Speaker 1: Hey fam, Hello Sunshine. Today on the bright Side, it's
Speaker 1: Wellness Wednesday, and we're joined by the millennial therapist, doctor
Speaker 1: Sarah Kubrick. She's an existential psychotherapist and the author of
Speaker 1: It's On Me. So if you've ever felt lost or
Speaker 1: struggled to answer the question who am I? Today is
Speaker 1: the show for you. It's Wednesday, October thirtieth. I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2: And I'm Simone Boyce and this is the bright Side
Speaker 2: from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together
Speaker 2: to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.
Speaker 2: Today's Wellness Wednesday is presented by Coligard Danielle.
Speaker 3: We get to kick off.
Speaker 2: Today's show with the brand new November Reese's Book Club Pick.
Speaker 2: This month's pick is We Will Be Jaguars, a Memoir
Speaker 2: of My People by Namante Nikimo and Mitch Anderson.
Speaker 1: Namante n Kimo is an internationally acclaimed activist who's been
Speaker 1: named one of Times one hundred most Influential People, and
Speaker 1: she's also a winner of the magazine's twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: Earth Award. So what does that mean? Well, it's pretty outstanding.
Speaker 1: This award honors people who are quote influencing the future
Speaker 1: of the planet through their work on climate justice, awareness
Speaker 1: and activism.
Speaker 2: So incredible, and she's also the force behind an indigenous
Speaker 2: campaign that led to a court ruling protecting half a
Speaker 2: million acres of Waurani land in the Amazon Rainforest from
Speaker 2: oil extraction.
Speaker 3: We truly need more people like her in the world.
Speaker 1: And this book is a memoir about her life, so
Speaker 1: it tells the incredible story of her growing up in
Speaker 1: the Waarani tribe deep in Ecuador's Amazon Rainforest, all the
Speaker 1: way to her journey as a climate activist fighting to
Speaker 1: protect it. Her story sounds really extraordinary, so I can't
Speaker 1: wait to dive in Simone. It's clear she has this
Speaker 1: really strong sense of identity and dedicated purpose, and in
Speaker 1: that vein of purpose, I'm really excited to talk to today's
Speaker 1: guest doctor. Sarah Krubrick is an existential psychotherapist, the author
Speaker 1: It's On Me, and more commonly known on social media
Speaker 1: as the Millennial Therapist. She shares her tips and musings
Speaker 1: to her over one point seven million followers. Her latest
Speaker 1: book is all about the concept of self loss accepting
Speaker 1: hard truths, and it's really a guide to helping people
Speaker 1: answer that major question.
Speaker 3: Who am I.
Speaker 2: Let's bring her in, doctor Sarah Kubrick. Welcome to the
Speaker 2: bright Side.
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4: I'm really excited.
Speaker 1: We're really excited to your book. It's on Me is
Speaker 1: all about self loss, and this is very personal to you.
Speaker 1: There was a time that you describe being incredibly unhappy
Speaker 1: and experiencing that loss of self. What was going on
Speaker 1: at that time in your life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I was about twenty four. I want to
Speaker 4: say I was kind of just going through life and
Speaker 4: doing what people expected me to do. And I'm hoping
Speaker 4: other people can relate to that where you're like, well,
Speaker 4: I'm twenty So that means that I'll try to find
Speaker 4: like a serious relationship, and I will figure my life
Speaker 4: out and go to grad school or start that job,
Speaker 4: and I'm going to look a certain way and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna have certain friends. And so that's what I did,
Speaker 4: and I got married. I was in grad school and
Speaker 4: I remember having like a little school break and I
Speaker 4: went to La to visit a really close friend of
Speaker 4: mine who knew me from undergrad, and I was telling
Speaker 4: him about all the cool things that I was doing
Speaker 4: that everyone was praising me for and he just kind
Speaker 4: of like looked at me and was like, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 4: that's great, but like, are you happy? I was like,
Speaker 4: how dare you?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 4: I just haven't had anyone actually ask me that question.
Speaker 4: A lot of people just assumed I was happy or
Speaker 4: would say things like, wow, you must be so happy.
Speaker 4: And so it was that moment in my twenties. It
Speaker 4: wasn't even living with self loss. It was recognizing it
Speaker 4: that really hurt. Obviously living with it was painful, but
Speaker 4: I was in so much denial and I didn't even
Speaker 4: know it was happy. But that moment where he asked
Speaker 4: that question and I kind of took a look at
Speaker 4: my life and was like, I have no idea who
Speaker 4: I am. I have like no idea why I'm here.
Speaker 4: That was one of the most painful moments of my life.
Speaker 1: I think self loss when people hear that phrase, it
Speaker 1: means different things to different people. How do you describe
Speaker 1: the experience of self loss?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like becoming a stranger to yourself. Fruly, it's
Speaker 4: looking in a mirror, not feeling like feeling connected with
Speaker 4: that person, not feeling like you possess that person, not
Speaker 4: feeling like you have intimacy with that person. It's looking
Speaker 4: at yourself and looking at your actions and your relationships
Speaker 4: and your decisions and going like, I don't why did
Speaker 4: I do that? Like what, I don't actually know why
Speaker 4: I'm doing the things I'm doing, or I'm surprising myself
Speaker 4: and not in a super positive way. So it's just
Speaker 4: a lack of alignment between how we perceive ourselves and
Speaker 4: what our beliefs are and our values and then how
Speaker 4: we're actually showing up in the world.
Speaker 1: So it's like, when our insides don't match our outsides.
Speaker 4: That's such a great way of saying that, yes, correct,
Speaker 4: I need to use that. I need to feel like,
Speaker 4: when your insides did not match your outsets.
Speaker 1: It's yours. You want to know. A really embarrassing story
Speaker 1: when I learned that term. Yes, I was dating someone who,
Speaker 1: at the end of our relationship said he made a
Speaker 1: pro con list about me that I found, and when
Speaker 1: I spoke to him about the list, he was like,
Speaker 1: I just I'm looking for a Michelle Obama and yes
Speaker 1: in most space. So my first instinct was like, are
Speaker 1: you bor Rock? But I didn't say anything. I didn't
Speaker 1: say I held my tongue and I had a therapy
Speaker 1: appointment that week and I shared it and the therapist
Speaker 1: very wisely said, well, it's a really interesting thing to
Speaker 1: say because he's comparing Michelle Obama's outsides to your insides,
Speaker 1: like we don't have in an inside look into whom
Speaker 1: Michelle Obama is in those intimate moments, and the idea
Speaker 1: of outsides and insides became very clear to me.
Speaker 3: I've thought about it a lot since then.
Speaker 4: I love that and I'm sorry you went through that.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 4: What a thing to say to someone. It's really really yours.
Speaker 4: I also want to be Michelle Obama. I would be
Speaker 4: so great if that was. I was that gracious and
Speaker 4: you know, articulate, and that's yes, we all want this totally.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of articulate, I love the way you lay
Speaker 2: out the distinction in terms of how we think of
Speaker 2: ourselves and identity. You write that identity is who we are,
Speaker 2: roles are what we do.
Speaker 3: This applies to just.
Speaker 2: So much in life, whether it's career or dating, even
Speaker 2: being in a relationship or becoming a parent.
Speaker 1: How does this contribute to self loss?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we get lost in the roles. It's
Speaker 4: it's almost like, you know, do you see the forest
Speaker 4: from the trees sort of metaphor. But it's we all
Speaker 4: get assigned roles. We all take roles on and we
Speaker 4: don't actually understand how much of shapes who we are,
Speaker 4: and we don't have this overview of who we are
Speaker 4: because most of us become over committed to a role.
Speaker 4: So it's like I am now a girlfriend, and you'll
Speaker 4: just see everything else become like dumpster fire because they're
Speaker 4: just like, you know, they're like, I'm a girlfriend and
Speaker 4: that's an important role. Like you want to you know,
Speaker 4: you want to connect you, I want to have intimacy,
Speaker 4: and that's that's wonderful. But we I see people who
Speaker 4: become parents sometimes not know how to navigate, you know,
Speaker 4: other aspects of themselves besides parenthood, and that makes sense.
Speaker 4: That's something I write about in the book. If your
Speaker 4: roles are something that you engage with all the time,
Speaker 4: eventually they will fully shape who you are. But you
Speaker 4: might not like who that person is because it's going
Speaker 4: to feel very one dimensional.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I that definitely resonates with me.
Speaker 2: I identified myself through my career for the first I
Speaker 2: don't know, maybe fifteen years or let's say twelve years
Speaker 2: of adulthood, and then as I became a mom, that
Speaker 2: process helped me disentangle my identity from my career. But
Speaker 2: then there's always the danger of slipping into Oh, I'm
Speaker 2: embodying the mom persona so much of the mom identity
Speaker 2: so much that I'm losing other parts of myself. And
Speaker 2: I think a lot of women struggle with finding the
Speaker 2: right language to define themselves, Like, Okay, how do I
Speaker 2: introduce myself now that I do feel like I'm living
Speaker 2: out all the facets of my humanity? So what are
Speaker 2: the alternative words or phrases that we can use to
Speaker 2: describe ourselves in a more comprehensive, holistic way.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's a really hard question. Actually, I truly believe
Speaker 4: that isolation is an inherent human EXAs experience, which means
Speaker 4: that no one, no other person, no matter how close
Speaker 4: to you, is fully going to understand the complexity and
Speaker 4: the facets of who you are. And that experience is
Speaker 4: really isolating, really lonely, but really profound. And I think
Speaker 4: we need to accept the fact that no one will
Speaker 4: fully understand what it means to be a mother and
Speaker 4: a businesswoman and a friend because they just can't. They
Speaker 4: are not you that don't share the same lived experience,
Speaker 4: And so how I've come to terms with this is different.
Speaker 4: People sometimes get different introductions from me, and sometimes it's like,
Speaker 4: what facet do I feel most connected to right now?
Speaker 4: Which one do I think I want to express in
Speaker 4: this moment, because I can't express it all at once.
Speaker 4: And I think one of the best ways to truly
Speaker 4: show someone who you are is never by the way
Speaker 4: you verbally identify. I think the only way to truly
Speaker 4: answer like who am I is by the way you
Speaker 4: live your life. And so that's such a great question,
Speaker 4: but I think people should take liberties of like, hey,
Speaker 4: what represents me in this very moment, in this very second,
Speaker 4: in this very context, what am I connecting to? What
Speaker 4: do I want to present? You have the right to
Speaker 4: choose whatever that is.
Speaker 1: I feel like I got into relationships in my teen
Speaker 1: years and my twenties that were so not for me.
Speaker 1: And part of the reason, in reflection, why that happened
Speaker 1: was I was figuring out who I was. When we
Speaker 1: think about that sense of self loss, how does knowing
Speaker 1: yourself well come into play?
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh my gosh, And who hasn't been in that experience,
Speaker 4: like in that situation. I think when we're in our twenties,
Speaker 4: we are still figuring it out, and I think that's normal,
Speaker 4: that's actually developmental. And then we'll enter relationships without often
Speaker 4: a very so understanding, which is also okay because what
Speaker 4: you're doing is you're learning about yourself through a relationship.
Speaker 4: I think a relationship can teach her so much forever
Speaker 4: where I'm like, I thought I was this kind of person,
Speaker 4: and then I'm like engaging with my partner, I'm like,
Speaker 4: just kidding, surprise, and there's something wonderful about that. But
Speaker 4: that's wonderful now in my thirties because I'm looking at
Speaker 4: my life and I have this sense of self and
Speaker 4: now I'm kind of evaluating, tweaking, adjusting, editing. In my twenties,
Speaker 4: it wasn't so cute and it wasn't so nice because
Speaker 4: someone would reflect something to me and I'd be like, oh,
Speaker 4: maybe that's who I should be, or maybe that is
Speaker 4: who like I like I was meant to be. And
Speaker 4: without having like a very clear sense of self going
Speaker 4: into relationship, I myself was prone to losing myself further
Speaker 4: in those relationships, so I would become who the person
Speaker 4: wanted me to be and that was because I wanted
Speaker 4: them to love me and I wanted the relationship to
Speaker 4: work out. And so there is this weird thing where
Speaker 4: I believe that relationships, healthy relationships can help you become
Speaker 4: more yourself than you could do alone, and then unhealthy
Speaker 4: relationships can take you further away from yourself than you
Speaker 4: could possibly ever do alone. And so that's I think
Speaker 4: that's like the beauty and sort of the curse of relationships, Sarah.
Speaker 2: In my experience, I've had to forgive myself and love
Speaker 2: myself first before I can know myself. Do you think
Speaker 2: there's any truth to that or like, have you seen
Speaker 2: that pattern in your patience that you've worked with?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's such a fact. It's almost like inverse of
Speaker 4: what I would have thought. I think the forgiveness piece
Speaker 4: absolutely in terms of you need to forgive your past
Speaker 4: self almost to even be willing to look at your
Speaker 4: current self. Like it it takes up our past our,
Speaker 4: remorse or regret. It takes up so much space that
Speaker 4: it's like I can't even engage with what is in
Speaker 4: front of me because because I'm so stuck. So absolutely,
Speaker 4: I think forgiveness plays a massive role and forgiveness comes
Speaker 4: from also understanding. I think there's so much blame and grace.
Speaker 4: My God, we need to give ourselves grace. It's our
Speaker 4: first time probably on earth doing this journey. We're going
Speaker 4: to make mistakes, and I think part of it is
Speaker 4: also why are we assuming life is not about mistakes?
Speaker 4: How do people think we're going to develop? Also, what
Speaker 4: is the point of life if there's no trials and
Speaker 4: mistakes and tentions experiments. I just like, I think that's
Speaker 4: actually the definition of life. So when people are trying
Speaker 4: to avoid it, I think we're setting ourselves up for
Speaker 4: failure in the real sense of the word. And so
Speaker 4: I think forgiveness plays a huge role. The love piece,
Speaker 4: for me, is the final step. I don't think you
Speaker 4: can love someone you don't know, and so for me,
Speaker 4: when I think about actual love, actual intimacy, for me,
Speaker 4: it's first like you're acknowledging yourself that maybe you accept
Speaker 4: whatever you just acknowledged. Then hopefully you'll get to a
Speaker 4: place where you can respect that person and then you
Speaker 4: can like them and then love them. But to me,
Speaker 4: you can't love a stranger in the true sense of
Speaker 4: the word the same way you would love someone that
Speaker 4: you had an intimate relationship with.
Speaker 1: I'd love to also establish the inverse. What does self
Speaker 1: fulfillment look like?
Speaker 4: Oof hmm. I think that looks like a relationship that
Speaker 4: is aligned. So the reason why I say it's a
Speaker 4: relationship is because I don't think self fulfillment is a destination.
Speaker 4: It's an ongoing journey. I don't think the self is static.
Speaker 4: I don't think we get there and we're like, hey, self,
Speaker 4: and now you sit with it till you're eighty. I
Speaker 4: think self fulfillment to me is a constant desire to understand,
Speaker 4: to connect, and to align with yourself. It's not a checklist.
Speaker 4: It is not like a I'm doing in therapy and
Speaker 4: then I'm like, I'm done. Like if a client came
Speaker 4: up to me and said my goal in therapy is
Speaker 4: to be self fulfilled, I'm like, sweet, so are we
Speaker 4: doing this forever?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: Is this a monthly, a yearly subscription, a decades Like?
Speaker 4: It's just it's an ongoing process. And so for me,
Speaker 4: self discovering is just openness, curiosity, and then acting out
Speaker 4: of that place of alignment of your insights match your outsides.
Speaker 4: If I'm going to quote you.
Speaker 1: I'm so honored. Yeah, doctor Kubrick, this is something I
Speaker 1: think about a lot, because I actually attribute a lot
Speaker 1: of my joy and happiness to meaning. Hmmm, I'm wondering, how, like,
Speaker 1: if you are searching for purpose, how do you how
Speaker 1: do you even begin to think about that? Because You're right,
Speaker 1: it's so individual.
Speaker 4: Yeah, something I'll like to do as an activity to
Speaker 4: make it a bit more tangible is I'll get someone
Speaker 4: to tell me their entire schedule for a week or
Speaker 4: maybe even a day. But like when I'm talking excruciating details,
Speaker 4: I mean like excruciating details, and I put it all
Speaker 4: on a page and I'm like, amazing, And then I'll
Speaker 4: ask them to reflect what do they spend most of
Speaker 4: their time on and why? Because the reality is, as humans,
Speaker 4: we will always seek meaning. I think that's something that's very.
Speaker 3: Inherent.
Speaker 4: I think it's an inherent need and so I genuinely
Speaker 4: believe that. And so when we go throughout our day,
Speaker 4: we might not realize that what we're looking for is
Speaker 4: seeking for meaning or living out pieces of that meaning.
Speaker 4: What we're actually doing when I'm actually putting someone's day
Speaker 4: on the page, I'm looking for values. Okay, what are
Speaker 4: your values, because your values and your beliefs are going
Speaker 4: to lead me to your meaning. And I think just
Speaker 4: being really curious of like the things you spend time
Speaker 4: on will tell you what you value. Sit there, explore
Speaker 4: what you value and why, and are there ways that
Speaker 4: you can kind of lean into those values that would
Speaker 4: be maybe create greater impact or make it a little
Speaker 4: more tangible for you. And so I think most of
Speaker 4: us actually do live out some values. Now we will
Speaker 4: face values that will be like, I can't believe that
Speaker 4: is a value of mine, because we always speak of
Speaker 4: values as like a really positive thing. But I think
Speaker 4: once in a while we have this moment of our
Speaker 4: truth of like, oh this has become a value that's
Speaker 4: a little disappointing. Maybe I just need to deprioritize that
Speaker 4: particular value for now. And so it's just about like
Speaker 4: that reflection. But I think oftentimes we're telling ourselves all
Speaker 4: the things we actually need to know.
Speaker 2: We need to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: right back to our conversation with doctor Sarah Kubrick, and
Speaker 2: we're back with doctor Sarah Kubrick. Sarah, I love that
Speaker 2: you've carved out this area of expertise for yourself that
Speaker 2: you call existential therapy. And the reason why I identify
Speaker 2: with this so much is because I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: the existential friend in my friend group. Like we'll go
Speaker 2: to we'll go to dinner, and I'll like warm them
Speaker 2: up a little bit with like some softball questions, but
Speaker 2: eventually we're going to get to what is the meaning
Speaker 2: of life?
Speaker 3: What do you think it is? How did you arrive
Speaker 3: at that?
Speaker 2: I just always love taking existential So I love this
Speaker 2: idea of existential therapy. But break down that term for us.
Speaker 2: What does that term mean? And how can it help
Speaker 2: with self loss?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I love that you do this with
Speaker 4: your friends. I'm like that unpopular, I'm cool kid at
Speaker 4: the table that's like, so like death, what do we think?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Now I do the same thing for
Speaker 2: it or I don't know if it's a good thing
Speaker 2: or a bad thing, but it's just it's authentic to me.
Speaker 4: I think it's a great thing because I think most
Speaker 4: of us have these questions. We're just not addressing it.
Speaker 4: So every therapist sort of has a way of understanding
Speaker 4: their clients. So if you're an attachment in formed therapist,
Speaker 4: you're going to look for the individual attachment in their stories.
Speaker 4: If you're a CPT therapist, you're going to look for
Speaker 4: cognitive patterns and behaviors. And if you're an existential therapist,
Speaker 4: I'm going to look for how are you taking responsibility
Speaker 4: in your life? What is your relationship to freedom, to isolation,
Speaker 4: to meaning to death? So it's really just informed by
Speaker 4: existential philosophy.
Speaker 2: We've set up some of the causes of self loss
Speaker 2: in this conversation, and on our show, we do love
Speaker 2: to talk about solutions. So can we get into some
Speaker 2: of these solutions that you explore through existential therapy?
Speaker 3: What does that look like in practice?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the solution for me for self loss
Speaker 4: is responsibility. It's not sexy, it's really not, but I
Speaker 4: think it's the most liberating, life changing concept once you
Speaker 4: lean into it. I think self loss happens either because
Speaker 4: you have like a big life event and you can't
Speaker 4: reconcile who you were before who you are after. And
Speaker 4: that can be a move, a breakup, divorce, a kid,
Speaker 4: something traumatic, a car accident, a death, and you're just
Speaker 4: feeling really fragmented and you cannot reconcile, you cannot understand
Speaker 4: who you are a past that hurt or past that trauma,
Speaker 4: and then sometimes it's really really gradual. So you're betraying yourself,
Speaker 4: abandoning yourself in relationships, at work, no boundaries, not communicating,
Speaker 4: not setting up for yourself, doing things that are not
Speaker 4: aligned with your values. So there's so many ways to
Speaker 4: get there, but all of it kind of stops when
Speaker 4: you understand that no one can protect you the way
Speaker 4: that you can protect yourself, and no one can shape
Speaker 4: you the way that you can shape yourself. And so
Speaker 4: we have this wonderful gift of being whoever we want
Speaker 4: to be, but we have to take responsibility for it. It
Speaker 4: does not accidentally happen. I don't think it's like this
Speaker 4: inherent thing where're like and now I'm just going to
Speaker 4: be a phenomenal individual and I don't have to work
Speaker 4: on myself. And so for me, it's taking responsibility for
Speaker 4: every single action, which sounds really tedious. So I think
Speaker 4: people are like, seriously every action. I say, yes, here's
Speaker 4: my rationale. Let's say that you're sensitive to caffeine, such
Speaker 4: as myself, and you're like, I have a really big
Speaker 4: day and I have a serious conversation. I have to
Speaker 4: have with my partner and then I decide to have coffee.
Speaker 4: Now me having coffee or macha, there's such a significant
Speaker 4: difference on my nervous system. And yeah, someone can be like, Wow,
Speaker 4: you had a cup of coffee. Who cares. I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 4: that I need to make an intentional decision of Like
Speaker 4: I have a big day, I'm already a bit nervous.
Speaker 4: I'm a bit anxious. I do not need to be
Speaker 4: having caffeine right now. And so it's like, how do
Speaker 4: I want to address if I'm uncomfortable? Most people act
Speaker 4: a certain way. If they feel more confident, more attractive,
Speaker 4: toy'll act a certain way. And so I literally think
Speaker 4: that every decision that we make, from what we ingest,
Speaker 4: to how we dress, to a conversations we're choosing to
Speaker 4: have all end up shaping our sense of self and
Speaker 4: some respon. You know, some decisions we can make and
Speaker 4: some we can So whenever we have that freedom, taking
Speaker 4: that responsibility for our actions is really important, no matter
Speaker 4: how small the action you think might be.
Speaker 3: I think responsibility is so sexy.
Speaker 4: It's so sexy.
Speaker 2: Even though society doesn't agree right now, like millennial culture
Speaker 2: probably doesn't agree, I don't care.
Speaker 3: I think it's so sexy.
Speaker 4: Well that's because we think it's blame, right, Like we're like,
Speaker 4: there's so much shame with it because it's like it's
Speaker 4: your phone and then only one person we dump everything
Speaker 4: on like one person instead of just being like, responsibility
Speaker 4: means autonomy, It means making amends, it means taking ownership,
Speaker 4: it means possession. That's hot, you know, blame not so hot.
Speaker 4: So I get it, but I think we need to
Speaker 4: like we need to bring back responsibility in like a
Speaker 4: sexy way and be like, this is what it actually means.
Speaker 4: It's accountability, it's possession, it's ownership. It's like empowered rather
Speaker 4: than like it's you are you know, you screwed up
Speaker 4: and you don't deserve other chances and you should be
Speaker 4: ashamed and we hate you.
Speaker 1: Well, what's the correlation between responsibility and freedom?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so my take, my hot take maybe is you're
Speaker 4: not really responsible for things. You're not free to choose
Speaker 4: to do or not do. So if you had the
Speaker 4: freedom to make a choice and then you chose it,
Speaker 4: that is on you. And if you didn't obviously have
Speaker 4: that choice, then that's not on you. Now it gets
Speaker 4: real twisty and dark when I don't actually think our
Speaker 4: freedom is ever fully taken away, which is just my
Speaker 4: way of saying, I think we're pretty much always responsible
Speaker 4: to a different degree because we all have different freedoms
Speaker 4: and different limitations and constraints. But that was just like
Speaker 4: a fun run around way of saying, like, huh, we're
Speaker 4: always responsible. And as you said, no one wants to
Speaker 4: hear that.
Speaker 1: It's kind of empowering to hear it, though.
Speaker 4: I think so Imagine if I couldn't change my life.
Speaker 4: Imagine if my mistakes were in my fault, Like I'm
Speaker 4: just kind of like i'd be even more pissed. You know,
Speaker 4: there is slight situations you find yourself in and you're like,
Speaker 4: this really wasn't on me, and I'm taking the heed
Speaker 4: for it, and I don't like it, and that's a
Speaker 4: really frustrating position to be in. But I kind of
Speaker 4: like the fact that a lot of it does boil
Speaker 4: down to me, and as much as I hate it,
Speaker 4: I go like, well, at least I did it to me.
Speaker 4: At least, like if I don't like the person I'm seeing,
Speaker 4: that's probably my curation, which means I have the freedom
Speaker 4: and the capacity to make something in someone I am
Speaker 4: proud of.
Speaker 1: It's time for another short break. We'll be right back
Speaker 1: with doctor Sarah Kubrick, and we're back to wellness Wednesday
Speaker 1: with doctor Sarah Kubrick. There's this big movement on TikTok
Speaker 1: where women are talking about how to get to the
Speaker 1: vision board version of yourself and they write down these
Speaker 1: lists of what does this version of myself eat, what
Speaker 1: does the day look like for her? Who is she
Speaker 1: friends with, what job does she have? And similar to
Speaker 1: what you were saying earlier, which is like with the
Speaker 1: exercise you did about your values and purpose, is like,
Speaker 1: is there a discrepancy between who this person is and
Speaker 1: what you are doing and living and eating right now?
Speaker 1: And then you have the power to change it. I
Speaker 1: think it's very cool.
Speaker 4: I think it's so tangible, it's very practical. It's very cool.
Speaker 4: My only hesitation is I never want to over commit
Speaker 4: to one version of myself wow say more good right,
Speaker 4: because that limits my growth. I don't want to be
Speaker 4: like I just want to be this woman because when
Speaker 4: I reach that, what then? And what if along the
Speaker 4: way I realized that's no longer who I want to be.
Speaker 4: That you're no longer aligned. And this happens all the time.
Speaker 4: And so for me, the number one piece of advice
Speaker 4: give people these don't over commit to one version of yourself.
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3: I love that so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think it's just really really important. And activities like
Speaker 4: this are absolutely great as long as you still reassess
Speaker 4: that person you're trying to become, Like every week where
Speaker 4: you're like, do I still want her to eat this way?
Speaker 4: Do I still want her to dress that way? Do
Speaker 4: I still want her to have kids? Not have kids?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, Because it's a fluid, noisy discussion with ourselves
Speaker 2: that we're always engaged in.
Speaker 3: Right Yeah.
Speaker 2: I can hear our besties, you know, as we're talking
Speaker 2: about all this, and I can kind of hear their
Speaker 2: wheels turning, because I imagine that some people have questions
Speaker 2: about what happens when we want to feel that freedom
Speaker 2: and embody freedom, but life throws stuff our way that's
Speaker 2: just out of our control. Talking about things like profound loss, violence, illness,
Speaker 2: climate change, war and conflict, which I know you have
Speaker 2: personal experience with your childhood. How can we protect against
Speaker 2: self loss in circumstances that might just be unjust and
Speaker 2: unfair and out of our control.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, there's way too much of that right now.
Speaker 4: And I think it's important to remember that this concept
Speaker 4: I draw upon comes from Victor Frankel, who survived the
Speaker 4: concentration camps. So it was written by someone who's probably
Speaker 4: seen some of the worst of humanity. It wasn't written
Speaker 4: by someone who didn't, who had a really nice life,
Speaker 4: and for him, the last of human freedoms was his attitude.
Speaker 4: So freedom is not always freedom of action or freedom
Speaker 4: of feeling. Necessarily, it is like, I choose to have
Speaker 4: this attitude despite of what is happening. And I think
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, that's all he had.
Speaker 4: He couldn't choose when he slept, aid, if he lived
Speaker 4: or he died, what he did that day, And yet
Speaker 4: he still argued that he was free. He had some
Speaker 4: degree of freedom, and I think that that's a really
Speaker 4: beautiful thing of No one can actually break that spirit
Speaker 4: from you, know what can take away freedom fully from
Speaker 4: you until you die In a sense of shit, things
Speaker 4: are happening, painful things are happening, and you can still
Speaker 4: kind of choose how you want to position yourself, how
Speaker 4: you want to think about it, while your attitude is
Speaker 4: going to be how are you going to speak to yourself?
Speaker 4: And I think that's there's something really cool about that.
Speaker 4: It's a very sensitive topic and there's going to be
Speaker 4: moments where we don't feel free, and that's okay too.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying everyone has to believe that they always
Speaker 4: have freedom, but I do lean on the sort of
Speaker 4: on that side of we probably have more freedom than
Speaker 4: we think, even if it's just like I'm choosing my
Speaker 4: attitude today.
Speaker 2: I actually think that really is applicable. Whenever people say
Speaker 2: they're feeling stuck in their careers or even just stuck
Speaker 2: in life, you know, like stuck in a situation that
Speaker 2: they feel like they need to move out of. We
Speaker 2: always have agent and see, even if it's in the
Speaker 2: smallest way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I love that you just brought this up.
Speaker 4: A lot of people that come and say they're stuck.
Speaker 4: What they mean is they can't experience change while doing
Speaker 4: nothing different. That's what people mean by stuck. And I'm like, yes,
Speaker 4: you will never experience something different if you keep doing
Speaker 4: the same thing. But I always go, let's put down
Speaker 4: the consequences. Tell me all the things you could hypothetically do.
Speaker 4: If people are like I hate my job and I'm
Speaker 4: stuck or I hate this relationship, I'm like, what are
Speaker 4: all the things that you could hypothetically do. They're like, well,
Speaker 4: I can leave, I can quit, I can go up
Speaker 4: to my boss, I can start this or that, and
Speaker 4: so the I'm like, oh, so you do have choices,
Speaker 4: They're like, well, and I'm like, no, what you're saying
Speaker 4: is you don't want the consequences of those choices. But
Speaker 4: don't confuse that with not having a choice, because often
Speaker 4: we're just choosing consequences, which is okay, and you need
Speaker 4: to think about the consequences. But I love to tell
Speaker 4: people like, no, you do actually have the choice to
Speaker 4: leave your partner. This is not an abuse context. We're
Speaker 4: just talking about like someone who's like I'm stuck and
Speaker 4: I'm like, who am I going to date now? And
Speaker 4: you know, like those people are like I'm not really sure,
Speaker 4: but like I don't want to leave, And I'll say,
Speaker 4: you actually do have the choice to leave. You're just
Speaker 4: choosing not to do it because of the consequence, which
Speaker 4: means you're choosing to stay. And the fact that people
Speaker 4: can understand that they're choosing to stay liberates them. Sometimes
Speaker 4: you don't actually have to change your actions, you just
Speaker 4: have to change your attitude towards your actions. So being
Speaker 4: like this is a choice, this is not an obligation,
Speaker 4: is incredibly liberating. Or then they'll realize, like, Okay, maybe
Speaker 4: I should be a little less worried about the consequences
Speaker 4: and recognize that I do have these choices and I
Speaker 4: need to honor myself by trying something different.
Speaker 2: You are such an essential voice in this conversation today.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us on the bright side.
Speaker 4: Thank you Cues so much for having me. It's truly
Speaker 4: an honor.
Speaker 2: Doctor Sarah Kubrick is an existential psychotherapist and the author
Speaker 2: of It's On Me. You can find her on Instagram
Speaker 2: as the Millennial Therapist.
Speaker 1: That's it. For today's show, Tomorrow it is Halloween. Comedian
Speaker 1: and podcaster Lauren Lapkis joins us to talk all things spooky.
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