Latest / Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute / 29: What is Emotional Integrity?

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29: What is Emotional Integrity? · Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute

• 0:00
  Hey, everybody. So question for you.
• 0:02
  The question is, have you ever faced a situation with like
• 0:04
  anger and shame and you're wanting a new way to show up so
• 0:10
  you can be authentic? And we're going to give that a
• 0:13
  label today where we're going to call it emotional integrity.
• 0:18
  And Stephanie is here to have this conversation with us.
• 0:20
  We're excited to have it. So here we go.
• 0:25
  Welcome to Beyond the Facade podcast.
• 0:27
  I'm your host, Luke Gordon, and I'm thrilled to have you join me
• 0:30
  in this space today. What we're going to be doing is
• 0:32
  diving deep into the trials and triumphs and truths of seeking
• 0:35
  authenticity. Becoming your true self isn't
• 0:38
  about a single action or a moment.
• 0:40
  It's a relentless pursuit, a commitment to self that reveals
• 0:44
  a rich connection and meaning that our life has to offer.
• 0:47
  So whether this is your first time tuning in or you're a
• 0:49
  regular listener, know this what you're building here goes beyond
• 0:53
  a conversation. You're here to challenge, to
• 0:55
  change, and to celebrate the incredible journey of becoming
• 0:58
  your authentic self. Because when you dare to show up
• 1:01
  fully, the rewards are immeasurable.
• 1:03
  So welcome to Beyond the facade. Let's get started.
• 1:05
  So Stephanie, thank you so much for hanging out with me today.
• 1:11
  I'm I'm going to introduce you and then you can defend yourself
• 1:14
  with whatever I say here. So y'all, Stephanie is a coach
• 1:17
  for Choose Recovery Services. I know a lot of the guys that
• 1:20
  I'm in Group with. I've heard of Stephanie because
• 1:22
  she does couples work with a number of the guys that I work
• 1:26
  with. And she gets really good
• 1:29
  feedback because one of the things that she says is she's
• 1:31
  able to really see both partners at the same time when it's not
• 1:35
  easy to be able to validate both people.
• 1:38
  And later somewhere in the podcast, Stephanie, I'd love to
• 1:41
  talk to you after we go through this first part of what you see
• 1:46
  makes men ready for a couples work.
• 1:48
  But anyway, Stephanie, you've been coached for a while now,
• 1:52
  but anything you want us to know about you if people don't know
• 1:54
  about you already? That's a hard question.
• 1:57
  I know, right? And so like that.
• 2:00
  Yes, professionally, I love coaching.
• 2:04
  I feel like it's a calling of mine.
• 2:06
  I love walking alongside of people and they're healing.
• 2:09
  I love learning more about this field and how to do just that.
• 2:14
  Walk beside of them. Personally, I'm a mom of four
• 2:17
  and I'm a have a very busy life outside of work and I have a lot
• 2:22
  of energy and just passion and love for life.
• 2:27
  So that's a really quick nutshell.
• 2:30
  Cool. So what we're talking about this
• 2:33
  emotional integrity piece, do you mind setting it up for us?
• 2:36
  Yes, what it is? Yes.
• 2:38
  So my thoughts go to emotional intelligence, which is the
• 2:43
  ability to recognize, acknowledge, maybe name and
• 2:48
  label our emotional experiences. And with that we can also have
• 2:53
  the ability to empathize and understand other people's
• 2:57
  emotional experiences. So emotional intelligence
• 3:00
  basically is a skill that we learn in healing and recovery
• 3:05
  and it is a huge piece of authenticity because a lot of
• 3:09
  times we without emotional intelligence, we show up in a
• 3:13
  way that maybe we don't even know what our internal
• 3:16
  experience is. So emotional intelligence
• 3:19
  basically gives us the understanding of what's going on
• 3:22
  inside of us, self reflection and self-awareness.
• 3:26
  With that basis, then we have the ability to have emotional
• 3:31
  integrity, which is my reactions and responses are in line with
• 3:36
  my internal experience. That's that's Stephanie's
• 3:40
  definition. Can I ask you a little bit more
• 3:42
  on the because I'm so excited to explore this with you, But on
• 3:46
  the emotional intelligence, what do you see is with, because it's
• 3:50
  mostly the men that I work with in this environment to try to be
• 3:53
  more authentic, a low level of emotional intelligence and a
• 3:57
  high level of emotional intelligence, not integrity.
• 4:00
  What do you see them do or think or say?
• 4:03
  Yes, so commonly what I see in very, very early recoveries,
• 4:10
  there's not a lot of emotional intelligence.
• 4:12
  There is expanses that happened during the day or even over a
• 4:16
  lifetime and we have no understanding of how those
• 4:18
  experiences made us feel. So like in early recovery, I
• 4:21
  will do like emotional intelligence check in, hey,
• 4:24
  what's coming up for your day? What emotions are present for
• 4:26
  you? And it's usually the like base
• 4:28
  answer for everyone is overwhelmed.
• 4:30
  Oh, this is overwhelmed and it's emotional intelligence allows us
• 4:35
  to break that overwhelm into pieces that say, oh, I'm feeling
• 4:39
  angry and I'm also feeling sadness and maybe I have some
• 4:43
  comfortable emotions in with that overwhelm.
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  So there is a low level normally in early recovery because a lot
• 4:50
  of us just don't innately have emotional intelligence.
• 4:54
  I think it's the skill. OK, that's the part that I want
• 4:58
  to highlight on the it's a skill because I'm picturing coming
• 5:01
  here and going OK, she calling me stupid because I can't
• 5:05
  identify my emotions. And I just heard you say skill.
• 5:09
  So can you speak more to that, that it's it's learned.
• 5:12
  Yes. So it's a learned skill.
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  It's similar to empathy. It's like when I have this event
• 5:20
  or experience in my day, can I break it down and say, hey, this
• 5:24
  is actually what was happening on the inside of me.
• 5:26
  My body was responding this way. I had a rapid heartbeat and felt
• 5:31
  hot and angry whenever the car in front of me was holding up
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  all the traffic and I was going to be late for work.
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  That caused me to be angry and frustrated and feel uncertain.
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  So we're able to break down situations and that is a skill.
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  It takes slowing down. It takes us slowing down our
• 5:48
  thinking, our body systems to really investigate what's
• 5:51
  happening. Yeah.
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  So if I'm over there identifying low levels of intelligence with
• 5:57
  shame, maybe we could go back to, if this is you in this
• 6:00
  experience as a listener, can we have a low degree of emotional
• 6:03
  intelligence? Maybe So the compassion can come
• 6:06
  from if that's learned. I guess I didn't really have a
• 6:09
  place where somebody could teach me what emotions are, which
• 6:13
  means I'm lacking some information because I can just
• 6:16
  picture that. And not to make this about me,
• 6:18
  but back when I was in my corporate environment before all
• 6:23
  this coaching stuff and my own recovery, have you ever,
• 6:26
  Stephanie, ever read this book called Emotional Intelligence
• 6:28
  2.0 or EQ 2.0? OK, so I was so excited to read
• 6:32
  this book because supposedly because I was in cells, I was a
• 6:34
  people person and I can read people really well.
• 6:37
  So I was like, I'm excited because as a leadership team, we
• 6:40
  were reading that book and I read the book and there was
• 6:42
  assessment with it. I scored so low on that
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  assessment and I'm like, that's a dumb book.
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  They don't know what they're talking about.
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  And I had a bunch of pride around it.
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  That emotional intelligence. If I'm sitting here going, I
• 6:54
  have a low, it's just because it hasn't been developed yet and I
• 6:56
  haven't had that knowledge. Yes.
• 6:58
  It's, it's definitely like a development and it takes
• 7:02
  self-awareness, which means like in those moments when something
• 7:07
  you think maybe someone would be experiencing some sort of
• 7:09
  emotion, you just slow your system down.
• 7:13
  Oh, OK. Well, actually what I'm feeling
• 7:15
  is sadness and like try to label it to the best of your ability.
• 7:19
  And I had someone tell me this one recently and I thought it
• 7:21
  was really interesting. It is not about having the like
• 7:25
  Webster's dictionary definition of whatever that is.
• 7:29
  It is more about this is a word that I can attach to it that
• 7:32
  feels right to me. So this feels like sadness to
• 7:35
  me. And I would assume that with
• 7:38
  sadness people cry or maybe they're lethargic or whatever to
• 7:45
  be able to make it my own. And so I think that's neat, but
• 7:48
  labeling the experience and having a word for it and
• 7:51
  breaking down overwhelm. Overwhelm was a huge one that's
• 7:54
  used in the work that we do. Can you speak to what men are up
• 7:58
  against with from family of origin, From culture?
• 8:01
  Developing emotional intelligence.
• 8:03
  Yes, and I don't know how's the best way to say this, but this
• 8:07
  is what I commonly see I guess is there hasn't and you kind of
• 8:11
  touched on it. There hasn't been a lot of
• 8:12
  education. So if there were experiences of
• 8:15
  uncomfortable emotions, there were things, whether perceived
• 8:19
  or said to them, along the lines of like big boys don't cry, or
• 8:25
  we don't show those type of emotions.
• 8:26
  Now, if you want to show like anger in this certain way,
• 8:30
  either it's a really loud rageful conflict or you pull it
• 8:34
  back to yourself and we don't show that type of anger.
• 8:37
  So there's not a lot of defining hate when we have this
• 8:40
  experience. This is the proper or the
• 8:43
  healthy way to show that emotion.
• 8:46
  I appreciate you saying that. I was valuing hearing you say it
• 8:49
  because what I'll do is I'll show up in these environments
• 8:53
  with men and especially including myself, where a
• 8:57
  therapist or a coach or somebody will say, OK, let's create some
• 9:00
  awareness about what you're feeling and you're experiencing
• 9:03
  and tell you the level of shame that I feel immediately, which
• 9:07
  is I don't know what you're talking about.
• 9:10
  I don't what what are you asking me to do?
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  And if that's what your experience is right now, it's
• 9:14
  it's OK to be right there going like, how do I even go about
• 9:18
  this? And my favorite part of what
• 9:20
  what you said is is it looks different for everybody.
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  So you can't cookie cutter it. So what's what was of primary
• 9:27
  task I'm supposed to do in family of origin?
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  Hey, I notice you're upset, you look sad, but what are you
• 9:31
  feeling? What are you noticing?
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  So it's if it hasn't been there yet, it's going to take some
• 9:36
  while to develop. Oh absolutely.
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  And so even what you were saying with the feelings, it is
• 9:42
  sometimes and what I see with their sex addiction is like that
• 9:46
  has been so closed off for so long.
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  Like I'm not looking at that. I'm not looking at emotions
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  because they hinder and haunt me from continuing in my success or
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  whatever the drive is for life. So when we start having some
• 9:59
  awareness rounds, like I don't, I don't even know.
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  I literally don't know what the feeling is inside of me.
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  So I'll do similar to what you're saying of like, OK, let's
• 10:07
  look at it. How did your body respond?
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  Yeah, Yep, Yep. OK, So I could distract this all
• 10:14
  day long from getting to emotional integrity and staying
• 10:17
  on emotional intelligence. But can you speak more to
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  emotional integrity? Like what is this?
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  What is this about? Yes, so the word is new to me,
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  but the understanding, I think it's really incredible for
• 10:30
  healing and recovery, huge and relational work.
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  And it's this part of once we have an understanding of our
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  experience, like, oh, when I have this conversation with my
• 10:40
  partner and everything is hitting against my wounds of
• 10:44
  rejection or feeling like a disappointment or shame, all
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  these things are coming up for me.
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  Maybe at this point we have some awareness, OK, this is what
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  happened. It is then what happens after
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  that. So what is the responses?
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  And what we're trying to create is an alignment of that
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  emotional intelligence with the reaction or with the response.
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  And it's a choice to choose how to respond to what's happening
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  on the inside. So we're feeling anger.
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  Can we say, hey, when we just had this conversation it hit on
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  some whims and I'm feeling some anger or disappointment?
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  That that part right there, we were just talking about the same
• 11:24
  group the other day, but we call that there's 3 levels of
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  awareness. There's first there's just
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  awareness of what I'm experiencing.
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  Like what am I feeling? I'm feeling tired, OK.
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  And then there's the next level of awareness was I'm aware that
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  I'm having that emotion, right? I'm like, I'm thinking about,
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  I'm feeling about what I'm feeling, or I'm thinking about
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  what I'm feeling or I'm feeling about what I'm thinking.
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  So that's the next level of awareness.
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  And, and then there's another level beyond that which we don't
• 11:55
  necessarily need to get into. And I think about that integrity
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  exists in that next level of awareness of, oh, I'm not that
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  emotion. I'm not that feeling.
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  I can respond to that emotion, of that feeling.
• 12:08
  Yes. Well, and I call them acting in
• 12:11
  behaviors, but it's like intimacy aversion behaviors that
• 12:15
  are usually present and it's in the past I would always shut
• 12:18
  down or blame shift or some wall or just avoid the whole avoid it
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  all together with whatever I could do.
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  And so those reactions are not in line with what is actually
• 12:30
  happening on the inside. And so to create that and the
• 12:36
  emotional integrity it is, I can show up with all of this, like
• 12:42
  all the pain and not hurt other people or myself.
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  What do? What do you start with if you
• 12:48
  want to do something with the information you're sharing?
• 12:51
  Yeah. I would say the first is if the
• 12:54
  environment is safe. So I always go back to like, say
• 12:57
  we have to have some awareness of who we're sharing this with.
• 13:01
  So it really is internal work. Can you connect it and then
• 13:05
  start lining up, oh, what does anger actually look like?
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  How would I like to show up in anger and be in my core value
• 13:10
  system or those kind of things? So that's like internal work.
• 13:14
  Then if the actual expression to someone else would be, is this a
• 13:18
  safe person for me to say, hey, what I'm feeling right now is
• 13:22
  anger and when we had this conversation and invoke these
• 13:25
  wounds, if we have that awareness.
• 13:27
  Oh my gosh, that's amazing. And I would say that a lot of
• 13:33
  what the response could be is I just can't be angry, right?
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  I just can't be angry. You know, that's a emotion that
• 13:39
  I should not be having right now.
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  But providing some space of no, how do I actually want to show
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  up with that emotion? What would a healthy person do
• 13:46
  with anger? How What would emotional
• 13:48
  integrity look like with anger? Yeah, anger is a big one.
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  I actually just had this conversation with a group of
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  betrayed partners. There's a lot of feelings and
• 13:58
  anger. There's a lot of movement.
• 14:00
  So I think what works best is again, that goes back to the
• 14:04
  internal work. How would I like anger to look
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  like? Not what is actually been
• 14:09
  represented to me. That's not always the right way.
• 14:12
  Like how we grew up. It is how can I express this
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  that's in line with my core value system, my beliefs and my
• 14:21
  needs and rights as a person. Like I'll say, for example, my
• 14:26
  core values are growth, belonging, unity.
• 14:28
  I don't want to show up in anger that's going to attacks against
• 14:31
  those core wounds. If it's not going to invoke
• 14:34
  growth, then I'm not in line with who I want to be.
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  I'm not showing up as my authentic self.
• 14:39
  So that's each individual and how it's in line with who they
• 14:42
  are at their core. Who?
• 14:44
  Who are they trying to become through this healing?
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  So does anger exist in any context with your values?
• 14:50
  I'm not trying to make, I'm trying to do like all your
• 14:52
  stuff, but how does it exist then?
• 14:55
  Like how would I express anger? Yeah, so you're saying I'm
• 14:58
  literally saying my values then I'm feeling angry right now.
• 15:03
  Yeah. OK, All right, let's play with
• 15:06
  this one. Can we play with this one a
• 15:07
  little bit? Sure.
• 15:09
  Because the cool thing about choose Recovery services is, you
• 15:12
  know, anybody that coaches here, is a therapist here, does
• 15:14
  anything here, They've gone through the journey.
• 15:16
  And I recognize if you're a man listening to this, you're like,
• 15:20
  I really wish that my partner would show up the same way
• 15:24
  Stephanie does with anger. I just want to value like that
• 15:28
  whatever you're feeling there. But what is what do you think
• 15:32
  that feels like to your partner? Like when you express anger or
• 15:37
  when you share anger when it comes inside your values.
• 15:41
  Yeah. So can I just validate what you
• 15:44
  just said for a moment? So just even in this
• 15:47
  conversation with the betrayed partner group, I was just saying
• 15:50
  they are in early recovery. This is a learned skill that is
• 15:55
  more for like later recovery. I don't think someone comes in
• 15:59
  and it's just like, I got this and that's how I'm going to be
• 16:02
  in line because there's a piece of early recovery, especially
• 16:05
  with partners and both, I would say, where it core values are
• 16:10
  kind of thrown out the door. It's like the rage is so intense
• 16:14
  that it comes out and then there's usually a really strong
• 16:18
  like guilt and shame that comes after that for the partner.
• 16:22
  So they do want to stay in their core values.
• 16:24
  It's really hard to access outside of that window of
• 16:27
  tolerance. So I just want to validate that
• 16:29
  experience if any listeners are hearing that and like oh why
• 16:33
  can't I access that so. Can I say that again in my own
• 16:36
  words and then say that and then defend myself and say I'm not
• 16:39
  mansplaining front because evaluate you said that.
• 16:44
  And yeah, if I'm somebody going, of course I hurt my partner
• 16:50
  deeply, they're going to show up in a way from a trauma response,
• 16:55
  which isn't going to be inside their values.
• 16:58
  I have to have respect for that and hold space for that,
• 17:01
  recognizing that at their core, not in their the trauma
• 17:04
  response. That's not how they want to show
• 17:06
  up, right. That is not how they want to
• 17:08
  show up. Yeah.
• 17:10
  I just had a thought and I want to share it.
• 17:13
  I had this thought and I use this analogy a lot, but we had a
• 17:18
  pet dog who we loved and he loved us and he was just
• 17:20
  amazing. My husband ran over him with his
• 17:23
  truck. Oh.
• 17:24
  My gosh, he. Runs around the front of the
• 17:26
  truck to get him to help him to rescue him, but he was the one
• 17:29
  that hit him and the dog bit my husband.
• 17:33
  And it's the same concept of like early recovery when a
• 17:36
  partner is like that, even the people that can help heal and
• 17:41
  help get them to safety, even if the one who has acted out was
• 17:45
  coming in and trying to create that safe environment and to be
• 17:48
  the one to help heal or whatever, they are wounded and
• 17:52
  they react in ways that are not in line with probably who they
• 17:57
  want to be or how they would treat someone.
• 18:01
  Yeah, I love that. I mean, I value that.
• 18:04
  I love is probably the wrong word for that.
• 18:06
  What else in the integrity piece do you think would be important
• 18:09
  for us to talk about, Stephanie? Yes.
• 18:11
  My thoughts whenever I was thinking of this and bringing it
• 18:14
  is that there is normally like a gap or like a process that has
• 18:20
  to happen, especially as we're learning how do I want to show
• 18:23
  up? How do I want to represent or re
• 18:25
  respond to this emotion in a healthy way.
• 18:29
  There's usually a gap. Sometimes it's days that it
• 18:32
  takes the process and that's OK and early work, but taking that
• 18:38
  time to actually introspect. So if I can identify what is
• 18:41
  happening on the inside of me, then choosing how I want to
• 18:44
  respond and share that. Maybe if you're working towards
• 18:46
  relational repair, whatever it is, coming to your partner in
• 18:50
  that safe space and saying, hey, when we had this conversation
• 18:54
  and I shut you down because I didn't want to have the
• 18:56
  conversation about the past and the things that bring up hurt
• 18:59
  for me too, or I didn't know how to respond or whatever happened,
• 19:03
  I want to bring that back up. So coming in with some sort of
• 19:06
  repair and saying these are the things that was happening on the
• 19:09
  inside of me, I was feeling rejected or like a
• 19:13
  disappointment or shame came up for me because that piece of
• 19:16
  authenticity is huge. I think that's huge and healing.
• 19:22
  I agree. Yeah, Coming back to that and
• 19:25
  stating what happened on the inside really matters.
• 19:28
  And then if you can get to it on the front end, that's amazing.
• 19:31
  And what that can sometimes sound like is is reflecting
• 19:36
  outwardly, reflecting, using your voice and saying, all
• 19:41
  right, I'm feeling really defensive right now.
• 19:44
  And I'm feeling like I want to push back.
• 19:48
  And just stating, I know this can be dangerous territory
• 19:51
  because you could technically weaponize what I'm about to
• 19:54
  share with you or what I'm sharing with you.
• 19:57
  But the parts that you don't want to share, vocalizing those
• 20:01
  from an ownership place of this is what's happening inside of
• 20:04
  me. So your partner's aware of them.
• 20:06
  Yeah. Or you just like in turn not
• 20:09
  you, but are the listeners just internally saying I can see that
• 20:13
  this is happening in my past mechanism or what reaction would
• 20:19
  have been to defend myself or to avoid altogether, but instead
• 20:25
  I'm choosing to show up in this way.
• 20:30
  And maybe that's just to be present and then take care of
• 20:32
  your emotions after the conversation.
• 20:34
  Yeah, yeah, totally, absolutely. Any other pieces of this?
• 20:41
  I can't think of it. I have some examples, but I
• 20:44
  think it's pretty. It's a pretty simple concept.
• 20:46
  It takes a lot of work. A lot.
• 20:49
  Yeah, a lot of work and being patient with self and being
• 20:54
  patient with yourself and not expecting your traumatized
• 20:57
  partner to be patient with that process because it's not.
• 21:01
  It's recognizing that pain and that's my responsibility and my
• 21:04
  journey. OK, that's awesome.
• 21:06
  Stephanie, thank you so much for introducing this dot, this new
• 21:10
  label to us. For those of us aren't aware of
• 21:12
  it, it's so much appreciated. Yes.
• 21:15
  Thank you. Do you have any words of
• 21:16
  encouragement for somebody that's like trying to make it
• 21:18
  work for a man to and just in general, do you have any?
• 21:22
  For this like overall or? Yeah, for overall, just like men
• 21:27
  that listen to this that are like because they're usually in
• 21:29
  those beginning stages or later just trying to build
• 21:32
  relationships and and whatever. So do you have any?
• 21:35
  Do you have any messages for them?
• 21:39
  I have a lot 1 you. Want.
• 21:41
  Me to start with a nice Stephanie, no, no kidding.
• 21:45
  I would just send some encouragement.
• 21:48
  The fact that they are you, the listener is listening to this
• 21:52
  podcast shows so much about the heart and the willingness behind
• 21:58
  where you are headed in your recovery.
• 22:00
  Encouragement to stick with it. It's hard work.
• 22:03
  It's not for the faint of heart. It's long hard work and just
• 22:09
  encouragement along the journey of the process.
• 22:13
  And there's not these huge milestones that we normally
• 22:16
  experience in other areas of our lives.
• 22:19
  So I'm just, I think a lot of times you and I, we get to work
• 22:24
  with people who are committed to changing their lives for the
• 22:29
  better. And any of those people that are
• 22:32
  in that work. Yeah, it's hard.
• 22:34
  I just want to encourage them on it on the.
• 22:36
  Journey we I find that out too, people usually that are
• 22:39
  listening to podcasts that are soaking up the information that
• 22:42
  are going. I can't keep doing what I've
• 22:44
  always been doing. Something has to look different
• 22:46
  for me. So much respect for that.
• 22:48
  Anyway, thank you again, Stephanie.
• 22:50
  Appreciate you. Yes, you're welcome.
• 22:55
  Hey, thanks for joining us today.
• 22:57
  If this is something that you connected with, I'd love to meet
• 23:00
  with you more and talk about it. So what you can do is go to
• 23:02
  chooserecoveryservices.com or check the show notes and there
• 23:06
  what we can do is set up a quick conversation meeting.
• 23:09
  Thanks so much for listening to Beyond the Facade where we
• 23:11
  unmask the authentic self.