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