July 11, 2021 • 61 mins
Ever felt like you are too scared to do something? Or have you ever found yourself unable to enjoy success or good luck because you are expecting the other shoe to drop? You are experiencing a normal reaction to pushing yourself past your normal limits. And if you have experienced or grown up with trauma, or emotionally neglectful and immature parents, it's likely you have even fears of dying or a foreshortened future.
This episode is another conversation with best-selling author and psychologist, Dr. Lindsay Gibson as she and Ameé talk about the Big Fear - the internal protection system to keep us from re-experiencing pain if we try to do something different or in alignment with our true selves.
In this episode, you will hear:
- How people who have CPTSD experience beliefs of a foreshortened future or dying early
- The family systems and dynamics that are at the root of The Big Fear
- Why death is central to our Big Fears
- How the Big Fear is connected to self-sabotage
- Techniques to help overcome the Big Fear
Who You Were Meant to Be: A Guide to Rediscovering Your Life's Purpose
Links to buy The Fearless Woman’s Guide to Starting a Business
Amazon (Audio, Print, Kindle Versions): https://amzn.to/3daO7nA
Barnes and Noble- https://bit.ly/FearlessWomansGuide
Bookshop- https://bit.ly/FearlessWomanBookshop
Visit https://www.ameequiriconi.com/ for more articles about self-help, healing from trauma, leadership, business, and more!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amee Quiriconi (00:00):
All right, everybody. Welcome back to
(00:01):
today's episode, I'm going tostart this with a true story.
And I did share a bit about thisin my 100th episode interview
that I did with Lindsay, when wetalked about her book last
summer, who we were, who youwere meant to be. That's not
what we but her title is, whoyou were meant to be, which is a
departure for anybody that'sactually a Lindsey fan, because
most of you know, Lindsay fromher a series of books that she
(00:23):
writes about adult children ofemotionally immature parents.
And so at the risk of this beinga repeat for all you faithful
listeners, and Lindsey fans outthere, I'm just asking you to
bear with me here for a minute.
So first of all, back in 2017, Iactually just clearly remember
sitting on my couch after goingthrough another relationship and
another business starting todisappear, life was changing, I
(00:45):
moved out my my partnership andrelationship had ended. And I
remember sitting on a couch andsaying out loud to myself, I
must just be cursed. And Iflopped backwards on the couch.
And I thought about all thetimes in my life up to that
point that I had personallystarted something that was
really cool. And amazing, Idevoted myself to it, only to
have another person sweep in,take it and leave me behind, not
(01:08):
involved in the businessanymore. Nothing financially out
of it. And I just thought thatmy lot in life was that I was
supposed to be the dreamer, andthe person who came up with all
these big ideas, but I was neverintended to profit from any of
them. And the evidence wasclear, I'm sitting there, I'm
broken. I'm in debt. So youknow, what evidence do I have to
tell me otherwise? Now, ofcourse, that started me on this
(01:32):
journey of saying, is thatreally true? Like, you know, am
I really cursed? Like, does thatreally happen? And I asked
myself the questions like, Well,why me like, I'm not a bad
person. So why how would aperson like me become cursed,
you know, if there was somecosmic, you know, element going
on behind it. And so that'sstarted the self help journey
that most of you are familiarwith. Now, we're going to fast
forward to January of 2020.
(01:55):
Because within two months of metelling a friend that I was
ready to write a business book,I had a bonafide book deal
coming at me on about my 48thbirthday. And this is literally
been a dream of mine sinceforever, like since a little
girl. I mean, I remember wantingto be a writer as early as five
years old when I could actuallystart to write. Now, when I got
(02:16):
the news, I screamed out loud inmy office, I jumped up and down,
I ran around in high fived, asmany people as I could that
night, I celebrated with mangoMargarita is with my best
friend. The reason is, is mypublishers called mango
publishing. So there's a reasonfor that. But then, within days,
I mean, days, I was sick, and Iwas certain, I mean certain that
I had cancer. And that thethought came to me that even if
(02:39):
I finished the book, and itbecame an amazing bestseller, I
was not going to live longenough to see any of that
happen, I was not going tobenefit from it again. And I
felt that curse back on myshoulders. And I don't know why
I started to become anxious, Ibecame depressed. And then I
started having all myspecialists run all the
bloodwork and because I do havean autoimmune disorder, so that
(03:00):
and the drugs do have gnarlyside effects. So this wasn't,
you know, something that was outof range to consider. So they
validated and they went aheadand did the test. But everything
came back clear. And so thenwith the evidence that I was
not, in fact dying of anythingat that point, I knew that then
there was something else Ineeded to look at and explore
this from a differentperspective. And then a funny
(03:21):
thing happened. I began toremember my writing days back in
middle school, and the multitudeof stories and poems that I
wrote. And the central figure inthese stories was a young,
successful girl who died at anearly and tragic death, a girl
to who was cursed and never gotto see her dreams live to their
complete fulfillment. And that'swhen I realized, and I looked at
(03:44):
myself in the mirror and said, Ihad just cast myself in real
life in this role that I hadbeen writing about and
ruminating on really, since Iwas, I was young. But I had
thought at that time that it wasjust me who did weird stuff like
this, because it was my storiesand poems. So it must only be
me. And tell I read Lindsay'sbook when she sent it to me last
summer. And in it, she talksabout this concept of the big
(04:07):
fear and how common it actuallyis for people who have
experienced trauma to reallybelieve that if we ever become
successful, we're going to payfor it dearly. And I think that
that's one of the saddest thingsthat many of us actually ever
experience. So then this comesback to today, in which I'm
reasonably certain still, thatI'm not going to develop cancer
(04:28):
all of a sudden, I still found ayear later that in this leg of
my journey of dreaming this big,audacious dream of mine, that
other things do keep creeping inand intruding. And in my ears, I
always come back to Lindsay'swords, and I remind myself, hey,
that's your big fear. You gotthis. And so I wanted Lindsay
back on today to talk just aboutthe big fear and how this can
(04:48):
still be an undercurrent in ourlives that pulls us back away
from dreams that we really dowant that we're really genuinely
excited about, and how the bigfear is not just a fear of loss
or life threatening illness orsomeone's going to die in our
life, like my story, but it itcan actually be masked under the
feelings of D motivation,procrastination or imposter
syndrome. And why is thisimportant? Well, I think it's
(05:12):
obvious, especially when youthink of people who are trying
to figure out how to improvetheir lives personally and
professionally, like anentrepreneurship, which is one
of my other passions. And I'malways going to be the person
who's going to ask us toconsider for a moment, if
underneath our challenges, theremight be some unresolved or
unseen traumas that could be theculprit behind our self
sabotage. And so welcome back tothe show. Lindsay.
Lindsay Gibson (05:33):
It's a pleasure to be here. Amee. Thank you for
having me.
Amee Quiriconi (05:37):
Yeah, I just I mean, I can't say it enough. You
again, I've told you this everytime you're on, you're also one
of the fan favorites. And like Iwas mentioning, before we
started recording this episode,I just got an email from
Australia from a listener inAustralia. And so she's
listening. Yes, I got yourmessage. And I had a
conversation with Lindsey aboutyou. So you'll be hearing from
me after this episode is done.
But definitely everything thatyou talk about really seems to
(05:59):
hit the like, you know, so manypeople. When they hear the
episodes that we do, they readthe books that you've written
about emotionally immatureparents, they just they're this
this, this Aha, almost like whenhow everything makes so much
sense now. And you know, and Ithink about, you know, the
impact of this type of parent inour lives, and how common and
(06:22):
prevalent it is for many people.
You know, and how it you know,despite all of that, you know,
it really seems unbelievablethat when we have that type of
an environment that we canliterally grow up being afraid
of getting what we want, like aninch, how is that even possible?
Lindsay Gibson (06:40):
Yeah. Well, part of the Gosh, I you just said all
so many thoughts. I hardly knowwhere to start start. But But I
do. I do want to say one thingfrom trauma research. That's
really interesting. And thisgoes back to a book from a long
time ago by I think her name isDr. tared trr. But she wrote a
(07:04):
book on prom, it was one of theearly popular books on it. And
she noted that survivors oftrauma have this thing called
the foreshortened future. Now,this is trauma, this is not my
work. This is not, you know, thebig fear. It's It is literally
about a thing that happens withPTSD, that people who go through
(07:27):
unresolved, go through trauma,and then it's unresolved, they
have a view of the future, likethey're not going to live very
long, something terrible isgoing to happen. You know, just
when you relax, that's whenyou're going to get hit with
something again, and thisforeshortened future, just just
exactly what you're describingin your story, the foreshortened
(07:51):
future convinces you that whathappened in the past is going to
be what happens next. So it'salmost like you're turned around
facing backwards, looking atyour past. And thinking that
you're turned around looking atyour future, like this bad thing
is coming. So I just want tothrow that in there. Because
(08:11):
that is such a, I think, avalidating piece of research, to
show that this is a human thingthat we would have, you know,
this feeling of doom or faded,notice that you know, something
bad was going to happen. This isa human response to trauma in
(08:34):
the past, okay. But it's also,success is like very deep stuff,
as you know, from writing yourbook. And that's probably why
you call it the fearless woman.
Because in order to do yourthing, you have to develop some
fearlessness. But in order toget fearless when you've had
(08:55):
some trauma, or you've not hadan ideal background, like 99.9%
of us, you have to work throughit and know about it, you can't
just suppress your way to healthand success, you have to deal
with it. So if you think aboutthe big fear as something that
occurs naturally, and is notsomething that is pathological,
(09:22):
like, I'll tell a quick storyabout what happened with me with
a big car. So I do my firstbook, and it's in the can, it's
finished. It's at thepublishers, right? And one night
sitting on the couch with myhusband, it. It hit me with this
panic, and I was like, Oh mygod, what am I doing? Like, am I
(09:46):
crazy? Have I lost my mind? Ican't believe I'm going to
publish this book. This is nuts.
Now, this was so irrational,right? Because it wasn't like I
I had written an expose day onmy family. It wasn't like I had
done something that was going toget me sued. Nothing like that
(10:08):
it was right from mysubconscious. And my
subconscious said, Hey, you arefully and freely expressing
yourself, you are telling yourtruth and what you've learned,
unapologetic light, full on.
And to me from my background,that set off a part of me that
(10:32):
said, Are you nuts? Do you knowwhat's going to happen now,
because I had had experienceswith being with feeling like I
was upsetting people if I wastoo outspoken, or you know, too
full of myself or too big for mybritches, or whatever you want
to call it. So I didn't havepositive associations with that
(10:53):
kind of success. And now thatthe deed was done, so to speak,
my poor little inner child wentnuts with terror, about what
this was going to do to my life.
Now fortunately, my husband is agreat guy, he called me down.
You know, and, you know, withina couple of hours, I'm back in
reality, but, but that is also ahallmark of what we call a
(11:16):
flashback in PTSD, meaning thatit's not like you remember Oh,
yeah, I remember what I was madefun of, for expressing myself.
It that's a conscious memory.
But a flashback is when you gethit by the very same emotional
experience that you had in thepast. It's like it's happening
(11:39):
right now. And so you had aflashback, I had a flashback,
everybody can have a flashback,when they are doing something
that is bigger than they everthought they could manage. So I
just want to make sure that it'sout there that the big fear is
normal. And it is something thatis not only found in people who
(12:05):
have some history of trauma intheir past, but it is a part of
the archetypal human experience.
Like if, if you read any popularbook or watch a movie, they're
all about the hero's journey.
That is, you know, the hero getsthe call to go on the adventure.
Amee Quiriconi (12:28):
And it's like literally on my shelf next to
me. Yes, exactly. That's Yeah. Ilove it.
Lindsay Gibson (12:36):
Yeah, every every screenwriter knows that
book. Okay, I think this is thethis is the archetypal story of
human endeavor. So they get thecall, they start out on the
quest, you know, it might beJason going for the Golden
Fleece, or you know, the moviecharacter going for the girl.
But right after they take uparms, so to speak, and start the
(12:58):
quest, they're going to gobattle the dragon, right? who
shows up, but the thresholdguardians, and the threshold
guardians are these forces. Andwe know from our psychology
here, that these arepsychological forces. But in the
story, they show up as forcesthat are stepping in to stop us
(13:24):
from going on to fighting thedragon. And they're going to
push us back and keep pushing usback until we learn to fight
through them. And then a way,that's a really good thing,
because the threshold guardians,keep us from going forward to
battle the dragon before we'reready. So we have to get as you
(13:48):
know, mythology, but we have toget a little roughed up at the
outset, to see if you know, awe're serious about doing it,
and be to give us some practiceand going against adversity. So
that is the oldest human storythere is. And that's the big
(14:09):
fear in the form of a thresholdguardian. So that's why I say,
you know, it can be a sign ofyour past trauma, but it is
definitely a sign of you beinghuman.
Amee Quiriconi (14:19):
Yeah, that and I love the way you you listen to
theology, because, like,literally, that book is sitting
there next to your book righthere within like, and I have
bookshelves all around me, butthat's These are my primary
books next to me there. Youknow, and I think what's
interesting, you know, yousharing your story of like, once
the book was actually out, like,you know, I didn't just freak
out once, like, I have freakedout multiple times, you know,
(14:41):
during the whole the wholeprocess, you know, I had a, I
have that fear still like I gothrough cycles of it, you know,
oh my god, what if so, and soreads it and they, you know, and
they, you know, I some of it,I've equated it back to having
gone through abuse, right, likethere's this and I did a talk
and a about domestic abuse in atrauma informed perspective of
(15:03):
healing. And you know, and oneof the things that, you know, it
said it very at the verybeginning, I said, you know,
it's very scary to talk aboutour experiences, because one of
the things that always comesinto my mind is the abuser
getting upset. And then me beingre abused again, because I am
speaking my truth, and I amtrying to share information.
And, and I know that severalpoints during while the book has
(15:25):
been out, and it's beenreviewed, and it's now
published, I mean, it's like,I've gone through these cycles,
I've had these panic attacks of,okay, but what of these people
get really upset with it. And Imean, like, heart stopping fear,
you know, you go going into likea, you know, you talk about
panic attack like a freakoutmode for a moment, and then
(15:46):
having to reregulate myself backdown of like, you know, talking
myself off the cliff of, youknow, you're not going to get
sued. I mean, you know, thatthat's not really going to
happen there. And so that's partof what this whole thing is,
like, you know, the fear comesout in so many different ways.
And it hits us at differentpoints in time, you know, and I
didn't expect any of it like,you know, here I write a book,
literally the fearless Woman'sGuide, and on telling you about
(16:08):
how the last year has beenfraught with danger, you know,
in my mind's eye with all ofthat. It's so you see, it's a
human experience. However, withthe with the trauma effect of
it, you know, what were some ofthe things that you've seen
where trauma is related to whywe have this fear, I know, in
the book, you actually sharesome really good stories for
(16:29):
people. So if they're readingyour book, they get to hear
other people's experiences. Andso what have you seen were some
of those ideas that getting thisdream means we're going to pay
for it? Right?
Lindsay Gibson (16:43):
Well, one thing to keep in mind is that if you
came from a family, where youhad emotionally immature
parents, there's a particularfamily dynamic that goes on,
which is that the parents arethe most important people in the
world. But that's, that's abasic assumption on the part of
(17:06):
emotionally mature people isthat everything should revolve
around them. Because inside,they're about three or four
years old. And so the familysystem dynamic is that
everything is supposed to berevolving around the parent. And
if you sort of say, well, gee,today, I'm going to revolve
(17:27):
around my fantasies, and mywriting and my expression, and
my daydreams, and whatever, andI'm going to hang out there,
that isn't really okay with aparent that needs to have your
undivided respect and attentionall the time in order to
(17:47):
stabilize themselves and theirown self esteem. So you're
bucking, a fam, an authoritarianfamily system, when you turn
your attention to your innerworld. So that's, that's one
thing that's important to keepin mind. That in that family
with that kind of parent, itisn't an equal opportunity kind
(18:08):
of family where everybody'sgifts are celebrated, and
children are supported andlistened to and seen, it is
mostly about a cycle at apsychological level, it is
mostly about that parent gettingtheir needs met. Okay? The other
thing that can happen is thewhat we call in psychology, the
(18:29):
one trial learning. And what onetrial learning means is that if
you want to train, you know,little mouse to avoid a part of
the maze. And so he only learnsto not go down that road and go
down the other, you can trainhim by putting food down the one
(18:50):
you want him to go down, helearns always to turn left for
food. But if you want to do itquickly, you can just give him a
really bad shock when he turnsright. Okay, that's called one
trial learning that mouse neverforgets to not turn right. All
(19:10):
right, no repetition required.
Right. Yeah,
Amee Quiriconi (19:13):
I call that like putting your hand on a hot stove
was.
Lindsay Gibson (19:19):
So so you know, good for our brains for being
able to do that to us. So here'san example of kind of one trial
learning. So there was this.
There was this little boy whoused to ride around with his dad
to work sites. His father was inconstruction. And and I have
permission for all thesestories. By the way, they're not
(19:40):
they're not confidential, butthey are disguised. So he would
ride around with his dad to thework sites and construction. And
he just felt, you know, like soexcited to be with his dad. He
was dad called him his littlehelper and you know, and he was
just flying high and this littlefive year old Right. So they one
day they pull up to aconstruction site, and the men
(20:02):
are out there working and hisdad is his boss, and no boy
leans out the window, and hesays something cheeky to one of
the men who's working. You know,it's, it's a meant to be playful
and clever. But you know, it'skind of a, you wouldn't expect
that a child would address anadult in that way. So he's
(20:25):
looking at the car window,right, his dad is on the other
side in the truck, and his dadreaches out and pops him on the
head really hard. Like, youknow, don't talk that way. And
this kid, one trial learning islike, oh, when I get full of
myself, and I feel thisexuberance, of self expression
(20:49):
coming up, and I got this greatidea for this joke that I'm
gonna share with this worker,like, don't do that. And he
called it the dark hand of God,he his big fear was, was always
associated with he said, Youknow, I just feel like if I, if
I do this, if I go for this, youknow, it's going to the dark end
(21:10):
of God's gonna get me. And wegot back to that story. And it
was like, Wow, there really wasa dark hand of God that got him.
His one trial learning. So we,our bodies are made to teach us
about what is dangerous. And itdoesn't matter whether it's
(21:32):
something that's going to eat usor something that's going to
shock us or surprise us, doesn'tmatter. The brain just learns.
Like, don't go there. Don't dothat. It's like, Okay, got
Amee Quiriconi (21:47):
it.
Lindsay Gibson (21:47):
Don't do that.
But, like, the stories that youand I were telling, so we go
along, we're doing fine, we'recompetent, we're doing our
thing, we're pursuing ourdreams, we're, we're fine.
Amee Quiriconi (21:59):
We're going to therapy.
Lindsay Gibson (22:00):
Yeah, go to therapy, whatever. And then you
get, you get to this point whereit's about to happen, you know,
I'm about to make the cheekyremark to the workman, when I'm
full of myself, that's whatpublishing book probably meant
to me. And all of a sudden, it'slike, boom, I'm going to get
smacked. But this time, it'sgoing to be a cosmic smack, you
(22:23):
know, like, something really bigand bad. Because that in adult
life, that's what you know, apop on the head would translate
to, for an adult.
Amee Quiriconi (22:32):
Mm hmm. When I'm listening to you, and you're
sharing, like stories of otherpeople, and you're, you know,
kind of explaining it, and I'vesaid this before, on these other
interviews, you know, I don'tknow how often people understand
how much this physically affectsme, like I, you know, I don't
show it I, you know, sometimes Ibreak down, but very rarely, but
when you were talking about the,the, when you get full of
(22:54):
yourself, there's a like aresponse to that, and my chest
instantly tightened up, becausethat is making sense with then
aligning with some of theexperiences, you know, that I
had, which was, as a student andan athlete publicly, where the I
could get praises from the, fromthe world at large, either the
(23:15):
school was giving me an award,or I was printed in the
newspaper, or I was standing ona podium getting a, a, you know,
an award, or metal, or whateverit was, that was all safe. Like,
those were safe places for meand my achievements to be
acknowledged. at home. Iremember the words, you think
you're hot shit, don't you? Andwhen that comes from a
(23:38):
caregiver, you know, in a month,that's at one time, like, that's
that one trial, right therethat, that that triggered me
right there. Because that's thememory that then comes up when
the book goes out there is Iactually think about, like those
words, it's still end up comingin my head, like, Who do you
think you are? What makes youthink you can do this? You know,
(23:59):
and so then my reinforcement,I'm sharing this just for the
sake of other people that may bekind of like trying to, you
know, synthesize this in yourown head. If I get the external
validation, then I know I'msafe. But I'm still fearful of
the individual person who'sgoing to come at me and tell me
that I have no right to do thisor that I'm arrogant for doing
this or thinking this orbelieving this or, you know,
(24:20):
whatever it actually would itis. And so that's where I find
myself like slowing downsometimes, like, I want to
publish an article. And I'llspend weeks trying to write an
article because I'm so concernedabout writing it in a way that
no one is going to tell me whatright do I have, which is, you
know, kind of a little bit why Ifeel proud for today with this
guy that got onto my Facebookthat I blocked that you and I
(24:42):
talked about before theinterview. He was like, What
right? Do you have giving adviceto people when you don't have a
psychology degree? I mean, thosevoices are out there. But then
they're even more traumatizingto somebody who has this big
fear playing script, you know,in our heads all the time of
what we've got to talk ourselvesinto. We do have a right you
know, To say something or tobeat something or to, you know,
(25:03):
to be cheeky, if
Lindsay Gibson (25:04):
we want to, I guess, right? Absolutely. You
know, I think another helpfulway to think about working with
the big fear is to think aboutit in terms of like, we all have
these parts of our personalitythat the idea that our
personality is this monolithic,one person thing is really not a
(25:29):
useful way to conceptualizeourselves, it's much more
accurate to say that we havethese different parts of our
personality and the end, theylive in us like those little
Russian nesting dolls. Andsometimes the little one speaks,
and then sometimes the biggerone speaks, but they're subsumed
under our regular personality,and the big fear. And it's, um,
(25:54):
it's attendant panic attacks andself sabotage and all the things
that go along with that, thatpart of the personality is what
Richard Schwartz and internalfamily systems theory calls the
protector, or the manager, andthat protector part of the
(26:18):
personality exists. So thatyou'll never get popped in the
head again, you'll never beasked about being hot shit,
again, you'll never set yourselfup for that kind of
vulnerability again, right? Um,so if you realize that, that
symptom of the big fear iscoming from a part of the
(26:41):
personality, that is really achild, okay. I mean, this this
conclusion was formed inchildhood wasn't informed, you
know, after we had, you know,graduated from high school, or
whatever, you know, it, it camewhen we were children. And that
part of the personality justwants to keep us safe. And we
(27:05):
don't understand its operatingsystem. We just say, Oh, you
know, I wish these fears wouldgo away. They're so irrational,
they're stupid, whatever. Butyou know, as we've just
demonstrated, when you work itback, and you begin to
understand where it comes from.
It gives us some empathy andcompassion for that protector
part of us that, you know, yes,it causes trouble. Yes, it
(27:28):
causes problems. Yes, it givesus panic attacks. Yes, it warns
us away from the very thing wewant. It's big. But it's trying
to like a frightened child, it'strying to keep us safe. On the
basis of what it knows, becauseit's frozen in time, it's
(27:50):
whatever that age was, when theone trial learning occurred, or
when the trauma occurred. That'sall it knows it exists in a
little vacuum. And sometimeswhat we have to do is we have to
think about that protector partas an adapted child just doing
the best it could with reallydifficult circumstances. And if
(28:15):
we give it compassion, and say,Thank you, you know, thank you
for trying to help us, thank youfor trying to keep me away from
ever experiencing that, again,way to go appreciate it. If we
do that, then it's willing tolisten to us when we begin to
say, or negotiate with it.
(28:37):
Listen, if you let me publish mybook, and I do it carefully, and
I don't say anything, you know,too extreme or inflammatory,
whatever. And I'm careful aboutthat. Would you be willing to
let me take this next step on mypath of growth, and we'll do an
(28:59):
experiment, you know, I'll becareful. And, and you'll get to
see if it really is safe or not,you know, and if it isn't safe,
I'll come right back to you.
Then after you do it after youpublish the book, after you
express yourself, whatever thefeared thing was, and nothing
bad happens, because most of thetime that's true. You go back to
(29:21):
the protector part. And you say,look, did you notice that
nothing bad happened? We publishthe book, we made a website, we
became an entrepreneur, westarted our business, did you
notice that nothing bad hashappened. And that's important
to do. You know, a because it'sfriendly and compassionate.
(29:48):
No, it's a good way to treatourselves. But it also is so
important to do that becausethat protector part does not
live in present time. It's nottracking you to see that, oh,
hey, that's amazing, nothing badhappened. It's not interested in
learning, it's interested in onething, and that's to protect you
(30:09):
from that terrible thing that itfears. So you have to kind of go
back in and point it out. So itcan begin to learn because it's
not interested in learning. Andonce you do that, like, you
know, you say, look, we didn'tget sued. Look, you know, you
got another great response afteryou had this troll happen, you
(30:30):
know, we begin to point out thatkind of real world learning to
the protector, it starts toshift and it starts to be
willing to let us do more thingsthat previously we would have
found too scary,
Amee Quiriconi (30:44):
huh? Yeah, I actually, I wrote something
similar to that several monthsago, when I had one of my panic
attacks and had to talk myselfoff of the cliff, and I reached
out to resources, you know, forevidence and, and what I was
what I made peace with, withthat inner that inner protector.
And I learned this from you. SoI'm not taking credit for it was
(31:05):
the, the fear of hurtingsomebody else's feelings, like I
just, you know, my, my, who Iam, is I just, I don't like
hurting other people. And Idon't know how I mean, I, you
know, I don't have time to sitdown and figure out all the
times I actually hurt somebody.
But obviously, I've been led tobelieve that I could, and, and,
and was capable of doing it, orwhatever it is, I don't know
(31:27):
what it is. But it is thegreatest fear of not wanting to
hurt. And I think maybe it'sprobably, you know, again, this
isn't a therapy session for me.
But if I think about witnessinga mother struggling and being
the hero child to try to solve,and cure their pains, and not
wanting to see it, like I knowthat my or, you know, being
(31:48):
around abuse, you know, physicalabuse and stuff like that, maybe
it all comes into there. But Iknew that when one of the panic
attacks happened, because I justdidn't want anybody's feelings
to be hurt. I then had aconversation with myself through
words, I like typed out so thatmy head, my eyes could read back
to me what I wanted to say tothis inner child, which is I get
(32:10):
it, I understand. And that's,that's important. So if I
promise to you, this is thepromise I made to my inner
child, if I promise to you thatI will take my time to be
careful. And I will bethoughtful, and that my heart is
in the right place to not hurtanybody. Even if we accidentally
do it, will you trust me that myintention is to never do that.
(32:32):
And I wrote that out for myself.
And then I ended up publishingit as a medium article out there
just to kind of put it out intothe the atmosphere, you know,
for in case I never, you know, Ineed to read it or somebody else
needs to read it. But it helpeda lot. To do that, to have that
conversation. And I know onestrategy, I shared this with an
inner on an interview that I didfor another show was I learned
and decided to have thatconversation every morning in
(32:54):
the mirror by looking myself inthe eyes. And speaking to that,
that protector child and insideof me. And for a while it was
very hard to look into my owneyes, it felt awkward and
uncomfortable to stare back intomy own face. And to tell myself,
it's okay that you feel thatway. I totally understand why
you'd be afraid of this and whythis seems really scary. But I
(33:14):
got you, this is how we're goingto do it. And if it does get a
little frightening a little bitlater. That's okay, too, you
know, and it took days and daysand days of having a one on one
conversation with myself lookingin the eyes not looking away,
not thinking in my head as Iwalked around the house, but
actually like in my own face, toget to that. And now it's become
(33:35):
a part of my daily rituals tohave this ongoing conversation
with whatever's going to crop uptoday. And some days like this
morning, I just looked at myselfand I said, I love you, you're
killing it. Good job. You know,I don't always just talk about
hard stuff. But it's sometimes Ihave to remember like, I don't
have a spouse. I don't you know,my kids are encouraging. But you
know, my little person inside ofme still needs a mom every day
(33:56):
just like my kids do every dayto let her know that someone
loves her. You know, and justget on with the day and I feel
like that has helped so much asI'm pushing down and out on this
really big dream like literallymy my childhood dream happening
right now. Like that extraeffort of talking back to that
person and calming that personis like it is so important that
(34:17):
you can't autopilot that or justforget it and assume that it all
just takes care of itself on itsown. It's active.
Lindsay Gibson (34:25):
Yeah, that is the most beautiful summary of
what I wish everybody would tryto do. You know whether you do
it with the writing, whether youdo it with the mirror, but you
you were being like you said youwere being a good mom, a good
mentor, a good a good dad, agood supporter to yourself in a
(34:50):
very conscious and directed way.
And when we do that we areactually changing our minds and
our brains, you know to move offof that. fear based survival
trauma brain and bringing anintegration of our thinking
brain with the scared part ofour brain, which is, when you
make those connections, thingsstart to calm down, they become
(35:13):
modulated. And I love yourexample of the mirror, I mean,
gee, we could do a wholeconversation on mirroring. But
literally, there are mirrorneurons, you know, in our minds,
and, and we, in voluntarily willcopy what we see with other
people. And we get into thisresonance. And that's one of the
(35:36):
things that works really well inpsychotherapy, because the
client ends up mirroring thetherapists compassion and
interest in seeing them and allof that, that's all going in
through the mirroring process.
So the fact that you wereliterally mirroring yourself,
(35:57):
that works just as well for thebrain, as if someone else that
you loved was telling you thesame thing. The good part,
though, is that you know,exactly what you need to hear.
So you're always going to bedead on in the mirror.
Amee Quiriconi (36:15):
Right, right.
Well, you know, this person thatI was talking to, she said she
had tried it, you know, herself,and she said, it was very hard
to do. And I was like, Well,yeah, I mean, imagine whenever
we sit down with somebody, andsomeone looks us right in the
eye, you know, like on a date,and there's this intimacy,
that's, that's starting to beshared through that idi contact
and how we with other peoplefind we can't hold, we can't
(36:36):
hold gazes for very long,especially if there is this fear
of connecting with somebodybecause of again, the big fear,
whether it's personally orprofessionally, right, like, if
we feel like there's, the shoeis gonna drop, if a connection
is made, we look away howunsettling that is. And so it's,
you know, to me, it was like, Iwas surprised at how hard it was
(36:57):
to look myself in the eye andhold my gaze with myself. And
then now it's, it's easier, butshe felt and experienced the
same thing too. And they feellike it's, it's because of the
fact that it's like what withanybody that we're looking eye
to eye, you know, and that itcan be really hard if we're, if
we have a some closure and somesafety protection inside of us
of not feeling safe connecting,you know, with other people at
(37:20):
some level.
Lindsay Gibson (37:22):
Yeah, one thing I will mention in there, so
people don't feel too bad abouttheir inability to do that is
that we often look off whenwe're thinking, it's really hard
to hold eye contact and think atthe same time. Because we want
to look off as a way of orderingour thoughts. There's, there's a
whole thing in neuro linguisticprogramming, about being able to
(37:45):
tell what people are thinkingabout or what they're that they,
you know, imaging, are theythinking about something with
words by where they move theireyes to. But the thing is, as
you've probably noticed, withraising your kids, that when you
know, in your heart, a truththat you want to convey to that
(38:07):
child, you will look them in theeye and tell them, okay, and
it's and you don't have thaturge to look away, because
you're not trying to think ofsomething you already know in
your heart what the messageneeds to be. And you can
directly go in with them and doit like that. So when you were
(38:28):
looking in the mirror, part ofwhat was happening was that as
your message to yourself gotclear, and was coming from a
deeper and deeper place insideyou. It was easier to hold eye
contact because you knew thetruth that you wanted to convey.
And then we get all of the peaceand our eye contact follows
(38:50):
that.
Amee Quiriconi (38:51):
That's awesome.
Well, I I'm glad again over thecourse of time picking up a few
really smart things to do frompeople like you. So. Um, so, you
know, we talk about selfsabotage that, you know, so we
feel the feelings and maybe wedon't connect it to fear. Right.
Like, I think that that'ssometimes the the challenge that
the the big fear sometimes canbe obvious, let me go back to
(39:15):
this question. Because some ofthe big fear things that we
experienced is like, we're goingto die, someone else is going to
die, you know, comets going tostrike the earth, just random
things. But our trauma doesn'thave to be related to death for
us to have those feelings orthose fears. Right. The Why is
the extreme like, why is the bigfear the obvious big fear such
(39:37):
an extreme? You know, like Isaid, like, I'm going to die of
cancer, I'm cursed. I'm going todie. You know, why would the
brain Poulos into something likethat or, you know, go into that
direction of taking that extrememeasure because it's really
trying that hard to stop us fromsomething that it feels so
strange that we want it and atthe same time, have a brain
(39:59):
working. And I know you talkedabout the protector there. But
I'm just wondering, like, thatseems such an extreme measure
for us to think that, you know,someone's gonna die around us
like instantly or we're going tobe the one that perishes if we
don't have death is our trauma,you know, or one of our traumas.
Lindsay Gibson (40:15):
Yeah, yeah. It's most of us have not died before.
Right. So I, I really love thatquestion. Because it goes back
to the idea that, in oursubconscious mind, our
subconscious mind is think aboutit the subconscious as being
(40:38):
like a cartoonist that can onlycommunicate in images, it
doesn't use words, or very fewwords anyway. So if it wants to
get something across to us, itwill pick something from life or
nature, or everyday life. Andit'll use an image to convey
(40:58):
meaning, like, people who havenightmares that they're walking
down the street naked, okay,well, we understand that imagery
as meaning the person feelsexposed or embarrassed or
ashamed of something or isfearful of that, okay. But for
(41:19):
the subconscious brain, we don'thave anything, literally that
says, ashamed or exposed orvulnerable. That's a concept
that belongs in our front partof our conscious brain. So all
it can do is draw a cartoon ofthat concept. Okay? So when
(41:39):
we're going through somethinglike a major life
transformation, or you arebeginning to realize your dream,
for instance, all theunconscious has to connote that
is that the old way is dying,and the new way is beginning.
All right. And so the symbolismin nature for transformation is
(42:04):
death. Okay, so when you havedreams about dying, or fears
about dying, or issues of lifeand death, you know, like, I'm
running from a bear, and thebear is about to get me and I
wake up and I'm in a sweat.
Okay? Well, it's not that I'mafraid of a bear. Okay, there no
bears in my neighborhood. Butit's as if I was running from a
(42:24):
bear, because I'm so afraid thatthis bad thing is going to
happen. Okay. So thesubconscious uses these extreme
images. Because it's like acartoonist, it has to pick an
image that conveys the intensityof the feeling. And we do have
to keep in mind that for achild, when a parent gets angry
(42:49):
at them, or a parent puts themdown, or a parent treats them in
a way that says, you know,you're not worth anything. Or,
you know, I don't want to listento you just, you know, get out
of my sight for the kid. That isone step away from annihilation.
Amee Quiriconi (43:12):
Yeah. And we forget this,
Lindsay Gibson (43:13):
we forget this as adults, because we think, Oh,
well, you know, the kids will berational, they know that mommy
was just mad, and, you know,she's not going to, you know,
get rid of us forever, she's notgoing to abandon me. But the
child emotionally in that momentwhere the parent is literally
(43:34):
withdrawing from them, or worse,even abusing them, all the child
knows is that in that presentmoment, this might be it, you
know, my parent might leave meor my parent might kill me. And
we forget that that's how kidsthink, because they're back in
that subconscious world to Okay,and they feel it. And we forget
(43:59):
that that feeling of fear can belike we're facing annihilation.
And we have to remember that sothat we don't, you know, sort of
talk to ourselves badly by bymocking the fear and saying,
well, this is ridiculous. No,it's not ridiculous. It's
actually what you felt as alittle kid. So we have to keep
(44:20):
in mind that the archetypalsymbolism of transformation and
major growth is death.
Amee Quiriconi (44:27):
Yeah, or
Lindsay Gibson (44:28):
threat to life.
Amee Quiriconi (44:30):
That's fascinating. I, you know, it
makes a lot of makes a lot ofsense. I'm glad I asked that
question. Because, you know, Ido like, you know, my PTSD stems
from an abandonment fear and Imean, again, the memory that
that you know, once I made peacewith that and understood that,
(44:52):
like what happened in everythingthat happens there after from
that moment on, that's kind ofwhere all the the tapestry
started to really fill in for mein my life. And understanding
everything there. And it was itwas this risk of, of, you know,
was being left and then livingin an environment where the
children were routinely sentaway or left away, or I mean,
(45:12):
you know, they ended in kids andgetting rid of them off and on
was a daily was a regularoccurrence for me growing up,
whether it was me my, you know,multitude of my brothers,
whatever it was. And so for thatto manifest itself, you know,
and I, you know, and I knowthat, like, you know, kids
abstract level of thinking isvery different than the adults
and I and I have talked withadults about that as well, like
(45:35):
you, you have to not view yourhistory from your viewpoint,
because you have all theexperience in the world and you
have all the adult cognitionthat you have now, but you
didn't have it then. And if itterrorized you then it
terrorized you like, you know,that's, that's interesting that
that's why the death routinekeeps replaying itself back,
because I know that after thatexperience, I then had
(45:56):
nightmares for years, aboutdeath and dying over and over
and over again, like I wastraumatized by that moment. And
it never got, you know, resolvedor understood. And I had other
issues and episodes, but it wasalways going to be about death.
And that was where my fixation,like never left until, you know,
many years later, is that Ithink about hypochondria, you
(46:18):
know, I had those ups and downsof like, every time something
happens, I was certain I wasgonna die from something never
as extreme as what happened withthe book, but it wasn't, you
know, like that big fear poppedup many times in my life that,
you know, oh my god, this is it.
I'm never gonna live to see anyof that. Man.
Lindsay Gibson (46:34):
Yeah, and that, it's important to note that, you
know, with the exception of somepeople with near death
experiences, none of us havedied yet. Okay, not yet. So we
don't know what it's like todie, we none of us, you know,
with the exception of thosepeople have had that experience.
So we don't really know what tobe afraid of. But probably every
(46:59):
one of us has had some kind ofabandonment experience or some
experience that terrorized us asa child, just because children
are so little, and they're sovulnerable, and they're so Oh,
gosh, it's um, they're they'rejust are so vulnerable to so
many things. So they have hadthe experience of feeling like
(47:22):
they were being separated fromtheir caretaker. And that
feeling we can remember and wecan experience and that feels
like the annihilation of theself. You know, it's like Hello,
death. That's the closestapproximation to that experience
(47:44):
of death that we probably any ofus probably ever have. But that
sense of annihilation isabsolutely, people will do all
kinds of things not to feel thatand you know, they will shrink
their lives, they will shrinktheir dreams, they'll give up on
their dreams, they'll avoidtheir dreams, because they don't
(48:07):
want to feel that horriblefeeling. And one of the things
that sometimes we end up havingto do in therapy, is we have to
turn around and face that, thatannihilation feeling. And it can
be faced, it can be experienced,if you understand with your
adult mind, that this is achildhood experience that you're
(48:30):
going back to, and then it canbecome a feeling that we have
inside us, instead of it beinglike the end of the world that
were caught up in that feeling.
So it's, um, but it's, it'simportant to realize that we
most of us have had that kind ofterror experience just by virtue
of being a little children onthis earth.
Amee Quiriconi (48:54):
Mm hmm. That's a I mean, and that's a great way
of really kind of bringing theentire context of this
conversation together. You know,of, of knowing that if we have
that experience and have gonethrough something like that, how
it could how it's manifesting inits way, from a from a positive
place, right, it wants toprotect us the big fear is the
(49:18):
is the specter of protection.
And like I said, I you know, Italked about making peace with
our past, making peace with thatpart of ourselves that is the
compassionate protector over youknow, looking over ourselves and
wanting us to just neverexperience that awfulness all
over again and then how it willhow it may come out without it
having the direct feelings ofdeath like I've had panic
(49:39):
attacks, but it also may bewhat's underneath why we know we
want to do something but wecan't seem to get the energy to
do it. We talk ourselves out oftaking the next step we
invalidate our abilities to doit like all those self
sabotaging self limiting beliefsare the are the the kind of the
mechanics of implementing thebig fear And letting the big
(49:59):
fear keep working at us. And Ithink that that to me, like in
entrepreneurship and just inlife that that's the connection
I wanted to make for peoplehere. Because we tend to beat
ourselves up for, you know, youknow, procrastinating or not
feeling motivated. And then andI've been through that, that
game back and forth of like, Iwant it bad enough, Well,
apparently, you don't want itbad enough. Because if you did,
(50:19):
you'd be trying harder, or you'dfind the tool or, you know,
whatever other things that wedo. And I just want for a moment
for people to sit and simmerwith the idea of like, let's
just get down a little bitdeeper there. You know, let's
talk about this as maybe this isat the at the heart of all of it
first. And then once we gothrough that, then we can talk
about what's going to work forus in order for us to, you know,
(50:43):
to have that conversation ofovercoming that fear on a day to
day basis, or a weekly basis, orhowever often it actually, you
know, takes for us. And yourbook is fantastic for that, in
fact, I wanted to point out is,as we start to wrap up here, you
know, you have an exercise inthis chapter on the big fear
called the attitude inventory,which is really a way to be able
to scale yourself and how muchthe big fear actually plays out
(51:04):
in your life. Right?
Lindsay Gibson (51:07):
Yeah, and yes, I think it's very useful. I wanted
to mention, too, that thosethings that you brought up, like
procrastination, or what's the
Amee Quiriconi (51:19):
motivation?
Lindsay Gibson (51:21):
Yeah. avoiding these kinds of things that that
we all are air to, that thoseare like garden variety, daily
defenses, they keep us fromexperiencing the big fear. Okay,
because if I'm avoiding writing,I'm not putting anything out
(51:43):
there that I have to panic over.
Okay. So those are defenses, butthey serve to keep us from
experiencing that breakthroughof the big fear. So that means a
couple of things. It means thatwe should have compassion for
ourselves for theprocrastinating and whatever
else we're doing, because it'sbased on an even deeper fear.
Okay, so it's, again, trying toprotect us. And also that when
(52:06):
we get the big fear, we gotta beexcited. Because the big fear
means that you're that close. Ilove that. Thank
Amee Quiriconi (52:16):
you for saying that. Oh, yeah, I push through
someplace where I'm terrifiednow.
Lindsay Gibson (52:23):
Yes, exactly.
You push through your protectivedefenses, and you actually got
something done, you actuallycreated something in the world.
And now there's the breakthroughof the big fear. But that can
only happen when you've reallydone the thing that is so
important to your own selfactualization. So get excited,
you know, when the big fearhappens, because it's like the
(52:48):
signature symptom of growth.
Amee Quiriconi (52:53):
Yeah, no, I love that that is perfect. So reframe
right, like reframing and, youknow, situation, but you're, you
know, yeah, you're absolutelyright. Like, if you're
experienced, that means you'vedone something, right, you've
really upset the scales andyou've pushed on and you know,
you are putting yourself outthere, not the opposite of what
we think, which is the warningto move back, it means keep
pushing forward,
Lindsay Gibson (53:14):
you know, doesn't mean it does mean keep
pushing forward, and it will getbetter. Because the more you
push forward, the more yourecognize what it is, the more
you talk to yourself and writeto yourself, the more that part
calms down, so it does getbetter.
Amee Quiriconi (53:29):
Yeah. And I think that, you know, kind of is
like a, you know, the statementhere, you know, when we look at
people that are successful, I'llerr, quote that around there.
Because how we define success isthe multitude of ways whether
it's financial freedom, youknow, time families, not
families, you know, whatever itactually is, you know, we feel
like there are fewer people thatare successful, because really,
like you said, the humanexperiences is to not push past
(53:53):
those things. And so it doesn'tseem like it's attainable to all
of us, I go back to my currentbelief, like, the cursed belief
is the big fear. But gettingover that means that you then do
get to the other side, you know,like, on the other, you know,
you cross that threshold, youknow, you win that you fight the
dragons, you cross thethreshold, and, and that, it's,
(54:14):
um, you know, it's commendableif you're starting to feel those
feelings, because you'reprobably doing what a lot of
people struggle with being ableto do to begin with never
getting them to the place ofwhere they think they're going
to die because they've donesomething good, you know?
Absolutely. Awesome. Well,before we go, you have another
(54:35):
book coming out. I This episodewill be airing in the summer of
2021. But by September, yourthird book related to adult
children of emotionally maturechildren is coming out you want
to talk about that reallyquickly, so people know what to
start pre ordering for.
Lindsay Gibson (54:49):
Fewer Yeah, this is the third book in the series
on adult children of emotionallyimmature parents. And this one
is called self care for adultchildren and will be available
in September. And this one is alittle bit of a departure from
the other ones, because this isa series of their thought
(55:10):
thought pieces, really, they areabout how to take care of
yourself emotionally, how todeal with difficult
relationships, and then how todeal with adversity. But they're
in the form of little thoughtpieces that you can, you know,
read in two or three minutes.
And so to me, they're sort ofsnacking. It's like eating
(55:34):
popcorn, easy to read on thebeach, easy to read before you
go to bed with just a thought,to give you something to try to
improve yourself care and toreorient yourself to the kind of
life that you really want tomake for yourself. So that's
it's a compendium of Gosh, Ithink there are over 70 little
(55:55):
articles, and those areorganized in the way I just
explained. But it was fun. Theywere fun to write over the past
20 years. And this is justbringing those all together in
an organized way. Cool. Well,I'm
Amee Quiriconi (56:12):
sure that it'll be another success, just like
the other books there. Sothat's, that's pretty exciting
to have that back out. And it'llbe on my bookshelf with all the
other of the other ones that Ihave. Well, this has been
fantastic. It always is. And soI really do appreciate that, you
know, is there anything elsethat you want to talk about or
send, you know, to send thelisteners home with when it
(56:33):
comes to, you know, the the bigfear, you know, I highly
recommend the book. So foreverybody that is listening to
this, and if you haven't got italready, then please do get it
because it is because in thatchapter Lindsay does go through
a map of growth, you know, theprocess that takes, you know, in
in shows, you know, how to pushthrough those which I think are
invaluable in personaldevelopment, as well as
(56:54):
professional development. Butbefore we wrap up is, you know,
is there anything else thatyou'd want to add?
Lindsay Gibson (57:00):
Yeah, I just, I just want to reiterate that,
that we all get the big fear. Weall get overexcited we get we
get worried we get. feelingthreatened, we break down on the
side of the road on the way toour dream, we burst into tears,
(57:23):
we feel despair, you know, thisis the human adventure, okay.
But if you know where you'reheaded, and where you're going,
and you there's a map of growthin my book that shows you the
steps, and you're aware of whereyou are in the process, and you
keep taking the next step, youwill be able to get to the point
(57:46):
where self actualization doesnot feel like a threat to
anybody. It just feels like you.
And that's what we want to worktoward with our understanding of
what the big fear is, and whatit isn't. It is a warning system
set up by a child part of usthat is still scared. It is not
a prediction of the future.
(58:08):
Remember the the foreshortenedfuture of trauma survivors, and
we keep it in perspective, andwe work with ourselves so that
this does not have to stop us.
Mm hmm.
Amee Quiriconi (58:23):
Yes, excellent.
As much as ESP would befascinating, no, we don't seem
to have it. Well, thank you somuch, again, for your time. I
know, this is just I mean, Iadore you. I've said that many,
many times. And I alwaysappreciate you taking all of
this to be able to talk with meand for everybody else to that's
actually listening to this. Soyou're such a treasure to
(58:43):
everybody. And like I said, youknow, you've brought in an
enlightened view of our lives toso many people out there and
help so many people. And so it'sjust it's always an honor to be
able to have you here and totalk with you like this. So
thank you so much, Lindsay.
Lindsay Gibson (58:57):
Oh, it's been my pleasure. Um, and also, I want
to say that I am so thrilled toget to be on your program,
because it's always it's alwaysso easy. It's you have this
ability to bring out the naturalknowledge of the people that
you're talking to. So when myhusband asked me today, are you
(59:17):
nervous about the interview islike, Oh, no, it's amazing.
We're gonna have a great time.
And that's true. Cool.
Amee Quiriconi (59:27):
Thank you.
All right, everybody. Welcome back to
(00:01):
today's episode, I'm going tostart this with a true story.
And I did share a bit about thisin my 100th episode interview
that I did with Lindsay, when wetalked about her book last
summer, who we were, who youwere meant to be. That's not
what we but her title is, whoyou were meant to be, which is a
departure for anybody that'sactually a Lindsey fan, because
most of you know, Lindsay fromher a series of books that she
(00:23):
writes about adult children ofemotionally immature parents.
And so at the risk of this beinga repeat for all you faithful
listeners, and Lindsey fans outthere, I'm just asking you to
bear with me here for a minute.
So first of all, back in 2017, Iactually just clearly remember
sitting on my couch after goingthrough another relationship and
another business starting todisappear, life was changing, I
(00:45):
moved out my my partnership andrelationship had ended. And I
remember sitting on a couch andsaying out loud to myself, I
must just be cursed. And Iflopped backwards on the couch.
And I thought about all thetimes in my life up to that
point that I had personallystarted something that was
really cool. And amazing, Idevoted myself to it, only to
have another person sweep in,take it and leave me behind, not
(01:08):
involved in the businessanymore. Nothing financially out
of it. And I just thought thatmy lot in life was that I was
supposed to be the dreamer, andthe person who came up with all
these big ideas, but I was neverintended to profit from any of
them. And the evidence wasclear, I'm sitting there, I'm
broken. I'm in debt. So youknow, what evidence do I have to
tell me otherwise? Now, ofcourse, that started me on this
(01:32):
journey of saying, is thatreally true? Like, you know, am
I really cursed? Like, does thatreally happen? And I asked
myself the questions like, Well,why me like, I'm not a bad
person. So why how would aperson like me become cursed,
you know, if there was somecosmic, you know, element going
on behind it. And so that'sstarted the self help journey
that most of you are familiarwith. Now, we're going to fast
forward to January of 2020.
(01:55):
Because within two months of metelling a friend that I was
ready to write a business book,I had a bonafide book deal
coming at me on about my 48thbirthday. And this is literally
been a dream of mine sinceforever, like since a little
girl. I mean, I remember wantingto be a writer as early as five
years old when I could actuallystart to write. Now, when I got
(02:16):
the news, I screamed out loud inmy office, I jumped up and down,
I ran around in high fived, asmany people as I could that
night, I celebrated with mangoMargarita is with my best
friend. The reason is, is mypublishers called mango
publishing. So there's a reasonfor that. But then, within days,
I mean, days, I was sick, and Iwas certain, I mean certain that
I had cancer. And that thethought came to me that even if
(02:39):
I finished the book, and itbecame an amazing bestseller, I
was not going to live longenough to see any of that
happen, I was not going tobenefit from it again. And I
felt that curse back on myshoulders. And I don't know why
I started to become anxious, Ibecame depressed. And then I
started having all myspecialists run all the
bloodwork and because I do havean autoimmune disorder, so that
(03:00):
and the drugs do have gnarlyside effects. So this wasn't,
you know, something that was outof range to consider. So they
validated and they went aheadand did the test. But everything
came back clear. And so thenwith the evidence that I was
not, in fact dying of anythingat that point, I knew that then
there was something else Ineeded to look at and explore
this from a differentperspective. And then a funny
(03:21):
thing happened. I began toremember my writing days back in
middle school, and the multitudeof stories and poems that I
wrote. And the central figure inthese stories was a young,
successful girl who died at anearly and tragic death, a girl
to who was cursed and never gotto see her dreams live to their
complete fulfillment. And that'swhen I realized, and I looked at
(03:44):
myself in the mirror and said, Ihad just cast myself in real
life in this role that I hadbeen writing about and
ruminating on really, since Iwas, I was young. But I had
thought at that time that it wasjust me who did weird stuff like
this, because it was my storiesand poems. So it must only be
me. And tell I read Lindsay'sbook when she sent it to me last
summer. And in it, she talksabout this concept of the big
(04:07):
fear and how common it actuallyis for people who have
experienced trauma to reallybelieve that if we ever become
successful, we're going to payfor it dearly. And I think that
that's one of the saddest thingsthat many of us actually ever
experience. So then this comesback to today, in which I'm
reasonably certain still, thatI'm not going to develop cancer
(04:28):
all of a sudden, I still found ayear later that in this leg of
my journey of dreaming this big,audacious dream of mine, that
other things do keep creeping inand intruding. And in my ears, I
always come back to Lindsay'swords, and I remind myself, hey,
that's your big fear. You gotthis. And so I wanted Lindsay
back on today to talk just aboutthe big fear and how this can
(04:48):
still be an undercurrent in ourlives that pulls us back away
from dreams that we really dowant that we're really genuinely
excited about, and how the bigfear is not just a fear of loss
or life threatening illness orsomeone's going to die in our
life, like my story, but it itcan actually be masked under the
feelings of D motivation,procrastination or imposter
syndrome. And why is thisimportant? Well, I think it's
(05:12):
obvious, especially when youthink of people who are trying
to figure out how to improvetheir lives personally and
professionally, like anentrepreneurship, which is one
of my other passions. And I'malways going to be the person
who's going to ask us toconsider for a moment, if
underneath our challenges, theremight be some unresolved or
unseen traumas that could be theculprit behind our self
sabotage. And so welcome back tothe show. Lindsay.
Lindsay Gibson (05:33):
It's a pleasure to be here. Amee. Thank you for
having me.
Amee Quiriconi (05:37):
Yeah, I just I mean, I can't say it enough. You
again, I've told you this everytime you're on, you're also one
of the fan favorites. And like Iwas mentioning, before we
started recording this episode,I just got an email from
Australia from a listener inAustralia. And so she's
listening. Yes, I got yourmessage. And I had a
conversation with Lindsey aboutyou. So you'll be hearing from
me after this episode is done.
But definitely everything thatyou talk about really seems to
(05:59):
hit the like, you know, so manypeople. When they hear the
episodes that we do, they readthe books that you've written
about emotionally immatureparents, they just they're this
this, this Aha, almost like whenhow everything makes so much
sense now. And you know, and Ithink about, you know, the
impact of this type of parent inour lives, and how common and
(06:22):
prevalent it is for many people.
You know, and how it you know,despite all of that, you know,
it really seems unbelievablethat when we have that type of
an environment that we canliterally grow up being afraid
of getting what we want, like aninch, how is that even possible?
Lindsay Gibson (06:40):
Yeah. Well, part of the Gosh, I you just said all
so many thoughts. I hardly knowwhere to start start. But But I
do. I do want to say one thingfrom trauma research. That's
really interesting. And thisgoes back to a book from a long
time ago by I think her name isDr. tared trr. But she wrote a
(07:04):
book on prom, it was one of theearly popular books on it. And
she noted that survivors oftrauma have this thing called
the foreshortened future. Now,this is trauma, this is not my
work. This is not, you know, thebig fear. It's It is literally
about a thing that happens withPTSD, that people who go through
(07:27):
unresolved, go through trauma,and then it's unresolved, they
have a view of the future, likethey're not going to live very
long, something terrible isgoing to happen. You know, just
when you relax, that's whenyou're going to get hit with
something again, and thisforeshortened future, just just
exactly what you're describingin your story, the foreshortened
(07:51):
future convinces you that whathappened in the past is going to
be what happens next. So it'salmost like you're turned around
facing backwards, looking atyour past. And thinking that
you're turned around looking atyour future, like this bad thing
is coming. So I just want tothrow that in there. Because
(08:11):
that is such a, I think, avalidating piece of research, to
show that this is a human thingthat we would have, you know,
this feeling of doom or faded,notice that you know, something
bad was going to happen. This isa human response to trauma in
(08:34):
the past, okay. But it's also,success is like very deep stuff,
as you know, from writing yourbook. And that's probably why
you call it the fearless woman.
Because in order to do yourthing, you have to develop some
fearlessness. But in order toget fearless when you've had
(08:55):
some trauma, or you've not hadan ideal background, like 99.9%
of us, you have to work throughit and know about it, you can't
just suppress your way to healthand success, you have to deal
with it. So if you think aboutthe big fear as something that
occurs naturally, and is notsomething that is pathological,
(09:22):
like, I'll tell a quick storyabout what happened with me with
a big car. So I do my firstbook, and it's in the can, it's
finished. It's at thepublishers, right? And one night
sitting on the couch with myhusband, it. It hit me with this
panic, and I was like, Oh mygod, what am I doing? Like, am I
(09:46):
crazy? Have I lost my mind? Ican't believe I'm going to
publish this book. This is nuts.
Now, this was so irrational,right? Because it wasn't like I
I had written an expose day onmy family. It wasn't like I had
done something that was going toget me sued. Nothing like that
(10:08):
it was right from mysubconscious. And my
subconscious said, Hey, you arefully and freely expressing
yourself, you are telling yourtruth and what you've learned,
unapologetic light, full on.
And to me from my background,that set off a part of me that
(10:32):
said, Are you nuts? Do you knowwhat's going to happen now,
because I had had experienceswith being with feeling like I
was upsetting people if I wastoo outspoken, or you know, too
full of myself or too big for mybritches, or whatever you want
to call it. So I didn't havepositive associations with that
(10:53):
kind of success. And now thatthe deed was done, so to speak,
my poor little inner child wentnuts with terror, about what
this was going to do to my life.
Now fortunately, my husband is agreat guy, he called me down.
You know, and, you know, withina couple of hours, I'm back in
reality, but, but that is also ahallmark of what we call a
(11:16):
flashback in PTSD, meaning thatit's not like you remember Oh,
yeah, I remember what I was madefun of, for expressing myself.
It that's a conscious memory.
But a flashback is when you gethit by the very same emotional
experience that you had in thepast. It's like it's happening
(11:39):
right now. And so you had aflashback, I had a flashback,
everybody can have a flashback,when they are doing something
that is bigger than they everthought they could manage. So I
just want to make sure that it'sout there that the big fear is
normal. And it is something thatis not only found in people who
(12:05):
have some history of trauma intheir past, but it is a part of
the archetypal human experience.
Like if, if you read any popularbook or watch a movie, they're
all about the hero's journey.
That is, you know, the hero getsthe call to go on the adventure.
Amee Quiriconi (12:28):
And it's like literally on my shelf next to
me. Yes, exactly. That's Yeah. Ilove it.
Lindsay Gibson (12:36):
Yeah, every every screenwriter knows that
book. Okay, I think this is thethis is the archetypal story of
human endeavor. So they get thecall, they start out on the
quest, you know, it might beJason going for the Golden
Fleece, or you know, the moviecharacter going for the girl.
But right after they take uparms, so to speak, and start the
(12:58):
quest, they're going to gobattle the dragon, right? who
shows up, but the thresholdguardians, and the threshold
guardians are these forces. Andwe know from our psychology
here, that these arepsychological forces. But in the
story, they show up as forcesthat are stepping in to stop us
(13:24):
from going on to fighting thedragon. And they're going to
push us back and keep pushing usback until we learn to fight
through them. And then a way,that's a really good thing,
because the threshold guardians,keep us from going forward to
battle the dragon before we'reready. So we have to get as you
(13:48):
know, mythology, but we have toget a little roughed up at the
outset, to see if you know, awe're serious about doing it,
and be to give us some practiceand going against adversity. So
that is the oldest human storythere is. And that's the big
(14:09):
fear in the form of a thresholdguardian. So that's why I say,
you know, it can be a sign ofyour past trauma, but it is
definitely a sign of you beinghuman.
Amee Quiriconi (14:19):
Yeah, that and I love the way you you listen to
theology, because, like,literally, that book is sitting
there next to your book righthere within like, and I have
bookshelves all around me, butthat's These are my primary
books next to me there. Youknow, and I think what's
interesting, you know, yousharing your story of like, once
the book was actually out, like,you know, I didn't just freak
out once, like, I have freakedout multiple times, you know,
(14:41):
during the whole the wholeprocess, you know, I had a, I
have that fear still like I gothrough cycles of it, you know,
oh my god, what if so, and soreads it and they, you know, and
they, you know, I some of it,I've equated it back to having
gone through abuse, right, likethere's this and I did a talk
and a about domestic abuse in atrauma informed perspective of
(15:03):
healing. And you know, and oneof the things that, you know, it
said it very at the verybeginning, I said, you know,
it's very scary to talk aboutour experiences, because one of
the things that always comesinto my mind is the abuser
getting upset. And then me beingre abused again, because I am
speaking my truth, and I amtrying to share information.
And, and I know that severalpoints during while the book has
(15:25):
been out, and it's beenreviewed, and it's now
published, I mean, it's like,I've gone through these cycles,
I've had these panic attacks of,okay, but what of these people
get really upset with it. And Imean, like, heart stopping fear,
you know, you go going into likea, you know, you talk about
panic attack like a freakoutmode for a moment, and then
(15:46):
having to reregulate myself backdown of like, you know, talking
myself off the cliff of, youknow, you're not going to get
sued. I mean, you know, thatthat's not really going to
happen there. And so that's partof what this whole thing is,
like, you know, the fear comesout in so many different ways.
And it hits us at differentpoints in time, you know, and I
didn't expect any of it like,you know, here I write a book,
literally the fearless Woman'sGuide, and on telling you about
(16:08):
how the last year has beenfraught with danger, you know,
in my mind's eye with all ofthat. It's so you see, it's a
human experience. However, withthe with the trauma effect of
it, you know, what were some ofthe things that you've seen
where trauma is related to whywe have this fear, I know, in
the book, you actually sharesome really good stories for
(16:29):
people. So if they're readingyour book, they get to hear
other people's experiences. Andso what have you seen were some
of those ideas that getting thisdream means we're going to pay
for it? Right?
Lindsay Gibson (16:43):
Well, one thing to keep in mind is that if you
came from a family, where youhad emotionally immature
parents, there's a particularfamily dynamic that goes on,
which is that the parents arethe most important people in the
world. But that's, that's abasic assumption on the part of
(17:06):
emotionally mature people isthat everything should revolve
around them. Because inside,they're about three or four
years old. And so the familysystem dynamic is that
everything is supposed to berevolving around the parent. And
if you sort of say, well, gee,today, I'm going to revolve
(17:27):
around my fantasies, and mywriting and my expression, and
my daydreams, and whatever, andI'm going to hang out there,
that isn't really okay with aparent that needs to have your
undivided respect and attentionall the time in order to
(17:47):
stabilize themselves and theirown self esteem. So you're
bucking, a fam, an authoritarianfamily system, when you turn
your attention to your innerworld. So that's, that's one
thing that's important to keepin mind. That in that family
with that kind of parent, itisn't an equal opportunity kind
(18:08):
of family where everybody'sgifts are celebrated, and
children are supported andlistened to and seen, it is
mostly about a cycle at apsychological level, it is
mostly about that parent gettingtheir needs met. Okay? The other
thing that can happen is thewhat we call in psychology, the
(18:29):
one trial learning. And what onetrial learning means is that if
you want to train, you know,little mouse to avoid a part of
the maze. And so he only learnsto not go down that road and go
down the other, you can trainhim by putting food down the one
(18:50):
you want him to go down, helearns always to turn left for
food. But if you want to do itquickly, you can just give him a
really bad shock when he turnsright. Okay, that's called one
trial learning that mouse neverforgets to not turn right. All
(19:10):
right, no repetition required.
Right. Yeah,
Amee Quiriconi (19:13):
I call that like putting your hand on a hot stove
was.
Lindsay Gibson (19:19):
So so you know, good for our brains for being
able to do that to us. So here'san example of kind of one trial
learning. So there was this.
There was this little boy whoused to ride around with his dad
to work sites. His father was inconstruction. And and I have
permission for all thesestories. By the way, they're not
(19:40):
they're not confidential, butthey are disguised. So he would
ride around with his dad to thework sites and construction. And
he just felt, you know, like soexcited to be with his dad. He
was dad called him his littlehelper and you know, and he was
just flying high and this littlefive year old Right. So they one
day they pull up to aconstruction site, and the men
(20:02):
are out there working and hisdad is his boss, and no boy
leans out the window, and hesays something cheeky to one of
the men who's working. You know,it's, it's a meant to be playful
and clever. But you know, it'skind of a, you wouldn't expect
that a child would address anadult in that way. So he's
(20:25):
looking at the car window,right, his dad is on the other
side in the truck, and his dadreaches out and pops him on the
head really hard. Like, youknow, don't talk that way. And
this kid, one trial learning islike, oh, when I get full of
myself, and I feel thisexuberance, of self expression
(20:49):
coming up, and I got this greatidea for this joke that I'm
gonna share with this worker,like, don't do that. And he
called it the dark hand of God,he his big fear was, was always
associated with he said, Youknow, I just feel like if I, if
I do this, if I go for this, youknow, it's going to the dark end
(21:10):
of God's gonna get me. And wegot back to that story. And it
was like, Wow, there really wasa dark hand of God that got him.
His one trial learning. So we,our bodies are made to teach us
about what is dangerous. And itdoesn't matter whether it's
(21:32):
something that's going to eat usor something that's going to
shock us or surprise us, doesn'tmatter. The brain just learns.
Like, don't go there. Don't dothat. It's like, Okay, got
Amee Quiriconi (21:47):
it.
Lindsay Gibson (21:47):
Don't do that.
But, like, the stories that youand I were telling, so we go
along, we're doing fine, we'recompetent, we're doing our
thing, we're pursuing ourdreams, we're, we're fine.
Amee Quiriconi (21:59):
We're going to therapy.
Lindsay Gibson (22:00):
Yeah, go to therapy, whatever. And then you
get, you get to this point whereit's about to happen, you know,
I'm about to make the cheekyremark to the workman, when I'm
full of myself, that's whatpublishing book probably meant
to me. And all of a sudden, it'slike, boom, I'm going to get
smacked. But this time, it'sgoing to be a cosmic smack, you
(22:23):
know, like, something really bigand bad. Because that in adult
life, that's what you know, apop on the head would translate
to, for an adult.
Amee Quiriconi (22:32):
Mm hmm. When I'm listening to you, and you're
sharing, like stories of otherpeople, and you're, you know,
kind of explaining it, and I'vesaid this before, on these other
interviews, you know, I don'tknow how often people understand
how much this physically affectsme, like I, you know, I don't
show it I, you know, sometimes Ibreak down, but very rarely, but
when you were talking about the,the, when you get full of
(22:54):
yourself, there's a like aresponse to that, and my chest
instantly tightened up, becausethat is making sense with then
aligning with some of theexperiences, you know, that I
had, which was, as a student andan athlete publicly, where the I
could get praises from the, fromthe world at large, either the
(23:15):
school was giving me an award,or I was printed in the
newspaper, or I was standing ona podium getting a, a, you know,
an award, or metal, or whateverit was, that was all safe. Like,
those were safe places for meand my achievements to be
acknowledged. at home. Iremember the words, you think
you're hot shit, don't you? Andwhen that comes from a
(23:38):
caregiver, you know, in a month,that's at one time, like, that's
that one trial, right therethat, that that triggered me
right there. Because that's thememory that then comes up when
the book goes out there is Iactually think about, like those
words, it's still end up comingin my head, like, Who do you
think you are? What makes youthink you can do this? You know,
(23:59):
and so then my reinforcement,I'm sharing this just for the
sake of other people that may bekind of like trying to, you
know, synthesize this in yourown head. If I get the external
validation, then I know I'msafe. But I'm still fearful of
the individual person who'sgoing to come at me and tell me
that I have no right to do thisor that I'm arrogant for doing
this or thinking this orbelieving this or, you know,
(24:20):
whatever it actually would itis. And so that's where I find
myself like slowing downsometimes, like, I want to
publish an article. And I'llspend weeks trying to write an
article because I'm so concernedabout writing it in a way that
no one is going to tell me whatright do I have, which is, you
know, kind of a little bit why Ifeel proud for today with this
guy that got onto my Facebookthat I blocked that you and I
(24:42):
talked about before theinterview. He was like, What
right? Do you have giving adviceto people when you don't have a
psychology degree? I mean, thosevoices are out there. But then
they're even more traumatizingto somebody who has this big
fear playing script, you know,in our heads all the time of
what we've got to talk ourselvesinto. We do have a right you
know, To say something or tobeat something or to, you know,
(25:03):
to be cheeky, if
Lindsay Gibson (25:04):
we want to, I guess, right? Absolutely. You
know, I think another helpfulway to think about working with
the big fear is to think aboutit in terms of like, we all have
these parts of our personalitythat the idea that our
personality is this monolithic,one person thing is really not a
(25:29):
useful way to conceptualizeourselves, it's much more
accurate to say that we havethese different parts of our
personality and the end, theylive in us like those little
Russian nesting dolls. Andsometimes the little one speaks,
and then sometimes the biggerone speaks, but they're subsumed
under our regular personality,and the big fear. And it's, um,
(25:54):
it's attendant panic attacks andself sabotage and all the things
that go along with that, thatpart of the personality is what
Richard Schwartz and internalfamily systems theory calls the
protector, or the manager, andthat protector part of the
(26:18):
personality exists. So thatyou'll never get popped in the
head again, you'll never beasked about being hot shit,
again, you'll never set yourselfup for that kind of
vulnerability again, right? Um,so if you realize that, that
symptom of the big fear iscoming from a part of the
(26:41):
personality, that is really achild, okay. I mean, this this
conclusion was formed inchildhood wasn't informed, you
know, after we had, you know,graduated from high school, or
whatever, you know, it, it camewhen we were children. And that
part of the personality justwants to keep us safe. And we
(27:05):
don't understand its operatingsystem. We just say, Oh, you
know, I wish these fears wouldgo away. They're so irrational,
they're stupid, whatever. Butyou know, as we've just
demonstrated, when you work itback, and you begin to
understand where it comes from.
It gives us some empathy andcompassion for that protector
part of us that, you know, yes,it causes trouble. Yes, it
(27:28):
causes problems. Yes, it givesus panic attacks. Yes, it warns
us away from the very thing wewant. It's big. But it's trying
to like a frightened child, it'strying to keep us safe. On the
basis of what it knows, becauseit's frozen in time, it's
(27:50):
whatever that age was, when theone trial learning occurred, or
when the trauma occurred. That'sall it knows it exists in a
little vacuum. And sometimeswhat we have to do is we have to
think about that protector partas an adapted child just doing
the best it could with reallydifficult circumstances. And if
(28:15):
we give it compassion, and say,Thank you, you know, thank you
for trying to help us, thank youfor trying to keep me away from
ever experiencing that, again,way to go appreciate it. If we
do that, then it's willing tolisten to us when we begin to
say, or negotiate with it.
(28:37):
Listen, if you let me publish mybook, and I do it carefully, and
I don't say anything, you know,too extreme or inflammatory,
whatever. And I'm careful aboutthat. Would you be willing to
let me take this next step on mypath of growth, and we'll do an
(28:59):
experiment, you know, I'll becareful. And, and you'll get to
see if it really is safe or not,you know, and if it isn't safe,
I'll come right back to you.
Then after you do it after youpublish the book, after you
express yourself, whatever thefeared thing was, and nothing
bad happens, because most of thetime that's true. You go back to
(29:21):
the protector part. And you say,look, did you notice that
nothing bad happened? We publishthe book, we made a website, we
became an entrepreneur, westarted our business, did you
notice that nothing bad hashappened. And that's important
to do. You know, a because it'sfriendly and compassionate.
(29:48):
No, it's a good way to treatourselves. But it also is so
important to do that becausethat protector part does not
live in present time. It's nottracking you to see that, oh,
hey, that's amazing, nothing badhappened. It's not interested in
learning, it's interested in onething, and that's to protect you
(30:09):
from that terrible thing that itfears. So you have to kind of go
back in and point it out. So itcan begin to learn because it's
not interested in learning. Andonce you do that, like, you
know, you say, look, we didn'tget sued. Look, you know, you
got another great response afteryou had this troll happen, you
(30:30):
know, we begin to point out thatkind of real world learning to
the protector, it starts toshift and it starts to be
willing to let us do more thingsthat previously we would have
found too scary,
Amee Quiriconi (30:44):
huh? Yeah, I actually, I wrote something
similar to that several monthsago, when I had one of my panic
attacks and had to talk myselfoff of the cliff, and I reached
out to resources, you know, forevidence and, and what I was
what I made peace with, withthat inner that inner protector.
And I learned this from you. SoI'm not taking credit for it was
(31:05):
the, the fear of hurtingsomebody else's feelings, like I
just, you know, my, my, who Iam, is I just, I don't like
hurting other people. And Idon't know how I mean, I, you
know, I don't have time to sitdown and figure out all the
times I actually hurt somebody.
But obviously, I've been led tobelieve that I could, and, and,
and was capable of doing it, orwhatever it is, I don't know
(31:27):
what it is. But it is thegreatest fear of not wanting to
hurt. And I think maybe it'sprobably, you know, again, this
isn't a therapy session for me.
But if I think about witnessinga mother struggling and being
the hero child to try to solve,and cure their pains, and not
wanting to see it, like I knowthat my or, you know, being
(31:48):
around abuse, you know, physicalabuse and stuff like that, maybe
it all comes into there. But Iknew that when one of the panic
attacks happened, because I justdidn't want anybody's feelings
to be hurt. I then had aconversation with myself through
words, I like typed out so thatmy head, my eyes could read back
to me what I wanted to say tothis inner child, which is I get
(32:10):
it, I understand. And that's,that's important. So if I
promise to you, this is thepromise I made to my inner
child, if I promise to you thatI will take my time to be
careful. And I will bethoughtful, and that my heart is
in the right place to not hurtanybody. Even if we accidentally
do it, will you trust me that myintention is to never do that.
(32:32):
And I wrote that out for myself.
And then I ended up publishingit as a medium article out there
just to kind of put it out intothe the atmosphere, you know,
for in case I never, you know, Ineed to read it or somebody else
needs to read it. But it helpeda lot. To do that, to have that
conversation. And I know onestrategy, I shared this with an
inner on an interview that I didfor another show was I learned
and decided to have thatconversation every morning in
(32:54):
the mirror by looking myself inthe eyes. And speaking to that,
that protector child and insideof me. And for a while it was
very hard to look into my owneyes, it felt awkward and
uncomfortable to stare back intomy own face. And to tell myself,
it's okay that you feel thatway. I totally understand why
you'd be afraid of this and whythis seems really scary. But I
(33:14):
got you, this is how we're goingto do it. And if it does get a
little frightening a little bitlater. That's okay, too, you
know, and it took days and daysand days of having a one on one
conversation with myself lookingin the eyes not looking away,
not thinking in my head as Iwalked around the house, but
actually like in my own face, toget to that. And now it's become
(33:35):
a part of my daily rituals tohave this ongoing conversation
with whatever's going to crop uptoday. And some days like this
morning, I just looked at myselfand I said, I love you, you're
killing it. Good job. You know,I don't always just talk about
hard stuff. But it's sometimes Ihave to remember like, I don't
have a spouse. I don't you know,my kids are encouraging. But you
know, my little person inside ofme still needs a mom every day
(33:56):
just like my kids do every dayto let her know that someone
loves her. You know, and justget on with the day and I feel
like that has helped so much asI'm pushing down and out on this
really big dream like literallymy my childhood dream happening
right now. Like that extraeffort of talking back to that
person and calming that personis like it is so important that
(34:17):
you can't autopilot that or justforget it and assume that it all
just takes care of itself on itsown. It's active.
Lindsay Gibson (34:25):
Yeah, that is the most beautiful summary of
what I wish everybody would tryto do. You know whether you do
it with the writing, whether youdo it with the mirror, but you
you were being like you said youwere being a good mom, a good
mentor, a good a good dad, agood supporter to yourself in a
(34:50):
very conscious and directed way.
And when we do that we areactually changing our minds and
our brains, you know to move offof that. fear based survival
trauma brain and bringing anintegration of our thinking
brain with the scared part ofour brain, which is, when you
make those connections, thingsstart to calm down, they become
(35:13):
modulated. And I love yourexample of the mirror, I mean,
gee, we could do a wholeconversation on mirroring. But
literally, there are mirrorneurons, you know, in our minds,
and, and we, in voluntarily willcopy what we see with other
people. And we get into thisresonance. And that's one of the
(35:36):
things that works really well inpsychotherapy, because the
client ends up mirroring thetherapists compassion and
interest in seeing them and allof that, that's all going in
through the mirroring process.
So the fact that you wereliterally mirroring yourself,
(35:57):
that works just as well for thebrain, as if someone else that
you loved was telling you thesame thing. The good part,
though, is that you know,exactly what you need to hear.
So you're always going to bedead on in the mirror.
Amee Quiriconi (36:15):
Right, right.
Well, you know, this person thatI was talking to, she said she
had tried it, you know, herself,and she said, it was very hard
to do. And I was like, Well,yeah, I mean, imagine whenever
we sit down with somebody, andsomeone looks us right in the
eye, you know, like on a date,and there's this intimacy,
that's, that's starting to beshared through that idi contact
and how we with other peoplefind we can't hold, we can't
(36:36):
hold gazes for very long,especially if there is this fear
of connecting with somebodybecause of again, the big fear,
whether it's personally orprofessionally, right, like, if
we feel like there's, the shoeis gonna drop, if a connection
is made, we look away howunsettling that is. And so it's,
you know, to me, it was like, Iwas surprised at how hard it was
(36:57):
to look myself in the eye andhold my gaze with myself. And
then now it's, it's easier, butshe felt and experienced the
same thing too. And they feellike it's, it's because of the
fact that it's like what withanybody that we're looking eye
to eye, you know, and that itcan be really hard if we're, if
we have a some closure and somesafety protection inside of us
of not feeling safe connecting,you know, with other people at
(37:20):
some level.
Lindsay Gibson (37:22):
Yeah, one thing I will mention in there, so
people don't feel too bad abouttheir inability to do that is
that we often look off whenwe're thinking, it's really hard
to hold eye contact and think atthe same time. Because we want
to look off as a way of orderingour thoughts. There's, there's a
whole thing in neuro linguisticprogramming, about being able to
(37:45):
tell what people are thinkingabout or what they're that they,
you know, imaging, are theythinking about something with
words by where they move theireyes to. But the thing is, as
you've probably noticed, withraising your kids, that when you
know, in your heart, a truththat you want to convey to that
(38:07):
child, you will look them in theeye and tell them, okay, and
it's and you don't have thaturge to look away, because
you're not trying to think ofsomething you already know in
your heart what the messageneeds to be. And you can
directly go in with them and doit like that. So when you were
(38:28):
looking in the mirror, part ofwhat was happening was that as
your message to yourself gotclear, and was coming from a
deeper and deeper place insideyou. It was easier to hold eye
contact because you knew thetruth that you wanted to convey.
And then we get all of the peaceand our eye contact follows
(38:50):
that.
Amee Quiriconi (38:51):
That's awesome.
Well, I I'm glad again over thecourse of time picking up a few
really smart things to do frompeople like you. So. Um, so, you
know, we talk about selfsabotage that, you know, so we
feel the feelings and maybe wedon't connect it to fear. Right.
Like, I think that that'ssometimes the the challenge that
the the big fear sometimes canbe obvious, let me go back to
(39:15):
this question. Because some ofthe big fear things that we
experienced is like, we're goingto die, someone else is going to
die, you know, comets going tostrike the earth, just random
things. But our trauma doesn'thave to be related to death for
us to have those feelings orthose fears. Right. The Why is
the extreme like, why is the bigfear the obvious big fear such
(39:37):
an extreme? You know, like Isaid, like, I'm going to die of
cancer, I'm cursed. I'm going todie. You know, why would the
brain Poulos into something likethat or, you know, go into that
direction of taking that extrememeasure because it's really
trying that hard to stop us fromsomething that it feels so
strange that we want it and atthe same time, have a brain
(39:59):
working. And I know you talkedabout the protector there. But
I'm just wondering, like, thatseems such an extreme measure
for us to think that, you know,someone's gonna die around us
like instantly or we're going tobe the one that perishes if we
don't have death is our trauma,you know, or one of our traumas.
Lindsay Gibson (40:15):
Yeah, yeah. It's most of us have not died before.
Right. So I, I really love thatquestion. Because it goes back
to the idea that, in oursubconscious mind, our
subconscious mind is think aboutit the subconscious as being
(40:38):
like a cartoonist that can onlycommunicate in images, it
doesn't use words, or very fewwords anyway. So if it wants to
get something across to us, itwill pick something from life or
nature, or everyday life. Andit'll use an image to convey
(40:58):
meaning, like, people who havenightmares that they're walking
down the street naked, okay,well, we understand that imagery
as meaning the person feelsexposed or embarrassed or
ashamed of something or isfearful of that, okay. But for
(41:19):
the subconscious brain, we don'thave anything, literally that
says, ashamed or exposed orvulnerable. That's a concept
that belongs in our front partof our conscious brain. So all
it can do is draw a cartoon ofthat concept. Okay? So when
(41:39):
we're going through somethinglike a major life
transformation, or you arebeginning to realize your dream,
for instance, all theunconscious has to connote that
is that the old way is dying,and the new way is beginning.
All right. And so the symbolismin nature for transformation is
(42:04):
death. Okay, so when you havedreams about dying, or fears
about dying, or issues of lifeand death, you know, like, I'm
running from a bear, and thebear is about to get me and I
wake up and I'm in a sweat.
Okay? Well, it's not that I'mafraid of a bear. Okay, there no
bears in my neighborhood. Butit's as if I was running from a
(42:24):
bear, because I'm so afraid thatthis bad thing is going to
happen. Okay. So thesubconscious uses these extreme
images. Because it's like acartoonist, it has to pick an
image that conveys the intensityof the feeling. And we do have
to keep in mind that for achild, when a parent gets angry
(42:49):
at them, or a parent puts themdown, or a parent treats them in
a way that says, you know,you're not worth anything. Or,
you know, I don't want to listento you just, you know, get out
of my sight for the kid. That isone step away from annihilation.
Amee Quiriconi (43:12):
Yeah. And we forget this,
Lindsay Gibson (43:13):
we forget this as adults, because we think, Oh,
well, you know, the kids will berational, they know that mommy
was just mad, and, you know,she's not going to, you know,
get rid of us forever, she's notgoing to abandon me. But the
child emotionally in that momentwhere the parent is literally
(43:34):
withdrawing from them, or worse,even abusing them, all the child
knows is that in that presentmoment, this might be it, you
know, my parent might leave meor my parent might kill me. And
we forget that that's how kidsthink, because they're back in
that subconscious world to Okay,and they feel it. And we forget
(43:59):
that that feeling of fear can belike we're facing annihilation.
And we have to remember that sothat we don't, you know, sort of
talk to ourselves badly by bymocking the fear and saying,
well, this is ridiculous. No,it's not ridiculous. It's
actually what you felt as alittle kid. So we have to keep
(44:20):
in mind that the archetypalsymbolism of transformation and
major growth is death.
Amee Quiriconi (44:27):
Yeah, or
Lindsay Gibson (44:28):
threat to life.
Amee Quiriconi (44:30):
That's fascinating. I, you know, it
makes a lot of makes a lot ofsense. I'm glad I asked that
question. Because, you know, Ido like, you know, my PTSD stems
from an abandonment fear and Imean, again, the memory that
that you know, once I made peacewith that and understood that,
(44:52):
like what happened in everythingthat happens there after from
that moment on, that's kind ofwhere all the the tapestry
started to really fill in for mein my life. And understanding
everything there. And it was itwas this risk of, of, you know,
was being left and then livingin an environment where the
children were routinely sentaway or left away, or I mean,
(45:12):
you know, they ended in kids andgetting rid of them off and on
was a daily was a regularoccurrence for me growing up,
whether it was me my, you know,multitude of my brothers,
whatever it was. And so for thatto manifest itself, you know,
and I, you know, and I knowthat, like, you know, kids
abstract level of thinking isvery different than the adults
and I and I have talked withadults about that as well, like
(45:35):
you, you have to not view yourhistory from your viewpoint,
because you have all theexperience in the world and you
have all the adult cognitionthat you have now, but you
didn't have it then. And if itterrorized you then it
terrorized you like, you know,that's, that's interesting that
that's why the death routinekeeps replaying itself back,
because I know that after thatexperience, I then had
(45:56):
nightmares for years, aboutdeath and dying over and over
and over again, like I wastraumatized by that moment. And
it never got, you know, resolvedor understood. And I had other
issues and episodes, but it wasalways going to be about death.
And that was where my fixation,like never left until, you know,
many years later, is that Ithink about hypochondria, you
(46:18):
know, I had those ups and downsof like, every time something
happens, I was certain I wasgonna die from something never
as extreme as what happened withthe book, but it wasn't, you
know, like that big fear poppedup many times in my life that,
you know, oh my god, this is it.
I'm never gonna live to see anyof that. Man.
Lindsay Gibson (46:34):
Yeah, and that, it's important to note that, you
know, with the exception of somepeople with near death
experiences, none of us havedied yet. Okay, not yet. So we
don't know what it's like todie, we none of us, you know,
with the exception of thosepeople have had that experience.
So we don't really know what tobe afraid of. But probably every
(46:59):
one of us has had some kind ofabandonment experience or some
experience that terrorized us asa child, just because children
are so little, and they're sovulnerable, and they're so Oh,
gosh, it's um, they're they'rejust are so vulnerable to so
many things. So they have hadthe experience of feeling like
(47:22):
they were being separated fromtheir caretaker. And that
feeling we can remember and wecan experience and that feels
like the annihilation of theself. You know, it's like Hello,
death. That's the closestapproximation to that experience
(47:44):
of death that we probably any ofus probably ever have. But that
sense of annihilation isabsolutely, people will do all
kinds of things not to feel thatand you know, they will shrink
their lives, they will shrinktheir dreams, they'll give up on
their dreams, they'll avoidtheir dreams, because they don't
(48:07):
want to feel that horriblefeeling. And one of the things
that sometimes we end up havingto do in therapy, is we have to
turn around and face that, thatannihilation feeling. And it can
be faced, it can be experienced,if you understand with your
adult mind, that this is achildhood experience that you're
(48:30):
going back to, and then it canbecome a feeling that we have
inside us, instead of it beinglike the end of the world that
were caught up in that feeling.
So it's, um, but it's, it'simportant to realize that we
most of us have had that kind ofterror experience just by virtue
of being a little children onthis earth.
Amee Quiriconi (48:54):
Mm hmm. That's a I mean, and that's a great way
of really kind of bringing theentire context of this
conversation together. You know,of, of knowing that if we have
that experience and have gonethrough something like that, how
it could how it's manifesting inits way, from a from a positive
place, right, it wants toprotect us the big fear is the
(49:18):
is the specter of protection.
And like I said, I you know, Italked about making peace with
our past, making peace with thatpart of ourselves that is the
compassionate protector over youknow, looking over ourselves and
wanting us to just neverexperience that awfulness all
over again and then how it willhow it may come out without it
having the direct feelings ofdeath like I've had panic
(49:39):
attacks, but it also may bewhat's underneath why we know we
want to do something but wecan't seem to get the energy to
do it. We talk ourselves out oftaking the next step we
invalidate our abilities to doit like all those self
sabotaging self limiting beliefsare the are the the kind of the
mechanics of implementing thebig fear And letting the big
(49:59):
fear keep working at us. And Ithink that that to me, like in
entrepreneurship and just inlife that that's the connection
I wanted to make for peoplehere. Because we tend to beat
ourselves up for, you know, youknow, procrastinating or not
feeling motivated. And then andI've been through that, that
game back and forth of like, Iwant it bad enough, Well,
apparently, you don't want itbad enough. Because if you did,
(50:19):
you'd be trying harder, or you'dfind the tool or, you know,
whatever other things that wedo. And I just want for a moment
for people to sit and simmerwith the idea of like, let's
just get down a little bitdeeper there. You know, let's
talk about this as maybe this isat the at the heart of all of it
first. And then once we gothrough that, then we can talk
about what's going to work forus in order for us to, you know,
(50:43):
to have that conversation ofovercoming that fear on a day to
day basis, or a weekly basis, orhowever often it actually, you
know, takes for us. And yourbook is fantastic for that, in
fact, I wanted to point out is,as we start to wrap up here, you
know, you have an exercise inthis chapter on the big fear
called the attitude inventory,which is really a way to be able
to scale yourself and how muchthe big fear actually plays out
(51:04):
in your life. Right?
Lindsay Gibson (51:07):
Yeah, and yes, I think it's very useful. I wanted
to mention, too, that thosethings that you brought up, like
procrastination, or what's the
Amee Quiriconi (51:19):
motivation?
Lindsay Gibson (51:21):
Yeah. avoiding these kinds of things that that
we all are air to, that thoseare like garden variety, daily
defenses, they keep us fromexperiencing the big fear. Okay,
because if I'm avoiding writing,I'm not putting anything out
(51:43):
there that I have to panic over.
Okay. So those are defenses, butthey serve to keep us from
experiencing that breakthroughof the big fear. So that means a
couple of things. It means thatwe should have compassion for
ourselves for theprocrastinating and whatever
else we're doing, because it'sbased on an even deeper fear.
Okay, so it's, again, trying toprotect us. And also that when
(52:06):
we get the big fear, we gotta beexcited. Because the big fear
means that you're that close. Ilove that. Thank
Amee Quiriconi (52:16):
you for saying that. Oh, yeah, I push through
someplace where I'm terrifiednow.
Lindsay Gibson (52:23):
Yes, exactly.
You push through your protectivedefenses, and you actually got
something done, you actuallycreated something in the world.
And now there's the breakthroughof the big fear. But that can
only happen when you've reallydone the thing that is so
important to your own selfactualization. So get excited,
you know, when the big fearhappens, because it's like the
(52:48):
signature symptom of growth.
Amee Quiriconi (52:53):
Yeah, no, I love that that is perfect. So reframe
right, like reframing and, youknow, situation, but you're, you
know, yeah, you're absolutelyright. Like, if you're
experienced, that means you'vedone something, right, you've
really upset the scales andyou've pushed on and you know,
you are putting yourself outthere, not the opposite of what
we think, which is the warningto move back, it means keep
pushing forward,
Lindsay Gibson (53:14):
you know, doesn't mean it does mean keep
pushing forward, and it will getbetter. Because the more you
push forward, the more yourecognize what it is, the more
you talk to yourself and writeto yourself, the more that part
calms down, so it does getbetter.
Amee Quiriconi (53:29):
Yeah. And I think that, you know, kind of is
like a, you know, the statementhere, you know, when we look at
people that are successful, I'llerr, quote that around there.
Because how we define success isthe multitude of ways whether
it's financial freedom, youknow, time families, not
families, you know, whatever itactually is, you know, we feel
like there are fewer people thatare successful, because really,
like you said, the humanexperiences is to not push past
(53:53):
those things. And so it doesn'tseem like it's attainable to all
of us, I go back to my currentbelief, like, the cursed belief
is the big fear. But gettingover that means that you then do
get to the other side, you know,like, on the other, you know,
you cross that threshold, youknow, you win that you fight the
dragons, you cross thethreshold, and, and that, it's,
(54:14):
um, you know, it's commendableif you're starting to feel those
feelings, because you'reprobably doing what a lot of
people struggle with being ableto do to begin with never
getting them to the place ofwhere they think they're going
to die because they've donesomething good, you know?
Absolutely. Awesome. Well,before we go, you have another
(54:35):
book coming out. I This episodewill be airing in the summer of
2021. But by September, yourthird book related to adult
children of emotionally maturechildren is coming out you want
to talk about that reallyquickly, so people know what to
start pre ordering for.
Lindsay Gibson (54:49):
Fewer Yeah, this is the third book in the series
on adult children of emotionallyimmature parents. And this one
is called self care for adultchildren and will be available
in September. And this one is alittle bit of a departure from
the other ones, because this isa series of their thought
(55:10):
thought pieces, really, they areabout how to take care of
yourself emotionally, how todeal with difficult
relationships, and then how todeal with adversity. But they're
in the form of little thoughtpieces that you can, you know,
read in two or three minutes.
And so to me, they're sort ofsnacking. It's like eating
(55:34):
popcorn, easy to read on thebeach, easy to read before you
go to bed with just a thought,to give you something to try to
improve yourself care and toreorient yourself to the kind of
life that you really want tomake for yourself. So that's
it's a compendium of Gosh, Ithink there are over 70 little
(55:55):
articles, and those areorganized in the way I just
explained. But it was fun. Theywere fun to write over the past
20 years. And this is justbringing those all together in
an organized way. Cool. Well,I'm
Amee Quiriconi (56:12):
sure that it'll be another success, just like
the other books there. Sothat's, that's pretty exciting
to have that back out. And it'llbe on my bookshelf with all the
other of the other ones that Ihave. Well, this has been
fantastic. It always is. And soI really do appreciate that, you
know, is there anything elsethat you want to talk about or
send, you know, to send thelisteners home with when it
(56:33):
comes to, you know, the the bigfear, you know, I highly
recommend the book. So foreverybody that is listening to
this, and if you haven't got italready, then please do get it
because it is because in thatchapter Lindsay does go through
a map of growth, you know, theprocess that takes, you know, in
in shows, you know, how to pushthrough those which I think are
invaluable in personaldevelopment, as well as
(56:54):
professional development. Butbefore we wrap up is, you know,
is there anything else thatyou'd want to add?
Lindsay Gibson (57:00):
Yeah, I just, I just want to reiterate that,
that we all get the big fear. Weall get overexcited we get we
get worried we get. feelingthreatened, we break down on the
side of the road on the way toour dream, we burst into tears,
(57:23):
we feel despair, you know, thisis the human adventure, okay.
But if you know where you'reheaded, and where you're going,
and you there's a map of growthin my book that shows you the
steps, and you're aware of whereyou are in the process, and you
keep taking the next step, youwill be able to get to the point
(57:46):
where self actualization doesnot feel like a threat to
anybody. It just feels like you.
And that's what we want to worktoward with our understanding of
what the big fear is, and whatit isn't. It is a warning system
set up by a child part of usthat is still scared. It is not
a prediction of the future.
(58:08):
Remember the the foreshortenedfuture of trauma survivors, and
we keep it in perspective, andwe work with ourselves so that
this does not have to stop us.
Mm hmm.
Amee Quiriconi (58:23):
Yes, excellent.
As much as ESP would befascinating, no, we don't seem
to have it. Well, thank you somuch, again, for your time. I
know, this is just I mean, Iadore you. I've said that many,
many times. And I alwaysappreciate you taking all of
this to be able to talk with meand for everybody else to that's
actually listening to this. Soyou're such a treasure to
(58:43):
everybody. And like I said, youknow, you've brought in an
enlightened view of our lives toso many people out there and
help so many people. And so it'sjust it's always an honor to be
able to have you here and totalk with you like this. So
thank you so much, Lindsay.
Lindsay Gibson (58:57):
Oh, it's been my pleasure. Um, and also, I want
to say that I am so thrilled toget to be on your program,
because it's always it's alwaysso easy. It's you have this
ability to bring out the naturalknowledge of the people that
you're talking to. So when myhusband asked me today, are you
(59:17):
nervous about the interview islike, Oh, no, it's amazing.
We're gonna have a great time.
And that's true. Cool.
Amee Quiriconi (59:27):
Thank you.
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