the host of Psych with a Mic theeeee Dr Jen.mp3

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, guys, it's Pete for Beef Anxiety here. Welcome in
today's episode. I appreciate all being here so much. Let's
talk about a few things real quick. The P for
Anxiety Team anxiety Facebook group. Are you a part of it?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
You're not?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
What are you waiting for? The leaks down here in
the description now below, or go to Facebook and search
P for Anxiety Then look for the team Anxiety team
page and join it. Today went on, you can join
the help It'll be great. Like right now, hurry up,
stop it doing paused video? Go do around. But anyways,
let's also talk about the P for so anxiety YouTube page.
You guys, if you're here right now, you're probably following
it most likely. If not, head on over there subscribe

(00:35):
VI shure I don't like in comment on the videos
and let me know because all that stuff really helps guys.
I really appreciate it and help mean break the stigma
that mental health is talked about enough. But anyways, guys,
let's get in today's episode. I'll be I'll have a
great one. Thank you so much again, and as always, say,
don't ask your day is ask how your mental health is? Today?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Guys looking to exciting episode of PEE for this anxiety.
My guest today is none other than the one, the only,
the host of the psych with a Mic podcast, the
Doctor Jen. How are you doing today, Doctor Jen.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
I'm great, Pete. Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited about this.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
I am so excited for you to be here. We
already know that I am beyond the static. Doctor Jen's
videos are actually a lot of inspiration to the show.
I watched a lot of them and a lot of
stuff we educated. You've taught me a lot of things
you don't even realize. So why don't you tell me
a little more about yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Well, I started out in small farming town in South Texas.
From there, I went to University of Texas and then
Baylor University for my graduate degree. And at Baylor, the
Army picked me up for a health professional scholarship program,
so I tagged along with them for a few years,

(01:45):
did a residency at Walter Reed in DC, and then
I was stationed in Fort Wachuca, Arizona, and then moved
here to where I am in the Phoenix West Valley.
We've been here since two thousand and six, and after
I get out of the military, i jumped right into
private practice and that's what I've been doing ever since.
I don't think I can work for anyone ever again,

(02:06):
because I've gotten to love the independence. Of course. I
specialize in personality disorders, specifically borderline personality disorder and couple's work.
And I've written a book on marriage. It's called Fix
Your Freaking Marriage. You can find it on Amazon and
Barnes and Noble. And I've published some other books on respect,

(02:27):
one on menopause, I'm working on one on overcoming betrayal,
and then the next big one we'll be get on
with your freaking life. And that's overcoming the self limiting
beliefs that block us in all areas of life. So
that's kind of the reader's digest version.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Maybe it's a real moment, though. You're talking to me
and you're here, and I've used to seeing your videos
and you're stiking to me.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
It is so cool though. I mean, like you said,
you are an ext ort of BT because that is
literally the porch video I saw when I looked it
up one time, somebody has mentioned that's what they had,
and I was like, okay, and lo and behold your
video pops on the screen and I'm like, oh my god,
this is so cool. It's like, all right, cool, what
is you know? I said. It was so great though,
because the way you broke it down, it made sense

(03:13):
and it was easy to digest because I know with
BPD and orderline person and bipolar, but a lot of
times people get to miss mixed up a little bit.
But you know, BBT is a little more extreme, and
the way you broke down all the facts and everything
are so cool. So I kept going to all these
different videos and I kept finding them, and I was
telling Doctor Jen before we hit Go Lives and Is that,
I was like, you know, we and my wife joked

(03:34):
about it. I was like, you know, hey, what if
she actually was going to be on the show in time,
you know, because I was like talking about people bringing
people on and doing different things, and we had joked
about it and then lo and behold here she is now,
you know. So it was so funny. It's so real
at the same time, so full circle it is. It's
awesome though. It's so cool though. I do I do
enjoy the way your videos break things down, you know,

(03:56):
And I was like, I was laughing too, because you're
on TikTok and I'm like, god, I can only imagine
the things that get asked to you there.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Oh my gosh, you're right, the things that people say
and the comments that have nothing to do with anything,
the comments when I've done lives, I'm like, what what
is wrong with you? People like, yes, I do not
believe you're saying this in a public format. And it's
keyboard warriors, you know, I know, and I try to

(04:23):
ignore it, but I mean sometimes I get a good
chuckle because the stuff they say is just so out there.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yes, yeah, that's that's funny because it gets interesting because
you're watching them. They start typing weird things, and you're like,
what the hell's wrong with you? People? Yeah, talk to
your mother.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Like this right right exactly?

Speaker 2 (04:40):
So, doctor ten, what got you into psychology?

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Though?

Speaker 2 (04:42):
I mean, it's always interesting to hear people say what
they're they're What started them to it is when you
said that you can't work for nobody makes me laugh
because a lot of people that's what they say said.
Now that I work private practice, hell, having a boss,
I can't do that anymore.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Yeah, yeah, so I that's always been an interesting question
for me. They ask you that when you're trying, when
you're applying to graduate school, and you know, I've been
asked that a number of different times, and I don't
have any that I recall, any significant experience, significant emotional

(05:17):
experience where I was like, Okay, this is what I'm
going to do. I think I've just always been sort
of empathic and just connected with people. I could feel
some of the emotion that they were feeling, and I
think just I think just growing up some of the

(05:37):
things that I went through, like bullying was a big
one in junior high. That was a significant emotional event
for sure, but some of the things that I've been through,
it just felt like, oh gosh, it would be really
nice to have someone to talk to. And then I
just kind of evolved into wait, I want to be
that person for people. When I was little and when

(05:58):
I was in elementary school, I want to be a teacher,
and then I wanted to be a cosmetologist, and then
I wanted to be an attorney, and then by the
time I got to high school, I wanted to be
a psychologist. And I took a course on psychology and sociology,
and I would say that's when I said, Okay, yes,
this is what I want to do. Yeah, and ever since,
I mean, the rest is history. I just love it.
I love it.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, I did too. I just loved the whole area
of just mental health. I think psychology had touched on
a little bit when I was in college. I was
I went graphic design and multimedia. It was some fancy
title I never use. You know. It was interesting because
I watched these videos, like you're interviewing these different serial
killers and you're looking at their personalities and how like
a lot of the guys they had no emotion when

(06:40):
they were telling you these things, and it's like, how
could somebody have no remorse to what they were doing?
So I kept digging deep. I was like, this is
so fascinating, you know. And I've done another podcast before.
It was just general, just talk about weird things, you know,
and all that other fun stuff in the beginning, and
then I stumbled on to ammn's a mental health episode,
be It Done, and I reali that I'm in the

(07:01):
top percentage of men that take their lives in that session,
and I was like, dude, this is weird. Why are
we not talking about this stuff? If this statistic is
so high. Why is it not address?

Speaker 3 (07:12):
You know?

Speaker 2 (07:12):
So I ended up stopping the other one because we
were having differences anyways, and then this one came across
when I started dealing my own issues and things like
that too. So then I came up the idea pe
f anxiety because every day I battled my anxiety, you know,
and things like that. And like I said, though, and
I started doing the show, and somebody found out what
I was doing. There's a young lady that worked that

(07:33):
who told me she had BPD, and I had no
idea what that was. And I was like, okay, what
is that? And that's what led me to your video
and then that from there, you know, it was just
like it was. It was it. I was like, okay,
this is interesting. I want to know more because as
you can see what it looks like in paper, but
when you're talking to somebody, each person you interview that
has it has a different set of symptoms. A lot

(07:54):
of times it's not always the same.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, no, it there's a continuum. BPD, like most things,
runs on a continuum. So you see a lot of
diversity in terms of symptoms or symptom expression. The origins
of it you know, I love hearing your origin story
though that you were doing one thing and then there
was this thing that happened, and now you're over in
mental health. I mean, I love hearing those stories, and

(08:18):
I think it's I think it's interesting how we're guided
to do certain things. And I think that's what's helped
me do this work, because sometimes it can be really difficult,
it can be really painful, it can be really sad.
Most of the time it's just really rewarding, which is
what keeps us coming back. But I feel like when
you're given a calling and you're feeling there's something on
your heart or on your mind or both, you can't

(08:41):
ignore that. You've got to follow that that nudge.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, no, I agree. It's just like, had I known
the conversations I was going to get into doing this beforehand,
I probably have laughed and been like, you know, ha ha.
This is funny because since I started this show, this
show has been booked out to the end of the year.
When I started in some Tember last year, I literally
had people lined up that just were knocking on the
door wanting to so I added another time slot because

(09:06):
I used to do a weekly show on Mondays until
I open the whole calendar up. But that and that's
when I just really got into sat interesting conversations. You know.
We had a guy beginning the beginning of the year
actually talking about the suicide ideation when we were alive,
and people were just going panic like godzills crushing Tokyo
get oh God. It was interesting to see people's responses

(09:26):
because up until that point, I've never had to deal
with that conversation with people. I knew it was going
to come up, and when it happened, like I didn't
say anything. I was really calm about it. But he
was over there just talking and he just cycled back
to it. And I've never seen so many people triggered
by that. And I was just like, I'm wondering, like,
that's really interesting. Why do peop get so upset about it.
It's like he's just talking about what he was thinking about,

(09:49):
you know, and things like that. You know, and we've
had several moments on the show where people are like, man,
I had to stop, take a few minutes and come
back because you guys were just digging too deep for me.
Like narcissism was a big one too. A lot of
my viewers are like, I had a few people reach
out go listen. I had to stop fifteen minutes in
because you guys had met at a sand still because
I'm feeling it, man, And it's like, you know, those

(10:09):
great messages that you keep getting from people are great
because it means that we're touching subjects that people want
to talk about. Right, And then other people just keep
coming to me going, well, Pete, I appreciate what you're doing.
And all I'm doing is having a conversation. But really,
at the same time, I'm having a conversation nobody wants
to talk about. But why is that? Though? You know,
do you do you have a feeling? Do you have
an understanding why people is that people don't want to
talk about their mental health.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
That's always been curious to me. I mean, on some level,
of course, I get it, like people they don't want
to be that vulnerable. I've built a career around trying
to emphasize the importance of the mind body connection.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
So the brain and the body are inextricably linked by
the spinal cord. You can't change that. They work together,
they're linked, they're connected. So it's really ignorant of us
to think that one isn't going to affect the other,
and vice versa. It runs both ways. So what I
tell people is, look, if your pancreas stopped producing insulin,

(11:14):
you would need to get some treatment. That's diabetes. You
would need to get some treatment, and if you didn't,
you might die, right like people can die from untreated diabetes.
So the pancreas is an organ, the brain is an organ.
What's the difference. Why not treat all organs? But there's

(11:35):
this divide to your point and to your whole mission,
there's this divide. It kind of cuts off like right
here where people are like, well, if it's in my head,
I should be able to control it. Okay, if you
really break that down, that's a really ignorant thing to say.
And when I say ignorant, I don't mean stupid, I
mean unaware. So ignorance is just a lack of awareness. Right. So,

(11:58):
if you think about it, if the pancreas produces insulin,
the brain produces neurotransmitters serotonin, nore epinephrine, dopamine, GABA, glutamate.
Excuse me, those guys. So what's the difference. It's an
organ that produces chemicals that we need, so it's it's

(12:21):
important any way you look at it. Why do we
treat them so differently? And all I've really come up
with is that people just think that they should be
able to control their thoughts. But when you really break
it down and you're like, look, it's an organ, an
organ just like the pancreas, the stomach, the you know whatever,
then they sort of start to see like, oh, yeah,

(12:44):
I guess you know, maybe I'm being too hard on myself.
But I think the other part is it's there's an
emotional vulnerability when you really talk about your mental health
because everybody is struggling behind their eyes. And some people
are willing to talk about it. Other peoples are willing
to build shows around it and educate people. And then

(13:04):
other people are like, I cannot tell a soul, it
would I would just die if anybody knew what was
going on for me. And we're on a planet of
over eight billion people at this point. Whatever you're thinking,
feeling and experiencing, I will bet you any sum of
money you choose, you're not the only one exactly.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, You're not alone. That's that's a big thing I
preach for people too, it's like you're not alone, and
you know, and my thing with people's stories too, I
invite a lot of people. I go, you know, your
story's going to touch somebody's heart, And if you do
to one person, you've already won at that point because
somebody in the world is going to hear that story
and go, hey, that's me too. Now I don't feel
so alone and things like that too. But you know

(13:44):
that that is a lot of times I hear with
a lot of people I invite to come on, so
people like, well, I'm just not ready to tell my
story or I don't you know, I don't want somebody
to know it's me and to be able. We've had
situations where I've had a guests where she had her
situation so bad she had to have the camera because
she didn't want anybody to know what she looked like
because she was describing her narcissistic ex of fifteen years
and talking about him and her book and things like

(14:06):
that too. So it's been interesting though, and it's it's
certain subjects I mean get really interesting, like sexual assault
gets really interesting. Like you hear a lot of times
like people, you know, say, oh my my issue is
really small, and I tell them, I'm like, no, snop stop,
we don't do that. You don't come on here and
tell me it's a small issue that happened to you
is a serious thing. The big little whatever you feel

(14:28):
it is, it's still important to somebody out there that
you know they don't feel like they're alone. And you know,
when someone comes and shares the show, I'm always very
encouraging of them and things like that too, and all
that stuff, and I don't leave any topic untouched. I've
talked about everything. Hell, I did a whole episode on
a breast cancer memoir that someoney wrote. It was interesting
because I'm a male, you know, so by society standards,

(14:51):
I shouldn't be talking about these things because this doesn't
involve me. But it was so interesting to see her
memoir and how she broke it down and the vulnerability
this woman had she she buried at all, Like you
saw everything, you know, So like, I don't leave any
subjects gonna touch. So like that's like I said, people
coming to me all the time and they say they
appreciate the things I'm doing. And it feels good though,
because you know that's it's like, it's not only just me,

(15:13):
it's helping me too because I'm going on a journey,
I'm learning new things. I'm learning more about myself, honestly,
because last year I found I'm energy sensitive. I don't
know if you get into the holistic side at all
or any of that kind of spiritual things like that.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah, yeah, what did you learn?

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Well? I learned that I'm an EmPATH as well. And
it's this common I'm about to pull up right now,
as this person says, right here, like Steve says, he says,
I'm an EmPATH as well. I can feel strong energy.
I found after I was struggling with other blue emotions,
like I was sensing spirit energy around me. I've been
a para normal investigator for about thirty years. Now, I'm
told that I'm not the only walk with spirits, but

(15:49):
spirits walk with me. I feel their emotions. And I
thought that I had a major anxiety, but now I
believe it's that I'm sensing the spirits of emotions around me.
I can relate to what he's saying though, because I
had this feeling all the time like there was something
there I couldn't tell what it was. Now I did
an interview with the woman that she called herself the

(16:09):
Energy Alchemist. But she and I had a deep conversation
and it was I found out that I'm sensitive to energy,
which made sense because I could feel this energy, like
the energy around people or something around me all the time.
Can never explain what it was. It was almost like
a sixth sense, you know. And then there was another thing.
Cho it was like when I come close to people,
certain people I didn't like, I got this weird pit

(16:31):
feeling in my stomach and I couldn't tell what it was.
You know. It's like, you know, for something I don't like,
a reason I don't like them. And I found out
that energy sensitive though, because I'm sensing their energy that
they have. And you know, I'm very empathic as well,
because I can read a lot of people's emotions. Like
I can not look at across the room. I can
tell somebody's having a bad day. I'll start asking the questions.
And then there was another thing when we got into

(16:53):
my birth chart, which was very interesting for me. Is
it said that I have the something in my chart
shows that says that people come up to me and
tell me things that they normally wouldn't tell me, which
was weird at first because I was like, wait a minute.
That explains a lot of things. Because people would come
up to me and I just have a general conversation
with them and they start sharing things they never would
tell anybody, and they've told me that several times. Well,

(17:14):
I never would tell anybody this. You're the first person
I've told. And it was so weird because I was like, huh.
But it was so interesting though, because it made sense
because it was like, well, damn, you know, and mind you,
the person reading my chart has no idea anything about
me prior to this conversation. She is telling things about
my mother and I'm having issues with my mom and
these things like that, and it was so interesting because

(17:36):
she's explaining all the astrological houses and we're hitting these
points and I'm just like, I'm mind blown because I'm like, well, damn, okay,
and I'm like I'm telling you, I'm like, guys, I
didn't tell her any of this stuff. She knew none
of these things before this conversation, and it was so
fascinating how close it was. So now I've been kind
of going down that little area too, you know, and
checking that stuff out as well.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
It's an honor when someone says that to you, when
they say, I've never told anyone this, you know. But
I think there are just we do come with an energy,
We have a vibe, We have an energy that we emit,
and it's the same reason that you know, we we
select the friends we select. I've gotten very selective about

(18:21):
my friends at this point in my life, and I
try to not have drama in relationships right and put
up boundaries when that happens. And you know, you figure
out who your people are when you've been on the
planet as long as I have. So, but I think
it's we're drawn to certain people. And I think that
there's a lot too that like. We like the energy,

(18:42):
we like their presence, we like their confidence, we like
their sense of humor, whatever. All of these things create
a person's energy. So I think there's a lot to
be said for how that draws us to certain people
and it repels us from other people.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, I think you said it perfectly to you, because
there's couple other people have had on it that were
in that kind of area. We were discussing that too.
She was like, I attract the people I want and
I repel the people I don't want and the people
that don't like my energy they get upset by it.
And it's like, okay, well that makes sense because I
do keep a small circle of friends. I don't live
many people in my little orbit here, like there's very

(19:17):
little people that are here and things like that. I'll
let people get close enough, but do you get into
the inner circle? No, because I don't. Ninety percent of
the time. I don't trust people because I you know,
my my ex cheated on me, so I have really
bad trustees already right there. She was a narcissist, so
I dealt with that for fifteen years. She gasled me
all the things you know a narcissists would do and
things like that too, And at the time, you know,

(19:39):
I didn't realize what it was until I knew it,
and it just was like it was horrible because then I,
after learning a lot of things, I was just started
identifying how to how to deal with this person, because
you know, we had kids together, and now you know
she weaponizes those weapons the kids against you and things
like that as well. But I now I'm like, I'm
watching what she's saying because normally she trigger me. But

(20:00):
after doing this for a while and talking to so
many different people, I start learning how to pick apart
a conversation with her. And you can just see the
level of frustration from just one word answers coming out
of her, and she's just like typing away furiously. And
normally I would engage it, but now I'm more self
aware of what's been going on and us see and
things like that too, you know. And it was like

(20:20):
it was so surreal because I'm like looking at it,
like all right, here we go, and then she's just
doing it, and I'm sitting there thinking about what she's saying,
and I'm like picking apart this conversation. I'm just one
word answering her, and she's just getting so mad, just
fiercely typing, and it makes me laugh because I'm just
like before I used to give into that and I
type away and we'd have a text battle so you
could type fashion than the other person. But now it's

(20:41):
like I'm more self aware of these things, and I'm
just like, yeah, you're not gonna win this battle today. Sorry.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Wonderful boundaries are beautiful.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
I think I love it when you say boundaries though,
because I think a lot of people when they set them,
you always hear that same thing that comes out that hey, listen,
you're being selfish and it's not you. You can agree
to this whole statement to that it's not that you're
being selfish, you're just placing the things in the place.
You're telling people listen to, these are my boundaries if
you can't respect them. And I think the hardest part

(21:10):
a lot of people have is that they when they
set the boundaries, they trying to give in because they're
just given to the pressure of other people that are
just kind of picking at it like, oh, no, you're
being selfish, You're not being reasonable, dah da da dah,
you know what I mean. And it's just it drives
me crazy at times.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
It's not selfish, it's self preserving. But it is a
very big issue for people. I'm actually, as we speak,
I'm developing a West Valley Women's summit here in the
Phoenix area where I live.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Awesome, and that's.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
What we're going to be talking about is boundaries and
what that looks like and how you know it's not
boundaries are not lucifer in human form like this is.
These are limits that you have. It's like the moat
around a castle. You have to protect your priorities, your heart,
your mind, your relationships, yourself, you know, and people just

(22:07):
they a lot of people confuse boundaries with being aggressive,
and it's not aggressive, it's assertive. There's a giant difference
between the two, and boundaries are important. If you don't
establish where you end and the next person begins, you
will run exhausted, especially if you're an impact, you'll run
exhausted for your entire life and you'll be like, why

(22:31):
am I so tired. I'm not even doing anything. I
haven't even gotten out of my chair today, and I'm
just exhausted. Well, yeah, because you're navigating all of these
relationships that are violating boundaries of yours in some way,
whether spiritual, financial, emotional, psychological, physical, whatever. You're allowing that
into your realm and that will zap your energy. Yeah,

(22:53):
I mean, it's just self preserving.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
You know. Social media's like that too, you know, like
TikTok for an example, It's like it has had a
grip on me at one point. So now what I
do is I like this unplug Like I'll have a
little posts set up like Instagram's great for that gets
set up things so they'll drop so it looks like
I'm still active. But a lot of times I'll just
stop answering or I'll just not even look at it
for a couple of days because it gets so drawn

(23:16):
in because you know, all those people sending those live
invites and those all those things come in and you
feel like that you're being left out. Do you have
any advice for anybody that runs through that kind of problem?
Like I figured it out, but for everybody else that's
listening or somebody at home may have that issue they
do that doom scrolling. Any advice for that?

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's about a boundary again. We're
coming back to the limits that you set in your life.
So TikTok is. I call it the vortex because it
will just suck you in. And then it's these quick
little videos usually min mind tend to be longer, as
you know, but quick little videos that are seven seconds,

(23:54):
thirty seconds, sixty seconds, whatever, And it's it's triggering the
release ofamine in your brain. And dopamine is the same
that pathway is the same thing that's implicated in addiction
to drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, whatever, chocolate whatever. So it's
there are a couple of things that you can do.

(24:15):
I've gotten to where now I will what I call
post and ghost. So I'll go on TikTok and post,
and then I will, you know, go into my comments
to respond to people's comments whatever, do do my little
you know, due diligence for my channel, and then I
get the hell out of there. And TikTok makes it
difficult because the minute you open the app, it pops

(24:39):
something up for you. And so sometimes I'll get caught
and I'm like, oh, what does she doing That looks
really interesting?

Speaker 2 (24:45):
What is that? Or what is that?

Speaker 3 (24:46):
S getting care routine or you know whatever, and then
before I know it, I'm sucked in. So now I
open the app and I immediately go to like click
on my profile or my comments or whatever inbox and
do what I need to do and then get out
of there. So, if you're someone who maintains a social
media presence yourself, that's one thing you can do is
practice posting and ghosting. And then beyond that, I think

(25:10):
it's important for a couple of things. So, because we
know that these little dopamine hits are what keep us
compulsi or make us compulsive. It's important to find other
ways in your life that you can trigger the release
of dopamine. One of those, for example, is by triggering
the release of endorphins first, and endorphins it stands for

(25:33):
indogenous morphines. Those are the happy chemicals in the brain.
They're free and legal, and all you have to do
is move your body for twenty to thirty minutes and
they start coming out. There are other things that release them,
like sex and meditation, and you know, all the different things,
but find ways to get that dopamine generated that isn't
so rapid fire, because that's what gets us addicted is

(25:55):
when something works instantly. It's kind of like when people
take medication anxiety. So if they take a medication that's
long acting, those medications are not habit for me. If
they take a medication like a benzodiazepine like valume xanax,
you know some of those guys, those medications are really
habit for me because they act so quickly. So you

(26:16):
have to use leverage that principle and find ways to
release dopamine that take a little bit longer. Then the
other thing is getting into a habit of just sitting
without the release of dopamine, So just sitting and being
present or reading a book, which I think is a

(26:38):
lost art anymore. Right, So having a conversation with someone,
like just engaging with people is a great way to
offset that sort of rapid fire, because conversations generally are
not going to be so so reinforcing in rapid fire.

(26:58):
So the conversation can be good, it can be reinforcing overall,
but it's not something that's happening so quickly that it
just you get addicted to it. So those are just
some things off the top of my head that I
think can help with that dopamine draw.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, no, I agree. What I tend to do too
when I when I'm at like at five o'clock my
wife gets home, So like my phone, i'll put it
down screen side down. Two helps as well, Like whenever
time she starts talking to me, I'll really put it
down so I'm paying attention because at first I used
to have that really bad habit of just staring at it.
So I'll tend to put it screen side down. In
a minute she starts talking, I'll put it down. And
things like that too, and it actually works better for

(27:34):
me because then it means I'm as paying attention to
what she's saying and actively listening, because before I used
to sit there and try and do twenty thousand things
at first, you know, when I started this podcast, actually
at first I was trying to answer every single message
and I was like, oh god, I'm gonna answer so
now now. And to the point it's like, well, no,
I got a calendar for that. You can go to
the calendar. Calendar can handle it from there. If any

(27:54):
your questions come up, will you tomorrow after in the
morning or after you know whatever, I come back to
look at this mess you know.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah, And that's an important boundary. I mean I think
that you know, the other podcasts that I've been on,
they have the same thing. They have a system that
you go through if you want to be on there,
and it just kind of externalizes some of that responsibility
and keeps them out of the minutia and then let's
you focus on this right, like doing the thing, so

(28:24):
that alone, just having a calendar app handle your podcast booking,
that's a boundary. People often think boundaries are these big,
as you said, selfish things that we do. No boundaries
are saying no. Boundaries are disallowing negative energy. Boundaries are
streamlining and coming up with efficient processes like that, like
what we're talking about. Boundaries can look any number of ways.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yeah, definitely, no, I agree. Speaking of podcasts, let's talk
about your podcast. When did you? When did you start
doing your podcast? I mean it's a lot to do,
mind you, anybody that doesn't do hasn't done a podcast before.
It is a lot of work for until you get
those systems in place. So I'm interested to find out
when you started it and how hard was it at
first for you.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
So I you know, I don't remember. I feel like
I'm trying to remember. It was before or after COVID.
I think it was. I was looking at this yesterday.
I think it was around COVID ish time that I
started doing it because I remember all the limits that
were put on us, and I wanted to reach more people,

(29:28):
and COVID made it clearer. Because I was I was
very blessed, I was very fortunate. I still maintained a
practice during COVID, I just went virtual and then I've
stayed virtual. But I still felt this like there were
so many people really struggling with the lockdown, and so
I thought, I need to reach more people. I see

(29:48):
seven people a day, four days a week. That's twenty
eight people a week, and we're on a planet of
over eight billion people at this point. So I was like,
I need to reach more people. What can I do?
So I that's when I started writing books, the podcast,
and my online training platform, the psycho Education Academy. So
all of that kind of came around at about the

(30:10):
same time or around the same time. And when I
started it, I just did I have a Mac desktop
and I just did garage Band, which is the software
that comes with the machine. So I did that, and
garage Band I found pretty intuitive. Actually, there were certain
things I had to YouTube it or you know, do

(30:32):
a search or whatever. So and then you know, getting
a microphone and some of those things. Mine is pretty
pretty unfancy. You know. I don't have a studio and
this is just this is my office that I see
patients from. I just pray that it's going to be quiet.
When I need to, you know, be doing something. I
try to do it when the kids are out of
the house, you know. So some of the logistics stuff

(30:53):
I have to.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Be mindful of but.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
I love doing it now. I've not had any guests on.
It's been a solo endeavor thus far. I'd like to
get to the place of getting guessed, and I think
that makes it a little more complicated. You can probably
attest to that because you've got to book them. There
are legal forms and things that sometimes people want completed,
and then you've got to have some sort of platform,
and you know, you've got to have all the tech

(31:18):
figured out and everything. So I think that gets a
little more difficult doing it solo, though I would say
it wasn't It wasn't terribly difficult. Yeah, and maybe that
was just the software that I had, you.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
Know, I would say, probably is that I think is
now there's so many different options, like they told so
many different issues. Spotify had their own podbeing I was
on for a little bit. It was strictly audio. I
got into this one when I joined the network. I'm
a part of the orcleotographa network. I never used it
prior to that, and they got into it and they're like, oh, no,
it's easy, you can figure it out. I'm like, okay, sure,

(31:49):
Dude's like, I'm glad you're telling me, this is easy.
But I've never used this before, but all right, man,
why not? But ever since then it's been great though,
Like you know, I can, like I said, we're multi
signment casting from six different places, is that right now?
Which is kind of cool though to see because you
meet all these different people coming in. And you know,
because when I started mining too, I had a lot
of interesting conversations, you know, setting up guys and things

(32:09):
like that too. I've had a lot of unplanned things
happen in the conversations. Like you know, I told you
about the beginning of the year where they had the
guy freaking out and everybody just going crazy. I've had
a Columbine shooting survivor on the show too early on
in the beginning, and I didn't realize how how close
this woman was involved. She's literally about maybe six feet
away from one of the shooters and she's like, I

(32:30):
could see the whites of this guy's eyes. And mind you, guys,
when I'm recording this, it's audio. So I've made a
dark room because I had a situation my internet, so
I had the switch rooms real fast, you know, and
things like that. And I don't I don't have a
fancy studio. I use a side bedroom basically I have.
I have a nice little screen actor. Sometimes we'll use
depending on if I got the time to set it
up and things like that. But it's really to me,

(32:51):
it's like I understand, but it's like, at the same time,
it's what content you're putting out is really went matters.
The scenery kind of matter. I could be in the
middle of a McDonald's play place and you know, it's
still be better content most people. You know. It's it's
so especially when you get in this topic too, because
when I did it originally, I was looking to see
what kind of people were talking about these things, and
a lot of times you see doctor, doctor, doctor, and

(33:11):
it's like I was like, really average people just having
a conversation about this, you know, And and that's when
this whole thing started. But had I known the demand
I was going to get, Jesus, I'm literally in November
right now booking people. If I took all my dates
and stretch them out and probably into next year already
of just content of people alone, yeah, you know. And

(33:32):
it's a lot to do too, you know. For me,
it's a lot of juggling, Like I have to go
to like Instagram and put all these things. But the
nice thing about what I'm using though, is I can
send it out all those places without having to actually
be there. Now, I go in there and tag certain
things because those are the requirements I have for certain
networks I'm on and things like that too. But you know,
and I told anybody this is where I would be,

(33:53):
and after I started this thing, I would have laughed
at myself because I'm like, there's no way in hell, man,
people are going to be knocking on your door to
be on the show. Oh literally, I'm like, yeah, yeah,
you know, it's amazing. It is it. It's Greg you
said it's so great because it's just, you know, one
man on one mission. And then it's like, you know,
having the guest aspect, you don't know how the conversation
is ever gonna go. And that's the scary part of

(34:14):
it all too, because I don't I don't put a lot.
I don't prep a lot. I know it sounds bad
to people I say this, but I don't prep a lot.
I'm like, I jump in these conversations. So everything you
hear me saying nine percent of the time is it's
just just generally me and a lot of people come
up to me and said, oh, hey, you know, you
sound so intelligent, and it makes me laugh because it's
like I've always had an opinion. You just never wanted

(34:35):
to hear my opinion. That's what it was. And my
siblings are like that too, they're like, oh, you're so smart.
I'm like, what am I though? Or it's it that
I I had these thoughts and any of you all
want to listen because I'm the middle child, and we
all know how that works right there. You're esteem not
heard in that middle So it's been an interesting ride though.
But when you have guests, oh yeah, yeah, there's some
fun stuff that comes with that because you don't know

(34:57):
what they're gonna say. And luckily, to this date, I
really haven't had any problems with many guests, but I've
heard people's horror stories like they're getting all Like I
was talking to a good friend of mine, Mister Whiskey
runs a podcast called A Couple of Nukes. He said
that he had one guy come on it had never
heard his show before. It was the worst experience ever.
And I'm just like, dude, you have to have that
problem I'm surprised, so, you know, like I know, you

(35:19):
knock on what it may happen, it may not happen,
you know, And I'm not sure if I'll be prepared.
We'll see because a lot of times, like I said,
you don't know what people are going to say when
you go live, you know, and I'm prepared to cut
the cord if i have to. But so far, luckily,
I haven't had any polar extreams come on here talking crazy.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
It may have to do with your content too. I mean,
you know, when we're talking about mental health, I would
assume that the people that you're getting to come on
the show are you know, they have something to do
with mental health. Either they've experienced and mental health challenges
and it's made them very humble, or they're a professional
in the field and you know, hopefully they're going to

(35:57):
speak professionally, So it may have something to do with
the I hope you never have to encounter that, but
I imagine the conversations still get really interesting. And I
think when you don't do a lot of prep work,
I think that it just ends up being very authentic,
and I think that's what people want to hear. I mean,
that's why I think TikTok has been such a blessing
for me is because I'm just like, here it is,

(36:20):
this is what BPD is, this is what it looks
like if you're having this struggle. Here's how you can
help yourself. Like you just kind of you just put
it out there.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. TikTok is always an
interesting thing. Any any place you post anything is just
interesting because the comments people say. You're just like, really like,
I've had people comment in some of my videos and
just say the weirdest things. I'm like, but that's not
the point of this conversation. What do you mean, dude?

Speaker 3 (36:45):
Oh the Keyboard Warriors. Man, I just now I just
kind of chuckle. I'm just like, all right, dude, whatever, Like,
if you feel better for saying that, you know, that's
between you and your god.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
I'm just gonna yeah, I know I've been in one
of your life so that I remember that. That's how
we Actually I told people that started, like, yeah, I
was in there just you know, because someone else had
asked me how I keep getting all these guests. I'm like, listen, man,
you just got to shoot your shackle in there. And
just to ask them, you know, hey, listen, I got this,
and luckily I'm like, yeah. She had all these people
scrolling she saw my comment out and I'm not gonna
lie to you. I freaked out. As soon as you

(37:17):
said yes, I was like what I got the other thing?
I was going nuts and my wife's like, what happened?
I said, I said, remember that, lady, I talked to
you about in the beginning of the year. We were
joking about it. Guessa just said yes to be on
the show, and she goes, oh my god, yeah really,
I'm like yeah. And then I have to be honest
with you. When you emailed me and you're like, well,
I'm so sorry I took me so long get back.
I'm just thinking in my head, I'm going, oh my god,
is this really happening. She's talking to me.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
You flattered me, Pete.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
That's it was so because it was so awesome because
it's like you see you see you in the videos,
all these great videos you're doing, and then it's like
you're talking to yourself, like, man, I wish my day
when these people come and you know, and I've met
other people that are more successful than I am. Along
the way, but they all were like, you know, the
same thing, and you just got to ask, you know.
And that's how I about one of my good friends,
Lucy or She's she's a musician. She had like twenty

(38:02):
thousand followers Instagram. I did the same thing. I'm just
typing and you know, I'm like, I'm just asking people
all the time like this, Hey, I got to show
what do y'all think? You know? And I go, I
go for it. I'm like, forget at this point, they're
gonna say no, they're gonna see it, or they're not
gonna they're not gonna see it. At this point. My
best advice to most people is just like just go
for it, man. But people always ask me about shut.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
Yeah, shoot your shot. That's it. That is perfect. Like
if you you know, the answers always know.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
If you don't ask, yeah, definitely, no, I agree one
hundred percent. You know. But but it's it's so interesting though,
because like it's like you see, you see these videos,
you're watching the videos, you're teaching me all these things,
and I'm like, we spend a lot of like I
wanted to joke and be like listen, we spend a
lot of time together. You just don't know what kind
of thing because we have I've been watching all your videos.
I've been learning a lot of things from you as
I go and and things like that. So it's so great,

(38:47):
you know, when you get to that chance to interview
these people I come on, but I've I had mostly
most of the people I get come on our mental
health related I try to stay I stay in that subject.
Sometimes I'll do some special episodes of just people I
just want to have on the show just because because
I'm just fascinating about certain subjects and things like that too.
But yeah, when you hit go live, god knows, you
never know what the next thing is going to be said,

(39:08):
Like we had somebody had like Dad on the show
and things like that too, And you're like, if you're
watching them, like you know, now you know what to
watch for, like the little tweaks that they do in
their personality and things like that. So it's been so
fascinating as we go, you know, And like I said,
I'm already out to November, and I think this morning,
I know like five or six people sign up, and
I'm just like, this is just so surreal that these
people just keep just want to keep come talking to me.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Man.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
I'm like, I don't know what they want to talk
to me about, but let's go.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Yeah, why not, Let's let's go for it.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
So you said you're working on a new book.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
Huh. I'm working on three of them at the same
time because this is how my brain operates. So the
one you'll see here God Willing very soon is called
the betrayal breakthrough, and it's transforming pain into power when
you've been betrayed. So I just did a semi final

(39:59):
edit on that this week. I'm going to run through
it one more time and then I'm going to start
pre sales and start moving in that direction, hopefully this month.
I mean, that's kind of my self imposed deadline because
I've been wanting to do it for a long time.
And what happened was I got distracted because I have

(40:19):
self diagnosed ADHD. I'm pretty sure. So I am working
on this and then I go to a friend's house
for I don't know, happy hour whatever it was, and
her spouse asked me a question about people who are indecisive,
and so I just was kind of spitballing with him,
like here's you know, he's like, why is that? What
you know, talk to me about that. So I was

(40:40):
just kind of spitting some ideas out and then I
got home and I was like, I need because because
if one person has that question on a plane of
eight billion people, even guarantee somebody else has that question right.
And it's kind of like you said, if I can
help one person mission accomplished, check the box, we'll move
it on to the next thing. So I was like,
I got to get all this out. So I came
home and just started dumping things out of my brain

(41:04):
and then I just kept going and kept going, and
then I was neglecting the Betrayal book, and I just
kept going and kept going, and so then finally I
got myself back on track. We've done some traveling this
summer and stuff, and finally got myself back on track.
So the Betrayal Book should be coming out again, god
willing this month. The other one that's kind of moving
in the background is so my marriage book is called

(41:26):
Fix Your Freaking Marriage, And what was designed to be
the second book, which is now I don't know number
four or five, is called Get On with Your Freaking Life,
and it's about seven self limiting beliefs that we have
based in early experiences growing up, especially before the age
of six, because of the state our brain is in
during that time, we developed these beliefs. These core beliefs

(41:50):
then generate negative automatic thoughts, and those thoughts lead to feelings,
and those feelings lead to behaviors like self sabotage, like
self sacrifice, like not feeling good enough. You know, all
of the things that block us from success. And so
that's going to be the second really big one, I guess.

(42:13):
I don't know. The Betrayal book ended up being a
lot bigger than I thought, so we'll see how that goes.
But the get on with your freaking life is the
one about overcoming those beliefs and how you have to
walk through those early experiences, reprocess what happened, reframe it,
compartmentalize it in a healthier way, because you've already got
it compartmentalized, whether you know it or not. But it's

(42:34):
not necessarily healthy because in your unconscious mind, it's these
things are driving you and you don't even realize it.
So we compartmentalize it in a healthier way. Once we've
looked at it differently, then we can really get into
overcoming those beliefs and looking at self actualizing beliefs. So
that's the whole point, is to change self limiting beliefs

(42:57):
into self actualizing beliefs through this process that I've developed
over twenty plus years.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Yeah, I'm interested in the betrayal one because I've been
in that situation myself. I find it's so it's hard,
okay after that point, because it's like, what do you
do afterwards? Because your self trusts of other people is
just like you, like you skeptic of everybody you meet
along the way too. And it took me a couple
of years.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
Yeah, it's hard. I the betrayals that I've had, I mean,
I've had some personal ones and I've had some professional ones.
And this book was actually prompted by a professional betrayal.
So something happened. I have So I'm a psychologist by day,
and then I have multiple side hustles that I do
because again ADHD, So in one of the side hustles,

(43:43):
there was a professional betrayal that I enjoyed. It was
actually personal and professional because we've been friends, or so
I thought, And so this happened and I was like
overwhelmed with emotion. It's not the first time it happened. Unfortunately,
I won't be the last. If you're human, you're going
to be betrayed at one point or another.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
It's just yeh.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
So I was like, I like, I was like vibrating.
I was like, I don't know what to do with this,
And because it did catch me off guard, it takes
a lot to shock me anymore. So I don't think
I was shocked, but I was surprised, and so I
was just kind of reeling from that. So I decided
I'm going to get on the treadmill and I'm going

(44:20):
to get my laptop and I'm just going to type
and walk at the same time. And it just the
movement helps people process. I had seen that before some
back when I was in person, I would take certain
patients would go on walks while we did their session
because it just helped them process better and their science
behind that and so forth. But I was like, all right,

(44:41):
I'm just going to try this. I get on. I
think that in that walking episode, I got to six
thousand words and I was like, dang, okay, we can
do this. Let's do this. And then before I knew it,
I think I'm almost twenty one thousand words now for
that betrayal book. So it just kept growing and that's
what happens. Like my marriage book is seventy six thousand words.

(45:03):
My goal was twenty on that book, and then I
was like, wow, I have a whole lot more to
say about this than I thought, you know, being married
for twenty years, being a therapist for twenty years. So
highly recommend that when you have a significant emotional event,
get moving and get organized, like get your thoughts out.
And the book details what I call the police report method,
so the who, what, why, when, where how of betrayal,

(45:26):
and it's organized so that it's the first thing people
are going to do when they It's the first thing
they're going to see when they read the book. Hopefully
they'll do it. So you go through and you elaborate
on these elements of the betrayal, get it all out
of you. What happened, where were you, how did it happen?
Any idea why, blah blah blah. So you set that

(45:46):
you know out at the beginning, and then the rest
of the book is helping you make sense of what
happened and then overcome it and then move forward. So
that's how it's that's how it's done. But it started
on a treadmill.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah, you know, And like I said, it'd be great
for two situations. One the sitsua is my accident and
my mom when she abandoned me it was ten. You know,
I had a lot of issues that came from that.
I didn't realize at first, you know, because I was
I was ignorant to it. You know, I didn't know.
I knew I was always an angry kid. I was
always mad at her, and I didn't know why at first,
you know, and then you know, fast forward all the

(46:20):
way through all the things that have gone through up
to this point, it was just like it was so
I was doing self destructive behavior as well. Like not
to mention the narcissist didn't help because she was she
saw that and was fueling the fire, and you know,
make taking advantage of the fact that I was away
angry and I always threatened to leave, and then you know,
kicked me into that fight or flight mood a lot
of times, you know, and a lot of crazy things

(46:42):
that happened along the way until I finally started talking
to somebody about it and realized that's what the issue
was too. And it's it's it's just gets horrible, man,
it's and it's it's so it's so, it's so bad.
But at the same time, you know, I have to
admit my own faults to where I was and what
I did, because I allowed these actions to happen as well.
You know, yes, you know I probably should have gotten

(47:03):
help sooner, but I didn't because for whatever reason, I
refused to. I didn't think I had a problem, like
we all do. You know, we don't think we have
issues and things like that too, you know, and my
mom and I don't have a great relationship. Now. I'm
still trying to get over that hump of forgiving her.
And that's always like that that wall I get caught
at every time because I get ready to go over
it and then it's like something pushes me back. It's like,

(47:23):
oh no, wait, remember she abandoned you kind of thing.
And it's like and she is not going to say
okay for it, And I think it's I think that's
my biggest thing. Is I want her to say she's
okay or amy she's wrong, But I know she's not
going to do that. I know the I've known her
for this long. I'm forty years old now, there's no
way and she's going to say that, she'll deny it.
But I did notice something though. When I was a kid,
I remember having flashbacks, like my grandmother would do the

(47:45):
same thing as well, though she would say, oh, no, no,
I never did those things or I never, you know,
it was this pattern and I never noticed it at first,
that the one and she was doing it too. And
that's when I start learning that, you know, like all
these things you learned from your you know, mom, your
parents and anything else. And I started remembering now that
she used to do the same thing my grandmother did.
And it always was funny to me because I was
just like, oh, that's hilarious. But I didn't realize that

(48:07):
my grandmother is the one that taught her those things,
you know, and and it's like, oh, I never And
then I started doing that too, because I've seen them
doing that. I was like, no, I never did those things,
you know. And I think that was the hardest reality too,
is when I had to admit to what I've done.
You know, I've done some horrible things. I've said some
horrible things. I've you know, it, you know, and it's
it's hard to accept blame. And I still have trouble

(48:29):
expecting blame a lot of times, but it's getting easier
every time I accept it, you know. And then when
you have to deal with the things being tossed back
at you, it's like you don't like it. It's like,
it's great when you can put it out, but when
it comes back at you and you get so aggravated,
it's like, no, never mind, but you're like, you're doing
this other people. Though, keep that in mind, you're doing
this other people. Why are you doing that to other people?
If you don't like it coming back at you.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
It's it's hard. I mean, I think that self awareness
is so crucial, and I think when when there's a betrayal,
we have to give ourselves the closure. Closure is a
solo pursuit, even if someone apologizes takes ownership. I'm so sorry.

(49:14):
I was not a good person back then. I was
not in a good way, whatever the reason. I'm not
gonna make excuses. I'm just sorry. Yea, even if you're
fortunate enough to have that happen, you still have to
make the decision to say it is done right. So
it's still a personal effort. It's still a self pursuit,

(49:37):
Like you have to pursue your own closure. You have
to allow that to happen. And I talk about this
at length in the book. But when we don't do that,
we're holding on to something. And whenever we don't do that,
it's because we're getting something out of not moving forward,
whatever that is. Because as humans, and this isn't selfish,

(50:01):
this is just human nature, we don't do things unless
we get something out of it one way or another.
It's not always good the thing that we get out
of it, it's not always positive, but we get something
out of it. And so a lot of people will
live in pain and live in unforgiveness because they think
it protects them somehow from that person hurting them again,

(50:23):
from someone else hurting them. We get all of these
sort of delusional ideas in our minds about why we
need to hang on to this, and it's just not
serving us. So the book really talks about like, hey,
you're not doing yourself any favors, like let's move on,
and here's how you do that specifically, here's what that's
going to look like. And it's okay, and the thing

(50:45):
is you're holding on to a betrayal isn't going to
keep you from being betrayed again. Like, it just doesn't
work that way. But we have these ideas that we're
protecting ourselves somehow, and so, like I said, we don't
do anything without getting something out of it. I don't
believe in altruism. I think everything we do we get
something out of it. Even when we're helping and being

(51:09):
generous to other people, we get something out of that.
We feel good for doing it. It helps, you know,
the golden rule kind of what goes around comes around
kind of thing like it just we know that it
feels good to do it. We hope that the favorite
gets returned whatever. There is no such thing as altruism,
So when we hold on to something, we're getting something

(51:30):
out of that too. Yeah, and that's what the book
is about.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
I'm excited about it though, But I'm gonna pull a
comment up here right now from me Me Me said,
I grew up with the nissist narcissist Dadam's sister. I've
just realized the nasty people are broken. So I learned
that from that. I also learned that a lot of
cues as I got older. Now when I'm faced with
another crisis, I know how to deal with them. I
don't have the energy to play the play the narcist game.

(51:55):
I've gotten so much better beating them at their own game.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
That's fantastic. That's a skill. I mean, you really have to.
When you're dealing with a narcissist, you have to step
out of the emotionality and try really hard to think
logically about what's going on. The catch is they're coming
from a very emotional place, and trying to understand emotional

(52:19):
behavior from a logical perspective is like square peg, round hole.
You're never going to understand it. But if you can
learn to understand why they're behaving the way they are,
and that's hard because a lot of times you just
you don't know, or you get so caught up in it,
or you're being gaslit six ways to Sunday and you
just can't even see straight anymore. Once you can see, like, oh,

(52:41):
there's something going on for this person, then you become
a little more logical, and that gives you some distance,
time space, distance away from it so that you can
respond non emotionally. Kind of like you said, with the
X where you're like one word answers, I'm not going
down the rabbit hole with you. You are no longer
the black hole that's going to suck me in. Like
I'm on the outside, I'm on the precipice looking in.

(53:02):
And I can maintain this position by being logical and
not getting pulled into the emotion of it. And it's hard,
but Mimi has the right idea, that's exactly what you
have to do.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Yeah. Mimi also had a great comment when we were
talking about the feelings thing, said, holding on your hurt
to feel sorry for yourself. And she also said, Yep,
you have to stand back and say reacting. Is reacting
worth the drama? And if you don't care what they say,
I think it helps. Yeah, it does. I agree. I agree.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
Yeah, you have to kind of put that boundaryment for yourself. Yeah,
you have to put that boundary up for yourself and
just just decide that you don't want to engage in that.
And it's so hard because we're emotional, vulnerable people at
our core, you know, And it's it's just so hard
getting sucked in, especially with narcissism, because you have to

(53:56):
understand narcissists are broken people as well. Right, they have
a bad reputation. Many of them deserve that reputation because
of their behavior. But just like with BPD borline personality disorder,
these people don't want to go through life this way.
It's not their choice, it's not their preference. And a
lot of people get really upset with me when I

(54:18):
try to encourage empathy for narcissists because they're like, but
they're raging a holes and they're terrible, and they gaslight
and they manipulate, Yes they do, but think about where
that's coming from. They didn't buy that off the shelf
at the grocery store. Like, nobody wants to be that
way and have these relationship problems or have people telling
them they're a jerk or an a hole or whatever.

(54:40):
They got that way because of their own brokenness, because
of crap that happened to them growing up. Now, you
still should set boundaries with narcissists. I'm not saying engage
with them or allow them to mistreat you. Absolutely not.
But I think, and I talk about this in the
Betrayal book too, when you can understand and have just

(55:01):
a modicum of empathy for someone's position, however, detrimental, it
might be that's how you get through it, that's how
you move past it is just recognizing their humanity. And
I was like to say, you know, we've all been
through stuff, so we could have turned out any number
of ways there, but for the grace of God go
I like, I could totally be that same way if

(55:24):
I had certain experiences and if I didn't get help
when I was younger, and if I if I chose
to protect myself with this narcissistic shield or you know whatever.
So I think that insight that Mimi is talking about
is so important, Like it's not about you, this person
and their narcissism and their antics, it is not about you.

(55:46):
It feels like it's about you. It feels personal because
you're the only other person in the room who they're
talking to and gaslighting and manipulating. But it's not about you.
Nothing is personal. Nothing, anything that happens to us from
another person is about them and their demons and their stuff.
And so when you can realize that and kind of

(56:06):
put that, you know, wall up, then your life it's
life changing. It's kind of like what you said with
your ex, the realization you had where you're like, wait,
I don't have to do this this way. There's a
different way.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Yeah. And it's hard, Yeah, it was hard. It was
hard to get there though. But she had such a
grip on me too. But that final moment, you know,
when it just said, I'm done with it all. Man,
I lost everything, like I've had to rebuild, Like I
was down to three boxes to my name. The lily
is the only thing I had left after the whole
aftermath of the whole thing, you know. And then eventually
it was she disappeared. The kids came to save me,

(56:42):
and the kids went back to with her and you know,
and all that kind of stuff too, and it was
just it was rough because you know, she just like
would start start picking the kids little by little, start
filling them heads with nonsense and things like that too,
telling all these great things, Oh, I'll buy you all
this stuff, you know, and all these other things, and
it was just like it was it's a battle, man,

(57:02):
It's a rough battle. Like especially when you have kids
with a narcissist. It's just it gets ugly because then
they weaponize them and everything else, and it's a constant
attacks and you know, and all that ugly stuff so,
but you know, I am going to write my own book.
I'm eventually going to do it. I'm just like you.
I'm like, I'm eventually I'll get there. You know, because
everybody asks me about myself. I don't really talk much
about myself, and a lot of people are always so

(57:22):
fascinated about the things I tell them. I said, yeah,
you know, everybody says they think, oh, Pete, you should
write a book. You're like, yeah, I'll get around two eventually.
I got things to do.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
Definitely. Absolutely, It's like you said, if your story helps
one person, then it's a win.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Really quick, before we start wrapping up, maybe you had
to comment again, she said, empathy, but you need to
keep your boundaries with them. It's recognizing your issues. This
can take the power away from the narcissist. But those
just needs to feel superior, so they they rip others
down to make themselves look better.

Speaker 3 (57:51):
Right, Yeah, So so understanding that's absolutely it me me
understanding where they're coming from. Yeah. But then because you
recognize where they're coming from, you can choose to stand
on the outside of that and not engage. I have
a patient who's dealing with she's in the process of
divorce from a narcissistic ex, and he fills the kids,

(58:15):
like you were saying, he fills the kid's minds with
ridiculous things. And so then her one of her children
will come back and say, you know, Dad said these things,
and she would just kind of gloss over it or
ignore it. And I said, Okay, you can't do that.
I understand it frustrates the hell out of you, but
you've got to respond. You've got to don't bad mouth dad.

(58:40):
He's bad mouthing you, But don't bad mouth dad because
kids own that. They know they're fifty percent of each
of your genetic material, so they own whatever bad things
you say about the other parents. So stop doing that,
but refute what he's saying. Tell your kid like, you know, honey,
I'm really sorry that dad told you that, but that's
not true. Here is the truth of the matter, and

(59:01):
I just want you to know that, right, you don't
need to bad mouth anybody. We can just set that
boundary and say you know that's not true, and then
you can reach out to the soon to be X
and say, hey, so and so said that you said this.
I just want to say, I just want to ask
you not to say that anymore, and they probably will.

(59:22):
But you're setting your boundary every time. And what you're
doing is you're holding them accountable every time. Whether they
choose to take the accountability or not, it depends on
where they are on the spectrum of narcissism, honestly. Yeah,
but you still get to set your boundaries and that
feels empowering just to even send the text to say, hey,

(59:42):
stop doing this. Whether they do it or not, it's
actually a separate issue, which I know is frustrating as hell,
but you setting that boundary is hugely important for your
own well being.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Yeah, very true, very true. Well, we're at the part
of the show, guys, unfortune we have to start winding down.
I've loved having doctor j so much. Was doctor Jent.
I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. I
think we've already previewed these ahead of time. I actually
one of them is a credit to a friend of mine.
She has a show called The Shit That Goes On
in Her Head. When she was on the show, she
asked me a question I'm going to ask you. It's
it's if your mental health had a song, What would

(01:00:16):
your mental health song be? Everybody gives me the same
look every time I asked this question, by the way,
they all look at me like, damn, that's a great question.
I have the tiger, I have the tiger. I love
it awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
Yeah, or Katy Perry Rhorr, one of those. Yeah, something
about something about a tiger or the roar or or yeah,
the overcoming. It's really what it's about, is the overcoming.
Because we all have our stuff. It's like, are you
going to stay stuck in it? Are you going to
continue to make yourself a victim of it? Are you
going to be the survivor that you know you are?
Because victims die, survivors live. If you survived whatever it

(01:00:50):
is you went through, then you're a survivor. If you
live to tell about it, you're a survivor.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Maybe I'm just putting this up really fast, she said,
asking if they said something is not a good idea,
you're yourself up to more of an attack me. These
are all great comments you're making, by the way, and
I really appreciate you coming in and giving us all
these ones because they're really good. Though.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
Yeah, I think, Mimi, Yes, to your point, I'm not
asking them if they said it. I'm telling them, Hey,
our child said that you said this, and so I'm
going to ask you not to say stuff like that
anymore because you and I both know it's not true.
So and if you want, if it's if it's not
safe to do that to your point, Mimi, then you
can skip that part. You can absolutely skip that part,

(01:01:30):
but definitely refute the sentiment with your child without bad
mouthing the other parent. So there are two parts you
can pick and choose. You know what parts feel safe
because it does depend on where they are on the
spectrum of narcissism.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Yeah, yah, I get your point. So the second question,
and the one I've asked everybody to this point, is
that if you could break the stigma about mental like
anything you hear that just drives you absolutely nuts, what
would it be?

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Pete, this is going to be another episod because I'm
gonna start talking about borderline personality disorder. Oh, it drives
me insane, the stigma that BPD has around it. I
just I actually just yesterday submitted a request to be
on the Mel Robbins podcast to talk about BPD. And
you know, it's kind of like you said, you never know,

(01:02:20):
but you got to shoot your shot because there's so
much stigma associated with that disorder. Again, they get a
bad rap, and again some of them their behaviors. We say, gosh,
they deserve it. They deserve to have a bad rap.
They deserve that negativity. But what I say is, again, look,
we're all human here, We've all been through stuff. Some
of these people with BPD, the stories I've heard, it's unimaginable.

(01:02:41):
You would not even I mean, your stomach will turn
when you hear these stories sometimes. And that's putting it mildly.
But you have to understand any time someone is acting
the way that they're acting, I'll say it again, they
didn't buy it off the shelf at the grocery store.
One goes looking for interpersonal problems because they like it

(01:03:03):
and they want it now. Some people look like they
like drama because they keep drawing it into their lives,
but I assure you they don't. They hate it at
their core. They hate it, and so having some compassion
and understanding where these people are coming from. BPD is
an information processing disorder. It's a personality disorder by the book,

(01:03:25):
but it's an information processing disorder. And anxiety is an
information processing disorder too. For that matter, information that comes
in you process it in a certain way. It generates
thoughts that generate feelings that generate behavior. People with BPD
when they act out, when they lash out, when they're
ugly to other people, they're protecting themselves. It's really messed
up looking to you, but they're protecting themselves. And until

(01:03:48):
they learn another way, that's what it's going to look like.
And that's the part of my job that makes it
so rewarding, keeps me doing it over two decades, is
watching people learn that other way. We should be growing
and change and evolving until we die. So watching people
overcome is tremendous. So if I could go on tour
talking about VPD and trying to reduce the stigma specifically

(01:04:11):
associated with that, sign me up on it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
I agree with you though on that point, because I
don't think people even know what it is. They get
it mixed up and what is it? Bipolar mixed up?
Because it was like what is that? And then you
start like explaining it to them, they look at you
like what I'm like, Oh yeah, it's like do you
want to know some complexities? Go look and see what
some of these people do with on a daily basis.
I was like, you don't understand the level of things

(01:04:34):
these poor people are dealing with at a time. You know,
I was lucky enough to meet somebody that had it
in person, and she was explaining her her situation to me.
And we've had a guest on the show, the musician.
She was actually the one that had brought it up
to that she had and she was explaining it totally
differently the way it worked for her. And that's the
way I was so fascinating because I'm like, it's so
interesting when you run into people these different personality disorders,

(01:04:56):
because everybody has a different thing. I think F and
D is the most interesting thing I've run into so
far on this show. And I've met only one person.
It's functional neurological disorder.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
Oh oh yes, yeah, that manifests in a number of
different ways.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Yeah, and that one is an interesting one to hear.
The one woman said her hand kind of like she
got stretched out to her hand with claw up like this.
Another person that met said they're part they had facial
paralysis and things like that too. So it was always
so fascinating every time somebody said something like that because
I'm like, Okay, listen, I'm interested. I want to know
what it's like for you to have it, because I'm
curious what yours is versus what I've seen people that

(01:05:31):
have had it. And it's always fun to compare it
to see where where different things that come up when
people have that kind of stuff, because you'll learn that
a lot of those people, you know, it's different for everybody.
I mean, you could read this in a book all day,
but when these people are in front of you talking
you and you're hearing their experiences, it's a whole different
story because now they're telling you something totally different than
what the book is telling you, you know, and all

(01:05:52):
that kind of stuff or the great videos that you
make and things like that. You know, it's like, these
are things that people deal with it. But it's the
great thing about the shows that highlights that too when
you get them on here. And because I, Lily, I'm
so interested about these things. When they ask me things,
I'm like, Okay, cool, let's let's talk about that, you know,
and things like because I want to see like what
it is they experience versus the people I've met already
that have had it. Because if you start comparing notes,

(01:06:12):
a lot of times it gets more interesting because you know,
it's so fascinating to see the different things, how some
line up and some don't line up, and it's it's
it's always interesting every time you walk into this interest.
Justly the one the ide was the most interesting to
me too, those because it's like you hear all these stories,
but now this person's in front of you and me
with my knowledge and what I had already, I knew
what I was looking at. I'm looking at little ticks

(01:06:33):
of things that are changing, and it's so interesting to
me because it's like, you know, you're like you're watching
it happen, and it's just like in those little things
you're noticing in your head, you're noticing them, but you're
not you're not making any mannerisms on the camera because
obviously don't want to set somebody, but you're noticing them
things because I'm so fascinated. When they start doing these things.
It's like, hey, yeah, I'm starting to identify these, you know,
and it's it's great. With every conversation, I learned new things,

(01:06:54):
and you know, and people start bringing more things to
the table and start adding more tools to your kit
and stuff like that too. So with that being said,
doctor jenn I want to thank you so much for
being here. This is has been a dream. This has
been a dream. You've of course seen on the Instagram post.
You were one of my top five guests. I've always
wanted on the show, thank you and you were here
and I am. I'm so excited you came. If anybody
wants to reach out to you, what's the best way

(01:07:16):
for them to get ahold deal?

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
Yeah, so I have. I'm all over the socials. My
website is doctor Bellingrat dot com that has links to
a number of different other ways to find me. On YouTube,
it's shrink Think with Doctor Jen. On TikTok, it's shrinth
thinc with Doctor Jen. The podcast is called The Psych
with a Mic. I think those are probably the main

(01:07:40):
the main ways. On Facebook, it's just it's just if
you search my name, it'll come up Jennifer Bellingratt, It'll
come up. So and then I think the the I'm
on Amazon and Barnes and Noble with the books. There's
right now there's a book, the Marriage Book, and then
there's a book about perrymenopause called you're not crazy. So
that's out there on Amazon, and then I think beyond that,

(01:08:06):
it's I would just say the psycho Education Academy dot com.
That's my training platform. Tons of free resources, several paid resources,
courses on sleep, courses on the belief reset, which is
what we're talking about earlier with overcoming self limiting beliefs.
There's a fourteen dollars course on overcoming negative automatic thoughts,

(01:08:28):
seven dollars course on grief. There's all kinds of stuff
on the psycho Education Academy dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
That's awesome. We thank you again so much for coming.
I appreciate you being here this dream. It's been great
having you guys and them. Let's I always say I'm
pete for its anxiety. I'm on all the way down
to TikTok, I'm on Spotify alway down to iHeartRadio, guys.
So let's always say it costs nothing, absolutely that to
be kind somebody. One kind of act you could do
to save the life or help you can even make
their day. I'm pete for its anxiety. You sign out saying,
don't ask your days. They say, hey, how's your mental

(01:08:55):
health today,

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