January 10, 2025 • 66 mins
In this episode, Dr. Jade engages with Dr. Blaise Aguirre on his new book to explore the complex themes of self-perception, self-hatred, and the impact of early relationships on one's self-view. They discuss how childhood experiences shape our beliefs about ourselves, the language we use to express emotions, and the journey towards self-acceptance. The conversation delves into the importance of recognizing toxic patterns in relationships and the power of language in shaping our identities. Ultimately, they emphasize the potential for healing and self-discovery through understanding and reframing our narratives. In this conversation, Dr. Blaise Aguirre discusses the complexities of self-hatred, emotional healing, and the importance of understanding emotions as entities. He emphasizes the role of dialectical behavior therapy and mindfulness in addressing deep-seated emotional pain and the journey towards self-acceptance. The discussion highlights the significance of resilience through pain and the transformative power of recognizing and unlearning harmful narratives about oneself. Dr. Aguirre offers hope for those struggling with self-hatred, encouraging them to embrace their worth and learn to love themselves.
Connect With Dr Blaise Aguirre:
Instagram: @blaiseMD
GET THE BOOK
Chapters
00:00:00 Understanding Self-Hatred and Self-Worth
00:11:31 Roots of Self-Hatred and Impacts
00:16:38 Exploring Self-Hatred and Healing
00:21:57 Unlearning Self-Hatred and Love
00:32:45 Discovering Self-Hatred and Healing
00:42:19 The Power of Experiential Healing
00:53:45 mBreaking Free From Self-Hatred
Looking for a Next Level Human Coach? Get on the waitlist and get access to the brand-new science of quantum metabolism and identity restructuring with Dr Jade and the team.
http://nextlevelhuman.com/human-coaching
Want to become a Next Level Human Coach? Get on the waitlist. Go to: http://www.nextlevelhuman.com/human-coach
Connect with Next Level Human
Website: www.nextlevelhuman.com
support@nextlevelhuman.com
Connect with Dr. Jade Teta
Website: www.jadeteta.com
Instagram: @jadeteta
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome everybody to the show.
I am your host, dr Jade Tita.
This is the Next Level Humanpodcast and I have an exciting
guest, someone I'm meeting forthe first time.
This is Blaise Aguirre MD, outof Harvard University.
He is a new favorite of minethat I recently discovered when
his people actually reached outto me to say, hey, would you
(00:23):
like to consider this individualfor your podcast?
And as soon as I started toread about him and his
background and his new bookcoming out, I was like I have to
have him on.
And so, blaze, thank you somuch for being here.
You have a new book coming out.
The book is called I HateMyself and it is coming out on
(00:45):
what?
February 11th or January 11th?
Is it February?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
11th yeah, so just in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yep, so let me set this up the title of this book.
One of the things and I'll giveyou something from my life
Blaze that happened I was datinga girl I don't know this is
probably over a decade ago and Iused to just I'm't know, this
is probably over a decade agoand I used to just you know, I'm
one of these people who reallyshowers people.
(01:12):
See, my mom is like this.
She sees the beauty in peopleand just says all the nice
things that they see.
And I'm this way too.
I'm a words of affirmationperson.
And so I will say you know, Iwould tell her how beautiful she
was and how wonderful I thoughtshe was and how funny that I
thought she was.
And the interesting thing, I hadnever experienced this in a
person before, but every time Idid this, she would get almost
(01:34):
angry and almost act as if I wasinsulting her in some way, like
talking down to her, and one ofthe things that I did is I was
like what is going on here?
I've never experienced this.
And I of the things that I didis I was like what is going on
here?
I've never experienced this,and I came across this term.
This is before I went intopsychology myself called
self-verification theory, whichwas this idea that some people,
(01:56):
if you talk to them in aparticular way that they don't
believe and you're showeringthem with all these praises and
you're so beautiful and you'reso wonderful they will see you
as distrustful because theydon't see themselves that way
and would rather you speak aboutthem in a way that is
consistent with their internaldialogue.
And when I first startedreading your stuff, I was like
(02:19):
it reminded me of this situationand I'm wondering if this am I
completely off here, or doesthis have anything to do with
sort of the condition that manyof us find ourselves in when
we're dealing with people orourselves in our self-talk?
And I'm wondering about thisparticular thing to open up this
discussion.
So I'm wondering, just from myown sort of learning is this
(02:42):
something that you are dealingwith in this book?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah.
So, by the way, I think did youand I have the same mother.
I'm just wondering.
I want to show you a photo.
So my aunt was a nun and she'sholding my baby brother.
My mother is.
I'm on the donkey over there.
My mom is like looking at meand uh, and she was pure love.
(03:07):
She just, she just saw the bestin human beings and uh, and,
and I just I realize how lucky Iam to have had her in my life,
you know, just because, because,even when I was in my the worst
of my adolescent years, shestill saw the best in me, you
know, and there was somethingabout that that it just like I
(03:30):
just believed that her approachwas the right approach.
But let's turn that around,because we were lucky to have
moms like that, you know butlet's turn that around.
Let's just say that and again,not to say that people who don't
have moms like that, you know,but let's turn 100%, let's just
say that.
And again, not to say thatpeople who don't have moms like
(03:54):
that are then going to not likethemselves or hate themselves.
But because most parents themajority of majority of parents,
the majority of parents aregoing to be listening to this
podcast love their kids.
They really love their kids.
The question then becomes,becomes how is it that you and I
can derive like this positive,like view of ourselves, and not
in a sort of like, a kind of anarcissistic way, but just like?
(04:14):
So you know that the world ispossible, that interactions are
possible and uh, and thatthere's other people who leave
childhood believing that they'rebroken, believing that they're
not worthy, believing that theworld would be better off
without them.
What is it about that?
(04:34):
And you know, as you weretelling your story, you know you
sort of think about, you knowyou had this girlfriend who
believed something about herself.
You had this girlfriend whobelieved something about herself
, and here you are trying toshower her with all the things
that you learned as a child andit's just not only is it not
(04:56):
sticking, but it's actuallyalmost like off-putting, like
stop you know, like you don'tsee me, you don't know who I am,
in a way, that you're sayingall these nice things about me,
and I think that that wasactually one of the big
discoveries that I made in termsof like really thinking about
this experience of self-hatred,that it didn't matter how much
(05:18):
others would tell the person youknow we love you, we care about
you, You're great and all ofthat.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
You know if you identify as male and I 100% say
no.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
You know, I did some genetic testing, I took some DNA
from your cup and it turns outthat you're actually female and
you have to start likeintrinsically believing that
you're a woman and you say, likeidentify as male, you know,
genetically male, like all ofthat, like there's no way, it's
just like no, no, you reallyhave to.
Eventually, you're going tofind me really annoying because
I'm telling you something thatyou just don't believe is
(05:51):
intrinsically true.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So yeah, yeah, that really resonates with me very
deeply.
And it's really interestingbecause, from my perspective,
when I think about these beliefsright, as you're hinting at
this idea that someone comes tobelieve something the way I
think about these I call themmisguided, unconscious decisions
or MUD.
Right, and they come and this isme more asking you a question
(06:16):
because I want to see if you seeit the same way so we can
orient the listener to this sothis MUD forms, you know, let's
say, during childhooddevelopment, maybe teenage
development, during times andevents and stresses perhaps,
where we didn't have theknowledge, the maturity, the
skills, the know-how.
Then it sort of gets cementedlike mud into our psychology and
(06:37):
follows us around like a shadow, unconsciously, and this is the
way that I have always seenthis.
But what I wasn't fully awareof is that perhaps we get this
(07:00):
self-hatred mud as well thatgets stuck in us which we really
don't like ourselves.
And reading your stuff made mesort of realize, okay, this is a
whole different flavor of this,and so I'm wondering do you see
this the same way, that this isbased on some kind of early
decision or judgment that getsentrenched into our psychology
(07:22):
and follows us around, and doyou see this as particularly
egregious in some way of why wechoose to see ourselves as
unworthy?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Well, okay.
So let me just say that I 100%agree with what you're saying,
but I'm actually going to takeit to a much, much simpler level
.
I'm going to.
Okay, do you what?
Do you speak anything otherthan English?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Just English.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Okay, Now why do you speak English why?
Don't you speak English?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, it's the language that was spoken to me
when I was young and thelanguage I picked up.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
And is it?
Is it?
Was it conscious or was itunconscious?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I can't remember remembering the words and
consciously fumbling over thewords.
It just seemed to come out ofme unconsciously.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
And did you say to yourself you know what English
is a bit harsh.
It's sort of confusing.
I think I'm going to learnFrench instead as a two-year-old
.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, never, would have even thought that.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
You would not have even thought about it because
the conditions.
Now, if I were to say whatwould the condition be for you
to speak you know Sudanese?
You would have said, well, Iwould have had to have been born
or taken as a child to Sudanwhen I was very, very young and
learned that.
So, even though I agreewholeheartedly with you but I'm
(08:39):
going to take it at a verydifferent level Think about it
as early learning that whatyou're learning is English.
You don't even think thatyou're learning English.
You're interacting with theworld.
And then you stumble upon aword and everybody claps and
says, well, great, you said youknow cheesecake or whatever it
is, and then everybody's ultrahappy about that.
(09:00):
And then it kind of reinforcesyour learning.
Now, what if that learningincludes that you're not good
enough, you don't try hardenough, that you're lazy, that
your siblings are better thanyou, that you're worthy of being
abused, that you're worthy.
(09:20):
It's not a conscious choice,it's imprinted in the software
of your learning in the way thatany other learning takes place.
So it's not like because thenthere is no choice, because I
don't then say you know, hey,five-year-old Jane, you know
what?
English isn't a really goodlanguage.
You shouldn't be speakingEnglish.
You should speak French.
(09:40):
So I don't know how to speakFrench.
So if you know no other, ideathat you're not worthy, but you
also don't have a frame ofreference.
What's interesting is, when I'veworked with people who are
self-hating, I actually haven'tmet too many adults who didn't
learn to self-hate as children.
In other words, if you've notself-hated, it would be like as
(10:03):
if you were to say you know whatsomething bad is going to
happen to you, jane, and you'regoing to start hating yourself.
The idea is antithetical toyour experience because you can
contextualize.
You know, care about selfversus not.
You can contextualize Englishversus Chinese or French or
whatever it's like.
You can say oh, there are theseother languages, this is the
(10:25):
language that I speak.
But if what you've learned fromthe very start is that you
weren't worth it, that you werethis terrible, that you were
this flawed person and youdidn't have any other context,
and you look around and yoursiblings are being showered with
love and they're not the oneswho are getting bullied at
school, and they're not the oneswho are getting bullied at
school and they're not the oneswho are getting misused and
(10:48):
mistreated, what conclusion canyou come up with other than
you're?
Speaker 1 (10:53):
you're broken, that you're, you should probably
shouldn't be around.
Yeah, I really like this a lot,because then I start to think,
ok, so my language, I'm speakingthis language of self-hate, but
this makes me think.
It makes me think, ok, well,how do I even become aware then?
Right, because I mean, in asense, if I'm speaking this
language and I believe in thislanguage, and I hear someone
(11:16):
coming in and saying somethingbeautiful about themselves, it
will seem so foreign to me I maynot even understand it.
It's like it's like okay,they're speaking Sudanese and I
can't understand those words,and so I default right back to
the language I understand.
And now this gives me contextinto what was going on with this
woman I was dating, supposed tolove.
You are your parents and thepeople closest to you.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And they don't, or they don't in a way that makes
sense to you, but those are the,you know, the primal kind of
connections.
And then comes Jade and says Ilove you.
Wait a second.
(11:59):
I've heard that before and itwas really hurtful.
People who've told me that theylove me were not very kind to
me, were kind of cruel.
So you know, either you're like,don't understand, or you're one
of these people who are tryingto be hurtful or something like
that, that there's a dissonancebetween this concept of the
(12:21):
experience of love.
You know when, you know I often, you know when I've seen, like,
kids who come to my programwho've, maybe they've had
physical abuse.
It's like, you know, I did thisbecause I love you.
So now what happens is love isbeing paired with cruel
punishment.
So when somebody tells them,hey, I love you, why would you
(12:45):
not recoil from that?
You know, why would it not belike a boy?
So, um, yeah, and and and.
So you make an extremelyimportant point because, like
you know, when somebody speaks adifferent language, a language
of love and language ofconnection, how could you
possibly even understand thatand how would you even think
that you know, if you went tothe Sudan and started speaking
(13:06):
English and no one understoodyou.
Eventually you'd realize that,wait a second, we're not
speaking the same language.
But if you travel around theworld and you just are hating
yourself, why would you everquestion that?
That's not normal?
And then, when you go to see atherapist, what do they ask you?
They ask you how do you sleepat night?
Do you have nightmares?
Do you hear to see a therapist?
What do they ask you?
They ask you how do you sleepat night?
Do you have nightmares?
Do you hear voices?
(13:26):
You know how is your energy?
Do you eat enough food?
Do you exercise?
Are you depressed, et cetera,et cetera.
Or do you have obsessions?
Do you have compulsions?
They never ask you what do youthink of yourself?
Do you like yourself?
It's not part of our trainingin mental health to include a
(13:50):
question about what somebodythinks about themselves.
And when I start asking thatquestion, it's like what?
Like well, I don't like myselfat all.
Well, how badly.
Some will say I hate myself.
And I say well, do you thinkthat's a problem?
They'll say no, and why not?
Well, I mean, you know I haveblue eyes, I have brown eyes,
like, that's just part of who Iam.
(14:10):
You know I can maybe do otherthings, but it's just part of
who I am.
I'm saying no, it's not.
And that's the first time thatit starts to like what, what are
you doing?
Do it?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, you know, that's interesting, right?
Because I mean, then I kind ofthink, you know, when I think of
people walking around in theworld this way, if they don't
necessarily see it as a problem,they may not even seek out the
help of someone.
So it hints that someone intheir life has to tell them at
some point this is a problem orsomething must be going wrong in
(14:41):
their lives, and I wonder howthat happens.
And then, you know, here comes,you know, dr Aguirre-Basey says
hey, you know, this is notnormal.
And all of a sudden they'relike what do you mean?
This is not normal.
And so that is.
It seems like another challenge.
If this is so normal to them,how do they even figure out that
it's a problem to even come tosomeone like you?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Okay, brilliant question, I love that question.
So one of the things thathappens is that I'll ask them
about their relationships.
I say, oh, I get involved withlike toxic boyfriends, toxic
girlfriends, like they're kindof hurtful.
Okay, and what about school andacademics?
Yeah, I don't do that.
(15:23):
Well, I haven't gotten a goodjob, I didn't get into a good
school.
What about?
You know, my parents prefer mysiblings and all of that.
And I say, well, why is that?
And they said, well, obviouslyI said, like, what do you mean?
Obviously he said, well, justbecause I'm not a good person,
I'm a very unworthy person.
And okay, so an unworthy persondeserves what Deserves toxic
(15:43):
boyfriends, deserves shitty jobs, deserves punishment, deserves,
you know that gets you todetermine that you're this awful
human being deserving all ofthis stuff.
(16:13):
We say, well, what are youtalking about?
It's been there all my life.
But who taught you that?
How did you learn English?
I grew up in anEnglish-speaking family who
taught you to hate yourself.
You had teachers who taught youto hate yourself.
Who were those teachers?
You weren't born hatingyourself.
A child is not born hatingitself.
A child is not born speakingEnglish.
(16:34):
You know it has to learn.
You have to learn to hateyourself.
And once you sort of introducethis idea that you've learned to
hate yourself, that you hadteachers from very, very, very
early on, you don't questionthat the way you're using
English is correct or not,because those were your teachers
and they did.
And maybe if you got a grammarstatement wrong, they would say,
(16:56):
okay, hey, you know there, andthere is two different words,
this is how you use it.
But once you've internalized it, people aren't thinking about
you as like oh, I wonder if he'sthinking about French.
But in other words, whensomebody is hating themselves,
they're just living in the world.
They're not manifesting anysymptoms of self-hatred in the
way that somebody withdepression might isolate, or
(17:19):
somebody who's misusingsubstances will be intoxicated,
or who's bipolar would be manic.
Misusing substances will beintoxicated, or whose bipolar
would be manic.
But the choices that they'remaking is a reflection of that
inner state that says I don'tdeserve better than what I have,
because I am not a good humanbeing.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
It reminds me of humans we live from stories, and
we live from the stories thatwe're told.
So it's like this idea if we'retold this particular story, we
buy into that story, and then welive out that story in our
lives.
And so, essentially, whatyou're saying is someone told
them this story, or they learnedthis story by watching other
(17:58):
people who believe the samestory, and then they walk around
in the world living out thatstory.
You introduce this new sort ofidea that you don't have to live
in this story anymore, andperhaps that's the first time
that their perception changesenough to go.
Wait a minute, there's anotherreality here, you know.
One of the things I'm interestedin, though, is that somehow
(18:18):
they must know and this alwayscomes up for me with my
naturopathic background, withthis idea that there's this
healing power in nature, thatthere's this sort of inner
knowing.
So somehow they know in someway that there's this toxic
environment, that the boyfriendis toxic, that this is somehow
bad and not good, and I'mwondering how you see this,
(18:40):
because it's almost like this,this internal, deep knowing that
they are living from a toxicstory, and then here you come
along and introduce a newconcept.
So I'm wondering if there issomething there that is sort of
like this driving force that iswaiting to come out to free them
from this yeah, no, it's, it's,it's.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
You know that it's a very I love.
Do we have two hours to talkabout this?
Because?
I love being on the show withyou already.
So this if you make thestatement like, let's just say,
someone comes to you and sayshey, you know, I hate myself.
(19:20):
Now, first of all, what theheck does that mean?
If I say I hate the shape of mynose, well, okay, but okay,
first of all, what's thisconcept of self that you're
hating?
Now, you know, when I had a caseand these are all de-identified
, because this happens a lotanyway so I had a case and I've
(19:43):
had many, many cases of youngwomen, say, who've been sexually
abused by their step parents oran uncle or something, and
that's just, sadly andtragically, very, very common,
and that's all that they willknow for some period of time.
And they will then start tothink about like, oh, are other
kids?
Is this happening to other kids?
Is this happening to mysiblings?
Is this happening to other kids?
(20:04):
Is this happening to mysiblings?
And when the answer is no, thenthe only conclusion that they
can come up with is that eitherthey're very special, somehow,
but then when they're startingto feel hurt, when they're
starting to feel confused, itmust be because I'm flawed.
And then they go and they getolder and they move on, and then
they start dating.
But what they know is thatthere's a certain kind of
(20:26):
cruelty, a certain kind ofdisrespect that comes with
relationships, because the thingthat made the other person feel
good was kind of a toxiccontrol over this young child,
and so that's the thing thatthey know.
And so when there's tenderness,when there's kindness, it's
(20:46):
very, very, very confusing.
And at the same time they knowthat it's fundamental level they
don't actually like what'shappening to them, but they just
can't contextualize it, sosomething doesn't feel right.
You know, I'll tell yousomething like if I, if ever I,
end up on a desert island andyou know where I am, what I
(21:07):
would have said to you is Jay,send me a baguette every day,
because I love a baguette with agood cheddar.
I have to tell you, I turned 50and I started to bloat and I
started to get fuzzy in my headand I couldn't understand it.
I knew that there was somethingwrong, but I couldn't
understand where this was comingfrom.
(21:28):
And it turns out that after Iturned 50, I became gluten
intolerant.
And it's such a sad love.
I used to sneak into thekitchen at like four at night
just to have a bite of bread,just to see if, like, maybe the
bread wouldn't know that it wasbeing eaten, and that wouldn't
be you know, but then I wouldstill, then I would still get
(21:48):
sick.
So my body knew.
The body actually knew.
It wasn't cognitive until Istarted to pair those things
together.
So at some level all of us arewise, every single human.
Every single human is wise.
Some of us hide it very well,some of us don't let it shine.
(22:10):
But wisdom knows.
And wisdom is not verbal.
Wisdom is intuitive.
Actually, language does atremendous violence to our
experience.
We try to capture ideas inwords because they're the best
tools that we have, but again,if you're speaking to that
Sudanese person, they won't knowwhat the heck you're talking
about.
So we're trying to you know,like, but at some level you're
(22:33):
right, at some level they know.
And then when you start to takethis experience apart, then
they can begin to see how veryearly learning has led to you
know these kinds of experiences.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, I love this idea because I see it.
I see it as well.
I see that some part of themdefinitely knows, and I kind of
see it like when people ask mehow would I know that I have
some of these erroneous storiesor dysfunctional stories or
damaging stories, and I go.
Well, if you look at yourrepeated patterns, your
recurrent obstacles, stuckemotions I'm interested in your
(23:11):
take on this stuck emotionsbecause from my perspective, you
know, emotions are meant to befelt, not lived.
You shouldn't be getting stuckin an emotion that you're living
out.
And so these patterns, theseobstacles, these emotions that
recur again and again, I go.
That obviously is about somekind of story you're living from
, because it's your pattern,it's your obstacle, it's your
(23:33):
stuck emotion.
And then you can begin to or Ibegan to point out to them that
there is another story, there isanother choice point here, and
it sounds to me like that's whatyou're doing.
They're walking around withblinders on, they come to see Dr
Aguirre and he's like hey, lookat this.
And their perception expands alittle bit and this begins to
(23:55):
open them up.
And so I'm wondering is thisthe first step in this sort of
perception?
Switch in.
Okay, I do not have to hatemyself.
Maybe I am not as unworthy,Maybe there is a choice here.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Well, and, by the way , you're right, I love the
blinders analogy.
The only thing is it would beworse if you didn't even know
you were wearing blinders 100%.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
So that's the thing Now think about language.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
What do people say when they are angry?
If they were to tell somebodythat they were angry, what do
they say?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
yeah, they're gonna be like.
You know I hate you, or no, no,no, but just say you're
experiencing anger right now,what would you say?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
what would?
How would you describe whatyou're experiencing?
What do most people say?
If you're angry right now andyou say I, or you say you're sad
, you say I am.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, I'm sad, I'm angry.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I am angry.
Now, when you say I am angry,when you say I am sad, you fuse
the concept of anger and sadnesswith the self.
If you were to look up anger inthe Oxford English Dictionary,
there would not be a picture ofyou.
You and sadness and you andanger are very different things.
(25:09):
Now, if you say I feel angry, Ifeel sad, you're separating,
you're defusing, you'redisconnecting you and that
entity, and you know that's oneof the things that keeps people
stuck is even, just, even justlanguage.
I am angry.
Well, I thought you weresomebody else.
(25:30):
You know?
Do I call you angry from now on?
I am sad?
So like no, you feel sadbecause feelings are transient,
feelings can change.
So let's even start.
Even if you were to say toyourself I, and then just even
use your own name, I'm feelingsad, you're already starting to
like disconnect yourself fromthat experience.
(25:54):
So yeah, so one thing is toactually point out that they're
wearing blinders and thatthey've.
You know, if I say to, if I'vebeen teaching you in math, one
plus one is three.
One plus one is three.
One plus one is three.
One plus one is three.
Erroneous, erroneous, erroneous.
Now you get to the final examand the final exam question is
what's one plus one?
And it's the thing that's goingto get you into college and you
are certain you're going to puta three because that's what
(26:14):
you've been taught.
And then the professors otherprofessor said no, you're wrong.
I said no, well, I was taughtthat I am right, because you
don't have a context under whichyou understand that that's
wrong.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And that is incredibly disorienting, very
disorienting.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Very, very disorienting.
You can say, well, somebodytaught you something incorrectly
.
So I'm going to point out thatyou've been looking at the world
through a very narrowperspective.
Point out that you've beenlooking at the world through a
very narrow perspective.
We see this today a lot in likepolitics and you know, media
consumption, all of that sort ofstuff.
That ability to think maybethat's not true.
(26:51):
Or, alternatively, if somebodythinks this one thought they're
terrible human beings, if theythink this one thought they're
wonderful, and then we erase anyother kind of ways of thinking
that they might have that youmight disagree with.
So that ability to say that isa perspective.
And I understand how you got tothat perspective, because you
(27:13):
were taught that perspective.
That perspective is wrong.
Not only is it inaccurate, it'salso extremely hurtful.
And they say, no, I'm reallyterrible.
I say, well, you know how manyRussians have you killed?
Or Ukrainians have you killed?
Okay, well, maybe I'm not thatterrible.
Okay, I can also start to lessenthe level of terribleness that
a person is, because it does getinto this idea of taking an
(27:34):
emotion and you called it anentity, right.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And so this idea and I'm wondering I do this in my
work too and I'm wondering ifthis is part of what you do with
this is that what I will do?
And this is in some of the workof you know comes from internal
family systems, maybe parts work, maybe, you know, even
shamanism has some of thiswithin it, this idea that, okay,
if I feel anger, I'm not anger,I feel anger but then I can.
I love the way you called it anentity because I can essentially
, once I see anger as an entity,it's almost like I'm having a
(28:12):
conversation with anger in theroom.
In the same way, I'm having aconversation with you right now
and I can analyze anger in adifferent way.
And when I do that, all of asudden I understand something
that I did not before, and thisis another way, in my way, of
seeing.
That perception is altered andI'm wondering is this part of
(28:32):
what you do in this work?
I certainly do it in my work,but I'm also wondering if this
is part of what you do or thesepart of the steps, because I
want to start unpacking.
How do we unwind this knottedball of I hate myself and I'm
wondering what those steps mightbe, and this idea of creating
this emotional distance is partof it.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, so I think because many people who you know
I get referred patients, whoother therapists have said oh,
this person has a lot ofself-hatred and we don't know
what to do.
Because, by the way, that's theother thing is like we have
treatments for obsessivecompulsive disorder, for adhd,
for bipolar disorder and allthese things.
(29:14):
But if somebody has self-hatred, like, what are you going to do
about it?
Because what?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
do, you do for that.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
You know, so say you know so, so, so step one has to
be the recognition that you'velearned something, because you
know love comes much morenaturally to the human heart
than hatred.
Does I mean if we, if everybody, carried hatred like we would
probably be dead as a species?
Um, you know, killing ourselvesand they.
Obviously there is a lot ofhatred, but there's much, much,
(29:40):
much more love in the world.
And because love comes muchmore naturally to the human
heart than hatred, does that, ifyou could learn to hate, you
can also learn to love.
And maybe love is too much toeven think about, you know, when
you first come to talk to me,but maybe just like yourself or
dislike, or hate yourself alittle less, or maybe just
(30:03):
dislike yourself.
It's just like lower thetemperature of that.
So, but it starts off with theidea.
So I asked the people okay, youhate yourself, you've learned
to hate yourself.
You weren't born hatingyourself.
You weren't born speakingEnglish.
You had to learn because ofinteractions with the
environment, because ofconclusions that a very young
(30:24):
mind, without context, learnedabout themselves.
Okay, so that's step one.
Okay, so then I actually getthem to write it down, because
when we name and label phenomena, it actually defames those
phenomena to a certain extent,rather than just making a
statement.
Just tell me more about it.
(30:45):
It's a little bit like, youknow, columbo back in the day or
Sherlock Holmes is like, okay,we're really going to analyze
exactly what's going on here.
So I want to start off.
When did you start learning tohate yourself?
Who were your teachers, to hateyourself?
Who were your teachers?
What were the experiences thatyou had with those teachers?
(31:06):
And also, that's also like kindof disconcerting.
What do you mean my teachers?
I said no, the bullies atschool.
You know the people who havemisused you, the people who
maltreated you, the people whotold you that you weren't enough
, the people who told you thatyour grades weren't good enough,
the people who said you weren'tgoing to amount to anything.
You know those teachers.
And, by the way, why are youlistening to those teachers?
(31:28):
Do you want to be like them?
You know, if you want to belike them, follow their teaching
.
If you don't want to be likethem, then don't follow their
teaching.
You're following teaching ofbad teachers, so okay.
So then they start to write itdown and then they start to see
what.
And I say wait a second Now.
Do you have other people inyour life who teach you
(31:49):
something different than you areactually worthy?
How do you be, how do you feel?
When you're in the presence ofpeople who aren't mistreating
you?
I feel better, but skeptical.
Okay, that's fine.
But what's that teaching youabout the interactions that you
need to have, and what is itthat those people are seeing in
(32:11):
you that don't find you so toxic?
And maybe you know?
And they say, well, they don'treally see me.
You know, they don't reallyknow.
I said, well, listen, if you'rethis terrible.
And they say, well, they don'treally see me.
You know, they don't reallyknow.
I said, well, listen, if you'rethis terrible, terrible human
being, I probably need to goeither to the police or the FBI.
So let's just start.
You know, are you killingneighborhood dogs?
(32:32):
No, Are you, you know, slammingdoors on little old ladies.
No Well, what is your crimeLike?
What is this terrible thingthat you need to hate yourself
for?
And you know it starts tocrumble.
So I think that, just like adeep into what that experience
is, is critical in changing it.
But what doesn't work istelling them that they need to
(32:55):
love themselves, or telling themto that they're worthy or that
you care about them.
That just doesn't work, becauseit's not believable, and I'll
often say in a very irreverentway look, I accept it, you're a
pretty awful human being, I getit, but you're not worthy of
hate, you're not worthy of goingto prison for it.
Can we just start to reduce thelevel of self-hatred, to just
(33:17):
self-dislike, something likethat, and then, once they start
to see that this immutable ideacan shift a little bit, now
you've got movement, but it'swhen it's this cannot change
that, then there's nothing youcan do and you know.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
It reminds me of and I guess this is the idea of the
dialectical behavior therapythat you do right it reminds me
of this sort of Socraticquestioning where it's like
let's actually go into thequestioning of the story that
you're telling and check theaccuracy of it and, as they see
that it's not as accurate,because they have this objective
voice that's essentially sayinglet's analyze this story, then
(33:58):
you start to unwind the knots,and so I really love that.
So am I getting that right?
This is sort of this dialecticalapproach where we're
essentially challenging thestories that they're telling
themselves, starting at a verylow level and basically just
dismantling slowly these knotsthat they've created around why
(34:18):
they're so bad.
And I'm wondering how long doesthis take?
Because I can imagine this bigball of yarn with all these
knots in it and you're sort ofpicking at it slowly but surely,
and every once in a whileyou'll come across a big knot
where five or six knots unwindall at once.
How fast does this happen?
Do they begin to see thispretty quickly, or is this
(34:39):
months?
Is this years?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah, so I've been working.
So you know, if we go back, youknow to your point.
So I'm a practitioner ofdialectical behavior therapy,
which combines meditation withWestern cognitive behavioral
therapy.
A lot of the meditations werebased initially on Zen Buddhist
principles, but subsequently allfaiths have a meditative
(35:03):
tradition that encompasses a lotof the mindfulness practices.
So it's not a religiousmindfulness, it's sort of like a
paying attention to the hereand now that is based on reality
and not the creation of yourmind.
I mean you could argue that.
I mean you know, everything'sjust perception, but I'm just
saying like, if somebody isn'thurting you right now, you can't
(35:28):
then say somebody's hurting meright now.
It's just like, yes, I have thememory of somebody hurting me
in the past.
So you combine mindfulness andcognitive behavioral therapy.
Now, because I treat people,many of the people I treat have
a condition known as borderlinepersonality disorder, and what
we know about people withborderline personality disorder
(35:49):
is that they have tragically, ifyou need, hospital level of
care.
Tragically, they have a veryhigh level of suicide.
About 10% of people who havehospital-level care for
borderline personality disorderwill die by suicide and many
will attempt Because their life,their emotional pain, is so
(36:24):
much that the well you knowthey're in that much pain?
Yeah, it can make sense.
But what about psychologicalpain so bad that death seems
preferable?
So dialectical behavior therapywas the first therapy to show
marked reductions in suicide andself-destructive behavior.
And even though we were able toreally reduce suicide and
(36:49):
self-destructive behaviors inpeople with very severe
borderline personality disorderand we've had a lot of success
tragically we've lost a fewyoung people to suicide.
It just it pained me so muchthat we would lose people who I
just admired, who I loved, who Ijust cared about, and also the
suffering of their parents.
(37:10):
I thought what is it that theyhave in common that we haven't
really paid attention to?
And the one thing that showedup time and time again when I
reviewed their records wasself-hatred.
So, you know, I mean you couldhave say asthma, but then not
hate yourself.
But maybe you have asthma andyou hate yourself.
So a lot of people with morelike personality issues don't
(37:32):
hate themselves.
A lot of people with eatingdisorders don't hate themselves.
A lot of people with otherconditions don't necessarily
hate themselves.
But then when self-hatred isincluded in the experience of
emotional suffering, the idea isyou know that I need to take my
life.
And actually there's very, verylittle research on self-hatred.
(37:55):
But the small amount ofresearch that there is shows
that the reason and this is theinterpersonal theory of suicide,
the reason that people willtake their lives is because they
feel that they're a burden tothe world and to those around
them and that you know, it'sironically.
(38:16):
They feel it's a kindness thatthey're doing to their world.
You know, say well, how canthat person who's so awful be
kind to the world anyway?
You know, that doesn't makemake sense, so so that's why it
became so critical.
You know, I really I mean, I'drather people do lots of, you
know stuff that I think maybe isnot that adaptive or whatever
(38:36):
it is, then hate themselves,because that level of profound
self-hatred causes so muchemotional pain, and if you
already have emotional pain,it's magnified.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, when I even think about the way you describe
that, it's like unfathomable tome this idea of this amount of
pain.
So you can really, when youdescribe it that way, you can
really begin to feel it.
One of the things that strikesme and I'm curious about this
because you mentioned meditationand so from my perspective and
what I think I know, you know,given the work that I do is that
(39:08):
most of these things seem to beat the unconscious level, and
so one of the problems I'vealways had and feel free to push
back on this one of theproblems I've always had with
therapy is that therapy ischanging.
There's lots of different tools, but in general, my sort of
idea is that it's very processoriented, it's very rational,
it's very much like rational,logical, process oriented stuff.
(39:30):
And I was always kind oflooking at me like this stuff is
at the unconscious level, and Ilove the way you put it.
This is just a language we speak.
We're not necessarily evenaware why we speak this language
.
It's at this unconscious level.
Then I go well, we're going toneed some other tools that get
to that level of consciousness.
You know, if I'm in betabrainwave states and I'm talking
(39:50):
to you, I'm not going to beable to access some of this
stuff.
So putting myself in, you know,theta states or alpha states,
through meditative practices orother ways, seems to me to make
a bigger difference in beingable to talk to someone.
And I'm wondering is this howyou see it and is this why you,
you know, move towardsmeditation, and what other
(40:12):
techniques do you use?
Because I just don't see how wemake a difference just with
talk therapy, if we're notgetting into the subconscious
realm.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, so, so, so, okay, let me ask you this what's
your spleen doing right now?
No idea what's your bone marrowdoing right now?
So here we have this entirething that we call the body and
we're unaware of all the thingsthat are happening inside of it.
You know, and maybe you couldsay well, if I'm having trouble
(40:44):
breathing, yeah, my lungs aren'tworking well enough, or I'm
having a heart arrhythmia, butthe vast majority your pancreas
right now.
What's it doing?
Your you know your kneecaps?
What are they doing?
We're not aware of the vastmajority of processes and organ
functions or anything like that.
That's happening most of thetime.
And even if you were to say,okay, I'm going to really pay
(41:06):
careful attention to what myspleen is doing, you know well,
first of all, where is my spleen?
I don't know what it's doing.
You know I'd have to look it up, and yet without its
functioning, you know, most ofus probably wouldn't be around
without the liver's functioning,without the pancreas' function,
without all of these thingsthat we're not aware of, you
(41:27):
know.
So then, how do you bringawareness to stuff that we're
not aware of?
And you know, we have to have adegree of intentionality in
terms of like, even sort ofpaying attention to it.
One of the things that I do intherapy is that when I notice
energy changes, energy statechanges in the interaction that
(41:47):
I'm having with a patient, I getthem to stop talking.
I say you know what, by the way, there are going to be times
when I'm going to ask you tostop talking, and what I want
you to do is I want you to payattention to what your body is
telling you Are you shuttingdown?
Are your muscles more tense?
Do you have an urge to hide?
Do you have an urge to turnaway from me?
(42:09):
I just want you to not talkbecause that's going to get you
to much, much deeper awareness.
You know, if you're going for ajog down a trail in Arizona and
you hear a rattle and you seethis thing that looks like a
(42:30):
snake, you look at it, you know,you just jump, you do something
, you don't stop and you say,hmm, I wonder if that's a
six-banded.
You know like rattlesnake with.
You know toxic venom.
You know that we are pre-verbal,fundamentally as a way of
surviving.
We have the tools built intothe system.
(42:50):
We just have to pay attentionto them.
You know, if you tell somebodyto use a map, they don't know
how to use a map.
But you say, well, I just usean app.
So, like, don't appify yourlife.
You know it's like the toolsare right there.
Your body, it's its own warningsystem.
You can pay attention to that.
So it's sort of like I don'tget very cognitive.
(43:11):
I want people to sort ofexperience and when they're
experiencing, then trying to putsome words like wow, talking
about that, shut me down.
Okay, like what was thatfeeling?
Like you know what was dwell inthat feeling?
Because those feelings, whenthey're very painful, what we
want to do is avoid.
But we know that avoidance ofsuffering causes more suffering.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
So it's like stay in that suffering.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
It's not going to kill you and you'll learn how to
master it.
Your body will learn how tomaster it.
Earlier on, I told you I liketo train in the cold.
I can stay outside in 25-degreeweather with a T-shirt on
because my body I mean humanssurvived multiple ice ages.
They don't have heaters or likehand warmers or anything like
(43:56):
that.
The body knows, so we can tuneinto that without being verbal.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
You know what, blaze, I love this.
This may be the most the bestpart of this conversation with
you for me, because I've neverreally heard someone say so
simply how we can tap into theunconscious mind.
And what you're telling us isjust that, when you feel these
things, stop and feel thesethings.
Once you get if I'm hearing youright, just getting into the
(44:24):
experience and the feeling isdropping into the unconscious,
it is getting out of logic, andI think that you know, for you
listeners, I think this ispretty profound.
It's very simple, but it'spretty profound.
You don't have you profound.
Dr Aguirre is not telling youthat you have to go and meditate
.
What he's saying is stop, feel,be in the experience.
(44:44):
And, if I'm hearing you right,the more you do that, the more
you are getting in touch withthe unconscious.
Now, what happens from that, Iwonder, is that the stories
begin to unwind.
You begin to become aware ofthe stories associated with
emotions.
You know, when I think ofemotions, I think of they can
trigger stories, but they'realso triggered from stories, and
so I'm imagining, then, thatmaybe the next step, as you
(45:07):
begin to drop into theseexperiential states and kind of
stop and just feel that perhapsthese stories begin to appear to
you and begin to unwind.
Your perception starts to widen.
Is that the goal?
Totally.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
You know, if you, you know, imagine you go to the zoo
and you see a tiger and thenyou like start freaking out
Tension, narrows, focus, narrows.
And then you sort of like, waita second, take a breath,
experience what's happening.
Okay, I'm not in India, I'm notin some jungle, I'm at the zoo.
(45:42):
And then what happens is, asyou begin to pay attention, as
you slow that whole process down, your awareness expands.
It's very, very important forsurvival to narrow attention
when there's a threat, whenthere's a real threat.
You know, like if your house ison fire, you don't want to be
(46:04):
discussing Socrates with yourneighbor.
You know, it's like that's allyou're focusing on.
But when it's just a creationof your mind and you sort of say
, wait a second, like what'sgoing on right now?
Is there actually a fire?
What's happening in my body?
What is the fear?
What am I causing?
I'm just going to dwell in thatexperience.
As you sink in, what happens isthat narrowness of focus then
(46:26):
expands and then you can see somuch more, and that's exactly
right.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I've had this happen lots of times with myself and
clients where I'll say, get theminto this state, this feeling,
experiential state, and then youknow, essentially ask them,
where is this familiar?
And oftentimes, when you saythat it does go back to,
oftentimes they can go back tothat original sort of seed story
(46:52):
that seeded the actual belief,and so I just love this, this
way of looking at it, for sure.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
The one thing where and some of my colleagues will
think I get a little bit extremeon this is that you know we
think about people will oftensay to me yeah, but when are we
going to get to the root cause?
Okay, now to me insight isoverrated.
Do you know what people whosmoke know about smoking?
Speaker 1 (47:14):
A lot that it's not good for them.
Yeah, it doesn't stop them fromsmoking.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
That's insight.
They have insight.
People who don't exercise knowthat not exercising is not good
for them.
That's insight doesn't stopthem from doing it.
Simply having insight, simplyknowing that you were mistreated
, is not in and of itself enough, because it doesn't change what
actually happened you.
You might have some moreawareness.
You then have to say thattaught me something, and I have
(47:41):
to unlearn that.
It doesn't say that that didn'thappen.
I'm not saying you're not goingto stop and say no, that didn't
happen.
It's just that that taught mesomething about myself.
That wasn't true.
And the other thing is this whenpeople ask for the root cause,
they say like, what is the rootcause?
I say it's the Big Bang.
Without the Big Bang, none ofthis would have happened.
(48:02):
Because, because you know, yousay that that person abused you.
Okay, but what?
Why was that person abusive?
What happened to them that theywere abusive?
Maybe their parents abused them?
Okay, but what happened thattheir parents abused them?
Well, maybe their parents?
Well, how far back do you haveto go along the series of events
(48:23):
?
Because just simply looking forthe root cause doesn't actually
get you to a point of healing.
You can understand that certainbad things have happened.
You can say that's the cause.
But every single cause in theuniverse has a cause, and so you
know you have to go back intime, you know, gazillions of
years, billions, in order to getto the original cause.
(48:43):
So I don't you know, I'm justsaying it's part of like what
explains things.
But it's like, okay, but thisis your life right now.
Do you have to continue to livewith that false story, with
that false premise, or can youmake you know, or can you make a
different decision?
Speaker 1 (49:00):
I love this because this is this idea of like okay,
and this is part of my problemwith therapy.
It's right, okay, so we'veprocessed it, we've tried to
figure it out, but ultimately,in the end, we're going to have
to take ownership of it, radicalresponsibility for it, and
decide that we're going to dosomething different with it.
Right, because if you dwell onthe cause that's still keeping
yourself stuck in this sort ofvictim state, at some point you
(49:22):
have to own and do somethingwith it.
And I love that you're speakingto that, because to me, this is
where we get into the idea ofresilience.
And certainly we go back tothis idea of your teachers.
And if you look at it from thatperspective, well, what can I do
with these lessons?
Then I can grow myself, I canenrich others, I can evolve the
world, and this is puttingsomeone in a position of power.
(49:44):
And I'm wondering is this whateventually begins to happen?
As people begin to unwind this?
Do they start to see theirtrials, their tribulations,
their traumas as something tolearn from, grow from, teach
from, create from?
Speaker 2 (49:59):
You know if you want to hike.
So I live in New England andthe highest mountain is Mount
Washington.
You know 6,000 feet.
So for people who are listeningto you in India or in Western
United States, they're going tosay that's like a foothill.
But in order to get to the topof the mountain.
There's some very easy sections, but there's some very, very
(50:22):
rough sections.
Now, if somebody were to say tome, your goal is to get to the
top of the mountain, but I willtake away all the rough sections
, and I'd say, yeah, that'sgreat, okay, but without those
rough sections I'm not gettingto the top of the mountain.
And if you were to think aboutyour life, think about your own
personal life, and for mostpeople you've suffered.
(50:44):
I mean, you cannot be a humanbeing and not have suffered in
some way, that you've hadmoments that were the darkest
moments in your life.
And if I were to say to you, Iwill take those all away, but
you won't know where you areBecause they've shaped you.
So, rather than saying thatthose were bad and those were
good, and certainly that therewere some very, very, very
(51:06):
hurtful moments, but they'veshaped you to be who you are in
this present moment, they werepart of that journey to get to
the top of the mountain.
That is you, and so you neededto go through them in order for
them to shape it.
Top of the mountain, that isyou, and so you needed to go
through them in order for themto shape it.
So if you could sort of say Iam stronger, I'm more aware, I'm
more resilient because of thosethings, then they were
(51:26):
wonderful teachers and it'sunfortunate that they had to be
so cruel and hurtful at times,but they shaped you and most
people, once they get to theother side of not hating
themselves, are grateful thatthey've that.
Not that the things happened,but that they that, that because
of them they met the peoplethat they met, that they've done
(51:47):
the things that they've done,because because it shaped them,
it kind of funneled them intowhere they are right now.
And most people not everybody,and I get that right now.
And most people not everybody,and I get that wouldn't give up
all the terrible things if theywouldn't be where they are right
now.
Some would, some would say Iwould change my life completely.
(52:09):
But most are saying, yeah, it'sokay.
And why is it that we'relabeling the good events that
happened as wonderful?
I don't remember the majorityof my good events.
I remember the most of mypainful events and I know what
they meant to me, how much Isuffered when my mom was dying,
(52:29):
and it just pointed out how muchwe were connected.
It's okay.
She's still in my head liketelling me not to do certain
things.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Yeah, it reminds me of you know this's still in my
head, like telling me not to docertain things.
Yeah, it reminds me of you knowthis is.
This does remind me.
I read a lot in the area ofTaoism and Buddhism.
You know, pain is the path topurpose.
Suffering is a source ofmeaning.
Your hurt can be a way to help,and I do think this is the
power of being human.
I would agree with you thatpart of being a next level human
is taking the painful bricks ofour lives and figuring out a
(52:59):
way to build something of valuewith them, and those are the
things that we're most proud of.
I see fulfillment as thequintessential human emotion,
not necessarily contentment orhappiness, because fulfillment
has that sense of I didsomething of meaning with my
life.
I'm so excited for the work thatyou are doing.
Certainly, from my perspective,next Level Humans this is what
(53:20):
they do right.
They take their work, theyteach and create from it.
Your book is obviously going todo this for people.
I want to just give you achance to wrap up any other
things that you want to say, andI want to remind the listener
that Dr Aguirre's book is comingout February 11th.
I hate myself.
I'm certainly going to begetting a copy and reading it.
I just love this conversation.
(53:41):
Anything you want to leave uswith before we end.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Yeah.
So if anybody out there is sortof like, if this concept like
resonates with them, I want themto know deeply, deeply and
fundamentally that they learnedhow to hate themselves and that
that is not their future, thatis not their destiny, that they
can learn another language.
(54:06):
They don't have to buy into themarketing of, of we market to
self-hatred, like if you buythis product you'll be prettier
and you'll be curvier and you'llbe smarter.
You know like you aren't goodenough as you are right now and
that once you begin to not labelyourself as a second class
citizen deserving of self-hatredand you're able to kind of see
(54:27):
that you had teachers who toldyou that you weren't good enough
and you can break away fromthat teaching and you can away
from that learning and you cansee the glory of who you are as
a human being.
It lifts so much pain andthat's been the reason I finally
published the book was becausewhen I saw people who took this
(54:48):
idea that they believed wouldnever change and it changed and
they've done something withtheir lives and they couldn't
believe it, it's just like it'sglorious.
It's so much joy for me to seethem so content.
So at peace, you know, and thatany listener who's out there
can get there as well.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
So yeah, no, so thank you.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
It's just, I love the questions, the probing and yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
Yeah, it's been.
It's been a real joy for me aswell.
Dr Blaise Aguirre, you guyscheck out his new book and do me
a do me a favor, blaze, juststay on the line.
I just want to make sure we geteverything uploaded.
But for all of you, thank youso much for hanging out on the
Next Level Human podcast and wewill see you at the next show.
All right, welcome everybody to the show.
I am your host, dr Jade Tita.
This is the Next Level Humanpodcast and I have an exciting
guest, someone I'm meeting forthe first time.
This is Blaise Aguirre MD, outof Harvard University.
He is a new favorite of minethat I recently discovered when
his people actually reached outto me to say, hey, would you
(00:23):
like to consider this individualfor your podcast?
And as soon as I started toread about him and his
background and his new bookcoming out, I was like I have to
have him on.
And so, blaze, thank you somuch for being here.
You have a new book coming out.
The book is called I HateMyself and it is coming out on
(00:45):
what?
February 11th or January 11th?
Is it February?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
11th yeah, so just in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yep, so let me set this up the title of this book.
One of the things and I'll giveyou something from my life
Blaze that happened I was datinga girl I don't know this is
probably over a decade ago and Iused to just I'm't know, this
is probably over a decade agoand I used to just you know, I'm
one of these people who reallyshowers people.
(01:12):
See, my mom is like this.
She sees the beauty in peopleand just says all the nice
things that they see.
And I'm this way too.
I'm a words of affirmationperson.
And so I will say you know, Iwould tell her how beautiful she
was and how wonderful I thoughtshe was and how funny that I
thought she was.
And the interesting thing, I hadnever experienced this in a
person before, but every time Idid this, she would get almost
(01:34):
angry and almost act as if I wasinsulting her in some way, like
talking down to her, and one ofthe things that I did is I was
like what is going on here?
I've never experienced this.
And I of the things that I didis I was like what is going on
here?
I've never experienced this,and I came across this term.
This is before I went intopsychology myself called
self-verification theory, whichwas this idea that some people,
(01:56):
if you talk to them in aparticular way that they don't
believe and you're showeringthem with all these praises and
you're so beautiful and you'reso wonderful they will see you
as distrustful because theydon't see themselves that way
and would rather you speak aboutthem in a way that is
consistent with their internaldialogue.
And when I first startedreading your stuff, I was like
(02:19):
it reminded me of this situationand I'm wondering if this am I
completely off here, or doesthis have anything to do with
sort of the condition that manyof us find ourselves in when
we're dealing with people orourselves in our self-talk?
And I'm wondering about thisparticular thing to open up this
discussion.
So I'm wondering, just from myown sort of learning is this
(02:42):
something that you are dealingwith in this book?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah.
So, by the way, I think did youand I have the same mother.
I'm just wondering.
I want to show you a photo.
So my aunt was a nun and she'sholding my baby brother.
My mother is.
I'm on the donkey over there.
My mom is like looking at meand uh, and she was pure love.
(03:07):
She just, she just saw the bestin human beings and uh, and,
and I just I realize how lucky Iam to have had her in my life,
you know, just because, because,even when I was in my the worst
of my adolescent years, shestill saw the best in me, you
know, and there was somethingabout that that it just like I
(03:30):
just believed that her approachwas the right approach.
But let's turn that around,because we were lucky to have
moms like that, you know butlet's turn that around.
Let's just say that and again,not to say that people who don't
have moms like that, you know,but let's turn 100%, let's just
say that.
And again, not to say thatpeople who don't have moms like
(03:54):
that are then going to not likethemselves or hate themselves.
But because most parents themajority of majority of parents,
the majority of parents aregoing to be listening to this
podcast love their kids.
They really love their kids.
The question then becomes,becomes how is it that you and I
can derive like this positive,like view of ourselves, and not
in a sort of like, a kind of anarcissistic way, but just like?
(04:14):
So you know that the world ispossible, that interactions are
possible and uh, and thatthere's other people who leave
childhood believing that they'rebroken, believing that they're
not worthy, believing that theworld would be better off
without them.
What is it about that?
(04:34):
And you know, as you weretelling your story, you know you
sort of think about, you knowyou had this girlfriend who
believed something about herself.
You had this girlfriend whobelieved something about herself
, and here you are trying toshower her with all the things
that you learned as a child andit's just not only is it not
(04:56):
sticking, but it's actuallyalmost like off-putting, like
stop you know, like you don'tsee me, you don't know who I am,
in a way, that you're sayingall these nice things about me,
and I think that that wasactually one of the big
discoveries that I made in termsof like really thinking about
this experience of self-hatred,that it didn't matter how much
(05:18):
others would tell the person youknow we love you, we care about
you, You're great and all ofthat.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
You know if you identify as male and I 100% say
no.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
You know, I did some genetic testing, I took some DNA
from your cup and it turns outthat you're actually female and
you have to start likeintrinsically believing that
you're a woman and you say, likeidentify as male, you know,
genetically male, like all ofthat, like there's no way, it's
just like no, no, you reallyhave to.
Eventually, you're going tofind me really annoying because
I'm telling you something thatyou just don't believe is
(05:51):
intrinsically true.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So yeah, yeah, that really resonates with me very
deeply.
And it's really interestingbecause, from my perspective,
when I think about these beliefsright, as you're hinting at
this idea that someone comes tobelieve something the way I
think about these I call themmisguided, unconscious decisions
or MUD.
Right, and they come and this isme more asking you a question
(06:16):
because I want to see if you seeit the same way so we can
orient the listener to this sothis MUD forms, you know, let's
say, during childhooddevelopment, maybe teenage
development, during times andevents and stresses perhaps,
where we didn't have theknowledge, the maturity, the
skills, the know-how.
Then it sort of gets cementedlike mud into our psychology and
(06:37):
follows us around like a shadow, unconsciously, and this is the
way that I have always seenthis.
But what I wasn't fully awareof is that perhaps we get this
(07:00):
self-hatred mud as well thatgets stuck in us which we really
don't like ourselves.
And reading your stuff made mesort of realize, okay, this is a
whole different flavor of this,and so I'm wondering do you see
this the same way, that this isbased on some kind of early
decision or judgment that getsentrenched into our psychology
(07:22):
and follows us around, and doyou see this as particularly
egregious in some way of why wechoose to see ourselves as
unworthy?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Well, okay.
So let me just say that I 100%agree with what you're saying,
but I'm actually going to takeit to a much, much simpler level
.
I'm going to.
Okay, do you what?
Do you speak anything otherthan English?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Just English.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Okay, Now why do you speak English why?
Don't you speak English?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, it's the language that was spoken to me
when I was young and thelanguage I picked up.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
And is it?
Is it?
Was it conscious or was itunconscious?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I can't remember remembering the words and
consciously fumbling over thewords.
It just seemed to come out ofme unconsciously.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
And did you say to yourself you know what English
is a bit harsh.
It's sort of confusing.
I think I'm going to learnFrench instead as a two-year-old
.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, never, would have even thought that.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
You would not have even thought about it because
the conditions.
Now, if I were to say whatwould the condition be for you
to speak you know Sudanese?
You would have said, well, Iwould have had to have been born
or taken as a child to Sudanwhen I was very, very young and
learned that.
So, even though I agreewholeheartedly with you but I'm
(08:39):
going to take it at a verydifferent level Think about it
as early learning that whatyou're learning is English.
You don't even think thatyou're learning English.
You're interacting with theworld.
And then you stumble upon aword and everybody claps and
says, well, great, you said youknow cheesecake or whatever it
is, and then everybody's ultrahappy about that.
(09:00):
And then it kind of reinforcesyour learning.
Now, what if that learningincludes that you're not good
enough, you don't try hardenough, that you're lazy, that
your siblings are better thanyou, that you're worthy of being
abused, that you're worthy.
(09:20):
It's not a conscious choice,it's imprinted in the software
of your learning in the way thatany other learning takes place.
So it's not like because thenthere is no choice, because I
don't then say you know, hey,five-year-old Jane, you know
what?
English isn't a really goodlanguage.
You shouldn't be speakingEnglish.
You should speak French.
(09:40):
So I don't know how to speakFrench.
So if you know no other, ideathat you're not worthy, but you
also don't have a frame ofreference.
What's interesting is, when I'veworked with people who are
self-hating, I actually haven'tmet too many adults who didn't
learn to self-hate as children.
In other words, if you've notself-hated, it would be like as
(10:03):
if you were to say you know whatsomething bad is going to
happen to you, jane, and you'regoing to start hating yourself.
The idea is antithetical toyour experience because you can
contextualize.
You know, care about selfversus not.
You can contextualize Englishversus Chinese or French or
whatever it's like.
You can say oh, there are theseother languages, this is the
(10:25):
language that I speak.
But if what you've learned fromthe very start is that you
weren't worth it, that you werethis terrible, that you were
this flawed person and youdidn't have any other context,
and you look around and yoursiblings are being showered with
love and they're not the oneswho are getting bullied at
school, and they're not the oneswho are getting bullied at
school and they're not the oneswho are getting misused and
(10:48):
mistreated, what conclusion canyou come up with other than
you're?
Speaker 1 (10:53):
you're broken, that you're, you should probably
shouldn't be around.
Yeah, I really like this a lot,because then I start to think,
ok, so my language, I'm speakingthis language of self-hate, but
this makes me think.
It makes me think, ok, well,how do I even become aware then?
Right, because I mean, in asense, if I'm speaking this
language and I believe in thislanguage, and I hear someone
(11:16):
coming in and saying somethingbeautiful about themselves, it
will seem so foreign to me I maynot even understand it.
It's like it's like okay,they're speaking Sudanese and I
can't understand those words,and so I default right back to
the language I understand.
And now this gives me contextinto what was going on with this
woman I was dating, supposed tolove.
You are your parents and thepeople closest to you.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And they don't, or they don't in a way that makes
sense to you, but those are the,you know, the primal kind of
connections.
And then comes Jade and says Ilove you.
Wait a second.
(11:59):
I've heard that before and itwas really hurtful.
People who've told me that theylove me were not very kind to
me, were kind of cruel.
So you know, either you're like,don't understand, or you're one
of these people who are tryingto be hurtful or something like
that, that there's a dissonancebetween this concept of the
(12:21):
experience of love.
You know when, you know I often, you know when I've seen, like,
kids who come to my programwho've, maybe they've had
physical abuse.
It's like, you know, I did thisbecause I love you.
So now what happens is love isbeing paired with cruel
punishment.
So when somebody tells them,hey, I love you, why would you
(12:45):
not recoil from that?
You know, why would it not belike a boy?
So, um, yeah, and and and.
So you make an extremelyimportant point because, like
you know, when somebody speaks adifferent language, a language
of love and language ofconnection, how could you
possibly even understand thatand how would you even think
that you know, if you went tothe Sudan and started speaking
(13:06):
English and no one understoodyou.
Eventually you'd realize that,wait a second, we're not
speaking the same language.
But if you travel around theworld and you just are hating
yourself, why would you everquestion that?
That's not normal?
And then, when you go to see atherapist, what do they ask you?
They ask you how do you sleepat night?
Do you have nightmares?
Do you hear to see a therapist?
What do they ask you?
They ask you how do you sleepat night?
Do you have nightmares?
Do you hear voices?
(13:26):
You know how is your energy?
Do you eat enough food?
Do you exercise?
Are you depressed, et cetera,et cetera.
Or do you have obsessions?
Do you have compulsions?
They never ask you what do youthink of yourself?
Do you like yourself?
It's not part of our trainingin mental health to include a
(13:50):
question about what somebodythinks about themselves.
And when I start asking thatquestion, it's like what?
Like well, I don't like myselfat all.
Well, how badly.
Some will say I hate myself.
And I say well, do you thinkthat's a problem?
They'll say no, and why not?
Well, I mean, you know I haveblue eyes, I have brown eyes,
like, that's just part of who Iam.
(14:10):
You know I can maybe do otherthings, but it's just part of
who I am.
I'm saying no, it's not.
And that's the first time thatit starts to like what, what are
you doing?
Do it?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, you know, that's interesting, right?
Because I mean, then I kind ofthink, you know, when I think of
people walking around in theworld this way, if they don't
necessarily see it as a problem,they may not even seek out the
help of someone.
So it hints that someone intheir life has to tell them at
some point this is a problem orsomething must be going wrong in
(14:41):
their lives, and I wonder howthat happens.
And then, you know, here comes,you know, dr Aguirre-Basey says
hey, you know, this is notnormal.
And all of a sudden they'relike what do you mean?
This is not normal.
And so that is.
It seems like another challenge.
If this is so normal to them,how do they even figure out that
it's a problem to even come tosomeone like you?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Okay, brilliant question, I love that question.
So one of the things thathappens is that I'll ask them
about their relationships.
I say, oh, I get involved withlike toxic boyfriends, toxic
girlfriends, like they're kindof hurtful.
Okay, and what about school andacademics?
Yeah, I don't do that.
(15:23):
Well, I haven't gotten a goodjob, I didn't get into a good
school.
What about?
You know, my parents prefer mysiblings and all of that.
And I say, well, why is that?
And they said, well, obviouslyI said, like, what do you mean?
Obviously he said, well, justbecause I'm not a good person,
I'm a very unworthy person.
And okay, so an unworthy persondeserves what Deserves toxic
(15:43):
boyfriends, deserves shitty jobs, deserves punishment, deserves,
you know that gets you todetermine that you're this awful
human being deserving all ofthis stuff.
(16:13):
We say, well, what are youtalking about?
It's been there all my life.
But who taught you that?
How did you learn English?
I grew up in anEnglish-speaking family who
taught you to hate yourself.
You had teachers who taught youto hate yourself.
Who were those teachers?
You weren't born hatingyourself.
A child is not born hatingitself.
A child is not born speakingEnglish.
(16:34):
You know it has to learn.
You have to learn to hateyourself.
And once you sort of introducethis idea that you've learned to
hate yourself, that you hadteachers from very, very, very
early on, you don't questionthat the way you're using
English is correct or not,because those were your teachers
and they did.
And maybe if you got a grammarstatement wrong, they would say,
(16:56):
okay, hey, you know there, andthere is two different words,
this is how you use it.
But once you've internalized it, people aren't thinking about
you as like oh, I wonder if he'sthinking about French.
But in other words, whensomebody is hating themselves,
they're just living in the world.
They're not manifesting anysymptoms of self-hatred in the
way that somebody withdepression might isolate, or
(17:19):
somebody who's misusingsubstances will be intoxicated,
or who's bipolar would be manic.
Misusing substances will beintoxicated, or whose bipolar
would be manic.
But the choices that they'remaking is a reflection of that
inner state that says I don'tdeserve better than what I have,
because I am not a good humanbeing.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
It reminds me of humans we live from stories, and
we live from the stories thatwe're told.
So it's like this idea if we'retold this particular story, we
buy into that story, and then welive out that story in our
lives.
And so, essentially, whatyou're saying is someone told
them this story, or they learnedthis story by watching other
(17:58):
people who believe the samestory, and then they walk around
in the world living out thatstory.
You introduce this new sort ofidea that you don't have to live
in this story anymore, andperhaps that's the first time
that their perception changesenough to go.
Wait a minute, there's anotherreality here, you know.
One of the things I'm interestedin, though, is that somehow
(18:18):
they must know and this alwayscomes up for me with my
naturopathic background, withthis idea that there's this
healing power in nature, thatthere's this sort of inner
knowing.
So somehow they know in someway that there's this toxic
environment, that the boyfriendis toxic, that this is somehow
bad and not good, and I'mwondering how you see this,
(18:40):
because it's almost like this,this internal, deep knowing that
they are living from a toxicstory, and then here you come
along and introduce a newconcept.
So I'm wondering if there issomething there that is sort of
like this driving force that iswaiting to come out to free them
from this yeah, no, it's, it's,it's.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
You know that it's a very I love.
Do we have two hours to talkabout this?
Because?
I love being on the show withyou already.
So this if you make thestatement like, let's just say,
someone comes to you and sayshey, you know, I hate myself.
(19:20):
Now, first of all, what theheck does that mean?
If I say I hate the shape of mynose, well, okay, but okay,
first of all, what's thisconcept of self that you're
hating?
Now, you know, when I had a caseand these are all de-identified
, because this happens a lotanyway so I had a case and I've
(19:43):
had many, many cases of youngwomen, say, who've been sexually
abused by their step parents oran uncle or something, and
that's just, sadly andtragically, very, very common,
and that's all that they willknow for some period of time.
And they will then start tothink about like, oh, are other
kids?
Is this happening to other kids?
Is this happening to mysiblings?
Is this happening to other kids?
(20:04):
Is this happening to mysiblings?
And when the answer is no, thenthe only conclusion that they
can come up with is that eitherthey're very special, somehow,
but then when they're startingto feel hurt, when they're
starting to feel confused, itmust be because I'm flawed.
And then they go and they getolder and they move on, and then
they start dating.
But what they know is thatthere's a certain kind of
(20:26):
cruelty, a certain kind ofdisrespect that comes with
relationships, because the thingthat made the other person feel
good was kind of a toxiccontrol over this young child,
and so that's the thing thatthey know.
And so when there's tenderness,when there's kindness, it's
(20:46):
very, very, very confusing.
And at the same time they knowthat it's fundamental level they
don't actually like what'shappening to them, but they just
can't contextualize it, sosomething doesn't feel right.
You know, I'll tell yousomething like if I, if ever I,
end up on a desert island andyou know where I am, what I
(21:07):
would have said to you is Jay,send me a baguette every day,
because I love a baguette with agood cheddar.
I have to tell you, I turned 50and I started to bloat and I
started to get fuzzy in my headand I couldn't understand it.
I knew that there was somethingwrong, but I couldn't
understand where this was comingfrom.
(21:28):
And it turns out that after Iturned 50, I became gluten
intolerant.
And it's such a sad love.
I used to sneak into thekitchen at like four at night
just to have a bite of bread,just to see if, like, maybe the
bread wouldn't know that it wasbeing eaten, and that wouldn't
be you know, but then I wouldstill, then I would still get
(21:48):
sick.
So my body knew.
The body actually knew.
It wasn't cognitive until Istarted to pair those things
together.
So at some level all of us arewise, every single human.
Every single human is wise.
Some of us hide it very well,some of us don't let it shine.
(22:10):
But wisdom knows.
And wisdom is not verbal.
Wisdom is intuitive.
Actually, language does atremendous violence to our
experience.
We try to capture ideas inwords because they're the best
tools that we have, but again,if you're speaking to that
Sudanese person, they won't knowwhat the heck you're talking
about.
So we're trying to you know,like, but at some level you're
(22:33):
right, at some level they know.
And then when you start to takethis experience apart, then
they can begin to see how veryearly learning has led to you
know these kinds of experiences.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, I love this idea because I see it.
I see it as well.
I see that some part of themdefinitely knows, and I kind of
see it like when people ask mehow would I know that I have
some of these erroneous storiesor dysfunctional stories or
damaging stories, and I go.
Well, if you look at yourrepeated patterns, your
recurrent obstacles, stuckemotions I'm interested in your
(23:11):
take on this stuck emotionsbecause from my perspective, you
know, emotions are meant to befelt, not lived.
You shouldn't be getting stuckin an emotion that you're living
out.
And so these patterns, theseobstacles, these emotions that
recur again and again, I go.
That obviously is about somekind of story you're living from
, because it's your pattern,it's your obstacle, it's your
(23:33):
stuck emotion.
And then you can begin to or Ibegan to point out to them that
there is another story, there isanother choice point here, and
it sounds to me like that's whatyou're doing.
They're walking around withblinders on, they come to see Dr
Aguirre and he's like hey, lookat this.
And their perception expands alittle bit and this begins to
(23:55):
open them up.
And so I'm wondering is thisthe first step in this sort of
perception?
Switch in.
Okay, I do not have to hatemyself.
Maybe I am not as unworthy,Maybe there is a choice here.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Well, and, by the way , you're right, I love the
blinders analogy.
The only thing is it would beworse if you didn't even know
you were wearing blinders 100%.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
So that's the thing Now think about language.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
What do people say when they are angry?
If they were to tell somebodythat they were angry, what do
they say?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
yeah, they're gonna be like.
You know I hate you, or no, no,no, but just say you're
experiencing anger right now,what would you say?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
what would?
How would you describe whatyou're experiencing?
What do most people say?
If you're angry right now andyou say I, or you say you're sad
, you say I am.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, I'm sad, I'm angry.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I am angry.
Now, when you say I am angry,when you say I am sad, you fuse
the concept of anger and sadnesswith the self.
If you were to look up anger inthe Oxford English Dictionary,
there would not be a picture ofyou.
You and sadness and you andanger are very different things.
(25:09):
Now, if you say I feel angry, Ifeel sad, you're separating,
you're defusing, you'redisconnecting you and that
entity, and you know that's oneof the things that keeps people
stuck is even, just, even justlanguage.
I am angry.
Well, I thought you weresomebody else.
(25:30):
You know?
Do I call you angry from now on?
I am sad?
So like no, you feel sadbecause feelings are transient,
feelings can change.
So let's even start.
Even if you were to say toyourself I, and then just even
use your own name, I'm feelingsad, you're already starting to
like disconnect yourself fromthat experience.
(25:54):
So yeah, so one thing is toactually point out that they're
wearing blinders and thatthey've.
You know, if I say to, if I'vebeen teaching you in math, one
plus one is three.
One plus one is three.
One plus one is three.
One plus one is three.
Erroneous, erroneous, erroneous.
Now you get to the final examand the final exam question is
what's one plus one?
And it's the thing that's goingto get you into college and you
are certain you're going to puta three because that's what
(26:14):
you've been taught.
And then the professors otherprofessor said no, you're wrong.
I said no, well, I was taughtthat I am right, because you
don't have a context under whichyou understand that that's
wrong.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And that is incredibly disorienting, very
disorienting.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Very, very disorienting.
You can say, well, somebodytaught you something incorrectly
.
So I'm going to point out thatyou've been looking at the world
through a very narrowperspective.
Point out that you've beenlooking at the world through a
very narrow perspective.
We see this today a lot in likepolitics and you know, media
consumption, all of that sort ofstuff.
That ability to think maybethat's not true.
(26:51):
Or, alternatively, if somebodythinks this one thought they're
terrible human beings, if theythink this one thought they're
wonderful, and then we erase anyother kind of ways of thinking
that they might have that youmight disagree with.
So that ability to say that isa perspective.
And I understand how you got tothat perspective, because you
(27:13):
were taught that perspective.
That perspective is wrong.
Not only is it inaccurate, it'salso extremely hurtful.
And they say, no, I'm reallyterrible.
I say, well, you know how manyRussians have you killed?
Or Ukrainians have you killed?
Okay, well, maybe I'm not thatterrible.
Okay, I can also start to lessenthe level of terribleness that
a person is, because it does getinto this idea of taking an
(27:34):
emotion and you called it anentity, right.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And so this idea and I'm wondering I do this in my
work too and I'm wondering ifthis is part of what you do with
this is that what I will do?
And this is in some of the workof you know comes from internal
family systems, maybe parts work, maybe, you know, even
shamanism has some of thiswithin it, this idea that, okay,
if I feel anger, I'm not anger,I feel anger but then I can.
I love the way you called it anentity because I can essentially
, once I see anger as an entity,it's almost like I'm having a
(28:12):
conversation with anger in theroom.
In the same way, I'm having aconversation with you right now
and I can analyze anger in adifferent way.
And when I do that, all of asudden I understand something
that I did not before, and thisis another way, in my way, of
seeing.
That perception is altered andI'm wondering is this part of
(28:32):
what you do in this work?
I certainly do it in my work,but I'm also wondering if this
is part of what you do or thesepart of the steps, because I
want to start unpacking.
How do we unwind this knottedball of I hate myself and I'm
wondering what those steps mightbe, and this idea of creating
this emotional distance is partof it.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, so I think because many people who you know
I get referred patients, whoother therapists have said oh,
this person has a lot ofself-hatred and we don't know
what to do.
Because, by the way, that's theother thing is like we have
treatments for obsessivecompulsive disorder, for adhd,
for bipolar disorder and allthese things.
(29:14):
But if somebody has self-hatred, like, what are you going to do
about it?
Because what?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
do, you do for that.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
You know, so say you know so, so, so step one has to
be the recognition that you'velearned something, because you
know love comes much morenaturally to the human heart
than hatred.
Does I mean if we, if everybody, carried hatred like we would
probably be dead as a species?
Um, you know, killing ourselvesand they.
Obviously there is a lot ofhatred, but there's much, much,
(29:40):
much more love in the world.
And because love comes muchmore naturally to the human
heart than hatred, does that, ifyou could learn to hate, you
can also learn to love.
And maybe love is too much toeven think about, you know, when
you first come to talk to me,but maybe just like yourself or
dislike, or hate yourself alittle less, or maybe just
(30:03):
dislike yourself.
It's just like lower thetemperature of that.
So, but it starts off with theidea.
So I asked the people okay, youhate yourself, you've learned
to hate yourself.
You weren't born hatingyourself.
You weren't born speakingEnglish.
You had to learn because ofinteractions with the
environment, because ofconclusions that a very young
(30:24):
mind, without context, learnedabout themselves.
Okay, so that's step one.
Okay, so then I actually getthem to write it down, because
when we name and label phenomena, it actually defames those
phenomena to a certain extent,rather than just making a
statement.
Just tell me more about it.
(30:45):
It's a little bit like, youknow, columbo back in the day or
Sherlock Holmes is like, okay,we're really going to analyze
exactly what's going on here.
So I want to start off.
When did you start learning tohate yourself?
Who were your teachers, to hateyourself?
Who were your teachers?
What were the experiences thatyou had with those teachers?
(31:06):
And also, that's also like kindof disconcerting.
What do you mean my teachers?
I said no, the bullies atschool.
You know the people who havemisused you, the people who
maltreated you, the people whotold you that you weren't enough
, the people who told you thatyour grades weren't good enough,
the people who said you weren'tgoing to amount to anything.
You know those teachers.
And, by the way, why are youlistening to those teachers?
(31:28):
Do you want to be like them?
You know, if you want to belike them, follow their teaching
.
If you don't want to be likethem, then don't follow their
teaching.
You're following teaching ofbad teachers, so okay.
So then they start to write itdown and then they start to see
what.
And I say wait a second Now.
Do you have other people inyour life who teach you
(31:49):
something different than you areactually worthy?
How do you be, how do you feel?
When you're in the presence ofpeople who aren't mistreating
you?
I feel better, but skeptical.
Okay, that's fine.
But what's that teaching youabout the interactions that you
need to have, and what is itthat those people are seeing in
(32:11):
you that don't find you so toxic?
And maybe you know?
And they say, well, they don'treally see me.
You know, they don't reallyknow.
I said, well, listen, if you'rethis terrible.
And they say, well, they don'treally see me.
You know, they don't reallyknow.
I said, well, listen, if you'rethis terrible, terrible human
being, I probably need to goeither to the police or the FBI.
So let's just start.
You know, are you killingneighborhood dogs?
(32:32):
No, Are you, you know, slammingdoors on little old ladies.
No Well, what is your crimeLike?
What is this terrible thingthat you need to hate yourself
for?
And you know it starts tocrumble.
So I think that, just like adeep into what that experience
is, is critical in changing it.
But what doesn't work istelling them that they need to
(32:55):
love themselves, or telling themto that they're worthy or that
you care about them.
That just doesn't work, becauseit's not believable, and I'll
often say in a very irreverentway look, I accept it, you're a
pretty awful human being, I getit, but you're not worthy of
hate, you're not worthy of goingto prison for it.
Can we just start to reduce thelevel of self-hatred, to just
(33:17):
self-dislike, something likethat, and then, once they start
to see that this immutable ideacan shift a little bit, now
you've got movement, but it'swhen it's this cannot change
that, then there's nothing youcan do and you know.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
It reminds me of and I guess this is the idea of the
dialectical behavior therapythat you do right it reminds me
of this sort of Socraticquestioning where it's like
let's actually go into thequestioning of the story that
you're telling and check theaccuracy of it and, as they see
that it's not as accurate,because they have this objective
voice that's essentially sayinglet's analyze this story, then
(33:58):
you start to unwind the knots,and so I really love that.
So am I getting that right?
This is sort of this dialecticalapproach where we're
essentially challenging thestories that they're telling
themselves, starting at a verylow level and basically just
dismantling slowly these knotsthat they've created around why
(34:18):
they're so bad.
And I'm wondering how long doesthis take?
Because I can imagine this bigball of yarn with all these
knots in it and you're sort ofpicking at it slowly but surely,
and every once in a whileyou'll come across a big knot
where five or six knots unwindall at once.
How fast does this happen?
Do they begin to see thispretty quickly, or is this
(34:39):
months?
Is this years?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah, so I've been working.
So you know, if we go back, youknow to your point.
So I'm a practitioner ofdialectical behavior therapy,
which combines meditation withWestern cognitive behavioral
therapy.
A lot of the meditations werebased initially on Zen Buddhist
principles, but subsequently allfaiths have a meditative
(35:03):
tradition that encompasses a lotof the mindfulness practices.
So it's not a religiousmindfulness, it's sort of like a
paying attention to the hereand now that is based on reality
and not the creation of yourmind.
I mean you could argue that.
I mean you know, everything'sjust perception, but I'm just
saying like, if somebody isn'thurting you right now, you can't
(35:28):
then say somebody's hurting meright now.
It's just like, yes, I have thememory of somebody hurting me
in the past.
So you combine mindfulness andcognitive behavioral therapy.
Now, because I treat people,many of the people I treat have
a condition known as borderlinepersonality disorder, and what
we know about people withborderline personality disorder
(35:49):
is that they have tragically, ifyou need, hospital level of
care.
Tragically, they have a veryhigh level of suicide.
About 10% of people who havehospital-level care for
borderline personality disorderwill die by suicide and many
will attempt Because their life,their emotional pain, is so
(36:24):
much that the well you knowthey're in that much pain?
Yeah, it can make sense.
But what about psychologicalpain so bad that death seems
preferable?
So dialectical behavior therapywas the first therapy to show
marked reductions in suicide andself-destructive behavior.
And even though we were able toreally reduce suicide and
(36:49):
self-destructive behaviors inpeople with very severe
borderline personality disorderand we've had a lot of success
tragically we've lost a fewyoung people to suicide.
It just it pained me so muchthat we would lose people who I
just admired, who I loved, who Ijust cared about, and also the
suffering of their parents.
(37:10):
I thought what is it that theyhave in common that we haven't
really paid attention to?
And the one thing that showedup time and time again when I
reviewed their records wasself-hatred.
So, you know, I mean you couldhave say asthma, but then not
hate yourself.
But maybe you have asthma andyou hate yourself.
So a lot of people with morelike personality issues don't
(37:32):
hate themselves.
A lot of people with eatingdisorders don't hate themselves.
A lot of people with otherconditions don't necessarily
hate themselves.
But then when self-hatred isincluded in the experience of
emotional suffering, the idea isyou know that I need to take my
life.
And actually there's very, verylittle research on self-hatred.
(37:55):
But the small amount ofresearch that there is shows
that the reason and this is theinterpersonal theory of suicide,
the reason that people willtake their lives is because they
feel that they're a burden tothe world and to those around
them and that you know, it'sironically.
(38:16):
They feel it's a kindness thatthey're doing to their world.
You know, say well, how canthat person who's so awful be
kind to the world anyway?
You know, that doesn't makemake sense, so so that's why it
became so critical.
You know, I really I mean, I'drather people do lots of, you
know stuff that I think maybe isnot that adaptive or whatever
(38:36):
it is, then hate themselves,because that level of profound
self-hatred causes so muchemotional pain, and if you
already have emotional pain,it's magnified.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, when I even think about the way you describe
that, it's like unfathomable tome this idea of this amount of
pain.
So you can really, when youdescribe it that way, you can
really begin to feel it.
One of the things that strikesme and I'm curious about this
because you mentioned meditationand so from my perspective and
what I think I know, you know,given the work that I do is that
(39:08):
most of these things seem to beat the unconscious level, and
so one of the problems I'vealways had and feel free to push
back on this one of theproblems I've always had with
therapy is that therapy ischanging.
There's lots of different tools, but in general, my sort of
idea is that it's very processoriented, it's very rational,
it's very much like rational,logical, process oriented stuff.
(39:30):
And I was always kind oflooking at me like this stuff is
at the unconscious level, and Ilove the way you put it.
This is just a language we speak.
We're not necessarily evenaware why we speak this language
.
It's at this unconscious level.
Then I go well, we're going toneed some other tools that get
to that level of consciousness.
You know, if I'm in betabrainwave states and I'm talking
(39:50):
to you, I'm not going to beable to access some of this
stuff.
So putting myself in, you know,theta states or alpha states,
through meditative practices orother ways, seems to me to make
a bigger difference in beingable to talk to someone.
And I'm wondering is this howyou see it and is this why you,
you know, move towardsmeditation, and what other
(40:12):
techniques do you use?
Because I just don't see how wemake a difference just with
talk therapy, if we're notgetting into the subconscious
realm.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, so, so, so, okay, let me ask you this what's
your spleen doing right now?
No idea what's your bone marrowdoing right now?
So here we have this entirething that we call the body and
we're unaware of all the thingsthat are happening inside of it.
You know, and maybe you couldsay well, if I'm having trouble
(40:44):
breathing, yeah, my lungs aren'tworking well enough, or I'm
having a heart arrhythmia, butthe vast majority your pancreas
right now.
What's it doing?
Your you know your kneecaps?
What are they doing?
We're not aware of the vastmajority of processes and organ
functions or anything like that.
That's happening most of thetime.
And even if you were to say,okay, I'm going to really pay
(41:06):
careful attention to what myspleen is doing, you know well,
first of all, where is my spleen?
I don't know what it's doing.
You know I'd have to look it up, and yet without its
functioning, you know, most ofus probably wouldn't be around
without the liver's functioning,without the pancreas' function,
without all of these thingsthat we're not aware of, you
(41:27):
know.
So then, how do you bringawareness to stuff that we're
not aware of?
And you know, we have to have adegree of intentionality in
terms of like, even sort ofpaying attention to it.
One of the things that I do intherapy is that when I notice
energy changes, energy statechanges in the interaction that
(41:47):
I'm having with a patient, I getthem to stop talking.
I say you know what, by the way, there are going to be times
when I'm going to ask you tostop talking, and what I want
you to do is I want you to payattention to what your body is
telling you Are you shuttingdown?
Are your muscles more tense?
Do you have an urge to hide?
Do you have an urge to turnaway from me?
(42:09):
I just want you to not talkbecause that's going to get you
to much, much deeper awareness.
You know, if you're going for ajog down a trail in Arizona and
you hear a rattle and you seethis thing that looks like a
(42:30):
snake, you look at it, you know,you just jump, you do something
, you don't stop and you say,hmm, I wonder if that's a
six-banded.
You know like rattlesnake with.
You know toxic venom.
You know that we are pre-verbal,fundamentally as a way of
surviving.
We have the tools built intothe system.
(42:50):
We just have to pay attentionto them.
You know, if you tell somebodyto use a map, they don't know
how to use a map.
But you say, well, I just usean app.
So, like, don't appify yourlife.
You know it's like the toolsare right there.
Your body, it's its own warningsystem.
You can pay attention to that.
So it's sort of like I don'tget very cognitive.
(43:11):
I want people to sort ofexperience and when they're
experiencing, then trying to putsome words like wow, talking
about that, shut me down.
Okay, like what was thatfeeling?
Like you know what was dwell inthat feeling?
Because those feelings, whenthey're very painful, what we
want to do is avoid.
But we know that avoidance ofsuffering causes more suffering.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
So it's like stay in that suffering.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
It's not going to kill you and you'll learn how to
master it.
Your body will learn how tomaster it.
Earlier on, I told you I liketo train in the cold.
I can stay outside in 25-degreeweather with a T-shirt on
because my body I mean humanssurvived multiple ice ages.
They don't have heaters or likehand warmers or anything like
(43:56):
that.
The body knows, so we can tuneinto that without being verbal.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
You know what, blaze, I love this.
This may be the most the bestpart of this conversation with
you for me, because I've neverreally heard someone say so
simply how we can tap into theunconscious mind.
And what you're telling us isjust that, when you feel these
things, stop and feel thesethings.
Once you get if I'm hearing youright, just getting into the
(44:24):
experience and the feeling isdropping into the unconscious,
it is getting out of logic, andI think that you know, for you
listeners, I think this ispretty profound.
It's very simple, but it'spretty profound.
You don't have you profound.
Dr Aguirre is not telling youthat you have to go and meditate
.
What he's saying is stop, feel,be in the experience.
(44:44):
And, if I'm hearing you right,the more you do that, the more
you are getting in touch withthe unconscious.
Now, what happens from that, Iwonder, is that the stories
begin to unwind.
You begin to become aware ofthe stories associated with
emotions.
You know, when I think ofemotions, I think of they can
trigger stories, but they'realso triggered from stories, and
so I'm imagining, then, thatmaybe the next step, as you
(45:07):
begin to drop into theseexperiential states and kind of
stop and just feel that perhapsthese stories begin to appear to
you and begin to unwind.
Your perception starts to widen.
Is that the goal?
Totally.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
You know, if you, you know, imagine you go to the zoo
and you see a tiger and thenyou like start freaking out
Tension, narrows, focus, narrows.
And then you sort of like, waita second, take a breath,
experience what's happening.
Okay, I'm not in India, I'm notin some jungle, I'm at the zoo.
(45:42):
And then what happens is, asyou begin to pay attention, as
you slow that whole process down, your awareness expands.
It's very, very important forsurvival to narrow attention
when there's a threat, whenthere's a real threat.
You know, like if your house ison fire, you don't want to be
(46:04):
discussing Socrates with yourneighbor.
You know, it's like that's allyou're focusing on.
But when it's just a creationof your mind and you sort of say
, wait a second, like what'sgoing on right now?
Is there actually a fire?
What's happening in my body?
What is the fear?
What am I causing?
I'm just going to dwell in thatexperience.
As you sink in, what happens isthat narrowness of focus then
(46:26):
expands and then you can see somuch more, and that's exactly
right.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I've had this happen lots of times with myself and
clients where I'll say, get theminto this state, this feeling,
experiential state, and then youknow, essentially ask them,
where is this familiar?
And oftentimes, when you saythat it does go back to,
oftentimes they can go back tothat original sort of seed story
(46:52):
that seeded the actual belief,and so I just love this, this
way of looking at it, for sure.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
The one thing where and some of my colleagues will
think I get a little bit extremeon this is that you know we
think about people will oftensay to me yeah, but when are we
going to get to the root cause?
Okay, now to me insight isoverrated.
Do you know what people whosmoke know about smoking?
Speaker 1 (47:14):
A lot that it's not good for them.
Yeah, it doesn't stop them fromsmoking.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
That's insight.
They have insight.
People who don't exercise knowthat not exercising is not good
for them.
That's insight doesn't stopthem from doing it.
Simply having insight, simplyknowing that you were mistreated
, is not in and of itself enough, because it doesn't change what
actually happened you.
You might have some moreawareness.
You then have to say thattaught me something, and I have
(47:41):
to unlearn that.
It doesn't say that that didn'thappen.
I'm not saying you're not goingto stop and say no, that didn't
happen.
It's just that that taught mesomething about myself.
That wasn't true.
And the other thing is this whenpeople ask for the root cause,
they say like, what is the rootcause?
I say it's the Big Bang.
Without the Big Bang, none ofthis would have happened.
(48:02):
Because, because you know, yousay that that person abused you.
Okay, but what?
Why was that person abusive?
What happened to them that theywere abusive?
Maybe their parents abused them?
Okay, but what happened thattheir parents abused them?
Well, maybe their parents?
Well, how far back do you haveto go along the series of events
(48:23):
?
Because just simply looking forthe root cause doesn't actually
get you to a point of healing.
You can understand that certainbad things have happened.
You can say that's the cause.
But every single cause in theuniverse has a cause, and so you
know you have to go back intime, you know, gazillions of
years, billions, in order to getto the original cause.
(48:43):
So I don't you know, I'm justsaying it's part of like what
explains things.
But it's like, okay, but thisis your life right now.
Do you have to continue to livewith that false story, with
that false premise, or can youmake you know, or can you make a
different decision?
Speaker 1 (49:00):
I love this because this is this idea of like okay,
and this is part of my problemwith therapy.
It's right, okay, so we'veprocessed it, we've tried to
figure it out, but ultimately,in the end, we're going to have
to take ownership of it, radicalresponsibility for it, and
decide that we're going to dosomething different with it.
Right, because if you dwell onthe cause that's still keeping
yourself stuck in this sort ofvictim state, at some point you
(49:22):
have to own and do somethingwith it.
And I love that you're speakingto that, because to me, this is
where we get into the idea ofresilience.
And certainly we go back tothis idea of your teachers.
And if you look at it from thatperspective, well, what can I do
with these lessons?
Then I can grow myself, I canenrich others, I can evolve the
world, and this is puttingsomeone in a position of power.
(49:44):
And I'm wondering is this whateventually begins to happen?
As people begin to unwind this?
Do they start to see theirtrials, their tribulations,
their traumas as something tolearn from, grow from, teach
from, create from?
Speaker 2 (49:59):
You know if you want to hike.
So I live in New England andthe highest mountain is Mount
Washington.
You know 6,000 feet.
So for people who are listeningto you in India or in Western
United States, they're going tosay that's like a foothill.
But in order to get to the topof the mountain.
There's some very easy sections, but there's some very, very
(50:22):
rough sections.
Now, if somebody were to say tome, your goal is to get to the
top of the mountain, but I willtake away all the rough sections
, and I'd say, yeah, that'sgreat, okay, but without those
rough sections I'm not gettingto the top of the mountain.
And if you were to think aboutyour life, think about your own
personal life, and for mostpeople you've suffered.
(50:44):
I mean, you cannot be a humanbeing and not have suffered in
some way, that you've hadmoments that were the darkest
moments in your life.
And if I were to say to you, Iwill take those all away, but
you won't know where you areBecause they've shaped you.
So, rather than saying thatthose were bad and those were
good, and certainly that therewere some very, very, very
(51:06):
hurtful moments, but they'veshaped you to be who you are in
this present moment, they werepart of that journey to get to
the top of the mountain.
That is you, and so you neededto go through them in order for
them to shape it.
Top of the mountain, that isyou, and so you needed to go
through them in order for themto shape it.
So if you could sort of say Iam stronger, I'm more aware, I'm
more resilient because of thosethings, then they were
(51:26):
wonderful teachers and it'sunfortunate that they had to be
so cruel and hurtful at times,but they shaped you and most
people, once they get to theother side of not hating
themselves, are grateful thatthey've that.
Not that the things happened,but that they that, that because
of them they met the peoplethat they met, that they've done
(51:47):
the things that they've done,because because it shaped them,
it kind of funneled them intowhere they are right now.
And most people not everybody,and I get that right now.
And most people not everybody,and I get that wouldn't give up
all the terrible things if theywouldn't be where they are right
now.
Some would, some would say Iwould change my life completely.
(52:09):
But most are saying, yeah, it'sokay.
And why is it that we'relabeling the good events that
happened as wonderful?
I don't remember the majorityof my good events.
I remember the most of mypainful events and I know what
they meant to me, how much Isuffered when my mom was dying,
(52:29):
and it just pointed out how muchwe were connected.
It's okay.
She's still in my head liketelling me not to do certain
things.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Yeah, it reminds me of you know this's still in my
head, like telling me not to docertain things.
Yeah, it reminds me of you knowthis is.
This does remind me.
I read a lot in the area ofTaoism and Buddhism.
You know, pain is the path topurpose.
Suffering is a source ofmeaning.
Your hurt can be a way to help,and I do think this is the
power of being human.
I would agree with you thatpart of being a next level human
is taking the painful bricks ofour lives and figuring out a
(52:59):
way to build something of valuewith them, and those are the
things that we're most proud of.
I see fulfillment as thequintessential human emotion,
not necessarily contentment orhappiness, because fulfillment
has that sense of I didsomething of meaning with my
life.
I'm so excited for the work thatyou are doing.
Certainly, from my perspective,next Level Humans this is what
(53:20):
they do right.
They take their work, theyteach and create from it.
Your book is obviously going todo this for people.
I want to just give you achance to wrap up any other
things that you want to say, andI want to remind the listener
that Dr Aguirre's book is comingout February 11th.
I hate myself.
I'm certainly going to begetting a copy and reading it.
I just love this conversation.
(53:41):
Anything you want to leave uswith before we end.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Yeah.
So if anybody out there is sortof like, if this concept like
resonates with them, I want themto know deeply, deeply and
fundamentally that they learnedhow to hate themselves and that
that is not their future, thatis not their destiny, that they
can learn another language.
(54:06):
They don't have to buy into themarketing of, of we market to
self-hatred, like if you buythis product you'll be prettier
and you'll be curvier and you'llbe smarter.
You know like you aren't goodenough as you are right now and
that once you begin to not labelyourself as a second class
citizen deserving of self-hatredand you're able to kind of see
(54:27):
that you had teachers who toldyou that you weren't good enough
and you can break away fromthat teaching and you can away
from that learning and you cansee the glory of who you are as
a human being.
It lifts so much pain andthat's been the reason I finally
published the book was becausewhen I saw people who took this
(54:48):
idea that they believed wouldnever change and it changed and
they've done something withtheir lives and they couldn't
believe it, it's just like it'sglorious.
It's so much joy for me to seethem so content.
So at peace, you know, and thatany listener who's out there
can get there as well.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
So yeah, no, so thank you.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
It's just, I love the questions, the probing and yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
Yeah, it's been.
It's been a real joy for me aswell.
Dr Blaise Aguirre, you guyscheck out his new book and do me
a do me a favor, blaze, juststay on the line.
I just want to make sure we geteverything uploaded.
But for all of you, thank youso much for hanging out on the
Next Level Human podcast and wewill see you at the next show.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!