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 with vulnerability, anger, helplessness, all these different things, shame, and not let it consume us, but feel it and let it flow.
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Move through us, right?
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And be okay with it.
1
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Okay, I have an uncomfortable conversation today, some feeling, but I'm alive, I'm okay, everything's good now, we actually came together stronger now.
1
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Okay, cool, I can move through it, I feel okay.
1
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And practicing that on a consistent basis.
1
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So that's one thing I wanna talk about.
1
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And then the second thing I wanna talk about is, is it possible
1
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 to just not let things affect us and not need to speak up because we are so okay with ourselves and know that people are people and people do what they do and say what they say and they're in their own stuff and their traumas and okay, I'm not gonna take it personally, I'll process it and I don't need to speak up, maybe I can, maybe I don't need to and I'm gonna be okay because I'm living an intentional life.
1
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 It's kind of the two things, practicing being comfortable with the uncomfortable feelings and practicing speaking up consistently and moving through it.
1
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And then also saying, do I even need to play this game?
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Not game, but do I need to play in that space?
1
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Or I don't like what happened right there, but I'm okay.
1
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I'm safe.
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I'm here for myself.
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Life is good.
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 That one has some complexity to it.
1
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The second one does.
1
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The first one is obvious, because we're gonna get practice, and the more practice we engage in in that way, really the healthier we become.
1
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But with the second one, it's like, well, I don't need to do it, I actually feel okay, I'm not taking it personally, that kind of an idea.
1
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To a degree, I would say that works, and that that's probably fine.
1
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But there's another element of that where I've seen people respond that way,
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 Where that's their way out.
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Yeah, that's their way to bypass.
1
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Exactly.
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That's their way to not deal like I'm fine.
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Everything's okay.
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But it's actually you haven't processed.
1
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Exactly.
1
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Right.
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So to use your words, it's one is it's a spiritual bypass.
1
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The second is, it actually doesn't allow yourself to grow or the other person to grow.
1
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 Mmm, that's true because then maybe they just keep disappointing or they're not being their word and you just let it go every time Right, right and you're being affected and it's damaging the relationship.
1
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So now you're pulling away because The person's continuing to do what they're doing.
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They're out of integrity or they're disappointing you or whatever it is.
1
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Oh
1
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 So now you don't get the growth, the other person doesn't get the possible growth, and the relationship doesn't get to grow.
1
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So for me, it becomes really important for people to kind of really check themselves and go, do I need to say something?
1
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And most people will back off because they don't want to deal with the discomfort.
1
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So they do the spiritual bypass.
1
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 Rather than going, you know what it's important to me and once again to understand the purpose of speaking is not necessarily to Get it to be totally right.
1
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It's to grow yourself Yeah, it's to try to get what you want I guess the end result but it's more to grow yourself and hopefully grow the other person and create a deeper relationship, right and
1
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 How often are you speaking up in your life?
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In my life?
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Yes.
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Once I realized this, it changed how I behaved.
1
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 So yeah, it did, it did.
1
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And in both directions.
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I will tell you that I'm, you know, if I look back five years, 10 years, whatever it might be, I'm a very different person now in terms of my willingness to lean into the discomfort and to go there because I know how much better it gets.
1
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 And again, I'm coming at her from a kind and well-intentioned place.
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So there's no effort to hurt.
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It's I wanna make whatever's going on better.
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Have I had situations not work out?
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Yup, then I have to deal with my disappointment.
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Right?
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It doesn't feel good.
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It doesn't feel good, but then again, same thing.
1
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For me, it's again, a part of it has to do with the mantras we live by.
1
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 So one of mine is that I'm gonna learn from every life experience.
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That's part of the intention Or I'm gonna see how far I can stretch Also part of it, you know, so it's like okay then this is this is part of it And so then then for me, it's like how can I how can I grow?
1
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From this experience.
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So it's to you again to your earlier point.
1
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It's living in a conscious way, right?
1
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 And the other side of it is making sure that people know I care about them.
1
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So I've become much more expressive about love and much more intentional about making sure I convey my care, my deep care, my love, whatever it might be.
1
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Did you not communicate those things in the past?
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 When I was much younger, I would say I was not so great about it.
1
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It was really an evolution.
1
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And I was probably better at describing the caring feelings I had or expressing those.
1
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And then over time, and also working with the work that I was doing, it was like, I gotta get better at this.
1
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 Interesting.
1
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And the other part was really finding that when I combined the two of being kind and well-intentioned, then I could typically speak the things I would have typically found much harder to speak.
1
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So it became much easier.
1
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 So when did this start to really shift for you, when you started to implement this speaking up strategy more frequently?
1
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Was this five years ago, 10 years ago, two years ago?
1
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Was this?
1
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No, no.
1
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Wow, that's a good question.
1
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So part of it was professional, which to me is a little bit funny, because in my role as a psychologist, I'm often saying to people things that they don't wanna hear, right?
1
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So I had to learn how to deliver that message early,
1
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 And this work, in its earliest form, started probably 25 years ago, or a little bit more.
1
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And I would say the evolution was, probably it was a much softer start, 25, 30 years ago, but as time went on, I would say easily 15, 20 years.
1
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Okay, cool.
1
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 How long did it take for you to kind of feel?
1
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Okay with these consistent uncomfortable conversations until you felt like I Can speak up almost automatically now without having to wait for weeks to think about what I'm gonna say or how I'm gonna say it That's been a number of years.
1
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That's probably been 10 to 15 years.
1
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Really?
1
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Yeah Okay, and what is available for people on the other side?
1
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Like what was available for you after you started implementing this and
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 You know what, I think, I actually, the benefits are profound.
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What ends up happening is you become more congruent.
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And that to me is where the magic of emotional strength and confidence is.
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So if we talk about congruence, I usually include about eight things here, but the first four are, I would say, singularly the most important.
1
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And that's that our thoughts, our feelings,
1
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 our words and our actions match.
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So the first benefit or set of benefits is that you begin you have an experience of yourself as having that kind of internal strength and confidence.
1
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 So you become more confident when you're congruent.
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Right, right.
1
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And what are the other four?
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Oh, I'm on the spot here now.
1
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No, I am on the spot.
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One, two of them have to do with that we own our past history, that our attitudes and beliefs and our values.
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So that's kind of putting attitudes and beliefs together and our values is the sixth one, our past history.
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 And then the last one is our vision of what we want for the future, that all of those align.
1
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And what's really interesting here, Lewis, is that if they don't align, oftentimes we feel anxious.
1
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And then part of it is going, okay, I'm anxious, then what's out of alignment?
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 Mm-hmm.
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One of these four things right?
1
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Well, no or one of the eight I'm not telling the truth about my past.
1
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I'm not owning what's true for me for the future that I want for the future or I'm feeling something and not saying it
1
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 I'm Believing something and it's and but I'm acting out of integrity with my belief, right?
1
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Right, or I'm saying my value is this but I'm not being that value, right?
1
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Right.
1
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So interesting so that you can if I'm saying I want this in the future I want to be healthy, but I'm eating bad food every day.
1
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So I'm out of alignment, right?
1
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And then I start to feel anxious, right?
1
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Or overwhelmed or stressed something right something's off something's off
1
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 Because you're not a whole person in congruence with thoughts, feelings, words, actions, matching, attitudes and beliefs, values, past history and vision of the future.
1
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What is past history?
1
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How can you be in alignment with past history?
1
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Is it just addressing and facing the past history and dealing with it as opposed to distancing yourself and numbing?
1
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Right, and acting like the past history I didn't have.
1
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What happens when we don't face the past?
1
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 Again, we start showing up in ways that are not very effective with other people.
1
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We don't show up in ways that are necessarily good for us.
1
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So I might, again, I might be drinking a bunch.
1
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I might be using food.
1
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I might be using sex, right?
1
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It doesn't matter what it is, but I start checking out.
1
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That's what happens.
1
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When I don't deal with my past, then I check out in some ways.
1
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And I don't, and again, it's not, the past isn't everything.
1
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 but it does contribute.
1
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So we just have to acknowledge that it contributes in some way to who we are in the present, but it doesn't have to be the thing that actually defines our future.
1
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How does someone develop a set of beliefs and values that will support their life?
1
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What if they don't know what their values are?
1
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How do they create them?
1
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You know, an easy starting place is to look at people that you admire.
1
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 and say, what do I admire about this person?
1
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What type of life do they have that I respect and like?
1
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And then pull some of those values.
1
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How did they get there?
1
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Go read stories.
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Go read biographies.
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 Learn all their mistakes and don't do that.
1
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Exactly, but not only learn their mistakes and don't do it, but learn what they had to go through on the journey to get to where they evolved, right?
1
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So a first place is to look outside, to see people who are doing what you wanna do and being the ways that you think you wanna be.
1
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 And then it's looking inside and basically asking the question is, who do I want to be?
1
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Who do I want to become?
1
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How do I want to show up?
1
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And then you practice that.
1
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And then your words and actions match your values.
1
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Exactly.
1
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Match the vision you have for your future self.
1
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Right.
1
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What's the best way to address the past history?
1
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 What if someone's gone through a crazy past history and they had a lot of different challenges at home and relationships and abuse or abandonment or just, you know, bullying?
1
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How does someone face that amount of pain or trauma?
1
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You know, there's a, I call kind of that whole area, um, as disguised grief.
1
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Okay.
1
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So I'm going to give you a couple of ways to think about disguised grief.
1
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 One has to do with the words we use.
1
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So if I'm saying to you I'm bitter,
1
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 I'm angry.
1
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I have this long-standing anger.
1
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I'm resentful.
1
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I hold grudges.
1
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I am pessimistic, cynical, sarcastic.
1
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Again, this hurt.
1
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Any words that, jealousy, right?
1
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Jealous, envious, all those kinds of things.
1
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For me, everything underneath that is grief.
1
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Grief of what?
1
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 Well, again, I'm gonna take you to the second layer of it.
1
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So grief of something I'm missing, grief of something I'm expecting, grief of something I'm wanting.
1
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And when I'm talking about grief, I'm putting at least four of those eight feelings.
1
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 into the mix.
1
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So for me, again, I don't know that people necessarily talk about grief and kind of break it down.
1
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But when I think about grief, I think about sadness, helplessness, anger, and disappointment as comprising, at the minimum, comprising grief.
1
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And they can be singular responses.
1
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So I might be sad about something.
1
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Well, then I'm grieving.
1
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 I might be angry about something.
1
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Well then, to a degree, there's grief, right?
1
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So you can think about them individually, you can think about them collectively.
1
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And the easy way to remember them is that instead of being sad, I'm shad.
1
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Shad.
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Right?
1
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Sad, helpless, anger, or disappointment.
1
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Okay, cool.
1
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So underneath all those, what I call grief signal words, is grief.
1
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 And what is grief?
1
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Again, think of it as the emotional response to some situation.
1
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That you're lacking or upset about or missing or jealous of or frustrated that you don't have or something like that.
1
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So how do we eliminate grief?
1
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How do we process it?
1
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We don't eliminate it.
1
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 Right?
1
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So again, if you'll allow me, one step over.
1
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The other way to think about grief, and this is to your point about our life experiences, is that almost all of us have been through experiences where we got something that we didn't deserve.
1
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 So think about that as kind of the bad stuff.
1
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So it's chaos, it's abuse, bullying, all that kind of stuff.
1
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Or we deserve something we didn't get.
1
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 So that's the good stuff.
1
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The praise was missing, the support was missing, people not showing up for events, meets, performances, whatever it is, or great job on the progress you're making, right?
1
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So that's all missing.
1
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It's grieving over what never was.
1
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So think about facts and circumstances of your early life.
1
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And think about it also from the standpoint of missed opportunities.
1
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 This could have happened.
1
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But it didn't.
1
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That wasn't my life experience.
1
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Also grief over what is not now.
1
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So you might not be exactly where you want to be.
1
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So there's grief about that.
1
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And then there's grief about what may never be.
1
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It's a lot of grief.
1
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It's a lot of grief.
1
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But that really takes us to our life experiences.
1
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And to me, there really is a way to work through all that.
1
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How do we do that?
1
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 The most important thing I can kind of one sentence to remember here is that you want to be able to make sense of the impact and meaning that the experience, the difficult life experience or experiences had for you.
1
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And the key here is across time.
1
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Yeah.
1
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 So again, the question is, who did I become because I went through this?
1
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Yep.
1
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Why do a lot of people not think that way?
1
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Instead, they hold on to the grudge of what happened to them, as opposed to saying, what's the meaning and impact that this had on my life over time?
1
SPEAKER_01
 I think in some ways they think, well, one, they may not want to do the work around it, right?
1
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Because to make sense of it, you have to go back to the pain of it.
1
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So I'll just act like it didn't happen and I'll put it away.
1
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It's in the past.
1
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It's nothing.
1
SPEAKER_01
 Except you're still, you know, becoming reactive, right?
1
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Highly reactive because you didn't deal with whatever is going on from the past.
1
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So that would be one reason.
1
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And why else do people avoid?
1
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I think people actually don't understand that there's a roadmap out.
1
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There really is.
1
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What is the roadmap?
1
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 Well, the first is to recognize, one is to go, okay, I have this set of stories or this set of life experiences that shaped me.
1
SPEAKER_01
 And in the book I talk about, I kind of give people a process to walk through.
1
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Let me pick just one.
1
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Not all of them.
1
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Let me pick just one.
1
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So I go, all right, I'm going to start with whatever the experience was.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, how I got yelled at about something and how that affected me that I'd pick out this one incident, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
 So the first is to recognize that you've got the grief.
1
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The second is to pick out something to reflect on.
1
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The third then is to do what I call kind of a deeper inquiry or to inquire more deeply.
1
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Yeah.
1
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 And what that involves is that this to me is really the core of it.
1
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This is where you want to make sense of the impact of meaning across time.
1
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So how did it affect me?
1
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Did I become kinder?
1
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Did I withdraw?
1
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Did I shut down?
1
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Did I start to become more aggressive?
1
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Did I ignore authority?
1
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Did I
1
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 rebel, whatever it is.
1
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Exactly.
1
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Did I become really sarcastic?
1
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Did I become cynical?
1
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Did I, you know, start feeling more of a victim of life, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
So there's a whole array of possibilities in terms of who I became because I experienced it.
1
SPEAKER_02
It's so interesting.
1
SPEAKER_02
You know, as you're saying this, I'm thinking of, okay, what are some of the experiences and stories of my life that shaped me, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
1
SPEAKER_02
I talk about this on my show all the time, so I think a lot of people heard this, but
1
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 My brother was in prison when I was 8 years old until I was 12 years old.
1
SPEAKER_02
It was a big gap of time that affected the family, that affected me, you know, not able to have friends in the neighborhood, all this different stuff.
1
SPEAKER_02
And also witnessing the suffering, the pain of my brother, what he was going through.
1
SPEAKER_02
 And in some ways it shaped me to, I never wanna be in this place.
1
SPEAKER_02
I wanna make sure I never do this, which is one of the reasons why I never drank alcohol, I've never been drunk in my life, never been high, never done any drugs.
1
SPEAKER_02
I've had a sips, but I haven't like, never been on those things.
1
SPEAKER_02
So it's like, I just don't want to see where that leads me to.
1
SPEAKER_02
It's not even worth experimenting.
1
SPEAKER_02
 There was other reasons why I didn't do that for sports and things like that but there was stories and experiences that shaped me from that that were painful but also some more positive, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
It was sexual abuse that I went through.
1
SPEAKER_02
There was being injured, losing kind of my dream of playing professional sports.
1
SPEAKER_02
 And it took me down a path of a couple years of stress and overwhelm and sadness and losing an identity of a dream.
1
SPEAKER_02
But if I look back over time, like what you said, to reflect on over a period of time, what are the benefits that this gave me?
1
SPEAKER_02
And how did this make me a better person?
1
SPEAKER_02
Even though I may not wish that this would have happened, even though it wasn't okay or wasn't fair or I don't wish it on anyone else, to go through certain experiences,
1
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 but how can I serve humanity at a higher level, the people around me at a better way, and myself because of these experiences?
1
SPEAKER_02
It's making sense and meaning of the impact and shifting it from a negative victim mentality to, okay, how can I use this to my benefit?
1
SPEAKER_02
It happened, I can change it.
1
SPEAKER_02
I can be a victim for the rest of my life and be in grief and angry and sad, or I can try to do something better with it.
1
SPEAKER_02
 And that sounds like the only things you can do.
1
SPEAKER_02
There's only a couple options.
1
SPEAKER_01
And more people we see landing on, I'm just going to stay in this grief place.
1
SPEAKER_01
Again, they don't even recognize it's grief.
1
SPEAKER_02
They're just angry.
1
SPEAKER_01
Angry and resentful, bitter, holding grudges, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
They're doing all of that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Or cynical.
1
SPEAKER_01
They've got a cynical view of life.
1
SPEAKER_01
 Nothing that's gonna turn out good for me, right because it hasn't in the past.
1
SPEAKER_01
So why would I believe it will exactly exactly?
1
SPEAKER_01
So so people get lost and stuck in those places without an awareness that there really is a way out And they don't realize that they're grieving.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes So so for me, it's it's kind of bringing that's like like let's expose it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Let's bring that to light What you're doing is you're experiencing grief, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
 And really there's a way to make sense of what the experience was so that you can finally let go of it right and resolve get some resolution and Then move on and so once you inquire more deeply right and reflect on it, which is painful and scary a lot of times for people What's the next step after that?
1
SPEAKER_01
 you extract the good.
1
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To your point, or just a few moments ago, is like, okay, how can I, your question was, how can I serve humanity better?
1
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Because I went through this.
1
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But now you're shifting.
1
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Now, not only are you making sense of your life story, and again, feeling more whole, more centered inside, more grounded inside,
1
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 More authentic.
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Mm-hmm because you're owning your life history Right not detaching from it not detaching from it not acting like it didn't exist and it but so so now now you're you're making sense if you will and I Know that Susan David talked about this as you're making sense of the narrative of your life Yeah story of your life Laurie Gottlieb talks about rewriting your story, you know Not having this story hold you back in a negative way, but rewriting it into the positive side of your life, right?
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Tell him
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 where Sapir says, tell a different lie.
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We hold on to these lies about ourselves that hold us back, like tell a different lie.
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Tell it in a positive way, not in a way that holds you back.
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Whatever it might be.
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Right, exactly.
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So there's lots of ways to come out of it.
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So that once you've inquired more deeply, then what you want to do is you want to extract the good.
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 It's like, what were really the benefits?
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Again, who did I become in a good way because of what I went through?
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And then for me, that's the process that leads to forgiveness.
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 So how does someone learn to forgive the pains of their past?
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It's to go through this process.
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Yes.
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Once you make sense of it, it loses its hold on you, its grip on you.
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And once you find the good in it, then you can say, okay, I forgive this experience because good came from this.
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Correct.
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If there was no good that came from it, it'd be hard to forgive probably.
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 Well, for me, that brings me to kind of another point.
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And that has to do, if there's difficulty forgiving, what I recognize with that is that that has to do with finally coming to a place of acceptance within yourself that you cannot undo.
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 what was done.
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You can never undo what was done.
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And you can never do what was undone.
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You can never go back and change it.
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It was whatever it was.
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So that the resolution then, the resolve, becomes moving to that place of acceptance.
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 accepting it first, then you can start to forgive.
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Right, if forgiveness is hard before that.
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And again, it's forgiving yourself for what you did or did not know, and for what you did or did not do, and the same for someone else.
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So it's forgiving them for what they did or did not know, and what they did or did not do, or say, in this case.
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What happens if we go through all these different steps and we get to a place of saying, you know what,
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 I'll see the benefits of how I've become an okay person or I learned these lessons, but I just, I can never forgive what this person did to me or did to my family or how horrific this was.
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It was so extreme that they just could never fathom forgiving that person.
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So what's interesting about forgiveness is that forgiveness doesn't have to do with the other person.
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 Forgiveness has to do with me choosing to live my life more in the present and in peace and in peace Not to continue to go back to the past and to and to go.
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Okay.
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This is still affecting me It's still affecting me and it's still affecting me and and it's still coloring how I'm living my life in the present and how I'm likely to live my life in the future
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 What happens if we continue to not forgive the past from 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago?
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We're living with a level of toxicity within us that's unnecessary.
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And so again, was it good?
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No.
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Are we condoning and saying that was great that that happened?
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No.
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Are we letting people, in quotes, get away with something?
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No.
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It has to do with us moving to a place of greater inner peace, which is why it's important to forgive.
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 It's amazing because in the last couple of years I've really believed that peace is my highest currency in life.
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And being in a peaceful environment is the place I want to be in.
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 I've lived in so much high emotion, drama, low emotion, you know, all these different, you know, joy and desire and high emotions too, stress, anxiety and overwhelm.
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Like kind of that up and down roller coaster for so many years.
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And I was always like, why is this happening?
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You know, why is it like, life is really great and then life is really challenging and suffering.
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 I think a lot of it was because I didn't learn how to do this in every area of the past that was affecting me.
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And you said to start with one experience to reflect on this.
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Yeah, just start there.
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But I really feel like when we can start to do this with every experience that hurt us, affected us, made us resentful or cynical, we can start to go down the list of these things
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 and do the process, more peace ensues.
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Absolutely, absolutely, right.
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So on my end, it's like start with one, but once you open up one, yes, if you can stay with the process and do it for those kinds of things, absolutely.
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It's amazing because my therapist and coach, she had me start with like one of my earliest memories, right?
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It's like sexual abuse was one of my earliest memories when I was five.
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 And it kind of set a baseline, unconsciously and subconsciously, for reaction throughout my life, for defensiveness, for feeling abandoned or abused or taken advantage of.
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Unconsciously, it was just in reaction if things felt that way.
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 bodily sensei right just like I feel something let me react you're right you know there was no consciousness to it you know I was a joyful happy person a majority of the time but if I felt like oh someone's taking advantage or abusing me like I don't like this you know it's like this let me come after you
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 And so she had me start with like that season of life in those experiences and let's start here.
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And then she's like, okay, what's the next major season of life where things happened that could have affected you?
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And so I had a photo, I've shown this many times, I had a photo on my phone of myself when I was around five or six, right, for the last year plus.
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 Recently I switched it to a time when I was like 10, 11.
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And so it's reconnecting where I'm at to where I was in those times, those moments in time and rewriting the story and the process from each stage of life to come from early childhood to where I am now.
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To be able to be in full alignment and congruency of my values, my life, reflecting on all the experiences so that hopefully I can continue to stay in a peaceful state a majority of the time
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 and just get closer to the vision of the future and bring it closer faster as opposed to staying in the past longer.
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And it's really allowing me to, we were talking about this beforehand, manifest things so much easier.
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Things flow, things come, because you're not tied to an emotional baggage, emotional weight, right, of the past.
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And staying stuck in this narrative.
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So I highly recommend
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 people doing this work and going through this process with you.
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This is fascinating to me.
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Go ahead.
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No, no, go ahead.
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You go ahead.
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You jump in.
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SPEAKER_00
I'm speaking too much.
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No, no, no.
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I'm enjoying the conversation.
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The last two pieces of it.
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So the process moves you in the ideal.
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It can move you to forgiveness.
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And again, having the understanding that forgiveness is about moving yourself to that place of inner peace.
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 freeing yourself from the past.
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So it allows you to move to forgiveness.
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It also allows you to forge new images of who you want to become.
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So you can release, you free yourself from the previous life story and then the next one is to forge new images of who you want to become.
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Creating a new identity in the future.
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Right, now you can say that's who I was or that's who I've been up until now.
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 and this is who I want to become.
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And a lot of that is, it's almost like you have to have a death of some sorts, like an emotional death of a person you once were holding onto.
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And you've got to, I don't know if kill off is the right word, but you need to allow that to shed the skin of this old story and old narrative and say, okay, this is who I was, but this is not an identity I'm living into anymore.
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 Exactly.
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And that is hard for people to let go.
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A lot of people have been carrying baggage and luggage around for years.
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They don't want to drop their bags.
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Because if they do, they have to be in a place that's now more free, more vulnerable, and now more open to connection and hurt.
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 Why is, oh, so why is it so hard to be free and open and vulnerable?
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Because there's more room for potential pain?
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A lot of people don't know what to do when they have, you know, the image in my head is the blank, the artist's.
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A blank canvas.
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A blank canvas, right.
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So they don't know what to do with a blank canvas.
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It's unfamiliar.
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Right.
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It's scary because it's new.
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It's new and now I have to step into the unfamiliar.
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 It might be the most blissful, healthy thing in the world, but it's scary because it's new.
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Oh man, this is so fascinating.
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So it goes back to having the courage to consistently speak up.
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Going back to feeling the uncomfortable feelings and being comfortable with the uncomfortable consistently will give you more freedom.
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 Absolutely true, 100%.
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Gosh, this is fascinating.
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So is there anything else here that I'm missing that at the end of this process, this forges the new image of who you want to be?
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Then at that point it really is then it's starting to take action to step into those images.
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 It's going back to the eight kind of like things that will help you create congruence to living into that identity.
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Thoughts, feelings, words, actions, and just taking consistently living into that.
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And what values do I want to embody?
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What attitudes do I want to hold?
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And then what actions will I take?
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For instance, there was a time in my life when I didn't consider myself very generous.
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 And I was like, you know what, I actually want to embody that more.
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So I would think on a daily basis, maybe not daily, but consistently, what do I need to do that would allow me to actually embody that more?
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So for instance, if I was traveling, then it meant I tipped
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 more, right?
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To do that kind of thing.
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Or I became more generous in my compliments.
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Yes.
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Or I became more generous in giving of my time, right?
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So there's all sorts of ways to be generous, generous in terms of sharing knowledge.
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There's lots of ways to do that.
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So again, you can choose a value.
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You can choose an attitude.
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You can choose a belief that you want to
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 Hold or embody and then you start to take the actions that support that so again, that's the congruence piece Because I believe that a lot of people I love everything you're saying here because action consistently is my whole motto It's like the reason I've gotten to where I'm at is because I've had a couple of things one a meaningful mission I'm clear on the vision that I have for my future and wanted to bring it closer to the now so I know where I want to be and
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 I don't think a lot of people have a meaningful mission.
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They're not 100% clear on what they want, why they want it.
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That is more than just for their needs and desires, but it's also for contribution.
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And I think without the meaningful mission,
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 It's just kind of you're reacting to life.
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You're just doing what you're told.
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You're reacting.
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You're not creating your life.
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So I think it's having the action consistently towards the meaningful mission and I think most people also aren't taking consistent action.
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They'll sometimes take action and then they're out of integrity because they're not consistent.
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 Or they're sometimes generous but not consistently.
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So again, you're not congruent, which causes stress and anxiety when you're out of alignment.
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I mean, this is not for the faint of heart, I guess.
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This is for people that want a rich, fulfilling life and who are willing to go through consistent, uncomfortable feelings until it becomes more comfortable, until it becomes more second nature because you've practiced it.
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But that's hard to get to in the first place.
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 To your point, you've got to go, that's important to me.
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I want that.
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Let me make the decision and choice to do that.
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And then it's with an understanding that you're going to be in the discomfort for a while.
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It's a particular period of time.
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Right.
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And what's interesting to me here, Lewis, is that I actually consider our ability or our capacity to experience feeling and to express feeling, so communication, as skills.
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Huge skills.
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 So it's not that we should be able to do it because we have a brain and we can speak.
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Oh, no.
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You've got to develop a skill.
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No, it's skill based.
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Yes.
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So we get better through practice.
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Well, this is why great leaders are great leaders, because they've learned to develop these emotional skills.
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Their EQ is usually so skillful because they practice for decades on how to have tough, meaningful conversations that are also uplifting and
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 forward, you know, they create forward momentum, not creating a barrier.
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That's why leaders can build businesses or create movements or whatever it might be because they have that ability to speak up consistently.
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SPEAKER_00
 So, what is this 90 second method then?
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I mean, the whole book is 90 seconds to live a life you love.
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You created like this Rosenberg reset thing, right?
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Right.
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A friend of mine called it that.
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He was like, okay, it landed.
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So, I didn't do it.
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I said, thank you very much.
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I think I'll use that.
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What is this 90 seconds?
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 So the idea, now the book is 90 Seconds to a Life You Love.
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Think of that as kind of the method.
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And sort of a secret sauce to leaning into unpleasant feelings.
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But I will tell you that the subtitle of the book is where all the magic is.
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And the subtitle is How to Master Your Difficult Feelings to Cultivate Lasting Confidence, Resilience, and Authenticity.
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So the magic is in the eight feelings.
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 But the Rosenberg Reset is, think of it as a formula for leaning in.
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So it's one choice, eight feelings, 90 seconds.
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That's the formula.
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So the one choice is awareness as opposed to avoidance.
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 So we've talked about avoidance.
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Substance use, screens, sex, porn, food, right?
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The list goes on.
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Harsh self-criticism to me is a distraction.
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Anxiety is a distraction.
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 you know, making geographic moves is a distraction, having feelings about having feelings is a distraction, right?
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Anything besides the awareness of it is a distraction.
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Right, exactly.
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So my invitation is for people to be as aware of and in touch with as much of their moment-to-moment experience as possible.
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 That's what I'm asking people to lean into, is be aware of the present moment, be aware of your experience in the present moment, as opposed to avoid.
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The eight feelings we've talked about, so again, briefly, they're sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, vulnerability, embarrassment, disappointment, and frustration.
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And then, disappointment and frustration.
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 And then the 90 seconds piece is really the specific around leaning in, right?
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So, and again, we've talked about aspects of it, but if I kind of do it in sequence, the first thing is to understand that we're one interconnected whole.
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I mean, obvious to many, but the truth is that our brain is always feeding information to our body.
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Our body is always feeding information to our brain.
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 We're an interconnected whole, we're not separate.
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But we get trained to be separate.
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We cut off from feeling when we cut off from our body.
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Right, we stay in our analytical thinking as opposed to feeling.
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Right, which is where people many times will describe where the subconscious mind is.
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So that's the first thing to understand.
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The second I mentioned, which is that most of us come to know what we feel emotionally through bodily sensation.
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 So again, why is that important?
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Because what dawned on me was that it's not that we don't want to feel the full range of what we feel, it's that we don't want to feel the bodily sensation that helps us know what we feel.
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There's a great story for me around this too, which if you're interested, I'll come back to.
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But the third part of that then is the 90 seconds idea.
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 It's not my 90 seconds.
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Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.
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She wrote a book called my stroke of insight She's the one that first big TED talk, right?
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Right, right early.
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Yeah, she's like a neuro brain science.
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Exactly.
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So how to stroke Harvard trained neuroscientist that has a stroke and takes eight years maybe
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 Eight years to come out of that stroke.
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But she had a capacity of awareness and put it to use.
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And what she became aware of was her observation that when a feeling gets triggered, there's a rush of biochemicals into our bloodstream that activate the bodily sensations we're talking about.
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And those same biochemicals flush out of the bloodstream in roughly an upper limit of 90 seconds.
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SPEAKER_00
 So, you might have this embarrassment and this redness or whatever rash feeling that comes on your skin because of a situation.
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Right.
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Does that come through the brain first?
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Like, it comes through the mind that connects to the brain and then flushes through the nervous system?
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It can go both directions.
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Okay.
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So, it's what people call bottom-up and top-down processes.
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So, it might be the body connecting the brain.
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Right.
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 Because the body keeps the score, the book, and then, or it might be like I see something, I think something, and then I feel something.
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Correct.
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Interesting.
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It can go both directions.
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And what I'm hearing you say is that it takes around 90 seconds for it to leave, if you are able to recognize it and go through the process.
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 And stay present, just, again, how do you stay present?
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Breathing is the, right, breathing is the key.
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You can actually think, so I like to talk about it from the standpoint of, think about walking along the shoreline and ocean waves kind of coming and going from the shoreline.
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It's like they come up, doesn't matter the degree of tumult, right?
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They can be tumultuous waves, they can be medium waves or moderate waves, and then they can be really light waves.
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 But no matter what, they come onto the shoreline, they seem to hang for a moment, and then they subside.
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Well, think of the same process going on in terms of these bodily sensation waves.
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So it's not one wave we're talking about.
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We're talking about one or more waves, right?
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And so the notion is that you want to be able to ride
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 The wave.
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One or more short-lived bodily sensation waves to stay present to the feeling.
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The challenge is if you resist the feeling so much and it's so painful or uncomfortable, that 90 seconds might feel like 90 minutes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
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You know what I mean?
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I just want to get away from this, so let me get a drink, let me eat food, let me watch porn, have sex, let me buy something, let me work harder.
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SPEAKER_00
 to not feel this feeling?
2
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Correct, yes.
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Was there anything else to this process?
2
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So again, the key for me, again, it's kind of bringing it all together.
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You want to be able to stay present, so it's choosing an awareness, and then it's staying present to one or more short-lived bodily sensation waves, or riding those waves, and understanding that what you can do is to just breathe and kind of pause.
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 So that you just allow your breath actually to be like that ocean wave.
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And that'll help you stay present to the feeling.
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And if you do that, you can then in those paused moments, if you really want to start to master even more, then what you start to do is you reflect.
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And you start to go, well, what triggered me?
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 Or, geez, is there any pattern to my reaction?
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Is this attached to anything in my past?
2
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So depending on the depth of reflection, you can stay with that process, and then you'll start to gain insights into your experience.
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The more you gain insight, the more you're able to develop the mastery over your feelings.
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SPEAKER_00
Mastery, that's what I'm looking for.
2
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Why do you feel like,
2
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 It takes an extreme breakdown in life for people to start the process of healing and change versus life is just really painful consistently, I'm not gonna change.
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SPEAKER_00
 You know what I mean?
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SPEAKER_00
Sometimes it takes like a divorce, a near death, a breakup, a loss of a career for them to wake up and start doing this process as opposed to the, I'm just living at a five in life, you know, out of a 10 and life is hard and sucks, but it's not enough for me to want to do this work.
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SPEAKER_02
 That's a very interesting question, and it makes me recall, and I don't remember the specifics of my life, but what I became aware of is that if a certain problem happened in my life and I didn't address it, it would escalate in intensity and scope.
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So I have no idea, like I said, I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember that if I looked back, I realized I could have handled it earlier.
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 And I didn't, it just got bigger and worse.
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SPEAKER_00
And more painful.
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SPEAKER_02
Right.
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So part of it is that we don't pay attention at those earlier opportunities to actually deal with whatever's going on.
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And we go, oh, it's not hurting enough.
2
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 So I can play it off, I can handle this, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
Or we don't wanna deal with whatever unpleasant feelings and other, whatever the experience is gonna be.
2
SPEAKER_00
We will avoid those unpleasant feelings until it is so painful, until we break.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right, but that then is the crisis point is the wake up.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so think of no matter what level it's occurring at.
2
SPEAKER_02
So let's say it's occurring at this level as opposed to this level or the crisis level, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
 If you can if you can be aware that you're getting caught into a pattern early on Then deal with it down here because you know that life truism is that it's just gonna get bigger as you go Right, but how many people actually deal with the event down there?
2
SPEAKER_00
We it's just starting fewer.
2
SPEAKER_00
What's the percentage you think?
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, come on It's I don't know it's low I
2
SPEAKER_00
 Because the people that you've worked with over the years, most of them, they don't come to you and like, I'm just feeling a little off.
2
SPEAKER_02
They come to you when there's a crisis usually, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
Right, or it's gotten to enough where it's preoccupying, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
It becomes something that now it's kept- Consuming them.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
2
SPEAKER_00
It's every thought, every feeling is this.
2
SPEAKER_00
 Pain right that could have been avoided years ago, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
Right, so I haven't dealt with it, but now I got to deal with it, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
So so, you know, what's that?
2
SPEAKER_02
What's the I think John Gottman talks about people being in marriages six to seven years before they and having a problem go along that long Where they finally go.
2
SPEAKER_02
Okay now I got to deal with it because we're seven years because we're a breaking point
2
SPEAKER_00
 They'll live in just disconnection or resentment or lack of love or affection for six or seven years until they're like okay, every Christmas we think about this, every anniversary it's just getting worse and worse.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now it's at the time where we've got to do something.
2
SPEAKER_02
 But the key here then is that the points at which we choose to deal with it, and again, the idea we're noticing early, as opposed to letting it accumulate and intensify.
2
SPEAKER_00
We're feeling it early and noticing it, and we let it intensify.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right.
2
SPEAKER_02
But no matter what, the point at which you start to deal with it, think of it as an opening for your growth.
2
SPEAKER_00
 Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
2
SPEAKER_00
And don't shame yourself for how long it took you to get to it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I put my hand up and say I've stayed in painful situations for many years too long, too many times.
2
SPEAKER_00
As have I. So it's not like I'm sitting here thinking, you know, I get excited about this because I reflect on my life and how much I stayed in pain for so long, low-level pain, until it intensifies.
2
SPEAKER_00
Stayed in relationships for years that I knew I shouldn't have been in.
2
SPEAKER_00
 but I was afraid to feel those eight unpleasant feelings and to speak up.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it's crazy to think now how simple the concept is, but how challenging it can be.
2
SPEAKER_00
If I sit here and think, yeah, I could have avoided so many painful experiences, relationships, if you want to call it saving years on your life in relationships that people think about, just by speaking up and saying,
2
SPEAKER_00
 from a positive, kind, well-intentioned place.
2
SPEAKER_00
This isn't working for me or this is something that's affecting me and I want to talk about this in a loving way but this is my value and your value seems like it's off.
2
SPEAKER_00
Can we meet somewhere in the middle or what can we create?
2
SPEAKER_00
And the ability to walk away from a relationship and feel the pain and sadness
2
SPEAKER_00
 as opposed to staying in it because it's familiar.
2
SPEAKER_02
Exactly, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
It's crazy what we do to ourselves because we're afraid of these eight unpleasant feelings.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh man, this is powerful stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I wish that, I mean, I wish I had this stuff sooner, but I hope people listening and watching really are taking this in and taking this to heart and are taking notes like I am
2
SPEAKER_00
 And starting to think about where in my life am I allowing things to happen where I'm not speaking up?
2
SPEAKER_00
That's what I wish people would start thinking about.
2
SPEAKER_00
And how can I start to process these different things and start communicating in a way?
2
SPEAKER_00
And it's probably not gonna be easy at first.
2
SPEAKER_00
It's probably gonna be extremely uncomfortable.
2
SPEAKER_02
 Yes, the first few times you do this vulnerable embarrassing don't want to do it humiliating whatever.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you can do the inclinations to want to back off from it But let that be your signal to move forward.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh.
2
SPEAKER_00
I want to ask you about confidence because you said in the beginning That there are five keys to unwavering confidence, can you talk about that?
2
SPEAKER_02
 Right, we've talked about two major ones, actually, and touched on the third.
2
SPEAKER_02
But for me, and again, there's more to it, but I would say there's five, really five core things to pay attention to.
2
SPEAKER_02
The first, we've been talking about kind of throughout, and that is to be able to experience and move through the unpleasant feelings.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I define confidence as the deep sense
2
SPEAKER_02
 that you can handle the emotional outcome of whatever you face or whatever you pursue.
2
SPEAKER_01
Can you say that one more time?
2
SPEAKER_02
Yep.
2
SPEAKER_02
The deep sense that you can handle the emotional outcome of whatever you face or whatever you pursue.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
 So what's the emotional outcome?
2
SPEAKER_02
The eight unpleasant feelings.
2
SPEAKER_02
So being able to experience and move through those eight unpleasant feelings is the foundational aspect of confidence.
2
SPEAKER_02
That's your starting point.
2
SPEAKER_00
Move through unpleasant feelings.
2
SPEAKER_02
To experience and move through.
2
SPEAKER_02
The second is speaking up.
2
SPEAKER_02
 Why because I just you know what I have no there probably are ways to prove this at this point Lewis But I actually think that our capacity to speak up Changes our molecules ourselves Literally nervous system.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yes, I believe it so that way so that when we have that sense of ourself internally Like I said, that's when for me that becomes the superglue to confidence
2
SPEAKER_00
 Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
You build so much confidence because you have the ability to speak up and handle these feelings.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right.
2
SPEAKER_02
And what's interesting is that you're... And two things here.
2
SPEAKER_02
It's not that you know yourself and then you speak.
2
SPEAKER_02
It's not that you are confident and then you speak.
2
SPEAKER_02
It's actually as you speak and through speaking,
2
SPEAKER_02
 that you gain the confidence.
2
SPEAKER_02
So it works.
2
SPEAKER_02
It works the other direction.
2
SPEAKER_02
And the interesting thing is also you actually come to know yourself better.
2
SPEAKER_02
The more you speak, the more you actually come to know what you believe.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it solidifies.
2
SPEAKER_02
Again, if I go back,
2
SPEAKER_00
 And it's speaking up in a kind, positive, well-intentioned way.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right, right.
2
SPEAKER_02
If I go back to my youth and to high school years, it's like I was aware at some point, I wasn't even aware of what my own opinion was.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right?
2
SPEAKER_00
And it's like.
2
SPEAKER_00
You might go back and forth on opinion or who knows.
2
SPEAKER_02
It's like, how come I don't know my own opinion?
2
SPEAKER_02
I was super shy and I wasn't speaking then.
2
SPEAKER_02
I actually came to know more about who I was and what I believed as I spoke.
2
SPEAKER_00
 By taking action consistently.
2
SPEAKER_02
In this case, the speaking piece.
2
SPEAKER_02
Speaking consistently.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right.
2
SPEAKER_02
The third then is taking action and taking action is similar to speaking.
2
SPEAKER_02
It's not that you're confident and then you take action.
2
SPEAKER_02
 So you want to learn a skill, whatever, playing piano, playing tennis, doesn't matter what it is, or practicing communication.
2
SPEAKER_02
It's that you take the risk, you take the action, and then you gain the confidence.
2
SPEAKER_00
 You know, I'm learning Spanish right now, but I say learning, I mean, it's like I'm still feeling like a beginner, you know, two years into like practicing daily.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don't have confidence like speaking it, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
But I have more confidence than when I started, and it's gonna take time practicing and taking action.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right, right.
2
SPEAKER_02
So the third is taking action, because again, that's gonna further solidify.
2
SPEAKER_02
The fourth is stopping or ending harsh self-criticism.
2
SPEAKER_02
 And then the last one is accepting compliments, really accepting and absorbing compliments.
2
SPEAKER_00
How many people in the world criticize themselves consistently?
2
SPEAKER_02
I would say the greatest majority of us do.
2
SPEAKER_02
Why?
2
SPEAKER_02
Now here's the interesting thing.
2
SPEAKER_02
I look at harsh self-criticism
2
SPEAKER_02
 Mean it's a problem in and of itself But I don't look at it exactly that way.
2
SPEAKER_02
I think our self-criticism is a thought hijack of the eight unpleasant feelings It's a is that a spiritual bypass.
2
SPEAKER_00
Essentially.
2
SPEAKER_00
It's kind of like a bypass to by not by facing.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes Yes, we just criticize myself
2
SPEAKER_02
 Right.
2
SPEAKER_02
So let me give you an example and then if you want we can unpack it.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was doing an interview but this time it was over Zoom, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
And I could hear the person who was going to be interviewing me.
2
SPEAKER_02
He could not hear me.
2
SPEAKER_00
 So he was saying something mean to himself.
2
SPEAKER_02
No.
2
SPEAKER_02
Well, you could see him starting to fumble with the computer and see if he could get the sound to work that way.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then you see him kind of crawling underneath the table.
2
SPEAKER_02
Trying to wire something in.
2
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_02
So he's doing the wires.
2
SPEAKER_02
But while he's doing the wires, I hear him say, I'm so embarrassed.
2
SPEAKER_02
But without missing a beat.
2
SPEAKER_02
So embarrassed is one of the eight.
2
SPEAKER_02
 Great, awesome, okay, and I'm chilling, I'm fine, it's cool, I have time, and I'm pretty easygoing anyway, but he goes, I'm so embarrassed, and then right after that, without missing a beat, he says, I'm so stupid, I'm such an idiot.
2
SPEAKER_02
Now, harsh self-criticism.
2
SPEAKER_02
So what's the difference?
2
SPEAKER_02
Embarrassment, we don't, we're not in charge of what we feel or that we feel it.
2
SPEAKER_02
 Once it's in our conscious awareness, we can manage it, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
So I'm really angry, okay, I don't wanna blurt out things that are mean to people when I'm really angry, so I'm gonna take a breath, okay, but I'm aware of it, now I can take the breath and chill and not say anything.
2
SPEAKER_02
 But some people act and don't have that gap between the thinking and the responding or the reacting.
2
SPEAKER_02
So the interesting thing here is that for me, what we think, how and what we think, we are in charge of.
2
SPEAKER_02
Not in charge of that we feel or what we feel.
2
SPEAKER_02
 What we think we're in charge of.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we feel something.
2
SPEAKER_00
We're not in charge of that because it could be just a response to something.
2
SPEAKER_00
But once we think it, we can change the thought.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right.
2
SPEAKER_02
We're in charge of the thinking.
2
SPEAKER_02
So what I watched, and again, it came out of an experience when I was working with a guy working on his dissertation.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was a staff psychologist at UCLA for a period of time.
2
SPEAKER_02
He was working on his dissertation.
2
SPEAKER_02
He was really, really frustrated.
2
SPEAKER_02
 But he was talking about the frustration.
2
SPEAKER_02
And frustration was really difficult for him.
2
SPEAKER_02
OK, got it.
2
SPEAKER_02
But then I heard him start to shift to, I feel inadequate, unworthy, and undeserving.
2
SPEAKER_02
And in my head, it's like, how did he get from frustration to inadequacy, or frustration to that he wasn't worthy?
2
SPEAKER_02
And then it dawned on me that if we think of those as feeling bad,
3
SPEAKER_00
 I'm feeling bad if I'm frustrated.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now he's creating the same, sort of the same feeling bad, but now he's in charge of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because he's in charge of what he's thinking.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that's when it kind of dawned on me that harsh self-criticism is actually a thought hijack.
3
SPEAKER_00
 of unpleasant feelings.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I think more people shift into, I'm so stupid, I'm such an idiot, or what a dumb thing, or I'll never be able to do that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, the list is endless in terms of how mean we can be to ourselves and what we say to ourselves, that we're doing that because we don't want to deal with the unpleasant feelings underneath.
3
SPEAKER_01
 Man, I feel like for decades, I would say mean things to myself.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, you're such an idiot, you're stupid, how can you be, so forget whatever it is, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Say all these nasty things to myself.
3
SPEAKER_01
I'm so grateful I don't do that anymore, but it took practice and it took time to heal and kind of go through this process essentially.
3
SPEAKER_01
What happens to us when we are in a consistent, harsh, critical state to ourselves?
3
SPEAKER_00
 Well, we turn everything toxic.
3
SPEAKER_00
So again, I don't know if I said this earlier, but a friend of mine likes to say, what doesn't get emotionalized gets physicalized.
3
SPEAKER_00
So now we're affecting our physical body, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
So we know that harsh self-criticism, it depletes our immune system.
3
SPEAKER_00
 We know that.
3
SPEAKER_00
There's studies out that can show the difference between somebody who's optimistic, positive kind, expresses gratitude, all those kinds of things.
3
SPEAKER_00
There's a vast difference between somebody's immune system when they behave in those ways, or think in those ways, and then when somebody's mean to themselves.
3
SPEAKER_00
It's like you're crushing your cells.
3
SPEAKER_00
Every cell hears you.
3
SPEAKER_00
 Right?
3
SPEAKER_00
And so now you're moving yourself into a depleted and toxic state.
3
SPEAKER_01
And your body's getting older, it's aging, it's unhealthy, it doesn't have as much energy.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
It's more effort to do things.
3
SPEAKER_00
Exactly, exactly.
3
SPEAKER_00
What's really interesting to me too, Lewis, is that most people think that unpleasant feelings and the harsh critics
3
SPEAKER_00
 that they're equal.
3
SPEAKER_00
They are not equal.
3
SPEAKER_00
Again, no proof here, no research, but from an observational standpoint, I actually think our self-criticism is the thing that takes us down to depression and often takes us down to suicidality.
3
SPEAKER_01
 Because we're saying such mean things to ourselves consistently.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you remove the mean words and things, criticism, you're going to feel a lot more peace.
3
SPEAKER_01
It's just removing that.
3
SPEAKER_01
But people are so caught in a cycle of beating themselves up.
3
SPEAKER_01
 It just comes whenever they make a mistake or they're not perfect or start let themselves down or they feel like they whatever hurt someone They they react to cat you're such an idiot.
3
SPEAKER_01
How could you do this?
3
SPEAKER_01
You're so stupid.
3
SPEAKER_01
You're such a Dummy, whatever it is, right, right.
3
SPEAKER_01
You're so ugly.
3
SPEAKER_01
You're so this you're so bad You're so all these different things right as opposed to what should we do?
3
SPEAKER_01
When there is a letdown
3
SPEAKER_00
 We experience the embarrassment, we experience the disappointment, and we ride those short-lived bodily sensation waves.
3
SPEAKER_01
Experience it for 90 seconds.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or one or more times, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
You just keep on going back.
3
SPEAKER_00
That's the key.
3
SPEAKER_00
You stay with the experience.
3
SPEAKER_00
So kind of think of it as reversing course, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
And you're gonna go, all right, now you're catching yourself doing the harsh self-criticism.
3
SPEAKER_00
 And I'll tell you, that hard self-criticism takes a lot of mental space, a lot of mental and emotional space.
3
SPEAKER_00
So when you change it, you're going to have some open space.
3
SPEAKER_00
Creativity comes in, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Connection comes in, and to yourself and to others.
3
SPEAKER_00
 And so what you wanna do is when you find yourself engaged in the harsh self-criticism, you stop yourself and you go, all right, what was it that I was experiencing just before that?
3
SPEAKER_00
Just before I let myself go to that kind of thinking so that I can be in touch with what was hard for me to know, hard for me to bear, hard for me to think, or hard for me to feel.
3
SPEAKER_00
And typically it's gonna be one or more of those eight feelings.
3
SPEAKER_00
Stay with it, make sense of it,
3
SPEAKER_01
 Breathe.
3
SPEAKER_00
Breathe, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Process it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right, and come out of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it's also understanding, again, in my world, the difference between those unpleasant feelings and the harsh self-criticism.
3
SPEAKER_00
Think of it like when we experience something that's unpleasant, it's unpleasant.
3
SPEAKER_00
It's like a one-to-one ratio.
3
SPEAKER_00
 But we live in California, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
And California has earthquakes.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, if people are familiar with the Richter scale, a one-point difference is not a one-point difference.
3
SPEAKER_00
It's a 10 times difference.
3
SPEAKER_00
So think about that in relation to harsh self-criticism.
3
SPEAKER_00
That when you're engaged in it, we're not talking about it's just the same as unpleasant feelings.
3
SPEAKER_00
It's not.
3
SPEAKER_00
 You're really in a takedown.
3
SPEAKER_01
You're in it, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And there's a difference between harsh self-criticism and I would say conscious feedback.
3
SPEAKER_01
It's like, okay, I was late for this meeting.
3
SPEAKER_01
I messed this up or the audio isn't working on the Zoom call.
3
SPEAKER_01
Okay, it's just information that I wasn't prepared and how can I be prepared better next time?
3
SPEAKER_01
 It's not the end of the world, you know, maybe I let someone down here for this moment and that doesn't feel good, but alright, it just means I need to be more present for the future.
3
SPEAKER_01
And now I have a checklist, and now I have a process, or you know, I'm going to improve this skill.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it's just feedback, it doesn't have to be this huge failure.
3
SPEAKER_00
Correct, correct.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I will say a couple different things here.
3
SPEAKER_00
 For me, doubt and questioning myself is a more subtle, insidious version of harsh self-criticism.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if I hear somebody say, I'm a disappointment, that's harsh self-criticism.
3
SPEAKER_00
Rather than saying, I'm disappointed,
3
SPEAKER_00
 It becomes I'm a disappointment or I failed at something becomes I'm a failure now.
3
SPEAKER_00
We're moving from a reaction to something Into actually harsh self-criticism.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, once you own that and you say I am this that is very harsh, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
I'm disappointed that I let this person down I did this thing or this person did this as opposed to I am a disappointment.
3
SPEAKER_01
I am a failure that is That is hard to come out of
3
SPEAKER_01
 If you claim it as an identity, I am, and then use that word, that identity will stay with you until you break the identity and create a new identity.
3
SPEAKER_01
It's hard to get out of that and build confidence if you're in a hurtful identity.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that's step four.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then what was step five?
3
SPEAKER_00
Step five had to do with truly absorbing compliments.
3
SPEAKER_01
Receiving compliments, absorbing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why is it so challenging for people to receive gifts, compliments, support?
3
SPEAKER_00
 Well, one part of it has to do with us being able to be okay with the dependent side of our nature, and that it really is okay to receive.
3
SPEAKER_00
And frankly, the greatest experience of life comes when we can do both, we can give and receive, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
That's where the richness, much of the richness of life comes.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so that's one piece of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
The second is we're socialized not to receive them.
3
SPEAKER_00
 Because one, I think we have the sense that people will see us in a negative light, that we won't fit in, that we won't belong, and then it's just gonna lead to unpleasant or difficult connections with others.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I really differentiate or make a distinction between this whole idea of arrogance and what I would consider kind of that healthy esteem or that healthy confidence.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because arrogance is just the opposite.
3
SPEAKER_00
 Arrogance is coming out of a place of inadequacy or a sense of inferiority.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I'm going to need to tell you 17 times how great I am, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because I'm actually not feeling it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And now we start to think that person is conceited or that person is arrogant.
3
SPEAKER_00
 When in fact, it's actually reflecting the opposite back to you.
3
SPEAKER_00
They're not feeling very great and that's why they feel like they need to tell you all the time.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I want to make that distinction.
3
SPEAKER_00
When people feel really good about themselves,
3
SPEAKER_00
 And they take in the compliments.
3
SPEAKER_00
And for me, taking in the compliment actually allows you to update and up-level your sense of self and self-image.
3
SPEAKER_00
Really?
3
SPEAKER_00
That's the thing that I've noticed, is that it helps you forge that new story of yourself.
3
SPEAKER_00
 And if you don't allow them to come in, then you don't necessarily have, or you're not making use of the new information.
3
SPEAKER_01
You're not receiving the information that confirms the values and the person you want to be.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right, right.
3
SPEAKER_01
You're blocking the information.
3
SPEAKER_01
You're saying no, but you're saying, but I want this thing to be this person in the future, but I'm not allowing it to happen right now.
3
SPEAKER_01
 Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
So think of a compliment.
3
SPEAKER_01
You're not a congruence.
3
SPEAKER_01
You're not congruent.
3
SPEAKER_00
That's right.
3
SPEAKER_00
That's exactly right.
3
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
Think of compliments as a reflection of you back to you.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it's the essence of I'm holding up a mirror to show you back to you.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if I dismiss
3
SPEAKER_00
 that compliment, not only am I dismissing my reality, I'm dismissing your reality of me.
3
SPEAKER_01
So if I'm rejecting this of you saying it, then I'm telling you that's not who I am.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I'm saying dismiss your reality.
3
SPEAKER_00
Your reality is wrong.
3
SPEAKER_00
That's not who I am.
3
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I don't deserve this.
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 Yeah, we do all sorts of machinations around that.
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So now we're back into harsh self-criticism, right?
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I don't deserve this.
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So it's as if we were in charge of our deservedness and our worthwhileness, but that's a whole separate issue.
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So the truth is that if somebody's giving you a genuine compliment, it's coming out of an experience of you and an experience with you.
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 So if you're dismissing the reality, if you're saying, no, no, no, no, not taking it, then you play it off.
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Oh, it was nothing.
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It was just luck.
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It just happened.
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 And you dismiss the truth.
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Now you're dismissing your reality and the other person's.
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And you're dismissing your effort.
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You're dismissing your action.
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You're dismissing your consistency.
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All of that.
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All of it.
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Yeah.
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It's like, ah, it was nothing.
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No big deal.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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I really have come to see that compliments allow you to update and up-level your self-image.
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That's cool.
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 So that if you start to get a whole bunch of compliments about the same sort of thing and you didn't see yourself in that light, then it's like, oh, wait a minute.
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Everybody's kind of telling me this.
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Maybe I need to take a look at this and actually own that.
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That is part of me.
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That is who I am.
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That is how I show up.
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 And then you're not stuck in the old image of who you were.
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You now can make use of that.
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It's like, oh, okay, I can step into this new place and see myself in a different light or experience myself in a different light.
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That, oh, I can be capable of this.
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 I already exhibit the generosity or the kindness or whatever it might be.
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So I think it makes a huge difference.
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And what's interesting to me around this, Lewis, is I often get the question, well, what about conceit then?
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Isn't that going to give you a big head?
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 Right.
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How do I stay humble and receive endless compliments?
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How do I stay grounded and in service still, not just like I'm the man or I'm the woman or whatever, you know?
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Right.
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So for me, there's kind of two answers to this.
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One is I actually think of humility as telling the truth of who you are.
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Ooh, interesting.
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So tell me more.
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What does that mean?
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 Well, if you think about arrogance in relation to humility, right?
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And I was doing this during a talk at one point.
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And I asked people how, like I asked three questions and all of them had to do with playing down your skills, dismissing compliments, dismissing your accomplishments, you know, devaluing all of that.
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And then I looked at the audience and I said, that's arrogance.
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 Really?
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Playing down your skills is arrogance.
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Right, so kind of who are you and what gave you the right to dismiss who you are?
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Interesting.
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That's arrogance.
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Interesting.
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Humility then would be telling the truth of who you are.
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So if you're a really skilled opera singer, you're a skilled pianist, you're great at tennis, you're a kind and generous person, it doesn't matter what it is, if you own the truth,
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 You don't have to tell me 17 times.
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You might say once or twice, yeah, I'm really good at that, or I'm really excellent at that.
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But people will receive that as truth.
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And they don't think anything of it.
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It's like, yeah, they are.
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And they recognize they are cool.
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 And my experience is that when people feel good about themselves, Lewis, they don't have to tell people.
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They just live good.
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Absolutely.
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Or live the good.
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Absolutely.
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What's the best way for us to receive compliments?
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What's an approach we can have where we're authentic, it doesn't come across as arrogance or dismissing something?
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What's the best response?
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 Two comments.
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One is, first, a thank you.
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Or, thank you, I'm glad you see that.
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Or, thank you for recognizing that.
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Thank you for saying that.
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And the second, and this is actually borrowed from Lisa Nichols, and that is, I receive that.
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So it would be, thank you, I receive that.
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 I like those.
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And if you haven't taken the time to take them in, in my world, compliments are timeless.
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What does that mean?
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Think about the compliments you've been given and dismissed.
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 Now, go back and I would have you ask yourself a question, or kind of two around this.
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One is, what are those compliments that you've received that you've dismissed?
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And I've actually had people jot this down.
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You can go back as far in time as you want.
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Childhood, yes.
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You can.
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And who would you have become
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 if you had actually allowed yourself to accept those compliments at that time.
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And who can you become now by taking them in?
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So for me, compliments are a super important part of this whole experience of confidence.
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It was inspiring.
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 I'm so inspired by this, Joan, and your book, I want everyone to get this, 90 Seconds to a Life You Love, How to Master Your Difficult Feelings to Cultivate Lasting Confidence, Resilience, and Authenticity.
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I believe that doubt is one of the things that holds us back from living a beautiful life.
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 Doubting ourselves, doubting our past, doubting our future, just being in doubt.
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We're not as rich to be around.
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We're not as beautiful as an experience to be in the presence of when we doubt ourselves.
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 People don't want to be in relationship as much with someone who's constantly doubting themselves or doubting everything.
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And I feel like doubt is one of the killers of our dreams.
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Agreed.
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And in order to eliminate doubt, we need to learn how to build confidence.
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And you gave an incredible five-step process here.
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 And again, it's an easy concept, but can be very challenging for people to go through.
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But I believe that these steps will make it a smoother process to experience the uncomfortable feelings, which are necessary.
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You're going to have to experience them.
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 in order to get more comfortable and confident with experiencing them.
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So, I highly recommend this.
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I've got a couple of final questions, but before I ask you, Joan, I want to acknowledge you for your incredible commitment to understanding people, to breaking down the science of the emotions that people go through in a practical way that, for me, was very easy to understand.
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 this process.
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And I know that's taken you decades to understand and to experience, not only individually, but also experience with thousands of people, you know, face to face and hearing life stories and problems and stresses and pains from a lot of different people, a lot of different walks of life.
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So I really acknowledge you for your work, your ability to speak up and communicate effectively so that I can understand and that others can understand and the work that you're doing with this book and everything else.
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 It's amazing to connect with you.
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And I really appreciate this.
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Thank you.
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Thank you, I receive.
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Exactly.
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Thank you, I receive.
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Yes.
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This is a question, but before I get to the final two questions, I want to make sure people follow you over on social media.
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Dr. Joan Rosenberg on social media.
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And also what's the main place to send them?
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What's the main website for you?
3
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 DrJoanRosenberg.com.
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DrJoanRosenberg.com, social media.
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Get the book, 90 Seconds to a Life You Love.
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This will be a game changer for life.
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If you know anyone who's lacking confidence or suffering, get them this book as well.
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Really helpful.
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How else can we be of service to you before I ask you the final two questions?
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 For me really, Lewis, it's really about getting the work out.
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For me it's about the kinds of things that help me get this kind of message out.
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Like I said, I've had the opportunity to
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 To experience repeatedly What a difference it makes in people's lives.
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Yes, and and so that's that's really for me.
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It's about being bigger service cool, right?
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We'll get it out in a big way.
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So I'm very excited This question ask everyone at the end.
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It's called the three truths.
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Okay, so imagine hypothetical scenario It's your last day on earth many years away
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 You get to live the life you want to live.
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You create everything.
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You accomplish things.
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But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you on your last day.
3
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So no one has access to your book, this conversation, TED Talks.
3
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They're all gone.
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But you get to leave behind three lessons to put the world, three things that you know to be true that you'd want to share with the world.
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And this is all the information we have of yours left.
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What would be those three truths for you?
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The first
3
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 would be to think, speak, and take action in the direction you want your results to be.
3
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The second would be to be congruent.
3
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 So if we can go for the first four, we can go for all eight.
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And that list goes beyond, it can go beyond eight.
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But again, it would be that you want your thoughts, your feelings, your words, and your actions to match at the very least.
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 And if you can get your thoughts, feelings, words, and actions, your attitudes and beliefs, your values, your past history, and the vision for your future, if you can get them all to match even more, you're gonna be that much more fully aligned.
3
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You're on a rocket ship to what you want.
3
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Exactly, exactly.
3
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So that would be the second, congruence would be the second.
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And then the third would have to do with
3
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 with speaking up.
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It would be that understand that the purpose of you speaking, and again, it's speaking from a kind and well-intentioned place, I would say internally to yourself as well as externally with others.
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 That your capacity to do that and the importance of doing that, that purpose, if you will, is to grow you.
3
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And it's one of the best ways to evolve through life.
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And not only have a deeper connection within yourself, but it allows you to have the deepest and most enriching connections with others.
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Powerful truths.
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I'm a fan of those.
3
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Final question, what's your definition of greatness?
3
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 You know, I said earlier, in terms of kind of a personal mantra, this idea of kind of that I want to see how far I can stretch in life.
3
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And so one of my definition, or a definition of greatness for me, has to do with the willingness to step in and to pursue something.
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 no matter what that journey looks like.
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And so, as I might say many times, that we disappoint our ways to success.
3
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But it's to pursue those things that we really want to pursue in life and to allow ourselves to be as fully expressed in life as possible.
3
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 Thank you so much.
3
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Appreciate it.
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Powerful.
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Inspiring.
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 I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most.
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And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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And now it's time to go out there and do something great.