February 3, 2026 • 48 mins
Hey, Fellow Travelers. We’re dipping into our inbox to answer several of your questions this week, but we’re not doing it alone! For this special episode we’re joined by Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast and author of the New York Times #1 Bestseller “Think Like A Monk.” And because we couldn't resist, Jay also brings us an issue in his own life, tries out our advice, and lets us know how it all went. Consider this speed therapy, just in time for the holidays!
If you have a dilemma you’d like to discuss with us—big or small—email us at LoriAndGuy@iHeartMedia.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Hey to your Therapist listeners. It's Lori and Guy and
we have a quick update.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Many of you have told us that you get something
new out of each episode when you listen to it
again the second or third time. In fact, when we
listen to the episodes again, we also get takeaways we
didn't remember.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
We're They're therapy is like that too. There are so
many learning moments in a session, and it's difficult to
absorb them all at once. So while we're not taping
new episodes right now, we are offering you our most
popular sessions as encores so that you can continue to
gain value from them.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
We love doing the Therapists episodes, but we're each busy
with new and exciting projects that we hope you will
love just as much.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I have a new advice podcast called Since You Asked,
which you can get wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
And I have a new book coming out. It's called
Mind Overgrind, How to Break Free when work Hijacks your life,
and it will be published by Simon and Schuster. You
can find out more about it on my website dot com.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
You can learn more about these on our socials. And meanwhile,
we hope you find these Dear Therapist sessions as valuable
as we have making them for you. Hey, fellow travelers,
I'm Lori Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should
Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist column
for The Atlantic.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
And I'm Guy Winch. I wrote Emotional First Aid, and
I write the Dear Guy column for Ted. And this
is deo Therapists.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
This week, a man feels guilty that he isn't connecting
enough with his mother in another country during COVID. Oh,
and he's not just any fellow traveler. He's a special
guest that you may already know.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
The roles reverse as we get older. And one of
the things that I've noticed in that role reversal is
there can be a lot of feelings of guilt.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Listen in and maybe learn something about yourself and the process.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Deo Therapist is for informational purposes only, does not constitute
medical advice, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis,
or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician, mental
health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions
you may have regarding a medical condition. By submitting a letter,
you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in Potter
(03:26):
and Full and we may edit it for lengthen or clarity.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Hey Guy, Hey Laurie. So I'm really excited because today.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
We're doing something a little bit different on Dear Therapists.
We are still answering our listeners' questions, but we have
a very special guest who's going to join us to
do an episode of Speed Advice.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Our guest is Jay Shetty.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
He's a friend of ours and we asked him here
specifically because, like us, his mission is to help people
live better lives by becoming more aware of their emotional roadblocks.
He has a new book out that we can't recommend
highly enough.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
It is called Think like a Monk.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Spoiler alert because he used to be a monk. Now
Here he is sitting between two therapists. So Jay, welcome
to the show.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Guy Laurie, thank you so much for that is it
always sounds like one of those jokes, what did two
therapists and a monk do in a bar? It's awesome
to you, it's awesome to be with you both. Thank
you for having me. I'm a huge fan of both
of your work, so glad to be here with you.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Oh well, it's our pleasure.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
We were talking about how in your book you help
people with the same kinds of issues that we do, relationships, anxiety,
self sabotage. So normally on our show, people get two
therapists giving advice, but today people are going to get
two therapists and a former monk.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
And I just.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Want to let people know that think like a monk.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
It's such a game changer.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
It has been a huge bestseller because it is resonating
so widely with people who really want to find a
way forward, which is what we like to do on
the show. And that's why we're so happy to have
Jay here as our special guest in answering these questions.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
And I have a question for you. Jay. You were
a college student, you are pursuing a degree in business,
and then you decided to become a monk, and that's
an unusual career shift. So I'm very curous that people
who knew close friends, how did they respond.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Yeah, it's really interesting to go back and reflect on
how people reacted to that decision, which was big, extreme,
massively rebellious, completely against the grain. And my college friends
were all shocked and surprised. I got everything from you know,
you're never going to get a job again, through to
(05:49):
family and friends saying things like, you realize you're wasting
all your parents' efforts and getting you a good education.
This is a complete waste of your life, and you're
making the worst decision. And it's really interesting because the
noise was really high. But a big part of thinking
like a monk is being able to down the noise
(06:10):
and tune into your inner path and in a calling
and in a voice, and I felt that that was
really strong. Then the hardest thing was when I actually
came back from living as a month three years later,
they were like, we told you so. So that was
almost harder because the noise that I came back to was, well, look,
no one's going to give you a job now. You
just wasted three years of your life. So actually coming
(06:32):
back was somewhat harder than leaving.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So when you came back, you wanted to share with
people what you had learned, because you felt like it
wasn't about this person sitting on a mountaintop and being
removed from the world. It was about how can we
use all of this in very practical ways in our
daily lives. You're this like.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Young cool guy.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
You're not what we think of when we think of
a monk. So how did you think people would get
your message or response to your message?
Speaker 4 (07:02):
To be honest, I've never even thought about it. I
feel like when you found something that's so valuable and
so useful, you don't have to ask yourself questions about
whether someone's going to listen to you or not. If
you come across something truly powerful, the last thing you're
thinking about is am I the right person? Or is
this the right messenger? You just want to share it.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Well, we are so excited to bring your wisdom to
our listeners. So are you ready to take on some
of their questions.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
I don't know if I'll answer them as well as
you and guy, but I would definitely try my best.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
All right, I'm going to read the first one. They
usually start, your therapist. I'm going to skip that.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Because now it's dear therapist and a former monk.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I am almost forty years old, and I have a
successful career as an accountant working for multiple large corporations.
In my search for another position, I realized that I
really genuinely don't want to do anything related to text
or accounting. It really makes me feel sick just thinking
about going back to that. I love interacting with people,
talking about perspectives and emotions and talking about myself as
(08:07):
well as to others about this reason issues. The simple
answer is to go back to school and get a
degree in something else. However, that doesn't seem to be
the answer for me, as it brings up more questions
and anxiety than answers. Can you help me?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Thank you so much for the detailed question. It's great
to have some of those subtle insights into your particular journey.
I think it's really brave of you to acknowledge that
something that you've invested in and done until the age
of forty is something that you're not comfortable with. A
lot of people never get to that stage because it's
so hard to even admit to yourself that, hey, this
(08:43):
thing that I've been investing in for maybe twenty years
is not what I'm looking for. I think the key
thing here is, first of all, to realize why doing
tax still has value in your life. Often we look
at things as binary. Either it has value or it
doesn't have value. So at one point your current career
had value and now you almost feel like it has
(09:03):
zero value. The truth is it still has some value.
It may pay the bills, it may put food on
the table, it may take care of your family, so
it still has some value. And allowing yourself to recognize
that allows you to keep doing those things if that's
still important to you, at the same time as exploring
and experimenting with your curiosity. And so what I would
(09:23):
suggest is that continuing in the work that you're doing
right now to provide a foundation unless you have the
financial freedom to make a leap and take a risk
and start exploring. And the second thing is looking into
that curiosity. So when you start looking into your calling
or your passion, it's important to recognize the difference between
hobbies and your purpose or something that you're really meant
(09:45):
to do. And so you may be missing hobbies or
passions or interests that you may want to get back
involved in. But the difference between that and another career
path is what are you so passionate about that you're
willing to invest in building your strengths, your skills, your expertise,
and your abilities. And so that exploration starts with courses.
It starts with going to shadow people that you maybe
(10:07):
not have spent time with. You may listen to podcasts
and hear about people in those career paths. This is
a great time to allow your mind the openness to
explore this new path, but do it in a way
that feels safe and comfortable as well. Allowing yourself to
test courses. Shadowing people, hearing from people who are doing
career paths that you're fascinated by is a great way
of starting that initial research.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I love what you said about things not being binary,
because I think that so often what happens is people
are doing something and they feel like there's something better
out there, and the thing that they're doing becomes horrible.
It makes it really hard to hold on to the
fact that the other thing isn't one hundred percent great
and the thing that you're doing isn't one hundred percent bad.
And so it gives you that perspective, and it also
(10:49):
gives you more freedom to explore. So it's not like
the desperation of I have to get out of this
thing this second, where you said it makes me sick
to go back to this right. The reason this person
gave for not wanting to go back to school or
do something else was the uncertainty, And it wasn't like
you have to jump into a graduate program because you
don't know what you want to do yet exactly. So
what you said, Jay, it's a time to explore and
(11:12):
to be able to sit with the uncertainty, and certainty
is an opportunity because it opens up all of these possibilities.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I agree with both of you. We often make the
mistake of thinking we actually have to replace instead of
ad change this and switch it out, when maybe you
just need to add a component to your life that
would make everything else seem more worthwhile and working better.
So figure out what it is you can add, and
you might find in that exploration. Actually you'll find with
(11:42):
going back to what you did, because the combination of
the two is sufficient.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Let's move on to our next letter, and this one
is about an affair and letting go, and it goes
like this. When I was in college, I had an
affair with a professor twelve years my senior that lasted
for four years. He wasn't married, but he had a
steady girlfriend with whom he lived. It's the typical story
where I fell deeply in love, and I believed with
all my heart that he was going to leave her,
(12:06):
but he always found an excuse not to. When I
realized that I was caught in a cliche that hardly
ever ends well, I found the courage to break up
with him. But when I did, he uttered the words
you meant nothing to me. It was the last time
we spoke, and here I am seven years later. Even
though I don't have any romantic feelings for him anymore,
(12:26):
I still can't get over those words. They still hurt
for me. Those four years meant so much. There was
a lot of emotional intimacy. We talked daily. He was
often the first person I would hear from every morning,
and for hours he would confide in me, making me
feel special, encouraging and advising me.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
But now, because of those.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Words, every time I think of my college years, I
feel sad and naive. And even though I really would
like to know if he meant them or not, the
last thing I want to do is contact him and
ask him. I guess what I really want to know
is if a person can fake so much care and
attention and for so many years just to sleep with me.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
So, Jay, what do you think about that one.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Yeah, thank you for your courage on sharing that with us.
A lot of the time we look to gain closure
from other people. We look to gain answers and reasons
for something from the other person, but often the other
person is not physically accessible or emotionally mature enough to
have that conversation. It's really important that we provide that
(13:30):
closure and the answers and the reasons to ourself through
our own reflection of what we've experienced and what we've
been through. When you look at the scenario that you've
painted there and the person saying those words, those words
are probably shared in pain and spite from their side,
and not a reflection of you or what you gave
to the relationship or what you committed, but more of
(13:51):
a reflection of the state of mind they were in.
You stood up for what was right for you. You
stood up for what you thought was the best way forward.
And if that's something that someone couldn't understand or someone
couldn't respect or respond to in a positive way, then
you can be pretty sure that you made the right
decision to move on. But I would suggest that you
(14:13):
allow yourself to reflect on the situation and find the closure.
Recognize that final statement had very little to do with
you and more to do with how that person fell
at the time.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
It's interesting, Jay, because what's confusing her is that he
was twelve years her senior. He was the professor, he
was the one she expected was the adult, and so
if he said it, he must have meant it. But
he actually wasn't responding as an adult. He was responding
as a child. He was lashing out because his feelings
were hurt, which kind of implies that he actually did care.
(14:44):
People can be in a relationship in a big age difference,
and sometimes it's the younger one that's the more mature,
and so they keep taking what the older person is
saying too much to heart.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
And I think it's so true that when people are hurt,
they say hurtful things, and we sometimes forget that, we
personalize what they say, we take it at face value
when they're just responding from this place of deep woundedness.
This is a person who clearly cared about her, because
if he didn't care about her, he wouldn't have been
so wounded. And I think that we have to go
(15:14):
back to what you said, Jay, and what you're saying
guy too about you know, we all have this place
of knowing inside of us. And she knew at the
time this is not right. This is not healthy for me.
This is not a reciprocal relationship, and she knows that now.
But the problem is that those words are just imprinted
in her mind and she's not going to that place
(15:36):
of knowing that I knew this wasn't right for me.
I knew he didn't have my interest in mind. I
think that's going to be really important for her. Hold
on too that I know what's right for me. I
know what's healthy for me, and this even ruminating about
this is not healthy for me. You're listening to Dear
(15:59):
Therapists from my Heart Radio. We'll be back after a
quick break. I'm Laurie Gottlieb and.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I'm Guy Wench and this is Dear Therapist. Our next
one is about boundaries. I have a mother who has
severe depression. Although I don't live with her, she calls
me often being negative, down and crying. I try to
help her in the past by talking to her, listening,
suggesting things she can do, and every time she would
(16:35):
find an excuse not to help herself. I'm at the
point that I struggle myself with my anxiety, which results
in not wanting to speak to her as I don't
want to feel more down. She thinks I'm selfish. How
can I deal with my mother without feeling guilty?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Yeah, like our parents, there are superheroes and they make
everything happen. And then often the roles reverse as we
get older and they start looking to us for inspiration
or motivations or guidance or resources or whatever it may be.
And one of the things that I've noticed in that
role reversal is there can be a lot of feelings
(17:10):
of guilt and a lot of feelings of not being
able to reciprocate or respond with the love or the
support you may have received growing up. And that can
be a really tough situation to be in. And what
I've seen has helped many people is recognizing that sometimes
it's not us that our parents need. It's introducing them
(17:32):
to different insights, teachers, books, resources that can help them,
and providing them with a community, a group of friends,
encouraging other people to partake in their life, encouraging them
to connect with other people in their lives. It's not
the easy way out, it's actually the sustainable way for
them to also move forward is by not making them
(17:54):
fully dependent on you. And sometimes we can feel that
someone's fully dependent on us because we're allowing them to
only depend on us for that joy or their happiness
or whatever it may be. So allowing that person to
find a community, helping them find that community, helping them
find that next step for them, it's a patient process.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I think so many people are caught in what you're
talking about, Jay, where they feel like I know how
I can help my parent, meaning I can refer them
to a therapist, I can give them this book because
they're grieving. What happens is we aren't able to have
a boundary. We feel like that somehow it's selfish to
(18:37):
set a boundary. And the problem is that negativity is
so contagious, and you talk about this in your book, Jay,
where the most contagious thing in a household is anxiety negativity,
And if somebody doesn't have that under control, it affects
everybody around them. And so it's not being selfish to
be able to say to your parent, I love you
so much and I don't want to see you struggle
(18:58):
so much. I am not the person who can help
you through this in the most effective way. But I'll
help you find a therapist, or I'll send you some
books on this or whatever it is. That they're other
ways that you could be there and be helpful that
are actually more helpful. Then you're having these conversations all
the time that go nowhere.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
I think it's fair when you have a parent who's
really depressed and you have to do this lifting from
afar to say to them, Look, I understand you're depressed,
and I understand it's very difficult. I want to be
there for you, but I can't be there to the
point that I start feel like I'm drowning as well.
So I want us to talk about how we can
make our conversations a little more balanced. I'm happy to
(19:39):
listen at the beginning to what's going on, and at
that point she should be providing emotional validation rather than
advice necessarily. But then to pivot and say, and now
I want to tell you a little bit about me,
and let's see if I can brighten your day by
talking about me a little bit. So there's a little
bit of a balance there between the positivity and the negativity.
And to come to a contract with him. I'm to
(19:59):
an agreement that that's what we're going to do. We're
going to have elements of both.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
I'm learning so much. I love hearing you birth. This
is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It's so interesting to hear the overlap between how we
as therapist approach something and how you approach something with
the teachings from your work.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
And this is why I think your book is so
timely j because over the past ten twenty years there's
been a real influx of Eastern thinking into Western psychotherapy
in a way that makes us all richer for it.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Our next letter, in fact, I think is something you
talk about too in your book. It's about this idea
of revenge and why that's not helpful for us. And
here's how the letter goes. Dear Therapist and a Monk.
It has been a year. I was engaged and he
wanted to marry. After one visit from his daughter, he
sent me a WhatsApp message saying he could not leave
(20:50):
his old life and start a new life. He put
a photo of him and his daughter hugging each other.
I was mad, broke the contact immediately and now I
want revenge.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Is that a good thing?
Speaker 1 (21:01):
To do.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
And we think this is a very quick letter.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
We know that the answer is no, but but we
want to give We want to give a.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
Quick explanation as to why.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Yeah, I think we all agree that it doesn't matter
what the question is, revenge is not the answer. I
was just thinking about it out loud of just like yeah,
I was trying to think when when would I agree
that revenge is the answer, And I can't seem to
find a reason, And so I think it's important to
explain why revenge is never the answer because revenge places
(21:36):
the control and validation of your joy, happiness, and success
into someone else's hands. So if you now want to
take revenge, the only way your revenge will be satisfied
is if that person feels pain. Chances are they may
actually feel absolutely fine. And so now you've gone on
this whole journey to get a response from this individual
(22:00):
that may not give you the response you want. And
so revenge as a concept in and of itself is
flawed because it has no guarantee and it doesn't make
you feel a sense of safety or security or improve
your self worth. The key thing here is to reflect
on what you feel about you was lost or affected
in this situation that happened. What was it about this
(22:23):
situation that makes you want to take revenge? Where was
your ego hurt? And then creating a plan of action.
There's some part of you that doesn't feel as positive
about you anymore, and that means that putting some light
on it and working on it and helping yourself develop
that self confidence, that self esteem, whatever it may be
(22:43):
that may have been lost you to this scenario is
really where your focus should go. And that's going to
make you more attractive internally and externally to anyone in
the future, as opposed to trying to get that person's
validation from the past.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yeah, I'll add one thing that, you know, giving the
suddenness of this, you might this person might do some
work on looking back and seeing what they might have missed.
This is a big rupted about face. There are probably
signs there and it may be worthwhile to start looking
at those and seeing what other indications of this their world,
Whether you swept them under the rug, compromise too much,
(23:20):
miss them, what have you. There's a lot of learning
that can be done here, and there's no learning that
you get from revenge. None.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Yeah, this reminds me a little bit of that letter
we talked about earlier, where the actions of somebody else
are sitting with you, but the other person isn't feeling it.
The other person looms so large in your mind, but
they're in a different place. And so just to even
be able to have a better perspective on wait a minute,
this person broke up with me on WhatsApp right with
(23:50):
no conversation, no respect of a face to face conversation,
no warning, no indication, or maybe there were some indications
that this person missed, But the fact is this person
treated her with a complete lack of regard. And it's
funny when people treat us with a complete lack of regard.
Sometimes people say, oh, but I love this person, I
(24:12):
want to be with this person, And I want to
say to them, do you really want to be with
someone who would treat you like that? And so I
think the better use of her time and her emotional
real estate is to say, wait a minute, I need
to be clear on the kind of person I want
to be with. This is a wake up call for
me because clearly this is not the kind of person
(24:33):
that I want to be with. I don't want to
spend my time thinking about how I can get back
at him, because it's not going to help me in
any way. I want to think about helping myself move forward.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Lari and Guy, I think this is an interesting topic
that I'd love to pick your brains on. We've had
two examples now of relationships that started with a bit
of baggage or when things weren't necessarily transparent or clear
to some degree. So we had this scenario of dating
(25:04):
someone who has a long term girlfriend and being aware
or maybe we're still married or maybe not. But the
point I'm making is if a relationship starts with a
lack of transparency, what does studies and research show about
relationships like that and how they usually pan out? You know,
if you get honesty from someone three months in, or
(25:26):
you know about someone but you think they're going to
change and we're hoping that they're going to leave their partner,
how does that factor into our decision making when we
actually get into a relationship. Are we setting ourselves up
to fail?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
So that's a really important question, And the way I
think about it is that relationship dynamics are like cement.
When the cement is wet at the beginning, you can
mold it, you can make changes, you can shift things around,
shape it. But the minute it hardens, it's very difficult
(25:59):
to mold. Now you have to take a hammer and
a chisel to it, and it hardens really quickly. There's
an unspoken contract we enter when we're starting to date
someone in which we're communicating nonverbally that if I'm not
calling you on something, it must be okay with me.
If I'm not bringing up something or trying to change something,
I'm agreeing to it tacitly. So we have to pay
(26:21):
incredible attention in the early stages, and I mean early
as in first ten fifteen dates, because everything you're accepting then,
and you're accepting it. If you're not voicing that you're not,
you are kind of signing on for in the long term.
So to say, oh, nowa'la address that later is a mistake.
The cement will be dry, it'll be much much harder.
(26:43):
You have to pay a lot of attention very early.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, And I also feel like at the very beginning
trust is being established. People think, well, I don't want
to tell my new partner about this thing because they
probably won't like it. So I'm going to wait until
they already are into.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Me, and then I'll reveal this.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
And that is so dangerous because what happens is the
person is now into you, and now you're going to
tell them something that they were not act and then
all of a sudden, there is this damage done to
the trust. So you want to start building trust from
the very beginning. If the person is going to want
(27:21):
to be with you, you want to tell them those
things early on because they will appreciate that if it's
going to work out, it's going to work out. And
if it's not going to work out, it's not going
to be any better when you tell them three months
or three years down the line, it's actually going to
be far worse.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
That's great advice.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
So it sounds like.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
This person yet kids, and he was very torn between
what was going on with the kids and whether he
can be in a relationship or get married again, and
he wasn't telling her about that, and then it comes
out and it seems like this thing out of the blue,
But for him, it might not have been out of
the blue at all. For him. He might have been
thinking about this from the very beginning. But he felt like, oh,
I'll just work it out myself in my head.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Not good.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I want to suggest this to our listeners. I'm going
to read the next letter, but I want you, when
i'm done, to pause and think of how you would
respond to it given what we just said, because it's
a similar scenario. So let's see what you got from
that and how you might apply it to the following.
I mean, you can cheat and just listen to what
we see, but I'm suggesting it might be fun to
maybe see what you would say to this letter. All right,
(28:23):
here it is. I've been dating my boyfriend for close
to three years, and the relationship is very healthy. We
have talked about marriage and are both divorced with children.
Last month, during a heated discussion, it came out that
he does not want to remarry, doesn't know if he
can live with someone else. He has been divorced thirteen years,
me three, and plans to buy a beach house by
(28:44):
himself and for himself in the near future. This was
news to me, as we have looked at rings and
talked about a future together often. My quandary is that
we are very happy together and he's a wonderful partner.
Do I hang in knowing the relationship may never lead
to marriage or walk away and pursue the unknown.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
Thank you for sharing that. I'm sorry to hear that
it's never great when expectations change, especially as it's as
like to me that they were set or at least
spoken about openly for three years and then for someone
to change how they feel about something is definitely not
pleasant to be on the receiving end of, especially if
you're sure of it. For me, if you feel that
(29:25):
the relationship is good, and that's what I'm hearing, I
think it's really important to not have a heated but
have a cool discussion about why that person has changed
the way they feel. If you've looked at rings, if
you've talked about marriage, what's happened in that person's life
in their mind that they haven't shared with you. Because
if you say the relationship's healthy, then a sign of
(29:46):
a healthy relationship is that person being able to tell
you why their decision has changed, what they feel is
their new priority, and how they still feel about you.
The next step, based on their answer will be where
you can decide whether this is an investment in a
relationship that you still want to continue to do or
whether it's a relationship that you don't want to invest
(30:07):
in anymore because you're seeing that you have misaligned gold.
And the third and final thing you want a question
for yourself too, is what did marriage mean to you?
I think it's really important to define what marriage is,
what the role of a husband is, a wife is
a partner is, because I think often we also aren't
(30:28):
fully aware of why we want to get married, and
we've not really expressed that to the other person either.
So I think defining why marriage is important or why
living together is important, and what it means to you
will help you actually have the discussion. That will be
a very clarifying conversation.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah, so often people want to react and just make
a decision. Well, if he's going to do this, then
there are two things that can happen. We can break
up or we can stay together and I'll be resentful, right,
And that's sort of how it's positioned. Whereas I love
your advice, which is very much how guy and I
think about things, which is what's the why under this?
What happened?
Speaker 4 (31:06):
You know?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Sometimes we say we're in a healthy relationship, but we're
not that curious about our partner's inner life. We feel
so wounded, we feel so hurt that we don't make
the space to say, I wonder what's going on with him.
I want to understand him better, and I also want
him to understand my inner world, and so can we
have that kind of conversation? She says, he's going to
(31:28):
buy a beach house and live by himself, So what's
going on there with him? What does that mean? And
I can see how this conversation can go very badly
if she's angry and says, what.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
Do you mean you're doing that?
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Don't you love me? As opposed to I'm really confused
about this. We were ring shopping, but you're also saying,
now you don't want to get married and you want
to live by yourself.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Help me understand what's.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Going on with you, and that will help me to
make choices about my life too. But I don't think
she can make a good choice until she understands what
is going on with him, he understands what's going on
with her, and then they can both have this sort
of come to Jesus moment with themselves respectively, about what
do we want from each other.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
I think you're both right on. And I think the
one concern I would have for this person is that
she seems to be a little bit reluctant to look
under the bed at the monsters. In other words, when
she's opening by saying, we have a really healthy relationship.
This and this and this happened, but we are really
happy together. He's a wonderful partner.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Hey, you're not.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Really happy together, because if he were, then he wouldn't
be planning to get a beach house without you or
telling me he doesn't want to get married, And same
goes to the health of the relationship. He's making unilateral
moves as he's making partnering moves with you. She's getting
a ring, but he's buying the beach house and telling
you that. So there's a little bit of denial there
about perhaps their issues here, and maybe she's not asking
(32:55):
because she doesn't want to find out, but she needs
to find out clearly at this point she needs to
really be brave and say, let's talk about how you
see things moving forward.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I think that those last two letters were very similar
in that way about the denial part.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
What were you missing?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
What were you not looking at? And we do that
to protect ourselves, but as we can see, it doesn't
really protect us.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
Ultimately.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
It's almost a form of self sabotage when you think
about it. And our next letter is directly about self sabotage,
and lots of people deal with these self sabotaging patterns
in relationships, and that's what this letter is about.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
It goes like this.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Over the years, I have become pretty familiar and well
aware of my own relational patterns and picked up some
insight as to why I do the things that I do,
and most notably, the kinds of people I pursue when
it comes to relationships. Even so, I still find myself
falling into the same self sabotaging patterns. Most recently, I
am ashamed to say I found myself getting involved for
(33:52):
the second time with a man who is in a
committed relationship with another woman. This was a person I
had worked really hard to distance myself from and had
successfully been out of contact with for over a year.
I know how harmful my actions are for all parties involved,
but somehow I find myself creating creative ways to rationalize
my behavior. I often find myself wondering what it will
(34:13):
take for me to translate all of this insight I
have developed into actually doing something different. What needs to
happen to translate insight into action?
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of awareness here
of that mistake that you're getting involved in this situation
and repeating a pattern that you don't think is healthy
for you. The second step to turn that insight into action,
I would really write down and become aware when you're
at your lowest point in these scenarios, I would voiceenook
(34:44):
to yourself or record or write down how you feel.
Because what ends up happening is that our minds end
up forgetting all of these challenges and pains in the
pattern that comes with these bad mistakes that we make.
And so I think it's really important that you allow
yourself to truly face how complicated, confusing, and challenging the
(35:07):
situation is. When you you get involved with someone who's
already in a relationship and it sounds like you've experienced
that before, allow yourself to really process how challenging it
was in the past, how challenging it was now, because
that's going to be your first step in turning insight
into action. The second thing is look at who and
where you meet people, because you're going to find patterns
(35:30):
in that as well. It's not only patterns in the
people that you choose to be with, the patterns in
the way you come across people and find people. And
maybe there's even some parts of your circle or parts
of your habits that you need to change in order
to change this part of your life. It may be
where you socialize, who you socialize with, who you spend
time with. All of that is going to introduce you
(35:51):
to a new kind of human, a new kind of
person that actually may be healthier and better for you.
And the third and final thing is allow yourself to
set yourself a rule and a boundary that you stand
by of noticing the red flags when you start seeing
yourself go down that way. So when you start seeing
yourself go down that lane, have a list of three
red flags that you remember that you don't want to
(36:11):
take again. That's how you would start tending insight into action.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I always say that insight is the booby price of therapy.
That you can have all the insight in the world.
You can come to therapy every week and say, now
I understand my pattern. I go after these kinds of
people this is what I do. But if you don't
make changes, if you don't take action, the insight is useless.
And I think that what's great about this letter is
this person realizes it's not just my awareness, it's that
I need to do something different. And I love your
(36:38):
suggestions about something concrete that this person can do. So
when people come to therapy and they'll they'll say, you know,
now I understand why. It got into that argument again
with my partner and I'll say, well, did you do
something different? And they'll say, well, no, but I understand why.
But they get into that same argument every weekend. Why
are you not doing something different? What is keeping you
(36:59):
from doing so? How does it serve you? And I
think that what she needs to ask herself, which is
what I ask therapy patients all the time, is if
you're not taking action, how does it serve you not
to take action? And so, how's it serving you right
now to go after these things that are not satisfying
for you? Is it because you don't truly believe that
you can have something that would be more satisfying to you?
(37:19):
Is it because it feels safer to you? Is it
because it feels more comforting and familiar to you, even
though you're miserable in it. What is it about that?
And once you can figure out what that roadblock is,
you can start to do something differently. I really wish
this person luck, and I think they're almost there in
terms of saying I need to employ these strategies so
that I can do something differently.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
You're listening to Deotherapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back after
a quick break.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So guy, we have one final letter, and it goes
like this. I have not been able to see my
mom for nearly a year now because of the pandemic.
She's eight hours ahead in time zone, so it's tough
to talk to her a lot. She's asleep by the
time I have some free time. I call her as
much as I can, but I don't know how to
make sure she feels loved and cared for without seeing her.
(38:17):
I want her to know how much she means to me.
I also worry about her safety, etc.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
I think you and I should tackle that one first.
Let's go first, and then we can give it to Jay.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
Okay, great.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
So there's so many people in this situation who have
not seen parents for a long, long time, and they're
worried about them, and they think about them, and they
talk on the phone and they keep up. But they
used to seeing their parents much more frequently, and so
I think it's so difficult. And the letter writer is
concerned that the mother doesn't know how much she means
(38:50):
to him and how much he thinks of her, and
I think that might be her concern, but it's his guilt,
it's his worry, and I think that's what's generating some
of this. So I think there needs to be a
way where he can remind both parties about how much
he thinks of her, how much he loves her.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, So not hearing in the letter is that the
mother is the person who is making the person feel guilty.
What I'm hearing is that this person just has so
much love for his mother. That's what came across to
me was how much love he has, and how sometimes
we love somebody so much, but often think of all
(39:28):
of our relationships, do we really show it? And are
we sure that we're really showing it? And what can
we be doing to make sure that we're getting that across?
And so I think this is really less a letter
about him not being a good son, because I think
he probably is a good son. I think it's more
about is he communicating how he feels to someone that
(39:49):
he cares so much about. And so we actually have
some advice for this person that we want him to
try because he is right here. This is actually a
letter from Jay Shetty to us. So, Jay, we want
to give you a little bit of advice to take
home with you as I need it, like, yeah, and
you're going to test it out like everybody does our show,
and then you'll let us know how it went. So, guy,
(40:11):
do you want to go ahead and give him some
of our thoughts?
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Sure? So, we would like you, for the next week,
every time you think of your mom, whether it's fond, nurse, worry, love,
whatever it is, make a note in your phone. We
don't want you to text her in the moment, because
we don't know if she's one of those parents that
sleeps with the phone by her pillow. We don't want
you to wake her up in the middle of the night.
But we'd like you to make a list every time
you have that thought. It can be twice in the morning,
(40:37):
whatever it is, and just what the thought was and
what the feeling was, and then we would like you to,
at the end of the week send her a letter
or a text in which you say, Mama, I was
wondering how often I think about you? Can I miss
you during the week. So I decided to write it down,
and I'm sending you my diary of the week of
mom thoughts. I think would be a nice thing for
(40:59):
her to see how many of those there are.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
I love that. That's such a great idea. I love that,
absolutely love that.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
And we think the other purpose of this is that
we actually.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Believe that your mom knows how much you love her,
but that sometimes it's important for us to make sure
for our own peace of mind that we have communicated
that directly. And so this is just a gesture that
you can do. This wouldn't be something you would do
every week. It's just a one time thing to say, wow,
for you to notice whoa you know what? I really
(41:33):
I love her so much. I do think about her
a lot. And then also to be able to say,
and I want you to know, Mom, these are the
times that I thought about you.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
And this happens all the time. This happens every week.
I'm just going to show you this week.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
But this happens all the time, and I don't know
if I communicated that to you, I think she will
be so touched by that, and I think that for you,
it will reassure you that you don't need to be
thinking about the person every minute or calling them every minute.
It's the fact that there is this strong bond between
you and that Now I want to make sure I've
told her and now you've told her.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Yeah, I love that. Thank you both that. I'm definitely
going to try that out. Actually really love the sound
of that. I love how practical it is, and I
could definitely see why that's different to just saying I
love you, or you know, just sharing it, which I
do often. But I can totally see why this is
going to be a lot more meaningful. So thank you
so much. I love this idea and I can't wait
(42:28):
to try it out. Honestly, there's this phrase.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
That we have in therapy of being kept in mind
that you know a lot of people go to therapy
and they wonder, does my therapist think about me during
the week?
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Am I kept in mind?
Speaker 1 (42:38):
People think about that with their romantic partners, or with
their close friends, or with their parents. Or with their children.
Am I kept in mind? So there's something just so
beautiful about communicating to your mom that she is kept
in mind.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
And we would love for you to when you send
this to her, send us a voicemail let us know
how that went and how it made you feel while
you were doing it, and how she responded.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
Ahsome my definitely will, Yeah, one hundred percent. I can't
wait to see how she responds.
Speaker 5 (43:07):
Great.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Well, We thank you so much, thank for being our
guest today and helping answer all of these listener questions.
Speaker 5 (43:12):
And I really want to encourage.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Everybody to check out Jay's book, Think Like a Monk,
because it has so much wisdom in it, so much
of which was interwoven into the answers that Jay gave
today and that even we as therapists give all the time.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
You're both very kind that I want to thank you.
I love this format. I think it's such a great podcast.
I've enjoyed being with both of you, and I've read
both of your books too, so I can't stop saying
enough incredible things about both of them. But in regards
to what you were just sharing right now, I think
it's amazing that we're all able to collaborate together in
(43:48):
this way to serve and help other people. I took
so many notes while both of you were talking, so
I would encourage everyone to go back and take some
notes to and listen to it, because, as Laurie was
pointing out, you know, insight into action is such an
important part and taking notes is a part of that.
Like the insight needs to really go deep for us
(44:08):
to take an action on it. And so for me,
I was taking notes while Guy and Laurie were speaking,
and I found it extremely beneficial even in my perspectives.
And you saw me asking questions, and so I hope
you feel encouraged to ask questions as well and continue
learning from both these incredible powerhouses of insight and information.
So thank you Guy, and thank you Laurie for having me.
This is wonderful.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Well, thank you so much, Jay, and we look forward
to hearing how the advice went for you.
Speaker 5 (44:39):
So Guy, we heard back from Jay.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
It's interesting because he was both the advice giver and
the advice seeker in this episode.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
Hey Laurie, Hey Guy, it's so great to talk to
you again. I hope you're well. And hello to all
the listeners of the Dear Therapist podcast. This is Jay Shetty.
I'm so glad I tried out the advice of keeping
the journal every time I think about my mom, whether
it's something big or small, and then sending it to
her because it was so fun to see our reaction,
(45:08):
to see all the little times I think about it,
whether I'm outside and I see a divali decoration. It's
been a holiday time for us at the moment, and
that made me remember my mom and the suits that
she would make at home, and the different festivities and
the rituals that we would do. And of course it's
coming up close to Christmas time, so I've been thinking
(45:29):
a lot about the advent calendar should get me as
a kid as I walk around, so being able to
just write down those small moments, even though those aren't
moments in which i'd call my mom about that one thing,
It's been really wonderful to see how that went and
how she experienced it. She was so happy to see
that I remember so much, And I think that was
the key thing about this activity, that what it did
(45:49):
is that it prompted very natural, organic memories, and sharing
memories with someone who loves us is a beautiful way
of telling them we love them and how much we
value them, because it shows we remember something special they
did for us, so it acts as a way of
creating gratitude. So thank you bouth again. Really glad I
got to do this. Hope this helps everyone who's listening by.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
So we get the response from Jay, who himself gives
so much advice, and then he tells us what happened,
and he tells us how he felt about it, and
then he analyzes it. So I guess we're done. We
don't have to do much here. He did it all
for us.
Speaker 5 (46:24):
Yeah, we kind of are done. But I want to.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Add one thing to it, which is that I think
sometimes we don't realize how important we are to other
people and how important other people are to us. And
I think what was beautiful about what he did and
he really embraced the assignment was he noticed how much
his mother comes into his mind in really positive ways.
(46:49):
And I think sometimes we don't take the time to notice.
And I think the assignment forced him to slow down
a little bit and to notice those moments and then
to be able to share those moments people feel like, well,
I have to call my mom or I have to
call my dad and it's such as stressor because it
doesn't feel organic. But when you notice the organic ways
(47:11):
in which they're meaningful to you, and then you can
share that with them, I think it's a very different
kind of interaction. And I hope that our listeners can
incorporate this into their own lives.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
And I have to say, in this upcoming holiday season
and in general, this is a great gift to give
someone that you care about to just keep that journal
and the gift is, here's how often and in what
ways I think about you that you don't know about.
I just think it's something that could be used very broadly.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
It's a gift that keeps on giving because it's not
just how the person feels in the moment when they
receive it, but that's going to stay with them for
a long time.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Hey, fellow travelers, if you've used any of our advice
from the podcast in your own life, send us a
quick voice memo to Lori and Guy at iHeartMedia dot
com and tell us about it. We may include it
in a future show. Thank you so much for listening.
If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to
rate and review it.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
You can follow us both online. I'm at Lorigottlieb dot
com and you can follow me on Twitter at Lorigottlieb
one or on Instagram at Lorigottlieb Underscore Author.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
And I'm at Guywinch dot com. I'm on Twitter and
on Instagram at Guywinch. If you have a dilemma you'd
like to discuss with us, big or small, email us
at Lorianguy at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Our executive producers Christopher Hasiotis were produced and edited by
Mike Johns. Special thanks to Samuel Benefield and to our
podcast Fairygodmother Katie Couric and Next Week. A woman tries
to forge a relationship with the younger brother she wasn't
very nice to when they were children.
Speaker 6 (48:53):
It's very emotional to say that, yes, I was awful
to have said that I wish you weren't born, you know,
to a little kid like that, and I have said
that I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Dear Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio
Hey to your Therapist listeners. It's Lori and Guy and
we have a quick update.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Many of you have told us that you get something
new out of each episode when you listen to it
again the second or third time. In fact, when we
listen to the episodes again, we also get takeaways we
didn't remember.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
We're They're therapy is like that too. There are so
many learning moments in a session, and it's difficult to
absorb them all at once. So while we're not taping
new episodes right now, we are offering you our most
popular sessions as encores so that you can continue to
gain value from them.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
We love doing the Therapists episodes, but we're each busy
with new and exciting projects that we hope you will
love just as much.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I have a new advice podcast called Since You Asked,
which you can get wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
And I have a new book coming out. It's called
Mind Overgrind, How to Break Free when work Hijacks your life,
and it will be published by Simon and Schuster. You
can find out more about it on my website dot com.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
You can learn more about these on our socials. And meanwhile,
we hope you find these Dear Therapist sessions as valuable
as we have making them for you. Hey, fellow travelers,
I'm Lori Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should
Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist column
for The Atlantic.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
And I'm Guy Winch. I wrote Emotional First Aid, and
I write the Dear Guy column for Ted. And this
is deo Therapists.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
This week, a man feels guilty that he isn't connecting
enough with his mother in another country during COVID. Oh,
and he's not just any fellow traveler. He's a special
guest that you may already know.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
The roles reverse as we get older. And one of
the things that I've noticed in that role reversal is
there can be a lot of feelings of guilt.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Listen in and maybe learn something about yourself and the process.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Deo Therapist is for informational purposes only, does not constitute
medical advice, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis,
or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician, mental
health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions
you may have regarding a medical condition. By submitting a letter,
you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in Potter
(03:26):
and Full and we may edit it for lengthen or clarity.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Hey Guy, Hey Laurie. So I'm really excited because today.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
We're doing something a little bit different on Dear Therapists.
We are still answering our listeners' questions, but we have
a very special guest who's going to join us to
do an episode of Speed Advice.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Our guest is Jay Shetty.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
He's a friend of ours and we asked him here
specifically because, like us, his mission is to help people
live better lives by becoming more aware of their emotional roadblocks.
He has a new book out that we can't recommend
highly enough.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
It is called Think like a Monk.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Spoiler alert because he used to be a monk. Now
Here he is sitting between two therapists. So Jay, welcome
to the show.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Guy Laurie, thank you so much for that is it
always sounds like one of those jokes, what did two
therapists and a monk do in a bar? It's awesome
to you, it's awesome to be with you both. Thank
you for having me. I'm a huge fan of both
of your work, so glad to be here with you.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Oh well, it's our pleasure.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
We were talking about how in your book you help
people with the same kinds of issues that we do, relationships, anxiety,
self sabotage. So normally on our show, people get two
therapists giving advice, but today people are going to get
two therapists and a former monk.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
And I just.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Want to let people know that think like a monk.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
It's such a game changer.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
It has been a huge bestseller because it is resonating
so widely with people who really want to find a
way forward, which is what we like to do on
the show. And that's why we're so happy to have
Jay here as our special guest in answering these questions.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
And I have a question for you. Jay. You were
a college student, you are pursuing a degree in business,
and then you decided to become a monk, and that's
an unusual career shift. So I'm very curous that people
who knew close friends, how did they respond.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Yeah, it's really interesting to go back and reflect on
how people reacted to that decision, which was big, extreme,
massively rebellious, completely against the grain. And my college friends
were all shocked and surprised. I got everything from you know,
you're never going to get a job again, through to
(05:49):
family and friends saying things like, you realize you're wasting
all your parents' efforts and getting you a good education.
This is a complete waste of your life, and you're
making the worst decision. And it's really interesting because the
noise was really high. But a big part of thinking
like a monk is being able to down the noise
(06:10):
and tune into your inner path and in a calling
and in a voice, and I felt that that was
really strong. Then the hardest thing was when I actually
came back from living as a month three years later,
they were like, we told you so. So that was
almost harder because the noise that I came back to was, well, look,
no one's going to give you a job now. You
just wasted three years of your life. So actually coming
(06:32):
back was somewhat harder than leaving.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So when you came back, you wanted to share with
people what you had learned, because you felt like it
wasn't about this person sitting on a mountaintop and being
removed from the world. It was about how can we
use all of this in very practical ways in our
daily lives. You're this like.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Young cool guy.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
You're not what we think of when we think of
a monk. So how did you think people would get
your message or response to your message?
Speaker 4 (07:02):
To be honest, I've never even thought about it. I
feel like when you found something that's so valuable and
so useful, you don't have to ask yourself questions about
whether someone's going to listen to you or not. If
you come across something truly powerful, the last thing you're
thinking about is am I the right person? Or is
this the right messenger? You just want to share it.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Well, we are so excited to bring your wisdom to
our listeners. So are you ready to take on some
of their questions.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
I don't know if I'll answer them as well as
you and guy, but I would definitely try my best.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
All right, I'm going to read the first one. They
usually start, your therapist. I'm going to skip that.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Because now it's dear therapist and a former monk.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I am almost forty years old, and I have a
successful career as an accountant working for multiple large corporations.
In my search for another position, I realized that I
really genuinely don't want to do anything related to text
or accounting. It really makes me feel sick just thinking
about going back to that. I love interacting with people,
talking about perspectives and emotions and talking about myself as
(08:07):
well as to others about this reason issues. The simple
answer is to go back to school and get a
degree in something else. However, that doesn't seem to be
the answer for me, as it brings up more questions
and anxiety than answers. Can you help me?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Thank you so much for the detailed question. It's great
to have some of those subtle insights into your particular journey.
I think it's really brave of you to acknowledge that
something that you've invested in and done until the age
of forty is something that you're not comfortable with. A
lot of people never get to that stage because it's
so hard to even admit to yourself that, hey, this
(08:43):
thing that I've been investing in for maybe twenty years
is not what I'm looking for. I think the key
thing here is, first of all, to realize why doing
tax still has value in your life. Often we look
at things as binary. Either it has value or it
doesn't have value. So at one point your current career
had value and now you almost feel like it has
(09:03):
zero value. The truth is it still has some value.
It may pay the bills, it may put food on
the table, it may take care of your family, so
it still has some value. And allowing yourself to recognize
that allows you to keep doing those things if that's
still important to you, at the same time as exploring
and experimenting with your curiosity. And so what I would
(09:23):
suggest is that continuing in the work that you're doing
right now to provide a foundation unless you have the
financial freedom to make a leap and take a risk
and start exploring. And the second thing is looking into
that curiosity. So when you start looking into your calling
or your passion, it's important to recognize the difference between
hobbies and your purpose or something that you're really meant
(09:45):
to do. And so you may be missing hobbies or
passions or interests that you may want to get back
involved in. But the difference between that and another career
path is what are you so passionate about that you're
willing to invest in building your strengths, your skills, your expertise,
and your abilities. And so that exploration starts with courses.
It starts with going to shadow people that you maybe
(10:07):
not have spent time with. You may listen to podcasts
and hear about people in those career paths. This is
a great time to allow your mind the openness to
explore this new path, but do it in a way
that feels safe and comfortable as well. Allowing yourself to
test courses. Shadowing people, hearing from people who are doing
career paths that you're fascinated by is a great way
of starting that initial research.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I love what you said about things not being binary,
because I think that so often what happens is people
are doing something and they feel like there's something better
out there, and the thing that they're doing becomes horrible.
It makes it really hard to hold on to the
fact that the other thing isn't one hundred percent great
and the thing that you're doing isn't one hundred percent bad.
And so it gives you that perspective, and it also
(10:49):
gives you more freedom to explore. So it's not like
the desperation of I have to get out of this
thing this second, where you said it makes me sick
to go back to this right. The reason this person
gave for not wanting to go back to school or
do something else was the uncertainty, And it wasn't like
you have to jump into a graduate program because you
don't know what you want to do yet exactly. So
what you said, Jay, it's a time to explore and
(11:12):
to be able to sit with the uncertainty, and certainty
is an opportunity because it opens up all of these possibilities.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I agree with both of you. We often make the
mistake of thinking we actually have to replace instead of
ad change this and switch it out, when maybe you
just need to add a component to your life that
would make everything else seem more worthwhile and working better.
So figure out what it is you can add, and
you might find in that exploration. Actually you'll find with
(11:42):
going back to what you did, because the combination of
the two is sufficient.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Let's move on to our next letter, and this one
is about an affair and letting go, and it goes
like this. When I was in college, I had an
affair with a professor twelve years my senior that lasted
for four years. He wasn't married, but he had a
steady girlfriend with whom he lived. It's the typical story
where I fell deeply in love, and I believed with
all my heart that he was going to leave her,
(12:06):
but he always found an excuse not to. When I
realized that I was caught in a cliche that hardly
ever ends well, I found the courage to break up
with him. But when I did, he uttered the words
you meant nothing to me. It was the last time
we spoke, and here I am seven years later. Even
though I don't have any romantic feelings for him anymore,
(12:26):
I still can't get over those words. They still hurt
for me. Those four years meant so much. There was
a lot of emotional intimacy. We talked daily. He was
often the first person I would hear from every morning,
and for hours he would confide in me, making me
feel special, encouraging and advising me.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
But now, because of those.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Words, every time I think of my college years, I
feel sad and naive. And even though I really would
like to know if he meant them or not, the
last thing I want to do is contact him and
ask him. I guess what I really want to know
is if a person can fake so much care and
attention and for so many years just to sleep with me.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
So, Jay, what do you think about that one.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Yeah, thank you for your courage on sharing that with us.
A lot of the time we look to gain closure
from other people. We look to gain answers and reasons
for something from the other person, but often the other
person is not physically accessible or emotionally mature enough to
have that conversation. It's really important that we provide that
(13:30):
closure and the answers and the reasons to ourself through
our own reflection of what we've experienced and what we've
been through. When you look at the scenario that you've
painted there and the person saying those words, those words
are probably shared in pain and spite from their side,
and not a reflection of you or what you gave
to the relationship or what you committed, but more of
(13:51):
a reflection of the state of mind they were in.
You stood up for what was right for you. You
stood up for what you thought was the best way forward.
And if that's something that someone couldn't understand or someone
couldn't respect or respond to in a positive way, then
you can be pretty sure that you made the right
decision to move on. But I would suggest that you
(14:13):
allow yourself to reflect on the situation and find the closure.
Recognize that final statement had very little to do with
you and more to do with how that person fell
at the time.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
It's interesting, Jay, because what's confusing her is that he
was twelve years her senior. He was the professor, he
was the one she expected was the adult, and so
if he said it, he must have meant it. But
he actually wasn't responding as an adult. He was responding
as a child. He was lashing out because his feelings
were hurt, which kind of implies that he actually did care.
(14:44):
People can be in a relationship in a big age difference,
and sometimes it's the younger one that's the more mature,
and so they keep taking what the older person is
saying too much to heart.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
And I think it's so true that when people are hurt,
they say hurtful things, and we sometimes forget that, we
personalize what they say, we take it at face value
when they're just responding from this place of deep woundedness.
This is a person who clearly cared about her, because
if he didn't care about her, he wouldn't have been
so wounded. And I think that we have to go
(15:14):
back to what you said, Jay, and what you're saying
guy too about you know, we all have this place
of knowing inside of us. And she knew at the
time this is not right. This is not healthy for me.
This is not a reciprocal relationship, and she knows that now.
But the problem is that those words are just imprinted
in her mind and she's not going to that place
(15:36):
of knowing that I knew this wasn't right for me.
I knew he didn't have my interest in mind. I
think that's going to be really important for her. Hold
on too that I know what's right for me. I
know what's healthy for me, and this even ruminating about
this is not healthy for me. You're listening to Dear
(15:59):
Therapists from my Heart Radio. We'll be back after a
quick break. I'm Laurie Gottlieb and.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I'm Guy Wench and this is Dear Therapist. Our next
one is about boundaries. I have a mother who has
severe depression. Although I don't live with her, she calls
me often being negative, down and crying. I try to
help her in the past by talking to her, listening,
suggesting things she can do, and every time she would
(16:35):
find an excuse not to help herself. I'm at the
point that I struggle myself with my anxiety, which results
in not wanting to speak to her as I don't
want to feel more down. She thinks I'm selfish. How
can I deal with my mother without feeling guilty?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Yeah, like our parents, there are superheroes and they make
everything happen. And then often the roles reverse as we
get older and they start looking to us for inspiration
or motivations or guidance or resources or whatever it may be.
And one of the things that I've noticed in that
role reversal is there can be a lot of feelings
(17:10):
of guilt and a lot of feelings of not being
able to reciprocate or respond with the love or the
support you may have received growing up. And that can
be a really tough situation to be in. And what
I've seen has helped many people is recognizing that sometimes
it's not us that our parents need. It's introducing them
(17:32):
to different insights, teachers, books, resources that can help them,
and providing them with a community, a group of friends,
encouraging other people to partake in their life, encouraging them
to connect with other people in their lives. It's not
the easy way out, it's actually the sustainable way for
them to also move forward is by not making them
(17:54):
fully dependent on you. And sometimes we can feel that
someone's fully dependent on us because we're allowing them to
only depend on us for that joy or their happiness
or whatever it may be. So allowing that person to
find a community, helping them find that community, helping them
find that next step for them, it's a patient process.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I think so many people are caught in what you're
talking about, Jay, where they feel like I know how
I can help my parent, meaning I can refer them
to a therapist, I can give them this book because
they're grieving. What happens is we aren't able to have
a boundary. We feel like that somehow it's selfish to
(18:37):
set a boundary. And the problem is that negativity is
so contagious, and you talk about this in your book, Jay,
where the most contagious thing in a household is anxiety negativity,
And if somebody doesn't have that under control, it affects
everybody around them. And so it's not being selfish to
be able to say to your parent, I love you
so much and I don't want to see you struggle
(18:58):
so much. I am not the person who can help
you through this in the most effective way. But I'll
help you find a therapist, or I'll send you some
books on this or whatever it is. That they're other
ways that you could be there and be helpful that
are actually more helpful. Then you're having these conversations all
the time that go nowhere.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
I think it's fair when you have a parent who's
really depressed and you have to do this lifting from
afar to say to them, Look, I understand you're depressed,
and I understand it's very difficult. I want to be
there for you, but I can't be there to the
point that I start feel like I'm drowning as well.
So I want us to talk about how we can
make our conversations a little more balanced. I'm happy to
(19:39):
listen at the beginning to what's going on, and at
that point she should be providing emotional validation rather than
advice necessarily. But then to pivot and say, and now
I want to tell you a little bit about me,
and let's see if I can brighten your day by
talking about me a little bit. So there's a little
bit of a balance there between the positivity and the negativity.
And to come to a contract with him. I'm to
(19:59):
an agreement that that's what we're going to do. We're
going to have elements of both.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
I'm learning so much. I love hearing you birth. This
is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It's so interesting to hear the overlap between how we
as therapist approach something and how you approach something with
the teachings from your work.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
And this is why I think your book is so
timely j because over the past ten twenty years there's
been a real influx of Eastern thinking into Western psychotherapy
in a way that makes us all richer for it.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Our next letter, in fact, I think is something you
talk about too in your book. It's about this idea
of revenge and why that's not helpful for us. And
here's how the letter goes. Dear Therapist and a Monk.
It has been a year. I was engaged and he
wanted to marry. After one visit from his daughter, he
sent me a WhatsApp message saying he could not leave
(20:50):
his old life and start a new life. He put
a photo of him and his daughter hugging each other.
I was mad, broke the contact immediately and now I
want revenge.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Is that a good thing?
Speaker 1 (21:01):
To do.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
And we think this is a very quick letter.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
We know that the answer is no, but but we
want to give We want to give a.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
Quick explanation as to why.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Yeah, I think we all agree that it doesn't matter
what the question is, revenge is not the answer. I
was just thinking about it out loud of just like yeah,
I was trying to think when when would I agree
that revenge is the answer, And I can't seem to
find a reason, And so I think it's important to
explain why revenge is never the answer because revenge places
(21:36):
the control and validation of your joy, happiness, and success
into someone else's hands. So if you now want to
take revenge, the only way your revenge will be satisfied
is if that person feels pain. Chances are they may
actually feel absolutely fine. And so now you've gone on
this whole journey to get a response from this individual
(22:00):
that may not give you the response you want. And
so revenge as a concept in and of itself is
flawed because it has no guarantee and it doesn't make
you feel a sense of safety or security or improve
your self worth. The key thing here is to reflect
on what you feel about you was lost or affected
in this situation that happened. What was it about this
(22:23):
situation that makes you want to take revenge? Where was
your ego hurt? And then creating a plan of action.
There's some part of you that doesn't feel as positive
about you anymore, and that means that putting some light
on it and working on it and helping yourself develop
that self confidence, that self esteem, whatever it may be
(22:43):
that may have been lost you to this scenario is
really where your focus should go. And that's going to
make you more attractive internally and externally to anyone in
the future, as opposed to trying to get that person's
validation from the past.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yeah, I'll add one thing that, you know, giving the
suddenness of this, you might this person might do some
work on looking back and seeing what they might have missed.
This is a big rupted about face. There are probably
signs there and it may be worthwhile to start looking
at those and seeing what other indications of this their world,
Whether you swept them under the rug, compromise too much,
(23:20):
miss them, what have you. There's a lot of learning
that can be done here, and there's no learning that
you get from revenge. None.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Yeah, this reminds me a little bit of that letter
we talked about earlier, where the actions of somebody else
are sitting with you, but the other person isn't feeling it.
The other person looms so large in your mind, but
they're in a different place. And so just to even
be able to have a better perspective on wait a minute,
this person broke up with me on WhatsApp right with
(23:50):
no conversation, no respect of a face to face conversation,
no warning, no indication, or maybe there were some indications
that this person missed, But the fact is this person
treated her with a complete lack of regard. And it's
funny when people treat us with a complete lack of regard.
Sometimes people say, oh, but I love this person, I
(24:12):
want to be with this person, And I want to
say to them, do you really want to be with
someone who would treat you like that? And so I
think the better use of her time and her emotional
real estate is to say, wait a minute, I need
to be clear on the kind of person I want
to be with. This is a wake up call for
me because clearly this is not the kind of person
(24:33):
that I want to be with. I don't want to
spend my time thinking about how I can get back
at him, because it's not going to help me in
any way. I want to think about helping myself move forward.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Lari and Guy, I think this is an interesting topic
that I'd love to pick your brains on. We've had
two examples now of relationships that started with a bit
of baggage or when things weren't necessarily transparent or clear
to some degree. So we had this scenario of dating
(25:04):
someone who has a long term girlfriend and being aware
or maybe we're still married or maybe not. But the
point I'm making is if a relationship starts with a
lack of transparency, what does studies and research show about
relationships like that and how they usually pan out? You know,
if you get honesty from someone three months in, or
(25:26):
you know about someone but you think they're going to
change and we're hoping that they're going to leave their partner,
how does that factor into our decision making when we
actually get into a relationship. Are we setting ourselves up
to fail?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
So that's a really important question, And the way I
think about it is that relationship dynamics are like cement.
When the cement is wet at the beginning, you can
mold it, you can make changes, you can shift things around,
shape it. But the minute it hardens, it's very difficult
(25:59):
to mold. Now you have to take a hammer and
a chisel to it, and it hardens really quickly. There's
an unspoken contract we enter when we're starting to date
someone in which we're communicating nonverbally that if I'm not
calling you on something, it must be okay with me.
If I'm not bringing up something or trying to change something,
I'm agreeing to it tacitly. So we have to pay
(26:21):
incredible attention in the early stages, and I mean early
as in first ten fifteen dates, because everything you're accepting then,
and you're accepting it. If you're not voicing that you're not,
you are kind of signing on for in the long term.
So to say, oh, nowa'la address that later is a mistake.
The cement will be dry, it'll be much much harder.
(26:43):
You have to pay a lot of attention very early.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, And I also feel like at the very beginning
trust is being established. People think, well, I don't want
to tell my new partner about this thing because they
probably won't like it. So I'm going to wait until
they already are into.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Me, and then I'll reveal this.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
And that is so dangerous because what happens is the
person is now into you, and now you're going to
tell them something that they were not act and then
all of a sudden, there is this damage done to
the trust. So you want to start building trust from
the very beginning. If the person is going to want
(27:21):
to be with you, you want to tell them those
things early on because they will appreciate that if it's
going to work out, it's going to work out. And
if it's not going to work out, it's not going
to be any better when you tell them three months
or three years down the line, it's actually going to
be far worse.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
That's great advice.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
So it sounds like.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
This person yet kids, and he was very torn between
what was going on with the kids and whether he
can be in a relationship or get married again, and
he wasn't telling her about that, and then it comes
out and it seems like this thing out of the blue,
But for him, it might not have been out of
the blue at all. For him. He might have been
thinking about this from the very beginning. But he felt like, oh,
I'll just work it out myself in my head.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Not good.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I want to suggest this to our listeners. I'm going
to read the next letter, but I want you, when
i'm done, to pause and think of how you would
respond to it given what we just said, because it's
a similar scenario. So let's see what you got from
that and how you might apply it to the following.
I mean, you can cheat and just listen to what
we see, but I'm suggesting it might be fun to
maybe see what you would say to this letter. All right,
(28:23):
here it is. I've been dating my boyfriend for close
to three years, and the relationship is very healthy. We
have talked about marriage and are both divorced with children.
Last month, during a heated discussion, it came out that
he does not want to remarry, doesn't know if he
can live with someone else. He has been divorced thirteen years,
me three, and plans to buy a beach house by
(28:44):
himself and for himself in the near future. This was
news to me, as we have looked at rings and
talked about a future together often. My quandary is that
we are very happy together and he's a wonderful partner.
Do I hang in knowing the relationship may never lead
to marriage or walk away and pursue the unknown.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
Thank you for sharing that. I'm sorry to hear that
it's never great when expectations change, especially as it's as
like to me that they were set or at least
spoken about openly for three years and then for someone
to change how they feel about something is definitely not
pleasant to be on the receiving end of, especially if
you're sure of it. For me, if you feel that
(29:25):
the relationship is good, and that's what I'm hearing, I
think it's really important to not have a heated but
have a cool discussion about why that person has changed
the way they feel. If you've looked at rings, if
you've talked about marriage, what's happened in that person's life
in their mind that they haven't shared with you. Because
if you say the relationship's healthy, then a sign of
(29:46):
a healthy relationship is that person being able to tell
you why their decision has changed, what they feel is
their new priority, and how they still feel about you.
The next step, based on their answer will be where
you can decide whether this is an investment in a
relationship that you still want to continue to do or
whether it's a relationship that you don't want to invest
(30:07):
in anymore because you're seeing that you have misaligned gold.
And the third and final thing you want a question
for yourself too, is what did marriage mean to you?
I think it's really important to define what marriage is,
what the role of a husband is, a wife is
a partner is, because I think often we also aren't
(30:28):
fully aware of why we want to get married, and
we've not really expressed that to the other person either.
So I think defining why marriage is important or why
living together is important, and what it means to you
will help you actually have the discussion. That will be
a very clarifying conversation.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah, so often people want to react and just make
a decision. Well, if he's going to do this, then
there are two things that can happen. We can break
up or we can stay together and I'll be resentful, right,
And that's sort of how it's positioned. Whereas I love
your advice, which is very much how guy and I
think about things, which is what's the why under this?
What happened?
Speaker 4 (31:06):
You know?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Sometimes we say we're in a healthy relationship, but we're
not that curious about our partner's inner life. We feel
so wounded, we feel so hurt that we don't make
the space to say, I wonder what's going on with him.
I want to understand him better, and I also want
him to understand my inner world, and so can we
have that kind of conversation? She says, he's going to
(31:28):
buy a beach house and live by himself, So what's
going on there with him? What does that mean? And
I can see how this conversation can go very badly
if she's angry and says, what.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
Do you mean you're doing that?
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Don't you love me? As opposed to I'm really confused
about this. We were ring shopping, but you're also saying,
now you don't want to get married and you want
to live by yourself.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Help me understand what's.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Going on with you, and that will help me to
make choices about my life too. But I don't think
she can make a good choice until she understands what
is going on with him, he understands what's going on
with her, and then they can both have this sort
of come to Jesus moment with themselves respectively, about what
do we want from each other.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
I think you're both right on. And I think the
one concern I would have for this person is that
she seems to be a little bit reluctant to look
under the bed at the monsters. In other words, when
she's opening by saying, we have a really healthy relationship.
This and this and this happened, but we are really
happy together. He's a wonderful partner.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Hey, you're not.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Really happy together, because if he were, then he wouldn't
be planning to get a beach house without you or
telling me he doesn't want to get married, And same
goes to the health of the relationship. He's making unilateral
moves as he's making partnering moves with you. She's getting
a ring, but he's buying the beach house and telling
you that. So there's a little bit of denial there
about perhaps their issues here, and maybe she's not asking
(32:55):
because she doesn't want to find out, but she needs
to find out clearly at this point she needs to
really be brave and say, let's talk about how you
see things moving forward.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I think that those last two letters were very similar
in that way about the denial part.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
What were you missing?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
What were you not looking at? And we do that
to protect ourselves, but as we can see, it doesn't
really protect us.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
Ultimately.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
It's almost a form of self sabotage when you think
about it. And our next letter is directly about self sabotage,
and lots of people deal with these self sabotaging patterns
in relationships, and that's what this letter is about.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
It goes like this.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Over the years, I have become pretty familiar and well
aware of my own relational patterns and picked up some
insight as to why I do the things that I do,
and most notably, the kinds of people I pursue when
it comes to relationships. Even so, I still find myself
falling into the same self sabotaging patterns. Most recently, I
am ashamed to say I found myself getting involved for
(33:52):
the second time with a man who is in a
committed relationship with another woman. This was a person I
had worked really hard to distance myself from and had
successfully been out of contact with for over a year.
I know how harmful my actions are for all parties involved,
but somehow I find myself creating creative ways to rationalize
my behavior. I often find myself wondering what it will
(34:13):
take for me to translate all of this insight I
have developed into actually doing something different. What needs to
happen to translate insight into action?
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of awareness here
of that mistake that you're getting involved in this situation
and repeating a pattern that you don't think is healthy
for you. The second step to turn that insight into action,
I would really write down and become aware when you're
at your lowest point in these scenarios, I would voiceenook
(34:44):
to yourself or record or write down how you feel.
Because what ends up happening is that our minds end
up forgetting all of these challenges and pains in the
pattern that comes with these bad mistakes that we make.
And so I think it's really important that you allow
yourself to truly face how complicated, confusing, and challenging the
(35:07):
situation is. When you you get involved with someone who's
already in a relationship and it sounds like you've experienced
that before, allow yourself to really process how challenging it
was in the past, how challenging it was now, because
that's going to be your first step in turning insight
into action. The second thing is look at who and
where you meet people, because you're going to find patterns
(35:30):
in that as well. It's not only patterns in the
people that you choose to be with, the patterns in
the way you come across people and find people. And
maybe there's even some parts of your circle or parts
of your habits that you need to change in order
to change this part of your life. It may be
where you socialize, who you socialize with, who you spend
time with. All of that is going to introduce you
(35:51):
to a new kind of human, a new kind of
person that actually may be healthier and better for you.
And the third and final thing is allow yourself to
set yourself a rule and a boundary that you stand
by of noticing the red flags when you start seeing
yourself go down that way. So when you start seeing
yourself go down that lane, have a list of three
red flags that you remember that you don't want to
(36:11):
take again. That's how you would start tending insight into action.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I always say that insight is the booby price of therapy.
That you can have all the insight in the world.
You can come to therapy every week and say, now
I understand my pattern. I go after these kinds of
people this is what I do. But if you don't
make changes, if you don't take action, the insight is useless.
And I think that what's great about this letter is
this person realizes it's not just my awareness, it's that
I need to do something different. And I love your
(36:38):
suggestions about something concrete that this person can do. So
when people come to therapy and they'll they'll say, you know,
now I understand why. It got into that argument again
with my partner and I'll say, well, did you do
something different? And they'll say, well, no, but I understand why.
But they get into that same argument every weekend. Why
are you not doing something different? What is keeping you
(36:59):
from doing so? How does it serve you? And I
think that what she needs to ask herself, which is
what I ask therapy patients all the time, is if
you're not taking action, how does it serve you not
to take action? And so, how's it serving you right
now to go after these things that are not satisfying
for you? Is it because you don't truly believe that
you can have something that would be more satisfying to you?
(37:19):
Is it because it feels safer to you? Is it
because it feels more comforting and familiar to you, even
though you're miserable in it. What is it about that?
And once you can figure out what that roadblock is,
you can start to do something differently. I really wish
this person luck, and I think they're almost there in
terms of saying I need to employ these strategies so
that I can do something differently.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
You're listening to Deotherapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back after
a quick break.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So guy, we have one final letter, and it goes
like this. I have not been able to see my
mom for nearly a year now because of the pandemic.
She's eight hours ahead in time zone, so it's tough
to talk to her a lot. She's asleep by the
time I have some free time. I call her as
much as I can, but I don't know how to
make sure she feels loved and cared for without seeing her.
(38:17):
I want her to know how much she means to me.
I also worry about her safety, etc.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
I think you and I should tackle that one first.
Let's go first, and then we can give it to Jay.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
Okay, great.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
So there's so many people in this situation who have
not seen parents for a long, long time, and they're
worried about them, and they think about them, and they
talk on the phone and they keep up. But they
used to seeing their parents much more frequently, and so
I think it's so difficult. And the letter writer is
concerned that the mother doesn't know how much she means
(38:50):
to him and how much he thinks of her, and
I think that might be her concern, but it's his guilt,
it's his worry, and I think that's what's generating some
of this. So I think there needs to be a
way where he can remind both parties about how much
he thinks of her, how much he loves her.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, So not hearing in the letter is that the
mother is the person who is making the person feel guilty.
What I'm hearing is that this person just has so
much love for his mother. That's what came across to
me was how much love he has, and how sometimes
we love somebody so much, but often think of all
(39:28):
of our relationships, do we really show it? And are
we sure that we're really showing it? And what can
we be doing to make sure that we're getting that across?
And so I think this is really less a letter
about him not being a good son, because I think
he probably is a good son. I think it's more
about is he communicating how he feels to someone that
(39:49):
he cares so much about. And so we actually have
some advice for this person that we want him to
try because he is right here. This is actually a
letter from Jay Shetty to us. So, Jay, we want
to give you a little bit of advice to take
home with you as I need it, like, yeah, and
you're going to test it out like everybody does our show,
and then you'll let us know how it went. So, guy,
(40:11):
do you want to go ahead and give him some
of our thoughts?
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Sure? So, we would like you, for the next week,
every time you think of your mom, whether it's fond, nurse, worry, love,
whatever it is, make a note in your phone. We
don't want you to text her in the moment, because
we don't know if she's one of those parents that
sleeps with the phone by her pillow. We don't want
you to wake her up in the middle of the night.
But we'd like you to make a list every time
you have that thought. It can be twice in the morning,
(40:37):
whatever it is, and just what the thought was and
what the feeling was, and then we would like you to,
at the end of the week send her a letter
or a text in which you say, Mama, I was
wondering how often I think about you? Can I miss
you during the week. So I decided to write it down,
and I'm sending you my diary of the week of
mom thoughts. I think would be a nice thing for
(40:59):
her to see how many of those there are.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
I love that. That's such a great idea. I love that,
absolutely love that.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
And we think the other purpose of this is that
we actually.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Believe that your mom knows how much you love her,
but that sometimes it's important for us to make sure
for our own peace of mind that we have communicated
that directly. And so this is just a gesture that
you can do. This wouldn't be something you would do
every week. It's just a one time thing to say, wow,
for you to notice whoa you know what? I really
(41:33):
I love her so much. I do think about her
a lot. And then also to be able to say,
and I want you to know, Mom, these are the
times that I thought about you.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
And this happens all the time. This happens every week.
I'm just going to show you this week.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
But this happens all the time, and I don't know
if I communicated that to you, I think she will
be so touched by that, and I think that for you,
it will reassure you that you don't need to be
thinking about the person every minute or calling them every minute.
It's the fact that there is this strong bond between
you and that Now I want to make sure I've
told her and now you've told her.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Yeah, I love that. Thank you both that. I'm definitely
going to try that out. Actually really love the sound
of that. I love how practical it is, and I
could definitely see why that's different to just saying I
love you, or you know, just sharing it, which I
do often. But I can totally see why this is
going to be a lot more meaningful. So thank you
so much. I love this idea and I can't wait
(42:28):
to try it out. Honestly, there's this phrase.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
That we have in therapy of being kept in mind
that you know a lot of people go to therapy
and they wonder, does my therapist think about me during
the week?
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Am I kept in mind?
Speaker 1 (42:38):
People think about that with their romantic partners, or with
their close friends, or with their parents. Or with their children.
Am I kept in mind? So there's something just so
beautiful about communicating to your mom that she is kept
in mind.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
And we would love for you to when you send
this to her, send us a voicemail let us know
how that went and how it made you feel while
you were doing it, and how she responded.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
Ahsome my definitely will, Yeah, one hundred percent. I can't
wait to see how she responds.
Speaker 5 (43:07):
Great.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Well, We thank you so much, thank for being our
guest today and helping answer all of these listener questions.
Speaker 5 (43:12):
And I really want to encourage.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Everybody to check out Jay's book, Think Like a Monk,
because it has so much wisdom in it, so much
of which was interwoven into the answers that Jay gave
today and that even we as therapists give all the time.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
You're both very kind that I want to thank you.
I love this format. I think it's such a great podcast.
I've enjoyed being with both of you, and I've read
both of your books too, so I can't stop saying
enough incredible things about both of them. But in regards
to what you were just sharing right now, I think
it's amazing that we're all able to collaborate together in
(43:48):
this way to serve and help other people. I took
so many notes while both of you were talking, so
I would encourage everyone to go back and take some
notes to and listen to it, because, as Laurie was
pointing out, you know, insight into action is such an
important part and taking notes is a part of that.
Like the insight needs to really go deep for us
(44:08):
to take an action on it. And so for me,
I was taking notes while Guy and Laurie were speaking,
and I found it extremely beneficial even in my perspectives.
And you saw me asking questions, and so I hope
you feel encouraged to ask questions as well and continue
learning from both these incredible powerhouses of insight and information.
So thank you Guy, and thank you Laurie for having me.
This is wonderful.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Well, thank you so much, Jay, and we look forward
to hearing how the advice went for you.
Speaker 5 (44:39):
So Guy, we heard back from Jay.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
It's interesting because he was both the advice giver and
the advice seeker in this episode.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
Hey Laurie, Hey Guy, it's so great to talk to
you again. I hope you're well. And hello to all
the listeners of the Dear Therapist podcast. This is Jay Shetty.
I'm so glad I tried out the advice of keeping
the journal every time I think about my mom, whether
it's something big or small, and then sending it to
her because it was so fun to see our reaction,
(45:08):
to see all the little times I think about it,
whether I'm outside and I see a divali decoration. It's
been a holiday time for us at the moment, and
that made me remember my mom and the suits that
she would make at home, and the different festivities and
the rituals that we would do. And of course it's
coming up close to Christmas time, so I've been thinking
(45:29):
a lot about the advent calendar should get me as
a kid as I walk around, so being able to
just write down those small moments, even though those aren't
moments in which i'd call my mom about that one thing,
It's been really wonderful to see how that went and
how she experienced it. She was so happy to see
that I remember so much, And I think that was
the key thing about this activity, that what it did
(45:49):
is that it prompted very natural, organic memories, and sharing
memories with someone who loves us is a beautiful way
of telling them we love them and how much we
value them, because it shows we remember something special they
did for us, so it acts as a way of
creating gratitude. So thank you bouth again. Really glad I
got to do this. Hope this helps everyone who's listening by.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
So we get the response from Jay, who himself gives
so much advice, and then he tells us what happened,
and he tells us how he felt about it, and
then he analyzes it. So I guess we're done. We
don't have to do much here. He did it all
for us.
Speaker 5 (46:24):
Yeah, we kind of are done. But I want to.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Add one thing to it, which is that I think
sometimes we don't realize how important we are to other
people and how important other people are to us. And
I think what was beautiful about what he did and
he really embraced the assignment was he noticed how much
his mother comes into his mind in really positive ways.
(46:49):
And I think sometimes we don't take the time to notice.
And I think the assignment forced him to slow down
a little bit and to notice those moments and then
to be able to share those moments people feel like, well,
I have to call my mom or I have to
call my dad and it's such as stressor because it
doesn't feel organic. But when you notice the organic ways
(47:11):
in which they're meaningful to you, and then you can
share that with them, I think it's a very different
kind of interaction. And I hope that our listeners can
incorporate this into their own lives.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
And I have to say, in this upcoming holiday season
and in general, this is a great gift to give
someone that you care about to just keep that journal
and the gift is, here's how often and in what
ways I think about you that you don't know about.
I just think it's something that could be used very broadly.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
It's a gift that keeps on giving because it's not
just how the person feels in the moment when they
receive it, but that's going to stay with them for
a long time.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Hey, fellow travelers, if you've used any of our advice
from the podcast in your own life, send us a
quick voice memo to Lori and Guy at iHeartMedia dot
com and tell us about it. We may include it
in a future show. Thank you so much for listening.
If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to
rate and review it.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
You can follow us both online. I'm at Lorigottlieb dot
com and you can follow me on Twitter at Lorigottlieb
one or on Instagram at Lorigottlieb Underscore Author.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
And I'm at Guywinch dot com. I'm on Twitter and
on Instagram at Guywinch. If you have a dilemma you'd
like to discuss with us, big or small, email us
at Lorianguy at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Our executive producers Christopher Hasiotis were produced and edited by
Mike Johns. Special thanks to Samuel Benefield and to our
podcast Fairygodmother Katie Couric and Next Week. A woman tries
to forge a relationship with the younger brother she wasn't
very nice to when they were children.
Speaker 6 (48:53):
It's very emotional to say that, yes, I was awful
to have said that I wish you weren't born, you know,
to a little kid like that, and I have said
that I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Dear Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio
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