Speaker 1: People will come to me and be like, Sarah, what
Speaker 1: is the right choice? Should I do this or should
Speaker 1: I do that? You know all the time, and obviously
Speaker 1: I don't make the choices for them, and I go.
Speaker 1: The right choice is the choice you want to take
Speaker 1: responsibility for.
Speaker 2: Wow, welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great
Speaker 2: thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 2: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 2: you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 2: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 2: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is doctor
Speaker 2: Sarah Kubrick, an existential psychotherapist, co founder of the Phenomenological Society,
Speaker 2: a speaker, essayist, columnist, and consultant. Today Eric and Sarah
Speaker 2: discuss her book It's on Me, Accept hard truths, discover
Speaker 2: yourself and change your life.
Speaker 3: Hi, Sarah, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited to talk to you. We're going to
Speaker 3: be discussing your book, It's on Me, Accept hard truths,
Speaker 3: discover yourself and change your life, which I love that phrase,
Speaker 3: it's on me. But before we get into that, we'll start,
Speaker 3: like we always do with the parable. In the parable,
Speaker 3: there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say,
Speaker 3: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 3: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 3: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 3: other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and
Speaker 3: hatred and fear. And the grandshot stops and they think
Speaker 3: about it for a second. They look up at their
Speaker 3: grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the
Speaker 3: grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 3: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 3: you in your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such a lovely, simple, yet thoughtful and provocative parable.
Speaker 1: To me represents that we all contain multitudes, that we
Speaker 1: can literally be anything. And although that's an inspirational concept,
Speaker 1: I think that's also a scary one. If you feed
Speaker 1: the wrong wolf, you will become someone you don't like
Speaker 1: or someone you don't recognize. And honestly, from kind of
Speaker 1: my clinical experience and research experience, he made me immediately
Speaker 1: think about my doctoral studies where I was speaking with
Speaker 1: individuals who have committed infidelity. And he was fascinating because
Speaker 1: one of the sentences I ken't reoccurring was I never
Speaker 1: thought I could possibly do something like that. And it's
Speaker 1: such an interesting sort of concept that we are all
Speaker 1: possible of pretty much anything. What a scary thing to
Speaker 1: really think about. And that's what he makes me think of.
Speaker 1: We are possible of anything. Nothing is unobtainable almost, and
Speaker 1: you have to be really really selective about the choices
Speaker 1: that you make in life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it brings me to like one of the key
Speaker 3: points that I got through the book, and I think
Speaker 3: you express really really well. And it's an existentialist idea,
Speaker 3: meaning we are completely free to do whatever we want.
Speaker 3: You could say that, well, you're not free to do that.
Speaker 3: You know, you're not free to go one hundred miles
Speaker 3: an hour on the highway, but you actually are. You
Speaker 3: just may not want to deal with the consequence. But
Speaker 3: with that freedom comes in many cases a real anxiety
Speaker 3: and an overwhelmed because we have to figure it all out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we all want freedom. If I ask
Speaker 1: someone on a street, do you want to be free?
Speaker 1: They would say yeah, absolutely. But what I see in
Speaker 1: my clinical work all the time is that people surrender freedom.
Speaker 1: They surrender their freedom to institutions, to frameworks, to worldviews,
Speaker 1: to their community, to their family, to their culture, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. And part of that is obviously wanting to
Speaker 1: belong and the other part of that is just wanting
Speaker 1: someone to give us a script and tell us exactly
Speaker 1: how to do things. Even if we're unhappy. We would
Speaker 1: rather be unhappy than ultimately have the anxiety that comes
Speaker 1: with the freedom. And so although freedom sounds really nice,
Speaker 1: you know, deep down, I do believe most people want it.
Speaker 1: I think it's incredibly difficult and scary. And that's something
Speaker 1: that we don't talk about, the fact that we accidentally
Speaker 1: give our freedom away.
Speaker 3: So something I'm going to be doing a little more
Speaker 3: often is ask you, the listener, to reflect on what
Speaker 3: you're hearing. We strongly believe that knowledge is power, but
Speaker 3: only if combined with action and integration. So before we
Speaker 3: move on, I'd like to ask you what's coming up
Speaker 3: for you as you listen to this. Are there any
Speaker 3: things you're currently doing or feeding your bad wolf that
Speaker 3: might make sense to remove, or any things you could
Speaker 3: do to feed your good wolf that you're not currently doing,
Speaker 3: So if you have the headspace for it, I'd love
Speaker 3: if you could just pause for a second and ask yourself,
Speaker 3: what's one thing I could do today or tonight to
Speaker 3: feed my good wolf? Whatever your thing is. A really
Speaker 3: useful strategy can be having something external, a prompt or
Speaker 3: a friend, or a tool that regularly nudges you back
Speaker 3: towards awareness and intentionality. For the past year, I've been
Speaker 3: sending little good Wolf reminders to some of my friends
Speaker 3: and community members, just quick, little SMS messages two times
Speaker 3: per week that give them a little bit of wisdom
Speaker 3: and remind them to pause for a second and come
Speaker 3: off autopilot. If you want, I can send them to
Speaker 3: you too. I do it totally for free, and people
Speaker 3: seem to really love them. Just drop your information at
Speaker 3: oneufeed dot net slash sms and I can send them
Speaker 3: to you. It's totally free, and if you end up
Speaker 3: not liking the little reminders, you can easily opt out.
Speaker 3: That's one you feed dot net slash sms. And now
Speaker 3: back to the episode, right, we accidentally give it away,
Speaker 3: and I think there is a place for intentionally giving
Speaker 3: it away, absolutely give it aways. Maybe not the word
Speaker 3: that I would use, but by intentionally choosing to put
Speaker 3: some constraint in our life can make us actually, at
Speaker 3: least my experience is almost feel more free. Because this
Speaker 3: is sort of a trivial example of it. But if
Speaker 3: I wake up on a day off and I have
Speaker 3: absolutely nothing planned and no idea what I'm going to do,
Speaker 3: I actually struggle because the whole time I'm like, should
Speaker 3: I do this? Or should I do that? Or what
Speaker 3: about this? And it's just I don't like it. But
Speaker 3: the minute that I that I put some structure in there,
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, well you know what, at ten, you're
Speaker 3: going to go take a walk and then at three
Speaker 3: you'll go to the grocery. As soon as I put
Speaker 3: a little bit of structure in, I suddenly feel more
Speaker 3: free to actually be. I'm a recovering alcoholic and addict.
Speaker 3: And there was a phrase we used to use which
Speaker 3: was the structure liberates absolutely. So I think what we're
Speaker 3: trying to get at here is how do you know
Speaker 3: in what cases you are giving your freedom away? And
Speaker 3: in what cases is that a decision you want to
Speaker 3: make versus an unintentional, autopilot way of doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I loved your example. Structure is I think
Speaker 1: the cure for this anxiety of freedom. And I think
Speaker 1: as long as the structure is intentional. So you made
Speaker 1: those choices. You decided to go to the store at
Speaker 1: three and you decided you were going to work out
Speaker 1: a ten, and that was a very deliberate choice. I
Speaker 1: think you can create your own structure. I think what
Speaker 1: and let's take you to a different example is a
Speaker 1: lot of people think what if you are religious? For example,
Speaker 1: And this is something that a lot of philosophers, existentialists have.
Speaker 1: They have things to say about it, and I don't
Speaker 1: think that they have to be mutually exclusive. I don't
Speaker 1: think that religion within itself has to take away your freedom.
Speaker 1: I think it takes away your freedom when you didn't
Speaker 1: consciously choose it, when it became autopilot, when it was
Speaker 1: something that was purely just passed down to you and
Speaker 1: you never had a moment to go does this align?
Speaker 1: Is this something I want to implement? How am I
Speaker 1: going to choose to implement it. It's not so much
Speaker 1: that a structure has to impose. It's that when we
Speaker 1: become passive into structure and don't ever reevaluate, don't ever question,
Speaker 1: don't ever decide within it, that I think it becomes
Speaker 1: an issue. And you know, religion is not the only thing.
Speaker 1: It's education, it's culture, it's families system. So as long
Speaker 1: as there is a moment of discernment, I think we
Speaker 1: can happily live within structures and not feel like that
Speaker 1: imposed on our freedom.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I want to start kind of at the beginning
Speaker 3: with you and a little bit of your story, because
Speaker 3: I think it's relevant to where we're going to go
Speaker 3: and the first places. You say, by the age of nine,
Speaker 3: I had survived the Bosnia and Kosovo War. So tell
Speaker 3: us a little bit about your childhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I was born in Bosnia and shortly after
Speaker 1: the Botani War started and we moved to Serbia. A
Speaker 1: couple of years later, the native bombings occurred and it
Speaker 1: was a very fascinating childhood. I wouldn't say I have
Speaker 1: a lot of memories from my childhood, but I haven't enough,
Speaker 1: and I would say the most salient memories are definitely
Speaker 1: those of kind of wartime. And I think it really
Speaker 1: skewed my perception of humanity. I think it made me
Speaker 1: very curious, but it made me very scared of humans.
Speaker 1: I think it really made me distrusting. It was a
Speaker 1: fascinating thing to live through. Instead of being a child
Speaker 1: that was playful and trying to explore and express, I
Speaker 1: think I went into self protection boat and I saw
Speaker 1: all the adults do the same, and so it really
Speaker 1: changed the way that I functioned up to my twenties,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even realize. And part of the reason
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it is because so many people I
Speaker 1: was close with survived the exact same thing and we
Speaker 1: normalized it. The first time I realized it wasn't normal
Speaker 1: to have spent nights in bomb shelters was when I
Speaker 1: was sitting in front of my therapist in my twenties
Speaker 1: and it just kind of made like a passing comment
Speaker 1: to that, and she's like, wait, what she had to
Speaker 1: highlight and point out that you know, this isn't a
Speaker 1: common experience for many, and this is difficult, and it's
Speaker 1: not something that should be normalized to the extent that
Speaker 1: I was normalizing it. And so it was a very
Speaker 1: unique childhood. But I think it really made me sort
Speaker 1: of see the darkness of humanity really really early on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and your book, to a large degree, is about
Speaker 3: discovering yourself. You actually use that phrase very specifically, which
Speaker 3: we will get to, and it also starts off with
Speaker 3: it's on me, meaning it's my responsibility. And so i'd
Speaker 3: love to talk a little bit and using that background
Speaker 3: as a starting place, right, because that's a traumatic childhood. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think we throw that word around a lot these days,
Speaker 3: but by any objective measure, that's a traumatic childhood. And
Speaker 3: so I'd love to understand the process for you in
Speaker 3: which you owned that you're able to recognize the effects
Speaker 3: that it had had on you, but you were also
Speaker 3: at the same time able to recognize it was entirely
Speaker 3: your responsibility to heal from that. Talk about the journey
Speaker 3: to get there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think for the longest time I didn't want
Speaker 1: to admit that it impacted me, which now as we're
Speaker 1: talking about it objectively is a very traumatizing experience, and
Speaker 1: I think the reason I didn't want to admit that
Speaker 1: it impacted me is because I felt like that was
Speaker 1: a failure. As silly as that sounds, it's like I
Speaker 1: must not be a strong enough person to, you know,
Speaker 1: not be able to handle that. That means that they
Speaker 1: got the best of me, whoever that they, in my
Speaker 1: head was at the time, and look at them. They
Speaker 1: still have this impact on me two decades later, and
Speaker 1: I think that really scared me. And that felt like
Speaker 1: a failure in my part, and that felt like a
Speaker 1: victory on their part. And I think for a long
Speaker 1: time I didn't want to realize that the consequences were there.
Speaker 1: And I think once I did, the question of now
Speaker 1: what came up real quick, and I could have used
Speaker 1: that as an excuse to act in many ways, but
Speaker 1: I think the suffering up to that point was already
Speaker 1: so strong that all I wanted was to get better.
Speaker 1: And instead of going, Okay, well, now I can use
Speaker 1: this and justify all the things I wanted to do
Speaker 1: and never did, potentially, I just went, now what, Okay,
Speaker 1: that was really crappy. That was not my fault. I
Speaker 1: was the victim in that context. How do I show
Speaker 1: up in a way that I won't hate my life
Speaker 1: so much anymore? And I knew that the only way
Speaker 1: to do that was to actually start being present for me.
Speaker 1: I always say, a responsibility saved my life.
Speaker 3: So it sounds like you went through this. When when
Speaker 3: did you guys leave and you came to the States
Speaker 3: or to Canada?
Speaker 1: Canada? Canada?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, nine, I was nine, Okay, So it.
Speaker 3: Sounds like from nine for a while on, you just
Speaker 3: sort of like, I'm just going to put that in
Speaker 3: the rear view mirror. I'm not going to let it
Speaker 3: impact me because, like you said, it feels like that
Speaker 3: someone else has won then and I'm strong, and you
Speaker 3: carried on and then you hit a point where you
Speaker 3: had a sort of a breakdown. Describe that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I was in grad school at the time.
Speaker 1: I am learning to be a therapist, and I was married,
Speaker 1: I was part of the community. I was doing really
Speaker 1: well in grad school, and I feel like I was
Speaker 1: getting patted on the back by society truly, And he
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, what an example. And you know, I'd
Speaker 1: have friends be like, if only you know, I had
Speaker 1: my shit together, Like you, and it was so fascinating
Speaker 1: to me because I would have like panic attacks in
Speaker 1: my car and they would be saying these things to me,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I really don't wish that upon you.
Speaker 1: And there was a point in my twenties when, right
Speaker 1: before the panic attacks happened, I was having a drink
Speaker 1: with a friend and he asked me a super simple question.
Speaker 1: He just said, are you happy? Because we haven't seen
Speaker 1: each other for a while, we haven't seen each other
Speaker 1: since graduating college. And he's like, you're doing all these
Speaker 1: amazing things, like, but are you happy? And I think
Speaker 1: no one's asked me that truly. I think people will go,
Speaker 1: oh my god, she must be happy. There was an expectation,
Speaker 1: there was an imposition, and you're not gonna be like, no,
Speaker 1: actually I'm not. For the most part, you'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, things are so great. And as someone who
Speaker 1: came from my background, I felt so ungrateful, not loving
Speaker 1: my current life. I felt like I a should just
Speaker 1: cherish it, like wow, I was in Vancouver, I was
Speaker 1: in grad school, like so many people don't get these opportunities.
Speaker 1: What is wrong with me? And he asked me this question,
Speaker 1: and until that point I think my defenses were up,
Speaker 1: and I think it's the moment where I couldn't cope anymore.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you've experienced that moment, but
Speaker 1: it's like the straw that broke the camel's back. And
Speaker 1: he asked me this question, and I started just crying
Speaker 1: in this restaurant bar. And until that point, I haven't
Speaker 1: really cried in front of it anyone. I haven't really
Speaker 1: shown emotion in front of anyone. I was very private.
Speaker 1: I was very detached from my emotions. And I remember
Speaker 1: stumbling to the bathroom to like gather myself and looking
Speaker 1: in a mirror and not recognizing the person I was
Speaker 1: looking at, like she looked hollow, she didn't feel like
Speaker 1: she represented me. And I think the worst part of
Speaker 1: it is that I generally hated her. Like I looked
Speaker 1: at her and I went, I hate you. This is
Speaker 1: all your fault. And then the next day, actually after
Speaker 1: that experience, I was like amazing, profound, you know, I
Speaker 1: was training to be a therapist. I was like, this
Speaker 1: must be one of those life changing moments, but like, wow,
Speaker 1: I did it. It's over, and I like went to
Speaker 1: my hotel room ordered a burrito, and watched friends and
Speaker 1: was like patting myself on the back that like, the
Speaker 1: worst is over. No, it was only the next day
Speaker 1: that I like, no, yeah, it just got so much
Speaker 1: worse for years after that. I had my first panic
Speaker 1: attack the next morning on a flight. I think it's
Speaker 1: kind of fascinating to reflect on it now that even
Speaker 1: when my body was starting to show me signs like
Speaker 1: something's not okay, I still was in a And then
Speaker 1: I had a panic attack, and I was still in denial,
Speaker 1: Like the denial was so strong for such a long
Speaker 1: time that I did not want to admit that I
Speaker 1: was unhappy and that I didn't want my life. And
Speaker 1: then that took months before I fully quote unquote crashed.
Speaker 1: And then was like what now.
Speaker 3: So to some degree, you chose that life, right. You
Speaker 3: chose to go to college, you chose to go to
Speaker 3: grad school for psychology. You're still in that field today, right,
Speaker 3: So what was it about that life that felt so
Speaker 3: profoundly wrong? Because it's different than your life now. But
Speaker 3: it's not like you went from being a psychologist to
Speaker 3: a deep sea dive baker, right, you know, where you
Speaker 3: just like completely like I just was in the wrong thing. Man, Yeah,
Speaker 3: So what was it looking back that you think felt
Speaker 3: so wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a good question. On's actually asked me
Speaker 1: that it wasn't that things themselves were wrong. It was
Speaker 1: that my relationship to those things were wrong. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of fascinating. It's the fact that I made choices
Speaker 1: based on what I thought I should do rather than
Speaker 1: what I actually wanted to do. The only thing that
Speaker 1: remained from that time in my life is psychology, okay.
Speaker 1: And I think there was a deep level of shame
Speaker 1: that I was going through this while learning how to
Speaker 1: help others, because I felt like I was so broken.
Speaker 1: How could I possibly be abused to anyone but my
Speaker 1: friendships at the time, I would say ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of them, my marriage, all of those things ended. And
Speaker 1: I think relationships are a really important part of our life.
Speaker 1: I think they are enough to make you not like
Speaker 1: your life if they're not right. And I think I
Speaker 1: kept choosing relationships with people who wouldn't see me because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be seen. And I think I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be seen because I didn't know who
Speaker 1: I was and I was scared what they would find.
Speaker 1: And it's not that I am blaming any of those
Speaker 1: types of relationships that I had with people from plutonic
Speaker 1: to romantic during my twenties. It's more that I just
Speaker 1: kept choosing individuals that would maintain my self preservation. And
Speaker 1: it really is hard to have a genuine connection with
Speaker 1: people when you're not authentic. And so I think I
Speaker 1: was unhappy about relationships mostly, and then the relationship with
Speaker 1: myself was the biggest thing I was unhappy about.
Speaker 3: So a lot of the book is talking about something
Speaker 3: that you call self loss. Would you say, is our
Speaker 3: failed responsibility to be our self? So talk to me
Speaker 3: a little bit about what self loss is and what
Speaker 3: the process is, and then we can move from there
Speaker 3: into starting to and I'm going to use your word
Speaker 3: again here, discover ourselves.
Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah, self loss to me is not just an authenticity,
Speaker 1: and in the authenticity to me is knowing what is
Speaker 1: right and not doing it, not listening to that inner voice.
Speaker 1: And the difference I have kind of a metaphor I
Speaker 1: use in the book is when you're diving, and you
Speaker 1: can tell I've never done that. When you're diving, when
Speaker 1: you're an authentic you're like, Okay, the surface is up there,
Speaker 1: and I know exactly how far off I am, and
Speaker 1: like I will swim in the dark, but I am
Speaker 1: pretty sure that when I need to take my next breath,
Speaker 1: I can reach the surface and take a breath of
Speaker 1: life and feel this aliveness, feel the sense of self amazing.
Speaker 1: When you're lost, it's like you started to swim, you
Speaker 1: got disoriented, there was a riptide whatever it is, and
Speaker 1: now you go, I'm completely into darkness. I'm running out
Speaker 1: of air. I need to swim to the surface, but
Speaker 1: I don't know which direction the surface is. I don't
Speaker 1: know when I'm going to take my next breath. And
Speaker 1: that was the experience of being lost, of like I
Speaker 1: don't know how I'm going to keep myself alive, and
Speaker 1: I don't know where my next breath of life is
Speaker 1: going to come from, and there are no indicators. There
Speaker 1: is no glimmering light that is like pointing me to
Speaker 1: my way home, you know, because you're always like, listen
Speaker 1: to your inner self, that quiet voice. It will guide
Speaker 1: you back. And I love it. But what if you
Speaker 1: don't hear the voice? And to me, that is self loss.
Speaker 3: I have lots of thoughts on hearing that interior voice,
Speaker 3: and I love that analogy. So, if we're talking about
Speaker 3: self loss, what is the thing that we lose? When
Speaker 3: you say self, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the ly sexy definition of self of all time,
Speaker 1: it is not your inner child, It is not a
Speaker 1: profound spiritual awakening. To me, the self is an accumulation,
Speaker 1: a combination of choice, freedom, and responsibility, and the self
Speaker 1: is constantly fluid, constantly changing, constantly evolving. It's a process
Speaker 1: of being, of becoming. And so when I say you
Speaker 1: lose yourself, you lose the ability of sensing that freedom,
Speaker 1: you lose sight of that responsibility, you lose connection with
Speaker 1: those choices, and then you stop creating the self. And
Speaker 1: if you don't create the self, it doesn't exist without you,
Speaker 1: which I think we can get into the discovery versus finding.
Speaker 1: But if the self is perpetually created and you stop creating,
Speaker 1: that's why you lose. The nothingness of being essentially is
Speaker 1: what remains?
Speaker 3: Is it possible? Though, I'm not debating that self loss
Speaker 3: in the way you're describing it is a thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But if our self is something that is constantly being
Speaker 3: created by our choices largely and the freedom, maybe we're
Speaker 3: not acknowledging it. But it's inherent that we're choosing. I mean,
Speaker 3: aren't we creating a self at all times? To some degree?
Speaker 3: Isn't there an element of the fact that we are
Speaker 3: continuing to make choices now how out of alignment they
Speaker 3: are with this thing we want.
Speaker 2: To call self.
Speaker 3: Is we're still creating this thing as it goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And then my side question is I love that definition.
Speaker 3: And it seems that there is a part of our
Speaker 3: self that might be behind some of those freedom choices
Speaker 3: and responsibilities, meaning it's the conditioning that we have picked
Speaker 3: up as our life has gone on. What I choose
Speaker 3: to be responsible about, or the actions or choices that
Speaker 3: I make is coming from the fact that I've had
Speaker 3: a suite of experiences that have brought me to this point.
Speaker 3: So that wasn't even a very well formed question, any
Speaker 3: part of it, But I'm going to pass it by question.
Speaker 1: I love it, okay so much in there I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. So the first point is an excellent one.
Speaker 1: You're always creating a sense of self always, and either
Speaker 1: that's going to be an authentic sense of self, which
Speaker 1: I call the capital S. And what makes that different
Speaker 1: is that your decisions aligne with your morals, your ethics,
Speaker 1: your values. They also represent the way you see yourself
Speaker 1: and who you want to become. So it's a little
Speaker 1: more complex than just like you make a choice that
Speaker 1: feels right, yay, there's a lot in there, right yeah,
Speaker 1: and then if you keep going, because I must see
Speaker 1: it as like you're constantly moving forward. There is no
Speaker 1: middle ground. You're always either being authentic or an authentic.
Speaker 1: An authenticity is when you're not aligning with your morals
Speaker 1: or values, or expressing yourself in the way that you
Speaker 1: see yourself, or not going towards a person you want
Speaker 1: to become. It is not that sense of home, it
Speaker 1: is not that sense of resonance. And I think you
Speaker 1: end up creating very inauthentic sense of self. And if
Speaker 1: you push far enough, you might feel self loss. But
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people spend a lot of
Speaker 1: their time in the inauthentic self. It's not that they
Speaker 1: don't have a self, they just don't have the self
Speaker 1: they like or that resonates or that truly represents their values, ethics,
Speaker 1: and so on. So I hope that that answers the question.
Speaker 1: So when we talk about freedom in existentialism, at least
Speaker 1: from what I understand and like I speak for all
Speaker 1: existentialists worldwide, is not that there's no limitation to freedom.
Speaker 1: We all have limits. Freedom comes with limits. I cannot
Speaker 1: be taller than I am, I cannot have different birth
Speaker 1: parents than I do. I cannot change anything that's happened
Speaker 1: to me in the past. So there is limitations to
Speaker 1: how we were raised to what has happened to us.
Speaker 1: That being said, I think the freedom of choice still remains,
Speaker 1: and that's something that people can debate and do debate. Now,
Speaker 1: are you more like to do things because they were
Speaker 1: modeled to you, because you were exposed to just turn
Speaker 1: an environment? Absolutely? Does it mean though, that when you
Speaker 1: have that consciousness and awareness of those patterns, that you
Speaker 1: can't change them. I would say you can. And so
Speaker 1: I think the cool thing about the self is it's
Speaker 1: like the necessities, the givens, which is the limitations and
Speaker 1: the possibility. This is something so many philosophers speak about,
Speaker 1: and the possibility is cool. I think it was Speaker
Speaker 1: Guard who said you can't look in a mirror and
Speaker 1: go this is who I am. You can look in
Speaker 1: a mirror and go this is who I am right
Speaker 1: now in this very moment, and that just alludes to
Speaker 1: the fact that you're perpetually becoming. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that our past defines our future. I would be very
Speaker 1: sad if that was true, and I think I would
Speaker 1: have a very hard time practicing as a psychotherapist. I
Speaker 1: do think it informs I think it gives us hurdles,
Speaker 1: But I still think that we are responsible if there
Speaker 1: is a cycle. If there is, you know, things that
Speaker 1: have happened to us and impacted us to a degree,
Speaker 1: whatever degree is possible, it is our responsibility to fight it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes we can and sometimes we can't. But all
Speaker 1: we can do is shop for ourselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with everything you have said there. I
Speaker 3: think that choices are constrained, but there's always a choice
Speaker 3: within whatever those constraints are, there always is some degree
Speaker 3: of choice. I mean, yeah, I don't know if he
Speaker 3: would be considered an existentialist thinker, right, but I think
Speaker 3: that's why Victor Frankel's work is so inspiring, because he
Speaker 3: was showing that even in a situation like a concentration camp,
Speaker 3: we're literally all freedom more or less had been taken
Speaker 3: from him, he still had some He still had some
Speaker 3: choice in the midst of that. So I believe we
Speaker 3: always have some degree of choice, but there are different constraints.
Speaker 3: I think what I'm driving at more and it's probably
Speaker 3: because I'm working on a book and I'm fighting with
Speaker 3: this chapter, and I'm talking about the idea of motivational complexity,
Speaker 3: meaning there's lots of things going on inside of us,
Speaker 3: lots of different things we want, different things that we
Speaker 3: think we might value, and trying to figure out which
Speaker 3: of those are mine and which of those are imposed
Speaker 3: from the outside. I think is a tricky business, right
Speaker 3: because even the ones that I think are mind again,
Speaker 3: didn't arise in a vacuum. It's almost as if I'm
Speaker 3: going through all the different things that I could choose
Speaker 3: and picking which ones most resonate with who I think
Speaker 3: I want to be. Is it really just kind of
Speaker 3: that simple? Am I over complicating this?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure if you asked therapists, many therapists
Speaker 1: would have many different responsors. As an existential therapist, I
Speaker 1: would say, I think life is arbitrary. I think the
Speaker 1: one idea that I had to unlearn is that there
Speaker 1: was a wrong and right way to live your life,
Speaker 1: or that there was just a wrong and right way
Speaker 1: to do anything, obviously within reasons. I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: like harming individuals right talking about it here is like okay,
Speaker 1: so maybe some of your motivations came from here or there,
Speaker 1: or your past or things that weren't so great, or
Speaker 1: maybe they were modeled by the most amazing individuals in
Speaker 1: your life. I don't know if it fully matters. I
Speaker 1: do think sometimes it's truly as simple as like, which
Speaker 1: do I want to keep carrying? Which ones are the
Speaker 1: building blocks of who I become? Do they resonate with
Speaker 1: my sense of morality that I have right now? And
Speaker 1: I think it's just about choosing who you want to
Speaker 1: be in that moment. Some will not agree. I think
Speaker 1: to myself, like, why did I want to become a therapist?
Speaker 1: Did that come from some deep rooted trauma? Did it
Speaker 1: come because I saw a therapists on TV and was like, wow,
Speaker 1: they're really successful? I don't know. Did I think it
Speaker 1: was just so cool to have a cozy office? Like
Speaker 1: what was it? And I think at some point the
Speaker 1: initial reason might not matter. What matters is for you
Speaker 1: to know your reasoning now, to know your why now,
Speaker 1: to know your meaning right now? And I think that
Speaker 1: meaning and reasoning is also going to evolve, and that's okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a really great way of simplifying,
Speaker 3: which is I can get lost in trying to go
Speaker 3: what's the real me in all this versus just sort
Speaker 3: of as you said, like, this is my best guess
Speaker 3: as of right now, right now with what I can see.
Speaker 3: An analogy just came to mind, which is in twelve
Speaker 3: step programs, there's something called step four where you sort
Speaker 3: of reflect. They call it a searching and fearless moral inventory,
Speaker 3: which basically means you're looking at what things have happened
Speaker 3: in your past that have become who you are, and
Speaker 3: you're largely looking for things that are going to get
Speaker 3: in your way. And people will always be really worried
Speaker 3: and say, well, what if I'm missing something? And my
Speaker 3: answer always was, if you can't remember it, it's probably
Speaker 3: not what's eating your lunch enough right now that it's
Speaker 3: going to cause you to pick up a drink. Yeah,
Speaker 3: more maybe, but today, don't sweat that because you can't
Speaker 3: see it, and it's not the thing that's causing you
Speaker 3: so much angst that you're drinking. Yeah, And so I
Speaker 3: think applying that to what you said, more may be revealed.
Speaker 3: There may be hidden motivations and underlying things that I
Speaker 3: don't yet understand. And I am defined by my freedom, choices,
Speaker 3: and responsibility, and so I'm gonna have to make those.
Speaker 3: What's the best version of those I can make today
Speaker 3: based on what I know about myself today?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I love that so much. What a great summary. Now,
Speaker 1: I say, people will come to me and be like, Sarah,
Speaker 1: what is the right choice?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Should I do this? Or should I do that? You
Speaker 1: know all the time, And obviously I don't make the
Speaker 1: choices for them, and I go the right choice is
Speaker 1: the choice you want to take responsibility for.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's a great answer.
Speaker 1: The choice you're willing to take responsibility for. That to
Speaker 1: me is the ultimate choice. And so that's how I
Speaker 1: answer that question.
Speaker 3: The one that you want to take responsibility. That's great
Speaker 3: because I get part way there, which is I'm always like, well,
Speaker 3: there isn't a right choice, right, You just make the
Speaker 3: best one you can, and there's going to be some
Speaker 3: good things about it, and there's gonna be some less
Speaker 3: good things. And if you've chosen that, there's gonna be
Speaker 3: some good things and less good things and will never
Speaker 3: know the difference. Make the best choice you can make.
Speaker 3: But I love that idea of framing it as the
Speaker 3: one that you could take responsibility for, or that you're
Speaker 3: willing to take responsibility for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think sometimes my hesitation with some of
Speaker 1: the mainstream psychology concepts that have become so popular is
Speaker 1: that there's so much emphasis on the past to help
Speaker 1: the person I think understand why they are in the
Speaker 1: place that they are, which I mean that is so
Speaker 1: helpful and so needed. But if that's all you do,
Speaker 1: that's not the full work at that point. That is
Speaker 1: just the spremeboard. That is just the foundation from which
Speaker 1: now you go. Okay, now I make choices, responsibility, and
Speaker 1: now I do all these things. And so I think
Speaker 1: we forget that and here's how we define you because
Speaker 1: of all the things I've happened to you, and we stop.
Speaker 1: And I actually think that's really just empowering to individuals
Speaker 1: because that's not their full story. Right.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a lovely idea that if I could just
Speaker 3: understand why I am the way I am, that I
Speaker 3: would simply stop being that person. That's a lovely idea.
Speaker 3: It falls into the category of three steps to perfect
Speaker 3: abs right, because it gets us to the point where
Speaker 3: you're right. You still have to then, with your new knowledge,
Speaker 3: be conscious enough to keep choosing the thing that you
Speaker 3: want to choose. And it's going to be hard to
Speaker 3: choose it, very possibly because it goes against the grain
Speaker 3: of what you've chosen so many times before. Absolutely, I
Speaker 3: love so much of your work because it really gets
Speaker 3: to this core idea of this is the phrase I
Speaker 3: wanted to find small meaningful decisions reveal who we are
Speaker 3: more than big existential questions. And that's kind of what
Speaker 3: we're talking about here, right. This is a different version
Speaker 3: of that, which is I may know that I'm the
Speaker 3: way I am because of these things that happened in
Speaker 3: my childhood, but it's the small meaningful decisions that I
Speaker 3: make that are actually going to reverse that chain of events,
Speaker 3: not just knowing about it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I think we want to categorize things. We
Speaker 1: want very static goals, and what I mean by that
Speaker 1: is also like we want one meaning. We want there
Speaker 1: to be this answer of like who am I? And
Speaker 1: it's like this clear answer you want, like what in
Speaker 1: my meaning of life? If you want the clear answer?
Speaker 1: And what I'm saying here is like stop seeking for
Speaker 1: those big answers. Answer it by the way you live
Speaker 1: your life, because I always say the answer to who
Speaker 1: am I? Is never verbal? Whenever I do this activity
Speaker 1: with people, no one can answer the question who am
Speaker 1: I without listing hobbies, roles, relationship status, and that is
Speaker 1: not who you are. The answer to who am I?
Speaker 1: Can only be shown by the way you live your life.
Speaker 1: That is it, and that's what I'm talking about. It's
Speaker 1: like that being proactive, choosing meaningful things every single day,
Speaker 1: and at the end of your life, I think you're
Speaker 1: going to be able to answer the question of like,
Speaker 1: what was my meaning of life? And why am I here?
Speaker 1: More so than sitting here and being like why am
Speaker 1: I here? What am I meant to do? If the
Speaker 1: one thing that's going to make me feel super fulfilled
Speaker 1: from twenty to sixty? And honestly, I think if your
Speaker 1: meaning doesn't change and evolve with who you are, you're
Speaker 1: probably not actually being aligned with your meaning because I
Speaker 1: think meaning is very tightly associated and linked with your
Speaker 1: sense of identities. So what was really meaningful to you
Speaker 1: when you were twenty is probably going to change when
Speaker 1: you're forty, And so I think we're so scared of
Speaker 1: the undefined, the fluid, and we really tried to, as
Speaker 1: you said, like find these concrete answers and kind of
Speaker 1: be rigid in our existence when I think existence is
Speaker 1: a bit absurd and cao and messy, and that's the
Speaker 1: point of it. And it's finding beauty and structure within
Speaker 1: all of that that I think makes us feel really
Speaker 1: empowered and like ourselves.
Speaker 3: So listener, consider this. You're halfway through the episode Integration reminder.
Speaker 3: Remember knowledge is power, but only if combined with action
Speaker 3: and integration. It can be transformative to take a minute
Speaker 3: to synthesize information rather than just ingesting it in a
Speaker 3: detached way. So let's collectively take a moment to pause
Speaker 3: and reflect. What's your one big insight so far and
Speaker 3: how can you put it into practice in your life? Seriously,
Speaker 3: just take a second, pause the audio and reflect. It
Speaker 3: can be so powerful to have these reminders to stop
Speaker 3: and be present, can't it. If you want to keep
Speaker 3: this momentum going that you built with this little exercise,
Speaker 3: i'd encourage you to get on our Good Wolf Reminders
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Speaker 3: you can get off a list really easily. So far,
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Speaker 3: good wolves together. In essence, you just sort of said
Speaker 3: a minute ago that what we do shows who we are.
Speaker 3: I believe that to a certain degree. And there's an idea.
Speaker 3: In psychology, a theory is called revealed preferences, meaning that
Speaker 3: if you show what you do, I can tell you
Speaker 3: what you value. But I'm not sure I agree with that,
Speaker 3: and I'll tell you why. Let's go back fifteen years
Speaker 3: and I was drinking at that point, and I had
Speaker 3: a son and I would pick him up from school,
Speaker 3: I would take him to soccer practice, and then I
Speaker 3: would go have two or three drinks at the bar.
Speaker 3: Now that's a terrible thing to do, right, I had
Speaker 3: all kinds of justifications for it, right, So on one level, yes,
Speaker 3: it showed that on some level I was valuing getting
Speaker 3: drunk over my son's well being. So on one level,
Speaker 3: that is true. And yet I don't think that's who
Speaker 3: I was. I think that was an aberration of who
Speaker 3: I was that was being caused by my inability for
Speaker 3: a host of reasons, a complex syndrome of reasons that
Speaker 3: manifested an addiction. So talk to me about this relationship
Speaker 3: between Like, the way I'm acting doesn't feel like the
Speaker 3: person I want to be. If I look at my actions,
Speaker 3: I would conclude that I'm a terrible person. But that
Speaker 3: may not be the case. Yeah, talk to me about
Speaker 3: reconciling those things.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, it's such a good question. So let's say
Speaker 1: that I yelled on my partner today, which I did.
Speaker 1: Let's say that I did, and I have the logic
Speaker 1: of how you showed up in the moment is who
Speaker 1: you are, And I also understand the backstory of why
Speaker 1: I may have yelled at my partner. Okay, so all
Speaker 1: of these things are present. I would say that in
Speaker 1: that moment of yelling at my partner there is no
Speaker 1: other self because self has to be expressed, and yet
Speaker 1: I was expressing it inauthentic self. Okay, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's important to know that there is no self
Speaker 1: without expression, because otherwise it's just thoughts. And I think
Speaker 1: we're often startled by who we think we are versus
Speaker 1: what our actions show us.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: Now, I think addiction is a little bit of a
Speaker 1: tricky topic in terms of this, and we can, you know,
Speaker 1: we can circle back to addiction in particular, especially if
Speaker 1: we're talking about free will. But I think what happens
Speaker 1: oftentimes is we don't want to admit to ourselves that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is who I am in this moment. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying this is who I am all the time overall.
Speaker 1: I'm saying, this is who I am in this moment.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you, I do not the person
Speaker 1: I am in this moment. I think if the self
Speaker 1: is not expressed, it's not truly the self in my opinion.
Speaker 1: That being said, I think we express inauthentically a lot
Speaker 1: of the time, and so being able to go like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is how I am showing up, this is how
Speaker 1: I'm expressing it does not feel authentic, but I can't
Speaker 1: pretend it's not how I'm showing up in the world.
Speaker 1: It is the only expression I am putting out there,
Speaker 1: and it's one I don't like. Okay, so how do
Speaker 1: I change that?
Speaker 3: It's an interesting idea that the only self that actually
Speaker 3: exists is the one that is expressing in that moment.
Speaker 3: It's so weird because we can look at things like
Speaker 3: I might snap at my partner because I'm hungry Hotually, yeah,
Speaker 3: Snickers has done a great job of making these hilarious commercials.
Speaker 3: You know, there's one where Godzilla is like playing volleyball
Speaker 3: and going to a party and then he gets hungry
Speaker 3: and he starts rampaging through cities and you give them
Speaker 3: a Snickers bar, and he's back to good times, Godzilla.
Speaker 3: And so you recognize that even these very basic physiological things,
Speaker 3: by what you're saying, those are part of the self
Speaker 3: that is expressing. Is that the way you would say
Speaker 3: it is that those things are part of that self
Speaker 3: in that moment.
Speaker 1: In that moment, yeah, And in that moment, you can
Speaker 1: recognize that you didn't feed yourself when you first had
Speaker 1: the queue of hunger, or maybe you have a really
Speaker 1: bad headache, which is in your fault, and you realize
Speaker 1: that your expression is encompassing the physiological pain. Now, it's
Speaker 1: not your fault that you're in pain, but you're expressing it,
Speaker 1: and maybe you're disappointed with yourself, and that means you
Speaker 1: can give yourself some grace because you know you have
Speaker 1: this pain. But how is it not you? Is my question?
Speaker 1: In what other alternate reality do you exist? How is
Speaker 1: it not you? Is it my question?
Speaker 3: Yeah, in this sense of all of this being an
Speaker 3: ongoing process, which you refer to in lots of different ways,
Speaker 3: which I really like you say that most of us
Speaker 3: are hoping for a one time journey of discovery rather
Speaker 3: than a lifetime of responsibility. Say more about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we all hope that one day we're
Speaker 4: gonna journal, or walk out of a therapy session or
Speaker 4: put down a self help book and be like, I
Speaker 4: get it, this is me, this is it.
Speaker 1: And I truly truly wish that was the answer. I
Speaker 1: wish my book can do that. I wish you just
Speaker 1: like walked away, be like I have it forever. I'm done,
Speaker 1: I'm cured. This is the promise. And I couldn't make
Speaker 1: that promise in my book, I couldn't, and I think
Speaker 1: it's because what we want is an answer, but what
Speaker 1: we truly get is a lifetime of responsibility. I think
Speaker 1: that's what my book gave you, was like a lifetime
Speaker 1: of respect sponsibility that hopefully will feel empowering and meaningful.
Speaker 1: But that's all it is is life is thousands, millions,
Speaker 1: trillions of decisions that you're responsible for. Yeah, that will
Speaker 1: create who you are.
Speaker 3: It's probably why I liked it so much, right, because
Speaker 3: it doesn't offer easy answers. And I'm always suspicious of
Speaker 3: easy answers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 3: I don't think they're real because life isn't easy and
Speaker 3: it is this ongoing challenge, and so talk about how
Speaker 3: can we embrace that in a way that feels empowering
Speaker 3: versus feeling overwhelmed by it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we're going to feel both. I think
Speaker 1: we're going to feel empowered and overwhelmed by it and
Speaker 1: think as long as we know what to expect, it's okay.
Speaker 1: It will make us feel like we're doing something wrong.
Speaker 1: And I think the biggest issue is the way we
Speaker 1: see responsibility as a society. Like I used to think
Speaker 1: responsibility it was about blaming. It's like, who's taking the
Speaker 1: blame for this one? It's not me? And I think
Speaker 1: there's such a big distinction there of my relationship to
Speaker 1: responsibility really had to change before I was willing to
Speaker 1: embrace it, and I went to responsibility means I am free,
Speaker 1: and that is so so liberating to me. I think
Speaker 1: it's empowering. If I had no freedom to change my life,
Speaker 1: I would not be responsible for it. You're not going
Speaker 1: to yell at a pilot because a cake got destroyed
Speaker 1: at a bakery, like he was not baking it, he
Speaker 1: was not there, Like he had nothing to do with it,
Speaker 1: Like it makes no sense. But you are probably going
Speaker 1: to make the person who baked the cake bake it
Speaker 1: again because they were a responsibility for it not working out,
Speaker 1: or they were responsible for it not I don't know
Speaker 1: coming out the right way. And so that's my thing
Speaker 1: of like when we feel responsible, it's interesting to go, hah,
Speaker 1: where's my freedom? Where is my participation? Okay?
Speaker 3: Cool?
Speaker 1: How can I empower myself and and make this a
Speaker 1: pivot towards making a decision. I want being a little
Speaker 1: closer to who I want to be, And so I
Speaker 1: think you can't have freedom without responsibility, and you can't
Speaker 1: have responsibility without freedom, And I think just combining those
Speaker 1: two makes responsibility an easier pill to swallow, and then
Speaker 1: just realizing that it sucks, like there is no like.
Speaker 1: Of course, it sucks that you have to be responsible
Speaker 1: for the reason you said something or did something, or
Speaker 1: your email is late, like of course, no one loves it,
Speaker 1: but it is also the reason why you get to
Speaker 1: create yourself. And I think that that's really cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is one of those things that on one
Speaker 3: hand can feel overwhelming, but on the other hand, the
Speaker 3: flip side of it is also an awful feeling. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you feel like you have to do something. That
Speaker 3: is an awful feeling. I think often about how for
Speaker 3: a lot of us we get to feeling awful because
Speaker 3: we keep thinking we have to do things. And it
Speaker 3: goes back to what you originally said. It wasn't necessarily
Speaker 3: the things in your life, although that was part of it.
Speaker 1: It was your.
Speaker 3: Relationship to those things. And I think that in our
Speaker 3: day to day life, we have this relationship to things.
Speaker 3: Things that we did choose we now think are have
Speaker 3: tos and when we can recognize that we did choose it.
Speaker 3: That's so powerful, and I'm choosing to do it again.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't have to do this with my children.
Speaker 3: I'm choosing to do it because it matters to me.
Speaker 3: I don't have to go to work today. I'm choosing
Speaker 3: to go to work today because of these things. It's
Speaker 3: a very liberating feeling. It gives you back a sense
Speaker 3: of agency.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, I love that. And I think it's when
Speaker 1: choices get perceived as obligation. I see this relationships and
Speaker 1: marriage all the time. It becomes something you have to do.
Speaker 1: It's an obligation. You chose to get married. And how
Speaker 1: we say your relationship is a daily, daily choice. It
Speaker 1: is a daily choice, and that is the only way
Speaker 1: to press serve it being a free, safe space for you.
Speaker 1: Otherwise it's none of these things. And otherwise you don't
Speaker 1: actually feel that responsible for it because you don't feel
Speaker 1: like you really have the freedom to be in it
Speaker 1: or not or how to be in it or not.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's really important to keep reintroducing
Speaker 1: of like, just because you've made the same choice over
Speaker 1: and over and over and over again, it does not
Speaker 1: mean it stopped being a choice. You stopped seeing it
Speaker 1: as a choice, yes, but the choice still remains.
Speaker 3: So I am in a relationship and I choose that
Speaker 3: I want to be in it, but there may be
Speaker 3: things within that broad choice that I don't really necessarily
Speaker 3: always want to do. How do we frame up this
Speaker 3: sort of momentary passing things that come through us, these
Speaker 3: desires or whatever to act in a certain way. So
Speaker 3: honoring the fact that we continue to make choices, but
Speaker 3: not living only in a sense of like I'm just
Speaker 3: doing what I feel like doing right now.
Speaker 1: I think choices come with responsibility, Okay, so not profound consequences. Also,
Speaker 1: choices come with consequences. So if you're going to choose
Speaker 1: to be in a monogamous relationship, you might not love
Speaker 1: that every day, you might not love that when someone
Speaker 1: you have an attraction with someone, But your choice came
Speaker 1: with consequences, which was limitation of freedom. Now you ultimately
Speaker 1: have the choice to walk away if you want to.
Speaker 1: That's still technically there. But if you want to honor
Speaker 1: your initial choice, you're going to have to handle the
Speaker 1: consequences of not pursuing something that maybe you want to
Speaker 1: be pursued. So I think we just have to always
Speaker 1: go back to what was the initial choice and what
Speaker 1: are all the consequences that come which might take away
Speaker 1: some other choices. When you make one choice, other choices
Speaker 1: get taken away. Yes, so how do you balance that
Speaker 1: and which one do you take responsibility for? It's not
Speaker 1: so much. I think authenticity has also gone a bad
Speaker 1: rep where it's like what feels good? What do I
Speaker 1: want to do in this moment? And it's like, that's
Speaker 1: not what we're talking about. That's not really the definition
Speaker 1: of authenticity. It's like, well, I just wanted to sleep
Speaker 1: with this person. He felt right. It's like that must
Speaker 1: have been super authentic. It's like what And if you
Speaker 1: look at a hidigger miRNA Heidegger, who's a philosopher who
Speaker 1: coined the term authenticity, the little translation is to own
Speaker 1: oneself ownedness. What does that sound like?
Speaker 3: Ownership?
Speaker 1: Yeah, ownership and showing up in a way that you
Speaker 1: said you would. That feels aligned. And so for me,
Speaker 1: I think we just forget that one choice eliminates others
Speaker 1: and you just have to commit to a choice that
Speaker 1: you're making, even if all the little consequences don't always
Speaker 1: tickle your fancy and don't always allow you to express
Speaker 1: every desire and drive and curiosity that you have.
Speaker 3: I love that. I had lots of thoughts on when
Speaker 3: you earlier were talking about like just go with your gut,
Speaker 3: and you just sort of hit it there, like it
Speaker 3: just felt right, you know, I just felt right to
Speaker 3: cheat on my wife. So as a former addict, I
Speaker 3: have a certain lens on the world, but I can
Speaker 3: tell you that every time I got high, on some level,
Speaker 3: it felt very right. You know, it also felt very wrong,
Speaker 3: which is why I'm like, well, I'm just not sure
Speaker 3: that I'm like a trust your gut all the time
Speaker 3: kind of person unless you've cultivated that thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, thank you. No, I'm so glad we went
Speaker 1: back to that point. I think rightness is built. It's
Speaker 1: like you have earned the right to trust that feeling.
Speaker 1: Because that feeling has been aligned, those decisions have been aligned.
Speaker 1: You will start to make decisions that honor who you
Speaker 1: are and who you want to be. And then you're
Speaker 1: going to have a sensation. And after you have that
Speaker 1: sensation enough times, you're going to be able to use
Speaker 1: it as part of your decision making. Not all of
Speaker 1: your decision making, but I think you're going to get
Speaker 1: that sense of like rightness, that sense of home, that
Speaker 1: sense of I can live with myself, I can look
Speaker 1: at myself in the mirror. I'm okay with that. It
Speaker 1: is not just like wow, that feels so good. That
Speaker 1: is not what I mean by like feels like home,
Speaker 1: feels right. That feels good is not the same thing.
Speaker 3: So listener and thinking about all that and the other
Speaker 3: great wisdom from today's episode. If you're going to isolate
Speaker 3: just one top insight that you're taking away, what would
Speaker 3: it be? Not your top ten, not the top five?
Speaker 2: Just one?
Speaker 3: What is it? Think about it? Got it? Now? I
Speaker 3: ask you, what's one tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little thing
Speaker 3: you can do today to put it in practice? Or
Speaker 3: maybe just take a baby step towards it. Remember, little
Speaker 3: by little, a little becomes a lot. Profound change happens
Speaker 3: as a result of aggregated tiny actions, not massive heroic effort.
Speaker 3: If you're not already on our Good Wolf Reminder SMS list,
Speaker 3: I'd highly recommend it as a tool you can leverage
Speaker 3: to remind you to take those vital baby steps forward.
Speaker 3: You can get on there at oneufeed dot net slash SMS.
Speaker 3: It's totally free, and once you're on there, I'll send
Speaker 3: you a couple text messages a week with little reminders
Speaker 3: and nudges. Here's what I recently shared to give you
Speaker 3: an idea of the type of stuff I send. Keep
Speaker 3: practicing even if it seems hopeless. Don't strive for perfection,
Speaker 3: aim for consistency, and no matter what, keep showing up
Speaker 3: for yourself. That was a great gem from recent guests
Speaker 3: Light Watkins. And if you're on the fence about joining,
Speaker 3: remember it's totally free and easy to unsubscribe. If you
Speaker 3: want to get in, I'd love to have you there.
Speaker 3: Just go to oneufeed dot net, slash SMS all right
Speaker 3: back to it. I often think of it as it
Speaker 3: feels like, and I always make this hand gesture when
Speaker 3: I do it. It feels like internally things are aligned. Wow.
Speaker 3: It is a subtly good feeling.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's not a like ooh, you know when that's not
Speaker 3: the case. My poor dog tour or ACL and I
Speaker 3: didn't know this until recently, but basically what the ACL
Speaker 3: does is it keeps your phibia antibia from doing this
Speaker 3: like basically going opposite directions from each other. Wow. When
Speaker 3: that happens inside of us, it feels really loud and
Speaker 3: we know that, right, So that internal alignment, again subtle,
Speaker 3: but really to me one of the best feelings in life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost like it clicks. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you have ever like something that clicks and it's like
Speaker 1: a satisfy and you're like it clicked into place and
Speaker 1: you're like your phone case or something. You're like, you're
Speaker 1: like ah, And I think I like that you emphasize
Speaker 1: the fact that it is not a thrill or excitement necessarily.
Speaker 1: It's a very it's satisfaction, I think is the closest
Speaker 1: sort of It's a feeling that I would come to contentment.
Speaker 1: It's like, you're not gonna sometimes like what comes out
Speaker 1: of this alignment. It might be like, shoot, I have
Speaker 1: to apologize. You're not gonna always feel excited when there
Speaker 1: is that alignment in your decision, but you're gonna feel
Speaker 1: that satisfaction of being authentic. And that's almost like that
Speaker 1: click that happens you're like ah, and then it helps
Speaker 1: you deal with all the other stuff that comes to
Speaker 1: the consequence.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think that is a great place for
Speaker 3: us to wrap up. I could talk to you for
Speaker 3: much longer, and I am going to get the chance
Speaker 3: to talk to you for a little longer in our
Speaker 3: post show conversation listeners. If you'd like access to the
Speaker 3: post show Conversation, to add free episodes, all sorts of
Speaker 3: other good things, and to be part of what we're
Speaker 3: doing here and joining our community, go to oneufeed dot
Speaker 3: net slash Join Sarah. Thank you so much. This has
Speaker 3: really been a treat.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. It was such
Speaker 1: a fun conversation and you really got me to think
Speaker 1: about a lot of things in a very interesting way.
Speaker 1: So thank you.
Speaker 3: You're welcome.
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