Latest / Voyage Clinics Podcast / Understanding Your Emotions | Dr. Reid Robison’s Guide to Emotional Intelligence

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Understanding Your Emotions | Dr. Reid Robison’s Guide to Emotional Intelligence · Voyage Clinics Podcast

0:11
Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to the Voice Claims Podcast. I'm your host,
0:13
Speaker 1: doctor John Sanders, family physician. Our mission with our podcast
0:17
Speaker 1: is just to bring wisdom and knowledge to the community
0:20
Speaker 1: and the healthcare space, and family physicians have the broadest
0:25
Speaker 1: scope of practice. I think we do everything just removed
0:27
Speaker 1: to toenail yesterday, to curve of a newborn yesterday as well,
0:31
Speaker 1: and everything in between. One of my passions is mental health.
0:37
Speaker 1: And today we have a special guest read Robison. We've
0:40
Speaker 1: done a podcast not too long ago in psychedelic therapy.
0:45
Speaker 1: It was very good. Today we're going to I'm excited
0:48
Speaker 1: to just talk about We're kind of going to go
0:50
Speaker 1: back to kind of some of the fundamentals a little
0:52
Speaker 1: bit of our lives, and that is emotions and what
0:57
Speaker 1: are they how do we enhance our emotional intel and
1:00
Speaker 1: why are we so bad at it? Like I think
1:03
Speaker 1: my dad and my dad's dad, there was some heavy
1:07
Speaker 1: stuff they went through, you know, with the wars, and
1:09
Speaker 1: my dad was Vietnam and and my dad's dad's like
1:11
Speaker 1: World War two and Korean War stuff, and and I
1:14
Speaker 1: think it was emotionally. I think largely I saw a
1:17
Speaker 1: lot of the drill sergeant mentality I certainly grew up
1:20
Speaker 1: with zero emotional validation. If anything, you got to butt
1:24
Speaker 1: whoop and if you were crying, right and so yeah, So,
1:27
Speaker 1: like I want to talk about it read and how
1:30
Speaker 1: we can enhance the next generation. How do we how
1:34
Speaker 1: do we get better at this emotion space?
1:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a very good question. I love this topic,
1:39
Speaker 2: by the way, because I don't know it's it's one
1:43
Speaker 2: of those things that is so fundamental, not easy, right,
1:48
Speaker 2: feeling your emotions, but we're not taught anything about it.
1:51
Speaker 2: And like you, like you mentioned and I agree completely,
1:55
Speaker 2: Like emotions have been feared and avoided for generations, and
2:00
Speaker 2: thankfully it seems like the tides are turning and more
2:03
Speaker 2: and more people are recognizing that you've got to feel
2:06
Speaker 2: it to heal it, or the only way out is
2:10
Speaker 2: through on the emotional front. But maybe we could start
2:14
Speaker 2: with like what they are as a starting point and
2:17
Speaker 2: then and then I think it might you know, make
2:21
Speaker 2: sense on why we tend to swat them away and
2:25
Speaker 2: why that's not ideal.
2:26
Speaker 3: But yeah, but it does.
2:29
Speaker 2: So emotions are signals, like there there's a neurologic primacy.
2:35
Speaker 2: They're automatic signals, were hardwired for these that give us
2:38
Speaker 2: information about how to navigate the world, like the GPS
2:42
Speaker 2: of your car and the dashboard with lights and warnings
2:45
Speaker 2: and directions, and if you don't use these, you're kind
2:50
Speaker 2: of in the dark. So emotions, you know, to build
2:56
Speaker 2: on that are they have these components. They have a
3:00
Speaker 2: bodily felt sense, like sadness feels a certain way for you,
3:04
Speaker 2: a certain way for me. There are some similarities, maybe
3:07
Speaker 2: a heavy slowness, maybe a lump in your throat, maybe not,
3:11
Speaker 2: but they have that signature for you that you can
3:15
Speaker 2: learn to recognize. And it makes sense because the last
3:19
Speaker 2: part of an emotion is an action tendency, Like they
3:22
Speaker 2: orient us to the world because underneath it there's a
3:27
Speaker 2: need and we're wired to do something about it, thankfully,
3:31
Speaker 2: like we step away from the ledge before we have
3:34
Speaker 2: to think about it and reach away from the hot
3:38
Speaker 2: stove automatically, because these signals sometimes are life saving, right.
3:46
Speaker 2: But this action tendency, like with anger, you might have
3:50
Speaker 2: a puff chest and your heart's racing because you are
3:55
Speaker 2: oriented to protect, defend, and joy might have a smile
4:00
Speaker 2: and a contagious quality because it's you know, the action
4:03
Speaker 2: tendency is sharing and like uplifting and smiling and laughing.
4:07
Speaker 2: So so you get to World War two era when
4:11
Speaker 2: my my grandpa read Robison the First was was out
4:18
Speaker 2: at World War Two, and he was someone who could
4:21
Speaker 2: hold more than anyone you know, I can imagine, but
4:25
Speaker 2: like you know, you could perhaps enlighten us on what
4:29
Speaker 2: happens when we bottle it all up forever. But it
4:33
Speaker 2: wasn't safe to feel your emotions in the trenches of
4:36
Speaker 2: World War two and or when you came home. That
4:39
Speaker 2: made its way into the homes and the culture, and
4:44
Speaker 2: you know, even like fall off your boys, don't cry,
4:47
Speaker 2: girls don't get mad, and oh, fall off your bike,
4:50
Speaker 2: don't cry. Here's an ice cream cone. Let's medicate it
4:53
Speaker 2: with a little dopamine too.
4:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, did read Robison the First come Home?
4:59
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, how was that?
5:02
Speaker 2: Well, so it was before I knew him.
5:06
Speaker 3: He passed away.
5:09
Speaker 2: When he was in his nineties and some more recently,
5:13
Speaker 2: and we heard very little about the war and the
5:18
Speaker 2: medals and things like that. We had some stories, but
5:21
Speaker 2: interestingly it would come out more towards the end of
5:23
Speaker 2: his life, and he said he was having dreams about it,
5:27
Speaker 2: that it was coming out in his letting go at
5:31
Speaker 2: the end.
5:32
Speaker 1: Was he combat.
5:33
Speaker 3: Yeah.
5:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, my grandfather, Harry Michael Campbell was also combat in
5:39
Speaker 1: World War Two and he's a Marine jr. Head and
5:44
Speaker 1: he's out there in the trenches. Literally. He came home rough,
5:48
Speaker 1: really rough, PTSD. His whole platoon got killed and he
5:52
Speaker 1: was crawling around on an island for a long time
5:55
Speaker 1: just living off of grubs. He had jungle rut, he
5:57
Speaker 1: had lost all his teeth.
5:58
Speaker 3: Like it was a mess.
6:00
Speaker 1: Came home when he had electrical shock therapy for a
6:02
Speaker 1: long time, and he would still go on these walks.
6:05
Speaker 1: He would blank out and PTSD just walk and he
6:07
Speaker 1: wouldn't he would.
6:08
Speaker 3: Just it was rough.
6:10
Speaker 1: It was really rough, rough on my mom, rough on
6:12
Speaker 1: on all those people. And yeah, I think, I think, man,
6:18
Speaker 1: I'm I've only recently been on a journey of like
6:21
Speaker 1: figuring out emotions because because because you know, my those
6:25
Speaker 1: people raised my parents and and they were surviving heavy,
6:30
Speaker 1: hard stuff and pushing it away. You don't have time
6:33
Speaker 1: to process emotions. And I was under the paradigm yet
6:37
Speaker 1: this was some soft touch bull crap, right, having emotions
6:41
Speaker 1: is just some soft touch, new fangled new age what.
6:46
Speaker 1: And I held that. I held that for a while and.
6:50
Speaker 3: What was modeled.
6:51
Speaker 2: It was we were mold and modeled, and that's how
6:54
Speaker 2: wired to start doing it.
6:56
Speaker 1: It was super unhealthy.
6:57
Speaker 3: It was super unhealthy.
6:59
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until later that I started to recognize.
7:02
Speaker 1: My wife poked me in the face one day. She's like, hey,
7:05
Speaker 1: you suck at emotional validation. I mean, the journey towards
7:09
Speaker 1: med school residency, it's a war. You're in the trenches,
7:12
Speaker 1: you're grinding, you are you don't have time to sit
7:15
Speaker 1: and processed. If I lost two brothers along the way,
7:18
Speaker 1: like like I didn't process that stuff. I said, well,
7:22
Speaker 1: there's my dead brother, and I I okay with the
7:26
Speaker 1: corner reports to me, I go back to med school,
7:28
Speaker 1: you know. And and eventually I think, you know, my
7:34
Speaker 1: wife helped me see, hey, it'd be okay if you
7:37
Speaker 1: figure this.
7:38
Speaker 3: Out, and I'm just way to put it.
7:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the other cool thing was listening to different
7:45
Speaker 1: podcasts Mark Brackett, Center of Emotional Intelligence, Yale University. He's
7:50
Speaker 1: the head of that center. He promotes this ruler curriculum recognize, understand, label, express,
7:58
Speaker 1: and regulate, And and that helped me because I was like, oh,
8:02
Speaker 1: there's a tool that I can leverage to you know,
8:06
Speaker 1: maybe maybe feel better, maybe maybe feel my feelings better,
8:11
Speaker 1: understand them and regulate them.
8:13
Speaker 2: You know, I have so many cliches in the world
8:16
Speaker 2: of emotion, and normally I don't like embrace enthusiastically cliches,
8:22
Speaker 2: but they're just so useful on this front for me.
8:25
Speaker 2: Like one that's coming to mind as you're speaking is
8:28
Speaker 2: you've got to name it to tame it, or like
8:31
Speaker 2: labeling an emotion, you know, awareness is perhaps more than
8:36
Speaker 2: half the battle, and in this regard, and just like
8:39
Speaker 2: just naming it helps it run. It helps you allow it,
8:43
Speaker 2: and helps it run its course. In fact, and I
8:46
Speaker 2: don't know that this is kind of scientifically repeatable, but
8:51
Speaker 2: it's a it's a really interesting signal of someone is
8:56
Speaker 2: trying to pinpoint the duration of ideally that emotion can
9:01
Speaker 2: run its course and says that emotions can rise and
9:05
Speaker 2: follow their completion and say ninety seconds, and most people
9:09
Speaker 2: are like, wait, I've been feeling this for years, right,
9:12
Speaker 2: And you do have to feel it to heal it
9:16
Speaker 2: or to let it run its course. And it is
9:20
Speaker 2: way more complicated than in ninety seconds. But for me
9:22
Speaker 2: that's a nice practice to ask myself and other people
9:29
Speaker 2: can you sit with this for ninety seconds, because that's
9:33
Speaker 2: a starting point, right, Can you feel this? Can you
9:36
Speaker 2: allow it? And then after that, can we lean into it?
9:39
Speaker 2: Can we get curious about it?
9:42
Speaker 1: I love what you said as you were introducing emotions
9:45
Speaker 1: to us about how we leverage emotions to accomplish things.
9:50
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's protecting us, sometimes it's helping us better
9:54
Speaker 1: understand something, and sometimes it's actually doing something hard, like
9:59
Speaker 1: starting a business. There's a huge emotional ambition there, and
10:03
Speaker 1: you're you're feeling the emotion of that that grind and
10:06
Speaker 1: that that I have some ambition about this and I'm gonna,
10:10
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, I'm gonna move through it. And I think
10:14
Speaker 1: there I don't know much about the breath work space,
10:16
Speaker 1: but I have certainly felt the breath of certain emotions
10:21
Speaker 1: of and if you listen to a child, they're really
10:24
Speaker 1: good at it. If you listen to them breathe and
10:25
Speaker 1: they're they're laughing and happy, there's a breath there. When
10:29
Speaker 1: they're mad and frustrating, they're breathing a certain way. And
10:32
Speaker 1: and I don't know if there's insight to breathing and
10:36
Speaker 1: breath work with regard to what we're feeling. But it's
10:39
Speaker 1: helped me quite a bit as I'm on the mountains
10:42
Speaker 1: foraging for mushrooms, contemplating things and trying to feel stuff
10:47
Speaker 1: and I'm breathing and it's a it's been a I
10:51
Speaker 1: think partially being in the mountains is helpful, but also
10:55
Speaker 1: just breathing into those emotions and feeling them, that's cool.
10:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. The breath is the nervous system's remote control and
11:02
Speaker 2: it's like the number one tool I would use and
11:06
Speaker 2: I use every day to sit with anything difficult. Is
11:10
Speaker 2: like just connecting with the breath. And it is also
11:15
Speaker 2: this signal to me whether I'm getting stressed out in
11:20
Speaker 2: a workday or whether I'm getting on say my yoga
11:23
Speaker 2: matt and checking in and just observing if my breath
11:27
Speaker 2: is shallow and choppy in that moment, that tells me
11:31
Speaker 2: a lot about the state of my nervous system that
11:35
Speaker 2: moment too. But the beautiful thing is we can just
11:38
Speaker 2: like it's this system that's on autopilot that we can
11:42
Speaker 2: intervene on and take our breathing and slow it down.
11:46
Speaker 2: And its ties to you know, polyvagal theory and the
11:50
Speaker 2: nervous system. And what happens next is really beautiful, right,
11:56
Speaker 2: such a part of the healing process, the real medicine, right.
12:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, so many of us are not even aware of
12:06
Speaker 1: our emotions. We haven't named it and we haven't tamed it.
12:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.
12:10
Speaker 1: I love your clichie. I want to make a t
12:11
Speaker 1: shirt and bumper sticker with that. It's gonna be great.
12:14
Speaker 1: Probably a tiger and it's gonna be name it the name.
12:19
Speaker 1: But is there a practice that you would recommend for
12:22
Speaker 1: for me several years ago where I was completely emotionally unaware.
12:28
Speaker 1: I didn't even see them, I mean, happy joyce at Yes,
12:31
Speaker 1: there are those things, but there was a big chunk
12:34
Speaker 1: that I was just pushing away. I didn't even open it,
12:37
Speaker 1: didn't even look at it. Yeah, I don't know. Is
12:41
Speaker 1: there practices that you would recommend for folks, ways to
12:45
Speaker 1: get in better touch with our hearts? Yeah?
12:48
Speaker 2: Do you want to try one together? A little process
12:52
Speaker 2: if you will, of self exploration just looking back, I
12:57
Speaker 2: recommend this to myself first, of amost and to everyone
13:01
Speaker 2: else as a regular practice, and we've used it a
13:05
Speaker 2: lot in not only therapy sessions, but even like in
13:10
Speaker 2: tilling the soil, if you will, before aketymene therapy session,
13:14
Speaker 2: or things like that. But what we'll do is look
13:19
Speaker 2: back and anyone can follow along. Let's all do it
13:22
Speaker 2: thinking of something that triggered you in the last week.
13:25
Speaker 2: Because the next cliche that we're we're going to drop
13:31
Speaker 2: here is triggers or friends to follow. They show us
13:35
Speaker 2: the work. They point us to the unhealed vulnerabilities inside
13:39
Speaker 2: ourselves where we probably haven't felt the emotions. Because there's
13:44
Speaker 2: probably something earlier in life when you had a big
13:48
Speaker 2: feeling and you had an unmet need and it wasn't resolved,
13:53
Speaker 2: and that's showing up today. And because the related cliche,
14:00
Speaker 2: if it's hysterical, it's historical, meaning if your reaction to
14:05
Speaker 2: a trigger is that a proportion to what you might
14:08
Speaker 2: think is needed in that moment or appropriate, then it
14:13
Speaker 2: points probably to something in your history of you know,
14:18
Speaker 2: an unfelt feeling, an unhaled part, a wounded in her
14:23
Speaker 2: child that could use some love.
14:25
Speaker 1: Can we speak to those triggers, Let's name some of them.
14:27
Speaker 1: What are like when we are feeling triggered. Sometimes it's
14:31
Speaker 1: a trigger of anger, that's the obvious one. Sometimes it's
14:35
Speaker 1: a trigger of anxiety. Maybe sometimes there's triggers of sadness,
14:40
Speaker 1: that pull us into and sometimes there's triggers of blaming.
14:43
Speaker 1: I see people that triggered into this massive blame cycle.
14:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's there's so many both prime we call
14:51
Speaker 2: it primary emotions, and then secondary emotions from there, and
14:56
Speaker 2: we often develop these ways of of mixing the two
15:02
Speaker 2: or reacting with anger superimposed on our sadness because we
15:08
Speaker 2: were trained to not be sad. That was weak and
15:11
Speaker 2: that instead of the sadness orienting us to get the
15:15
Speaker 2: help and the comfort we need, the anger does the
15:18
Speaker 2: opposite and pushes people away or distances you from the
15:22
Speaker 2: like what the need under there really is. And it's
15:25
Speaker 2: like a hug and when you're pissed and yelling at
15:28
Speaker 2: and triggering the behavior you'd like to avoid.
15:30
Speaker 3: But the trigger could be anything.
15:32
Speaker 2: And this one, we're just looking for something in the
15:35
Speaker 2: last week or two that brought up some negative emotion
15:38
Speaker 2: in you. And is there something that comes to mind,
15:42
Speaker 2: like a frustration, some tears of sadness, like anything come
15:47
Speaker 2: to mind. And if there's something that comes to mind
15:52
Speaker 2: that you want to share, we can use it. If not,
15:55
Speaker 2: we can just do all this in our own minds.
15:59
Speaker 1: Man, vulnerable time, I'm ready, So a couple of weeks ago,
16:06
Speaker 1: I wanted to go camping with my family. I told
16:09
Speaker 1: them I'm terrible at pre planning these things and letting
16:12
Speaker 1: everybody get ready for it, and so I was like,
16:15
Speaker 1: let's go camping. So the answers were yes, yes, yes, yes.
16:18
Speaker 1: And then the day before the camping trip or two
16:21
Speaker 1: days before the week of, I was given a bunch
16:24
Speaker 1: of no's and that created this trigger in me. I
16:29
Speaker 1: got so angry and upset, and I like had to
16:34
Speaker 1: it was disproportionate to the event, and I felt the
16:38
Speaker 1: disproportionateness of it. And because I'm better in tune with
16:41
Speaker 1: my emotions now, I went for a walk and breathed
16:43
Speaker 1: it through. But I came back and I was like,
16:47
Speaker 1: that was big.
16:49
Speaker 3: That's a good example.
16:50
Speaker 2: Thank you for the vulnerable sharing, because I think that's
16:54
Speaker 2: that's like the perfect example, and I'm sorry that happened,
16:57
Speaker 2: and I feel for you and I'm camping with and
17:02
Speaker 2: let's go there for a minute, because well, let's name
17:05
Speaker 2: the feeling first of all, Like there may be a
17:08
Speaker 2: few different emotions there, but what did you primarily feel
17:13
Speaker 2: when triggered before walking and breathing and finding yourself again?
17:18
Speaker 1: I think there's primary and secondary for sure, because my
17:20
Speaker 1: primary and sadness. My first was just mad. I was
17:24
Speaker 1: just getting angry. But I've learned that that's not really
17:27
Speaker 1: what's going on.
17:29
Speaker 2: And so let's take a leap then to Okay, close
17:35
Speaker 2: your eyes for this part. Let's go back to the
17:38
Speaker 2: earliest time you felt this way that comes to mind.
17:43
Speaker 2: The earlier the better. But let your mind wander and
17:47
Speaker 2: see if there's a younger, a much younger doctor John,
17:52
Speaker 2: feeling this way in response to something. And sometimes it
17:56
Speaker 2: comes right away, sometimes it takes a moment.
18:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I probably, And I think you have to get
18:07
Speaker 1: past the anger space because there was more to it
18:10
Speaker 1: than that. And it was my family abandoning me and
18:15
Speaker 1: me being alone, right, And I grew up in a
18:19
Speaker 1: rough home. My dad was alcoholic and they would fight
18:23
Speaker 1: a lot, and and I was always a little bit
18:27
Speaker 1: afraid of being abandoned.
18:29
Speaker 2: Can you find a moment where you could see yourself
18:32
Speaker 2: feeling that.
18:33
Speaker 1: The heaviest one was when they would come to me
18:36
Speaker 1: and this happened multiple times and use the threat of
18:41
Speaker 1: divorce as an instrument to hurt the other person in
18:46
Speaker 1: the relationship. And what that did to me was the
18:49
Speaker 1: ultimate of destroying your hope and you're totally oh, the
18:56
Speaker 1: threat of abandonment, right, I guess mom and Edd are
18:58
Speaker 1: going to divorce and there how does that leave me?
19:02
Speaker 1: And I think that's probably the source of that.
19:07
Speaker 3: Yeah.
19:07
Speaker 2: So if if you're looking at your younger self and
19:12
Speaker 2: seeing your younger self hearing that, feeling this fear of
19:20
Speaker 2: being abandoned, what what's the need underlying the unmet need there?
19:26
Speaker 2: Would you say, like, what did you need at the
19:28
Speaker 2: time that you didn't get?
19:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean probably love and stability and acceptance and that, Yeah,
19:41
Speaker 1: that it was okay, felt alone, afraid of afraid, alone,
19:45
Speaker 1: abandon angry, I was mad, I was, but I was afraid.
19:49
Speaker 1: I was really scared.
19:51
Speaker 2: And what you needed at the time I didn't get
19:55
Speaker 2: was love and reassurance, right, and that stability And interestingly,
20:03
Speaker 2: the things that can develop because of this, like some people,
20:07
Speaker 2: because these are too hard of emotions to deal with
20:11
Speaker 2: that we're not equipped for, will develop emotional suppression and avoidance,
20:15
Speaker 2: become masters at it. Some will become will develop a
20:19
Speaker 2: very impressive, vocal inner critic. That's like because they had
20:23
Speaker 2: to keep the house together, and like, like you you
20:26
Speaker 2: better not you're a failure if you don't do this,
20:28
Speaker 2: and it drives them, and not in a sustainable like optimal, adaptive,
20:33
Speaker 2: healthy way perhaps, but drives them to do what they
20:36
Speaker 2: need to do to survive at the time.
20:38
Speaker 3: But now here we are.
20:39
Speaker 2: And and you didn't get that then, And interestingly, and
20:44
Speaker 2: this is foreign for some people who haven't done mental
20:47
Speaker 2: health work. But we can go back and give ourselves
20:52
Speaker 2: some love, like we can like like try it, like
20:55
Speaker 2: imagine holding your younger self like next to you and
21:00
Speaker 2: giving some words of reassurance, some comfort. And if you
21:04
Speaker 2: can embody that, if you can get into that and
21:07
Speaker 2: really feel that, you have two things. You have this
21:11
Speaker 2: wounded inner kind of exiled child, if you will, scared
21:16
Speaker 2: and afraid who didn't have a big unmet need and
21:22
Speaker 2: didn't know what else to do. And also you're bringing
21:26
Speaker 2: some awareness into the here now of like, oh I
21:30
Speaker 2: reacted big to that camping. I don't need to shame
21:33
Speaker 2: myself of it. It came up because it makes sense, right,
21:37
Speaker 2: it makes sense, and it also starts to tame it,
21:42
Speaker 2: you know, the awareness, the reparenting of ourselves, the feeling
21:46
Speaker 2: the unfelt feelings.
21:49
Speaker 1: Was this called was process.
21:51
Speaker 2: This is It's something we've just kind of used in
21:54
Speaker 2: practices and studies and comes in large part from the
21:58
Speaker 2: emotion focused therapy world of Less Greenberg, psychologist out of
22:04
Speaker 2: Canada and a colleague and collaborator, Adel La France, who
22:10
Speaker 2: is kind of put some great processes together as well.
22:15
Speaker 2: But it's not an easily google able one or anything,
22:19
Speaker 2: but one that we that I bring up here to
22:22
Speaker 2: try and illustrate, like you know, something we can do
22:26
Speaker 2: to explore our emotions and like a trailhead, if you will,
22:32
Speaker 2: of where do I begin, and let's look at in
22:36
Speaker 2: the here and now what is alive in us that
22:40
Speaker 2: is difficult? That comes up is hysterical, if you will,
22:44
Speaker 2: and let's see if we can get some love and
22:48
Speaker 2: understanding around that. But as far as the practice goes,
22:52
Speaker 2: I like to just practice sitting with those emotions. Let's
22:57
Speaker 2: try it could be that nice twenty seconds, it could
23:01
Speaker 2: be a breath, a breath at a time, right, can
23:06
Speaker 2: you sit with that and then name it like you
23:11
Speaker 2: were saying, and that starts to regulate and from there
23:18
Speaker 2: we just have this new way of being in the
23:20
Speaker 2: world with these things that come up and give us
23:22
Speaker 2: information of what do I need to navigate life in
23:26
Speaker 2: a good way. Am I feeling sad? Am I feeling hungry?
23:30
Speaker 3: I need to eat? Am I feeling sad? Do I
23:32
Speaker 3: need comfort?
23:33
Speaker 2: And then from there, like we're starting to kind of
23:40
Speaker 2: use these signals and embrace them, the good and the bad.
23:44
Speaker 2: But it's what adds color to our lives, we add
23:46
Speaker 2: our meaning from there are stories attached to this, and
23:50
Speaker 2: it's what kind of enriches us when we're feeling the
23:54
Speaker 2: full spectrum of emotions again or allowing them back into
23:58
Speaker 2: our lives.
23:58
Speaker 1: You know, that's super neat. I I kind of cheated
24:04
Speaker 1: read because that was a real story and that really
24:08
Speaker 1: did happen when I got disregulated, triggered mad, came back
24:16
Speaker 1: to my wife and I said, Babe, I don't know
24:18
Speaker 1: what that was, but it was big and there's something
24:21
Speaker 1: there I don't see. And I just said, I don't
24:25
Speaker 1: see it, but it's something. And so I actually just
24:30
Speaker 1: went to the mountain by myself. I do a lot
24:32
Speaker 1: of emotional work on the mountain, and I was breathing, Yeah,
24:38
Speaker 1: I was breathing, pondering, smelling the pines and looking for
24:41
Speaker 1: mushrooms and as I do and as I as I
24:49
Speaker 1: was there. I was given to see that space and
24:54
Speaker 1: that little Johnny in that corner, sad and betrayed and
24:59
Speaker 1: and alone and hurt and abandoned, and and I was
25:06
Speaker 1: given to go back to him and hold him by
25:10
Speaker 1: the hand and pull him up from that space and
25:13
Speaker 1: look at him and say, hey, man's beautiful you. You
25:17
Speaker 1: had a thing happened to you. And there was a
25:20
Speaker 1: season of that and and it was hard and and
25:25
Speaker 1: and it's gone now, but you still don't feel that love.
25:29
Speaker 1: And so let's just fill you with love. And so
25:32
Speaker 1: we filled in that space with this golden love thing,
25:38
Speaker 1: and and he got up whole. There was a piece
25:43
Speaker 1: of my heart that healed. And now I don't have
25:47
Speaker 1: such a I'm not triggered by that abandonment thing. Or
25:51
Speaker 1: I don't show I don't show up hypercritical because I
25:55
Speaker 1: need to fix things because I'm afraid that they're going
25:57
Speaker 1: to fall, you know what I mean. And I think
25:59
Speaker 1: that was driving It was triggering several different dysregulated emotions.
26:05
Speaker 1: And the way I was showing up was from that
26:08
Speaker 1: broken space. It was polluting my default mode network. It
26:12
Speaker 1: was polluting the way that I show up with my
26:14
Speaker 1: family and stuff and so but I didn't see it
26:16
Speaker 1: read I went to the mountain blind. I was like,
26:20
Speaker 1: I don't know what this is. No, you could probably
26:22
Speaker 1: see it right away. You're like, oh, there's something under there.
26:26
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the purposes of this
26:27
Speaker 1: podcast is to recognize those triggers. What did you say,
26:31
Speaker 1: Our triggers are our friends, Like follow them, follow them. Yeah,
26:33
Speaker 1: there's something there under the surface that you probably don't see,
26:37
Speaker 1: but I don't know how to get to and maybe
26:40
Speaker 1: it's with a therapist. But like I was just lucky.
26:44
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, a beautiful way too.
26:47
Speaker 2: It's beautiful you could find that, and like such a
26:51
Speaker 2: touching example of of why we should go there, why
26:56
Speaker 2: we need to do this work and embrace these things
26:58
Speaker 2: in our lives and use the the loved ones around
27:04
Speaker 2: us as supports and mirrors who they're going to trigger
27:08
Speaker 2: us the most, right, because we're bumping into each other
27:10
Speaker 2: all the time, and that's that's the accelerated path of
27:15
Speaker 2: more frequent triggers, right, And showing us all the thing,
27:20
Speaker 2: all the work we have to do, all these trailheads
27:22
Speaker 2: we need to go up on that mountain journey and
27:24
Speaker 2: this one to you know, find the lost parts of
27:28
Speaker 2: ourselves and that's healing right there?
27:31
Speaker 1: Do we heal completely? I maybe that's a that's a
27:36
Speaker 1: tough word. Before we go there, I'm gonna share something.
27:40
Speaker 1: So the other day, my son, he's sixteen, he's awesome.
27:46
Speaker 1: He broke a rule and he had a screen in
27:49
Speaker 1: his room and I've found him. It's a screen in
27:52
Speaker 1: his room. And there we are right, father's son having
27:56
Speaker 1: a moment, and I'm I'm upset, and I'm like, hey,
28:00
Speaker 1: you know you're making my job hard here. And I
28:03
Speaker 1: probably got okay, I definitely got triggered. I definitely overreacted
28:08
Speaker 1: and h and we both did. And then he got
28:12
Speaker 1: triggered and he overreacted, and we both did this reactionary
28:16
Speaker 1: anger thing and blame thing and all this thing back
28:19
Speaker 1: and forth. And it was just those were primary reactions
28:22
Speaker 1: from both of us that were not what we were
28:24
Speaker 1: actually feeling, either of us. So later that day we
28:28
Speaker 1: went on a walk together. Oh, actually the next morning,
28:31
Speaker 1: because I'm like, we ain't going to accomplish anything tonight, bro,
28:34
Speaker 1: I'm just going to keep getting pissed and keep mirating you,
28:37
Speaker 1: and you're going to keep blaming me for all the
28:39
Speaker 1: whatevers it's the next morning, we went on a walk
28:43
Speaker 1: with my dog Moose, and we were talking it through
28:48
Speaker 1: and I remembered the markback curriculum thing, you know, recognize, understand, label,
28:53
Speaker 1: express and regularly, and I just said, son, let's let's
28:57
Speaker 1: let's talk it through, you know, let's talk through what
28:59
Speaker 1: we were acting feeling the second the primary feeling was
29:02
Speaker 1: this reactionary feeling thing. And I was pissed, okay, and
29:06
Speaker 1: you were pissed and whatever and blaming and pushing, and
29:09
Speaker 1: let me just tell you what I was feeling. So
29:12
Speaker 1: I wrote down that ruler curriculum and I said, recognize,
29:15
Speaker 1: so feeling something understand that's not always a parent I'm
29:19
Speaker 1: feeling angry, that's primary feeling. What are you actually feeling?
29:22
Speaker 1: And let me tell you what I was actually feeling.
29:24
Speaker 1: I was feeling afraid. I was afraid that your actions
29:30
Speaker 1: would lead you down a path that would be really
29:32
Speaker 1: hard for you. And I'm trying to protect you, and
29:34
Speaker 1: and so I'm feeling afraid. I'm feeling maybe some shame
29:37
Speaker 1: around it and some anger is the primary, but there's
29:41
Speaker 1: stuff underneath that.
29:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've got your weapons up because because and then him,
29:47
Speaker 2: he was trying to be.
29:49
Speaker 1: Pushing all this blame to me and all pushing around
29:51
Speaker 1: and he didn't want to feel anything, he said. And
29:54
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, tell me what you were actually feeling.
29:56
Speaker 1: And he's like, well, I felt guilty and shame and
30:01
Speaker 1: I said that was uncomfortable. Huh. Yeah, you think that's
30:05
Speaker 1: why your primary response was this blame game thing. He's
30:09
Speaker 1: like yeah. And I'm like, cool man, like just in
30:14
Speaker 1: telling me that, how are you feeling now, because I'll
30:17
Speaker 1: tell you I'm feeling way better. I'm not as angry,
30:20
Speaker 1: and I understand better what you're feeling, and I understand
30:23
Speaker 1: what I'm feeling. And the action is still there and
30:25
Speaker 1: the and the and we still got to deal with
30:29
Speaker 1: the grounding off the phone thing, but but we're both
30:33
Speaker 1: way better emotionally regulated now, you know.
30:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, And and we all know that we can't solve
30:40
Speaker 2: these big challenges with an activated fight or flight system,
30:44
Speaker 2: right yeah, yeah, and like when our weapons are up.
30:47
Speaker 2: But what's beautiful about about this part of the story, though,
30:51
Speaker 2: is what we were talking about with you know, we
30:55
Speaker 2: learn in the bosom of the family how to avoid
30:58
Speaker 2: and suppress emotions. But there's this thing described like back
31:02
Speaker 2: in the fifties. But I think Bowbie and this other
31:07
Speaker 2: psychologist called the corrective emotional experience, and is that we
31:13
Speaker 2: can extinguish these reactions and patterns by being held in
31:18
Speaker 2: a way with love where someone doesn't abandon us and
31:24
Speaker 2: someone it stays present with us. We're fearing all this shame,
31:29
Speaker 2: But if we can go through that again and have
31:31
Speaker 2: these these fears come up, but someone is there and
31:35
Speaker 2: they don't leave, and you get to talk it out
31:38
Speaker 2: and you're going on a walk together and then settling
31:42
Speaker 2: down from there, that's how these patterns or generations start
31:46
Speaker 2: to change and shift, and how we rewire our nervous systems.
31:50
Speaker 2: Like it's one of it's one of the mechanisms of
31:54
Speaker 2: of like neuroplastic change, if you will, uh in a
32:00
Speaker 2: way of like corrective emotional experience, getting to extinguish some
32:06
Speaker 2: of our like fear and anger and saddest based responsives
32:11
Speaker 2: that are maladaptive, if you will.
32:14
Speaker 1: That's my hope and dream for the world is that
32:18
Speaker 1: we can we can stop the generational emotional, blunted, emotional,
32:25
Speaker 1: unintelligent situations and maybe teach something different to our children
32:29
Speaker 1: so that they can show up better than my parents
32:31
Speaker 1: showed up than their parents showed up, and we can
32:35
Speaker 1: we can be more in tune with our hearts. Getting
32:38
Speaker 1: to the heart space is so hard through the head.
32:41
Speaker 1: Sometimes we're talking about it, analyzing it, you know, kicking
32:44
Speaker 1: it around and all that. But for me, I had
32:47
Speaker 1: to go to the mountain and cry and feel and
32:51
Speaker 1: really get into that space and scratch at it. I
32:55
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm curious, I don't know what this is,
32:57
Speaker 1: but I felt it, and I don't want I want
33:00
Speaker 1: to feel like I don't want that. Trigir and show me,
33:02
Speaker 1: show me where it is, and and our hearts can
33:06
Speaker 1: kind of show us some of those things if we
33:08
Speaker 1: if we calm down and we get out of I
33:12
Speaker 1: think a lot of emotional suckiness is happening because we're
33:16
Speaker 1: distracted a lot. There's a lot of things in our
33:19
Speaker 1: after the industrial revolutions and wars and all the things
33:23
Speaker 1: really pulled us away from our hearts and into our
33:26
Speaker 1: heads and into you know, academia and very very left
33:30
Speaker 1: brain dominant, you know, is careers, including ours, you know, medicine,
33:34
Speaker 1: and and you know, we don't write songs and make
33:38
Speaker 1: artwork as much, right, so there's less balance into our
33:42
Speaker 1: hearts and the.
33:44
Speaker 2: Distance from our bodies our feelings. Yeah, well, yeah, it's
33:50
Speaker 2: amazing that the tides are turning, like I said earlier,
33:52
Speaker 2: and that that these this is showing up more and
33:55
Speaker 2: more in conversation because like you illustrated earlier, it can
33:59
Speaker 2: change what happens the next time you're triggered.
34:02
Speaker 3: It does. I've seen it over and over.
34:03
Speaker 2: I've seen it in myself too, as we kind of
34:07
Speaker 2: reclaim our feelings and use them as like the superpower.
34:13
Speaker 3: Of how to navigate the world.
34:14
Speaker 2: And it's not easy, but you know, we start to
34:17
Speaker 2: realize that this is a healing process. Just like you
34:19
Speaker 2: get a cut and doctor John may support the conditions
34:23
Speaker 2: of your healing somewhat or get the toenail out of
34:26
Speaker 2: the way, but the body's going to do its thing right.
34:29
Speaker 3: The body knows.
34:30
Speaker 2: What to do, and we do have to let emotions
34:35
Speaker 2: rise and fall, and we do have to feel it
34:40
Speaker 2: to move on and we can go back there and
34:45
Speaker 2: and revisit because some of these sometimes you got to
34:48
Speaker 2: hold it in. Sometimes you got to step to duty,
34:50
Speaker 2: like in medicine for example, like we hold a lot
34:53
Speaker 2: of people suffering in the moments, and I like in
34:57
Speaker 2: trauma work. You know, I know that there's a time
35:01
Speaker 2: and place for my tears. When you start to really
35:05
Speaker 2: embrace these things and like and sometimes like a tear
35:08
Speaker 2: shows someone that I'm there and I know them, but
35:11
Speaker 2: I'm regulated too, and I'm like with them, so they
35:15
Speaker 2: can hold it and be safe. And that's kind of
35:17
Speaker 2: where you start to go with these things, building our
35:19
Speaker 2: equanimity of can we hold our feelings? And can we
35:23
Speaker 2: can we hold the disappointment of your your friend, your kids,
35:28
Speaker 2: your your loved one, your patient, your neighbor.
35:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that thought. To hold it and to
35:36
Speaker 1: stay with it and hang with it and be with
35:39
Speaker 1: it in ninety seconds maybe longer, but then don't allow
35:45
Speaker 1: it to justsregulate you just recognize the seasonality of it.
35:50
Speaker 1: It's an emotion, it's a thing you're going through. It's hard,
35:53
Speaker 1: it's yes, And it's hard to say that about trauma.
35:56
Speaker 1: It's hard to say that about hard, hard seasons. But
36:01
Speaker 1: I think just like the family has a season, I'll
36:04
Speaker 1: have a season, You'll have a season on this earth,
36:06
Speaker 1: and the trees and the rocks and the leaves, they
36:09
Speaker 1: all have their little seasons, and it shows us that
36:12
Speaker 1: there's like Hey man, this too will pass, and and
36:17
Speaker 1: there's spring coming, and there's gonna be mushrooms there. I
36:22
Speaker 1: might be fanatically into mushroom flashing.
36:25
Speaker 2: You find some cool stuff out there, I leust say, Yeah,
36:29
Speaker 2: last week was good for Porcini, and Chantrell's even up
36:33
Speaker 2: in the mountains already.
36:35
Speaker 1: It's early for it.
36:36
Speaker 2: Well, it's beautiful, Red.
36:40
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing your insights in this space. I
36:42
Speaker 1: think I think better understanding our emotions, better understanding how
36:45
Speaker 1: to get there, how to feel him, that it's okay
36:48
Speaker 1: to feel him, how to use them to kind of
36:50
Speaker 1: accomplish things, and and and then how to regulate them,
36:55
Speaker 1: and how to build the equanimity of it, and to
37:00
Speaker 1: to know that you can increase your capacity to hold
37:03
Speaker 1: and to have and to feel and to process and
37:08
Speaker 1: to let it pass and it's okay, whether it's joy
37:11
Speaker 1: or sadness or pain, round all those things, not holding
37:16
Speaker 1: them inside and then allowing them to disregulate and affect
37:21
Speaker 1: your showing up right, but to allow for their finality
37:25
Speaker 1: and allow for well, I don't know, I don't know
37:28
Speaker 1: what that is like. Maybe that's why we're here, just
37:31
Speaker 1: to figure that stuff.
37:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, and the finality of a feeling just
37:38
Speaker 2: leads to the next one in life, right, And and
37:41
Speaker 2: these things do rise and fall, and life is full
37:43
Speaker 2: of the the positive ones and the negative ones there
37:47
Speaker 2: for a reason, right, We've got to learn to be
37:50
Speaker 2: informed by that. And that reminds you of one maybe
37:53
Speaker 2: one last practical point in terms of holding other people's
37:58
Speaker 2: emotions loved one anyone around us. Is one thing I've
38:02
Speaker 2: found you mentioned It is when you learn to do
38:05
Speaker 2: emotional validation that works magic in conversations, right, and getting
38:10
Speaker 2: to getting to the real work and getting getting these
38:17
Speaker 2: initial triggers and things out of the way. Is try
38:20
Speaker 2: this with anyone who's having like a negative, difficult emotion.
38:25
Speaker 2: Is validate it three times before you try to fix anything.
38:30
Speaker 2: Is like, oh, that must be so hard, because you
38:36
Speaker 2: know I would. I would be so frustrated because that
38:40
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's unfair how you didn't get to
38:43
Speaker 2: take your retest like you thought you would.
38:46
Speaker 3: Or whatever it is. And then do it one more time.
38:49
Speaker 2: And it may seem excessive, but validate three times before
38:52
Speaker 2: trying to go in and offer anything. The support beyond that,
38:58
Speaker 2: And because we all have these needs, right, we all
39:02
Speaker 2: were born in this world with the need to express
39:06
Speaker 2: emotion to survive as babies like, and we forget that,
39:09
Speaker 2: we forget that it's still the case that to thrive
39:11
Speaker 2: we need we need to embrace these things. And so
39:17
Speaker 2: we have these needs to be seen and understood and
39:21
Speaker 2: health maybe even celebrated.
39:24
Speaker 3: And if we can, you know, if we can.
39:27
Speaker 2: Really help people feel validated in their feelings, they get
39:33
Speaker 2: to they get to feel it and move on to
39:37
Speaker 2: what's next together with us.
39:40
Speaker 1: My wife would really love you for that comment. I
39:42
Speaker 1: appreciate that. You know, she poked me in the face,
39:46
Speaker 1: told me I suck at emotional validation, and I started
39:49
Speaker 1: a journey of doing better at that, better understanding emotion.
39:54
Speaker 1: And I think that's wisdom to three times validate that
39:59
Speaker 1: emotion response, even if you were so quick to jump
40:03
Speaker 1: to solutions, especially k docs or guys in general, and
40:07
Speaker 1: and too often the solution is just to validate it,
40:10
Speaker 1: to hold that space and to feel it with them,
40:13
Speaker 1: and that's that's really cool. Uh. There's a doctor Kennedy
40:18
Speaker 1: did a podcast with doctor Huberman on the Human last
40:21
Speaker 1: One and I love it. It's on a parenting actually,
40:24
Speaker 1: and she says, you have to know your job description
40:28
Speaker 1: as a parent, and she says, and the and the
40:31
Speaker 1: kid has to know their job description. And then the
40:35
Speaker 1: only job description for a child is to have emotions,
40:39
Speaker 1: and the only job description as a parent is to
40:41
Speaker 1: validate those emotions. And it speaks to exactly.
40:44
Speaker 3: What you said, because that's really neat.
40:46
Speaker 1: All children have a job, and it's really just to
40:48
Speaker 1: have emotions, and some of those are huge. And if
40:52
Speaker 1: we can just get good at that validating their emotion
40:55
Speaker 1: emotion state, doesn't mean you're not a sturdy parent, doesn't
40:58
Speaker 1: mean you don't have consequences and boundaries and all those things.
41:01
Speaker 1: You still have all those things, but you also validate
41:04
Speaker 1: those emotions as they go along.
41:06
Speaker 3: Pretty cool.
41:06
Speaker 1: If we could just do that, I mess that up
41:09
Speaker 1: so bad.
41:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a beautiful reminder for parents and the job,
41:14
Speaker 2: and that would apply to everywhere, all our loved ones, sisters, mothers, fathers. Yeah,
41:21
Speaker 2: we're all in it together. We're all, like rom Doss
41:24
Speaker 2: would say, just walking each other home.
41:26
Speaker 1: Just walking each other home. I like that, Doctor Reid,
41:32
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time today. It was
41:34
Speaker 1: super fun. It was super fun. I've learned so much
41:38
Speaker 1: from this visit, and I hope our listeners learn some
41:40
Speaker 1: cool stuff and I hope we can move forward generationally
41:46
Speaker 1: in a better direction with regard to our emotions and
41:50
Speaker 1: our emotional intelligence.
41:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with all my heart. So thank you.
41:55
Speaker 2: Thanks for sharing and having me. Thank you good to
41:58
Speaker 2: have you.
42:00
Speaker 1: Don't forget to like and subscribe or just go outside mushrooms,
42:04
Speaker 1: feel emotions, get in the mountains.
42:06
Speaker 3: Breathe Do you heard the doctor?
42:08
Speaker 1: Breathe it through