Latest / The Virtual Couch / Shift: Managing Your Emotions So They Don’t Manage You by Ethan Kross - Virtual Couch Book Club w/Marla Christiansen, APCC

Transcript

Shift: Managing Your Emotions So They Don’t Manage You by Ethan Kross - Virtual Couch Book Club w/Marla Christiansen, APCC · The Virtual Couch

• 0:23
  I wanna share something that I witnessed recently that it
• 0:25
  absolutely gave me hope in humanity.
• 0:28
  I was walking outta a store and I saw a parent coming out with a toddler in full
• 0:33
  meltdown mode, and I am talking red-faced tears and snot streaming, throwing
• 0:38
  themselves on the ground kind of tantrum that made every parent within a 50 foot
• 0:42
  radius either feel just tremendous empathy or start mentally scrolling through their
• 0:46
  own greatest parenting hits and misses.
• 0:49
  And my immediate thought was.
• 0:50
  Oh man, this kid is about to hear about it.
• 0:53
  They're about to get in trouble and I couldn't help it.
• 0:56
  Maybe it's like driving by an accident, but I found myself
• 1:00
  bracing for the inevitable.
• 1:02
  I'm ready to hear a stop that right now.
• 1:03
  Or You're embarrassing me, or I can't take you anywhere, or
• 1:06
  you're grounded when we get home.
• 1:08
  Or maybe.
• 1:08
  Counting to two outta three and staying at two for a long time.
• 1:12
  Some sort of version of an emotional shutdown that so many of us have
• 1:14
  experienced is parents, but what happened next caught me off guard.
• 1:17
  This parent gets down to their child's eye level and wrapped them in the
• 1:23
  biggest, most genuine hug and said something like, Hey buddy, I can
• 1:28
  see you're having some really big feelings right now, and that's okay.
• 1:31
  How about we take some deep breaths together?
• 1:33
  And the kid did, and I, I stopped in my tracks.
• 1:37
  Here was a parent who was actually welcoming their child's emotions
• 1:40
  instead of trying to shut them down or fix them immediately.
• 1:43
  And I was so moved by this touching beautiful moment that I apparently became
• 1:47
  completely unaware of my surroundings.
• 1:49
  'cause suddenly the mom was looking up at me and saying,
• 1:51
  can I help you with something?
• 1:53
  And that, that is when I came back to the present moment, I realized
• 1:55
  I had been standing there staring at them a little bit creepy.
• 1:58
  And I wish I was making this part up, but there was standing there holding a
• 2:01
  bag of candy that I had just purchased, and it was all I could do to stop myself
• 2:06
  from saying how moving that was and then asking her son if he would like some
• 2:11
  candy from me, the complete stranger.
• 2:14
  But thankfully I caught myself and I just said that was really special to see the
• 2:17
  way that you handled that with your son.
• 2:19
  I hope that you have an amazing and wonderful day.
• 2:22
  So, hey everybody.
• 2:23
  Welcome to the virtual couch.
• 2:24
  I'm Tony Obba.
• 2:25
  I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and today I have another
• 2:29
  exciting what I am thinking.
• 2:31
  We can now call a book club episode with my associate, Marla Christiansen,
• 2:35
  where we dive deep into Ethan Cross's.
• 2:37
  Fascinating book shift Managing your Emotions so they don't manage You.
• 2:43
  Now while the tantrum is completely normal in parts of human development,
• 2:47
  I'd have to be honest with you, I have seen about as many of those
• 2:50
  emotionally validating parent moments as I have purple Ferraris over the
• 2:54
  last year, and I'm being completely literal about the purple Ferrari
• 2:57
  count, which stands at two, by the way.
• 3:00
  So I've seen two of those experiences and two purple Ferraris.
• 3:04
  So I really hope that the emotional experiences win.
• 3:06
  While that might be the perfect number of purple Ferraris in my lifetime,
• 3:10
  I. Definitely hope that we see more parents modeling healthier relationships
• 3:14
  with emotions for their children.
• 3:16
  I believe that for most of us, and I'm talking about adults, that we are
• 3:19
  only beginning to scratch the surface of what to do with our emotions or
• 3:24
  quite frankly, what they even are.
• 3:26
  I did a, an episode recently that is semi broke my brain.
• 3:29
  It's another one of those concepts that you can't unsee or unhear
• 3:33
  where I'd realized how incorrectly.
• 3:34
  Most of us use the concept of emotion in our everyday language.
• 3:37
  So we say things like, see if you can tell the difference.
• 3:40
  We say things like, I feel like they weren't even interested
• 3:43
  in having a relationship.
• 3:44
  Instead of, I feel frustrated because I don't think that they were
• 3:47
  interested in a relationship, or, I feel like you're angry with me.
• 3:51
  I. Instead of, I feel sad because I think that you're angry with me.
• 3:55
  'cause the difference here, if you caught that, is crucial.
• 3:58
  And the first examples, I'm not actually describing feelings at all.
• 4:01
  I'm describing thoughts or assumptions.
• 4:03
  I feel like they weren't interested is really a thought disguised as a feeling.
• 4:07
  The actual emotion might be disappointment.
• 4:09
  Frustration, sadness.
• 4:11
  So when we say things like, I feel like you are angry, we're making an assumption
• 4:15
  about someone else's emotional state, we're not identifying our own feeling.
• 4:19
  So the more accurate version is, I feel sad because I think that you're angry.
• 4:23
  'cause that actually names the emotion that I am experiencing
• 4:26
  in response to my perception.
• 4:28
  So they're me things.
• 4:30
  But they're keeping me connected.
• 4:31
  And hopefully we can have a mature adult conversation from there.
• 4:35
  And this linguistic confusion is not just about semantics.
• 4:39
  It isn't something that somebody can just say, yeah, whatever.
• 4:42
  It's not a big deal.
• 4:44
  I think it reflects how disconnected we become from our emotional lives
• 4:47
  if we're even aware of 'em at all.
• 4:48
  And I think that there's a reason for this disconnect because most of
• 4:51
  us, if darn near all of us, I don't want to go completely all or nothing.
• 4:57
  Weren't modeled healthy relationships with emotions from our parents.
• 5:01
  And before anybody starts feeling defensive, I really am not trying
• 5:04
  to parent bash this is a absolutely bless their heart kind of a thing.
• 5:08
  I don't think they knew what they didn't know.
• 5:09
  'cause I'm barely figuring it out because I think even well-meaning loving
• 5:12
  parents often said things like, don't worry about it, or It's not a big deal.
• 5:17
  Or, Hey, this really isn't something that you need to feel bad about.
• 5:20
  Those statements, especially said with a caring tone might sound
• 5:23
  positive and supportive on the surface, and I think that they most
• 5:26
  likely came from a really good place.
• 5:28
  But they're also subtly communicating that our feelings or our concerns aren't
• 5:32
  accurate or valid or even welcome.
• 5:35
  So over time we learn to stop externalizing our emotions and
• 5:40
  we start to keep them internal.
• 5:42
  They become uncomfortable.
• 5:43
  Then when we have them and all of a sudden.
• 5:46
  We're not even sure if our emotions are accurate, valid, or especially not
• 5:51
  welcome, and that causes us to need somebody else to give us permission
• 5:56
  to be able to feel them or share them.
• 5:58
  This is why I think Marla's book Choice today is so perfect.
• 6:01
  Dr. Ethan Cross's Shift offers us a completely different framework for
• 6:05
  understanding emotions, not as things to be controlled or suppressed, or even
• 6:10
  always expressed, which is a really cool part that we'll get to in the interview.
• 6:13
  But our feelings are.
• 6:15
  To be viewed as information and as Marla shares in the conversation, emotions
• 6:20
  are like a superpower when we really do understand how to work with them.
• 6:23
  If you are not familiar with Marla, she's been on a couple of
• 6:27
  episodes in the past, one about.
• 6:29
  Betrayal trauma that I think is really powerful.
• 6:31
  Marla's a registered associate marriage and family therapist and
• 6:34
  an associate professional clinical counselor, and she's currently under my
• 6:38
  supervision until she becomes licensed.
• 6:40
  She holds a master's in clinical psychology from Pepperdine University
• 6:43
  and a bachelor's in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Chico State.
• 6:47
  And what I really like about Marla is she's fairly new in her therapy
• 6:51
  career, but you wouldn't know that and.
• 6:55
  As a clinical supervisor, you do weekly supervision with your associates,
• 7:00
  formerly known as interns, and you get a chance to know that person
• 7:03
  well and go over cases with them.
• 7:05
  And it is wild to think that Marla has just been doing this for a few years.
• 7:10
  I. Because she's already diving really deep into the, I think, the most
• 7:14
  important aspects of mental health, like understanding our emotional lives.
• 7:17
  She's dealing a lot with trauma and betrayal, and she's doing some work
• 7:22
  with Somatic Healing right now.
• 7:23
  And it is honestly almost embarrassing how long it took me into my own career
• 7:28
  as a therapist to really start to grasp.
• 7:30
  What our emotions are there for.
• 7:32
  I love that she's already on this path.
• 7:33
  In our conversation today, you are gonna learn some
• 7:36
  fascinating concepts from Schiff.
• 7:38
  So for instance, little sneak preview.
• 7:40
  Did you know that we're experiencing one or more emotions at least 90% of the time?
• 7:45
  That's a lot.
• 7:46
  Or that 33% of the time we're actually feeling both positive and
• 7:50
  negative emotions simultaneously.
• 7:51
  No wonder it is a complex world inside of our heads.
• 7:54
  It is so much easier to go to the black or white or all or nothing.
• 7:58
  Because that's a lot of mental calories being spent, especially if
• 8:01
  we're trying to manage emotions that we don't even know what to do with.
• 8:05
  So Marlon and I explore Cross's framework for shifting emotions, which includes
• 8:09
  shifting from the inside out, using our attention and perspective and even
• 8:13
  the way that we talk to ourselves.
• 8:14
  And this next part is something that Tony really appreciated and Tony
• 8:17
  has been doing quite a bit lately, and Tony thinks has been working.
• 8:20
  Marla introduced us to this concept called distanced self-talk, where
• 8:24
  instead of saying, I can do this.
• 8:26
  You actually say, Tony can do this, or You've got this Marla, and it sounds
• 8:29
  a bit silly, but the research shows it's incredibly effective because it's
• 8:33
  easier to give advice to someone else.
• 8:35
  Even if that person is you.
• 8:37
  We're also gonna dive into shifting from the outside in how our
• 8:41
  environment, our relationships, and even our cultural context can either
• 8:44
  help us regulate our emotions or they can actually send us spiraling.
• 8:48
  And then Marla shares some really powerful insights about
• 8:51
  emotional contagion, meaning how emotions are literally contagious.
• 8:55
  And we talk about why then it matters a lot, who we surround ourselves with.
• 9:00
  And we're gonna discuss the importance of body awareness.
• 9:02
  Where do you actually feel your emotions physically?
• 9:05
  Most of us, I think, again, are so disconnected from our bodies
• 9:07
  that we miss crucial information that our emotions are trying to
• 9:10
  give us a lot throughout the day.
• 9:12
  And we're gonna explore when it's healthy to approach difficult
• 9:15
  emotions versus when avoidance might actually be the wise choice.
• 9:19
  Because being aware of that can be empowering.
• 9:24
  We're also gonna touch on how comparison affects our emotional lives,
• 9:26
  especially in the social media age.
• 9:28
  How cultural factors, including faith transition, can create enormous emotional
• 9:33
  upheaval that I think it's really important to get the tools to navigate.
• 9:37
  I think more importantly, you'll come away with a deeper appreciation
• 9:41
  for your emotions as information rather than inconveniences.
• 9:45
  They're not.
• 9:46
  Good or bad, they're data about what matters to you and what threatens
• 9:49
  you and what excites you and what you need to pay attention to.
• 9:53
  So whether you're somebody who feels regularly overwhelmed by your emotions
• 9:57
  or disconnected from them, or you're just curious about how to work with
• 10:00
  them more effectively, stay tuned because this conversation is gonna
• 10:03
  give you some powerful tools and perspectives, and Tony thinks you're
• 10:07
  really gonna enjoy this discussion.
• 10:09
  Let's see what I did there, because just like spotting that rare purple Ferrari,
• 10:12
  I think finding practical research-based approaches to understanding our emotional
• 10:15
  lives is something well worth your time.
• 10:18
  So let's jump into this book club discussion about emotions and shifting
• 10:22
  and understanding these internal experiences and how those might just
• 10:26
  be one of the most important skills we can develop as human beings.
• 10:30
  Let's get to this interview with Marla Christensen.
• 10:36
  So Future me self when I'm editing this, I wanna know if it caught me asking
• 10:40
  you what happens if you don't hit?
• 10:41
  Okay.
• 10:42
  Because that would've recorded it without your permission.
• 10:44
  Huh?
• 10:45
  Fascinating.
• 10:46
  I don't know.
• 10:48
  Marla Christian and violations.
• 10:49
  See, look, I just did it right there.
• 10:50
  I, I told Marla off air that I'm gonna do my very best not to interrupt
• 10:54
  her, but the last time that we, I think that a couple of times we've
• 10:57
  been on, I've been very excited.
• 10:58
  We've had a nice flow.
• 10:59
  We talked about things like betrayal, trauma, things like that last time
• 11:02
  that episode's done really well.
• 11:04
  I appreciate you there.
• 11:04
  So no pressure to make this yet Another giant virtual cast sensation.
• 11:10
  Do my best.
• 11:11
  I told Marla that I have a for if you don't watch this on YouTube,
• 11:14
  I have an auctioneers paddle.
• 11:15
  I will lift it when I want to ask a question.
• 11:19
  Sounds good.
• 11:20
  I like it.
• 11:21
  That would be, that would be kind of fun.
• 11:21
  Do you
• 11:21
  want me to just raise my pin?
• 11:23
  Right.
• 11:23
  Okay.
• 11:24
  But I'm so excited because we're talking about emotions.
• 11:26
  Yeah.
• 11:26
  I'm hopefully, I just did a big intro before I welcomed you
• 11:30
  about my thoughts on emotions.
• 11:32
  Okay.
• 11:32
  So that's how I feel about them.
• 11:35
  There we go.
• 11:36
  And now, but I get, I like it.
• 11:37
  I think we were joking.
• 11:38
  This is book club and Marlo.
• 11:40
  Yeah.
• 11:40
  What book are we talking about today and why?
• 11:43
  Okay, so first we're talking about a book today.
• 11:45
  'cause I have an obsession.
• 11:48
  Books.
• 11:48
  My husband has told me no more books and I don't even know how to do that.
• 11:52
  I've always loved books.
• 11:53
  This book I came across just off off of another podcast, Huberman Labs,
• 11:59
  really love to listen to them and he was on talking about his book and
• 12:03
  so I actually pre-ordered this book.
• 12:05
  I was super excited for it.
• 12:06
  It came out in February and it's called Shift.
• 12:09
  It's by cross.
• 12:11
  I think it's just phenomenal.
• 12:12
  Anytime we can talk about how do you move your emotions, how do you help
• 12:15
  your emotions, I'm all over that.
• 12:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:17
  You know, as therapists, that's what we love.
• 12:19
  Look at my first slate.
• 12:20
  Oh yeah.
• 12:20
  Yeah.
• 12:22
  What I really like about this is that Marla's associate of mine.
• 12:25
  That sounds funny 'cause I feel like Marla's been in the field for a long time.
• 12:29
  I really like that you're already going here toward emotions and you
• 12:32
  are fairly new in your therapy career.
• 12:35
  Yeah, because I am, I think I embarrassingly am admitting that it's only
• 12:39
  been the last few years where I've really understood what emotions are there for.
• 12:44
  So I love that you're already jumped on this now.
• 12:47
  Well, I wouldn't feel bad, Tony.
• 12:48
  I, I don't think that they've studied emotions all that much.
• 12:51
  So having the technology to study it has been a problem.
• 12:54
  I would say a lot of the other things that I've read, we haven't had FMRI
• 12:58
  machines and things like that to look at, like what the brain is doing.
• 13:01
  And so we, it's, we're kind of, it's kind of mystical, like what are these
• 13:05
  emotions, what are we doing with them?
• 13:07
  So a lot of it, I think the really good research is coming out.
• 13:10
  Just now.
• 13:11
  Okay.
• 13:11
  With like, I feel better.
• 13:12
  What are our emotions doing?
• 13:14
  Yeah.
• 13:14
  And then I, and then I think, and honestly inside out the movie one and two.
• 13:18
  Love it.
• 13:18
  I really think that that has us thinking more about emotions.
• 13:22
  Oh definitely.
• 13:23
  Definitely.
• 13:23
  And I love that they externalized your emotions.
• 13:25
  Like they're all just different little monsters.
• 13:27
  That's a fun thing I like to do with my kiddos.
• 13:29
  So where are we going today with emotions?
• 13:32
  So book club time.
• 13:33
  So this was, I thought, a really great book.
• 13:36
  I was excited because it was more about how do you take your emotions
• 13:39
  and how do you use them to shift, which is what the topic was.
• 13:42
  You know, you can't get rid of them.
• 13:44
  Everybody's, oh, I don't want emotions.
• 13:45
  It's about incorporating it into your life and having it not control you.
• 13:49
  But how do I control them in some ways, and even that, I'm like, okay.
• 13:53
  There's the whole control issue here that we could talk about.
• 13:55
  What I like
• 13:56
  is that we know you can't not think them or not feel them, which is rule number
• 14:00
  one when people say, mm-hmm well, I just don't want to feel this way anymore.
• 14:03
  Yeah, exactly.
• 14:05
  Exactly.
• 14:05
  So it's embracing it.
• 14:06
  It's okay, I'm an emotional.
• 14:08
  B. And that's okay.
• 14:10
  So what do I do to not like hook into 'em and have 'em go crazy on me or,
• 14:16
  and what do I do to help them or like maybe even make 'em my superpower?
• 14:20
  So the goal is to learn how to shift your emotions and not have 'em control you.
• 14:24
  So it's like a big takeaway and it goes through four different parts of the book.
• 14:28
  So it felt fairly organized.
• 14:31
  Sometimes you just get into 'em and just a whole bunch of opinion and
• 14:34
  you're like, oh, but wait, what is that?
• 14:36
  At the end of it is a thick section of evidence-based articles you can
• 14:40
  go look at, and I thought, great.
• 14:42
  This is all evidence-based stuff.
• 14:44
  It's not an opinion of some person out here.
• 14:47
  I appreciate that there is science to back some of the things that he
• 14:50
  is saying, but he talks about it like, why do we even care about this?
• 14:53
  Why do we care about emotions and emotional regulation?
• 14:56
  Hmm.
• 14:57
  I mean, what would you say, Tony?
• 14:58
  Okay, great question.
• 14:59
  Because the deal so much with the people that let those emotions, they've been
• 15:03
  stuffing 'em for so long that when they finally come out, I do think that they all
• 15:07
  just say, this might be our only chance.
• 15:09
  And then they just make a run for the, the door.
• 15:11
  I. And now all of a sudden we've got elevated heart rate and cortisol
• 15:15
  levels off the charts, and we are in this amygdala hijack state.
• 15:18
  And then you can't access the part of your brain that can think logically.
• 15:21
  So when Oh yeah.
• 15:22
  I think if we don't know what to do with them, they're going to
• 15:25
  find their way out at some point.
• 15:26
  And probably not in the most mature way.
• 15:29
  Oh yeah, definitely.
• 15:30
  Definitely.
• 15:30
  And it was interesting, he talked about like just how much we are emotional.
• 15:35
  He talked about one study where we are experiencing one or more
• 15:38
  emotion at least 90% of the time.
• 15:41
  Wow.
• 15:42
  So I'm like, ah, 90% of the time we're having emotions.
• 15:46
  That's a lot.
• 15:46
  And I'm thinking, okay, what are you feeling right now, Tony?
• 15:48
  You know, I mean, I mean, most of the time we're feeling something.
• 15:51
  Okay.
• 15:51
  And I love, like I'm trying this with clients more and more, but when
• 15:54
  people say, I don't even know how I'm feeling or thinking, and a simple, I.
• 15:58
  Exercises, whether you have to set an alarm Yeah.
• 16:00
  Or every, every time you stand up from a chair or whatever it is,
• 16:03
  to just do what you just said.
• 16:04
  What am I thinking?
• 16:05
  How am I feeling?
• 16:06
  I guess we're talking about emotions.
• 16:07
  Yeah.
• 16:08
  How am I feeling?
• 16:08
  And it might be I'm feeling hungry, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling
• 16:12
  sleepy, I'm feeling anxious.
• 16:14
  And just to acknowledge it, you're right.
• 16:16
  'cause when you even just said that right there, I thought, first of all, I
• 16:18
  thought, oh, I don't wanna get this wrong.
• 16:20
  Oh no.
• 16:21
  Yeah, we're not doing that.
• 16:22
  No black or white thinking.
• 16:24
  No.
• 16:24
  And it's interesting, you know, even to take a step further, can
• 16:26
  I scan my body and figure out where I'm feeling it in my body?
• 16:30
  My clients would roll their eyes.
• 16:31
  I'm always like into the body scan, like, okay, you're feeling that
• 16:34
  right now, but let's figure it out where you feel it in your body.
• 16:37
  And they're like, oh, Marla.
• 16:38
  But you feel it in your body a lot of different places, and I
• 16:41
  think that we are so disconnected.
• 16:43
  From our body, our emotions.
• 16:45
  You feel something and you're like, get me outta my body.
• 16:48
  I don't wanna feel this
• 16:49
  present.
• 16:50
  Your Marla, where do you feel the majority of your emotions,
• 16:52
  because that's a great point.
• 16:54
  Oh yeah.
• 16:55
  I would say neck, shoulders, stomach, heart, lungs, even.
• 17:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:01
  Head jaw.
• 17:03
  If you go through it and people are like, I what?
• 17:05
  But you have to take him and say, start with your toes.
• 17:08
  Are your toes feeling anything?
• 17:09
  Are your feet feeling anything?
• 17:10
  And work all the way up your body.
• 17:12
  And if they do that, like most of the time, they'll start with
• 17:14
  like, oh, I only feel it one place.
• 17:16
  But if you can do the scan, you'll feel it at least.
• 17:19
  Four or five different places, if not more.
• 17:20
  Just really fascinating.
• 17:22
  We're so disconnected.
• 17:23
  Get connected I think a little bit more with your emotion and
• 17:26
  where you feel it in your body.
• 17:27
  What I think is fascinating about that is I just had spinal fusion surgery
• 17:31
  that is nothing to sneeze about and actually I couldn't sneeze for two weeks.
• 17:35
  That was maddening as well.
• 17:36
  'cause I was worried I'd rip the nuts and bolts outta my neck.
• 17:39
  But I have realized, and my physical therapist said that he believes that.
• 17:44
  It was probably more of a casualty of stress.
• 17:48
  And so even when you did that, I noticed constantly now how often
• 17:52
  my shoulders, I'm clenched, I'm hunched up and I have to mm-hmm.
• 17:55
  Release and open up.
• 17:56
  And so I never knew that that's where I carried so many of my emotions, my stress.
• 18:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:02
  So I, I didn't think about that till right now.
• 18:04
  Yeah.
• 18:05
  I was not a good body scanner for sure.
• 18:08
  Yeah.
• 18:09
  And then we're complicated with our emotions.
• 18:10
  So there's this process of we're not just feeling one emotion.
• 18:13
  We might be feeling positive and negative emotions.
• 18:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:16
  And he had a study in there that showed that 33% of the time
• 18:20
  we're feeling a positive and a negative emotion at the same time.
• 18:24
  So talk about confusing.
• 18:25
  Yeah, I'm happy and I'm angry all at the same time.
• 18:28
  Or I'm tired and I'm sad or all this stuff all at once and I'm annoyed.
• 18:33
  And I'm irritated, but all of this at once, so like I'm happy here to be here
• 18:38
  with you, but I'm also anxious, you know?
• 18:40
  Yeah.
• 18:40
  So it's.
• 18:41
  It's all of it at once by dealing with one thing.
• 18:44
  No, and I'm going so big on emotional immaturity on my own podcast right now.
• 18:48
  Yeah.
• 18:49
  So one of those is all or nothing, black or white thinking.
• 18:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:51
  And this is where people will think that they're doing something
• 18:54
  wrong, which is the black or white thinking, right or wrong.
• 18:57
  Yeah.
• 18:58
  When they are, well, I'm kind of upset.
• 19:00
  I'm also, I think something's kind of funny or I am, I'm angry, but I can also
• 19:04
  understand, or I appreciate, and that is part of this whole object relations
• 19:07
  of being able to view ourselves or others as a, as an entire object full
• 19:11
  of emotions, which that's, I'm making a lot of little connections here
• 19:14
  that I hadn't thought about before.
• 19:16
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:17
  You know, and I love that he put, what emotions are, he just
• 19:20
  said emotions are information.
• 19:22
  Well, that's good.
• 19:23
  They're how we respond to our experiences both imagined.
• 19:27
  What is actually happening around you and, and you're, that are meaningful to you.
• 19:32
  If it's not meaningful to you, you're not really having a emotional response to it.
• 19:36
  But if it's meaningful, the emotions can heighten quite a bit.
• 19:39
  They're instruments for us just to see how like we're responding to the world.
• 19:44
  And
• 19:44
  things around us.
• 19:45
  Okay?
• 19:45
  It's not a truth, it's just a response.
• 19:48
  It's information for us to kind of digest.
• 19:51
  So we have different responses and he talks about that we have a
• 19:55
  physiological reaction, so our nervous system and our body are responding,
• 19:59
  which we kind of talked about.
• 20:00
  Can I scan my body?
• 20:01
  Can I figure out how my nervous system is responding to this emotion?
• 20:05
  Then I have a cognitive appraisal.
• 20:07
  How am I making sense of this?
• 20:08
  What am I thinking?
• 20:09
  What are the thoughts that come with these emotions?
• 20:12
  And then I have outward facing motor behaviors, which is really fancy talk for
• 20:17
  how am I communicating with other people?
• 20:18
  What are my facial features, doing?
• 20:21
  What is my body doing?
• 20:23
  'cause that is all communication and that is we respond.
• 20:26
  Like you have those micro responses to disgust and your nose kind of goes up.
• 20:31
  That's all driven by emotion.
• 20:33
  I'm laughing because I just said earlier today, I had a couple and one of them
• 20:37
  just said, the spouse said, I'm not angry.
• 20:39
  I'm fine, and then we have good rapport, and then he just said,
• 20:44
  well, can you remind your face that's what's going on for you?
• 20:47
  It was pretty funny.
• 20:48
  It was pretty funny in the moment, but it was very true.
• 20:49
  I.
• 20:50
  Yeah.
• 20:51
  And sometimes we're not aware of it.
• 20:52
  And that's the thing, like we're not aware how much our face is communicating.
• 20:57
  Yeah.
• 20:57
  Our emotion and things like that.
• 20:58
  So I, I liked that he went through that in the book and I
• 21:01
  thought that was really great.
• 21:02
  He also talked about emotions vary.
• 21:05
  There's variation in, um, with intensity, some emotions we feel subtly others
• 21:09
  are really huge and overwhelming.
• 21:12
  And then there's duration.
• 21:14
  Which there's a lot of stuff about duration and emotions, you know, as
• 21:17
  far as primary and secondary emotions.
• 21:20
  But how long do our emotions last?
• 21:23
  Some of us are a little more dramatic and we're like, our emotions last forever.
• 21:26
  And then we have, we get triggers for our emotions.
• 21:30
  We all have a, you smell something and you're like, Ooh, what was that?
• 21:33
  That reminds me of this, and oh, I'm sad all of a sudden.
• 21:35
  You know,
• 21:36
  I have to tell you, I, my office here in Arizona is in a set of salon suites.
• 21:40
  There's a few other therapists in here, and boy, I probably, I think I mentioned
• 21:43
  this before, but I. Nothing says therapy like the smell of burn hair and a perm.
• 21:49
  And when I smell that permanent solution, I go right back to when I would be at
• 21:53
  my mama's in Tennessee in the summer and everybody would be getting a perm.
• 21:57
  Not me.
• 21:58
  I didn't have hair even back then, but it is wild to think about.
• 22:01
  I can just, all of a sudden I'm thinking about my grandma
• 22:04
  'cause of a permanent solution.
• 22:05
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:05
  And then this morning somebody was.
• 22:07
  Somebody's, there was a kid screaming out in the hall and then it just
• 22:10
  caused this visceral reaction.
• 22:12
  Mm. And I was even checking in with myself of, okay, what are, what are my thoughts?
• 22:16
  And it was empathy toward the mom.
• 22:17
  Thank goodness.
• 22:18
  It wasn't like a tell that kid to pipe down, but it's funny because
• 22:21
  you're feeling something, and I wasn't even sure what caused that.
• 22:24
  At first, right.
• 22:25
  That, that visceral gut reaction.
• 22:27
  Yeah, and he, he talks about there's a last variation variable that we can
• 22:31
  kind of control, which is trajectory.
• 22:33
  We get to figure out if we hook into that emotion, kind of like an
• 22:37
  act principle and go somewhere with it, or if we just shut it down.
• 22:41
  So there's different ways that you can do those things.
• 22:44
  And that's what this whole book is about.
• 22:45
  What do I do once I start to feel that visceral reaction?
• 22:49
  Okay, what am I gonna do?
• 22:50
  And so he talks about these different kind of shifters.
• 22:52
  And so the second section of this book is, how do I shift from the inside outward?
• 22:56
  Which I thought, okay, that's interesting.
• 22:58
  He talked about the law of least work.
• 23:00
  Do you know this law term?
• 23:02
  No.
• 23:02
  But I like the
• 23:02
  way I think it sounds good already.
• 23:04
  Tell more.
• 23:06
  Well, it does sound good because we're an organism that tends to choose the
• 23:09
  path of least physical and mental effort.
• 23:12
  Sure.
• 23:12
  We're
• 23:12
  lazy by nature.
• 23:13
  Yes.
• 23:13
  We're like, can we do this in 10 step thing in five steps?
• 23:17
  That would be great.
• 23:17
  You know?
• 23:18
  Or,
• 23:18
  or do it tomorrow.
• 23:19
  I mean, why not?
• 23:20
  Yes.
• 23:20
  Yeah.
• 23:21
  Or get somebody else to do it for me kind.
• 23:23
  You know?
• 23:24
  So we don't like a lot of work, so even in therapy, I see that with my clients.
• 23:29
  They're like, do I really have to do that?
• 23:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:31
  Like,
• 23:31
  just
• 23:31
  modify that a little bit, or, I really don't wanna do that.
• 23:33
  That's a lot of work.
• 23:35
  They talk about homework sometimes, and they're like, oh no, I'm outta here.
• 23:38
  My kiddos are really cute.
• 23:40
  They're like, I just came from school.
• 23:42
  I don't want therapy to be school too, so law of least work here.
• 23:46
  So he talks about that, but he talks about we have sensory experiences,
• 23:50
  you know, what are your five senses?
• 23:52
  Think about that.
• 23:52
  You know, you were talking about smelling.
• 23:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:54
  The perm in your office.
• 23:56
  It causes emotion.
• 23:57
  Yeah.
• 23:58
  Our sense of touch causes emotion, our sense of smell.
• 24:04
  Of taste, all of the emotions bring all of our senses, bring up emotion.
• 24:09
  And so it's super powerful, but we can use those things to
• 24:13
  kind of shift our emotions too.
• 24:14
  And I think one of the biggest shifters that I see in therapy
• 24:18
  is food, our sense of taste.
• 24:20
  How many times did somebody say to you, oh, I was just feeling really sad and
• 24:24
  I went and I like ate that whole thing of ice cream and I felt so much better.
• 24:29
  Or I'm just gonna rip out this box of chocolates, that kind of thing.
• 24:33
  It shifts our mood.
• 24:34
  It does.
• 24:35
  It helps us.
• 24:36
  So the question that he extended was this, we have these five senses.
• 24:40
  What is the biggest impact for you?
• 24:43
  And then at what lowest cost?
• 24:45
  So me using that ice cream or my sense of taste to shift my emotion
• 24:51
  has a huge impact or cost to me.
• 24:53
  I'm gonna put on weight.
• 24:54
  Okay, I'm gonna like hurt my health and all kinds of things.
• 24:57
  So it may not be the smartest way to shift.
• 25:01
  Some of my emotions.
• 25:02
  Hmm.
• 25:02
  Like
• 25:03
  music might be a better one.
• 25:04
  It might come at a little bit less of a cost to my waistline.
• 25:08
  Yeah.
• 25:08
  So
• 25:09
  I appreciated thinking about that and it got me thinking like, what
• 25:12
  do, what can I use that comes at a low cost, but has a big impact to
• 25:17
  helping me shift out of some of these emotions that I don't want to be in?
• 25:21
  I, I am literally playing with my now probably decade old pitch cube, but,
• 25:26
  and I know that that is, it is funny.
• 25:28
  It helps me shift from this desire to be impulsive and jump in.
• 25:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:33
  Yeah.
• 25:33
  I like it.
• 25:34
  And it's good that you know that.
• 25:35
  And it's a low kind of cost impact thing for you.
• 25:38
  High impact, low cost.
• 25:40
  So the other thing is he talks about our attention.
• 25:42
  Our attention is what we look at.
• 25:44
  He talks also about perspectives.
• 25:45
  And perspectives are like how we look at something.
• 25:49
  So attention is what we look at.
• 25:51
  So do I want to avoid this emotion or approach this emotion?
• 25:56
  So we have a choice there.
• 25:58
  And I think sometimes we wanna avoid a lot of things.
• 26:01
  Sometimes we wanna approach 'em and we can get in trouble with both.
• 26:04
  And so it's, there's not one that is the best here.
• 26:08
  It's, how do I use them both wisely?
• 26:10
  My wife and I were watching a TV show last night.
• 26:11
  We knew that it was gonna, it was gonna bring up someone
• 26:14
  that had taken their life.
• 26:16
  And there'd even been a warning at the beginning of the TV show
• 26:18
  and we were both watching it.
• 26:20
  I think we were folding laundry and, and it was interesting because it got to that
• 26:24
  point and then I actually was the one that said, I don't want to do this tonight.
• 26:28
  I'm not up for this right now.
• 26:29
  And so I can appreciate that because there would be other times
• 26:32
  where I can, I know I would think, okay, I can face this head on.
• 26:35
  I'm curious about this story.
• 26:36
  I know that this is what we're dealing with, but there was just,
• 26:38
  whatever it was, it was the.
• 26:40
  Culmination of a long day.
• 26:42
  There was a whole bunch of other things that had been in my mind, I
• 26:44
  had to acknowledge the fact that I don't think that was the time to Yeah.
• 26:48
  To deal with that.
• 26:49
  Yeah.
• 26:50
  And he goes into some really interesting information, and I'm not gonna give
• 26:53
  it on the podcast 'cause I want people to go and buy this book, support
• 26:56
  Ethan Cross and, and this endeavor.
• 26:58
  But at talking about like, when am I being avoidant here?
• 27:02
  Like,
• 27:03
  and he had some really good information about that.
• 27:05
  And when is it healthy to actually approach it?
• 27:08
  I like that.
• 27:08
  And what can I do when I approach?
• 27:10
  So I, I think that's really great.
• 27:12
  And therapy is a great way of, even I sit with some clients and I'm like,
• 27:15
  okay, it's not healthy when I work with trauma to approach it too much.
• 27:19
  You don't wanna re-traumatize, let's be healthy about it.
• 27:22
  So it, it's this delicate dance between when do I avoid and when do
• 27:25
  I approach and learning that skill.
• 27:27
  So the other part of like how we look at it, what is our perspective
• 27:30
  on it, and this is where the therapy term, the reframe.
• 27:33
  Kind of comes in and, and reframing is really, really a powerful tool, especially
• 27:38
  like in cognitive behavioral therapies.
• 27:40
  He talks about this formula of like A, B, C, A is adverse effect.
• 27:44
  We all have things that happen in our world, some to us, and in this case, let's
• 27:48
  take like a loss or something that's.
• 27:51
  Impactful on the negative side, and we can't control that.
• 27:55
  We can't control the negative things happen to us, but we can't
• 27:58
  control the B of this A, B, C.
• 28:00
  We can control the belief.
• 28:02
  Mm.
• 28:02
  If something negative happens, do I have a belief that's built
• 28:05
  in that's, oh, everything's gonna be harmful, everything's
• 28:07
  gonna, you know, of course, yeah.
• 28:08
  The whole day is gonna go wrong because that will affect my C, which
• 28:12
  my C is the consequence if I believe that everything is gonna go wrong.
• 28:17
  Then everything is gonna go wrong.
• 28:18
  Yeah.
• 28:18
  Like my
• 28:19
  bias is gonna show up here.
• 28:20
  Yeah.
• 28:21
  And so he said if you can control the B, then you can control the c. So we
• 28:25
  can't control a, it's kind of like that we can't control our emotions, but
• 28:29
  you can control what your belief is.
• 28:31
  Yeah.
• 28:32
  About the emotion.
• 28:33
  There's a from Budha brain, which your husband mades the one that recommended
• 28:36
  that one to me back in the day.
• 28:37
  Yeah.
• 28:37
  But he, that was where I was first introduced to the first and
• 28:40
  second dart reactions that mm-hmm.
• 28:42
  The first dart is the emotion.
• 28:43
  It's the what?
• 28:44
  The dart that the life throws at us.
• 28:46
  And then the second dart is the one you throw at yourself.
• 28:49
  So something happens, I stub my toe, but then can I still just remain
• 28:53
  present and accepting or do I get angry?
• 28:56
  Yeah.
• 28:56
  So there is that choice point.
• 28:57
  I guess we call it an act at times.
• 28:59
  Yeah.
• 29:00
  Yeah, definitely.
• 29:00
  And and that's like ties into that belief.
• 29:02
  Yeah.
• 29:03
  Also
• 29:03
  of things, but he talks more about the reframe and things and, and
• 29:07
  I'm also reading like Mel Robbins book, the Let Them Vary and she
• 29:10
  talked about the frame of reference.
• 29:12
  How we understand what kind of lenses we use are gonna really shift.
• 29:17
  How we believe about certain things.
• 29:19
  And so if I can just shift it over so slightly, keep it true, but shift it in a
• 29:23
  more positive way, it's it's gonna help.
• 29:25
  Yeah.
• 29:25
  That
• 29:25
  consequence part of it isn't gonna be as impactful.
• 29:29
  And then you thought, talked about something that I thought was really,
• 29:31
  really interesting and I've really enjoyed it and I've started using
• 29:34
  with my clients, and it's this concept of distanced self talk.
• 29:39
  Tony likes this.
• 29:40
  Tony likes this.
• 29:41
  Okay.
• 29:42
  I remember we talked about this a little bit, and you're doing it.
• 29:44
  It's great.
• 29:44
  Like
• 29:44
  Tony really appreciates this because Tony used to make fun when
• 29:47
  Tony would talk in third person.
• 29:48
  But talk about what Marla talk about this.
• 29:51
  Yeah.
• 29:51
  So it was fascinating.
• 29:52
  He talked about how referring to yourself as you or using your own name
• 29:58
  when giving yourself that pep talk.
• 30:00
  So like if I have to get in front of doing this podcast or whatever, not, yeah.
• 30:03
  I'm not saying, oh, I can do this.
• 30:04
  This is great.
• 30:05
  I got this.
• 30:06
  And we teach our kids to say that.
• 30:07
  We're like, okay, you got, but what we're saying to them is, you've got
• 30:10
  this and it feels different when we say to ourself, Hey Marla, you got this.
• 30:16
  Exactly.
• 30:16
  I love it.
• 30:17
  Like, you're gonna do a great job.
• 30:18
  And so he said, that is what distance self-talk, you're
• 30:21
  changing just the wording on it.
• 30:23
  You're using you to like give yourself that pep talk.
• 30:27
  And so yeah, you're, you might feel a little bit.
• 30:30
  Weird about talking to yourself in third person kind of thing.
• 30:33
  But it does help because it's easier to give advice to other people.
• 30:38
  Yes.
• 30:38
  Rather than to yourself.
• 30:40
  And that's kind of what you're doing.
• 30:41
  You're giving advice to somebody else.
• 30:43
  You're giving to.
• 30:43
  I love it.
• 30:44
  To yourself.
• 30:45
  It's silly else.
• 30:45
  Well, as silly as it is though, it does.
• 30:47
  I believe it.
• 30:48
  And it's, and I now, now Tony thinks that he always did it and joked about
• 30:52
  it, but secretly I think he enjoyed it.
• 30:54
  So now Tony has an excuse to do it.
• 30:56
  So let's do this, Tony.
• 30:57
  Yeah, and I was sitting there and I'm like, I hope I'm not
• 30:59
  like helping people dissociate or create another personality here.
• 31:03
  Yeah.
• 31:04
  This is interesting.
• 31:04
  I'm gonna see the evidence on that one later, but, okay.
• 31:07
  But those are the suggestions for shifting from the inside and
• 31:09
  now we have shifting outside in.
• 31:12
  Okay.
• 31:12
  Which is all about like, how do I control my environment?
• 31:16
  How does my environment control me and my emotions?
• 31:19
  He talks about place, like our environment really affects us.
• 31:23
  I had my husband talking to me about this when he was like.
• 31:27
  I need it clean.
• 31:28
  Like I need three things in my office.
• 31:30
  And I'm like, oh, okay.
• 31:32
  And so it, for him, like having too much clutter for his A DHD is just a no go.
• 31:37
  And so keeping it simple helps his mood.
• 31:41
  I. Kinda lighten and not be so chaotic.
• 31:44
  So it's more about like, what can I switch?
• 31:46
  What can I modify in my environment to help me?
• 31:49
  And I really appreciated that.
• 31:50
  Like I can add to my environment and I can remove from my environment.
• 31:54
  Those two things will also help shift.
• 31:57
  He talked about the fact that we have a place attachment, and I've talked about
• 32:01
  attachment theory a lot, but I've never heard it in the context of a place.
• 32:05
  Okay,
• 32:06
  attachment.
• 32:07
  And I thought that was really interesting.
• 32:08
  And we have what we call, they call a positive place attachment,
• 32:12
  and that's kind of like where is your place that you feel safe?
• 32:15
  I like
• 32:16
  that.
• 32:16
  And a lot of people, it's home.
• 32:17
  Or whatever not.
• 32:18
  But it's a place that emotionally resonates with you.
• 32:21
  And it could be just like a little nook where you like cozy up or in your bed or
• 32:27
  wherever, or on a bench at a park, but it's the place that you just feel safe.
• 32:32
  So.
• 32:32
  Understanding, is there a place that I can go also when I'm
• 32:36
  emotional, that helps me free?
• 32:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 32:38
  Like in the
• 32:38
  case of like my divorce, I was up by the ocean and also by the
• 32:42
  redwoods, and I thought this is the perfect place for my heart to break.
• 32:45
  Like out in the middle of nature.
• 32:47
  Yeah.
• 32:47
  And, and it was true, it was really true that like a place could shift my mood.
• 32:52
  In a really great way.
• 32:54
  So he talks about this space audit and when I talked to my husband about it,
• 32:57
  he was like, that sounds really weird, Marla, like you're going to space.
• 33:00
  And I said, no, we're not gonna space, but we're looking at our space like what
• 33:03
  can I do right now that will change, that I can change in my space to help me?
• 33:08
  So what can I remove that will bring down the volume of the emotional.
• 33:14
  Capacity there and what can I add that would like maybe bring up the volume?
• 33:18
  Hmm.
• 33:18
  So
• 33:18
  do I need some something that smells good or do I need to take the trash out?
• 33:22
  'cause it also stinks.
• 33:23
  Things like that.
• 33:24
  Those are gonna shift your mood also.
• 33:26
  And then he talks about just finding that emotional oasis, that spot
• 33:30
  that is really healing for you.
• 33:32
  So I appreciated that.
• 33:33
  So.
• 33:34
  All of that said the last part of this book is about shifting by design.
• 33:38
  How do I use all of this now to become like a master of shifting
• 33:42
  my emotions in really great ways?
• 33:44
  And he talked about relationships.
• 33:45
  You can't get through a book without talking about relationships
• 33:48
  and shifting emotions.
• 33:49
  'cause relationships are sticky.
• 33:50
  And he talked about the idea of emotional contagion.
• 33:54
  Emotions are kind of contagious.
• 33:55
  Yeah.
• 33:55
  If you're around somebody who's.
• 33:57
  Depressed it, it kind of brings you down.
• 33:59
  Yeah.
• 33:59
  If you're around somebody who's angry, you know, you might get scared.
• 34:02
  We shift to the emotion that is present.
• 34:05
  We also do what we call mimicry, where we mimic emotions.
• 34:08
  Children are really great at that, so if you've got a parent that's
• 34:12
  super bubbly and always go, go, go, their kids tend to be that way.
• 34:16
  Somebody who's more sad, their kids might be more stolen.
• 34:19
  They're mimicking what is going on.
• 34:21
  I really like this part because my mind is racing with the concept of being
• 34:25
  differentiated where I need to mm-hmm.
• 34:26
  Figure out who I am within a relationship.
• 34:28
  And I think often one of the stumbling blocks of that is this mimicry, or
• 34:33
  I am mad that you made me feel a certain way, so now you need to fix it.
• 34:37
  So we're, we're diffusing our emotions onto someone else and saying, now
• 34:41
  what are you gonna do about it?
• 34:42
  Or we're mm-hmm.
• 34:43
  Uh, guilty managing someone else's emotions.
• 34:46
  But I do find it interesting that if somebody shuts down in a session,
• 34:50
  I often see the spouse trying to figure out what's the way, how do
• 34:53
  I co-regulate this situation now?
• 34:56
  Because yeah, I think I'm okay, but I don't know if
• 34:58
  that's right for me to be okay.
• 35:00
  And, and so I think we do often play to the crowd of whatever that
• 35:04
  emotional experience is, even if we feel like we're selling ourselves
• 35:07
  out or betraying our own ourselves.
• 35:09
  And that can be difficult.
• 35:10
  Yeah.
• 35:11
  And when your best friend is sad, is it appropriate for you to be
• 35:14
  like, that's the best day ever.
• 35:15
  Like, I, I'm so happy.
• 35:17
  Yeah, you, you don't, you, the emotion is contagious and you start
• 35:20
  to mimic what's going on around you.
• 35:22
  He talks about how important it is to picked really good
• 35:24
  friends, which is interesting.
• 35:26
  He said, your friends.
• 35:28
  Can't either help you spiral or they can pull you out in a good way,
• 35:31
  which I totally appreciated because he said, you know what you really
• 35:35
  wanna do is pick friends that they listen, they empathize, and then
• 35:40
  they brought in your perspectives.
• 35:42
  Oh, that's good.
• 35:43
  And I appreciate that because a, oftentimes we pick friends that listen.
• 35:47
  They empathize.
• 35:48
  They empathize, they empathize.
• 35:51
  And then they let you spiral.
• 35:53
  Yeah.
• 35:53
  And they join you in the misery, and then they feed it.
• 35:56
  And you're like, we all have those friends that you sit with and you're like, man,
• 36:00
  I walked in mad, but now I'm really mad.
• 36:02
  And, and I'm gonna, you know, burn the world down.
• 36:04
  And then you have the other ones that you talk to him and you're
• 36:06
  like, ah, I just feel so much better.
• 36:08
  Yeah, this is great.
• 36:09
  Thanks.
• 36:09
  And so he, he talked about how picking friends that do that, you know, will help
• 36:14
  you broaden your perspective and help you shift automatically are important.
• 36:18
  It's interesting too when one finds themselves and they start
• 36:20
  to recognize that they are okay and it's okay to feel mm-hmm.
• 36:23
  And think that the way they do, we fall into these patterns in
• 36:26
  relationships or family dynamics.
• 36:27
  And when one person steps out of it, it isn't like everybody else applauds
• 36:31
  and says, I'm so proud of you for stepping out of the role you play.
• 36:34
  And then other people will then I think, emote or push buttons or try
• 36:38
  to get people back into that role.
• 36:39
  So if you have somebody that is typically the family scapegoat and they're
• 36:43
  trying to have a solid sense of self.
• 36:44
  That's gonna, it's gonna disrupt the entire family system.
• 36:47
  So we get to say things like, oh, look at you.
• 36:50
  You think you got it all figured out?
• 36:51
  Or, yeah, mis Mr. Perfect, and all of a sudden you're angry.
• 36:54
  And then I'm just trying to get better and now all of a sudden,
• 36:57
  oh, they got me and I'm back in.
• 36:59
  And it, it can be very discouraging also for somebody who's trying
• 37:02
  to be more differentiated.
• 37:03
  They kind of give up sometimes because it's the whole rest of the system.
• 37:06
  It's like, whatcha doing Mario?
• 37:08
  You're too holy for us.
• 37:09
  And all of this stuff.
• 37:10
  So it's really hard.
• 37:12
  You have to get everyone, almost everybody on board in order for it to that mimicry.
• 37:17
  Yeah.
• 37:17
  Again, getting everybody there so that you know it, it can
• 37:20
  succeed in a really positive way.
• 37:21
  'cause it is, it's very difficult.
• 37:24
  He talked about cultural shifters too, which is really interesting.
• 37:28
  We don't talk about a lot how culture affects us.
• 37:32
  And a lot of things.
• 37:33
  I went through a program that was heavy into the cultural aspect, so it trained
• 37:38
  me to look at what is the cultural impact, and culture can be a lot of things.
• 37:42
  Culture's based on beliefs, values, norms, and practices.
• 37:47
  It permeates.
• 37:48
  A lot of your life, I mean, even your own family is culture.
• 37:53
  Okay.
• 37:53
  In
• 37:53
  some ways they do it a certain way.
• 37:55
  Yeah.
• 37:55
  Not every family functions the same way, but there's religious components,
• 37:59
  there's socioeconomic component.
• 38:01
  Where do I live?
• 38:03
  Living in Northern California looks different than living in New York.
• 38:06
  Living on the equator looks different than living in Alaska.
• 38:09
  So all of these things are bringing culture, and those can be shifters too.
• 38:14
  So looking at, yes, do I need to step outta my culture?
• 38:17
  I. To help my emotions in some ways, and that's where you get some people who come
• 38:22
  in with faith crisis looking at that and saying, do I need to shift here somehow
• 38:27
  in order to be happier or more authentic to what I feel aligns with me, my
• 38:32
  values?
• 38:33
  I like that.
• 38:34
  Bringing up that one in particular.
• 38:36
  I was trying to wrap my head around what cultural aspects that I would be
• 38:39
  working with, but that one is somebody who works a lot with the faith journey.
• 38:41
  Faith crisis.
• 38:42
  Yeah.
• 38:42
  That the person does feel lost.
• 38:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 38:45
  And they often feel like they are now on their own left, the drift.
• 38:48
  And then that brings up big emotions as well.
• 38:50
  And I think often people don't know what to do with those emotions.
• 38:53
  They want to go back to the safety of their norm, but at
• 38:57
  that point it they, they can't.
• 38:59
  That is a real.
• 39:00
  Tough place for somebody to be.
• 39:02
  Yeah.
• 39:02
  And that's a lot of emotion to shift through.
• 39:05
  Yeah.
• 39:05
  So I like that word shift in there is a, that is what's happening, isn't it?
• 39:09
  It's how do I rectify my own belief and value and, and the emotion and the safety.
• 39:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 39:14
  Because there's safety in your culture.
• 39:16
  Absolutely.
• 39:17
  It's the norm.
• 39:17
  And so breaking out of that is incredibly, does not feel safe at all.
• 39:23
  You're trying to rewrite a major part.
• 39:25
  Of your life in, in, in a lot of ways.
• 39:28
  It was a smaller section of this book, but it was like, yes, thank you for
• 39:31
  acknowledging that culture impacts us.
• 39:34
  Yeah.
• 39:34
  You know,
• 39:35
  and how we behave and how we feel about ourself.
• 39:37
  And then he talked about a huge one comparison and how
• 39:41
  we get in trouble with that.
• 39:42
  And there was a quote in there, and I'm gonna read this, that says, how we
• 39:45
  feel about ourselves hinges not just on whom we compare ourselves with, but
• 39:51
  how we think about that comparison.
• 39:53
  Hmm.
• 39:55
  So I can compare myself to somebody who's lesser than me, and it's not
• 39:59
  gonna hit me as hard as if I compare myself to somebody who is maybe greater
• 40:02
  than me, that's gonna hit a little bit harder for me because I'm gonna be like.
• 40:07
  The shame area then at that point, or the guilt, or I should be doing better.
• 40:11
  And I was just talking to my daughter about this.
• 40:12
  She was asking me about something, is it normal?
• 40:15
  That phrase, and I forget at times that we sit with people all day, every day.
• 40:20
  We hear similar stories, but then to each individual going through
• 40:24
  life, they often think that they're.
• 40:26
  Situation, their feelings, they're so unique that something
• 40:30
  must be wrong with them.
• 40:31
  Yeah.
• 40:31
  And I do think being able to normalize that because then it does naturally
• 40:36
  devolve probably into comparison.
• 40:38
  Yeah.
• 40:38
  Where people, people come in and they will often say things like, I'm sure you've
• 40:41
  never worked with anybody like this.
• 40:43
  And I almost feel guilty sometimes saying kinda like the third or fourth
• 40:46
  person today, but I don't want it to sound like you're not special, but.
• 40:50
  But you're normal.
• 40:51
  It's part of the human process or existence and, but people are so isolated
• 40:54
  and probably a big part of that is the fact that we don't share emotions
• 40:57
  and we have people that are trying to pretend that everything is fine and I'm,
• 41:00
  yep, I'm
• 41:01
  not upset and everything is great.
• 41:03
  Yeah, and that's a huge problem, you know, as far as when you sit with a
• 41:06
  client maybe for infidelity or even abuse as far as like, how do we think about
• 41:11
  these things sitting with somebody who has been abused and how do I share that?
• 41:15
  Then I don't share it and not knowing what looks normal in that journey.
• 41:20
  I always like to really normalize it and maybe it doesn't make 'em feel
• 41:23
  special, but you know, just letting 'em know this is very normal with
• 41:26
  what your body is experiencing.
• 41:28
  Yeah.
• 41:28
  What you're feeling, these emotions, it's okay.
• 41:31
  Your, the way that you are doing it in your perspective is always unique and
• 41:36
  I'd love to hear about that, but the response and what you're dealing with.
• 41:41
  Is very normal.
• 41:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 41:43
  Like this is, this is a good thing.
• 41:45
  Yeah.
• 41:45
  I, I appreciated the comparison.
• 41:47
  'cause comparison is a huge thing, especially with social media.
• 41:50
  Yes.
• 41:51
  Like I saw this last week, an influencer who completed suicide
• 41:55
  over a drop in followers even
• 41:57
  Wow.
• 41:57
  There is this emotional component to how we're living in a social world.
• 42:04
  And so comparison is definitely something that, you know, helping our children with.
• 42:09
  How to do that.
• 42:10
  'cause it's not only about who we're comparing to, but how we
• 42:13
  think about that comparison.
• 42:15
  Because I can compare it in a really healthy way.
• 42:17
  It can actually motivate me to compare,
• 42:18
  right?
• 42:19
  I could be like, oh, I'm not as great as Tony, but man, that's
• 42:22
  making me wanna be greater, you know?
• 42:23
  Okay.
• 42:23
  And it makes me wanna get up in the morning and do more things like that.
• 42:26
  And so that can be a good thing also.
• 42:29
  It can be a healthy thing.
• 42:30
  And so I appreciated that perspective also, that it's
• 42:32
  not a negative thing always.
• 42:34
  It's how we view it.
• 42:36
  It's our own perspectives on it.
• 42:37
  And then the last little nugget that he gave was an acronym of
• 42:40
  how do you put this all together?
• 42:42
  And it was this acronym of Whoop.
• 42:44
  W what is my wish?
• 42:46
  O what is the outcome?
• 42:48
  O, what is the obstacle?
• 42:49
  Np, what's the plan?
• 42:51
  And I appreciated like giving some sort of checklist because I'm, I can
• 42:55
  be very checklist oriented, okay?
• 42:57
  So I was like, okay, I can do this.
• 42:58
  So I've got this issue or this emotion, you know, what's my wish?
• 43:00
  What do I want out of this?
• 43:02
  And then what do I gotta overcome?
• 43:04
  Uh, to achieve that wish.
• 43:06
  And then, what's my obstacle?
• 43:07
  Let, let's be real.
• 43:08
  What's my challenge here that I gotta get over?
• 43:11
  And then what's the plan of it?
• 43:13
  And he talked about Navy seals in this book, which was really interesting.
• 43:17
  You know, this whole idea of if and then, which.
• 43:21
  I find fascinating because a lot of times we talk about some people are
• 43:24
  really plan driven and how that can be unhealthy to plan everything and
• 43:28
  not be flexible in your thinking.
• 43:30
  But he talked about how Navy seals are taught to always look at the if and then
• 43:34
  so if this happens, we're gonna do this.
• 43:36
  If this happens, and they go through every scenario, like a million of 'em,
• 43:40
  so they don't have to think about it when it comes up, they just already know.
• 43:43
  Which circles back to that like law of least effort.
• 43:47
  You know,
• 43:48
  they're in a situation where they cannot seconds can get them killed.
• 43:51
  Yeah.
• 43:52
  And so they don't have the luxury of thinking it through like the rest of us.
• 43:56
  And so it makes sense that they would have a million if and
• 43:58
  then scenarios to get it better.
• 44:01
  But the rest of us, I think we can, I. Make a plan and still
• 44:04
  be flexible on what we're doing.
• 44:06
  That I appreciated like the list of how to get it done and
• 44:09
  that is pretty much the summary.
• 44:11
  Well, that was good of the whole book.
• 44:13
  Yeah.
• 44:13
  I have all kinds of emotions about this making me want to do better.
• 44:16
  The comparison really stood out a lot.
• 44:18
  And then that whole body scan concept and where are you feeling things.
• 44:23
  I think if maybe a takeaway for the listener is just try to be
• 44:27
  aware that you have emotions.
• 44:28
  I like what you were saying about there.
• 44:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 44:30
  It's information.
• 44:31
  They're there for a reason.
• 44:32
  They're trying to tell us something.
• 44:34
  Whether we go with what they're telling us is completely up to us.
• 44:38
  But let's first see if we can identify 'em.
• 44:41
  I think that's helpful.
• 44:42
  Hey, Marla, you've come on.
• 44:43
  You've talked about grief and loss.
• 44:45
  We've talked about, yeah.
• 44:45
  Betrayal, trauma.
• 44:46
  Now we're talking about emotions, big things.
• 44:48
  Mm-hmm.
• 44:49
  Uh, you've been doing some training with the somatic healing and
• 44:52
  Yep.
• 44:52
  Somatic therapy.
• 44:53
  Yeah.
• 44:53
  Hey,
• 44:54
  I, I dig it.
• 44:55
  And then you do brain spotting.
• 44:57
  Yes, I do.
• 44:58
  Okay.
• 44:58
  Yeah, I'm trained in doing brain spotting, so I really enjoy like working
• 45:02
  with clients that are definitely at a point of I want to learn and grow.
• 45:08
  Yeah.
• 45:08
  But I just need some tools and how to do that, and whether it's like I've
• 45:12
  had trauma in my life, or I've been betrayed, or I'm just kind of stuck.
• 45:17
  Or this anxiety is overwhelming.
• 45:19
  I think it's really important to understand emotions, understand
• 45:22
  the body connection to it, and how we really take on a lot of
• 45:25
  these emotions in unhealthy ways.
• 45:27
  And then how, what can I do to move through it?
• 45:30
  Okay.
• 45:30
  I love it.
• 45:31
  There's a, a Marla section on a meet the team on my website.
• 45:34
  Tony over.com.
• 45:35
  Yeah.
• 45:35
  Mm-hmm.
• 45:35
  And you can get a ahold of her through there or email me at
• 45:37
  contact@tonyoverbay.com because you do have some space available if somebody
• 45:41
  is looking for a good therapist.
• 45:43
  Thank you so much Marla.
• 45:44
  We'll give it another month or two and then let's do another book.
• 45:46
  Sounds good.
• 45:47
  Book Club is on.
• 45:48
  It gives me a reason to buy more books.
• 45:49
  Okay.
• 45:50
  This is good.
• 45:51
  And let me know whatever that book is that I will then not read and
• 45:53
  then at the last minute chat, GPT, and we'll talk about it again.
• 45:56
  Okay.
• 45:56
  Sounds great.
• 45:57
  Hey, all right.
• 45:58
  Thanks Marla.
• 45:59
  Thanks.