Speaker 1: Too many people are getting comfortable in their feelings and
Speaker 1: in swirling the story instead of figuring out how to
Speaker 1: really move forward.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 3: Nicki Eisenhower, a licensed professional counselor and licensed Chemical dependency Counselor.
Speaker 3: She's a passionate mentor, teacher, and healer who transforms head
Speaker 3: knowledge into heart knowledge to help seekers move from surviving
Speaker 3: to thriving. Nicki is also the host of the podcast
Speaker 3: Emotional Badass, where Moxie meets Mindful, which has millions of
Speaker 3: downloads in over one hundred countries. She shares her recovery
Speaker 3: story as a mentoring, healing tool to empower highly sensitive
Speaker 3: people to embrace who they really are in this one
Speaker 3: Precious Life.
Speaker 4: Hi, NICKI, welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: I am excited to have you on and talk about
Speaker 4: all kinds of different things. You have quite an interesting
Speaker 4: background as a psychotherapist, as a coach, as a podcast host,
Speaker 4: and you cover all kinds of topics, so it'll be
Speaker 4: really interesting to see where we end up. But we'll
Speaker 4: start in the place that we always do with the Parable.
Speaker 4: And in the Parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with
Speaker 4: their grandchild and they say, in life, there are two
Speaker 4: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 4: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 4: bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which
Speaker 4: represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 4: grandchild stops and think about it for a second, and
Speaker 4: they look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 4: which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 5: So I'd like to.
Speaker 4: Start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 4: you in your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 5: It means so much.
Speaker 1: I used to teach a group with that parable well
Speaker 1: before I even knew what a podcast was. It hits
Speaker 1: me in a lot of ways. I think we have
Speaker 1: so much power to feed the good, to feed what
Speaker 1: serves us, and I think the confusion is that sometimes
Speaker 1: we don't know what we're feeding, or we don't know
Speaker 1: that we have that power to feed different beasts inside
Speaker 1: of us, if you will. And so to me, that
Speaker 1: parable is all about the empowerment of that choice and
Speaker 1: being mindful and intentional so that we're feeding what we
Speaker 1: really want to feed, so that we're growing in a
Speaker 1: direction of lightness, of ease, of peace, of joy, of
Speaker 1: really experiencing what is good in this one precious life
Speaker 1: and letting go of the rest.
Speaker 4: Yeah. You know, as I was listening to a couple
Speaker 4: recent episodes of Yours, they were what seventeen years of
Speaker 4: working with my clients has taught me? And there's lots
Speaker 4: of interesting lessons in there, But I kind of want
Speaker 4: to pivot a slightly different direction off of that, which
Speaker 4: is that seventeen years of working with clients is a
Speaker 4: long time. You've worked with a lot of people, and
Speaker 4: in that time you have seen people grow and prosper
Speaker 4: and change and just beautiful stories. And you've seen tragedy
Speaker 4: and heartbreak. You've seen people who don't change, people who die,
Speaker 4: all the negative outcomes we could think of. And I'm
Speaker 4: curious if you have any wisdom about what it is
Speaker 4: that allows some people to change and others not, because
Speaker 4: any of us that are in this field for very long,
Speaker 4: or even if you're not in it directly, if you
Speaker 4: observe people in your own life, it is a mystery,
Speaker 4: right Like why was Bob able to moderate his weight
Speaker 4: and his health and his cholesterol and become healthy where
Speaker 4: Sam is now a Type two diabetic and only gets
Speaker 4: out twice a week, Like we see it all around us.
Speaker 4: And I'm just curious if you have some thoughts on
Speaker 4: what are some of the key factors in people's ability
Speaker 4: to make change.
Speaker 5: That's a great question.
Speaker 1: I think the main thing that is so hard to
Speaker 1: put our finger on or name about that difference. It
Speaker 1: is so easy to see because you can really see it,
Speaker 1: especially when you do this work over and over again.
Speaker 1: It's like, what is that stuff that one person has
Speaker 1: that motivates them towards this change. And what is this
Speaker 1: stuff that this other person is missing that doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be able to do that work or to let
Speaker 1: go of what isn't serving them.
Speaker 5: To me, that stuff is insight.
Speaker 1: And insight is one of those things that we can't
Speaker 1: really teach and we don't really know why. This is
Speaker 1: something that I had professors in my counseling program when
Speaker 1: I was in my master's program teach, and what they
Speaker 1: taught brand new green therapists was that we were really
Speaker 1: going to try to hammer in insight to people that
Speaker 1: just didn't have it, and their intelligence level would make
Speaker 1: it seem like they should be able to connect these
Speaker 1: dots and make these changes and go forward. And that
Speaker 1: that very thing that seems to motivate changes in sight,
Speaker 1: and it's sight. And just like our eyeballs, Like if
Speaker 1: you and I are standing next to each other looking
Speaker 1: out at a landscape. I live in the mountains. I
Speaker 1: can see the mountains right now as we're talking outside
Speaker 1: of my window. If you and I are standing there
Speaker 1: looking at those mountains, we know very well that you're
Speaker 1: going to have a different site ability going to have
Speaker 1: different site. Maybe one of us has glasses, but when
Speaker 1: it comes to things like our intuition or our insight,
Speaker 1: we can't really measure it like we can to get
Speaker 1: prescription glasses. So I think it's harder for us to
Speaker 1: really understand that other human beings have different parts of them.
Speaker 1: And it's part sensory, maybe it's part spiritual. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: the different karmas that we're living out why some of
Speaker 1: us are born with insight and some of us aren't.
Speaker 1: I tend to work with very high insight people that
Speaker 1: come from family systems where most of the players seem
Speaker 1: to suffer from and really suffer whether they know it
Speaker 1: or not, from low insight. And that's just our ability
Speaker 1: to look inward, our ability to observe ourselves, our ability
Speaker 1: to see our own patterns, our own inclinations, our own motivations,
Speaker 1: our own desires and question them.
Speaker 5: That if we can't see.
Speaker 1: Those things, then it's not going to be easy to
Speaker 1: question those things or to change them. So I think
Speaker 1: the stuff that you're talking about is insight, and you
Speaker 1: and your work, I'm sure of it, and me and
Speaker 1: mine we do insight oriented therapies or coaching or we're
Speaker 1: helping people who already have insight connected, and many of
Speaker 1: them are hurt in the world by people that just
Speaker 1: don't seem to have that insight and likely never will,
Speaker 1: which we don't like, right, Like, I'm all about hope
Speaker 1: and change, and so one of the things I teach
Speaker 1: in my Boundaries course every October is that we also
Speaker 1: have a dysfunctional hope. You know, we're kind of supposed
Speaker 1: to give second chances, not infinity chances. So I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot that plays there about that ability, that willingness,
Speaker 1: that seekers spirit, that drives.
Speaker 5: Us to change.
Speaker 4: I have a thousand follow on questions about that. So
Speaker 4: when we say insight, I think it's worth talking a
Speaker 4: little bit more about what that is because I'm certain
Speaker 4: that you see this, and I've seen I got into
Speaker 4: a recovery at twenty four years old, and I hate
Speaker 4: to say fifty two, right, And so I mean I've
Speaker 4: been watching some people change and other people not for
Speaker 4: a long long time, right. And what I have seen
Speaker 4: is people who show up and put in effort, who
Speaker 4: appear to have some degree of insight, because they wouldn't
Speaker 4: be there putting in the effort if they didn't have
Speaker 4: some insight, or they can pare it back some insight.
Speaker 4: Maybe what is it you think that they need to
Speaker 4: be seeing that oftentimes people are not connecting or are
Speaker 4: not seen more deeply.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's how deep our personal responsibility really runs. And
Speaker 1: I also think we're not so aware naturally of what
Speaker 1: are motivating factors. So I've worked in addiction where people
Speaker 1: live for residential treatment, and I did intensive outpatient That's
Speaker 1: where I started my career, and very often someone could
Speaker 1: speak the speak right, talk the talk, and the truth is,
Speaker 1: as a trained therapist, we want tangible, evidence based stuff
Speaker 1: to help people with and to speak from. What I
Speaker 1: learned as a human being going through that experience beyond
Speaker 1: a therapist, going through that experience was that I had
Speaker 1: to decipher and it was a feel. It's very hard
Speaker 1: to put into words. It's a feeling because two people
Speaker 1: can stand next to each other and utter the same thing,
Speaker 1: the same desire, but I can feel the difference between
Speaker 1: someone who is genuinely passionate and driven about going after
Speaker 1: the very behaviors and mindsets that will serve them, and
Speaker 1: someone else may say the exact same phrasing, but it
Speaker 1: feels empty. It feels hollow, and often the difference there
Speaker 1: is they're not really motivated to do it for themselves.
Speaker 1: We don't understand motivation, and when we have lower insight,
Speaker 1: we also tend to have a lower empathy and a
Speaker 1: lower maturity. So often what I think is at play
Speaker 1: is a lower maturity, and we don't do a great
Speaker 1: job in mental health. I think, even in spiritual circles,
Speaker 1: just as people. I don't think we talk about maturity
Speaker 1: in any kind of self development space, but we can
Speaker 1: see that.
Speaker 5: There was a philosopher.
Speaker 1: That I very much identified with when I was going
Speaker 1: through my schooling. I think it was Ericson, But I'm
Speaker 1: not great at remembering the names and pairing them with
Speaker 1: the right information. That's not my strong suit. My strong
Speaker 1: suit is the how to heal. But in that one
Speaker 1: of those philosophers theorized that most people did not truly
Speaker 1: emotionally develop into adulthood, most stayed kind of stunted in adolescents.
Speaker 1: And for me, that was a gobsmack moment to hear
Speaker 1: that information because I could see in my own family
Speaker 1: system that was very dysfunctional, and in the family systems
Speaker 1: I was working with and learning about at the time
Speaker 1: that that was very, very true, that often there was
Speaker 1: a younger person who had been parentified who seem to
Speaker 1: be born an old soul, like just born with some
Speaker 1: kind of maturity. And we can really see that a
Speaker 1: lot of people have parents, a lot of people have
Speaker 1: family members. A lot of people themselves may really be
Speaker 1: operating emotionally like a twelve year old.
Speaker 5: They really may be operating like a sixteen year old.
Speaker 1: And some of that is temperament, some of that is experienced,
Speaker 1: some of that is nature, some of that is nurture.
Speaker 1: Some of that is drug and alcohol use. Stunting emotional development,
Speaker 1: we certainly know about that, But I would also say
Speaker 1: growing up with chaos for certain personalities can stunt that development.
Speaker 1: So when we say trauma or dysfunction, those are overused.
Speaker 5: They're overplayed.
Speaker 1: They're almost like the word good at this point, it's
Speaker 1: like we all know what it means, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean much of anything anymore. Things that would not traumatize
Speaker 1: us today that would just be annoying to us today,
Speaker 1: are truly traumatic.
Speaker 5: For a child.
Speaker 1: We need a certain amount of peace. So if we
Speaker 1: grow up with chaos, that may become true in a
Speaker 1: way that today would just be annoying. But for the
Speaker 1: child we were was really unfortunate for the development of
Speaker 1: our own maturity, our own ability to communicate with more
Speaker 1: and more age and wisdom instead of reaction, being able
Speaker 1: to really respond with greater wisdom. And if we come
Speaker 1: from people that functionally didn't mature, I can very much
Speaker 1: say that's true in my family system that is so
Speaker 1: confusing and frightening. And so if we have a portion
Speaker 1: of the population that isn't emotionally maturing, then of course
Speaker 1: that's going to affect how they grow and develop. Because
Speaker 1: an immature person is going to want to eat that
Speaker 1: whole bag of oreos. It takes a certain amount of
Speaker 1: maturity to go, wait a minute. Even though part of
Speaker 1: me wants to just stuff my face with all those oreos,
Speaker 1: another part of me has to step in and now, hey,
Speaker 1: that'll make me sick.
Speaker 5: And we need to know that.
Speaker 1: About all these more complex interactions and dynamics and motivations
Speaker 1: and desires, who are we doing things for. We're pleasing
Speaker 1: the people in our family because they want us to
Speaker 1: get sober, you know, and we want them to quit
Speaker 1: riding our ass. So we learn to say the right
Speaker 1: things or are we really cultivating and innern drive towards
Speaker 1: expressing in this life to our highest potential? Is that
Speaker 1: our driving force? Are we just trying to get by
Speaker 1: and feel good in the moment? And if we're immature,
Speaker 1: I suspect we're more likely. I know that we're more
Speaker 1: likely to reach for those in the moment feel goods
Speaker 1: that really thwart our personal development and our security and
Speaker 1: our groundedness and even developing things like a certain amount
Speaker 1: of wealth and financial stabilities, because money is choice, and
Speaker 1: it's power, and it's comfort, it's so many things. So
Speaker 1: I think so much plays on what comes together to
Speaker 1: really drive a person towards seeking and working and it's work.
Speaker 1: And again, if you're immature, how do we convince somebody
Speaker 1: that the work is worth it if they're in mature
Speaker 1: part is just like I don't want to do that
Speaker 1: uncomfortable stuff. I rather sit and watch TV. How do
Speaker 1: you motivate that if we're not really talking about maturity
Speaker 1: in these spaces.
Speaker 4: Too, So I think there's a lot to be said
Speaker 4: for this idea of maturity. When you're talking it made
Speaker 4: me think of Ken Wilber, who formulated that sort of
Speaker 4: we need to clean up, grow up, and wake up. Right,
Speaker 4: there's these three elements. Some people even include showing up
Speaker 4: in that. What I think is interesting though, is that
Speaker 4: by definition, so many of us arrive at the process
Speaker 4: of change very immature, though growing through and maturing is
Speaker 4: part of it. But is that the essential element because
Speaker 4: many of us don't have it.
Speaker 2: When we get here.
Speaker 4: I know I didn't, right, you know, when I got sober,
Speaker 4: I'm a little bit grateful. You know, I got sober
Speaker 4: in kind of a hard ass AA environment and today's world,
Speaker 4: it would not be smiled upon too much. Maybe there
Speaker 4: were some things about it that were not great, but
Speaker 4: there was a real strong focus on personal responsibility and
Speaker 4: growing up and being an adult and taking care of
Speaker 4: your business. And that was really good for me. I
Speaker 4: really needed to see that element of like all the
Speaker 4: different ways that I show up in life. But the
Speaker 4: other thing that that time really taught me that I
Speaker 4: think is interesting about thinking that insight is the stuff
Speaker 4: was you know, what I was really taught was sometimes
Speaker 4: we can't think our way into right action. We have
Speaker 4: to act our way into right thinking. And so my
Speaker 4: focus was always on, like, let me just do what
Speaker 4: I'm being told to do. Let me just try and
Speaker 4: do the thing, even though my brain still feels like
Speaker 4: an angry four year old all the time.
Speaker 1: So I work with a lot of highly sensitive people,
Speaker 1: and often I think I shock them when I say,
Speaker 1: you cannot be so feeling driven. Our feelings are liars.
Speaker 5: Part of the time. We have to do hard work
Speaker 5: despite how we feel.
Speaker 1: We cannot let how we feel drive the bus of
Speaker 1: our life. Like I'm from New Wars, it is the
Speaker 1: land of vices. We eat and we drink, we feed people,
Speaker 1: we hand people drinks. We almost don't know how to
Speaker 1: socially relate unless we're doing it through food and alcohol.
Speaker 1: So we have to be able to get real about
Speaker 1: the difference between what we want and what we need.
Speaker 1: When I'm talking to highly sensitive people, that is shocking,
Speaker 1: and it used to not be shocking. I've been doing
Speaker 1: this for seventeen years, and it used to not be shocking.
Speaker 1: And I think it's part of Frankly, where mental health
Speaker 1: has failed in the last two decades is becoming so
Speaker 1: soft and so listening of emotion that we've forgotten that
Speaker 1: we need a balance between. Yes, of course, we need
Speaker 1: to listen to ourselves and each other. We need to
Speaker 1: pay attention to emotions and their inherent information. We need
Speaker 1: to check those things out. But I believe we very
Speaker 1: much need to have that real world grounded basic. Hey,
Speaker 1: you are going to have to grow up. Hey, you
Speaker 1: can't give in to every feeling you have if you
Speaker 1: want to have a really good life. It is just
Speaker 1: that simple sometimes, and I believe sometimes therapists too get
Speaker 1: caught in over complicating what really is simple in this way.
Speaker 1: That's why AA has said it's like, just do the
Speaker 1: next right thing, no matter how you feel. Stop paying
Speaker 1: attention to how you feel in that moment, and just
Speaker 1: do the next right thing. So as a profession I
Speaker 1: think mental health has gone way too far into holding
Speaker 1: space for emotion, dropping the ball of that personal responsibility,
Speaker 1: and I think that is why we are seeing skyrocketing depression, addiction,
Speaker 1: and suicide. We need to tell people that they must
Speaker 1: take responsibility for their lives. There's no getting around it.
Speaker 1: There are no people with white knights that will come
Speaker 1: and save us. I know I waited for one for
Speaker 1: a while. I hope for one. I fantasized about somebody
Speaker 1: coming and doing the work for me. That may be
Speaker 1: part of the grief process. The bargaining stage of grief.
Speaker 1: But to get real, deep down into the nitty gritty
Speaker 1: of my life comes down to me, no matter what
Speaker 1: happened to me in childhood, no matter what choices my
Speaker 1: own immaturity made, if I want a matured life, I
Speaker 1: have to actionably take myself towards that maturity, and as
Speaker 1: myself sees me do those actions, I will mature. I
Speaker 1: also think like in your story, yes, of course you
Speaker 1: came to it with immaturity, but whatever that stuff was,
Speaker 1: that insight that went, hey, this isn't right for us,
Speaker 1: this feels icky. There's got to be a different way
Speaker 1: that desire to want to mature, I believe is the insight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a few different things there. I tend to
Speaker 4: agree with you. You know, I've been doing this podcast
Speaker 4: about nine years. I feel like even just in this
Speaker 4: nine years, I have seen a shift where I mean,
Speaker 4: I can see it even in the answering of the
Speaker 4: Wolf parable, right, Because on one level, the Wolf Parable
Speaker 4: is a simple parable about choice.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Our actions and our thoughts and our behaviors, they all matter,
Speaker 4: and we have a choice in them. So on one level,
Speaker 4: it's a very straightforward and simple parable and once upon
Speaker 4: a time that was how most people would answer it.
Speaker 4: More and more now the answers are about how we
Speaker 4: need to embrace and love our bad wolf, and I
Speaker 4: think that's an insight that's important and useful. I'm not
Speaker 4: saying we shouldn't be doing that. I do think we
Speaker 4: need to listen to our feelings. I do think we
Speaker 4: need to hold space for emotion all that stuff. But
Speaker 4: I agree with you, I feel like the pendulum has
Speaker 4: just swung a little bit too far in the direction
Speaker 4: of being a victim, of being traumatized, of not being
Speaker 4: able to do something, away from empowerment. I mean, I
Speaker 4: don't think we want to go back to something that's
Speaker 4: very extreme. And I don't think my early days in
Speaker 4: AA were great, right. I had to actually move out
Speaker 4: of that for a period of time where I was like,
Speaker 4: you know what, they just keep saying, it doesn't matter
Speaker 4: what happened to you, just act like a certain person.
Speaker 4: I was like, well, okay, but at a certain point,
Speaker 4: certain level of healing, I'm going to have to deal
Speaker 4: with what did happen to me. I have to deal
Speaker 4: with the trauma. I do have to deal with the
Speaker 4: ways in which I didn't develop. So it does feel
Speaker 4: like the pendulum is a little over too far, and
Speaker 4: I'm waiting to see it sort of start to swing
Speaker 4: back because.
Speaker 5: I feel like it will. I think it has to.
Speaker 4: I just hope it doesn't snap back right. So I
Speaker 4: think it's, you know, let's kind of come back in
Speaker 4: the middle, because I think that actually the answer is
Speaker 4: it really is in the middle, right. It is a
Speaker 4: case of like, yes, we'd need a really strong sense
Speaker 4: of personal responsibility and accountability and a real focus on like,
Speaker 4: here's the right thing to do, here's the right action,
Speaker 4: and we need to be compassionate and kind to ourselves
Speaker 4: and others about the challenges that we faced and the
Speaker 4: ways that we haven't developed.
Speaker 5: I think your.
Speaker 4: Work actually strikes a pretty good balance between those two things,
Speaker 4: which is partially why I wanted to talk to you.
Speaker 1: I'm passionate about that balance. I mean, for years, my
Speaker 1: clients would probably tell you that balance was the word
Speaker 1: that came out of my mouth the most. And we're complicated,
Speaker 1: and it's some that I've had to work on accepting
Speaker 1: in myself. I think most highly sensitive people walk the
Speaker 1: world like, Hey, when are you going to accept me?
Speaker 1: And then tell me that I'm okay, And it doesn't
Speaker 1: work that way. If it did, I wouldn't be uttering
Speaker 1: these things out of my mouth. What works is to
Speaker 1: work on accepting who we are. So I had to
Speaker 1: do a lot of work on Hey, I'm an intensely
Speaker 1: feeling person. Hey, I have had a lot happen to
Speaker 1: me in my history. I have survived the abandonment of
Speaker 1: one parent. I have survived the sexual abuse of another parent.
Speaker 1: I have survived a mother that is a sociopath and
Speaker 1: an ice queen and not warm with me. Those are
Speaker 1: things that need to be considered in who I am,
Speaker 1: how I developed, how those shaped me, what I want
Speaker 1: to let go of, what I don't want to take forward.
Speaker 1: There's a lot there, but there's also a point at
Speaker 1: which I just have to do the next right thing
Speaker 1: in this present moment. So talk therapy sometimes gets people lost.
Speaker 1: I see people sometimes partnering, like you said, embracing our
Speaker 1: inner dark parts or our innern dysfunction. I see people
Speaker 1: more in the last three to five years partnering with
Speaker 1: their depression instead of seeing it, acknowledging it, and then
Speaker 1: fighting their depression. So there's nuance there that I think
Speaker 1: gets missed you know, like the Internet connected you and I.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so much power in this technological contraption.
Speaker 1: We're all using way too much. But there's also downside.
Speaker 1: And so as much as these messages get celebrated and
Speaker 1: shared more, they also get watered down. The nuance gets lost,
Speaker 1: and you have to be really real with yourself. Therapists
Speaker 1: have to be real with themselves. Are they enabling people
Speaker 1: to just keep circling their story? Are they helping them
Speaker 1: really connect the dots and move forward? And as a
Speaker 1: patient or a client of a culch or a therapist,
Speaker 1: are you asking that person to challenge you to help
Speaker 1: you get unstuck? Are you helping them just kind of
Speaker 1: circle and circle and circle. Like, everybody has to take
Speaker 1: responsibility their part and their role, and I'm passionate about
Speaker 1: if we do that, we really are healing the world
Speaker 1: one person at a time, as corny as that might sound,
Speaker 1: and that is our job. It is your one precious life.
Speaker 1: You're responsible for it. If you keep trying to farm
Speaker 1: that out, I think you'll just be resentful later for
Speaker 1: the time wasted not taking responsibility. I don't live with
Speaker 1: a lot of regret, but if I could go back
Speaker 1: in time, I would tell myself, stop thinking so hard,
Speaker 1: do some of these healthy things, and move forward. You're
Speaker 1: going to have a chance to process. But move Yeah,
Speaker 1: like with trauma. Yeah you have to move slowly sometimes,
Speaker 1: but you gotta move. And too many people are getting
Speaker 1: comfortable in their feelings and the swirling the story instead
Speaker 1: of figuring out how to really move forward.
Speaker 4: It makes me think of one of my favorite you
Speaker 4: know tropes about depression, which is depression hates a moving target,
Speaker 4: because that's just been my experience is I just have
Speaker 4: to move, you know, whether that be physically emotional, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's movement in all the different ways you can think
Speaker 4: of it. Now, one of the cruel paradoxes of depression
Speaker 4: is it sucks the energy out of you and you
Speaker 4: don't have much energy to move. And so I think
Speaker 4: sometimes we have to recognize what is the next right
Speaker 4: thing for me and my actual real capabilities. Right, So
Speaker 4: the next right thing for me, I may be able
Speaker 4: to take a bigger next right step than the next person.
Speaker 3: Or vice versa.
Speaker 4: Right, but I do strongly believe there are always positive
Speaker 4: steps to take, even if they're really really small, and
Speaker 4: we need to be taking them and one of the
Speaker 4: other things you were talking about made me think of
Speaker 4: is I interviewed a guy named Ethan Cross. He's a
Speaker 4: University of Michigan researcher, and he wrote a book called Chatter,
Speaker 4: which is all about kind of the internal But he
Speaker 4: references a study in there that has really stuck with
Speaker 4: me because the question was, when somebody comes to you
Speaker 4: with a problem, what is more helpful. Is it more
Speaker 4: helpful for you to listen and empathize, or is it
Speaker 4: more helpful for you to offer solutions and advice or
Speaker 4: to give them a gentle nudge. And what this study
Speaker 4: found was surprise, surprise, it's both right that what's actually
Speaker 4: most helpful is both. You have to start, at least
Speaker 4: my experience has always been you have to start with
Speaker 4: the listening and the understanding and letting someone know they've
Speaker 4: really been heard. That is essential. If that step is skipped,
Speaker 4: the next one simply won't work. But then there is
Speaker 4: a point where sometimes we need a nudge from the
Speaker 4: people who care about us.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's interesting to hear you use that language that
Speaker 1: is almost verbatim the language I use with individual clients.
Speaker 1: I will often at the beginning of a session a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes and say what do you need today?
Speaker 1: Do you need to vent? Do you need to talk
Speaker 1: this through? Do you need some strategies, do you need
Speaker 1: some tips? What do you want? What do you need?
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing about me leading with that question
Speaker 1: frequently is that I can see and people will tell me, huh,
Speaker 1: They basically don't realize that those are the two options.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people, I think, get caught in
Speaker 1: that story or that venting as a mode. When I
Speaker 1: ask that question, it's also a teaching of Hey, you
Speaker 1: have the empowerment to decide, and you need to be
Speaker 1: mindful about what you're doing there, because there needs to
Speaker 1: be a time to be done with the venting, at
Speaker 1: least in this day and this season. Sure, we might
Speaker 1: revisit it if it's impactful for something that's happening in
Speaker 1: our future. But there's a point at which is that enough?
Speaker 1: So that's another question I will ask someone, is hey,
Speaker 1: have you vented about that enough? And watching the wheels
Speaker 1: turn of have I, and sitting with that question, have
Speaker 1: I does that ego want to just complain about this more?
Speaker 1: Because you can start to feel it if you're paying
Speaker 1: attention to it. There's a point of diminishing return for
Speaker 1: all things.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: Yes, so I want my people, I want anybody listening
Speaker 1: to me to know that you have the power inside
Speaker 1: of you to start sensing. Is this useful for me
Speaker 1: and helpful? Have I said enough? Then let me be
Speaker 1: done with that venting part and move on. And that's
Speaker 1: the kind of nuanced skill that sounds so freaking simple
Speaker 1: when I say it out loud, but it's the very
Speaker 1: thing that somebody doesn't ever intentionally teach us as a kid,
Speaker 1: unless you're doing this kind of process with me and
Speaker 1: then you pass it on to your child. Most of
Speaker 1: us did not organically come to that kind of nuanced
Speaker 1: emotional education about sensing yourself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And what's interesting is that it does seem that
Speaker 4: people by default fall to one side or the other
Speaker 4: of that. More naturally. One side is the stereotypical man
Speaker 4: who just doesn't think about process or emotion at all.
Speaker 4: It's just here's what we need to do, cuts right
Speaker 4: to it, right, And then the other would be the person,
Speaker 4: as you're describing, the classic ruminative person right who gets
Speaker 4: completely stuck in their head and it just spins and
Speaker 4: it spins and it spins and what we're looking for,
Speaker 4: at least for me, is sort of like you said,
Speaker 4: it's that middle ground, that middle way between those two
Speaker 4: things where we're able to do it. And I agree
Speaker 4: one hundred percent. There is a point where the thought
Speaker 4: processes has diminishing returns. And you use one of my
Speaker 4: favorite phrases in there, which is useful, right with thoughts?
Speaker 4: Is this useful? Because there are some very difficult negative
Speaker 4: thoughts that are very useful at times, they are very helpful.
Speaker 3: They have a lot to teach us.
Speaker 4: You know, we can be very uncomfortable, and then there's
Speaker 4: a point where they are no longer useful, and you know,
Speaker 4: knowing that point can be really helpful. I mean, for me,
Speaker 4: I'm kind of looking at like, am I covering the
Speaker 4: same ground again and again with no new back to
Speaker 4: your word earlier insight, like nothing new is popping up.
Speaker 4: Like the first five times I thought about the conversation
Speaker 4: I have with my partner, each time I went through it,
Speaker 4: I saw something slightly different. So I went back through
Speaker 4: it and oh I saw this, and ah God, that
Speaker 4: makes me cringe. But at least I know, you know.
Speaker 4: But now the last five times that my mind has
Speaker 4: circled it. It's circled it in the exact same way,
Speaker 4: at which point diminishing returns, and now it's moving into Okay,
Speaker 4: this thought now is becoming not useful, even possibly destructive
Speaker 4: and harmful. Now how do I move out of that?
Speaker 1: I am passionate about helping people understand that if they're overthinkers,
Speaker 1: likely they're very smart, and likely they started overthinking as
Speaker 1: a kid in my own life because I didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of emotional nurturance or understanding of what I
Speaker 1: was going through that could help me understand what I
Speaker 1: was going through.
Speaker 5: I believe I had a lot.
Speaker 1: Of intuitions that I could I didn't do anything with
Speaker 1: because my intuition would say, hey, your mom's real scary
Speaker 1: right now, maybe you're about to be hit, And as
Speaker 1: a child, I couldn't do anything with that intuition. I
Speaker 1: couldn't get in my car and drive off. You know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't handle the situation any better than just taking
Speaker 1: it because I was a kid, or trying to mouth
Speaker 1: off and rebel against it. But I was a pretty
Speaker 1: good girl growing up in the South, too good good
Speaker 1: Southern girl like you just don't fight back. So if
Speaker 1: we really understand that concept. If we grew up with
Speaker 1: a lot of stress, if we grew up with a
Speaker 1: lot of unsafe parenting or immature inadequate parenting, and you're
Speaker 1: really smart, your energy had to go somewhere. So I
Speaker 1: think it leaves the intuition and goes to the head,
Speaker 1: and we start overthinking in those moments where we can't
Speaker 1: escape with our bodies. So when we start to understand
Speaker 1: that I can help people manage their own inner child
Speaker 1: and be able to say in that moment to themselves
Speaker 1: when they catch that cloud of overthinking that starts, or
Speaker 1: oh this isn't useful. I've already thought this from the
Speaker 1: beginning to the end and through ten different times. I
Speaker 1: don't need to think about this again. That it is
Speaker 1: your job, and.
Speaker 5: It's a gift.
Speaker 1: It's a gratitude that it gets to be your grown
Speaker 1: up job to do for your own inner psyche, your
Speaker 1: own inner child, what your parents or your childhood's situation
Speaker 1: didn't know how.
Speaker 5: To do for you.
Speaker 1: You get to step in now and go oh sweet
Speaker 1: boy or oh sweet girl.
Speaker 5: In there.
Speaker 1: This is a time where grown up me says, we
Speaker 1: don't need to overthink this. We've thought about this enough
Speaker 1: and learning how to internalize enoughness with the overthinking that
Speaker 1: so many of us do when we have a lot
Speaker 1: of emotion, a lot of passion, a lot of intensity
Speaker 1: with who we are and we're really smart. The way
Speaker 1: I say it a lot is you gotta be smarter
Speaker 1: than your smarts because your critical voice and the overthinking
Speaker 1: part are going to be just.
Speaker 5: As smart as you are.
Speaker 1: So we've got to outthink your thinking parts so that
Speaker 1: you stay sort of in the integrity of using your
Speaker 1: intelligence for your own greater good and not letting your
Speaker 1: critical voice or that overthinker grab your intelligence and you know,
Speaker 1: dig a hole into the ground with it.
Speaker 4: That's really great because oftentimes I naturally go back to
Speaker 4: my sort of early recovery days, right, and there was
Speaker 4: a real sense there that like being smart was a
Speaker 4: bad thing because of what you're describing, okay, right, because
Speaker 4: you would just overthink things. And this is not a
Speaker 4: time for overthinking, right, This is a time for taking
Speaker 4: the actions that will keep you sober. Right, It's time
Speaker 4: to stop the overthinking. But it sort of cast that
Speaker 4: thinking as a negative. It's one of the things that
Speaker 4: ultimately sort of pulled me away from that place, And
Speaker 4: I'm not saying all twelve step programs or AA or
Speaker 4: like this. By the way, I want to be extraordinarily clear,
Speaker 4: this was a particular group of people at a particular
Speaker 4: time in place in history, you know, twenty five, twenty
Speaker 4: six years ago. So don't think, listeners that all twelve
Speaker 4: step groups are like this at all. So I just
Speaker 4: feel like I always have to say that. But knowing
Speaker 4: that I was somewhat intelligent, you know, it ultimately sort
Speaker 4: of drove me away because I was like, but wait
Speaker 4: a second. My goal here is not to dumb myself down, right.
Speaker 4: My goal here is not to cut out my thinking brain, right.
Speaker 4: So to your point, it's how do we do it?
Speaker 4: So let's say that we have realized, like, okay, too
Speaker 4: much enough. You know, I am past the point of
Speaker 4: usefulness in this thinking. What are some of the strategies
Speaker 4: that you recommend that people use to try and deal
Speaker 4: with that inner chatter? Because just because I've realized that
Speaker 4: I don't want to think about it anymore certainly does
Speaker 4: not mean that I have the skills to not think
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 1: So I could answer that for the next fourteen hundred hours. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any one tool. I think it's
Speaker 1: actually about wrapping our minds around a lifestyle change, like
Speaker 1: this is how I live now. I think the world
Speaker 1: is also speeding up so much and requiring so much
Speaker 1: of us that no matter what our childhood state was
Speaker 1: like or our addiction history was like, we are really
Speaker 1: being brought into realms of just ridiculous levels of expected franticness.
Speaker 1: For lack of a better way for me to say that,
Speaker 1: so I think, yes, there's healing childhood trauma. Yes there's
Speaker 1: healing and learning how to take care of yourself post addiction.
Speaker 1: But just being a human being right now in this
Speaker 1: time period I think requires very similar strategies. I try
Speaker 1: to live slowing down now, even if that means I'm
Speaker 1: doing a lot that day and I'm moving fast. I
Speaker 1: want to understand that I don't want that sort of frantic.
Speaker 5: Go go go, rush, rush, rush.
Speaker 1: To be in my brain, in my mind, in the
Speaker 1: tissues of my body. Yes, so it's a lifestyle choice
Speaker 1: of practicing slowing down. I'm actually it might be releasing
Speaker 1: today as of a Actually I have a emotional strength
Speaker 1: training thirty days to peace course. Because it takes repetition,
Speaker 1: I can tell by the things that you offer you
Speaker 1: very much understand that it takes repetition of what it
Speaker 1: is to calm, to internalize peace, and to actually value stillness.
Speaker 1: In this world that gives stillness the finger, it doesn't
Speaker 1: value it, It dismisses it.
Speaker 5: Hustle, culture, work harder. I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Speaker 1: If you're trying to heal your nervous system too, that
Speaker 1: is a way to feel fried and burnt out. And
Speaker 1: how are you supposed to evolve and be your best
Speaker 1: self if you're living from a place of fried and
Speaker 1: burnt out. So just having a framework of I want
Speaker 1: to fold the laundry like a Buddhist monk eats, They
Speaker 1: sit down, They don't multitask, they sit down, They pay
Speaker 1: attention to everybodye going into their mouth. When you really
Speaker 1: think about that versus our American eyes. Eat while you're driving,
Speaker 1: while you're balancing your checkbook. I mean, you know, while
Speaker 1: you're doing a handstand. On one hand, I mean, we
Speaker 1: are expecting out of ourselves to do really a ridiculous
Speaker 1: amount of things. So that's kind of my framework for
Speaker 1: just let's in general understand the forces at play, no
Speaker 1: matter what our history was and we have to understand
Speaker 1: that we have to combat those forces or those forces
Speaker 1: are going to take a stand. We have to limit
Speaker 1: the scrolling.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like a slot machine, you guys, and especially if
Speaker 1: you have addictive history. It's addictive to all of us,
Speaker 1: you know. We have to do simple things like that
Speaker 1: that our inner adolescent doesn't.
Speaker 5: Want to do.
Speaker 1: It doesn't want to put down the phone. But putting
Speaker 1: down the phone, stopping and taking a breath meditation. And
Speaker 1: when I say that on my show, I go, I
Speaker 1: hear the eye rolls. I feel the eye rolls, because
Speaker 1: every spiritual psychological teacher just.
Speaker 5: Says, meditate, meditate, meditate.
Speaker 1: All forces out there are the opposite of meditative energy.
Speaker 1: But if we really understand that, then I think it
Speaker 1: can give us a permission. We need to counterbalance those
Speaker 1: forces in the present, and we need to do some
Speaker 1: counterbalancing of our historical forces also, So slowing down, I
Speaker 1: try to fold laundry like that Buddhist monk eats.
Speaker 5: I try to drive.
Speaker 1: Slow and calm and use each experience to be the
Speaker 1: practice of calm. Instead of giving yourself five different peace
Speaker 1: practice tasks, our mind quieting tasks to do, which is
Speaker 1: just adding more things to your to do list, which
Speaker 1: you know technically is correct and right, you can't find
Speaker 1: something wrong with. But in terms of the spirit of
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, adding to your to do list isn't it?
Speaker 1: You don't need ten more things to do.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's the whole focus of the Spiritual Habits
Speaker 4: program that I created, which is, as we go about
Speaker 4: our day to day lives, how do we do some
Speaker 4: of these things that will allow us to access more
Speaker 4: peace without adding a lot to to do list Because
Speaker 4: there's just no more time there just isn't That's what
Speaker 4: the cause of a lot of stress is. And to
Speaker 4: be told, well, now you need to in addition to
Speaker 4: eating right, getting enough sleep, exercising, taking care of your children,
Speaker 4: having a career, now you need to meditate for an
Speaker 4: hour a day and journal for thirty minutes.
Speaker 3: It's just like.
Speaker 4: You know, it just isn't going to happen. So there's
Speaker 4: got to be a way to integrate more of this.
Speaker 4: And as you said, there is something to some time
Speaker 4: in stillness I think being really beneficial. Whatever that way
Speaker 4: of stepping out into stillness is for you. It could
Speaker 4: be meditation, it could be sitting quietly. It could be
Speaker 4: listening to a piece of music you love, very focused
Speaker 4: and intently, but it is slowing down, nowhere to go,
Speaker 4: and some attempt to sort of put our attention on
Speaker 4: something and keep it there. I do think that is
Speaker 4: a foundational skill for humans, and one that is becoming
Speaker 4: even more important, as you said, as we become increasingly
Speaker 4: distracted and fragmented.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think people like you and I are doing
Speaker 1: the work to hold on to that art form so
Speaker 1: it doesn't become a lost art of knowing the value
Speaker 1: and stillness. So many of my clients at a point
Speaker 1: wind up laughing and going, Nikki, am I really paying
Speaker 1: you to teach me how to just be still and
Speaker 1: do less? And in some ways yes, yes, And it
Speaker 1: sounds so it sounds like the simplest thing we could
Speaker 1: possibly ask ourselves with, But it really is something that
Speaker 1: I find we need help with. I mean, I didn't
Speaker 1: see anybody value stillness growing up, not one time, not
Speaker 1: for one minute.
Speaker 5: It was do do Do.
Speaker 1: I was raised by a German descent grandmother who if
Speaker 1: I got still, if I just stood still for a moment,
Speaker 1: she would say, what is the purpose of what you're doing,
Speaker 1: and as a child, I could not answer that. Today,
Speaker 1: if she was still alive, I'd go aha, I finally
Speaker 1: know the answer to that question. I'm centering, I'm breathing,
Speaker 1: I'm giving my nervous system a chance to just ground itself.
Speaker 1: I'm being a human being instead of a human doing.
Speaker 1: So it's looking at those dynamics to understand. Oh oh,
Speaker 1: I was really taught that it was wrong and bad
Speaker 1: to have stillness. You take that old teaching on top
Speaker 1: of what's going on in modern life and my goodness,
Speaker 1: of course, I have to intentionally bring in stillness, and
Speaker 1: I have to talk to my inner child because I'm
Speaker 1: going to hear that critical voice. In some ways, I
Speaker 1: was raised by very critical people, so in some ways
Speaker 1: that's like my original language. I only speak English. But
Speaker 1: what we know that other speakers who speak multiple languages,
Speaker 1: they tend to think in their native language. I've accepted
Speaker 1: that in some ways, I may think in my native
Speaker 1: language of the critical voice, and so I have to
Speaker 1: know that when I get still, that critical voice might
Speaker 1: show up and go really again, being lazy, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? And I need to know about how that
Speaker 1: voice works, because in that moment, I'm being different, I'm
Speaker 1: being intentional. I'm doing something against my original programming and
Speaker 1: the programming that's going on right now. So of course
Speaker 1: that voice is going to show up and go ooh, Nikki,
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is right, bad bad, shame
Speaker 1: shame on you. And I have to know how to
Speaker 1: feel that vibe wash over me or hear that voice
Speaker 1: so that I know exactly what my job is and
Speaker 1: how I can effectively combat those forces. And in that moment,
Speaker 1: if I'm on my game, I can turn to my
Speaker 1: own inner self and go, oh no, that would have
Speaker 1: worked before, but now I know the value in this stillness.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm doing, and we're going to be still,
Speaker 1: grown up wise woman me decided that this is a smart,
Speaker 1: right practice for us, So we're going to do it.
Speaker 1: And the more I do that, the more that that
Speaker 1: voice lowers an intensity in frequency and kind of steps
Speaker 1: to the background, whereas it used to drive as the
Speaker 1: primary driver of my life.
Speaker 4: You said a whole bunch of great things there. I
Speaker 4: think one thing that we sort of hit on briefly
Speaker 4: was repetition and quieting the inner chatter, or quieting that
Speaker 4: inner critic, at least for me. Has simply been a
Speaker 4: matter of just more times than I could possibly begin
Speaker 4: to count at this point, recognizing that voice and doing
Speaker 4: something different with it, like over and over and over.
Speaker 4: And I think one of the places that people get
Speaker 4: discouraged is they hear stuff like this and they go, well,
Speaker 4: I tried that last week and I'm not better. And
Speaker 4: I do think you know, if we want to talk
Speaker 4: about maturity, that is another sign of maturity is recognizing like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is going to take a long time. It's the
Speaker 4: only game in town. Really, there are no other good choices.
Speaker 4: I can continue to try and believe that it's this
Speaker 4: supplement or this one magic trick or this one thing.
Speaker 4: But once we realize like wellness is a thing that
Speaker 4: takes a lot of repetition a lot of time.
Speaker 1: It's not a thing you do, it's the way you live. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think that is what traps people. They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I went to the doctor, they gave me these meds. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I did this, I did this health thing. When am
Speaker 1: I going to feel better? Living well is what makes
Speaker 1: us feel better. So a lot of people show up
Speaker 1: to a therapist or a coach basically saying this without
Speaker 1: realizing they're saying this, Hi, will you please help me
Speaker 1: change while I try to remain the same. Gee, why
Speaker 1: is this so hard? Why do I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: spinning my wheels? Why do I feel like I'm stuck
Speaker 1: in one spot? Well, because you're trying to hold on
Speaker 1: to the sameness while you're just using language and telling
Speaker 1: yourself thoughts about wanting to change. If we take that
Speaker 1: thought process away, what are you doing? Because you're living
Speaker 1: the same as you've always lived. Are the same as
Speaker 1: you've lived in this last season of your life? You
Speaker 1: can't be different and the same at the same time.
Speaker 1: What are you willing to change? And that's not unique
Speaker 1: to any individual. That's the human experience. There is something
Speaker 1: about being a human where our egos they don't go,
Speaker 1: oh wow, this change would be great for us, let's
Speaker 1: dive in. That ego really grips sameness. And I think
Speaker 1: that comes from survival for centuries since the beginning of time,
Speaker 1: the beginning of humanity, because stepping into an unknown was dangerous,
Speaker 1: and so we learned at a very deep level to
Speaker 1: just hold on to sameness, even when that sameness is
Speaker 1: screwing us over, is not working, So it takes a
Speaker 1: lot of of courage and a lot of I think
Speaker 1: just seeing and that might be insight again, but seeing, oh,
Speaker 1: that is what I'm doing. I'm trying to be the
Speaker 1: same and different. No wonder, this is getting weird and
Speaker 1: struggle bussy. Let me let go of that. Let me
Speaker 1: just try to be different in these simple ways. It's
Speaker 1: why I'm so passionate about offering simple strategies.
Speaker 5: And it's simple.
Speaker 1: It's not easy, but if you let it be simple,
Speaker 1: you stop chattering in your mind about it and you
Speaker 1: just go do this stillness thing. Let's just do this thing,
Speaker 1: Nicky or Eric suggested, Let's just do it for a while,
Speaker 1: stop thinking about it and do it. Then you can
Speaker 1: see yourself in the change, and that becomes its own
Speaker 1: self motivator.
Speaker 4: Yep. I think what gets so difficult is that we
Speaker 4: have all these inner voices that often want different things,
Speaker 4: and they all sound like us, you know. I mean
Speaker 4: that's been one of my insights, is well, whether it's
Speaker 4: my alcoholic voice or my child voice, or my grown
Speaker 4: up voice, my e or voice, whatever, they all sound
Speaker 4: like me. They all know how to impersonate Eric very well.
Speaker 4: And so what gets hard is it's like, well, I
Speaker 4: decided I'm going to do this change, but now the
Speaker 4: same voice that decided I was going to do that
Speaker 4: change is now telling me that that's stupid and it's
Speaker 4: never going to work. And so then I believe that
Speaker 4: I often think about, like when I got sober, I
Speaker 4: sometimes feel like like fifty one percent of me wanted
Speaker 4: to give up drugs and forty nine percent of me
Speaker 4: did not, and those two were engaged in moral struggle
Speaker 4: for a while, and eventually that proportion has changed. Right now,
Speaker 4: it's like ninety nine percent does not one percent still like, well,
Speaker 4: come on, we need to think about this, but ninety
Speaker 4: nine percent of me knows it's a terrible idea. And
Speaker 4: I think when those things are closer to fifty one
Speaker 4: forty nine, which is often the case when we start
Speaker 4: to make a change, because we're still getting something out
Speaker 4: of the old thing, sorting those voices out is really difficult.
Speaker 4: How do you encourage people to be able to sort
Speaker 4: that out and know what's their wiser voice, what's their
Speaker 4: truer voice.
Speaker 1: I think when people listen to my show over time,
Speaker 1: that starts to clarify, because very often I am speaking
Speaker 1: to different parts and in the work that I've done
Speaker 1: with my clients and myself over the years, it's in
Speaker 1: really differentiating and learning to hear the difference in those voices. Okay,
Speaker 1: I have trained myself into nothing's one hundred percent right,
Speaker 1: but damn near one hundred percent. Where I don't make
Speaker 1: a decision. I don't mean like what cheese do I
Speaker 1: want to buy at the grocery store?
Speaker 5: Not just big decisions.
Speaker 1: I basically don't make a decision without the check in
Speaker 1: which part of me is at the home. So that
Speaker 1: I have learned to distinguish the difference between is that
Speaker 1: an inner child part, and in that moment, I might
Speaker 1: give in what my inner child wants that might very
Speaker 1: much fit the situation. But the person and that I
Speaker 1: give the power to the part that I give the
Speaker 1: power to is my wise woman. So there's always the
Speaker 1: check in there for hey, wise woman, what do you
Speaker 1: think about this? Because my wise woman is always going
Speaker 1: to want what is best for me, because she is
Speaker 1: the wisest part of me, and I'm checking in with
Speaker 1: her for her wisdom, her hard earned wisdom and the
Speaker 1: easier wisdom too. I can differentiate my inner child for
Speaker 1: my inner adolescent when people work with me, I'm often
Speaker 1: pointing that out because I can sense their resistance. If
Speaker 1: I throw a suggestion, I'll go, ooh, what did your
Speaker 1: inter adolescent think about this? And they'll go, how did
Speaker 1: you know that I had that kind of reaction? I
Speaker 1: saw it, I felt it, I sensed it. Did you
Speaker 1: feel it?
Speaker 5: Insense it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I did? All right?
Speaker 1: What makes me call that the inner adolescent? And that's
Speaker 1: just my name for that resistant part. And if you
Speaker 1: were neglected a lot as a kid, if you were parentified,
Speaker 1: if you were abused a lot like I was, you
Speaker 1: got to deal with your inner adolescent. Whence therapists would
Speaker 1: tell me things that I knew damn good and well
Speaker 1: would have been good for me to do, I would
Speaker 1: feel my inner adolescent resist, and there were not very
Speaker 1: many skilled therapists that could call me on that. It's
Speaker 1: part of why I do because that inner adolescent basically
Speaker 1: pokes its head up and goes, excuse me. You basically
Speaker 1: raise yourself. Now, this therapeutic boso is going to tell
Speaker 1: you to do something, and what you're just going to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 5: You raised yourself. You don't need this shit.
Speaker 1: And that really is the vibe sometimes You can hear
Speaker 1: that language, but that's really the vibe.
Speaker 5: It is a feeling that washes.
Speaker 1: Over and if you don't know how to wrangle that,
Speaker 1: how to start attending to that. I think that's where
Speaker 1: people have tons of relapses, They have tons of slips
Speaker 1: and all kinds of different behavior, not just addictively, because
Speaker 1: they don't understand when that part sort of takes over.
Speaker 1: And then after when your wise part comes back and
Speaker 1: you look at the choices you made, then you have
Speaker 1: to go through this whole shame process. I know better,
Speaker 1: Why did I do that? How many times am I
Speaker 1: going to have to learn this lesson? How many times
Speaker 1: am I going to have to talk about the same thing?
Speaker 1: What's going on with me? Then you have to work
Speaker 1: through that too. So at a point when you start
Speaker 1: to really give the baton to your wise women or
Speaker 1: your wise man, you start to realize, oh, I waste
Speaker 1: less energy processing, I make less mistakes.
Speaker 5: I kind of like that.
Speaker 1: Actually, Oh that's what's helping that inner child and that
Speaker 1: inner adolescent actually grow up because I'm giving them what
Speaker 1: they need. Because what they need are proper yes, is
Speaker 1: in proper nos, proper encouragement, and proper discouragement sometimes really
Speaker 1: so I want to tap in somebody to parent me.
Speaker 5: And we all have that part.
Speaker 1: And I can prove that we all have that part
Speaker 1: because most people will admit to me if I said, hey,
Speaker 1: would you say what you're saying inside of your own
Speaker 1: head to a five year old or an eight year old? No?
Speaker 5: Why?
Speaker 1: Well, because that would crush them. Then simply do not
Speaker 1: say anything to yourself. Disallow yourself, tell yourself, no, tell yourself.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to listen to that. If you wouldn't
Speaker 1: say it to a five or an eight year old,
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't be saying it to yourself. So we are
Speaker 1: cultivating that wisdom and with more cultivation and maybe more
Speaker 1: stillness too, meditating on what was this part of me?
Speaker 1: Why did that wash over me when that person gave
Speaker 1: me that suggestion? Why did I want to give them
Speaker 1: the middle finger instead of going thanks?
Speaker 5: I'll consider that.
Speaker 1: Because I'm a grown up, I can take or toss
Speaker 1: out any advice. Why the resistance to hearing the advice
Speaker 1: and working through that interadolescent resistance?
Speaker 5: I think it's the missing piece.
Speaker 4: For a lot of people, that missing piece being able
Speaker 4: to recognize which quote unquote part of us is at
Speaker 4: the helm.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because I'm complex and most of my highly
Speaker 1: sensitive people are. I'm super complex. I like almost everything,
Speaker 1: So asking me what I want to eat, like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, like everything, you know, Like I want to
Speaker 1: experience everything. So I have to have a part of
Speaker 1: me that is going to be at the helm that
Speaker 1: can just say, you know what, just make a quick decision.
Speaker 1: That's what will serve you right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And the more.
Speaker 1: That you work with differentiating these parts, even if you're
Speaker 1: hearing me say that and you're like, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to how to feel that out, that's the very thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's like, how do you work up to big muscles
Speaker 1: at the gym. You don't show up and lift one
Speaker 1: hundred pound weight. You might start with a three pound weight.
Speaker 1: You might even start with a one pound weight, And
Speaker 1: so emotionally and in terms of getting to know yourself better,
Speaker 1: just start where you are. The more that you work
Speaker 1: with those parts, it's like lifting heavier and heavier weight
Speaker 1: and before you know it, you're lifting heavier weight and
Speaker 1: it feels really light. It feels really easy because you've
Speaker 1: worked up to it. So just check in with yourself
Speaker 1: and when I teach my boundaries course. Every October. I
Speaker 1: lead with, hey, please don't go to the most difficult
Speaker 1: person in your life and try to set a boundary.
Speaker 1: And everybody laughs because that's how almost everybody shows up
Speaker 1: to that. But they're like, yeah, give me the wisdom
Speaker 1: of Nikki and then I'm gonna go tackle the tallest mountain.
Speaker 1: It's like, start small, Start small, confront the barista who
Speaker 1: keeps getting your name wrong.
Speaker 5: You know, like like, let.
Speaker 1: Yourself grow into healthy confrontation with yourself and with other people.
Speaker 1: Let yourself grow into healthy yeses and healthy knows Healthiness
Speaker 1: is available even if you feel super lost. Just start
Speaker 1: where you are and cultivate that relationship with your wise
Speaker 1: man and your wise woman, because you have it in there.
Speaker 1: That is definitely a part of you, and you're either
Speaker 1: going to feed it or you're going to feed the
Speaker 1: other parts, maybe the immature parts, maybe the dysfunctional parts,
Speaker 1: the rebellious parts, feed that wise part.
Speaker 4: Yep, that's so funny. In the Spiritual Have Its program,
Speaker 4: one of the principles is around allowing things to be
Speaker 4: the way they are right. It's about acceptance or it's
Speaker 4: about not resisting and inevitably, nearly everybody will be like, well,
Speaker 4: how do I accept that children are being abused? And
Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, so let's slow down, Like I'm
Speaker 4: not asking you to accept that, but let's not go
Speaker 4: to the very worst, possible, hardest things in the world,
Speaker 4: Like can you just work on accepting that you need
Speaker 4: to go to work this morning?
Speaker 5: Like can we start like with.
Speaker 4: The little stuff? Can we stop resisting all the little
Speaker 4: parts of our that we know we're going to do anyway, I.
Speaker 1: Think that's a younger part. I think that's a younger
Speaker 1: part that has misunderstood wisdom there, because if I say
Speaker 1: it back to you like this, we can really kind
Speaker 1: of hear it. It's like the little kid and us goes, well,
Speaker 1: I don't like that everybody's gonna die worst case scenario.
Speaker 5: What about the worst case scenario? What about the worst
Speaker 5: thing ever? The worst thing I could think of?
Speaker 1: And so we need our wise part to come in
Speaker 1: that moment and go, oh, honey, you don't have to
Speaker 1: take on the hardest thing ye right now in this
Speaker 1: moment that's not going to help you talk about is
Speaker 1: that useful or not? Exactly as you marinate? Because I
Speaker 1: think it's more of a marinating than a headspace learning
Speaker 1: of the knowledge. Because I know this for sure. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm on your show. I know for my show, I
Speaker 1: suspect for yours too. There are going to be so
Speaker 1: many people listening right now who are really frustrated with
Speaker 1: where they are. And I know part of the problem.
Speaker 1: Part of the problem is you're just listening to podcasts,
Speaker 1: you're just talking in therapy. You gotta let yourself actionably
Speaker 1: do these things. Yes, even just sitting still. Maybe your
Speaker 1: threshold is twenty seconds the first time you sit and
Speaker 1: get still. But you've got to encourage yourself to really
Speaker 1: do the things that will move you forward and help
Speaker 1: yourself grow that wise woman and really do it. Give
Speaker 1: that baton to the wise woman or the wise man
Speaker 1: in you and play around with it. Life is an
Speaker 1: experiment and you have to sort of experiment with these
Speaker 1: things and marinate inside of them.
Speaker 5: And that's how our change comes.
Speaker 1: It's not because you took a quick pill or you
Speaker 1: did one exercise or one course. This stuff will come together.
Speaker 1: But please don't just listen to my podcast or anybody's like,
Speaker 1: please do the stuff, or you're going to feel doubly
Speaker 1: frustrated because you think you're doing the things when you're
Speaker 1: really just thinking the things.
Speaker 5: You gotta do the things too.
Speaker 4: Let's change directions a little bit here. We're near the
Speaker 4: end of our time. But you've used the term multiple
Speaker 4: times highly sensitive, and it's something you talk about a
Speaker 4: fair amount. So what does that mean. I have a
Speaker 4: sense in my mind of what I mean by it,
Speaker 4: but I'm curious how you're using that term.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of science behind high sensitivity. Doctor
Speaker 1: Elaine Aaron is the one that first coined the term,
Speaker 1: and she's written the books, and they're pretty scientific, heady
Speaker 1: books to get through. There's a lot of science there.
Speaker 1: Emotionally and functionally. We know that we have people who
Speaker 1: have different intelligences. We know we have people who have
Speaker 1: different abilities to see with their eyeballs, to hear with
Speaker 1: their ears. People have different emotional intelligence too. We also
Speaker 1: have different sensory systems. So there are some professionals who
Speaker 1: will make the argument that trauma is wholly responsible for
Speaker 1: creating high sensitivity. Others will say we're born with it.
Speaker 1: I'm balanced between those two. No surprise, they're hearing me
Speaker 1: talk about balance. All show the balance there is strong
Speaker 1: for me. So I believe that I was born with
Speaker 1: a propensity, a predisposition to be more of an observer,
Speaker 1: to be more feeling, driven to sense my world through
Speaker 1: more of my being than my thought process. Just a difference,
Speaker 1: just like I'm born with curly kind of wavy hair
Speaker 1: and somebody else is born with straight hair. It's just
Speaker 1: a difference we have. Then, trauma heightens our sensitivity because
Speaker 1: to survive, any kid growing up in a home, okay,
Speaker 1: is either trying to deny what's going on and block
Speaker 1: it out, or is observing everything and taking it in.
Speaker 1: We're very spongy is highly sensitive people. So I say
Speaker 1: a lot. I sponged up a lot in my childhood,
Speaker 1: and healing has been ringing out that sponge and being
Speaker 1: able to be more intentional with what I'm going to
Speaker 1: let that sponge soak up. Okay, highly sensitive people. As
Speaker 1: a tribe, we tend to be highly conscientious, sometimes too much.
Speaker 1: So if we were conditioned to be a people pleaser,
Speaker 1: that's a struggle. How do we please ourselves and other
Speaker 1: people enough to not be in the realm of overfunctioning
Speaker 1: for other people, just like overthinking versus just thinking, how
Speaker 1: do we function for ourselves and others without overfunctioning. Okay,
Speaker 1: we tend to be overly conscientious. We tend to be
Speaker 1: observers of others in energy and action. We tend to
Speaker 1: not so much psychic. Some people might use that word.
Speaker 1: I don't the gift of prophecy. It's like we can
Speaker 1: sense things coming. And because we can sense what's coming,
Speaker 1: we tend to be highly attuned to preventing future struggle.
Speaker 1: So all of these little quirks that we have as
Speaker 1: highly sensitive people take tools, take understanding, take awareness. So
Speaker 1: many people show up to me going, Nikki, how do
Speaker 1: I dial down this high sensitivity? And I'm like, sorry
Speaker 1: to tell you you can't. You can learn how to
Speaker 1: work with it and embrace it and make it.
Speaker 5: To tool in a gift. And sometimes it's hard. Life
Speaker 5: is tough.
Speaker 1: It always has been for every species on the planet,
Speaker 1: you know, So this expectation of it's just going to
Speaker 1: be easy at some point, no, life is going to
Speaker 1: be a certain amount of struggle. But you get to
Speaker 1: have more ease. I think when you understand your makeup
Speaker 1: who you are as a highly sensitive person. I heard
Speaker 1: all my life I'm too sensitive. So a lot of
Speaker 1: sensitive people interestingly and paradoxically will tell me sometimes they
Speaker 1: think they're too much, and then other times they think
Speaker 1: they're too little. So learning how to be the amount
Speaker 1: of who we are and accept who we are, learning
Speaker 1: how to advocate that, yes, I'm an intense person. There's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with my emotionality.
Speaker 5: I'm intense.
Speaker 1: So if I'm in a coffee shop or a grocery store,
Speaker 1: just randomly running errands, I can feel a wave wash
Speaker 1: over me. If a baby smiles at me, I might
Speaker 1: get teary just from the beauty of this little being
Speaker 1: taking a moment to connect with me, like his spirit
Speaker 1: to my spirit, and I might tear up. Fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: I would have been ashamed, embarrassed. I would have held
Speaker 1: my head. I would have apologized if anybody noticed me crying. Today,
Speaker 1: I have taught myself and grown into in that moment,
Speaker 1: keeping my head held up high. And when other people
Speaker 1: get weird, oh showing emotion in public, I look at
Speaker 1: them and I say, it's okay, I'm tearful and I'm strong,
Speaker 1: it's all right, And watching their wheels turn on that
Speaker 1: like what is this crazy lady saying? And then watching
Speaker 1: them go yeah, Okay, all right, maybe she can be
Speaker 1: strong and emotional at the same time. The more that
Speaker 1: I have worked on accepting who I am in the
Speaker 1: world and not seeing myself as a problem, the more
Speaker 1: that I am in self respect and self regard of myself,
Speaker 1: and then I'm walking the world teaching people how to
Speaker 1: treat me and teaching them to have regard for my
Speaker 1: sensitivity too. One of my things is that we are
Speaker 1: high sensitive. We are not delicate. And I absolutely resist
Speaker 1: any teaching, any therapy, any coaching, anything that gives someone
Speaker 1: directly or indirectly the message that they are delicate and
Speaker 1: they better tend to their delicacy. We are sensitive, and
Speaker 1: we are strong. We are sensitive, and we are tough.
Speaker 1: We are not delicate, and going into delicacy is victim mode,
Speaker 1: and it will not serve you. If becoming the victim
Speaker 1: actually helps you in any way, I'd be all for it.
Speaker 1: It will thwart you, it will ruin a life, it
Speaker 1: will ruin satisfaction, it will ruin purpose, and it will
Speaker 1: make your life small and good healthy people will not
Speaker 1: hang out with a constant victim. So this victim mentality
Speaker 1: that's getting pushed, I am against it, particularly for highly
Speaker 1: sensitive people. You are strong and you are capable to
Speaker 1: surmount anything, even in the moments where you think you can't.
Speaker 1: And when sensitive people step into their strength and their
Speaker 1: self acceptance, my god, are they are forced well.
Speaker 4: I think that is a beautiful place to wrap up
Speaker 4: on that really strong message there of not being delicate,
Speaker 4: sensitive and strong.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir, Thank you for having me and spending
Speaker 1: time with me.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. I love talking with you and
Speaker 4: I will see you next time.
Speaker 5: I appreciate it so much.
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