Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Anna Runkle - The Crappy Childhood Fairy (1M+ Subscribers) | The Hidden Truth About Childhood PTSD

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Anna Runkle - The Crappy Childhood Fairy (1M+ Subscribers) | The Hidden Truth About Childhood PTSD · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  I was feeling very, very disconnected in my life. I was lost. I thought I had a lot of friends,
• 0:04
  but when the chips were down, I didn't. For me, and for a lot of people, not feeling a chronic
• 0:09
  sense of disconnection is a trauma symptom. Today's episode features someone who turned
• 0:13
  disruption into her calling. Anna Ronkel is a visionary strategist whose leadership has
• 0:18
  reshaped the landscape in, insert her feel. EG education, slash wellness, slash innovation.
• 0:23
  People who grew up with trauma when they were very young, like abuse is bad, but neglect is worse.
• 0:28
  It's going to lead to a life that's empty, emotionally and relationally. So much of our personal
• 0:33
  growth depends on being able to interact with other people. And what happens if that's stressful,
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  we go into hiding. We were told that if we would go talk about it enough, we would feel better,
• 0:42
  but I was one of the people and I'm not alone and I don't speak for everybody. Am I some kind of a
• 0:46
  freak because I'm going to the therapist and I just feel terrible. She doesn't follow trends. She
• 0:50
  sets them from building initiatives that uplift communities to driving change and how we think about
• 0:55
  impact and purpose. Her work isn't just about success, it's about significance. This is Anna
• 1:01
  Ronkel. Once I had that experience of so quickly popping out of it, when I had better tools to deal
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  with the thoughts and the feelings without talking about them, writing about them, and then following
• 1:11
  it with meditation, it worked like a charm. Don't give up. Do not get discouraged because this is hard.
• 1:26
  Anna, I'm super happy that you're here today just to kick things off so that everybody's on the
• 1:31
  same page. Help me define connectivity. It's a word that I made up when I was feeling very, very
• 1:38
  disconnected in my life. I was lost. I just realized I didn't really have people who were there for me.
• 1:44
  I thought I had a lot of friends, but when the chips were down, I didn't. And I thought to myself,
• 1:50
  some people have this thing, and my word for it was connectivity. They have this air about them
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  that they find people easy. They're easy to be around. People like to have the most friends,
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  and they easily get into a conversation where they hear the real point, and people feel heard,
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  and all this stuff used to feel very elusive to me until I taught myself how to do it.
• 2:12
  Why do you think, I mean, this is obviously something that I think a lot of people feel and deal
• 2:16
  with. I mean, you wrote this whole book about connectivity. I think that, and you study this for
• 2:23
  a living. So tell me if my uneducated guess is correct, but it feels like it's just gotten worse
• 2:28
  since COVID, and it just keeps getting worse and worse, and people feel increasingly isolated.
• 2:34
  So what's going on just in terms of what's happening since COVID, but also just happening socially,
• 2:40
  culturally when people feel that they lack connectivity? What was happening with you?
• 2:44
  There's two layers that I'll talk about here, and one of them is what happened during COVID,
• 2:48
  which made everything worse, and I think everybody sensed that. There are those few people who are
• 2:53
  like, I loved COVID. Lockdown was my dream. I didn't have to deal with anybody. I wasn't one of those
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  people, but a lot of people, whatever was odd about them, whatever they struggled with, got
• 3:04
  struggling or, you know, by the time those years were up. So for me, and for a lot of people,
• 3:13
  not feeling a chronic sense of disconnection is a trauma symptom. Now, it's not the only way you
• 3:17
  get to feel that way. For some people, it's baked into their personality. They're introverted. They're
• 3:23
  on the autism spectrum. They just are socially awkward. That's not uncommon. But people who grew up
• 3:29
  with trauma when they were very young, especially neglect like abuse is bad, but neglect is worse.
• 3:35
  There's some kind of neurological development that maybe got disrupted
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  through that neglect, through not having that interaction with their parents as much as a
• 3:44
  baby needs. And we walk around life feeling just like there's a membrane around us,
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  like somehow everybody got the memo and there's some sort of, I've heard somebody describe it as
• 3:55
  the Wi-Fi where everybody's kind of talking this nonverbal language and they understand each other
• 4:00
  and just feeling like a little bit like I don't know what's going on. I easily put my foot in my
• 4:05
  mouth. It's harder for me to feel close to people. I feel like I have to hide who I am. So that's
• 4:11
  the kind of disconnection. And when I started my work as crappy childhood fairy, which I backed into
• 4:16
  over years of just being somebody who taught people my techniques for healing trauma symptoms,
• 4:20
  when I got online and started hearing from thousands of people through their letters and their
• 4:26
  YouTube comments, I realized anecdotally, I'm not a researcher formally, but I have this huge sample
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  that talks to me about what it's like to have this problem. They all said, me too, I feel really
• 4:37
  disconnected. And so I do find that it's a nearly universal symptom, a feeling of disconnection.
• 4:45
  I see three things, neurological dysregulation, disconnection, and self-defeating behavior.
• 4:51
  Like those are the three things that really need healing when you're walking around like the
• 4:56
  walking wounded from a bad childhood. So this all stems from early childhood. Does it all stem
• 5:03
  from early childhood trauma? No, I mean we all know people, everybody struggles with this a little
• 5:07
  bit, but early childhood trauma, it just has a unique opportunity to alter your nervous system
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  development. And so if you had a perfectly normal childhood and then you went through a lot of trauma
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  as an adult, sure it would affect you and it might make you feel alienated from people.
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  But when it happens in childhood, you're actually in development, your nervous system is forming
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  itself. And that just as a little example, I'm not a neurologist, but most of us have heard of
• 5:33
  mirror neurons. They're these neurons that develop and wire up because you're getting interaction
• 5:38
  from your mom or dad. And so literally neglect can cause these neurological deficits or
• 5:44
  disruptions. And I don't think we ever get a perfectly good lens on that. We don't have the
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  technology to do it, but we know it's true. And you can sense it in yourself. And it's helpful to
• 5:54
  just assume, I assume I have neuroplasticity on this one. I'm going to work on it. And most
• 6:00
  things can be improved. And who even knows what your perfect condition would have been. It's a
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  hypothetical. You know, how connected would you have been if your life had been different? Who
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  knows? People are different. But for traumatized people, this has been an invisible symptom all
• 6:15
  along. You know, people really focus on other things that are quite obvious to others like
• 6:20
  depression, anxiety, terrible relationships, that kind of thing. But it's just like this is very
• 6:28
  sort of quiet humming in the background of your life. And you don't quite know and put and you
• 6:33
  can't put a finger on exactly what's wrong. But you feel like something's off because you see in
• 6:38
  others, they're optimized to a degree compared to your baseline. Yeah. And the way they relate to
• 6:43
  others and their family and the way they can just participate in groups, you just think how do they
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  even do that? Like it takes this tremendous effort. And what's the toll? What's the toll of this?
• 6:55
  It's terrible. It couldn't be worse. It leads to, you know, if a person can't learn to connect with
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  other people, it's going to lead to a life that's empty emotionally and relationally. I mean,
• 7:06
  that's so much of our personal growth depends on being able to interact with other people. And what
• 7:12
  happens if that's stressful for a person, we go into hiding. We use isolation as a way to manage
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  our own symptoms. And I can't really talk about this without without defining dysregulation.
• 7:26
  The nervous system becomes dysregulated. Everybody gets dysregulated sometimes. It's when you
• 7:30
  feel discombobulated or out of sorts or you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. A little newborn
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  baby cries and is inconsolable and then finally through love, holding, feeding, the baby calms down
• 7:45
  and becomes alert again. That's re-regulation. So we all know how to do it. Virtually everybody can do
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  it. But people who were traumatized are dysregulated more of the time. They struggle to get
• 7:56
  re-regulated and it happens so easily. And the only part of dysregulation that's obvious to other
• 8:01
  people is the emotional part of it where we lash out or have a panic attack or be romantically
• 8:07
  impulsive or something. It's too much emotion. But that's just one little piece of the dysregulation
• 8:12
  pie. There's so much else going on there. There's disruption of hormones and an immune system
• 8:18
  and blood flow and learning and cognition and memory. And so people who were traumatized as kids
• 8:24
  have this way out of proportion, probability of having almost every chronic health condition
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  there is heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, reproductive disorders, dementia.
• 8:37
  The list is very, very broad and it's hard to think of anything that isn't exacerbated by early
• 8:44
  trauma. So not everybody who has cancer had early trauma, but your risk goes way up if you were
• 8:49
  traumatized as a kid. The solving, I mean like now this sort of like puts your bodies of work
• 8:53
  in perspective. So this is why the solving of your dysregulation is a prerequisite. It's required.
• 8:59
  If you understand that you cannot be connected to people, if you understand that something's off,
• 9:05
  okay, we got to go to the root cause first. And I'm curious if you see just in terms of people that
• 9:12
  consume your content and reach out to you. Do you see a lot of people seeking out help finding
• 9:17
  band-aid solutions as opposed to dealing with the root cause? Yeah, some of them are obviously
• 9:22
  band-aids. There's different things for different people like the big thing about me that made it
• 9:28
  necessary for me to figure out what was going on is therapy didn't work for me. Talk therapy made
• 9:32
  me very dysregulated. And that's not uncommon. Made it worse. Yeah, made it worse. So I would go to
• 9:38
  try to talk about problems in my life. And it seemed like therapists were always very interested
• 9:44
  to hear how hard my childhood was. It was, you know, it's like, it's like catnip, you know,
• 9:49
  for therapists. When they hear it's like, you know, my mother was a drug addict and an alcoholic
• 9:54
  and she left me outside a casino in the snow and you could talk about this your whole life.
• 10:00
  And I'm glad I got a chance to tell what happened and to get validated. But talking about that
• 10:04
  stuff would always just make me feel very dysregulated. I couldn't focus. Couldn't feel my hands.
• 10:09
  I would just feel really shaky and forget where I was or who I was talking to not like unconscious
• 10:15
  but just very spaced out. And it turns out that's really normal. And in the past, I don't know,
• 10:22
  10 years finally they're starting to recognize that. But not the whole not everybody. But there's
• 10:27
  some therapists who are they're working with dysregulation first. Nobody can really process
• 10:33
  information unless they're regulated. It it accounts for a lot of difficulties in school too,
• 10:39
  of course. And everybody knows the kids who had a rough home life, they struggle in school.
• 10:44
  But this is a lot why the left front cortex will start to go dim under stress like let's say
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  you're taking a math test or something left front cortex where reasoning is starts to work less
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  well. It's it goes dim on on a on a scan. The right front cortex which is emotion starts lighting
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  up. So it's like panic panic can't think can't think. And then it registers as an
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  inability to learn. There may not be an inability to learn. There's just dysregulation between
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  you know the person and what they're trying to learn. And if you can learn to re-regulate,
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  that's the only real level playing field I've ever found in my life is people who can re-regulate.
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  When you so I guess you know I love people that think you can apply sort of entrepreneurship
• 11:31
  ideology to everything right like you have a problem and before we press the quarter talking
• 11:35
  about how entrepreneurs have a high level of agency and they want to solve their own problems.
• 11:39
  And I think this is actually the perfect example of what you did because you realized okay the
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  de facto sort of playbook for making me feel correct however you define that it's not working.
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  The therapy that's supposed to be helping is making me feel worse obviously something isn't
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  working out here. So let me figure out how to actually solve it which is how you sort of started
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  to understand about regulation and deregulation. I'm curious for somebody who's in your position
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  when you were first starting therapy who's going through all these same things that you were
• 12:08
  going through is experiencing all the same things that you are. What was that first step towards
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  regulation that you took that was actually helpful? Well I wish I could claim it was like I decided
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  to do it. I was really like the like I was in therapy three times a week and things came to a head
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  when I was attacked on the street once randomly. I got just beat up by a gang and they broke my jaw
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  on my teeth and I was unconscious at a concussion and it triggered a lot of it triggered PTSD.
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  And in the hospital and later when I talked to the doctor they never said the word PTSD they just
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  said oh are you you know you're upset you should go talk to a therapist about this. Well I was already
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  in therapy. I live in California there's a pot of money for victims of violent crime to go to therapy
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  so I had this big pot of money and I started going three times a week as recommended. In every session
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  we would sit and talk about this assault and there were other things going on. My mother died during
• 13:08
  this period too. There was just stuff going on and so I was sort of weakened. I was in a bad place
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  already but I could not put my thoughts together once I had you know was it the brain injury? I
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  don't think it was an official brain injury but it was a post concussion you know it's something
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  but getting attacked randomly on the street is a trauma where you know it messes you up
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  and my work wouldn't give me time off work. I had to go to work and I was saying incredibly
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  inappropriate things and I would burst into tears all the time and I felt desperate for people
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  to talk to me and like help me through this but I was being very annoying I think is what people
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  said and they couldn't really deal with it. I was constantly asking for help but I was very much like
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  I had been raised with the site not raised but through therapy I had this idea. I should be talk
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  about this. People should listen to me this will help me never knowing that that's like the worst
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  thing a person with my with complex PTSD. That's like the worst thing is going and talking about what
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  just happened there's a lot of things you can do like with movement there are some treatments
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  like EMDR, somatic therapies there are a variety of things it just happened that right when I thought
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  I couldn't go on I mean I was so dysfunctional and I had alienated everybody and I was about to get
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  fired for saying something inappropriate that I couldn't you know I only knew by looking at people's
• 14:29
  face and I'm just like nice girl you know what this was so out of character for me but they did not
• 14:35
  know what was wrong and what it was was classic signs of PTSD from childhood brought on and
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  led out of the bag by an adult onset trauma like it's a really known pattern now but it wasn't then
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  and I might have died I did not feel like I could keep going with the problems that I had and then
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  magically this somebody I was in some improv group at the time and this woman said I happened to
• 15:00
  confide in her how bad I was feeling and she said oh do you want to come in and try this technique
• 15:05
  that I learned and she had been a homeless person in the tenderloin district of San Francisco
• 15:10
  in her teens and she had sobered up and went to AA I'm not an alcoholic but she had had this marvelous
• 15:17
  recovery and she was so miserable though even when she stopped drinking she was so unhappy
• 15:22
  and so somebody in AA a woman there named Sylvia walked told her do you want to try these techniques
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  and what it was is and is for me I've still done it I do it twice a day still it's a specific
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  technique to write fearful and resentful thoughts and feelings whatever's up you know whatever's
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  bothering you and because I learned it from somebody who had learned it in a 12-step context now
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  mind you most people in 12-step don't do this it's it's considered sort of arcane or too much or
• 15:52
  you know some people look down on it even but damn if it didn't save my life what she showed
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  me how to do this writing then she said now you got to go learn meditation because if you're
• 16:02
  doing this you're not going to be able to sustain it unless you're able to go into deep rest
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  afterwards each time she said do it twice a day call me when you like you can read me what you
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  wrote you can get help from me if you want advice but I was 30 at this time she was 23 and she was
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  like this street kid covered with tattoos she's not she's a she's a beautiful woman you know but
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  I still know her so long time ago but I was I couldn't believe I was taking like life and death
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  advice from this person she said the F word every other word and then she was talking about God and
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  I was like this Berkeley girl who was like people who talk about God or stupid I don't know but I
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  she just had credibility with me she knew about the life and death moments and so I did what she
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  said and like that night I started to feel relief and within two weeks I really if I can
• 16:54
  diagnose myself as having PTSD I'll diagnose myself as having completely popped out of it
• 16:59
  and I was able to focus my mind better than ever before so I had a job at this non-profit I was
• 17:04
  the marketing person at the time and once I had this head injury I had a terrible time focusing
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  I probably wasn't a one at it before that either but I really I could not sit in a business meeting
• 17:18
  and really track what was happening my mind was just all over the place when I started using these
• 17:24
  techniques I would sit in a business meeting and I would hear every single thing that was said
• 17:28
  and so my career rocketed forward because I would listen to the whole hour and at the end I would
• 17:34
  say well I'll tell you what I think blah blah blah blah blah blah I was able to synthesize what I
• 17:38
  just heard and I realized that very few people can do that almost everybody's mind was popping around
• 17:44
  like popcorn and you know that I found it very annoying once you're once you're able to really
• 17:49
  track with attention the way that people talk can be very frustrating they're all over the place
• 17:56
  somebody goes off in an anecdote you're like wait we were just about to like name that next bullet
• 18:00
  point what is it or they're making some chart on this used to drive me crazy when people are on
• 18:05
  the flip chart you know being like let's talk about stuff but it's like they're not matching
• 18:10
  things they're talking about like a phenomenon a person an idea and my mind was so organized that
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  I was just like no no no it's like that so then I rewrite it and then I'd show it to people and
• 18:21
  they would be like oh my god she's like a genius now yeah I was just I could pay attention
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  you know what I okay so when you're saying this I have I have a thesis and you can tell me if I'm
• 18:34
  I'm right or wrong so a couple ideas first I have heard that truly truly traumatic experience like
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  early childhood experiences they get implanted in your subconscious and they're always like running
• 18:47
  in the background and this is why it causes so many other problems in your life because it's
• 18:51
  almost like a broken operating system impacts everything and this is what you're mentioning about
• 18:55
  all these potential health issues and cognitive issues and memory issues now that's something
• 19:02
  that somebody can pinpoint is wrong or at least they feel like their life is completely deregulated
• 19:06
  and that could be right or wrong I don't know I'm just spouting from somebody else that I've heard
• 19:10
  now I think most adults they don't maybe not all them have true trauma but they are deregulated
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  to the point where their thoughts aren't clear as clear as they could be like to your point like in
• 19:21
  those meetings they don't see anything is super wrong because nothing really happened but they've
• 19:25
  never put the work into organizing their thoughts or clarifying how they think and then they can't
• 19:31
  communicate or they can't reiterate what that hour long meeting was about or they speak in circles
• 19:36
  or they're not so off base but you can tell they're not a hundred percent there so there's like
• 19:42
  levels to this now I think what happened with you is that traumatic experience was like pouring
• 19:47
  fuel on the fire to the point where you're like okay something is definitely wrong like I'm aware
• 19:52
  that something's wrong I can't even function anymore not just function poorly I can't function
• 19:56
  at all so this was you know it was a horrible event but it was kind of like the silver lining was
• 20:02
  okay now I got to do the work to get myself back on track and I think that a lot of people
• 20:07
  just meander through life without having this traumatic event that forces them to do the work to
• 20:11
  get back on track so they actually live in these sort of sub-par sub-optimal conditions cognitively
• 20:16
  because there isn't any work done towards reorganizing they're or fixing the way they think in the
• 20:22
  way they sort of sort of just meander through life I don't know if any of this is correct but this
• 20:28
  is just my takeaway from just listening to how how your life has played out yeah I probably
• 20:35
  use different words for some of it but yeah it's like that yeah that's so most people don't even
• 20:41
  realize that they're not that they're deregulated well yeah it's dysregulated deregulation is what
• 20:46
  we want to happen in California. It's the you know disruption of normal flow of nervous system
• 20:56
  operations and your nervous system governs everything in your body you're thinking you're
• 21:01
  digestion you're your hormones you know what age you go into puberty and to a large degree how
• 21:07
  you think you know with there I do think there's something there is something inside of ourselves
• 21:14
  that's beyond the scope of the nervous system but I couldn't define it that clearly I just sense
• 21:18
  that there's more to it it governs just virtually everything and so when it's not working properly
• 21:23
  literally your blood can't get this is I had a when I was going through a very traumatic period I
• 21:29
  I had a surgery and it just failed and they did another surgery to fix it and it failed even worse
• 21:36
  and soon I had 14 surgeries and later we were able to sort of diagnose backwards I was going
• 21:41
  through a lot of trauma my my my circulatory system couldn't adequately carry blood and oxygen
• 21:47
  to the damaged tissue so whatever they fixed wouldn't heal and it would just fall apart like that's
• 21:52
  how much the the presence of those that's whatever the substance of trauma is is affecting body
• 22:00
  functioning but people disagree about what is the substance of trauma I think some of the way people
• 22:04
  talk about it is metaphorical they think it's literal but when they say trauma is carried in the
• 22:09
  body I sort of question that little bit is that literal or metaphorical I know what they mean
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  you're hiring indeed is all you need when you go through the work to to sort of fix the dysregulation
• 25:04
  and and bring yourself back in so that is not removing the trauma completely is it well I think
• 25:12
  you know just a first semantics I think of trauma as what happened and dysregulation is the
• 25:18
  thing that's happening in you right now that you have some control over you can't do anything about
• 25:21
  the trauma so when you when you go through these exercises um is this a I guess to just frame it
• 25:27
  for the audience is it something that you have to do once or is this like a constant practice well
• 25:32
  I think it's kind of like brushing your teeth it helps to do it once but it's better to do it twice
• 25:37
  a day people will say well I'm having a good day and it's like well are you having a good
• 25:41
  enough day that you're not going to brush your teeth today like just do it just be be consistent and
• 25:46
  be steady it's like training I I didn't think of it like this way you know the science of dysregulation
• 25:53
  did not come out until I was 20 years into using the daily practice simply to feel better and function
• 25:58
  better then the science came out and I was like wow I now I know what it is that we're we're dealing
• 26:04
  with here and why this works and that's the last you know it's like 12 years or something since
• 26:10
  I learned that it's just been like the greatest thing in my life to find out it's a thing it has a
• 26:14
  name it's normal it's it happens to a lot of people and going out on YouTube to talk about what
• 26:20
  it's like has been this great experience where thousands of people go I have that too I've never
• 26:25
  heard anybody describe it before and so I get to witness all these people having that moment like
• 26:30
  you're kidding it's a thing I thought I was crazy well not yeah because you can put a finger on
• 26:36
  it now now now it's something that's actually fixable or at least treatable right that's what that's
• 26:42
  what stresses people out when they feel a certain way and they can't put a finger on it that's
• 26:46
  what's it's horrifying well yeah and we were told that if we would go talk about it enough we
• 26:50
  would feel better but I was one of the people and I'm not alone and I don't speak for everybody
• 26:54
  but a lot of us were like am I some kind of a freak because I'm going to the therapist and I just
• 26:58
  feel terrible and that's a really scary feeling when you think well then this must be the last house
• 27:04
  on the block I'm out of options I'm getting worse I must be really damaged and so it was just you
• 27:09
  know once I had that experience of so quickly popping out of it when I had better tools to deal with
• 27:15
  the thoughts and the feelings without talking about them writing about them and and then following
• 27:21
  it with meditation it just it worked like a charm and it's so simple that's the hardest thing when
• 27:27
  I've taught like a million people now how to do it and sometimes that's the hardest hurdle for
• 27:31
  them to grasp it is like no really it's this simple and I'm not saying it will solve all life
• 27:36
  problems but it puts you in a place where you can solve life problems it's you start to what
• 27:41
  what the benefits of having a clear mind are is you start to have discernment you go well this
• 27:47
  is interesting when I talk in this manner people get very offended why don't I ask them a question
• 27:53
  like did that offend you and then you have information and you can use it you start to you know
• 27:57
  suddenly the world is your oyster you can figure things out and it used to just be this like tumble
• 28:02
  this big like beaver dam of mess you who even knows why people feel the way they feel I better go
• 28:08
  hide and so it becomes solvable and so I'm always encouraging people like use the daily practice to
• 28:14
  keep rinsing off your stress about trying new things and making your life a little bigger every day
• 28:20
  um and then live your life and bump into the wall make some mistakes are there daily practices
• 28:26
  or habits or even like I don't know how deep this goes is drinking caffeine and and not sleeping
• 28:33
  enough like are there any things that really really hurt that people have to be aware of that they
• 28:38
  have to like nip in the bud right now well sleep is really important and sleep is really hard to do
• 28:45
  properly when you're dysregulated so it's kind of a it's a vicious circle or a virtuous cycle
• 28:50
  so you start working on one until you get better at the other and you keep going um caffeine I
• 28:56
  I drink caffeine some people find it kind of dysregulating I find it helpful there's a lot of
• 29:01
  things that are regulating but they don't work long term like for me oh cigarettes did they help me
• 29:06
  yes they helped me so much I smoked two packs a day for 16 years it had it came with so many
• 29:12
  problems it couldn't last and that was before I had any idea about any of this stuff
• 29:18
  when I learned the daily practice my friend said I was like I feel so bad I just can't stop smoking
• 29:22
  I know it's killing me and my mom had just died of lung cancer and and she said don't worry about
• 29:28
  it just keep going with this daily practice it'll fall away I was like you don't know this addiction
• 29:33
  does not fall away from me I've tried everything again and again but it took about three years and it
• 29:37
  fell away and I just one time I was doing some patches and that time it just worked I just
• 29:43
  didn't relapse and it was easy and for some reason that time that was like 28 years ago I've never
• 29:48
  craved to cigarette again it just it literally just like pop it just was gone so that was that's
• 29:54
  one thing that I would have to say is one of the miracles of my life that I would say that was a
• 29:58
  miracle so if people don't understand what's happening to them of course if they if there's a
• 30:04
  substance or an activity or something that isn't actually long-term healthy but short-term
• 30:10
  helps them see life better or operate better of course you're going to jump on it and you don't
• 30:14
  and even if it's harmful well it's okay let me let me be human and realize that yeah it could
• 30:20
  be harmful in 30 years but for the next 30 minute meeting it's going to be helpful so I'm not
• 30:24
  worried about the the long-term implications I can only process a short-term pain that I'm trying
• 30:28
  to get rid of yeah and and so anything that sort of gives a boost like anything that gives you a
• 30:33
  little bit of dopamine or adrenaline starts to be like so precious and hence enter all the addiction
• 30:39
  problems you know for everything from screens to food I mean sugar oh sugar you know that's like
• 30:46
  that'll give you a little temporary lift and then you crash and then you're very dysregulated
• 30:51
  and you know needless to say drugs and alcohol that's a lot how people manage it
• 30:57
  and for some reason like if I if I'm feeling kind of bad and I drink I feel worse
• 31:02
  so drinking his I just don't have the gene or something for that but a lot of people in my family
• 31:06
  did and they're not here to tell the tale that's a that one will take you out pretty fast so
• 31:12
  so a lot of people are really just trying to re-regulate and so my my second book connectivity
• 31:19
  is about one of the biggest ways people do that it's tied into everything and it's
• 31:24
  the urge to isolate as a way to cope with the dysregulation you feel really uncomfortable in your
• 31:29
  body dyscombobulated your feelings come out too strong you don't dare express what you really
• 31:34
  think to somebody because the way it comes out tends to damage relationships like almost
• 31:39
  every traumatized people when I talk about this they're like oh yeah the damage relationships
• 31:43
  I lashed out I you know later I was really sorry but it was too late and that cost people a lot
• 31:50
  and so learning to connect and to be able to hang out be present with people listen to them be
• 31:56
  yourself this is rocket science for a lot of us so the issue is that to connect with people you
• 32:03
  have to re-regulate but as part of the as part of the dysregulation you want to avoid people so
• 32:09
  again it's almost one of these cycles of where one thing is feeding into the other thing and
• 32:15
  basically your whole life is getting worse so I think the pandemic played a big role in giving
• 32:21
  us a lot of outs where we were not forced to deal with people and it's kind of like hey a lot
• 32:27
  of bad habits kind of got bigger for people during that time but the isolation I noticed in myself
• 32:33
  because I was already like pretty good at connecting when the when the whole thing started but when
• 32:38
  it was over and I started being fully social again I noticed that I was very rusty and I would just
• 32:43
  blurred out weird things and I was having trouble like reading other people like are you annoyed
• 32:48
  with me are you happy about what I just said like I was losing my abilities with that like you
• 32:54
  need regular contact with people to be good at dealing with people and certainly in work this is
• 33:01
  incredibly important to be able to read the room and to be able to know when to hold your tongue
• 33:08
  about something and instead have it as a private conversation like when I was dysregulated that was
• 33:14
  one of my big blenders again and again here's a story I was at a conference for this non-profit
• 33:22
  I worked for and everybody was sharing cabs to go to restaurants after the day had ended and
• 33:29
  you know I was just some like mid-level marketing person I wasn't like a big shot or anything
• 33:34
  and the CEO of one of the things was getting into the cab with somebody I said do you guys
• 33:39
  want to share a cab they said sure and she was with some older woman I found out later well what
• 33:45
  I did is I just ended up talking I was thinking maybe this CEO is going to give me a little like
• 33:50
  promotion or maybe I can negotiate something for myself here so I was just like blabbing about
• 33:56
  myself later I found out that the woman she was with was Susie Buffett and and they were discussing
• 34:03
  a big grant and I just completely left it up for her you know with and hopefully they salvaged it
• 34:08
  later but I just made a complete fool of myself and I had no idea I couldn't read the room I wasn't
• 34:13
  sensitive at all I wasn't like sort of going would it be appropriate if I the underling said something
• 34:18
  right now and probably not just but you know they were just letting me share the cab so that was the
• 34:23
  sort of thing I did all the time and it blocked me I never got promoted I was pretty smart I knew how
• 34:29
  to re-regulate but it was like life lessons that I did not have yet on how to act my parents were
• 34:35
  just like Marxist hippies they thought money was evil you know and people people who dress nicely
• 34:40
  obviously had a bad agenda you know and so I didn't know I didn't know how you're supposed to act
• 34:47
  so the whole experience of healing for me has been like going to charm school like how are you
• 34:51
  supposed to be a person and I find it really fun actually it's a delight to me now but it was
• 34:57
  very hard at first well I think that this is why COVID again to your point it's such an impact
• 35:01
  because people forgot how to be people and how to communicate and how to be social for whatever
• 35:06
  three three and a half four years and now work has accommodated not being social right with zoom
• 35:12
  and virtual and everything so I even noticed I listen I chat with people for a living and if I go
• 35:19
  a week or two without leaving the house and I'll go at the dinner I feel awkward I feel I feel
• 35:24
  dysregulated for a second we go home now because I just want to watch TV yeah I know and that's not
• 35:30
  how the world works I mean if you want to be successful at anything you have to figure how to
• 35:34
  interact with other human beings not just transaction like you have to build relationships with other
• 35:39
  people yeah and it's not just like saying things it's like being aware of how it's landing with them
• 35:44
  and then being able to sort of hypothesize what would be important to this person you know if I want
• 35:48
  something from them if I'm trying to like negotiate something or have a favor given or anything
• 35:54
  to to be able to anticipate like what do they care about dysregulation is like wearing headphones
• 35:59
  with acd black acdc blasting in your ears so loud you don't you don't actually hear anything you're
• 36:05
  just sitting there pretending yeah and you're it's it just desensitizes you and we all know people
• 36:13
  who seem to be blundering through social situations and a lot of times that's what's going on
• 36:18
  they're they can't tune in and it's it's not necessarily a permanent state that you can learn
• 36:22
  to re-regulate and be able to feel I call this feeling other people's nervous system there's we
• 36:29
  have all these phrases for it like tuning in reading the room being sensitive but actually our
• 36:34
  nervous system is very good at reading other people's nervous systems if you do go through these
• 36:39
  sort of steps these daily practices to re-regulate and you still feel like you have I mean you've
• 36:45
  coined a few terms like covert avoidance that's one of the ideas that I think just the way when you
• 36:53
  say it it just hits it's like you don't want you don't want anybody to know that you like being
• 36:59
  at home you don't want anybody to know that you don't like social situations it's almost like a
• 37:03
  shame that you feel but you feel it I think a lot of people feel it uh explain what that is but
• 37:11
  also explain okay so I have re-regulated I've gone through these daily practices but I still feel
• 37:17
  that I still feel like I'm not comfortable in these social situations like what's what's the the
• 37:23
  the thing that I have to do because this is hurting my career it's hurting my business it's hurting
• 37:27
  everything I can't date whatever it is well in my book I I list eight big ways that big obstacles
• 37:36
  that are in the way to being able to develop connectivity with other people and they're the
• 37:42
  they're the common ones you could probably name hundreds of them but these are the common ones and
• 37:45
  the first one is avoidance and people talk about this a lot in the context of romantic relationships
• 37:51
  like I'm dating an avoidant guy he won't really commit you know he blows hot and cold that's like a
• 37:56
  pattern so that's avoidance but a lot of us are covert avoidance we actually we make the commitment
• 38:02
  but we don't really put our heart in it we say yes to the RSVP you know request to the party and
• 38:09
  we come late and leave early or we just sit there and say empty things to people and never really
• 38:14
  connect or we just find ourselves too busy and too tired to really pay attention to what's going
• 38:20
  on you could have a family that you know needs your attention very much if you're a parent you
• 38:25
  you've got to be present and it'll be just like oh I'm just so I'm just exhausted and it's like
• 38:30
  that every day and maybe you are exhausted and maybe the way your life is set up that's the
• 38:35
  outcome of the whole thing and maybe a few people really can't control that right now but most of
• 38:40
  us can it's like a setting that we turn our dial up to so that we don't have to deal with people
• 38:46
  how could I be I was a single mom for nine years and all the time they put out these memos of
• 38:52
  you know come help with the bake sale or something and I I worked full time and being working full
• 38:58
  time and dealing with my kids was a lot to deal with and then I have all the surgeries and it was
• 39:02
  a lot to deal with but I kind of like permanently adopted this how can I be expected to contribute
• 39:07
  to the school I'm like a special person who can't possibly do that and then I felt left out
• 39:13
  because I wasn't really friends with the other parents and they were all going on camping trips
• 39:17
  and I'm like why weren't we invited it's like maybe because I never hang out with them and they
• 39:21
  have no idea who I am and that was that was my distorted thinking of thinking that they were
• 39:26
  sort of persecuting me I think that's incredibly common but actually we're avoiding truly connecting
• 39:31
  with people who we still we wish we'd connect with them but we're magically expecting them to like
• 39:36
  reach out and save us from our isolation and we've got to come out and meet people at least part
• 39:41
  way to have any kind of a relationship with them but I think screens have been a huge obvious
• 39:49
  problem for connection and it's a it's a form of covert avoidance I don't know about you
• 39:54
  but I have to force myself to put my phone away when I'm eating dinner with other people.
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• 42:50
  looking through some of the things that you've uncovered some of the some of the some of the
• 42:54
  things they're not going right in our life are a self-sabotaging but we're not even aware that we're
• 42:58
  self-sabotaging ourselves so of course if if again just this one particular example of
• 43:04
  of covert avoidance if i don't even realize that i'm doing it to myself of course i'm going to
• 43:08
  argue with you about it i'm going to say it's not my fault that you know the people at the party
• 43:13
  for example they're well we're not on the same page or you know they're not my friend group or
• 43:17
  i don't feel comfortable like they should be more accommodating to me or the narcissist play
• 43:21
  i'm attracting all the wrong people i'm going on the dates with the wrong guys well i'm just
• 43:25
  unlucky like how my how's it my fault that i'm attracting these assholes like into my life
• 43:32
  but there's there's subconscious sabotage that you're doing to yourself it's it is subconscious and
• 43:36
  you know the word grooming it sort of means you get somebody used to something that's illogical
• 43:40
  and harmful and you get them so used to it i call it crap fit you fit yourself to crap
• 43:46
  you fit yourself to unacceptable people in situations you were very good at it it's not your fault
• 43:50
  that you got groomed like this to be so good at it but literally no one is coming to save you now so
• 43:56
  once you can recognize it and it's very hard because it feels like a criticize criticism
• 44:02
  to to realize that you've kind of been making the same mistake over and over again and it was you
• 44:06
  and you could have not done that it's it feels like an existential threat to a person who's been
• 44:12
  traumatized like they've already been like put down so much that they're holding on to their ego
• 44:17
  in the good sense of the word by a thread so it can feel like like it can feel life threatening
• 44:22
  to accept criticism even though it's actually the most empowering thing you can point to somebody
• 44:27
  like that person who said to me you married the guy that was empowering even though i did feel
• 44:32
  slapped but things turned around after that and i was able to completely drop my adversarial
• 44:37
  relationship with him i just realized this isn't in my best interest it doesn't help the kids
• 44:41
  he may start a fight but if i don't fight back it'll be fine and within like two days we weren't
• 44:46
  fighting ever again not ever again but a lot less fighting like we have so much agency and and i'm
• 44:53
  not somebody who you know we get on my youtube channel i get people like oh grow up you're just
• 44:58
  a bunch of pansies you know everybody has trauma stop whining and the thing is what we're talking
• 45:04
  about the trauma we're talking about is some people have been sexually abused by a parent they
• 45:08
  have been hit over and over and over again they've been told they're worthless they've you know
• 45:13
  it we're not talking about imagined injuries these are grave injuries to the spirit to the body
• 45:19
  and it does affect people and it can have lifelong effects but what we're trying to do is detach
• 45:25
  that downstream effect of that of of that damage so that the damage can heal when you if you don't
• 45:31
  learn to re-regulate and you remain isolated you know if you think about it you can probably think
• 45:36
  of people you've known in your life you know like some angry guy down at the end of the block who
• 45:42
  hates kids and won't let them ride their bikes past the house or something and they're always yelling
• 45:47
  at them and you're like what what's wrong with that guy well he's probably been isolated
• 45:52
  his dysregulation got the better of him and he really believes that he's the victim of the
• 45:55
  children riding their bikes we get weird like that have you you've heard the concepts of
• 46:01
  locustive control yeah yeah and I think that that ties into agency and just a brief explanation
• 46:08
  is really external versus internal locustive control and if you believe sort of in a very
• 46:12
  simple definition does the world happen to you or do you happen to the world right you have
• 46:16
  agency and control over your own life basically but my question and I think that's a beautiful way
• 46:22
  to sort of just show how some people believe they happen to the world some people believe the world
• 46:27
  happens to them and that shift and I'm going to ask you like if you have an idea of how to make
• 46:34
  that shift from the world happening to me to me having agency and me happening to the world
• 46:39
  because that seems as we're going through we're going through you know dysregulation we're going
• 46:46
  through all the different things that you have to heal sort of the leading indicator of success
• 46:52
  and everything we're talking about is having agency and feeling like you can actually make a
• 46:56
  difference in your own life as opposed to just being the victim of whatever's happened to you in
• 46:59
  the past as horrible and horrific as it may be have you ever thought about how to actually gain
• 47:05
  agency if you feel like you don't have any well yeah I mean that's kind of how I make my whole
• 47:10
  living is helping people do that but I think there's well two things I want to add I want to
• 47:14
  sort of like append there is one is trauma is real the trauma injury is real and if you if you kick
• 47:21
  a dog and you neglect it enough you we've all met dogs where you approach them and they they're
• 47:27
  sort of wagging their tail but then they're shivering and they pee on the floor they're not trying to
• 47:31
  get attention they're not playing the victim card or anything they have trauma injuries and so it's
• 47:37
  a real thing to have to overcome so so it's not just like you flip a switch and go oh I have agency
• 47:42
  over this but it's part of it I think the part that conventional treatments have done well is
• 47:48
  be able to like say okay come talk about it you know have a witness here what happened to you
• 47:53
  but I think for people who don't have this trauma you know complex PTSD this is the kind that
• 47:59
  comes from chronic ongoing exposure to stress or symptoms similar to it I don't think everybody's
• 48:04
  been diagnosed but childhood PTSD I call it I think we instinctively know yeah the set of the
• 48:10
  cluster of symptoms that are common for people for people who don't have it it must look like
• 48:15
  they say the weirdest things and we joke about it on my channel but they say stuff like
• 48:20
  you just need to love yourself that's like the craziest cycle babble thing you could say like
• 48:25
  well how would why would I do that how why why would I do that like oh you're kidding I just need
• 48:30
  to love myself and it's kind of funny and and I I couldn't I didn't love myself at all I despised
• 48:36
  myself I was quite angry with myself and I've ended up sort of by extension loving myself because
• 48:44
  I did a lot of loving acts I cleaned up a lot of problems where I was hurting other people I didn't
• 48:50
  feel ashamed of myself I a lot of work went into me feeling better about myself to where I'm like
• 48:56
  yeah I feel good about myself and so I just think when people are like girl you just need to love
• 49:02
  yourself I'm like you don't have what I have it's not that easy or they say yeah your pickers broken
• 49:10
  it's true the picker is broken but they like and so what do you do what do you do about that
• 49:17
  and so again like learning to make better choices about who you let into your life is a combination
• 49:22
  of sensitizing through re-regulation you have to become sensitive and then you have to blunder
• 49:27
  along and let a few jerks into your life and go oh I see we had that conversation they actually
• 49:33
  told me the red flag at the beginning but I overlooked it because I felt really impatient to get
• 49:38
  together with this person and then when I realized they they were not a fit or they were
• 49:43
  dangerous I didn't want to leave because I was afraid of being alone like you have to develop a
• 49:48
  lot of self-awareness before you can start to like unpack why did you make self-destructive choices
• 49:53
  and the why of it isn't even the most important thing the guardrails are the most important thing
• 49:59
  so I teach people for dating for example because dating is probably the most potentially poisonous
• 50:05
  area for traumatized people to lose their bearings big consequences come this is how trauma goes
• 50:11
  into the next generation and and so I teach a lot about how to go very slowly a traumatized person
• 50:19
  who struggles to detect red flags who attaches too quickly who is scared to leave a relationship
• 50:25
  benefits immensely from going slowly so you can let information come to you and then you hang
• 50:30
  out with like-minded friends and you go what do you think you know I I was going to call because
• 50:34
  he didn't call and they go no no don't call you have friends who help you kind of make sense of
• 50:39
  reality and don't go off into you know a trauma-driven reverie of crazy behavior that will drive
• 50:45
  people away and so with tools to start re-regulating and friends to help you stay on stay grounded in
• 50:52
  reality you can kind of reason things out and start making your mistakes honestly and as soon as
• 50:58
  you realize you're dating a jerk you get out and if you have friends you can do that if you have
• 51:03
  nobody in your life and you don't connect with anybody few people feel they can afford to leave
• 51:08
  a relationship and they'll stay and put up with anything because they've gotten stuck in the
• 51:13
  belief there will never be anything else so we have to keep ourselves with guardrails of how to
• 51:19
  how to handle life friends to keep reminding us and tools that help us keep processing the
• 51:25
  information keeping in mind we struggle to process how do we how do we so we're talking about
• 51:32
  people that have trouble making connection but also boundaries are important as well so not
• 51:37
  over-connecting and not depending too much on people boundaries key if you don't have good boundaries
• 51:42
  you can't be close to people explain that so let's say I'm thinking of going to a party and I'm
• 51:48
  a little worried it's going to be a weird party and I won't want to be there so my boundary is if
• 51:53
  everybody's like doing drugs or something I'll just leave that's the boundary and if you don't
• 51:59
  have that boundary you go to the party and then you just stay and you think I better somehow crap
• 52:05
  fit to this party even though I'm getting weirded out or I should just do the drugs with everybody
• 52:09
  so they don't think worse of me boundaries are just like you know you know what your limit is and
• 52:13
  you observe it most people who say boundary they've confused it with an attempt to control other
• 52:18
  people don't you guys do drugs I'm not comfortable with it my boundary is you don't do this that's
• 52:24
  not a boundary that's a that's a request and is that the only way to to set up a relationship so
• 52:32
  that there isn't some sort of co-dependence or something that is a little bit too engaged I wish
• 52:36
  it were that simple well the eight obstacles I told you one of them is you you we have wobbly
• 52:41
  boundaries you got you have to have good boundaries and you need to understand the difference between
• 52:46
  what you won't put up with and things that you would like to request of other people that you're
• 52:49
  not really likely to get their compliance so that's that's one of them one of them is other
• 52:55
  centeredness a lot of people adapt to trauma by being excessively good at locating their being inside
• 53:02
  somebody else you know maybe starts in childhood trying to get a parent keep a parent from becoming
• 53:07
  too high or too abusive but it then turns into there are a lot of forms it takes of
• 53:12
  co-dependence people pleasing obsessive love where you just think I can't be happy unless this
• 53:19
  person who's not interested in me will come around so it's all about some other person and you lose
• 53:24
  your agency there you've done it again and so as so as the boundary thing you've lost your agency
• 53:30
  you guys don't do drugs or I'm not going to feel okay you've lost your agency
• 53:35
  and as somebody who's really tried to make other people change I can just tell you just abandon
• 53:39
  all hope it doesn't work you can ask in a perfect world what should somebody be striving for like
• 53:46
  what would that perfect level of connection and relationship actually look like well I think that
• 53:53
  each of us might have two or three people in our lives who really really get us and if we find
• 54:00
  those two or three people we're very lucky hopefully it would be a part it would be the spouse one
• 54:04
  of them and the other two would probably be friends maybe a relative but somebody really getting
• 54:10
  you means they they know who you are they understand the nuance of what you say and they they don't
• 54:15
  really judge you for being the way you are and that's a tall order if you're still in a state of
• 54:21
  trauma where you're acting out getting emotionally dysregulated unreliable friends saying cruel things
• 54:27
  sometimes so character development goes hand in hand with being able to form these true connections
• 54:34
  with people and so two or three very close people and then the rest of it is being like as a parent
• 54:41
  to be totally present for kids and as a person who works for a company or for clients
• 54:48
  whoever you're there are customers they're accountable to like I have customers really I'm
• 54:53
  accountable to them and to be able to keep my head on straight about like what that relationship
• 54:58
  means at what point like in my line of business because I'm dealing with people who are traumatized
• 55:03
  occasionally I get people who are abusive and so that means I cut off the relationship with them
• 55:08
  but other times I have to really get up on my toes and provide the customer service they deserve
• 55:13
  even though it's inconvenient even though who knows you know what happened so that takes a high
• 55:18
  level of functioning is to have professional relationships with people and then to be able to
• 55:23
  just to be able to go out on the street without looking out the window first and making sure that your
• 55:27
  neighbors aren't there to feel confident to bump into people you sort of know and people who are
• 55:32
  a little irritating and strangers and feel confident like I'm going to kind of know how to handle
• 55:37
  this situation in a friendly way I'm not going to add conflict to our relationship right now
• 55:43
  I know and then to know how to undo a conflict how to give a proper apology how to bring the
• 55:48
  temperature down when people are getting things are getting heated with people all this stuff
• 55:53
  you're supposed to learn growing up in a you know in a healthy family a lot of people didn't get
• 55:58
  that I didn't my parents fought all the time so I had to learn and now that I learned it's just I
• 56:04
  love this skill I love it so much I feel so free I just I just got back from traveling I was in
• 56:10
  London I was you know meeting up with all these people I would just chat with people anywhere it's
• 56:15
  like a new life for me where I'm free I and then I gave a you know I did a large workshop for
• 56:20
  hundreds of people and people come up and talk to me afterwards and I just it's a certain kind
• 56:24
  of like ease and confidence that's what connectivity is a sense of ease that I can I can pretty much
• 56:30
  be myself I trust myself to filter things that are not appropriate in this context I trust myself
• 56:36
  I know what to do if I make a mistake I know how to fix it too and then I don't know the whole
• 56:42
  world instead of living small you get to live as big as you please for somebody that's listening to
• 56:47
  this it recognizes signs of dysregulation in their spouse or their partner or their family member
• 56:53
  and there's somebody who they want to help and they want to fix like what do you do is because
• 56:59
  these are not people that hopefully you can you don't want to just cut them out of your life you these
• 57:04
  are people that you want to put work into and you want to help them go through their own is there
• 57:09
  is there something that you can do or just have to be something that they have to take on on their own
• 57:12
  well it's not always easy to make other people change or to fix them but when you've found
• 57:19
  something that you think might be of interest to them a lot of people find my work because a partner
• 57:24
  or a friend or a therapist said hey I think you should check this out a lot of therapists use my
• 57:29
  videos on YouTube to ask their clients to look at between visits so they can talk productively
• 57:34
  about something and the education piece happened offline you know before they met so it's okay to
• 57:40
  suggest things to people what I think is not okay is to try is to get angry at them because they
• 57:44
  didn't go for it it's a very personal decision to to decide that you're ready to take a step also
• 57:51
  you know one method of healing isn't right for everybody and so it's sort of like I don't know
• 57:56
  like religious fanatics coming to your front door you know if you just like insist like I know what
• 58:00
  you need that's a in fact that's a sign of deep codependence and I get this sometimes it's like
• 58:07
  like people write me letters like oh well I I bought my girlfriend 10 books about healing and she
• 58:14
  won't read them and I'm just like ah time to time to just like read the books yourself or let go you
• 58:20
  know like read them yourself but when we hang on to somebody who we don't find acceptable which is
• 58:25
  what's happening there it's possible we're being avoidant and sometimes it just helps to be honest
• 58:30
  like I want to fix them because I don't actually accept how they are and we've asked them to change
• 58:35
  we've shown them what we think might be helpful but I think if it gets to where you've asked somebody
• 58:40
  three times it's you that's it that's got to be the line you just have to like accept this is not
• 58:45
  something they're interested in and if somebody is abusive I don't think it's acceptable
• 58:50
  if they're not willing to work on being abusive but I really I just thank God for the people in my
• 58:55
  life who put up with me when I didn't know how to fix this and you know except for when I got
• 59:00
  really really bad they they they were my friends and some of them are still my friends
• 59:05
  sometimes people left me at that time and they see me again now or they see me on YouTube and
• 59:10
  they're like damn girl what is this you changed and I'm like yeah I changed yeah you put the work in
• 59:16
  I mean like but not everybody that's the thing not everybody wants to put the work in so there has
• 59:20
  to be there has to be a point where yes if if you're if you're with that person they're a spouse
• 59:26
  or a partner like you want to give them the tools and the resources to to re-regulate themselves
• 59:31
  if you notice if you listen to this and you're like I'm seeing signs that a little bit of this
• 59:35
  wisdom could help them out so maybe you tell them to go you know watch your YouTube or read a book
• 59:41
  or something like that or read a resource but there also is a point where I think that you know
• 59:48
  you shouldn't you shouldn't date or marry on potential you shouldn't go into business with
• 59:52
  somebody who's a business partner based on potential either I think that you have to be healed
• 59:57
  the healthy people going into this and I consider business relationships just as difficult as
• 1:00:04
  marriages in some cases and sometimes there's more money on the line too right so yeah you have
• 1:00:09
  to go into these things heal it's going to be it's going to be difficult but then you also have to
• 1:00:14
  know how to ask a little asterisk on the word healed because there's not really any such thing
• 1:00:18
  you know there's no island where these are the people who are all the way there and everybody else is
• 1:00:21
  at sea you know everybody's just kind of like dog paddling around right now and we're like we
• 1:00:27
  can kind of manage things or we can manage things pretty well or we can't manage things at all
• 1:00:32
  and so it's really you got to go in with open eyes and just decide can I accept this person
• 1:00:37
  when you when you realize that you do eventually have to end a relationship with someone
• 1:00:42
  what is the best way to do it I'm a connoisseur oh my goodness well I've had it done to me
• 1:00:54
  enough but I've also I've had to do it and I learned this is what I believe is the best way
• 1:00:59
  is if you're clear that you want to do it you do not try to be friends and I'm talking about
• 1:01:04
  romantic relationships here but when things have gone that bad leave in a business relationship is
• 1:01:08
  you leave with goodwill but you don't say okay now we're just going to be friends I don't know
• 1:01:13
  about you but I spent a long time trying to act cool in some situation where I was dying of
• 1:01:17
  heartbreak and jealousy trying to be like no no I'm cool with this and I did it to other people too
• 1:01:23
  and then you know kind of criticize them for taking it hard and that's ridiculous I'm old enough
• 1:01:29
  to know now that's ridiculous and the mature and loving thing to do is to just cut it off the way
• 1:01:33
  the Victorians did and perhaps in some time when things have literally cooled off and neither of you
• 1:01:40
  happens to be in another relationship there can be a friendship or really enough time has passed
• 1:01:46
  that it's it's there's no spark there or anything like that one of the things I did to heal was
• 1:01:52
  I stopped having friendships with men who one of us kind of had you know a little a little thing
• 1:02:00
  there you know where nobody would ever admit it and I just ended it I ended it whether it was me
• 1:02:06
  or them and I told them frankly and kindly you've been a great friend there's this thing in our
• 1:02:11
  relationship where you know I always feel like maybe you like me or or conversely I've always had
• 1:02:18
  this little attraction but I know this is not going anywhere and I need to end it and I wish you
• 1:02:22
  the best can't be friends and and in this culture that was like astonishing they they would just be
• 1:02:28
  like what you know I but I didn't and I go no you did nothing wrong it's okay we're just doing
• 1:02:32
  what people do but I'm trying to make a big change in my life and for me that's how I became
• 1:02:37
  emotionally available for the real thing is I stopped fridging away all my romantic energy on
• 1:02:43
  little things true connectivity and true healthy relationships and I get I get that healthy there's
• 1:02:51
  no end to this game it's you're constantly trying to move in the right direction but
• 1:02:55
  something that is not negative and not detracting from you and not toxic it's your own self-work
• 1:03:02
  it's work with you know strengthening connects with other people it's also making sure they're
• 1:03:07
  even the right people that you should be connecting and thanks like strengthening those relationships
• 1:03:12
  with so it's not just like a one it's not just like a one and done solution it's all of it it's
• 1:03:18
  it's it's sort of this 360 about how you first of all heal yourself put work into other people
• 1:03:24
  make sure they're even the right people yeah and and shedding the people who are not the right people
• 1:03:29
  is a whole chapter of my book about releasing the people who are mean and troubling you know
• 1:03:35
  just troubled all the time they just bring trouble into your life and some there's some people
• 1:03:39
  you have to hard hard quit or you know boot them out but sometimes it's just releasing you don't
• 1:03:44
  just keep them around you don't keep filling your weekends just because there's somebody to hang out
• 1:03:48
  with it does take up space and it keeps draining your batteries and it keeps dimming your light
• 1:03:54
  for those people who you could have that great affinity that's inspiring and positive
• 1:03:58
  and well matched for who you are today you know not to put people down who are not there right now
• 1:04:04
  like we're all just like working on it but we do tend to and we tend to connect with people who
• 1:04:09
  we match who we feel you know get us and aren't judging us too much and so when we make when we
• 1:04:15
  take a big step up people are gonna fall away you'll get a lot of criticism people will think
• 1:04:19
  you're acting too big for your bridges you know you think you're better than me you get a lot of
• 1:04:23
  that and that you have to release it just be like okay well best of best of luck to you and allow
• 1:04:29
  there to be an emptiness in your life and that's how the good stuff comes in what would be the one
• 1:04:34
  thing out of out of all sort of strategy or idea around connectivity and connecting with other
• 1:04:41
  people that people have the hardest time with I think it's human nature to have a really hard time
• 1:04:47
  getting out of ourselves to stop taking the temperature of how do I feel what does everybody think
• 1:04:52
  about me what do I look like where's all you know where is all this going and to be able when they
• 1:04:58
  approve when the situation calls for it when it's time to be present with somebody to give them your
• 1:05:03
  full attention and to be able to hear them like we all know how good it feels when somebody really
• 1:05:08
  listens and I don't mean active listening how do you feel how's that but just like just in the
• 1:05:13
  funny moments just to laugh at your jokes just to remember you know something you liked at the
• 1:05:19
  restaurant and be like oh should we go to that restaurant because I know you like that thing to
• 1:05:24
  attend to who that person is and what's special about them and to be able to like turn your radar
• 1:05:30
  to appreciating that person because people are so beautiful and amazing and we completely miss out
• 1:05:36
  on what a great experience it is to be in the company of another person
• 1:05:41
  when we're so self-centered and how it's affecting us and I think it's a you know it's a developmental
• 1:05:46
  delay and trauma definitely keeps us stuck in our feelings in our heads but I think that's also
• 1:05:51
  part of the culture and part of the downside of therapy culture it has many upsides but one of them
• 1:05:56
  is so much of that like inward focus that that can sabotage the the outer attention the right
• 1:06:04
  balance of outer attention you don't want to be all the way up focused on other people but to really
• 1:06:08
  be able to hear them and and appreciate them and that's those are the people we love
• 1:06:13
  and I was thinking I was talking to my son the other day I'm like all right you know why is it
• 1:06:17
  that everybody loves their grandma virtually everyone your grandma's so nice your grandma is just
• 1:06:22
  so happy to see you all the time it's like I said well then I'll be a grandma one day I think
• 1:06:27
  that sounds like a really good role where I'm just so happy to see you I thought about you when
• 1:06:31
  you weren't here and I got you some presents I would just feel like this is the best place ever
• 1:06:38
  you know somebody cares about me and so the connectivity happens when we can develop that capacity
• 1:06:45
  and not lose ourselves and others I love that if you had if you had one wish for people who are
• 1:06:51
  reading this book to take away and just to take the heart not the hardest part of of this whole
• 1:06:57
  process sort of just focusing outside of yourself but just the one takeaway that you hope would
• 1:07:02
  change somebody's life what would that take away be don't give up do not get discouraged because
• 1:07:09
  this is hard go slowly if you disconnected people need to go slowly persevere it's worth it the
• 1:07:17
  disconnection will start to be this loop that tells you people suck you shouldn't deal with them
• 1:07:22
  you'd be much better off by yourself but just fight it fight it and no your dog is not your child
• 1:07:28
  and you know and your books are not your friends and those books and dogs are wonderful but so are
• 1:07:34
  people before we wrap up just let everybody know so the book is connectivity heal the hidden ways
• 1:07:41
  you isolate find your people and feel at last like you belong and this podcast will be dropping
• 1:07:47
  the same week that it's out so you can get the book anywhere you get books amazon and is there any
• 1:07:52
  other places you want to send people website social youtube website and I have like a I have a couple
• 1:07:59
  of freebies you can use if this isn't too many things one is a quiz of signs that you might have
• 1:08:05
  complex PTSD or another one that might be more relevant you can decide I'll give them both to you
• 1:08:09
  one is signs that trauma is affecting your ability to connect it's very popular just a like a little
• 1:08:15
  one cheater and the other thing is it's a free course the techniques the daily practice techniques
• 1:08:20
  if anybody wants to take it I can give you a link it's free it's a free short course give all of
• 1:08:26
  these and I'll put them all in the show notes