March 11, 2021 • 40 mins
Lori Gottlieb (therapist & author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone) is on for all 4 things! FIRST THING: Lori is a therapist, but she is also "a card-carrying member of the human race” just like everyone else!!! Amy talks with Lori on why it was important that she get vulnerable and include herself in such a revealing way in the book...even if her patients might read it! SECOND THING: People go to therapy to make changes in their lives, but changing is really hard. Lori shares why that is...even when the changes are good for us? They also discuss that there is no "hierarchy of pain" and that we should never minimize our feelings!
THIRD THING: Lori goes over the difference between "idiot compassion" and "wise compassion." For those looking to take that next step in their healing journey...she shares what some things people can do to improve their emotional well-being. FOURTH THING: Lori shared 4 things she is thankful for and talks about why gratitude is so important for us.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay, little food for you. So life. Oh it's pretty Bay,
It's pretty beautiful. Thanks. That's a little moth kick four.
(00:32):
All right. We talked about therapy a lot here on
the podcast, and I am pumped to say that I
have a legit, big time therapist who is an amazing
author and podcast host of her own, Laurie Gottlieb. She
is here with us. Laurie, I talk about you all
the time, so my listeners know this is a really
big deal to have you on. Well, I'm so glad
(00:53):
to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we're going
to cover vulnerability today, how change is hard. We'll talk
a little wise compassion and kind of next steps for
people if they are going through something, and then I
would love to hear what you are grateful for. So
we'll start with the vulnerability first though. And you know,
(01:13):
you even say at the beginning of your book, maybe
you should talk to someone that you're not just a therapist.
You are a card carrying member of the human race.
So why did you choose to share so much of
your story in this book. You did it so well,
by the way, and I love that it's intertwined with
other people's stories. But why was it important that you,
(01:35):
as the therapist, included your own therapy sessions as well. Yeah.
So the book follows the lives of four very different patients,
so they seem very different on the surface, and there's
a fifth patient, and the fifth patient is me. And
I included me for exactly that reason, because I felt
like I didn't want to position myself as the expert
up on high because we're all in this thing called
(01:57):
humanity together, and I was going through a struggle at
the time, and I felt like it would be almost
disingenuous to pretend like I have it all together and
I'm this wise person that knows better. And so I
think that, in fact, therapists use their own humanity in
the room all the time, not that we bring our
lives into the therapy room, but that we know what
(02:19):
it's like to be a person in the world, and
that helps us to help people. And I think that
one of the things that people take away from the
book is just that we're all more the same than
we are different. I think so many people feel alone
in whatever they're dealing with, like I'm the only person
dealing with this, or maybe there are other people dealing
with it. But in my group of people, you know,
they all have it together. And the reality is that
(02:40):
everybody struggles. You can't get through life without going through
something at some point or another, and it might be
different from what somebody else experiences, but I think everybody
can relate to the fact that life presents all kinds
of bumps. Yeah. I feel as though the five different
patients that you broke down, which you were one of them,
in the different stories that they brought to the table,
(03:03):
it just allowed me to just have so much more
compassion for all humans. And you never know what someone
is really going through because on the exterior it might
be presenting, you know, one thing, but then if you
had the opportunity to dig a little deeper and they
were willing to go there with you, you might see,
oh my gosh, like this person is hurting. Yeah. Absolutely,
(03:23):
I mean I think you see that with the very
first person that you meet in the book. Who's this
guy who we might just look at him and say, wow,
he seems really narcissistic, he's really abrasive, he's really insulting.
He thinks he's better than everybody else, and you you
really don't like him at the beginning of the book,
but as you get to know him, most readers say
that he is the person that they love the most
by the end of the book because you start to
(03:45):
see what's behind this. And I think that when we
can't speak something, when we can't share something or say something,
we acted out through our behaviors. So often when we
meet people and they present a certain way, you know,
we think sometimes it's about us the way that they're
acting toward us, and often it's about them and something
that that they're struggling with that they can't really articulate.
(04:06):
So when it comes to your back to your part
of the story, were you afraid to be so vulnerable
given that some of your patients might read it? Well,
First of all, I should say that I think that
the reason that I wanted to do the book through
the stories of these patients was because every person can
see themselves in every single one of those patients, even
(04:27):
though you might feel like you have nothing in common
on the surface with them. And I felt like including
me just made me more accessible as a therapist for
someone reading the book or for someone who just wants
to learn something about themselves. So I thought that was
really important, and I think also the other the other
reality of it was that when I was writing the book,
I was originally supposed to be writing a book about happiness,
(04:50):
and I tell this story in the book, and the
Happiness Book was literally making me depressed. It was making
me miserable because it felt like it was sort of
scratching the surface of what I really wanted to say.
I wanted to give people the privilege that I have,
which is to see the human condition in all of
its beauty and pain and joy and everything all mixed together.
(05:11):
And I don't think a lot of people get to
see that. I have this very rare vantage point given
that I'm a therapist. And so when I decided not
to write the Happiness Book and I decided to write
this book where I could do what I wanted to do,
everyone said, oh, no, one's going to read that, and
so I thought, okay, then I can just be, you know,
just let it rip. I can just be really raw
and authentic and tell my story. And then when I
(05:34):
turned it into my publisher, they were like, I'm left.
I cried. I saw myself in it. I gave it
to three people, and I thought, okay, well, maybe maybe
more people will read it. I had no idea that,
you know, the book. The book you know, spent over
a year on the New York Times bestseller list, it's
being into a television series, it's you know, it's being
very well read. And I think that the reason that
(05:56):
it's resonating so widely is because I am so authentic.
I am so you know, I'm not holding back. I
think I had this moment when I realized, oh, maybe
more people will be reading this, that maybe I should
sort of edit myself a little bit. But the whole
point of it was not to edit myself, and I
think that that's what people are responding to. What about
the other four patients you included. Was it easy to
(06:17):
get them on board or were you nervous to ask them, like, hey,
so writing this book. Was it an automatic yes or
did it take some time. I was very careful about
the people that I asked. So there were some people
where I felt like, oh, this is a story I
really feel like would benefit a lot of people. But
in one case I didn't ask because I knew that
that person often wanted to sort of people please, and
(06:39):
I felt like she might say yes even though she
didn't really feel comfortable with it, so I didn't even ask.
The people that I asked were people, first of all,
that I wasn't currently seeing, because it was really important
to me to be able to separate the writing from
the therapeutic work, and I didn't want to have any
blurring of those boundaries. And they were all people that I,
you know, I had lots of conversations with. It wasn't
(07:00):
like one conversation, and we talked a lot about what
it would mean, what it would mean if their story
was out there, what it would mean to have their
story out there in a very public way, That the
care that I would take to disguise their identities, which
was obviously very important. So all of those things were
worked out in advance. And I think that the stories
that I tell are really resonating because I think these stories,
(07:21):
even though they very specific, feel very universal. Well, I
you touched on it for a second that the TV
show things got to be super exciting, Like could you
have imagined ever when you were writing it that it
might turn into that? Because it once Readers will also
find out in the book that you have had a
career in television and so now your therapy, which ended
(07:44):
up being your calling, and then you're writing, which is
your other passion is now meeting your former career. Yeah,
I feel like all of the things that I've done
when I worked in television and then you know, when
I would worked as a writer and I still work
as a writer and working as a therapist, I feel
like they all to do a story and the human
condition just through a different lens, you know. I think
(08:05):
also that that when we talk about the television series,
therapy very organically lends itself to that medium because it's
almost like when you have, you know, an episode of
a TV show that's like like a session of therapy,
and so every week, you know, it's an ongoing thing
that every week you come back and something new happens,
and that's what happens on television too. So I think
(08:26):
they're very complementary in that way. And I think that
one of the nice things is that I think in
the media, therapists have been portrayed as either these blank slates,
these kind of brick walls. They don't say much, they're
not very interactive. That's not what therapy is at all.
And you can see that in the book and you'll
see that on the TV series. And the other kind
of misconception that I think you get from therapists on
(08:48):
television is there like the hot mass, the train wreck,
you know, the person who just doesn't have their life
together at all and they're just totally out of control.
And that's not true either. And so what you see
and maybe you should talk to someone as you see
a normal person struggling with normal things. And I think
that that's where the universality comes in, not one of
those extremes. Do we need to dig deeper into why?
(09:10):
And a TV show is making us feel so much
when and we know it's not real, Well, I think
that's exactly it, that it made you feel. And I
think it also when when we have that emotional reaction,
I think we feel seen, we feel understood, we feel heard.
There was something in that where you said, oh wow,
that really touched me because there was something about it
that that I saw myself in, right, And so I
(09:33):
think when you're watching a TV show or your you
see a commercial, or you read a book or whatever
is and you see yourself in that, that is the
greatest human desire. When I have couples come in and
I remember once I had this couple and one of
the people said, you know, what are the three words
that I really want to hear? And the person said,
I love you, and the person said the other person said, no,
it's I understand you more than I love you. We
(09:56):
want to hear I understand you, I see you, I
hear you, I understand on to you. And I think
we've there's almost this epidemic of loneliness that I see, um,
not just when people come into therapy, but just in
the world, and I mean even pre pandemic, where I
think that what people really want is connection, and part
of connection is you know, do you see me? People
(10:19):
come to therapy to make changes in their life, but
the fact is change is really really hard, especially for
some people. So why is it so hard for us
to change when we know that changing would be good
for us? People are so confused by this because they
think I'm going to make a positive change, and I
know it's good for me, So why is it so
(10:39):
hard for me to actually change or to maintain that change?
And it has to do with the fact that that's
why New Year's resolutions often don't last very long, because
partly when we change change comes with loss, even if
it's a positive change. So what we're losing is we're
losing the familiar. So even if you're in a bad relationship,
or you're in a situation that you don't like, or
(11:00):
you have a habit that is not serving you, well,
it's what you know. And so humans don't do well
with uncertainty. And when we change, we are inherently going
into uncertainty. We're doing something different. It's uncomfortable, and there's
a there's a learning curve, and we're going to have
to live in that in that place of this doesn't
feel familiar, and and we're creatures of habit, and so
(11:23):
something that feels familiar often keeps calling back to us.
And the other part of it is that there are
stages of change. It's not just like you make a
decision to change and then you change and the change lass.
It doesn't generally work that way normally. And I talk
about there's a chapter and maybe you should talk to
someone called How Humans Change And it goes through the
stages of change, and it starts with pre contemplation where
(11:44):
you don't even know that you're thinking about changing, to
contemplation where you're sort of thinking about it to preparation
where now you're ready to actually prepare to make the change,
and then action where you make the change, and then
maintenance which is the hardest part, which is how do
you maintain the change? And people think that if you
make a change and you slip back, that you failed,
(12:04):
and that's absolutely not true. It's like, oh, I'm gonna
you know, I'm gonna eat healthier, and then you you know,
you slip up or whatever. People think, well, that didn't
work right, or I'm going to break up with this
person and then you text them at three in the morning,
well that failed. It didn't It's that you know you're
going to slip up, and then the question is, you know,
just how do you get back on track the next day?
(12:24):
And so I think people need to be kinder to
themselves and have more compassion for themselves when they're making changes,
to realize how hard it is to actually do and
be nicer to themselves about it. Yeah, and another thing
that you wrote about was that there's no hierarchy of pain,
and I think we often do that, though it's hard
for us to do that, Like even me sometimes when
(12:45):
I'm at therapy and I'm talking about something. Then I'm like,
I mean, but this really isn't that big of a
deal compared to what this person is going through or
these people are going through, and really that minimizes our feelings.
But I know that this is very comments, So can
you just speak to that. Yeah, it's really interesting the
way that we think about our emotional health compared to
(13:06):
the way that we think about our physical health, even
though our minds and our bodies are so intertwined. But
if something happens to you, like you break your arm,
you don't look at that hierarchy of pain. You don't say, well,
someone else has stage four cancer, so I'm not going
to go to the doctor and get a cast for
my arm. You're still going to go. But with our
emotional health, we say, yeah, you know, maybe I'm feeling anxious,
(13:27):
or I'm having trouble sleeping, or I'm having this problem
in my relationship, or I'm just feeling stuck, but it's
not that bad because I have a roof over my
head and food on the table, and compared to whatever
you want to compare it to, it's not that bad.
Then people say, you know, I can't really talk about this,
But what happens is the feelings don't go away. So
what we do is we pretend they're not there in
(13:47):
order to cope with them. The feelings, you know, they
need air, and so they come out in other ways.
So they come out with too much food or not
enough food. They come out with too much alcohol, They
come out with a short tempered nous, they come out
with insomnia, that come out with that mindless scrolling through
the internet or the the shopping addiction or whatever it is.
(14:08):
And you know, we think that we're numbing our feelings,
but numbness isn't the absence of feelings. Numbness is actually
the sense of being overwhelmed by too many feelings. And
so it's really important for people not to have this
hierarchy of pain, to be able to say, you know what,
whatever I'm experiencing is valid, and I'm going to go
reach out to someone and get help. Love that. Now,
(14:40):
breakdown the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. Right, So,
idiot compassion is what we do with our friends, and
it's not very helpful. So our friends will say, here's
what happened, and let me tell you all about it.
And they're really upset about it, and we say, yeah,
you were right. The other person was wrong. You know,
(15:01):
they're a jerk and how dare they and you're so wonderful.
That's idiot compassion. It doesn't help the person to see
the bigger picture, to see maybe what their role might
be in the situation. And if you listen to your
friends over time, they often they're sort of a pattern,
maybe different characters, but similar theme to what they're saying.
Maybe they always feel victimized, or maybe they do something
(15:23):
that causes people to react to them in that way.
It's kind of like if a fight breaks out in
every bar you're going to, maybe it's you. Do you
know those friends who like they always have the same
kind of right We all know those people and sometimes
we are those people, and so that's idiot Compassion is
is you know, just completely standing, you know, just validating
what your friend says without looking at it further, and
(15:46):
and it really kind of keeps them stuck. Wise, compassion
is what you get in therapy. A therapist will hold
up a mirror to you and help you to see
yourself in a way that maybe you haven't been willing
or able to do. And so what that does is
it helps you to get on It helps you to say, wait,
why does this keep happening to me? Why am I
having this kind of trouble in relationships, in my career,
(16:07):
in my personal life, whatever it is, Why do I
keep ending up in the same place over and over?
And that's what's going to be really helpful. We all
have blind spots, and wise compassion can help you to
see what those blind spots are. Now, you talk a
lot in your book and in your TED talk about
how we are unreliable narrators of our own life. So
(16:27):
what are some of the stories that we tell ourselves
about our lives that get in our way? So we
are unreliable narrators. And by that, I don't mean that
we're purposely misleading. What I mean is that we're telling
the stories that happen in our lives through our perspectives,
through our own particular lens, and so often we're leaving
out entire parts of the story. If you asked another
(16:50):
person involved in the story to write their version of
the story, it would probably be very different from yours,
although there might be some overlap. So I think that
it's it's really important that we consider a fact that
what we're saying is just one version of a story,
and usually we're stuck because we can't see other versions
of the story. And that's where you come in with
that mirror or a therapist and offers the wise compassion. Well,
(17:15):
I think it's really interesting because when I see couples,
I get to see both versions of a story, and
you learn so much about yourself through um, you know,
from hearing the other person's perspective. There's so much that
we don't see just because we're only seeing it through
our own, our own viewpoint. And I feel like my
writing background comes in really handily as a therapist because
(17:37):
I feel like what I'm doing in the therapist share
is really doing an editing job, where I'm helping people
to edit their stories, you know, is the protagonists moving forward,
There is the protagonist going in circles. Um, you asked,
you know, what are some of the stories we get
stuck in a lot of them are stories we tell
ourselves like I'm unlovable, or I can't trust anyone, or
nothing will ever work out for me, or I'm better
(17:59):
than some one, or i'm or I'm not as good
as someone else. You know, whatever the story is, we
don't even realize that that story is impacting every choice,
every decision that we make on a daily basis, and
we don't even realize that those stories are running in
the background. Just a quick thing for people that have
the ongoing story, like, what is something they can do
(18:21):
to combat that? I think just being aware that that's happening,
first of all, because some people don't even realize that
that's happening. Um. And I think the other thing too,
is just I don't think people realize how self critical
they are, and that's part of their story. So whenever I,
you know, I'm giving a talk and I say to people,
who's the person that you talked to most in the
course of your life? Um, you know, show of hands,
(18:42):
is that your partner, is that your sibling, is that
your mother is your best friend? Lots of hands. But
the person that we talked to most in the course
of our lives is ourselves. And what we say to
ourselves isn't always kind or true or useful. And so
I had this one therapy client who you know, was
very unaware of how self critical all she was, and
I said, I want you to go home and listen
(19:02):
to how you talk to yourself and write down everything
that you say to yourself over the course of a
few days and come back and we'll talk about it.
And she came back the next week and she started
to you know, she had written everything down and she
started to read it and she said, I can't even
read this. I am such a bully to myself. And
there were little things like she made a typo while
while she was writing an email and she said to herself,
you're such an idiot, right I do that time, you know,
(19:27):
she caught her reflection in a mirror and she said,
oh my god, you look terrible, right, And she didn't
look terrible. So just we are so unkind to ourselves,
and not only unkind, but it's just not true and
it's just not useful. So I think the very first
thing that we can do is to say, wait a minute,
that voice has you know, I need to change the
radio station. That is not the radio station I need
(19:49):
to be listening to. Well, just some theme. I work
in radio, which is a male dominated business. So I've
been in radio for fifteen years and sometimes I have
the impostor syndrome, you know of like oh, I shouldn't
be doing this. Like there's other people in my company.
I mean, I work for my Heart Media. There's like
the tons of people that I look up to or
(20:12):
that are higher up in my company. But a lot
of them are men like they are I. I have,
you know a few females on air that are older, wiser,
but it's not it's not that many at all. So
I do suffer from that a little bit, and other
women may have that going on. But what do you um?
Like I don't belong here, I shouldn't be here. I
(20:34):
don't just what am I? How? How am I on
this stage right now? Surely they this is one thing
I do in my head, like who turned this down?
And that allowed the door to open up for me?
And not that that's bad, I mean I want to
take opportunities, but like what happened, who got sick, who
couldn't come, who had other commitments, instead of just believing
(20:57):
like oh maybe they wanted me to host this? Does
that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely, I think that's so common.
And you're you're telling such a story. You know, you've
got this whole story going on in your head that
that I don't think again, is it kind? Is it true?
Is it useful? I don't think it's true. It's certainly
not kind, and I don't think it's useful. How does
(21:17):
it help you? And so that's what I'm talking about
when I'm saying, examine these stories that we're telling ourselves.
What is that voice saying? And why do we want
that voice to live in our heads? If you you
would not choose that voice to be your partner? Right,
if you're like I'm choosing a partner, would you choose
this really mean, critical, inaccurate person. No, you wouldn't. So
why do you want to live with that person in
(21:38):
your mind? So? My, you know, it's really my when
you talk about you know what do I advise people
on that? It's really about a being aware of it
and then be making a decision about you know, who
are you going to let in? Who are you going
to let into your home? And your home is is
your mind, your heart? You don't have to let that
voice into your home. I do try to put that
into action. So I do encourage ridge listeners to be
(22:01):
that way and believe in themselves the most and be
super confident before you have to go on stage or
maybe give a presentation on Zoom or whatever your career
is to like, you know, do a power pose in
the mirror and own it. I also like to admit
too that I I encourage that, but I'm never on
a pedestal speaking like down to people. This is how
(22:22):
you have to be because I'm the same exact way,
like I'm more so saying it when I say it
out loud to hear on the podcast, I'm reminding myself.
So I appreciate you giving me that reminder to are
all of us? You know, when it comes to relationships,
whether it's a significant other or maybe if it's it's
even a working relationship, what do you think is the
(22:42):
hardest thing for people to do? Right? Is that? Is
it the being, the seeing and the hearing. Well, certainly
the perspective taking. But I think that people really struggle
with how to listen. A lot of people don't know
what listening means. So some people think that you know,
someone comes to you and the way to listen is
to solve their problem, or the way to listen is
(23:03):
to again the idiot compassion, or the way to listen
is to come up with your accounter, your retort, your
counter argument, in your minds that you won't feel shame
about what they're saying. Right, people don't really know what
it means to listen, and we don't even ask people
what they need when they come to us. So sometimes
when people come to us and they say I really
want to talk to you about this, one of your
(23:23):
first questions might be I'm available. How can I be
helpful to you in this conversation? Do you just want
to vent right now because maybe something just happened. Do
you want to hug right now? Do you want to
hear my honest thoughts about this? Do you want me
to help you brainstorm solutions? What would be most helpful
right now? And that is so reassuring to the person
(23:44):
who's going to be heard because they can think for
a minute, They can reflect and say, wait a minute,
what do I want? Or they might say I'm not
sure yet. Let me just start talking and then I'll
let you know. And what you can do as a
listener is just say three words, tell me more. Those
three words, tell me more, Because every time you say
to someone, tell me more, you're allowing the other person
(24:05):
to hear themselves, to get acquainted with what am I thinking?
What am I feeling without all the noise from the outside,
Because ultimately, I truly believe that we know what we want,
but sometimes we can't hear ourselves. And so when you
say tell me more, you allow the other person to
hear themselves. You know, you mentioned connection and how connection
(24:25):
is so important, and what if someone kind of has
some walls up for whatever reason. Do we just need
to be patient with that? Like if you're you want
to hear more because say you want to be a listener,
but there's a wall there. This is the person that
wants the connection, just need to be patient? Or how
do we earn that to where someone may be like, okay,
I can say more because we may be a messed
(24:48):
up in the past, right and and we warrant the
listener that we should have been. Is there any advice
on how to undo that? Is it just to keep
showing up? I think about that in terms of you know,
I get I now I have to see the show Parenthood,
but in terms of parenting, because I think about how
you want to make sure that your kids feel invited
(25:09):
to come talk to you, but not forced to, And
I think that you want to do that with everybody.
Is you want to make sure that you're creating an
invitation that feels welcoming, that feels safe, that feels trusting.
And so if they have experience coming to you and
they haven't felt like it was a good experience, they
might not want to come to you again. Right, So
(25:29):
you may want to get curious about that last conversation
we had, or is there something that's happened in the
past between us where it's been hard for you to
come and talk to me, And you can just ask
that question because I want to learn. I want to
make sure that you feel comfortable coming to talk to
me if you want to. And there are other ways
to issue invitations just by being a trusting person around them,
(25:51):
where you're very open, you don't kind of intrude on boundaries.
You know, they know that you're going to take care
with something very vulnerable about that. And I'll give you
an example where that that hasn't worked really well too,
so that people can understand how it can work better.
When I see couples in therapy often, and this is
just a kind of a stereotype of this happens a lot.
(26:14):
If it's a heterosexual couple, the woman will say to
the man, you know, I really want you to open
up to me. I really want to feel closer to you.
I feel like there's this distance between us. I want
to understand your inner life more. And so he starts
to open up to her, and let's say he starts crying,
and let's say he starts crying a lot. She will
inevitably look at me like a deer in headlights, like,
(26:36):
oh my gosh, what do I do with this? You know,
I didn't feel safe when he didn't open up to
me because I felt this distance between us. But it
don't feel safe when he when he's like crying hysterically
in front of me, right, And so, as a listener,
you have to think about what kind of invitation are
you issuing. Can the person really come to you with
the truth of who they are, or have you really
given them some kind of indication that you can't really
(26:57):
handle the truth of who they are. Different people want
different things, So we assume that what we would want
in that situation is what the person coming to us wants.
And that's where people get into trouble, and that's why
they get into fights, Because if you were going to
your significant other with that problem. When you're listening, you're thinking, Oh,
this is what I would want, So this is what
I'm going to give them, But maybe they want something different.
Maybe you would want them to kind of help your
(27:19):
brainstorm ideas on how to fix the situation. But what
they really want is they want to hug, right, So
you don't really know until you ask. So for those
of us that may be looking to get into therapy
for the first time, or take the next step in
our healing journey, or allowing someone else into what's really
(27:39):
going on with our lives, because you know, again, talking
to your friends may not be the best thing depending
on what kind of advice you're going to get. But
what is something we can do right now to improve
our emotional well being to start on that path, because
for some people, therapy might be really daunting, it might
not be accessible, it might not be something they can do.
(28:00):
But do you have like a first step for people
that want ahead in that direction but maybe quite aren't
there yet. Yeah, Well, first of all, I want to
say that I think talking to our friends is really important.
Um So despite the idiot compassion you know, caveat, I
would say I think what we really need more of
is we need to connect more with one another, but
connect more in an authentic way. And I think that
(28:23):
that authenticity and that and choose your audience. Choose your
audience well meaning, choose to choose your friend that you're
going to be vulnerable with. Make sure it's a person
who you know, you feel safe with. But I think
that a lot of people don't feel like they can
really you know, they're not really connecting. I think so
many people are lonely right now, even if they have
(28:43):
lots of friends, they have lots of family, they have
a partner, that they're not really connecting with those people
in a way that is nourishing. So I really want
to encourage people to make sure that they are nourishing
those connections. And in terms of reaching out to a therapist,
I feel like a lot of people don't reach out
because they have a lot of misconceptions about what therapy is.
They think like they're gonna go into therapy, they're going
(29:05):
to talk about their childhood at nauseum and they're never
gonna leave, or they're going to go in every week
and download the problem of the week and nothing's going
to change. Most of the work of therapy happens outside
the therapy real you come and talk to a therapist.
And we always like to say that insight is the
booby price of therapy. You can have all the insight
in the world, but if you don't make changes out
(29:25):
in the world, the insight is useless. So someone might say, well,
now I understand why. I get into that argument with
my partner all the time and I'll say, well, did
you do something different, and They'll say, well, no, you know,
and so yes, it's important to understand the why, but
you have to actually make changes. So therapy is very active.
It requires that you're going to do a lot of work.
It is not a place where someone's just going to say, yeah,
(29:47):
that's so terrible, um, but they're going to help you
really understand what you can do right now to start
making changes and improving your life. And so I think that,
you know, for people who think, oh, what is therapy
really going to do? I hope that my book helps
them to see what therapy actually looks like and what
it will for sure, And I would encourage people to
(30:08):
read it if they're considering therapy or maybe they're trying
to have a better understanding of what therapy is all
about for sure. Now I just started with a brand
new therapist. That's all my own. I've got two adopted
kids and a husband, and we've been in various forms
of therapy, you know, given they were older when we
adopted them. So that's just part of like what we've
(30:29):
been going through. And I just got a new therapist.
It's just for me, and I'm having a hard time
with like what I just wanted to, like tell me
every tell me what to do, like I've I need
to like breathe and stop. I mean, I'm patient. I
don't say that out loud to her, but in my
head sometimes I'm like, can you just tell me what
to do? Lots of people will actually ask that, right,
(30:51):
someone come to therapy and just tell me what to do.
I do that, and maybe you should talk to someone.
I asked my own therapists. I'm like, what would you do?
And he said, I only know what I do, but
I don't know what you should do. And I thought
that was such a great response, because we can't live
somebody else's life for them, right, so what I would
do might not be the right choice for you. And
(31:12):
like I was saying, earlier. I think we all ultimately
have the sense of knowing inside of ourselves, but we
so much noise gets in the way that we can't
hear ourselves. And so I think it's really important to
learn to be able to hear yourself better and that
will help you to know what you should do. You know.
I have a have a podcast called Deer Therapists where
(31:32):
it's actually an advice podcast. So people are asking what
should I do, and they write in a letter, and
I have a co host who is a psychologist named
Guy Winch, and we do a session with them, and
you can hear that at the end we give them
I don't want to so much call it advice, but
we give them a homework assignment and they have one
week to try it out, and then they cut back
(31:54):
and tell us how it went, you know, did did
it work, did it not work? What? You know? What
can we all learn from that? And I and what
I love about that is, first of all, it shows
that even after one session, people can make really profound
shifts in their lives. But it also shows that at
the end of the day, people kind of they do
what we you know, they do the homework assignment but
they make it their own because they knew what they
(32:15):
needed to do, They just needed the guidance and the support,
and so they go beyond what we've done so so
much of the time, and it works out so well
for them. Yeah, I get my lashes done, which is
about an hour every few weeks or so. And my
last person is my friend. Her name's Amy. Like, we
love to listen to podcasts together, and one that we've
(32:37):
been listening to sometimes during our last session is Dear Therapists.
So uh, we enjoy the unique format that you have
them on and then you offer up your wisdom and advice,
and then you have them back on after for a
follow up. So I love that and think it's awesome
and definitely recommend that people check out Dear Therapists. I
(32:59):
recommend and them checking out the book. Maybe you should
talk to someone. And then your ted talk was one
of the top ten most watched of the year, so
there's lots of different places to find Lorie. You also
have a weekly advice column for The Atlantics Weekly called
Deer Therapists. So very busy all over the place. I
(33:24):
would love to hear four things that you are currently
thankful for right now, and if as a therapist to
even knowing just how important it is of recognizing things
that you're thankful for, Like, is this something you ever
advise your patients to do or write writing things down
like as being therapeutic to recognize maybe the joys that
(33:47):
are around them, maybe even if it's like little teeny
tiny small things, but those really could be big things.
I love that you said that about the little teeny
tiny things being big things, because how do most of
us wake up every day think about that? Well, we
turn on our phones, so we look at our phones,
right the first thing we do is we check our phones.
And so already you're starting your day in kind of
(34:09):
negative territory because you're seeing something in the news that
maybe upset you, or you're getting all these emails and
people need things from you, and already your stress levels
go up, your heart rate goes up, and so you're
already starting the day kind of you know, not in
the way that I think will help you have the
resilience that you need to get through the day. So
(34:29):
we want to start in positive territory. And I don't mean,
you know, like being a Pollyanna. I think sometimes if
we just take one minute when we wake up instead
of looking at our phones. The first thing, the first
thing we do is we say what am I grateful for?
It just name one thing, and it could be I'm
so grateful that I'm going to go have this for breakfast.
I'm so grateful that when I look out the window,
(34:51):
look how beautiful that tree is. You know, I'm so
grateful that these sheets, you know, that I slept on,
or you know, like I got these new sheets or
whatever it is. It could be the tiniest thing. But
then you're starting in positive territory. So during the day
as things start to erode, you know that that positivity,
like those emails or the news or whatever is, you're
not going to go below zero because you started above zero.
(35:13):
Gratitude is so important. It's not this sort of like
cheesy thing that some people. You know, some people really
chafe at that when I talk about that in therapy,
But I think it's so important to stop and say
what am I grateful for? It really changes your perspective.
So what am I grateful for? Ye? I would have
to your four things. Four things. First of all, I'm
I'm so grateful for my son. He is just a
(35:35):
real joy and very fun to be around. And I
think one of the I would say, I hate to
use this term, but silver linings of the pandemic is
that I with remote school, I got to see more
of him than I ever would have and so I've
been grateful for for my time with him. Oh, I
have to come up with three more. Okay, I'm used
(35:56):
to doing money day for me, I would say, I am.
I am great for my health. I am grateful for
the fact that given everything that's going on, I've remained
healthy and that all of the precautions have been totally
worth it, not just for me, but for my family
and for my community at large. UM. And I'm grateful
for tagging onto that how wonderful the community has been
(36:17):
in terms of trying to just watch out for everyone
and protect everyone. And then, you know, when we think
about small things, I am grateful for the way my
hair turned out today. It looks great, I must say, seriously,
like the bed head. I was like, this is working.
So I'm grateful for that and little things like you know,
(36:37):
I'm writing a book right now, writing this new book,
and I am eating a lot of Trader Joe's UM.
Like movie popcorn. If you haven't tried that, please do.
It is amazing. I'm not getting paid for this, I swear,
it is just something where like I look forward to that.
So it's like these little things from the big things
like my son and my health to my hair and
(36:58):
my and the popcorn that I'm eating that I think
really can can shift your mood in a very quick way,
especially during the day when you start to kind of
lose perspective and you go into those those little black
holes that we tend to go into. Step away from
your screens, step outside for a minute, look at a tree,
you know, breathe in the air, look at the sky,
and think about just something that you're grateful for. Well,
(37:20):
this is the Four Things podcast, so that's why we
do four Things. But for the month of March, my
listeners are doing a gratitude challenge. So the challenges you know,
every day might be daunting for some people, but just
getting in the habit of hopefully doing four things every day,
big or small. But for some people, if they're new,
(37:41):
I love that. You know you just said, just wake up,
start on a positive note. For one minute, focus on
one thing that you're thankful for starting that day off
on a positive note. So that's why I had to
do four things. And I love that you gave us
the Trader Joe's popcorn thing. I love when someone's gratitude
gives us a new snack we need to try. I
would just say one more thing on gratitude. You know,
(38:03):
I think that the mood of a household is very contagious,
and so if you start off your day and you
have other people or a roommate or whoever is that
you're living with, and you tell them what you're grateful
for about them, it really changes the mood in the house,
especially now a lot of people being in close quarters
during the pandemic. But even afterward to say, I'm really
(38:23):
grateful for your smile, I'm really grateful that you made
me laugh yesterday. I'm really grateful for that that hug
that you gave me. I'm really grateful that you did
the dishes last night. Yeah. I love that you're saying that,
because another thing we've been focusing on is ways to
make somebody feel good or compliment them without talking about
their appearance or looks. I feel like, even though I
(38:43):
do want to say your hair does look amazing, but
especially with we we cover a lot of body image.
I host another podcast called Outweigh, which is the tagline
is a life without disordered eating outweighs Everything, And you know,
I think that sometimes speaking of you never know what
someone else is going through if you compliment, like are
you working out? If you lost weight? Or you look
(39:05):
so skinny, and I feel like that's stuff that society
it's acceptable to throw out, oh my gosh, she looks
so skinny, you look great, what are you doing? Tell
me every tell me your plan, you know, and then
that could be very harmful or damaging to someone when
you don't know are they sick, do they have an
eating disorder? Are they depressed? What could really be going
(39:25):
on behind that weight loss to where you could be
adding fuel to the fire if it isn't eating disorder,
or you could be adding shame if it's like they
are sick and they don't want anybody to know. So anyway,
I love that you can compliment or make someone feel good,
whether it's your roommate, your co worker, your significant other,
but making it about like thank you for making me laugh,
(39:48):
or your laugh is contagious, or you're so creative, or
I love the energy that I have when I'm around you.
I think if you start the sentence with in your
mind with I appreciate about you, right, it it is
not about those more superficial things. It becomes about something
that really touched you or moved you. You know. When
I when I said I appreciate you, know, I'm grateful
for your smile, I mean I appreciate your smile meaning
(40:10):
it moves me. It touches me, right, I appreciate that
you gave me that hug. I appreciate that you made
me laugh. I appreciate that you did the dishes that
really it made me feel loved or just I appreciate
about you. You know again, like you said, your creativity
because I enjoy it. Well, I appreciate you well, thank
you so much, and I appreciate you for bringing these
conversations that are much needed to so many people. Awesome. Well,
(40:33):
thank you, Lori, and I hope you have a great day.
And yeah, everybody check out Dear Therapists for sure. You
can listen on I Heart radio orhere. If you listen
to podcasts,
Okay, little food for you. So life. Oh it's pretty Bay,
It's pretty beautiful. Thanks. That's a little moth kick four.
(00:32):
All right. We talked about therapy a lot here on
the podcast, and I am pumped to say that I
have a legit, big time therapist who is an amazing
author and podcast host of her own, Laurie Gottlieb. She
is here with us. Laurie, I talk about you all
the time, so my listeners know this is a really
big deal to have you on. Well, I'm so glad
(00:53):
to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we're going
to cover vulnerability today, how change is hard. We'll talk
a little wise compassion and kind of next steps for
people if they are going through something, and then I
would love to hear what you are grateful for. So
we'll start with the vulnerability first though. And you know,
(01:13):
you even say at the beginning of your book, maybe
you should talk to someone that you're not just a therapist.
You are a card carrying member of the human race.
So why did you choose to share so much of
your story in this book. You did it so well,
by the way, and I love that it's intertwined with
other people's stories. But why was it important that you,
(01:35):
as the therapist, included your own therapy sessions as well. Yeah.
So the book follows the lives of four very different patients,
so they seem very different on the surface, and there's
a fifth patient, and the fifth patient is me. And
I included me for exactly that reason, because I felt
like I didn't want to position myself as the expert
up on high because we're all in this thing called
(01:57):
humanity together, and I was going through a struggle at
the time, and I felt like it would be almost
disingenuous to pretend like I have it all together and
I'm this wise person that knows better. And so I
think that, in fact, therapists use their own humanity in
the room all the time, not that we bring our
lives into the therapy room, but that we know what
(02:19):
it's like to be a person in the world, and
that helps us to help people. And I think that
one of the things that people take away from the
book is just that we're all more the same than
we are different. I think so many people feel alone
in whatever they're dealing with, like I'm the only person
dealing with this, or maybe there are other people dealing
with it. But in my group of people, you know,
they all have it together. And the reality is that
(02:40):
everybody struggles. You can't get through life without going through
something at some point or another, and it might be
different from what somebody else experiences, but I think everybody
can relate to the fact that life presents all kinds
of bumps. Yeah. I feel as though the five different
patients that you broke down, which you were one of them,
in the different stories that they brought to the table,
(03:03):
it just allowed me to just have so much more
compassion for all humans. And you never know what someone
is really going through because on the exterior it might
be presenting, you know, one thing, but then if you
had the opportunity to dig a little deeper and they
were willing to go there with you, you might see,
oh my gosh, like this person is hurting. Yeah. Absolutely,
(03:23):
I mean I think you see that with the very
first person that you meet in the book. Who's this
guy who we might just look at him and say, wow,
he seems really narcissistic, he's really abrasive, he's really insulting.
He thinks he's better than everybody else, and you you
really don't like him at the beginning of the book,
but as you get to know him, most readers say
that he is the person that they love the most
by the end of the book because you start to
(03:45):
see what's behind this. And I think that when we
can't speak something, when we can't share something or say something,
we acted out through our behaviors. So often when we
meet people and they present a certain way, you know,
we think sometimes it's about us the way that they're
acting toward us, and often it's about them and something
that that they're struggling with that they can't really articulate.
(04:06):
So when it comes to your back to your part
of the story, were you afraid to be so vulnerable
given that some of your patients might read it? Well,
First of all, I should say that I think that
the reason that I wanted to do the book through
the stories of these patients was because every person can
see themselves in every single one of those patients, even
(04:27):
though you might feel like you have nothing in common
on the surface with them. And I felt like including
me just made me more accessible as a therapist for
someone reading the book or for someone who just wants
to learn something about themselves. So I thought that was
really important, and I think also the other the other
reality of it was that when I was writing the book,
I was originally supposed to be writing a book about happiness,
(04:50):
and I tell this story in the book, and the
Happiness Book was literally making me depressed. It was making
me miserable because it felt like it was sort of
scratching the surface of what I really wanted to say.
I wanted to give people the privilege that I have,
which is to see the human condition in all of
its beauty and pain and joy and everything all mixed together.
(05:11):
And I don't think a lot of people get to
see that. I have this very rare vantage point given
that I'm a therapist. And so when I decided not
to write the Happiness Book and I decided to write
this book where I could do what I wanted to do,
everyone said, oh, no, one's going to read that, and
so I thought, okay, then I can just be, you know,
just let it rip. I can just be really raw
and authentic and tell my story. And then when I
(05:34):
turned it into my publisher, they were like, I'm left.
I cried. I saw myself in it. I gave it
to three people, and I thought, okay, well, maybe maybe
more people will read it. I had no idea that,
you know, the book. The book you know, spent over
a year on the New York Times bestseller list, it's
being into a television series, it's you know, it's being
very well read. And I think that the reason that
(05:56):
it's resonating so widely is because I am so authentic.
I am so you know, I'm not holding back. I
think I had this moment when I realized, oh, maybe
more people will be reading this, that maybe I should
sort of edit myself a little bit. But the whole
point of it was not to edit myself, and I
think that that's what people are responding to. What about
the other four patients you included. Was it easy to
(06:17):
get them on board or were you nervous to ask them, like, hey,
so writing this book. Was it an automatic yes or
did it take some time. I was very careful about
the people that I asked. So there were some people
where I felt like, oh, this is a story I
really feel like would benefit a lot of people. But
in one case I didn't ask because I knew that
that person often wanted to sort of people please, and
(06:39):
I felt like she might say yes even though she
didn't really feel comfortable with it, so I didn't even ask.
The people that I asked were people, first of all,
that I wasn't currently seeing, because it was really important
to me to be able to separate the writing from
the therapeutic work, and I didn't want to have any
blurring of those boundaries. And they were all people that I,
you know, I had lots of conversations with. It wasn't
(07:00):
like one conversation, and we talked a lot about what
it would mean, what it would mean if their story
was out there, what it would mean to have their
story out there in a very public way, That the
care that I would take to disguise their identities, which
was obviously very important. So all of those things were
worked out in advance. And I think that the stories
that I tell are really resonating because I think these stories,
(07:21):
even though they very specific, feel very universal. Well, I
you touched on it for a second that the TV
show things got to be super exciting, Like could you
have imagined ever when you were writing it that it
might turn into that? Because it once Readers will also
find out in the book that you have had a
career in television and so now your therapy, which ended
(07:44):
up being your calling, and then you're writing, which is
your other passion is now meeting your former career. Yeah,
I feel like all of the things that I've done
when I worked in television and then you know, when
I would worked as a writer and I still work
as a writer and working as a therapist, I feel
like they all to do a story and the human
condition just through a different lens, you know. I think
(08:05):
also that that when we talk about the television series,
therapy very organically lends itself to that medium because it's
almost like when you have, you know, an episode of
a TV show that's like like a session of therapy,
and so every week, you know, it's an ongoing thing
that every week you come back and something new happens,
and that's what happens on television too. So I think
(08:26):
they're very complementary in that way. And I think that
one of the nice things is that I think in
the media, therapists have been portrayed as either these blank slates,
these kind of brick walls. They don't say much, they're
not very interactive. That's not what therapy is at all.
And you can see that in the book and you'll
see that on the TV series. And the other kind
of misconception that I think you get from therapists on
(08:48):
television is there like the hot mass, the train wreck,
you know, the person who just doesn't have their life
together at all and they're just totally out of control.
And that's not true either. And so what you see
and maybe you should talk to someone as you see
a normal person struggling with normal things. And I think
that that's where the universality comes in, not one of
those extremes. Do we need to dig deeper into why?
(09:10):
And a TV show is making us feel so much
when and we know it's not real, Well, I think
that's exactly it, that it made you feel. And I
think it also when when we have that emotional reaction,
I think we feel seen, we feel understood, we feel heard.
There was something in that where you said, oh wow,
that really touched me because there was something about it
that that I saw myself in, right, And so I
(09:33):
think when you're watching a TV show or your you
see a commercial, or you read a book or whatever
is and you see yourself in that, that is the
greatest human desire. When I have couples come in and
I remember once I had this couple and one of
the people said, you know, what are the three words
that I really want to hear? And the person said,
I love you, and the person said the other person said, no,
it's I understand you more than I love you. We
(09:56):
want to hear I understand you, I see you, I
hear you, I understand on to you. And I think
we've there's almost this epidemic of loneliness that I see, um,
not just when people come into therapy, but just in
the world, and I mean even pre pandemic, where I
think that what people really want is connection, and part
of connection is you know, do you see me? People
(10:19):
come to therapy to make changes in their life, but
the fact is change is really really hard, especially for
some people. So why is it so hard for us
to change when we know that changing would be good
for us? People are so confused by this because they
think I'm going to make a positive change, and I
know it's good for me, So why is it so
(10:39):
hard for me to actually change or to maintain that change?
And it has to do with the fact that that's
why New Year's resolutions often don't last very long, because
partly when we change change comes with loss, even if
it's a positive change. So what we're losing is we're
losing the familiar. So even if you're in a bad relationship,
or you're in a situation that you don't like, or
(11:00):
you have a habit that is not serving you, well,
it's what you know. And so humans don't do well
with uncertainty. And when we change, we are inherently going
into uncertainty. We're doing something different. It's uncomfortable, and there's
a there's a learning curve, and we're going to have
to live in that in that place of this doesn't
feel familiar, and and we're creatures of habit, and so
(11:23):
something that feels familiar often keeps calling back to us.
And the other part of it is that there are
stages of change. It's not just like you make a
decision to change and then you change and the change lass.
It doesn't generally work that way normally. And I talk
about there's a chapter and maybe you should talk to
someone called How Humans Change And it goes through the
stages of change, and it starts with pre contemplation where
(11:44):
you don't even know that you're thinking about changing, to
contemplation where you're sort of thinking about it to preparation
where now you're ready to actually prepare to make the change,
and then action where you make the change, and then
maintenance which is the hardest part, which is how do
you maintain the change? And people think that if you
make a change and you slip back, that you failed,
(12:04):
and that's absolutely not true. It's like, oh, I'm gonna
you know, I'm gonna eat healthier, and then you you know,
you slip up or whatever. People think, well, that didn't
work right, or I'm going to break up with this
person and then you text them at three in the morning,
well that failed. It didn't It's that you know you're
going to slip up, and then the question is, you know,
just how do you get back on track the next day?
(12:24):
And so I think people need to be kinder to
themselves and have more compassion for themselves when they're making changes,
to realize how hard it is to actually do and
be nicer to themselves about it. Yeah, and another thing
that you wrote about was that there's no hierarchy of pain,
and I think we often do that, though it's hard
for us to do that, Like even me sometimes when
(12:45):
I'm at therapy and I'm talking about something. Then I'm like,
I mean, but this really isn't that big of a
deal compared to what this person is going through or
these people are going through, and really that minimizes our feelings.
But I know that this is very comments, So can
you just speak to that. Yeah, it's really interesting the
way that we think about our emotional health compared to
(13:06):
the way that we think about our physical health, even
though our minds and our bodies are so intertwined. But
if something happens to you, like you break your arm,
you don't look at that hierarchy of pain. You don't say, well,
someone else has stage four cancer, so I'm not going
to go to the doctor and get a cast for
my arm. You're still going to go. But with our
emotional health, we say, yeah, you know, maybe I'm feeling anxious,
(13:27):
or I'm having trouble sleeping, or I'm having this problem
in my relationship, or I'm just feeling stuck, but it's
not that bad because I have a roof over my
head and food on the table, and compared to whatever
you want to compare it to, it's not that bad.
Then people say, you know, I can't really talk about this,
But what happens is the feelings don't go away. So
what we do is we pretend they're not there in
(13:47):
order to cope with them. The feelings, you know, they
need air, and so they come out in other ways.
So they come out with too much food or not
enough food. They come out with too much alcohol, They
come out with a short tempered nous, they come out
with insomnia, that come out with that mindless scrolling through
the internet or the the shopping addiction or whatever it is.
(14:08):
And you know, we think that we're numbing our feelings,
but numbness isn't the absence of feelings. Numbness is actually
the sense of being overwhelmed by too many feelings. And
so it's really important for people not to have this
hierarchy of pain, to be able to say, you know what,
whatever I'm experiencing is valid, and I'm going to go
reach out to someone and get help. Love that. Now,
(14:40):
breakdown the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. Right, So,
idiot compassion is what we do with our friends, and
it's not very helpful. So our friends will say, here's
what happened, and let me tell you all about it.
And they're really upset about it, and we say, yeah,
you were right. The other person was wrong. You know,
(15:01):
they're a jerk and how dare they and you're so wonderful.
That's idiot compassion. It doesn't help the person to see
the bigger picture, to see maybe what their role might
be in the situation. And if you listen to your
friends over time, they often they're sort of a pattern,
maybe different characters, but similar theme to what they're saying.
Maybe they always feel victimized, or maybe they do something
(15:23):
that causes people to react to them in that way.
It's kind of like if a fight breaks out in
every bar you're going to, maybe it's you. Do you
know those friends who like they always have the same
kind of right We all know those people and sometimes
we are those people, and so that's idiot Compassion is
is you know, just completely standing, you know, just validating
what your friend says without looking at it further, and
(15:46):
and it really kind of keeps them stuck. Wise, compassion
is what you get in therapy. A therapist will hold
up a mirror to you and help you to see
yourself in a way that maybe you haven't been willing
or able to do. And so what that does is
it helps you to get on It helps you to say, wait,
why does this keep happening to me? Why am I
having this kind of trouble in relationships, in my career,
(16:07):
in my personal life, whatever it is, Why do I
keep ending up in the same place over and over?
And that's what's going to be really helpful. We all
have blind spots, and wise compassion can help you to
see what those blind spots are. Now, you talk a
lot in your book and in your TED talk about
how we are unreliable narrators of our own life. So
(16:27):
what are some of the stories that we tell ourselves
about our lives that get in our way? So we
are unreliable narrators. And by that, I don't mean that
we're purposely misleading. What I mean is that we're telling
the stories that happen in our lives through our perspectives,
through our own particular lens, and so often we're leaving
out entire parts of the story. If you asked another
(16:50):
person involved in the story to write their version of
the story, it would probably be very different from yours,
although there might be some overlap. So I think that
it's it's really important that we consider a fact that
what we're saying is just one version of a story,
and usually we're stuck because we can't see other versions
of the story. And that's where you come in with
that mirror or a therapist and offers the wise compassion. Well,
(17:15):
I think it's really interesting because when I see couples,
I get to see both versions of a story, and
you learn so much about yourself through um, you know,
from hearing the other person's perspective. There's so much that
we don't see just because we're only seeing it through
our own, our own viewpoint. And I feel like my
writing background comes in really handily as a therapist because
(17:37):
I feel like what I'm doing in the therapist share
is really doing an editing job, where I'm helping people
to edit their stories, you know, is the protagonists moving forward,
There is the protagonist going in circles. Um, you asked,
you know, what are some of the stories we get
stuck in a lot of them are stories we tell
ourselves like I'm unlovable, or I can't trust anyone, or
nothing will ever work out for me, or I'm better
(17:59):
than some one, or i'm or I'm not as good
as someone else. You know, whatever the story is, we
don't even realize that that story is impacting every choice,
every decision that we make on a daily basis, and
we don't even realize that those stories are running in
the background. Just a quick thing for people that have
the ongoing story, like, what is something they can do
(18:21):
to combat that? I think just being aware that that's happening,
first of all, because some people don't even realize that
that's happening. Um. And I think the other thing too,
is just I don't think people realize how self critical
they are, and that's part of their story. So whenever I,
you know, I'm giving a talk and I say to people,
who's the person that you talked to most in the
course of your life? Um, you know, show of hands,
(18:42):
is that your partner, is that your sibling, is that
your mother is your best friend? Lots of hands. But
the person that we talked to most in the course
of our lives is ourselves. And what we say to
ourselves isn't always kind or true or useful. And so
I had this one therapy client who you know, was
very unaware of how self critical all she was, and
I said, I want you to go home and listen
(19:02):
to how you talk to yourself and write down everything
that you say to yourself over the course of a
few days and come back and we'll talk about it.
And she came back the next week and she started
to you know, she had written everything down and she
started to read it and she said, I can't even
read this. I am such a bully to myself. And
there were little things like she made a typo while
while she was writing an email and she said to herself,
you're such an idiot, right I do that time, you know,
(19:27):
she caught her reflection in a mirror and she said,
oh my god, you look terrible, right, And she didn't
look terrible. So just we are so unkind to ourselves,
and not only unkind, but it's just not true and
it's just not useful. So I think the very first
thing that we can do is to say, wait a minute,
that voice has you know, I need to change the
radio station. That is not the radio station I need
(19:49):
to be listening to. Well, just some theme. I work
in radio, which is a male dominated business. So I've
been in radio for fifteen years and sometimes I have
the impostor syndrome, you know of like oh, I shouldn't
be doing this. Like there's other people in my company.
I mean, I work for my Heart Media. There's like
the tons of people that I look up to or
(20:12):
that are higher up in my company. But a lot
of them are men like they are I. I have,
you know a few females on air that are older, wiser,
but it's not it's not that many at all. So
I do suffer from that a little bit, and other
women may have that going on. But what do you um?
Like I don't belong here, I shouldn't be here. I
(20:34):
don't just what am I? How? How am I on
this stage right now? Surely they this is one thing
I do in my head, like who turned this down?
And that allowed the door to open up for me?
And not that that's bad, I mean I want to
take opportunities, but like what happened, who got sick, who
couldn't come, who had other commitments, instead of just believing
(20:57):
like oh maybe they wanted me to host this? Does
that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely, I think that's so common.
And you're you're telling such a story. You know, you've
got this whole story going on in your head that
that I don't think again, is it kind? Is it true?
Is it useful? I don't think it's true. It's certainly
not kind, and I don't think it's useful. How does
(21:17):
it help you? And so that's what I'm talking about
when I'm saying, examine these stories that we're telling ourselves.
What is that voice saying? And why do we want
that voice to live in our heads? If you you
would not choose that voice to be your partner? Right,
if you're like I'm choosing a partner, would you choose
this really mean, critical, inaccurate person. No, you wouldn't. So
why do you want to live with that person in
(21:38):
your mind? So? My, you know, it's really my when
you talk about you know what do I advise people
on that? It's really about a being aware of it
and then be making a decision about you know, who
are you going to let in? Who are you going
to let into your home? And your home is is
your mind, your heart? You don't have to let that
voice into your home. I do try to put that
into action. So I do encourage ridge listeners to be
(22:01):
that way and believe in themselves the most and be
super confident before you have to go on stage or
maybe give a presentation on Zoom or whatever your career
is to like, you know, do a power pose in
the mirror and own it. I also like to admit
too that I I encourage that, but I'm never on
a pedestal speaking like down to people. This is how
(22:22):
you have to be because I'm the same exact way,
like I'm more so saying it when I say it
out loud to hear on the podcast, I'm reminding myself.
So I appreciate you giving me that reminder to are
all of us? You know, when it comes to relationships,
whether it's a significant other or maybe if it's it's
even a working relationship, what do you think is the
(22:42):
hardest thing for people to do? Right? Is that? Is
it the being, the seeing and the hearing. Well, certainly
the perspective taking. But I think that people really struggle
with how to listen. A lot of people don't know
what listening means. So some people think that you know,
someone comes to you and the way to listen is
to solve their problem, or the way to listen is
(23:03):
to again the idiot compassion, or the way to listen
is to come up with your accounter, your retort, your
counter argument, in your minds that you won't feel shame
about what they're saying. Right, people don't really know what
it means to listen, and we don't even ask people
what they need when they come to us. So sometimes
when people come to us and they say I really
want to talk to you about this, one of your
(23:23):
first questions might be I'm available. How can I be
helpful to you in this conversation? Do you just want
to vent right now because maybe something just happened. Do
you want to hug right now? Do you want to
hear my honest thoughts about this? Do you want me
to help you brainstorm solutions? What would be most helpful
right now? And that is so reassuring to the person
(23:44):
who's going to be heard because they can think for
a minute, They can reflect and say, wait a minute,
what do I want? Or they might say I'm not
sure yet. Let me just start talking and then I'll
let you know. And what you can do as a
listener is just say three words, tell me more. Those
three words, tell me more, Because every time you say
to someone, tell me more, you're allowing the other person
(24:05):
to hear themselves, to get acquainted with what am I thinking?
What am I feeling without all the noise from the outside,
Because ultimately, I truly believe that we know what we want,
but sometimes we can't hear ourselves. And so when you
say tell me more, you allow the other person to
hear themselves. You know, you mentioned connection and how connection
(24:25):
is so important, and what if someone kind of has
some walls up for whatever reason. Do we just need
to be patient with that? Like if you're you want
to hear more because say you want to be a listener,
but there's a wall there. This is the person that
wants the connection, just need to be patient? Or how
do we earn that to where someone may be like, okay,
I can say more because we may be a messed
(24:48):
up in the past, right and and we warrant the
listener that we should have been. Is there any advice
on how to undo that? Is it just to keep
showing up? I think about that in terms of you know,
I get I now I have to see the show Parenthood,
but in terms of parenting, because I think about how
you want to make sure that your kids feel invited
(25:09):
to come talk to you, but not forced to, And
I think that you want to do that with everybody.
Is you want to make sure that you're creating an
invitation that feels welcoming, that feels safe, that feels trusting.
And so if they have experience coming to you and
they haven't felt like it was a good experience, they
might not want to come to you again. Right, So
(25:29):
you may want to get curious about that last conversation
we had, or is there something that's happened in the
past between us where it's been hard for you to
come and talk to me, And you can just ask
that question because I want to learn. I want to
make sure that you feel comfortable coming to talk to
me if you want to. And there are other ways
to issue invitations just by being a trusting person around them,
(25:51):
where you're very open, you don't kind of intrude on boundaries.
You know, they know that you're going to take care
with something very vulnerable about that. And I'll give you
an example where that that hasn't worked really well too,
so that people can understand how it can work better.
When I see couples in therapy often, and this is
just a kind of a stereotype of this happens a lot.
(26:14):
If it's a heterosexual couple, the woman will say to
the man, you know, I really want you to open
up to me. I really want to feel closer to you.
I feel like there's this distance between us. I want
to understand your inner life more. And so he starts
to open up to her, and let's say he starts crying,
and let's say he starts crying a lot. She will
inevitably look at me like a deer in headlights, like,
(26:36):
oh my gosh, what do I do with this? You know,
I didn't feel safe when he didn't open up to
me because I felt this distance between us. But it
don't feel safe when he when he's like crying hysterically
in front of me, right, And so, as a listener,
you have to think about what kind of invitation are
you issuing. Can the person really come to you with
the truth of who they are, or have you really
given them some kind of indication that you can't really
(26:57):
handle the truth of who they are. Different people want
different things, So we assume that what we would want
in that situation is what the person coming to us wants.
And that's where people get into trouble, and that's why
they get into fights, Because if you were going to
your significant other with that problem. When you're listening, you're thinking, Oh,
this is what I would want, So this is what
I'm going to give them, But maybe they want something different.
Maybe you would want them to kind of help your
(27:19):
brainstorm ideas on how to fix the situation. But what
they really want is they want to hug, right, So
you don't really know until you ask. So for those
of us that may be looking to get into therapy
for the first time, or take the next step in
our healing journey, or allowing someone else into what's really
(27:39):
going on with our lives, because you know, again, talking
to your friends may not be the best thing depending
on what kind of advice you're going to get. But
what is something we can do right now to improve
our emotional well being to start on that path, because
for some people, therapy might be really daunting, it might
not be accessible, it might not be something they can do.
(28:00):
But do you have like a first step for people
that want ahead in that direction but maybe quite aren't
there yet. Yeah, Well, first of all, I want to
say that I think talking to our friends is really important.
Um So despite the idiot compassion you know, caveat, I
would say I think what we really need more of
is we need to connect more with one another, but
connect more in an authentic way. And I think that
(28:23):
that authenticity and that and choose your audience. Choose your
audience well meaning, choose to choose your friend that you're
going to be vulnerable with. Make sure it's a person
who you know, you feel safe with. But I think
that a lot of people don't feel like they can
really you know, they're not really connecting. I think so
many people are lonely right now, even if they have
(28:43):
lots of friends, they have lots of family, they have
a partner, that they're not really connecting with those people
in a way that is nourishing. So I really want
to encourage people to make sure that they are nourishing
those connections. And in terms of reaching out to a therapist,
I feel like a lot of people don't reach out
because they have a lot of misconceptions about what therapy is.
They think like they're gonna go into therapy, they're going
(29:05):
to talk about their childhood at nauseum and they're never
gonna leave, or they're going to go in every week
and download the problem of the week and nothing's going
to change. Most of the work of therapy happens outside
the therapy real you come and talk to a therapist.
And we always like to say that insight is the
booby price of therapy. You can have all the insight
in the world, but if you don't make changes out
(29:25):
in the world, the insight is useless. So someone might say, well,
now I understand why. I get into that argument with
my partner all the time and I'll say, well, did
you do something different, and They'll say, well, no, you know,
and so yes, it's important to understand the why, but
you have to actually make changes. So therapy is very active.
It requires that you're going to do a lot of work.
It is not a place where someone's just going to say, yeah,
(29:47):
that's so terrible, um, but they're going to help you
really understand what you can do right now to start
making changes and improving your life. And so I think that,
you know, for people who think, oh, what is therapy
really going to do? I hope that my book helps
them to see what therapy actually looks like and what
it will for sure, And I would encourage people to
(30:08):
read it if they're considering therapy or maybe they're trying
to have a better understanding of what therapy is all
about for sure. Now I just started with a brand
new therapist. That's all my own. I've got two adopted
kids and a husband, and we've been in various forms
of therapy, you know, given they were older when we
adopted them. So that's just part of like what we've
(30:29):
been going through. And I just got a new therapist.
It's just for me, and I'm having a hard time
with like what I just wanted to, like tell me
every tell me what to do, like I've I need
to like breathe and stop. I mean, I'm patient. I
don't say that out loud to her, but in my
head sometimes I'm like, can you just tell me what
to do? Lots of people will actually ask that, right,
(30:51):
someone come to therapy and just tell me what to do.
I do that, and maybe you should talk to someone.
I asked my own therapists. I'm like, what would you do?
And he said, I only know what I do, but
I don't know what you should do. And I thought
that was such a great response, because we can't live
somebody else's life for them, right, so what I would
do might not be the right choice for you. And
(31:12):
like I was saying, earlier. I think we all ultimately
have the sense of knowing inside of ourselves, but we
so much noise gets in the way that we can't
hear ourselves. And so I think it's really important to
learn to be able to hear yourself better and that
will help you to know what you should do. You know.
I have a have a podcast called Deer Therapists where
(31:32):
it's actually an advice podcast. So people are asking what
should I do, and they write in a letter, and
I have a co host who is a psychologist named
Guy Winch, and we do a session with them, and
you can hear that at the end we give them
I don't want to so much call it advice, but
we give them a homework assignment and they have one
week to try it out, and then they cut back
(31:54):
and tell us how it went, you know, did did
it work, did it not work? What? You know? What
can we all learn from that? And I and what
I love about that is, first of all, it shows
that even after one session, people can make really profound
shifts in their lives. But it also shows that at
the end of the day, people kind of they do
what we you know, they do the homework assignment but
they make it their own because they knew what they
(32:15):
needed to do, They just needed the guidance and the support,
and so they go beyond what we've done so so
much of the time, and it works out so well
for them. Yeah, I get my lashes done, which is
about an hour every few weeks or so. And my
last person is my friend. Her name's Amy. Like, we
love to listen to podcasts together, and one that we've
(32:37):
been listening to sometimes during our last session is Dear Therapists.
So uh, we enjoy the unique format that you have
them on and then you offer up your wisdom and advice,
and then you have them back on after for a
follow up. So I love that and think it's awesome
and definitely recommend that people check out Dear Therapists. I
(32:59):
recommend and them checking out the book. Maybe you should
talk to someone. And then your ted talk was one
of the top ten most watched of the year, so
there's lots of different places to find Lorie. You also
have a weekly advice column for The Atlantics Weekly called
Deer Therapists. So very busy all over the place. I
(33:24):
would love to hear four things that you are currently
thankful for right now, and if as a therapist to
even knowing just how important it is of recognizing things
that you're thankful for, Like, is this something you ever
advise your patients to do or write writing things down
like as being therapeutic to recognize maybe the joys that
(33:47):
are around them, maybe even if it's like little teeny
tiny small things, but those really could be big things.
I love that you said that about the little teeny
tiny things being big things, because how do most of
us wake up every day think about that? Well, we
turn on our phones, so we look at our phones,
right the first thing we do is we check our phones.
And so already you're starting your day in kind of
(34:09):
negative territory because you're seeing something in the news that
maybe upset you, or you're getting all these emails and
people need things from you, and already your stress levels
go up, your heart rate goes up, and so you're
already starting the day kind of you know, not in
the way that I think will help you have the
resilience that you need to get through the day. So
(34:29):
we want to start in positive territory. And I don't mean,
you know, like being a Pollyanna. I think sometimes if
we just take one minute when we wake up instead
of looking at our phones. The first thing, the first
thing we do is we say what am I grateful for?
It just name one thing, and it could be I'm
so grateful that I'm going to go have this for breakfast.
I'm so grateful that when I look out the window,
(34:51):
look how beautiful that tree is. You know, I'm so
grateful that these sheets, you know, that I slept on,
or you know, like I got these new sheets or
whatever it is. It could be the tiniest thing. But
then you're starting in positive territory. So during the day
as things start to erode, you know that that positivity,
like those emails or the news or whatever is, you're
not going to go below zero because you started above zero.
(35:13):
Gratitude is so important. It's not this sort of like
cheesy thing that some people. You know, some people really
chafe at that when I talk about that in therapy,
But I think it's so important to stop and say
what am I grateful for? It really changes your perspective.
So what am I grateful for? Ye? I would have
to your four things. Four things. First of all, I'm
I'm so grateful for my son. He is just a
(35:35):
real joy and very fun to be around. And I
think one of the I would say, I hate to
use this term, but silver linings of the pandemic is
that I with remote school, I got to see more
of him than I ever would have and so I've
been grateful for for my time with him. Oh, I
have to come up with three more. Okay, I'm used
(35:56):
to doing money day for me, I would say, I am.
I am great for my health. I am grateful for
the fact that given everything that's going on, I've remained
healthy and that all of the precautions have been totally
worth it, not just for me, but for my family
and for my community at large. UM. And I'm grateful
for tagging onto that how wonderful the community has been
(36:17):
in terms of trying to just watch out for everyone
and protect everyone. And then, you know, when we think
about small things, I am grateful for the way my
hair turned out today. It looks great, I must say, seriously,
like the bed head. I was like, this is working.
So I'm grateful for that and little things like you know,
(36:37):
I'm writing a book right now, writing this new book,
and I am eating a lot of Trader Joe's UM.
Like movie popcorn. If you haven't tried that, please do.
It is amazing. I'm not getting paid for this, I swear,
it is just something where like I look forward to that.
So it's like these little things from the big things
like my son and my health to my hair and
(36:58):
my and the popcorn that I'm eating that I think
really can can shift your mood in a very quick way,
especially during the day when you start to kind of
lose perspective and you go into those those little black
holes that we tend to go into. Step away from
your screens, step outside for a minute, look at a tree,
you know, breathe in the air, look at the sky,
and think about just something that you're grateful for. Well,
(37:20):
this is the Four Things podcast, so that's why we
do four Things. But for the month of March, my
listeners are doing a gratitude challenge. So the challenges you know,
every day might be daunting for some people, but just
getting in the habit of hopefully doing four things every day,
big or small. But for some people, if they're new,
(37:41):
I love that. You know you just said, just wake up,
start on a positive note. For one minute, focus on
one thing that you're thankful for starting that day off
on a positive note. So that's why I had to
do four things. And I love that you gave us
the Trader Joe's popcorn thing. I love when someone's gratitude
gives us a new snack we need to try. I
would just say one more thing on gratitude. You know,
(38:03):
I think that the mood of a household is very contagious,
and so if you start off your day and you
have other people or a roommate or whoever is that
you're living with, and you tell them what you're grateful
for about them, it really changes the mood in the house,
especially now a lot of people being in close quarters
during the pandemic. But even afterward to say, I'm really
(38:23):
grateful for your smile, I'm really grateful that you made
me laugh yesterday. I'm really grateful for that that hug
that you gave me. I'm really grateful that you did
the dishes last night. Yeah. I love that you're saying that,
because another thing we've been focusing on is ways to
make somebody feel good or compliment them without talking about
their appearance or looks. I feel like, even though I
(38:43):
do want to say your hair does look amazing, but
especially with we we cover a lot of body image.
I host another podcast called Outweigh, which is the tagline
is a life without disordered eating outweighs Everything, And you know,
I think that sometimes speaking of you never know what
someone else is going through if you compliment, like are
you working out? If you lost weight? Or you look
(39:05):
so skinny, and I feel like that's stuff that society
it's acceptable to throw out, oh my gosh, she looks
so skinny, you look great, what are you doing? Tell
me every tell me your plan, you know, and then
that could be very harmful or damaging to someone when
you don't know are they sick, do they have an
eating disorder? Are they depressed? What could really be going
(39:25):
on behind that weight loss to where you could be
adding fuel to the fire if it isn't eating disorder,
or you could be adding shame if it's like they
are sick and they don't want anybody to know. So anyway,
I love that you can compliment or make someone feel good,
whether it's your roommate, your co worker, your significant other,
but making it about like thank you for making me laugh,
(39:48):
or your laugh is contagious, or you're so creative, or
I love the energy that I have when I'm around you.
I think if you start the sentence with in your
mind with I appreciate about you, right, it it is
not about those more superficial things. It becomes about something
that really touched you or moved you. You know. When
I when I said I appreciate you, know, I'm grateful
for your smile, I mean I appreciate your smile meaning
(40:10):
it moves me. It touches me, right, I appreciate that
you gave me that hug. I appreciate that you made
me laugh. I appreciate that you did the dishes that
really it made me feel loved or just I appreciate
about you. You know again, like you said, your creativity
because I enjoy it. Well, I appreciate you well, thank
you so much, and I appreciate you for bringing these
conversations that are much needed to so many people. Awesome. Well,
(40:33):
thank you, Lori, and I hope you have a great day.
And yeah, everybody check out Dear Therapists for sure. You
can listen on I Heart radio orhere. If you listen
to podcasts,
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com