91: Things a therapist wants to tell you
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That's M-I-R-O dot com. Hello, my beautiful people, and welcome back to the Moments Podcast. I am here with someone very special. You guys have heard about this person before. You've heard this person before. I'm pretty sure I talk about you in every single episode that I have, but I'm with my therapist. Her name is Dr. Leon, and we're going to talk about...

A few random little things today. I put on my Instagram story and I said, what would you ask a therapist? And we got a bunch of different questions and topics and things we're going to talk about. And we're just going to go through each of them, see if they lead us down any other path, any other conversation, and just take it from there. But

i guess we'll start off simple if you want to say hello hi guys happy to be back we're back and we're ready to go we record we just realized first of all we've been having conversation for two hours um this happens every time so i'm very excited to see what it continues on to and what we get into but yeah i guess we'll just kind of start and and i'll i'll read you some of these things and then we'll talk about them uh this one

Also, when I was going through all of the different submissions and what people said, I wanted to write down a lot of the ones that have applied to my life just because, I don't know, I just thought it would be interesting to talk about them. It's like my own little personal therapy session in a way. And I'm sure some of these are things that we've talked about and you'll notice that too. But first one I want to read off is, sometimes I feel myself people-pleasing with the intention of wanting validation.

What would you say to me if I came to you and I said that? Because that is definitely something I've struggled with. I do things with the intention of wanting people to feel better, but also getting the validation that I'm helping someone feel better, if you know what I mean, and sometimes it takes away from my own energy, and I do more than I'm actually capable of, so what

What do I do about that? I think first of all, you have to be such a kind and good person to be able to even people please. So you have these wonderful characteristics that already exist within you. It's just not knowing some of your boundaries on when is a time that might take from you.

When is it a time that you're doing this and there's not going to be a value for you or you might be doing something for someone else that it looks like on the outside might be great, but that in long term, maybe you're even handicapping them. I think that it is an example when somebody in a ratio is people pleasing more than they're making their own decisions.

That there's something missing. There's a little bit of a void in your own life. It's this need to feel validated. So what I would say is definitely take an opportunity to self-reflect. Am I people pleasing around certain people more? Are there certain times in my life I find myself people pleasing?

then really looking at what am I missing what's going on in my life that maybe I'm not validating myself because a lot of times we project we will do things that we are needing we will think things that we are thinking about others and we will say things that we are really thinking so some of that is really tied into that and it's it's looking at where can you

and validate yourself that either you used to and it hasn't been or maybe you never have and this is an opportunity to start exploring that. I think I'm starting to learn that I'm a huge projector. Not just in the negative way because when I think of projection, when I first learned about it, it would be probably advice that you gave me. If someone's been hurting me or saying negative things to me, you're like, okay, it's a form of projection. It's what they're going through and struggling with and they're projecting it onto you and I've never...

really taken it and reflected on it in my own life and the ways that I do it until honestly like a big one for me is being in a relationship like a lot of the things that I see as I don't want to say negatives but like struggles that I have with getting used to a relationship or things that like I Personally struggle with like I don't I don't really know how to explain it and then the same thing with giving things and when I come when it comes to people pleasing and my different love languages and and

Sharing gifts. I give a lot of the things that I'm wanting people to give to me or maybe it's just myself to give to me and I did a journal entry on it a few days ago or a couple weeks ago and I was like, okay,

So I'm going to start paying attention to what I want to do the most for other people and see if it's something that I'm lacking. And then maybe if I give that to myself, I'll feel less of this need to do it for other people because I don't want to be doing things for other people if it's not actually out of love, you know? Yeah.

Or more of an authentic reason that it would happen as opposed to just that need that you're needing to fulfill. I don't want to feel like it's a chore to do these things. I want to do them because I love these people and it's a tough thing to figure out and get used to, but I'm learning. It's hard also because I don't want to say that somebody's broken or completely empty when you have that need to validate. But a lot of times, for example...

If we aren't seeing the value in us, if we aren't also confident in who we are and secure, that even if we have to say something, that it could be hurtful to somebody, but it's not, you know, our intention. And what I say is hurtful to me. No, I'm not really feeling like going out tonight and just putting a plan, you know, at a stop.

and knowing that that person might be disappointed. But if you value yourself, you know what you're going to gain by making that decision for yourself. And you're confident enough that I know I'm a good friend, that if that person is going to be mad at me or not going to be my friend, then I'm going to have to accept what that outcome is. And maybe, maybe they have,

and you might have to let them go or change that relationship. So what I mean by that confidence is that you really want to have the ability to value the decisions you are making and say, I trust that this decision is actually good for me and it's good for them. But really what it comes down to is that reflection of,

of the things in your life, like is this relationship that you have with this person, whether it's a parent, whether it's a relationship with a partner, or it's a friend, or even at work. It's trying to dig deep and look at what does that relationship look like and consist of that is there a need for me to change the way that I want to do something or the way that I feel about something just now.

Just to accommodate them or to make them feel happy and I think what we'll see is that we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to like we'll be there more accepted or I don't I don't want to make them feel bad, but maybe they have the skills to deal with it and they won't feel as bad That's a huge thing with being in a new relationship and you guys know I've touched on this a few times in the past few weeks it's just

I'm trying to figure out that about myself and like realizing that, okay, I can communicate when I'm at a lower point in my life and this person is understanding of that and still loves me for that. And I don't need to hide that. And if anything, it's just making our relationship stronger and we're growing together. And we were just talking about that before we started recording, but yeah,

think before I kind of realized that I Definitely was just trying to I don't know be this certain person for a certain person Yes, and liked more or loved more or because I that's the version of me that I love the most and I think this is this is a really big realization that I had I was scared to

Show him the parts of myself that I didn't love enough yet and like I'm very open about the parts of me that I love because I've learned to love them and you know you can only accept the love you think you deserve and I don't think I deserve to be loved at my lower points and Navigating all that was just was difficult But I do think it has a lot to do with just how I was people-pleasing at the start and now I've had the realization that I've kind of learned how to love myself at those low points and realize that I'm still worthy of love and

The problem with people pleasing, especially if we do it too often, is what you're not seeing is what you're losing. What you're losing is your authentic self, the ability for you to stay true to who you are. And when we are living a life for others, when we're caring about what others think so much more of the time, think of the prefix.

D-I-S and D-Y-S. Disease, dissonance, disconnection, disorder. They're all related to our not being authentic, not really living our truth. So that in itself already is a contaminant.

to us being authentic with who we are and what we want. So you may not experience it right away, but over time, you will start to burn out and you will see the consequence of constantly doing things to please others and for others.

So, I think that that is definitely another important piece to make sure that we recognize. Sometimes we might just see that things are fine and people are liking what we're doing, but everything comes at a cost. And when you are giving up,

who you are and what you want, then that will have a consequence. It just may not show immediately. It just, it catches up. It's something that builds over time. Yes. I think like my, my follow up question to that and everything we just talked about was like, how would be, how do you know the difference between when you've been so constantly used to people pleasing, which I have since I've been younger, it's always been something I've been chasing. I think it's just to chase validation in its own form.

At this point in my life, now that I understand all that, how do I figure out which is which? How do I know when I'm being authentic versus when I'm doing something wrong?

Just to make someone else happy and then that'll make me happy because it validates me in a sense Do you know what I mean? Like yeah, what are the factors that I can I can tell the difference between the two? Yeah, I mean there's a few different things that would be involved It's certainly something that you don't just stay in your head with though like a lot of times We're in our head and I can't emphasize enough that you will not get clarity staying in your head There are thousands and thousands of neurotransmitters flying through at all different times and

So needing for it to be in black and white. So journaling it. Um, and what I mean by journaling it is, is it forces you to take a pause? It means, you know, being thoughtful about a decision rather than just immediately and instinctually saying yes or no to something.

So you might say, let me just have a few minutes to think about that before we answer, just even to give us a new default without just automatically saying yes or no, because either of those words will be a people pleasing moment.

So, um, making sure sometimes that we look at, this is a little bit unique and odd, but the pro and con of, that's my neighbor. Oh, and I had seen a cat, so I wasn't sure what was going on. You guys don't know. We recorded in my house and a guy just walked across my backyard. So I saw him just cause I turned around and I was like, yeah, don't worry about him. He's supposed to be here right now. Um,

But, you know, I think what we can do is we often have been taught to look at things like in a pro and con. And I think that if we think about it more in protective factor versus risk factor, what are the risks of me doing that? Because I'm a big pros and cons. I tell you guys all the time, journal about everything before you make decisions and just journal in general because it's the only way that I find clarity in my own mind. And I know that a lot of people are the same way in that sense. But...

I always am writing down my pros and cons versus protective. Yeah, protective factors and risk factors. Okay, I like that. Just to help if someone's not familiar with kind of, you know, those words.

Risk factors really are things that can impair you. Risk factors in general could be sometimes people's limited resources. They could be a lack of education or information in an area. So there's a variety of different risk factors.

And protective factors are the things in play that, whether they're resources, whether there are coping skills, whether they're based on a good relationship that we have, that could be part of a protective factor. So sometimes we may need to expand our perspectives. And what that means, this may sound familiar to you, but I do say we can do a pro and con list when you do it with four angles.

- Oh, yes. - So the four-pronged approach. - We have talked about this before. - Yes. - And I forgot to try it. But now I'm going to. - That's okay, yeah. - We'll see. - So it's just, you could either use either word. You can do a pro and con of making that decision, and a pro and con of not making that decision.

So, it seems like it would be the same and some answers will be the same, but it's actually forcing you to see it from a much bigger perspective so that you can really get a good amount of protective factors, which may come from the opposite of certain risk factors in some of those columns and the opposite. So, that way you're looking at not only the quantitative, which is just all of the amounts of things you're writing, but the quantitative

of really the decision that you're making now, you are so much more informed in your decision. Is this really for me or is this something that we're both going to gain out of it and it's something that I want to do? I think you just gave me such a flashback because when I was deciding whether or not I was going to leave FSU, which is, if you guys don't know, the college that I went to for a year, did not put me in a good mental state. I made a pros and cons list. Doing the four-pronged approach without even knowing anything about it, it was a list and it was...

pros of staying in Tallahassee and cons of staying in Tallahassee. Pros of moving home. That's it. And pros of, or cons of moving home. Yeah. And it was the most valuable list that I've ever made. And it really did affect the decision that I made and what I ended up doing. And honestly, that list is probably the only reason I'm here right now recording this. Because, I don't know, I think if I did it just as a simple pros and cons list, I might have ended up staying there. Because I didn't weigh out as many things or... It's limiting you. Yeah.

I really like that. Cool. Definitely gonna bring that back. I didn't even realize that I did it until I just thought about it. I go back to that list sometimes just to, whenever I talk about like, why did I leave FSU? And I go back to that list because it pops up on my Google Docs sometimes and I'm like, wow.

It's just... It's crazy what I was going through and what I was feeling and how I was processing all the different things I was going through. Yeah. And then the way I wrote about what would be so nice when I came home and what would suck about being home. And it just... It made me weigh everything differently. So, I'm going to definitely bring that back. You know, all...

Say, I think, you know, one last point to really this piece that I just recently saw also on TikTok, some viral thing. And what it is, is that I think it's great that we can hear information we already know, but we hear it differently. So it lands differently. Absolutely.

And so the way that it was like this British guy, I don't even know who it was, but so I don't want, I don't like to steal people. So it was someone, I just don't know who it was. Um, but it was like one of those comments about speak the truth, do what you want to do, but don't be afraid of really what the outcome is. Meaning you, you, if you say yes or you say no to something, um,

and the person responds, you know, pleasantly, fantastic. You now have more information about the ability to be even more honest with that person. It just, there's so much truth and validity that will come from that decision.

Just as much as when you find out that someone is not so pleased, it's still the truth. And we have to be strong enough. So this goes back to where I don't want to say we're broken, but we have to feel a little bit more whole in who we are to handle rejection or adversity, but making meaning of it that we needed that.

in our life. We may not understand it in the moment, but when things are taken from you or people have a response that was completely not what you expected, that's still good information. And so it's being prepared and getting yourself ready to be prepared so that you really remove the need to ever people please. Definitely. You just speak it. And I think that like the more time that goes on and the more experiences that I have,

Can now look back on things that in the moment were so hard so difficult so terrible with people with situations It was so hard when I was in it and then to be out of it now especially after all these years after like learning all these things and working on myself and finding myself and building myself up and

It's so minor now like in in the hurt level Yeah, it's so valuable in every lesson that it taught me and how much I mean there were friendships that I'm no longer in that at the time like falling out of those friendships was so difficult, but now it has made my new friendship so much stronger because I'm Gravitating towards people who are I don't know not not um

They don't have those qualities that didn't work for me in friendship. They have the ones that... You're more aligned with where you need to be and who you want to be around. But we don't learn that from just the good. We don't learn that from all happiness and positives. That's what's so important for everyone to learn is that as uncomfortable as it is in situations where we're in darkness, where we're in a loss, when we're in struggle, adversity...

There is so much growth in that, but to try to make meaning and understand all of it in that moment, it really is futile. It's worthless because you won't be able to really pull a narrative out until you're a little bit out of it. It's just too subjective, but we do need trust.

faith, hope in those moments. And I'm going to make you laugh because I know you're going to be like, oh, I never did it. The timeline. Yes. Yes. I'm telling them that story because that really is one of the most powerful tools, a visual tool to help with exactly what we just talked about. So a timeline is basically a

where you just allow yourself to have a bunch of sheets of paper, make this big giant line on a paper representing your lifeline.

And all from starting from when you were born to where we are today, what you want to do is you want to think of what are the most important milestones or highlights that stand out to you from as early on as young in life all the way until now and what are the challenges or the adversities that stand out to you. And we put those on the bottom of the line.

Every single person that will ever do this absolutely will be able to see ebbs and flows. Some people will see that it's a little bit more sharp where it's really high highs or some really low lows. But what all this does is it helps us identify patterns. It helps us realize that we're never staying down, that we do have, you know, ups. We don't want them to be as jagged and as, as big as those. But what we can look at are from the bottom, what,

What happened that we got to the top? What were you doing? Who were you hanging around? What decisions were you making? And sometimes, not always, but sometimes we can see that when we are in the up, if we wind up having a down, what variables were involved with that. But again, it doesn't always mean we did something, but it's just a really nice visual to be able to see how your life is flowing and what kind of changes or learning lessons we can have from that. Yeah. So...

She had me do this. She told me about this exercise and it was kind of my homework. The first session that we had back in October of 2021, I think it was. And the following weeks after that, she's like, take your time. Like you'll get to it when you get to it. And I just kept forgetting. And I was always like, I'm so sorry. And then it got to a point where I forgot about it completely. And it just, it never happened. And now it's,

2023 we're halfway through it's almost been two years and I still haven't finished my homework But what I will tell you this you will have honestly from 2021 till now like it doesn't matter when someone does it I mean, I certainly think that the sooner someone does it just some more insight and reflectiveness and mindfulness that can happen but

I guarantee you that your timeline now, if you were to sit and do it, will look so different. There's so much more to add to it. But also as we evolve, we also make meaning and have memories differently. Like there are things we may block out that you would have never put on. And now you may have realized like, oh, I forgot.

about that. Some of the things that I think if you asked me maybe five years ago to do this timeline, a lot of the things that would have been the lowest of low points for me, I'm at a point now in my life where they view them as maybe not higher points, but like they're leveled. Like the times I went through my worst anxiety and depression ever from the girl that bullied me. I look back on that now with so much love and light because without that, there's zero chance I'd be here doing this. I never would have become a yoga teacher. And

And it's just a whole different appreciation for what it was. But I mean, in the moment it was the lowest I've ever been. That timeline is what would help people be able to recognize that because it's so much look, I can, we can sit here and tell people when you're in it and if you're currently in it, like

how to get out of it and it just feels like you're so stuck in it or it's not going to happen for me or I'm just not that person that it'll work. It feels impossible when you're in it. Right. No matter what you listen to. I mean, I just, they know about my little spiral I had last week because I did a whole podcast and I was basically saying that. While I was in it, I was putting in all the work it felt like to get myself to a better point. I was journaling, I was listening to podcasts on how to get out of the funk and I was going on walks and I was trying my best but...

I didn't have the willpower to just, I didn't want to change how I felt, I think. Yeah. And I think it's important, again, you'll hear me constantly refer to like making meaning out of things that are valuable. And now they're used to me constantly referring to that because they tell me to constantly refer to that. And, you know, and so I think that, you know, especially for people like you and I, I mean, you have a platform and a big presence in helping people. Yeah.

And I do think that people like us who do have those opportunities, we have to just understand that part of our work and part of our gifts is that we do have to go through these challenges. They will give you the meat you need to help your audience and to help others.

That it is for you, for sure. You're going to reflect on that when something else goes on. It's not going to feel as intense because you'll reflect back on this. It gets lighter every single time just because I'm learning more steps along the way and I'm just understanding myself better. And a lot of these things for me, I realize now after hearing you explain the timeline in the way that you just did, even though you've probably done it countless times before, like I'm realizing that's exactly what I try to do, but I try to do it in my head. And there's just too many things.

But I do try to recognize the patterns, and I notice them, but I can tell you right now that if I had a timeline, I would recognize them so much quicker. Absolutely. First of all, most people can retain or see or understand things a lot better visually. Not everybody, but... I'm definitely one of those people. I am for sure. I'm someone who has to actually experience it and go through the motions to really get it. I have to hear this.

same facts or hear the same lessons 10 million times. Agreed. And then it sticks and it's solid and it'll stay there for a really long time, but it takes a while for it to get locked in there. Yeah. And you know, just for anyone that's listening that would like to do that timeline, um, it really is not that, it doesn't have to be that, um, uh, crazy.

It's not just in our projects. No. If you are creative, though, certainly feel free. Given this assignment to people, I get all different kinds of timelines. And some, I was even like, wow, I wish I could do that. It was incredible. But I'm not an art major or anything close to that. So if there is creativity, creativity makes almost everything so much better and more flexible and more ideas. So I will certainly encourage people

some of that to be explored, but it doesn't have to be creative. It literally could be one pencil, a piece of paper, and a line with all of the information that's necessary. It doesn't need colors. It can if you want to add colors, but it's

It's that visual component that has you look at where your life is today and helping you realize that everything we go through, it's fleeting. They're temporary. There's ups and downs, but it gives us the meaning that we may not otherwise have known or understood because we don't have some sort of visual opportunity to make sense of it. I see. Yeah.

Yeah, I really want to do the timeline. I mean, now it hasn't been in my head for a while, but now that it's back there, maybe I'll, I would really like to find the time, which I have. I just need to manage my time differently to do it because I think I would love it. I know that I would love it. So maybe I'll finish my homework assignment. This might have been the thing that sparked it in me. Um,

But, okay. Yeah. Cool. You guys should all make a timeline. I think we should all do it. I was just going to say, you could easily, being who you are, just say, hey guys, let's all do a timeline together. And then I'm going to be... And then help other people. But now, you know, you do it too. And show even just a few little things. Okay, guys. We're all going to make a timeline. We're definitely all making a timeline. I'm very excited to do it.

But yeah, I think that pretty much covered the people-pleasing thing and a lot of other topics too, which I love how it goes from just one thing to the next and it just, it all flows. And I was saying this to you before, everything, it all connects somehow, some way. Like everything, everything on this list is,

Kind of all comes back to the same, yeah, saying it in a different way. Correct. For the ones who get it done, the most important part is the one you need now. And the best partner is the one who can deliver. That's why millions of maintenance and repair pros trust Grainger. Because we have professional-grade supplies for every industry, even hard-to-find products. And we have same-day pickup and next-day delivery on most orders.

But most importantly, we have an unwavering commitment to help keep you up and running. Call, clickgrainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. I remember on one of the other podcasts trying to really emphasize, because I didn't want some of these things to feel like they're taken where they're just isolated strategies and tools that will solve things, you know.

It's a combination of also working on ourselves regularly by having discipline. It's a constant practice. Right. There's so many pieces involved. So that's why the flow of there's mindfulness, there's working on our self-esteem and self-worth, there's working on authenticity. Then it leads into people participating.

pleasing and then being able to now learn how to problem solve. So doing those pros and cons are protective factors. And so, yes, it's all a process. And there's been so many times too where I feel I'm thriving. I'm at a really, really high point in my life. And I'm like, I finally got all the lessons locked in. I'm ready. I'm unstoppable. I'm unbreakable. And I go under the wave again and I have to relearn the lessons, but it's all just, instead of getting angry at myself for having to relearn those lessons, I've just kind of

found a way to look at it, that it's part of it. It's all supposed to be part of it. There is no this without that and vice versa. There's no mastering. I think I said that as well.

You can work on improving, you can work on being more resilient, but it doesn't always mean that you've mastered something where it just never will show up again. Sometimes it forces us to tap back into some of the things that we may have done before successfully. But it's definitely an important, I feel like it's a test to not get mad at yourself, to not get deeper.

and into more darkness that that alone is just like so we've done this before and you've done really well but now let's see what happens when we bring it back into you yeah it's kind of fun it's like it's an experiment our life is an experiment of figuring it all out as we go yes

It brings you to try to make it fun. You have to try to find the humor in it because the alternative is just very bleak. Yeah, it hurts a little. Yeah, exactly. Sad. And I mean, this is like totally not on that emotional scale, but the same idea. We're renovating the house right now. You guys know all about mango.

It's a lot of work. It's taking down cabinets. It's hearing drilling in our ears for hours at a time. It's painting little crevices on drawers over and over and over again until it's perfect. And that can be really draining depending on how I look at it. Like I can look at these as really unbearable, annoying tasks to do or, which is what I've been trying to do, make it fun and make it enjoyable and put on good music and appreciate the journey because I know that by the time the house is done, I'm going to look back

if I don't do it this way I'll wish that I had put more like appreciation into these little steps because now they're over that's why that quote a lot of quotes people don't truly get the full meaning of what it means but when we hear the quote that it's about the journey it's not about the destination and the

the journey, what it really means is like that whole process that got you there is what you're going to feel more fulfilled about. It's what's going to be the learning lessons and the teaching moments is what you did in that journey. And we are responsible for trying to be the hero of

in our own story, regardless of what goes on. So now that I'm faced with this or this is what I'm dealing with, when I have to tell the story later on, what could I do to make the story that much greater? That was what happened to me in the hospital. I really, really, really liked that. I had to keep thinking when I share this,

What will I find as the gain and as those little moments that will at least be able that I could say well at least I did this and at least that's why I told my husband come bring my brain games. Come bring me things that could be useful and productive for me. I really

really, really like that. Do you want to tell them like a brief little version of what happened? Yeah. So just very, very, I'll try to make it as brief as possible. Um, I typically am a very healthy person. I do, you know, what we're supposed to do with working out brain, healthy foods, supplements, but I did contract COVID and unfortunately the COVID induced, uh,

like diverticulitis/colitis. I don't wanna say symptoms 'cause that was what my diagnosis was. I was experiencing that. And on top of that, I then contracted another infection from the antibiotic.

And there really are so many other little factors that were, and then this happened too, and then this happened. But the, so the point is, is that I was forced to use my strategies and to definitely work. Absolutely. And it doesn't mean that I wasn't emotional. It doesn't, it didn't mean that I didn't have dark moments when I was sitting there feeling possibly helpless or, um, like what is going on and will I ever be able to,

you know, heal and come out of this. It's a scary thing. It was, I mean, anyone who's listening, who's been in the hospital, I don't have personal experience with it, but just after hearing her story, especially more in detail, um,

I can't imagine and it just seems, it's scary. It's scary. It's a place of fear. Right. There's a lot of unknowns there. There was about, there were several more days that I was in the hospital than anticipated, not even thinking I would wind up in the hospital. But even somewhere there, even in some of those dark moments, I would still know that this is something I will look back on and I will be making meaning of it. So while I'm in it. How?

How can I? Yes. I really, really like that. And I think that that's something I've been subconsciously trying to do too. And that's why I'm noticing that all of these little breaks or hard times in my life I have, they get a little bit shorter in the sense that I'm more hopeful than I ever was in the past when I would struggle because...

Back then, especially 13, 14, even like 17, 18, and when I went through it when I was 19, I didn't know that there was light at the end of the tunnel. And now that I've gone through so many different things, I know that there is always going to be light at the end of the tunnel, and I think it's important for us all to just...

I mean doing things like the timeline recognizing see what you've already made it through and then what you've already gone through there's nothing you can't handle there's you're not reliant on your memory and all of the meaning that you tried making at that time unless you're journaling and you can go through journal pages that can be helpful too if there's these narratives which is very cool and I think I did a whole podcast on reflection actually oh cool because one night I couldn't fall asleep and I read my whole journal from 2021 and

Was like wow it's just it was very cool to compare my mindset in the way that I I viewed things then versus how I would view them now and I did a whole lot of self-reflection in it and that's why I suggested journal all the time even if you don't know like What you're gonna write or if it's gonna be very surface level you never know what's gonna come out of you And I think sometimes people what I've noticed and just in my work is that word journal is also a trigger word for a lot of people whether it's because of past experiences with therapists or

different kinds of places that they may have gone or they just hate writing. So I always try to emphasize that it could be bullet points if you want to type some things out. Or do it in the notes of your phone is a big one that I'm always suggesting too. To remove, so like, and you may have heard me use the word tracking. I like to try to say tracking so it doesn't feel like it needs to be this really, really

emotional, emotional thing. Right. That it's just not, it's almost like, imagine you have a brain disorder that you can't remember anything.

And so you would be forced to write anything down so that you don't ever have that chance of not knowing what it was going to be or what you were just going to say. So if you think about it like that, that's how I would want people to do it as opposed to the word journal. But journaling is also what we're talking about. It's just when certain words, some people have the word exercise as an actual trigger. So we talk about movement. Makes sense. Yes. Okay. Never thought about it like that. Yeah. Always just...

Yeah. Wow. I only know that because of hearing so many people's resistance and the associations that they make with that. Also, a lot of people, like when they used to write maybe a diary when they were younger or journal and maybe something happened to it and then people saw it. So there's just so many reasons on why people have stopped writing.

that process or never wanted to start. But if you just look at it as it's just writing information down to not ever have to force your brain to remember every single aspect. Last week, if I tell you to ask you to remember, so you're like, wait, what? Yesterday, if I asked you like, wait, what? You know what I did the second that I woke up, I couldn't tell you. Like my, and that's why having things written down helps me because honestly, it's hard for me to reflect on those lower points in my life.

without my journal because I blacked it out of my memory on purpose. And when I go back in the journal and I can like bring it back into my mind, it's just...

It's valuable. There's really no other... I think a lot of, like, that's how religion was born was because people were keeping tabs and notes and writing things and all from years and years with rocks. They were writing with rocks, you know, on caves. And they were putting things, you know, in whatever way they can to try to, it's like to try to memorialize or honor whatever that is because you cannot think that your brain will remember every single thing or that will...

process it in the most effective way. Just think about how many things are going on in our brain all at one time. And especially, I feel like life is so fast paced now. Oh yeah. Faster and faster. And then social media, we have the attention span of like pigs right now. It's almost impossible. So I really liked the idea of like taking journaling and explaining it in that sense, because even for me, that just made me want to like write things down more for different reasons, because a lot of times I'll avoid it because I'll say, okay,

Okay, I want to write things down, but I'm not in the headspace to make it this inspirational, motivational journal entry that I'm going to look back on and be like, wow, I wrote that? It doesn't have to be like that. Right. And I think that I convince myself it does sometimes. That's getting stuck in perfectionistic thinking. Oh, yeah. So those famous ants, those cognitive distortions. We talked about those. If you guys want to hear about the ants, I think it was the first episode that we did together. Correct. Which...

I'll put in the description what episode it was, but that was a great one. That's where I learned all my main tips that I try to remember all the time. And sometimes I still don't. But the perfectionist is perfectionistic thinking. And then the thing. Those are two big ones for me. Which is crazy because I'm not a perfectionist, really. Like when it comes to doing things at the new house...

My mom would be like, make sure when you paint that you don't get it in this little crack. And I was like, well, whatever. Too late now. That's, that's the miss that that's the misunderstanding of perfectionistic thinking. It's not about like OCD type stuff. It's not about having to have everything look perfect.

The idea is just that you have your own way of how you think it could be friendship. It could be the way that... I think I do this one a lot in my relationship and my career. Both of them is where I definitely struggle with it because I'm just constantly... It's almost like I'm constantly chasing how things could be better or how I could be better and be more perfect for someone or for a certain career or for a certain task. And then...

Just I don't know I'm never gonna get there, so I don't know why I'm chasing it well. No I'm never gonna get there. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, absolutely It's not that you're not it's just being only my same focus on your present feeling like that one Good as I am right now, and I'm right. It's being It's it's enough. It's learning to bring that word in it It's okay right now with where I'm at and I do think that the only comparison that we really should be making is just compared to the last time you encountered it and

Whatever it is that you're going through, just compare yourself to the last time. Let's look at all of the things on the table. Do you have anything different on your plate than you did before? And if you're able to say, you know what, if I can do five more minutes than I did this last time, or if I can just go out to run this one errand, I don't need to do all my errands, but if I can do this one since last time I did none, you're already better.

So it's, it's, it's removing the need for that little needle to be like here in your mind and making it be just right here when this is where you were before. So it's, it's just a habit of, of understanding that everything that we do could really be, um,

looked at in a positive when they're being done in such tiny little steps, but it's a mentality to be okay with doing tiny little steps. It's setting your life up where they're just full of tiny little steps. And that it's so funny you're saying that because we didn't even talk about this before we started recording, but the last podcast episode I did was I titled it the importance of baby steps and it was all about that because I,

It started off so simply and I don't want to get too into it because they just listened to me talk about it all week last week but I was in yoga and I wasn't as flexible as I used to be so my intention for the class just became baby steps like even if I never get to where I used to be at that's okay. I'm doing a little bit more every time and I'm bettering myself and then obviously as you know the hour-long class goes on I get deeper into my thoughts and I'm like I can apply this to every single thing in my life and

I did, and that was the day that I kind of pulled myself out of the rut that I was in last week. So it's very valuable. And now you didn't only hear it from me. You heard it from a therapist, so it's legit. But yeah. Wow. Okay. I guess let's go on to the next one, even though I feel like we've covered so many of these things already. Wow, did we really only do the first one? Okay, so we've only gone through one of the questions in the box so far, but the next one is...

How can I work on expressing my feelings better? This is actually really good because there is no one way, you know, I mean there's, and when I say it's not just like, oh, one way to express it, but in looking back in the way that when you were younger, what are ways that you were expressive, whether it might have been through physical, you know, doing something physically and some people express their feelings or they're

sadness or anger through a run or maybe through some martial arts process at the gym. - I just think about little kids and how they always do random things and they just make noises and I don't know, throw things around. Our bodies are energetically

We have to move the energy throughout our bodies. And I saw a TikTok that talked all about it super in depth. It was probably five minutes or so just about how we need to do things physically with our body to move the energy, to move our emotions, to move everything. Yeah. Well, so, so, I mean, that definitely piggybacks if somebody is going to do it physically.

Anyone who's ever experienced trauma you can do as much trauma work in your brain, but your body still holds trauma So a lot of what they found is whether it's through tapping or through dancing shaking There's even like massages that what we're doing is is what we're trying and there's plenty of research that shows it works So what no matter how silly it feels I mean, I'm silly my example with yoga. So it's such a perfect example. I

physically moves, I think, and I don't know if there's no, well, I guess there is science behind it now, but depression and the anxiety that I was feeling, yes, the mindfulness of yoga helped a lot, but the physical movement of releasing tension that was stored in different parts of my body that I wouldn't regularly stretch or move,

changed everything. Like we saw all of our emotion in our hips and doing pigeon pose or a lizard lunch really can trigger different feelings of whether it's just heightened emotions of happiness or of pain or of things you've been running from all that stuff. It's real. It's cool. It compares to, I think everything that you're saying. Yeah. I mean, at,

at the end of the day, I mean, what we're looking at is freedom. That's what you're giving yourself when you express it, because when you hold it, you are absolutely storing energy. That's going to stay stuck and it's going to turn into, um, you know, uh,

like poison in our body. So whether you can be expressive if you are in the arts, um, so being creative and sometimes just doing collages, sometimes doing art, it could be on canvas. There are so many artists and musicians doing it through music, doing it through poems. Um,

there is such a variety of ways that we see people making a living expressing their feelings through the arts. So I just wanted to make sure that I highlight that those poems, the making music, any kind of artworks, doing sculptures, canvas, clay. So using our hands, using that to be able to again move through art

Some of that would be really important. Understanding that there is no right way. The wrong way is by not expressing, by not letting it out, by not identifying what it is in the emotions. A lot of people are more prone to run from the emotions or mask them.

It could be through additions.

And we've just gotten used to that. So I think that getting to a point where we can talk about things is just still so unsettling. And that was the other piece, is talking. So we have a variety of ways where it could be metaphorical or it could be just through actual talking. And so the talking part of it is such a necessary thing where I think there's a lot of cultures also that have a strong belief.

That you keep it in inside there are certain cultures that believe that you are more of a woman or a man when you're not Spilling your negatives or when you're not talking about some of those things or those are private But I think if we just look at research and we can see that that is so much more detrimental And that there is so many more positives that do come from expressing our feelings Then makes us all more human it does teaches us all to know ourselves better, and then I think we stop

Well, that's the difference between us and robots. Robots don't have feelings. We do. And the only thing that I think is important when talking about this topic is I do feel that it is very relevant to be safe.

when we're expressing our feelings. And what I mean by that is who we are expressing them around, making sure that that audience is capable of handling whatever it is that you're sharing, that you're not putting out there something where you know there might be people that are very judgy or that may not even understand what to do with that emotion. 'Cause sometimes people will do that. They'll express themselves. They'll then experience a negative feedback

And then now they've made a decision. This is what happens when I express myself. I think I faced that a lot when I first started doing TikTok. I would start to open up about things, not really realizing the reach that I had and how many people would see these things that I could barely even talk about with my mom. I honestly have now come to the realization it's easier for me to publicly post to 2.5 million people what I'm going through than have a conversation with my mom about what I'm going through. But at the start...

I would do that because, I don't know, I felt some kind of calling to do it and I didn't really think too much about what would come from it. And then I would get a lot of negative comments of people being like all sorts of things. And then I got scared for a while to keep being open and vulnerable. And I just had to reteach myself that...

I don't know. One, it's projection. Two, it has more value than it has more, or it does more good than it does more great. Right. Staying true to that because you will still experience people that will have something to say. There's always going to be people that have something to say. And it's also, again, just really remembering that not everybody knows coping skills. Not everybody has distress tolerance.

Not everybody knows how to navigate with emotional conversations. So someone's response and reaction really cannot be identified or attached to the fact that you just expressed something. Because you don't have control over that person's past or history or past.

Right. Who they are, really. I sometimes forget that and I think that that's something I'm learning too is that not everybody has the same mind as me. So if I try to explain things in a way that they would make sense to me, it's not always going to make sense to someone else where they're not going to know what I'm trying to say. And I just, I've had to learn that we're all different and that certain things, certain conversations aren't going to happen with certain people. Or if they do, I don't know.

Well, and you'll only keep learning that through life. You'll learn what kind of audience, and I don't even mean audience as the bigger picture for social media. I mean, even if you were with a group of friends, there might be a certain group of friends that have a certain meaning in your life, but they're not necessarily the ones that you would do deep work with or talk about deep things. And it doesn't mean that they're bad people, but it's just that when we're vulnerable, we have to be very aware of...

who we're being vulnerable with and the timing of that vulnerability. Because again, not everybody is prepared or can handle what it is that you're putting out. But that doesn't mean don't do it. Don't give up on it. It just means be more mindful or explore a little bit more about yourself.

To then be able to see like, you know what, actually there is this one person that whenever I go to them, I don't talk to them much, but they always have the greatest advice and they don't, there's no judgment. And so just again, having that pause to think about what are the times in my life that I have expressed my feelings and that it turned out really well. So to try to reflect on any times that they have before and that it worked.

Yeah. Okay. I like that a lot. I like that a lot. I have a pretty... It depends on who. Sometimes it's really easy for me to just get very deep and emotional with people, even people that I'm in newer friendships with, than it is for me with my parents or my best friend. Like, Lisette, she knows this. We do not get deep. We will not have a conversation about what I'm feeling so deep because she doesn't struggle with it. She's just... And I'm sure that we've talked about this before, too. She is like a...

Everything is just simple for her in this sense, and I can't explain it. And she will say it too. She's like, yeah, I got sad that I failed that test, but if I failed that test, it would have been the end of the world because everything would have flipped upside down for me. So we don't really have those conversations, but she is still my sister, basically, and my best friend in the whole entire world, and it doesn't take anything away from our relationship. I've just...

now have other relationships where I share that part of me with. And like, I have you guys, you know, I don't know how to explain it, but, but that's exactly my point is like, you found your niche. So if you, your way to express it is to be on a platform and to be able to, um,

be relatable for others knowing that there is so many people out there that this is all new and feelings and what am I supposed to do and what does this mean that that's what you want to make sure that you're then driving to so that you don't then come back and then go back to Lisette to share something that you may not get the response from her that you're needing. 100%. And I mean, I've tried to say things to Lisette. She gives me the best advice she can, but this has turned into my form of art and my way of just...

getting through things and communicating things because I'm really forced to sit with my thoughts and my feelings and talk through them because I Want to share all of them and help everyone feel like okay. I feel like this Maybe you feel like this. Maybe your friend has felt like this. We're all just learning a little bit more there's no way for me to

Share that message without talking through my own traumas in a sense. So it's cool It's a beautiful thing and I've learned to just really really love it But it's it is my art and it's how I express my feelings So I think that you just made me think of something too that I think it's so important I think perhaps also a long time ago. There was this um

attributed to when you express feelings or when you ask for help where it's so important to look at it in the opposite. That it is so courageous and so brave when we do that. I had to really, really teach myself that one just because there's still people who will, especially when I meet older people and they ask what I do for work, if I talk about how I have a podcast where I...

deep dive into mental health sometimes and I basically talk about all the crap that I go through and take the lessons I learn and share them and they're like, oh, so you're like sad? And they'll just, I don't know how to

say it, but adults can be mean sometimes about what I do and... Lack of awareness or understanding can make people ignorant. Yeah, and it's fine. I've gotten used to it now, but when I first started hearing that, it was so hard for me and I would say, okay, do I need to go back to college? Am I wasting my life? Like, these people are saying that I'm doing, I'm not, am I not helping anyone or doing anything and...

I just really got to a point where I realized this is a beautiful thing and it might not be for everyone and if you don't want to tune in and listen, no one's asking you to do that. That's right. But this is what makes me happy and this is what I love and it's a dream that I'm just going to keep chasing whatever steps I have to take to do it. And yeah. Well, and tell the adults.

You know, well that's just the thing too is again not everybody's gonna understand it not everybody has to but I think that what's important about recognizing the bravery is that when we are more brave in our life we do have more happiness we have more resilience we're able to see opportunities and see things differently.

So it's not just like, oh, I'm great. And I think we see ourselves differently too. Well, that's exactly it. That's how our self-worth and our self-esteem actually gets built. It's not by the words other people tell you. It's not by the awards that we may win. It's really about us looking at the things we've accomplished, the things that were hard and we did it. So you're giving those words that you're wanting other people to say to you to yourself. Yes, yes, yes. You're never going to hear them. That's kind of how, like people can tell me they are so proud of me for everything over and over and over again.

until I tell myself I'm proud of myself for accomplishing that task, it's like it goes in one ear and out the other. Amen, honestly, because that is what is the biggest message is we are constantly seeking this approval, this need for others to validate, but it's never going to happen until we see the true validation and all that. And when we see it, we don't need it. It's fine if you get it, but it's,

loved. If you don't think that you can be loved, you're not ever going to feel properly loved until you've learned to love every part of yourself. Right. And I think it applies to even more things than that. Like just check in with yourself. What are you searching for so much in the world that you can fulfill for yourself? Yeah. Listen, there's just so much self-exploration.

And self-reflection. And what I think is that any time you're diving into that and you're exploring just who you are and why am I thinking this way and what does this mean to me, you are giving yourself such richness of knowledge and skills that maybe in that moment you're not realizing, but they will be playing out as you encounter different opportunities in different circumstances. And it's so cool to see when it happens.

Yeah, one of my favorite words obviously I knew what this work meant before you explained it to me But the way I applied it to my life ever since you told me it's just the word awareness when you taught me that To take my anxieties because there was a point in my life. I was waking up really really anxious all the time and about all things that I wanted to get done and he told me to take that anxiety and look at it in the form of awareness and just evaluate kind of everything going on and it's it's just shifted and

Everything about the way that I say oh, I'm so anxious No, I'm really aware right now of what I need to pay attention to in my life and it's been such a game-changer And I'm sure I've mentioned that to you guys too, but if you missed that episode or I didn't explain it properly That's kind of it. Well, you just also maybe I keep saying like okay. I'll say one more thing I'll say one more thing but the more things we can say the better so words have a lot of a lot of value and

The way our brain has already been programmed to certain words we make associations with. So if we say, you know, we say the word like, okay, our brain knows, okay, means calm, means peace. We release the right chemicals when we hear that. When we hear the word devastation, our brain knows devastation is something that's very negative and it can be, you know, like fight or flight like so.

One thing in expressing feelings that I will say is be very careful of your words. Don't lie to yourself. Devastation is when like you have no home, you have nowhere, like your whole entire city is like wiped out. You know, devastation is like when these natural disasters come through. But sometimes we might say like I'm devastated when maybe there's a breakup.

That's a very harsh word. You're gonna make it so much more challenging to get through a break up when we talk about it in a Devastation I'm dead like I'm gonna die when we say all these things Oh go off you'll kill myself when we just joke and we say these things those have power So although in the moment, you know, you're not going to necessarily do what your brain is saying but your brain holds on to that and

So if you again say the word devastation, you think just in that moment your brain remembered that? No. Our brain will remember negatives way longer. So it's going to keep you in fight or flight. So you may wake up now the next morning with tons of cortisol, tons of that anxiety because you told your brain the other day you were devastated. So it needs to protect you. Yeah. And especially if you're someone who's love language or you're really big with words of affirmation, I think this hits even harder because you just made some things click in my mind because...

A lot of the times I'm jokingly like so mean to myself. I literally have signs on my door that say, blow out the candle, you stupid idiot. Oh my gosh. Because it's funny, you know, in my head it's funny. And then I guess. See, as a brain health coach, I'm like, no, that is not good at all. And actually that's Aunt Fine. I knew when I put it there too, I was like, this is so not funny and not nice to myself. And I don't know why I'm doing it.

Still there. I should probably take them down now. It's not that I ever, not like I ever look at that. Just be funnier. You can be silly and you can say like, you know, you can say something else to it, but not putting yourself down. Right. Because then you'll actually give yourself more. Well, I'm an idiot anyway, so I might as well just stay here and do this and not go out or, you know, so you will find reasons and excuses to fit the label that you say. Oh, and I do that a lot.

I mean, all through college when I couldn't go out because I had to work, I was just the lame friend. Oh my gosh. And my friends would kind of call me that, but I turned it into this little joke. And I think that now it has stayed in my brain without me realizing it because now there

the reason I'm so scared to stop drinking when I go to these social events is because I don't want to be the lame friend. And I'm just, so many things are clicking for me as we're having this conversation. But yeah, at the time it didn't bother me. I didn't hold onto it or so I thought, but subconsciously it was still there and now it's playing a role in why,

this is a harder task for me to accomplish. Yeah. And sometimes, so like you might even want to look up neuro linguistics. There's that, it's like a very, you know, fancy word, but it has so much meaning and understanding of how words play a role in our emotions.

And if you even like look up sometimes definitions like lame, it's not going to at all be related to someone who's not drinking. So attributing that to meaning that if you don't have alcohol in your system, it's like this negative. And when really it's the complete opposite, it's courage, it's authenticity. Um, and you know,

Really? I mean, I don't want to offend anyone But what's lame is if someone's needing additional supports on their life to be fun and happy that would really be that so we've tricked ourselves into having certain responses and associations to words that we say so yes, definitely like

Letting your audience know like instead of saying I'm so anxious or I have so much anxiety. I'm more aware I'm so much more alert and not to be better at because it's something it's one of those things that I think about often But I don't apply it as often if that makes sense. I'll say constantly Okay, watch the way you're talking to yourself treat yourself with kindness compassion. Give yourself grace. I will preach it I will say it I will write it down. I will think it and

but I won't actually do it. - So why don't you, at the end of the night, just have one alarm that goes off every night, doesn't matter what kind of time it is, because when it comes up, what you're gonna write as the reason the alarm went on, like that little area you could put a label, how kind was I to myself today on a scale from one to 10? - Just a little reminder. - Just a little accountability reminder. - Just makes you think about it. And I did that for a while. I'll do those and I'll shift 'em around, because eventually I get to the point where I-- - Yeah, they should be shifted. - I stop noticing them, but for a long time I did,

It would come on at like 3 p.m. because sometimes that's when I have my crash or like if I've had a bad morning, it hits 3, my day's already over in my head. And I changed it to say there's still two more quarters in the day because I view my days as like a football game. Oh, yeah, depending on when we get up. Because if I have a bad morning, okay, I'm going to come back in the second half or vice versa. And honestly, that helps me a lot because it's not all or nothing and I'm teaching that to myself by doing this. I love this. Four quarters in the day thing and they've heard me talk all about that too. But yeah, bad morning.

That first quarter of sleep in, okay, it's only 12 o'clock, 11 o'clock. Like I still have at least nine hours I'm going to be awake to make my life or my day better.

worth something and break it down into minutes, break it into minutes. Then you say, Oh my gosh, I have whatever, 60 times the nine, like 540 minutes. And then you can do seconds too if you really wanted to. And those are really powerful ways for us to be able to not allow one emotion as we're talking about expressing, but to not allow that to convolute all the rest of your seconds and minutes for the rest of that day. Wow. Okay.

Okay, you guys, so I've decided to break this episode into two because the original audio is two hours long and I don't know, I just figured I'd make it two parts. You get an hour now and an hour next week. So I hope you've enjoyed and we'll keep talking to you next Monday.