Speaker 1: Core emotions are first and foremost physical experiences. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized
Speaker 1: the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true,
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf m Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Hillary Jacobs Hendel, a
Speaker 1: psychotherapist who switched from practicing traditional talk psychotherapy to accelerated
Speaker 1: experimental dynamic psychotherapy. She teaches us that our core emotions
Speaker 1: like joy, anger, sadness, fear, and excitement are automatic and
Speaker 1: universal physical experiences, which is firmly grounded in neuroscience. Her
Speaker 1: new book is It's Not Always Depression, which was the
Speaker 1: award winner of the two thousand and eighteen Best Book
Speaker 1: Award for Psychology and Mental Health, as sponsored by the
Speaker 1: American Book Fest. Hi Hillary, Welcome to the show. Thank you, Eric.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to be here. I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: talk with you about your book called It's Not Always Depression,
Speaker 1: Working the Change Triangle to listen to the body, discover
Speaker 1: core emotion, and connect to your authentic self. But before
Speaker 1: we get into the book, let's start like we always do,
Speaker 1: with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his
Speaker 1: granddaughter and he says, in life, there are two wolves
Speaker 1: inside of us that are always a battle. One is
Speaker 1: a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
Speaker 1: and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like creed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 1: granddaughter stops and thinks about it for a second and
Speaker 1: looks up at her grandfather and she says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Well. It means a lot, right,
Speaker 1: There's so many themes in that parable that feel very important.
Speaker 1: I guess what it brings up for me is this
Speaker 1: idea well one in terms of being a therapist, the
Speaker 1: brain learns by what you repeat over and over again.
Speaker 1: So and the one way you know in the on
Speaker 1: the in hand feeding the attributes that you want by
Speaker 1: practicing them over and over again, by training your thoughts
Speaker 1: to be kind as opposed to being greedy. To me,
Speaker 1: the parable is just in any way, shape or form
Speaker 1: that you can focusing and practicing behaviors thoughts that turn
Speaker 1: your mind in the direction that you want it to go.
Speaker 1: So that's one way. So the other thing that the
Speaker 1: parable brings to mind, because I'm um an emotion focused psychotherapist,
Speaker 1: is really what are the ways that cultivate goodness in humans?
Speaker 1: And so besides, you know, more like CBT therapists would
Speaker 1: think about directing the mind and learning, right, we're talking
Speaker 1: about directing the mind and honing in on ways that
Speaker 1: you want to cultivate. The other way to cultivate goodness
Speaker 1: and kindness and love is through empathy and connection and
Speaker 1: expression of one's core emotions, even when those emotions are
Speaker 1: emotions like anger, and that by moving through those emotions
Speaker 1: as opposed to blocking them. I believe people are good
Speaker 1: at the basic core and by cultivating healthy, regulated states
Speaker 1: of mind. Right, this is the sort of the biology
Speaker 1: of it. We get to more in in the good
Speaker 1: wolf directions than the good wolf's intentions. In the title,
Speaker 1: you talk about connecting to your authentic self, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of what what you're pointing at
Speaker 1: here is that authentic self has lots of really good qualities.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that it has seven seas um, so maybe
Speaker 1: let's start there. Because the goal of working the change triangle,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about what that is here in a sect,
Speaker 1: it is to get us to our authentic self and
Speaker 1: these seven seas so maybe you could talk about what
Speaker 1: they are. That's a great idea. So the idea behind
Speaker 1: this is again this goes back to effective neuroscience, really
Speaker 1: the science of emotions and the biology of emotions and
Speaker 1: what happens when the mind, brain, and body is calm,
Speaker 1: meaning that it's not in a hyper aroused state or
Speaker 1: not in a hypo aroused state, it's in an optimal
Speaker 1: homeostatic state. That when we are regulated, we are calm
Speaker 1: in mind and body, We feel connected, we have the
Speaker 1: capacity for compassion towards ourselves and to others. We have
Speaker 1: the capacity for curiosity. We are more creative, we are
Speaker 1: clear in thoughts, and as a result, we tend to
Speaker 1: feel more confident at ourselves. And this is a state
Speaker 1: that is called core state and the type of therapy
Speaker 1: I practice, and I've called it open hearted state in
Speaker 1: regards to the change triangle. But it's a state that
Speaker 1: we all feel good and we all want to spend
Speaker 1: as much time in that state as possible. It's where
Speaker 1: good things happen and where we can think and feel
Speaker 1: and connect and relate to others all at the same time. Yep.
Speaker 1: And so maybe real quick, I'll just describe to listeners
Speaker 1: that change triangle real quick my understanding, and then you
Speaker 1: can sort of add to it. But listeners, if you
Speaker 1: think of a triangle, an inverted triangle, at the bottom
Speaker 1: are our core emotions, which when we experience authentically, leads
Speaker 1: us to that authentic self. And then in the upper
Speaker 1: left we have um defenses that tend to block us
Speaker 1: from our core emotions, and in the upper right we
Speaker 1: have emotions that are considered inhibitory. And so the goal
Speaker 1: of work in the change triangle is to get past
Speaker 1: the defenses, get past the inhibitory emotions I can't say
Speaker 1: that word very well, and get to our core emotions.
Speaker 1: So is there anything you want to add to that
Speaker 1: basic idea? Um, I'm just trying to sort of put
Speaker 1: a picture and listeners heads real quick. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a great concise description, much better than I could do.
Speaker 1: But the only thing I would add is that if
Speaker 1: you imagine that this upside down triangle is superimposed on
Speaker 1: um on all of your bodies out there, and that
Speaker 1: the point of the triangle would be somewhere around your
Speaker 1: belly button in your body, and that's to remind us
Speaker 1: that core emotions. And I'm just going to tell the
Speaker 1: listeners what the core emotions are, so they're not in suspense.
Speaker 1: It's fear, anger, sadness, discussed, joy, excitement, and sexual excitement
Speaker 1: and what makes those cores that were born with them prewired,
Speaker 1: and those are what help us survive in the world.
Speaker 1: They're like a compass for what's good for us and
Speaker 1: what's bad for us. So they're in the body and
Speaker 1: then the triangle extends up. You can sort of imagine
Speaker 1: it coming up just around the level of your head
Speaker 1: and shoulders, and yes, we want to get from the
Speaker 1: top of the triangle down to the bottom where the
Speaker 1: core emotions live, because the core motions are the doorway
Speaker 1: to this open hearted state, and they're also the doorway
Speaker 1: to going up the triangle into more defensive and disconnected states.
Speaker 1: That's a great description, particularly the where it sits on
Speaker 1: the body. I didn't think I quite picked that part up.
Speaker 1: But let's talk a little bit about inhibitory emotions for
Speaker 1: a moment. So you talked about what the core emotions are.
Speaker 1: These are the core states, and there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of debate in the community about what exactly all the
Speaker 1: core emotions are, but you've named you know, pretty much
Speaker 1: everybody agrees with with those basic ideas. What are inhibitory emotions, Well,
Speaker 1: those are emotions that we need to keep us connected
Speaker 1: to each other, to keep us civilized and working together,
Speaker 1: because humans do better when they work together. So if
Speaker 1: the core emotions are kind of what's good for me,
Speaker 1: the inhibitory emotions are designed by nature to be what
Speaker 1: is good for the group. And therefore there's constant kind
Speaker 1: of polarity or conflict between our core emotions and what
Speaker 1: is good for the group. So we have these three
Speaker 1: inhibitory emotions which act to kind of squash or pushed
Speaker 1: down the core emotions. So, for example, and the inhibitory
Speaker 1: emotions are as you mentioned, anxiety, guilt, and shame, those three,
Speaker 1: and they all work in the same way, not the
Speaker 1: exact same way physiologically, but they all dampen core emotional experience. So,
Speaker 1: for example, we all know the feeling of being ashamed.
Speaker 1: It's it's excruciating right where you just want to hide
Speaker 1: and disappear. And so I don't, and I think most listeners,
Speaker 1: most people in the world can relate to this idea
Speaker 1: of being in an sort of an open, vulnerable, excited
Speaker 1: state and then all of a sudden, let's say we're little,
Speaker 1: and you know we're you're running with open arms to
Speaker 1: your parent, full of vitality and excitement. And I really
Speaker 1: think of parents for the most part as trying to
Speaker 1: do the right thing, and the intention is not to
Speaker 1: hurt children. But this is just an example of how
Speaker 1: shame works. So in a moment of kind of energy
Speaker 1: coming out and vitality, a parent might say what are
Speaker 1: you so excited about? Or you know, one of your
Speaker 1: friends might look at you at the wrong way, like
Speaker 1: you're weird or something. And then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you have this excruciating experience of wanting to withdraw inward.
Speaker 1: That's right there where you can see that moment when
Speaker 1: the when a core feeling is coming up and out
Speaker 1: and this response from someone else makes the core emotion
Speaker 1: receipt and the kind of the whole self recepd inward,
Speaker 1: and you know, creating this pretty big internal conflict. Because
Speaker 1: core emotions want to they need expression. They have energy
Speaker 1: upwards and they want to come out, um, and they
Speaker 1: want to be shared, and the inhibitory emotions are all
Speaker 1: about the opposite. It's about keeping them in in a
Speaker 1: variety of different ways. And you say that, um, you know,
Speaker 1: these inhibitory emotions help keep us connected to others, to
Speaker 1: our parents, primary caregivers, peer groups, schools, etcetera. But that
Speaker 1: they have a cost, and the cost is that our
Speaker 1: emotional energy gets trapped. So if those inhibitory emotions are
Speaker 1: what dominates the scene, I guess right, then those core
Speaker 1: emotions don't ever get expressed or felt or dealt with.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, exactly, and you lose a sense of
Speaker 1: feeling connected to yourself you can feel disembodied or too
Speaker 1: much in your head, but that's exactly right. And the
Speaker 1: inhibitory emotions we need, you know, they civilize us so
Speaker 1: that we all auction. It's really when the amounts of
Speaker 1: them are too much that that people start to really
Speaker 1: suffer chronically and and and then start to rely on
Speaker 1: using defenses, which I'm defining on the change triangle is
Speaker 1: anything we do to avoid feeling pain or discomfort, emotional
Speaker 1: pain or discomfort. So if we're spending too much time
Speaker 1: on the top of the triangle in anxiety, guilt and
Speaker 1: shame and defenses, that's when those are the symptoms that
Speaker 1: like depression and chronic anxiety and all the many of
Speaker 1: the diagnosis and the d s M five. That's what
Speaker 1: people come into my office experiencing. And so let's talk
Speaker 1: about the difference between defenses and I cannot say that
Speaker 1: word inhabitory emotions. Um, what's the difference between defenses and
Speaker 1: those That's a great question. And someone asked me this
Speaker 1: the other day too. In a way, they're the same thing.
Speaker 1: I just treat them differently because they're they're both taking
Speaker 1: us away from our core authentic experience and our core feelings.
Speaker 1: But the reason that I differentiate inhibitory emotions in defenses
Speaker 1: is because we would work with them differently to help
Speaker 1: ourselves feel better and anxiety, guilt, and shame are very
Speaker 1: specific effective states that we can have a number of
Speaker 1: techniques that I try to share in my work to
Speaker 1: feel better. The defenses are when you're just doing these
Speaker 1: kind of unconscious protective maneuvers that you don't even know
Speaker 1: that you're doing that are a way to just protect
Speaker 1: us from feeling pain, or discomfort or awkwardness a variety
Speaker 1: of different experiences, physical and emotional. Yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: thing that struck me was that defenses guard you against
Speaker 1: both the core emotions and the inhibitory emotions. So we
Speaker 1: can use a defen because the inhibitory emotions are uncomfortable
Speaker 1: to guilt, shame, anxiety, and so we use it as
Speaker 1: a way not to even get that far into the process. Exactly.
Speaker 1: Well said, let's talk a little bit about what it
Speaker 1: means to work the change triangle. You use that phrase
Speaker 1: often to work the change triangle, So what does that
Speaker 1: look like in practice. The idea behind this is that
Speaker 1: this was a tool that I was taught in my
Speaker 1: training that is used by psychotherapists that practice experiential psychotherapy,
Speaker 1: which they are a variety of different types. And I
Speaker 1: was teaching this triangle to my patients and they were
Speaker 1: using it, and I'm using it and practically on a
Speaker 1: daily basis. My colleagues are using it, my friends and
Speaker 1: families who I taught it to, and I really just
Speaker 1: thought for years that this is a great public health
Speaker 1: self help tool. And so the idea of working the
Speaker 1: Change Triangle is on a daily basis, whenever you notice
Speaker 1: that you are in some sort of distress, or whenever
Speaker 1: you are being told, let's say, and by your people
Speaker 1: you feel close to, that you're behaving badly, or that
Speaker 1: you're doing things that are disrupting your relationships, whether it's
Speaker 1: in work or whether it's in love and romance, that
Speaker 1: there's this guide or a map, or a tool, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it, that gives us a path
Speaker 1: to feeling better. And we can use it on our
Speaker 1: own as a self help tool, and we can also
Speaker 1: use it in conjunction with psychotherapy or coaching when we
Speaker 1: get stuck and when we need somebody else to kind
Speaker 1: of guide us or to be with us while we
Speaker 1: experience painful emotions because we're wired for connection. So depending
Speaker 1: on how much pain and trauma there was, we're going
Speaker 1: to need somebody else to guide us. But for everyday
Speaker 1: kind of use and direction on how to feel better,
Speaker 1: the change triangle is just it's a great tool. So
Speaker 1: you brought up the trauma word, and in the book
Speaker 1: you refer to small T trauma and big T trauma,
Speaker 1: and I was wondering if you could share with us
Speaker 1: from your perspective what the difference between those two is. Yes,
Speaker 1: So first I want to just say and equivocally that
Speaker 1: trauma is trauma. So I don't want anyone to feel
Speaker 1: that one trauma is more important than another trauma. But
Speaker 1: there are when we hear the word trauma. We are
Speaker 1: all slightly educated to know that that trauma is a
Speaker 1: catastrophic event that in one moment can really change your
Speaker 1: brain and affect how you feel, and you can develop
Speaker 1: symptoms like post traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and various
Speaker 1: other things from a catastrophic event like war or being
Speaker 1: a victim of a crime, or overt abuse and neglect.
Speaker 1: But there's a whole other type of trauma that is
Speaker 1: largely invisible and it's those are what I'm calling small
Speaker 1: T traumas, And it's so important that everybody in that
Speaker 1: knows about these types of traumas so that we don't
Speaker 1: feel crazy when we're not that there's a reason for
Speaker 1: our suffering. And the type of traumas that are everything
Speaker 1: else are are anything from well, let's just take the obvious,
Speaker 1: like divorce or death, which could be a large T
Speaker 1: trauma to depending on Uh, there's no there's sort of
Speaker 1: no fine line delineation. Um, it's sort of how you
Speaker 1: feel that you want to categorize it. But small T
Speaker 1: traumas would be like moving, would be divorced parents would
Speaker 1: be like gay, being gay, coming out in a in
Speaker 1: a community where you don't have a lot of support,
Speaker 1: Or transgender it would be being in a peer group
Speaker 1: where you are different than most people for a variety
Speaker 1: of reasons. Maybe you're not good in sports and you
Speaker 1: go to a school where that's what's valued. Uh, you
Speaker 1: could just be from being bullied a few times, or
Speaker 1: from being a different color than most of the people
Speaker 1: in your neighborhood or community. So all these these ways
Speaker 1: where anxiety and fear and lots of emotions would be evoked,
Speaker 1: including shame, are evoked, and there's not enough support to
Speaker 1: help a child or teenager kind of metabolize what's happening
Speaker 1: to them, and there or there's no language to describe
Speaker 1: what's happening to You can create a situation where you
Speaker 1: have lots of emotions that are being triggered naturally the
Speaker 1: way they're supposed to do, and not a lot of support.
Speaker 1: So then we have to start using our defenses or
Speaker 1: inhibitory emotions to squash them down because there's nobody there
Speaker 1: to receive them and to validate them and make us
Speaker 1: feel Okay, let's talk about this idea of working with
Speaker 1: emotions in a way that allows us to experience them. So,
Speaker 1: what are some of the ways that um, let's say
Speaker 1: we're we recognize the guilt, the shame, UM, the anxiety
Speaker 1: that we talked about, the inventory emotions. What's the process
Speaker 1: of of starting to look at those, examine those, and
Speaker 1: and work through those so that then we can get
Speaker 1: to the core emotions. So what does that process of
Speaker 1: moving down the change triangle from the inhibitory emotions down
Speaker 1: to the core emotions. Yeah, so the first thing that
Speaker 1: we want to do is be able to recognize which
Speaker 1: corner of the triangle that we are on. So if
Speaker 1: you imagine like, um, you know, in in again, I'll
Speaker 1: use myself as an example going on in daily life.
Speaker 1: Let's say and I live in New York City and
Speaker 1: somebody you know knocks into me right and I feel
Speaker 1: this guy was kind of feeling pretty good. I was
Speaker 1: pretty calm, and then all of a sudden, I am
Speaker 1: jolted into a state of agitation. So now I am
Speaker 1: recognizing that my state has radically altered and I don't
Speaker 1: feel good anymore, and I want to work on that.
Speaker 1: So I will visualize the triangle and I we'll try
Speaker 1: to name my am I on the top left corner
Speaker 1: where I am feeling defensive. So the way that I
Speaker 1: might recognize that is I feel like, well, I would
Speaker 1: have to sort of use a different example for this,
Speaker 1: but well no, Let's say that, um, instead of feeling
Speaker 1: this agitated feeling, I kind of numb out, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I am like out of body. For example,
Speaker 1: that would be an example of a defense. So I
Speaker 1: might recognize that I'm on the defensive corner. I might
Speaker 1: feel like I want to have a drink right now.
Speaker 1: That would be a defense against feeling my feelings. Um,
Speaker 1: I might start muttering all sorts of curses and thinking, gosh,
Speaker 1: I hate everybody in the whole world, not this particular person.
Speaker 1: That would be an example of a defense. So I
Speaker 1: might be on the defensive corner. I might on the
Speaker 1: other hand, I'm trying to figure out if I am
Speaker 1: feeling anxiety, shame, guilt, experiencing one of the core motions
Speaker 1: on the bottom. So first I would have this visual
Speaker 1: in my mind, or some people carry it the change
Speaker 1: triangle with them and put it in their pocket and
Speaker 1: they look at the diagram or they call it up
Speaker 1: on on their iPhone or something like that. So you
Speaker 1: want to really identify where you are. And then once
Speaker 1: you know what corner you are on, then you know
Speaker 1: you have to work clockwise to get down to the bottom.
Speaker 1: So if you're in the defensive corner, you want to
Speaker 1: reach for the emotions underneath them, And if you're an anxiety,
Speaker 1: guilt and shame, you want to look for the core emotions.
Speaker 1: So we're always trying to get down to core emotions.
Speaker 1: So if we go back to the example, somebody knocks
Speaker 1: into me, and now I'm pretty good at working this
Speaker 1: change triangle. I will immediately run through all the core
Speaker 1: emotions and ask myself, Am I afraid? Okay, No, I'm
Speaker 1: not afraid. This was not a threat? Am I angry? Yes?
Speaker 1: I am very angry? Am I sad? Not really? Am
Speaker 1: I disgusted? Yeah? I'm kind of disgusted that this person
Speaker 1: wasn't watching where they were going and uh and hurt me?
Speaker 1: Am I joyous? No? Am I excited? No? My sexually excited? No.
Speaker 1: So I'll run through and then I will pretty much
Speaker 1: validate that I am angry and I am disgusted. So
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about that. You you want to
Speaker 1: find all the emotions you have and separate them by
Speaker 1: an and as opposed to a butt. So we want
Speaker 1: to sort of hold all the emotions that we have
Speaker 1: in our minds, kind of imagining them separately, with lots
Speaker 1: of space and air around each one, because each core
Speaker 1: emotion has a different program associated with it that we're
Speaker 1: going to want to be with one at a time.
Speaker 1: And sometimes just knowing what your core emotions are and
Speaker 1: naming them and validating them in your mind helps tremendously
Speaker 1: just calm down, especially if you're anxious and agitated naming
Speaker 1: your core emotions. It's amazing. It really does the trick.
Speaker 1: And that's something about how the left brain and the
Speaker 1: right brain. We want to put language on experience and
Speaker 1: that calms down our brain, and there's science that validates that.
Speaker 1: But it also it happens, you know, the phenomenology, meaning
Speaker 1: when you practice this change triangle, it works, and it's
Speaker 1: a practice. Over a lifetime, you get better and better
Speaker 1: at it, and it's a and it's really a journey
Speaker 1: to knowing yourself. So once you've got your core emotions,
Speaker 1: then you can work with them one at a time
Speaker 1: to process them in in in any number of ways
Speaker 1: that I that I go through in my book, which
Speaker 1: is detailing all of this to get down to a
Speaker 1: calm state. And sometimes you can do it right away,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it takes some time, and sometimes you're gonna
Speaker 1: bring in some other techniques or skills that you've learned
Speaker 1: to feel better. But that's that's the general idea is
Speaker 1: to know where you are in the change triangle and
Speaker 1: then get to the next place on it. And the
Speaker 1: idea is if we experience and feel and process those
Speaker 1: core emotions, we come out the other side into our
Speaker 1: open hearted self or authentic self, those seven c So
Speaker 1: a word that's often used. You've got a lot of
Speaker 1: examples in the book of working with clients is they
Speaker 1: go into the core emotion, they experience it, and they
Speaker 1: go through it and they come out and what they
Speaker 1: they often use his calm. I feel calm now. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I've had this experience over and over where
Speaker 1: I've been willing to really feel what's happening, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, the the example I use most often is
Speaker 1: because they're relatively recently, I had to put two dogs
Speaker 1: to sleep, not too long ago. Um, not not at
Speaker 1: the same time, thank god. But but what I realized
Speaker 1: was I just for whatever reason, was able to allow
Speaker 1: myself just to grieve, just to be sad, and it
Speaker 1: would feel overwhelming. It would sort of come on and
Speaker 1: it would be overwhelming, but I'd go through it and
Speaker 1: it would pass, and I would then come out the
Speaker 1: other side with calm. Clear you know some of the
Speaker 1: seas that you talk about, and so, um, that's kind
Speaker 1: of the idea here, is that that when we allow
Speaker 1: the emotion to happen and we process it and then
Speaker 1: we get to the other side. And in some cases,
Speaker 1: as you've said, sometimes these emotions are so strong and
Speaker 1: so overwhelming, we really need to do this with someone, right.
Speaker 1: But a thing that you mentioned often in the book,
Speaker 1: and um, I've been thinking a lot about is that
Speaker 1: we can often be that support for ourselves. You use
Speaker 1: the idea you mentioned a minute ago about having multiple emotions.
Speaker 1: You also talk about having multiple parts, so you know,
Speaker 1: I'm experiencing something. There might be a part of me
Speaker 1: that feels like it's a child that's going through this.
Speaker 1: But but then the adult part of me here is
Speaker 1: a is also here, and so I can sort of
Speaker 1: use those two parts, the one to calm and soothe
Speaker 1: the other and help process those emotions. So again, sometimes
Speaker 1: we can do it ourselves. Other times it's too overwhelming
Speaker 1: and we need others. But the goal is to allow
Speaker 1: that emotion to have its I guess, moment in the
Speaker 1: sun for lack of a better word, exactly exactly to
Speaker 1: get some air to come up and be recognized exactly.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about anxiety, because anxiety is one of
Speaker 1: the I keep having to say this word that I
Speaker 1: hate saying, inhibitory emotions. I guess I got it, but
Speaker 1: I struggle with it every time. Anxiety is one of those.
Speaker 1: Anxiety also feels like fear. So let's talk for a
Speaker 1: moment about if we recognize its anxiety and we realized
Speaker 1: that that's probably a cover for something else, how do
Speaker 1: we work through that anxiety to try to get to
Speaker 1: the point where we can start to understand what the
Speaker 1: core emotion is or what are some tools we can use.
Speaker 1: The trick is to figure out is it fear? Is
Speaker 1: that anxiety. Excitement also can feel like anxiety. So when
Speaker 1: you're feeling anxious, there's a number of things that you
Speaker 1: can do. The first thing that I do is I
Speaker 1: just reached right there for the core emotions, and you'd
Speaker 1: be surprised what you can do if you just sort
Speaker 1: of imagine, like for me, it's like going through the
Speaker 1: anxiety going down. If you if we were together, you
Speaker 1: could see me, I'm kind of moving my hand down,
Speaker 1: So it's you. You want to go into your body
Speaker 1: and again, see if you can just name am I
Speaker 1: sad am I scared, am I angry? Am I excited?
Speaker 1: Even joy can cause anxiety if somebody wasn't allowed to
Speaker 1: show joy as a child. So we learned to block
Speaker 1: certain core emotions depending on how our family felt about them.
Speaker 1: But we can also do things to come and what's
Speaker 1: called in the jargon to regulate anxiety. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I do with all my patients when they
Speaker 1: start working with me is teaching them how to ground
Speaker 1: their feet on the floor and learn how to deep
Speaker 1: belly breathe, and these two things. I remember when I
Speaker 1: was younger and people said to to breathe, I would
Speaker 1: be so irritable and I would be like, don't tell
Speaker 1: me to breathe, Like that does nothing. And the idea
Speaker 1: of grounding it took me a while, you know, when
Speaker 1: when I was training and therapists would say, you know,
Speaker 1: just feel your feet on the floor, and I would
Speaker 1: go through the motions, but I really wouldn't understand. But
Speaker 1: grounding and breathing are the two most powerful things and
Speaker 1: they take practice, and basically, uh, it's the idea of
Speaker 1: no matter when we're anxious, we go up in our
Speaker 1: heads automatically and we can start to swirl around, and
Speaker 1: the idea is to get out of your head and
Speaker 1: come back into your body, and a safe place in
Speaker 1: your body, which immediately is is someplace you know, peripheral. Right,
Speaker 1: Sometimes we can if we go if we focus on
Speaker 1: what's happening in our core. It can be overwhelming. So
Speaker 1: just this idea of trying to sense the ground with
Speaker 1: the soles of your feet and feel the full weight
Speaker 1: of yourself, kind of the gravitational pull down so that
Speaker 1: you're The idea is to feel very rooted, but it's
Speaker 1: the Also, the idea is to let yourself slow way down.
Speaker 1: It's to take a moment to pause and start to
Speaker 1: breathe deeply and just feel your feet on the ground,
Speaker 1: as simple as that is. That is the technique, and
Speaker 1: just to stay there for what feels like an eternity,
Speaker 1: but maybe twenty seconds, and it takes time to really
Speaker 1: slow every thing down. Once I would say, take four
Speaker 1: or five six deep belly breaths and you're feeling your
Speaker 1: feet on the ground. At the same time, you'll start
Speaker 1: to notice shifts internally and things may feel a little
Speaker 1: bit calmer, or actually core emotions may start to come up,
Speaker 1: and you may begin to sense that you're really angry,
Speaker 1: or you're really sad, or you're frightened. So it's really
Speaker 1: calming the anxiety down with these techniques and then making
Speaker 1: some active attention to what is happening in the body,
Speaker 1: which is how we really learn to recognize what feelings
Speaker 1: we're having. That core emotions are first and foremost physical experiences.
Speaker 1: They get triggered in the middle of the brain, but
Speaker 1: then the middle of the brain sends signals down through
Speaker 1: the major nerves of the body, like the vagus nerve,
Speaker 1: and they start to activate the body. Because the purpose
Speaker 1: of core emotions is to ready us for action, and
Speaker 1: that action is meant by nature to be adaptive, meaning
Speaker 1: if you're frightened, your body gets you ready to run,
Speaker 1: and if you're if you're being attacked, your body gets
Speaker 1: you ready to fight those type of things. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of preparation that goes into making sure that
Speaker 1: one can escape danger and survive. And so emotions are
Speaker 1: largely physical experiences. Most we don't know that. It's like
Speaker 1: learning a new language and slowing down and tuning into
Speaker 1: the body and starting to recognize physical sensation. But sure enough,
Speaker 1: like learning a new language like Japanese, as you practice,
Speaker 1: there's a whole world going on below the neck that
Speaker 1: most of us never even touch in our lifetime because
Speaker 1: we're all sort of in our heads thinking, which is
Speaker 1: what our society prioritizes. Yeah, there's another exercise you have
Speaker 1: that I think is so helpful. You call it consciously
Speaker 1: looking out. I've heard it described as grounding yourself in
Speaker 1: your senses. Um. But the idea is, you know, my
Speaker 1: version of it is to stop and say, all right,
Speaker 1: let me think of three things that I can see.
Speaker 1: Let me think of three things that I can hear.
Speaker 1: Let me think of three things that I can feel. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, physically, like a backpack on my shoulder or
Speaker 1: the you know, my feet on the ground, or any
Speaker 1: of those things. Um, you recommend doing it, um, you know, colors,
Speaker 1: different things. But that's another way of grounding ourselves is
Speaker 1: to come back to right now. And you know that
Speaker 1: phrase is always so nebulous, like be present and I'm
Speaker 1: you know, my experience is always like okay, I'm present
Speaker 1: and then I'm gone in a tenth of a second.
Speaker 1: But that activity actually allows me, gives me a scaffolding
Speaker 1: to remain present exactly right. That's a that's an excellent
Speaker 1: thing to do to get you into the present moment
Speaker 1: so that you can then begin to slow again. Slowing
Speaker 1: down is the key to noticing emotions because the mind
Speaker 1: is working so fast. But for the the emotions in
Speaker 1: the body to become evident. It's almost like when you're
Speaker 1: driving into a fog and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you get closer to something and it begins to come
Speaker 1: into focus. So you have to be patient, very patient,
Speaker 1: very compassionate, non judgmental stance towards yourself as you tune inside.
Speaker 1: And you say that just the act of naming and
Speaker 1: validating our emotions helps our bodies and minds relax, and
Speaker 1: it's a key part of working the change triangle. So
Speaker 1: you know, naming validating our emotions. You're also talk an
Speaker 1: awful lot about looking inside the body for sensations because
Speaker 1: those are often clues to emotion. Exactly that emotions are
Speaker 1: really physical sensations, and so to process and emotion begins
Speaker 1: with naming it. So putting the beginning of processing emotion
Speaker 1: is first of all, knowing what emotion that you're having,
Speaker 1: being able to put a word on it, knowing being
Speaker 1: able to sense where you feel it in the body.
Speaker 1: So for example, if I'm sad, i tend to feel
Speaker 1: heavy in my chest and feel the impulse around my
Speaker 1: eyes to cry. If I'm angry, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of energy that's coming up through my core, I'll
Speaker 1: start to make a fist, my jaw will get tight.
Speaker 1: So we all experience in some similar ways, but in
Speaker 1: some very unique in ways. For each individual to begin
Speaker 1: to get very accustomed to how they experience the core emotions,
Speaker 1: so naming being able to sense it in your body,
Speaker 1: and then all core emotions have inherent impulses with them,
Speaker 1: so you want to be be able to tune in
Speaker 1: and stay with the sensations until the impulse manifests. And
Speaker 1: when you can name an emotion, know how where you
Speaker 1: feel it in the body and tolerate that feeling and
Speaker 1: stay with the impulse, you're on your way to being
Speaker 1: able to fully process process that emotion. To take it
Speaker 1: all the way there. We can either stay with the
Speaker 1: sensation and ride the wave, because core emotions have these
Speaker 1: waves like qualities, so we can just do it. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I'll tell a patient to just drop the emotion, drop
Speaker 1: the storyline in their head, and just stay with the
Speaker 1: sensation uh and just let it crescendo and then eventually
Speaker 1: usually takes no longer than one one and a half
Speaker 1: two minutes it'll start to resolve. UM. You can also
Speaker 1: use fantasy to enact the impulses and discharge the energy
Speaker 1: of an emotion. That way to get back to this
Speaker 1: calm state, back to the open hearted state. There was
Speaker 1: something you said that really struck me because you said
Speaker 1: that um emotions can be amplified in response to something
Speaker 1: internal or external. And it's this next line that really
Speaker 1: hit me. Self judgment and self criticism are internal amplifiers,
Speaker 1: and I think that's interesting. I also have noticed, at
Speaker 1: least for me, that those are immediate ways to hop
Speaker 1: right out of the emotion and back into the defense
Speaker 1: corner of the triangle. So talk to me just about
Speaker 1: self criticism and self judgment. Yeah, So it's so important
Speaker 1: to be able to start to notice the ways that
Speaker 1: we talk to ourselves and just imagine that instead of
Speaker 1: to yourself, you're relating to a young child and a
Speaker 1: child who is having a feeling, whether it's joy and
Speaker 1: excitement on the kind of positive what people think of
Speaker 1: as post of feelings, or fear or anger. If you
Speaker 1: tell that kid, oh, you're such a you know, you're terrible,
Speaker 1: or what's wrong with you, and you just imagine how
Speaker 1: that kid is going to react. It's going to create shame,
Speaker 1: it's going to create anxiety, and the kid is going
Speaker 1: to withdraw. And so if you just imagine that kid
Speaker 1: is now inside you, that's what happens when we judge ourselves.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna amplify feelings of shame and which
Speaker 1: is going to amplify feelings of anxiety, and then we're
Speaker 1: going to need to move over to defenses or to
Speaker 1: do something to stop the building pain or feelings that
Speaker 1: you're disappearing or annihilating. People have all these um strange
Speaker 1: effective experiences that are excruciating that we have to halt
Speaker 1: with defenses such as drugs, such as massive amounts of avoidance, dissociating, disconnecting,
Speaker 1: out of body experiences on the extreme side, and then
Speaker 1: just you know, tuning out, staring into our cell phones,
Speaker 1: those type of things. Yeah, I feel like I've quoted
Speaker 1: this about thirty times on the show lately because there's
Speaker 1: an exaggeration. But there's a spiritual teacher I admire named
Speaker 1: Audio Shanti, and he says that the surest way to
Speaker 1: shut down consciousness is judgment. Judgment is the fastest thing
Speaker 1: to just shut down whatever is going on. And that
Speaker 1: really has struck me as being a true statement and
Speaker 1: I think self criticism and self judgment are just are
Speaker 1: just variations on that Yeah, you're exactly right, It really
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't do anything positive. And I consider judgment
Speaker 1: a defense on the on the top left corner of
Speaker 1: the change triangle, especially when you're relating to other people.
Speaker 1: And just to begin to get very curious about when
Speaker 1: when you notice you're judging somebody, what is the underlying
Speaker 1: core motion? Again? Am I frightened of this difference? Um?
Speaker 1: What does it bring up in me? It does it
Speaker 1: bring up shame that I need to now discharge this
Speaker 1: feeling by judging somebody else, which is different than I
Speaker 1: believe you can have opinions, I have very strong opinions.
Speaker 1: But the idea of really a judgment is sort of
Speaker 1: by definition like kind of a way to discount somebody's
Speaker 1: humanity or human nous for because you're uncomfortable with something
Speaker 1: that they are or that they're saying. And I want
Speaker 1: to read something else that you wrote about using emotional
Speaker 1: skills or emotional regulations ways to calm ourselves and and
Speaker 1: you say, picture a secure and calm parent, comforting and
Speaker 1: upset child. This caregiver has essential knowledge that the child lacks.
Speaker 1: Number one, emotions are temporary. Number two, emotions don't kill us.
Speaker 1: And number three, having a calm and available caregiver helps
Speaker 1: us move through our emotions. And I just think that's
Speaker 1: such a great Again, it's depending on the strength of
Speaker 1: our emotion, it's great to have an external caregiver that
Speaker 1: can do that for us, whether it be a therapist
Speaker 1: or a good friend. But those are useful things to
Speaker 1: remind ourselves as we work through our own emotions that
Speaker 1: they're temporary, they don't kill us, and that we can
Speaker 1: work to soothe ourselves in a way that we can
Speaker 1: work through those emotions exactly that I like to say
Speaker 1: that we're one of the goals is to become our
Speaker 1: own good parent, even if we didn't have a good parent,
Speaker 1: that we have to cultivate those qualities inside us so
Speaker 1: that we can relate to the various parts of ourselves,
Speaker 1: young parts or wounded parts, and our emotions in a
Speaker 1: loving way so we can move through them and they
Speaker 1: don't get stuck and then create havoc all sorts of
Speaker 1: pain and symptoms and distress. Yeah, that idea of um,
Speaker 1: the way we talk to ourselves, you know, the analogy
Speaker 1: of you know, talk to yourself as a good parent
Speaker 1: would to a child, or you know, I've heard people say,
Speaker 1: you know, have compassion for yourself. Imagine you know, and
Speaker 1: a wounded animal, or you know. One that I use,
Speaker 1: maybe my favorite is imagine how you you talk to
Speaker 1: a good friend. But I'm more and more struck by
Speaker 1: how many of us have really awful internal conversations with ourselves,
Speaker 1: and how damaging that really is, and what a big
Speaker 1: change it can make when we're able to catch that
Speaker 1: and and turn it around into you know, being a
Speaker 1: friendly and hospitable place to inhabit our own self. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1: It's so important, and it's also so interesting that um
Speaker 1: so many people feel that those internal voices are actually
Speaker 1: helping them, that they drive them to be more successful,
Speaker 1: or they drive them to even just get out of
Speaker 1: the house in the morning, or to strive to be
Speaker 1: more perfect. And the way that I usually sort of
Speaker 1: assuage people that say that is one, we're not in
Speaker 1: the business of getting rid of those parts of yourself.
Speaker 1: So if you want to call in your judgmental parts again,
Speaker 1: you know, you can do that. But but that I don't,
Speaker 1: I say, I hold the belief that I don't think
Speaker 1: that's true that when they feel calm, they'll actually what
Speaker 1: will happen is their their natural human drive to go
Speaker 1: out into the world and to create and to work
Speaker 1: and to connect. We'll we'll take over and they're not
Speaker 1: going to need to berate themselves or judge themselves to
Speaker 1: do that. Right. I think we have this sense like
Speaker 1: if we don't have that harsh critical voice, then you know,
Speaker 1: it's either that or it's just you know, complete um
Speaker 1: anarchy and we just you know, let ourselves do whatever
Speaker 1: we want. Right. We have a tendency to go to extremes.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think like imagining how a good
Speaker 1: friend would talk to me, Like if I went to
Speaker 1: a good friend and said, hey, I really want to
Speaker 1: quit smoking, right and I could use your help, and
Speaker 1: if I smoked, right, I could think about how a
Speaker 1: good friend would talk to me. They would they would
Speaker 1: sort of reassure me, call me, but they also wouldn't
Speaker 1: completely let me off the hook. A good friend wouldn't
Speaker 1: be like, oh, whatever, who cares, it doesn't even matter, right,
Speaker 1: There'd be ah, there'd be a kindness and love and
Speaker 1: a guidance, you know, back towards what I want, and
Speaker 1: you know, I just found that work so much for me. Um.
Speaker 1: The second time I got sober, I realized that things
Speaker 1: started to change when I moved out of being so
Speaker 1: angry at myself that I was drinking again. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: because I was like, you idiot, you know what's going
Speaker 1: to happen? Right, And when I moved out of that,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't too long after that the things
Speaker 1: really started to change. I'm curious to hear a little
Speaker 1: bit more. Do you know what the voice shifted to
Speaker 1: from from being as harsh too, not to put you
Speaker 1: on the spot, I was just curious, Yeah, because that's
Speaker 1: so great. I think it's kind of like we said,
Speaker 1: like a like a friend would would talk to myself like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know this isn't you know? This is bad, this
Speaker 1: is hard. You know, it's really a struggle, um, recognizing
Speaker 1: that I was drinking for a reason, you know that,
Speaker 1: like there was something else going on, that there were emotions.
Speaker 1: They're just sort of working to um, be kind of
Speaker 1: kinder to myself, but still not letting myself off the hook,
Speaker 1: not being like, oh it doesn't matter, it mattered, But
Speaker 1: there was just a change in the internal tone from
Speaker 1: sort of shaming and berating myself to maybe encouraging myself
Speaker 1: in some way but also validating, like, Okay, you know
Speaker 1: there's there's a reason you drink, you know, um, and
Speaker 1: that it's really difficult. You know that I'm an alcoholic.
Speaker 1: That that's you know that I'm not a failure, I'm
Speaker 1: not an awful person. It began the process I think
Speaker 1: of me being more open to getting sober again. It
Speaker 1: allowed me to make some movement towards it that I
Speaker 1: was stuck in before that. Yeah, so important. Yeah, that's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of times we we get
Speaker 1: this idea of like, well if I talk to myself
Speaker 1: like a friend, like that's lovely, Like that sounds really nice,
Speaker 1: and it certainly is a better way to go. But
Speaker 1: the amazing thing is not only is it nice and
Speaker 1: lovely and a better way to go, it's far more effective. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really is the more effective way to go to
Speaker 1: to sort of take that role of a of a
Speaker 1: good friend versus you know, comes to my a punishing parent,
Speaker 1: right yep, yep exactly. And now that you're talking, I
Speaker 1: think in a way it's a good It delineates the
Speaker 1: difference between kind of healthy shame and toxic shame. So
Speaker 1: you know, a parent will need to teach their kid
Speaker 1: that it's not okay to run naked in the streets
Speaker 1: and that you have to be quiet and a library
Speaker 1: and that's you know, by shushing, and that invokes some
Speaker 1: some shame in the same way that when we are
Speaker 1: self destructive, we want a certain amount of shame to
Speaker 1: kick in. That's healthy, that says, you know what, this
Speaker 1: is not good for us. We want to live and
Speaker 1: we want to thrive, as opposed to being so harsh
Speaker 1: that you're diminishing. You're cutting them down and cutting down
Speaker 1: the self at the same time, which is never good.
Speaker 1: We want to we want to help people rise and
Speaker 1: support and um and learn to love themselves by being
Speaker 1: by being loving and caring exactly. Well, we are at
Speaker 1: the end of our time here. Um well I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I know, but Crystal, Crystal cut us off here.
Speaker 1: Um I always joke about that, but um, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: at the end of our time. But you and I
Speaker 1: are going to continue the conversation in our post show
Speaker 1: conversation and we're actually going to go deeper into shame.
Speaker 1: Healthy shame, toxic shame, what to do with it because
Speaker 1: it is something that is so common and prevalent and destructive.
Speaker 1: So you and I are going to talk more about
Speaker 1: that there. Listeners, if you're interested in the post show conversations,
Speaker 1: you can get access to all of them as well
Speaker 1: as ad free episodes by going to One you Feed,
Speaker 1: dot net slash Support and um Hillary, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: In the show notes, we will have links to your book,
Speaker 1: to your website, to your social media things, lots of
Speaker 1: ways that people can interact with you. And I really
Speaker 1: encourage listeners to do that because it's it's great stuff.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much. Thank you m M. If
Speaker 1: what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider
Speaker 1: making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head
Speaker 1: over to one you Feed, dot net slash Support. The
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