Understanding Shame—Why You Care What People Think | Conversation #4

*This Conversation is a deeper dive on the Companion Meditation Episode!*

Why do we care so much about what other people think?

What if the answer isn’t that other people are judging you… but that your own mind is filling in the blanks?

In this episode of the Greater Peace Podcast, Amy and Ryan have an honest, unscripted conversation about shame—not as an abstract psychological concept, but as something that quietly influences our relationships, decisions, confidence, and sense of self every day.

Together, they explore:

• The critical difference between shame and guilt
• Why our brains assume the worst when we don’t know what others are thinking
• How childhood experiences shape the beliefs we carry into adulthood
• Why comparison, perfectionism, people-pleasing, and even gossip often grow from shame
• How self-awareness and curiosity begin to dissolve old beliefs
• Why healing starts when we stop believing every thought our mind offers us

Along the way, Amy and Ryan use their own experiences—including moments from creating the podcast itself—to show how shame can hide in even the most ordinary parts of life.

If you’ve ever worried about what people think, struggled to feel “good enough,” or found yourself trapped in self-criticism, this conversation will help you understand where those feelings come from—and how to begin letting them go.

Healing doesn’t begin by becoming someone else.

It begins by seeing yourself more clearly.

Listen now and discover how understanding shame can lead to greater self-compassion, authenticity, and lasting peace. 

*Subscribe to the Greater Peace Podcast for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.*

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Hello everyone, welcome to the Greater Peace Podcast. I'm Ryan Lindstrom, and I'm here today with my favorite clinical mental health counselor and my wife, who happened to be the exact same person, Amy Lindstrom.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Hi, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

So, how it works, every Monday a short episode is posted. It's a meditation episode where Amy will introduce the topic for the week and guide you in a short meditation. And then every Wednesday, a longer conversation episode is posted, which is what this is, on the topic that was introduced on Monday. So uh today that's what we're doing. We're having a conversation. And today, shocker, I actually know what the topic is. I don't know anything about it, but that's that's pretty much all I know. So what do you uh what do you got? Anything to mention or talk about before we roll into it?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

No, but we did return from the black because Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

We the the curtains were just a little too uh professional for us. We're not that professional. So we decided to go back to the unprofessional edition. Also, quick tip tech tip of the week for those of you who are unaware of this. If your video that you're recording for a podcast is a little cloudy, maybe a little uh vintage looking, if you clean this the the lens of the camera a little bit, it's amazing the results that you will get.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

We were like, we gotta go out and buy professional cameras and everything, and turns out we just needed to turns out we get to be unprofessional still. So yep, yep, good, good.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Anyway, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Well, the reason why Ryan knows this week is because I think both of us have had a lot of discussions about week two. So uh it is funny because like the content of week two is awesome. I think that what our experience is, or I would say maybe it's just the overall experience of doing this, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:13

It's like um the content of week two or week three? This is week four.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah, it was week two when all of this was, I think.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Oh, so so week one was the conditioned mind, week two was stimulus response. Stimulus response.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah, and it's fine, like the content is great, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Yeah, regardless of what it's related to, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

But I think that we're both just kind of having this experience where I think it it puts, you know, I don't know, it's like every opportunity as a new opportunity for self-awareness and learning something about yourself that you didn't know. And every time you put yourself out there, it's going to expose the conditioned mind, all the vulnerabilities, all the things. So we did um episode one, and it just it was like hit record, go through, it was great. And I mean, that's generally how we go, and we don't edit much at all. And then um, but week two, I could feel like there was a tension in us of trying to recreate the magic of week one, which then is the thing that separated us from it a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Well, here's what my tension was. My tension was see, I showed up and I didn't know what the topic was, right? Because that's the shtick. So I was worried in my limited thinking brain that you people listening didn't know what the topic was. So I was trying to get, okay, what is the topic we're talking about? Give it a name so everybody knows what we're talking about. But what I did not think about is that this the episode title is the name of the topic. So you would obviously know what it is before watching the video. So anyway. Yeah, I'm I'm pretty bright.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

But it's funny though, because then it kind of exposes it's like, why am I stressing about that so much? And it's like, well, because it's it's just part of something that he does. He's always concerned about making sure other people are taken care of or that people other people are not inconvenienced in any way. And so that's playing a role in this, which is a conditioned mind thing. It's a role or responsibility, some tension that you feel in yourself that you have a responsibility to do this thing for other people. Does that make sense? And then for me, it's just like, uh, you know, I have ADHD. And so what happens when I'm thinking about anything other than just being in the moment, it is like I have six speakers in my mind who all want to turn and they've all got a microphone and they're stepping all over each other. And so I was laughing because I feel like everything goes good. But when you listen back, you hear little things. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't finish a freaking sentence because the next one steps in, jumps on that. And and I kind of was like discouraged or whatever. And then I just stopped and it was just like, okay, when have you ever recorded a podcast and had to listen back and scrutinize yourself? Who does that? There's not a lot of people who do that. I mean, there's a lot, but it's like if you are in a field or something where you have to listen back to yourself, you scrutinize yourself in a different way. But the thing that it brought up that just kind of made it feel off is there was a tension in it of performance uh that I know when we're in the zone and we're just here doing the thing and not thinking about pleasing other people or making sure, you know, everything goes a specific way, then it's actually when flow happens and it it just comes out just right and the energy's right. But when there is the other energy in the background, my mind it just steps all over itself. I can't complete a thought, I'm jumping all over the place. There's there's always a a pretty hefty amount of information and words floating around in my mind. Um, but it's anytime I'm thinking about trying to produce something else, it trips me up. But I think for me, it was just like, okay, well, great. Here's an opportunity for learning. You can have self-awareness and you can spiral down into shame, uh, which I did enough. Uh got in my head a little bit. And that made me go. It made me think like when you and I were talking about it. It's just like, you know what? You're gonna know the topic this time. We're gonna talk about shame, our own experience with it. Um, because what's what's better than teaching shame through our own shame?

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Also, if you're not watching the video, you don't know this. But we also had uh she had another bright idea to uh create the right environment, and that was we switched chairs.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

So now she can stare at the picture of the ocean on the wall the whole time instead of her books. And so that's that's gonna help calm the seas.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yeah, yeah. Cause the ocean is like part of my soul. It's just that it's like it like grounds me faster than anything. So no, I just uh it's less distracting, it just feels more comfortable. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

So if you're listening, just imagine us in in the opposite chairs that you usually imagine us in. Whatever that is.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

All right, so shame. We're talking about shame. We're gonna talk about shame. Did I say shame enough for for uh two hours or whatever? And that is I mean, I don't I was gonna say it's gonna be fun, but it may not be fun. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Well, I mean, I think I think um oh how to go about this. I think one of the one of the most powerful moments in the mental health field, I will say, uh, that kind of shifted things a little bit. The conversation of shame is not one that a lot of people would talk about, but everybody knows the Queen Brene Brown, and it's like she goes viral, why? Um, and much to her dismay, that was the thing, is she she talked about shame in her own vulnerability. And I think that that was a lesson for literally everyone. We are drawn to authenticity. In fact, there's research that was done, and I I like I don't know all of the ins and outs of it, but it's like we're attracted to specific energy, and the highest energy that people are most drawn to is authenticity. Uh, it's been fascinating for me to learn like all the different social medias because they all represent like a different niche. And the one thing that it's like uh some, I mean, it's not all across the board, but it's just like uh on TikTok, it's like where people are just people. Authenticity is the thing that you know draws them in. Not always, um, I'm sure, I'm sure there's plenty of examples where it's not. Um, but that's one of the things that I noticed. There's there's something that we enjoy as humans about uh like being able to just when we see somebody else just being vulnerable and their authentic selves, and it's fallible and it's not performative, and it's well it's easier for people to connect to when they don't have to sort through whatever front you're putting up, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 10:11

When you're just you, I think people identify with that because that's them to some degree, so they're like, oh my gosh, I get it, you know, and they connect a little more.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Well, yeah, I mean when you're look when you're okay, our brain is constantly trying to compare itself to everybody else around us, right? And all of it, like we arrange in a hierarchy, like who's better, who's worse. We want to either be on top or we judge ourselves as worse than, and then think that that's motivating to be better. But it's like that's you know, there's so much good that has come from social media. Um, and there is a lot of harm. And I would say that a lot of it is like the comparison stuff is really hard for people. But really, at the root of that is that it's just exposing your own shame, really. Now, another word that you can say to that that would connect to everything else that we've been doing is conditioned mind, right? Yeah, the negative cognitions or beliefs that we have about ourselves kind of get exposed or um uh like poked. You know?

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Mm-hmm. So what they're like a they're like a nerve.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah, totally. Like an exposed nerve, but it's like you're trying to protect it, but something every once in a while gets it, and then we we can spiral down. Sometimes the way we deal with the spiral down is then we start judging, we gossip. We want to put other people down so it makes us feel better about ourselves because we felt down, we felt not good enough, and that's not good either.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah, so so you mentioned put other people down. So what I picture in my mind when you say that is another thing that you say, which is um as humans, sometimes we can have a tendency to um to see other people and immediately decide if they are one up from us or one down from us.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah, this is a concept Jennifer Finlays and Fife talks about a lot. It's kind of hard to um, you know, it's it's hard to explain sometimes, but if you think about it as um every time, like a good example is what every time you're gossiping. It's like what happens in that? It's it's toxic, uh, and it's very, very helpful at getting a dopamine kick when you feel less than.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

When you feel less than, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah, when you feel less than. So it's like, so then what you do is you go over, oh my gosh, did you hear about so and so? Can you believe that they did this? And then what does the other person say? Are you serious? Do you know what I heard? She was blah blah blah blah blah. And I can act that out because that used to be my thing. It wasn't my thing that I like fully uh would participate in it. And so I know that feeling because now dopamine is being released in both of our minds. We're feeling connected, you know, to each other. And it's toxic. And it's all of it is just an exposure of vulnerability and shame that you have underlying that you're trying to keep hidden.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Yeah, you're and you're you're trying to create a context where whatever other person is one down from where you are, so you feel more right, I guess, more vindicated, more okay about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Yeah, it's like, uh, I don't remember the exact name of it. It's like like humans will form groups. We will naturally group up. And then within every group, the group will find within itself the common enemy. You know, it's just it happens everywhere. I can't, I can't remember the name of it, but it's but it's like you can think of organizations or groups that you're in where there's one who kind of gets left out, one who, you know, that everybody kind of um in you know, in larger groups, it's way more apparent.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Well, if you can join with everybody and picking out who that person is, then it's not you. And sometimes that's the only reason to do it, is so it's not you.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yes. Well, then that also brings um I remember Hank Smith, uh, he's a professor at BYU and used to do talks to kids and stuff like that. But I I remember once he talked about the pecking order of junior high. And he he told the stories of like chickens, right? And it's like all chickens will pick out the weakest among them, and then they all peck on that chicken, and nobody wants to be the bottom one. Yeah, you know, and that is junior high. That's when when we were talking about how it's hard. Sometimes I've worked with kids who are just like, oh my gosh, my friends, like now, my friend used to be really nice to me, and we've grown up together, and now she's like mean, and I just found out all these things she's saying about me or whatever. And uh and it's it's like that pecking order thing. They just don't let it be me.

unknown 15:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Even if I have to burn down things, because that's that's when the brain is so all about belonging.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

You don't need to be 10 up from somebody else, you just need to be one up.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

So that that's not you.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Yeah, just so you're not on the bottom.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Um uh I think I don't know. I I think that um I don't know, like what are some of the things like do you feel like why do you feel like you I'm making you get vulnerable?

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Why do you feel like you can't make me do nothing?

SPEAKER_00 15:52

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

I may opt out.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

It's true. What like what was your experience with, you know, it's like we have the first one, and you're the one who's doing like the editing and the deep listening and whatever as well. So it's like like what have you noticed anything like get in your head a little bit? Which you're interesting to do this with because you really are an anomaly, and you're well, we had the discussions about how like you were just like, I just don't care what other people think, you know?

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Well, yeah, okay, so get vulnerable. So I I think a lot of the reason why I'm comfortable, or at least I think I'm comfortable, not really caring what other people think is because I I think as as a as a child growing up, I don't I didn't have the the luxury of caring what other people think because I I don't know, I always have felt my entire life like I was on the outside. Like at school. I was at school, everyone else was at school, but I was not at school with all those people. All those people were at school playing together, doing their thing together, and I was not part of that group. And so, um, and I don't I don't know, I I'm sure I did try to figure out how to change it and be included. I don't remember really having those thoughts. I remember more like okay, I'm just I'm not part of that group. And I guess that's okay and that's fine. And so I kept to myself. I didn't my I didn't have any real friends at all that I even I would go to school uh almost every day and not talk to one person just because I was not part of that group. So at some point I stopped seeing myself as part of that group, so I didn't feel like I needed the approval of or whatever of any of those people.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

It was more just Yeah, but I mean, even as you're describing though, it sounds like you're confident in who you are, and that's why you don't care. And maybe I'm putting that on you, but it's like that you're just like, okay, well, I don't belong here, that's fine. But it wasn't that.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Oh no, I'm sure at first it was I don't belong here. What is wrong with me? Why? Yeah, what's the deal?

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Well, and we talked a lot about the other day because we were just kind of talking about all this, but it's like I told Ryan probably his saving grace and the reason why he didn't respond to that alienation the same way that a lot of us do is because at home he has six brothers and a sister. I think five brothers. There's five brothers, yes. There's six boys and a sister, and when you get home, uh it was in a time where you lived in a place where there wasn't a lot around you, and you were gonna go play in the gravel pits and whatever else, and it was gonna be awesome. So it was like I remember you saying a long time ago that school is like this just this miserable thing that you have to do.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

So just bear it. Well, you don't grin, I didn't grin a whole lot, but you just you just go and do it. But but the thing about it is too, is I look at it and I'm like, yeah, okay, so that was hard.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Um, but I look at my life now and I'm like, oh man, what I'm I'm glad, I guess, that that was my experience because what a relief to not really give a rip.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Okay. And how do you know what a relief to not give a rip because you're married to me? Who I think that it's like, you know, it's like my grandma did it. My I'm sure my great grandparents is like generational what other people think matters the most.

unknown 19:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Like, what are people gonna think about if you wear that? What are people gonna say if you do your hair like that? What are you gonna, you know, it's if you look like that, all that. And and so it has been, I think it has been one of the best experiences and hardest because I would say things to you, like, well, what if people think this about me? And you're like, why would you care what other people think? You know, and then um I was like, I don't know that this is an option, but I did know that it was a huge source of me betraying my own self over and over and over and over growing up to try to get acceptance. And so with our kids, I was not going to pressure them. I let you lead and I followed your guidance on it. I remember once um Mallory, I mean, they went to a charter school, so she wore uh uh uniforms all the time, but they got a free dress day. And she comes up one day. Now, Mallory, uh, it's like autism is a special, it's a special thing. She just uh could not care less what other people think, but she comes upstairs and she is wearing two different socks because why would you waste the opportunity to express yourself two different ways? Why would you do it the same on both? I she doesn't understand, but then oh no, pants cover those up, so capriz or you know, cutoffs it is. And she came up just in the wildest outfit, and you looked at me and you said, do not say a thing. And she walked in, looked at herself in the mirror, went, I look so awesome today. And what teenage girl, you know, grade school girl is doing that, you know, it just it was such a lesson to me. And I think some of that can be her autism, but Jake's the same way. And I think that that has been a really great way of me releasing that. There was a oh, there was a video that I saw a long time ago that some a reel that some guy made. And he's like, How are all these people walking around? Or somebody said, How are all these people walking around not caring what other people think? And the guy responded and said, because you don't know what they think. So what you're actually doing is taking the worst things that you feel about yourself and you're projecting them onto somebody else and making them a mean person when they've said or done nothing about it. So in reality, it's like it's you who is the judge and the cruel person because you're projecting onto other people the worst thoughts about yourself and then maybe even treating them as if those are the thoughts that they have about you. Maybe you're telling other people that you just know that this person thinks this about you, but it's all just a projection. We literally do not know.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

You can't know.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Yeah, it's a wild thing because we all walk around quite sure that everybody is thinking about us and noticing things and whatever. And it's like most of us are all just worried about what other people are doing.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Most of us are doing the exact same thing, only worried about ourselves. So we're not noticing.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Yeah. But also, you know, it's like I think any one of us can can like look back over, I don't know, look back over our lives. And it's like, who are the people who like when we were growing up, you're just like, uh, I wish I was more like that person at that point in my life. I know I had friends who we would be leaving to go to lunch, and one of them would go, Hey, uh, I'll catch you guys later. I'm gonna stay here. And there's somebody sitting in the hallway alone, not having lunch with anybody, and they decide, I'm not gonna hang out with you guys. I want to go sit with this person and meet them.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Yeah, so that person you're talking about is you.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Well, I I think I learned that. But yes. But I like I learned that from watching that.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

But it's so funny because I mean, a case study on motivations and why we do what we do. So so you just okay, so I'm not gonna go to lunch with my friends, I'm gonna stay here and go sit with that person that sits alone and doesn't have friends. But why are you gonna do that? Well, I'm gonna do that so that I feel better about myself and I can convince myself I'm a good person.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Yeah, that was well, okay, so I would say I genuinely had really good friends that were like confident, although now it's funny because talking to them now, everybody saw me as like the confident, positive, happy one.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

And nobody knew what was going on inside. Yeah. And I always felt on the outside.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Yeah, you want to be like that person at school, but the only problem is you only know them in your limited interactions at school for a total of maybe 20 minutes a day, and that's not the whole of who they are.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yeah. But I I can think of many situations where I was like, hey, I'm just gonna stay, or hey, I'm just gonna do this because what was going on inside my mind is nobody really wants you here.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

They don't really want you to come with them. And so I'm so uncomfortable with that and convinced in my own mind that that is true, that I make up an excuse of why I need to stay.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

And you're putting yourself one down.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Yes, yeah. And so that's where it's like that's it's like shame is like buying into these negative beliefs. So let's like define shame because shame is there's a lot of argument about, you know, shame is the thing that motivates us and helps us know that we need to get better. No, it is not.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Yeah, it probably looks a lot like a lot of other things that you might think shame is when they're not the same.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

So guilt is I made a bad choice. I did a bad thing, right? It's my behavior, my something that I did. Shame is I am bad.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

So this is why it doesn't help because if I believe I am bad, well, now I'm going to do everything I can to perform on the outside so that nobody knows this inherent thing about me that I am bad.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Or so that you don't believe yourself that you're bad.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Yeah, then I also, it any word that you say, I am, and the next word, it's a very powerful thing to do. So if you say, I am bad, then we're trying to cover that up and hide that because that's our shame. We want to, you know, hide this negative belief about ourselves by performing in the opposite, but it's not authentic. So then that creates a shame spiral. Because we're just, I mean, how many times have any one of us said I just feel like I'm fooling everybody that if they really knew me?

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

But the truth of it is that people know you more than maybe even we know ourselves in some ways, because we're just function off uh functioning off of false beliefs and filters that we have made up for ourselves based on our life's experience. You know? Depends on the situation and why people do what they do. But um yeah, I think that it is I don't know, it's just like if you think about it in that way, if I decide, if I am determined, I am bad, then there's a hopelessness in that.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Right?

SPEAKER_02 27:27

So shame is I am bad. Guilt is I did a bad thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Yes, and and I did a bad thing means I can change this.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

It's like if you're bad, that's hard to change. If you did a bad thing, well, that was just a choice and you can do a different choice.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah, because if I say I am bad, that's like there's this inherent quality that is me, which is badness. You know, but if I did something bad, I can reconcile, I can apologize, I can make it right, I can try again, I can do something different.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

That is a key distinction between those two things.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Yeah, yeah. So that's why now if we go back to week one and we're talking about negative cognitions, right? So negative cognitions, remember, are the way that our our brain um will take stress or any experience that we have and determine something that is inherent about us when we are little, like when I said I am not good enough, right? When I'm five years old and I can't mind my dad enough to make him stay and not my parents not get divorced, that makes all the sense in the world to a five-year-old. I have zero idea the complexities of marriage. None. I just don't want my dad to leave. And I'm trying to do everything that I can within my power to make the divorce not happen, which is to just mind, as good as a little bounce off the walls five-year-old girl can do, you know? And and then he doesn't stay. So that means I'm not good enough. Now, like I said before, it's like now I am when I'm not invited at recess, there's this extra energy of it's oh, it's because I'm not good enough. That just is like, oh yeah, oh my gosh, it's because of this. Now it's reaffirmed and reaffirmed until it is such a point of my identity that I start acting according to it. You know?

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Yeah. It's so it's so stupid. I mean, that well, I mean, everything you're saying, it's like, man, how difficult is it to be a happy person in the world? There's so much garbage. There's so much, and I'm not saying the world, I'm saying every one of our brains. It's like it is working to defeat your happiness at every turn. Yeah, it seems like. It's like, good night, no wonder there's so much misery and and people just feeling lost in the world because oh my gosh, it it seems almost insurmountable. It's it's coming from every angle, in every experience, in every interaction. There's something about it where you're you have to decide what it means about you.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Yeah, except that's the whole thing, is that it's like this is the way that the brain functions until you bring in consciousness.

unknown 30:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

So as you start to develop consciousness, that changes, and that really starts to happen as the frontal lobe develops. It's you have higher reasoning. You can think about what you think. You have awareness that you are aware, right? Which is beyond what any other creature has. And so that's what makes it different. And so it feels insurmountable, but that's where it's it goes back to the thousand veils, not 10,000. 10,000.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Sometimes 20.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

It goes back to the thousand veils because it's like, okay, they do feel like this makes life miserable. These are insurmountable, except that they're not, because I'm no longer convinced that I'm not good enough.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

You know, but that's the thing, is you that's why I think creating the greater peace method, doing what I do, I'm working with people who are addicts who are in their 60s and have not not been able to overcome like the use of uh like unwanted sexual behavior like pornography or anything like that or any other kind of addiction, that it's like they have tried and tried and tried and tried and it's been there since they were a teenager. And that that in um I just say all the time, if I can just introduce someone to themselves, they're good.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Well, that's the hard thing is it doesn't seem like that's it's it that it's inherent in a human being to know how to overcome it or to even know that it needs to be overcome and that that's the problem.

unknown 32:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

It's like you gotta gain that information from somewhere outside of yourself. It seems like I know it's within you, but it's like, man, unless someone shines a light in the right spot sometimes, you just it's so hard to see.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yeah, well, and that's why uh when I say social media is so great, is that it's like uh we have more access to the minds of more people uh like across the world. When we when we were kids and VCRs just came out, you know, it's like beta or VHS, which one are you talking about? Oh shoot. But it's like when when that was our world was the town we lived in, and Disney. Your world was so small. Or whatever. It's like it's there wasn't there wasn't much beyond that. But I think that that's why like the World Cup just I didn't watch soccer. I want to be a soccer fan, I'm sure that was a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Yeah, she she was like I mean this enamored with look at all these people that just come together and they go into Walmart and sing songs and get kicked out or whatever. And I kept telling her, it's like it's the alcohol, all right? It's the beer. You don't find people doing all that without the beer.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

I mean, I just it was I think the thing is is that it was like watching Koreans and like the South Koreans and the Mexicans like coming together and like celebrating it. I'm like, why haven't I ever conceptualized that these groups live on the same planet? Like it's just like it was the weirdest thing. But it was like watching them. Uh, I think there was a video that was everywhere that a fan that there was so bummed that their team lost, and all the other team fans came over and were like encouraging and whatever. And I just I there was something about all of that that I think connected me so much to the true thing of humanity because all that we have in exposure to it is like government and news all the time. And I think collectively the whole world was waking up to the fact that it's like we're all the same. We're all the same. You know, there's uh there's mothers and fathers and people just everywhere that all they want to do is do their job, live a good life, take care of their kids, take care of their family, love each other. And it's like we're all the same in that, right? But it goes back to um, it's like, okay, finding it is it hard? Like you have to find it somehow because you can't find it within yourself. If I I think that there is so much exposure to this way of thinking, because I do think that humanity is evolving into deeper, um, like multi-sensory consciousness, intuition, stuff like that, right? Yeah, there seems to be more people who think in this way, um, think in the way of self-compassion and whatever else, where I think that there's been other times in history where it's just survival. You gotta go out and work on the farm, or else you're not gonna have dinner that day, you know.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Well, I think that's like 95% of the world.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Yeah. Yeah. And so I I think that it's um, I think that the one thing that I go back to in my mind all the time is I think growing up um like Christian and reading the Bible and all of that, reading the teachings of Jesus, I was so frustrated. Like, where's the black and white? Like, why does Jesus just keep talking in parables? It's confusing, you know, and it's like, why would he do that? If if this matters, where's the book of Jesus? And where is the roadmap and whatever? And then as I grew and learned and looked from other perspectives and um looking at all things, it's like the thing that Jesus was absolutely crystal clear on above all else is love and compassion.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

You know, and then and then, you know, if we throw back to intuition, the thing that's been hitting me this week is uh whenever he would say, he tell a story and then say, those who have eyes to see, let them see. And I'm like, he's not talking about our physical eyes, he's talking about intuition. Because every one of us can hear a parable and learn a different lesson in it, you know, but it speaks to everybody in different ways. But the ultimate thing that he was crystal clear on is love and compassion. And that's the same as the Buddha and Krishna. And, you know, it's like across the board, that's the message, all spiritual teachers. It's like love and compassion is it. Why? Because when you have love and compassion for others, like true, genuine love and compassion, which I don't think you can have without true love and compassion for yourself. Um, the Buddha and Jesus both taught that, um, that love others as yourself. Um, but it's if you have true love and compassion for other people, then um it it like wakes up your consciousness.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Well, so so we're talking about shame um and love and compassion for other people. Like you said, you can't have that if you don't have it for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Uh well, okay, so let's let's just focus on having it for yourself. It's like the it's like the example of the newborn baby. Every newborn baby they didn't do anything to get worth and value. There's nothing they can do to lose their worth and value. And every one of us was that little newborn baby. But like you were saying a few episodes ago, it's so easy to see that in other people, but you just don't confront it about yourself a lot of the times. It's so much harder.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Because of shame.

SPEAKER_02 38:50

Because of shame.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

So I mean, expand on that. Yeah. I mean, we talked about what is shame versus guilt, but yeah, we need more, I guess, as well as that.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Because I think I mean, I think I think this it's uh I think that it's like because of shame, but if you realize what shame is, which is just a very young mind trying to make sense of a world that it your brain at the time, because of your brain development, sees everything as a threat to remember the core fears of being like human is I'm powerless, I don't belong, and I don't have what I need. We have to have those to survive. And so it's your animal brain that is just focused on survival all the time. Right. And so these ideas are made up by an underdeveloped brain going through very difficult circumstances. It's easy to see it when you're in a situation where there's abuse, you know, when you don't have what you need, when you're powerless because there's abuse or cruelty at home, you know, or it's it's easy to understand that in other situations, but sometimes people are like, well, I don't have any trauma. My family was great. I had like the ideal childhood. It's like, yes, but you're still a human in this world. You still had to experience recess, and your brain is still looking for threat to those three things.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

So I I guess if I'm trying to understand what is shame, like if if I'm gonna understand this on a level where I can apply it in my life without having to go jump through hoops to make it connect, I I guess when I visualize shame, I just see something something isn't clicking. Something there's there's something that doesn't make sense to you that you're not or that you don't understand, or that isn't connecting to you. I guess I just see that is all the source of shame. If I'm feeling shame, I'm feeling shame because something just doesn't seem right. Something something doesn't click for me, something doesn't feel like that's the way it should be or the way that it could be. And so I guess naturally it's I think it's about me.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Yeah, because I mean we're that is what egocentrism is, and that's part of brain development, is we depend on the case.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

So egocentrism is the source.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

Egocentrism is you imagine like you imagine like um like uh you are at the center and everything in this world is orbiting around you.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Not in a I'm important mode, but in a this is all I know is me.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Yeah, and that it's like everything is about me. You know? And it's that's normal. We have to do that, we won't survive as a kid, but we're supposed to grow out of it, and some don't because they stay it's like the negative beliefs and the shame and whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

Yeah, I'm I'm still I just have a hard time conceptualizing what is shame. I mean, and where does it come from? But I think it has to come from a lack of information, a lack of knowledge. There's something you're missing that you can't resolve in your mind or within yourself that makes you say, I don't have this answer, and so there's something wrong with me.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Yeah, I think that's I don't know. I'm just trying to no, I know. I love it. I love it. I think it's super good. Um let me just see what would happen. Okay, d did you watch Men in Black?

SPEAKER_02 42:43

About 48 years ago or whatever it was.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Okay, men in Black. Uh it's like they would come along, and if you saw an alien, they would come up and just memory erase you. Yeah. Right? So you didn't have that. If I had one of those right now and I memory erased your childhood, everything that was hard, difficult, everything that you've ever felt negatively or whatever, and all of that was gone right now, what would be different about you? How would you see the world different?

SPEAKER_02 43:17

I wouldn't analyze everything.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Why do you analyze everything then?

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Well, because I got everything for my whole life in my brain that's trying to jive and may I make a trying to make sense of it and I'm trying to figure out why or what that means or what can I do different? But if none of that exists and it's just it starts right now and goes forward, well, there's no baggage to anything that I'm it's just Yeah, but if you can stick with it for a second, it's like, okay, but why do you feel the need to analyze everything? Well, because it happened.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

No, I mean, let's just talk about like a specific example. It's like, because I tease you that you have analysis paralysis, right? Why why do you feel the need to analyze? Everything to the extreme degree every time you're making a decision.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

Aaron Powell Well, because I'm so tired of making decisions that I didn't want to make or that I'd made it and I was like, I didn't I knew that's not what I wanted to do. That I just I don't want to I don't wanna I would rather take the time up front to analyze every angle and make sure that this is a choice that I want to make before I make it and then pay the price for it.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

So would you say that that there is a like paying the price or whatever, so there's kind of like a you don't want to make the wrong choice.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Yeah, I want to yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Okay. What does it mean about you if you make a wrong choice?

SPEAKER_02 44:37

I'm bringing pain on myself.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

And I'm wasting time, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Yeah. But is there anything that's deeper on a on a deeper like gut level, not your thinking brain telling me, but what does it mean about you if you make a wrong choice?

SPEAKER_02 44:54

Well, I screwed it up again.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Yeah, okay, good. So I screwed it up again. Again.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

Yeah, again.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

Okay. So then what's that? Like you screwed it up again. What is the belief that you have? I am what?

SPEAKER_02 45:09

I don't trust myself to make decisions for myself that will make me happy.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Why?

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Because I made a lot of decisions in my life and a whole lot of them have not made me happy.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

History. It's I've Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

So you have a fundamental belief that you can't make good decisions.

SPEAKER_02 45:31

Oh no. That's that's the hard part for me, is I think a lot of them are they're good decisions. They were the right decision, but they did not make me happy.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

So almost to the extent that like I well, I was subscribing to uh a theory or a method of living that I did not feel was making me happy, but I was continuing to do it because that was the quote right thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

If you if you walk around this world with the belief that and you have plenty of evidence of it, but like I can't be happy, then what what happens if you walk around with that, nope, I know it, there's plenty of evidence, I just can't be happy. How's that affect everything else?

SPEAKER_02 46:19

Well, I think you're just you're you're not open, you're not, you're a lot less likely to be open to the idea that there's something better out there.

SPEAKER_01 46:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

You're just locked into it. This is this is what I'm doing, and so you don't recognize what you're not looking for.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

This is sorry, that's like that's a hundred percent my own nervous system because I think that what you just hit on is uh a lot. I mean, this is like a therapy session for you, but it's not, but it's it's like yes, exactly that. It's like you there is an energy that you have had for a very long time that is shifting, that you've had for a very long time that you just can't be happy. So you just learned to accept it and be okay with, and then your job was to make everybody else happy.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

So how is that changing over the last little bit? Because you're way happier.

SPEAKER_02 47:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

It's not just situational, it's mental. Because you you have been out of the situation that you were in that was miserable for a long time, but it's just more recent that it's like something is changed, something, it's like a veil has peeled back. What is it?

SPEAKER_02 47:41

I don't know. It it's hard to quantify because my analytical m mind is like, well, okay, why have I continued to choose things that I did not enjoy for my whole life? Um, well, because I mean if I'm looking for a for reasons that I can put my finger on, well, because I had to provide for a family, and because um I accepted a role at a job along with all the responsibilities, and so that it it there was this overarching thing my whole life that if I gave my word to somebody that I was gonna do something, I was gonna do it if it killed me because I had told them I would do I had agreed, I had made an agreement with someone, and so I have to follow through with that agreement. One thing that I never really accepted as a reality is the possibility of renegotiation of those promises. I would make a promise, sure, I'll do that job, and I would kill myself to do it at the expense of me and and and my happiness and whatever else. But I think I the hard part is yes, I've come around to all right, I'm gonna choose different. Guess what? I'm not gonna do those things anymore because it makes me miserable to work in in an industry or in a job that I felt like I anybody in the world could do, you know. And if I'm anybody, if I'm my own person with any kind of individuality, well, there's something out there I can do that's more meaningful than this to me.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:21

So but the but the thing is, the only reason I was able to make a different choice is because, well, you went to school, you started a practice. Guess what? I don't have to pay the bills anymore, all of them anyway, or any of them anymore. I mean, I I I should be because we're no you shouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

Should is should is shaming. We're gonna come back to should. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 49:43

I think that it's like but what I'm saying is it's it's hard for me to separate the um the logistical real-world reasons why I did something or didn't do something from inside. Why did I choose different? Well, because it the circumstances changed, so I was able to say, I'm done with this job, I ain't doing this anymore. This is killing me. So I quit. And then, yeah, for the next year, two years, whatever, it was a nightmare because now I'm wandering around with nobody, with no commitments to tell me what to do every morning. So I get up and it's like, well, great, now I have the opportunity to choose for myself I'm gonna do, but geez, that's a lot of responsibility. You know, I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Well, because I think that you were still stuck for a long time because what you just said a little bit ago, you were talking about how you um had this agreement with yourself that no matter what you will do it, you know, the this thing, but then it changed because you never realized you could renegotiate it. So what's your new agreement with yourself?

SPEAKER_02 50:53

My new agreement with myself. I don't know that I've fully thought through that or Yeah, that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

I think that I think even just seeing that, that is the reason why all this is helpful. It's like one, it's like I think that us uh having a child die was something that shifted something in both of us that what matters, you know. I mean, I love the crap out of you. And I think I have watched you be miserable, but also you have always been the greatest supporter of all of our happiness. And and it's like I could feel that resolve in you that it's just like happiness is for the rest of us, and your job is to provide it. And you did, and I think that all the time it was just like if I ever get the chance to free you from that so you can sort it out, I'm doing it 100%. And so there's times where I'm just like, nope, nope, you know, it's like you figured out, and you are, and it's like watching you come alive. Now, is that what's required for everybody? No. No, my gosh, we're there's billions of people on this earth. Has been. There's that many different ways of living, but your thing to learn for your soul, the healing that you need is very specific. And this is the way we're going about it. So that's, you know, it removes judgment when we see that in other people. It's like, you may think you have everybody figured out and exactly what they're doing and why they're doing it, and what you think they should do better. Um, but that's based on your own set of filters, you don't know. You know, but for you right now, there's this pressure of these are all the things that you're supposed to do. And we've had that for a long time in many, many different ways. But there is something that is shifting in you where you are becoming more whole, more healed, more at peace because you are now going, wait, your shame was you have this obligation to do this thing for everybody else and forget you. You know, it's like shame in the sense that it's like something that you it's different from shame a little bit, but it's like you're bound to do this, but the misery of it that you couldn't do anything else. The aha moment is holy crap, I could renegotiate. And then the now is you're in that process.

SPEAKER_02 53:28

Well, yeah, I've I've always had a problem with making a decision that benefits me but costs people around me. You know, it's like I'm not gonna quit this job and go pursue something that is quote, enjoyable or fun if it's gonna put any financial strain on things and it's gonna cause, you know what I mean, heart, you know, stress for for you or or whatever. Um and when I change that, no. I think that's yeah, but I mean, at the same time, okay, why was I miserable in my work? Well, every time that phone would ring, I was scared to death. I did not want to talk. I'm so uncomfortable talking to people. And then especially when it's talking to people about stuff I just don't care about. I don't care about the subject matter. I care about fulfilling my commitment. So my you know, my job was to do this project and design this thing or do whatever. And so I deeply cared about doing that to the best of my ability. But oh my gosh, to talk to someone on the phone and have to oh, it just it's scary. I it it was dread. So so, but is that something everybody fights, or is that just because I is that is that me? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 54:45

No, I mean this is the work to do though for you because it's like I mean it's hard because it's like sometimes we're just introverted and there's anxiety in that, right?

SPEAKER_02 54:54

Yeah, I am so much happier when I'm not talking to people. I gotta tell you. Every time I'm in the mountains by myself, I'm like, oh my gosh, why do I even go back? I mean, this is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

I know. Um But that being said, but that's just that's just naturally who you are, and you're starting to discover more like the things that make you happy and that which is great. But if we're connecting it all back to shame, well, I would say there are so many layers in this, so many veils in this of negative beliefs that drive that, the anxiety of talking to somebody else. I think one of your core ones is you know, it's like uh it's like you you really do not like to inconvenience anybody else. You will inconvenience yourself to an insane degree, just not to inconvenience some somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

I don't I do not enjoy delivering bad news.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

I mean, that's like Yeah, and so, but that's where it's like finding the shame in that that drives that is okay, what what are you afraid of in it then? If you inconvenience some somebody, what are they gonna think of you?

SPEAKER_02 56:02

Well, I don't know, and that's the whole thing about it. Maybe, you know, uh it seems like I don't care what anybody thinks, but maybe I care way more than anybody should about what other people think. You know what I mean? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 56:16

Yeah, I don't know either.

SPEAKER_02 56:19

Well, why are you smiling at me all the time? You know exactly what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

Uh just because it's like, I mean, it is hard to dig into this kind of stuff, but it's like, okay, we go in and we stir all this up. There's some stuff coming up off the bottom of the pot. And now it's like, okay, good. Don't don't let it settle back down. Just get curious about it. That's the opposite of shame, is when you can handle looking at the things well, when you can handle looking at the things that are coming up in your mind and make you feel insecure, then I think that the way you get to the point of being able to handle that is to understand there might be processes in my brain about where I see myself and things I believe about myself that might not be true anymore.

SPEAKER_02 57:11

Okay, so I'm just getting a picture in my head. So so you're saying we s you stirred stirred the pot, right? And all the stuff that's settled to the bottom is kind of coming up. I mean, if you have a glass of water and you dump some dirt in it, over time it all settles to the bottom. And I think maybe shame is the equivalent of you don't even know how to address the dirt because it's just w it's just you you don't know what it consists of. It just sits at the bottom and you don't understand how to deal with it. But if you stir it up and you get curious, like you say, and you dig, well now it's all back in suspension and you can see it more clearly, what is it and how do I get it out? And then you can proceed to filter it out, you can proceed to dump way more clean water in to flush the dirty water out, you can approach it. So I guess that kind of helps clarify more for me what is shame. And it's just it's that thing in you that you don't understand, and so therefore you don't know how to approach it or deal with it. Yeah, and so you just sit there with it and live with it. So it but if if you are willing to stir the pot a little bit, then like you said, things will come up and you can decide to just let it all settle back down where it was and go back into I don't know how to deal with it, or you can figure out one grain at a time, how do I address this? I don't know. Well, yeah, I mean, because it helps for me to try to visualize stuff.

SPEAKER_00 58:55

No, I mean, yeah, and that's it's such a helpful way of seeing it because it's true, because even as you're saying that, it's like it's totally true. It's like, what if you do have a bunch of mud kicked on the bottom of a glass, but you need a drink of water? Well, you sip off the top, you work your way around, you try to avoid, right? But what if we can stir it up? Can we filter it out? And and the You You don't know sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 59:18

That's what's so scary about it. I mean, I mean, when I hear the word shame, what immediately pops into my mind? Just a black glob of stuff that I don't know what it is and I don't know how to deal with it.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

Yeah. Well, okay. But at the same time, you did just, it's like, okay, when you're saying you felt like you always had to do the thing, like, you know, you never understood you could renegotiate. Uh it's not so scary anymore.

SPEAKER_02 59:45

I knew I should renegotiate. It's just not an option.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

You didn't know how you could do how you could do it. Yeah. Um it's uh let me think.

SPEAKER_02 59:57

Well, it just goes back to this thing where I fully believe, and I still do. It's like your life works to the degree that you keep your word. I mean your integrity. If you say you're doing something, you do something, but that's not necessarily a definition of integrity.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

Well, okay, this is good. This is good. Okay. Now think of it in this way, right? You will not change from that. That is not, I mean, you will change from the behavior. But one of the things that is very essentially true about you is that integrity is all. Being true to who you want to be in the world is all.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:34

Well, even if I don't fully understand what integrity means or is.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

Yeah, but even, yeah, and but even there's been a lot of different times in your life where, okay, let's let's use people pleasers because this makes it easier. Uh, not easier, but it like depersonalizes it just a little bit. Okay. So when somebody is a people pleaser, I would say probably the qualities, personalities, the innateness in that person is that they very much are a person that is very, they like to serve, they like to help people, right? But people pleasing is not that. And people will stay people pleasing because it's good to make other people happy. But the reality of it is that you are people pleasing not to make other people happy. You are people pleasing because if you make other people happy, they like you.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

Well, I think I please people so that I can disappear. If I make if I if I do something for you and you're happy, I'm not I don't want to rock. You're less miserable. I don't want to be the guy that that people point to and say that guy ruined my life. Well, I don't want people to to to think of me and go, that interaction really screwed me up. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

It's so funny, because even as you say that and like having known you for the last 28 years, you know, whatever, I'm like, there's not anybody in this world who would think that. You know, it's just so, but it's your your fears of what other people will feel and think about what you're doing. That's shame. You just don't know how to put a label on it, and sometimes you don't need to.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

Yeah, I I don't want to inconvenience other people, but what I what I never take into account is that other people need to decide to be inconvenienced in order to be inconvenienced.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:27

It's not you can't make anybody feel a certain way.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:29

My actions.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:30

Yeah. This is the quote that Jennifer Finlays and Fife says that I love so much is uh she has said um that it is not your job to make somebody feel loved. It is your job to be loving.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:45

And they decide how they take it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:47

Yes. So a lot of times emotion-focused therapy in couples' work would be like, um, when you said this, how do you think it made her feel? Is there a different way that you can say it so that she doesn't feel that way? And it's all manipulation in my mind. This is me, you know, uh people will have stuff to say about that, but it bothers me a lot because I think that what is because I think that I because working with betrayal trauma a lot and infidelity. It's like, well, I have a client who has been hiding from his wife or her wife or her husband or whatever. It's like I have somebody who is hiding an affair that happened or pornography use or whatever because they they want to make their partner feel loved, but there's nothing loving about that. It's like the honesty is kind and loving, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:43

So um, if we go back to the people pleaser thing, it's like if you not just you as a people pleaser, but anybody as a people pleaser, if it was possible for us to gain confidence and self-worth and self-value through people pleasing, then people pleasers would be the most confident people because they get a ton of, oh my gosh, you're the best ever.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:11

Yeah, and they're all completely worn out.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:13

But they are, they are the lowest because they consistently give and give and give everything away. But the thing is, is that they are giving away, they give, they betray themselves, they give away constantly because they feel like that's what they need to do in order to get people to like them. That's driven by their shame of I'm not loved, I'm not lovable, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:38

Yeah, that's gotta stem from a lack of value in yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:41

Yeah, and so you're always trying to earn it. But if you go back to and remember that we all came as the baby, we did not earn the worth and value that we were born with. It came with us. That means whatever it is that is manifest in us, whatever intelligence or spark of life or soul or whatever it is, whatever it is, it comes with inherent value and worth. And we all see that in babies. But we just believe that it is true for everybody else that they cannot lose that value, except not us. We've definitely lost ours.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:20

Well, when your method of operation in life is to try not to rock the boat, try to help other people um feel good, try to be the people pleaser. I don't really like the term because it sounds like it's a derogatory term to me. You're a people pleaser. It's like, well, that's a bad thing. And it's not I mean, it's not good or bad, it's just where people are sometimes, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:40

It's just it's just the it's a it's a term that refers to the behavior they have to get the validation they need.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:47

So why do they need that validation in the first place? Well, when you ha have lived 40 years with that that's your that's your operating um system, how I mean so Something and I guess this is where it's like the obstacle is probably the way is that how do you then turn and and if the source of doing all that is that you don't find value in yourself to take up space in the world, like you know what I mean? I I don't want my uh existence to encroach upon other people, then how do you turn inward and say, okay, I gotta focus on me and figure out that I have the value enough to take up space. Well, I think that it is something because that's completely opposite of what you've done for your whole life.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

Yeah. Well, and I think that the thing about a people pleaser is that if I say, okay, you can't ever do anything to please people or be kind to people again, that's not gonna work. It's innately who they are.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:50

It seems like it's just a crisis that has to show up that says, dude, you gotta figure out that you're worth breathing in this world.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:57

It's almost it almost Guess what?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:58

Other people probably some people aren't gonna like it. Some people are gonna be inconvenienced. Yeah. Some people are gonna are gonna think that they're gonna blame you for everything that goes wrong in their lives. But guess what? That's not on you. You have the same amount of value and worth that they do. But it's just to come around to the point in your life where you recognize that and say, Oh my gosh, this is who I am.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:23

What brings that about? And I'm sure it's different for everybody, but it's probably not the same stuff that happened yesterday. Right. It's probably something a lot more disruptive.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:31

Mm-hmm. I think I think that this will be helped a lot in, you know, like um, we'll do, we'll work on some like parts work stuff to understand that so we understand how to heal those things. But I think that anybody who is a people pleaser, uh, there's a quality of maybe the energy that is within when they're people pleasing. They're running themselves into the ground. They can't say no. Because if they said no, then what?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:03

Well, they're right. Well, people would think I'm horrible. That their value can't cash.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:07

Yeah. They're running themselves into the ground and then patting themselves on the back for suffering well, you know, and and feeling better, but also feeling empty and depleted. And the work that they do is meant to be fulfilling, and it isn't. That's a really good sign that you're being driven by a a fear or an anxiety slash shame.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:28

So shame then it's the definition is trying to it's becoming more clear. For me, shame then is you don't know your own value.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

You don't value yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:40

To some degree.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

Yeah, and it's not, it's not the whole of. I think we have a bunch of different, you know, it's just like parts, just like negative cognitions or whatever. In some ways I'm great, in other ways I have to.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:53

Well, maybe it's those three things. It's I don't have what I need. Uh you know, one of those things is the source of you don't you you you are having a hard time comprehending how you fit in the world. So you feel wrong about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:07

Aaron Ross Powell Well, and if we went back to the analogy of the dirt on the bottom of the cup, it's like you stir that up and it comes up, and even if you can only pick out one grain at a time, eventually there's nothing left in it, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:20

Um Or at least the stuff that's left, you can identify it. And so you know what it is and you can determine how to feel about it. Trevor Burrus, Jr. The really versus not understanding it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:31

Yeah. And the great thing is, is that really truly, as soon as you go after a few things like this, like when I'm like, okay, but why? But why? Why do you analyze? What does it mean if you don't? What does and you're like, well, I don't want to make a wrong decision. What does it mean if you make a wrong decision? This is laddering in cognitive behavioral therapy, where you do a skill where you say, if this happens, like if I don't do this, then what? If I don't analyze, then what? Then I'll make a wrong decision. If I make a wrong decision, then what? Then whatever it is. It's like then uh I will disappoint the source people. If I disappoint people, then what? And this is then I don't have value.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:15

That you're gonna teach everybody's disappointment.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:17

I can go, yeah, I can teach that. Um I think that shame is without doubt, like difficult. Um we can define it as, I mean, I can simply say, like, guilt is this, you know, guilt is I did a bad thing, shame is I am bad. But to actually understand the um insidiousness of shame within our own lives, is a very it's very much more difficult. But I think the reason why it's valuable to see that, and we can talk about it in negative cognitions, maybe it feels easier to see it that way. But one of the things I will say, like um if you want to heal and transform and become more whole and experience peace, if you want to live with peace, you have to approach yourself, your past self, all of your fears, all of the things that you feel like you are lacking with compassion, not punishment.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:27

Because look at, okay, um, I think we talked about this like forever ago, but we were talking about the motivation for obedience or the motivation for um the behaviors that we have, and we were talking about like look at people with the speed limit. You know, it's like when punishment is the threat for disobeying, then we just try to get away with it. When a cop comes, we hit the brakes. We don't see the value or the quality in the law, we just don't want to get caught. So we obey, so we don't pay, right? Yeah. I would say one of the things, especially in infidelity, that is so difficult is because there's so much suffering in the betrayed partner. And the suffering is immense. Betrayal trauma, um, like I will say, betrayal trauma, like treating PTSD, all that betrayal trauma is so complex because it is like it has put an amplifier and a megaphone on every negative belief you've ever had of yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:35

Oh, it's evidence that you were right.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:37

Yeah. And so it like becomes the concrete thing. And and so it's it's very, very difficult to work through it. Now, the problem is that there's so much suffering in the betrayed partner that what they want most is for their partner to suffer, to be punished. And so it's very hard because it's like you want them to be punished. And a lot of the times when I'm working with somebody, it's like their punishment, like he needs to suffer, he needs to punish or she or whatever. But it's like, why do they need to do that? So that they know what it feels like to hurt this way, so they'll never do it again. Except that the thing that I understand and the thing that I've seen over and over and over and over in working with people in addiction is people people who have addiction, they suffering is the perpetuator of the addiction. It is not explain that.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:34

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:35

I mean, like people who uh people who have addiction are not whole and healed. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:48

Like people who are completely whole and healed and confident and at peace with themselves do not have addiction.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:57

And if they felt the pain, they might recognize it and go, oh, I don't want that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:02

Yeah, they would they would know how to resolve it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:04

But otherwise it's just keeping the flywheel spinning.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:08

Exactly. And that's why it's really hard because in therapy, sometimes when we're focusing just on behavior, then it's like they just need more consequences, more consequences. But it's the freaking thing that they've been it's like you're just giving them more of what they're running from in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:25

Oh yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That, yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:27

And so it and so this is why it's like um shame is shame is the perpetuator of I mean, it just if shame is used in the process of healing from addiction, you're just screwed. You know, it's like it's it's the trigger over and over and over because shame is the thing that we know most. So it's like whatever the wound is.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:53

So then would it be fair to say that if shame is at the core of why you do something, you will never get the intended result to some degree?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:00

Yeah, totally. You can't. How can you? How can I overcome addiction, which I probably have because of the horrible ways I feel about myself? You know? How can I double down on that and somehow think that that's gonna make me stop drinking, gambling, using drugs, uh porn, whatever it is? How can I do it?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:28

So let's lighten it up a little bit then.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:30

Um pick something that nine out of ten people deal with every day of their life, where what's an example of how shame is not gonna give you what you're looking for?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:47

I think overeating could be a common one.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:50

That's probably a good one.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:52

Right. So it's like, okay, so what do we do? Let's say, let's say we go out to eat, we're on a diet, whatever it is. You know, we're watching what we eat, we decide I'm not gonna eat any more sugar. Which it's whatever you resist persists. It's like now your brain is going, oh no.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:09

We better stock up and I don't have what I need.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:13

And so, so then you go out with friends, whatever, and everybody's having cake, but before you decided I'm definitely not going to have it, and then everybody's having it, and you're like, it's fine. Then you have the cake, it's great and fine. You get home and you go, I'm like, I have zero willpower, I have blah, blah, blah, you know, all this stuff. And and that's the shame spiral after.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:35

Okay, so how did that start from shame?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:39

Um, so there can be a different so shame is the feeling afterwards that I have no willpower, I'm never gonna get this, those kind of thoughts. The the like there's something inherently wrong with me that I can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:56

The reason for the decision?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:58

I think it can be the reason and the reinforcer.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:01

Yeah, so it's it's the well, it's like you were just saying, it's the continued downward spiral.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:07

You out of shame because I can never stick to a diet anyway. Yeah, I'm just gonna have a cake and I'll start again tomorrow. So you make that choice out of shame because you think you don't you're not strong enough. And so you shame yourself and just say, I'm just gonna have cake and tomorrow I'll be better.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:26

And that's the beginning of the decision. And then after it, it's the reason why you just continue to spiral down because I did it again. I can't believe I did it again. I I really am not able, I can't do this. I'm horrible at dieting.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:41

And that's if your determination is that. Now, overeating on the other side would be.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:48

By the way, I'm gonna eat the cake and I don't care.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:51

All right, go on.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:52

So maybe so the other side is sorry, my brain just went, ooh, buttercake at sol agave. Oh my gosh. That's a win.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:02

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:03

Utah County, Solagave. I think it's uh in other places, California. Oh my gosh. Okay. But on the flip side now, like if let's say we're sitting at home, we're like struggling, I can't go anywhere, whatever the negative thoughts we have, we're struggling with something. I can't do this, I can't get this, we're feeling overwhelmed, then we go mindlessly in a reaction and we eat more than we want to. Now we're shame spiraling because of that as well. But it's shame that drove us there. And now we're gonna shame on the back end for for doing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:39

So if you if you if you so then if you do something, make a decision to do something, and it doesn't feel that you're doing that decision out of strength, power, and intention, then it's likely it's coming from shame.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:51

Yeah, I would say if you want to boil it down, I would say if you are led by fear, no, if you are led to make a decision in fear and anxiety, it's probably led by shame slash negative beliefs about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:07

Okay, that's money. What you just said.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:10

For my brain type is like now, what the flip side is is what we talked about in intuition last week. Clarity, peace, expansiveness. If you're making decisions, moving in that, you're good. That's coming from your higher consciousness.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:25

So, how do you overcome acting out of shame by tuning into your intuition and choosing that more?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:31

I think that's a combination of working the stimulus response, right? You're learning that, but but we are going to do parts work. So I want to leave it for that because that's where you're going back and you're kind of healing these negative beliefs. You know, you go back and um we do um with parts work, it's like inner child work slash, you know, those kind of things where almost you get to go back to the situation that you were in that created this negative belief about yourself and change it.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:03

So so this is boiling down the definition further for me. So um in order to not make choices out of shame, you have to be able to identify the shame. You have to be able to look at something and go, that's shame.

unknown 1:20:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:19

Yeah. I mean, okay, so there's power in doing that as well. Like it's like anytime if I'm working with somebody in uh with addiction or whatever, it's anything you label is a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:34

I mean, if you can't identify it, you can't choose out of it. You can't intelligently choose out of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:38

And what you're doing by labeling it is that you you are bringing it to your consciousness. And your consciousness is like your conscious self wants to be whole, wants to be free. No, nobody's consciousness wants to be addicted.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:53

Or be holden to something.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:55

Unless it's the buttercake.

unknown 1:20:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:57

All right, go on.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:57

Everybody's does. Yes. But I think that um, yeah, it's like if you boil it down, it's like guilt is I did a bad thing. Shame is I am bad. You know, it's like shame is the fear and anxiety that drives you to do things that may not necessarily be what you want to do, but it's what you feel like you have to do. And uh it's probably at the root of that is some fear that you are not enough or whatever it is. When you are led by a sense of clarity, even when you have, it's like you can feel fear uh but not be afraid. Meaning, I know that this is the right thing to do, and then you move in the direction of it with clarity and confidence in your ability to deal with whatever comes next. But the, but the um you I think the point of changing it all comes when the cost of doing it is so freaking high that it exceeds the fear of overcoming it.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:09

Yeah, so okay, so I think we've kind of, at least in my mind, I've I'm a little more clear on what is shame, how do you recognize when shame is present. So now we need we need a skill, we need a okay, so what do you do when you recognize that that's happening? How do you act in the opposite direction? And I think you just said it, it's I I don't know, you first of all, just recognizing it is a massive step. Even if you recognize, like, oh my gosh, I am feeling shame, just recognizing that, even if you still follow it and make a choice based on that, well, guess what? Now you're like, if you didn't recognize it at all before, you're a hundred percent more able to recognize it now.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:50

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that the that we're gonna talk for a little bit more about what it is, but I think that what I would say is um we covered like punishment isn't it. Punishment does not create long-term change, compassion does.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:08

Yeah, okay. Where is it?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:10

This is how you develop self-compassion, all that kind of stuff. Now, um, if you think about it's like that's hard because a lot of us are like, you know, no, you know, my parents would punish me and whatever else, and I stopped doing it. It's like, okay, but did it create a qualitative deep change in you that helped you understand the purpose and the goodness of why this is an important behavior? Or were you just obeying to avoid punishment? Which is now we can like like intuition last time we were talking about it. We can talk about how well stage one of moral development, meaning the the brain's process of developing in morality, the lowest stage is obey or pay. That's why punishment doesn't change anything. We're just we're just afraid of the punishment. So we don't do the thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:09

Which is interesting because uh before you're eight years old, or like you were saying, um the intent of parents giving you laws or rules or whatever is not for you to the intent is to save your life, probably in some situations. So it's like they would rather you obey just to not just so you don't have to pay if it keeps you safe and whatever. Anyway, go on.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:33

Well it's a harder, it's a harder way to parent to do it the other way. It's like it's you know, if any time we raise our voices or spank or anything like that, um if you raise your voice or belittle another person, you're just looking to control them. You are not looking for teaching. It's not that's not a teacher, you know. Um, so but it's like, are there moments where your kid's about to run in the street that you need to yell? You know, it's like, yes, totally. But anytime if you want to teach, there's a harder way of parenting, helping kids think through why they did what they did, you know, with compassion is difficult. You can be upset about it, but don't be reactive, be responsive. Yeah, you know, so there's that. Um, but uh I think I'm just looking at my I had a couple of quotes that I have to write down because I won't remember all the words and then I'll Because I am continually trying to push you off the track. No, see, you have a shame around worrying about that. And it's like, no, like no, you get to take up all the space that you want to in this space.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:47

Sweet. All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:49

It's like it's like, okay, is it valuable that I have experience in counseling and whatever? Yes, but by far the feedback comes back that your perspective is so helpful in making it relatable. So so you're very necessary. You need to address whatever shame makes you feel like that. You're good. Move along. I know. Okay. Um uh so yeah, in moral development, it's like when we have compassion, we learn more, right? It's obey or get punished. So then um no no no. So, like Richard Schwartz in No Bad Parts, he wrote this book and he was talking about how a lot of times we feel like our job is willpower. I just need to have more willpower. I just need to have more willpower. But what we're doing is we're overriding the cognitive processes that are written in our brain. They are electrical currents that are connected, physically connected to each other, and we're trying to override them by just willpower, punishment, shame ourselves because we can't do it. Stop being such a whiner, get up and do it, you know, that kind of stuff. It's like it doesn't do it. And so his quote is the insistence of willpower as the only way to change creates more internal criticism and punishment, which is shame, as it largely ignores deeper cognitive processes, which we will call parts or uh conditioned um or negative cognitions, the conditioned mind, that see this change as a threat to the system. So you have to remember that these shames, these or these um, like these negative beliefs that we have about ourselves are written into a system in fear and anxiety. The reason why they exist is because at one point in your life, your brain was like, oh my gosh, I'm not good enough. I need to make sure everybody, you know, I need to make sure I'm proving that I'm good enough. I need to hide this from people. All of that. So what happens is that we have all of this negative belief in the way that we are in the world, the filters we see everything through, and it's written in fear and anxiety for the reason of survival. So when you're willpowering and overpowering that, you're overpowering this survival mechanism. And your brain receives it as a threat until you can switch the way you think about it and rewire your brain a bit. That's why willpower just it's like it it's it just goes back to obey or pay. It's a lower level.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:40

I feel like I've been willpowering my way through the last 30 years of my life. And yeah, guess what? It doesn't feel better. It doesn't fix anything. All it does is it gets because you're not rewiring the internal programs, you're just pushing them out of the way a little bit. And guess what? They're gonna come back stronger because they feel threatened.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:01

You'll just find ways to cope with it.

unknown 1:29:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:04

You'll put your system in such stress, unconsciously or consciously, but you'll put your system under so much stress doing that because it it literally believes that it will not survive without these programs. Then you put your system under so much stress that now there's stress that you're now trying to cope with. You overeat, you binge watch stuff, you know, play video games, you drink, and you whatever it is. We all have, there's a million different ways that we can try to make ourselves feel better. But what we're actually doing is chasing this spiral.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:42

It's so crazy. The more you talk about all this stuff, it's the more apparent it is that there are two of you in there, and you are it's a battle. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:53

I hate to tell you, there's way more than two, but it's like it's not, I mean, it's like multiple multiple personality disorder, uh dissociative identity disorder, same. It's like uh it's complex like to go into, but it's really like it's where the parts become more well, let's do parts of the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:13

So I guess what I meant by that was it it it emphasizes more the differentiation between your spirit or your soul or your essence or whatever you view that to be, and your physical mind and body and processes.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:32

Yeah, so think about it as this it's like little Ryan sitting in a kindergarten class, and the world is only as big as, you know, your hometown. It's not very big, right? And you are making your brain is making up ideas about the world around you based on your experiences, because it's the only way it knows how. Then you are experiencing all these different things. Your brain is going, okay, got this one figured out. This is what I need to do. Okay, got this one figured out, and all of it is egocentric, meaning I'm the problem. So if I just, you know, pretend that I'm this or act in this way. For me, it's like, well, if I dress like the girl that everybody wants to play with at recess, maybe everybody will like me. Then I dress like her and do my hair like her, and everybody's like, hey, do you want to play with us? And it's like, ah, okay, the way that I am is not okay. But if I'm like that, then I'm okay. So this is who I need to be in the world in order to be safe, liked, and belong, right? So we're creating all of that. Well, when did I ever undo that? It's a physical connection in my brain.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:50

Sorry, I think I dissociated for about 30 seconds while you were talking about that because I was thinking about when I was in kindergarten, I don't even remember what it was. It was probably like nap time and I didn't want to take a nap or something. But I distinctively remember ending up on a stool in the corner with my nose to the corner. And I may be wrong on this, but I I swear there was a pointy dunce cap involved. I could be wrong, but there was something about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:21

I don't know. It was 1970 something. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:25

That's possible. But the thing about, I guess the thing I'm saying is I didn't think for a minute, how can I fit in better? I was just like, Yeah. I did what? What's happening? You know what I mean? And so I think because of that, I turned further into myself. Like, okay, well, you don't accept me, that's fine. I don't need to be part of you.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:43

Yeah, I mean, I have I have absolutely like a one that comes up every once in a while where it's like the fear of being misunderstood because being misunderstood was expensive when I was little. You know, it's like, I mean, my mom walked into my second grade classroom and uh she was the PTA president, walks in and she's like, Where's Amy? And she told me that the teacher said she's in the closet. I can't get her to sit in her seat. And it's a dark closet with the door shut and I'm in there bawling, you know. And I do remember being put in time out situations, but I remember in third grade, it was it was that all like my teacher, just the one who really didn't like me. It's like he would write make me write dictionary pages or whatever, but I just I never understood why.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:30

I just, I was wiggly, you know, it's like, and and that was intolerable. And there was no understanding really of ADHD at the time. It's just I was naughty. I was a bad kid, but I just wasn't, you know. I just so being misunderstood was expensive, you know. And so even now I can feel that like creep up, you know. It's just like people will put on you what they think you are, and it's like that's been costly in my life, and now it's just like I have zero control over that. So I can't, like it's like I will do my best. And yes, sometimes I say way too many words or I get all mixed up and jumbled or whatever, and so I can be misunderstood. And if you give me the chance to address it, I will a hundred percent address it, you know. But if you don't, I don't I don't know what to do about that. So I just have to let it go, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:25

Well, so part of this then, I'm sorry, you're good. You're going somewhere here, and I'm so so I guess I'm just thinking, all right, if you start to want to try to address or recognize shame in your life and what it is. I mean, things aren't necessarily gonna get easier. I mean, they will, it'll be more positive, I guess. It's more like it's rewiring the circuits in your brain than it is just overriding the circuits in your brain because you don't understand what's happening. You know what I mean? Because now you have to decide how to how to feel about whatever has changed because you you recognize shame. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:08

Well, okay, this is where can self-compassion comes in. Um, and so this is that's actually the perfect segue to there's these quotes that I have in my things. In uh this is in our Greater Peace workbook, but it's like um in the class that I do, but it's um there's a few quotes in there that are so good. Like Jennifer Finlays in five, she pushes like integrity, but she just nails this. I feel like she says the human project is not a perfectionism model, it is an integrity model. Our goal is not perfection or the denial of our humanity, it is to accept ourselves as beloved creatures in development and to get busy making a positive difference in the world in whatever way we are able to. When Christ said, be therefore perfect, he was not telling us to be flawless. He was inviting us to be whole, to not be anxious and fraught, but to love as we are loved. Flawlessness was never the goal. Growth and development are. And then she said, perfectionism is a response. So perfectionism, I would say, is like it's like the idea that perfect is a reality that we can get to, it perpetuates shame more than everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:21

Oh, yeah, because it's impossible.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:23

You say it's impossible and you stay in a constant state of I'm not good enough. Always.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:27

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:28

Because it's never enough. Um, so she said perfectionism is a response to the terrifying idea that our flaws make us unlovable. It's our attempt to earn our value by proving that we are somehow above the human condition. Of course, we have flaws. We all have flaws, and yet we all matter. When we accept that our value is immutable, we can stop the fruitless effort of trying to prove ourselves in the minds of others and instead embrace our humanity and focus on doing more good in the world.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:58

That we are somehow above the human condition. Yeah. That frames that.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:04

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:05

So like yeah, that's that's that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:10

Well, it's so good because it really is, it's like that's the that's the thing. If we go back to the baby thing, your worth and your value is absolute, it cannot be changed. If you would just maybe entertain the idea that that could be real. Just try it on. Just just try that that is real, then what is left. It's like, well, my worth and value isn't absolute because sometimes I do this. It's like, yeah, why do you do that? Well, because I had this hard experience when I was younger, I think, and blah, blah, blah. It's like, so that makes you, you know, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:47

It's it's the ultimate rejection of who you are to think that to be a perfectionist, to strive for perfection. Because it's that that's interesting. I don't know how to say it.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:00

Yeah, it's a hard it yeah, it is, but it just hits. It's so, it's so good because it's like, okay, but what happens if we all then, instead of thinking that we are above the human condition, what if we all just were like, yeah, I'm human and I'm going to make mistakes? Sometimes I'm gonna be hurtful, sometimes I'm gonna disappoint, sometimes it doesn't mean shame is I am disappointing. You know, it's like, but but knowing like I can disappoint people, but I absolutely have all of the ability to make that right. Um, but I don't if I believe that another person being disappointed in me has anything to do with my value. If another person is disappointing, disappointed in me, I will either deny their experience and make them a villain. That's one up, or you know, whatever. So I will put myself on moral high ground. But it's like, but if I want to deal with it, it's like somebody's disappointed in me. If you will give me the opportunity to make it right, I will make it right. And if you don't, then that's okay too, because for whatever reason, you need to feel like that one up, you know, you need to feel above.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:25

Yeah, so but I'm just thinking one one of the previous episodes, um, I said something, we're talking about something, and I said, Yeah, but I'm I'm getting better. I think, especially in addressing and trying to figure out shame in in your life. If you even just one day recognize it, whereas the day before you did not, try saying out loud, I'm getting better. Because just vocalizing that for me, I don't think about it and go, yeah, that was important. But it's just like it then it becomes a reality for you that you're working towards something better. I mean, it just more recognizes that you are changing.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:24

What do you think makes you emotional about that?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:28

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:29

Because you're getting better.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:34

Uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:36

I mean, there's an energetic difference since we started this whole thing because you're applying it, you're doing the things all the time, but it's like there's such an energetic difference in you, and I say it all the time lately. It's just like dang, you know, but it's like And I'm like, what are you talking about? Can we change the word better to freer? More free, yeah, too.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:02

For me, I think it's I I don't know. I'm getting better just because it's recognizing that yeah, guess what? I can make choices for myself that are positive, you know? I'm getting better. Just saying it out loud, it's like because you can you can change the way you approach things and recognize it, but just saying saying the thing out loud, yeah, so you can hear it with your own ears does something.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:31

Yeah, it does. Because you are, it's like it's expressing love and compassion for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:39

Yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:40

Yeah. But also grace.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:42

Yeah, that's the one I meant. Grace. Yeah.

unknown 1:41:44

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:45

Because because it's just like, okay, so then if tomorrow you get a little off or whatever, and something happens and you go back to old patterns, the second you realize that you've slid back, you're back to awareness again. And you'll go, Oh, okay, that's just it's just an old pathway that is kind of like a super lit up highway. And I'm just waiting over time as I'm not using it, it'll turn to a little dirt road. It makes me think all the time up at the Deer Creek Road, you know, that it's like that used to be the road that we drove up to go up Provo Canyon in Utah, and and now it's just cracked and there's flowers growing up out of it and whatever. And I think about that all the time. It's like there are neuropathways that you used to use like a highway that will eventually become that road.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:34

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:36

You know, that it's you are getting better because you are healing, you are becoming more whole, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:42:43

Well, and saying that out loud for me, recognizing that verbally just makes me care that much less about holding on to the shame.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:54

Yeah. And the thing is, Ryan, is that it's like doing that right now, in this moment, right with this. It's like it's like, man, this is gonna be hard because there's so many layers. It's like, nope. Once you do it once and you experience the rewards of it, it's like when the stuff comes up, you turn straight toward it. You're the bison. You're bisoning up.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:19

Well, guess what? You peel back one veil, you're a new person.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:23

Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:28

Um, and it's like then all of a sudden you understand what it means to be more whole because you're a new person, because you feel more whole than you were before. But if you can peel back one veil, all the rest is just time and experience and your mind bringing to you what you're next ready for. When somebody will tell me, like all of a sudden they have this self-awareness that they didn't have before, it's like, I just noticed that I'm doing this, but I've been doing this forever. It's like, it just came to your awareness. That means that your consciousness is bringing it to you, saying, Hey, we're ready for this. And then once you work on that and you clear it, you think, all right, I'm like killing it at life. And you turn and how long have I been doing that? You know, and it's it's just always a process of that, but it's not the more whole you begin to feel, the more compassion you develop for yourself, which will give you compassion for others. Because if you know that your worth and value is absolute and has nothing to do with your behavior whatsoever, and if that's true for you, then it's a hundred percent true for everybody else. And if you realize that all of these things that have been so hard and difficult to fight through and live life through, and the filters that you have, and all of that has just been crippling and has kept you stuck for so long. But if you recognize that in yourself, you will start to see the filters in other people that they might be operating on, and you'll just feel compassion for them.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:59

And then why, you know, it's like it's just why in the world would we use uh where we are, where we are more privileged, where we have more gifts, where we have been able to heal. Why would we use that when we fought so hard for it, or we're just gifted it because we were born a certain whatever, you know, in a certain place or whatever. It's like, why in the world would we use that to put down or judge anybody else as less than us? When in reality we're all just souls, humans, spirits, energy, whatever. That we're all navigating this, and this is freaking hard. Yeah, it's been a hard go, you know, and it's like, but but it's our human mind, it's our shame that wants to be able to stand on the head of somebody else to feel better that then persecutes the people who have less or are less or struggle more. Why don't they just do this? It's like that's an easy position for you to be in. But if you changed the energy of that question to why are they stuck? Why do they keep doing the same thing? That's curiosity. That's in the energy of our truest selves.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:23

You know, and then what it makes us do is like, how can I help? And then I think that it is not that all of the variants of struggle that we all go through as humans, it's not that uh one case or another is unfair. It's that it's all sacred in the sense that it is all meant for wholeness in this life, the next, whatever it is. You know, people can choose it or they can't, or they're not, but don't we know what it's like to be stuck and blind and operating on something in our mind that makes us feel like that we're never gonna be free. Yeah, that we're doomed. It's like if we do, and we can see it in our sight, in in our lives, then when we see somebody else who is stuck, all you can feel is, oh my gosh, I wish I could just help you feel what I know. You know? And the only way that you can do that is reach toward them with compassion and love. There's no reason for judgment. Really, truly, there's not. It's judgment is a way that we comfort ourselves and make ourselves feel better about the things that we don't feel great about, but it really does nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:37

Totally. It doesn't yeah. Um it was I was gonna say you judge other people and has absolutely nothing to do with the other person.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:47

It has nothing to do with them. It has this is the one up, one down.

unknown 1:47:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:52

It's if I can say somebody else has more than me, then I go one down and I'm the victim in my life. And choosing a victim life is to choose to see yourself as powerless and you are never powerless. But it's a position of choosing to be stuck, to say I can't do anything about my circumstance. You absolutely can, but it's not easy, especially because what would require you to move out of it would require you to face down all of these fears and things that you have that are built that keep you stuck in a place that were written in survival, but they were written in a young mind. The world is different than it was for you then. You just got to wake up and see it. You know, that you could choose a different way to see it. Um, you survived the stuff. Everything that's happened in the past, you've already survived. You got a hundred percent success rate. You know, and so all you're trying to do is stay alive. Yeah, and it's like if you understand that your past fears, your past fears inform your future worries and fears. Future isn't even real, nobody's been there. As soon as you're there, it's the present, right? And so when we're worrying about all these things and what are people gonna think, whatever, it's just like, well, what are you gonna think? Because if you continue to do people pleasing, if you continue to stay stuck, if you continue to do this same thing for the rest of your life, when you get to the end and you look back over your life, what do you wish you had done different? You know? Um I think the final thing, I think that it's um Brene Brown, because we need to give Brene the microphone for a second on this topic, is she says shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that because we are flawed, we are therefore unworthy of love and belonging. And so shame is a liar.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:00

Shame is a liar. That is read that again because that because uh for a lot of this chat I've been just trying to trying to define what shame is so you can identify it. But what did what what did that just say?

SPEAKER_00 1:50:18

Well, and it's like even you know, Brene Brown, who has studied it like crazy and whatever, it's just really hard to boil it down to a definition.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:27

Right? But she says shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that because we are flawed, we are therefore unworthy of love and belonging.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:38

Wow, that's totally it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:40

It is, and then it goes right back to what Jennifer said when it's like we uh it's perfectionism is the response to the terrifying idea that our flaws make us unlovable. It's our attempts to earn value by l um earn our value by proving that we are somehow above the human condition.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:00

And not just on I mean, you hear that it makes us feel unlovable. I think it's easy to immediately think unlovable by others, but it's unlovable by you by yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:10

Is more prominent.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:12

This is why it's like if you really want to be loving to other people, I don't think we know what unconditional love is, really. Um if you don't love yourself, the problem is that if you do not love yourself but you're trying to love others, you're constantly in a state of validating and loving what in them validates you and makes you feel better. But you will reject anything in them that makes you not feel good. So it's not even love at all, it's just conditional acceptance.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:51

Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:53

You know, so it's like if you so if you truly do want to love others, you must love yourself. Start there. Uh the monks on the walk for peace over and over, it's like if we want world peace, if we want more love in society, it starts within each one of us individually. You know, and that's that's this work to wake up to and become conscious of nothing's going wrong. It's like it's wrong, it's hard, you know, it's hard. There's been a lot that has been really harder, there's a lot that has been wrong. But all of the ways that we think, all of these things are all the obstacle that we need in order to wake up. Because if I didn't ever know what it felt like to feel absolutely unlovable, then I don't know that I would ever fully grasp how absolutely divine it is to be loved and to let it in.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:56

Yeah. I mean, the idea that things were going wrong is what drove my misery for so many years. Because obviously, if it's going wrong, I need to change it.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:10

And it's hard and so the idea that nothing is going wrong for anybody in the world because anywhere anybody is is where they have to be to get to somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:24

So yeah, the idea that nothing is going wrong. Whatever's happening for you in your life, nothing is going wrong. So chill out. And just I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:40

That's why I love um, I think society gives us this pressure, this outline, this is the order you need to do things in your life. Well, at one point, there was uh an earth that did not have karate classes, piano lessons, school, jobs, all the things. We created that stuff, and then we gave meaning and priority to it, and you need to have your kids and the evolution that I've seen, and I think it's great, I have seen where it can be super powerful, but we used to do like rec sports, and then you could go be in the high school. The that and it maybe just in our area, I don't know how it is outside of, but it's like now if you are not spending a thousand, two thousand plus on your kid being in a private sport or club, they're never getting on the high school team, you know. So it's it's just weird.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:41

The pinnacle of success is getting on the high school team, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:54:43

Yes, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:45

This going from a guy who never did any sports.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:47

I know, yeah, but I think I think all of it is is just to say that it's like we have created this society. Uh, we have created these societal rules that everybody must live by, and they're all just freaking made up.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:02

Yeah, your life can be as complicated as you want to make it, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:06

So yes, it's like here's the thing like just live true to who you want to be in the world. Um and I think the other, I just think that, you know, I think maybe because watching three people die, watching Dawson die, and then both of my grandparents, my grandparents like they just they they followed the routine. You work, you go, you retire, and then you wait until you die. You know, it's like do some traveling in there a little bit, you know. But it's like, and they collected a lot of stuff and they had their things that mattered so much to them, and it was all stuff, and then they both died, and then they left it all, you know, and it just I don't think that they did it wrong. What I'm saying is that there was something in my experience that made me look at all of that and go, I don't ever want to get wrapped up in stuff or what is acceptable in society to do or be in order to gain acceptance because I'm leaving it all behind. So I'm living love and purpose and all of those kind of things, you know? It's like watching, watching the uh just watching different shows or different videos of people. Like I told you yesterday, I'm like, one of my favorite things right now is people going, I used my free will to do this, and they're like, I watched a guy like that had like a tube where he thought his fish was getting bored. So he set up a tube system where it pumped water through and the fish would go through and then visit like 12 other tanks, but it went through one and all the big fish went to go eat it. And I'm like, that's trauma-inducing. And then it would come around and spit it back out in its own. And I'm just like, just humans, like just doing stuff just for the joy of it and the idea and just doing it, you know. But I think ultimately it all comes down to it's like there's societal rules and societal pressures that we feel that set us up for success, but all of that is written on the back of everybody's trying to figure out what it is to do this right. And there's just no way to do it right.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:27

Yeah, if you feel like you're not okay for any reason, just I I I I don't know. Just know that guess what? You're there's nothing you have to do that will make you okay. Just I think if you just recognize that you're okay, you were okay when you're born and you didn't do anything to get that. So guess what? Yeah, you're okay. Hopefully that lowers your heart rate a little bit and helps you to I I don't know, be be more accepting of who you are and where you're at, and it's just part of the gig, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:58:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:12

Say it out loud, say you're doing better.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:14

Yeah. You know? Doing better, yeah.

unknown 1:58:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:17

I don't know. No, it's super helpful because it's just like it's all right. You're just when you do that, you change the frequency of the energy of the way that you're living your life, you switch the trajectory.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:30

And the quantum leapers would tell you that you jump timelines, and then my brain explodes. I'm like, I don't understand. I can't. I can't figure out the life that we are actually in.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:41

No, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:42

Let alone anything else, no. But I, yeah, it's just ultimately it all comes down to it's like there's a reason why you're feeling the way that you do, and it is something that is overcomable within yourself. You do not have to do, produce anything to be happy. The happiness that you're looking for is within. The peace that you're trying to find is within. It's not in any circumstance. You know, people go all the time to Africa, and you know, it's like they'll go to, I had a girl that went to like Uganda to do humanitarian stuff, and she came back and she goes, They have like nothing in this area that I was in, and I've never seen happier people, more grateful for everything. We hear that all the time, and so it's it's just yeah, I don't know. There's a lot to think about it in it, but it's like you're doing better, things are getting better, everything's all right.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:46

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:48

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:48

Okay, so it's uh hopefully that is helpful to everybody, and really in all of it, just get curious. Why do I think the way it are the rules that I'm following rules that I need to be following? Are they put on me by myself, by society, whatever? And what do I think about that? And is there a different way that I can live this life? Um, and if I feel like no and trapped, maybe I need to sit with that and see what I can learn from it, and then we'll just continue to learn skills. So cool.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:26

All right, very good.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:27

May you all be well, be happy, and be peaceful. And we'll catch you next week.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:32

Thanks, everybody. Get better, and then say it out loud.