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