, and I was still shaking. You know,
Speaker 1: I was 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 start a 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 if,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a way to sort of stabilize the
Speaker 1: nervous system even if you have gone through trauma through breathing.
Speaker 1: And I think, to me, that makes sense in the
Speaker 1: because a lot of psychological approaches are through the mind,
Speaker 1: like change your thoughts, change your mind, change your life,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think that can work to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, and I think I think it does work,
Speaker 1: you know, being grateful and so forth. We know, oh
Speaker 1: that that works. But when there is a really intense trauma,
Speaker 1: really intense anxiety, it's lodged in the body, the memory
Speaker 1: is I'm just think about one veteran he would he said,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll stand in front of the mall, and
Speaker 1: I'm here in Madison, Wisconsin, and I know there's no
Speaker 1: danger in the mall, but I still have to brace
Speaker 1: myself for twenty minutes before I can go in. Because
Speaker 1: his mind is doing fine. It's just that the trauma
Speaker 1: in the body, the memory in the body, is bringing
Speaker 1: up so much anxiety. And so what we think is
Speaker 1: happening is that through breathing there's this combination. You're not
Speaker 1: just addressing the mind, you're also addressing the 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. API.
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 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: you were living in your basement, going through a divorce
Speaker 1: and you couldn't even know about work, you know, so
Speaker 1: 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: therapy does help, you know, in some cases and in
Speaker 1: 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 veterans,
Speaker 1: including both men and women, and and it was a
Speaker 1: it was a design where you uh, that where it
Speaker 1: 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 either it
Speaker 1: was at least as good as that one. I'm forgetting
Speaker 1: the name of it now 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 2: 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 students,
Speaker 1: I think. We randomly assigned them to one of three
Speaker 1: well being interventions or control group. So it was either
Speaker 1: this sky breath meditation visit, 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: H yeah? Absolutely? So you know what you know, what
Speaker 1: we researched is a program that takes a couple is
Speaker 1: to learn, is like a whole protocol, like a twenty
Speaker 1: minute protocol. But what I can teach you now is
Speaker 1: something real simple that you can.
Speaker 2: Keep a back stuck in the past. You've taught me
Speaker 2: stuff in the past to help me get through my
Speaker 2: flying anxiety you have.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, fantastic.
Speaker 2: I don't remember that while ago ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh good? Did it help?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear that. Okay, So real simple thing
Speaker 1: 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 see 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 You want me to lead us through
Speaker 1: an exercise, Yeah, I'll lead us through a short extras Okay,
Speaker 1: what we're just going to do is lengthen our exhales
Speaker 1: for a while with our eyes closed. So before we start,
Speaker 1: before we start changing our breath, you can just close
Speaker 1: your eyes and have your palms open on your lap,
Speaker 1: and then you want to breathe in for a count
Speaker 1: 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 with you. Do
Speaker 1: you want me to guide us through it or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm doing it right now, okay.
Speaker 1: So I'll keep guiding us then for a few minutes. Okay,
Speaker 1: So breathe.
Speaker 3: Then two three four, hold and breathe out two three four, five,
Speaker 3: six seven eight. Breathe in two three four, hold and
Speaker 3: breathe out two three four, five six seven eight. Breathe
Speaker 3: in two three four, hold and breathe out two three four, five,
Speaker 3: six seven eight. Breathe in two three four, hold and
Speaker 3: breathe out two three four, five, six, seven eight. One
Speaker 3: more time deep breath in two three for hold, breathe
Speaker 3: out two three four, five six seven eight, and then
Speaker 3: come back to normal breath and just assess any shifts
Speaker 3: or changes in the state of your mind. And then
Speaker 3: when you're ready, you can open your eyes and notice
Speaker 3: 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, something, 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 somewhere, either at your office
Speaker 1: and you want to just be focusing, or at home
Speaker 1: 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 and calmer and able to you know, we
Speaker 1: know from research, when you're calmer, you're a better decision maker,
Speaker 1: you have better emotional intelligence, you're more focused, better attention,
Speaker 1: better memory, and you're more creative. Right, so, all the things.
Speaker 2: That's true, that's true. The emotion regulation and trauma narrative
Speaker 2: link is really interesting to me because I feel like
Speaker 2: trauma has exploded in our society, where it was once
Speaker 2: confined to like veterans and others would diagnosed post traumatic
Speaker 2: stress disorder. Now it's every student I teach, it's everyone
Speaker 2: on TikTok, everyone and everything is blamed on their trauma
Speaker 2: as well. So to a certain degree, you know, trauma
Speaker 2: is a higher level, conscious construction of an event. It's
Speaker 2: it's a label that we're putting on an event. And
Speaker 2: of course you are quite right to point out that
Speaker 2: there are bodily uh uh top you know, bottom up effects.
Speaker 2: You know, there's top down, but there's also you know,
Speaker 2: bottom up effects that that can linger, especially under triggering
Speaker 2: situations that are related. But now everyone's being triggered by everything.
Speaker 2: You're a very very compassionate I mean, I've known you
Speaker 2: a long time, Emma. You are very very that you
Speaker 2: have like a very like motherly way of being to
Speaker 2: the work, to the world at large. Just my observation
Speaker 2: just now, I am not you. I think some people
Speaker 2: need to toughen the fuck up, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. Now, work with me, here, work
Speaker 2: with me, let's meet, let's meet in the middle.
Speaker 1: Let's rest, 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 was in an
Speaker 1: abusive marriage. Okay, so I know what. I know what
Speaker 1: it's like to be in a situation like that. And
Speaker 1: yet if I stay in that, I'm a victim of
Speaker 1: you know, a domestic violence. I am, I am identifying
Speaker 1: with a disempowered position as opposed to I am you know,
Speaker 1: I lived through that, I learned through that, I grew
Speaker 1: through that. I'm you know, I'm stronger for it, and
Speaker 1: I'm more sovereign now. But sovereignty, I think is really
Speaker 1: reclaiming that post traumatic growth, not so much focusing on
Speaker 1: the victimhood, which can painfully keep us in a place
Speaker 1: of feeling abused. And you know, this is it's a
Speaker 1: this is a tricky line to walk because I'm not
Speaker 1: saying no, you didn't have trauma. Yes you had trauma,
Speaker 1: and yet it is in your favor to identify with
Speaker 1: the fact that you have survived it, you're growing from it,
Speaker 1: and you're stronger for it, and you're not having that
Speaker 1: happen to 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 thing.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting because there's so many different definitions
Speaker 2: of trauma in this psychological literature. It's not like we
Speaker 2: all agree in the literature. You know that on this term.
Speaker 2: And you know, if a student is traumatized that they
Speaker 2: have homework, is that a fair use of the word trauma?
Speaker 1: Do you know?
Speaker 2: You know there's I just the word trauma is being
Speaker 2: used now like everyone's being traumatized as opposed to I'm
Speaker 2: 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
Speaker 2: mean there's a list of things we can all agree.
Speaker 2: I think the ACE checklist is still valid, you know,
Speaker 2: but there are so many things now that fall are
Speaker 2: falling under that purview for young people. Yeah, what are
Speaker 2: 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 2: 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. For sure.
Speaker 2: Your research has spanned multiple areas. You've also studied intuition
Speaker 2: and got feelings. You know, you are. 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 furious about that instinct for
Speaker 2: self preservation because my hero, Carl Rogers 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 1: In our body.
Speaker 2: So it's even more than self preservation. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Well that's sovereignty, right, self actualization is sovereignty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1: I think you know when ilse a grad student, I
Speaker 1: was a grad student James Gross's lab at Stanford, which
Speaker 1: was the Emotion regulation Lab.
Speaker 2: 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 suppress 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 cognitively you wouldn't understand. Okay, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't understand why you're feeling not so you want to
Speaker 1: back away or you want to get out of there.
Speaker 1: You know how sometimes you have that feeling like I
Speaker 1: don't I can't explain it, but I just don't have
Speaker 1: a good vibe. I need to move, I need to
Speaker 1: get out of here. Well, what happens is that physiologically
Speaker 1: you've already registered that I'm suppressing emotion. You've registered inauthenticity,
Speaker 1: and inauthenticity from an instinctual point of view, registers this threat,
Speaker 1: so even animals. So I'll give you an example with
Speaker 1: equine facilitated therapy. So when a therapist uses a horse
Speaker 1: to work with a Let's say a child with anxiety, right,
Speaker 1: and the child protect 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 decision
Speaker 1: if you go with your feelings rather than just thinking
Speaker 1: through it reasonably. If the matter is simple, no big deal.
Speaker 1: But if it's complicated, you're going to make a better
Speaker 1: decision if you go with your gut feeling. I think
Speaker 1: that's just really fascinating. That also ties into you know
Speaker 1: what you and I, Yeah, what you and I are
Speaker 1: really interested in with the whole idea of the creativity.
Speaker 1: Where do you get your creative insights? Again, it's from
Speaker 1: a place of relaxation, right, So you could think of
Speaker 1: it as, oh, my brain's putting together a puzzle in
Speaker 1: the back, in the background and I'm not realizing it.
Speaker 1: Or you could think of it as receptivity like Einstein,
Speaker 1: you know, he he would go and play Mozart and
Speaker 1: then it would come, the ideas would come to him.
Speaker 1: How does that happen? However we think about it, it's
Speaker 1: it's a way of being receptive in a non cognitive
Speaker 1: way that can really that can save our lives. Like
Speaker 1: my friend Kushel was on nine to eleven. He walked
Speaker 1: into the second Twin tower to get into his office
Speaker 1: and then the building was hit or I don't know
Speaker 1: remember which tower was, but anyway's building was hit and
Speaker 1: the guards were giving orders to stay in the building,
Speaker 1: and Krushill hesitated for a moment and he ran out
Speaker 1: of there, and he saved his life by hair and
Speaker 1: what would have happened if he hadn't listened to his gut.
Speaker 1: How many people in that building had the same gut
Speaker 1: feeling and didn't go with it. Right, So this is
Speaker 1: an area of research that I think is going to
Speaker 1: be going to grow a lot. It's already growing. There's
Speaker 1: just a lot of interest, and the military has been
Speaker 1: researching it for decades under different names. But and there
Speaker 1: was a movie that made fun of it called Men
Speaker 1: Who Stare At Goats? Did you see that movie? Well,
Speaker 1: it was kind of making fun of that. But they're
Speaker 1: always starting new programs again because so many service members
Speaker 1: came back from Iraq and Afghanistan having reported using gut
Speaker 1: feelings to like save their lives or save other people's lives. Oh,
Speaker 1: we didn't go that on that road because I had
Speaker 1: a feeling, you know. So now they're studying it again.
Speaker 1: It's sort of top secret and nobody would nobody wants
Speaker 1: to talk about it, but it's happening, and I know it.
Speaker 1: I have I have some some intelligence from that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so interesting. I don't know if you know, but
Speaker 2: my my dissertation 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.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Well. The regularities and statistical probabilities that we learn automatically
Speaker 2: and unconsciously throughout the course of our day. There are
Speaker 2: individual differences in it. I found some people are better
Speaker 2: at impulsit learning than others, and that was unrelated to
Speaker 2: their IQ score, So they could have do well on
Speaker 2: IQ tests and see those patterns explicitly and consciously, but
Speaker 2: not be as good as at seeing the tacit areas
Speaker 2: of life. So yeah, I found implicit learning was correlated
Speaker 2: with openness to experience the personality trait makes sense, and yeah,
Speaker 2: it was which that in turn was correlated with creative achievement.
Speaker 2: But I so, yeah, no, I think that's really good.
Speaker 2: And you would argue that it's important to distinguish between
Speaker 2: just like a blind faith in one's emotions, right, and
Speaker 2: a more honed expert intuition.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, because our feelings are always changing and it's not
Speaker 1: like you can just I'm just going to always go
Speaker 1: with my feelings. That could also make you really wish
Speaker 1: you washedy 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 not
Speaker 1: being colored by your trauma or fear. Right, It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have a good feeling I shouldn't go on stage.
Speaker 1: Well maybe you're just really afraid to go on stage.
Speaker 1: But if you went up there, you'd be a rock
Speaker 1: star and you'd be helping people, So you should do
Speaker 1: it right. So we have to make sure that we're
Speaker 1: not you know, we're not. We have to make sure
Speaker 1: that that our feeling really is is is an intuition? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. You know, you've you've tied a
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff to leadership too, right, m hm.
Speaker 2: And what do you think? What do you think are like?
Speaker 2: Do you can you give an example of any sovereign
Speaker 2: leaders people you would say, Oh, they're sovereign, they're sovereign,
Speaker 2: they're not bound. Trump is bound. Do you think Trump
Speaker 2: 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 bondage.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like from his history you may have
Speaker 1: 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 Linda 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. She's going to speak at Stanford Business School.
Speaker 1: And she looks at me and she's like, I'm making
Speaker 1: you cry, and I'm like, what is happening to me?
Speaker 1: And I had this flash of insight at that moment
Speaker 1: that I had never met a woman who owned her
Speaker 1: sovereignty so completely in my life, and it almost shot
Speaker 1: a pang of pain in me, not just for myself,
Speaker 1: but for all women in particular. This was what this
Speaker 1: was about fifteen years ago, and it was sort of
Speaker 1: a maybe a flash of insight, you know, one of
Speaker 1: those wow you know. And she is an incredible woman.
Speaker 1: Talk about working with her intuition. She definitely moves with
Speaker 1: her intuition, but she's also brilliant. But she and she
Speaker 1: in fact, this is an intuition story herself. So she
Speaker 1: went she lost her father when she was in her
Speaker 1: teens and experienced firsthand what it was like to have
Speaker 1: a main provider pass away in the family, and so
Speaker 1: she got herself to Yale on a tennis scholarship and
Speaker 1: then at Yale once she got married at Yale and
Speaker 1: then was pregnant shortly thereafter and a single mom, so
Speaker 1: she had to somehow support her child. And she went
Speaker 1: to Wall Street in the eighties as a woman. So
Speaker 1: she became financially successful, but was sexually harassed by both
Speaker 1: her colleagues and her clients constantly. So she finally decided
Speaker 1: to retire in her thirties, thinking that's it. I'm out
Speaker 1: of here, and she moved to Florida. And then she
Speaker 1: had an intuition that came to her as a dream,
Speaker 1: and her father came to her and said, this is
Speaker 1: not what I had in mind for you, and she
Speaker 1: realized there was something else she was meant to do,
Speaker 1: and she decided to make sure that no other families
Speaker 1: that she could help whatever have to deal with losing
Speaker 1: a main and so she bought these companies that other
Speaker 1: people 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 well wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean and you know, I was teaching a
Speaker 1: group of undergrad a yell undergrads the other day and
Speaker 1: asking them what's your definition of success, you know, and
Speaker 1: they're all like, well, you know, make a lot of
Speaker 1: money or do this or that the other And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: so I want you to think about the most wonderful
Speaker 1: people in your life, you know, think about the people
Speaker 1: that were there for you and mentored you and just
Speaker 1: saw you for who you were and just helped you along.
Speaker 1: And then it says, how would you describe those people?
Speaker 1: And they would say, oh, they were loving and warm
Speaker 1: and caring. You know, they use those kind of words.
Speaker 1: And I said, would you say that those people have
Speaker 1: had a successful impact on your life? And they were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so what is success? Isn't it that ability to show
Speaker 1: up for people and you know, support them and just
Speaker 1: be there completely present in that kind of a loving way.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we really have to think about
Speaker 1: what that is. And Lynn, she has a lot of
Speaker 1: love in her heart. I can tell you that. And
Speaker 1: she's showing up as a badass, like she's she's a badass,
Speaker 1: you know. You know I'm mess with her, but she's
Speaker 1: making such a difference you should have on your podcast.
Speaker 2: I would welcome an intro. I would welcome in absolutely. Well,
Speaker 2: I've really I've really asked the main questions that I
Speaker 2: want to ask you today.
Speaker 1: 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 2: 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 we 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, right.
Speaker 2: I yeah, yeah, I love that that Amy Wear, Nesta
Speaker 2: Ernski and Jane Dunnan, Jane Dunnan and all that.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love this, So I guess I share. I'll
Speaker 1: start with the story. So my friend, it tells she's
Speaker 1: a 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
Speaker 1: illegal and then anyway, she does amazing stuff.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So she was once in an African country in the
Speaker 1: jungle doing this investigation when her car disappears, right, her
Speaker 1: driver is gone, and she's told to get in the
Speaker 1: car with these two muscles strapped guys in military apparel
Speaker 1: and weapons. And she knows that the government is in
Speaker 1: cahoots with the rubber company that she's investigating because they're
Speaker 1: getting kickbacks that 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 in the spad of the three hours, not only
Speaker 1: did she did they say did they not kill her?
Speaker 1: But she made friends with them. They even at one
Speaker 1: point held up a little sheet so she could relieve
Speaker 1: herself by the side of the road so she wouldn't
Speaker 1: go into the jungle and get bitten by snakes.
Speaker 2: Ok.
Speaker 1: And they and she had got confirmation that they were
Speaker 1: meant to kill her when they when she got to
Speaker 1: the airport and they said to her, do not ever
Speaker 1: come back here. You are not safe here at all.
Speaker 1: But if you do come back, come over a land
Speaker 1: border under our protection and stay with us.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So what happened here? It Tel has something called positive
Speaker 1: relational energy. She knows how to connect with people in
Speaker 1: such a way that is life giving. And I think
Speaker 1: we all know, you know, this concept of energy vampires
Speaker 1: has been around for you know, two decades, and there's
Speaker 1: so much talk about it. But what we don't realize
Speaker 1: is that there's another type of relating which is not
Speaker 1: one that sucks you dry. It's energy enhancing and that's
Speaker 1: the key to positive relational energy. And so Kim Cameron
Speaker 1: and some of his colleagues did research on larger organizations
Speaker 1: and saw that there were these pockets within the organizations
Speaker 1: that were hyper productive, like what was going on here.
Speaker 1: At the center of each of these was one person.
Speaker 1: He said, there was one person, and that person was
Speaker 1: giving life to everyone around them. It was like and
Speaker 1: so he called them like positive, positively energizing leaders. And
Speaker 1: that is really incredible and it's something that can be taught,
Speaker 1: and Kim does. He trains people in us. He trains
Speaker 1: leaders and turns them around. You can become a positive
Speaker 1: you can have what it Tel had. Now a story
Speaker 1: was extraordinary, by the way, and I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: you know, other people who are in hostage situations didn't
Speaker 1: have this, because that's not true. I mean, she was
Speaker 1: very much a particular case, and she was in the
Speaker 1: process of connecting with them able to explain what she
Speaker 1: was doing, and they realized also how she was trying
Speaker 1: to help their villages and so forth. I just want
Speaker 1: to give that caveat. But positive relational energy is something
Speaker 1: that can be trained and that anyone can learn, and
Speaker 1: that it can really catapaul both some relationships and work relationships.
Speaker 1: And it has a lot to do with the values
Speaker 1: that you have and how you live, but it also
Speaker 1: has to do with your ability to have fill your
Speaker 1: own tank and have a have a positively energizing relationship
Speaker 1: with your own self. 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 2: Me too, me too. Thank you, Emma, Thank you, Scott,
Speaker 2: good luck with the book.
Speaker 1: Thank you,