Speaker 1: It's that attacking voice that can really get you into
Speaker 1: trouble and stap your energy. But when you talk to
Speaker 1: yourself with encouragement and compassion instead, it really can turn
Speaker 1: things around.
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. Thanks
Speaker 2: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Janice Webb,
Speaker 2: the pioneer of childhood emotional neglect awareness. She's a licensed
Speaker 2: psychologist and has enriched and kindled discussion of this overlooked
Speaker 2: and under addressed topic by writing the first self help
Speaker 2: book dedicated to cean recovery entitled Running on Empty Overcome
Speaker 2: Your Childhood Emotional Neglect. Janis also continues to inspire thousands
Speaker 2: of people on her weekly blog on Psychicentral dot com
Speaker 2: and her work as an expert partner on your Tango
Speaker 2: dot com. She's been interviewed about childhood emotional neglect on
Speaker 2: NPR at over thirty radio shows across the US and Canada.
Speaker 3: Hijanie, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: I am happy to have you on. We're going to
Speaker 3: be discussing your book, Running on Empty Overcome Your Childhood
Speaker 3: Emotional Neglect. And this is a topic. I'm going to
Speaker 3: take a wager that nearly everybody who likes the One
Speaker 3: You Feed podcast has some degree of this, that's my guess.
Speaker 3: But you're going to talk to us about a question
Speaker 3: era where people can learn that. But I think a
Speaker 3: lot of our listeners are going to resonate with this.
Speaker 3: But before we get into that, let's start like we
Speaker 3: always do with the parable. In the Parable, there's a
Speaker 3: grandparent who says to their grandchild, there's two wolves inside
Speaker 3: of us that are always at battle. One is a
Speaker 3: good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 3: and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things
Speaker 3: like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops
Speaker 3: and thinks about it for a second and looks up
Speaker 3: at their grandparent and says, well, which one wins, And
Speaker 3: the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 3: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 3: to you and your life and in the work that
Speaker 3: you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I really like this parable, partly because it
Speaker 1: conveys a really really important thing, which is that it
Speaker 1: basically suggests that we all choose who we are and
Speaker 1: we choose who we become. And I think that's something
Speaker 1: It's impossible to live your entire life and never really
Speaker 1: feel that power that you have to shape yourself. Because
Speaker 1: the world throws things at us and we have to
Speaker 1: deal with them. We don't have control over what the
Speaker 1: world throws at us, but what we do have control
Speaker 1: over is our internal world, and how we respond to
Speaker 1: those things is what really determines who we are as
Speaker 1: a person. And in terms of the bad wolf, through
Speaker 1: the lens of psychology and I work in childhood emotional neglect,
Speaker 1: I would say the bad wolf is just a natural
Speaker 1: human part of us all because there's not a human
Speaker 1: alive who hasn't felt all of those things and much
Speaker 1: more that they're not proud of. Since we can't choose
Speaker 1: our feelings, we're not at fault for feeling that way,
Speaker 1: but we are responsible for what we do with those feelings,
Speaker 1: and we run from them, that wolf will keep chasing us.
Speaker 1: But if we turn around and face it and let
Speaker 1: ourselves consider the fact that we're feeling greed, we're hatred,
Speaker 1: and kind of process with our brains what our body
Speaker 1: is sending us, that's our best chance to become the
Speaker 1: best person.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of things you said in there that
Speaker 3: I could run with, but I'm going to run with
Speaker 3: what you said near the end, which is it's not
Speaker 3: our fault how we feel, but we are responsible for it.
Speaker 3: And I think that's a great way for us to
Speaker 3: lead into talking about childhood emotional neglect. And I wanted
Speaker 3: to find what that is a little bit more deeply
Speaker 3: in a moment. But that's kind of the premise of
Speaker 3: your book, is Hey, a lot of things happened or
Speaker 3: didn't happen often would be the case as you were
Speaker 3: growing up that have influenced the way you react to
Speaker 3: the world, so you're not at fault for what happened
Speaker 3: to you when you were a child and how you
Speaker 3: were parented, but you are responsible for healing any of
Speaker 3: that that needs healed. Do you want to elaborate on
Speaker 3: that a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yes, Absolutely, A lot of children grow up in households
Speaker 1: that really don't teach them that it's okay to have
Speaker 1: the bad wolf, or that it's human or even either wolf.
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of families that discourage
Speaker 1: positive feelings and have low tolerance or pretend negative feelings
Speaker 1: don't exist, and I call that childhood emotional neglect. It's
Speaker 1: basically just if your parents don't respond enough to your
Speaker 1: feelings as they reas you, and if you grow up
Speaker 1: in a household that's not really attentive or responsive to
Speaker 1: your feelings, you basically learn that your feelings are something
Speaker 1: to be ashamed of or to hide org nor because
Speaker 1: at best they're useless.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But it's when we don't pay attention and we try
Speaker 1: not to have feelings or we feel ashamed of our
Speaker 1: feelings that really can interfere with your adult life, and
Speaker 1: you know, you end up running from your actual internal
Speaker 1: self instead of owning who you are, owning those feelings
Speaker 1: and dealing with them.
Speaker 3: So we've become a lot more trauma informed as a
Speaker 3: culture these days. Right, we talk more about trauma. We
Speaker 3: recognize that trauma is very destructive. We've always known and
Speaker 3: most people have known, like, if you're abused as a child,
Speaker 3: you're going to have some impact from that. But I
Speaker 3: think what a lot of people do, and I was
Speaker 3: in this boat for a long time, is we sort
Speaker 3: of look at our childhood and go, well, I don't
Speaker 3: think I was abused, like nobody was beating me, or
Speaker 3: you know, I wasn't sexually abused, and so thus we
Speaker 3: conclude that, hey, you know, my childhood was fine, happy childhood,
Speaker 3: good childhood. Move on. And what you're talking about is
Speaker 3: that there are much more subtle layers of neglect that
Speaker 3: often happen, and not even like you know, when we
Speaker 3: say neglect, we don't mean like you were left on
Speaker 3: your own defend for your own food, right, We're talking
Speaker 3: about emotional neglect, but that it's often a lot more subtle,
Speaker 3: and that people who may look back and go, I
Speaker 3: had a good, happy childhood, everything was provided for, may
Speaker 3: still have had some developmental needs that simply weren't met.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's not something that you're going to remember,
Speaker 1: because our brains are geared to notice and record things
Speaker 1: that happen, and our brains are not geared to notice
Speaker 1: what doesn't happen, especially when we're kids, and to notice
Speaker 1: what's invisible. Basically, I always say childhood emotional neglect is
Speaker 1: it's not what your first did to you. It's what
Speaker 1: they fail to do for you. And what they failed
Speaker 1: to do was to notice when you were sad, hurt, angry, upset, confused, nervous, afraid,
Speaker 1: or any other feeling and respond to that enough and
Speaker 1: name it for you and help you understand it. And
Speaker 1: if you grew up without having enough of that emotional
Speaker 1: instruction and education and response, then you end up being
Speaker 1: confused about feelings and they're such a major part of
Speaker 1: who you are, but you won't remember what didn't happen.
Speaker 1: So I can't tell you how many people have said
Speaker 1: to me, I had a really great childhood, I had
Speaker 1: good education. I was driven to every soccer game I
Speaker 1: wanted to go to, but I feel so empty inside.
Speaker 1: I don't understand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you say, this is the danger of emotional neglect.
Speaker 3: Perfectly good people, loving their child, doing their best, while
Speaker 3: passing on accidental and visible, potentially damaging patterns to their children.
Speaker 3: In this book, the goal is not to blame the parents.
Speaker 3: It is only to understand our parents and how they
Speaker 3: have affected us. And I think anybody reading this book
Speaker 3: who is both a child, which would be everyone because
Speaker 3: we've all been children, and is also a parent is
Speaker 3: going to have a couple of kind of interesting reactions
Speaker 3: to this. If you're both those things. You know, if
Speaker 3: you're a child again, which we all are, and you're
Speaker 3: a parent, which I am, you're reading this almost through
Speaker 3: two lenses, one of like what was my childhood like?
Speaker 3: And then the other inevitable lens for me was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: well my child's twenty three. What things did I do there?
Speaker 3: Or not do there? And you know, do you think
Speaker 3: anybody gets out of childhood without some degree of not
Speaker 3: having emotions modeled perfectly well or some degree of this?
Speaker 1: I think some people do. You know, There's been research
Speaker 1: and all kinds of writing about the good enough parent,
Speaker 1: and really you don't need to have perfect parents to
Speaker 1: turn out really well. You just need to have parents
Speaker 1: who are good enough. And I think This only becomes
Speaker 1: a problem if your parents weren't good enough at this,
Speaker 1: if your parents had a blind spot in general when
Speaker 1: it comes to emotions, then they weren't able to respond
Speaker 1: enough and give you enough education, validation of your feelings,
Speaker 1: And that is all it takes, even if they do
Speaker 1: with everything else. But I think there are a lot
Speaker 1: of parents who are good enough, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people walking around who don't identify with this at all.
Speaker 3: It's interesting. We interviewed a couple times a gentleman by
Speaker 3: the name of Rick Hanson who's written a bunch of
Speaker 3: books about neuroscience and the brain and Buddhism, and he's
Speaker 3: got a podcast now with his son, and it's funny
Speaker 3: to hear his son say, like, I think my dad
Speaker 3: did everything right. You know, he knows all this stuff,
Speaker 3: and you know, it doesn't mean my life is easy, right.
Speaker 3: You know, he's still a human being. And so I
Speaker 3: think that what we're saying here, and I love that phrase,
Speaker 3: the good enough parent, is that everybody's going to have
Speaker 3: some degree of difficulty and difficult emotions in life. That's
Speaker 3: being human. But when there's emotional neglect, there are some
Speaker 3: particular things that show up and I don't want to
Speaker 3: go into all the different types of parents who cause emotionalglect.
Speaker 3: You've got twelve of them. It's a really great read.
Speaker 3: I just don't think we can hit all twelve of them.
Speaker 3: But I'd love to talk about what are some of
Speaker 3: the symptoms of emotional neglect, What sort of things might
Speaker 3: we notice if this has affected us.
Speaker 1: So, one of the biggest signs of having childhood emotional
Speaker 1: neglect is having a lot of discomfort with feelings and
Speaker 1: emotions in general, and confusion. And for some people this
Speaker 1: doesn't show up until it's time to find a mate
Speaker 1: or get married, or once you're a parent. Then you
Speaker 1: realize you can just feel like, what is this torrent
Speaker 1: that's been released on me? I don't understand what I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to do with all these feelings. So I call
Speaker 1: it alexithymia. It's also another word for it is low
Speaker 1: emotional intelligence, which has nothing to do with regular intelligence.
Speaker 1: It's really just how well you understand the world of
Speaker 1: emotion and can deal with it in a confident, reasonably
Speaker 1: capable way. So that's one way that plays out over
Speaker 1: your adulthood. Another is quite a bit of self blame.
Speaker 1: Self doubt, getting angry at yourself versus other people when
Speaker 1: it's even if it's someone else's fault. So self directed anger,
Speaker 1: self blame, self doubt is rampant, and I think that's
Speaker 1: because if your parents aren't coaching you through mistakes enough
Speaker 1: and helping you understand your feelings enough, then a lot
Speaker 1: of kids develop this sort of harsh parental voice for
Speaker 1: themselves and that just stays with you as you're coping technique,
Speaker 1: but in the end it ends up doing a lot
Speaker 1: of damage. A lot of people with childhood emotional neglect
Speaker 1: or CN end up feeling kind of empty inside, and
Speaker 1: that's because their feelings are kind of walled off, and
Speaker 1: because your feelings are such a deeply personal, biologically built
Speaker 1: in part of who you are, if your feelings are
Speaker 1: walled off, you notice it. There's something missing, and that
Speaker 1: gives people that grow up this way the sense of
Speaker 1: being different from other people. I call it the fatal flaw,
Speaker 1: where you feel like you're just kind of different and
Speaker 1: there's something other people have that you don't have. Some
Speaker 1: people call it emptiness, but different people have different words
Speaker 1: for it, So those are probably the main ones.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's another one you listed poor self discipline.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's kind of like a correlation between not paying
Speaker 1: attention to children's feelings. You kind of miss when your
Speaker 1: child needs structure or consequences or limits. So certain kinds
Speaker 1: of emotionally neglectful parents don't really end up teaching their
Speaker 1: children how to talk themselves through difficult situations and force
Speaker 1: themselves to do things they don't want to do and
Speaker 1: stop themselves from doing things they shouldn't do. And if
Speaker 1: you don't learn those basic skills, they're not really basic
Speaker 1: if you don't learn them as a child. They're only
Speaker 1: basic if you learn them. If you don't, then you
Speaker 1: just have to teach them to yourself as an adult.
Speaker 3: And this poor self discipline. You might have discipline when
Speaker 3: it's coming from outside structure, it's just when it's sort
Speaker 3: of you on your own, that's where it manifests. Is
Speaker 3: that kind of the gist of it.
Speaker 1: Yes? Absolutely. Most people with childhood emotional neglect are very functional.
Speaker 1: A lot of them do great in life in many ways,
Speaker 1: but they have this internal struggle where they feel like
Speaker 1: other people can't see who I really am because I
Speaker 1: am not what I appear to be. I'm struggling all
Speaker 1: the time with self discipline.
Speaker 3: For example, Well, I am someone who definitely, I think,
Speaker 3: suffered from emotional neglect as a child. Mom, if you're listening,
Speaker 3: and I love you, but many listeners know this story.
Speaker 3: I got sober at twenty four. I was a heroin addict,
Speaker 3: so clearly I had some difficulties and it was interesting
Speaker 3: though at that time when I got sober, it was
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety five in Columbus, Ohio. The world was a
Speaker 3: very different place, and the general theme in AA was
Speaker 3: don't worry about why, don't blame your parents, just take
Speaker 3: responsibility for your actions. And that actually was sufficient to
Speaker 3: get me sober and actually kind of saved my life.
Speaker 3: But a few years down the line, like you said,
Speaker 3: when I realized, like, oh, I've got a marriage, it's crumbled,
Speaker 3: I've got all these other things that are happening, I
Speaker 3: sort of went, oh, all right, I need to look
Speaker 3: into this. And that's when I sort of got exposed
Speaker 3: to a lot of these ideas and sort of recognized,
Speaker 3: you know, despite my parents' wonderful best efforts and their love,
Speaker 3: there was a lot of things that didn't go well
Speaker 3: for me, particularly when it came to emotion as a child,
Speaker 3: and so I've been circling these topics for a long
Speaker 3: long time, So I've got a lot of personal experience.
Speaker 3: So some of my questions are going to come from
Speaker 3: that place, and some of them are going to come
Speaker 3: more from, you know, somebody who's maybe newer and exposed
Speaker 3: to these ideas. But I wanted to talk a little
Speaker 3: bit more about Did you say it's alexithenia thymia. I'm
Speaker 3: terrible pronouncing things. Alexithymia, alexithymia. I've heard that described as
Speaker 3: the inability to feel, but you're describing in a much
Speaker 3: more broad and nuanced way than that. Can you say
Speaker 3: a little bit more about that term, because you do
Speaker 3: say that this might be the common denominator of people
Speaker 3: who have suffered emotional neglect. So you describe some of
Speaker 3: it as like, well, you don't really know what to
Speaker 3: do with your emotions, But in my case, it seems
Speaker 3: to be more not an inability to feel, but oftentimes
Speaker 3: not a lot of it.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of feelings. Yeah, that's one of the
Speaker 1: primary symptoms of childhood emotional neglect. It's part of what
Speaker 1: I call emptiness. Some people feel it as emptiness. Some
Speaker 1: people feel it as numbness. Basically, it is because when
Speaker 1: you're growing up receiving all kinds of subtle, usually unspoken
Speaker 1: messages from your parents that your feelings don't matter, or
Speaker 1: are unacceptable or our burden, your child brain knows just
Speaker 1: what to do and basically walls off yep, puts all
Speaker 1: your feelings over there so they won't bother you, they
Speaker 1: won't bother anybody, which can get you through your childhood.
Speaker 1: But then when you grow up, you really need to
Speaker 1: have access to your emotions because they are really what
Speaker 1: connects you to other people, tells you what things you're
Speaker 1: passionate about, what to pursue, what to avoid, who you
Speaker 1: enjoy being with, who you should avoid, making choices, and
Speaker 1: if you don't have access to that really rich resource,
Speaker 1: you're gonna notice it. You're gonna feel it, or maybe
Speaker 1: your spouse is gonna say something's wrong here, you say
Speaker 1: you love me, I don't feel it, or those kinds
Speaker 1: of things.
Speaker 3: Do you notice people who have this. I'm going to
Speaker 3: try and say the word again because alexithymia alexithymia more
Speaker 3: than two syllables. In my old age, I've given up
Speaker 3: on three syllable and beyond words. I get it. I
Speaker 3: understand emotions coming out in weird places. So like, for example,
Speaker 3: any emotional scene in like a movie or a TV
Speaker 3: show will choke me up. And yet when it comes
Speaker 3: to my own life again, I've done a lot of healing,
Speaker 3: I'm not the person I was, but I still notice
Speaker 3: lack of emotion in some ways. Is it common for
Speaker 3: people who have this for those emotions to sort of
Speaker 3: leak out in other places in different ways?
Speaker 1: Anytime you have emotions that have been walled off or repressed,
Speaker 1: they will at times leak through, attach themselves to other
Speaker 1: things and give you emotional reactions that are out of
Speaker 1: control when you least expect it. And so a lot
Speaker 1: of people who have wald off emotions, the times that
Speaker 1: they do feel something is either indirectly when it's not
Speaker 1: about themselves, like watching a movie or something, or when
Speaker 1: some feeling gets so strong that it breaks through the
Speaker 1: wall and then it's big. Usually, so you might only
Speaker 1: have feelings about really big things. Part of my online
Speaker 1: recovery program and what I do with people in my
Speaker 1: office has to do with trying to reconnect with your feelings,
Speaker 1: with your physical emotional feelings, and that can be done purposely.
Speaker 1: If you choose to, you can recapture those feelings and
Speaker 1: start processing them and using them at any time in
Speaker 1: your life.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I found challenging having alexithymia
Speaker 3: is and again I'm better than I used to be,
Speaker 3: and I've talked about this with my depression also, which
Speaker 3: is it's hard to work sometimes with what feels like nothing.
Speaker 3: Like when there's strong emotion. For me, it's fairly easy
Speaker 3: to learn to process that, to use that to understand it.
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm pretty emotionally literate in that way.
Speaker 3: What I found more challenging is working with what feels
Speaker 3: like nothing. So some of your work talks about identifying
Speaker 3: feelings and becoming more broadly speaking, emotionally literate, learning to
Speaker 3: know what you're feeling, learning to express what you're feeling
Speaker 3: all that, what's the path forward when what you're noticing
Speaker 3: is a bunch of nothing.
Speaker 1: There's an exercise that is in my first book, Running
Speaker 1: on Empty, which it really just like walks you through
Speaker 1: the process of sitting down every day, focusing your attention
Speaker 1: inward and asking yourself, what am I feeling right now,
Speaker 1: and then really trying to tune in too, because feelings
Speaker 1: are physical, you field them in your body, tune into
Speaker 1: your body and try to identify some feeling because you're
Speaker 1: always having feelings, it's just that you're disconnected from them
Speaker 1: so that you're not aware of what they even are,
Speaker 1: and you don't notice them. They're just basically non existent
Speaker 1: for you, even though they are happening in your body.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people will try that and they'll say,
Speaker 1: I come up with nothing right, And that's fine, and
Speaker 1: it's normal. You know when you start, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: nothing if you keep doing it. Every time you do it,
Speaker 1: it takes a little chip out of that wall between
Speaker 1: yourself and your feelings because you're reaching out. You're trying
Speaker 1: to reach through the wall and get those feelings. And
Speaker 1: the more you reach, the more little glimmers will start
Speaker 1: coming through. So it does take some work and dedication.
Speaker 3: I love that, and that aligns with a lot of
Speaker 3: the things we talk about here in our Spiritual Habits
Speaker 3: program and different things, which is this idea of little
Speaker 3: by little, a little becomes a lot.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So if you just keep showing up to your feelings,
Speaker 3: even if when you show up you're like there's nothing there,
Speaker 3: I remember when I started doing like body scan meditations
Speaker 3: years ago. I'd be like, I got nothing here. You
Speaker 3: tell me to feel my foot, and they're not much
Speaker 3: happening down there. You know, the person leading the meditations
Speaker 3: going on and on about the personality of his big toe,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, what is he talking about? I still
Speaker 3: don't know what he's talking about, to be honest with you.
Speaker 3: That said, though, the more I did it, the more
Speaker 3: I became aware of sensations that were in my body
Speaker 3: that I just had not been in the habit of
Speaker 3: paying attention to. And the more I paid attention to them,
Speaker 3: the more they developed. So I think you're saying something
Speaker 3: very similar there. Let's talk about IAAA, which is not
Speaker 3: a retirement fund. Listeners may have heard a recent spot
Speaker 3: we did for aa ARP. I cannot believe I'm old
Speaker 3: enough that AARP wants to advertise on my show. We
Speaker 3: could talk about all kinds of emotions around that, but
Speaker 3: we'll stay on topic here and talk about IAAA, which
Speaker 3: is not a retirement fund. What is it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, AARP sends me letters all the time, and I
Speaker 1: really don't like that at all. Just a little comment there,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Yeah, so at the suggestion of one
Speaker 1: of my readers, instead of calling the IAAA, which is
Speaker 1: very hard to say, I call it the I triple A.
Speaker 3: So anyway, now I think it's about getting my car fixed,
Speaker 3: but we're better.
Speaker 1: No, there's no answer. So it's basically a way to
Speaker 1: process a feeling. It walks you through dealing with a feeling,
Speaker 1: and the letters stand for the steps. Identify the feeling
Speaker 1: that you're having. Accept that feeling, fully, accept it, even
Speaker 1: if it's hatred, even if it's greed, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: however ugly it is, accept it. This is how I feel.
Speaker 1: Attribute that feeling. That's the second a. Attribute it to
Speaker 1: a cause. So is this something from my childhood? Is
Speaker 1: this something going on now? Is this something going on
Speaker 1: now that's touching off some old feelings from childhood? What
Speaker 1: is happening in my life right now that I would
Speaker 1: be feeling this hatred? And where is it directed? Who's
Speaker 1: this hatred at or what is this hatred about? That's
Speaker 1: the attribution. And then the last step is act and
Speaker 1: that is basically it doesn't mean you're supposed to always
Speaker 1: act on your feelings. It just means what can I
Speaker 1: do or what should I do with this feeling or
Speaker 1: for this feeling. Every emotion that you get is a
Speaker 1: message from your body. It's your body talking to you.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean your body is always right. So there are
Speaker 1: feelings that come up that are way out of whack
Speaker 1: because they're from the past, or they're just not telling
Speaker 1: you something good or healthy to do. But then if
Speaker 1: you connect with it with your brain and think about
Speaker 1: it and consider, what is this hatred telling me to do?
Speaker 1: Is it telling me that I need to go strike
Speaker 1: out at this person and call them a name? Is
Speaker 1: it telling me, well, no, I don't think I should
Speaker 1: do that. Maybe it's telling me that I need to
Speaker 1: talk to this person or write a letter or connect
Speaker 1: it to what happened to me as a kid that
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with this person. And maybe I'm
Speaker 1: putting all that old stuff on them. Or do I
Speaker 1: need to self soothe.
Speaker 3: Whatever it is, well, let's hang on to self soothe
Speaker 3: because I want to get there in a minute, because
Speaker 3: I think that's a particularly important area to talk about.
Speaker 3: I want to talk though about attribution for a minute.
Speaker 3: Attribution is another one of those things that can be
Speaker 3: sort of difficult, particularly if you don't remember a lot
Speaker 3: from your Childhood's a part of my challenge is with
Speaker 3: my childhood, there's just not much back there to go like,
Speaker 3: this is a feeling from my childhood, because I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: I don't remember much of anything from back there. So
Speaker 3: how much time do you spend on attribution? And at
Speaker 3: what point to you sometimes just go I'm not quite
Speaker 3: sure why, but it's okay, I feel this way.
Speaker 1: I think you should only do that if you really
Speaker 1: just absolutely cannot figure it out. But even then, I
Speaker 1: think you should file it away and watch for that
Speaker 1: feeling in the future and see if you can start
Speaker 1: to figure out you have this feeling often, For example,
Speaker 1: why do I have this feeling so often? Because every
Speaker 1: feeling has a reason and figuring out that reason. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting people get obsessed with this, because of
Speaker 1: course we're going to have feelings that come and go
Speaker 1: that we're not able to process this way. But if
Speaker 1: it's a strong feeling and it's bothersome, I think it
Speaker 1: makes sense to try to figure that out as best
Speaker 1: as you can.
Speaker 3: I wanted to pause for a quick good Wolf reminder.
Speaker 3: This one's about a habit change and a mistake I
Speaker 3: see people making and that's really that we don't think
Speaker 3: about these new habits that we want to add in
Speaker 3: the context of our entire life. Right, habits don't happen
Speaker 3: in a vacuum. They have to fit in the life
Speaker 3: that we have. So when we just keep adding I
Speaker 3: should do this, I should do that, I should do this,
Speaker 3: we get discouraged because we haven't really thought about what
Speaker 3: we're not going to do in order to make that happen.
Speaker 3: So it's really helpful for you to think about where
Speaker 3: is this going to fit and what in my life
Speaker 3: might I need to remove. If you want to step
Speaker 3: by step guide for how you can easily build new
Speaker 3: habits that feed your good Wolf, go to good Wolf
Speaker 3: dot me, slash change and join the free masterclass. Before
Speaker 3: we move away from Alexithemia, I wanted to hit one
Speaker 3: other thing because you said I've observed that many people
Speaker 3: with alexithymia have a tendency to be irritable, and ability
Speaker 3: is one. It's probably the tendency in me I most
Speaker 3: wish I didn't have. I've gotten pretty good at managing it,
Speaker 3: but you know, my partner Ginny knows when I'm irritable.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's not like it's hidden. She
Speaker 3: also is emotionally astute enough to know it has nothing
Speaker 3: to do with her, and she can set it aside.
Speaker 3: But it's still something I would love to have less of.
Speaker 3: And I've looked around a lot for like, well, what
Speaker 3: causes irritability? And so my ears kind of perked up
Speaker 3: when I read that. And irritability is a strong family trait.
Speaker 3: It is a very strong family trait. What do you
Speaker 3: do with irritability? Because that's the one that when I
Speaker 3: try and get to attribution, I just kind of go,
Speaker 3: I got nothing here. I got nothing for why all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, you making a noise, filing your fingernails
Speaker 3: makes me want to claw my eyes out today whereas
Speaker 3: yesterday Matt didn't really bother me. It's not constant. And
Speaker 3: I go go back and I'm like, well, if somebody's coughing,
Speaker 3: am I getting upset? Because my brother had asthma and
Speaker 3: it used to scare me. And I mean, there may
Speaker 3: be some of that, but the irritability is the one
Speaker 3: that feels very difficult to attribute anywhere and feels very
Speaker 3: difficult to work with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the reason I think that people with childhood
Speaker 1: emotional neglect to end up with irritability. Some people more
Speaker 1: on the ECTA side have more anxiety and others have
Speaker 1: more irritability, and either way, the answer is to not
Speaker 1: stop with naming your feeling irritability because if irritability is
Speaker 1: a catch all trash can, it's like all of your
Speaker 1: feelings have pulled together on the other side of the wall.
Speaker 1: When they all mix together, that's what they come out as.
Speaker 1: So if you don't let yourself use that term irritability
Speaker 1: and instead you say, no, what are you really feeling,
Speaker 1: because it's probably you're upset about something that day in
Speaker 1: your current life that you're not dealing or aware of
Speaker 1: the feelings that you're having, and that's what's making you irritable.
Speaker 1: If you go beyond the word irritability, you might be
Speaker 1: able to name well, I'm feeling frustrated that this podcast
Speaker 1: guest canceled at the last minute picking this up, obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling worried about how I'm going to fill in
Speaker 1: that slot in the future when that slot comes up.
Speaker 1: And now I'm angry because that puts me in a
Speaker 1: spot where I have to like, really, you know, buggle
Speaker 1: and find somebody else so then you'll get a lot
Speaker 1: further with it. And once you figure out what you're
Speaker 1: actually feeling, then you can go through the action part,
Speaker 1: like and just going through that fribeaning. Figuring out what
Speaker 1: you're feeling and why is a really important part of
Speaker 1: how to take away a feeling's power. It could make
Speaker 1: you stop being irritable.
Speaker 3: I love that idea of it. You know, think you
Speaker 3: know it is a trash can. I think the other
Speaker 3: trash can feeling for me is tired. Sometimes it is tired, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, sometimes it's legitimate, that's a zeological thing. But
Speaker 3: I think sometimes there's maybe more under there. I want
Speaker 3: to dig a little deeper into this. Feelings always have
Speaker 3: a cause. Thing I've read about and talked about people
Speaker 3: who are considered like highly sensitive, like their nervous system
Speaker 3: is tuned in such a way that sound it is
Speaker 3: hard for them to tune out and can cause irritability.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've often sort of thought of myself
Speaker 3: as that's one of the things that defines me, is
Speaker 3: that I'll be in a room and there'll be background
Speaker 3: noise and other people will just be carrying on and
Speaker 3: I'm like, there's a buzzing up there that is difficult
Speaker 3: to tune out. So those things seem neurological almost or
Speaker 3: physiological more than emotional. Do you think that there are
Speaker 3: emotions that are driven from neurological or physiological or physical
Speaker 3: causes that are not necessarily attributed to events in your
Speaker 3: life and things that are happening or happened.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't really go about thinking about it quite in
Speaker 1: that way. Okay, So let's take the ausing microphone as
Speaker 1: an example. I wouldn't call that irritability. If you are
Speaker 1: in a room full of people and people are talking
Speaker 1: and everyone seems fine, but you are really bothered by
Speaker 1: that microphone. That is a physiological response that you have
Speaker 1: because of the way you're wired, way your nervous system
Speaker 1: is wired, and it's perfectly legitimate. It's how you're built.
Speaker 1: And I don't think there's anything you can really do
Speaker 1: about that. It's not a matter of processing a feeling.
Speaker 1: You can't do anything except act, which is what do
Speaker 1: I do about this? I can't focus on anything. Instead
Speaker 1: of letting yourself get irritated about it, you could say,
Speaker 1: what am I going to do to cope with this?
Speaker 1: Is there something I can do? Maybe I can ask
Speaker 1: them to turn that microphone down, maybe I can unplug something.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just not going to be able to stay
Speaker 1: in this room. But it doesn't have to become irritability
Speaker 1: if you understand what's going on and just deal with
Speaker 1: it in the best way you can.
Speaker 3: And so if what comes out of that is irritability
Speaker 3: or frustration, then it is attributable in that case, right,
Speaker 3: I can say, there's this thing happening, it's grading on me.
Speaker 3: I don't have the ability to turn it off, so
Speaker 3: I'm feeling frustrated. Yes, and now I can attribute it
Speaker 3: is what you're basically saying. I think that's helpful. All right,
Speaker 3: So let's move to self soothing. I've interviewed a lot
Speaker 3: of people for this show. When I look at psychological responses,
Speaker 3: the literature out there, the different approaches that are out there,
Speaker 3: and I see this in both psychology and spirituality, I
Speaker 3: see a cognitive approach and I see an emotional approach.
Speaker 3: I see on one hand, people saying, hey, look you've
Speaker 3: got these feelings. Those are coming from thoughts, and if
Speaker 3: you change your thoughts, you'll change your feelings. And then
Speaker 3: there's another approach more bottom up. Start with what your
Speaker 3: feelings are, allow those feelings to be there, and oftentimes
Speaker 3: the emotion is causing the thought. How do you think
Speaker 3: about that?
Speaker 1: I don't think it can be nailed down to an
Speaker 1: either or thing because I see it going both ways.
Speaker 1: I think you can get yourself very upset about something
Speaker 1: by continually cranking on it in your head. You know,
Speaker 1: you can increase your feelings that way. You can also
Speaker 1: manage your feelings by involving your head. It can go
Speaker 1: both ways, and I don't think it makes sense to
Speaker 1: address it from just one direction for most people. I
Speaker 1: think most people need to deal with the emotional part
Speaker 1: and the cognitive part together.
Speaker 3: And which of those you do first might just depend
Speaker 3: on the situation and what works for you.
Speaker 1: I really believe in starting with the feelings because we're
Speaker 1: much more comfortable with our thoughts in general, because we
Speaker 1: can control them much better. They're more understandable, we can
Speaker 1: put our thoughts into words much better. Feelings are a
Speaker 1: lot more mysterious, and we get the sense that they
Speaker 1: just come, and so we feel like we have no
Speaker 1: power over them. But that's what makes some so powerful.
Speaker 1: We've got the cart before the horse. I think when
Speaker 1: we start from the cognitive so much. And so that's
Speaker 1: why I really encourage people to start with the feeling
Speaker 1: part and start working out your feelings. Pay attention to
Speaker 1: your feelings, apply your brain to your feelings, and that's
Speaker 1: what's going to make the biggest impact on your life
Speaker 1: and who you are.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: And so as I look at the I triple A process, right,
Speaker 3: I think the second A attribute is when I start
Speaker 3: to bring in at least some degree of cognitive because
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out where is this coming from,
Speaker 3: what caused it? Right at that point, I am slightly
Speaker 3: cognitive because I'm trying to make a connection. I know
Speaker 3: what the feeling is. It's anger. I've identified it, I've
Speaker 3: accepted it. Maybe I'm even feeling it in my body
Speaker 3: and becoming more familiar with it. Now I'm moving into
Speaker 3: something more cognitive. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1: I would call it engaging your brain.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, okay, say so yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Even this first step of identifying what you're feeling requires
Speaker 1: your as well, because you're putting words to what you're feeling.
Speaker 1: And if you cannot stop at the big words like
Speaker 1: I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm anxious, I'm irritable. If you
Speaker 1: cannot stop at those big umbrella words and instead try
Speaker 1: to drill down and name it more specifically, anger can
Speaker 1: become helplessness and hurt and all kinds of things.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about self soothing because one of the
Speaker 3: things I've noticed for sure in myself and others is
Speaker 3: that if the emotional stole is really strong, you're not
Speaker 3: going to be able to cognitively work with anything right.
Speaker 3: You're overwhelmed by it. So I assume self soothing is
Speaker 3: the ability to at least turn that down enough that
Speaker 3: you can work with your emotions more skillfully. How would
Speaker 3: you describe what self soothing is?
Speaker 1: Self soothing to me is having a series of things
Speaker 1: that you can choose to do that will basically what
Speaker 1: you said, start giving you more control over what you're feeling,
Speaker 1: a series of healthy things. So different things might work
Speaker 1: in different situations, but the whole I TRIPLEA is part
Speaker 1: of self soothing because it requires you to actually sit
Speaker 1: with your feeling and process it. And that's the single
Speaker 1: most powerful thing you can do to take control of
Speaker 1: the feeling. But sometimes even that doesn't do the trick,
Speaker 1: and you need more, And so I really encourage every
Speaker 1: human being to have a list of things that they
Speaker 1: know helps them feel better. It could be laying down
Speaker 1: with your pet and petting your pet. It could be
Speaker 1: taking a walk outside, looking up at the sky, you know,
Speaker 1: calling a friend, or going to visit your favorite store,
Speaker 1: as long as you don't overspend while you're there for example, cooking, cleaning.
Speaker 1: You know, it's different for everybody.
Speaker 3: I love that idea, and I've talked about it before,
Speaker 3: having this sense of like knowing what things have worked
Speaker 3: for me in the past and having them written down
Speaker 3: because the problem that I've experienced is in the moment,
Speaker 3: if I look at any of those things, I go,
Speaker 3: that's not going to help, are you kidding?
Speaker 2: Me?
Speaker 3: Like a walk, so I just need sort of like
Speaker 3: just do it. You know. The other example I make
Speaker 3: is I know, for me, music is very helpful in
Speaker 3: those moments.
Speaker 1: That's a great one, yep.
Speaker 3: And yet what I also know is that, particularly if
Speaker 3: what I'm dealing with is sort of a really low
Speaker 3: mood or depression, if I go to my music, I'll
Speaker 3: be like, none of it'll look like it sounds going
Speaker 3: to be like nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, And so
Speaker 3: what I've got is a pre made playlist of things
Speaker 3: that I know help and so I don't have to
Speaker 3: figure it out. I just go, all right, just turn
Speaker 3: on the playlist, hit shuffle. One of these songs should
Speaker 3: do it, you know. So I love that idea of
Speaker 3: having sort of written down as a recovering person. I
Speaker 3: certainly talk about this with other recovering people, and certainly
Speaker 3: early in my recovery, which is, what are you going
Speaker 3: to do when a craving hits? Yes, because in the moment,
Speaker 3: the emotion, as you're saying, is so strong. Do you
Speaker 3: have any other sort of go to self soothing tools
Speaker 3: that people might consider beyond naming your emotions? And you
Speaker 3: listed a couple other really good ones, but to any
Speaker 3: others come to mind, I feel like giving people a
Speaker 3: good menu is really helpful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of my favorites that I forgot to mention
Speaker 1: is sitting down and writing. And I think you can
Speaker 1: use your computer or your phone or whatever in type,
Speaker 1: but I think it's best to have paper and pen
Speaker 1: because there's something about your brain to your heart to
Speaker 1: your hand to the paper, and then it's visually there
Speaker 1: in your own writing. You can write a letter to
Speaker 1: the person that you're upset with that you'll never send,
Speaker 1: or you can just write down. It's called automatic writing,
Speaker 1: when you just write right, right, right, right, right right,
Speaker 1: everything that comes to your head. I think that's a
Speaker 1: great coping technique.
Speaker 3: I got a ton of mileage out of that one
Speaker 3: at different points in my life when I had a
Speaker 3: lot of anger. My first marriage ended in a very
Speaker 3: hurtful way to me. I'm not saying I didn't have
Speaker 3: a role in why the marriage wasn't good, but I
Speaker 3: mean I just wrote the most hateful letters. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, things that I'd be ashamed to say out loud,
Speaker 3: but that's what was coming up. And I just would
Speaker 3: write and write and write, and then I would just
Speaker 3: destroy it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It was so helpful to me as a way, particularly
Speaker 3: if processing anger. That is a great one. As we're
Speaker 3: talking about attribution, I'm going back to that for a second.
Speaker 3: You say one way to get to the real heart
Speaker 3: of a matter is to practice vertical questioning in addition
Speaker 3: to horizontal questioning. Could you explain what vertical versus horizontal
Speaker 3: questioning is?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a communication technique. Usually when I talk
Speaker 1: about it, it's talking to someone else. Okay, So it's
Speaker 1: really a good way to form or deepen a friendship
Speaker 1: or a relationship or even with someone you just met.
Speaker 1: So horizontal questions are about facts and details like the weather,
Speaker 1: the traffic, things that you've done, activities you've done, and
Speaker 1: vertical questions are more thought provoking questions that require a
Speaker 1: person to focus internally a little bit and consider themselves
Speaker 1: and maybe even consult their feelings. So instead of what
Speaker 1: did you major in high school or college, it would
Speaker 1: be how did you choose that for yourself? And what
Speaker 1: is it about that that captured your passion?
Speaker 2: Like that?
Speaker 1: So really the whys that helps someone think more deeply
Speaker 1: and that enable you to connect with them more.
Speaker 3: It strikes me that that's also a horizontal question in
Speaker 3: like a conflict with someone else, and I'm just more
Speaker 3: or less thinking out loud now. Horizontal question could be
Speaker 3: kind of about what are the facts of what actually
Speaker 3: happened here? And then the vertical question is how do
Speaker 3: we both feel about it? But I often feel like
Speaker 3: conversations with people, particularly conflict are almost diagonal, right, Those
Speaker 3: two questions get mixed into the same thing, and it
Speaker 3: can be very helpful if you can tweeze them apart
Speaker 3: and be like, well, hang on a second, here's what
Speaker 3: actually happened. Can we agree on that? Like, I did
Speaker 3: not take out the trash? Okay, agreed, we both did. Like, now,
Speaker 3: how does that make you know? How do we feel
Speaker 3: about that? Versus combining them into the same sort of conversation.
Speaker 1: Oh? Absolutely, especially couples do that. It just it all
Speaker 1: gets mixed together. And consider it. Every two people has
Speaker 1: a different perception of everything. It's really important to keep
Speaker 1: your perceptions of the facts separate from your feelings about it.
Speaker 1: Usually the solution lies in the feelings part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've sort of talked about healing this, and you've
Speaker 3: said that the primary thing is to get more comfortable
Speaker 3: and literate with my emotions, to go seek them out
Speaker 3: and inquire more deeply into them and learn more about
Speaker 3: them and welcome them. What else is there that we
Speaker 3: haven't talked about that you feel like would be important
Speaker 3: for healing this emotional neglect.
Speaker 1: Well, the first step is figuring out whether this really
Speaker 1: applies to you or not. And I think for most
Speaker 1: people that have a significant case of emotional neglect, Like
Speaker 1: if someone's listening to this podcast, then they feel like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this sounds like me. I think that
Speaker 1: is a really good indicator, and that's the first step
Speaker 1: in healing, is really owning and understanding Okay, this is
Speaker 1: how I grew up, this is how it affected me.
Speaker 1: And a great place to start that because most people
Speaker 1: can't remember emotional neglect, so a good way to find
Speaker 1: out whether you have it is to go to my
Speaker 1: website and take the Emotional Neglect Questionnaire, which is just
Speaker 1: a series of yes or no questions about your current life. Now,
Speaker 1: So take that test and start learning everything you can
Speaker 1: learn about emotional neglect. There are lots of free resources
Speaker 1: available on my website, and you know, I think the
Speaker 1: biggest part of heeling is about just changing your own
Speaker 1: relationship with your own emotions and starting to view the
Speaker 1: measure friends instead of just irrelevant or enemies, and starting
Speaker 1: to just treat them differently and live differently with them.
Speaker 1: And then once you're doing that, you start getting more
Speaker 1: glimmers of emotions and more and more feelings, and then
Speaker 1: you can start learning what to do with those feelings.
Speaker 1: And that's the emotion skills that you didn't learn in childhood.
Speaker 1: We kind of have to be having enough feelings to
Speaker 1: apply the emotional skills to and then the final stage
Speaker 1: is applying all of that. You have more depth, you
Speaker 1: have more feelings, you have more skills, and you can
Speaker 1: start putting all that into your relationships. When you get
Speaker 1: to that point, people in your life start to notice
Speaker 1: that you're actually kind of different and it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we'll have links in the show notes to
Speaker 3: your website and to that quiz, so listeners, you can
Speaker 3: just click right through the show notes and get right there.
Speaker 3: We're back on self soothing here. But you said self
Speaker 3: talk is probably the most useful and versatile of all
Speaker 3: self soothing strategies. So talk to me about what good
Speaker 3: self talk looks like.
Speaker 1: Good self talk is compassionate, but it also holds you
Speaker 1: accountable for how you act. But basically it's encouraging and helpful,
Speaker 1: so it can be all the way from you know,
Speaker 1: you can do this, You absolutely can do this talking
Speaker 1: yourself through something that you're worried or afraid of to
Speaker 1: You didn't do that on purpose, you know that you didn't,
Speaker 1: but you still have to take accountability for it and
Speaker 1: deal with it. You know. Now you just have to
Speaker 1: deal with the fallout of that mistake, but you didn't
Speaker 1: choose it. It's not your fault. You know things that
Speaker 1: are reasonable and compassionate. I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: traits of CN people that I didn't mention is low
Speaker 1: self compassion. And it's that attacking voice that can really
Speaker 1: get you into trouble and sap your energy. But when
Speaker 1: you talk to yourself with encouragement and compassion instead, it
Speaker 1: really can turn things around.
Speaker 3: What's the difference or how do you tell when you
Speaker 3: are giving yourself encouraging and helpful self talk and when
Speaker 3: you're trying to sort of minimize an emotion internally. So,
Speaker 3: for example, let's say I'm feeling afraid, I might do
Speaker 3: some self talk about like, hey, you don't need to
Speaker 3: be that frightened of this. You've handled this before. So
Speaker 3: is it really as you said? I start with the
Speaker 3: recognition I'm afraid. It's okay that I'm afraid. The reason
Speaker 3: I'm afraid is this situation, and then the self talk
Speaker 3: sort of falls into that act the final a a
Speaker 3: little bit, which is like okay, Eric, you got this,
Speaker 3: You're okay. You know you've been through this before. If
Speaker 3: it goes that way, you can handle it. That sort
Speaker 3: of thing. Is that where it would slot into that.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I wouldn't call that minimizing a feeling. I
Speaker 1: would call it managing a feeling. And there is a
Speaker 1: big difference.
Speaker 3: Ah, yeah, there is. How do you know the difference?
Speaker 3: I love the distinction. What are some ways of knowing
Speaker 3: the difference?
Speaker 1: Minimizing is basically when you're trying to escape or deny
Speaker 1: that you have a feeling. One of the factors that
Speaker 1: plays in is whether the feeling is useful or not.
Speaker 1: So if it's a feeling that's telling you not to
Speaker 1: jump off a clip.
Speaker 3: Then pretty useful.
Speaker 1: Pay attention to listen to that feeling because it's if
Speaker 1: you use your brain to process it, then you certainly
Speaker 1: don't want to minimize that or manage it because it's
Speaker 1: a healthy feeling, yep. But if it's an unhealthy feeling
Speaker 1: telling you to do something that could be bad for you,
Speaker 1: then use your brain to process it. But instead of
Speaker 1: trying to tell yourself that that feeling isn't important or
Speaker 1: you don't have it, actually take it on and say
Speaker 1: what do I do with this feeling? What does it mean?
Speaker 1: What should I do with it?
Speaker 3: How do I manage it? Sounds to me like if
Speaker 3: I'm talking about being afraid. The difference is not you
Speaker 3: shouldn't be afraid of that, you know, don't be scared.
Speaker 3: It's more I'm afraid. Here's why I'm afraid, and I
Speaker 3: can handle it. It's subtle, but it is a definite
Speaker 3: difference in I'm allowing the feeling instead of saying you
Speaker 3: shouldn't have that feeling and there's no reason to feel that.
Speaker 3: It's I do feel it. That's okay. Here's how I'm
Speaker 3: going to respond.
Speaker 1: Yes, you just said that way better than I did.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Well. We're going to end with something that you said,
Speaker 3: really really well though, and then I'll let you respond
Speaker 3: to it. Which, when you're talking about self talk, you said,
Speaker 3: and I love this line, remind yourself of simple honest truths,
Speaker 3: which will help you keep things in perspective. That is
Speaker 3: so well said, simple honest truths. So give me an
Speaker 3: example of a simple honest truth or two.
Speaker 1: Well, some we've already given. It would be you've done
Speaker 1: this before, you can do it again, or you know
Speaker 1: you have the skills for this, or you know you
Speaker 1: didn't do that on purpose. Every human being makes mistakes.
Speaker 2: It's a good one.
Speaker 1: You're just a human being trying to think of different
Speaker 1: examples for situations. You deserve this, You're worth it. Trust
Speaker 1: yourself on this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One I love also is some version of like, well,
Speaker 3: whatever happens here, you'll be able to handle it. If
Speaker 3: I'm fearing an outcome, I can even go well, even
Speaker 3: if that outcome comes, okay, I can handle it. That's
Speaker 3: one that helps me a lot, is sort of reminding
Speaker 3: myself of my ability to cope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some of those things, if they're ones that you
Speaker 1: need to hear a lot from yourself, just turn it
Speaker 1: into a mantra and have it right there in your
Speaker 1: metaphorical back pocket, ready to grab out and use whenever
Speaker 1: you need it.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 1: I think most people need to have a mantra or two.
Speaker 3: They are very helpful. All right, Well, Denise, thank you
Speaker 3: so much for coming on the show. I've really enjoyed
Speaker 3: this conversation. I really enjoyed the book. There'll be links,
Speaker 3: as I said in the show, notes to your website
Speaker 3: where people can find the questionnaire or find your book
Speaker 3: and all your other work. So thank you so much.
Speaker 3: It's really been enjoyable.
Speaker 1: For me too. Thanks for having me on I've really
Speaker 1: enjoyed it.
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Speaker 3: No