Insights on Mental Health, Trauma, and Personal Growth with Melody Murray

Episode Transcript
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Parker Condit (00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome to Exploring Health
Macro to Micro.
I'm your host, parker Condit.
In the show, I interview healthand wellness experts around
topics like sleep, exercise,nutrition, stress management,
mental health and much more.
So by the end of each episode,you'll have concrete, tangible
advice that you can startimplementing today to start
living a healthier life, eitherfor yourself or for your loved

(00:21):
ones, and that's the micrositeof the show.
The microsite of the show isdiscussing larger systemic
issues that contribute to healthoutcomes, and today's episode
is a nice balance between themicro and macro.
Today's primary focus is onmental health, and here to
discuss that with me is MelodyMurray.
Melody is a licensed marriageand family therapist and a child
mental health specialist.

(00:41):
She's also a former reality TVproducer and director and was a
standup comedian for five years.
In this episode, we go over thefive, four, three, two, one
rule, what to do in the case ofa panic attack, the relationship
between discomfort, fear andpersonal growth, how our minds
can trick us in, how we givemore weight to negative
experiences, how addiction runsin the family and why

(01:03):
environment is such an importantfactor in that, and we discuss
the foundations of vulnerability.
Finally, melody is also anauthor.
Towards the end of the episode.
We talk about her inauguralbook Morning the Living when the
loved one you've lost is stillhere.
Her second book, my Bounce BackPlan Designing your Own Healing
Formula, was released on March15th.

(01:23):
This is a workbook that ismeant to grow with you as you go
through loss and challenges inlife.
It's available on her websiteand Amazon, both of which will
be linked in the show notes anddescription.
So, without further delay,please enjoy my conversation
with Melody Murray.
Melody, thanks so much forbeing here.

(01:45):
We're just gonna dive rightinto the first question how do
you define or what do you thinkis the foundation of
vulnerability?

Melody Murray (01:53):
I think vulnerability is the ability to
be authentic, and that's aluxury.
I believe vulnerability is aluxury.
You have to have a certainlevel of variables in play for
you to feel comfortable beingauthentic.
You've gotta feel safe, yougotta feel secure, you've gotta

(02:16):
know that there's someone thatis listening to you and they see
you and they hear you and theyrespect you.
Vulnerability is not an easything to do.

When you said there's a variety of variables,
the first word that came to mindwas safety, so I'm glad you
listed that off.
My follow up to that was gonnabe along the lines of is this
something that you can do like?
Does this have to come fromwithin yourself or can you like,
if you don't have all of therequisite variables in place to

(02:46):
be vulnerable, can you lookexternally to other people to
sort of help facilitate thatsort of environment, if you will
?

This is such a great question and it's so
important because I think that,in order to be vulnerable, trust
has to be present as well.
And what makes vulnerabilitydifferent?
What makes vulnerabilitydifficult is when we grow up in
environments where we can'ttrust the environment, we can't
trust the people that are incontrol, we can't trust what's

(03:23):
going on because there's chaos,and so we are taught early on
that we can't trust people thatare in control of our
environments, and so we cancarry that on.
Vulnerability does require trust, but I think that what can
crack that is whenever you doencounter people that are just

(03:43):
genuinely kind and they arerepeatedly kind and you let that
chip away at your fear of beingtrusting of other people.
You use that evidence to chipaway at all that was taught to
you about what it means to openup to other people and to be
vulnerable around other people,and you let that become your new

(04:06):
evidence of hey, I can relaxnow I can actually share with
this person.
They've given me the space tobe me.
They've given me the space tobe open.
They've given me the space tobe honest about how I think and
how I feel, and, oh, maybe I cantrust, maybe I can be
vulnerable and that has comeexternally.

Okay, so until you have that externally, do you
see as a therapist that?
Do you see people turn inward?
So trust has not beenfacilitated to outwardly through
a home environment or throughan upbringing?
Do those people turn inwardlyalmost too much and they're like
I'm the only one I can trust,I'm the only one that's reliable

(04:50):
.

Yeah, and there's that hyperindependence comes
from that where you've beenbecause of your experiences.
You've been taught through yourexperiences that you can't rely
on anybody else, and so youdon't reach your hand out, you
don't ask for help becauseyou've been burned so many times
before.
So, yes, there is a tendency tothen just only rely on yourself

(05:13):
and think that you can't relyon other people.
But a part of that needing totrust other people, a part of
that is like we need to trustourselves too.
So I think that whenever youneed to build up the ability to
be vulnerable, it should startwith yourself.
And it should start withyourself and maybe backtracking

(05:39):
your life choices and decisionsthus far.
What decisions have you madethat have gotten you to where
you are, that you're happy about, where you live, who your
friends are, what your jobs havebeen, your education,
remembering that you were a bigpart of making the decisions to

(05:59):
getting you to where you areright now?
That can help you build yourself-confidence and your
self-trust.
And then, once we build up thatself-trust, then we can extend
that to other people if wechoose to do so, which I think
is a good idea, or else you'regonna live a lonely life, and
we're not supposed to be on ourown.
We're not supposed to be lonely.

Yeah.
So I was curious when you starttalking about trust and that it
can come from sort of externalsources or that's a way that you
can facilitate it if you didn'tnecessarily grow up in the
environment where there's sortof mutual trust both ways in a
relationship or in anenvironment, if that can sort of
be a bridge in the meantimeuntil you can start to sort of

(06:38):
build that trust within yourself.
Does it go both ways, likeideally you're trusting in
yourself and you can trust inothers?
But are there ways where peoplewho only trust themselves they
then start branching outwardly,and those who only sort of
facilitate that safety throughexternal environments, can they
then sort of come back tothemselves?
Because that's what, withoutactually knowing any of this

(07:01):
stuff?
I'm like that sounds healthy ifyou can do it both ways.

You know, and that's the goal.
You know that is the goal.
But I think that we have tostart small.
We've got to take baby stepswhen it comes to doing this and
be really patient with yourselfas you're challenging yourself,
because that's what you're doingyou're challenging yourself,
you're challenging what you weretaught to think about yourself,
you're challenging what youwere taught to think about the

(07:25):
world, and those challenges arereally, really necessary.
But you know you also have tobe patient with yourself and
know that it's okay to feelclueless, it's okay to feel
comfortable, and you really needto accept being uncomfortable
in your journey to heal yourself.
You have to be uncomfortable.

(07:46):
If you want anything to change,you have to be uncomfortable.
You know, I tell my clients allthe time.
You know the very beginning ofus working together, I'll say to
them like nobody goes to thegym until their pants are too
tight, you have to beuncomfortable for change.
Sometimes it would be amazing ifit was internal.
You know you had this internalmotivator and you're like yes,
I'm gonna do this and I know allthe things.

(08:07):
Everybody knows what it takesto lose weight, but nobody's
doing it.
Everybody knows eat less,exercise more, and how many
obese people do we have in thiscountry?
So we have to challengeourselves, and part of that
challenge is being uncomfortable, and that discomfort sometimes
comes in us letting other peoplein and us allowing ourselves to

(08:31):
think differently about thingsthat we were, that were drilled
into us.
This is how you think and thisis how you're supposed to be,
this is what a man is supposedto be and this is what a woman
is supposed to be.
Open yourself up to challengethose things, and sometimes
those challenges can comeeternally, and sometimes it
comes from conversations fromother people.
We just have to be open torealize that not everybody's
trying to attack you.

Yes, I'm glad you made the reference to something
fitness related or weight lossrelated, because I used to be a
personal trainer, so that's sortof the world that that's one of
my main worldviews that I canalways reference.
And then, yeah, you mentionedthe discomfort piece where a lot
of people, if they say theywanna make a change, they are
point A, they wanna get to pointB, but the pain isn't

(09:12):
necessarily high enough.
So it's always about exposing,like using graded exposure to
get them like what's necessaryto get them to point B, like
they don't have the capacity,the work capacity, the desire to
go to the gym, the amount, thetime to dedicate to it.
So I need to set likeintermediate goals for them In
the meantime.
Be like this is what yourcapacity is, so I'm gonna get

(09:33):
you to hear to sort of keep youon the treadmill, if you will,
towards your goal.
So I guess, from like a mentalhealth or therapy standpoint,
can you give a few examples oflike what are these small things
of people who aren't?
And I don't even know if it's agood idea to dive into the deep
end when you're trying to dothese things?
Like, what are some smallthings that people can do to

(09:54):
start either rebuilding trust orbecoming more vulnerable with
themselves and with others.

Take it day by day.
Baby steps are a great way togo, and one simple thing you can
do is look at yesterday.
Look at yesterday.
What did you eat yesterday?
Did you wake up with your alarmwhen you wanted to?
Did you go to bed when you saidyou wanted to Pat yourself on
the back?
When you did the things thatyou wanted to do?

(10:22):
Simple things.
And sometimes, when people arereally, really in tough spots, I
say did you take a shower?
Pat yourself on the back?
Did you brush your teeth?
Hell, yeah, you brushed yourteeth.
Keep it simple.
You know so many people think I, like you know, a move towards
improvement is like I curedcancer today.

(10:42):
I lifted the car off the babyStop.
It doesn't have to be some biggrand gesture.
Simple stuff and build on thereally simple things and then
you can realize that, hey, I cantrust myself.
And then, when somethingdoesn't happen the way you want,
know that you can start againfive minutes from now.

(11:03):
You don't even have to waituntil tomorrow.
You can start over again fiveminutes from now, right the
day's not over.
You can still get small wins inbefore the end of the day and
celebrate the wins you know it'sa really important thing to
celebrate the wins, because somepeople grew up in households
where nothing was celebrated.
They only got attention whensomething went wrong, and so

(11:24):
that is work.
That is work, but it's simplework, but it's necessary work to
celebrate little wins and thencelebrate the big stuff too.
But take a pause to really begrateful for the improvements
that you're making.

I think there's some idea in psychology that
people mentally weight negativeexperiences heavier than
positive experiences.
Is that true?

Not all brains are built that way, but many are
Okay.

Yeah, I read it was like I think three to seven,
like you need three to sevenpositive experiences for every
one negative experience orthought.
So just keeping that in mind,it's very important to not
undermine the small winsthroughout the day, because if
you've got a few of them butyou're not really paying
attention to them and then onenegative thing happens, that day
is probably going to be framedin a negative light in your mind

(12:15):
, unless you're giving theappropriate weight to those
positive small wins, even ifthey are small.

So true, so extremely true, and I think that
you know we can have a tendencyto.
I mean, we're in a victimsociety right now where you know
, obviously, you know people arelitigious and people are pissy
about a lot of different things,and you know, I get it, I get
it, I'm a part of the world too.
But I think that you have to becareful with yourself that if
something doesn't go your way,that you don't then go.

(12:45):
Well, I got a flat tire, then Iwas late to work and then my
boyfriend pissed me off and thenthe dog peed on the carpet and
then you know that piling on anda lot of times we do the pile
on because we want to tell astory, we want to throw it on
social media and go look at me,look at me, and it's like stop,
you know what we put our energyinto builds.

(13:05):
Whatever we put our energy intobuilds, which I think is a
really tough thing that just tojust to swing it out.
You know out a little bit wherepeople go.
I'm going to hope for the best,but plan for the worst.
Honey.
Whatever you plan for is whatyou can get.
Wherever you put your energy,that is what's going to grow.
So you have to be reallymindful of where you're putting

(13:28):
your energy.
So you have to make sure thatif something bad happens, it's
just that one thing, that thatone bad thing that happened.
It doesn't mean you're cursed.
Chill out, dust yourself offand keep it moving.

So I think some people are more conscious of
this than others and trying tocome to one of these things.
So I'm in my mid 30s, so a lotof my friends are right around
this age as well.
So for just speaking to maybepeople who haven't been
conscious of this type ofprogramming or thought process
growing up, anything that'soutside of your, your norm or

(14:03):
your routine is veryuncomfortable.
We already kind of spoke aboutdiscomfort.
You've spoken about couragebefore.
How do you sort of gain thecourage?
Because the fear comes fromyour body just craves,
homeostasis, right, the, thenorm is like your body feels
comfortable with that.

So you will do bizarre things to sort of
maintain that, even if it'snegative, even if it's
negativity, oh yeah, yeah,because you're at least used to
that.

Be like this is it's.
It's negative but it'scomfortable Like you know how to
regulate in that way, right.
So how do you, how do youfacilitate the courage to get
people to like, try to breakthat homeostasis which, from an
evolutionary standpoint, is likevery uncomfortable.
It's like you want what'scomfortable and familiar.

It takes time.
It really does take time, andit takes some some knowledge too
, and understanding that our ourmind plays tricks on us.
You know one.
One piece of evidence to thatis panic attacks.
Panic attack that panic attackis a mind trick.
There's something that'shappening right in front of you
right now that is reminding youof something that happened a

(15:10):
long time ago and you havingthat fear right now of something
close to happening a long timeago.
You're probably sitting inclass, you're eating a pop tart
and you're flipping your shit,and it's a trick.
And so when you understand thatthe mind is so powerful that it
will trick you, then you haveto go wait a second.

(15:32):
Maybe those things I was taughtwasn't actually true, and I
think that what you have to dois you have to not be so
personal about it.
The things that were taught tous, the programming that we were
given, were, was given to us bypeople that actually love us
and care about us, but theycould still be wrong.
They could be unhealthy, theycould be dysfunctional, they can
be abusive.

(15:52):
Don't take it personally.
Give yourself the pause to gowait a second.
I have a right and I actuallyhave a responsibility to change
my mind when I get evidence tothe contrary of a thought that
has been laid within me.
Give yourself the space to takein new information.

(16:14):
That is the beauty of being anadult.
That is, I think, theresponsibility of being a
knowledgeable, confident, smartadult is that when you get
evidence, when you get newevidence, you need to make new
decisions.
And when you decide to dosomething that goes against your
programming, it doesn't meanyou love the people that program

(16:37):
you any less.
You don't love them any less.
They made decisions and theyprogrammed you with the
information they had at the time.
Case in point go to college.
You got to get a four-yeardegree.
We now know since 2008,.
Having a four-year degreedoesn't guarantee a damn thing.
We now know.
Having a job in corporateAmerica doesn't guarantee you

(16:59):
any kind of security.
Owning a house at a certain agedoesn't guarantee you any kind
of wealth.
We now know this.
And so the younger generationsare taking this all in and
they're doing things differently.
They're moving differently.
They're taking PTO, the oldergenerations, where you could
raise a family of four on$30,000 and you have a gold

(17:21):
watch after being in a job for30 years.
That's what they grew up in.
We now know there's noguarantee of that.
So you have to move differently.
It's not an attack on you.
It doesn't mean that you'restupid.
It doesn't mean that you'vedone anything wrong.
It's just you've taken theevidence of the times of today
and you move differently becauseof that evidence and you owe it

(17:45):
to yourself to do that.

Yeah, that's great advice.
I don't want to get too far offof this line of thinking, but
you mentioned panic attacks andit is such a common thing.
So do you have any tools ortricks for people that they can
use in the moment?
How can they?
I'm assuming I don't know.
Feel free to correct me andfeel free to give as much
context on panic attacks as youwant.
You're either living too far inthe past, the mind is bringing

(18:10):
you back to something in thepast, or it's projecting fears
into the future, but not in thepresent moment.
So any tools or tricks thatpeople can utilize to get them
back to a better state whenthey're having a panic attack, I
think they'd be really valuable.

Absolutely.
I like to lean on the fivesenses.
That will bring you to thepresent moment.
Lean on the five senses.
Five, four, three, two, one.
That's a great groundingtechnique, and so what you can
do is and you can do thisquietly, you can do this
anywhere, you can do this behindthe wheel of a car, you can do
this in a classroom, you can dothis at work or on a plane.

(18:49):
Five, four, three, two, one.
And consider the five senses.
Five look at five things withina room, wherever you are right
now, and let's say you're behindthe wheel of a car and you
could see a traffic light stop.
Sign your purse in the seatnext to you, your drink that's
in the console.
Maybe you see a car beside you.

(19:09):
Four touch four things.
If you're back in the car,touch the steering wheel, touch
your horn.
Touch the seat.
Touch your dog if it's besideyou.
If you're in a classroom, touchyour desk.
Touch a pencil.
Touch your backpack.
Touch paper on your desk.
Three, three things that you canhear in your present moment

(19:32):
Cars honking, dogs barking,someone chewing on their pencil,
chalk on a chalkboard.
Two smell what can you smellright now?
And you can smell whateveryou're drinking If you've got a
pen or a marker in your hand,sniff that your hand.
If you've got lotion or cologneon it, what is right in front

(19:52):
of you?
Taste?
Take a drink of water, take asnack, chew on your pencil if
you need to.
But the point is like you madea good point, a panic attack,
typically what it is.
There's something from the past, there's something in the
present that's reminding you ofthe past and you're projecting
into the future Like, oh shit, Ihope this doesn't happen again.

Okay, yep, I appreciate the explanation.

It's the combination of things that are
happening simultaneously, likewithin a split second.
All of these things arehappening all at the same time.
So what you're trying to do isbring yourself back to the
present moment and you need toremind yourself I'm safe right
now.
Nothing is harming me right now.
Slow, deep breaths.

(20:33):
I'm sitting in my classroom.
Right now I'm at work.
I can hear the ticking of theclock on the wall.
Lunchtime is soon.
I'm going to take a bite of mysandwich.
These are all things to bringyou back to the present moment,
to remind yourself that you'renot in that scary moment that
happened in the past and you'renot in this future moment that

(20:55):
hasn't even happened yet.
You're right here right now.
Stay present, stick with thefive senses.
Sometimes, if you let's sayyou're outside, go ground
yourself, lean up against a tree, lean up against a wall, take
your shoes off, put your feet inthe dirt, literally ground
yourself, to remind yourself ofyour current safety, not some

(21:20):
past moment that is gone.

I appreciate you explaining all that.
And I think, the 5-4-3-2-1protocol.
I think that would be reallyhelpful and like a very easy
thing to have in your toolkit inthe case that you're having a
panic attack.
So I appreciate you explainingthat.
And then, on that line ofthinking, do you teach
mindfulness or any sort ofbreath work, because so much of

(21:45):
what you just spoke about wasjust getting back to the present
moment.
So is that one of the toolsthat you ever implement with
clients?

I do, I do.
I'll have moments with clientswhere they are running, running,
running throughout their dayand then they, like our therapy
session has been slid in betweenmeetings and they'll come in
hot.
They will come in hot to thistherapy session and I'll see it.

I mean, it's obvious, you can see it when
someone's really stressed out,or just and you can like feel it
too right.

You can feel it and I have to protect myself, to
make sure that I don't take onother people's energy, and so
I'll call out the moment andI'll just say hold on, and I'll
literally put my hands up Holdon, let's just breathe right now
, just and push it out and hearyourself pushing out the breath.

(22:34):
Don't count it, it's not aboutintervals, it's just about
breathing in.
Get the cheeks fat.
Get the cheeks fat Because,also, what you're trying to
shift, you're trying to shiftyour way of thinking.
And if, let's say, it's one ofthose moments, I was just with a

(22:56):
client.
He works at Amazon and he isgoing hardcore all the time, and
I'll have to say to him nope,you're here now.
You're not in a meeting, you'rehere now.
This is your healing moment.
Take it.
You don't have to rush yourselfhere and I'm not going to rush

(23:20):
you and you need to functiondifferently in this moment and
we have to understand that aswe're navigating meetings and
picking your kids up from schooland going out to dinner with
friends, be in that moment.
Take a few seconds to breathe.
It doesn't have to be somefull-on, transcendental
meditation moment that you takeon the.

(23:40):
It doesn't have to be that atall.
Just a few deep breaths andremind yourself I'm at the
restaurant, I'm going to playwith my kid, I'm riding a bike.
Right now, bring in, bringyourself to that moment so you
can fully enjoy it and you'renot spread across a bunch of

(24:00):
different responsibilities.

Yeah, I think anything using your senses is
very, it's a very powerful toolto bring you back to the present
moment, whether it's the breath, whether it's physically
touching something.
It's kind of going back toexactly what you talked about
with panic attacks.
I was laughing when you said Ineed to protect myself.
Are you naturally reallyempathetic?
Because I read a book about ayear ago actually, I think it

(24:27):
was called Whose Feelings Arethese, or Are these Feelings
Mine, something like that, andit was all about how to navigate
the world as an empath whichI'm not necessarily, but it was
still a very interesting bookwhere it's like empaths will
take on the energy and theemotions of people around them,
and this book is trying to helppeople identify, be like are
these even my feelings, or arethese just the energies and

(24:47):
emotions of the people I've beensurrounded with all day?

You know that empath and blood.
You brought that up becausethere's so much that can be said
about that but you know whatbeing an empath is?
Just I got a whole lot offucking trauma.
That's what it means.
That means that early on, I hadto pay attention to whoever was
around me and look at theirbehavior and their tone of voice
and how they were interacting,in order to protect myself.

(25:14):
And instead of leaving that inthe past because I haven't
completely healed it, I've nowtaken that into my present.
I've reframed it as empath, but,yeah, it is taking on other
people's emotions and it's meantto protect yourself from that,
from their wins, from theiremotional wins, and so, yeah,

(25:37):
it's important for you toseparate what belongs to them
and what belongs to me, and ittakes a beat to do that.
But when you're an empath, youtypically will take on other
people's crap, and it bleedsinto codependency too.
Well, you will take otherpeople's crap and you will feel
that I have to be responsiblefor it.
I've got to show you how much Ilove you.

(25:57):
I've got people pleasing asinvolved in that too.
It's so layered.
It's so layered, but I do.
I have to shield myself fromother people's crap.
But I have always been thatperson where people will spill
their guts to me and I'm like,hey, let's make a career out of
it.
I went from being a reality TVshow producer and now I'm a

(26:18):
therapist, and it all comestogether in the same way.
Nurses, doctors, attorneys,journalists it's all connected.

Yes, I'm glad you brought that up and it's like a
very nice segue to kind ofdiscuss your sort of career path
to this point.
I'd love if you could share alittle bit about what got you to
this point.
But my main question aroundthat was like do you feel like
you came to being a therapist atthe right time in your life, or
is it something you wish you'dgotten into it earlier?

100%.
It wasn't something that I everthought about and when I really
needed a therapist in mychildhood, I didn't even know
that it was a thing.
I had no clue.
I started therapy in my early30s and I grew up in Texas where
no one talks about anythingnegative.
You don't talk about what'shappening in your home, you

(27:08):
don't.
Everything's smiley and greatand wonderful and I was at a
work meeting.
It was the first day of a job.
I was at a work lunch withBrandon Coworkers and one of my
coworkers who is now my bestfriend, but we were having lunch
and she said something socasually and she was like oh, my
therapist, john Elliott, and Iwas like what?

(27:32):
She's clearly sane and she goesto therapy.
And she's just saying it outloud because I was taught that
you know, crazy people dotherapy, you go to church or
only really fucked up people goto therapy.
And that's what I was taught.
And here was this person thatwas clearly sane and calm and

(27:54):
confident, and so I had to breakdown what I had been told, what
I was programmed to think.
I broke it down in that momentwith her and so I started going
to therapy and still didn'tthink about the coming of
therapists, but in I was on theroad working on two different
shows, where it was that bothenvironments were really really

(28:16):
Extremely toxic and the otherone was really dysfunctional and
I wanted to intervene.
I wanted to have conversations.
I wanted to say why are youhaving sex with that person?
Why are you taking all theseshots?
Why are you blowing thathorrible situation off and
acting like it's no big deal?
I wanted to intervene, but thatwasn't my role and I just had

(28:41):
this moment where it's like Ineed to change my role.
Then I need to change my role.
I want to be able to helppeople feel better instead of
being the person that throws acamera on them when they're in
the worst moment.

Yeah, can you just give a little context for
anyone who isn't familiar withyour background?
Can you explain, like, whatkind of shows you were working
on, just so they have a littlemore backstory to those
statements?

Sure, for several years I worked in television
entertainment.
I was a producer and directoron reality TV shows and I worked
on a variety of shows, you know, from Bad Girls Club to Last
Comic Standing, to MTV's theReal World and a bunch of other

(29:25):
shows, and the environments weretypically very volatile, which
is that's entertainment, youknow, and typically the cast are
very young, in their early 20s,and it's you know.
People on reality TV shows arepeople who have been cast
because they don't have filters.
They snap, they speak theirmind without thinking things

(29:51):
through and that's why camerasare on them.
That's entertainment, and itwas fun for a really long time
until it wasn't and I had to dosomething else.
I did, I did, and I'd done thatwork for a very long time.

(30:12):
I even hosted a few shows.
I did stand-up comedy myself.
I was on stage for severalyears telling jokes, and then I
just matured.
I think that's what it was.
I evolved, I matured.
A big part of it was being apart of my own therapy and then
realizing that I really do wantmy time.
You know, call it anexistential crisis.

(30:34):
You know I want my time on thisearth to mean something that
helps people feel better aboutthemselves, and so I had to just
switch things up.

I imagine this feels much more online with
those desires then with whatyou're doing now.

I'm seriously cleansing some karma now.

You feel like you owe from a few years.
I feel like.
So you mentioned before thatkind of where you grew up and at
the time that you grew up,mental health was not something
that was discussed, or if it was, it was in this very negative
frame.
And I grew up not too differentfrom that and I'm sure a lot of

(31:15):
people still have sort of hadthat perspective where it's like
if you're going to therapy it'slike it's because you're crazy,
you're cool, that's right.
I do feel like nationally, thestigma around mental health is
improving.

It's getting better.

And it's being discussed more on TV and stuff
like that.
But you have so much experiencewith TV and you discuss this in
another podcast to some extent.
Can you talk about how mentalhealth is portrayed on TV in
particular contexts, because itfeels like there can almost be
this, almost like thisfetishization of trauma to a
certain extent.

(31:50):
And this like it can be almostperformative.
It seems like yeah, so I thinkyou have a bit more expertise in
that area.
But anything you can discuss onthe concept of how mental
health is portrayed on TV Ithink would be interesting to
explore.

It's funny.
The very first show that I everproduced was a show that had
two therapists on it, and it wasa show about couples who were
having relationship issues andthe two therapists were giving
them interventions in order toimprove their relationship.
Fast forward to the second, tothe last show Well, actually

(32:29):
fast forward to the show that Iwas on where I thought this
sucks, this is horrible, and thetalent on that show was
actually doing her therapy oncamera.
Now again, I had never thoughtabout being a therapist, but I'm
there and I'm directing thesescenes and she'd been doing.
I was on the fourth season ofthe show.
She'd been doing therapy on theshow since, maybe for a couple

(32:53):
of years up to that point, andmy whole thought was this is so
unethical and that is not a wordthat you use in reality TV.
People want you to be unethical, but I'm like this feels so
exploitive because she's dancing.
She and her therapist are bothdancing around things that are
really obvious, really obvious,and it's like, oh, she's
exploiting herself, oh, becauseshe wants another season, and so

(33:18):
you know, I don't know thatthat exploitive word, I don't
know.
I mean you could say blanketwise yes, tv is exploitive to
reality TV show cast.
But I don't believe that TV, theindustry, needs to be
responsible for adults that havedecided this is what I want to
do and they're getting paid doit.

(33:40):
Personal responsibility comesinto play here.
It just does because no one'ssaying you are, no one's forcing
anybody to do this.
They're all getting paid.
They have to apply to do it andit takes months to get cast on
a show before the cameras evershow up.
So you need to be responsiblefor yourself when you're
deciding to do this.
And we are not in the beginningof this, where you didn't know

(34:01):
exactly how the editing wasgoing to go down.

You know she's a few years into this.

Yeah, we're in.
We're decades into this shit.
Now you know what can come fromthis, so own it.
But I think that this is alsowhere this is a societal issue,
where we're now, you know, we'rethis social media world where
everybody is seeking externalvalidation.
Everybody is looking for, forways that that people can

(34:28):
applaud them, love them, seethem, hear them.
So even if you're not on areality TV show and you snub
your nose at it, you're stillprobably on Instagram or
Facebook and you're looking tosee how many likes you've got.
It's the same thing.
You are the, you know, you'rethe, the top dog on your own
reality show when it's yoursocial media pages.

(34:49):
So exploiting, yes, but that isthe fabric of our society, which
is we're always looking forpeople that you know we can make
money on.
That's just the way capitalismis what is in charge these days,
and it sucks, but it's thetruth and I think the sooner you
realize what is manipulatingyou, the better off you're going

(35:10):
to be and take personalaccountability for what you
allow yourself to get suckedinto or not.
You know, I saw this greatvideo and it was Denzel
Washington and he was talking.
I mean Denzel, what is he inhis 60s at this point and he was
talking about social media andhe was talking about the
addiction to phones and he saysyou don't think you're addicted,

(35:32):
don't touch it for a week.
He's like just the thought ofit scares you.
You're addicted.

So, given all that, how do you, how do you
suggest people navigate, withthe prevalence of social media?
In that, I think?
I think social media is just away to describe the current
state of the internet.
It's not like the separate sideof the internet, it's like it's
the most prevalent state of theinternet.
So how do you suggest people,while trying to improve or
maintain their mental health,navigate social media, which is

(36:04):
not necessarily the mostconducive thing for that?

You know, I think that it goes back to being
uncomfortable.
When we're uncomfortable, wegot to look into that and lean
into it.
For several years people weredoing, though what's the what's
your new years resolution?
And then now it's recentlychanged into what is your word
of the year?
My word of the year this yearwas uncomfortable.

(36:31):
I want to be uncomfortable.
I want to know what's on theother side of discomfort.
I want to be curious about it.
I want to be curious about whatdrives me crazy, what makes me
happy, what calms me down.
And if something drives mecrazy, why?
And I think these challengeswe've got to challenge ourselves
.
We're in this space now wherenobody wants to be uncomfortable

(36:53):
.
Everybody wants everything tobe absolutely as easy as
possible, and there's asacrifice that's made in that.
There's a huge sacrifice and toreally pull it all the way out.
Let's look at education.
You've got kids that aren'tbeing educated anymore.
They're doing scantrons.
You're not learning a damnthing, You're just learning how
to take a test.
You're not learning thematerial, and so, being having

(37:16):
everything so easy to you,you've got to peel back the
curtain and go.
Why?
Why?
And I say, challenge yourselfIf there's anything that makes
you scared just by hearing aboutit.
You got to look into it.
You've been triggered in someway.
Lean into it.
I'm doing this thing.
I don't know if you've everheard of vipassana.

(37:37):
It's a type of meditationretreat and it's the 10 day
silent meditation retreat.
I'm doing it for the secondtime this spring and anytime
I've brought it up to people,they immediately recoil.

Oh no, I'm like.
I've told you that I can'timagine not talking to anybody.

I can't imagine.
Not looking at my phone, Ican't imagine.
Maybe you should.
Maybe you should See why.
What's in charge of you, what'sin control of you?
Get curious about it.
Don't be judgmental.
Get curious about it.
Lean into all thoseuncomfortable things and see
what's on the other side.

What were your takeaways from the first one
that you had done?

My takeaways were really understanding what are
the things that trigger certainbehaviors in myself, Realizing
when my distractions, thetypical things that I use to
distract myself, when those aretaken away, where does my mind

(38:46):
go?
And I realized I'm a strongperson.
I've been through a lot of shit.
I help a lot of people, but Irealized I'm not as strong as I
thought.
Crap.

Is it like an uncomfortable thought and you're
immediately going to one ofthose distractions?

But that's the thing, in that you have access
to nothing.
You're not even supposed tomake eye contact with people.
There's no talking, there's nophone, there's no TV, it's just
you.
And when I first heard about itit scared me shitless.
But then I went into ooh, Ilike challenging and being
scared because I realized thatI'm always better on the other

(39:26):
end of uncovering what hasscared the crap out of me.
I'm always better for it, andI've learned that.
One of my friends did it beforeI did and she called me as soon
as it was over.
She called me and I said whatwas it like?
Tell me everything she's like.
I cried for four days straightand I said count me in, sign me
up, because I've realized andthis is a hard thing to realize,

(39:52):
but this is the beauty of thetherapy that I do with my
clients is gaining confidencefrom the hard crap that you've
survived, not running from it,not shying away from it, not
bearing it and suppressing it,looking at it and go look what I
got through, not beingembarrassed, not being
self-conscious.
Look what I got through.

(40:12):
There's something reallybeautiful about that.
And it becomes this thing thatbecomes really addictive.
I'm going to do these reallyuncomfortable things.
That's why I did stand up.
I didn't do stand up because Iwanted to be a comedian, I
wanted to be on a TV show.
I did it because I was alwaystypically very shy and didn't
share my opinions, and shit,people are going to look at me,
they're going to have to listento me, I've got a microphone and

(40:36):
I was so scared, so very scared, and I did it anyway, and so
that's kind of what I do.
I lean into the things thatscare me, so they stop scaring
me.

Dr DJ, can you take the power away from that
fear?
Did you have a meditationpractice before doing that
retreat?
No, just over right in.

Dr DJ, I was raised in being productive.
You've got to be productive,you need to be doing something,
always be doing something.
It's very much a woman thingand it's very much a black woman
thing.
You've got to be doingsomething.

(41:22):
And just sitting somewhere andnot doing something, that's what
it looked like on the outside.
But it's repair work, it'shealing, it's taking time for
yourself, and those are reallyrare moments.
They're necessary, but they'rereally really rare.
And I never did any kind ofconsistent meditation.
I still don't, to be perfectlyhonest with you.

(41:44):
I know that I should.
I know that it's good for me.
I try here and there.
I'll do 30 seconds here, fiveminutes there.
I know it's healthy and I knowit's necessary.
So that's why I dive into it inthese ways.
But I didn't, I didn't have anykind of meditation practice
before, and they actually preferthat you don't.
They prefer that.

(42:04):
You aren't this, you know.
But a lot of people in thoserooms are super, super.
I call them super meditatorsand I remember in a moment where
, like I'm a wiggly person, I'vegot ADHD it is what it is and
as everybody's sitting reallyquietly and they're meditating,
I'm like this you knoweverybody's got their eyes
closed.

I'm doing this, I'm checking everybody out and
everybody's just statues,statues, and I'm like I bet if
you'd caught the other person inthe room at the right time you
could have caught that because,like I'm sure, other people are
doing- that we could have fallenin love.
Who knows Exactly?

Yeah, they give you moments to talk to the
instructors and during your timethere, and they're the only
people you can talk to, and onlyfor about five minutes.
And so I was talking to one ofthe teachers and I said I can't
stop wiggling, I'm doing thiswhole thing wrong, and she's
like so what?
You're a meditator that wigglesand I go and I keep open my
eyes and I keep looking around.

(42:59):
She goes.
So what, you look around, whocares?
And it was so simple.
But she gave me the permissionto be me and it was so simple,
but I never thought about that.
I was just so programmed, likeeverything you do needs to look
a certain way, and when Irealized it doesn't have to look
anyway, it needs to look theway that works best for me.

Yeah, such a powerful way to shift your
mindset or the frame that you'relooking at it through.
And I guess enough that, so whyare you going back to do it a
second time?

I love torture.
I have lived on the West Coastfor years.
Years.
Years moved to Houston, whichis where I grew up.
I've been here for a year.
It has been a shit show beingback home for a variety of
reasons and it's like I feellike I need to ground myself and
I feel like I need to check outof my routine.

(43:56):
I need to research on my own.
I need to find a way to get tothe bottom of it, out of my
routine.
I need to reset myself.
I need to reset myself.
So I'm doing it as a reset, asa way of detoxifying from like a
digital detoxification process.
And they're always in gorgeousplaces.

(44:19):
They're always in reallybeautiful scenic natural
settings.
So, yeah, and I likechallenging myself, I like
healing and I like discoveringdifferent parts of myself, I
like having aha moments about me.
So I'm looking forward to that.

Yeah, it's really remarkable how challenging it
is to just sit and, like yousaid, do nothing for extended
periods of time.
Like people will be shocked ifyou've never done it, how long
20 minutes can be, no less 10days.

Yep.

That's pretty incredible.
So I wanted to kind of move onto talking about your book
Morning, the Living.
Can you give a little bit ofbackstory to the title and for
anyone who I mean, we're gonnalink to it in the show notes.
But it's morning, as in thepassing of someone, not like a
what comes after the nighttime,so can you just share a little

(45:18):
bit about that book and thenwe're gonna dive into some of
the subjects in there as well.

Sure.
The full title is Morning, theLiving when the loved one you've
lost is still here, and it isabout grieving people that were
really important parts of ourlives and they're next door,
down the street, across town,across the country, and they're
still alive.
But we're distant for whateverreason, and the distance may not

(45:48):
even fully be.
We don't speak.
It could be we see each otherevery week.
You could be my husband or wifein the bed next to me, but
there are certain things that wedon't talk.
We're not intimate anymore, wedon't know each other anymore.
I am grieving what I thought ourdynamics should be.
I'm grieving what it used to be, and so each chapter is a

(46:11):
different relationship dynamic.
So mothers, fathers, children,siblings, partners, friends,
ourselves, and the book startswith why is it so hard for us to
create boundaries?
Why is it so hard for us tohave functional relationships
with people?
So it talks about trauma,trauma bonding.
It talks about the lack ofself-care, talks about

(46:33):
dysfunctional family systems asa whole, and what gets poured
into us by people and are theyhealthy people or are they
dysfunctional people?
And what gets poured into us,who programs us, is how we see
ourselves and see the world.
Sometimes it's great andhealthy and positive, and
sometimes it's crap that needsto be unlearned, and that crap

(46:56):
permeates all of ourrelationships, whether we want
to own it or not.
And so it is about how do youeither create boundaries and
maintain them with toxic,dysfunctional people, or do you
decide to cut off therelationship altogether, and
then how do you deal with theemotions that are involved in

(47:18):
that?

Yeah, so we're going to get into the idea of
cutting off relationshipsentirely, which I'm sure is
going to be a little bitdependent on each person and the
relationship.
But I think if you could sharea little bit more about what
trauma bonding is, I think thatwould be a nice backstory to
frame the rest of these sort ofrelationship conversations.

Trauma bonding is .
There's a fine line.
Trauma bonding is sometimeswhen you meet someone and
there's that immediate spark ifit's a romantic relationship,
that immediate, oh my gosh.
Sometimes it's amazing and it'slove and it's fantastic, but a
lot of times it's the pain in me, sees the pain in you, and

(48:01):
we're familiar.
We've got this familiarunhealed energy that we're going
to lock into each other.
Trauma bonding and a lot ofpeople are trauma bonded and I
think this is one of the reasonswhy a lot of relationships
don't work because somebodygrows out of their trauma,
somebody heals their trauma andwho they now are as a healed

(48:23):
person isn't compatible withthis person that hasn't done a
damn thing to heal them.

It feels like they're no longer connected in
the same way that theyoriginally were.

And this is something that happens a lot
with people who go into therapythat a lot of people it doesn't
get talked about very often.
A lot of times when people gointo therapy, they end up ending
whatever relationship they werein when they started it,
Because their self-esteem getsraised, they get healed and
whatever they were attracted tois no longer attractive.

(48:53):
Whatever they thought wastotally OK and fine treatment,
they realized I'm worth morethan that, Because there was
typically a trauma bond.
That's what brought you guystogether, whether you realize it
or not.

Got you.
Yeah, that's a good explanationand yeah, I don't think that
does get talked about a ton.
This is kind of the firstexplicitly I've heard of it.
I'm sure you hear of it in moresubtle ways, but yeah.

Here's a subtle way.
This is the trial.
No one has used the phrasetrauma bond to describe it.
This is what it is.
We have forever heard girlsmarry their daddies.
That's trauma bond.
A girl who marries a man, awoman who marries a man that's
just like her father.
It's trauma bond Becausewhatever is unfinished business

(49:43):
between her and her father, sheseeks out a partner that's
similar and she will work out ornot work out, but still be in
relationship with that similardysfunctional energy.
Boys and men do it with womenas well.
Whatever you did not heal withyour mother in that mother-child

(50:04):
dynamic, you will find apartner that's just like your
mom.

The mind is wild, isn't it?
Isn't it crazy?
It's familiar, the mind is justfascinating.

It's fascinating, but you will keep and just
think about the people that youknow, that the same people over
and over.
I would say this about my sisterthe reason I wrote Morning the
Living is because of my oldersister, who I love dearly, but
she's an addict and whenever wewere growing up she's an addict.
She became an addict in her 40s,like who becomes an addict in

(50:34):
their 40s.
But this was just years oftrauma that was never healed and
because, as I was healing, Ihad to distance myself from her
in order to protect myself, andthat was a very hard thing to do
.
I felt a lot of anger, I felt alot of guilt, but I needed to
do what I needed to do in orderto survive that dynamic, and the
biggest, hardest part of thatwas just saying no, we can't be

(50:58):
around each other, we just can't.
So that whole, what we don'theal, we repeat.
It's true, if you don't healwhat's going on with you, you're
going to repeat it over andover again and a lot of people
don't realize it.
They don't want to realize it,but I talk to parents all the
time that are parenting theirchildren in such a way and they

(51:22):
hated what they're doing totheir own children was done to
them and they hated it, and theydo it anyway.

Yeah, I think life is this funny way of trying
to keep teaching you lessonsuntil you finally learn them.

And that's what I say about my sister.
It's like I don't even want toknow, like we don't communicate
now, but when we did, I wouldnever ask her about who she was
dating.
I would always just say sameasshole, different name, because
it was always the same dynamic.
It was always some ridiculoussituation.
It was just it was a differentperson, but it was the same

(51:56):
ridiculous situation because shehadn't healed.
And that's a great way torealize.
Do you have something thatneeds to be healed?
Do you have the same thing thatkeeps happening?
You date the same type ofperson.
You end up in the samesituations at jobs.
It's different jobs, but it'sthe same situation, those cycles
.
You've got to lean into thosecycles and you've got to heal

(52:18):
something.
And typically it's based in whoraised us, what was happening
at home when we were little kids.

Yeah, it's pretty remarkable how so much of it
just gets traced back to yourchildhood and your upbringing in
that environment, wheneveryone's like, oh, I have all
these very unique situations andall these things happen to me
growing up and it's probably alot of just what happened when
you were a kid.
It's just really bizarre.
One of the things I wanted toask you regarding your sister is

(52:46):
can you look back on your life,because you two took different
trajectories in your life butsimilar upbringing.
Were there inflection pointsthat you can identify where it
was like?
This is where I started goingdown this route and was able to
heal myself.
And she unfortunately could not.

Yes, I realized, as I've pinpointed my healing
journey, I realized there areseveral things that we did
differently and many of thosethings I didn't realize in the
moment I just can look back andgo, oh, oh, oh.

(53:27):
One of the things was Irealized what my strengths were
as I was growing up.
I was gregarious and I neverwanted to be at home.
So I joined every club, everyclub, so I wouldn't be at home,
shit sorry.

(53:48):
So I joined every club youcould imagine so I wouldn't be
at home, which is where thetoxic stuff was going down.
I also would spend time hangingout in other friends' homes.
Friends' homes where they hadboth parents in the home.

(54:09):
Parents both had jobs.
The lights were always on.
I spent time in thoseenvironments.
My sister did not do that.
My sister wasn't involved inclubs.
She didn't do that she.
Anytime somebody say, hey,melanie, do you want to come
spend the weekend over here,aunt, uncle, friend, whatever,
my answer was always yes, alwaysyes.

(54:29):
My sister didn't do that.
I was.
I got lucky in a lot of ways too.
A lot of this wasn'tintentional decision making on
my part.
I got really lucky.
My first boyfriend was like thebest first boyfriend.
A girl could ask for.
My sister didn't have that.

(54:50):
In a lot of ways, he set thetone for every relationship I've
ever had to this point.
Even he was so good, he was soamazing, he was kind, he was
loving, he was honest and he wasfantastic.
That made a big impression onme that this is what I started

(55:10):
with.
The bar is high.
I went into therapy and thatwas a huge thing too, but me
going to the therapy.
That was decades later.
I went, started therapy in my30s, but I was open.
I was open to being challengedand to doing things that were

(55:32):
unfamiliar to me or doing thingsthat didn't make sense to me,
or even things that were told tome don't do that, fuck it.
I'm going to do it.
I'm going to try it.

Yeah, it sounds like those.
Those experiences like you were, you were exposed to different
worldviews and differentenvironments that showed you
that like this is not what lifeis.

This is.
I'm so glad you said that,parker.
That's exactly what it was.
I had counter experiences thatI thought, ok, the way I live in
this house looks one way, andthen I would go into other
environments and go, ok, that'sa different way, and that's
another way, and that's atotally different way.
So what I'm doing, how I'mliving, is not the only way.

(56:17):
And she didn't get that.
She didn't, you know, shedidn't take that, that, that
rope of of you know, give it a,give it a shot, let me rescue
you.
She didn't take that and Igrabbed, I clamored for that
thing and and having differentexperience helped me know that
you can live in different ways.
And she's still living in theexact same way that we grew up

(56:40):
in, which is dysfunctional,which is chaotic, and I and
we're like night and day, butgrew up in the exact same house
with the same parents.

Yeah, it's so unfortunate because, like at
that age whatever age is a kid,you're a kid, you're not
thinking like what.
What are the consequences ofthis going to be 40 years from
now?
It kind of reminds me ofsomebody was talking about
sending a sending a rocket tothe moon and the amount of micro
adjustments that have to bemade along every step, and it's
like one of those microadjustments early on.

(57:13):
That is not correct.
You're missing the moon by sofar, Right?
So it's and it's justunfortunate because so much of
it happens at an age where it'slike it's kind of a luck of the
draw, like did you, did you havea friend that exposed you to
this good alternativeenvironment or not, and it's
like that can totally bifurcatethe trajectory of your life.

Mm.
Hmm, that can't beunderestimated.
When it comes to how I grew up,and I was very much intimidated
by the people that I grew upwith, because I grew up in
poverty.
We grew up on public assistanceand yet, you know, one of my
childhood best friends, heruncle, was the governor of our
state.

(57:57):
Another childhood best friend,her grandfather was the mayor of
our town.
You know where we had?
Our lights were getting cut offall the time.
Like these are kids that hadBMWs and Rolex watches at 16.
And I pushed past, beinguncomfortable because I wanted
the exposure, I wanted theexperience, and and that's where

(58:19):
luck came in.
You know, I didn't plan any ofthat, but I just took chances.
I took chances, and part ofwhat I did, too, was even though
there I feel very differentabout myself, of course, at this
age, that I did whenever I wasa teenager and a little kid.
But and this goes back to ourearlier conversation, which is

(58:44):
how do you get to that placewhere you feel comfortable being
vulnerable?
I leaned into other people'sthoughts of me before I even
created, you know, my vision ofmyself, and I respect this
person.
I think this person's amazing.
If they think I'm amazing, Imust be amazing.
I did that.

(59:07):
I got lucky because it turnsout those people were amazing.
Thank God, that goes wrong in alot of ways.
You know, that can go wrong inso many ways and that's where
luck came in when I moved, whenI left Houston and I moved to
Los Angeles, the very first showI worked on, one of the senior
producers of that show created ashow that was hugely popular

(59:28):
when I was a little kid and thisman took me under his wing and
he took me to all these amazingevents.
I met Steven Spielberg and TomHanks and Leonardo DiCaprio and
I remember there was somethinghe used to say.
We worked at Warner Brothersand he used to say and this is a
man who's one of the kindestpeople in Hollywood, he's just a

(59:49):
sweetheart, and he used to sayI'm gonna be working for you
someday.
He's like we're all gonna beworking for you someday.
I never forgot that this personthat I have so much respect for
and everybody loves and adoresand has so much respect for,
he's saying that about me.
Huh, that must mean something.

(01:00:10):
And then I eventually developedthat within myself.
But it was those little momentsthat I hung onto along the way.

Parker Condit (01:00:20):
So, before we kind of get off that thread, can
you speak to?
I think people reallyundervalue the power of words
and the power that words canhave on people.
So can you speak to any adviceof like always, maybe not always
, but trying to very consciouslyput out positive energy and

(01:00:42):
positive messaging to the worldand the people that you're
interacting with?
Because, like the example thatyou just gave, is this person
lifting you up right and wenever know the influence that
our words are gonna have onsomebody.
Is that something you tried tofocus on with clients?
Because it can end up beinglike when you start focusing

(01:01:02):
outward, you're a little bitless like self-obsessed and sort
of the stuff that you could belike ruminating over.
So is kind of focusing positiveenergy and words outward on
other people.
Is that a tool that you everuse with any of your clients?

Melody Murray (01:01:16):
Absolutely.
I was with a client the otherday.
That male in his 40s, marriedwith children, works at a huge
company and struggling to makehis relationships work, and we
were talking about Christmas andhow did his Christmas go down?

(01:01:36):
And he was telling me aboutdifferent interactions.
And I stopped him along the wayas he was telling the story and
I'm like that was amazing.
That's not something you feltcomfortable doing before.
And look at you, you did it andyou didn't even think about it
and you just did it and youtotally dodged that.
That could have been a hugefight and you just moved right
on past that.
Good for you.
And at the end of this exchangehe said thank you for that and

(01:02:00):
I go what he goes.
You made me realize things thatI was doing and I didn't even
realize I was doing and I wasn'tgiving myself credit for that.
And so much of what I do is Ido for people what I want them
to do for themselves.
And when I start therapy withpeople, one of the things that I
always say is I'm gonna be yourbiggest cheerleader until you

(01:02:24):
knock me off the pyramid.
I want you to be your biggestcheerleader, but I'm gonna hold
that.
I'm gonna hold that role untilyou get there and it's necessary
and positive.
Self-talk is a big thing thatyou have to rewire your brain.
You have to rewire how you'respeaking to yourself, you have
to rewire how you think ofyourself and you do it in small

(01:02:46):
steps when, let's say, you don'tdo something that you told
somebody you were gonna do.
You told your kid you weregonna bring cupcakes to the
party and you forgot to bringcupcakes Instead of being
yourself a cup and go.
You know what that really sucks, that I didn't bring cupcakes,
but I brought cupcakes like amillion times before and I'm
gonna set an alarm.
I'll bring them again next time.
They're fine, there were enoughcupcakes, it's fine.

(01:03:08):
They all survived that havingcupcakes.
So just those little momentsthat you can take with yourself
where you're just bolsteringyourself up and you're letting
yourself, cutting yourself slackwhenever you can, you need to
do those things for yourself andyou need to pat yourself on the
back too, for obviously, thegood big stuff, but the little

(01:03:30):
stuff too.
Like my mom texted me and sheyou know she talked trash about
how I was parenting my kid and Ididn't reply.
I didn't take the bait.
Look at me.
That's self care.
You know you're exercising apersonal boundary where you're
not gonna take the bait ofsomebody that wants to treat you
like crap.

All right, you've been down on that one enough
times already.

You know what this is going to look like.
So now you need to challengeyourself by doing something
different, and you may getreally nervous about it, you're
gonna be anxious about it, youmay feel a little guilty about
it, that's fine, it's gonna beeasier the next time you do it.
It's gonna be easier the nexttime you do it.
But we have so much power tolift people up we really do and
our words are so powerful, and Idon't think people really give

(01:04:15):
enough respect for the power ofour words to ourselves and to
other people.
And there's this one phrase thatI really, really, really,
really hate, that a lot ofpeople do because it sounds
funny and it's cute and it'sfunny FML, fuck my life.
I hate it when people say thatfuck my life.
Okay, fine, like you don'trealize what you're putting out

(01:04:37):
there into the universe withthat, you're perpetuating
something so that you can pointthe finger and go see, told you,
see, see.
Well, if you, whatever you putyour energy into, that's what's
gonna grow, and if you alwaysput your energy into bad, things
are gonna happen to you.
Guess what they're gonna happento you, because that's what
your brain is expecting.

(01:04:59):
You may be saying it just totell a story and be cheeky on
social media, but it's powerful.
So be careful what you say andwhat you speak to yourself and
be very careful what you speakto other people, because you
really can lift them up or tearthem down.
And I know that when it comesto my sister, I had a lot of
people say some amazing thingsto me and I know some horrible

(01:05:21):
things were said to her and youwere saying very early on it's
like we tend to.
We can lean into the negatives,but we don't have to.
But we have to be really,really intentional about
overriding those messages thatdon't serve us.
You have to be intentionalabout it.
That's why affirmations are sofantastic and it feels awkward

(01:05:43):
at first.
Whenever you do anything, atfirst it feels really awkward,
but just know it's not alwaysgonna feel awkward.

Yeah, I think everyone is much more powerful
than they give themselves creditfor in the words they speak and
the thoughts that they hold intheir mind, as you were kind of
alluding to.
But yeah, so I'm glad you couldelaborate so eloquently on kind
of the power of lifting peopleup and how that can influence

(01:06:10):
yourself as well.
I wanna go back to kind oftalking about courage and the
courage to kind of make a reallytough decision of to no longer
speak to your sister.
Can you kind of explain thethought process and like what
got you to that point whereyou're like this is where I need
this hard-line boundary forthat particular relationship.

I don't have children.
My sister has three and mysister started treating her
children the way that we weretreated the same environments,
the same wording, the samechaotic behavior and
decision-making and that's whereI had to draw the line, because

(01:06:57):
you're doing to them what youknow damaged us and I can't
stand for it.
And so I did what I could tointervene.
I did a lot of financial helpfor the kids and then in her
youngest, I took and raised foryou, and I did a lot of
financial help.
I took and raised for years.

(01:07:20):
And there was something that aprofessor said to me when I was
in graduate school that stuckwith me.
She said just because you knowwhy somebody is fucking up,
doesn't give them the excuse tofuck up.
I know her trauma, I know herpain.
I know all the horrible thingsthat were done to her.
Hey, they were done to me too,but I'm not perpetuating that.

(01:07:44):
I know how hard it is to heal.
I know how hard it is, to behonest.
I know how hard it is to lookin the face of some horrible
shit.
I know.
But I also know it can be done,because I've done it and so it
was hard, but I knew that as Istarted writing the book, I'd

(01:08:09):
realized that, yeah, I did thesame thing with our mother, our
mother.
I did it with our father.
I can cut people off and.
But I give you a chance.
I have a conversation first,and I think that's a really key
part of this.
It doesn't do any good if youcut someone off and they don't
know why, and when you'redealing with a narcissist person

(01:08:29):
that can easily go from bullyto victim, they will create
their own narrative.
And so, for your own conscience, speak your truth, say what's
on your mind, say what youexpect from them, say what you
won't take from them.
Say it, and the beautiful partof that is it gives people the
line that they cannot cross, andif they cross it, that's all

(01:08:49):
you need to go Done.
But you have to have self-worth, you have to, and you have to
trust yourself too, and I thinka part of trusting yourself is
just really being honest andpresent and going.
How do I feel right now when Iinteract with this person?
Do I feel depleted?
Do I feel excited?

(01:09:12):
Do I feel happy?
Do I feel abused?
Do I feel exhausted?
But you've got to really payattention to how you feel, as
you're in certain environments,interacting with certain people,
and let your feelings be yourguide.
Do you feel that you'rerehearsing comebacks before you
hang out with a certain person?
Do you feel that you'reshortening the amount of time

(01:09:33):
You're lying about where youneed to be, to cut off that
lunch meeting or that holiday?
Stop, listen to yourself, trustyourself.
If you feel that you're not100% able to be authentic and
honest in an interaction withsomebody, you're afraid of how
they're going to respond, you'reafraid of what they're going to
say and what they're going tothink.
The dynamic is off, power isoff.

(01:09:57):
You're not good and you don'thave to function in that, and
you know in a lot of ways we'vebeen taught that old people,
they deserve all the respect.

I love that.
I think that'll be very helpfuladvice for a lot of people
listening.
I appreciate you sharing thatabout your relationship with
your sister too.
On the idea of addiction, Iknow there's this it's commonly

(01:10:46):
said that it runs in the familyand one of the questions I had
about that is whether or notit's like is this purely a
genetically driven thing or isthis more environmental?
Because those can both lead tothe statement of it runs in the
family.
But I think there's a bigdifference between this being
like a biological genetic thingversus this is an environmental

(01:11:07):
factor just because we grew upthere.

It's funny.
I had this conversation justyesterday with two of my
girlfriends that are therapists.
I believe that addiction is asymptom of generational trauma.
I believe addiction is asymptom of generational trauma.
I believe that however you'retaught to tie your shoes and
make a sandwich is how you'realso taught how to cope, and if

(01:11:36):
you see the people around youcoping with alcohol or drugs,
then that's what you're going todo.
So I don't, you know, I don'tbelieve necessarily.
I don't believe necessarily thataddiction is a disease.
I think that that diseasewording came from people who

(01:11:57):
wanted to have their rehabcovered by insurance.
So let's slap disease on it,because you know what you don't
have to drink.
It's something that you'rechoosing to do, but there are a
lot of people that get lungcancer out of nowhere.
So it's controversial, but it'sjust the way that I think.
I think that there are thingsthat come through our DNA hair

(01:12:21):
color, athleticism, how you singbut how we cope does as well,
and if you see people copingwith certain things in certain
ways whether it's picking upvodka or punching a hole through
a wall or punching a personthat's what you're going to do.

Have you read anything by Gabor Mati?

He is my guru.
I love that man I love him.
I'm at the end of the myth ofnormal right now.

Ok, based on what you're talking about, I'm, like
you seem familiar with his work.
I'm in the middle of readingthat book right now and it's
Everybody on the planet needs toread that book.
Highly enjoyable right now.
We'll definitely link to thatin the show notes.
I want to.
I do have a few more questionsfor you.
I want to ask if writing thebook and you say you've written

(01:13:12):
Morning the Living you haveanother book coming out and I
think it's going to be out bythe time this comes out.
This is going to be out the endof March 2024.
Is writing a form of therapyfor you?
It's like super long formjournaling, almost.

It's torture, so yes.

But you like that though, right, yes.

That's why I threw out that reluctant.
Yes, it's fucking torture.

That's what anyone who's written a book says
, by the way.

But I like challenging myself.
I think that I like challengingmyself.
But, just like I said, myfriend went to the the
meditation retreat.
When she was done she called me.
She's like.
I cried four days straight.
I'm like Writing this book wasso incredibly hard.
It took me a little over threeyears to do it and it is

(01:14:09):
journaling, it is, it is andit's.
It reminds me of graduateschool, like had I known what
graduate school was going to be?
I got my master's in clinicalpsychology.
Had I known how hard that wasgoing to be, I probably wouldn't
have done it.
But I'm glad that I did it.
And writing this book, I knewit was going to be hard and

(01:14:30):
that's why I did it.
I had a girlfriend say to me atthe beginning of me writing she
said to me only 3% of thepeople who start books actually
finish them.
And I'm like I will be that 3%and I'm so glad I did it and so
incredibly proud of myself fordoing it.
But it was so hard and a partof it that was harder than I

(01:14:51):
expected was the book.
Each chapter is a differentrelationship, dynamic, and the
chapters are broken up intoparts.
The first half is stories thatI've solicited from people in my
circle.
How did you handle your motherwhen she was?
She was when you were growingup.
She was a narcissist.
When you were growing up, yourfather was an alcoholic or he

(01:15:14):
wasn't around.
How did you handle that?
And people gave me theirstories.
Second half of the chapter arestories of me working with my
clients and how I help them getthrough similar things.
I recorded the audio version ofthe book myself.
That was one of the hardestthings I've ever done in my

(01:15:34):
entire life and there's thetechnical part of it, but the
other part of it was reading outloud these stories.
It's very different reading inyour head than it is reading out
loud.
It's very different, verydifferent.
And an intervention that I havewith a lot of my clients
whenever they're trying to worksomething out with someone

(01:15:55):
either is dead or is just goneis let's write a letter to them.
Write the letter, becausethat's a huge level of
processing Just gettingsomething out of your head and
whether it's pinned to paper ortyping it out, you're making
sense of it and then you'retrying to articulate it so that
someone else can understand it.

(01:16:15):
That's so important and soincredibly hard and very, very
cathartic.
Then reading it out loud takesit to a whole new level.
It makes it real.
It makes it even more real, andso I was recording this book
and I was just gutted andemotional.

(01:16:36):
I couldn't sleep and it's likeI've been working on this crap
for years.
I've been writing on this foryears.
Why is this level so hard?
Because it's coming out, it'sout loud, and I'm thinking of
all the people that I know, myclients and my friends that
submitted stories and what theywent through and how hard it was

(01:16:57):
for them to write this andshare it with the world, and I
was humbled by it and it's soincredibly validating.
It's so validating to go yeah,that happened to me and I'm
still standing.
Writing is so powerful.

I appreciate you sharing what part of it was so
challenging, because you alwayshear anyone who's written a book
be like it was such a hardproject, so hard to do.
So I appreciate diving into thevarious aspects and the nuances
of this, specifically what wasso hard, and I loved what you
said about how speaking it outloud is the most challenging
thing and I think it's one ofthe reasons why talk therapy is

(01:17:38):
so effective.
And this is some other podcastI was listening to recently.
I think it was a neuroscientistwas talking about people who
think about stuff all day.
They're like, well, I'm alreadythinking about it.
How much more I'm not going tobe able to process it if I write
it down.
Writing it down different partof the brain, speaking it
totally different part of thebrain and just working through

(01:17:59):
those aspects of thinking,writing, speaking can be vastly
different in the outcomes you'regoing to get and the catharsis
you might feel with theprocessing you're going to get
behind something.
So it seems like, well,everything I've wrote, I've
already been thinking and thensaying it out loud, it's like
it's already been written downin my journal or I've been
thinking about it for years.
How much difference is going tobe.

(01:18:20):
It can be massively different.
Yeah, which it seems like sucha tiny thing, but one of the
reasons why talk therapy is soeffective.
You said your word for the yearwas uncomfortable.
Was that 2023?
Can you share your word of theyear for 2024, if you have it
already?

Ah, I haven't figured it out yet.
I heard someone say a word thatI thought was really great it
was unavailable.
It was either available orunavailable.
I thought that's reallyinteresting.
It's like what are you going tobe available for?
What are you going to beunavailable for?
It may be available.

(01:19:03):
I'm available for abundance,I'm available for love, I'm
available for adventure.
I'm not available for lack andfor confusion, and I don't know.
I'm still formulating it, butit's going to be yet something
else that challenges me beinguncomfortable.

(01:19:25):
Anytime I wanted to say no, I'mnot going to do something, my
brain would go wait a minute.
You said you were going to beuncomfortable this year.
Wait a minute, and it's like ohshit, all right, here we go.
So I haven't figured out whatthe word is going to be yet.
Have you thought about whatyour word could be?

(01:19:48):
I have never thought of a word.

Last year or 2023 , I decided to run 1,000 miles
and I just crossed thatyesterday.
So this is December 29th thatwe're recording this, so I
didn't have a word or anything,but maybe consistency.

Wow, that's amazing.

Congratulations.
Thank you.
Some concept of the small stepsactually do add up, because I
ran three miles on January 1stlast year.
I'm like I'm literally nocloser to my goal, but you just
have to do that almost everysingle day.
So, no, I don't have a word for2024 yet, but maybe before I
release this, I'll reach backout and I'll have a word by then

(01:20:29):
and I'll find out what yourword is as well, and then we can
update the show notes for thisepisode.
I think that'd be a cool thingto do.

I can dig it.

The last thing I want to close out with is your
motto is each one teach one.
Share what you learn in orderto lighten the load of those
around you.
So what is one final pointyou'd like to share and teach
the audience today before I letyou go?

Put me on the spot.
Share your healing journey.
Share the highs and the lows ofit, and that will help other
people know that they can healtoo.
And when healing is not linear,it doesn't look pretty and
that's OK, but share yourjourney.

I think that's a great message and, in the spirit
of that, I'll share that kindof doing.
This podcast has been such alike.
I love talking about health andgetting to connect with people,
but this is purely just like atherapeutic thing.
At this point I'm realizing Ithink you're going to be episode
16 or 17.
And I'm just realizing I lovedoing this for so many reasons,

(01:21:36):
but I'm like just being presentand just connecting with even
strangers over the internet isjust it's been a very cathartic
and powerful thing for me andit's definitely something I'd be
sharing more about kind of overthe next year as well.
So in the spirit of that, I willshare that at least with the
audience.

I appreciate that , Melody.
This has been a pleasure.
You're a better witness.

Yeah, you've been a great guest.
I think you had so many greatinsights to share and it's
really been a pleasure havingyou on.
So all I can say is Thank youso much.

Happy New Year.

Yeah, happy New Year.
Hey, everyone.
That's all for today's show.
I want to thank you so much forstopping by and watching,
especially if you've made it allthe way to this point.
If you'd like to be notifiedwhen new episodes are going to
be released, feel free tosubscribe and make sure you hit
the bell button as well.
To learn more about today'sguest, feel free to look in the
description.
You can also visit the podcastwebsite, which is

(01:22:28):
exploringhealthpodcastcom.
That website will also belinked in the description.
As always, likes, shares,comments, are a huge help to me
and to this channel and to theshow.
So any of that you can do Iwould really appreciate.
And again, thank you so muchfor watching.
I'll see you next time.

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