Latest / I Choose Me with Jennie Garth / I Choose … What’s Going Right with Dr. Paul Conti

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I Choose … What’s Going Right with Dr. Paul Conti · I Choose Me with Jennie Garth

0:01
Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Hello, Hello, Hello,
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Speaker 1: welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is about making
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Speaker 1: choices that focus on what's going right. My guest has
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Speaker 1: helped the likes of Kim Kardashian and Lady Gaga, but
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Speaker 1: his method isn't just for celebrities. He has this incredible
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Speaker 1: way of helping you understand yourself on a deeper level
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Speaker 1: so you can actually decide what you want your life
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Speaker 1: to be. I cannot wait to jump into Mental Health
0:39
Speaker 1: Awareness Month with doctor Paul Kanti. Hi, Doctor Kanti.
0:45
Speaker 2: Hello, it's nice to meet you. I appreciate you having
0:47
Speaker 2: me on.
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Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that you are here today with me.
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Speaker 1: Thank you. May is one of my favorite months because
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Speaker 1: it's Mental Health Awareness Month and ooh do we need
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Speaker 1: this awareness now more than ever. Really feels like we're
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Speaker 1: in a real decline in our collective level of happiness
1:06
Speaker 1: in this world. As I read your book What's Going Right,
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Speaker 1: I realized that you really are introducing us to a
1:14
Speaker 1: new sort of framework for improving our mental health. I
1:20
Speaker 1: was very intrigued by everything you were talking about, one
1:23
Speaker 1: of them being the three internal drivers, the assertion drive,
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Speaker 1: the pleasure drive and the generative drive. We're going to
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Speaker 1: break those down in detail in our bonus episode. But
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Speaker 1: these are all new terms to me. So what in
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Speaker 1: the world are internal drivers? Tell me?
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Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, Well. It has been long thought in the
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Speaker 2: mental health field that there are two drives that are
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Speaker 2: in every one of us. That there's what is called aggression.
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Speaker 2: I think assertion is a better word, but what has
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Speaker 2: historically been called aggression and pleasure seeking, and that this
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Speaker 2: is in every human being and it's what's literally driving
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Speaker 2: us forward. That's why their drives. And assertion or aggression
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Speaker 2: is about being able to maneuver in the world around
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Speaker 2: us and make change in the world around us. And
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Speaker 2: pleasure isn't just seeking things that are overtly pleasurable, but
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Speaker 2: it can be the pleasure of having a roof over
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Speaker 2: one's head or relief from distress. So that we're asserting
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Speaker 2: ourselves or being aggressive, and we're doing it in the
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Speaker 2: service of pleasure of one form or another. And I
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Speaker 2: think it's so clear that this doesn't make any sense.
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Speaker 2: I think that if we only had aggression, high levels
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Speaker 2: of assertions, aggression and pleasure seeking, that we wouldn't be here.
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Speaker 2: A long, long, long time ago, human beings would have
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Speaker 2: gone away, and that model doesn't explain why, for example,
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Speaker 2: one person might do something kind for another without any
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Speaker 2: expected benefit. The theories have to kind of gyrate and say, well,
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Speaker 2: you want to feel good about yourself because you can
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Speaker 2: do something good and that's your pleasure, And it doesn't
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Speaker 2: really make sense right. People do things that are altruistic,
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Speaker 2: people do things for other people. People create art and
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Speaker 2: beauty for no reason other than to create art and beauty.
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Speaker 2: That there's something else going on inside of us. And
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Speaker 2: then when you see when human beings in human societies
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Speaker 2: are in healthy places, the assertion drive and the pleasure
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Speaker 2: drive are in balance, and they're sitting under the generative drive,
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Speaker 2: a third drive in humans that I think is clear,
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Speaker 2: and I think our literature and our philosophy have written
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Speaker 2: about this and thought and talked about this for so long,
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Speaker 2: and I think it's also clear in psychology, in our
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Speaker 2: history and our academics. It's clear that this exists, but
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Speaker 2: it hasn't been acknowledged that there's a generative drive, a
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Speaker 2: drive to just make the world a better place around us,
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Speaker 2: a drive to express ourselves and to be in the
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Speaker 2: world with ourselves and with others. And when we look
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Speaker 2: at that truth, then everything comes into line and there
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Speaker 2: are ways of understanding ourselves and now we're putting ourselves
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Speaker 2: on the trajectory to healthy and great lives.
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Speaker 1: Yes, your passion for what you do is incredible. I'm
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Speaker 1: just so happy to be absorbing your lessons. What I'm asking,
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Speaker 1: what are some tips or tools that you have for
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Speaker 1: when we're feeling out of whack, you know, that feeling
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Speaker 1: of just not in alignment. How do we get back
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Speaker 1: into balance mentally?
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Speaker 2: Well, when we feel out of balance, we need to
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Speaker 2: have something to do that's repeatable, rights, something that we say, oh,
4:43
Speaker 2: I could go look at that right, and like that'll
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Speaker 2: help me, that'll help you, It'll help me for the
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Speaker 2: next five things that come up in me. Same with
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Speaker 2: you and everyone else because it applies to humans. So
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Speaker 2: just like if there's a physical health problem and someone
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Speaker 2: has pain in a hip or someone's short of breath,
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Speaker 2: we say, well, there's something that we do, right, we
5:03
Speaker 2: go to see someone or or here it's not necessary
5:05
Speaker 2: to see someone, but there's the idea, is that something
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Speaker 2: happens here right, Like a physician asks a bunch of
5:09
Speaker 2: questions and then does a physical exam and maybe get
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Speaker 2: some labs and then we say, well, let's figure out, oh,
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Speaker 2: you're short of breath. Because of now we've identified a
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Speaker 2: problem that we can go and fix. We need to
5:22
Speaker 2: be able to do that with mental health so that
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Speaker 2: we can understand and build mental health just as we're
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Speaker 2: able to understand and build our physical health. So there's
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Speaker 2: a structure of self and a function of self that's
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Speaker 2: in each of us and we can go there. And
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Speaker 2: in the book, the idea is to explain there's a
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Speaker 2: way of doing this, just like if I were explaining, well,
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Speaker 2: we all have a body and we think about our
5:45
Speaker 2: heart and our lungs and our muscles. So it's doing
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Speaker 2: that for mental health and that leads to good things
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Speaker 2: that then help our drives be in balance. So we
5:56
Speaker 2: have to have somewhere to go and something to do.
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Speaker 2: And if we approach ourselves with compassion curiosity, and we
6:01
Speaker 2: go look at the structure and function of self, then
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Speaker 2: the vast majority of times we figure things out and
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Speaker 2: they get better. That's why mental health isn't depressing. It's
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Speaker 2: interesting to me that throughout my career people have often
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Speaker 2: thought it must be so depressing to do this, and
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Speaker 2: I think it's not at all. You know, great things
6:18
Speaker 2: happen and people get better and healthier, and I think
6:21
Speaker 2: if we approach it in a way that just makes
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Speaker 2: sense and looks at the truth in us, it's not
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Speaker 2: surprising that the results are different. Right.
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Speaker 1: I personally have found that self awareness and self reflection
6:34
Speaker 1: are really important when it comes to my growth and healing.
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Speaker 1: Why is that from your perspective? Because I feel like
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Speaker 1: it's really tied into what you were just talking about.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So self reflection, for example, is it's great to
6:48
Speaker 2: be able to do that because it's neutral, Right, You're
6:51
Speaker 2: approaching yourself without a bias, right, And what's the bias?
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Speaker 2: In most people? It's not positive, right, it's a negative bias. Right,
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Speaker 2: that we get down on ourselves. We're critical of ourselves,
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Speaker 2: We have a negative self talk inside of us, we
7:05
Speaker 2: create a negative life narrative. Well, these things are not
7:08
Speaker 2: even true. They're bad, and they push us away from
7:11
Speaker 2: health and they also push us away from truth. So like,
7:14
Speaker 2: that can't be good. So when we do that, we're
7:20
Speaker 2: so biased that we almost like start off the quest
7:23
Speaker 2: with hindering ourselves so that we can't figure out the
7:27
Speaker 2: answer that feels worse. We get more frustrated what's wrong
7:30
Speaker 2: with me? We get more angry with ourselves. So the
7:32
Speaker 2: idea is to bring compassionate curiosity to ourselves, the ability
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Speaker 2: to go, Okay, this is interesting, what's going on in me?
7:39
Speaker 2: I want to look at it. So if my performance
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Speaker 2: at work has been getting worse over the last four months,
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Speaker 2: and I was doing a good job before, but I've
7:48
Speaker 2: gotten a warning or to people will oh God, what's
7:51
Speaker 2: wrong with you? They're mad at themselves, or damn it,
7:53
Speaker 2: why are you doing that? And we do these things
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Speaker 2: that then take us away from truth as opposed to
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Speaker 2: seeing it's interesting that this happens. Right, I'm a person
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Speaker 2: who values doing a good job, and I haven't been
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Speaker 2: right these last four months. Why what did something change?
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Speaker 2: Did something happen in there? Now we're looking at ourselves
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Speaker 2: in a way that is curious and that has a
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Speaker 2: framework of understanding that says, oh, we can figure that out.
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Speaker 2: A lot of it becomes detective work in a way
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Speaker 2: that says, oh, let's go look at that. Maybe there's
8:24
Speaker 2: a physical health incident. Then maybe something happened in life
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Speaker 2: that we thought was minor or mild, but is really
8:31
Speaker 2: affecting us much more. Maybe there was a change in
8:33
Speaker 2: the job setting around that time and I didn't feel
8:36
Speaker 2: able to perform as I was before. But by going
8:39
Speaker 2: and looking at it, we can figure it out. Most
8:41
Speaker 2: of the time the answer lies in us. But I
8:43
Speaker 2: think that's okay. When the answer lies in us and
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Speaker 2: we can see what it is, we can then write
8:49
Speaker 2: the situation right.
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Speaker 1: So often you hear people say like, oh, you know,
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Speaker 1: they do what they do or they react the way
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Speaker 1: they react, and they say, oh, that's just me, That's
9:03
Speaker 1: how I'm built. But I think, like what you're talking
9:06
Speaker 1: about is even in a situation that's not like questioning
9:10
Speaker 1: something at work, but like maybe it's how you reacted
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Speaker 1: in the moment, like a you know, a snap reaction
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Speaker 1: or decision or and maybe you didn't handle it the
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Speaker 1: best way you could. That's an opportunity to say, ooh hm,
9:23
Speaker 1: let's look at that, like why did I just react
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Speaker 1: that way? I don't want to react that way. I
9:28
Speaker 1: know that's not me being the best me I can
9:31
Speaker 1: be in the situation. It's that kind of self inquiry,
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Speaker 1: And you suggest that we kind of create a self
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Speaker 1: inquiry practice, right, so that we can identify those moments.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and I think the example you gave was it
9:44
Speaker 2: was even a better one because it's the kind of
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Speaker 2: thing that happens to us all the time. It happens
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Speaker 2: to pretty much any one where we respond to something
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Speaker 2: differently than we would like. You know, maybe someone does
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Speaker 2: something and we don't like it so much. When we
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Speaker 2: say something really short, you know, to them, or someone
9:59
Speaker 2: say something we don't like, and we kind we hide away,
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Speaker 2: We try and get away to understand that we have
10:06
Speaker 2: to come at ourselves with some compassion. Most of the time,
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Speaker 2: it's not that it's like, oh, I did it again
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Speaker 2: when you said, oh, that's me. You know, that's not
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Speaker 2: a neutral statement in the person well that's me, No,
10:19
Speaker 2: that's someone like, well that's me. There's a sense of
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Speaker 2: hopelessness or a sense of self criticism to it. So
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Speaker 2: so often our reflexes are to see ourselves through those lenses,
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Speaker 2: which is why we have to make efforts to not
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Speaker 2: do that. To say, okay, I have to stop and
10:34
Speaker 2: ground myself to compassionate curiosity. I have to realize there's
10:37
Speaker 2: a way I can understand myself, so I don't have
10:40
Speaker 2: to be afraid of looking at the problem. Why did
10:41
Speaker 2: I react that way? It's okay, right, I'm gonna learn
10:45
Speaker 2: something and I'm gonna make myself healthier. This is the
10:46
Speaker 2: end of the world. It's okay. So when I do that,
10:49
Speaker 2: let me approach myself in an open way. These are
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Speaker 2: the things that lead us to answers, but so often
10:56
Speaker 2: we're not finding answers. But things can get worse and worse,
10:59
Speaker 2: but we don't see is right. We're approaching ourselves in
11:02
Speaker 2: such a stilted way that we're not giving ourselves any hope.
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Speaker 2: And what we need to do is look at ourselves,
11:08
Speaker 2: often as we would look at someone else and say, okay,
11:11
Speaker 2: let's just think if you reacted. Most people would say
11:13
Speaker 2: to someone else, if you acted in a way you
11:15
Speaker 2: didn't like. I don't know, let's think about it. I
11:17
Speaker 2: guess if someone would say to a friend, right, But
11:19
Speaker 2: often we can't do that for ourselves. So if we
11:21
Speaker 2: can't do that for ourselves, have a friend do it
11:24
Speaker 2: with us. Right, look at ourselves in that interested way,
11:27
Speaker 2: and boy, how many of our problems will solve? Right? Yes?
11:31
Speaker 1: Because I think when you do kind of I love
11:35
Speaker 1: inner child work, or even if it's just kind of
11:37
Speaker 1: that sense of talking to myself and sort of you know,
11:41
Speaker 1: auto like self correcting when it's necessary, but instead of
11:45
Speaker 1: doing it in a negative way, or like ough, you
11:47
Speaker 1: did it again, like this is how you do this
11:50
Speaker 1: and you keep making the same mistake over and over
11:52
Speaker 1: in your life, like to gently just ask yourself, like, hmm,
11:56
Speaker 1: is that how I want to show up and then
11:59
Speaker 1: answer that question for yourself?
12:02
Speaker 2: Right, you said, instead of doing it in a negative way.
12:05
Speaker 2: But the idea is it may be impossible to do
12:08
Speaker 2: it in a negative way, right that if you approach
12:10
Speaker 2: yourself that way, you can't find the answer. Right, But
12:14
Speaker 2: if you approach yourself in a way that's not stilted
12:17
Speaker 2: in such a negative way, then you can find the answer.
12:20
Speaker 2: So often it's a difference between success and failing to
12:23
Speaker 2: understand ourselves, which just often makes us feel worse about
12:26
Speaker 2: ourselves and you know, to feel more afraid and to
12:29
Speaker 2: sort of shy away from inquiry. So the idea is,
12:32
Speaker 2: if we approach ourselves in a positive way, like we
12:34
Speaker 2: can solve our problems, we can understand ourselves. If we
12:37
Speaker 2: approach ourselves in a negative way, it becomes likely that
12:40
Speaker 2: we just can't.
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Speaker 1: So you're suggesting instead of saying, oh, you're an idiot,
12:44
Speaker 1: you did it again, you're suggesting saying, Okay, that's interesting.
12:48
Speaker 1: Let's kind of look at that, like, I think that's
12:51
Speaker 1: much more gentle approach.
12:53
Speaker 2: You're suggesting. Sure, right, I mean if I don't know
12:56
Speaker 2: how you would respond. But if I mean a group
12:59
Speaker 2: of people and I I drop something or I do
13:01
Speaker 2: something that makes me feel a little embarrassed, and someone
13:04
Speaker 2: comes and yells, you're an idiot, right, nothing constructive is
13:09
Speaker 2: going to happen, right, And I feel worse. I'm going
13:11
Speaker 2: to hide away. I feel ashamed, I feel all these
13:13
Speaker 2: negative feelings. But it's worse if you do it to yourself.
13:17
Speaker 2: I mean as bad as it would be someone else
13:19
Speaker 2: comes over and yells at at a person, we're like, wow,
13:21
Speaker 2: that's that's really not appropriate and that's really negative. It's
13:24
Speaker 2: worse when we do it inside. So how are we
13:27
Speaker 2: going to open up? We're not going to respond any
13:30
Speaker 2: better than we would if someone said that to us
13:32
Speaker 2: outside of ourselves. So we need not to do with it,
13:35
Speaker 2: or we're not going to get where we want to be.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely. Maybe people don't want to self reflect or take
13:42
Speaker 1: that time to examine what's going on inside and them,
13:44
Speaker 1: because it can get so painful, because it could be
13:46
Speaker 1: so emotional. Maybe, And how would you suggest we learned
13:49
Speaker 1: to stay compassionately curious instead of just wanting to shut
13:54
Speaker 1: it all down and ignore it.
13:56
Speaker 2: Well, the first response I would give is in the
13:59
Speaker 2: example that you gave, be reflective about why being reflective
14:04
Speaker 2: is painful? Right? Be thoughtful about that? Right? Because we
14:07
Speaker 2: don't have to be afraid of sadness. Right, if what
14:10
Speaker 2: we find inside of ourselves is is real sadness or grief,
14:14
Speaker 2: say about a loss, whatever, It may be a loss
14:16
Speaker 2: of a person, or an opportunity, or just something we enjoyed.
14:20
Speaker 2: So if we approach ourselves in a thoughtful way, and
14:23
Speaker 2: I think, why is it that being reflective makes me sad? Right?
14:28
Speaker 2: It makes me feel bad in some way, what we
14:30
Speaker 2: can do is then we become curious about that, and
14:33
Speaker 2: we start looking at ourselves instead of looking away from it.
14:37
Speaker 2: They said, well, what is in there that I'm finding?
14:39
Speaker 2: Because if it's sadness or grief, we don't have to
14:42
Speaker 2: be afraid of that. You know, sadness doesn't hurt us.
14:45
Speaker 2: There are plenty of things in life that warren't being
14:48
Speaker 2: sad and when we feel sad about them were healthier. No,
14:52
Speaker 2: we don't snap at the next person or hide from
14:54
Speaker 2: something or grab for a drink. It's okay to find sadness.
14:58
Speaker 2: We don't have to be afraid of finding sadness inside
15:00
Speaker 2: of ourselves. There are ways that we can be sad
15:02
Speaker 2: that are consistent with health and happiness. We have to
15:05
Speaker 2: figure that out as human beings and anything else we
15:09
Speaker 2: find is all grist for the mill. Right do I
15:12
Speaker 2: not want to be reflective? Because is it that I
15:14
Speaker 2: find shame inside of myself? So is that I find fear?
15:17
Speaker 2: Let's look at why, because we would like, ideally to
15:22
Speaker 2: help ourselves and be healthy enough that we don't have
15:24
Speaker 2: to be afraid of being reflective because we're not going
15:28
Speaker 2: to find We're not scared of it. We're not finding
15:30
Speaker 2: things that make us afraid. So if I find that
15:33
Speaker 2: they're shame in me, let's look at that and think
15:35
Speaker 2: about why. Because it's not so healthy and happy to
15:39
Speaker 2: avoid being reflective, because when you do, you feel ashamed.
15:42
Speaker 2: We can come at that, we can understand where the
15:44
Speaker 2: shame comes from. It can all be diffused, but we
15:47
Speaker 2: have to approach ourselves with compassionate curiosity, and we have
15:51
Speaker 2: to be willing to look at ourselves, including sometimes saying,
15:53
Speaker 2: why do I not want to look at myself? What
15:56
Speaker 2: is it that I'm scared of?
15:57
Speaker 1: What is it that I'm scared of? Yes, my friend
16:00
Speaker 1: ale as a therapist, and she told me to just
16:02
Speaker 1: ask myself in any given moment, what is it that
16:05
Speaker 1: I need right now? And I think that just even
16:09
Speaker 1: starts the self inquiry process. And like speaking like you said,
16:14
Speaker 1: like speaking to a friend, or as I like to
16:16
Speaker 1: do it, like speaking to a younger version of myself
16:18
Speaker 1: or a child, because I am a mother and I
16:21
Speaker 1: have children, and the way I speak to them is
16:23
Speaker 1: so drastically different than the way my negative voice speaks
16:26
Speaker 1: to me in my own head. And I think going
16:30
Speaker 1: back to that, being more gentle and curious and compassionate
16:33
Speaker 1: is really key. And we don't do that automatically. We
16:37
Speaker 1: just don't.
16:38
Speaker 2: No, it's often much much easier to do that outside
16:41
Speaker 2: of us, where we could approach another person with compassionate curiosity,
16:46
Speaker 2: where if one person came up to another and say,
16:48
Speaker 2: I feel if I said to you her, oh gosh,
16:50
Speaker 2: I started thinking about myself. I feel ashamed. You know,
16:52
Speaker 2: you'd probably say something nice or something inquiring, right like
16:55
Speaker 2: I did. That's what we would do for someone else.
16:57
Speaker 2: But when it's ourselves, it's very different. We hirede from
17:00
Speaker 2: We feel embarrassed about the whole thing. We think it's
17:04
Speaker 2: going to show something about us that we should be
17:06
Speaker 2: scared of, that says something really bad about us. So
17:08
Speaker 2: then we we'll act differently towards anyone else than we
17:13
Speaker 2: would ourselves. And I say this fairly often, and I
17:17
Speaker 2: think it's an important thing to highlight of it. Don't
17:20
Speaker 2: make yourself special in a negative way. And this is
17:23
Speaker 2: often what happens is then we say, well, okay, the
17:26
Speaker 2: other the other billions of people on earth deserve some
17:29
Speaker 2: compassion about this, but I don't. Yeah, don't make yourself
17:34
Speaker 2: special in a negative way, and they'll take much much
17:36
Speaker 2: better care of yourself.
17:37
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Why are why are our brains this way?
17:44
Speaker 2: You know? One thought is that we are trying to
17:46
Speaker 2: find safety in the world. We have to have some
17:49
Speaker 2: basic safety before soer our generative drives can thrive. So
17:52
Speaker 2: that we're looking for negative things because they're they're important, right,
17:57
Speaker 2: If you know, if we're hunting and gathering in we
18:00
Speaker 2: find five different kinds of berries, and four of them
18:03
Speaker 2: are good. It'd be nice to remember that if they're
18:05
Speaker 2: nutritious and tasty. If the fifth one makes us really sick,
18:07
Speaker 2: we really better remember that. So we're built with where
18:10
Speaker 2: there's more salience around negative things. But then because of
18:15
Speaker 2: going through life is hard, right, and we're not working
18:18
Speaker 2: then to keep ourselves in balance because we don't have
18:20
Speaker 2: a way of doing that right. The mental health world
18:24
Speaker 2: has not given us a way of doing that, so
18:26
Speaker 2: that we're not keeping ourselves in balance, and then that
18:29
Speaker 2: looking for the negative gets hijacked. It gets hijacked. Now
18:32
Speaker 2: we're telling ourselves how terrible we are, so that what
18:36
Speaker 2: we stay safer. So I'm going to just bully myself
18:38
Speaker 2: till I can't come out the front door, and that's
18:40
Speaker 2: going to keep me safer. You know, these things are
18:43
Speaker 2: not they're not valid or helpful, but it's not surprising.
18:46
Speaker 2: Life is difficult that we end up there, right. We
18:49
Speaker 2: need to have a way of not ending up there.
18:51
Speaker 2: Just as if we understood nothing about physical health, we've
18:53
Speaker 2: understood absolutely nothing, we wouldn't be able to stay healthy.
19:04
Speaker 1: When you find yourself having one of those thoughts that
19:07
Speaker 1: are not helpful. What do you say to yourself in
19:10
Speaker 1: the moment, like how do you correct the course?
19:15
Speaker 2: Well, I think recognizing it often can just make a
19:19
Speaker 2: pause inside of us, so and they be realized, hey,
19:22
Speaker 2: I'm doing that, or what did I just say, you
19:25
Speaker 2: know to myself, like would you say that to someone else?
19:28
Speaker 2: You know? When I realized that, it gives me a pause,
19:31
Speaker 2: And often the pause will just gather ourselves together, and
19:34
Speaker 2: then I might say something like it's not a secret
19:37
Speaker 2: to me that I have a tendency to be really
19:39
Speaker 2: hard on myself about things if it's just reflexive, So
19:42
Speaker 2: let me realize that it's okay that I did that
19:44
Speaker 2: even though I've been working for years not too you know,
19:46
Speaker 2: it happens less, but it still happens. So what's really
19:49
Speaker 2: going on? You know? How do I really want to inquire?
19:52
Speaker 2: I want to try and learn from this so that
19:54
Speaker 2: it's better. Now I have a fighting chance of understanding
19:57
Speaker 2: myself making things better, whereas before I and have any
20:00
Speaker 2: And often that that pause lets us think a lot
20:04
Speaker 2: of things happen. It can happen in us automatically like dominoes,
20:07
Speaker 2: unless we stop and pause. So I think that's important.
20:10
Speaker 2: It's noticing something that happens automatically because you think, well,
20:13
Speaker 2: how do you stop something that happens automatically, Well, we
20:16
Speaker 2: can't in that sense really stop it. What we can
20:20
Speaker 2: do is effectively stop it if we're aware of what
20:23
Speaker 2: that is and what that feels like, and then we
20:25
Speaker 2: put a stop to it as it starts to happen, like.
20:27
Speaker 1: An interruption into that thought.
20:32
Speaker 2: So bad, right, right? So if you have that oh
20:34
Speaker 2: it's that thing I do, or I say that to myself,
20:36
Speaker 2: it's like, that's a bad feeling, and that feeling can
20:38
Speaker 2: tell us well, let me pause now, because this thing
20:40
Speaker 2: hasn't happened yet where I'm beating up on myself. It's
20:43
Speaker 2: just it's just starting, and that's a bad feeling that
20:46
Speaker 2: tells me, let me stop. Is this what I want
20:48
Speaker 2: to do? So that's what I'm going to choose to
20:50
Speaker 2: do with the next few minutes of my life. I'm
20:52
Speaker 2: going to beat up on myself and think that's going
20:54
Speaker 2: to make things better? Or can I stop and think, Hey,
20:56
Speaker 2: what just happened here and what I want to make
20:59
Speaker 2: of it? About it? That's right?
21:01
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I spend a lot more time talking
21:05
Speaker 1: to myself than I ever did, and that's because I'm
21:09
Speaker 1: really trying to interrupt those negative thoughts, and I'm really
21:12
Speaker 1: trying to question them and get to the bottom of
21:15
Speaker 1: them and ask myself, are they really true? Because most
21:18
Speaker 1: of the time they are not right.
21:21
Speaker 2: And different brain mechanisms come online when we make words.
21:24
Speaker 2: It is very good to put what is going on
21:27
Speaker 2: inside of us into words. Our brains function differently, and
21:31
Speaker 2: error checking mechanisms, empathy mechanisms come online. So that's why
21:36
Speaker 2: sometimes we just can't figure something out or get to
21:39
Speaker 2: any idea of how we feel about something or how
21:42
Speaker 2: we might proceed when it's just bouncing around in our minds.
21:45
Speaker 2: But once we put words to it, we say it
21:47
Speaker 2: to someone else or even to ourselves, because we're still
21:49
Speaker 2: making speech right or we're writing it down. It's very
21:52
Speaker 2: very different, and a putting it outside of you is
21:55
Speaker 2: a different process that happens in your brain. And once
21:58
Speaker 2: it's happened, then you can look at what's outside of
22:01
Speaker 2: you and now you can observe it and think about it.
22:03
Speaker 2: So getting things outside of us and the written or
22:05
Speaker 2: spoken word is often very important.
22:07
Speaker 1: Very important. That's why I love therapy so much and
22:10
Speaker 1: it makes me think of I just started with a
22:12
Speaker 1: new therapist after a long time of not having therapy,
22:16
Speaker 1: and be honest, it's not something I'm excited to get
22:20
Speaker 1: to know or them to get to know me and
22:22
Speaker 1: to kind of feel like I'm starting over again, because
22:25
Speaker 1: that has to happen in order for them to help me.
22:27
Speaker 1: But the first question of a therapy session is usually
22:30
Speaker 1: like how are you feeling? Like where where are we today?
22:34
Speaker 1: Like what are we talking about today? And there's so
22:38
Speaker 1: much going on for me all the time that I'm like, whoa, Okay,
22:43
Speaker 1: let me just stop for a second and figure that out,
22:45
Speaker 1: because yeah, so much is happening without me knowing even
22:49
Speaker 1: what it is.
22:50
Speaker 2: Right. You know, there are many really great, experienced, caring,
22:55
Speaker 2: helpful therapists in the world, but there are also is
22:59
Speaker 2: with any occupation, there are also people who are not
23:03
Speaker 2: being helpful, and there has to be a process of inquiry.
23:06
Speaker 2: So if someone is asking how you're feeling, that might
23:09
Speaker 2: really make sense or it might not right. It might
23:12
Speaker 2: not So I think if we're going to therapy, we
23:15
Speaker 2: have to be educated consumers of therapy just like any product,
23:20
Speaker 2: so we know, am I getting what I want to
23:21
Speaker 2: here my feeling under understood? Am I feeling a connection
23:25
Speaker 2: with the person? Are we looking at what's going on
23:28
Speaker 2: inside of me in a way that really brings new understanding?
23:32
Speaker 2: If not, then one might maybe talk to the therapist right,
23:35
Speaker 2: or one might decide I need a new therapist. I mean,
23:38
Speaker 2: you know, if the car is broken down and you
23:40
Speaker 2: take it to the same mechanic three times and when
23:43
Speaker 2: it comes out nothing is different, you might stop in
23:46
Speaker 2: question that. Right. It doesn't mean someone's doing something wrong,
23:49
Speaker 2: but I mean stop and think about it. Is this
23:52
Speaker 2: the right way to get this accomplished? And I think
23:54
Speaker 2: we have to look at therapy that way too, where
23:58
Speaker 2: there's a process right of both giving oneself over to
24:01
Speaker 2: the therapist as knowledge and it's guiding things, but also
24:04
Speaker 2: staying a strong self that says I have to feel
24:07
Speaker 2: this is helpful to me. And if I don't have
24:09
Speaker 2: to ask questions about that, it may be that there's
24:11
Speaker 2: not any positive change expected for some period of time.
24:15
Speaker 2: Let's talk about that. So it's always good to talk
24:18
Speaker 2: about any concern inside about it. Is this therapy process
24:22
Speaker 2: a helpful process? And unfortunately, very often the answer is no.
24:26
Speaker 2: And that's also a problem in the world of mental
24:29
Speaker 2: health that doesn't have a leadership and guidance and a
24:32
Speaker 2: structure and a foundation, it's going to train a lot
24:35
Speaker 2: of people in ways that are not helpful. Again, that's
24:38
Speaker 2: not everyone, but to stop and step back and look
24:41
Speaker 2: at you know, it's an unhealthy system, so some of
24:44
Speaker 2: its output is going to be unhealthy.
24:46
Speaker 1: Right, and maybe give it some time, right when you
24:49
Speaker 1: start with a new therapist, to sort of be able
24:52
Speaker 1: to give yourself that time to come to that realization
24:56
Speaker 1: is this feeling helpful?
24:57
Speaker 2: And to have a collaborative process. I think if you're
25:01
Speaker 2: having feelings or thoughts or questions, it's important to ask them,
25:06
Speaker 2: right that any process should be a collaborative process. So
25:11
Speaker 2: if you came in to see me, and I'm your therapist,
25:13
Speaker 2: you should ask me, you know, how long do you
25:16
Speaker 2: think it might take before we really know one another
25:18
Speaker 2: before things could get better? Right? It depends on what
25:20
Speaker 2: people are presenting with, you know, one might think, you know,
25:23
Speaker 2: early on getting to know someone, I think we can
25:25
Speaker 2: get some benefit pretty quickly. Or you might think it's
25:28
Speaker 2: going to take us a couple of months of work
25:30
Speaker 2: to get to the place where we can really make change,
25:32
Speaker 2: but the person has to know that otherwise, you know,
25:36
Speaker 2: you don't know and where's this going? And oftentimes the
25:39
Speaker 2: patient feels bad about themselves because they're not getting better
25:42
Speaker 2: after three weeks when maybe it was going to take nine.
25:45
Speaker 2: So checking in about it and asking that is what
25:48
Speaker 2: is there that I, you know, should expect. Is it
25:51
Speaker 2: should be part of any collaborative process, and it should
25:55
Speaker 2: be part of any service process, like I'm a service
25:58
Speaker 2: provider and I should be seen like service providers are
26:01
Speaker 2: seen where the person is assessing the service and is
26:04
Speaker 2: this good? Is this worth a time money effort that
26:07
Speaker 2: I'm putting into it.
26:09
Speaker 1: I love that concept that thinking that it's a collaborative
26:12
Speaker 1: process because I think a lot of times people will
26:14
Speaker 1: go to a therapist and expect them to fix their problems,
26:17
Speaker 1: and when that doesn't happen on the timeframe they have
26:20
Speaker 1: in mind, then they just quit. But you know, I
26:23
Speaker 1: think I love that suggestion. We're going to dive much
26:26
Speaker 1: deeper in our bonus episode into some more of the
26:29
Speaker 1: specifics from your book, which is incredible. Your book, What's
26:33
Speaker 1: Going Right, A powerful new method for optimizing your mental
26:37
Speaker 1: health is available now wherever you get your books before
26:41
Speaker 1: I let you go, though, Right now, doctor Contie, what
26:45
Speaker 1: was your last I choose me moment?
26:48
Speaker 2: You know, as I think about that, it's a small one.
26:52
Speaker 2: It's deciding, even before doing this, to stop and have
26:55
Speaker 2: something to eat in a glass of water, right as
26:58
Speaker 2: opposed to just doing something else that I feel like
27:01
Speaker 2: I should be doing to be productive. And I think
27:04
Speaker 2: a lot of our choose me moments are small ones,
27:07
Speaker 2: but those small ones really add up that there are
27:10
Speaker 2: ways we can just be a little bit easier on ourselves,
27:13
Speaker 2: a little bit nicer to ourselves. And if we stop
27:16
Speaker 2: and think when we're choosing ourselves, often people who are
27:19
Speaker 2: well meaning, choosing ourselves is good for others too. It's
27:22
Speaker 2: not choosing ourselves at the expense of others. And I
27:25
Speaker 2: think a lot of us have a lot of opportunities
27:28
Speaker 2: to have these small choose me moments that add up
27:32
Speaker 2: to something really big, and it'd be good for us
27:35
Speaker 2: to start taking those opportunities. Even as a result of
27:37
Speaker 2: this question, I'm going to take more of them. I know.
27:39
Speaker 1: It brings it to your mind, to the forefront of like, oh,
27:42
Speaker 1: you're right, I forgot about me for a second.
27:45
Speaker 2: So it's easy to do.
27:47
Speaker 1: Look I inspired you. I feel like my day is done,
27:49
Speaker 1: my work here has done.
27:50
Speaker 2: People. Then thank you