Psychotherapist's Hacks on How to Change Your Life | Lori Gottlieb on Impact Theory

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Impact Theory. I'm here with Lori Gottlieb. Lori, welcome to the program. Thank you so much. It is a pleasure to be here. I was impressed with her book. She moved me deeply. I can't remember the last book. She had me this raw and emotional um and it took me very by surprise as a therapist. Why isn't this book more pedagogical? Why did you like to really dive into this kind of human side of everything? Yes, in the book I followed. the lives of four of my patients and there's a fifth patient that I follow, which is me as I go through something in

life

and then go to my own therapist and I really wanted to tell stories because I feel like we see ourselves reflected more clearly through the lens. from other people's stories and then I feel like you know if someone tells you to do this or be like this or this is what keeps you stuck, we say I'm not like that, I don't do that, but when you read people's stories you see

your

self reflected in them and then you're like oh yeah, that's me, so I think it's a lot more powerful.

Yes, I very much agree with that and there were two things in the book that really hit home. I, one you just mentioned, so this notion of detaching

your

self and being there and going through you as you go out and you know, it starts to

change

your own narrative and the way you look at your boyfriend and you know everything that shook you. down there um and then the other one is death and that was really powerful and we'll get into that in a second but I want to start with this notion of unsticking so that's a core like if you read the book I felt like that.

It was a core part of what therapy can help is that people become very rigid in terms of how they see themselves in the narrative that they're telling themselves and therapy is kind of slow at slowly reshaping that into something more useful, does it feel accurate, yes, absolutely? Um, I recently did a Ted Talk on this about how we're all unreliable narrators, so when people come to therapy, they come and they have a story, they're very sure that this is a very accurate version of the story, but it's a version of the story and there's so much more to the story and the reason they're stuck is because there's something flawed in their narrative, there's something in their narrative that they can't see, they can't move on to the next chapter.

I'm stuck in this chapter and I feel like my job as a therapist is to almost be an editor where I help people revise the story, the flawed narrative that they presented so they can move forward and if you don't do that revision, you'll just keep going. Going around in circles and you will never move forward. How malleable our personalities are, like some of the people you catalog in the book, especially John, when you first start talking about him, it's like he's this guy. I was really going to be able to have because he felt like an archetype, he felt like that Hollywood executive that we've been told so much about in countless movies and television shows and I was just waiting with bated breath to see if he was actually going to be able to have it. make that

change

, so in general, how malleable do you think our personalities are?

Yeah, I mean, I think we're born with a certain temperament, but I think there's a lot of room for change and that's where people don't. They don't realize how much agency they have over their own lives, they feel like this, this is how things are or this is how I am, but no, you're actually making decisions every moment of every day, we all make decisions and, sometimes we make decisions that don't serve us and so examples of the type of decisions people are making, make sure you know everything right, you know we call them help, rejecting the complainers, right, we all know people like that, so people that are like you.

I know well yes I really hate my job but I can't change jobs because every time you give them a suggestion they say yes I can't do that because this or that or the other is okay or yes no. in the right relationship, but I can't, you know I can't get out of it because, or you know, whatever it may be, we make decisions all the time about what we want to do, even things like, you know, I really want this. or that or that in my

life

and then we say well here are some steps you can take, well I can't do it right so what is that about and is that the stagnation I'm talking about?

Face that head on, like when someone walks it, so this would be my temptation as a therapist to say, "Okay, let me, let me explain to you why people come to me, they come to me because they're stuck, their narrative is." it's not working, let me give you your narrative, let's hear what it is and then we'll analyze it and you know we'll be out in 45 minutes. That doesn't sound at all like the approach you took in the book and I. I guess it's not what you adopt in your practice, why not and what is the approach you take.

I think the first thing is that when people come in they want something to change, that's why they made that call, generally what they want to change is someone else or something else and so they don't notice you know wait a minute I'm going to have to lift some weight here um and that's not like you come to therapy you download the problem of the week the therapist says yeah that's right, that was terrible, you know these people are terrible and you leave, what's your role in this, what's not working , how you are contributing to what is not working, and that does not mean that there are not difficult circumstances, of course, or There are difficult people in the world that

impact

what is happening in this person's life.

I remember when I was training, one of my clinical supervisors said that before you diagnose someone with depression, make sure they're not around the right people, so it's like, yeah, you could be. surrounded by your family or whatever at work who knows um but then what's your response and how are you you know what you're doing with what's going on do you need to stay in this relationship? Do you need to stay in these relationships? Are you contributing to why this person is right? Are you doing something here too? Do you know the same argument over and over again with your partner and you think it's all of them because part of it is you?

That's what happens when people come in, it's like they want something to change and we have to help them see clearly what you're willing to do to change. You've talked about therapy and people's need for therapy, ultimately. In the end, it is divided into two groups and you have freedom and change. I'm curious to know more about what those things are like that people get stuck on and then get back to what we were talking about instead of saying like here, tell yourself this narrative that this is going to take. you're where you want to go, you're always giving these kind of little nudges trying to get people to maybe recognize for themselves that they have the epiphany and then they go away and change as a result of that epiphany, why do people struggle so much with changing? change is really hard, I don't think people realize how hard it is because often when they think about change, they think about making positive changes and that's why you tell people, "well, obviously, make that change would improve your life, so why is it so difficult?" to do, but then look at the New Year's resolutions that we make all the time, that's something that could improve our lives and yet they don't tend to last and the reason is that, first of all, change is difficult because the Change involves loss, so even though you might be moving toward something better, what you lose is that you lose the familiar, you lose your comfort zone, and many of us are very worried about entering a place of uncertainty, a place where We haven't been before, so some of us like something like that.

Human nature would rather stay in the familiar place even if the familiar is miserable or unpleasant than to say I'm going to risk something and go to this place that makes me feel really uncomfortable, I can't tolerate the discomfort of uncertainty and I think another reason why The reason why change is difficult is because there is a big misconception that you make the decision to change and then you change, it doesn't work like that. There's a chapter and maybe you should talk to someone called how humans change and it's about everyone. the steps we take before we even make the change, so there is a pre-contemplation where you don't even know you are thinking about making the change, there is a preparation where you start preparing to make the change, there is an action in the one you're actually making the change and then the most important step in making the change is the maintenance the maintenance phase and the maintenance phase is once you've made the change, how do you maintain the change?

That's where all new year's resolutions go wrong and what people don't realize. The thing about that is you're going to back off and what people usually do is the moment they back off they think well that didn't work so I'm going to give up, you know, I'm going to eat better and then, oh, look. I just ate two pieces of cake, so forget it, that diet didn't work out well. No, you have to know in the maintenance phase that you are going to go backwards and then you go back to normal, how do you start? helping people feel more comfortable with wanting to change, I think it has to do with timing and the right dosage, so when you talk to people about change in therapy, when they tell you something that really bothers them and I have in my mind, oh, this is what's happening and this is where they're going to need to change.

I'm not going to say that right away because they're not ready to hear it, so I might plant some seeds and that's kind of the moment and then the dosage is how much do you know, how much am I, how many seeds am I going to plant in that session and, to As you know, I have a quote in the book that says that most great transformations occur from small, almost imperceptible steps. that we carry along the way and that's what you're doing in therapy, that someone doesn't necessarily realize that some change occurred in that session, but when they come back the next week, something has changed.

Do you have something like casual or? formal, I guess the list of things like these are the kind of self-actualizations that people are going to need to have, so for example, I wrote when I was trying to teach my employees how to think in a way that would allow them to be successful I wrote the 25 beliefs that I had to adopt to go from employee to business owner and be successful at it, so you could meet someone and say, well, I understand what they're tripping over, I understand which of these beliefs are their biggest problem or do you know where we should go? begin.

Do you have a rough guide for how people should think about themselves or how to identify the elements of a self-narrative that will allow them to succeed and get started? checking the boxes as we go through therapy yes I would love to know what are the ones that you gave to your employees what were some of them I have some that I will share with you and they are amazing so some of the most important ones are the human potential is almost unlimited, you can do anything you set your mind to without limitation and then the next thing is that it is a lie but it is an empowering lie and another is that we do what moves us towards our goals, we do not do what moves us away from our goals. goals and go on and on just trying to get people to believe that the average human being is an adaptive machine and what we are literally designed to do is acquire skills that the skills themselves have utility and so if you put in If you put in the time and energy to acquire skills, you're actually going to get better at something and you've shown that in your own life you know that with all the different paths that you've been down, it's pretty extraordinary how you know that you've experienced something like that. of all these different threads, but you put them together, I mean, your work is extraordinary, but I think it's a result of you having acquired writing skills and skills as a therapist and skills as a storyteller and now you know that you are able to put that together, so That's basically what beliefs are: trying to get people to understand that skills are useful and you can acquire new skills.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think I've always been interested in stories about the human condition and so on. I just looked at it through different lenses, but I think the one thing you know when we look at it, you know, if I could make a list, I think the thing I would put first on that list is self-compassion, so I think a lot of people don't realize. realize you know when I give talks um and I'll tell people um you know, raising my hand, who is the person you talk to the most in the course of your life um you know it's you it's your partner, many hands, it's your brother, you know, it's your best friend, it's your parents, whoever it is, well the person you talk to the most is yourself and what we say to ourselves isn't always kind or true or helpful etc.

We don't even realize that this voice is there, so what happens is we're holding back because of this voice that some of us internalized for a long time, and then I had this therapy client who, um, she didn't. I didn't realize how self-critical she was, so I said, I want you to go home and write, listen to that voice and write down everything you say to yourself over the course of a few days and come back to me and we'll talk. about it and she came back, she was very skeptical and she came back and started reading the list and said she didn't evenI can't even read these things, I can't even say them out loud because I'm a bully to myself and she had no idea and when I think about what helps people change is self-pity, people think that self-flagellation is necessary to keep going.

Go ahead, they think I have to be really hard on myself or I'm not going to take responsibility, that's just not true because what happens is when you self-flagellate you have a lot of shame, you're basically shaming yourself for not being good enough, but when you have self-compassion you take responsibility because you can be kind and gentle with yourself so that the shame is not there and if you can eliminate the shame you can take action if you are bathed in shame you will be very afraid of everything because you do not want to feel more ashamed because of this voice in your head that's going to be like a good whipping, so I think one thing that I think is really important at the beginning of therapy is to make sure that people realize it. how they talk to themselves, that they are being kind and gentle with themselves so that they can take responsibility for making the changes that they need, so now the question is how does that self-compassion develop, what does that look like?

Self-talk is replacing what you write about the negative things you say and replacing each of them with something that is more affirming and gentle. Know? I had this patient whose mother always made her feel incredibly guilty for every life choice she made. she did and I told her just because she sends it her fault doesn't mean you have to accept delivery and you know she can keep sending it you don't have to sign and I think the same is true about that. voice in our heads, so every time you hear it, that doesn't mean you have to let it in, you don't have to invite that voice into your head, so when you hear it, you can kindly ask the voice to leave and you have to being really aware, you know, at first it's really an exercise, I really need to realize what this is, you know, it's just things we say to ourselves all day, like "Oh my God, you're so stupid for something we did." .

If a friend did that, we wouldn't think that person was so stupid and we'd certainly never tell them that you're so stupid because you did this instead of that, huh, you know? Or just like we wake up and we look in the mirror, we're walking out the door and we're like God, you look terrible, right, if your friend looked like that, you wouldn't think your friend looked terrible, so we do it constantly. , it is incessant and the first thing is to achieve that. under control, do you use any of the tools of cognitive behavioral therapy to help people start that pattern? interrupt yeah, I mean, I use a really eclectic approach in my work, most of what I do is like in the here and now, which is what's happening right now in the room with us because in the room what we're doing is a microcosm of what's going on out there and so in the safe space of a therapy room you can do all the things you can let your monster do. fly, basically you don't even know you're doing it, that's the funny thing, none of us do it well, we just act in ways in the world and don't realize it, so you can really take it apart. in the therapy room and then go out and do something different, so sometimes you know there will be some sort of cognitive exercise similar to CBT that I would give people to do, but I'm not a CBT practitioner, so What are they?

Some of the tasks you assign to people, so we cover them by writing down your negative thoughts. What are some other things you do to help people start to develop self-awareness or implement the tools you've taught them? Yes, good. It's really interesting because now I have a podcast, it's called Dear Therapist and I have a co-therapist on it, winch guy, and we have to do it in the span of an hour, you know what we would normally do over time in the therapy room. and in the end what we do is we give people practical tasks to do and then we go through a therapy session with them, we give them the task, they have a week to do the task and then they have to report back to us, so there's the responsibility. , they have to tell us how it worked and I think there's something about having a concrete task to do that makes you rethink what you've been doing because usually when people come to us, whatever they've been trying hasn't been there. working, that's why they come to us, so it's very specific, it depends on what the person's situation is and where we're trying to take them.

There is no one-size-fits-all task. Are there any kind of main groupings? The narrative seems like one that will probably come up a lot, another one that you talk about in the book that I thought was really deep and that speaks, so those two books change in freedom, you mention Victor Frankl and his notion of freedom and I'm not completely sure when you said those two cubes, if you meant that kind of freedom, what did you mean by that and it's something that comes up a lot, yeah, so you know his quote is um. between the stimulus and the response there is a space in that space lies our choice in terms of how we respond and in that choice lies our freedom um and I think that's what I'm talking about is that sometimes we're so reactive right so you know someone says something or does something, we make sense of it in the moment and we react impulsively, so if you can just take a breath, just breathe to give yourself that space that he's talking about and in that space we can choose how I want to respond, I want to respond in the way that I know it's going to lead to more chaos or I want to respond in a way that maybe leads to something different, it's kind of like, you especially see this in relationships where two people are always dancing with each other and you know you can, you can just like it.

If you listen to their arguments or disagreements, the content may be different, but the underlying way they argue is exactly the same, so it doesn't really matter, you know you can just change the content, but it's the same, so if a person changes their dance steps, one person does something different, then the other person falls on the dance floor or has to change their steps too. and usually what happens is the person also changes their steps and then it's like they go back and forth, so now they've changed their steps, so now you're going to change your steps and that leads to a completely different way of But getting back to your question about other common tasks, another thing that's very common is asking people to do perspective taking so often.

What happens is that people are very interested in their version of their story and I will ask them to write the other person's version. version of the story like you can forget, you know, forget about your version for a minute, like let's say your version is valid as it is and they have an equally valid version, you don't have to agree with the points. But can you get into his head? Imagine if you were sitting on my couch right now and you told me your side of the story, what would you say? And that's so telling because so often we attribute all kinds of motives and intentions to other people that aren't actually there, um, so if you could say oh, wait, the reason they did it might have been this, um. , you know, if you can move from a place of compassion again and really write your side of the story that you're you're going to learn a lot about what you were missing and there's probably some truth there and there's probably some place of overlap in the as well. that you both actually agree on something you didn't even realize you agreed on when you were first asked to do it.

Tell them? Hey, you should be coming from a place of compassion when you try to teleport into his shoes. Don't give them back the same things you've already said on your part. Try to really look at him warmly. and loving eyes like how does that instruction sound? Well, I think it's more about um, let's say this person's intentions were good, that this person was acting in good faith, why do you think he got so angry? What would he say? What would I say? was the problem here, what triggered them? um and once you start doing that, you know you start and we like a lot of details in the story, you know the more details you put in, the more you can get. in their thinking, in fact, we've done this live on the podcast where you can hear, you know, an example of someone who goes through this perspective doing exercise and you find that people usually start like that because they're frustrated because You're upset because at At first they're giving them negative motivations, uh, or something that you know is bad or broken about themselves and then that person is attacking them for it and you have to move them or it's in the specifics, they can't help but move towards more realistic emotional motivations, Well, I think people make mistakes in the exercises at the beginning, when they are trying to defend themselves, so it is difficult for them to write the other one.

The person's perspective because every time they write down well the reason why this person might have done this, but then, oh, but they had very good reasons for the data, um, and that's why they're trying to defend themselves and it's about that you are that person while you. If you were writing this, if you were sitting on my couch, your task is to pretend to be that person and then come back next week as that person, so you've written down their perspective and you tell me what they would say if you're not here. to defend yourself just tell me what they would say you learn a lot continue you learn a lot just by having to intervene you learn a lot about yourself about your assumptions about the other person that you didn't know you have a lot of warm feelings towards the other person that you didn't have before and I see this a lot in the couples when I see them in the office and you know someone will say, "You know something like well, you." I know you never listen to me and I will tell that person how well you listen to them, because the other person has the exact same complaint and you see that you actually have a lot in common.

Both people usually feel ignored and not seen alone. um misrepresented, how do you start breaking that ice? I know a lot of what you do is couples therapy, you know, let's say there's a real betrayal, let's make this nice and juicy to get them in, there's been a real infidelity and there's just heartbreak, ice, anger and bitterness, how do you start ? Do you tell people? Hey, maybe we should go our separate ways at this point or are you always coming from a place where this can be worked out if you want. To overcome an infidelity or a series of infidelities, it is very important that the person who cheated on me is willing to take responsibility and do the work necessary to repair the relationship, so one of the first things I want to know is that is what the person wants to do because if they don't do it or they're not willing or they can't, then no, nothing is going to happen there, but often people do it and I've seen so many relationships, you know where this has happened. betrayal and the trauma of betrayal, you know, really thrive after they've done the work and become incredibly strong relationships and marriages.

I have to know then what the work is like, how we do it, because that's the only thing my wife and I have always said is a bridge too far, right, yes, and you know it, and I think about it again, I don't think anyone imagine they are going to do this or very few people do it, let's put it that way, you know. People who cheat say, "Oh my God, it goes against everything I believe in. It goes against everything I ever promised my partner. You know, most people don't set out to do that and there are all these reasons to do and then, you know, I think in those cases when people are really able to take a good look at what happened to me, why I did that and you know you really have to take responsibility for what happened, understand what happened so it doesn't happen again, so yes I'm taking responsibility for that.

I'm just saying hey look, I let myself get into this situation. I felt totally disconnected from you. I didn't think you loved me anymore. No, but now you're blind, uh, you're blaming the other person right now, that's what I'm trying to figure out, like how did I do something, it's not that you did something and you made me cheat, and that's what. which I think is what makes it. It's really hard to make amends when someone says "Yeah, what I did was wrong, but you know how you made me feel that way, but no, you didn't know, you know no one cheated on you, you know." that there are many ways to deal with the feeling of loneliness.

There are many ways to feel yourself to deal with the feeling of disconnection. You know, cheating shouldn't be one of them, so, you know, it's really about getting a good understanding of what else was going on and usually it has something to do with maybe how they felt in the now, but to It's often about how they were, how they felt about themselves in the past, and how that came into the relationship. There is a saying that we marry with our unfinished business and if you are right, it is true, if not. Deal with that unfinished business that will bring up all kinds of psychological obstacles.

You entered the marriage with that marriage and it will get in the way, which is why cheating is often a symptom of someone who hasn't resolved their issues.pending issues. Oh, can we be specific, like what's the example? common and maybe all of this is so unique, everyone is like a snowflake, but if there is some kind of typical pattern, um, I'm very curious to know what that thing is, that person, because, like when I was giving them the For example, I didn't feel like I was blaming the other person, so I realized, well, that would be kind of understanding number one, it's like you just have to say: where is this coming from?

Totally within me, yeah, so I would love to have an example of unfinished business that you bring into a relationship um unfinished business is that someone's father just died and now all of a sudden you know he goes and has an affair um there was something unresolved in his relationship with his father um and now it's kind of like coming out, you know, they're acting whatever, they're acting like unfinished business. I don't know how to tolerate him being alone and that's why when I feel alone in this relationship, I have to go find him. somewhere else because when I was alone when I was young, it wasn't that kind of loneliness where you're at home with people who you know love you and have you in mind, but I felt completely alone in the world and So every time I'm alone I feel like this and I blame you for that, but maybe it's something that I carry with me from my past because I never learned to be with myself, how much of this is and and not just infidelity, but how much of this, like the need for therapy or just run of the mill everyday dysfunction, it depends on childhood and how much of this could happen at any one time, yeah I see both, I mean sometimes there's something that happens in the present like there's a big trauma, you know someone, someone close, someone dies, you know there's, there's some kind of loss, usually there's a big loss in the present, so people come for something like that, it could be, um. you know the death of a child or the death of a spouse or, um, you know a miscarriage or you know whatever, a job loss, something like that, some kind of loss, um, it could be, you know, there's usually some kind of way that they're going through a world that doesn't work and that's something that's long term, it's something that they came with and usually that's because they're still alternating between their child self and their adult self, no matter how old they are." They don't really let go of what was holding them back in the past, so it's like wearing clothes that no longer fit and they don't even realize they're wearing them, they're wearing these childhood clothes and such and such.

Those things keep coming up and create a lot of difficulties in all kinds of relationships, both professional and personal, so staying in infidelity for a second, so the responsibility is on you, just because this is infidelity and death is like that. The earth shakes, I can't imagine how hard it must be to get over any of those um, so you've taken responsibility for yourself as the person who cheated on you, where does forgiveness fall into this? I guess so, I love you. I asked about forgiveness because there's a whole section in the book about forgiveness and it's about this idea that there's a mother in the book and she didn't protect her children from their father when they were young and them as older adults, um now. . or young adults now, but since the older kids don't want to talk to her, they don't want to have a relationship with her and she still wants their forgiveness and what I tried to explain to her was that the more I tried to get her forgiveness, the more resentful they were going to be. that she could be the mother they needed now and see where that relationship goes without any expectation that they would forgive what happened in the past and then what ended up happening was and you know a bit of a spoiler, but what ended up happening was that three of the children decided they wanted to have a relationship with her because she could be the mother they wanted now, but that didn't erase their pain and they didn't.

Don't forgive her, they had compassion maybe for her in a new way, but they didn't forgive her, that's why we have this saying, force forgiveness that a lot of people say, oh, forgive the person who did x, y, z to you and you will be free. . That's not always the case and it really bothers me when people are forced into this position of you know you have to forgive when they don't actually feel forgiveness, so when it comes to infidelity I don't mean you know you have to. . forgive the person, I think that in any case the person who committed the infidelity has to come to a place of peace with themselves, right, it's not that your partner has to do this, it's kind of like apologizing.

I think about this a lot when I see people. in therapy where you know who the apology is for, so when you say sorry to someone, are you saying you're sorry because you'll feel better about yourself or are you saying sorry because you know then you're hoping they'll forgive you, Are you saying sorry because you really mean it and it will help the other person? So sometimes you might want to say I'm sorry, but the other person doesn't want to hear that from you. right, um, so the thing about um, you know, when we've done something that we regret, whether it's infidelity or something else, how do we come to terms with ourselves and then let the other person come to an agreement?

I agree with you however you want? So Rita, the woman you're talking about in the book, one of the most extraordinary stories in the book, absolutely heartbreaking when it is, I mean, this is a much older woman, it's fascinating in its own right because you know, it's your life. As long as you have air in your lungs, I mean, that's amazing and his journey to be able to get closer without wanting to be forgiven, that's right, but super powerful, now let's go to a couple that's still married. and not forgiving the person who cheated, that seems like a recipe for disaster from my naive mind, not as a therapist, how does that work?

How can you be with someone who doesn't forgive you? As I could see, not forgiving the act and something like that. like put that on a shelf to the side somewhere or something, but oh god, I don't think I would stay in a marriage if I had done something that the person couldn't forgive, even if they were right, so I just wouldn't do it. . I want to be in that stew if that makes sense, yeah, I mean, I guess it depends on how you define forgiveness, so I think if you hold a grudge, no, that's not going to work, so you need to come to a new place. place in front of the other person, can you define forgiveness then yes?

I mean I think forgiveness is saying like you know you gotta get out of jail free card like you know like I forgive you um I'm not I'm okay with that you know I'm okay I've come to a place of peace with this um I think you have to get to a place where I understand um I understand what happened with us I understand that you I worked hard and you understand more about yourself. I had to work a little to understand more about myself, but that will always be a painful thing for that person and that doesn't mean you're going to master it. about them, that doesn't mean it's going to come up because that's not going to work, I mean, it comes up like every time you have an argument that, oh, and you did that thing that really hurt me, we call that, you know, taking out the sink. from the kitchen.

It's like every time you have an argument you bring it up like every other argument you've ever had, but it's more about hey, that was our marriage then and now we're in a new marriage and you know, I don't. I think you know there are a lot of people saying you know no I don't forgive him but I am very in love with this person and we both grew up and we both created a new marriage together and We are stronger than ever how can people start to rebuild that trust through actions? So words don't really mean much when it comes to trusting stocks over time and it takes time, so people really have to invest if they want to. rebuilding after an infidelity and when you're starting that process, what's there and I mean, I guess it could go for anything, it doesn't have to be infidelity, but when there's that real kind of palpable coldness between two people, like that I'm thinking about the book that John was an extraordinary journey and I want to put Gabe aside for a second because I really want to talk about it, but John is like the coldness that had developed or the distance that had developed. between him and his wife, um, what are the techniques for when two people really want to get back together?

They have a shared history They have a shared life They have the reasons to want to overcome that How good I Think about John's case, you know that everything was like that and I think that many men feel that way, they feel that I have to be the rock, there is something that It happens, there was a trauma in their lives and you know I can't fall. aside because if I fall apart the whole house of cards will fall and then, you know, I see this with men in my practice, you know, and I think this has to do with infidelity.

Also, both men and women cheat, of course, but I often see that men are not able to speak up and part of it is that you know the cultural messages that they receive, so men will come in and tell me like you know that I've never told this to anyone before and women will come in and say I've never told this to anyone except my mom, my sister, my best friend, so they've told a few people, but it feels like they haven't. They wouldn't have told anyone, so in couples, when we say it's a heterosexual couple and the woman says to the man, how do you know, I really want to meet you, I feel like there's a distance between us, I feel like you don't share your inner life with me. and then he does and he starts to open up and he starts to cry and he starts to really cry and often she looks at me like a deer in the headlights like she doesn't know what to do.

I feel very uncomfortable with this even though it's what she asked for, it's like I don't feel safe when you don't open up to me and I don't feel safe when you open up too much to me, when you start crying. you know and I'm starting to feel insecure it's like goldilocks it's like not too much not too much you know like not too little like there's a fair amount of emotion that a man can share and I hope that's changing in our culture because I think that both Men and women would be much happier if we could all follow the path, which is, you know, if you say you want men to be vulnerable, give them the space to be vulnerable, where do you think we stumble? nature in that and I'm very aware that trying to distinguish nature and nurture is, you know, in any kind of perfect line drawn, it's impossible, um, but I will say that I think and I'd be very curious to hear what you think about that. .

So science points out that about 50 of us are hardwired and 50 of us are malleable and if that's true, I would say that certainly some of that wiring has to do with our sex and I like when you tell the story that, you know, guys will say Oh, I never have. I've told this to someone and the girls are like, "Oh, I've never told anyone, but I'm not sorry, and I could be totally wrong. I'm willing to accept that I'm not sorry." In fact, no one ever told me not to cry, in fact, my mom always encouraged me to, but I would.

There are a lot of things that, like anxiety, for example, it took me a long time to tell my wife that I was feeling anxious and some of that for sure is like I wanted to be tough, but also when I say that when I was with guys who were tough for the first time in my life, I took it like a fish to water, as if I had been waiting for it all my life as if there was one. something that spoke to me in a way that, you know, very well raised by my mother, I would say that I was open and vulnerable and all of that didn't have that kind of shiny orb of resonance that I had when I finally interacted with kids who were a little bit more rough and hectic and that, where the sexes start to differ, seems important enough, at least as a person, to reflect on yourself, which lane I would feel most comfortable in and that's why I'm curious. it develops if you believe it really exists like in this particular example.

I heard you talk about this before and I'm so glad you brought it up now. I'm very curious to know if you think that way. It's just a certain amount of women who will have some kind of reaction if the guy doesn't have a certain amount of stoicism. No one wants to date a rock, but a certain amount of stoicism, like someone would show up and physically threaten you. the guy's not going to fall apart, yeah, I mean, I think these are cultural expectations that we have without any biological imperative oh, I don't know, I don't know, but I can, but I can tell you that when Men come to my office and they open up, the kinds of things that they think about, that they worry about, that they feel, are very similar to the kinds of things that women think and worry about, and feel like you know what it means. to know what it means to be loved what it means to love what it means to be accepted um, what does it mean to be a good father?

What does it mean to be a good son or daughter? um, people have the same concerns about life, you know, what does it mean to be successful? all those questions um what does it mean to be a good friend? So I think we just don't give men the space to talk about some of these things. I'm not saying that men and women are wired in exactly the same way, they are exactly the same, but I will say that there is a lot more common ground and that when people can be openBecause of those common points, I think the relationships are much richer.

I wish we had seven hours. There are so many things to share with you. One thing I would stab. I would face myself if we didn't have a lot of time to talk about Gabe's trauma. Tell the people between John and Gabe what their relationship was and how it came about and then I was going to ask if you saw that coming, yeah. Well, I don't want to give a complete spoiler to the book, but for those people who haven't read it, but John is this person who, when I met him, is incredibly successful at his job, works in Hollywood and is very unpleasant, is very abrasive, he thinks he's better than everyone else, he has trouble sleeping, he has problems with his wife, and he kind of feels like everyone is an idiot and he knows better, and you know, people were telling me why.

Would you treat him why would you see this person when he insulted you so much from day one and it's because I think people's behavior says the indescribable and he definitely know when you talk about Gabe that it was the indescribable so there was something that had happened in his life that he hadn't talked to anyone about and also had some kind of stuff from his childhood, you know, you know he lost his mother when he was young and um, so it was really about, you know, me. I knew I was going to have to find out what the source of his pain was because people act a certain way because they have to keep you at a distance so you can't see their pain, so if he could keep everyone in line with his unpleasant behavior then no one could get close to him and no one could see his pain and you know, when I found out what it was and it was, you know I didn't expect what it was, um, you know it was, it was really traumatic. for him and um and he had been carrying this for years and he didn't talk to anyone about it because he felt like he had to be the strong person in the family, he had to be the person who couldn't know what his name was. is falling apart, um, and what he learned was that it actually weakens people, so when you think you're being strong by suppressing your feelings, you actually know that your psychological immune system is overloaded and you become incredibly closed off and really can't you live?

You are alive but dead. Are you alive. You are going through the motions but you are not living at all. And so it was once he could feel. the pain and experiencing the pain and sharing that, um, he was able to live again and then it's like, you know, counterintuitive, we think, oh, I'll die if I feel this kind of pain, no, you'll die if you don't feel this kind. of pain, yes, that was very well articulated in the book and Lori, I have to imagine that people lavish praise on you for how well the book is written, because the book is written incredibly well, the way you weave the stories together, um it really touched me and by People who watch my podcast will feel my sincerity in their toes.

It was handled very well with how you're paralleling the different lessons and how what you needed to learn in therapy is linked to the people. that you're being a therapist and you like the way that different realizations start to unlock things in your life and theirs and, oh man, it was absolutely crazy and like triumph childhood and trauma scare me, childhood scare me because I don't like that you can't undo something, that there's a magical period in your childhood and if that happens, hey, sorry, it's like you're in trouble for the rest of your life, well, no, so I have a vision very different from That's what I think a lot of people do, well, yeah, because that was such a bleak view of life.

You know, some people feel like they reach adulthood and they feel like they want to redo their childhood and you. I can't move on until you accept the fact that you won't be able to remake your childhood and if you can live with that loss, I won't be able to remake my childhood, but this is what I understand, I have the freedom of adulthood and you won't be free in the future. adulthood if you hold on to this hope for a better past, you can't move toward a better future if you hold on to this hope for a better past, so that's The work of therapy The work of therapy is that you're not going to having to redo it, how do we deal with that loss and then how do you use the freedom that you have now to create the kind of present and future that you want? you didn't get to have it so, how do you deal with that loss?

Do you just make people rethink? Do you focus on what they could have if they were willing to let go? Let go? The correct word like What is that? Well I think. there's this fantasy, there's this fantasy of, you know, if my past had been like this, then everything would have worked out perfectly and I think it helps people have a more balanced view of their lives and I think it also helps them see the self. knowing what they've learned from the experiences they've had so they can integrate that experience into their lives so you know that when we talk about moving forward from the past we're not talking about, you know, forgetting what happened or pretending it happened.

It doesn't happen or I say I don't feel pain about it because you will, but it's more about how I integrate that experience into my life so that I don't compartmentalize it and get out of all these unconscious ways that I self-sabotage left and right because that It's what people do when they're not integrating experience into their lives, they self-sabotage in many ways, but how can I integrate that into my life experience so I can make some kind of peace? with it even though it will be painful and then move on so I can taste the freedom I never had.

Thank you very much for coming to the program. When can people find out more about you? You have so many things to do. Oh. Well, first of all, I'm so glad the book resonated with you in that way. You know, a lot of people have talked about how, even though their situations might not look anything like the people in the book, that's why I chose those people specifically because it seems like the five of us are very different from each other and maybe even from the reader, but We can all see ourselves in each of those five, so people can get the book wherever they get them, you know, Amazon independent bookstores. barnes noble anywhere and people can watch my ted talk on ted.com, they can listen to the new podcast called dear therapists on apple podcasts or wherever they get their podcasts, they can read my weekly Atlantic column, dear therapist, and you can follow me on Instagram and Twitter. um, you know, wherever they want to, uh, catch up on what I'm doing, very good, well, thank you so much again,

lori

, thank you so much for coming on the show, it's amazing, I will definitely continue to drink deeply from your world, I think That's really extraordinary, I see.

I can't wait to see what you do next and talk about the next things guys and girls, if you haven't already make sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary, be careful, the word dharma means many things and It is always difficult to translate ancient Sanskrit words into modern English, but the two closest definitions are your true nature and your eternal purpose.