You Are Not Your Diagnosis (Or Your Bullsh*t Self-Talk) | Dr. Paul Conti - 893 - Roll With The Punches

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Get a Team. Welcome back to Roll with the Punches podcast.
I'm your host, Tiv Cook, and today we are speaking
to none other than doctor Paul Conti for the second time.
We spoke to him three years ago on the show,
and I was every bit as excited to have him
back on for this conversation as I was that first

(00:24):
time around. If you don't know doctor Paul Conti, you should.
He's a Stanford trained psychiatrist to form a faculty at
Harvard Medical School, and he's actually a leading expert on trauma,
mental health, and human behavior. His book is called Trauma
the Invisible Epidemic. And he's a pretty big deal, is

(00:44):
what I'm saying. He's a pretty big deal. He's also
an incredibly down to earth and wonderful human. I love
having the opportunity to converse with him. So thanks again
Paul for coming on the show. We're talking about all
things mental health and and wellbeing and identity and you're
gonna love this chat. I hope you do. Let me

(01:06):
know if you do, of course, and don't forget to
hit follow on the app that you are listening to
this episode. If you don't already follow the show, that
will be a thank you very much, enjoy. Nobody wants
to go to court, and don't. My friends at test
Art Family Lawyers know that they offer all forms of
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(01:30):
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(01:55):
Doctor Paul Conti, welcome back to Roll with the Punchers.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Thank you, thank you for having me back.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
It's a pleasure, It's beyond a pleasure. And I don't
know if it feels the same to you, but it
feels like six minutes since we last spoke.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Right, A lot has happened in between, but it feels
like a very brief period of time.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
I do agree with that.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, yeah. Is that because I'm getting old? Or is
that because I keep talking about this time vortex that
happened after the pandemic where my relationship with time just
changed and it's like it's kept going, but something hit
pause in my mind and I'm like, oh, it's must
be twenty twenty one. It's like, no, it's twenty twenty
five now.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Right, right right.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
I think our perception of time and its passage is
so impacted by emotion, which could be an underlying kind
of emotional tone within.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Us, or it could be acute.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
No, it rises of sometimes good but often distressing emotion,
and it can seem like a lot of time has passed.
If we think from one event to another, how difficult
a period of time has spelt, it can feel like
a lot of time. But then when we compress like
time as well, it's like a string, right, It's not
like a rod, It's.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Like a string.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
And then you can kind of take both piece of
a nounsments like, oh, this seems only a few minutes apart, right,
And that's just how our brains work and how our
brains are impacted by the emotion within it.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Over the last five or four or four to five
years since I have spoken to you, is have have
you changed your I guess ideas on anything major? Has there? Like,
do you have a different perspective on anything in particular
over this time?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (03:39):
I think my perspective has evolved. I mean, I certainly
believe that much of what ails us in the moment
and also going forward is rooted in trauma.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
But I've looked sort of broadly out at what does
that mean?

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Right? Not just in terms of okay, can we prevent trauma?
Can we help heal people heal from trauma? But the
question of how do we understand ourselves?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Right?

Speaker 3 (04:03):
How do we understand what's going on in our minds
and be able to build better mental health? Right? The
idea that we think about this with our bodies, right,
Like we know that our bodies have different parts that
we know there's part long kidneys, muscles, blood vessels, we
know kind of how it all fits together, and that

(04:23):
there's an endocrine system, and we think about all of
these things and we think about them from some general
theory of hey, I want to be healthy, right, I
want to be healthy because I'll live a better life today,
and it also prepares me to hopefully live a good
life tomorrow. Then it prepares me in case they're challenges
right that at some point in time are going to
come my way. So we have sort of a theory

(04:45):
of physical health, like, hey, understand our bodies understand diet, exercise,
how to take care of ourselves, get the right help
if we need it, and then we're shepherding ourselves forward.
But I think we're only shepherding part of ourselves forward.
That we need the same around our mental health. So
instead of mental health seeming like, oh, that's a taboo subject,
you isn't not a sting oh mental health, right, we

(05:07):
don't think that with physical health.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Like physical health, let's talk about that, right, we all
want to be healthy.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
We need to do the same for mental health because
that helps prevent you know what ails us, which often
is trauma. It helps us recover from difficult things, and
it gives us an empowerment that we don't have now.
You know, it's like trying try to take care of
a bicycle and they're taking care of one wheel and
not the other. No, one is a flat and it's
falling apart, and the other really looks looks great. We're

(05:33):
paying a lot of attention to it, you know, the
whole vehicle. Then the bike isn't going to get very far.
And I see more and more than the absence of
this that there's not a theory of like how do
we work right and not just a theory, but a
set of a set of principles that we can understand
and ground to, and it can see like, I understand
the attributes components of my mental health and I'm going

(05:55):
to build better mental health for the future.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
We can do that, and.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
The primary change in me is coming to a place
of feeling that we need to be able to articulate
that and to say, like, here, you can look at
mental health like physical health, no stigma attached to either.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Now we're taking care of the whole person.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Talk to me about trauma literacy. Do people have trauma literacy?
What is people's relationship It's a blanket term because everyone's different,
But what do you think overall people's relationship with the
idea of trauma is.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
I think there's so much fear around trauma, just as
the stigma around mental health and mental health issues as
has continued on through the decades. Maybe say, okay, if
there are ways in which it's better than it was
thirty years ago. I'm sure there's some ways it was
that it is better, but it is essentially unchanged, and

(06:49):
that we carry forward a stigma, and stigma brings with
it mystery and fear. So trauma is just a scary thing.
What does it do to us? How does it change us?
What happens when a person has trauma? What might have
happened to me from trauma? What could happen to me?
And then we become very afraid. And you know, fear
isn't good for us. Everything that's that's difficult or stressful

(07:12):
in our in our lives, that fear is exacerbated, the
fear jumps up to high levels if we just don't
have an understanding, right and and this is the problem
that we don't have an understanding of all our brains
work and how we're interfacing with the world, let alone
how trauma has affected us or could affect us.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
And then I think what happens is we just try
away from it.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Right we then we're scared of it and it's a
lot easier to focus on the things we think we
can understand and the things that don't come with stigma.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
So physical health is a great example.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
We should be focusing on physical health, but it's so
attractive to focus on physical health instead of mental health
because we don't we don't have a way of understanding
our mental health. And I think that then we don't
have trauma literacy we have. We lead with fear, and
that is not helping us. As the world becomes more
difficult and more fragmented, that we become more afraid because

(08:05):
we don't understand ourselves and understand the components of our
mental health as we do.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
The components of our physical health. So I don't think
we've achieved averting stigma for mental health or literacy around
mental health topics, certainly including trauma.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
I always felt, I know it was true for myself,
the relationship with finding something in the physical realm to
throw myself into and work on. That opened the door,
the trauma door for me. That brought me into my body.
My sport was boxing, if you don't remember, So it
brought me into my body, It brought me into feeling sensation.

(08:47):
It brought me into seeing the version of Tiff underneath
the facade and the mask that Tiff had built to present.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
To the world.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
And with that, I felt like an open updoors in
my mind, taking me back to things I'd suppressed and
asking me to lean into them. What's the difference between
people that lean into or avoid like I do. Some
people attempt to get physically fit, and then some of

(09:18):
those doorways might crack open, and that's what makes people
get out.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, Okay, it takes a lot of courage to do that,
because what you were doing is saying, I'll shine the
light around places I don't really understand and I don't
really know what I'm going to find there. Right that
they that they're they're things to pay attention to and
things that have happened, and you know, ways that I
have experienced life that have taken a call on me,
and I'm going to look at that right like you

(09:46):
had if I'm understanding correctly, and a feeling of I'm
not going to take care of neck on down unless
I'm taking care of neck on up too, right, and
I'm a whole person, and like, that's great that you
have done that, But it takes it takes.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
A lot of courage.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
And sometimes you know, there can be a natural kind
of genetic predisposition to go places that are mysterious and
maybe scary, but more often than not, our response to
that is to step away from right, is to maybe
double down on the physical health, because you know, that's
something to pay attention to that I can control and
make better. And I'm not going to go looking up

(10:21):
here because I don't know what I'm going to find
or know. The thought is, sometimes if we shine the
light there, what we're going to see is going to
be so scary and we won't be able to handle it,
and we just become afraid. And I think that's the
normal human response across the population if we are not empowered,
empowered with knowledge. There is a way of looking at

(10:41):
your brain, your brain function, so to speak. Right, you
can look at it and understand it.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
What is the.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Structure of the self that I have up here? What
is the function of the self that I have up here?
What are the components of it? How can I understand it?
How can I use a process to look at myself
and understand what is not the way I want it
to be, or what is keeping me down, or what
is fueling the depression in me, whatever it may be,
what is causing the fear is and the panic. If

(11:09):
we have a way of doing that, then we are
much more likely as a population to do it than
we are if it remains a stigmatized black box. And
that's why, No, you see not all the time, but
it's not uncommon to see people who they are doing
the physical health things so well, they are paying deep
attention to their physical health, but you can look and

(11:30):
see that that's not going to be okay without paying
attention to their mental health, right that that person that
can still be in a very very difficult place because
they're paying attention to what they think they can understand
and control. And it's I think our job people in
mental health, people in the field, or bringing word of this.
You can understand what's up here as much as you

(11:52):
can understand this. We don't have to be afraid of
our physical health because we have kidneys. We can understand
our kidneys filter things we want to keep them healthy.
We don't have to be a kidney doctor to understand
enough about the kidney to integrate it into our physical health.
But the brain has remained a black box, and therefore
our mental health has remained a black box, so we

(12:12):
don't think of it as something that we can understand
and build and hence the whole idea. If you say
mental health, there's a very different response than if you
say physical health, and we need to change that or
we're not going to get healthier as a population, and
we're facing really difficult situations in the world around us

(12:33):
where we need to be healthier as a population.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
If people have if people have battled with their own
mental health for a long period of time and their
relationship with that is this, like this is me, this
is what I have, This is what I struggle with.
If it's depression or it's anxiety or whatever the if
it's this clinical thing that they're late too. Is there

(13:02):
a difference between.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Like what.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Mental well being like mental health? What is there a
relationship that we need to maybe reimagine or understand differently.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
I think so.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
I think the idea that we can build good mental health, right,
or we can at least build significantly better mental health
is so important because what happens a lot is the
person then identifies with the mental health challenge, like I'm
a depressed.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Person, right, That's just it's how I am.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
Or I'm a person who's so antiates I can't you know,
just can't make it in relationships, you know, Like this
happens a lot, right, I have so much distressed in me,
or it's hard to relate to people and I can
never get ahead at work. There just could be an acception,
an acceptance even when a person isn't built to just
accept negative things. So why would someone who's built to strive,
not built to just accepting that are negative embrace Yep,

(14:01):
that's that's me and it's not going to get any better.
It's it's because the thought is there isn't a pathway forward.
There's not a steps to take to then to understand
and change the mental health of Like, is it really
true that I am a depressed person? I mean, maybe
that person is is inseparable from depression, but that is very,
very very rare. Right, most of the time people who

(14:24):
will say that, who will embrace I am whatever the
mental health challenges is doing that in the context of
thinking I can't make this any better. Right, There's no
way to understand this and make this better. So okay,
we just identify as and who wants to say, you
know what, I'm depressed a lot and it's really impacting
my life and I want it to be different. Without
any route to making that better, we generally don't do that.

(14:48):
We need the empowerment of knowledge in order to tell
us go look at what is in your what in
your life is not the way that you want it
to be. Look at whatever it is. Is it mood,
is it how you're interacting with people?

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Is it energy?

Speaker 3 (15:02):
Is it enthusiasm for things? Is it avoidance? Is it relationships?
People want a job, changes?

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Whatever?

Speaker 3 (15:07):
It may be right to look at that, and it'
say like, why is it that I might I would
accept or I could accept that I can't do better
or be better. It's my life, right, I'm accepting something that,
were it to change, could make my life dramatically better. Right,
why would I not go about and go try and

(15:28):
do that? And I think there is an answer to
that is there has to be a route or someone.
You can't put someone in the middle of, you know,
in a clearing in the middle of a thick jungle
and say, well, figure out where to go. There's no
path forward, so it's scary to go into the jungle.
The person's likely to stay in the clearing, right, at
least they are in the clearing, as opposed to that
going into the thick, dangerous jungle when you don't know

(15:48):
where to go. And and I think it is the
job of the field that the mental health field has
failed to identify and educate people that here's how you
keep good mental health I mean the physical health field
has done a whole lot better job, right saying on
better physical health, if you want to lose weight, feel better,
have a better diet, I says, we can do that

(16:09):
for you.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Right, you want more muscle strength, like, let's understand how
to do that. But my field has not done that.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
In mental health, it has become obsessed with pathologizing. So
we have a book this big with you know, a blether.
I've done diagnoses for each of us.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Right, and no way to understand it.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Why is what people call the Bible or religious book
of mental health a taxonomy of pathology?

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Right?

Speaker 3 (16:33):
This makes no sense. The field has not shown people
like you can understand yourself and build better mental health,
and that is absolutely my thesistent. That's why people come
to care and get better, or people follow some out
of understanding and can help themselves. So, yes, we can
understand ourselves and we can be we can do better,
we can be better. The field hasn't guided us there,

(16:55):
so I think it it follows.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
The practitioners live in the fieldhere.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
People think I have something to say about this that
can really help people change their lives, and I do
believe that.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
So thinking about the idea of pathologizing and getting allowing
people to have an understanding or a label to lean on,
a metric to go this is what's going on. We've
got a set of things that we can, you know,
identify with, and obviously different therapists. There's good ones, there's

(17:27):
bad ones, there's bethowa of different approaches. Do you think
that the that the diagnosing and labeling is falls into
being a positive thing for the most part or more
of an anchor for a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
I think it's a negative.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
I think it is far more an anchor than it
is a positive, far more because it gives a way
of labeling yourself like, oh, I'm this.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Like how many people have said, well, I'm bipolar. I
can't well, what does that mean?

Speaker 3 (17:57):
I mean?

Speaker 2 (17:58):
I am bipolar.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
We think about this statement of identifying oneself with a diagnosis,
like people don't say I am high blood pressure. They
don't say that, by and large, if you have high
blood pressure. The routes of figuring that out and not
being high blood pressure. Okay, so we don't identify with
the diagnosi and diagnosis is something you could get that
then you.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Want to understand and work your way through.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
So you don't have to have it anymore, but violize
that is not the case in mental health, where we
are so interested in just labeling the pathology as opposed
to helping people understand themselves even you know the concept
of this, there's a structure of self and a function
of self, and I do. I'm writing a book that's
that in spring of next year, will come out about

(18:40):
all of this. It's material from the series I did
on the Huberman Lab podcast last September, and it was
about let's try and understand ourselves and understand our mental health.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
And we got a lot of.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
Concepts out in that series of podcasts that then have
been moved forward on subsequent podcasts or in writing and
writings that really open up this concept of like we
can understand our mental health and we can have a
template a way of looking at it and saying, this
is what is going on in people, right, so I
can look at what is going on in me. So

(19:13):
just one example being the unconscious mind. The vast majority
of what goes on inside of us is in the
unconscious mind, but we.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
Don't think about that.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
You know, how is it that like a million neurons
can fire, and one thought or idea can come.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Up to the surface. So what's going on inside of
us that determines.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
How those million neurons fire and what it kicks up
to the surface, which could be you know, maybe I
could do that, or that'll never work, you.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Know, I'll fail? Like what is it the difference?

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Like these are constructs of self that arise from our minds.
And even this first step of the structure of self,
the unconscious mind, we don't think about, let alone the
things that are built.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
On top of it. Of what is our defensive structure? Right?

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Well?

Speaker 2 (19:58):
The function of ourself?

Speaker 3 (19:59):
How do I defense mechanisms work when they're in action?
What's stealing it? What do I notice from inside and
out of myself? Once we start putting all this together,
then there is a model understand this is how my
mental health works, and I can make it better, just
like there is a model for a physical health. This
is how the body works, and you can understand that
and make it better.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
I love this. I'm gonna I'm going to lean on
your professional I'm going to ask for some professional advice here.
It's very cheeky on me, isn't it. I started last
year running a group ten week mindset coaching facilitation. So
I call myself facilitator, not a coach. I'm like all
of the knowledge and resources that I feel like I
have to point people to in the conversations I've had

(20:43):
are a cool place to have conversations, like how to
understand ourselves. So the things and some of the things
that for me I think are really important that I
like to share is that balance of personal responsibility over
us and our relationship with our circumstances couple with self
compassion in the middle of that. How do I own this?

(21:03):
How do I take responsibility for the things that go
on or have gone on, but also exercise the correct
level of self compassion for the version of me that
was in the middle of that, that didn't that didn't
know better or couldn't do better in that circumstance. Then,
so we look at how we talk to ourselves, our circumstances,
how we treat our relationship with our body, our relationship

(21:27):
and communication with other people, our environment, what influences me,
what environment do I put myself in? All of these things,
and very much not having not looking for the answer,
like the idea that there's a lot of answers and
what I share might and be the answer for you,

(21:49):
But there might be some great avenues to look into
and be open minded about. So that's kind of a
bit of an overview. If there was one really important
thing that you would say, you need a week that
focuses on this for these people, what would that be.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
Well, I think you're talking about compassionate curiosity right that
you're coming together and you're trying to help people look
at themselves, understand themselves, be compassionate to themselves and be
curious like why did I do that that wreck that.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
Job, or that really cost something bad? And well, what happened?
Said thoughts and ideas like that.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
We can look at ourselves with compassion, whether we think
we're responsible for something bad that's happened or not. We
can look at all that and try and put together
a story and a narrative of how did I get here?

Speaker 2 (22:36):
What has happened to bring me here?

Speaker 3 (22:38):
If I can look at myself through the lens of
compassion and be really curious, I want to understand myself more.
The word it brings us to is to take responsibility
for ourselves in the present right, I mean, I'm not
responsible for myself in the past. It's already happened, right,
so whether I was responsible or wasn't responsible, it leads
me here. But we we do so much of lamenting

(23:01):
the past, trying to repair the past, or reading the
tea leaves of the past. You know it has it worked,
so it won't work again, and we end up with
fantasies and myths and so much it just misleads us
as opposed to what I think is the simple goodness
of like here, I am now, and I want to
do the best I can right now, and it's going
to really help me to understand myself as best I can.

(23:23):
What it is not going to help me is to
make false predictions from the past to the present, or
to beat up on myself or the things in the past,
or to decide I was the one who was okay
and everyone else was wrong and no one will ever
do right by me. Like we try and work out
so much of our past in the present, and then
we become not surprisingly not responsible for ourselves in the present.

(23:43):
And it's very hard, right, It's hard to let go
of things when people feel like they were really really
hurt by someone or really hurt by the way they've
been treated, say over and over and over again, like go.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
On the one hand, we want to say, of course,
we want to honor that.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
We want to honor what has going on in a
person and understand where is that lodged in their brain?

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Right is that lodge somewhere?

Speaker 3 (24:06):
And their coping skills and how they're approaching with like,
let's understand all of that and honor all of that.
But also we have to put it in its place,
which is in the past, and say, Okay, what am
I going to choose now? So if the last eleven
times I tried to find a good relationship or a
new job or whatever it is did not go well,
then it's my responsibility to look at why, because my

(24:29):
life is going to go well unless I make a
twelfth that effort, right, twelfth attempt, And I don't want
the twelfth to be like the first eleven. By what
I'd like to do is understand so that I can see, Okay,
what has happened, right, no harm, no foul. I'm not
looking at it to beat myself up. I just want
to understand so I can do the best I can now.
And it's so hard for us to do that, especially

(24:50):
without a template that says, let's.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Help you understand how your mind works.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
I mean, as part of what you're doing is letting
people be in a place, in a setting where they
can be curious about themselves. They could talk about themselves,
they could talk about certain they feel bad about it,
ashamed about her, whatever the case may be, and.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
They can orient Okay, what does that mean? What might
you do for that? And now how do you point
yourself forward?

Speaker 3 (25:12):
And I think the mental health field does not do that,
and there needs to be a shift where we help
people do that.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
If there's pathology, we'll.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
Label it when you put a number on it, or
we can treat it, but how about looking at what
the constituents are the components of our mental health and
how we can understand them in ourselves and build better.
That's the forward looking part of it, and I think
that's what you what you're doing the right You're helping
people look forward when there's a lot to weigh them
down from.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
The path.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
I always talk about my relationship with the mind slash
brain being like almost describe it like a naughty puppy,
a girl like we have to understand because we it's
like I have a body, but I'm not my body.
And then there's this part of our mind that's doing
its own thinking and decision making and behaviors. It's acting
them out, which confuses is because then we take ownership

(26:01):
and go, I'm so stupid because I did that again
when I said I wouldn't, but I'd always talk about
it like training in or if you bring a new
puppy home and you don't teach it where to we
a thousand times it was just we on the carpet
for the rest of its life, and it's like your
mind is kind of the same thing. You have to
go up weed on the carpet, Hey don't we there?
Go away on the out on the grass. And yeah,

(26:25):
I feel like for myself somehow, developing that kind of
metaphor in my mind about how we think has been
really helpful about giving me separation between going, oh, look,
I've told myself a story and I've I used to
think I'm such a bloody masterful storyteller that I always
have this great, feel good story about the reason I

(26:48):
do particular things, and then you know, like, for example,
we went into lockdown, I started a podcast. I was
fucking killing it right, And I'm like, oh, my businesses
a shutdown. This is really bad thing. But I hear
I am killing it at something new? Is this a
coping mechanism? Because I do great when there's chaos. And
I spent a long time waiting for me to just

(27:11):
let the podcast fall on its backside, And I was
like is this and like, am I going to wake
up tomorrow and be like, all right, that's do unseea
And that didn't happen. But I just knew enough about
my storytelling ability to be like, yeah, you'll be a
superhero for five minutes and then you crash.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
And I think there's a lot. There's a lot to that.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
I mean, certain person does very well under a lot
of stress and pressure. Is you just do what there
is to be done. You don't have time to stop
and think and second guess. And what happens if I
feel you know, sometimes with pressure it can be I mean,
it can do negative things, but it can also be
a very good thing where you just go out and

(27:52):
do what there.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Is to do, right.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
I think this a lot where I'll use this example
when when person said I can't do any thing, I
can't function, you know, I'm so depressed or I'm a
loser on this. I'm that it's nothing to offer. May
hear a lot of this, and then I'll think of
this idea of you know what if that person I'll ask,
I'll ask the person, I'll why.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
This conversation of Now.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
I used to imagine a thought experiment that that that
person shows up lands in a refugee camp, say, and
that person isn't a refugee, but he's witnessing Oh my goodness, like,
look at what is going on.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
You're right there, people who are desperate.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
There's not a food like you imagine the scenarios it
can happen, right, And I think that that would go away.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
The thoughts of oh I'm not this, I'm not that.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
And you see that in real life situations, that person
doesn't think they can do anything. You come back two
days later and they've done nothing but work on other
people's behalf because the situation is dire and they're needed,
and they feel a sent ofm like I can make
a difference here, and then they can spring into action.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
And but we don't get those situations.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
We can't wave a magic wand and have the person
show up where it's chaos and other people are in need. Right,
But if we if we use that thought experiment, many
people did they understand we see inside and them oh
of course, Well, then they could rise to the occasion.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
You see that a lot because they don't have time
to second.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
Guess themselves and be so self Consciousome, Okay, what I
don't want to make a mistake?

Speaker 2 (29:10):
What am I going to do? Wrong? Am I going
to do that thing I did before? Right? We get
me very very self conscious. Let alone. If there's a
mental health issue in there.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
We're depressed, we're anxious, are having panic attacks, I mean, insomnia.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
It becomes so hard to have faith.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
And confidence in ourselves to go to just do it
in that sense, like I want to make my life better, Let.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Me do that. Let me say what can I do differently? Right?
Let me think about what's going on when things have
been going well? What can I change? Who can I
talk to? You know, we don't do that. We could
kind of tend to stop and then feel afraid.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
And if we feel ashamed to ourselves and afraid, what
we don't want is more fear and more shame, and
then we just get shut down and we're shut down
because the system doesn't the systems around us don't help us, right,
So people are isolated and with the problems inside them,
and they can kind of spin down and stay in

(30:03):
one place metaphorically and sometimes actually, and this is just
very very.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Bad for us.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
And it doesn't have to be this way, right, It
can be very it could be different, It can be
very very different.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
I think everything it's true in my life, like everything
that is. I realized everything that was the hardest gave
birth to everything I cherished the most. So everything that
was horrific was brilliant because I look at what I
most value and the things that mean the most to me,

(30:36):
and they are born from the adversities that I went through.
They were born from that. And even the things that
I've chosen to do, things like speaking in public, filled
me with terror. And I used to used to be like,
I can't wait to not feel like this. I can't
wait to feel good enough that I won't feel this
sickening level of nerves. But then after I do the

(30:58):
thing and I feel this, it's incredible. Other side of that,
I'm like, oh, this is hardwired to me. This is
actually not a case of getting good enough if I
didn't feel like that, I wouldn't want to do this.
There'd be no drive because I wouldn't get to this
feeling of elation at the end. But simultaneously, you know,
like I think having choice, realizing that when that happened

(31:21):
to me in business, I went, oh, very limited choices.
Right now, the one choice I can make is the
attitude I'll have. So I'll pretend that the worst scenario
has played out, and I'll play that game, and I'll
get busy working on things that can't be taken away,
like material or monetary things. But once I built myself

(31:42):
away from that old things are the worst they could
possibly be all of a sudden, then you have choice.
And when there's choices and decisions all of a sudden,
there's a cost. There's something to lose. And I recognized
that I was. I felt more free and more comfortable
working from a place of well, can't get worse in this,

(32:02):
Let's get busy. Then all we didn't fall completely off
the cliff, So now what if it.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
Can't get worse than this, then your efforts are going
to make things better. And that's very different than if
things are going well. And then we think well, how
could I fail?

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Right?

Speaker 3 (32:21):
I mean a lot of that is natural, you know,
in us, but if we understand it, we can resist it.
If I build something for myself and now I have choice,
you know, that's really good. It shows I built something
for myself and now I have choices. Right, But there's
also the pressure that comes along with the fear of
failure and what those choices bring, and choices can bring risks.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
So you know, the choice is great. We want to
be aware.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
That we have choice, but we want to be healthy
enough that we can handle choice right, that we can
look at choice and not feel that is overwhelming to us,
or that the choice that can.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Fall back into the same powers. I'm not going to
make it. I'm going to same place I was when
I get back on my feet again.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
Right, So choice can be so so brightening and part
of a huge problem in our societies. Are in sort
of Western thoughts it we're so over reductionists. We wanted
we wanted to distill everything down to one thing, right,
like do you like chocolate or vanilla? Or high school?
Like it's like you can't be the boat or can't
you know what? Some days I don't like either.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Some days. I love both, Like we always we have
to distill down to how do you feel about that?

Speaker 3 (33:29):
Right? And I think that is so limiting because that's
not our human state. Our natural human state is to
feel conflicted and pulled both ways, Like how do you
feel about that having made some success in having some opportunity?
The answer is both elated and incredibly frightened, right.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
So you know, I mean that's been the case in
my life. I'm both like really really happy about that
and I'm scared of it.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
And it's not strange, and I don't reduce that down
to one thing, and I feel like there's so much pressure,
But how do you think about it?

Speaker 2 (33:58):
How do you feel?

Speaker 3 (33:58):
Then it gets inside of our hands as opposed to
just acknowledging that we feel so many different ways about
so many different things, and that, okay.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Also leans into our identity, doesn't it. I just late
last year I went to the Himalayas on this retreat,
and the feeling I had it was a fairly last
minute ish decision to jump on this experience, And in
the few weeks lead up, I was like, I don't
really know what this whole holiday's holiday retreat's going to

(34:31):
be like, but what I'm really looking forward to is
getting away from all of the influences that are reflecting
a certain identity on me of Tiff the boxer, Tiff
the person in the gym, Tiff the podcaster, and I
just want to get away from all of the people
and familiarity and see who's left seat and reconnect with

(34:54):
all the parts of me that aren't those parts that
have just ran the show for the last few years, right.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
Right, Absolutely, we get lost in role performance, right, which
is what role are you playing? And it's like, okay,
well you are that role and you are the podcaster,
you're in the gym, you are the boxer, right, And
then we get so many roles coming at us.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
I am this, I am that, And it's almost.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
As if we have a dial and we're just shifting
the self and the self is being this now the
self is being that.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
And that can be.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
Very confusing, you know, very confusing, and it can lead
us away from feeling an identity of self, which is
probably why when you turn, when you get.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Out of the roles, what you're just left with is you, right.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
And then you might think something like, you know what,
I'm a curious person who really is interested in learning
and doing new things, like oh, okay, that's the you
that flows through all of the roles, right, I'm a
perseverant person who decides upon something and I'll keep going
forward and I'll try and learn. And then even if
they're obstacles, they're going to try and because that's why.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
And then we start thinking about.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Who actually we are instead of being being defined by
our roles, because even when the roles are going well,
that is difficult, let alone. If we're defining ourselves by
our role and wonderful role isn't going well, the job
isn't going well, and that person might lose the job.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Then you know, people, how many times we hear people
paying with a.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
Broad brush like that's it, I'm done, or I'm the
worst person painting with a broad brush.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
I'll never make it, I'm a failure to my family,
whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Because if we're so lost in the roles, then we
don't see the whole person that we are, right and
if we don't understand how our minds work and how
and don't build good mental health, then we will fall
back on something or rather that's not healthy, like oh,
I'm these roles, right, or I'm that role. Well, now
we're really at risk because what if that role changes

(36:47):
or goes away, or something happens in it. So it's
bad enough when they're good role Rob Burns is going well,
and we identify with our roles. But a lot of
times what happens in societies, we identify ourselves by the
roles we think we're faitailing at or we're.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Not good enough at.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
And this is why you mentioned earlier that you're when
you're facilitating, you're trying to get people to talk about, Hey,
what's yourself talk inside? Right? I mean, I think very
little could be more important right after that to understand
what is going on inside the person in quiet moments.
And a lot of times it's fear of not being
good enough, or it's it's some negative tape that's running

(37:24):
over and over again. You're never gonna make it, You're
not gonna be good enough for whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
That person's gonna dump it, you're gonna get fired, you're
gonna fail at that over and over.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
You're a loser. Look what happened then or here? I mean,
the things that go on inside of our minds are very,
very striking, Right, what goes on inside of us and
to have with compassion and curiosity? Why is that going
on inside of it? They say, No one comes out
of the womb and thinks I'm a loser. I'm never
gonna be okay, Right, this comes into us from life

(37:54):
experiences that we have, and then we reinforce it over
and over again.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
You get a puppy example, I think is a very
good one.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
The example that I use is like you imagine if
we just picked a random word and said it a
thousand times, but it's going to be in our head.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
It's going to be on our head tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
If you said it five thousand times, give me in
our head two days from now.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Right.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
So what happens is we reinforce this negativity to us,
to ourselves so much, and then we just want to
change it. Oh, I did that thing again, or I
said that thing again so much times. Like, of course
you've said it yourself one hundred thousand times, right, you're
not going to not say it again. Right. That the
path to health is a process, and it's a process
that occurs over time. And it's okay that this negative

(38:37):
self talk is in your head and you can't get
it out.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
It has to be okay.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
Because we can't just get it out. What we can
do is understand it and take away the ways in
which it is threatening. Now, the fact that a person
maybe said is many times people, over and over, you're
saying you're a loser.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
But the only threat to that is that you may
believe it. Right, there's no intrinsic press. It's something who
say to yourself.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
Right, then you say it so many times that you're
not going to just stop having it come to your mind.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
But can you challenge it and say, why is it right?

Speaker 3 (39:07):
The Little Devil's advocates I said, we want to be
the judge right, and then have.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
The two sides like why is it? Why do I
say that to myself? Is it really true? Right? Is
there anything in my life it's not that?

Speaker 3 (39:17):
And often people my goodness of course that I love people,
they love me.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
I do this good thing and that good thing.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
But there then what can happen is they drop something
or something bad happens like oh I'm a loser, comes
back so strong like this is all normal because we
reinforcing so strongly inside of our brains. But we can
start to detach from that, like I am not what
I am thinking, right, I am not what I am feeling. Right.
It may be that what I'm thinking is really congruated

(39:43):
bits with who I am, or it may not at all, right,
and what I'm feeling now if I make a mistake
or make an error and you know, feel embarrassed and
like I mean, I can absolutely feel like a complete loser, right,
so it stop?

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Okay, wa wait a second, you.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
Know, like you know, that's how you feel because something
happened that's embarrassing, Like it's you know, this is okay.
We're not what we think, We're not what we feel
in any given moment. We have to have curiosity about
ourselves and understand ourselves and this is who I am.
So for example, it could be I'm a person who
tries very hard and I do well when it's just interpersonal.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
I'm being kind to someone, they'll be good back to.
That goes well.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
But then there are other situations where I have more trouble,
like maybe work situations where there could be more conflict,
and I have more trouble with that, and I want
to look at the things that are good in me,
and I want to work on.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
The things that aren't the way I want them to be.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
But think about how reasonable and measured that is, as
opposed to the reflex of like, I'm a loser?

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Why is that?

Speaker 3 (40:38):
And you learn they're identifying with this one thing. You know,
I don't do well with conflict at work? Like, okay,
you don't do well with conflict at work? That's what
that means. Right Now, let's look more how do you
deal with conflict other places? Now we are bringing curiosity
instead of I'm a loser, and I can tell you why,
But even the why is an afterthought, right. We need
to be curious about ourselves, challenge about ourselves, and realize

(41:02):
we can change. I see the process of change through
mental health work all the time, and I have for
almost a quarter of a century. Now it does happen,
and it happens a lot, and it can be robust
and joyous, but it has to be framed in a
certain way of like what does it take to get there?
How long does it take to get there? Like what
does it mean when you have a setback? Like okay,

(41:22):
they're setbacks all the time. When people have diabetes and
it's difficult to control one's blood sugar. Very oftentimes they're setbacks.
A person ends up in an emergency room. You know,
it didn't go well. We end up in a hospital
and we look at that. We don't tell the person
it's the third time you come in because you haven't
mattered your blood sugar.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Like, this is it. We're done now.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
We don't do that with physical health, but we do
it with mental health. I made that mistake again. I'm
done with Like, you know, we paint with such a
broad brush about ourselves, and the mental health system puts
people in buckets, right and labels people in ways that
don't allow for that process of change. Is it kind
of medically too, when a person comes in and they

(42:02):
just get the butcherers.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Where they need to be, send them back out, that's
how they come back in again. Right.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
But if we can say, ok, you're important, you're worth
taking care of, Let's look at how you ended up
here again because like you can do better for you.
Let's talk about that, and let's say you have that conversation.
A person comes in again, let's have that conversation again. Right,
But we tend not to do that with mental health
topics either. Really helping resources through the mental health field.

(42:29):
And I don't mean there aren't great people practicing in
It's just a field in general.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
It isn't doing that, and we tend not to do
it ourselves either.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
We tend to paint with a very, very broad brush
about ourselves when things aren't the way we want them
to be, and that we're scared of our mental health.
And now we're doing that. Whole thing we started talking
about is being afraid, being ashamed, avoiding, And now I
think I am I am depression, or I am some
label somebody put on me years ago, or some label
I put on me that I've repeated to myself ten

(42:59):
thousand times.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
It's not true.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Yeah, I remember looking at so Gem facilitated the retreat,
and like, I find it really interesting to lead conversations,
take on understandings, develop beliefs and perspectives, but also like
that naughty puppy at times, I'm like, you can still

(43:23):
sit in the middle of that and then struggle to
notice what you're what some underlying thinking or behavior is,
or be really challenged at shifting it. So I remember
sitting on the mountain and hearing Jem who he's on
my podcast once a month so I know quite heard
to call a lot of stories. Who's sitting on the
mountain and he took his guitar and he's singing. And

(43:45):
his fiance now fiance, proposed that She said, oh, did
you tell them that he was in an album? Like
he was in a band and they used to play
him on Triple J. And I was like, oh really,
And I just thought he's been He was on a
few TV shows, so he was an actor, then he
was a musician. At one stage he went overseas and

(44:06):
he traveled under the guise of almost being a homeless
person in India. He wanted to take him wanted to
have no possessions and just live on the street and
be just find himself. And I just and I kind
of flicked through that in my mental filing cabinet, and
when here I am with some bound attachment to this
current identity. I only started boxing a decade ago. That's

(44:30):
twenty five percent of my life. For seventy five percent
of my life, I've not been a boxer. I've been
a podcaster for ten percent. For ninety percent of my life,
I wasn't doing this skill set. And yet sometimes that
stuckness of this is what I am and who I am?
It's like it's not at all, And it's curious to
me that we can still with all the knowledge we

(44:53):
have to find. So for me, it's looking at what's
my ecosystem? Do I get out and have perspective and
I have and good conversations. Who's influencing me, who's challenging me?
Am I challenging myself? What do I need in order
to maintain a healthy perspective of what I'm thinking and

(45:13):
believing along the way? Great?

Speaker 3 (45:17):
And how do you knit it together into a conception
of self that includes all of those things? And you
can say, well, I'm you know what I have had
for the whole time I've been here is I'm perseverant,
I'm willing to take chances. Right if you knock me down,
I'm going to get back up. Right of it that
goes through your life, Right, so you can look and say, okay,
that's how a person ends up at boxing ten years ago,

(45:39):
right at podcasting. There are truths about you that those
facts informed, right, But what happens we'd end up taking
facts about ourselves or others and making the definition so
so people may or you in your own mind some
of the time. We've been a lot of time. May
want to reduce yourself down to that identity. I'm a boxer,
I'm a podcaster. It'say, No, you're doing those things now

(46:03):
and they're really important pieces of data and information about
who you are.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
How does that fit into the broader picture? You know,
what is the story? So I'm so.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Just so strongly in favor of life narratives, right of
stopping and thinking about our So sometimes people.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Never do this, like we never do it.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
You can talk to somebody's ninety years old and as
a very disjointed sense of something. More often than not,
this can be the case because they haven't mitted their
life together, right, They haven't thought about like.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Oh, what is this trajectory of me and the us?

Speaker 3 (46:35):
We never do that, and there's a call to do
that so we understand ourselves better. Where as happy and
healthy as we can be, there's certainly a call.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
To do that. If we're looking at things in ourselves
that aren't.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
The way that we want them to be, right to
look at it, Okay, look when did that happen or
come did? I always have a tendency to that, right,
like someone who wants to over control and then when
they can't avoid.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Have I always been like that? Is that something that's
kind of in me?

Speaker 3 (47:01):
That predisposition because I could understand that and work against it.
Maybe I wasn't like that, but a couple of life
experiences where I couldn't control things that I felt very
very hard to control, maybe some situation or could even
be like violence in a home, or could be any
prejudice or whatever it may be that.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
I wanted that to be different.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
I wanted it to be different, couldn't control it, and
then I just had to get away from it. And
now is that person repeating that pattern where if they understood,
like it made sense that I did that that one right,
But that's not defining who I am. Maybe the more
defining characteristic of that story I'm making up could be resilience. Right,
the things I couldn't control so I left and had

(47:41):
to opt out, and then I started again. It's not
that I'm a person who I want to control things.
I want to control things, and then if I can't
have my way, I leave, Like maybe I've stereotyped myself
that way. Then the story of my life is actually
some difficult things happened to me, and I'm pretty resilient,
and I can change, including now that if I don't
want to be following pattern that ruins my relationships or

(48:02):
ruins my employment, or it gets in the way of
nownfunctioning in my family, I can look at that and
I can make change. I'm not a person who does
this acts like that, right, I can understand myself. What
are the underlying qualities in me? And do I want
to change them? Maybe I am.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Over controlling and it comes from trauma. Say okay, that
doesn't mean it's okay that I'm over controlling. Right, it's
negative in my life now. So I can look and.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
See if I can understand how did I get to
this place, and I can say, okay, this doesn't serve
me now, So I want to change this step. And
it's not going to change just because I want it
to change, right, It would change if I understand myself
as best like and I work right and work on
understanding myself. I work on change, and I handle setbacks.
I often say, if we're going to move our mental

(48:47):
health boward, that's like almost always three steps forward, one
step back, right, two steps forward, two steps back, maybe
four steps forward, one step back. That's a good period
of time. Sometimes it's one step forward and two steps back.
But we don't have that framing in a mental health
world that wants to just put like a numbers on
the person right and not help that person understand themselves

(49:09):
and understand like this is just an assessment of your condition. Now,
even with mental health issues that they require warrant medicines,
the person still isn't defined by that person who absolutely
needs an antidepressant or they.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
Just can't function, or a person needs a medicine. They're
hearing voices.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
It doesn't mean that person is defined by whatever illness
diagnosis they have. And we don't do that, or we
fight hard against that in physical health, but we don't
in mental health. It's so easy to identify and label
ourselves by or others by the things that we don't like.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
When we're talking about our narratives and our language and
how we talk about or relate to ourselves. What is
the danger or is there a danger behind because this
is very much the Australian way sarcasm and self deprecation
in a humorous manner. Is there a danger of using

(50:04):
that and then maybe implementing a negative narrative of badass elves.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
Absolutely, humor is interesting, right, because humor, as you said,
could be self deprecating, and it's just a person like
you know, saying something negati about themselves.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Everyone else will feel a little better or whatever. It
is like that.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
It can be that way, but that same thing can occur,
the same looks the same from the outside, and it's
actually vicious, right, I mean, humor can also be a
way of being vicious to self and others.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
So yes, the question is how is it being used.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
Self deprecating humor is great, right, we don't take ourselves
too seriously and we can laugh with other ears and
you know about ourselves. Like, self deprecating humor is great,
But is that what it is? Is it self deprecating
humor in that lighthearted way? Or is that just the
way that I get away with saying awful things to
myself both inside and out, or awful things sometimes to

(51:00):
someone else.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
But yes, what's going on.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
Underneath the surface of the humor is that lighthearted or
is that a way that is a person permission to
lets that person say things that are actually that are
actually quite awful to say a lot of times that
is what it is to look at what's going on.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
What's the community, what is the communication, what is really
going on? If I say that self.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Deprecating thing, is that funny or is it just a
way that I can just needle myself again about something
that I'm not happy about myself?

Speaker 1 (51:33):
What sort of work can people do themselves to get
a really honest understanding of how do I speak to
myself or think about myself? What is my relationship with self?

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (51:48):
I think the first thing to do is to engage
that compassionate curiosity is to stop and think about self, like, Okay,
here I am, you know, how did I get here?
Sometimes just having an a timeline even then then think
about some aspects of that timeline. So oftentimes there are
parts of our lives we don't even think about.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
You know, in difficult.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
Times, I thought very very little about nurturing and raising
and things that came into my life from my grandmother
who who is such a huge force in my life
and molded like how to be in the world and
how to treat other people. And there was a long
period of time when I was depressed, angry, miserable, like
I had no idea it wasn't ever in my consciousness,

(52:30):
like I forgot about that.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Well, it doesn't mean I forgot it, could never remember.
It just wasn't in my brain.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
And that's an example of something that happens pretty commonly
that if you go back and you think about a
narrative of self, you remember things about self. You know
things about self. There was a time I felt differently
than this. There was a time someone else had faith
and hope and confidence in me. I learned a lot
of things then that I can apply now and including
to me. Right, I can maybe be a little night ice,

(52:56):
a kind of myself, more nurturing to myself, be out
there in the world in the way I want.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
But unless we make narratives like what's going on in
my life? And how do I get here? Always supposed
to understand ourselves.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
I mean, I do hope to add to the to
the literature, to the to the thought like here is
a way of working through an understanding of self of
what is the structure of you in here? What is
the function of you in here? How can you look
at that and map it to what's going on in
your life? Like I do think.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
There's a call for that at the moment.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
I think the best way to do that is to
have compassionate curiosity about self, and curiosity means like make
a timeline, think about what happened, think about.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
Major changes in your life. You know what happened when?
And why? Are there characteristics of you that carry through
your whole life? Are there characteristics that are really different,
better or worse? If so, why?

Speaker 3 (53:50):
I mean, we should be infinitely interesting to ourselves, right,
That's how we.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Can make our lives better. But often we are not.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
We're scared to look at ourselves and then we're ready
to accept the label that someone outside of us or
us puts on ourselves, and we don't feel curiosity about ourselves.
We're afraid to go and do that. We're afraid to
look inside. And I think that is really a tragic
shortcoming of the field that.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
I work in.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
What are the do you have non negotiable practices for yourself?
What are the things that you either practice or fall
back on or keep in mind when it comes to
just I don't know your own well being and mental health.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
I think what I try and do is really be
aware of what's going on inside of me and not
let it kind of run away with me. So if
I'm stressed about something, I'm worried something isn't going to
go well, or I'm worried something I is gonna be
good enough or whatever it is, I can start creating
a whole story around that, and then a whole, a

(55:01):
whole what's kind of self state? Where like now I
feel anxious and I feel sort of maybe even unsafe
and afraid to some degree, and it's inside of me,
and I'm bringing that everywhere, right, and then maybe what's
going on inside of my head are memories of things
that didn't go so well, like a long way. Why
am I thinking exactly about those things?

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Right?

Speaker 3 (55:19):
Because I'm afraid that feeling I had when something didn't
go what was going to happen again? The whole climate
inside of me is now different, and I do my
best to pay attention to that, to pay attention to
that and think, I can you know what, right now,
I'm not a loser, I just feel like one.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
That's okay. I get to feel like a luzi mean
anything right, Okay? Then then I can kind of.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
Set aside how I might feels just one example, right,
including good things too. I feel great about that like, Okay,
I worked hard, like we feel.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Good about it, and then I want to you know,
I want to ground.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
Myself and move forward, like we can keep ourselves grounded
to the whole self, but we have to pay attention
to what's going on. Otherwise we our brains will run
away with us. And now I'm in a place where
I'm irritable, kind of feel behind the eight ball. I
don't know why I don't feel so good, and now
I'm being irritable with people around me, and I have
some inter personal conflicts. I'm like, nothing is going well now.

(56:09):
But nothing is going well because I'm not paying attention
to what's going on inside of me, and it'll run
away from me unless I actively keep control over it,
keep taps on it, keep me interested in what's going
on inside me, and decide am I okay with that
going inside me or not? I won't have the negative
self talk, you know. I put a stop to itty,

(56:29):
no matter what I have to do. They put on music.
Always say put on music you really don't like if
you really can't shift your thoughts, because for most people,
you can't carry on other lines of thought if music
is coming into you that you really don't like, cause
that's what it takes to get rid of a stream
of negative self talk.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Do that, but if you.

Speaker 3 (56:47):
First have to be aware of what is going on inside,
and then you can interesceee.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
I just went to Chazzi, which is where I'm from,
for a couple for a week. And once I got there,
so i'd had my trip last year, made a lot
of changes, landed in Tazzy and went still, something's not
sitting right still in my resting heart rate drops. I'm like, oh, okay, well, okay, Well,
if it's dropping ten beats a minute, it means that

(57:16):
I'm still switched on. So I'm switched on too much
all the time I was taking I take clients seven
days a week. But I've got a lot of flexibility.
I do a lot of things. I love everything I do.
Came back from India, I do weekly hikes by myself.
So I'd started adding more joy and more social activities.
So when I got to Tazzy and had that kind

(57:36):
of oh of the nervous system, it made me think
and I was like, oh, okay, okay, Now I realized
there's still some more adjustment to figure out here. And
then upon coming home. There was a change at the
gym that I take some of my clients from, and
I had to find a new venue, and I was
and I was that blew up a bit, and I

(57:57):
was like, ah, the silver lining was put me in
a different environment from which I finally made change and said, well,
I'm gonna have these two days their client free days,
and which for years now that conversation was roadblocked by me.
I bottlenecked myself. I would complain about it and someone
would suggest it and I would say, well, I can't

(58:20):
my rules, I'm the boss, my barriers, and I'm the bottleneck.
And I find that so interesting because then with that shift,
temporary shift in environment, the decision was easy to make.
And so I'm always looking at things like that, what
influences us, what do we need? What is going to
support me positively that I can add as a practice

(58:41):
or an environment or a support based so that I
can not have a year waiting for myself to actually
get the clarity to make a good decision or make
a good move on a good decision.

Speaker 3 (58:53):
And I think it's both as simple and as complex
as being able to check in with yourself.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
You think about what you're doing describing are changes? Right,
they're real disjunctions.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
Right that you are at one gym, Now that's not
going to work anywhere, you have to go to another. Right,
Or now you're in Tasmania, how do.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
You feel there? Right?

Speaker 3 (59:11):
They're primers right to say something has happened or something
has changed, and now it opens up a window of opportunity.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
How do you respond to that? What do you think
about that?

Speaker 3 (59:20):
But we want to be able to do that, not
just when there's a change in the world around us, right,
because otherwise that year when you don't make any change,
will just go along.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
Right, And if you're not, in a sense fortunate enough it's.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
Something either good or negative, like the gym happening happens,
then maybe that goes on for longer and you never
have a way of assessing, like I think there's too
much tension to me, Like why am I you said
taking clients seven days a week?

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Why? Right?

Speaker 3 (59:47):
And then it lets you you really think about that
and say, okay, like I'm motivated, Like you have a
bunch of good reasons for that, right.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Okay, So you take those good reasons and you.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Look at what are the counterpoints to them? Because maybe
there are good reasons, but maybe there are better reasons.
Say I'm just making this up, and it might be well,
sometimes we have a fear that if we don't keep
doing doing what we're doing and we take a break.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
It'll all fall apart.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Mean, it could be that, or it could be a
feeling of I really want to help people, and like
it's great to help people, but to some of that
at the expensive self.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
And so you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
See how there could be a lot of answers to that,
but you won't get any.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Of them unless you ask the question.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
Right. What we don't want is I get asked the
question because something else happens around me. Right, I want
I want to be able to ask the question because
I can sit with myself and ask that question honestly,
and if not, I can write about it. I can
talk to other people about it. I go to therapy,
I can talk about it in therapy. There in a
lot of ways I can try and get at that
so that I'm actively living, you know, in the most

(01:00:43):
sort of conscious way about myself, my decisions. I Mean
it's hard enough, like life is running forward, you know,
all of life runs forward at fast forward, right, So
it's hard enough anyway, So we have to we have
to stop and say, like, I'm not going to allow that,
or the fast board could carry me through the rest
of my life, right, Like, I have to stop, like

(01:01:04):
what is going on? What am I happy about? What
am I not happy about? What am I doing that? Like, I,
even in my own mind, I know because somewhere in
you said, if you're making the rules and you're deciding,
and you're the bottleneck, then you're aware that in some
way I'm working against myself. I see myself as a
bottleneck and my own health and happiness in this way.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Then I don't want that, right, I want to stop
and look.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
At that and diffuse that one way or another. I
don't want to be my own bottleneck. We still will
be for ourselves in some ways, because we all can't
avoid entirely that, but that that can very much fade
into the background when people talk about feeling in the
driver's seat of their life right or.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Feeling feeling in control, or feeling like, oh, people will
talk about I feel like I can rise above and
I can see around me.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Are that There are metaphors that are people use, but
it's a metaphor for feeling different and feeling instead of
dragged by bard by life.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
But the sense that I'm going.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Forward and I'm going at I'm going into paints that
I'm part of decide you know what that piece is.
And now we're moving towards more healthy control. And that
works for everything good and it works against everything.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
That You're the best? You are the best. Where can
my listeners get more of you? I've got your first book?
Is it your first book? Bit trauma book? Yeah, that's
sitting on my bedside table. Where can I order that?
What else? You've got another one coming in spring? What
else is available from the world of Paul Conti?

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Thank you. I appreciate that very very much.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
I do podcasts intimittently, so that's the best way to
find me. The book will come out next spring and
spring of twenty twenty six, but the way to find
me between now and then, order to find the book,
it really is is podcasts. And I have a website that
here's a link to the book and as a link
to podcasts that I've done, and it's just doctor Paul.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Conty is just Dr Paulconty dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
And I also I work with a clinic that I
started ten years ago called Specific Premiere Group. They're about
thirty of us who work here together. We do individual work,
we do a couple's work, we do intensive work, we
do clinical work, consulting work. We do a lot of
consulting outside of the United States. So you can also
find us and find me through Pacific Premieregroup dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
Amazing. I'll have that in the show notes, so if
anyone wants to reach out, I'll be able to click
the link. Thank you so much for your time today.
It's as usual amazing. And also if anyone wants to
go and check out your four part series on the
Human Lab podcast that was and I remember listening to
it and that was an absolutely brilliant series, very in

(01:03:40):
depth and very practical. So thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
Thank you very much. I appreciate your kind words and
I appreciate you having me on. Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
Thanks everyone,

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You Are Not Your Diagnosis (Or Your Bullsh*t Self-Talk) | Dr. Paul Conti - 893

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}You Are Not Your Diagnosis (Or Your Bullsh*t Self-Talk) | Dr. Paul Conti - 893