Latest / The Virtual Couch / What Happens When You Stop Needing to Be Right - Certainty, Curiosity, and Emotional Immaturity

Transcript

What Happens When You Stop Needing to Be Right - Certainty, Curiosity, and Emotional Immaturity · The Virtual Couch

• 0:01
  Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of You're Either Listening to the
• 0:05
  Virtual Couch or Waking Up to Narcissism Today because today is a Q&A and we
• 0:10
  have questions and answers about so many things.
• 0:13
  We've got good old mental health tips, things involving couples,
• 0:17
  and then we finish big with some
• 0:19
  good old emotional immaturity slash narcissistic traits and tendencies.
• 0:23
  And I hope that you'll stick around for that final question because there are
• 0:27
  a lot of things that I think I've really wanted to get off my chest about
• 0:31
  this desire that we have for certainty and how often the person who claims to know everything,
• 0:39
  can be enticing.
• 0:41
  But then when you start to really see the inconsistency of someone's message,
• 0:45
  I really get into why that can feel so off-putting.
• 0:49
  Because we all crave this certainty. We want to get rid of discomfort.
• 0:53
  So when you have both of them clashing together, somebody claiming certainty.
• 0:57
  But man, something just feels off about that.
• 1:00
  We'll talk about that. So hang in there. That is the third question that I answered
• 1:03
  today. I'm your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
• 1:07
  Follow me on social media at virtualcouch on TikTok, at virtual.couch on Instagram.
• 1:12
  And I actually have my sub stack up here in the background.
• 1:16
  Go to thevirtualcouch.substack.com. And a lot of information there,
• 1:22
  a lot of information to be read and not listened to. A lot of content going up on Substack.
• 1:27
  Go to TonyOverbay.com, join my newsletter, courses and programs and all kinds
• 1:32
  of things coming out soon.
• 1:34
  I want to start today's episode actually with a little bit of a riddle.
• 1:36
  And I'm not good at riddles. And it turns out maybe this isn't actually a riddle.
• 1:40
  But what do these three questions have in common? Question number one,
• 1:44
  why do I keep finding ways to pull conversations back toward myself even once
• 1:49
  I'm aware that I'm doing it and I'm even aware that I don't like it?
• 1:53
  Question number two, why do couples get stuck arguing about things like looking
• 1:57
  through each other's phones so much when the argument seems to become something
• 2:01
  much bigger than the phone itself?
• 2:03
  And then question number three, why are so many people drawn to certainty?
• 2:10
  And people that are presenting certainty as if it was confidence.
• 2:13
  Why do the loudest, most confident voices often seem to attract the biggest
• 2:18
  audiences, even when their messaging isn't always consistent?
• 2:24
  And I think it has a lot to do with actually the fact that certainty itself is part of the problem.
• 2:28
  Definitely not a riddle. But at first glance, I think that those would sound,
• 2:33
  like completely different questions because one is more about self-esteem and validation.
• 2:37
  One, the phone one, is more about trust and your relationship.
• 2:41
  And then one is around culture and leadership.
• 2:46
  And then a lot of what I hear people bringing into my office and what I feel,
• 2:50
  is just an overall feeling of kind of, I don't know, feeling a little bit icky
• 2:54
  about all the messaging that we're hearing on social media, in the public, public discourse.
• 3:01
  But I sat with all of the questions and I realized that these three in particular,
• 3:05
  and that's why I'm doing a podcast episode about them today.
• 3:08
  They all brought me back to a very similar place.
• 3:12
  They all touch on what happens when we don't feel secure ourselves.
• 3:17
  What happens when we're looking outside of ourselves for reassurance,
• 3:22
  whether it's wanting validation in just a simple conversation with somebody
• 3:26
  else, or whether it's seeking reassurance and not knowing what to do with those feelings.
• 3:30
  So I'm going to check my spouse's or my partner's phone.
• 3:34
  Or I, and maybe it's a me thing, but it seems like.
• 3:39
  Quite some time ago, I could look to people in leadership positions to then,
• 3:46
  trust what they're saying and there would be consistency around their messaging
• 3:49
  and that would make me feel better.
• 3:52
  But uncertainty, it really does feel uncomfortable.
• 3:56
  I'm a big fan of talking about the fact that I think we're all essentially emotionally
• 4:00
  immature and we're on this path of figuring ourselves out to become more emotionally
• 4:05
  mature and what emotional maturity actually looks like when we're willing to
• 4:09
  get curious instead of defensive?
• 4:11
  What happens when uncertainty feels really, really uncomfortable?
• 4:14
  And what emotional maturity actually looks like when we're willing to get really
• 4:18
  curious instead of so defensive?
• 4:21
  Because I think so much of the challenges that we have in relationships in general
• 4:26
  is this inability to admit that we may have changed our mind. We might have new data.
• 4:34
  We might have been wrong about something that we've said in the past.
• 4:37
  And we'll just dig our heels in and defend it like that is the thing that's
• 4:41
  going to bring safety in a relationship.
• 4:44
  Recently, I hosted a live Q&A, haven't done this in a while,
• 4:47
  and I love doing these so much.
• 4:49
  And these are the three questions that I think generated the most thoughtful discussion.
• 4:55
  As I was going back through the questions and the answers, wanting to pull a
• 4:58
  few for a podcast, that's where I realized that there was this common thread
• 5:02
  running through all these questions.
• 5:04
  So I wanted to share a few excerpts with you today. So we're going to talk about
• 5:07
  validation and self-worth and trust and relationships, and I'll definitely spend
• 5:10
  some time on certainty and insecurity and emotional maturity and immaturity,
• 5:14
  and I'll even touch into narcissistic traits and tendencies.
• 5:18
  But I think the big through line today is talking about curiosity.
• 5:22
  Because in my experience, And curiosity is where a lot of growth lives.
• 5:26
  Curiosity about someone else's experience is going to help me even understand myself better.
• 5:30
  So before I even go to today's answers, I want to spend just a couple of minutes
• 5:34
  talking about curiosity itself.
• 5:35
  Because it may just be my confirmation by speaking. But to me,
• 5:39
  it seems like I am hearing more and more people talk about the importance of
• 5:43
  curiosity, myself included.
• 5:45
  Be curious and lead with curiosity. And I have a podcast episode on Waking Up
• 5:50
  to Narcissism where I talk about there are different types of curiosity.
• 5:53
  There's curiosity to check a box. Okay, fine. I asked the question.
• 5:56
  There's curiosity so that then I can tell the person they're wrong.
• 6:00
  Okay, no, tell me more about that. And now that I have your answer,
• 6:02
  now I'll tell you why that's wrong.
• 6:04
  Or there's genuine curiosity. And that can come with a lot of big feelings and
• 6:10
  emotions. Because if I'm genuinely curious about someone else's experience,
• 6:13
  I may find out things I didn't know.
• 6:15
  Or I may find out things that I'm not really comfortable with or I don't even have to agree with.
• 6:20
  So talking about curiosity is something I think is not going away.
• 6:25
  While I hear more and more people talk about curiosity, I'm honestly not sure
• 6:29
  if I'm seeing curiosity on the rise.
• 6:33
  And I might even be so bold as to say it seems like the more we're talking about
• 6:37
  it, the more people are curious.
• 6:40
  Assuming that, no, I am curious when there's something to be curious about,
• 6:43
  but these things I know. So I'm going to tell you the things that I know,
• 6:46
  but I'm open to being curious if I just didn't know all these things.
• 6:50
  It kind of feels like people are becoming more certain, more dug in,
• 6:54
  more entrenched, more convinced that they already know what somebody else thinks,
• 6:58
  what somebody else means, what somebody else's motives are, what an entire group of people believes.
• 7:03
  And that really got me curious and wondering if curiosity is such a good thing.
• 7:08
  And I think most of us would agree that it is.
• 7:11
  I certainly believe it is. Why don't we do more of it?
• 7:14
  So I went down a therapist rabbit hole and started looking into everything I
• 7:17
  could, psychology and the neuroscience and human development and what they all
• 7:21
  have to say about curiosity.
• 7:22
  And here is a quick run through of what I have found.
• 7:26
  The first thing that struck me, and I can't remember the book that talks about
• 7:29
  this the most, but our brains are prediction engines.
• 7:34
  We tend to think of ourselves as simply observing reality and then responding to it. very casually.
• 7:39
  But that's really not what the brain's doing. The brain is constantly making
• 7:42
  predictions about what's happening, what people mean, what is likely to happen next.
• 7:47
  And predictions overall make us feel better because they reduce uncertainty.
• 7:53
  Uncertainty, not knowing, requires energy. The brain is a don't-get-kill device.
• 7:58
  It is adorable and pink and squishy, but it operates on this premise that we
• 8:00
  have this finite amount of electrical activity.
• 8:03
  So it is continually trying to save energy, habitualize patterns and things,
• 8:08
  and predict the future, fill in the gaps. Uncertainty is uncomfortable.
• 8:12
  Uncertainty means that there might be multiple possible outcomes,
• 8:14
  and that's going to take a lot of effort to think about.
• 8:17
  When we don't know what somebody else is thinking, our brains don't naturally
• 8:20
  respond with, interesting, I don't have enough information yet.
• 8:23
  I'd like to find out more.
• 8:25
  Now, that's going to require some additional work. Instead, what our brain typically
• 8:30
  does in a bless its pink, squishy heart kind of way is it responds with,
• 8:34
  interesting, let me fill in the blanks.
• 8:37
  And then I will be certain and I will feel better and it will require less electrical
• 8:40
  activity and I will go take a nap. That uncertainty, the blanks are where assumptions come from.
• 8:45
  That's where we start to create narratives and stories. And then those stories
• 8:49
  are where certainty comes from.
• 8:51
  Because the brain would rather have a story that it made up than no story at
• 8:54
  all, even if the story is wrong.
• 8:56
  And that is fascinating to me because it means that certainty often feels good,
• 9:01
  far longer before it's accurate.
• 9:03
  Okay, the second thing I found is that ambiguity, the gray area,
• 9:07
  it activates actually our threat system.
• 9:10
  Human beings do not love ambiguity. We do not enjoy being in the gray.
• 9:14
  We like the all or nothing, black or white, much easier.
• 9:17
  Now, we all vary in how much uncertainty I think that we can tolerate,
• 9:21
  but the gray area, the ambiguity itself often creates anxiety because ambiguity means we don't know.
• 9:27
  And I promise you there is a version of life where you can get to where I don't
• 9:30
  know is actually pretty fascinating and genuinely exciting. Because if I didn't
• 9:35
  know the things I didn't know before I knew them, what else don't I know?
• 9:38
  Can't wait to go on the journey.
• 9:40
  But currently, I think our default is if I don't know, then I don't know where I stand.
• 9:45
  And if we don't know what somebody meant, we don't even know if we're safe.
• 9:48
  Hey, what did you mean by that? That doesn't usually come out in a genuinely
• 9:52
  curious way. It's more of a, what did you mean by that? You better say the right
• 9:55
  mouth sounds right now or else these are fighting words and this relationship might be over.
• 10:00
  Our nervous systems often interpret any kind of uncertainty as a threat,
• 10:04
  as if I don't even know whether you're upset with me.
• 10:07
  And if you are, I don't know if I belong. If I don't know whether you're for
• 10:10
  me or against me, my nervous system doesn't necessarily experience that as neutral,
• 10:15
  it's going to go right to, oh, no, that's dangerous, which means curiosity is
• 10:19
  actually asking us to do something difficult and potentially dangerous.
• 10:24
  Curiosity is asking us to stay present in the uncomfortable,
• 10:27
  in the ambiguity, in the uncertainty long enough to learn something.
• 10:31
  And the things that we may learn are things that we might not agree with.
• 10:35
  And there we're back to, well, that's scary.
• 10:37
  So none of this is easy as it sounds. I think there's my through line that it's
• 10:41
  okay if we acknowledge the fact that, no, I want to be more curious,
• 10:45
  but it's also difficult, scary, and it's not our default.
• 10:49
  The third thing I found is that when we are emotionally activated,
• 10:52
  when we are starting to get into that fight or flight response,
• 10:55
  we become far less curious and far more certain.
• 10:59
  Because when stress levels rise, our brains don't suddenly become more nuanced,
• 11:03
  they become less nuanced, more black and white, more reactive, more defensive.
• 11:07
  So if somebody says something that upsets me, curiosity sounds like,
• 11:10
  hey, help me understand what you mean.
• 11:12
  But certainty sounds like, oh, I know what you mean. And whatever you say right now, not buying it.
• 11:17
  Go ahead and make the mouth sounds, but I know what you mean. That will keep me safe.
• 11:22
  Because one of those exchanges requires emotional regulation.
• 11:27
  The other, it's going to give you immediate relief. Say the things I need you
• 11:29
  to say right now and prove to me that you're safe.
• 11:32
  And that's one of the reasons that emotionally mature people often appear calmer.
• 11:37
  And I think we get to this in the answer to one of the questions about this
• 11:41
  concept of when somebody is mean and rude and like a bully and calling people
• 11:46
  names and mocking, it doesn't feel safe.
• 11:49
  It might feel familiar if you grew up in chaos, but it doesn't feel safe.
• 11:53
  Emotionally mature people often appear calmer.
• 11:56
  And that doesn't even necessarily mean that they're smarter,
• 11:59
  but they're better at tolerating the discomfort of not immediately knowing.
• 12:03
  And then a fourth thing that stood out, I think I have six total,
• 12:06
  is that human beings consistently overestimate our ability to know what other people are thinking.
• 12:10
  I mean, think about how often we do this. We decide that we know why somebody said something.
• 12:13
  We decide that we know why somebody didn't text us back. We decide that we know
• 12:17
  what our spouse meant, even if that's not what they're saying.
• 12:20
  And this goes into a little bit of the emotional immaturity of if I feel it,
• 12:23
  it's true. I feel like you're being a jerk.
• 12:25
  And if I'm not aware that I'm being a jerk, but if you feel it's true, then, oh, I'm sorry.
• 12:28
  I will apologize for a thing that I'm actually not doing to try to calm your
• 12:32
  anxiety. But a lot of times it doesn't.
• 12:35
  We decide that we know what a politician intended. We decide we know what an
• 12:39
  entire group secretly believes. And once we decide that we know something,
• 12:43
  then something fascinating happens. We are done gathering data.
• 12:46
  You can see this even in the true crime stuff, murder investigations,
• 12:50
  or when we've found our guy or girl or person, then a lot of times we stop investigating,
• 12:56
  other areas of interest, which can be one of the biggest causes for appeal later in a case.
• 13:02
  When we think that we know, we stop asking questions. We stop being curious.
• 13:06
  Instead, we start now collecting evidence that is confirmation bias to prove
• 13:10
  that we're right. And once that happens, we're really not trying to understand reality.
• 13:14
  We're trying to now build a case and defend our conclusions.
• 13:18
  The fifth thing that I found is that emotional maturity requires a fascinating
• 13:22
  concept called cognitive flexibility.
• 13:24
  The younger you are, a kid thinks naturally in binaries. Who is the good guy?
• 13:31
  Oh, that means that's the bad guy?
• 13:32
  All right, which one of these was right? Which one's wrong? Is this person for
• 13:36
  me or against me? It's normal.
• 13:38
  But maturity involves learning how to hold multiple truths at once.
• 13:42
  Maybe somebody hurt me and they actually didn't mean to. Maybe somebody is wrong
• 13:46
  about this and still a good person.
• 13:48
  Maybe I only have part of the story. Maybe I'm missing something.
• 13:51
  Maybe I need more information.
• 13:52
  So curiosity thrives more in complexity.
• 13:56
  Emotional immaturity really likes simplicity.
• 14:00
  And one of the hallmarks of maturity is developing the overall capacity to tolerate,
• 14:07
  complexity and uncomfortable feelings without rushing toward certainty.
• 14:13
  That's when we need somebody to manage our emotions. I'm angry right now,
• 14:16
  and I'm going to let everybody know about it so they can make me feel better.
• 14:20
  I'm outsourcing my emotional regulation rather than learning how to regulate my own emotions.
• 14:26
  If you can't tolerate any kind of disagreement or question and you have to then
• 14:31
  cut that person down or you walk out of something because it isn't going the
• 14:35
  way you think, it's emotional immaturity, like a little kid.
• 14:38
  And then, and finally, maybe the most fascinating piece of all certainty,
• 14:42
  actually, as we're noticing, it gets rewarded.
• 14:44
  Research constantly shows that people tend to perceive confident speakers as
• 14:48
  more competent, even when the confidence is not supported by expertise or even
• 14:52
  consistent messaging or data.
• 14:55
  When you can poke holes in someone's argument over and over and over again,
• 14:59
  but they make that argument with such certainty, then our brain will naturally
• 15:03
  say, well, they must be right.
• 15:05
  And that's a little unsettling when you think about it, because it means that
• 15:08
  certainty creates this little shortcut.
• 15:10
  If somebody sounds confident, then our brains often assume, well,
• 15:13
  they must know something, which helps explain why I think certainty starts to become performative.
• 15:19
  The person who says, hey, here's what's really going on, often gets a whole
• 15:22
  lot more attention than the person who says, you know, based on the available
• 15:25
  evidence, here are my thoughts.
• 15:27
  But we're gathering with a bunch of other people to get what they think.
• 15:30
  One sounds very definitive. This is what's happening.
• 15:34
  The other sounds thoughtful.
• 15:36
  And I go back to what feels familiar. If you grew up in a home where there weren't
• 15:40
  a lot of people taking ownership or saying, man, I didn't, you're right,
• 15:43
  I blew that or I was wrong.
• 15:45
  But it's like, oh, I didn't say that. Or, well, what you don't understand is
• 15:48
  it feels familiar as an adult.
• 15:50
  So then unfortunately, thoughtful and open and willing to admit mistakes doesn't always win the room.
• 15:58
  So when I put all that together, I keep coming back to one thing.
• 16:00
  Curiosity requires psychological safety.
• 16:03
  Curiosity requires emotional regulation and it requires humility.
• 16:07
  And curiosity requires tolerating uncertainty. So you have to be pretty comfortable
• 16:11
  in your own skin to be curious because uncertainty is uncomfortable.
• 16:16
  Somebody claiming certainty that relieves their own uncertainty,
• 16:21
  at least temporarily, which means curiosity is actually a much higher order
• 16:26
  emotional skill than I think we even give it credit.
• 16:29
  It's not difficult because people don't want it or people are unintelligent.
• 16:32
  I think it's more difficult because our brains are wired to reduce this uncertainty
• 16:35
  as quickly as possible. And emotional maturity is learning how to stay in the
• 16:39
  discomfort of not knowing long enough for your reality to kick in,
• 16:43
  for reality to actually get a say.
• 16:45
  And if that's true, then suddenly the three questions that we're going to talk
• 16:48
  about today sound a lot less different from each other.
• 16:52
  One person you're going to hear struggling with the need for validation in their
• 16:55
  overall conversations, wondering why they keep pulling conversations back toward themselves.
• 16:59
  Another is wrestling with trust and wondering what it means when somebody feels
• 17:03
  compelled to look through their phone.
• 17:05
  And then another is asking why certainty and confidence seems so attractive
• 17:10
  in our culture, even when it comes at the expense of the truth,
• 17:14
  of reality, of curiosity.
• 17:17
  So again, on the surface, I think these seem like completely different questions,
• 17:20
  but underneath them all is the same challenge. Can I tolerate uncertainty?
• 17:25
  Can I tolerate discomfort?
• 17:27
  Can I tolerate the possibility that I don't yet have the whole story?
• 17:31
  Because that is where curiosity lives. Now, and in my experience,
• 17:34
  curiosity is where growth lives too.
• 17:37
  So with that in mind, let's get to today's questions. Okay, so here's a good
• 17:41
  one. Tony, my spouse looked through my phone without asking,
• 17:44
  and now we're both upset. and I feel like my privacy was violated,
• 17:46
  but they say they only looked because they were feeling anxious and insecure.
• 17:50
  In a situation like this, who's in the wrong? And what do you tell couples when
• 17:54
  phone privacy becomes a problem in the relationship?
• 17:58
  And this is, it's funny, this is a question that we talked about just over the weekend in my family.
• 18:03
  And it's one that I hear often in my office, or it's one of those that somebody
• 18:06
  finds out you're a therapist, they're going to ask you, hey,
• 18:09
  what do you think about a certain situation?
• 18:10
  Usually they'll ask something about their kids or the way that they interact
• 18:13
  with their spouse. And I don't know if you've heard this phrase before.
• 18:15
  It makes me laugh, but they really don't want me to give them advice.
• 18:18
  They want their words to come out of my mouth is often the case.
• 18:22
  But this is one that I've had some really fascinating conversations out in the
• 18:25
  wild with, because the first thing I would say is that I personally am usually
• 18:29
  not interested in deciding who is right and who is wrong, not the therapist's
• 18:32
  job. It's the junior therapist's job or a brand new therapist's.
• 18:36
  You start to realize, okay, right and wrong is such a hindsight principle.
• 18:39
  Because I've had people that will say, well, and then I grabbed his phone and
• 18:42
  I look through it and I look over at the guy and he's like, yeah, what's he going to do?
• 18:45
  But I'll have another situation where the same, not the same person,
• 18:48
  but the spouse will say, and then I grabbed this phone and the guy looks at
• 18:51
  me like, can you believe that she did that?
• 18:53
  So you don't even really know what someone's own individual relationship is
• 18:56
  with that. So that's a story in and of itself.
• 18:59
  So right and wrong in this scenario is such a hindsight principle.
• 19:02
  But I know that that is what people often want from a therapist to come in and
• 19:05
  we will lay out the facts and as if I'm a judge and I'll rule,
• 19:08
  oh yeah, you shouldn't have done that or that you win.
• 19:10
  And I don't know what you get for winning, but they want me to say,
• 19:14
  oh, your spouse should not have looked or well, you shouldn't have anything to hide.
• 19:17
  But that typically is going to shut down the more important conversation because
• 19:22
  what I'm more interested in is what the situation is trying to tell us about
• 19:26
  the relationship. And even if right then it sounds like I'm saying,
• 19:29
  cause it's pretty bad, not at all.
• 19:31
  And I was saying this to a couple not long ago, but I said, hey,
• 19:34
  I'm going to probably invalidate both of you right now, but stay with me because
• 19:38
  personally, my strong opinion, I'm not a big fan of couples having completely
• 19:42
  private phones where access is this battleground.
• 19:45
  I'm just not. If my wife wants to look through it, that's fine.
• 19:48
  What I see, I want to say all the time, but a lot of the times are people feeling
• 19:53
  this tremendous shame because they looked at their spouse's phone.
• 19:56
  And honestly, one of the first things I do is normalize that pretty quickly,
• 19:59
  because I think most people have done it at some point. And if you haven't,
• 20:02
  great, honestly, I'm not saying you need to. You need to check that box off
• 20:06
  of your to do list of life. No.
• 20:09
  A lot of people come in, the most well-meaning people, and then they say,
• 20:12
  I know I shouldn't have, and I know what's coming next is I look through a phone
• 20:15
  or an email or that sort of thing.
• 20:17
  And really, I love it when people come in and they're saying,
• 20:19
  okay, then check this out.
• 20:20
  I look through the phone or I look through the email because they did it because
• 20:24
  they did it. And there's a reason why.
• 20:26
  What I think is interesting is that far more often than not,
• 20:28
  when somebody looks, they actually feel more relief because they don't end up
• 20:32
  finding anything concerning.
• 20:33
  Now, if somebody wants to look at their spouse's phone, my preference is that
• 20:37
  they ask first, which sounds pretty counterintuitive if it's such an uncomfortable thing.
• 20:41
  Because if you're sitting there and you're saying, hey, I'm feeling really anxious
• 20:44
  and uncomfortable, can I look through your phone?
• 20:46
  Ideally, that would be great. I would love for the partner to say,
• 20:49
  oh, of course, but hey, tell me what's that bringing up for you?
• 20:51
  Take me on your train of thought. I mean, that conversation can actually build
• 20:54
  trust. But if somebody doesn't feel comfortable asking, which I understand,
• 20:58
  and then the anxiety keeps building, what often happens is eventually they're going to look anyway.
• 21:03
  And so then at that point, the question that I'm interested in,
• 21:05
  it's like, hey, yeah, take me on your train of thought. What was going on inside
• 21:08
  your body, your emotions, your brain that made you feel like,
• 21:11
  man, this is what I need to do. I need to look because usually it isn't necessarily about the phone.
• 21:17
  It's probably more around not feeling safe or, again, it's my own thing.
• 21:24
  I'm feeling a certain way and I'm thinking that might alleviate my anxiety.
• 21:29
  It's about uncertainty. We'll talk a lot about uncertainty, I'm sure,
• 21:32
  over the next few Q&As because that's something I'm just obsessed with, fascinated with.
• 21:37
  This we have this thought that if I can look at their phone,
• 21:40
  then I will have certainty and then reassurance and then I will feel calm.
• 21:44
  So our brain is seeking that because it's about wanting reassurance or maybe
• 21:47
  it's about feeling disconnected from my partner and not really knowing how to
• 21:52
  communicate that or feeling unseen or unheard or not understood,
• 21:55
  not chosen, not considered in the relationship.
• 21:57
  So that's where I'm going to want to be in the work. Now, at the same time,
• 22:00
  if your spouse discovers that you look through their phone.
• 22:02
  It makes perfect sense that they might feel violated, accused,
• 22:05
  ashamed, defensive, frustrated, even angry, or like all of a sudden they're
• 22:08
  on trial. That's fair. It's a fair response.
• 22:11
  I want to say there isn't a wrong way to react either.
• 22:16
  Now we have two people who understandably have these emotional experiences that
• 22:20
  are now colliding with each other. One person saying, I didn't feel safe.
• 22:23
  The other person saying, I didn't feel trusted when you did that.
• 22:25
  Both of those experiences deserve curiosity. So one thing that I like to tell
• 22:29
  couples is that I am, I'm never going to tell somebody that they should look
• 22:32
  through their spouse's phone or they shouldn't look through their spouse's phone,
• 22:35
  but I'm also going to get really curious about what got them there in the first place.
• 22:40
  And let me, let me go through the lens of my four pillars, four pillars of a
• 22:44
  connected conversation. what I use with couples.
• 22:46
  So I start with this pillar one, assume good intent or give somebody the benefit
• 22:50
  of the doubt. There's a reason why somebody is doing the things that they're doing.
• 22:53
  And so I want to assume there's a reason behind the behavior.
• 22:56
  There's a reason somebody looked and there's a reason also somebody feels upset
• 22:59
  that their phone was looked through.
• 23:01
  Neither of those reasons automatically make somebody the villain.
• 23:03
  Now, when couples get stuck, they usually stay focused on the behavior itself.
• 23:06
  You look, you shouldn't have looked, you hid things. You don't trust me.
• 23:09
  But then they begin asking questions like, Like, hey, help me understand what
• 23:13
  was happening for you. Everything, if they can do that, everything can start
• 23:17
  to change because these conversations are, again, they're not about the phones.
• 23:20
  They're conversations about trust and emotional safety and connection and vulnerability.
• 23:24
  So when they immediately turn into accusations, shame and defensiveness or threats,
• 23:29
  and then when the person then reacts or shuts down, that's the pattern.
• 23:33
  That's the pattern that keeps people stuck. That's how you can tell it's not just about the phone.
• 23:37
  But when people can slow everything down long enough to try to understand what
• 23:41
  each person was experiencing, that's where the healing can begin.
• 23:43
  So pillar two is you can't tell the other person they're wrong or you disagree,
• 23:47
  or you think what they did is ridiculous.
• 23:49
  Cue very big, dramatic pause now. Even if you do think what they did was wrong
• 23:54
  and you do think it was ridiculous and you don't believe what they're telling
• 23:56
  you, you have to make space for that.
• 23:58
  Because the second I say, well, that's ridiculous and I don't believe you and
• 24:02
  you shouldn't have done that. I'm telling them that their experience is wrong.
• 24:05
  So pillar two is a stand that you make.
• 24:09
  You're still going to have those thoughts of, I don't really like what they
• 24:11
  did and I can't believe they did that.
• 24:14
  You need to move into pillar three, which is questions before comments.
• 24:16
  Now I want to know, well, tell me more. Help me understand. Take me on your
• 24:18
  train of thought. What was it that led up to that?
• 24:20
  And let's go back in time a little bit. Help me.
• 24:23
  Take me through your day. Take me through the last couple of days.
• 24:25
  And I really want to know what has led up to this moment. Because again,
• 24:29
  therapist here knows that it's not necessarily even about that moment or that
• 24:33
  person or the phone. It could be other things as well.
• 24:36
  That's pillar three, questions before comments. Then pillar four is really important
• 24:38
  as well. It's not, it's leaning in, it's staying present. It's embracing the
• 24:42
  discomfort of the conversation. It's not going into a victim mindset.
• 24:46
  It's not saying, okay, fine. I guess I'm an untrustworthy person there.
• 24:49
  What else do you not trust me on?
• 24:50
  Do you not trust that I'm out there earning money for our family?
• 24:53
  And that victim energy basically brings it back to them. And once the person
• 24:57
  that did the thing in the first place to now apologize, I know I shouldn't have
• 25:00
  done it. You're not a bad person. My apologies. I won't do it again.
• 25:04
  Okay. Now that person feels better.
• 25:05
  But the person who actually looked at the phone for whatever reason it was now we didn't get anywhere.
• 25:11
  And there's the pattern, there's the dance.
• 25:13
  So when one can look at that with genuine curiosity, then we can start to get somewhere.
• 25:19
  But I'll go ahead and tell you that there's a fascinating concept that when
• 25:23
  you start to do the work, use real tools, all those therapy cliches,
• 25:26
  it's going to open the door to new challenges.
• 25:29
  And what I mean by that simply is, so let's say that now we do these,
• 25:33
  I assume they weren't trying to hurt me by looking at my phone.
• 25:35
  I don't tell them that they're wrong, even though I kind of think they were.
• 25:38
  I ask questions, take me on your train of thought, help me understand. and they felt insecure.
• 25:42
  They, to them, it seemed like we were pulling apart and then I don't go victim.
• 25:47
  And then I said, man, thank you so much for sharing that.
• 25:49
  It's, it can be tricky because now my answer can be, that sounds really difficult.
• 25:53
  And thank you for sharing that. I'm, I wasn't aware of that,
• 25:57
  that rift in the relationship that you're feeling, because I feel like we're in a good space.
• 26:01
  So sometimes you get to there and then it's like, well, now what do we do?
• 26:03
  And you have to allow yourself for both things to be true for a little bit.
• 26:07
  Okay. We had the conversation. We didn't resort to the familiar pattern of attack
• 26:12
  and accuse and shutdown.
• 26:14
  So now that we've done it, you kind of let that one sit for a little bit because
• 26:18
  you're training the relationship by what you can tolerate.
• 26:20
  And we can start to tolerate these uncomfortable conversations.
• 26:23
  Even if it doesn't lead to resolution, because my four pillars are not about resolving something.
• 26:29
  It's about learning how to really genuinely understand your partner to be heard.
• 26:34
  It takes great courage to be known and to know your partner.
• 26:37
  So this is an excellent opportunity to just get a round in of learning how to.
• 26:43
  Help me understand what your position is and I'll share mine.
• 26:46
  Neither of them is telling the other person that they're wrong.
• 26:49
  Okay, let's get to the next question.
• 26:50
  Okay, this one says, Tony, I've noticed that in conversations I often find a
• 26:55
  way to pull the attention back to myself.
• 26:57
  I might mention that something was my idea, emphasize my good intent,
• 27:01
  or add details that aren't really necessary, but somehow make me look a little bit better.
• 27:06
  The odd thing is that I know I'm doing it and I don't actually like it.
• 27:10
  I grew up in a household where my self-worth was pretty conditional.
• 27:14
  Basically, I needed to prove I was doing enough, and then maybe I would get
• 27:18
  a little bit of acknowledgement.
• 27:19
  And I'm guessing that's a part of it. Do you have any suggestions for how to
• 27:22
  stop needing that validation in the moment?
• 27:25
  So first of all, I want to say a great question, and welcome to the world of awareness.
• 27:30
  And I just want to acknowledge how much self-awareness is packed into that question
• 27:34
  itself, because so many people are just busy defending their behavior,
• 27:38
  or they're not even aware of their behavior, but you person asking the question.
• 27:44
  You are already observing it and you're curious about it, which is a really
• 27:47
  good place to start. And let me just talk about awareness for a second.
• 27:52
  Before I reach for any kind of exercise, I do notice myself getting curious
• 27:57
  about the question itself because there's so much there.
• 28:00
  Because you're asking me how to stop doing something. And whenever I hear that,
• 28:04
  I do wonder what that would actually look like in practice.
• 28:07
  How do you stop doing the thing? Would it mean essentially standing over yourself
• 28:12
  during every conversation and then trying to catch yourself before you say something
• 28:16
  the way that you were going to say it?
• 28:18
  Because that would require a lot of self-monitoring, evaluating,
• 28:21
  catching yourself, correcting yourself.
• 28:23
  And I can't help but notice that sounds an awful lot like the environment that
• 28:28
  you actually described growing up.
• 28:30
  And here's a way that I am currently describing something like this in probably a lot of my sessions.
• 28:36
  And I don't even remember where I first heard it, but imagine somebody who grew
• 28:39
  up in a desert. Okay. Actually, maybe it's because we have moved to Arizona
• 28:42
  and I keep making jokes in my head when it's 115 degrees that I'm living in
• 28:46
  a desert. There we go. Origin story.
• 28:49
  Okay. So imagine somebody who grows up in a desert and they don't think about
• 28:52
  water the same way that somebody who grew up next to a lake does.
• 28:57
  They are, they are always aware of it. They're always looking for it.
• 29:00
  So I wonder if emotional validation works in a similar way, because I know that
• 29:04
  that's something that I have had a challenge with as well.
• 29:07
  If you grew up emotionally dehydrated, then it makes sense that your attention
• 29:11
  would keep drifting toward opportunities to feel seen, appreciated, or acknowledged.
• 29:16
  It's something that you are constantly looking for.
• 29:19
  And it's not because you're selfish, but it's because some part of you is still
• 29:24
  thirsty. And even if you get enough water, at some point, you know,
• 29:28
  though, it is 115 degrees out here, and I am going to need water again.
• 29:33
  And sometimes it's really, really difficult to find water.
• 29:36
  So I'm going to think about it all the time.
• 29:38
  And when you look at it that way.
• 29:41
  Then hopefully the goal shifts a little bit because the goal is not to shame
• 29:44
  yourself for being thirsty.
• 29:46
  It's to learn how to build a well inside yourself so you're not dependent on
• 29:51
  every conversation to provide you with this drink that you're so desperate for.
• 29:57
  And I heard this recently and it has really sat with me and I have not done
• 30:02
  enough digging to know if or what the data looks like behind this.
• 30:06
  But the concept was where if you were lacking something as a child,
• 30:10
  and let's go with emotional validation. Kids get their whole sense of self from validation.
• 30:16
  And the main people who can provide that validation when someone is young are the parents.
• 30:22
  So, if the parents, and I will go back to the, bless their heart,
• 30:25
  they don't know what they don't know way,
• 30:27
  but if they were unable to provide a safe place for your emotions or to provide
• 30:33
  you with that validation, maybe they have a whole lot going on themselves,
• 30:36
  or maybe they grew up in a way that they never saw that modeled either.
• 30:39
  So they don't even know that that's what you require as a kid,
• 30:43
  because it can even be this interesting form of projection. Well,
• 30:46
  they didn't get it. So why would you get it?
• 30:48
  Why would you get this opportunity that they didn't have?
• 30:51
  But I think so much of that's happening at the subconscious level. But if a kid...
• 30:56
  Wasn't getting something that they need from their primary caregiver growing
• 30:59
  up, they aren't aware of anything other than the fact of what they feel,
• 31:05
  how they feel, and what they need to do to survive.
• 31:08
  It's as if their little brains can't even contemplate or tolerate that their
• 31:13
  primary caregiver, the one that's in charge of keeping them safe,
• 31:16
  not just physically, but emotionally, spiritually.
• 31:19
  Financially, but that person is not really that safe.
• 31:24
  The kid's brain can't tolerate that. So they make it about themselves.
• 31:28
  It has to be me that is the problem because they have no concept of that.
• 31:34
  This caregiver is emotionally unavailable.
• 31:36
  So then they're going to go out into the world. And then that just,
• 31:39
  it is their fault. It is their problem. And they now it's familiar to find a
• 31:44
  partner that is unavailable.
• 31:46
  So if I'm going to offer an exercise at all, I think it would be more like this.
• 31:50
  The next time that you notice that you are desperate for this validation to
• 31:55
  bring the spotlight back to yourself, don't treat it like a problem to solve.
• 32:00
  First, we just need to notice it. Maybe even silently think it.
• 32:04
  Oh, there you are. You are trying to help me feel seen because I didn't feel seen as a kid.
• 32:09
  And unfortunately, now I'm recognizing this is a pretty familiar pattern.
• 32:13
  And then see if you can become curious about the person in front of you instead.
• 32:18
  Kid, ask another question, stay with their story for 15, 30 more seconds and
• 32:21
  not because you're trying to be good or not that you're not worthy of being known.
• 32:28
  And it's not even because you're trying to fix yourself, but because genuine
• 32:31
  curiosity and self-monitoring tend to compete for the same space.
• 32:35
  It's competing for certainty. And I was going to say, unfortunately,
• 32:38
  but right now I just want to say, and it just is the fact that we really don't know,
• 32:45
  if we're okay or if we exist unless we are interacting with another person.
• 32:51
  You know, the goal over time is to know that I am okay as I am.
• 32:55
  But if you slow things down, how on earth would you know that you're okay as
• 33:00
  you are if you have not received that validation at a very early stage in life?
• 33:05
  Because I still don't know.
• 33:07
  So I'm out there seeking who is going to acknowledge me? Who is going to be curious about me?
• 33:13
  But what we're starting to do with this question or this exercise,
• 33:17
  maybe the one that I would propose, is let me be curious about myself.
• 33:22
  Let me be genuinely curious about this other person, even if just for now,
• 33:27
  because that is definitely not
• 33:29
  me monitoring myself and worrying about the thing that I'm going to say.
• 33:34
  But I'm now noticing that and I'm going to I'm going to create this new relational
• 33:38
  frame or this relationship with this thing that I think is wrong with me.
• 33:42
  And I'm going to now reroute it into, okay, I'm noticing that I am wanting to bring this back to me.
• 33:49
  And that is me desperately seeking water in the desert.
• 33:53
  And that energy that I'm going to
• 33:55
  bring forth now is going to feel pretty desperate to pull it back to me.
• 34:01
  But the real gold there is that I'm noticing that it's like,
• 34:05
  I do want someone to see me, to be curious about me, to understand me.
• 34:09
  And if I'm having to offer it, this person that I'm interacting with is not curious about me.
• 34:15
  So I could actually, I could set a boundary. Hey, if this person isn't being
• 34:19
  curious, then I'm going to treat this like a pretty surface level interaction.
• 34:24
  But I'm going to stop trying to figure out how to get this person to validate
• 34:28
  me, how to get this person to like me, because that is, again,
• 34:30
  me trying to censor myself instead of me being myself and trying to understand who I am.
• 34:36
  Because at some point, I really want to encourage you to not think that you
• 34:40
  are doing your own life wrong.
• 34:42
  And it's not about, oh, man, what do I need to say? Or how am I saying this?
• 34:46
  Or I must be saying it wrong versus, oh, I'm noticing that this is a thing that I say.
• 34:50
  And what is that telling me about this moment? It's this person I'm interacting
• 34:53
  with. It's probably the familiar that I grew up with and they're not being very
• 34:56
  curious about me. So the goal here is for me to drop the rope at the tug of
• 35:00
  war to get this person to understand me.
• 35:02
  And I can even use it as an exercise for me to be grounded and curious and really
• 35:06
  want to understand this person.
• 35:07
  But it's, it's powerful to then recognize I'm, what if I'm not the problem.
• 35:13
  Or what if the problem or the challenge is that I'm continually trying to get
• 35:18
  someone who is not open, willing, or even able to consider me,
• 35:22
  to be curious about me, to choose me, to do so.
• 35:25
  Because again, that might sound a lot like the home that I grew up in,
• 35:28
  and I'm just recreating this familiar dynamic. The ability to heal is to then
• 35:33
  recognize and not continually try to find water in a desert.
• 35:38
  This all goes back to that you really are the only version of you that has ever been on the earth.
• 35:44
  This wonderful combination of your nature, nurture, birth order,
• 35:47
  DNA, abandonment, hopes, dreams, fears, rejections, all those things that make you, you.
• 35:52
  So I promise you, you're not doing you incorrectly. You think and feel the way
• 35:56
  you do because you do because of all the things that I just shared that you are.
• 36:02
  And that is one of the things that I think can change someone's view of themselves in the best way.
• 36:09
  I was going to say the quickest, but it's a pretty slow process to change that
• 36:12
  interior landscape of your mind, that implicit memory or what it feels like
• 36:16
  to be you. And it is based on the slow residue of your lived experience.
• 36:19
  But I am noticing more and more lately.
• 36:21
  And let's do a quick ego check. I'm going to come at this from a place of what
• 36:25
  I like to call healthy ego based on real life experience.
• 36:28
  The acceptance and commitment therapy principles, that foundation,
• 36:31
  that modality of therapy that I love, it is game-changing, it's life-changing,
• 36:37
  and I'm not being dramatic about it.
• 36:41
  But when you can just notice that you are saying a thing or thinking a thing,
• 36:47
  and you go away from the what's wrong with me, my thinking is wrong,
• 36:51
  because that still is going to require you to outsource.
• 36:54
  To someone else that, what should I actually be saying, or is that the right thing to say?
• 36:58
  Versus this is what I'm saying. Operating from that place is a much healthier
• 37:01
  place to then make changes, make pivots, make new choices in a moment when it's
• 37:07
  like, oh, I'm noticing that I'm saying this thing. Now, the story my brain's
• 37:09
  trying to tell me is that I'm doing it the wrong way.
• 37:12
  But that's just a story that if my brain can hook me to, then I'm still back
• 37:15
  into that familiar, the feeling of the familiar.
• 37:18
  But I promise you that this exercise in and of itself of recognizing that I
• 37:23
  say and feel the way I do because I do, So check that out and it isn't wrong
• 37:28
  and there isn't even a wrong and a right way to do it.
• 37:31
  This is how I am showing up. Someone else may react in a way that then will
• 37:35
  cause me to think or feel like I'm doing something wrong.
• 37:40
  I promise you you're not, but there's a lot of data that's happening right there
• 37:45
  that can help you understand yourself better.
• 37:48
  And I have been obsessed for years, decades, with people who have learned how
• 37:53
  to speak a new language, a foreign language.
• 37:56
  And a lot of the counseling that I've done earlier in my career was with people
• 38:00
  that had gone on like a two-year LDS Mormon mission. And the people that would
• 38:06
  be coming back and navigating a faith crisis, a faith journey.
• 38:10
  But one of the things that I just found so, so interesting were the people that
• 38:14
  had gone and learned a new language.
• 38:15
  So here's a guy or a girl, 18, 19, 20 years old, they go to a foreign country
• 38:20
  and it can be a pretty tricky language, Russian, Japanese, those sort of things.
• 38:24
  And they go with no language experience and then they're immersed in the culture
• 38:28
  and in the talking with people on a day-to-day basis. And they come back usually fluent in the language.
• 38:35
  And I really do have a reason where I'm going with this.
• 38:39
  But it sounds like at first they're overwhelmed and then they start to notice
• 38:45
  that they're getting better at translating things in real time and practicing
• 38:48
  the language and then you'll hear that somewhere i don't know six months nine months a year in.
• 38:52
  That they may recognize they had a dream and they were just speaking the language
• 38:57
  they weren't translating things and then they start to notice that they're no
• 39:00
  longer translating in a conversation with somebody and they're just responding in real time.
• 39:06
  And again, I've been fascinated by that my whole life. I took two years of college
• 39:12
  or high school German and two years of college German. And I can speak a little
• 39:16
  bit of German. I used to go there at trade shows when I was in the computer industry.
• 39:20
  And I would go there once a year, this place in Hanover, the CBIT trade show.
• 39:25
  And I would try to practice my German. And apparently, I don't know if it was
• 39:29
  just so brutal that then people would to respond back to me in English.
• 39:33
  One time I was in a cab ride back to the airport with a lady who spoke no English,
• 39:37
  and then I realized, oh, my German is not good.
• 39:40
  Nicht gut, mein Deutsch war nicht gut.
• 39:44
  And I realized, oh, I really have no clue of what it would feel like to be fluent in the language.
• 39:50
  But this concept and acceptance and commitment therapy of changing your implicit
• 39:54
  memory or what it feels like to be you based on the slow residue of your lived
• 39:57
  experience, that it has been years in the making of recognizing that I think
• 40:02
  and feel the way that I do because I do.
• 40:04
  That's why I say this so often in my podcast. I'm projecting it out to the world
• 40:07
  because, yes, I want others to feel the same way.
• 40:10
  Maybe it's so that then I will know that I have done a good job when I heal
• 40:15
  all my parental wounds there.
• 40:17
  I now don't quite remember, although I know that I spent the majority of my
• 40:23
  life doing the same thing. What's wrong with me? I said that wrong.
• 40:26
  I'm so dumb. I shouldn't have done that.
• 40:28
  And that is gone. So I speak fluent acceptance and commitment therapy now.
• 40:33
  And I don't even remember when it happened, but it just is.
• 40:37
  It's that concept of the path of enlightenment, unconscious incompetence.
• 40:40
  I didn't even know what I didn't know.
• 40:43
  I was just saying the things like, oh, I know I shouldn't have said that.
• 40:46
  I'm so stupid. I can't believe I did that. Man, I suck.
• 40:49
  And then you become consciously incompetent. Now I'm aware, but kind of keep
• 40:52
  doing it. And you eventually move into conscious competence.
• 40:54
  Now I'm definitely noticing that I'm not doing that anymore.
• 40:57
  And I'm also aware that that step, that path of enlightenment,
• 41:01
  that part right there, you know, you're there a lot because that's when I wanted
• 41:05
  everybody to know that now I was consciously competent.
• 41:08
  I'm letting everybody know, oh, no, don't beat yourself up like that,
• 41:11
  which is basically me saying, because I don't anymore. And so validate that.
• 41:16
  But then that final step on the path of enlightenment or of knowledge or becoming
• 41:22
  is then unconscious competence.
• 41:25
  It just is. I just am. And I promise that the person answering that are asking
• 41:30
  this question, that's where we're headed.
• 41:32
  So when you're asking me to help you with an exercise to catch yourself so that
• 41:38
  you won't be saying a certain thing.
• 41:40
  Hopefully you can see that's not even in the same ballpark of what I think the work really is to do.
• 41:47
  It's not to try to not say a thing or stop yourself from saying a thing.
• 41:51
  It's accepting the fact that this is the thing I want to say and then why.
• 41:55
  And if I'm continuing to feel that way, then is it because I'm continually interacting
• 42:01
  with people that are not interested in knowing me as a person. Okay.
• 42:06
  This question is one that I think I'm going to have to maybe set a timer on my answer.
• 42:13
  Because I could go a long time on this one. The person says,
• 42:16
  Tony, lately, I have found myself feeling exhausted by a lot of public conversations.
• 42:20
  It seems like everybody already knows the answer.
• 42:23
  Nobody's asking questions. Nobody's curious. Everybody sounds completely certain.
• 42:27
  So why does certainty seem so appealing to people? And is it,
• 42:31
  is certainty actually a sign of emotional health and confidence?
• 42:35
  So I love the question because what we're really talking about is certainty and uncertainty.
• 42:41
  And I'll even probably go down a path of narcissistic traits and tendencies
• 42:45
  and emotional immaturity. But before we even go there, I do think a lot of people
• 42:49
  are emotionally exhausted.
• 42:51
  They are tired of being talked at.
• 42:54
  I see it as a couples therapist, couples talking at each other,
• 42:57
  not asking any questions.
• 43:00
  And I think if you look outward, social media, TV, you name it,
• 43:05
  that we're all being talked at.
• 43:07
  And I think we get tired of being told what we are thinking.
• 43:11
  I'm tired of people presenting their opinions as facts because that is confidence,
• 43:17
  and it's mistaken for competence.
• 43:19
  And certainty is now viewed as wisdom. The person who seems confident and certain
• 43:26
  is now viewed as this wise old sage.
• 43:29
  And I think if you listen closely, there
• 43:31
  are a few phrases that seem to be disappearing from public discourse.
• 43:35
  Phrases like, I think, or I wonder, or my understanding is, or based on the
• 43:39
  information I have, or, you know, here's what makes sense to me right now.
• 43:44
  Or maybe even, I know that I could not have all the facts now. I could even be wrong.
• 43:50
  And I get it because those phrases don't make for great soundbites.
• 43:53
  They don't sound nearly as powerful coming from somebody standing behind a lectern
• 43:57
  or speaking from a pulpit or somebody sitting behind a microphone,
• 44:00
  posted on social media, hosting a show.
• 44:03
  It sounds much more confident to just simply tell people what I know and what
• 44:08
  I know that other people are saying or doing.
• 44:11
  Again, not just what you know, but what they should know, or maybe even what
• 44:14
  they don't know. What you don't even know is, and I know I say that myself,
• 44:17
  what you don't know that you don't know is...
• 44:20
  Interestingly, I think it does feel like we've entered an era where people aren't
• 44:24
  simply saying, here's my opinion.
• 44:26
  They're saying, I know the truth. And not only do I know the truth,
• 44:29
  I know why everybody else is wrong.
• 44:31
  And not only do I know why everybody else is wrong, I know what they're thinking.
• 44:34
  I know their motives. I know what they're hiding.
• 44:37
  And I actually even know what they secretly want. I know what they're not telling you.
• 44:42
  And if that isn't enough, let me explain why they're not telling you what I know that they know.
• 44:48
  Somewhere along the way, certainty stops being a conclusion,
• 44:52
  and it really becomes performative.
• 44:55
  Because the truly fascinating thing is that reality is pretty complicated,
• 44:59
  and people are complicated, and people's motives are complicated.
• 45:03
  There are so many variables that go into every thought that somebody's having,
• 45:08
  because life is complicated.
• 45:10
  But somehow, the most emotionally immature voices among us speak with the greatest
• 45:16
  certainty about things that no human being could possibly know with that level of confidence.
• 45:23
  What another person thinks, what another person intended, what an entire group
• 45:29
  secretly wants, what everybody on the other side believes, what everybody should
• 45:33
  think, what everybody should do.
• 45:35
  And I think that the more certain somebody becomes about things that can't actually
• 45:39
  be known with certainty...
• 45:41
  The more curious I become about the need for certainty itself.
• 45:45
  Because wisdom tends to sound a lot more like curiosity than being certain.
• 45:51
  To me, wisdom asks questions. Wisdom tolerates ambiguity.
• 45:56
  Wisdom can hang out in the gray. Wisdom leaves room for new information.
• 46:00
  Wisdom says, here's what I think.
• 46:02
  Immaturity says, I know this. This is an absolute fact.
• 46:07
  And emotional immaturity is often found in the space between those two things.
• 46:13
  And I think one of the reasons so much of modern public discourse feels emotionally
• 46:17
  exhausting is that we're becoming increasingly surrounded by people who confuse
• 46:21
  certainty with strength.
• 46:22
  And it can be a lot of different places, leaders, politicians,
• 46:26
  influencers, pastors, bishops, experts, content creators, psychologists,
• 46:30
  therapists, myself, people with microphones,
• 46:32
  people with platforms, people who have positions of real authority and people
• 46:37
  pretending that they have authority.
• 46:39
  People who communicate as though uncertainty or curiosity or questions are weakness
• 46:45
  and that confidence and certainty are proof that they're somehow better.
• 46:49
  They're essentially telling us the same story. I'm the smartest person in the room.
• 46:53
  Nobody knows more about this and I'm talking anything fill in the blank than
• 46:57
  I do. I have all the answers. I'm never wrong.
• 46:59
  And anybody who disagrees with me is stupid or dishonest or uninformed or just doesn't get it.
• 47:05
  And after a while, that feels exhausting because emotional maturity sounds very different.
• 47:11
  Emotional maturity sounds like that's interesting. Tell me more.
• 47:15
  I hadn't thought about it that way.
• 47:16
  What am I missing? Maybe I need to think about that differently.
• 47:19
  And perhaps one of the most emotionally mature statements that one can say is,
• 47:25
  I now realize, based on this new information and.
• 47:29
  I was incorrect. Or, you know, I did say that before, but now that I have new
• 47:34
  information that I have now, then I'm going to change my mind.
• 47:38
  And you didn't hear it incorrectly. I did say that. And I can understand now
• 47:42
  why you are confused because I changed my mind or the information,
• 47:47
  yeah, has been different each time.
• 47:49
  Those statements don't come from weakness. They actually come from strength, from security.
• 47:54
  They come from confidence rooted in security, not this performative confidence.
• 47:59
  And those are such different things. Confidence rooted in security does not
• 48:02
  need an audience to tell them that they're okay. Confidence rooted in performance does.
• 48:08
  Secure people don't need to win every conversation. They don't need to dominate every room.
• 48:13
  They don't need to be experts on everything because they're secure enough to
• 48:17
  know that they don't know everything.
• 48:19
  They're secure enough to learn new things.
• 48:21
  They're secure enough to be corrected. They're secure enough to not be right.
• 48:26
  That's what emotional maturity starts to look like. Emotional immaturity,
• 48:28
  on the other hand, tends to be rooted in insecurity, deep insecurity.
• 48:32
  And insecurity cannot tolerate uncertainty. It can't tolerate being questioned.
• 48:36
  It can't tolerate being corrected. It can't tolerate nuance.
• 48:39
  It can't tolerate complexity. And most of all, it can't tolerate being wrong.
• 48:43
  Because if your identity is built on being right about everything,
• 48:46
  then every question feels like an attack.
• 48:48
  So emotional immaturity develops a very different strategy.
• 48:51
  It has to stay in the one-up position. It has to know more, be smarter,
• 48:55
  be stronger, be better, be more certain, be the best of all time,
• 48:59
  and continually go back and tear down the people that have gone on before you.
• 49:03
  Because certainty becomes armor. And once certainty becomes armor,
• 49:07
  curiosity is dangerous.
• 49:09
  Questions are very threatening. Feedback becomes disrespect and disagreement becomes betrayal.
• 49:14
  And this is where emotional immaturity eventually starts bleeding into something much more defensive.
• 49:18
  And this is where I think it is important to talk about emotional maturity and
• 49:22
  emotional immaturity more directly.
• 49:25
  Because I am a therapist who has built my career helping people recognize emotional
• 49:31
  immaturity, narcissistic traits,
• 49:33
  states, tendencies, and patterns in their relationships and in themselves.
• 49:37
  And this is where I start from a place that we are all emotionally immature
• 49:41
  to some degree, every single one of us.
• 49:43
  Nobody arrives at adulthood having mastered emotional maturity.
• 49:47
  It's a process and it's what we're here to do. It's something that we're continually
• 49:50
  growing into. Emotional maturity exists on a spectrum.
• 49:53
  And on one end is someone who is emotionally mature in and of itself.
• 49:57
  That's a person who handles things like an adult, using your big boy words,
• 50:00
  not mocking people, not calling people names, not storming off when you don't
• 50:04
  get your way, not needing to humiliate somebody else in order to feel better about yourself.
• 50:10
  Emotional maturity allows you to stay curious when you're uncomfortable.
• 50:13
  It allows you to consider the possibility that you might actually be missing
• 50:16
  something. And it allows you to tolerate uncertainty without rushing toward
• 50:20
  certainty simply because certainty feels safer.
• 50:24
  But as we move farther down the spectrum of emotional maturity to emotional
• 50:28
  immaturity, and when we start entering the territory of emotional immaturity,
• 50:33
  now it can sound very familiar.
• 50:35
  It's as if you are interacting with a little kid.
• 50:38
  And know that if you keep going at the far end of that spectrum,
• 50:41
  lives pathological defensive narcissism. Now, when I am talking about narcissism,
• 50:45
  it's really interesting because there was a time where narcissism,
• 50:48
  there was a healthy version of it.
• 50:50
  And I'm not talking about confidence or healthy self-esteem or even necessarily
• 50:54
  the grandiose version of narcissism.
• 50:56
  I'm talking more about it as a defense, a defense against these deep feelings
• 51:00
  of inferiority that began in one's childhood, a childhood where somebody wasn't really seen,
• 51:05
  a childhood where vulnerability wasn't safe, a childhood where they watched
• 51:08
  significant people in their lives model never being wrong, never taking accountability
• 51:12
  and never owning their own mistakes.
• 51:14
  So underneath all that superiority and arrogance and certainty and grandiosity
• 51:18
  is something very different. It is a profound, deep level of insecurity.
• 51:22
  Because of that insecurity, that person, the emotionally mature,
• 51:25
  the narcissistic person, they can't tolerate even the possibility that they
• 51:28
  might not be right, that they might not be the smartest or the best or the most
• 51:32
  successful. And they must continually put people down in order to feel up.
• 51:37
  Even the possibility of being wrong feels life-threatening.
• 51:42
  So they begin recreating stories, narratives in real time. It's a concept called confabulation.
• 51:48
  So these people will unconsciously rewrite the story so that somehow they have
• 51:52
  been right the whole time because reality feels less threatening than being wrong.
• 51:56
  One of the things I've observed throughout my career is this,
• 51:59
  that the more somebody has to tell the world how special they are,
• 52:02
  the more likely it is they are actually trying to convince themselves.
• 52:05
  And often, the deeper the wound of insecurity is.
• 52:09
  So what feels like a conversation to you feels like a threat to them because
• 52:13
  you are either going to validate them, agreeing with them and reinforcing their
• 52:18
  certainty, or you are against them all or nothing, black or white.
• 52:22
  And they will defend against that at all costs because eventually something
• 52:26
  shifts. We stop trying to prove ourselves.
• 52:28
  We stop trying to win. And what is I'm going to say supposed to happen is we
• 52:33
  move away from that as a kid. That's a little child that must be right all the
• 52:38
  time and you must be wrong because this process of becoming more emotionally mature.
• 52:43
  The hope is that eventually something shifts and we stop trying to prove ourselves.
• 52:47
  We stop trying to win every argument. We stop trying to be the smartest person
• 52:49
  in the room and we become more interested in reality than in being right.
• 52:53
  More interested in understanding than in enforcing or performing this version of ourselves.
• 53:00
  And we're more interested in learning than just continually defending.
• 53:04
  Everything becomes an attack.
• 53:06
  And strangely enough, that's actually where life starts to feel bigger.
• 53:10
  Because the moment you stop defending certainty, now curiosity is available.
• 53:14
  And curiosity is where growth lives.
• 53:16
  Curiosity is where connection with others occurs.
• 53:19
  And curiosity is where healing lives, which kind of brings us back to the question
• 53:24
  that emotionally mature people never stop asking. The question that I think
• 53:27
  keeps us humble or keeps us learning and keeps us connected to reality.
• 53:30
  If I didn't know what I didn't know, and now I know things that I didn't know
• 53:35
  before, then what else don't I know that I don't know?
• 53:39
  And let me, before I jump off this soapbox, I'm going to pull up an article
• 53:44
  called The Truth About Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
• 53:46
  I have quoted this many times. It's by Eleanor Greenberg. She's a psychologist.
• 53:51
  It is from Psychology Today. It's an old article and it is so brilliant.
• 53:56
  Eleanor says that narcissistic personality disorder, and this is where I'm going
• 54:00
  to go into the world of emotional maturity, but it's the name for a series of
• 54:03
  coping strategies that began as an adaptation to childhood, to a childhood family
• 54:07
  situation that left the person.
• 54:09
  With unstable self-esteem, the inability to regulate their self-esteem without
• 54:13
  needing others, external validation, and it comes with lower empathy.
• 54:18
  So when somebody grows up with that happening in their life,
• 54:22
  then they lack whole object relations and object constancy.
• 54:26
  And these are fascinating concepts. Whole object relations is the ability to
• 54:30
  see yourself and others in a stable and integrated way that acknowledges both
• 54:35
  the person's good and bad qualities.
• 54:37
  And an object constancy is the ability to maintain positive connection to somebody
• 54:41
  that you like, even when you're angry, hurt, frustrated, or disappointed by
• 54:45
  that person's behavior.
• 54:47
  So without whole object relations and without object constancy,
• 54:50
  people, and Eleanor says with narcissistic personality disorder,
• 54:53
  and I will say incredibly emotionally immature people can only see themselves
• 54:56
  and other people in one of two ways.
• 54:58
  Either they are special, they are unique, they are omnipotent,
• 55:01
  they are perfect, they are entitled, which we call high status,
• 55:04
  or they're defective and worthless garbage, low status.
• 55:07
  So that means that the person struggling with emotional immaturity,
• 55:10
  they can't hold on to their opinion or feelings about somebody if they notice
• 55:14
  that the other person has a flaw or if the person questions or challenges them.
• 55:19
  So then that person goes from being special and put on a pedestal and you're
• 55:21
  the greatest ever to being devalued as not only just nothing special,
• 55:25
  but a horrible person and accusations are made and attacks are made and the person's mocked.
• 55:30
  So the narcissist or the emotionally immature person goes back and forth between those two.
• 55:34
  When they feel good about you, or actually you have made them feel good about
• 55:37
  themselves, then you're special and everything's great.
• 55:42
  But then you do something that they don't like. Maybe say no to a request.
• 55:44
  Maybe even ask a question about something that they have said.
• 55:48
  Now you have become all bad and worthless. Later, you might do something that
• 55:53
  makes them feel good again, and they're back to seeing you as special.
• 55:56
  And this is where she talks then about the concepts around narcissism.
• 56:00
  And I am co-opting her definition of normal, healthy narcissism.
• 56:05
  Because she says that, and this is where I know it has been a while since anyone
• 56:08
  I think has thought about narcissism in this way.
• 56:10
  But she says, unfortunately, in the English language, the word narcissism has
• 56:12
  come to mean two entirely different things, depending on whether it's being
• 56:15
  used formally as a diagnosis or informally as a synonym for positive self-regard.
• 56:20
  So that, that version, I think is that ship has left the port long ago,
• 56:25
  the healthy narcissism.
• 56:27
  She makes a distinction between the two. And this is where I'm going to take
• 56:30
  her definition of normal, healthy narcissism. I'm going to replace the word
• 56:33
  narcissism with ego. And I think it is so powerful.
• 56:36
  So normal, healthy ego is a realistic sense of positive self-regard and it's
• 56:41
  based on your actual accomplishments.
• 56:43
  So then it's stable because it's something that you have integrated,
• 56:47
  embodied, assimilated into your image, your self-image, and it's based on successes
• 56:52
  that have come from real hard work to overcome real-life obstacles.
• 56:56
  So I didn't know a thing, and then I worked hard to know the thing,
• 57:00
  and now I know the thing because I didn't know it before.
• 57:02
  That's normal, healthy ego.
• 57:05
  And because it's based in real achievements, normal, healthy ego is pretty tolerable
• 57:12
  to the slights and setbacks that we all experience as we go through life.
• 57:16
  Normal, healthy ego causes you to care about yourself and do things that are
• 57:19
  in your real self-interest, and it's associated with genuine self-respect.
• 57:24
  And you can think about it as something that is inside of you, normal, healthy ego.
• 57:28
  And what I want to add to that is when you know the things you know because
• 57:33
  you have put in the work and you then say, well.
• 57:37
  This is something I know, and you don't pretend to know something about everything,
• 57:42
  you start to radiate true confidence or safety or a presence.
• 57:49
  And that can be calming and grounding for those around you.
• 57:52
  That's why I think that certain emotionally mature leaders are so powerful because
• 57:56
  you do, you feel this presence because you can trust that when they say,
• 58:00
  oh, I do know this, that they only
• 58:03
  say that they know a thing because it's something that they have learned.
• 58:05
  I know the things I know about mental health because I studied this,
• 58:09
  I got my master's degree in counseling, and then I've spent two plus decades
• 58:14
  in doing this every day. I love it.
• 58:17
  So I know the things I know because I know them, which then comes with.
• 58:21
  So obviously, there are things I don't know.
• 58:24
  I'm not going to claim to know more than an attorney because I have not gone
• 58:28
  to law school. I'm not going to claim to know more than a doctor because I don't have a medical degree.
• 58:32
  But I would imagine many people have heard someone who has already made a judgment
• 58:37
  about somebody else. What does that doctor know anyway, says the non-doctor?
• 58:41
  What does that attorney know? And what is that therapist? He's just trying to
• 58:44
  get you in there to get your money, says the person who doesn't know things
• 58:48
  about therapy or what can actually come from therapy.
• 58:50
  No, that's a defense against their own insecurity.
• 58:54
  If somebody wants to know my opinion about something legal, then I will say,
• 58:57
  oh, I have no training in this here. I'll take a guess.
• 59:01
  And so that way it does start to build trust because if we're just going to
• 59:05
  have a conversation, I'll throw some things out there. But if I'm going to say,
• 59:07
  oh, no, I know. I know what that person means.
• 59:10
  I know that that attorney is actually just trying to get your money.
• 59:12
  I know that this person is just a part of the radical other side.
• 59:17
  That is a defense against insecurity, healthy ego. I think people with healthy ego change the world.
• 59:23
  Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King. Healthy ego is what
• 59:28
  will put you in a position where you are going to say things because it's things
• 59:32
  that you now know and you want to share that information.
• 59:35
  It moves away from I need validation because of my insecurity to,
• 59:38
  hey, this is something I now know and I've integrated and embodied it and I
• 59:42
  want to share it because now when people interact with me, they can attack it.
• 59:46
  And I want the data because I'm not trying to defend my fragile ego.
• 59:51
  I'm trying to integrate things to make me a better person. So I need the interaction.
• 59:56
  So the opposite of that is pathological defensive narcissism,
• 59:59
  the opposite of healthy ego.
• 1:00:01
  And Eleanor Greenberg said, this is a defense against feelings of inferiority.
• 1:00:05
  So the person dons a mask of arrogant superiority in an attempt to convince
• 1:00:09
  the world that he or she is special.
• 1:00:12
  They are the expert on everything. And inside, that person actually feels very
• 1:00:20
  insecure about their self-worth, but they aren't even aware of that.
• 1:00:23
  To them, no. If I tell people I know everything about everything and I know
• 1:00:28
  what this person means and what this person says, they think they're selling
• 1:00:32
  this confidence that people are buying.
• 1:00:34
  And because some people are, because it feels familiar to that person.
• 1:00:37
  If that's the home they grew up in or the person hasn't done their own work,
• 1:00:41
  to understand that no one knows everything about everything,
• 1:00:45
  and people are going to be inconsistent and incorrect and taking ownership of
• 1:00:50
  that is mature, it's healthy.
• 1:00:53
  But L.R. Greenberg says, this facade of superiority is so thin that it's like
• 1:00:57
  a helium balloon. One little pinprick will deflate it like a question.
• 1:01:02
  Like follow-up, like pointing out that there's been inconsistencies in the person's
• 1:01:06
  message because that facade of superiority is so thin.
• 1:01:11
  So she says, this makes the person hypersensitive to the most minor slights
• 1:01:15
  that somebody with healthy ego wouldn't even notice.
• 1:01:17
  If somebody's going to say, wait, but you said this other thing,
• 1:01:19
  then somebody with a healthy ego is going to say, you know what I did actually?
• 1:01:23
  Or, oh, I did at that point because I didn't have the data I knew now.
• 1:01:27
  But somebody with defensive narcissism becomes immediately wounded because of
• 1:01:30
  this fragile, tiny ego, this insecurity.
• 1:01:34
  So they take any form of disagreement as serious criticism in an attack,
• 1:01:38
  and they will lash out and they'll devalue anybody who they think is disagreeing with them.
• 1:01:43
  So they're constantly on guard trying to protect their status.
• 1:01:46
  Their messaging changes over and over again, and they don't take ownership of
• 1:01:51
  the fact. No, you're the one that's wrong.
• 1:01:53
  You're the one that's stupid. You got that wrong.
• 1:01:56
  You must be part of the people trying to take me down. It can't be that,
• 1:02:00
  oh, yeah, I did change my mind.
• 1:02:02
  Pathological defensive narcissism is a protective armor that's on the outside of a person.
• 1:02:08
  And it is there because it has to protect that fragile, insecure,
• 1:02:13
  emotionally immature ego.
• 1:02:15
  It's a little child wearing adult clothes, making big old gestures and mouth
• 1:02:21
  noises, thinking that's, I'm pretending that this is what an adult does.
• 1:02:25
  They scream and yell and they claim to know everything about everything.
• 1:02:27
  Before I hop off the I just have to say that it's really interesting because
• 1:02:32
  groups, and I'm talking about in general,
• 1:02:34
  as someone who works in this area of narcissistic family systems,
• 1:02:38
  groups often organize themselves around that person who claims certainty.
• 1:02:44
  And not because certainty is wisdom, but it can feel safe.
• 1:02:49
  So, groups tend to organize themselves around the loudest voice,
• 1:02:53
  the strongest opinion, the person least willing to entertain any kind of gray
• 1:02:58
  or ambiguity, the person who is most willing to project confidence.
• 1:03:03
  The emotionally immature leader demands loyalty, and they demand agreement,
• 1:03:07
  and they demand certainty.
• 1:03:09
  And so, they surround themselves with people who reinforce that certainty,
• 1:03:12
  the classic yes men, the people who never challenge, who never question, who don't push back.
• 1:03:18
  And what's really interesting is that those followers, I think,
• 1:03:22
  are often participating in the same emotional process.
• 1:03:25
  They're projecting their own fantasy of certainty, their own desire to be right
• 1:03:29
  about everything, their own desire to feel powerful, their own desire to escape uncertainty.
• 1:03:35
  And so they're basically surrounding themselves as if they're to their parent,
• 1:03:39
  the person who projected that confidence and never took ownership of anything
• 1:03:42
  as a kid. It feels familiar.
• 1:03:45
  And so now certainty starts feeding certainty.
• 1:03:49
  Insecurity starts to feed insecurity and that leads to performance.
• 1:03:53
  And now the people in that same orbit as the emotionally immature leader.
• 1:03:58
  Then they begin to perform as well. Performance starts feeding performance.
• 1:04:03
  Eventually misinformation, projection, confabulation, and then certainty with
• 1:04:08
  no accountability start to feed each other as well.
• 1:04:11
  So the story then becomes so much more important than reality.
• 1:04:15
  Protecting the narrative becomes more important than discovering the truth.
• 1:04:19
  As a matter of fact, the narrative now must be told as if it is the truth.
• 1:04:24
  And when that happens, reality itself starts to become optional.
• 1:04:28
  And healthy leadership looks so different. Healthy leaders are surprisingly
• 1:04:31
  calm because they know who they are.
• 1:04:34
  They don't need to advertise or perform competence. They don't need to remind
• 1:04:39
  everybody how smart they are. They just, they show up and project confidence and safety.
• 1:04:45
  They don't need to perform certainty every second of every day.
• 1:04:49
  Healthy leaders tend to be curious and grounded and flexible and open.
• 1:04:52
  And they're remarkably comfortable saying three simple words.
• 1:04:56
  Hey, I don't know. I guess it's four words.
• 1:04:58
  Because real competence doesn't fear those words. Real competence trusts the
• 1:05:02
  words. Real competence understands that admitting what you don't know is often
• 1:05:06
  the fastest path toward learning what you need to know.
• 1:05:09
  And truly capable people tend to want other capable people around them.
• 1:05:13
  They welcome a challenge. They welcome feedback. They welcome perspective because
• 1:05:17
  they understand that growth happens when everyone gets a vote,
• 1:05:20
  when reality gets a vote.
• 1:05:22
  And eventually, if that kind of work is being done, then something shifts and
• 1:05:25
  people realize they stop trying to prove themselves.
• 1:05:29
  We stop trying to win every argument. We stop trying to be the smartest person
• 1:05:31
  in the room and we become more interested in understanding and in learning and in reality.
• 1:05:35
  And we start realizing that, of course, we didn't understand things that we
• 1:05:38
  were never consistently practicing or studying or aware of.
• 1:05:41
  Of course, we didn't know what we didn't know. How could we?
• 1:05:43
  And strangely enough, that realization, it's not scary. It isn't so discouraging.
• 1:05:49
  It's exciting because once you stop defending certainty, now curiosity becomes
• 1:05:54
  available. And again, that's where the growth lives.
• 1:05:57
  And so that brings us back to the question, the question that emotionally mature
• 1:06:00
  people never stop asking, that keeps us humble, that keeps us learning,
• 1:06:04
  the question that keeps us connected to reality. What else don't I know that I don't know?
• 1:06:08
  Okay, that's all the time we have today. I would love your questions.
• 1:06:12
  If you have thoughts, questions, feel free to send them to contact at TonyOverbay.com.
• 1:06:17
  And I would love your feedback.
• 1:06:19
  And whether you came here from the virtual couch or waking up to narcissism,
• 1:06:22
  thank you so much for being here and taking us out per usual,
• 1:06:25
  the wonderful, the talented Aurora Florence with her song, It's Wonderful.