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How Hidden Emotions Drive Leadership Conflict And Burnout · Moral Injury Support Network Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, welcome to the Moral Injuries Support Network podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel Roberts, President and CEO of Moral Injuries Support Network for Service Women Incorporated, a nonprofit organization based in North Carolina that helps women veterans uh recover from trauma experienced while serving in the military.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Today we have a great guest with us today, Kenny Whitelaw Jones, is a deep process psychotherapist and author of The Shadow at Work.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: After more than 25 years building businesses, Kenny now helps leaders, executives, founders, and professionals understand the hidden psychological forces that shape how they lead, work, and relate.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: His work explores how the parts of ourselves we learn to hide can reappear at work as control, conflict, burnout, difficult relationships, power struggles, fear, shame, and crisis of meaning.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Through his writing at The Shadow at Work, Kenny brings shadow work out of the therapy room and into the realities of leadership, teams, culture, hierarchy, and organizational change.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: His forthcoming book of the same name is expected in June of 2027.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Kenny, welcome to the show.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much, Dana.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Really good to be here.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really well.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into the work that you're doing now.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've always had an interest in personal development and in my first degree was psychology.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then I ended up, as we often do in life, you know, down different paths.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I ended up uh uh doing an MBA and getting into the kind of corporate finance area and into the area of financial modeling and then infrastructure and advisory around that and built a business there.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I started a business about nine, eight, nine years ago.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's a 140-person consulting business.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so had my own experience of being in leadership, growing businesses, seeing organizational behavior, you know, close up.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and then over the past kind of five years, I've I've I've trained as a you know deep process psychotherapist, often referred to as shadow work, shadow work um therapy.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that that was a modality that I came across when I had my own, you know, let's say, you know, stuff to work through.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I'd done some talking therapy that didn't really work for me too well, but but shadow work or deep process psychotherapy just really kind of moved stuff for me, gave me a real kind of deeper insight into what was going on for me.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I decided to kind of take that training and I and I and I spent you know, two and a half, three years training in that in that modality.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really Jungian in origin, you know, the the shadow is a Jungian concept where he talks about just all the parts of ourselves we're we're kind of denying, you know, we we we we we've you know in some way pushed away, repressed over time, which is something that happens to all of us for for various different reasons.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Having trained in that and Strady and doing therapeutic work and understanding some of the dynamics that happen around the shadow, I really started to look at then organizations and leadership and culture, and I could kind of start to see how how, yeah, some of these shadow dynamics really play out in the workplace in a in a in a significant way.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the that's where the writing in the book came from.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm writing a book around that.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and in my my therapeutic work, I've tended to attract clients who are probably in that kind of leadership role, realizing that perhaps some of their own behaviors are getting in the way, some of their own baggage, some of their own history, and want to really uncover, uncover more of that is an area that I've been working quite a lot on as well.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: As I mean, other therapeutic areas as well.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, these it's like these coming together of these two parts of my life, you know, the training as a therapist, especially around shadow work, and then my own experience working in big companies earlier in my career, and then starting my own and building my own consultancy, just starting to see a lot of overlap in those areas.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I resonate with what you're talking about shadow work.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was taking a walk, I think it was last night, actually, uh, or a couple of nights ago, an evening walk, and I thought, you know, I just I wish the universe would give up its secrets a little more easily, right?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what I was thinking about is that stuff that I know is in the brain somehow that I have a hard time getting to.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had an experience um for for several months actually, where I would wake up in the middle of the night just on full alert.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I would lay there and I would go, There's nothing in my brain.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I, you know, it it would be it would be um, you know, it would be different if I I would wake up in the middle of the night sweating because I had a bill to pay tomorrow, I wasn't sure how to do it, or I had a a tough meeting tomorrow, and I was like worried about it, like that's common, right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I would just wake up like there's nothing there, but I am on full what I call activated, like just pumping adrenaline, right?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so for several months I struggled with this, and what has happened recently is you know, doing a lot of reading on trauma, different things.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I just had an epiphany that that in my in my in my drive to be positive, right?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and to be, you know, I was like denying a big part of myself.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was denying like negative thoughts, what I what I determine to be negative thoughts, negative emotions.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it was creating like a dam subconsciously where I was not allowing myself to think thoughts that weren't positive or whatever.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I actually I I was reading a book that gave me this idea, but I just said, okay, I'm just gonna start let everything flowing, you know, and stop blocking it off.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that has been a huge uh a huge thing where I've gotten really good sleep lately because throughout the day, I just if a negative thought comes, I just I just let it have, you know, I may not act on it, but I I just let it flow freely, and then in a few minutes, my brain will go, okay, we've had our thought, let's switch back to positive, or or it's able to get to the positive thought.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is any experience sort of relate to what you're talking about?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: In a in a in a in a in a big way, Daniel, yeah, it it does.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Look, and I think it's one of the the difficulties around this whole idea around positive thinking, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And there's there's nothing per se wrong with positive thinking.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Where positive thinking comes unstuck is exactly in your experiences where we stop allowing ourselves to think things that aren't positive.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it becomes just another thing that we use to kind of beat ourselves up or to tell us we should be thinking like this, right?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: We, you know, and and you know, thoughts are just thoughts.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the day, they're they're just thoughts.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, there's nothing wrong with with thinking positive thoughts, and we can maybe get on to what you know, what are you know that those differences and how we can how we can use those.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're stopping yourself from experiencing all your experience, those negative thoughts, they're not going anywhere, yeah, just because you're not allowing yourself to think them or those negative feelings.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what Jung is talking about in the shadow.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, any part of ourselves that we repress, any part of ourselves that we deny, it's not going anywhere, it's going into shadow, and it's just gonna plague you, you know.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we often talk about it coming out sideways, right?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and for you, it sounds like in your experience, it was coming out sideways as you know, waking up in the middle of the night fully activated, yeah, not quite knowing where it's coming from.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: For other people, depending on what we've put into shadow, it might be, you know, they might not be allowing themselves, let's say, to feel anger.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe when they were little, when they were growing up, it was dangerous.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was not allowed for them to be angry.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so anger is not an emotion that that that person allows themselves.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that anger is gonna spill out, you know, that unallowed anger is gonna come out, they're gonna snap at their kids or at their wife or at their their their their spouse, or gonna be maybe sharp with people in a way, in ways that they can't quite control.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, on the one hand, they're telling themselves a story, I'm not an angry person, you know, uh, but on the other hand, it's gonna come out.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's just gonna come out.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, very, very, very much so.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I and I think, you know, as what's what's been interesting is as I've allowed myself to have the thoughts I have, have the feelings I have, you know, it it it's it's like our it's about trusting uh trusting myself more.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I saw this thing, it said uh your one of the books I was reading on trauma, that your body, you know, we we tend to separate mind, soul, body, we have all these different things.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if we look at ourselves holistically, we are the most complex, amazing machine in all the universe.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's sort of like you know, our our subconscious can't predict the future necessarily, it does have intuition based on all these experiences, but it sort of knows, I feel like, what we need most right now.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and by allowing it to like for that to bubble up, we're able to discover all kinds of things about ourselves that we were repressing or we didn't know.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And often, like I've found as I've let the negative thoughts flow and the negative feelings, not negative, we we call them negative, but just like these uncomfortable thoughts and feelings flow, right?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like oh, that scares me, or oh, that makes me sad, or that depresses me, whatever, just letting them flow.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm also having a lot more positive thoughts, a lot more like good thoughts, and the emotions, uh the the happiness is more real, it's stronger, it's more powerful because the negative are or the the uncomfortable is also more uncomfortable.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like, wow, I'm actually experiencing life in a much fuller way um than before when I was trying to just be all positive and happy all the time.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, it does that make sense?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: It it does, and it's a really common experience that that when we you know, because when when we when we shut away part of ourselves, when we you know, when we when we when we repress parts of our our fullness, our full humanness, some of our life force goes away with that.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Some of what we you know what we think of as our gold goes away with that, you know.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and when we start to allow these parts of ourselves to be expressed, it's a very common experience that not only do the maybe the things that we're experiencing in our life that are challenging, you know, we can't know we're maybe acting out or behaving in certain ways that we can't make sense of or things are happening and repeat these patterns that we're struggling with, as well as helping those things, that some of that life force comes back, you know, that that that that because when we're we're starting to experience ourselves as a full 360-degree human being with lots of thoughts and feelings and emotions.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, emotions are just are just devices for sensing the world, you know, they're just information about what's happening.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's a psychotherapist called David Rico, based out in the west coast of the US, whose work I really enjoy.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and you know, he talks about emotions as technologies to to sense the world, you know, because there will be loss in our life, we have grief.
• 11:57
  unknown: Right.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, grief is how we sense it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because there will be injustice and because our boundaries will be crossed, we have anger.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that anger has to come out and explode at people, but we can feel it.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it tells us something that's happening, you know.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because there will be um danger in the world, we have fear.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, these are these are you know, they're they're they're they're neither good nor bad, you know, they're neither positive nor negative, they're just technologies that are installed in us to sense what's happening in the world.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, yeah, then we go around making meaning around that, you know, I shouldn't be afraid, I shouldn't be angry, and we start to to have stories around that that then get things all mixed up and stuck in our heads and all and all wound up.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: But but emotions in a sense are neutral if we can allow them and be in our grief.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: If grief is what we're feeling, allow it, allow it to be expressed.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's when we, you know, don't allow it, you know, and that's where I think a lot of our a lot of people have a different difficult relationship with anger because what they have experienced as anger in their life have been aggressive or abusive expressions of anger from other people, right?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, oh anger is bad because anger is frightening.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, anger can be expressed in a very neutral way, you know.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: I can be angry without exploding, you know, and I can protect my own boundaries without exploding at people, but but we often learn modes of expression that that that get in the way of that, just allowing full expression of all of our thoughts and emotions.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's pretty interesting.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: So when you when you start uh in your work, are you primarily working with individuals or organizations or both?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm primarily working with individuals.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh individuals within organizations oftentimes, and and and they will often, you know pass me on to other people in the organization, as it were.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: So they'll they'll they'll they'll have some experience or some insight or something that then says, Oh, maybe you could you could my colleague is can you help him out?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a bit nervous sometimes because I'm like, well, I don't know, you know, um want to be helped out, or is you just you want your colleague to be different, you know?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to be careful around that.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: But but yeah, it's primarily one-on-one work with individuals.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: I do do work with some group stuff, but mostly one-on-one, one-on-one with individuals.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a bit different than you know, talking therapy.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: We tend to work in much longer sessions.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll typically have five hours at a time with a client, um, um, because that gives us the time and the space to really go deep into stuff, you know.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if we're if we're gonna speak for 45 minutes, we're not even gonna we're not even gonna scratch the surface in 45 minutes, you know.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so so we really allow time to go into stuff more deeply.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, so if if I'm listening to this and uh I'm going, I know there is some stuff back there that's holding me back, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know I just can't seem to find the right relationships, or I can't seem, you know, I I talk to women veterans a lot in in counseling, and a very common thing is I'm just stuck in this feeling, or I'm stuck in depress, I'm stuck in what is and and and I come to you and say, I I know this shadow resonated with resonates with me.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: What do I do now?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: How do I get started?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: What what how do you start with someone, or what how does that begin?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, and and people often do come because of that.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, I'm I'm I'm stuck with something, I can't move through it, or I I can't seem to make a different choice, or the same thing, no matter what I do, the same thing seems to keep happening to me, you know.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: I keep getting into the same kinds of relationships, I keep making the same kinds of mistakes, or I keep blowing up in the same way, or whatever it might be.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that and that kind of repetition is a good indicator that there's something unconscious driving it, you know.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, um that it's something that, despite our best efforts, seems to just keep happening.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, um, that's a very strong indicator.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's something in shadow that's driving it from behind the scenes, you know.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because we all, you know, so so what what one one way to start is to think of ourselves as we're not one homogenous, unified personality.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're made up of lots of different parts.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think just that awareness can really help to start to bring a bit of allowing, you know, that okay, I yeah, there is this part of me that is gets gets triggered and anxious in this situation.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not all of me, you know, right?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's just this part, you know.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of like like to think of it like we're you know, we're driving a bus and we're you know, we have this cast of characters that were that were hauling around with us, you know.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: We've there's still that seven-year-old that's scared of dad or or whatever, that teenager that's angry about this.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Those are those are all still in us.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it and in certain circumstances they'll get activated, right?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I like to think of it, that that character will just run forward and take the wheel, and now that seven-year-old is driving the bus, right?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and and we have that experience of those behaviors where like, that was not like me, you know, that to that I I don't know, I said that, but it's nearly not like me to do that, or you know, I don't know why I keep doing that in that in that situation.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: So so what we'll start to do is, and this is why we work in longer sessions, is to slowly, and as it is safe and comfortable for a client to do it, start to explore those parts.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what are what what what parts are involved here in this in this situation?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then rather than talking about those parts, what we'll do is we'll really embody them, like allow that part to be fully expressed, right?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we were talking about earlier, uh, when you're allowing your negative, what you're you know, as we're quote unquote, negative, uncomfortable thoughts and feelings to come forward, is to give them full expression, to talk as that part.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: What does that part think?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: What does that part feel?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: What does that part want?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then start to lay out, it's like untangling a ball of thread, you know, and starting to lay out what does this look like in my psyche?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: What is what are who are these different characters and what are they saying to me?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because they they speak up in in voices in our head, you know.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we the the the these characters that are unbidden and uninvited chatter into us all the time, right?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: All the time, you know?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and we'll start to unpack those.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then very often there will be some kind of a link back to things that have happened in the past, to decisions that we uh, you know, I like to think of it kind of innocently ways that we innocently use the creative power of thought against ourselves, right?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and um, because we made decisions perhaps in the past, I'm not gonna be like that, you know, or that I'm not gonna let myself be like this or think like this or or feel this, and all that stuff got put away.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's gradually and safely allowing that those parts to be unpacked in a space where nobody's gonna get hurt, there's no consequences, we can we can just explore it and see what those dynamics are.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's only one part because that that gives us some awareness, you know, of you know, let's say we're in a you know, let's say, you know, that's thinking of that stuckness that you're talking about as let's say we're stuck in a room, right?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: We can spend a lot of time exploring that room that we're stuck in, and we can spend a lot of time understanding how we got into the room in the first place, but that might not be enough for us to open the door and walk out of the room and make different choices, you know.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it's but you know, the the understanding and insight is one part, but it's not the full part, it's then how do we use that to make different choices, you know?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And where we often get to is actually an understanding that all of those different parts of us, all of those different voices, they're just thoughts.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And in reality, none of them are real, they're all made up, you know, and that can bring a certain freedom as well to realize I've got this chattering voice in my head that tells me this is not safe, I better not do this, but whatever it might be, it's just a thought.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and that and that can that that can bring quite a lot of freedom when we get to that point of being able to release those and realize actually sitting behind that thought, there's a there's a me, you know, there's a core me, and and sometimes we want to use spiritual language around that and sometimes not.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't really matter.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: But there's if I'm observing that thought, if I'm hearing that voice, well, I'm the observer, I'm not, I'm not that thought, you know, and we all get very identified with this these chattering voices in our head.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: We get very identified with them, and we'll go down rabbit holes of identification with this anxious, fearful part, and it feels very real because that thinking then comes with a lot of emotion.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: That thinking happens, and then along with it comes the emotions of fear, anxiety, all of those uncomfortable things.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now we very often, because it feels like they come from the outside world, we'll very often take that fear and anxiety.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're trying to get rid of, is that and we'll start to rearrange stuff, try to rearrange stuff in the external world so that we no longer feel those things.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: But actually the change comes from within because it's our thinking that's creating the emotional response.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when we can start to be Less afraid of those different characters.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we all have this persona that we've created.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, at a certain point in our life, we decide we're going to be in a certain way.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: We we get very busy with the persona that we've we've we've formed.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: But if we're busy with the person we're trying to be, the and this was Jung's insight, then they're by definition the person we're trying not to be.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And again, that doesn't go away, you know, and eventually that's gonna catch up with us, you know, because actually who are we in our fullness?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And this is why very often these things start to come out, perhaps in the middle of life.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we kind of call it a midlife crisis.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: I like to call it more a midlife awakening, right?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is that these that the person we've been trying to be for a long time, well, the person we've been trying not to be stops willing to be silent and starts piping up a lot more, you know, and that can start to be a bit discombobulating.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's really it's really fascinating you say that because I'm 55 and uh you know it was such a out-of-the-blue thing, right?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: That I had a hard time uh like you know, what is going on here?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, I've been this way for many, many years, uh filtering myself, trying to be super positive, whatever it is.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so so that makes sense, you know.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: At 55, it was actually 54 when it started happening.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, it's like uh I mean just what you said, midlife, now it's like all that stuff from all these years, um starts starts bubbling up and it and it it just won't be silent.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's such a common experience for people to have in their late 40s and 50s and so on.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's uh like you said, very unsettling because for all these decades you've you've been uh forcing yourself to be a certain way, and now all of a sudden, like uh it won't that won't work anymore.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do it.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that's unsettling just for not for just the person, but everybody else too, because it's like who are you now?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, probably most of it happens internally, and uh certainly not recommending that people like you know, because because you can see an extreme version of where all of a sudden it's like I'm getting a divorce, I'm buying that sports car, I'm doing you know what I mean, and they they get into deep trouble because they they didn't know what to do with it.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I and so what you're talking about, uh I like that because it's like if I'm having that, you have a process where I can you can take someone through this so that they don't run off and destroy their whole life, um, you know, saying, I'm gonna listen to these voices now, without you know, some the that that you know that makes sense to me.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, but because like I say, often we have these feelings, and the last place we would think to look is at our own thinking as being the cause of the feelings.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: We look to the external world, yeah.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, if I'm gonna feel better, I better do things out here in the world.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: I better go get me that sports car.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, obviously, I'm unhappy because this marriage is not working, so I'm gonna get divorced and I'm gonna go find somebody else.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what tends to happen is the same things just show up.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, because we actually haven't addressed the root cause, which is our which is what's happening inside our heads, which is the thinking.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but but but you're you know you're absolutely right that that that you know it it we we we we we we spend our lives and it happen it starts really, really early, you know, and it builds over time, which is why you know it takes maybe till later in life for the effects to start to show, where starts in childhood, you know, where we are very clever when kids are super smart and they will intuitively understand what's okay and what's not okay with their primary caregivers.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they arrive with their, you never see a kid, you know, they're they're fully switched on.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: All parts of them are available, you know, they're it go angry, and the next minute they're sad, the next minute they're laughing, then they're crying, and then they're shouting, then they're running.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all on, you know.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Over time, there will be messages that they receive that say, actually, that part is not okay with us.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Your exuberance, your loudness, your gentleness, your whatever it might be.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And a child will always choose attachment, you know, and always choose what's going to give them that love and attachment that they need to survive.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so they will mold themselves to those messages, which are never delivered, which are very rarely delivered explicitly.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: They're delivered through behaviors, they're delivered through, you know, admonishments or whatever it might be.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then that process continues at school with peers, what's okay with it with us, what's not okay with us.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: In in our professional lives, it continues and and we mold ourselves bit by bit into the shape that the world tells us we're supposed to be.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then the the cost of that is in the disconnection with our full authenticity, which as you say, kind of comes back later on and and you know, chips us up sometimes.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, it's exactly right.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I can see, you know, I see how many structures within our society that do that.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have religious narratives that that are very controlling.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: We have um, you know, business practices, and we have family, probably the most influential part of of that.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, there's all this um constant like messaging and and discussion and you know, about what's acceptable and what's not, and and you know, in this point in the world right now, because we're certainly seeing it a lot in America, but I'm sure other places too, uh, a lot of conversations about trans and and different people where and it's like a culturally, societally, there's just large segments of people that are like, I just want to be who I want to be, and why can't I be that way?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I do get frustrated.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I have my own beliefs about different things, right?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's religion or whatever it is.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I do get really frustrated of why can't people just leave people alone and let them be who they want to be, you know, because of uh my own.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was censored, I was censored a lot growing up, very like strict religious, religiously, but then I also censored myself uh for all these years, and now I'm I'm just now really realizing how much it's hindered me from from really experiencing the life I could.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now I've had a good life, I've had a many, many great experiences, I've achieved a lot, and so on.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't help but go, yeah, but if I knew this, so it'd be even better, right?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: So so I get frustrated with um you know a lot of the the stuff going on in society and culture that's unnecessary.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you if you're running a business, you you you certainly you know have certain standards of conduct and so on, you need that.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but there are many things in society where it's just like it doesn't hurt for people to let them be however they want to be.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you censoring people?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you trying to control that?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not your life, man.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what I mean?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a constant bombardment of these messages about what's okay and what's not okay.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we and and and and like you know, just picking up on what you said there, you know, you you it sends up you, you know, you could you grew up in a in a in a in a in a religious upbringing and there was censoring of you happened, and then you censored yourself.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what happens.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: We internalize that, we internalize those messages, and they become the and and the younger they come at us, the more kind of baked into us they can be.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that the the it's not even that we're aware of it, it just becomes the paradigm through which we view the world, you know.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, um, and and until we until we maybe see what the see see see differently.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I mean, I I I I share your frustrations and and I also know that that you know that that's the that's the power of the shadow playing out on the on the macro level, in terms of not allowing people to be who they are.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what is you know, if somebody's got a particular problem with somebody being gay or trans, what is it that's going on with inside them that is threatened by that?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: That is in some way creating a fearful, threatened, anxious, angry response to the existence of another person.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that you know, that tells us something about what's going on inside that person.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's um that's very true, right?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: We we really see the world through our own lenses, uh, our own filters, and it's it's virtually impossible to step outside of yourself, right?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um there is if you uh this is why I I'm I'm so um like for me, I say leaders are readers, um and leaders are thinkers, because um it's all it's only by learning and like gaining external knowledge from other people, other sources that you can begin to see different perspectives, right?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: That you can introduce to your mind perspectives that weren't there already, that your mind can go, oh, that actually sounds like that would work better than what I'm doing now.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't, if you just stay inside yourself, you're completely limited by by your previous experiences, your past, um what you've learned, your your personal commandments, I call them, which are those uh subconscious, like I can't do this, and I can't do that, and I shouldn't do that, whatever it is, right?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um putting it, those personal commandments is a great way.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I didn't invent that myself, I got it from someone else.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but yeah, I mean that was a real eye-opener to me, is like um, and I've used that in counseling at times where people say, Well, I don't, or I believe, or I was told that, you know, those are clues that there's a personal commandment that's running the show right there, and it gives us a chance to say, Well, is that really true, though?
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, like that belief, uh, like you mentioned it, that belief that uh activity or that filtering served a purpose and it was necessary, it was a survival mechanism because of a relationship you were in before or job or whatever it is.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now, as it's still serving you, you can change it whenever you want.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, because our brains are malleable from till the day we die, our brains are malleable, and that's the beauty of it.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because we can change our mind.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: We I mean, we we we we can change our mind in a heartbeat, you know, and and it, you know, it's interesting to me that that we have innate well-being, you know, there's a part of us that's completely whole, that's not broken, that's not traumatized, that's not hurt.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: That that core is within us.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and the the the the the suffering comes through the the stories we're telling ourselves about the things that have happened or the things that might happen.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And those come through all of our experiences and and and and for for very good reason are there to keep us safe or you know, and and and and and and patterns that we set up or strategies that we had that worked many years ago that are still running now, despite the fact that we're you know completely in a different context and a different situation.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: But just nobody told that part of us to you know that it was time to stand down, that it's actually safe now, you know.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um but we're we're we're one thought away from that that place in us which is which is healthy and which is unbroken.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that and that thought, you know, if for everybody to find for themselves, but once we kind of realize that we are not our thinking, that can get us there really quickly, as quickly as any amount of therapy you know, can get us to the place of going, oh, that's just thought.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's just thought.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: And our whole experience is mediated through thought, and our emotions are a function of what and how we're thinking.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that it can that can lead us to another use of emotion or another understanding of emotion, which is if I am, you know, all that really exists is is what's happening right now.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the extent that I'm invested in the past or invested in the future, kind of making it up, you know.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and and you know, we when we see that that actually all of our past experiences lead us to have these chattering voices in our heads telling us this is not going to work, this is unsafe, you shouldn't be doing this, all of this stuff.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's often enough to step back and go, well, that's not that's not that's just thought, you know.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and and the more perhaps anxious or angry or sad that we're feeling about these things in the past or the future, that's telling us that we're in a rabbit hole of thought.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that if I'm feeling anxious, it's telling me that and and the thing that I might, you know, I classic thing is like say being afraid of flying, right?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was talking to to a client who's got a fear of flying.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, when does the when does the fear start?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Oh, well, you know, when I'm when I'm booking my flight, when if I get as soon as I've booked the flight, I start to get anxious.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, yeah, are you generally afraid of computers?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Well, no.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Well, it's it's not a fear of flying then, is it?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're not flying right now.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're you're the fear is coming when you're booking the flight.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the fear is about flying, but it's not really a fear of flying, it's a fear of the thoughts that are created around what might happen around flying.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's still thinking, you know, it's not actually the flying, it's the thinking about the flying.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's I love that.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's so many things I love about what you just said.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I love the innate healthy or innate whole part, and I and I think that has to be true, otherwise, we'd be kind of screwed, right?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you couldn't get to a place, if there wasn't some part of you inside of you that that is whole, right?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is that is healthy, how could you ever like get to a place of of wholeness health?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that makes sense to me.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've always I've always felt like uncomfortable, you know, there's some some like sort of spiritual narratives around uh that that's like that innate part uh is one with God and knows knows everything actually and and knows all about the future, and it's just and I've always felt like I can't get there, but I can understand that there's a part of me that knows me that that that is trying to get you know healthy or whatever, or or is trying to uh help me experience that outwardly, whatever.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I I I understand that.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I and that part has a drive towards wholeness, you know, it's that it's that part that takes us to therapy in the first place, right?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: There is a we know that that well-being is possible, it's that part that knows it, right?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, right.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and the and the other part that that I was thinking as you were talking is that this is this is sort of ancient wisdom, right?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is um for when you when you go back to um many ancient peoples and and some ancient philosophers and stuff, this idea observing um thoughts is not a new concept, right?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that um you know we need to be reminded we need to teach people because we're we're sort of like really, really focused um on uh oh, you feel bad, take a pill.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: You feel bad, do a the you know, you feel bad, do shopping, whatever it is, right?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it for for our capitalist economy, it works really well.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it works like a chart.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: And give them the idea that you can't get there yourself, you need our product, our skin cream, our whatever it is, right?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that sells a lot of products, but it doesn't make people better, it doesn't make them healthier whole.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's exactly right, you know.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, this is ancient, this is ancient stuff, you know.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and you know that it's why I kind of say, well, I don't like to use the phrase midlife crisis, I like to to use the phrase midlife awakening, and it's not in a kind of a spiritual sense.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can use spiritual language, it kind of depends.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Is that that's up to your own belief system, sure, but that it comes to, you know, we we get it's an archetypal human pattern, it seems to be, that we get very invested in our thinking minds and our ego until we get to a point where we realize something will happen in our lives that will shake that up, you know, and we'll realize hold on a second, I'm not that person that I thought I was, I'm not these thoughts that I thought I was.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're seeing life with a different perspective.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's a journey that we all seem to be going on, you know.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you can, you know, give it all sorts of language, but that just seems to be an archetypal journey that that we at some point are able to, or life tends to force us to take that step and say, well, actually, yeah, I'm not I'm not that person I thought I was, or that person I was trying to be.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm more than that.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's you know, it's kind of almost like we've outgrown that particular pot, and we need a bigger pot to to to replant ourselves in that that's got a more holistic understanding of of all of that.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that's very, very ancient, you know, and meditation is exactly that is sitting quietly, counting your breaths, and you quickly realize it, and it sounds like the easiest thing in the world.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: How could that be hard just to sit there and count your breath?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: But until you realize that you're not going to get to 10 and you're gonna be down a rabbit hole of thought, and you have gonna have forgotten that you were sitting there counting your breath.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: Until you bring until you realize and then you bring yourself back.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that practice of of realizing, oh, I was thinking.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you we can really experience ourselves going down that that's happening all over our lives all the time.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that disappearing down these rabbit holes of thought, listening to these chattering voices, you know, you know, and all of that thinking kind of sounds the same in our head, but I can I think there's kind of three different types, you know, of thinking, but it's all the same energy, it's all the same process.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: But there's this chattering thought that leads us down these rabbit holes that we can get very, very lost in for a long period of time before we kind of come back.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: Then there's the thought where I'm in the present and I'm using my mind for a task.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm writing or I'm doing some work, but I'm I'm applying my mind.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's another kind, which is the quiet intuition or just knowing wisdom that lives within us.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and the more we're lost in this chattering monkey up here, the less available we are for that quiet knowing, you know.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm working with with clients.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's the that's the voice I'm I'm looking for, is that quiet knowing, that intuitive wisdom that is lives within all of us, you know, and that that that to me speaks to that part of innate well-being that's that's there, you know, um, alongside all of the very real suffering and trauma and things that happen in our lives that are very difficult and damaging and painful, and all of that.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's uh so am I choosing who I want to be when we get when you talk about innate wholeness or innate wellness, am I deciding this is who I want to be?
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or am I discovering who I who I really am and who I'm innately am, I guess would be the question.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: I th I think that's a journey between those two poles.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you like, that's a journey that we're on, in the sense that I think early in life, it's very much ego-driven of deciding I am master of my own destiny and I'm going to construct this life where I'm going to achieve X, Y, Z, I'm going to have this house, I'm going to drive this car, I'm going to be this kind of person.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's very much ego-striving stuff.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now, very often things will happen in our lives that deconstruct that ego's charge on being the center of everything in our lives.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: And at that point, we're in a kind of a deconstruction where we're we're then discovering what was whole, what was there, what was underneath all along.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: That I actually always knew was there, you know.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that then becomes more of a discovering than a than a than a creating.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a quieter process than all of that ego stuff, you know.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you can't get rid of the ego, you know, it's there and it's gonna keep doing its thing, and it's very, very useful.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: It just you just can't be the one that's in charge because that gets us onto all sorts of mess, you know.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, no, I hear that.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I think what's um cause because when you talk about I that's just a thought, but that's not me, right?
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's a thought, then it's like, well, who am I or what am I?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Is the is the next question, right?
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: If these thoughts aren't me, then what am I?
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, who am I?
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's the that's the path we're we're we're all walking.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the you know, in the in the Zen tradition, and the they they call it the pathless path, right?
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's no there's no map for that.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, if if if somebody else tells you how to find that, you can guarantee it's not that.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if somebody says just follow these five steps or whatever, right?
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can guarantee it's not that, right?
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because it it's a it's a it's it's a path that unfolds by walking, you know.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a beautiful poem by uh an Irish poet called John O'Donohue, and I'm probably going to misquote it.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um he says, I I I I wish to or I I long to live like the the the river flows, surprised by its own unfolding.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like that is a discovery that we that we that we find by walking our our path.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not the one that we find by the way that we think everything should be, striving to be in the world and the and what we're putting on it, which comes from all the lessons we learned when we're young, how we were supposed to be, how we should.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever the word should shows up, yeah, you know you're in you know you're in that kind of thinking, you know.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's really powerful.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean uh one of one of the things that uh I discovered was or that occurred to me once I decided I actually experimented.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was it was in the evening and I'd been I read a lot of different stuff, and so I I had this epiphany about what I told you earlier about there's all this backlog of thoughts and emotions, and since I won't let it happen when it when I'm conscious, it waits till the middle of the night, and that's when it's but but my conscious mind was so attuned to to not allowing that stuff that I would lay there at night with a blank mind, right?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's something wanted to get out, but I wouldn't let it, it was all stuck.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: So so anyway, when I said, Okay, from now on, I'm gonna let things flow, and there was uh it I've been sleeping better, I've been sleeping well ever since.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: But but it's and that's your own wisdom.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's an example of your own wisdom, that insight coming from your wisdom, right?
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: You're reading stuff, so you got some understanding, but then you're like, you have this epiphany, and that's how that inside out wisdom comes.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: It comes in insight, it comes in ways that shifts our perception.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't come with a lot of thought content, it comes with a shift in awareness, a shift in perception.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and that's just testament to the the awesome wisdom that lives inside you that you got yourself to that point, and now you're sleeping better, right?
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's incredible.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and one of the things I realized was that um I'm gonna have to accept like fear is a real part of my life.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to accept depressions at times.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to accept like all the things that I was afraid of, all these thoughts.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I go, I didn't realize how afraid of thoughts I were, my own thoughts.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I always considered myself to be a fearless person.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was served for many years in the army, I was a paratrooper, I've been to war, all this stuff, right?
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: But um, so but what that I'm a fearless person taught me to do is not allow myself to be afraid, not allow myself to have fear thoughts and whatever.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I was denying a big part of myself, and I go, I'm gonna have to accept that sometimes I'm gonna be afraid, sometimes I'm gonna feel depressed, sometimes I'm gonna, but it again, it doesn't mean I have to act on those things, it just means I'm gonna feel them and and stop, you know, stop stopping them, right?
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like and I would have never gotten there if I was sleeping fine, if I you know, if there wasn't some thing where I've tried everything else, um, and I cannot keep going without sleeping.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, eventually I'm gonna die if I don't get some sleep.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, my body was getting into a crisis mode of where I was so exhausted I would sleep, right?
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: But that would be one night, and then the next two nights I would be just a mess, right?
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so so um, with without that crisis, I'm not changing anything, except um what I would do is if I'm not succeeding as much in business, I would more positive thoughts, more more positive, right?
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: I would just keep pushing until it's finally like I don't even care right now.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: I I could I I just need some sleep.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta figure out how to sleep, and something's going on.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so it's like um we sort of need that crisis mode uh for us to be to start doing that.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you mentioned, we spent our whole life like pushing for goals and striving.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're taught that we're taught that that that's the way to be positive, that's the way to succeed is to this egocentric uh push, and and eventually you hit a wall or you crash or you whatever, like you get into crisis to go, okay, something has to change, and and like you said, all all along there's this innate sense of this is not who you really are, um, and just allowing that, but but the other piece of it I love to too is like that's a journey we could get in a hurry.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, to like, oh well, I gotta fix all this, so I can I can da-da-da.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, that's not how it's gonna work either.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've got to just say that's more that's more striving and training and efforting and more performance, exactly.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: All the things that we learned to do that got us in this situation in the first place, yeah, exactly.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I I was able to say, Well, if I can just get a little better sleep each night, if I could just start feeling a little better each day, um, it'll be worth it.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out like the change was actually pretty dramatic pretty quickly.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was, but the the beauty is the discovery of yourself, you're like, Oh, I really am this way.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I really, you know, I I didn't know I had that fear, and and even even to in even the feelings that fear induces, like the the adrenaline and what happens in your body, embracing that as a as a temporary reality, um, that feels good too.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like uh it's like when I was walking last night, it was like, but I'm feeling the whole world so much better, like I'm fully feeling the world.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm only gonna live however many years I do, so many years.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to feel all there is, I want to experience all there is to experience.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that means I can embrace the uncomfortable too.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because as you said, there's something behind that, it's not just uh random, like a fear thought.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: But if but if I let that thought kind of like have its and observe it, I can understand.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, what what's what what I need to do is I'm afraid of this thing.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if I take this action that will protect against, I'll be fine.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what the fear was trying to get me to do is take a specific action, maybe.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um not the fear is signaling danger, right?
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a you know, and there's a there's a thought that says there's something dangerous in the environment somewhere, you know.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and and and and that's all the fear is doing is is is alerting us to that, is is to that there's there's some sense of some sense of danger somewhere.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: And is it is it and that could either be because there really is, I mean there might be a lion over there in the long grass, you know.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um or it might even my thinking is off that I have an old story that says this situation is dangerous.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually not, it's just an old part of me is pattern matching here, you know.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and and and telling me that this is dangerous when in fact it reminds me of danger that I experienced when I was young.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of a situation in the past and it's just pattern matching.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so it could just be my thinking is off, or there might be genuine danger, but but but stepping back to observe is the you know is the way through.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like you've you've really got yourself to uh um an expanded state of awareness and and and an experience in your life through through allowing, you know, um um these these things to to to come through, which is you know, there's exactly you you you know therapized yourself, right?
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is exactly what we're we're often doing in therapy is creating a safe space where these difficult things can be allowed to be expressed and be allowed to to to come forward in a in a safe way.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the other thing I realized too is that I I'm gonna have to let other people um be the same, right?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because part of it was like if I'm censoring myself and then say my wife gets angry at something that I think she shouldn't be angry at, then I get angry at her for getting angry because she should be censoring herself, yeah, and she doesn't want to censor herself on that, yeah, right.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: So so it's like um that was the other thought.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I have to realize I have to allow others to be who they're allow them to emote and express.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean I I mean if it's if there's an unsafe situation, it doesn't mean I have to let myself be the target or something like that, but it's just like I have to let them uh be who they are and express their anger or frustration or express whatever it uh whatever it is without telling them you shouldn't be that way.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: And why are you being or even thinking like why she shouldn't be that way or whatever?
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because um, you know, so gosh, I'm I'm gonna have to be a whole lot a lot less judgmental, and that's a yeah, that turns out, right?
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and and what but what you're pointing at there is is a is a dynamic that plays out for us all in terms of what triggers us, you know, without without the experience that you've had of allowing yourself to not censor yourself and real the realizations and insights that come through your own wisdom around the fact that you were censoring yourself, if you're still living in that and your wife is not censoring herself, right?
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's very much likely going to trigger you, right?
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: If she, you know, if I'm if I'm you know, I'm I'm holding on to this, I'm censoring myself.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've learned that that's how I'm supposed to be.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not allowed to have all these different expressions of emotion, and somebody else is doing that, I'm not going to be able to allow it in them.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's going to trigger me.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the things that trigger us are a perfect way, very useful way of understanding what's in shadow for us.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I wasn't triggered by that thing in somebody else, you know, it's just a person expressing emotion.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: Could be neither here nor there for me.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: But if I'm if I'm upset by it or triggered by it, then it tells me about something that I'm not accepting in myself.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that kind of brings us back to our discussion earlier about trans people or gay people, is like the things that trigger us and other people tell us about things that we're not allowing in ourselves, you know, um, um, and not allowing to be expressed.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so, because people often say, like, the shadow is unconscious, you know.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: Jung called it the shadow, and and and we can often think that that means it's the dark, gnarly, nasty parts of us.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not, he just meant it's what's unconscious, it's what we're not seeing in ourselves.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be the very there can be a lot of greatness that we've put away in our shadow, you know.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so people will ask, like, well, if it's unconscious, how do I know what's in shadow for me?
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how can I know?
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, and we already talked about that stuckness, the repeated patterns of stuckness, but being aware of when I'm triggered is a great way of knowing what I am not allowing in myself.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's huge.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's one of those like um like super, super uh that's like the joker, the ace card.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like if you get that part, if you get that understanding right there, that can be a life changer just in itself.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh of knowing, okay, I'm triggered by this, what is that about?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and letting that come up.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: That can be that can be, but you have to have the understanding of allowing, otherwise, you know, um, because because I've known for years that if she gets angry, that's triggering, because my dad would used to be really angry, and he used to really, I mean, he would just be very outwardly angry.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: He never he never like hit us or anything, but he just everybody, you know, it just everybody was scared and screwing off and stuff.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so but that still didn't help me.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: I still got triggered every single friggin' time, yeah.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: But but but by doing this, allowing I'm able to to say, well, you know, that that part of me, that child that gets triggered when she gets I allow that without trying to stop it, whatever.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: I just you know, and then in just a little bit, it's like uh I'm good, I'm safe.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: She's not dad.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not uh he doesn't, she doesn't have authority over me, he's not even directing it at me.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't have to force that narrative, it just sort of happens in the course of allowing the thoughts to to go, you know what I mean?
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and it becomes less it's less triggering because I'm not afraid then of what I might think as a result of it, and so on and so forth.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you're and you're not picking a fight with it either, you're not trying to push away the fact that it does have and it probably or may always bring something up for you when she gets angry, right?
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: But it's but it's your ability to not react from that place of knowing, oh I I know this, I know this old friend, you know.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: This character always shows up at this point in time.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, he's he I don't have to, you know, he's he's not getting to drive the bus right now.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_01: I hear you, yeah.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I know it's not dad.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I cannot get drawn into identifying with that reaction to it and then acting out of that place where I'm now angry at her anger, and now we're in a now we're just in a now we're just on autopilot, we're two seven-year-olds, you know, each other.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right, that's exactly right.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when people start doing this, because we we need to wrap up.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I can talk about this for a long time because this is fascinating stuff.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when people are able to begin to to do this and and do this shadow work and and begin to laugh, what kind of uh changes have you seen in people's lives?
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think what we've just talked about, increased choices and how we react in situations, the ability to hold my reaction, to know where it's coming from, to not I to be sucked into an emotive reaction, to that awareness and freedom, you know, it just brings more freedom.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as I say, these parts of us are not going to go away.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if I know that that I you know, to some degree, I'm always gonna feel that, and that's okay.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's allowing me the space between the stimulus and the response to to step back and see where it's coming from.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: To also uh not be making uh you know, kind of being able to free myself from for ourselves from this kind of compulsive choices, compulsive behaviors, um, which again are a good indicator of what's what's driving the bus behind the scenes, you know.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, in in summary, I would I would say freedom, um, an increased ability to choose in the moment and and have better reactions, better, make better choices in the moment where we may have before been driven by unconscious parts of ourselves.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's um there's a book I'm reading or I've been reading, it's called Trauma of Money, and it and it really makes that point of it goes through a lot of our different um uh uh ways we handle money, compulsive spending, uh over uh hoarding, you know, all the different kinds of like uh coping mechanisms people have with money that are not helpful to them.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really it talks about how this these are trauma responses.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's what you're talking about, right?
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_00: This compulsive spending people often have that gets them into a lot of trouble.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's really a trauma response from something in childhood or something before.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, money unfortunately is one of those ones that you really, you know, it's um you can just get in so much trouble so quickly uh financially, and it can be really hard to get out of.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and you're just behaving and you just you want to do smart with money, you've read all the and the point they make in the book is that you can do all the money management classes you want, yeah.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_00: But until you you get to the trauma response, it's caught it's not gonna, it's not gonna you can know to make a budget, you can know to not overspend, but if you don't clear those trauma responses, you're still gonna be a compulsive spender, and then you're in this concept, what's wrong with me?
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't I be smart with money?
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, kind of thing.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be relationships, a lot of other stuff.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely right, absolutely right.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know, m money speaks to value, to power, to control, all of these things that that in in childhood money can show up in ways that teach us very, very damaging, traumatic lessons.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and and you know, I completely relate to what you're saying there.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: I completely agree with you.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: So uh just to wrap it up, what what are ways that people um we're gonna put like web your website and all that stuff in the show notes, but if people are just listening, what is the best way to get in touch with you or or get the information and see your work and so on?
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: So a couple of sites.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_01: So my my therapy website is deepprocess therapy.com.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um you can get my you can get in touch with me there.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: The Shadow at Work book.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also writing parts of that as I go along on my Substack, which is at theshadow at work.com, and then also on Instagram at theshadow at work.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: Those would be three good places to find me.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, it's been great talking to you, Kenny, and likewise, I really enjoyed this.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I love doing these podcasts because I always, if no one else listened to this, I'm better, I'm at a better place because I had you as a guest.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoyed it.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really enjoyed it.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for the invitation.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a really enjoyable conversation.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd love to have you back when you get your book uh published and out there.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to have you back, and and we can talk about the book specifically.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I would enjoy that very much.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: I look forward to it.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, have a great one.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Nail.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_00: Cheers.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.