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Speaker 1: We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Aziz Gussie Pura.
Speaker 2: When we say we can't handle something like the loss
Speaker 2: of a loved one or the loss of a job,
Speaker 2: what we're saying is, I'm not going to be able
Speaker 2: to handle the feelings that I imagine I'm going to experience,
Speaker 2: and if we don't fight it and run from it,
Speaker 2: it actually is something that will powerfully transform us and
Speaker 2: deepen us.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great tinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, And yet for many of us are
Speaker 1: thought don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is doctor
Speaker 1: Aziz Ghazipora, a clinical psychologist in one of the world's
Speaker 1: leading experts on social confidence. After being stuck in shyness
Speaker 1: and social anxiety himself for almost ten years, he became
Speaker 1: determined to find a way to social freedom. On this episode,
Speaker 1: Ausise and Eric discuss his book On My Own Side
Speaker 1: Transform Self Criticism and Doubt into permanent self worth and confidence.
Speaker 3: Hi, Asease, welcome to the show. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for having me. I'm looking forward to this. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: a real pleasure to have you on. We're going to
Speaker 3: primarily be discussing your book called On My Own Side
Speaker 3: Transform Self Criticism and Doubt into permanent self worth and confidence.
Speaker 3: But before we get into that, let's start like we
Speaker 3: always do with the parable. There is a grandfather who's
Speaker 3: talking with his granddaughter and he says, in life, there
Speaker 3: are two wolves inside of us that are always a battle.
Speaker 3: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 3: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 3: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 3: the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second.
Speaker 3: She looks up at her grandfather and she says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 3: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 3: the work that you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's so fitting for this idea of
Speaker 2: being on our own sides, and that in our own
Speaker 2: minds we have a voice or a perception that can
Speaker 2: focus on the good we bring, the value we bring,
Speaker 2: our wins, what we can contribute. And then we all
Speaker 2: know that we have another voice in there that can
Speaker 2: dismiss us, just completely undermine our value, our sense of worthiness,
Speaker 2: and it can run a pretty active campaign against us.
Speaker 2: And that is the wolf that many of us unconsciously
Speaker 2: and almost as if we've lost power and influence on
Speaker 2: our own minds, that's the one we feed. That's the
Speaker 2: when we go along with and sort of submit to.
Speaker 2: And so I think in the service of becoming our
Speaker 2: most free, confident selves, we must start feeding that other wolf,
Speaker 2: the good wolf, as it were.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think what you're talking about, that voice
Speaker 3: is what we would often refer to as our inner critic.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, there's many different names for it. And as
Speaker 2: soon as you say that, people like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know what you mean there. And yeah, it's a
Speaker 2: whole stance, it's a whole attitude or orientation towards ourselves
Speaker 2: that can really determine our confidence and then ultimately how
Speaker 2: much we can thrive and succeed in life too, right,
Speaker 2: and being on our own side.
Speaker 3: I love the title of the book, on my own Side,
Speaker 3: because I think that's such a powerful idea, to like
Speaker 3: be on our own side, to take our self as
Speaker 3: important and worth supporting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even that can feel uncomfortable totally for people.
Speaker 2: I mean it's like, oh, that's that's selfish. That's a
Speaker 2: bad thing. That's gonna make you egotistical or arrogant or
Speaker 2: disconnected or uncaring about others. And I think that just
Speaker 2: shows the misconception of what being on our own side is,
Speaker 2: what being more loving and kind with both ourselves and
Speaker 2: others are and all that. So, yeah, the iitle is
Speaker 2: meant to in itself carry a message. So we'll get
Speaker 2: into how to do this in a minute. But I
Speaker 2: think you just touched on something that's important there, which
Speaker 2: is when we get into this stuff about being on
Speaker 2: our own side, loving ourselves self compassion is a term
Speaker 2: that's in use a lot these days. When we hear
Speaker 2: terms like that, or someone will say we'll go a
Speaker 2: little easier on yourself or variations on that, we often think, well,
Speaker 2: that's going to cause a problem. And as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: one of the types of things we think it might
Speaker 2: be is it might make us egotistical. Another thing that
Speaker 2: we often think is it'll make us soft, it'll make
Speaker 2: us not motivated. So before we go into how to
Speaker 2: do this, let's talk a little bit about how not
Speaker 2: only being on our own side is a much more
Speaker 2: enjoyable internal experience. It actually does make us better in
Speaker 2: the world. Oh I love this, Eric, I mean I
Speaker 2: feel like, Okay, which part of the book do I
Speaker 2: talk about now? Because yes, there's this fear or mistrust
Speaker 2: of being on our own sides. And before we kind
Speaker 2: of make a case for it. I just want to
Speaker 2: zoom out a little bit and think, wow, Okay, if
Speaker 2: I was in a relationship with someone else, a lover,
Speaker 2: a family member, a child, and I thought, I got
Speaker 2: to be really hard on this person all the time.
Speaker 2: I got to point out what they're not doing right,
Speaker 2: or else they're going to get complacent and lazy, and
Speaker 2: I got to be on them. If you just like
Speaker 2: sense that in a relationship, it's like, is that loving?
Speaker 2: Would you want to be in that relationship? Or you
Speaker 2: kind of maybe grimace or think lah. And so I
Speaker 2: want to use that comparison because so often we think
Speaker 2: it's different with ourselves, but it's not. And there's there's
Speaker 2: a way to be with ourselves that is loving and
Speaker 2: attentive and still can hold a standard and still can
Speaker 2: find motivation. And I think what it requires is an
Speaker 2: upgrade in our way of being. And we think, no,
Speaker 2: the only way to be is to is to use
Speaker 2: the whip and withhold self worth and then I'll feels
Speaker 2: so bad that I'll be motivated to do it. But
Speaker 2: if you look at that from a relationship standpoint, it's
Speaker 2: very dysfunctional, and so we can do better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very dysfunctional. And you've got a chapter kind
Speaker 3: of all Away at the end of the book that
Speaker 3: I love because you use the analogy of an engine
Speaker 3: burning cleaner dirty fuel, right, And I think that that
Speaker 3: being really hard on ourselves or being motivated out of
Speaker 3: a place of pain is a certain type of fuel.
Speaker 3: But as you make the analogy, it's a kind of
Speaker 3: a dirty fuel that seems to burn okay for a while,
Speaker 3: and then everything starts to shut down. And I see
Speaker 3: a lot of people in the coaching work I do
Speaker 3: where that's happened. They've been really hard on themselves a
Speaker 3: lot of their life and it actually worked for a
Speaker 3: while until it just all of a sudden stops and doesn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely right, And I think that metaphor really
Speaker 2: fits is the source of fuel And so you know,
Speaker 2: someone says, yeah, but it works, or it got me
Speaker 2: to hear it's like, okay, and what is the quality
Speaker 2: of that? And is there just because something works, does
Speaker 2: that not mean that there could be something even better
Speaker 2: that allows you to move forward, allows you to achieve things,
Speaker 2: or put someone else first, whatever you think you need
Speaker 2: to do in the moment. But to do that from
Speaker 2: a place of kindness. And I think what people don't
Speaker 2: realize is that not only does that better fuel feel
Speaker 2: better for you for those wondering the better fuel is
Speaker 2: to be on your own side to find that optimal
Speaker 2: source of motivation, but it actually works better for others
Speaker 2: and for business and for relationships, because if you think
Speaker 2: about this, let's say, Okay, I got to go do
Speaker 2: this thing, but I'm telling myself do it or else
Speaker 2: do it? You're lazy? Come on, like, are you tense inside?
Speaker 2: Are you resentful? Are you scared? Like? Are you really
Speaker 2: going to perform at your best? Are you really going
Speaker 2: to give your most when there's that critic in the
Speaker 2: corner of your mind, Just like waiting there with a belt,
Speaker 2: you know you better do well, and it just it
Speaker 2: doesn't bring out the best in us right And a.
Speaker 3: Lot of times when we start to think about this
Speaker 3: being on our own side, being kinder to our the
Speaker 3: thing that most people think of often are affirmations, And oftentimes
Speaker 3: what we think of is we think of something like
Speaker 3: Stuart Smally from Saturday Night Live. You know, I'm good enough,
Speaker 3: I'm smart enough and doggone at people like me right
Speaker 3: sitting in front of a mirror and doing that, which
Speaker 3: is both makes us really cringe and some people may
Speaker 3: have actually tried this before and found, well, that didn't
Speaker 3: really work. Why do these not work or not tend
Speaker 3: to work so well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, fantastic. I mean, I think affirmations are a tactic,
Speaker 2: and there are thousands of different tactics. On face value,
Speaker 2: they make sense. They're sort of logical, like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: talk better to myself, But we're not logical creatures. And
Speaker 2: the tactic and which tactic you use doesn't work. Nothing
Speaker 2: will work because we need to do something much much
Speaker 2: different first, and that's we need to make a fundamental decision.
Speaker 2: And I call this in the book the decision of
Speaker 2: a lifetime where you must decide, Hey, the way this
Speaker 2: is going me being subjugated to this inner tyrant and
Speaker 2: living as if I'm on the bottom of the hierarchy
Speaker 2: of worthiness of life, and that if I just achieve
Speaker 2: one more thing and just look a certain way and
Speaker 2: just get this approval, that I'll be okay, Like when
Speaker 2: I really get how insane that is, how I'm living
Speaker 2: this life without fulfillment and love that I could be
Speaker 2: experiencing until some magical future date. When you really get
Speaker 2: how bad that feels. Then you hopefully have a sense
Speaker 2: of compassion awakening you aversion that says, you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do something different. I'm going to decide
Speaker 2: to be on my own side, and I don't know
Speaker 2: how to do it all yet. I'll figure out the
Speaker 2: tactics later. Just like if you decide to stop drinking
Speaker 2: or you decide to get healthy, you don't know the
Speaker 2: whole journey, but you know that something's going to shift,
Speaker 2: and you know to relate it to the parable I'm
Speaker 2: going to decide to feed that other wolf, and then
Speaker 2: you start might start to realize, you know that the
Speaker 2: bad wolf, that thing's a beast. I've been feeding that
Speaker 2: thing a lot over the last twenty years of my life,
Speaker 2: and so I need to make that shift. But once
Speaker 2: we've made that fundamental decision, then we can start to
Speaker 2: find tactics that work specifically to affirmations and why I
Speaker 2: think those are problematic. Again, think of your relationship with
Speaker 2: yourself as a relationship with another person. And imagine you're
Speaker 2: in a relationship with another person and you're sitting there
Speaker 2: with your say, a lover or a spouse, and you
Speaker 2: follow them around the house and you say like I
Speaker 2: love you, I love you, I love you. You're great, you're
Speaker 2: so smart, you're so handsome. Okay, and you know the
Speaker 2: mirror exercise about you get face to face with them
Speaker 2: and you say, for ten minutes, I love you this,
Speaker 2: I love you that. The person's like, it's a little much,
Speaker 2: it's a little weird. It's not the kind of communication
Speaker 2: that actually resonates and works, and so it's a bit mechanical,
Speaker 2: it's a bit insincere in a way. And I think
Speaker 2: what we have to do is we have to make
Speaker 2: that fundamental decision and say, Okay, I really want to
Speaker 2: figure out how to sincerely treat myself better, treat myself
Speaker 2: like someone that I actually love and care about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. Tactics aren't it, And so let's
Speaker 3: dive into the real issue and the deep work here.
Speaker 3: But I think before we do that, it would be
Speaker 3: useful to talk about a concept that informs some of
Speaker 3: this work, called internal family systems, and briefly just maybe
Speaker 3: explain to us what that is. Because the inner critic
Speaker 3: is just one of the members of that internal family,
Speaker 3: and I think it's helpful to talk about that to
Speaker 3: frame up the rest of this discussion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fantastic. The easiest way to think about that is
Speaker 2: that we are a collection of parts. You might think
Speaker 2: that you're a singular person because you have a name.
Speaker 2: I'm as Ease, You're Eric. Okay, there I am. But
Speaker 2: actually it takes just a little bit of observation to
Speaker 2: realize that it's not the same. You're not the same
Speaker 2: person every moment. You know, maybe you are more courageous
Speaker 2: at one moment and more fearful in another moment. You
Speaker 2: are more loving and generous and giving at the moment
Speaker 2: you're a little bit more hard or withdrawn or other things.
Speaker 2: And we have these different parts that are moving through us,
Speaker 2: and so a way to think about those parts is
Speaker 2: to think of them as an internal family. There's different
Speaker 2: versions of you, different family members, as it were, And
Speaker 2: many of us have certain family members that we give
Speaker 2: all of the attention to they drive the ship, as
Speaker 2: it were, and other ones we keep out. We don't
Speaker 2: want to listen to them, we don't want to deal
Speaker 2: with them. And for many people, their inner critic is
Speaker 2: actually a dominant force in their life. It's kind of
Speaker 2: like a patriarch or the matriarch. It's the one that
Speaker 2: you know, holds the most sway and makes the decisions,
Speaker 2: or at least it must be consulted with and must
Speaker 2: be placated and pleased. And so unfortunately we have this
Speaker 2: inner family, and then at the head of the family
Speaker 2: is this force that's pretty toxic for us.
Speaker 3: You describe the inner critic at one point by saying
Speaker 3: it has the emotional energy of a tantra, I mean child,
Speaker 3: you know, but it's also like ten feet tall and enormous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's the uh A. Theodore Rubin, a brilliant analyst,
Speaker 2: called it the omnipotent screamer. You know. It's like you
Speaker 2: should have known that. Why did you make that mistake?
Speaker 2: You're so stupid, you know, And it's like demanding these
Speaker 2: realistic things and actually seeing that can be so helpful
Speaker 2: because you know, it's loud. You've given it a lot
Speaker 2: of authority over the years, and so it seems like
Speaker 2: such a dominant force. But then if you really listen
Speaker 2: to what it's saying and it's attitude and it's petulance,
Speaker 2: it has much more similarity to like a four year
Speaker 2: old than some you know, authority that you want to
Speaker 2: base your life on.
Speaker 3: What was that the omnipotent screamer.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great. So we've got these different parts of
Speaker 3: ourselves inside of us. This is obviously a model of
Speaker 3: looking at our psychological experience. So we've got these different
Speaker 3: parts of ourselves, and one of them is the inner critic,
Speaker 3: which in some of us takes on a very outsize role.
Speaker 3: It's the most outspoken, loud member of the family. But
Speaker 3: this inner critic has something that's trying to tell us.
Speaker 3: And most of your work moving forward, and this is
Speaker 3: where the conversation will go, is about we have to
Speaker 3: allow that inner critic. We have to see what it's
Speaker 3: doing and work with it more skillfully than either trying
Speaker 3: to agree with it or shut it up.
Speaker 2: You really summed it up very well there, because you know,
Speaker 2: at the beginning, perhaps someone's not even that aware. I
Speaker 2: certainly wasn't when I struggled with a lot of social
Speaker 2: anxiety and self loathing, I wasn't aware I was maybe
Speaker 2: even vaguely aware of an inner critic. My thoughts felt true.
Speaker 2: If I thought I'm a loser, that person's I want
Speaker 2: to talk to me, I can't speak up here. They're
Speaker 2: not going to like me. It was like someone narrating reality.
Speaker 2: Then I became aware of, oh there's an inner critic
Speaker 2: and maybe everything it says isn't true. Wow, liberation. And
Speaker 2: then I think once people hear that, and some people
Speaker 2: discover that at different ages in their life, then there's
Speaker 2: a sense of like, okay, well you just get rid
Speaker 2: of it. If you just get rid of that thing,
Speaker 2: then then problem solved. And then you know, you get
Speaker 2: the campaign of the affirmations. People will just kind of
Speaker 2: get angry, like I want to kill this part. I
Speaker 2: would get rid of this critic. It's awful, it's terrible,
Speaker 2: And that makes sense. You know, someone wakes up to
Speaker 2: something abusive and there's a sense maybe of like wanting
Speaker 2: to leave or get rid of it. The thing is, though,
Speaker 2: you can't just leave wherever you go, there you are,
Speaker 2: So it's not like a relationship with someone else you
Speaker 2: could get out of it. It's in your head, it's
Speaker 2: in your patterns of your psychology, and it's serving a function.
Speaker 2: Great thing I love to do with clients to say, okay,
Speaker 2: where is the propaganda campaign of your critic? Where is
Speaker 2: it steering you towards it's telling you you know, you
Speaker 2: can't do that you're not attractive enough. If you mess
Speaker 2: that up, what's wrong with you? And usually it's trying
Speaker 2: to steer you towards something. And when you start to
Speaker 2: get curious and say, what's going on with this part?
Speaker 2: Where is it trying to steer me? Then something starts
Speaker 2: to open up and you realize that the critic's function
Speaker 2: primarily is to keep you safe from harm, safe from pain,
Speaker 2: safe from emotion. You know, because if it says you
Speaker 2: should have been more perfect, it's like if it was
Speaker 2: more perfect than I went to got and rejected, they
Speaker 2: would have liked me more. Well, you should have made
Speaker 2: that mistake. Well, if I hadn't made that mistake, maybe
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be having to face this challenge in my
Speaker 2: life right now. And so it has this fantasy if
Speaker 2: you just did everything perfectly, then you would avoid all
Speaker 2: emotional discomfort. And then from that place, when you really
Speaker 2: get to see that, then you can start to work
Speaker 2: with that critic, because then what it becomes about is
Speaker 2: about being able to tolerate a much wider range of emotions.
Speaker 2: The critic is just trying to stop it all, and
Speaker 2: one of the primary ways is also stopping all action,
Speaker 2: stopping all risk, and so then we can start to
Speaker 2: take real risks in our life feel more emotion and
Speaker 2: to do that, we have to learn how to work
Speaker 2: with this critic so it doesn't just scream and throw
Speaker 2: tantrums and stop us in our tracks.
Speaker 3: Before we go into how to work with that critic,
Speaker 3: let's talk about the two main ways that are not
Speaker 3: helpful in working with the inner critic.
Speaker 2: Sure, so one is going to be to just ignore
Speaker 2: it and say, you know what, it's whatever, it doesn't
Speaker 2: bother me, or I don't even need to think about
Speaker 2: that or worry about that. And generally what's going to
Speaker 2: happen then is you're going to be steered by it unconsciously.
Speaker 2: So there's that opportunity to put yourself out there or
Speaker 2: speak up in a group, or do something that maybe
Speaker 2: feels risky socially or emotionally, and then you just, yeah,
Speaker 2: I just don't take the opportunity. I just don't feel
Speaker 2: like it. I just don't want to. I'm just afraid.
Speaker 2: I don't know, And we don't realize that behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: behind the curtain is the voice saying like it's not
Speaker 2: gonna go well, and then we just sort of follow it.
Speaker 2: So you can't just ignore it. And at the same time,
Speaker 2: sometimes people turn and try to say, you know, shut up,
Speaker 2: get out of here, I hate you, I hate this part,
Speaker 2: I want ah, and they create all those innertention, and
Speaker 2: then any part of us wants to keep going, thinks
Speaker 2: it has a function, thinks it's going to try to
Speaker 2: keep us safe, and so it's going to get louder
Speaker 2: and it's going to get bigger, and then people get
Speaker 2: into these long battles with their critic, or sometimes people
Speaker 2: get super hyper intellectual with their critic, you know, and
Speaker 2: this is you know, well, technically that's not true, because
Speaker 2: I have this evidence that shows that. And sometimes that
Speaker 2: can work. But oftentimes, no matter what evidence you bring,
Speaker 2: the critic just comes back with something else or just
Speaker 2: shifts topics entirely. So they're like, hey, listen, actually I
Speaker 2: am going to perform well at this work project because
Speaker 2: look what I've done in the past. And maybe you
Speaker 2: really stuck it to the critic. Then the critic goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: well it doesn't matter because you're never gonna have love
Speaker 2: in your life anyway, and you're just like, oh no,
Speaker 2: she got me, you know, so we you know, i'd
Speaker 2: say that's kind of explaining to three, but it's ignoring it,
Speaker 2: just trying to just shut up and get out of
Speaker 2: here and with hatred push it away, or trying to
Speaker 2: be super intellectual and rational with it, as if you
Speaker 2: can just totally reason it away.
Speaker 3: Right right. I think the ways we relate to it
Speaker 3: are interested, and you do a great job in the
Speaker 3: book of sort of making examples that when we hear them,
Speaker 3: we're like, yeah, that's absurd, you say.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: One of the ways that we relate to the inner
Speaker 3: critic is we just agree with it. It's like you're
Speaker 3: an awful person, You're never going to amount to anything,
Speaker 3: and everything you do is terrible. When we go, yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess that's true. Jeez, I really feel terrible right Like, which, again,
Speaker 3: if somebody else said that to us, we'd be like, well,
Speaker 3: hang on a second here. And then the other, like
Speaker 3: you said, is trying to intellectualize with it, which you know,
Speaker 3: is to debate it. Which as you were saying that,
Speaker 3: it made me think about my partner's mother, who has Alzheimer's,
Speaker 3: and she will start to get scared about something, and
Speaker 3: for a while I thought, well, I'll just tell her
Speaker 3: that what she's afraid of isn't going to happen, and
Speaker 3: then we'll be Okay, So winter is coming and I
Speaker 3: Am going to die of starvation. I would say, well, no,
Speaker 3: you're not going to because well we're here every so often,
Speaker 3: and when we're not here, someone else is always here
Speaker 3: and they can go get food, and we can always
Speaker 3: order food and we get food delivered. But what if
Speaker 3: there's a snowstorm, Well, you're in Atlanta. It won't last
Speaker 3: that long. I mean, everything I try encounter, she just
Speaker 3: comes up with an increasingly bizarre scenario until like we
Speaker 3: are at an apocalyptic scenario. You know, the cell phone
Speaker 3: towers are all down, all our caregivers are dead, and
Speaker 3: there's no intellectual discussing this with her. I just have
Speaker 3: to do and this is going to lead us to
Speaker 3: what you tell us to do. I sort of just
Speaker 3: have to turn towards her and go, ah, geez, I
Speaker 3: see you're scared. That must feel frightening, and boom, it vanishes,
Speaker 3: you know, or it doesn't vanish, but it changes. And
Speaker 3: so if we can't ignore our inner critic, if we
Speaker 3: can't argue our way out of it, and we know
Speaker 3: that just agreeing with it is crazy. What do we do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, fantastic. I love that example, and just you share
Speaker 2: in that because what you just described there is empathy.
Speaker 2: It's acknowledging the experience of another person. And the reason
Speaker 2: she keeps escalating or going down a more catastrophic imaginary
Speaker 2: scenario is because the reason doesn't eliminate the feeling inside
Speaker 2: of her, right, and so, but it's like, but I
Speaker 2: still feel afraid, So my mind's like going to come
Speaker 2: from some other danger because if I feel afraid inside,
Speaker 2: what's the dangers? My brain's going to be scanning for danger.
Speaker 2: And our imaginations can be beautifully creative for pleasure and
Speaker 2: beauty or for immense pain. And she's also pointing out
Speaker 2: something which is like there is no fundamental protection from
Speaker 2: all pain, danger and loss. And I think that's kind
Speaker 2: of like just brewing right underneath the surface of our
Speaker 2: orderly society. And the fact that I can press a
Speaker 2: button on my phone and get something delivered, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's all I'm totally safe, and some level we know
Speaker 2: like chaos is sort of just underneath the surface, right,
Speaker 2: and that's just a part of life on this planet.
Speaker 2: But there is something we can do which is that humans.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're pack animals. We evolve to be together,
Speaker 2: We're created to share and be in community. And so
Speaker 2: when there's another human that just sees us and you
Speaker 2: say like, hey, wow, right beneath the surface, there could
Speaker 2: be lost, there could be pain, and you say, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, I see that too. I know that all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, that moment of seeing, that moment of
Speaker 2: connection actually can calm our nervous system. It can transform
Speaker 2: our experience as you described, and so that just like
Speaker 2: we know, and I highlight this a book a lot,
Speaker 2: like you know this might sound really like WHOA How
Speaker 2: do I do it? You kind of know already, you know,
Speaker 2: because how you want to deal with your mom, how
Speaker 2: you want to deal with your friend, how you want
Speaker 2: to deal with your kid when you're at your best,
Speaker 2: you know, when you're patient, when you're loving, And we
Speaker 2: just want to bring that to ourselves, and that's going
Speaker 2: to be empathy the critics coming at you. First things
Speaker 2: where you got us are to become more aware of
Speaker 2: it and to differentiate you and your thinking or from
Speaker 2: this part and so on. An exercise I have is
Speaker 2: people just to start to name it. You can call
Speaker 2: it the inner critic. You can call it Jeffrey, you
Speaker 2: can call it any name you want. And you say, ah,
Speaker 2: that's the critic talking. Oh, that's the critic talking. Then
Speaker 2: you want to start to say, well, what's it saying?
Speaker 2: And let's set saying. You know, something bad's gonna happen tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna lose my job. Something bad's gonna happen in
Speaker 2: the environment. I can't handle this. Okay. So you're afraid
Speaker 2: of losing your job. Yeah, because you're not performing well,
Speaker 2: you're terrible at work. Okay, so we're gonna lose a
Speaker 2: job mainly because we're not doing good enough. And you know,
Speaker 2: notice my pronouns get weird here you I we and
Speaker 2: you're dialogue to the critic. It's just whatever's come in
Speaker 2: your way. Sometimes it says I, because it's fused. You know,
Speaker 2: you think it's you. Sometimes it says you, it's attacking you.
Speaker 2: I generally like to start to relate to it like
Speaker 2: a we like, okay, so you're scared that something's going
Speaker 2: to happen to us. They try to bring it in,
Speaker 2: but it's really just basic empathy, like, let me get
Speaker 2: you here, what are you saying? What are you saying,
Speaker 2: and that's the first step is just to start to
Speaker 2: move towards it, become aware and move towards it with
Speaker 2: that empathy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: It's just being heard. It needs to be heard, and
Speaker 3: when it's heard, it can relax a little bit. And
Speaker 3: I like that idea of naming it. The example I
Speaker 3: will give for myself is not for my inner critic.
Speaker 3: My inner critics seems to have gotten relatively quiet in
Speaker 3: my later years. But what I do have is an
Speaker 3: inner Ere, you know, so I will imagine myself, you know,
Speaker 3: I'll just imagine Ere and talking in your's voice. If
Speaker 3: I find myself sort of being gloomy, which is a
Speaker 3: disposition I tend towards, I'll just suddenly be like, oh,
Speaker 3: there's my inner eor again. You know.
Speaker 2: Everything seems really hard today.
Speaker 3: And you know, and all of a sudden, my experience
Speaker 3: with it is I am, as you said, differentiated from it,
Speaker 3: or as they would say in acceptance and commitment therapy,
Speaker 3: I have cognitively diffused from it a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And when you do that, especially when you do
Speaker 2: the voice, I mean, that guy's pretty adorable. It's like ah,
Speaker 2: I meant.
Speaker 3: Me give you or a hug here.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, Yeah, that's funny. It's it's fascinating too.
Speaker 2: I just love to play with this stuff. And this
Speaker 2: goes maybe outside of the critic conversation, but just you know,
Speaker 2: one of my passions is is confidence and how do
Speaker 2: we bring our best selves to each day and feel
Speaker 2: inspired and charged the next thing. That's the next book
Speaker 2: I'm writing right now. And one thing that's so fascinating
Speaker 2: is just to start to see how off those predictions
Speaker 2: are from Ere, you know, because he'll say, whatever's the
Speaker 2: ere or the catastrophe part or something that give an
Speaker 2: example in the book of My Son, you know, we
Speaker 2: just had this really fun day. We were out camping
Speaker 2: on a mountain and really great time. And then the
Speaker 2: next day we're waking up and he's like, nothing fun's
Speaker 2: gonna happen today. Today is just nothing fun. And we're
Speaker 2: like in this beautiful camp spot, you know, but that's
Speaker 2: his way of saying like, oh, I don't want to leave.
Speaker 2: I don't know what we're gonna do today. It's gonna
Speaker 2: be bad. And so we have this like super fun
Speaker 2: day hike. You go to this we get ice cream
Speaker 2: on the way home, which they love.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like just a fantastic day. And so at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, I was like, what was your
Speaker 2: experience of the day, and he's like, oh, we did
Speaker 2: this and we did that, and it's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but nothing fun is going to happen tomorrow. And I
Speaker 2: just love playing with it and highlighting it with him
Speaker 2: and helping him see. But seeing that in him helped
Speaker 2: me start to work with my own inner you know,
Speaker 2: negative predictions and just how repetitive it can be. But
Speaker 2: when we really start to see how temporary it is,
Speaker 2: it's just a passing thought. It's actually more of a
Speaker 2: reflection of our current energy state than it is any
Speaker 2: sort of reality, and you start to see it that way.
Speaker 2: And same thing with a critic. Critic is usually a
Speaker 2: reflection of an inner state of fear. Almost always, the
Speaker 2: ear is usually some sort of lower we kind of
Speaker 2: maybe we're feeling little depleted, we're a little tired, you know.
Speaker 2: So we start to see that, then we can focus
Speaker 2: a little less on everything that that voice is saying
Speaker 2: and a little more on like, oh you're oh, I
Speaker 2: guess i'm a little tired right now, how can I
Speaker 2: take care of myself? Or oh, critic, I must be
Speaker 2: afraid of something right now, I wonder what I'm afraid of,
Speaker 2: which is really like the next step in the process
Speaker 2: is you start to dialogue with a critic, but you
Speaker 2: know you have a little like decoder ring and you
Speaker 2: know that the critics coming at you. That means I'm
Speaker 2: afraid of something. The critic's afraid of something, and my
Speaker 2: job is to go beneath the surface and help address
Speaker 2: the actual fear underneath.
Speaker 3: Right, And so I'm going to just read these steps
Speaker 3: up to where we are just to sort of frame
Speaker 3: it for listeners. So you talked about these five steps
Speaker 3: to tame you're in a critic, and step one was
Speaker 3: identify when we're being self critical. Step two is to
Speaker 3: move towards your critic. We just talked about step three
Speaker 3: exploring the root fear and empathizing.
Speaker 2: And so step four.
Speaker 3: Now we move on and we're regrouping in problem solving.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about what we're doing there.
Speaker 2: That's where you judo chop the critic and you say, oh,
Speaker 2: I get it, I get it, and then you calms down.
Speaker 2: Then you strike it, strike hard, strike fast, but so
Speaker 2: regroup and problem solve is to get to the root.
Speaker 2: Fear is actually a really interesting thing where you really
Speaker 2: want to be very curious and just be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm afraid of something. Because the critic might not initially
Speaker 2: say that you're afraid. It says like you're ugly, I
Speaker 2: don't like you, you're bad, you know no one will
Speaker 2: ever love you. It's like, okay, that just sounds angry
Speaker 2: and sort of denigrating. But underneath you could say, wow,
Speaker 2: you are really angry sounding right now. And sometimes you
Speaker 2: can do it describing about yourself that might sound a
Speaker 2: little strange. Let me give an example. So let's say
Speaker 2: the critics saying you know you're unattractive, no one's going
Speaker 2: to want to be with you or love you, or
Speaker 2: your partner's going to leave you because you're getting older
Speaker 2: and all these things. You could say, Wow, you're really
Speaker 2: afraid that someone's going to leave disease, like ausease is
Speaker 2: not worthy as he is not good enough. And that's
Speaker 2: another layer of kind of cognitive diffusion, as you call it,
Speaker 2: like stepping back and sort of saying this thing play out,
Speaker 2: And so at first critic might say no, I'm not afraid,
Speaker 2: you're just ugly. It's okay, I know. So if if
Speaker 2: disease is ugly, what are you most afraid might happen?
Speaker 2: And it's like eventually, if you really are empathizing, they'll
Speaker 2: start to be a softening and whether that's a critic
Speaker 2: or another part underneath, because you know, internal family systems
Speaker 2: has all the names, all these different parts. But I
Speaker 2: sometimes find that's a little complicated for clients. So just
Speaker 2: like just keep connecting and seeing what comes up next.
Speaker 2: You don't have to know exactly who it's coming from,
Speaker 2: but something comes up next, and there's there's going to
Speaker 2: be a soft underbelly there that's like I'm afraid of,
Speaker 2: you know, my husband leaving me. I'm afraid of, you know,
Speaker 2: my sibling who's sick, dying, or whatever it is, right,
Speaker 2: it's something more raw and real, and in that moment,
Speaker 2: that's when we want to empathize with that. That's the
Speaker 2: step three, and then we're going to start to be
Speaker 2: able to problem solve with that. And sometimes there is
Speaker 2: a specific solution to that problem, you know, for example,
Speaker 2: like let's say it's a fear about speaking up in
Speaker 2: a workplace situation, and says not, your ideas are stupid.
Speaker 2: No one's going to you know, don't share, don't share,
Speaker 2: And eventually you say, I'm most afraid of is I'm
Speaker 2: afraid of being judged. I'm afraid of people thinking I'm
Speaker 2: not smart or that I'm not worthy of speaking up. Okay,
Speaker 2: well let's solve this problem because we want to speak
Speaker 2: up and you're afraid of that pain. And the way
Speaker 2: that I love to think about problem solving is this
Speaker 2: idea of collaborative problem solving, and so it's really fun
Speaker 2: to actually ask the critic what do you think might
Speaker 2: help solve this problem? And instead of saying, well, here's
Speaker 2: what we need to do, shut up is this and
Speaker 2: say well, what do you think? And then you start
Speaker 2: to actually work with these different parts of yourself and
Speaker 2: see what ideas come, see what solutions come. Is there
Speaker 2: a way to speak up where we don't necessarily have
Speaker 2: to feel like it's such a risky thing? Is there
Speaker 2: a way? And another way is to also say, well,
Speaker 2: what if there's a way for you to feel totally
Speaker 2: held and safe as we do it? And you start
Speaker 2: to explore with this, and sometimes there's an active solution
Speaker 2: like oh, we're now we're gonna do X and more.
Speaker 2: It's just like, hey, we're working together, and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, it just shifts people's experiences and a lot
Speaker 2: of that fear just dissolves.
Speaker 3: Got it. I love the idea of the problem solving.
Speaker 3: I love the idea of the internal dialogue too, because
Speaker 3: if you accept that the inner critic has a role
Speaker 3: to play, then you can accept that it might have solutions. Also.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's where we sort of I'm going to
Speaker 2: hate it away or just get rid of it. Is
Speaker 2: actually we're missing something. We're missing some message, some value.
Speaker 2: Every single part of us has something valuable to offer.
Speaker 2: It's just a matter of you know, are we the
Speaker 2: head of the household inside of there? Are we able
Speaker 2: to hear from each part? Because you wouldn't want the
Speaker 2: four year old running the household in a real household,
Speaker 2: you know, so same thing, But you still want to
Speaker 2: hear from the four year old. And if you don't
Speaker 2: hear from the four year old and you say, shut
Speaker 2: up your opinion as a matter get out of here,
Speaker 2: you're going to have some acting out on your hands.
Speaker 3: That's right, And so I think it's worth at this
Speaker 3: point saying, well, in this idea, if I've got these
Speaker 3: different parts, who's the head of the household? I love
Speaker 3: that's a that's the deep question that we actually we
Speaker 3: could take off the edge of the earth. I'm going
Speaker 3: to try and keep it within the realm maybe of
Speaker 3: inner critic and internal family systems and not the ultimate
Speaker 3: existential inquiry into who I am.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I mean think it all kind
Speaker 2: of blurs together in a way. But basically, okay, so
Speaker 2: you could think of about on one level, which is
Speaker 2: ego has such a sort of a bad rap you
Speaker 2: know in the last whatever twenty thirty years, is like
Speaker 2: get rid of your ego, man and egotistical, all these things.
Speaker 2: But you know, there's another concept of the term that's
Speaker 2: like a healthy functioning interface with the world. Like you know,
Speaker 2: you can say I'm a cosmic consciousness, you know, and
Speaker 2: there's no self and and on some spiritual level these
Speaker 2: things are true. But okay, now I'm gonna go talk
Speaker 2: to my boss. Now I'm gonna go interact with my kid. Now,
Speaker 2: Like how am I going to I got to go
Speaker 2: to the store and pay for this thing? Like there's
Speaker 2: some level of we need to be able to interface
Speaker 2: and function with the world. We need some self. We
Speaker 2: need to take in the data of what's coming our way.
Speaker 2: Does this feel good to me? Does this not feel
Speaker 2: good to me? Do I want to be treated this way?
Speaker 2: What do I value? What do I love? What are
Speaker 2: my passions? What doesn't work for me in a partnership
Speaker 2: or in a workplace? Like so there is a very
Speaker 2: level practical level, and so I might call it the
Speaker 2: real self and ifs internal family systems. I love the
Speaker 2: concept of a captain of the ship. Now I know
Speaker 2: we're mixing metaphors here because we've talked about the head
Speaker 2: of the household. I am the captain of my ship.
Speaker 2: It's a mantra that I do with people at my
Speaker 2: online and live events. It says, I am the captain
Speaker 2: of my ship. I determine my destiny. It's like a
Speaker 2: reclaiming of a healthy version of ego, which it says
Speaker 2: like I'm going to steer and it's the head of
Speaker 2: the household. It's the captain of the ship. And it's like,
Speaker 2: I just visualize this part that can that can hear
Speaker 2: all the other parts. That is some sort of arbitrre
Speaker 2: and ultimate decider of what we're going to do, and
Speaker 2: is able to to hear apart, but also say, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: hold on a second, Hold on a second. You're getting
Speaker 2: a little out of lying here because we're not able
Speaker 2: to hear from this person because you're yelling so much.
Speaker 2: So give me a second. We're gonna hear more from you.
Speaker 2: But I want to hear from this part. So it's
Speaker 2: got like a dominance, it's got an authority in the room,
Speaker 2: and that I'd say is one way to think about
Speaker 2: your real self. It's able to observe all the other parts.
Speaker 2: It's able to influence, it's able to steer, it's able
Speaker 2: to guide, it's able to listen. And I think that's
Speaker 2: a very practical sense of self that we can operate
Speaker 2: from on a day to day basis.
Speaker 3: Does meditating feel like a chore, another to do list
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Speaker 3: up for this free guide right on our homepage. We
Speaker 3: could go into the deep aspects of there is no self,
Speaker 3: and I talk about that from time to time, and
Speaker 3: I've had some experiences of that, and yet day to
Speaker 3: day we have to interact with ourselves and with others,
Speaker 3: and I think what we call it is open for debate.
Speaker 3: I like Captain of the Ship on my own side,
Speaker 3: you call it core self. But I think describing it
Speaker 3: can be helpful. You describe it as the witness, the watcher,
Speaker 3: and then you also say it is centered, present, curious,
Speaker 3: and grounded. And I love that idea of it's that
Speaker 3: part of us that's centered, present, curious, and grounded, and
Speaker 3: that grounded I think and centered speaks a little bit
Speaker 3: to the authority you're talking about as an ability to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is what we're doing. The other thing that you
Speaker 3: talk about is that that our core self is capable
Speaker 3: of handling any experience in life. It can handle any emotion.
Speaker 3: You've got another sentence that already says because your heart
Speaker 3: is vast and its capacity to feel is infinite. And
Speaker 3: I love those ideas because if that core self can
Speaker 3: relate to in this case, the inner critic and all
Speaker 3: of its fears and all the ways it thinks it's
Speaker 3: going to be hurt and says we can handle that.
Speaker 3: I can handle this, again mixing our pronouns, I, we
Speaker 3: can handle this, can feel that we will be okay.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, we can really relax to a certain.
Speaker 2: Extent, absolutely, because in every moment, if we're living from
Speaker 2: that core self, and then therefore we're able to reside
Speaker 2: in those qualities of groundedness and curiosity is one of
Speaker 2: the fastest ways to become more effective with all these
Speaker 2: different parts. And what we're sending though, is a message
Speaker 2: of safety to our nervous system, to all these different parts,
Speaker 2: because the other parts, you know, the critic or a
Speaker 2: catastrophizing part or something, it does not feel safe and
Speaker 2: it's actually disconnected from reality to some degree because it's
Speaker 2: usually taking something that's not a real threat and making
Speaker 2: it extremely threatening, or even something that is a concern
Speaker 2: or a threat, making a case that we're not going
Speaker 2: to be able to survive. Right in all those cases,
Speaker 2: what we need is we need to be in that
Speaker 2: core self where then we can say, Okay, we can
Speaker 2: handle whatever comes our way. That's a muscle to build
Speaker 2: that perception to be able to hold, and it's also
Speaker 2: something that's verified through experience. So the more you have
Speaker 2: experience in life and you don't shut down to but
Speaker 2: you open to the experience and you say bring it on.
Speaker 2: And that doesn't mean just like you do something. It
Speaker 2: also means you expand in your capacity to feel. I
Speaker 2: think there's such a flight from feeling in our culture,
Speaker 2: and I only want to feel good and I want
Speaker 2: to feel pleasure and I don't want to feel the
Speaker 2: bad stuff. And if I feel bad, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I'm going to get really depressed. And we just get
Speaker 2: so negative and depressive to avoid feelings. We get anxious
Speaker 2: to avoid feelings, We develop body pain to avoid feelings.
Speaker 2: And so much of my work with people is actually
Speaker 2: just increasing our capacity to feel from that core self
Speaker 2: and just let the feeling move. And this is sort
Speaker 2: of the basic and of other guests you've had to
Speaker 2: talk about basic kind of mindfulness capacities to be with feeling,
Speaker 2: to let feeling move through you as opposed to clench down.
Speaker 2: And when we do that, we really get to see, ah,
Speaker 2: I can handle that. Because when we say we can't
Speaker 2: handle something, an event like the loss of a loved
Speaker 2: one or the loss of a job or you know
Speaker 2: something the scary stuff, what we're saying is I'm not
Speaker 2: going to be able to handle the feelings that I
Speaker 2: imagine I'm going to experience. And again, that is a
Speaker 2: story in our minds. The truth is, our capacity to
Speaker 2: feel anything is infinite, and if we don't fight it
Speaker 2: and run from it, it actually is something that will
Speaker 2: powerfully transform us and deepen us and expand us and
Speaker 2: actually prepare us for the next stage of our life
Speaker 2: and what we're meant to give.
Speaker 3: Beautifully said. And I was talking with somebody the other day,
Speaker 3: and I think that sometimes we feel like we don't
Speaker 3: have the capacity to feel things because we're like, oh,
Speaker 3: if I feel it, it'll never go away. But it's
Speaker 3: actually our strategies to not feel it that actually never
Speaker 3: go away. Right, So the reason it feels like it
Speaker 3: never goes away is because our strategy to not feel
Speaker 3: it continues to reinforce and feed it. You know. It's
Speaker 3: the thought patterns oftentimes that we're engaging in, the mental
Speaker 3: spinning we're doing to avoid the feeling that just perpetuates
Speaker 3: it endlessly. And that's why we think, oh, I can't
Speaker 3: if I go into that, it just lasts forever. But
Speaker 3: the reality is we're not going into it, and that's
Speaker 3: why it's lasting forever.
Speaker 2: That's right. We're thrashing around at the edge of a pool.
Speaker 2: Maybe we got our leg in there, and then we're
Speaker 2: just thrashing and thrashing and thrashing, or say, I'm in
Speaker 2: this pool forever. It's like you haven't even gotten in yet.
Speaker 2: You're got your toe in the water. And it's a
Speaker 2: lot people confuse, like rumination and manipulation, like they're trying
Speaker 2: to change it, trying to fix it, trying to get
Speaker 2: a different perspective. And then you know, you throw some
Speaker 2: personal development in there, and they got new tools to
Speaker 2: try to fix it and change it and get rid
Speaker 2: of it and slice it. And that's why I love
Speaker 2: the you know, the acceptance of commitment therapy stuff is
Speaker 2: so about cutting through that and just developing this like
Speaker 2: it's like a muscle, it's a fortitude, it's a life
Speaker 2: skill to be able to go into that fire of feeling.
Speaker 2: And that's why one of the things I encourage, you know,
Speaker 2: anyone in my world and all clients to do is
Speaker 2: to get in a practice of being able to take
Speaker 2: a short cold shower every day, or at least end
Speaker 2: your shower with cold, because it's like this physical training
Speaker 2: of stepping into the discomfort, and that is as a
Speaker 2: metaphor for our ability to step into discomfort of emotion.
Speaker 2: And then when we do that thrash around trying to
Speaker 2: get rid of it, we say, im, okay, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go into it, Yes, bring it on. Then we
Speaker 2: get to develop our skills in navigating the waters of emotion.
Speaker 2: And most of us, myself included, did not have skills
Speaker 2: because I spent the whole time with just one leg
Speaker 2: in the water trying to get out. But if you
Speaker 2: actually get in, then you get to learn how to navigate.
Speaker 2: And there are so many ways to work with emotion,
Speaker 2: and there's so much nuance and mastery of how to
Speaker 2: work with a feeling, how to observe it in your body,
Speaker 2: how to dissipate it out of your skin and let
Speaker 2: it move and go to the periphery of your body.
Speaker 2: It's all these powerful tools, but if we're in our
Speaker 2: head trying to get away, we don't have access to
Speaker 2: any of them, and we never learned them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great. I never know when these episodes are
Speaker 3: going to air, but a couple of weeks ago I
Speaker 3: interviewed Wim Hoff. Oh yeah, I'm a big fan of
Speaker 3: whim Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be a funny
Speaker 3: sounding interview. It's probably been out because Wim is all
Speaker 3: kinds of fired up. He's basically yelling through the whole interview,
Speaker 3: and I've got my semi ere voice going the whole time.
Speaker 3: It's probably a funny combination. But I have been taking
Speaker 3: a short cold shower at the end of all my
Speaker 3: showers for years now, partially because I think it helps
Speaker 3: wake me up and I can use it, and partially because, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a stepping into purposely saying I'm going to do
Speaker 3: something uncomfortable right away here purposely. But since I interviewed Wim,
Speaker 3: I have been increasing my duration of cold shower. He
Speaker 3: inspired me. So I am. I'm up to a minute
Speaker 3: and forty five seconds, which when I'm in Columbus. The
Speaker 3: ground water temperature between Columbus and Atlanta is different, so
Speaker 3: I prefer these longer cold showers when I'm in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the last step is called into the roar. So
Speaker 3: tell us about what that is, or the last step
Speaker 3: in these five steps to tame our inner critic.
Speaker 2: So you know, the first four that we're talking about
Speaker 2: are kind of inner work, and people love that because
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, I could do that in the safety
Speaker 2: of my bedroom. But the critic and its predictions about
Speaker 2: what you're able to do, and its whole story to
Speaker 2: try to keep you safe and avoiding all risk in life,
Speaker 2: there's only so much you can You can comment, you
Speaker 2: can work with it, you can talk to it, and
Speaker 2: there's a lot more nuanced too. Sometimes the best thing
Speaker 2: to do is empathize it for a moment and say,
Speaker 2: you know what, I disagree. I don't. That's not how
Speaker 2: that's going to go. It's not how I see myself.
Speaker 2: And you know, so there's all these different ways, but
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, you got to step
Speaker 2: into life. You got to go do the thing. And
Speaker 2: we were just talking about the cold showers, right, You
Speaker 2: got to go into the discomfort. Discomfort equals freedom. Discomfort
Speaker 2: is the pathway to anything that we want to create
Speaker 2: or achieve or experience, whether it's a deeper relationship. You
Speaker 2: got to have uncomfortable conversations that you might want to avoid,
Speaker 2: whether it's creating a business or growing your career, or
Speaker 2: being more assertive and a roomful of people that intimidate you.
Speaker 2: It's all about capacity to lean in that discomfort. And
Speaker 2: so you know, into the roar comes from this story
Speaker 2: that a friend of mine ran this gym. They called
Speaker 2: it training for Warriors, and it's the story about in
Speaker 2: the savannah, how they'll have all the generally the female
Speaker 2: lions that do the hunting and the pride, and so
Speaker 2: they're like sneaking through the tall grass going towards gazell's
Speaker 2: or whatever the creature they're going to eat, and then
Speaker 2: they'll have the male lion stand on the other side,
Speaker 2: kind of in the grass as well and let out
Speaker 2: this intense loud roar that rips through the air. And
Speaker 2: so the natural impulse in the animals is to run
Speaker 2: away from the roar, right into the ambush set by
Speaker 2: the female lions and the ones that survive. Though when
Speaker 2: they hear the roar, instead of running away from it,
Speaker 2: they run into it. Of course, they run right past
Speaker 2: the male lion, who he's not known for hunting very much.
Speaker 2: He just watches them go. So that's the part of.
Speaker 3: The story I need to know more about. Why is
Speaker 3: the male lion just lounging around letting gazelles run by.
Speaker 2: I know, it's an interesting system that they got. They
Speaker 2: got there. It's the lesson there is that we have
Speaker 2: to face that the challenge. So it's basically defy the doubt.
Speaker 2: In fact, the full mantra that I got people through
Speaker 2: is I am the captain of my ship. I determine
Speaker 2: my destiny. I defied out. I defeat doubt. I destroyed out.
Speaker 2: And the way that we destroyed out, the way that
Speaker 2: we defeat it is by defying it consistently. And it
Speaker 2: starts to dissolve, it starts to erode, it starts to
Speaker 2: have less and less power. And you know, you mentioned
Speaker 2: that your critic has gone down over the years, and
Speaker 2: there's probably many reasons for that, but one of them
Speaker 2: could be the fact that you've consistently over the years
Speaker 2: to be where you are, to be what you're doing,
Speaker 2: you must have dified what that voice said, you know,
Speaker 2: again and again and again and again, and so it
Speaker 2: starts to lose its power. And that's where the true
Speaker 2: liberation comes in. And that's where people, if they weally
Speaker 2: want to be free of the critic, it can't just
Speaker 2: be done in the you know, in the room or
Speaker 2: in the therapy room or something like that. We also
Speaker 2: have to get out there and take bold action again
Speaker 2: and again and again. So the critic says, now that
Speaker 2: person couldn't possibly want to talk to you, You're not
Speaker 2: worthy of their time. Well, you do whatever inner work
Speaker 2: you need to, and then you pick up the phone,
Speaker 2: you email them, you say, hey, I'd love to connect
Speaker 2: with you, or I'd love to take you out to lunch,
Speaker 2: or whether it's a business thing or a personal thing,
Speaker 2: and you just face that fear again and again and
Speaker 2: again and again and again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in you saying that, it made me think about
Speaker 3: the fact that the other benefit there is realizing, like
Speaker 3: it's not all binary. The inner critic is not always
Speaker 3: right and always wrong. So like that question of that
Speaker 3: person isn't going to have time for you, right, and
Speaker 3: you get up the courage and you ask them. Sometimes
Speaker 3: that person will have time for you, and sometimes that
Speaker 3: person won't. And so it's not that it's the inner
Speaker 3: critic is always right or always wrong. There's there's a
Speaker 3: more subtle nuance to it. It's that continuing to keep
Speaker 3: showing up that's so helpful. And that's what I like
Speaker 3: so much about this book and your work is there's
Speaker 3: a real focus on the inner work that we have
Speaker 3: to do and the inner empathy, and then there's also
Speaker 3: a focus on the outer work and that both those
Speaker 3: have to happen. And I really strongly sort of agree
Speaker 3: with that, and I would say, you know, so much
Speaker 3: of this show is about those two things. You know,
Speaker 3: what's the inner work that we need to do so
Speaker 3: that we can show up and do the outer work.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, I mean one without the other becomes lopsided
Speaker 2: and less effective from what it really could be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now you and I are at the end of
Speaker 3: our time for this. We're going to talk in the
Speaker 3: post show conversation. I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 3: more with you about another part of the book that
Speaker 3: I found really helpful that we didn't even get time
Speaker 3: to talk about, which is something called value equivalents, right,
Speaker 3: which is the things that we think we need to
Speaker 3: have in order to be valuable. You know, we all
Speaker 3: have our list of them if I was just this
Speaker 3: or I was just that. So I want to talk
Speaker 3: about value equivalents, and I also want to talk a
Speaker 3: little bit more about that. A lot of these things
Speaker 3: are reflections of an energy state that sometimes thoughts cause emotion,
Speaker 3: but oftentimes emotions and energy cause thoughts and the bi
Speaker 3: directional nature of that. So you and I will talk
Speaker 3: about that in the post show conversation listeners if you'd
Speaker 3: like access to that, as well as an extra episode
Speaker 3: I do each week called Teaching Song in a Poem
Speaker 3: and ad free episodes. You can become a member of
Speaker 3: our community by going to one feed dot net slash
Speaker 3: join Aseiz. Thank you so much. This has been a
Speaker 3: wonderful conversation.
Speaker 2: Absolutely my pleasure.
Speaker 3: I think these concepts are really helpful, and I think
Speaker 3: you do a really nice job of laying them out
Speaker 3: in a really clear, powerful way.
Speaker 2: So thank you, thank you.
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