The Leadership Vision Podcast
The Leadership Vision Podcast is about helping people better understand who they are as a leader. Our consulting firm has spent 25 years investing in teams so that people are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. Our podcast provides information to help you develop as a leader, build a positive team culture, and grow your organization to match the demands of today’s business landscape. We leverage client experience, research-based leadership models, and reflective conversations to explore personal growth and leadership topics. With over 350,000 downloads from 180+ countries, our podcast shares our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture.
The Leadership Vision Podcast
How to Lead with Emotional Power: Insights from Dr. Julia DiGangi
Neuropsychologist Dr. Julia DiGangi joins the Leadership Vision Podcast to explore how emotional energy drives our lives, leadership, and relationships. From rewiring patterned emotional responses to building resilience through pain, this conversation offers practical, science-based insights for anyone looking to grow in emotional power.
Topics Discussed:
- Why the brain resists change (and how to work with it)
- The difference between processing pain and perseverating in it
- How emotional energy shapes team culture
- Practical ways to build emotional power and stop outsourcing your feelings
- What emotional strength really looks like in action
Learn more about Dr. Julia DiGangi and her book Energy Rising: https://www.drjuliadigangi.com
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The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.
All right. When the guy cuts me off at the stop sign and I start the, let me just and ask myself this question what am I saying? I cannot handle about this right now, because the reason you protect is for protection and the reason you protect is because you think you cannot handle. So what can you not handle? And if you really sit with the question, like really sit with it, you will start. Things will start. And if you really sit with the question like really sit with it, you will start things will start to come to you. You won't like them, but it will start to come. Like he thinks he's more important than me. Who does he think that? Okay, well, okay, so say, okay, he thinks he's more important than me, so what? But like you gotta, it's hard to come up with an answer Like so what? Well, I guess I don't really like that. Okay, can you handle not liking that?
Speaker 3:Yes, you are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. To learn more about our work, you can click the link in the show notes or visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Freeberg and today on the podcast, we are joined by Dr Julia Degangu, an expert in the connection between our brains, our emotions and our relationships. Through her work as a neuropsychologist, she helps people harness the power of the brain to lead more emotionally intelligent and fulfilling lives. Dr Daganji has conducted research at institutions like Harvard, columbia and the University of Chicago, and her insights have guided leaders in settings ranging from the White House to international humanitarian aid organizations and all sorts of other companies.
Speaker 3:We were first introduced to her work through her incredible book Energy Rising the Neuroscience of Leading with Emotional Power, a book that explores how our emotional energy shapes every part of our lives, from our leadership to our closest relationships. In this episode today, we explore how to transform emotional pain into personal power, why our brains crave certainty even at the expense of peace, and what it really means to regulate ourselves rather than try to regulate others. Now, as you listen here today, pay special attention to Dr Julia's distinction between processing pain and perseverating in it a deceptively simple idea that might just change how you think about leadership, relationships and resilience. All right, let's pick it up here and just get to know Dr Julia a bit more. A bit more about her background and how she got into this work. Enjoy.
Speaker 1:You know, and I think when we think about our lives we all think about our childhoods. So my father actually is a psychologist and I never thought that I would become a psychologist. My father wasn't territorial, in fact. I really kind of grew up having these conversations about trauma, about relationships, about addictions, conversations about trauma, about relationships about addictions. So I had a very deep interest in psychology that, I think, kind of came from my father. I have one brother. My brother is significantly disabled, and so this idea of service and sort of tending to other people's suffering was very alive in my family system. My father's brilliant. My father has a lot of mental health issues. So I was kind of both explicitly and implicitly put to this question, which sort of sounds strange, but from a very early age I kind of had this question is what am I supposed to do about pain? I had a very genuine interest in people and so I thought, okay, well, I'm going to become a journalist.
Speaker 1:I was a journalism major just because I like people's stories and I am a natural listener. And as I started to do some journalism work I sort of felt like that was too much on the sidelines and so I sort of transitioned into political and organizing work. So I did a lot of political work. I actually started my career at the White House. I've worked on several, you know, presidential campaigns, gubernatorial campaigns, congressional campaigns, and I think a lot of people are going to resonate with this.
Speaker 1:I got tired of the politics, of politics, but was still very interested in these kind of human stories, and so I sort of transitioned to international humanitarian aid work and what I kind of realized is like whether I was in Chicago, whether I was in DC, whether I was in Detroit, whether I was in Nairobi or Lagos, loss always felt like loss, hope always felt like hope, betrayal always felt like betrayal. And so I became very interested in this question of emotion, really. And so what are we supposed to do specifically about painful emotion? And then that's what kind of led me to sort of start to ask these scientific questions, which then led me to this PhD program. So never in a million years did I think I would become a neuropsychologist and sort of think about really these questions of my childhood at this level of my career.
Speaker 3:Wow's cool. There's a lot there I got a quote do you want to go now, or should we start with definitions?
Speaker 1:oh, okay, um let brian respond first yeah, I feel like brian, like this is live energy it is, it is, yeah, it's rising.
Speaker 4:It's rising, yeah.
Speaker 2:Julia, you're stepping into fields of where I think we have expertise, the story part of how you're bringing things up. I wrote a graduate thesis in dysfunctional family system therapy and studying people's history of family and that to me is their story, like the people in places that have shaped them in their lives and why they are who they are today, like that kind of stuff. So that story piece, that's what. What hits a chord, but what I want to just back up and ask um, for our listeners and for the topic that's coming, would you mind defining how you would explain what is emotion and energy and how you put those two words together, because one of the reasons why I purchased your book two marches ago was just the title of you putting the two words together. So what does emotion mean, what does energy mean and why the two words together?
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. I am a neuropsychologist and I've done a lot of work in the scientific, so I'm really published in the scientific literature and I've used fMRI and EEG. I think the best way to think about emotions is there is this inner Google Maps. Ok, so our emotions are like going through life and we're in a conversation and then we have a feeling, we have an emotion. It's like we should leave this conversation and then we're driving along the road of our life and we're like we should stay in this job or we should leave this job or we should pursue this thing. So there's this kind of inner guidance system that I think comes to us through the energy of our emotion. Well, why am I using this? So I think the best way to think about emotions it's kind of like the inner Google Maps of our life. Why am I using this term? Energy, rather, is because emotions literally are neurologic energy. So the very reason I was able to do my SMRI or EEG research is because of the electrochemical properties of the brain and subsequently, emotion. Like we're able to detect these signals precisely because they are energy. One thing that's also kind of interesting about who I am is I'm married to a nuclear engineer. One thing that's also kind of interesting about who I am is I'm married to a nuclear engineer, and so it's been very fascinating to kind of come to this conversation about energy in different ways and also seeing the overlaps. And so one of the things that has really struck me is this idea that really comes to us from the physicists that energy can never be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed.
Speaker 1:And so I think what a lot of us are doing is we have these experiences of emotional pain, and I'll define that, so I use this term emotional pain to run the gamut of every single negative feeling, from the most mild to the most significant. You know, I think, is there some value to talking about the complexity and the nuance of emotions? Absolutely, but I think a lot of times we make our emotions way more complicated, equals, confusing than they need to be, right. So, if you think about it, there's things that either make you feel more good or more bad, and there's a variations in degree, but it's kind of binary, like does this make me feel more good or does this make me feel more bad? And the things that make me feel more bad, the circuits of the brain that control those feelings, feelings we may call irritation, frustration, anxiety, fear, rage, terror. It's the same. Neural circuits, yes.
Speaker 1:And then I have this other term that I use, that's called emotional power, and emotional power simply means all the things that we're after in this lifetime Connection, autonomy, authenticity, intimacy, so this kind of really safe sense of self. And so, going back to this idea of the physicist is, it's like a lot of us get into pain in our lives chronically. We're frustrated in the same ways about our life, about the people around us, about the state of the world, and instead of trying to really transform that relationship, that energy, we try to deny it. But you can't Like, if that worked, I would say we should all do it. And so it becomes this very, very powerful but counterintuitive conversations. How do we intelligently work with the energy of our pain so that we can transform into living more empowered, connected, creative, authentic lives? Empowered, connected, creative, authentic lives.
Speaker 2:Julia, do you find people willing or reluctant to learn about their emotions and to explore their pain?
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of people will ask me because I'm most sort of, formatively, a trauma expert and so trauma and anxiety go hand in hand, and so people will say, like, is your work depressing, right? So I've worked with some of the most extreme trauma on the planet combat. I've worked with torture survivors. I've worked with assault survivors. I've worked with bereavement of all kinds. I've worked with betrayal. There's days when the work is absolutely heavy but I could weep every time I talk about this. The work is absolutely heavy but I could weep every time I talk about this. There's just so much vitality, so much hope. You really see the power of the human spirit when it comes to pain. So part of the reason that I do find working with pain so energizing is when people are in pain and enough pain. Frankly, they are willing to move heaven and earth to get out of it. So I find people who are ready for conversations like these oftentimes are the ones who've had enough pain and they're finally saying I'm done with this. Okay, that's kind of category one.
Speaker 1:Category two is, I think evolution happens on all levels, right. We have physical evolution. We're seeing all this technological evolution. There's also emotional evolution. That's a thing right. So I think you have people who are on the planet right now who, just like people, have different heights or different eye colors. They have a different aptitude for emotional intelligence, emotional energy, and so they can come to this conversation more readily. The way some people are just kind of more skilled in mathematics or more skilled in other forms of language. Does that make sense? So the two, the kind of the two tranches of people that come to this work relatively naturally, are people who have been in enough pain where they're like I know I cannot outrun this pain, so let me figure out how to really transform it. And then I also think there are people who are gifted with emotion.
Speaker 2:Have you experienced the inverse effect as well, that in this place, where people are struggling so much with the, the, the, the world around them, the impact to their internal world, that they're reluctant, they're more, they're in so much pain that they can't deal with it? The other swing.
Speaker 1:But those people? So I have two ways to answer this question. Those people don't come to me professionally, right? So someone who's like in a, in a frank avoidance which, frankly, you know, I really believe there's something so healing and so curative about neurology, right? So avoidance is just a form of medicine, just like I'm in too much pain, I can't deal with this.
Speaker 1:But the problem is chronic avoidance. The treatment becomes worse than the problem itself, right? So chronic avoidance leads to so many deeper problems. But the people will come to me professionally who are implementing an avoidance strategy. But I have plenty of people in my personal life who would much rather not talk about pain, and I think those of us who come to trauma as a career, those of us who come to the mental health field not all of us, but we come because of our family systems and some of the things that have happened in our family systems that are very difficult and have not been dealt with in the most healthy way. And so, yes, I do see people who are in a lot of pain, who, I think, continue to perpetuate pain against themselves and other people because they won't. They won't heal themselves.
Speaker 4:Okay, so I'm, I'm listening to hear the professional side and then the personal application, and the personal application. I'm stuck with the image that you, that you offered us, and that is how can you do this job? You know people personally may be asking you like how do you listen to people in pain? And doesn't that just, you know, offer? Isn't that just a depressing way of life? And I wonder, does then, talking about it and being able to talk about the resiliency of the human spirit, does that normalize pain in a different way, or does that help? Have you found that? That? Does that give access? Even talking about it, does it give access to people that oftentimes are just, maybe, you know, medicating themselves with avoidance, as you mentioned? Is there a normalizing to pain that you see, as you?
Speaker 1:mentioned, is there a normalizing to pain? That, you see, Awesome question. I think there's so many ways to come into it, so let me come into it this way and we'll see. So I don't. This idea is going to sound counterintuitive, so just bear with me. I don't think that pain is good or bad, I think it just is. I think it is a force on this planet like gravity. I think it is a force on this planet like time, it just is. And I don't know where any of us got the idea that somehow being born into a human form on this planet means that the experience of pain somehow means the experience is going awry. I think what it means to live on a planet where there is all this duality, right, there's, there's the pain and the power, there's the good and the bad, there's the night and the day, there's the big and the small it means that we experience pain. So I do think that I don't think that we can it's like saying, can we normalize gravity, and it just is. Now what I will say is that I think it's been so.
Speaker 1:I've watched this conversation on mental health in many ways, depending on how you want to look at it, for 20-some years or 40-some years, because I really, you know, started. We used to read my father's textbooks as bedtime stories. I remember there would always be this little vignette at the start of each chapter and he would read that to me and we would talk about that. So I really kind of grew up on the substance of psychology and so it's been incredible to watch the evolution of mental health. It's been. I I am I am very optimistic about the future of humanity Now, since obviously there's kind of been two major forces. One is just the explosion of humanity Now, since obviously there's kind of been two major forces. One is just the explosion of technology and then also, I think, the pandemic kind of really accelerated the way people are willing to show up and talk about their pain online. I think this is overwhelmingly good.
Speaker 1:I do think what can happen is people can become over-identified with their pain and they become the wound. So I talk a lot in my work about you've got to have this discernment to decide between the pathological perseveration in pain versus the powerful processing of it. Those are two very different paths, right? So if you think about every single mental health condition, and all these mental health conditions exist on a continuum right, so we can be a little bit anxious or we can go all the way up on the continuum to being diagnostically anxious, for example. Yes, so if you think about any mental health condition, almost every single mental health condition is underpinned by rumination, by perseveration, this idea that I get in this cognitive loop and I think, and I think, and I think, and I think, and I think.
Speaker 1:Now, what is surprising to people, especially people who their thinking is making them feel really, really bad, oversinking is always so. There's a mask to my work, there's the mask to the brain, because the brain is a pattern detector. Oversinking is always because you are under feeling. Now, people will initially take issue with this. They'll go well, no, no, no, look at how bad I feel. But I would say, tell me the feeling you're feeling, and typically it's kind of like they're in this perseverative, like there's just this kind of negative affect or they're frustrated or anxious. And the two big emotions that people really don't want to process and I get it, I'm living here in human form too is humiliation and grief.
Speaker 2:Julia, I got a question. This is not podcast related, but I'm sure Nathan might edit right smack dab in the middle of the whole thing. This is just a question Doesn't the brain like binary so it can make a choice for control and would naturally avoid something? On a spectrum? It's a true like curiosity.
Speaker 1:question of mine Speaker 1. Yeah, so let me. This probably will be good for the podcast, so can I this? Probably will be good. So can I zoom out and remind if I get lost in the weeds, bring me back to your question.
Speaker 2:I'll stay with you in the weeds.
Speaker 1:The brain, the brain, the best way, I think, the most user-friendly way. So I would say the brain is the most extraordinary machine that we've ever been given. It's like you pay intelligently operate our cell phones or, these days now, chat GPT, then we pay to operating the machinery of our own brain and nervous system. Okay. So I think the most useful model to understand how the brain's actually working, creating reality for all of us, is the brain is a pattern detector. So your brain is going through life, going apple, apple, apple. Fill in the blank. Now it could be a banana, it could be a Dunkin Donuts cup of coffee, but if my brain predicts that it's going to be an apple, I will, in the present tense, materialize an apple.
Speaker 1:Okay, in some ways this is wildly adaptive. It's like if I'm listening to a podcast driving home and I suddenly end up in my driveway right, or if there's kind of things that I can just kind of, for efficiency purposes, predict, that's great. The problem, of course, is these pattern detecting abilities of the brain are the exact opposite of evolution, transformation and change. Like apple, apple, apple, apple. Well, if I want it to be a banana, I got to really understand how to work with the machinery to change apple to banana. Okay, so you kind of asked me. This question is like do people want it to be either yes or either no, either big or either small, either black or either white? What is not an uncommon? So you are right, the brain wants to predict apple, apple, apple, apple. But some of us myself included, if I'm being honest about my my own struggles the, the sensation is chronic confusion you are chronic uncertainty jeez so.
Speaker 1:So it's like let me just make a really quick because I think everyone should. I stay in the relationship or should I leave the relationship? Some people will sit with that question for 50 years my grandparents.
Speaker 3:You know my grandparents.
Speaker 2:I want to move in with you. Oh, my gosh, you okay, um, oh there's a lot of exhaling.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of breathing to regulate what you're seeing, this you are um it's like you're narrating what's in my head on a daily basis, and that's why I feel like energy rising resonated is because I think we see our all of ourselves in it. Yeah, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I think we see all of ourselves in it. Yeah, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know I think it's like okay, and then I think what happens to all of us is we're outsourcing agency. And we're not outsourcing agency because we're doing anything wrong. We're outsourcing agency because again there's this evolution through time, through generations, the brain is like a little computer. Through time, through generations, we were. The brain is like a little computer and so into our operating system we were programmed with these childhood codes. So energy rising is broken down into these eight neuro energetic codes, kind of these blueprints.
Speaker 1:Childhood is an exquisite, extraordinary time where we should be getting kind of these inputs from the adults. But I think the biggest thing one of maybe but if you I'd have to think if it's the biggest I think we're missing a powerful cultural conversation about these rites of passages. We, a lot of us, are adults in adult bodies, looking all mature, but we're still running childhood scripts. Now, there's no shame in this. It's just like how do I really upgrade? And then, and then we have to start talking about we. We, a lot of us, are pursuing permission instead of power. So this idea that, like other people are going to, other people are really going to like it. Other people are going to tell me that I'm good, other people are going to tell it. Can you hear the childhood coding in that Mama, can I have a cookie? Mama, can I sleep over in my friend's house? No, okay. So it's like is it good enough? Is it good enough enough? Is it good enough? So, if you listen to the frequency, not the word, so one of the biggest things, I think one of the biggest points in energy rising and it's so counterintuitive. I actually just posted I don't I historically haven't done a ton on social media I just posted this video. It was like a little video and it's like already got like 130 000 views, so, and I didn't know if people were going to get it, but it is resonating.
Speaker 1:One of the most counterintuitive ideas is we spend all of our life at the level of situation this thing that you said, this thing that you did, this thing that I didn't like, this thing that happened this day that this person did X, y and Z right. So we're like living at the level of situation this day that this person did X, y and Z right. So we're like living at the level of situation. But the only reason, the only reason situation matters is because of emotional energy. So if a situation happened and it didn't make me feel anything. In other words, I had no feeling my brain would not encode it, right, if you think of there's so much more data coming at us each day. But if somebody says something and it really offends me because of that emotional energy, the brain will then encode oh, that, that thing that you said when you were wearing a pink shirt. That really pissed me off.
Speaker 1:Yes, and and the same thing can happen with with positive events too. So, in order, and again, because the brain has these five senses my ability to to see, my ability to hear, my ability to touch the five senses are extraordinary. But the most powerful forces of our life are not actually detectable by the brain's five senses connection, love, attunement, loyalty, betrayal, hope, faith. Yes, they're not discernible. So the truth of our life is actually happening at the energy of emotion, but because we see and we hear and we taste and we touch, we fixate on situation, but to really transform our lives, we've got to start thinking at the level of emotional energy. Now, as I was talking, I'm like I'm dumping. Sometimes I go too quickly, so can I stop for a moment?
Speaker 1:No, yes, you can Of course, sometimes it makes sense in my head and it doesn't make sense outside of my head.
Speaker 4:Oh, you make complete sense. First of all, and I appreciate the things that you're saying and I'm curious about the comment that you said. You know we see ourselves, we can, we can all see ourselves in the energy rising right, what have you, since the book was published and people are now responding, viewing, you know, whatever you post and things like that what are you noticing that was different than whatever you intended when you wrote the book and published the book. So what has the last couple of years been like as people are seeing themselves, are there surprising stories? Are there really common stories? Can you draw a thread through how people see energy rising in them?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So one of the things is so I I Harvard Business Review approached me and asked me to write the book. So I kind of came as sort of a miracle in my own life. I was, you know, very grateful for the opportunity, but because it all happened, I think in as sort of a miracle in my own life. I was, you know, very grateful for the opportunity, but because it all happened, I think, in this sort of very organic and, in a way, very quick way, I didn't have a lot of expectations. Now, one of the things is I have been historically approached to sometimes do public facing things like be an expert on a reality TV show or be on a daytime, you know, and I I think it's wonderful if that's for other people. That was not for me, so I would always say no to those kinds of opportunities. It just didn't really align with how I conceptualize my work. So when Harvard Business Review came and said, would you write this book on really kind of emotion, emotional pain and emotional power and I had this opportunity to talk to, I think, some of the world's most powerful people about emotion in this way it felt like such a sacred opportunity and so I just I wanted it to be really pure, like I wanted to really land for people. So I was really.
Speaker 1:I don't know that I had a lot of expectations, other than when I'm done writing this book, I need I need to feel like it's in alignment with how I feel, because I think it's an honest book in terms of how neurology works and I think I give a lot of situations that resonate with all of us. I think it landed for a lot of people and the the relationships that I've built in this energy of emotion have really been extraordinary. I mean, I I have now formed connections with people all over the globe and it's really been. I think. I think the most moving thing has been people who said I thought that I had to continue to avoid this pain for my whole life, and now I'm realizing that this is really. It's really calling me into power. You know, the same way we get physically stronger is the same way we get mentally stronger. We have to work resistance, and so I think when people kind of say, no, this is actually, this is how you get stronger, I think it gives. I feel like it's an inspiring message.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's a hopeful message and, frankly, it's a neurobiological message.
Speaker 3:Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Nathan, my head is spinning.
Speaker 3:Well, I have 15 questions to ask you, but what is most?
Speaker 3:You talk about getting stronger.
Speaker 3:So I was telling Brian and Linda in this that I just went to a PT because I've been having some Achilles issues for a long time.
Speaker 3:I'm a runner and basically what he said is you're not lifting enough weight to really strengthen the tendon the way it needs to be strengthened. And I wonder sometimes if people approach you know their emotional work the same way, where it's like, well, I'm doing a decent amount of work, but it's like no, if you want real change, if you want real lasting, you know building this thing back up so it can support you through the distance of a marathon of life or running race, like it's going to be a lot harder. And and so I'm, I'm curious how do you coach people or how do you encourage people to say, oh, you thought lifting 45 pounds was good enough. You have to be lifting two or three times that much to really make an impact on this thing. That is, you know, not working well, does that make sense Like cause? At first, when my PT told me this was like oh my gosh, that's going to be a lot of work. He's like well, do you want it to get better or not?
Speaker 1:I was like.
Speaker 3:I do I do? Okay, you know like. So I don't take that metaphor and apply it Like how do you help people get to that point of realizing that?
Speaker 1:Okay, let's put in the work. Yes, so I think that if I had to say a core source of pain, it would be that our redemption lies in other people, that other people are going to hear us differently, that other people are going to see us differently, that other people are going to make us feel like we matter, like other people are going to make us feel important. Now, I am, most formatively, a trauma expert and so do horrible, horrible, horrible things happen to us from the external world. Do our parents injure us? Do strangers? Yes, absolutely Without. Okay, but the question that we're really answering in this podcast is about the journey to emotional power. So if I'm sick, I need healing, but then there's a time when like, in other words, if you had just blown out your Achilles that day, your PC wouldn't be like here's what you're going to do. You're going to put a hundred pounds on that baby? Nope, so we've got to meet the conversation that we're actually having. So I do do a lot of couples therapy, but I also like to use I work in large corporate environments and team environments and I like to use the couple as a, as an analog, because it's a diet. It's a diet between two adults. I think most people have been in a partnership so people can wrap their minds around it.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest things when people come to me for couples work is they're saying at the core, they'll start with the situation. They did this on Wednesday, you did this on Tuesday. But what they're really saying is you don't love me enough. No, you don't love me enough. They did this on Wednesday, you did this on Tuesday. But what they're really saying is you don't love me enough. No, you don't love me enough. You don't listen to me enough. No, you don't listen to me enough. You don't know you. And I'll say OK, this is very valid and we will get to this. But I have a question for you first. Just not going to debate like. You don't need to defend against this. We're going to get there. Tell me all of the ways that profoundly demonstrate the ways in which you love yourself, the ways in which you listen to yourself, the ways in which you validate yourself. And, overwhelmingly, people do not have an answer to that question.
Speaker 1:And so what starts to happen is on the journey to power is. This is a cup, and we all need to be able to hold water in our cup Right, and so it's just kind of like human nature, like we need to be able to have water in our, in our metaphorical cup, and so when we haven't done the work around emotional power, there's no, there's no bottom, and so the water just keeps rushing through. And so I then need my partner, my boss, the people on social media, to constantly hold their hand there, because the second they pulled their hand away, I intuitively understand that energy is going to drop, and I'm like, because I haven't built the musculature, the emotional musculature, to hold them myself. So what happens in a couple more than any other? So the most powerful relationship on earth is the parent-child relationship. Because of the neurobiology, the most complex relationship on the planet is the long-term adult romantic relationship. So what we're constantly saying to our partners and you can see we're saying this to people on social, everybody saying to everybody, but most acutely to our partners I need you to hold your hand in this certain way so that I can feel my own goodness. Can you just think for a minute about how tangled this is to move your mouth in a certain way and do certain actions around the house and nod your head in a certain way, so that I then re-perceive that through my own eyeballs and then I can regulate my nervous system. It's like you could just turn the corner and go left. No, I'm gonna walk 15 miles around to get to the very point.
Speaker 1:So there's all these very interesting conversations about co-regulation. You know what we can have another podcast another day about does co-regulation? But a lot of people what they're calling co-regulation, what they actually mean is codependency. I need you to behave in a certain way so that I can feel feelings inside of my own body. Well, the problem with this is that our partners have very different lives. They have very different neurotypes. They have very different preferences. They have attached very.
Speaker 1:So one of the most interesting things in couples work and again I want you to extrapolate to the global system Is at the core. Isn't it fascinating, in some ways trag heartbreaking, that people are saying the exact same thing to each other. So they're saying you don't really, you don't really value me, no, you don't really value me. And when you stop people long enough because that's the beauty of couple therapy, so do you really not value her? And he's like no, I love her more than anything else on the planet, do you really so? How does it get so tangled? Well, it gets so tangled because we think other people are supposed to deliver emotional experiences to us in a way that neurologically is impossible.
Speaker 3:In one of your newsletters you said that your greatest addiction is to other people's behavior. To other people's behavior and I just thought that really hit me, I really identified with that. And you go on to say about how you know addiction is a disturbed way of self-soothing and I'd never thought about that before you know. You talk about, like you know, with children, the way that they self-soothe and as adults I think we do that as well. But to think of other people's behavior as an addiction to get their mouth to move a certain way, like you said, I was like ouch, that hit me. So I don't know where to go from there in terms of getting over that addiction.
Speaker 1:You know the brain really is. There's a really I think, again counterintuitive question, but a very, very powerful question that I think I hope people start asking themselves, and it is this Is my brain just a passive consumer in my life? Articles show up in front of my eyeballs, people show up in front of my eyeballs, sounds pop into my ears, or is my brain a creator of my eyeballs? People show up in front of my eyeballs, sounds popping in my ears, or is my brain a creator of my life? And so I think what's actually happening most of this is happening outside of conscious awareness is because the brain is like the pattern detector going apple, apple, apple. My brain is creating the parameters so that Apple can be generated.
Speaker 1:Do you see what I'm saying? So I can only tolerate again, because reality really rises on the energy of emotion. So I have a set capacity until I train my nervous system for this much intimacy, for this much authenticity, for this much ability to be seen, for this much criticism, whatever, right. So I will engineer the parameters so that I get an apple. And here's where you kind of start to see self-sabotage. So one of the best ways to think about self-sabotage and I have a lot to say about this is we start to become allergic to the very energies we swear to god we it's the only thing we want in life. Yeah, so in other words, if my nervous system has not been habituated, has not been trained to hold the energy of joy, things will show up in my life that are very joyful and I will start to feel that and then I will torpedo it. Why? Because joy no longer looks like an apple and it's got to be an apple.
Speaker 3:Those apples.
Speaker 2:Julia, we've been dancing around the impact of others and part of what I came to the conversation with is how much are people relying on their emotional needs from others? And in our work you know we work so much with individuals and teams, like the individuals of teams, and so that team dynamic of people looking for, you know, that artificial foundation or the artificial bottom for their emotional needs. How reliant are people on that expectation that others are going to meet what they need?
Speaker 1:Well, I think that they're profoundly. I think, if you kind of look at the whole global order, the whole global order runs on codependency. I want you to think for a second about every single relational problem. Okay, so, whether it's like in your marriage, or with your kid, or with a coworker, or with people that you're arguing with on social media forum.
Speaker 1:I am a relationship expert and I think part of my expertise really comes that I've worked in so many variations of relationship. I've worked with couples, I've worked with families, I've worked in companies where they're family run businesses. I've worked in the US political system and one of the beautiful things about the brain is the brain really is what I call the great simplifier or the great clarifier. So all of these relationship situational problems it seems like there's a lot of variability, a lot of complexity can really be reduced to one question. So people are really coming to me to say how can I get these people to be different? How can I get my kid to listen to me more? How can I get these people to clearly stop voting for this political party and vote for this political party? How can I get these people I mean to be more motivated? Whatever Goes on and on and on. Just fill in the blank, but that's not the truth of the question. So at least say the full question. The full question is how can I get these people around me to be different so that I don't have to feel feelings I don't like to feel inside of my own body? Because the problem when my kid doesn't listen to me is that I now feel disrespected, I now feel afraid. I come up with a whole story about how he's going to grow up and not listen. You know, it's like the nightmares never cease. But what I think is really helpful is clarity, is the foundation of power. So let me at least understand my true problem. My true problem is your behaving is making a feeling inside of my own body that I don't like.
Speaker 1:So look at the, look at the global order, the, the, the fundamental problem Everyone talks about okay, we want peace, we want peace. I've done, I've spoken to thousands and thousands and thousands of people at this point in my career the number, because sometimes I'll like survey the audience or whatever you say. What do you want more than anything in this lifetime? People will say peace. Sometimes they might use a different word, like happiness, but they're saying I want peace, okay, the global order, our families, up to entire nations, run on doing my way. Sometimes it's a polite version of doing my way, but still we're going to do it my way.
Speaker 1:So until I I myself and this is where the power play comes from, and I believe that this is exponential quantum power let me metabolize my own resistance. So let me figure out how to metabolize what other people don't do in my way. When other people write comments on my social media posts that I'm like oh, that wasn't, that wasn't a very nice thing to say. Or when my husband doesn't do what I really think my husband should do, or my kids are behaving, let me metabolize that energy, let me transmute that energy in my own body. And let me not say anything to anyone about how they should behave in their life before I've actually figured out how to, in a somatic way, move that energy in my own body. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Oh, oh yeah so it becomes.
Speaker 1:This thing is like how do I? And the answer is expansion. The answer is I've got to, because what happens when we? I want you to think for a moment about the physics of this.
Speaker 1:So when somebody does something that you don't like, they make a comment. You don't like they do something, don't you don't like they make a comment. You don't like they do something, don't you don't like? Notice that there's like a clenching. Can you feel that there's like?
Speaker 1:So the work? Because people want to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk about the work. And we should talk about the work. But the work is also very somatic and when it becomes somatic it becomes wordless and for those of us who are really intellectual, like this kind of work can frustrate us. But we live in a bind. So when somebody does something that frustrates us, a big piece of the work is people will always say well, what do I do? You stay open.
Speaker 1:So the reason I call energy rising energy rising is because the human biology knows exquisitely what to do with waste. We breathe in oxygen, we put out carbon dioxide, we eat food, we pass the food Our skin cells. They go away every 30 days or so. Right, there's something singular. That happened with our negative experiences with emotion. So the human nervous system is literally built over many, many, many, many years to move emotions, to move sensation. So what happens is when we start to feel a feeling inside of our body that frightens us, instead of just letting quite literally the energy rise because if you pay attention to where the energy starts in your body, it starts low. If you think about, like, when somebody like said something really rude, you, it doesn't. You never like, I felt it right at the top of my head. You're like, I feel it in my pelvis, I feel it in my gut, I feel it in my chest.
Speaker 1:Okay, so instead of just letting it rise, what happens is we clench and then and then the thinking starts why did they say that to me? What are they saying? Did they really take me seriously? Okay, well, all you're doing here is keeping toxic emotional energy in. So the work is to say let me work with myself. How do I stay open? So what does staying open look like? Well, you, you can't start with your spouse, you can't start with your parents. That's like being like I haven't worked out in about 14 years, but I would love to compete in an ironman tomorrow. It's like that won't work, okay, so not helpful what we?
Speaker 1:need to do like all right, when the guy cuts me off at the stop sign and I start the meeting, let me just and ask myself this question what am I saying I cannot handle about this right now? Because the reason you protect is for protection and the reason you protect is because you think you cannot handle. So what can you not handle? And if you really sit with the question, like really sit with it, you will start your things will start to come to you. You won't like them, but it will start to come.
Speaker 1:like he thinks he thinks he's more important than me. He who does he think that? Okay, well, okay, so say, okay, he thinks he's more important than me. So what? Yep, but like you gotta, it's hard to come up with any like. So what? Well, I guess I don't really like that. Okay, can you handle not liking that? Yes, okay, so it becomes this work that's deeply intelligent but not deeply cerebral in the kind of high achieving, overthinking sort of way. Does this make sense?
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, julia, this completely makes sense. What I like about this last few minutes is how you're bringing it back down to the person Looking at the time. Is there anything that you want to leave with our listeners or something that you haven't brought up yet?
Speaker 4:Or something we could ask you.
Speaker 2:Or a question that we can ask you To set you up to say what you'd want to say say what you'd want to say.
Speaker 1:I think that I would maybe. Hopefully this doesn't open a whole other can of worms, but one of the things I think is important to understand is I think the core negative emotional experience lives in this domain of anxiety. Stress, fear, like these are just kind of different words for the same kind of emotional energy, and so what most of us do is we try to combat that anxiety or that stress or that fear by creating certainty. Okay, but the best definition I can give you for anxiety as an anxiety expert is certainty. Anxiety, anxiety is really a disturbed relationship with certainty. So what happens to most of us is we think I just need to know, I just need to figure it out, I just need to make sure this one thing doesn't happen, I just need to check and make okay. The problem with this is the more that we obsessive and this is such an important piece, but it is so counterintuitive the more that we obsessively seek certainty, actually, the more anxious we become, the actually the more anxious we become. So if you think about maximal expressions of anxiety, which are the diagnostic categories so, ocd, panic, ptsd, social anxiety, generalized anxiety what is sustaining all of these disorders is pathological certainty seeking. I got to make sure this trauma never happens again. I got to make sure that the stoverly is. I got to make sure this trauma never happens again. I got to make sure that the stoverly is off. I got to make sure that this does not happen. I got to make sure that I've checked okay.
Speaker 1:So then what happens in a less diagnostic kind of more it's like I work with a lot of high achievers, a lot of leaders is they get into these things that I call the overs. They start to overwork, they start to overwork, they start to overthink, they start to overschedule, they start to overextend, they start to overachieve. So they're overfunctioning. They're feeling miserable about this. They're feeling actually quite exhausted, quite numb, quite hopeless, but they feel like if they stop overing it, the wheels are going to fall off the bus. But the neurologic truth is actually, the more that you are pursuing certainty in this way, the worse you're going to feel, and so it becomes this very radical shift in consciousness. It is actually quite powerful in a lot of instances to say the most powerful thing I can do here is decide I do not need to know.
Speaker 2:Just let it go.
Speaker 4:And the key word that we're hearing from all of our clients is uncertainty. Like the levels of uncertainty are so high right now and I wonder things have been changing, but uncertainty has always been with us. So how do you speak about like, take it one step further with the overing and the relationship with certainty? Give me one more bounce.
Speaker 1:Okay. So like, what do you? What do you do about it? Yeah Well, so I'm an absolute, enormous fan of hierarchy. So I would say one of the things you think you need to know that you don't need to know.
Speaker 1:Now, some things are going to be like a level 10, meaning like I probably don't, but I can't stop myself. But some things are going to be, like imagine you're lifting dumbbells like some things are going to be five pounds, some things are going to be 15 pounds, some things are going to be 50 pounds, right, but let's say you're checking the New York Times seven times a day, like, do you really think something happened in the last three hours that you must know at this precise moment? Like, can you sit with the energy of uncertainty in a body and really watch the somatic response? And it's like it tends to have like an itchy quality to it, like you just don't want to sit in your skin. You, you want to move, you want to.
Speaker 1:What the behavior actually is is, it's a compulsion. So I have the thought in my head I need to, I need to know, I need to know, I need to know. That's the obsession. Again, I'm using this metaphorically, not diagnostically I need to know, I need to know. And then that thinking drives behavior, and so I do the thing. I check my phone, I ask a question. So there's no way to get to peace by information.
Speaker 2:And the information age is showing this to us in spades. So there has to be this willingness to say I don't need to know. Wow, thank you. Thank you, I think, provide such an easy handle for people to catch what you're tossing over at them, and that level of simplicity of something that's profoundly complex. I highly value that. Being in the people business for as long as we are, or as long as we have been, that's the magic of the work that you're doing is delivering these universal complexities in such simple form that people can at least you know, pop that pill and let it just settle in that.
Speaker 2:I'm just that the way you did that today brilliant.
Speaker 1:Five stars yeah, really good. It's a gift that's helpful to hear.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3:Narrative intelligence so good yeah, dr julia, I just wanted to say thank you so much, not only for recording this, but one of uh, my biggest takeaways from your book and your work was just the idea that energy is contagious and without sounding creepy, I think about you and that idea almost every day, that's not creepy at all.
Speaker 1:That's very meaningful, okay, good.
Speaker 3:Well, because, and kind of what you're saying about the person in the car. So you know, as you can imagine, the morning is very stressful with kids trying to get out of the house, and so I think about I cannot imagine with four, by the way, like I'm going to lose my mind with two.
Speaker 3:You don't even want to think about it, but just like okay, what energy am I giving off? That is, the kids are absorbing and I'm better at it. But then I'll have these moments of like okay, I need to stop and think about this, Because if I'm stressed and da-da-da and what about this? Can I handle Interactions with Brian and Linda, interactions with volunteer committees at the school, or even like the barista at Starbucks? That idea was so profound to me that the energy that we give us is contagious. So do I want to be Grumpy Gus that's just going through life with my head down, or-.
Speaker 3:Because that's so you hey, I know that's not me but anyway, but it was really profound and I think that that simple idea is something that has stuck with me more than any of the dozens and dozens of guests that we've interviewed over the last year and a half. So thank you. As Brian said, those little easily digestible nuggets, I want to put it on a T-shirt somehow.
Speaker 1:I will buy one from you. I love it.
Speaker 2:You'll buy one of your T-shirts.
Speaker 3:Perfect, we can copyright that Actually can I share a quick story? Please yes.
Speaker 1:Because I want to make it like I like people to know that I walk this work and I think it's. You know, we're all in this together. So, I have two fairly young kids, and one of my children struggles.
Speaker 1:This is like God's joke on me, Like I'm a psychologist. I was like this is going to be great. We're going to like do all this emotional intelligence work. It's going to come fairly naturally to me. And then God was like take this one, you know so, one of my, my kids. Really he's wonderful, but he struggles a lot with emotion regulation. He's still very young, so he wanted to go to the batting cages and it was a 90 degree day in Chicago. It's like the batting cages are just like indirect.
Speaker 1:It's like already like, I'm like gross I was like OK, I'm going to be sure we'll go. So I was like you have five dollars, let's say so once you use all the tokens. Like so I'm like prepping, I'm like doing the on ramp stuff.
Speaker 4:Well, he gets in this batting cage and the batting cage said slow, they were throwing like major league fastball heat.
Speaker 1:So I'm watching right away. I'm like, okay, this is not gonna go well. So he's there and then, I don't know, like by some karmic fate, there's now a line of people who want to be in this like hot, terrible batting cage. So I'm like, okay, now there's other people there of people who want to be in this, like hot, terrible batting cage. So I'm like, okay, now there's other people there. So he runs to the end of it.
Speaker 1:He like runs out of all of his like his balls and his choke and he's like, ma, I need more money and I was like we're done with the money. And he just starts to lose in the batting cage. So I'm like, can you come out of the batting cage? So he comes out and he's sweaty, he's hot, he's emotionally dysregulated and he like is so frustrated because he did not spend all this money and did not hit one ball. And he just starts to totally go sideways and he starts saying he's yelling, he's saying really like I think undesirable things about himself. So I can feel my own energy of embarrassment.
Speaker 1:Start to like rise and that clenching starts to come. I'm like just get, get, get the car. You know, but by the grace of God I have this thing. It's just like just let it. So I stayed home. I go hey, whenever you're ready, I'm going to wait over there in the car. And so I wait in the car for a while, don't know 10-15 minutes. He comes in the car and it's clear, like, do not speak to me. So I, so I don't have any. So I'm working on myself. I don't need to engage with him. Like just let him. Like any engagement now is just my need, frankly, for control. So I just let him.
Speaker 1:And it's a hot day, so I goin' Donuts. I go to the drive-thru and I know that I can't speak to him, but I'm thinking about my own energy, like how can I connect to him in a way that really sets the tone that shows him that he's safe? So I go to the drive-thru and at the drive-thru window I go to the guy who hands me my drink. I'm like do you want to hear a joke? And the guy's like sure. And I was like what is a pig's favorite karate move? And I was like I don't know.
Speaker 1:And I was like a pork chop, so he starts laughing, my feet starts laughing, and at that moment the energy of the whole thing had finally shifted. Now, if I, 30 minutes ago, would have really kind of caved to my own humiliation, my own sense of righteousness, I didn't even want to be at this lousy bed and cave. To begin with, you're not great, like all the things.
Speaker 4:I think a lot of our parents said to us or you start to perpetuate this intergenerational trauma.
Speaker 1:So when I was able, first and foremost, to just take control of my own emotional energy and just be like, let me go regulate myself in the car for 10 minutes, it changed the fate, not just of that interaction, but I think, the fate at the risk of sounding dramatic of my child's life, you know. Because if we, if we don't come in and work with ourselves first and then we try to engage with these people who depend on us, our children, our spouses, our teens, it's all sideways that duncan employee.
Speaker 3:You changed his day at least too, I mean you think you like that joke like. I think he loved that joke. I think he told it 15 more times that day but that's such a great example of the energy like being contagious and it doesn't.
Speaker 3:You know, you've clearly done work on yourself like that If we're not open to that, like you can't be in the presence of mind to tell a hilarious dad joke no offense, but that was a great one and I just love that about your book and there's all the steps and the codes and everything else that I think is wonderful all the steps and the codes and everything else that I think is wonderful. But that's such a simple idea that I think it's great to leave our listeners with is just think about what's your energy doing right now. How do you change that? Because what did you write? The world needs an upgrade to its relational operating system and I think it can start with those little moments. So thank you.
Speaker 4:Thank you. Thank you. This has been awesome. Sincerely Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you again for having me.
Speaker 2:It's been a pleasure to speak with you and I hope that we can stay connected.
Speaker 3:Thank, you Absolutely. This has been awesome. Another huge thank you to Dr Julia Daganji for taking the time to chat with us. It was a lot of fun and I will absolutely let you know if we end up making those t-shirts. And I wasn't kidding when I said I think about that idea of energy being contagious. I think about it every day. In fact, just this morning, as I was trying to get my kids out the door, I was thinking about this. As I was sending an email to someone, I was thinking about this, and so perhaps the t-shirts are going to be a big seller, who knows?
Speaker 3:But I want to leave you with one thought from our podcast. So this week, or maybe even just today, pay attention to your emotional energy, especially when you're under stress or there's a lot going on. And before reacting to that situation, I want you to just pause and ask yourself I'm quoting Dr Julia now, what am I saying? I cannot handle right now. Okay, then see if you can stay open, take a deep breath and just let the energy rise rather than clenching I really related to that or to that clenching or controlling others or the situation. Model this self-awareness with yourself, with your team, with your family, and notice if there are any shifts in the energy on your life.
Speaker 3:To learn more about Dr Julia, you can click the link in the show notes or go to drjuliadeganjicom Again link in the show notes to that. You can also visit our website, leadershipvisionconsultingcom, to get more resources related to this episode or any of our other episodes that provide you with information about how to build a strong and powerful team culture. We've been doing this work for over 25 years and have learned a lot along the way as we have helped teams and done some really wonderful things. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast. Please share this with someone you think might benefit from our work. Go, follow us on all the social channels, sign up for our email newsletter and again click the link in the show notes, or visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom. My name is Nathan Friberg and, on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.