Speaker 1: You know, if I can't control my anxiety, then I'm
Speaker 1: going to try to control my external environment. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized
Speaker 1: the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true,
Speaker 1: and yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is Scott gorn Too, a licensed marriage
Speaker 1: and Family therapist, certified sex therapist, and expert on relationships
Speaker 1: and personal development. Scott works with individuals, couples, families, groups
Speaker 1: and businesses. He is the author of The Stories We
Speaker 1: Tell Ourselves and a frequent Huffington Post contributor. Here's the interview. Hi, Scott,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Great. Yeah, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to have you on. Your book is called
Speaker 1: The Stories We Tell Ourselves. Stop jumping to conclusions, free
Speaker 1: yourself from anxiety, transform your relationships. And I'm really happy
Speaker 1: to have you because that's one of the things we
Speaker 1: talked about on this show a lot, is the fact
Speaker 1: that we're always telling ourselves stories and that we have
Speaker 1: some degree of of choice. So when I saw the
Speaker 1: title of your book, I was like, well, we've got
Speaker 1: to have this guy on as a guest, a whole
Speaker 1: book about this topic. So um happy to have you.
Speaker 1: Let's start off with the parable um Our show is
Speaker 1: called The One You Feed, and it's based on the
Speaker 1: Parable of Two Wolves, where there's a grandfather who's talking
Speaker 1: with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. What
Speaker 1: is a good wolf which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. That's great. I love that parable. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. The first thing that comes to mind is
Speaker 1: the term duality that we all have this internal duality
Speaker 1: inside of us around a number of things, whether it's
Speaker 1: you know, I love my job, and then there's another
Speaker 1: part of me that's frustrated with my job, right or
Speaker 1: I love my my my wife or my husband, and
Speaker 1: there's another part of me that can't stay in them
Speaker 1: right there. There's that internal duality that we face as
Speaker 1: human beings constantly, and I think in terms of the
Speaker 1: parable specifically. Another piece that speaks to me around it
Speaker 1: is when I think about, you know, I do a
Speaker 1: lot of work with folks dealing with trauma or early
Speaker 1: childhood trauma of some kind, whether it be abuse or
Speaker 1: you know, some type of bullying or physical or emotional
Speaker 1: or sexual type abuse growing up or an event that
Speaker 1: took place, and then going into adulthood and doing behavior
Speaker 1: that is addictive in nature. Um, whether it's food or sexuality,
Speaker 1: or drugs or alcohol or a number of different escapism,
Speaker 1: numbing behaviors. Um So, these these behaviors end up, you know,
Speaker 1: coming out in a variety of ways and and and
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's you know, if we talk
Speaker 1: about that world, when we're talking about addiction, you know,
Speaker 1: in particular, whether you feed the addict or whether you
Speaker 1: feed the healthy part of you depends on what's going
Speaker 1: to grow and and take over. And so that's so
Speaker 1: it kind of hits me on a couple different levels.
Speaker 1: One is the internal duality that we all face. There's
Speaker 1: two parts of us that wrestle with decisions in life,
Speaker 1: and when those decisions become more complex and the love
Speaker 1: and the hate are mixed together about fifty each, then
Speaker 1: the anxiety and the depression could kick in. Right. But then,
Speaker 1: but then on the addiction side, when you know that
Speaker 1: part of us that we feed different parts of us
Speaker 1: that are either unhealthy or healthy, so we have some
Speaker 1: choice in that. So Fan, it's just it's it's a
Speaker 1: fantastic parable and concept. And you guys got something like
Speaker 1: you've got a great thing going there, So it's good. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you. Um So your book is called The Stories
Speaker 1: We Tell Ourselves. Will you for the listeners describe what
Speaker 1: what you mean when you say that. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that UM, our perception or the way that
Speaker 1: we view the world has a lot to do with
Speaker 1: our behavior. UM. So you know, I think I like
Speaker 1: to think of UM. You know, a belief system is
Speaker 1: as a as a a you know, a group or
Speaker 1: a set of opinions we develop loyalty to over time.
Speaker 1: So if you know, I I believe, or I create
Speaker 1: an opinion that my wife means X when you know
Speaker 1: by what she just said, or my boss gives me
Speaker 1: a look and I interpret that through my own lens,
Speaker 1: is my own perception. Or if my friend doesn't text
Speaker 1: me back, you know, and it's been a day since
Speaker 1: I've texted, are going go on on and on? Right,
Speaker 1: sixteen year old daughter doesn't text when she's on her
Speaker 1: date with her boyfriend and she's past her curfew, and
Speaker 1: you know, so we tell ourselves narratives. So there's these
Speaker 1: internal narratives that we play out, and I think that
Speaker 1: we have a tendency many times to tell ourselves more
Speaker 1: negative stories that end up not being true. In fact,
Speaker 1: most of us is human beings, and some people do
Speaker 1: it stronger than others and more intensity, but most of
Speaker 1: us is human beings. You know, we end up doing
Speaker 1: this um quite a bit, and I would say a
Speaker 1: good ninety percent of the stories, maybe higher don't ever
Speaker 1: come true, but we we we would tell ourselves these
Speaker 1: sort of anxious or anxiety the written stories. And so
Speaker 1: that's a bit about you know, the narrative, the story
Speaker 1: within the book. But that's what I mean when I've
Speaker 1: talked about the stories we tell ourselves, these negative anxiety
Speaker 1: written stories that we make up and create. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that one of the one
Speaker 1: of the teachings that I learned that I think fundamentally
Speaker 1: changed me more than any other was the Buddhist nun
Speaker 1: Pema children talks about drop the storyline and feel the emotion.
Speaker 1: And your book, your book talks an awful lot about that,
Speaker 1: about getting um more into your body, out of your brain.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that you said is that
Speaker 1: when we're writing the stories in our head, we are
Speaker 1: the screenwriter, the director, and the star of our own movie. Yes. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, if I create an internal narrative about a
Speaker 1: text I sent over to a friend and they have
Speaker 1: not responded, you know, I'm the star because it's about me.
Speaker 1: I'm not considering that they have another lot. They have
Speaker 1: their own life and and maybe there's something else going on, right,
Speaker 1: They've got their family, or they've got something else that
Speaker 1: they forgot, right. But I'm the star and then I'm
Speaker 1: producing it and directing it because I'm I'm I'm walking
Speaker 1: through the path and my brain of what's going on
Speaker 1: and making up a narrative. And like I said, most
Speaker 1: of the time, it's not true. So, um, you know what,
Speaker 1: I I love what you said earlier about dropping the
Speaker 1: storyline and feel the emotion it is. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get at, is that I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: real big believer on trying to pay attention to your
Speaker 1: internal experience. But when you get into your head, and
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about the anxious narrative of your brain,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about getting into your body a bit more.
Speaker 1: And so you know, when we tell ourselves these these
Speaker 1: negative anxiety written stories, one of the things that we
Speaker 1: have to do is catch ourselves doing it. And the
Speaker 1: other thing is that we catch ourselves by noticing what
Speaker 1: we feel in our body. The better we become aware
Speaker 1: of that, the more we can pull our brain back
Speaker 1: into our body and not let it float away somewhere
Speaker 1: and take us into fantasy land. And the fantasy is
Speaker 1: the movie, the script that we create over here, rather
Speaker 1: than living in real life with what we know to
Speaker 1: be true, what we need to be false, and actually
Speaker 1: having a conversation with the person. Yeah, And it's remarkable
Speaker 1: to me how much those stories, what they are, the
Speaker 1: content of them, um, really affects how we feel about
Speaker 1: a situation, and how if we get different information we
Speaker 1: can feel dramatically different in uh um. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you ever read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Speaker 1: It's a book I love. But he tells the story,
Speaker 1: you know, Covey tells a story of being on a
Speaker 1: train with a couple of kids who are running all
Speaker 1: around on on the subway, running all around the subway,
Speaker 1: just creating havoc, yelling, screaming, driving everybody crazy, and he's
Speaker 1: getting more and more irritated, and he finally turns to
Speaker 1: the father and he says, sir, you know you're could
Speaker 1: you you know, could you deal with your children? You know,
Speaker 1: everybody on the car is really upset. And the guy
Speaker 1: looks up at him and says, oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: You know, we just came from the hospital. We we
Speaker 1: just lost their mother, and in that instant everything changed
Speaker 1: for him. I'll try you know, his whole everything he
Speaker 1: thought about that man, all the stories that he was
Speaker 1: telling himself changed. And I think that's a lot of
Speaker 1: what you are you're stressing is if we can get
Speaker 1: away from whatever story we're making up and try and
Speaker 1: find out the reality that's exactly it. I also think
Speaker 1: that there is something to be said about us telling
Speaker 1: ourselves more positive stories. You know, if I'm driving down
Speaker 1: the road and I cut somebody off on accident on
Speaker 1: the freeway and they pull up next to me and
Speaker 1: they decided to flip me off because they're angry, Right,
Speaker 1: I can tell myself a story that I'm the bad guy.
Speaker 1: I could tell myself a story that guy has had
Speaker 1: a bad day. I could tell myself a lot of stories,
Speaker 1: but a positive story I might tell myself as Hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, who knows what's going on that guy's life.
Speaker 1: You know, he might be struggling. You know, who knows
Speaker 1: what what what situation he's in. And so if I'm
Speaker 1: able to live with a little bit of empathy and
Speaker 1: compassion rather than anger, and revenge, you know, talking about
Speaker 1: the duality there and that those two parts of us,
Speaker 1: then perhaps I'm able to give that guy the benefit
Speaker 1: of the doubt. And many times, you know, in relationships,
Speaker 1: if we've been burned, or if we've lost trust, or
Speaker 1: if we've been wounded in our past, or there's been
Speaker 1: some traumatic situation, or there's a lot of things that
Speaker 1: influence us. Certainly, but that we have a tendency to
Speaker 1: go more towards the negative. And you know, I wish
Speaker 1: it wasn't the case, but I think it is for
Speaker 1: for most people. And like I said, some people do
Speaker 1: this more than others in terms of the intensity, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of the negative narrative. So yeah, if you
Speaker 1: if you recognize that you're making it up, then you
Speaker 1: can choose to try and make it, you know, make
Speaker 1: it a little bit more positive. You say that, Um,
Speaker 1: much of the pain in relationships can be traced back
Speaker 1: to the stories that we tell ourselves. Can you elaborate
Speaker 1: on that a little bit? Yeah? Absolutely, you know I
Speaker 1: think that, Um, you know, think about you know, I'll
Speaker 1: do a lot of work with with couples in my
Speaker 1: practice as a as a therapist, and um, you know practitioner,
Speaker 1: you know, working with folks dealing with a range of issues,
Speaker 1: and certainly you know the these narratives that we play
Speaker 1: out are in the context of relationships. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if if they aren't in isolation, they aren't in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: There in the context of relationships. You know, each one
Speaker 1: of those stories that I shared earlier, the examples, the
Speaker 1: the teenage daughter that's on a date, the boss who
Speaker 1: gives a certain look, you know, or the boss who
Speaker 1: sends an email at you know, three thirty on a
Speaker 1: Friday afternoon and says, we gotta talk Monday morning. First thing,
Speaker 1: important news, you know, and the narrative you play yourself
Speaker 1: in your brain all weekend, right, these these are these
Speaker 1: are stories that we play out from a not knowing
Speaker 1: when we don't have all the information. We tell ourselves stories.
Speaker 1: But we can even play that in terms of friendship
Speaker 1: or or or a dating or committed partnership. You know,
Speaker 1: I think about with my own marriage. I'm married, and
Speaker 1: you know, my wife will say something and I'll commit
Speaker 1: to a certain opinion about what she meant by that.
Speaker 1: I'll jump to conclusions react, you know, get angry. So
Speaker 1: I've done you know, all sorts of steps. I've I've
Speaker 1: digested what she said, I've developed some loyalty to a
Speaker 1: certain opinion, I've created a belief around that, I've solidified
Speaker 1: that belief, and then I've reacted all in about one second, right,
Speaker 1: and and so if you break that down and you
Speaker 1: begin to think about, you know, how is this you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, what's the context here. It's in
Speaker 1: the context of relationships. So much of the pain that
Speaker 1: we struggle with internally has to do in this anxiety
Speaker 1: has to do with that. It's it's it's really in
Speaker 1: the context of relationships because because as human beings were
Speaker 1: relational people, we we are meant to be in some
Speaker 1: level of community, whether that's in a small group, a partnership,
Speaker 1: a friendship, family, a community, uh you know something, you know,
Speaker 1: business that we're we're relational creatures. So that's what I
Speaker 1: mean by the pain, is that we end up jumping
Speaker 1: to conclusions and living more in our head sometimes and
Speaker 1: we do actually engaging with the person and having a conversation.
Speaker 1: And here's the rest of the interview. You say that
Speaker 1: anxiety and ignorance, our vacuums, and our imagination rushes in
Speaker 1: to fill the space. So I think I think what
Speaker 1: you're saying is that as people, we um we have
Speaker 1: a desire to understand what's happening, what something means, and
Speaker 1: if we don't know, we're gonna we're gonna fill it in. Um.
Speaker 1: And you also say that assumptions reek havoc in our relationships.
Speaker 1: So what are some things that we can do in
Speaker 1: those moments where we get something that sends us off
Speaker 1: into creating the stories? Maybe we don't have Let's maybe
Speaker 1: two situations. One would be we can't go find out
Speaker 1: the truth right away. So what are some things like
Speaker 1: the example you gave. Okay, my boss sends me an
Speaker 1: email three thirty on Friday says we gonna talk Monday morning,
Speaker 1: and I can't get an answer till Monday morning. What
Speaker 1: can I do with myself? You know? How can I
Speaker 1: how can I work with those stories over that long weekend? Well?
Speaker 1: You can first run for the hills, right, you don't
Speaker 1: you don't know? You know there? Um? I mean there's
Speaker 1: all sorts of options people do, right they you know,
Speaker 1: they turn to alcohol, um, right, or some escapism or
Speaker 1: numbing um. Some people make choices to turn to a
Speaker 1: friend to talk about it. Other people bottle it up
Speaker 1: and go inward and internalize it and try to you know, um,
Speaker 1: not think about it. Right. There's all sorts of reactions,
Speaker 1: sort of a fight or flight reaction from a from
Speaker 1: a healthy standpoint, when I talk about in the book
Speaker 1: is that, you know, I think the first step is
Speaker 1: trying to get a little more information, you know, sending
Speaker 1: an email back and saying, hey, you know, give me
Speaker 1: heads up on what we what, what we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about. I'd like to have a little more information,
Speaker 1: you know. And and and well, say the ball sends
Speaker 1: some more information, you got a little more information. If
Speaker 1: if he or she doesn't send more information, then you've
Speaker 1: got to sit with the not knowing. And I think
Speaker 1: there is something to be said about sitting with the
Speaker 1: not knowing. Um, it's hard to do. Um. Most of
Speaker 1: us want to control, most most of and we want
Speaker 1: to control because we want to feel safe. And when
Speaker 1: we don't feel safe, we look to a lot of
Speaker 1: things to try to calm us. And and so I
Speaker 1: think healthy ways of doing that is learning. I'll walk
Speaker 1: through a seven step process on how to manage anxiety.
Speaker 1: A very simple way of managing different aspects of anxiety.
Speaker 1: It's certainly not comprehensive to all anxiety that's out there,
Speaker 1: but some of the circumstantial anxiety we're talking about, UM,
Speaker 1: it can be helpful. UM. And so you know, and
Speaker 1: part of that process is learning to define what you know,
Speaker 1: literally writing down you know, what is it that I
Speaker 1: can control in this situation? What is it that can't
Speaker 1: with the situation with the balls, I can't control if
Speaker 1: he or she hasn't given me more information, I can't
Speaker 1: control getting more information. It's out of my hands. So
Speaker 1: if I'm learning to say, you know what, I've got
Speaker 1: to learn to surrender to what I can't control. Now,
Speaker 1: that's easier said than done. At the same time, it's
Speaker 1: part of what it means to be human. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I was on a flight recently and, um,
Speaker 1: the turbulence was just terrible. I mean, I've I've I've
Speaker 1: been on a lot of flights over the years, and
Speaker 1: it was the worst turbulence I've ever been on and
Speaker 1: been in rather and it it lasted for an hour
Speaker 1: and we were thirty five thousand feet and so I
Speaker 1: kept reminding myself that, you know, no flights are very
Speaker 1: few flights. I've every come down out of the sky
Speaker 1: from thirty five thousand feet. Um, you know I'm everybody
Speaker 1: in the flight attendants flying up and down, you know,
Speaker 1: hitting the ceiling, hitting the floor, people are yelling. You know.
Speaker 1: Of course, I've got a twelve year old sitting next
Speaker 1: to me on his iPad, smiling, watching a movie the
Speaker 1: whole time. You know, it doesn't It doesn't help things.
Speaker 1: And I'm making myself anxious over here, right, he's all calm.
Speaker 1: But I literally said to myself, with all the anxiety
Speaker 1: I was feeling, I said to myself, you know I
Speaker 1: can either I'm making up stories. I have no idea.
Speaker 1: But you know what, I can't control this. I'm up
Speaker 1: in the air. I have no power over what happens next.
Speaker 1: And I made a decision to over about twenty minutes
Speaker 1: to work on literally thinking in my brain, I've got
Speaker 1: to surrender to this. If if I'm if this is
Speaker 1: my opportunity, if this is what I'm going, then this
Speaker 1: is it. And I can't make myself hold on that now.
Speaker 1: That's fighting against every part of me as a human
Speaker 1: that wants to fight for life. Um. At the same time,
Speaker 1: I had to come to a place of surrender and
Speaker 1: spirituality is important to me, so I leaned into that
Speaker 1: a bit and and I gotta be honest, I was
Speaker 1: able to get to that place after probably fifteen twenty
Speaker 1: minutes and then that and I was able to call
Speaker 1: myself for that that next ten or so minutes fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes of of of turbulence, and I was and then
Speaker 1: it stopped. But you know, the turbulence stopped. And so
Speaker 1: you know, I think that that's just one small way.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's something that we have to
Speaker 1: work at, is learning how to surrender. And um, some
Speaker 1: of us want to hold onto life really really tight,
Speaker 1: me included. And you know that's something I'm contending to
Speaker 1: learn to put into practice. Even what I put down
Speaker 1: on paper and what I've seen in clients over the years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the less tight your hold on life, often the better
Speaker 1: it is. And I think a lot of that what
Speaker 1: you described there, and you talk you spend a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of the later part of the book
Speaker 1: talking about this is is the awareness of that what's
Speaker 1: even happening. So Okay, now I'm telling myself a story,
Speaker 1: and the story I'm telling myself is that this plane
Speaker 1: is going to go down. And then once you have
Speaker 1: that awareness, then you can you can work with trying
Speaker 1: to soothe yourself or find other things. Got it, You've
Speaker 1: got sort of an awareness spectrum and you spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time talking about that. Can you go a
Speaker 1: little deeper into some of your thoughts unawareness? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you bringing that up a moment ago
Speaker 1: to about awareness. Yeah, sometimes I forget about that piece.
Speaker 1: That's that's certainly a step one in the process is
Speaker 1: just the recognition, and it gives you a little power
Speaker 1: when you can name it and have an understanding of it. Um,
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, you know, I remember a buddy
Speaker 1: of mine in graduate school. He had a brother that
Speaker 1: spent three or four years trying to find a diagnosis
Speaker 1: for some physical symptoms he was having that we're so
Speaker 1: so painful for him and they and they went from
Speaker 1: doctor to doctor, to doctor to doctor and finally kind
Speaker 1: of diagnosis and in the in the freedom and just
Speaker 1: knowing what it is, you know. So I think there's
Speaker 1: a level of the note having an awareness of what
Speaker 1: you're feeling that gives you a little bit of power
Speaker 1: in that dynamic. So in terms of just awareness in
Speaker 1: general and in my own journey, um, you know, as
Speaker 1: a as a therapist, um, and just as a person.
Speaker 1: You know, I like to have an understanding of things, um,
Speaker 1: and not just trying to control things or or manipulate
Speaker 1: not not that, more of an understanding of a level
Speaker 1: of awareness. So I try to start with my body
Speaker 1: and my emotions and what's going on inside of me.
Speaker 1: And I find to be one of the most important
Speaker 1: pieces to being grounded in conversation, whether I'm talking with
Speaker 1: my my wife or my kids, that I've got to
Speaker 1: get grounded first and notice what I'm feeling and what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, so I'm not just reacting. And I think
Speaker 1: a will awareness is power because it gives me the
Speaker 1: option to be proactive. So those are a few things
Speaker 1: to come to mind. But yes, a lot of my
Speaker 1: work with clients, and certainly a lot of the language
Speaker 1: in the book is about awareness, and I think it's
Speaker 1: you know, there's certainly a lot of Eastern thought and
Speaker 1: an awareness and paying attention to your body and your
Speaker 1: breathing and yourself. And over the last you know, let's
Speaker 1: say plus years in the States, we've gotten a little
Speaker 1: more of a I think that's that is UM begin
Speaker 1: to weave its way in a healthy way into a
Speaker 1: lot of different fields, whether it's in medicine or psychotherapy
Speaker 1: or certainly yoga or an exercise. UM. So it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of weaved its way in a number of different
Speaker 1: fields more than probably it ever has. Yeah, you describe
Speaker 1: kind of the one of the results of doing this
Speaker 1: type of work is becoming a person of presence, and
Speaker 1: you talk about what a lot of those benefits are.
Speaker 1: What are some of the benefits of you know, doing
Speaker 1: this thing where we where we work on our awareness
Speaker 1: and we train ourselves and we become UM more of
Speaker 1: like you say, a person of presence. What comes to
Speaker 1: bind Number one is peace. Um, when I'm functioning in
Speaker 1: those attributes and I'm noticing a sense of peace in
Speaker 1: my own life, and I think other people recognize that
Speaker 1: there's a sense of centeredness or groundedness in me, and UM,
Speaker 1: I think other people when I recognize that in someone else,
Speaker 1: when they're living out qualities like humility and having good
Speaker 1: boundaries in their life with others, and they're able to
Speaker 1: have a sense of self confidence, and you know they're
Speaker 1: able to have those different You know, there's six different
Speaker 1: sort of ingredients or um points that I make there
Speaker 1: and those are three that I'm named um. There there's
Speaker 1: really a level of peace um and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: isn't that what a lot of people would like to
Speaker 1: have in their life is more more peace and and
Speaker 1: uh and I don't mean a piece like, you know,
Speaker 1: just momentary peace, but a sense of contentment or grounded
Speaker 1: nous that you know, different different different philosophies and religions
Speaker 1: sort of speak to it, I know. And Judaism, you know,
Speaker 1: the word is shalom. It's you know, this this essence
Speaker 1: of being um, you know, having a full sense of
Speaker 1: peace or an embodiment of um calmness. So it's more
Speaker 1: than just one word. It's sort of an embodiment. So
Speaker 1: that's what comes to mind. I mean, I think there
Speaker 1: are other things as well, but that's really what I'll highlight.
Speaker 1: What are some practical steps that we can take to
Speaker 1: increase our awareness you know that that if you think
Speaker 1: if we would think of as a muscle, you know,
Speaker 1: our awareness muscle, how do we how do we practice that?
Speaker 1: How do we strengthen that? I think first and foremost
Speaker 1: it's starting with your with your body and your breathing.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody can pay attention to their breathing. Everybody
Speaker 1: can pay attention to noticing what their body is doing.
Speaker 1: Where I'm feeling tension, What part of my body am
Speaker 1: I feeling it in? How big is it? Right? I'm
Speaker 1: asking a client today she was feeling a lot of anger,
Speaker 1: tremendous amout of anger and her parents and says, you know,
Speaker 1: a woman in her sixties and her mom's still living
Speaker 1: and she has a lot of anger towards her, and
Speaker 1: she said she could. I said, where do you notice it?
Speaker 1: You know? She said, I'm in the middle of my chest.
Speaker 1: That's how big is it? You know, it's about the
Speaker 1: size of my fists? What color is it? Just really
Speaker 1: getting clarity about, you know, what is the anger saying?
Speaker 1: So it's just it's really kind of narrowing in on
Speaker 1: what you physiologically feel because your body teaches us things
Speaker 1: and it's not just let me try to think more
Speaker 1: about it, you know, it's it's an awareness of body.
Speaker 1: So that's one I think. Also what can increase awareness
Speaker 1: is by practicing learning how to be more present, which
Speaker 1: I focus on two key elements. One is breathing, taking
Speaker 1: deep breaths. And the second is letting your senses come alive.
Speaker 1: So as I'm sitting in this room talking with you,
Speaker 1: I can look around the room and I could see
Speaker 1: a painting across the room right, and I can notice
Speaker 1: the colors and the texture. I can fill the chair
Speaker 1: that I'm sitting in right, or I could smell the
Speaker 1: air and that that's around me candle burning, you know.
Speaker 1: So allowing myself to be in the moment can increase
Speaker 1: awareness because I'm paying attention to my senses. So those
Speaker 1: are a couple of things, and so talk more about
Speaker 1: this in the book, But those are a couple of
Speaker 1: things that come to mind. And if you're if you're
Speaker 1: say one other thing, if you're talking with someone else
Speaker 1: in your relationship, you pay attention to what you're you're noticing.
Speaker 1: You know, what do you notice in their hand expressions,
Speaker 1: their facial expressions, their words, their body posture, you know,
Speaker 1: just paying attention to let that be something that speaks
Speaker 1: to you. So I think awareness coming a lot of
Speaker 1: shapes and sizes, but that's just initially what what comes
Speaker 1: to mind. One of the things I like that you
Speaker 1: do in the book that I think is important to
Speaker 1: stress is that we're not very good at this when
Speaker 1: we start, yea, and but that we can definitely get
Speaker 1: better at it by continuing to do it. And I
Speaker 1: think there's a real tendency. I think I was this
Speaker 1: way for a while when I would try and you know,
Speaker 1: be in the present moment, and I would find that
Speaker 1: that was really hard, and I would do it for
Speaker 1: a second, or I would you know, I think I
Speaker 1: just can't do this, And the tendency is to give up,
Speaker 1: whereas if you if you keep working on it. My
Speaker 1: experience has been you you move closer, and you talk
Speaker 1: about that that's a continue um um of of becoming
Speaker 1: you know, becoming a person's at presence kind of is
Speaker 1: at the far end of having spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time and energy to get there. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: The awareness continuum increases, and so you're able to catch
Speaker 1: yourself while you're doing it or in the very act
Speaker 1: to be a choice with behavior. Um, yes, I'm aware
Speaker 1: that there, you know. That's that's the great thing about
Speaker 1: this is it's not just okay. There's some people who
Speaker 1: are born with this and some people aren't. You know,
Speaker 1: Oh well, you know, so sorry for you you know,
Speaker 1: you were weren't born with this, No, this is this
Speaker 1: is something you can develop. Some people do have a
Speaker 1: more natural ability of this because they're intuition, or their
Speaker 1: family they're raised in, or the training that they've done,
Speaker 1: but we certainly can all grow in this and it
Speaker 1: is if you don't know how to do it at first,
Speaker 1: it is something that you can learn over time. And
Speaker 1: I do think there's a level of awareness that comes
Speaker 1: with with getting older, you know, I think that I
Speaker 1: think there is a level of you know, experience and
Speaker 1: history that teaches us things that, uh, there's awareness there,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it is. It's a skill that can be developed.
Speaker 1: You had a line in the book that really struck me,
Speaker 1: and it says, people who can't control themselves try to
Speaker 1: control other people. Can you expound on that? You know,
Speaker 1: if I can't control my anxiety, then I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to control my external environment so I can feel
Speaker 1: us anxious. And anxiety in my mind is one of
Speaker 1: the most significant aspects are ingredients that are in committed relationships.
Speaker 1: People feel anxious because the person is pulling away. People
Speaker 1: get anxious because they're in conflict. People get anxious because
Speaker 1: they've got to talk with their partner about something that's difficult. Um,
Speaker 1: this level of anxiety is you know, And I'm using
Speaker 1: anxiety in a broad sense, not just people who get
Speaker 1: nervous about something, but I'm using in a broader sense. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: when we when as human beings, when we can't you know,
Speaker 1: we can't control our sells mean, we don't know how
Speaker 1: to self soothe or manage your own emotions. They're gonna
Speaker 1: try to control our environment. That's our best, next best thing,
Speaker 1: and usually it's the people around us. So you know,
Speaker 1: you could think about that. You know, I'm sure if
Speaker 1: you spent some time thing about that in your own family, right,
Speaker 1: you could probably come up with scenarios that stand out
Speaker 1: to you. I know I could for me, you know,
Speaker 1: in my family and in my own life that I've done, um,
Speaker 1: you know, clients. I could think of stories over and
Speaker 1: over again. I was listening to story today. He and
Speaker 1: his adult and his forties, you know, mom staying with
Speaker 1: him and her sixties or seventies, and she was you know,
Speaker 1: she she gets anxious because you know, he doesn't do
Speaker 1: what she wants. Um when she comes to visit, and
Speaker 1: so she tries to control him what does he do?
Speaker 1: He gets anxious about her trying to control him, and
Speaker 1: so he tries to control her. Right this, this is
Speaker 1: what they do, and they drive each other crazy, and
Speaker 1: I want to spend time together. Right, No one want
Speaker 1: No one wants to be controlled, and so people typically
Speaker 1: pull back in those kind of relationships. So, you know,
Speaker 1: learning how to balance emotion in yourself as a big
Speaker 1: it's important factor in terms of friendships and professional relationships
Speaker 1: and committed partnerships because you know that will that will
Speaker 1: become problematic and you know, like I said, people don't
Speaker 1: like it. So so one last question, we're kind of
Speaker 1: at the end of time or observation. But you had
Speaker 1: another line that really struck me. And this one really
Speaker 1: struck me um as like really pertinent to to me
Speaker 1: in certain cases, and it said, when we fail to
Speaker 1: share our deeper experiences about life's events, we're actually providing
Speaker 1: right material for the other person to create stories about us. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the most significant areas that I
Speaker 1: do work with with clients is helping them learn how
Speaker 1: to talk about their heart and their mind because that
Speaker 1: that breeds intimacy. You've got to have a level awareness
Speaker 1: first though, right, I've got to know what I'm thinking
Speaker 1: and what I'm feeling and be able to share that
Speaker 1: with you. Now, people who do that well and are
Speaker 1: proficient at that, you get to know them. People who
Speaker 1: don't do that, you don't get to know them, and
Speaker 1: they're harder to know and or they're harder to know
Speaker 1: rather and as a result, people the person on the
Speaker 1: other side of of that makes up more stories because
Speaker 1: they're they're not they're not given material. You know, there's
Speaker 1: plenty of couples in relationship who don't know one another.
Speaker 1: They may know things about each other, but they don't
Speaker 1: know their day to day personal experience like hey, I'm
Speaker 1: struggling with this, or I'm happy about this, or this
Speaker 1: is what was difficult for me, or that hurt really
Speaker 1: hurt when you said that, or I'm really angry at
Speaker 1: you about that decision you've made, you know, and this
Speaker 1: is what's going on for me, or I heard this
Speaker 1: song and it started up this emotion of this experience
Speaker 1: where I wanted to share it with you. Right, those
Speaker 1: are letting people in, and when you do that, people
Speaker 1: are Most people are able to say, oh gosh, wow, okay, um,
Speaker 1: that's pretty vulnerable number one, But number two, um, I
Speaker 1: feel like I know you. You You know um So that's
Speaker 1: what I mean by that. If you if we're not
Speaker 1: showing up and letting the real, authentic US show up,
Speaker 1: then then it becomes problematic on terms of people knowing us. Yep. Well,
Speaker 1: I definitely think I have probably produced a bunch of
Speaker 1: stories in people's heads based on based on that sentence
Speaker 1: thinking back over some of my past. So that was
Speaker 1: really really helpful for me to to read. Um So,
Speaker 1: I think that brings us to the end. But thanks
Speaker 1: so much, Scott. I really enjoyed, enjoyed talking with you.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the book. Um. Have links to all your
Speaker 1: stuff on our show notes at one you feed dot
Speaker 1: Net and us again you're beat. Really enjoyed it. Thanks, uh,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. All right, take care okay, okay,
Speaker 1: bye m You can learn more about Scott Gorto and
Speaker 1: this podcast at one you Feed dot Net slash Scott