Speaker 1: Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Hi em Eli
Speaker 1: Wentworth and you're listening to Go ask Alli? Where this
Speaker 1: half of the season, I'm asking, how do you grow
Speaker 1: healthy relationships with ourselves, with our siblings, with a loved one, Jesus,
Speaker 1: with the guy who hands are your Starbucks? On this episode,
Speaker 1: I'm going back in time to focus on how to
Speaker 1: grow relationship with ourselves. Yep, you got it. Therapy. We've
Speaker 1: all gone through traumas, we've had toxic relationships. For me,
Speaker 1: I had a relationship in my twenties and he was
Speaker 1: somebody that in my most insecure life, I felt like
Speaker 1: he was way too good for me, and so I
Speaker 1: had to be the perfect version of what I assumed
Speaker 1: he was looking for, which was not me at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, I became a kind of version of Ali
Speaker 1: two point oh, but it wasn't me, and I'd be
Speaker 1: came less and less of who I authentically was, and
Speaker 1: eventually it got to the point where I had swallowed
Speaker 1: so much of myself I couldn't breathe anymore. Ultimately, these
Speaker 1: relationships always end, and when they do, you have to
Speaker 1: figure out why you allowed yourself to become so anemic
Speaker 1: in terms of who you are and why you wanted
Speaker 1: that relationship so badly. I got into therapy and talked
Speaker 1: about why I thought I'd absolutely no value in the
Speaker 1: relationship and why I gave him so much power, And
Speaker 1: through therapy I was able to find my power and
Speaker 1: eventually meet the right partner for me, my husband George,
Speaker 1: twenty years and going strong. So I think most of
Speaker 1: us have had a version of a relationship where we
Speaker 1: weren't ourselves and it was somewhat toxic, and you know,
Speaker 1: for other people, very traumatic. But if you learn from it,
Speaker 1: you can grow from it, and you can eventually create
Speaker 1: a relationship where you get to thrive. And that's why
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to talk to my guest psychotherapist, Lorie Godly.
Speaker 1: Laurie is the author or of the New York Times
Speaker 1: bestseller Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which is being
Speaker 1: adapted as a television series. Of course, that's all I
Speaker 1: want to talk about. In addition to her clinical practice,
Speaker 1: she writes The Atlantic's weekly Dear Therapist advice column and
Speaker 1: contributes regularly to The New York Times and many other publications.
Speaker 1: Her recent ted talk called How Changing her Story Can
Speaker 1: Change Your Life was one of the ten most watched
Speaker 1: of the year. Laurie is the co host of the
Speaker 1: new I Heart Radio podcast Deer Therapist, produced by Katie Kuric. Laurie,
Speaker 1: my gosh, you sound incredibly busy during this pandemic. Well,
Speaker 1: I am, but it's all work that means a lot
Speaker 1: to me, and so you know, it feels like work
Speaker 1: that is productive and helping people, and it is. I
Speaker 1: have to say, I've always been a huge fan of therapy.
Speaker 1: I even created a show called Headcase a million years
Speaker 1: ago where I've sort of had fun with it, but
Speaker 1: it has helped me immensely over the years. And so
Speaker 1: for some of us that are thinking, huh, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start therapy, uh, for people who haven't had it,
Speaker 1: I do sense that there is a lot of fear
Speaker 1: when it comes to therapy and going deep, as they say,
Speaker 1: with oneself. So if I were starting out today and
Speaker 1: I said, Lorie, I want to find a therapist, what
Speaker 1: would you say to me? So, So, first of all,
Speaker 1: I think it's important to understand what therapy is, and
Speaker 1: it's a very interactive process. I feel like therapy is
Speaker 1: like getting a really good second opinion on your life
Speaker 1: from someone who's not already in your life. So if
Speaker 1: you're going to go to therapy, you're gonna learn things
Speaker 1: about yourself, about your patterns, about what keeps you stuck,
Speaker 1: about your blind spots, about things that maybe need some healing,
Speaker 1: and then you have to use what you talked about
Speaker 1: in that hour during the week. So if you're ready
Speaker 1: to sign up for that, what I would say is,
Speaker 1: please know that the first therapist you go to isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily a therapist. You're going to be in therapy with
Speaker 1: a first session and you saw this firsthand, it sounds
Speaker 1: like is like a consultation. It's an opportunity for you
Speaker 1: to sit with the person and at the end of
Speaker 1: that session, say to yourself, did I feel understood as
Speaker 1: much as someone can understand you after meeting you for
Speaker 1: fifty minutes? And did this person challenge me? And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is did they ask me a
Speaker 1: question that maybe made me think about something in a
Speaker 1: different way or left me with something that I'm going
Speaker 1: to kind of noodle around during the week. They might
Speaker 1: not do that very much in a very first session,
Speaker 1: but if the person is just kind of validating your perspective. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was terrible. Yeah, that was awful. Yeah, that other
Speaker 1: person is wrong. That might not be the experience in
Speaker 1: which you're really going to grow. Well, you've written about
Speaker 1: the need for validation from a therapist, and I've I've
Speaker 1: actually known people that have gone to therapist and when
Speaker 1: they discuss it with me, they say, yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: Dr Blank says that I shouldn't have to do that,
Speaker 1: and Dr Blank says that I am pretty, and you go,
Speaker 1: oh no, oh, no, no, no, I'm hearing that incringing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a lot of projection, right to go
Speaker 1: to a therapist and try to quote unquote please them.
Speaker 1: You're probably not going to get to a place where
Speaker 1: you can really look at your stuff. I'm assuming. Well, look,
Speaker 1: and you know in the book I talk about the
Speaker 1: difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. Yes, I was
Speaker 1: just going to get there. I love that. I think
Speaker 1: it's so important when you're looking at therapists because idiot
Speaker 1: compassion is what we get from our friends. So we
Speaker 1: go to our friends and we say, here's what happens,
Speaker 1: and what do we do. We want to support our
Speaker 1: friends often so what we'll do is we'll say, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that person was wrong, you were right, or
Speaker 1: that's so awful, or but maybe their response to what's
Speaker 1: happening is contributing to the problem. Just that kind of
Speaker 1: blind support wise compassion is what you hope to get
Speaker 1: from your therapist. It's where a therapist hold up a
Speaker 1: mirror to you and how help you to see yourself
Speaker 1: in a way that maybe you haven't been willing or
Speaker 1: able to. It's not for the therapist to kind of
Speaker 1: boost yourself esteem. It's for a therapist to help you
Speaker 1: see yourself most clearly so that you can draw your
Speaker 1: own conclusions about you know how you see yourself. And
Speaker 1: also it helps you to make better decisions about your life.
Speaker 1: When you can see your role in what's not working,
Speaker 1: you can make choices and now you can actually affect change.
Speaker 1: You can't do that if all you're doing is getting, like,
Speaker 1: you know, a validation machine. And let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to know this. When a patient comes
Speaker 1: in to consult with you, can you tell right away
Speaker 1: if this is a person that you're going to need
Speaker 1: to sort of coaxed to be able to be vulnerable
Speaker 1: and do the work. I would imagine people are very
Speaker 1: stiff when they first come in. Yeah, well, of course,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you think about the therapeutic relationship.
Speaker 1: There's nothing like that in the outside world. So you're
Speaker 1: starting the relationship knowing that you're gonna be very vulnerable
Speaker 1: with this person who is an absolute stranger to you.
Speaker 1: And at the end of it, after you formed this
Speaker 1: intensely meaningful relationship with this person, you're going to say goodbye.
Speaker 1: Um with therapy, know that that's the end goal. So
Speaker 1: I do think that it's natural that when people come
Speaker 1: in there, you know, they're not sure what to think
Speaker 1: of the situation. And rightly so, you you have to
Speaker 1: form a relationship with a therapist, and that takes some
Speaker 1: time to build that trust. Are you in therapy? I
Speaker 1: am in therapy and in the book, In fact, the
Speaker 1: book follows the lives of four patients of mine as
Speaker 1: they go through their struggles, and the fifth patients in
Speaker 1: the book is me as I go through my own therapy.
Speaker 1: So I think it's really important, you know, I say
Speaker 1: at the outset that my greatest credential is that I'm
Speaker 1: a card caring member of the human race. I know
Speaker 1: what it's like to have struggled in the world, just
Speaker 1: like any other human being. Right. You also write about
Speaker 1: therapists now they're simply seeing kind of a snapshot of
Speaker 1: a person at a particular or time. Is that what
Speaker 1: you mean about? You know, let's say forty five minutes,
Speaker 1: and then the rest of the work is still the
Speaker 1: work of them going out and living their lives the
Speaker 1: rest of the time. What I mean is that we
Speaker 1: can be so critical of ourselves, and so when people
Speaker 1: come in, they might be coming in with this very
Speaker 1: distorted view of themselves and their situation in a very
Speaker 1: negative way. They can't see the whole picture. You. I
Speaker 1: always say we're unreliable narrators because we're telling our story
Speaker 1: through a subjective lens. So a lot of what I'm
Speaker 1: doing is editing, really helping them to flesh out other perspectives.
Speaker 1: So when I say I'm looking at a snapshot when
Speaker 1: somebody comes in, I'm seeing them at a moment in time.
Speaker 1: But they're seeing that moment in time as the entirety
Speaker 1: of their lives. And it's just not right because there's
Speaker 1: so much more. And a day later, a week later,
Speaker 1: a month later, if you took a snapshot, their lives
Speaker 1: will look very different. And you say that therapy can't
Speaker 1: help people who aren't curious about themselves. You must know
Speaker 1: right away when a patient comes in and they're being
Speaker 1: told to go to therapy versus they've come in and
Speaker 1: they're ready themselves and curious, as you say, about themselves,
Speaker 1: to go into therapy right And what I mean by
Speaker 1: that too is that a lot of times people will
Speaker 1: come in even willingly, and they definitely want something to change,
Speaker 1: but what they want to change is someone else or
Speaker 1: something else out there, and what they learned is that
Speaker 1: they're going to need to make changes. So really therapy
Speaker 1: is about how do you relate to yourself and how
Speaker 1: do you relate to others and what changes do you
Speaker 1: need to make so that things go more smoothly for you.
Speaker 1: One of the main things I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you today, especially when we're trying to grow a relationship
Speaker 1: with ourselves, is sort of toxic behavior and past relationships
Speaker 1: and how they inform us now and how they inform
Speaker 1: future relationships. Um you say we are our own jailers
Speaker 1: and freedom involves responsibility would scares us. I love that
Speaker 1: phrase because it is very scary to sort of go
Speaker 1: into your own life and your own responsibilities of things
Speaker 1: that have happened or relationships that you have had. There's
Speaker 1: a lot more to come after this short break. Welcome
Speaker 1: back with more. Go ask Alli, talk to me about
Speaker 1: sort of past relationships, how you deal with them, how
Speaker 1: somebody like me can deal with them and not have
Speaker 1: them paralyze us in our own lives. Yeah. Well, there's
Speaker 1: this thing that we marry our unfinished business. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is that so often if we've
Speaker 1: been hurt by somebody else in the past, we replicate
Speaker 1: that when we look for a new partners, or even
Speaker 1: if we've already married them. Um, if you had a
Speaker 1: parent who wasn't very affectionate, you end up somehow marrying
Speaker 1: somebody who's withholding in some way. Maybe they're physically affectionate,
Speaker 1: but they're emotionally withholding, or vice versa. Um, if you
Speaker 1: had a parent who drank a lot, suddenly you're like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I'm with somebody who has some kind
Speaker 1: of addiction. And so what happens is when you're drawn
Speaker 1: to someone, you think, oh, that person is going to
Speaker 1: be so different from that person who hurt me in
Speaker 1: the past. Because they present very differently. But once you're
Speaker 1: actually in the relationship, you start to notice, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: And what happened was it was like you're unconscious was saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you look familiar, come closer, but your conscious mind is like,
Speaker 1: you don't look familiar at all. That's why I want you.
Speaker 1: It's called repetition compulsion. And basically, you know, the unconscious
Speaker 1: mind is sort of like, well, this time I'm going
Speaker 1: to get what I didn't get, right, So it's like
Speaker 1: you lost before, and this time I'm gonna win this time,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get that from that kind of person,
Speaker 1: this is comply outside of our awareness. And by the way,
Speaker 1: this doesn't happen once you've kind of worked through whatever
Speaker 1: happened earlier, So it only happens when it's still sitting there.
Speaker 1: That's why we say we marry our unfinished business. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm a child of multiple divorces, and now that I've
Speaker 1: done some work, I look back and I think what
Speaker 1: my parents did was they started with whatever were their issues,
Speaker 1: you know, with their parents, and then they married somebody
Speaker 1: that looked totally different, and then went, oh no, not that,
Speaker 1: and then react, which I know as a teenager. I
Speaker 1: looked at that and said, I'm not going to do this.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be very conscious of not having a
Speaker 1: reactive set of relationships, right, And that's very common in
Speaker 1: what happens is what we want in our relationships as
Speaker 1: you want to feel a sense of home, but but
Speaker 1: a healthy home, a safe home, a loving home. And
Speaker 1: so if you do that kind of reactive thing and
Speaker 1: you go completely the other way, that person is going
Speaker 1: to be so different from you that they won't feel
Speaker 1: like home at all. You won't really have any any
Speaker 1: sort of touch points, anything in common. I think we've
Speaker 1: all had relationships that didn't work out for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about how I wrestle with the idea
Speaker 1: of moving on from a toxic relationship and yet allowing
Speaker 1: it to be a particle of what makes up who
Speaker 1: I am. I'm so glad you asked that, because this
Speaker 1: is one of the most common questions that we get
Speaker 1: to the Dear Therapist podcast where somebody rights in and
Speaker 1: they say it was in this relationship and I'm having
Speaker 1: so much trouble moving on from it, not because they
Speaker 1: necessarily want to be with the person anymore, but because
Speaker 1: it sort of scarred me, and what happens is usually
Speaker 1: the person is sort of telling a story about that
Speaker 1: relationship that again needs some editing. So their idea of
Speaker 1: what happened in that relationship and their idea of what
Speaker 1: it means about them is something that is distort And
Speaker 1: so it's important to look at your role in what
Speaker 1: didn't work in the relationship, but it's also to be
Speaker 1: able to distinguish what was yours and what was theirs.
Speaker 1: And I think that so many times what happens is,
Speaker 1: especially if you did not want the relationship to end,
Speaker 1: you think there's something unlovable about you, there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with you. Um, you know, why did this person not
Speaker 1: love me enough to want to marry me? Why did
Speaker 1: this person pick that person over me? Or sometimes people
Speaker 1: have said things to them really upsetting things that are
Speaker 1: just not true for all kinds of reasons that don't
Speaker 1: match the reality of you. For example, we had somebody
Speaker 1: right into the podcast and they said, you know, I
Speaker 1: was with this person and then at the end he said,
Speaker 1: you know, he never really loved me. And you know,
Speaker 1: you know, like all these things that were just so
Speaker 1: cruel that were said to them, that were said, yeah,
Speaker 1: the person said later when it kind of exploded. People
Speaker 1: will say all kinds of things to protect themselves, to
Speaker 1: justify things to themselves, to make themselves feel better. Um,
Speaker 1: the person who said that had a lot of sort
Speaker 1: of narcissistic tendencies that you know, sort of came out
Speaker 1: at the end of this very cruel explosion. But she
Speaker 1: took it literally. She she thought what this person is
Speaker 1: saying is true and it's not. And so I think
Speaker 1: that's where a lot of people feel stuck and like
Speaker 1: they can't move on because they're they're sort of like
Speaker 1: replaying those scenes in their minds as if you know,
Speaker 1: they're accurate when they're not, which is giving that person
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of power to right. It's sort of like,
Speaker 1: how did that person become the arbiter of your self worth?
Speaker 1: You know, you can have a good experience as a
Speaker 1: child and still fall prey to this because those intimate
Speaker 1: relationships are so powerful. You know, you can still be
Speaker 1: incredibly hurt and confused and just gutted by the end
Speaker 1: of a romantic relationship, even if your childhood gave you
Speaker 1: sort of the foundation of having a loving relationship. So
Speaker 1: how do we not get in a relationship with someone
Speaker 1: who's similar to someone we may have been hurt by
Speaker 1: in the past. So it's really important to understand, Yes,
Speaker 1: that other person was hurtful to me in these ways,
Speaker 1: but why was I drawn to that person? Why? And
Speaker 1: then why did I stay? So a lot of times
Speaker 1: people say, well, you know, what do all these guys
Speaker 1: have in common? It's what what is it about me
Speaker 1: that I keep going after people who are going to
Speaker 1: disappoint me? Right? You hear women say a lot you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just attracted to bad boys, and it's kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: why what is it in you that is attracting you
Speaker 1: to quote unquote bad boys? Right? So you want healthy chemistry.
Speaker 1: There's unhealthy chemistry and there's healthy chemistry. The unhealthy chemistry
Speaker 1: is that there's incredible draw to these very toxic people.
Speaker 1: That's unhealthy chemistry. Healthy chemistry is Wow, I'm really excited
Speaker 1: about this person. I want to get to know them better. Right.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I was attracted to unhealthy qualities when
Speaker 1: I was, you know, in my twenties, one after another,
Speaker 1: and when I finally did a lot of therapy and
Speaker 1: later on in my thirties met my husband. Uh, I
Speaker 1: had that sort of healthy reaction, which is I want
Speaker 1: to talk to him and get to know him better.
Speaker 1: And then for me, the fact that I was sexually
Speaker 1: attracted to him was like, oh, thank god, it's there.
Speaker 1: It's all there, because I I always thought I wouldn't be,
Speaker 1: you know, right right right, Well, that's what people imagine,
Speaker 1: and that's the excuse that they give themselves. There's this
Speaker 1: woman in the book. I called her Charlotte in the book,
Speaker 1: and she's this young woman who keeps dating the wrong
Speaker 1: people over and over and over, and she sort of
Speaker 1: has this attitude that a lot of people have when
Speaker 1: they don't realize that they have this role in what's
Speaker 1: going on. And she's like, men are terrible, you know,
Speaker 1: like men are just there's no good men out there.
Speaker 1: And it's like, no, there are plenty of good men
Speaker 1: out there. You just you just don't seem to be
Speaker 1: attracted to any of them. Um. And it's not because
Speaker 1: they're not attractive, by the way, right um. And so
Speaker 1: it's like what you said with George is like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you you can have both and and most
Speaker 1: people who are happily in really and ships and happily
Speaker 1: married that's what they have, um, but I think that
Speaker 1: that would happen with her, as you know. Then then
Speaker 1: she finally meets this guy in the waiting room of
Speaker 1: my therapy office who happens to be seeing another therapist
Speaker 1: in my suite. So then he shows up to therapy
Speaker 1: with this other woman like in the waiting room, and
Speaker 1: we're trying to figure out, you know, is it his sister.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're doing family therapy, and I'm like, no, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's like his girlfriend. And of course it is,
Speaker 1: because that's who she goes after. Unavailable men. That's what
Speaker 1: she is drawn to, and isn't until she can really
Speaker 1: see the connection between her father, who was somebody who
Speaker 1: would be incredibly loving and incredibly available and then kind
Speaker 1: of disappear, right and then he'd be incredibly loving and
Speaker 1: available and then disappear. Those were the men she went after,
Speaker 1: and she refused to acknowledge that there was any connection
Speaker 1: between what she grew up with and what she was
Speaker 1: drawn to as an adult. And once she started to
Speaker 1: see that, then she had to confront her relationship with
Speaker 1: her father, and she had to talk to her father
Speaker 1: about relationship, and she had to come to some place
Speaker 1: of being an adult in that relationship and not being
Speaker 1: the vulnerable child every time he disappointed her, because he
Speaker 1: would continue to disappoint her as an adult. Right, what
Speaker 1: a lot of people are trying to do in their
Speaker 1: adult relationships is get a redo on their childhood with
Speaker 1: this person who is not their parents. And it's not
Speaker 1: their responsibility to give you a redo on your childhood.
Speaker 1: And also they can't. And if Charlotte found somebody that
Speaker 1: she was attracted to because he was sort of hard
Speaker 1: to obtain and she finally did get him, let's say
Speaker 1: he was completely there for her, wouldn't she ultimately, if
Speaker 1: she hasn't dealt with her own stuff with her father,
Speaker 1: lose interest in him. Well, what happens is people who
Speaker 1: have that kind of upbringing have a fear of abandonment.
Speaker 1: They pick people who are not going to really be
Speaker 1: intimate with them, right, be emotionally intimate with them, who
Speaker 1: are really going to be there for the long haul.
Speaker 1: They actually pick people who will abandon them because then
Speaker 1: they don't actually have to be intimate with somebody where
Speaker 1: it matters. And so this whole thing about chemistry where
Speaker 1: they meet someone great and they say, yeah, but I'm
Speaker 1: not really attracted to him. That's because he actually won't
Speaker 1: abandon you, and you will be forced to be in
Speaker 1: this relationship that will make you so uncomfortable because he's
Speaker 1: going to show up and he's going to be present,
Speaker 1: and he's not going to put up with all your bs,
Speaker 1: right like he's going to call you on your stuff
Speaker 1: and and you know you're going to have to This
Speaker 1: is like primetime relationship now, and you're not really ready
Speaker 1: for prime time because you are so afraid of showing
Speaker 1: up and being intimate because that hasn't worked out well
Speaker 1: in the past. And how can we be sure that
Speaker 1: our president or future relationship is going to be a
Speaker 1: healing one? Like how do we know we're not in
Speaker 1: the habits? And you can't be I mean, the price
Speaker 1: of loving is is that you know you can get hurt.
Speaker 1: You will get hurt, even when it's the right person.
Speaker 1: Look at what happens. You know, how many times do
Speaker 1: we hurt the people that we love unwittingly? We don't
Speaker 1: mean to hurt them, but we do because we're human
Speaker 1: and we're imperfect, and so we will get hurt by
Speaker 1: the people that we love, and we will hurt the
Speaker 1: people that we love. But the question isn't will I
Speaker 1: get hurt or will I hurt someone? It's what happens
Speaker 1: when we try to repair it. How do we do
Speaker 1: the process of repair with each other? And so we
Speaker 1: we have this phrase rupture and repair, So there will
Speaker 1: be ruptures in any intimate loving relationship, and the question
Speaker 1: is how do you repair? And if you are good
Speaker 1: at repairing together, then that's a really healthy relationship. What
Speaker 1: do you do about when we disagree? How do we
Speaker 1: repair that? When we've hurt somebody and we didn't mean to,
Speaker 1: How do we repair that we've heard someone and we
Speaker 1: met to because we were we regressed in that moment, right,
Speaker 1: how do we repair the um? And we do that?
Speaker 1: You know you practice that with your kids all the time. Right?
Speaker 1: Are you the parent who can say to your child,
Speaker 1: I made a mistake, I'm so sorry, and then your
Speaker 1: kid learns how to do that, and your kid grows
Speaker 1: up and says, I know how to do that in relationship.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I just had that with one of my
Speaker 1: daughters the other day. Whereas I an old habit would
Speaker 1: have been uh it just to be defensive. Well, that's
Speaker 1: because you do that that's why I said that. That's
Speaker 1: why I did that. It took a lot for me,
Speaker 1: and it was It was very healing for both of
Speaker 1: us to go to her room and go, you know what,
Speaker 1: you're right, and I believed it. It's true, she was
Speaker 1: right and I was sorry. That's soothed her instantly, Whereas
Speaker 1: we could have had a fight that lasted days, right,
Speaker 1: and and it brings you closer when you're able to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I screwed up, I'm so sorry, it
Speaker 1: creates more trust between you. I had a relationship that
Speaker 1: I ended because of it. I had a full depression afterwards.
Speaker 1: I was crying. You would think that I was a
Speaker 1: person that was broken up with and it took me
Speaker 1: a really long time to understand, like why am I
Speaker 1: so upset I ended it? Well, I think what people
Speaker 1: don't understand too, is just that a relationship, and so
Speaker 1: does the future that you had imagined. So it's like,
Speaker 1: here's a plot twist in your story, and people grieve
Speaker 1: even if they don't want to be in that relationship,
Speaker 1: even if, like in your case, you were the one
Speaker 1: who broke it off because it wasn't the right relationship.
Speaker 1: You're grieving this idea that you had in your head
Speaker 1: of I found my person, and um, this is what
Speaker 1: the future is going to look like. And now you're
Speaker 1: back to will I ever find the person? What's going
Speaker 1: to happen? All of that uncertainty. Humans don't do well
Speaker 1: with uncertainty. And sometimes the reason that people stay in
Speaker 1: relationships aren't working longer than they should is because there's
Speaker 1: the certainty of what's right in front of you, even
Speaker 1: if the certainty of what's right in front of you
Speaker 1: isn't great, versus the uncertainty of will I ever find
Speaker 1: what I'm actually looking for? It's kind of like the devil.
Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting because we're living in a world
Speaker 1: of uncertainty right now, and so I think it makes
Speaker 1: everybody completely anxious, right And and with that, just like
Speaker 1: with the end of a relationship, comes that grief and
Speaker 1: that loss. Um, there's the loss of the illusion of certainty,
Speaker 1: right and so much this year, of course has been lost,
Speaker 1: literally like loss of life, loss of health, loss of jobs,
Speaker 1: loss of income, lots of dreams. People think, well, if
Speaker 1: I have a roof over my head and food on
Speaker 1: the table, I'm not allowed to feel that loss. And
Speaker 1: when you go back to that question that you asked
Speaker 1: about going to therapy. That's what prevents people from going
Speaker 1: to therapy, that they think there's this hierarchy of pain
Speaker 1: and that you know, we don't do that, by the way,
Speaker 1: with our physical health. So what we do with our
Speaker 1: emotional health is we say, yeah, I'm I'm sad, or
Speaker 1: I'm anxious, or I'm having trouble in my relationship or
Speaker 1: my marriage, but I'm not going to go see someone
Speaker 1: because you know, it's not that bad. I'm not suicidal,
Speaker 1: right right, right, you know, it's like I can still function. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: when you break your arm, you don't say, well, I
Speaker 1: don't have cancer, so I'm not going to go to
Speaker 1: the doctor and get an extra and get a past
Speaker 1: because it's not that bad compared to somebody who has cancer,
Speaker 1: Parkinson's or whatever it might be. But that's what we
Speaker 1: do with our emotional health. You know, it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: something feels off, I feel stuck, I feel like something's
Speaker 1: not working in my life, but you know, it's not
Speaker 1: that bad, so I'm just gonna wait. And what happens
Speaker 1: is people don't come to me until they're having the
Speaker 1: equivalent of let's say, an emotional heart attack, and at
Speaker 1: that point it's harder to treat because now you're in
Speaker 1: a much more difficult place. So we have to kind
Speaker 1: of get you back to baseline and then work with
Speaker 1: what we would have worked with if you'd come in
Speaker 1: at that time. And also, and more importantly, you've suffered
Speaker 1: unnecessarily for however long. So often when people come into therapy,
Speaker 1: I'm not just asking what's going on right now? I
Speaker 1: want to know why now, why, this day, this week,
Speaker 1: this month did you make the call? Because for me,
Speaker 1: I'm assessing for readiness. And hopefully it's not a problem
Speaker 1: that's been going on for years, but sometimes it is,
Speaker 1: and I always feel like, wow, I wish that we
Speaker 1: could get the message out to people. You don't need
Speaker 1: to wait years to go and talk to somebody. Right,
Speaker 1: the lyrics are I'm here because of a breakup, But
Speaker 1: what is the underlying soundtrack? Right? I always say I'm
Speaker 1: listening for the music under the lyrics, And the lyrics
Speaker 1: are I'm here because of a miscarriage, I'm here because
Speaker 1: of trouble in my marriage. I'm here because I'm depressed.
Speaker 1: He was some kind of loss um. But the music
Speaker 1: is what is the underlying struggle or pattern going on
Speaker 1: here that maybe plays into this. It's interesting. I have
Speaker 1: a friend who so wanted this picturesque life, you know,
Speaker 1: like we talked about like the dream, and her marriage
Speaker 1: blew up and it turned out he was a methodict
Speaker 1: and gay and embezzled all their money. And I said
Speaker 1: to her, you need to go into therapy right away,
Speaker 1: and she said, why, it's you know, the worst is over.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because I hear that a lot, the
Speaker 1: excuse of, well, we broke up, it's over, you know,
Speaker 1: push it down, move on, And those are the people
Speaker 1: that aren't dealing with it's scary, deeper stuff, right. So
Speaker 1: you called it scary, But see, I don't think of
Speaker 1: our feelings is scary. I think that our feelings are
Speaker 1: like a compass. They're like GPS. They tell us what
Speaker 1: direction to go in, and if we're not paying attention
Speaker 1: to our feelings, it's like it's like walking around with
Speaker 1: a faulty GPS. You don't know how to make choices
Speaker 1: or decisions that are good for you because you're not
Speaker 1: paying attention to the information that your feelings are giving you.
Speaker 1: And so what do people do when they don't want
Speaker 1: to feel their feelings. First of all, they judge them.
Speaker 1: They're like, I'm sad or I'm anxious. That's a bad feeling.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, there are no good feelings or bad feelings,
Speaker 1: even envy. I always say to people, follow your envy.
Speaker 1: It tells you what you want. It tells you about desire,
Speaker 1: and if you kind of stuff down your envy, you
Speaker 1: will do nothing to pursue your desire. And so what
Speaker 1: do we do when we have a feeling that we
Speaker 1: characterize as bad. Well, you can think that you're kind
Speaker 1: of stuffing down your feelings, but you're not. You can't
Speaker 1: compartmentalize them that well for very long, and so it
Speaker 1: comes out in too much food or too much wine,
Speaker 1: or an inability to sleep, or a short temperate nous,
Speaker 1: or problems in relationships or the mindless scrolling through the internet. Right,
Speaker 1: we don't want to feel. So people come into therapy
Speaker 1: and they're in pain and they say, help me not
Speaker 1: to feel. And they say, no, I'm going to help
Speaker 1: you to feel, because that's where freedom lies. So beautifully said,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a short break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: You're listening to go ask Alli, let's get back to
Speaker 1: the conversation for couples, you know, and again I want
Speaker 1: to keep it about sort of growing a relationship with yourself,
Speaker 1: but but many of us have uh a significant other
Speaker 1: and it's incredibly difficult. I would imagine when one person
Speaker 1: wants to kind of quote unquote do the work and
Speaker 1: the other person doesn't or were there reluctantly pulled in
Speaker 1: the therapy. Um, when a couple comes into you, can
Speaker 1: you tell right away if it's going to work, if
Speaker 1: it's not going to work. Yeah, So, you know, even
Speaker 1: on the podcast recently, we had this situation where the
Speaker 1: woman in the marriage had cheated on the guy and
Speaker 1: at first she did not want to be in the marriage,
Speaker 1: but then she came back to him and it was
Speaker 1: very apparent to us that she really didn't want to
Speaker 1: be in the marriage, that she was doing that for
Speaker 1: the kids and a sense of sort of safety, but
Speaker 1: she really didn't love her husband, and he could not
Speaker 1: see that. We tried to help him see that was
Speaker 1: going on. It's very painful when that happens. Um, you
Speaker 1: can't do couples if both people aren't interested in in
Speaker 1: doing the work. And so what I do before people
Speaker 1: come in if they want to stay together. I always
Speaker 1: say I want you each before the first session to
Speaker 1: write down not what you want the other person to do,
Speaker 1: but what you want to do to improve this relationship.
Speaker 1: And that changes the whole dynamic of what the couple's
Speaker 1: therapy is like because instead of coming and say, well,
Speaker 1: you need to do this and I'm not getting this
Speaker 1: and this needs to happen. It's no matter what the
Speaker 1: other person does or doesn't do. Here's what I am
Speaker 1: going to do to improve this and let's see what
Speaker 1: happens when I take the steps to make this relationship back.
Speaker 1: Have you ever said to a couple it's not gonna work.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna stop you right now. Well, sure, I
Speaker 1: mean if if, If you're not going to be honest.
Speaker 1: That's the biggest obstacles, people really being honest about what
Speaker 1: they want and where they are. So they're they're pretending,
Speaker 1: and then they don't really want to come to therapy,
Speaker 1: you know, they're sort of like become late or they
Speaker 1: won't show up and the other person is waiting there
Speaker 1: for them. I need them to be able to say
Speaker 1: in the room I'm not sure, and for the other
Speaker 1: person to be able to tolerate that. Can you tolerate
Speaker 1: the I'm not sure of your partner and do this
Speaker 1: work together, you know, without being like, well, if you're
Speaker 1: not sure, I'm leaving right, because then you're never going
Speaker 1: to see what could be between the two of you.
Speaker 1: And sometimes the work is how can we split up? Right?
Speaker 1: Like where they both are saying, we don't want to
Speaker 1: be together. We know this is over, but we want
Speaker 1: to learn how to co parent together. We want to
Speaker 1: learn how because we're going to have a relationship with
Speaker 1: each other for the rest of our lives, because we
Speaker 1: have kids together. When a couple comes in and you
Speaker 1: see that one person has not dealt with sort of
Speaker 1: letting go of path toxic relationships, do you ever sort
Speaker 1: of split them up and say you need to do
Speaker 1: individual therapy and we'll also deal with it and how
Speaker 1: you sort of interact in your marriage or your relationship.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean absolutely, sometimes people need to do
Speaker 1: individual work. I will say that couples therapy can sometimes
Speaker 1: move you along individually a lot quicker than individual therapy.
Speaker 1: Will Oh, that's interesting because I am seeing you in
Speaker 1: relation to somebody else who is not me, and so
Speaker 1: so when somebody comes in, it takes me longer to
Speaker 1: figure out, well, what might be going on with their partner?
Speaker 1: What part of this story are they not telling me?
Speaker 1: What parts of the story are they emphasizing or minimizing
Speaker 1: in terms of their own role in it? Because of shame, Right,
Speaker 1: that's why people don't talk about those parts. In a
Speaker 1: couple of therapy and hearing parts of the story that
Speaker 1: the other person is leaving out because their partner is
Speaker 1: sharing that with me, so I get a much fuller picture.
Speaker 1: And you know, as you say, the nuture of life
Speaker 1: is to change, but the nature of people is to
Speaker 1: resist change. And if we're speaking now to a lot
Speaker 1: of people that want to improve themselves and their life,
Speaker 1: how do we jump that hurdle of resistance? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that part of the resistance is
Speaker 1: that we are worried that we're going to again go
Speaker 1: into this place that's unfamiliar to us. So I think
Speaker 1: change is listening to what is that voice that's preventing
Speaker 1: you from changing? What is that voice in your head? Um?
Speaker 1: And I will say, by the way, that we are
Speaker 1: so self critical when we actually into that voice, when
Speaker 1: we're talking so much about relationships today, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about relationships to others, and I want to talk for
Speaker 1: a minute about our relationship to ourselves, because we can
Speaker 1: be our own worst enemies. And when I give talks,
Speaker 1: I will often say to people, you know, show of hands,
Speaker 1: who's the person that you've talked to most in the
Speaker 1: course of your life. Isn't your partner? Million hands go up?
Speaker 1: You know? Is it your sister, isn't your mother, isn't
Speaker 1: your best friend? Is it? You know? Who? Who is it? Right? Um?
Speaker 1: Lots of people think that that's the person they talked
Speaker 1: to most in the course of their lives. But the
Speaker 1: truth is the person we talk to most in the
Speaker 1: course of our lives is ourselves. And what we say
Speaker 1: to ourselves isn't always kind or true or useful. So
Speaker 1: I had this patient who came to me and I
Speaker 1: could tell she was so self critical and she could
Speaker 1: not see it. And I said, listen, I want you
Speaker 1: to go home and really listen to that voice in
Speaker 1: your head, and I want you to write down everything
Speaker 1: you say to yourself over the course of a few
Speaker 1: days and cut back next week. Who we'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: So she comes back the next week and she starts
Speaker 1: to read this. She had dutifully done the assignment, and
Speaker 1: she's crying and she says, I can't even read this.
Speaker 1: I am such a bully to myself. And there were
Speaker 1: things like just in the course of a day, as
Speaker 1: she listened to herself, like she made this very minor mistake,
Speaker 1: and as she was working, and she said, God, you're
Speaker 1: such an idiot, right, and it's really really like just
Speaker 1: a horrible tone to herself. If her friend had made
Speaker 1: that very same mistake, she would not for a second
Speaker 1: think that her friend was an idiot, and she would
Speaker 1: not have handled it that way. Or just like she
Speaker 1: saw herself when she was walking by like a store
Speaker 1: window and she thought, God, you're so ugly. You look
Speaker 1: terrible to me, you know, and you would never I
Speaker 1: mean just that things we say to ourselves we don't
Speaker 1: even realize that we're saying that. Some people think, well,
Speaker 1: you know, that's how I hold myself accountable, that's how
Speaker 1: I grow and change, as if I'm really tough on myself. No,
Speaker 1: actually that's the opposite. If you talk to yourself that way,
Speaker 1: it creates shame. And what do we do when we
Speaker 1: feel shame? We hide. It's not like we say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to improve myself now because I'm so uglier,
Speaker 1: I'm so incompetent, and I'm such an idiot. Think about
Speaker 1: it as how you would talk to your child. If
Speaker 1: you said to your child, you made that mistake, you're
Speaker 1: such an idiot. Are they going to be motivated to change? No?
Speaker 1: Are they going to learn from that? No? Will they
Speaker 1: grow from that? No. So when you think about self, compassion,
Speaker 1: that is how people change. Like if you're compassionate with
Speaker 1: your child, if you say, oh, honey, listen, you made
Speaker 1: a mistake there, let's talk about that, let's understand that better.
Speaker 1: Then your kid is going to grow from that. They're
Speaker 1: going to be kinder to themselves, and then they're going
Speaker 1: to say, oh, next time, now we know what to do.
Speaker 1: And so if you're compassionate with yourself, you're not going
Speaker 1: to be bathed in shame, and therefore you'll be able
Speaker 1: to look at your mistake for what it was and
Speaker 1: then you'll be able to make changes. So in a relationship,
Speaker 1: if you say, wow, I'm able to apologize, right, you
Speaker 1: know who are the people who can't apologize in a
Speaker 1: relationship Are the people who have so much shame around
Speaker 1: their mistakes. They grew up thinking I have to be perfect.
Speaker 1: I can't acknowledge when I make a mistake, because then
Speaker 1: I'm going to be shamed. So they don't want to
Speaker 1: apologize to their partner because they think that their partner
Speaker 1: is going to say, oh, see you were wrong, I
Speaker 1: was right, when their partner is not going to do
Speaker 1: that at all. Their partner is going to really appreciate
Speaker 1: that you can take responsibility for your role and whatever happened,
Speaker 1: And so what do you do with you know? I
Speaker 1: like to think of it as like a little film
Speaker 1: clip that goes over and over in your head, that
Speaker 1: are those bad messages? How do you stop that? If
Speaker 1: I wanted to learn how to sort of self soothe
Speaker 1: and be loving to myself, what would I do? How
Speaker 1: would I start? Well? I think you have to notice
Speaker 1: what is the story that you have in your head,
Speaker 1: and then you have to really examine that story. And
Speaker 1: sometimes people are carrying around these very old stories that
Speaker 1: just not only aren't accurate, but we're never accurate, but
Speaker 1: they were told to you, and so you believe that
Speaker 1: they're accurate. But as an adult, it's like wearing clothes
Speaker 1: that don't fit you anymore. You're just carrying it around
Speaker 1: because you've never taken the time to step back and say,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, does this really fit this story? Is
Speaker 1: this really does this really match my reality right now
Speaker 1: in this moment? And what you find is that it
Speaker 1: really doesn't. And you can rewrite your story. If you
Speaker 1: don't revise your story, you will relive your story. And
Speaker 1: what about the bully in your head? You know, I've
Speaker 1: always thought, well, those damaging I call them damaging messages
Speaker 1: in my head, But maybe they've propelled me to where
Speaker 1: I am today. Maybe I wouldn't, you know, have had
Speaker 1: success in the entertainment industry if I wasn't so hard
Speaker 1: to myself. Chris Rock famously says he if he wasn't
Speaker 1: bullied as a kid, he never would have become a comedian.
Speaker 1: Sometimes are these voices beneficial? Do they push us forward?
Speaker 1: I think the experience of being bullied makes you a
Speaker 1: keen observer of the world because you go into this
Speaker 1: your place, you're very alone. You feel very alone when
Speaker 1: you're bullied when you're young, and you don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of support. So when Chris Rock says, you know,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what history is at all. So
Speaker 1: I don't want to be presumptuous, but I would say
Speaker 1: that when people make those kinds of comments, like, well,
Speaker 1: I was bullied and it made me like a comedian
Speaker 1: or a writer or whatever, that's because you were a
Speaker 1: keen observer. You know pain, you know what it's like
Speaker 1: to be alone, you know what it's like to feel things.
Speaker 1: And is that different from the voice in your head
Speaker 1: that bullies you? Is right? And so the voice in
Speaker 1: your head is the internalized bully. And the question is,
Speaker 1: you know, why do you need that? And some people
Speaker 1: think I need that because that's what propelled me, That's
Speaker 1: what got me to this place. But no, what got
Speaker 1: you to this place was was your reaction to saying
Speaker 1: something is not right about the way that I'm being treated.
Speaker 1: This is not right, and so why would you keep
Speaker 1: doing that to yourself? Now you can say, oh why wait.
Speaker 1: I have the freedom to look at things a little
Speaker 1: bit differently. I have the freedom to treat myself with
Speaker 1: more race than I was offered when I was younger.
Speaker 1: And it's from that place of grace that not only
Speaker 1: will you be more compassionate to yourself, but you'll be
Speaker 1: more compassionate with others and that will help you to
Speaker 1: have stronger connections in your life. And when you have
Speaker 1: stronger connections in your life, you live a more fulfilling life.
Speaker 1: And there's this myth that as a writer, and I'm
Speaker 1: a writer too, so there's this myth that as a writer,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to have the sort of tortured
Speaker 1: existence to have material um and that is such a myth.
Speaker 1: I treat so many creative people in my practice and
Speaker 1: they're so afraid of letting go of their pain because
Speaker 1: they feel like, well, then what am I gonna How
Speaker 1: am I gonna write? I write from a place of pain?
Speaker 1: Is like no, you write from a place of knowing.
Speaker 1: You write from a place of knowing what it's like
Speaker 1: to feel. Pain is like this monolith. Pain is you know,
Speaker 1: you think that it's your pain, is like your's like
Speaker 1: your teddy bear from when you were a child, this
Speaker 1: pain because that's all you knew. It's familiar, right, familiar.
Speaker 1: You don't need that teddy bear anymore because that teddy
Speaker 1: bear actually is not comforting. That's so interesting Before I
Speaker 1: turn this into a personal therapy, how how often does
Speaker 1: that happen? When you do a podcast with somebody and
Speaker 1: they just start clearly voicing their own issues. Um. It
Speaker 1: happens on airplane. Oh, I'm sure you know when when
Speaker 1: people say what do you do? I never say I'm
Speaker 1: a therapist. I always say I'm a writer, and then
Speaker 1: nobody wants to talk to you. If you say you're
Speaker 1: a therapist, you are stuck next to somebody for the
Speaker 1: entire duration of the flight, where they feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: let me tell you about this argument I just had
Speaker 1: with my mother exactly. I mean, in my head, all
Speaker 1: I'm doing is now, don't ask her about that stuff
Speaker 1: with George, you know, but I wanted to end the
Speaker 1: podcast with, dear therapist, what are you finding? Is uh
Speaker 1: something you're hearing more and more about on your podcast.
Speaker 1: I think that COVID amplified whatever people we're already dealing with.
Speaker 1: So if somebody was anxious, it amplified their anxiety. If
Speaker 1: they were depressed, amplified their depress But I don't think
Speaker 1: that the concerns themselves were so different. And you wrote
Speaker 1: that the opposite of depression isn't happiness but vitality, and
Speaker 1: I think now more than ever, we can disrupt the
Speaker 1: depressive state with action, right, Well, that's right, creating social
Speaker 1: connections and finding compelling reasons to get out of bed
Speaker 1: besides you know, binge watching Netflix and eating ice cream,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing wrong with that, by the way. So
Speaker 1: I want to say that it's a balance, you know.
Speaker 1: I think that we need time to ourselves. So I
Speaker 1: think so many people are talking about connect connect, connect,
Speaker 1: and people feel a lot of pressure around that. They
Speaker 1: feel like, well, wait a minute, I just need time
Speaker 1: to think. I need space for myself sometimes, especially if
Speaker 1: you've got young children or you're juggling a lot of things. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think that it's really important that we have
Speaker 1: that balance. It's not just like let me just keep moving,
Speaker 1: let me just take action so I don't feel my feelings.
Speaker 1: I think you have to feel what you're feeling, and
Speaker 1: I think you also have to do something and you
Speaker 1: have to be in motion too. During COVID, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have said, um, you know what relationships matter
Speaker 1: to me? Which relationships do I want to prioritize and
Speaker 1: which ones are not really ones that I want to
Speaker 1: invest my emotional real estate. That's been a really positive thing,
Speaker 1: as people are saying I was wasting a lot of
Speaker 1: time on a relationship that is not that important to
Speaker 1: me or that doesn't really nourish me, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: spending enough time on this other relationship that is really
Speaker 1: bringing me so much joy right now. And I think
Speaker 1: at the end, what every question is about is how
Speaker 1: can I love and be loved. I think that that's
Speaker 1: at the core of every single dilemma, issue, problem that
Speaker 1: people grapple with in life. So again it's it's connecting,
Speaker 1: it's reaching out, but I think it's knowing your audience,
Speaker 1: like reaching out to people who are nourishing to you.
Speaker 1: That's a great way to end this podcast. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Louri god Like. This was amazing. Well, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for the conversation. Of course, I can talk about
Speaker 1: relationships forever me too, and I'm again trying to was
Speaker 1: trying to veer off making it all about me, because
Speaker 1: I could go through every relationship if I've had in
Speaker 1: my life, starting with my parents. But I'll come see
Speaker 1: you offline. Thank you so much for being with us today,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. I'm a huge advocate for therapy, and I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of bad therapy. I remember one time
Speaker 1: being in therapy and somebody knocked on the door it
Speaker 1: was the patient for the next hour, and both the
Speaker 1: therapist and I were fast asleep. So there's that kind
Speaker 1: of therapy and there's actually good therapy. And I think
Speaker 1: now there are so many outlets, So do yourself a favor,
Speaker 1: whether you can afford to have therapy, or you can
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts about therapy or read columns like Dear Therapist, Um,
Speaker 1: you won't be sorry, and it actually helps you to
Speaker 1: do that inner work so that we could all kind
Speaker 1: of stay away from the toxic situations and relationships in
Speaker 1: our life. Thank you for listening to Go ask Alli.
Speaker 1: Join me next week when I talk with actress activists
Speaker 1: and Phil Donahue's better half Marlo Thomas about the ingredients
Speaker 1: to a long and loving marriage. Be sure to subscribe,
Speaker 1: rate and review the podcast, and follow me on social
Speaker 1: media on Twitter Ali E Wentworth and on Instagram the
Speaker 1: Real Ali Wentworth And if you have questions or guests
Speaker 1: you'd like to hear from, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Call or text me at three to three four six
Speaker 1: three five six or email me Go ask Aali podcast
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. Go ask Alli is a production
Speaker 1: of Shonda Land Audio and partnership with I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.