Playing Injured
Playing Injured reminds us that life challenges us all—athletes aren’t the only ones who play hurt. Whether it’s setbacks or unexpected curveballs, our response defines who we are and how we grow. This podcast explores the universal journey of resilience and perseverance, inspiring listeners to face adversity head-on.
Ranked in the top 2.5% of podcasts globally, hosts Josh Dillingham and Mason Eddy—entrepreneurs and former collegiate athletes—deliver over 100 episodes featuring diverse voices. They explore mindsets, uncover strategies, and motivate listeners to thrive and play through anything.
Playing Injured
Overcoming Rejection Sensitivity: Building Confidence & Self-Worth with Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps (EP 122)
Rejection sensitivity holding you back? Join us for an insightful conversation with Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps, a distinguished psychologist and author, as we unpack the roots of this complex issue and its ties to insecurity. You'll learn how early relationships, particularly with parents and caregivers, shape your self-perception and sense of worth. Dr. Leslie offers her wisdom and shares her transition from positive psychology to tackling deeper struggles with attachment and insecurity.
Building confidence and overcoming rejection is crucial for personal growth. We discuss ways to address anxieties and fears head-on with techniques such as self-affirmations and thorough preparation for challenging situations. You'll hear practical advice on engaging in social settings, showing genuine interest, and learning from feedback to maintain your self-worth. Personal anecdotes emphasize the importance of handling rejection healthily, contributing to a more resilient mindset and a stronger sense of self.
Discover the transformative power of self-awareness and compassion with the STEAM framework—Sensations, Thoughts, Emotions, Actions, and Mentalizing. Dr. Leslie delves into how this method can help you achieve greater self-awareness and manage your internal dialogues effectively. We highlight the significance of compassionate self-awareness and its role in building deeper connections with yourself and others. This episode is a treasure trove of insights and tools designed to foster resilience, self-acceptance, and genuine relationships. Tune in to embark on a journey towards a more fulfilling and emotionally secure life.
Learn More about Dr. Leslie's work here: https://www.drbecker-phelps.com/
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Today's guest is Dr Leslie Becker Phelps. She's a renowned psychologist, therapist, speaker and author. Her work is dedicated to helping people understand their inner selves and what they need to do to become emotionally and psychologically healthy. Dr Leslie is a medical reviewer for Everyday Health. She's on a medical staff at RWJ University Hospital, somerset, and she is a bestselling author for three self-help books. These books include Insecure in Love Bouncing Back from Rejection, and the Insecure in Love Workbook. In addition to authoring these books, dr Leslie writes a weekly relationships blog on WebMD, and she's done that for over the last decade, and she also writes for two other blogs Authentically you and Making Change for Psychology.
Speaker 1:Today, in this episode, me and Dr Leslie have an amazing conversation about how she got into the space of rejection sensitivity, how we build insecurities in our life. We talk about affirmations and how to use them. We talk about why your environment is important tools to make you feel more secure in yourself and how to know if you have an unhealthy or healthy relationship with rejection, and we talk about a lot more, and so I hope you guys get a lot of value out of this episode and thanks for listening. All right, so first things first. I want to know a little bit about what made you get into the space of rejection sensitivity and why do you feel like it's important today?
Speaker 2:Actually it comes out of my focus on people's struggles with insecurity. It's just kind of another facet of it. So my background there's a lot of things that led me to this, but the most recent would be a number of years ago. I was the clinical director of a trauma program for women with histories of physical, sexual, emotional abuse. They were inpatient, came to a day program. We worked on stuff.
Speaker 2:When I left the program and I thought, huh, what else do I want to do? I want to do something light. So I got into positive psychology, but I couldn't help coming back to but what about when you people have the tools, you have these great tools, and yet it still doesn't work for them? They're still struggling. What is it that makes people struggle? And that was the quest right what makes people struggle and how we can help people. Even when they want to get help, it's just not working. So that led me to a lot of areas, but a key area is attachment, insecure attachment, when people feel when they have a difficult relationship with themselves and a difficult relationship with others and that affects those relationships. Part of that is the rejection sensitivity. So it's part of that bigger topic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. I think a lot of folks feel that insecurity piece, right, and I love how you mentioned that it's not just about your sensitivity to rejection, it's a deeper issue of being insecure, right. And so what do you think that comes from? Because in my history, right, I've always I felt like insecurity came from my childhood, right, I think for me, my relationship with my parents, especially my father, which our relationship is amazing today but growing up, right, it was based off of performance, at least from my perception, right, I felt that he loved me more when I played basketball. Better. When I didn't play basketball as good, I didn't feel that love, right. So my insecurity was based off of if I perform well, I'm worthy, if I don't perform well, I'm not worthy. And I think a lot of times we feel that today it's the exterior, the validation that we get from others. What have you seen in folks, mostly when it comes to how they develop insecurities in their life?
Speaker 2:So you can develop it. You know all from any experience all along the course of your life the earlier it happens, the more deeply it happens, the harder, the more it becomes a core of part of who you are. So you know you're talking about. You know early childhood and if you think about it so you're talking about early childhood, and if you think about it when you're growing up, think of all the interactions you have with your caregivers, your mother, your father, your grandparents, a nanny, whatever it is. Every day, how many, ever times a day.
Speaker 2:The experience is layered one on top of the other. And so if, from a young age, you're getting the message that you're never doing anything good enough, like you know you need to be doing this and it's great if you hit this goal, but then that's not enough, because they keep focusing on the next one and the next one, and so you always feel like you're not measuring up. And you think about a kid who gets that message repeatedly over time, versus a child, several times a day over the years, gets the message you are amazing, wow, you're, you're, you're really trying hard, You're reaching this goal. It aren't. Your efforts are paying off, isn't it wonderful?
Speaker 2:So they're still giving the message of the goals are important, but there's you're seeing that they're focusing on the efforts and who they are as a human being, and those two kids will grow up and become adults who relate to themselves very differently. So it's I really always go back to it's your relationship with yourself and your relationship with other significant others in your life, how you relate to them. That is the foundation for the security or lack of security we feel, you know, but it's not just in the childhood, right. That's just that lays a foundation and then that'll affect how we see things. We're going to be more likely to see support or lack of support from people, but you still have experiences that can help you develop in differing ways. If so, if you feel good about yourself, right, but you get into adulthood and then you get into a significant relationship where the person's abusive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you don't have it in you to step away. It wears away, it wears away. You start to question yourself and you develop that insecurity within that relationship. So this is an ever-moving, ever-changing relationship you have with yourself and the world around you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:No, it definitely makes sense because I think even in your book Right, we talked about Affirmations and you specifically talked about affirmations and not necessarily affirmations were developed so that you can remind yourself who you are Right and you can get into relationships, like you said, where almost you forget who you are Right. They change the perception of how you show up in relationship, right? So, for instance, maybe your old partner got mad if you didn't text them, so now when you go into another relationship, you get anxious about constantly texting somebody right, or something happened in a relationship, so you do develop some type of insecurity based off of experiences, right?
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely, you know. I'm glad you brought up about affirmations. This is one of the things I do like to touch on, because these days, when people talk about affirmations, they're talking about not always, but a lot of times people talk about you know, what do you want to be like? Oh, I'm successful, and if you say it enough times, you're affirming that and you're going to become this success. But really, the way self-affirmations were developed wasn't to look for what you want to be. It was to look inside of yourself for what you already see like. If you feel like, oh, I'm a good person, or I have a person of integrity, you repeat those as an affirmation, not to convince yourself to become something different, but to ground yourself in what you already are. And all of us have some aspect, something in ourselves that we feel good about. And if you don't, then you really need to go on a treasure hunt for that. That's, you know, an important place to start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you talk about and I know folks these days. You hear the work, the work right. What is the work Right and I think that's a piece of it is is like journaling what you like about yourself, no matter. I love you said, no matter how big or small it is. Hey, I have good hair or I have good teeth right, and we think it's superficial, but we can find small things, superficial things that we don't like that can make us feel insecure. So why not add as many things as you can on the list of things that you like about yourself, of who you are as a person today, not who you constantly are striving to be? And I love that because it goes back to feeling worthy right, the truth is that we are worthy today.
Speaker 2:I want to jump off a bit of a sidebar, but to jump off what you're saying before. Like you said, when you were younger, you basketball. It was about.
Speaker 2:You know you had to be playing really well to to get that affirmation yeah so it's especially and I was guessing that you well, through child, but probably into adolescence, especially in adolescence, yeah who you surround yourself, your friends, I mean. Like what are they focusing on? And as adults, it really happens, probably more subtly. You know it's it's different stage of life, but if there's things you feel good about yourself, there's affirming from within. But are you putting yourself in an environment where you're the positive qualities are being affirmed from without?
Speaker 2:or are you being with people who kind of nobody can make you feel worse about yourself? But if you're there and it's pulling you down, then you kind of you're having to fight to just be okay and you're working against yourself. So, it's not all just inside of you. It's also your choices for how you're interacting in the world and the situations you put yourself in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, honoring those boundaries, right, absolutely, with people who you respect, people who make you feel great about yourself. If you are in a situation where you're in an environment where you're not with your tribe or you're not with the people who value the things that you value, it will make you feel less than to some degree right. It will make you kind of question yourself if you're not in the right environment. And one thing that I have realized is that when I'm around people who are growth-minded, people who are kind, people who are Kind, people who are empathetic, I feel better about myself. When I leave those environments, I feel more energized, right, right, and it doesn't make me question myself.
Speaker 2:Right. So you want people who are just going to be like, oh, you're so wonderful, no matter what you do. I mean, sometimes it's kind of nice to hear. But people who are kind, like even if they have something to say that might be hard, they're doing it as a support of you, not to pull you down. Yeah, and I think that's like that's also part of it. Right, there's a genuineness and honesty that we need in order to continue to grow and feel good about ourselves and our relationships.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. You know, now you have me thinking about. You know, when we are insecure when we go into an environment, right, and let's say this is a positive environment, but we are questioning ourselves to some degree. So you know, it's certain things that we can do when we are scared of rejection or we are feeling insecure in this environment. I know for me, right, a lot of times I can shapeshift, right, I can kind of put on a mask to some degree to kind of fit in with that environment. Right, maybe I, you know, just hide from the environment altogether to protect myself from feeling rejected. Right, is there any ways folks can go into environments to feel a little bit more comfortable? Right, or they may not feel fully confident going into a new environment, but I guess feel comfortable with those emotions within that they're feeling when they're afraid of rejection or feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:It's important to acknowledge your concerns, your anxieties, your fears, because then you can at least face them and figure out what you can do about them, whereas sometimes people are like, oh, I'm not afraid, like you know, it's all bluster. But then that comes out and it can really backfire. Either you think you did great and the people around you are like oh my God, or, you know, even to you it's like whoa, so be aware of it. And then you brought up about the self-affirmations. Imagine, before you go into a situation that's difficult, use them, be like okay, what do I feel good about myself? And you pump yourself up with what you really believe about you and you'll stand taller, so to speak. You know you'll feel good. And then there's always preparing yourself.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is we're talking very broadly like situations. Well, different situations call for different things. But if you can know a little bit about the situation, then there might be some things you can learn. Like if you're going to a party where you know there's going to be a lot of like uh, financial people I don't know and you know nothing about. Like, learn a couple things and you don't have to be an expert if you're going into an uncomfortable situation. In fact, you can be the opposite. You can be like, okay, wow, this is something I don't know about, learn enough, so you know some questions.
Speaker 2:Then you can go and you're listening to people. You say, wow, this isn my area. And you ask a question and it's amazing how smart people might think you are just from or smart or just. I don't mean just intellectually smart, but like even a sense of being, like a capable person, when you can ask the right questions and you show an interest and people love to talk about themselves. So then you can feel good. You don't have to feel as insecure because you can feel good about the person who doesn't being the person who doesn't know. Yeah, you know, sometimes it helps if it's a situation where you can have a buddy go with you or just you talk to somebody ahead of time. They're not with you, but in your mind or your heart they're with you because you know you've talked about it and they're supportive. So then you feel less alone. It's lots of ways, but it's all about finding the strength in yourself and being good with you. Not pretending, but actually finding a way to be good in you.
Speaker 1:One hundred percent. So being good in you, right? So that comes with, you know, obviously doing the work and being a little bit more aware. Now, obviously, we all at some point have faced rejection and probably will get rejected again, right, right, and it hurts, right, it does hurt, it does sting to some degree, right, yeah, how can folks, how do you know when it's a problem, right, that rejection is a, that you're having a real issue with it, because it stings either way. How do you know that you're having a real issue with rejection and how do you know that you have a healthy relationship with rejection? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question, um, so there's no. You have to figure out for yourself. You know how okay you are with how you're handling it. If it's really staying with you and you can't focus on other things and it's bringing you down, you probably have a real issue with it if you're overblowing a situation. So you have have a friend who you know you're meeting up for lunch and they're 10, they're 15 minutes late, and now you're like, oh my God, they really don't spend time with me and you like you go a little crazy with it. Yeah, probably, especially if it's somebody who's like, been reliable, you probably have an issue with it. Yeah, and sometimes you know, some situations really are hard. So one of the things people will say to me is oh, I shouldn't care what other people think. Well, that's just not true.
Speaker 2:I mean you know, we're social people. We want people to like us and there's nothing wrong with that. But if that rules your life, then you have a problem. So I'll give you an example from my life.
Speaker 2:A long time ago I can't say how many years, but a long time ago when I was beginning to do some talks or presentations, um, I presented to a group really stretching what I knew. But you know, but I thought I did a good job presenting and I read an article somebody had written. It was like ow, I mean, but I thought I did a good job presenting and I read an article somebody had written. It was like ow, I mean, they said some hard things. At first I didn't want to read the article. Then I had to go back and look and then I had to be able to think what did they say that made sense, what can I learn from it? And then I had to let it go. I had to like okay, yeah, I have to prepare better this way or that way. And then I had to put it down and just let it go because it wasn't helping me anymore. So when you can look at the, maybe a rejection be like okay, what can I learn from the situation, if anything. And then, even if it's still sting sometimes, time helps sometimes, even if it still stinks. Sometimes time helps, even if it still stinks, to be able to say that's not relevant, it doesn't have anything that's helpful, that it's telling me. So I'm going to let that be in my back, my rear view mirror, and move forward and, you know, be able to still come back and feel good about you.
Speaker 2:So I now like when I do presentations yeah, of course I want people to like the presentations and I hope they do. But if I'm talking with people and I get some negative feedback or let's say I'm not even doing well, I know, by my own standards, right, we all have off days, my own standards I'm not doing great. I could be like, ah, this hurts. I'm afraid you know people aren't going to like it, the rejection. But I can be like but it's a day, everybody's got an off day I still can feel good about myself as a presenter and recognize that this wasn't a good one.
Speaker 2:So, whatever the rejection is, even if there's a good point in it, you could say okay, it was this situation, it doesn't have to be me. And that's where I talk about the rejection with a capital R versus a little r. Capital R is a rejection about something, a thing or a happening. Rejection with a capital R is when you feel like you are a reject right, you take it on as who you are. Then I would say you definitely have a struggle there, unless you enjoy feeling like a reject in your life.
Speaker 1:But I'm, I'm guessing, not right 100 and not taking anything personally, right, yeah, um, it's so many even when it is personal, because sometimes it is personal you're gonna take it personally because somebody says you know to your for your lousy haircut.
Speaker 2:Like what were you thinking? Whatever you know, right, be like ow, although that's your hair, it's not you. Or if it's somebody who really is harsh and is kind of name calling or putting you down for you to be able to recognize, I don't have to take in what they're saying is my reality about me. It's still not going to feel good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what they're saying is my reality about me. It's still not going to feel good, but you don't have to take on their you know their perceptions as your reality. So I just want to throw that in there, because sometimes it is personal. Yeah, and that's hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is, it is and I think the hardest part right is when it hits those insecure wounds that it hit before. Right, absolutely Right, I know for me. I remember having a relationship, maybe two, three years ago, and I remember it literally ruining my. I couldn't sleep, could barely eat, and I took it so personal Right and I felt like it was me, I felt myself of. Hey you are worthy. You know nothing is wrong with you. You actually are great, and it took some time to realize that.
Speaker 2:Were you able to believe it when you said it? See, that's one thing. Sometimes people are like, oh, I'm worthy, but they kind of it's all bluster and underneath. They don't believe it. And just saying it doesn't make it happen, right yeah.
Speaker 1:So how did you? How?
Speaker 2:did you get there?
Speaker 1:you know what it was was I had to get back to the, to the basics. Right, okay, I had to get back to the basics, meaning that I had to. What I wasn't doing before was I wasn't focused on my own routine of, hey, uh, my basics needs right. Right, am I financially good? Am I budgeting correctly? Am I eating healthy? Am I sleeping good? It goes back to that like me actually taking care of myself.
Speaker 1:Then it became, from the evidence of me taking care of myself, of, okay, you're starting to feel better Today was actually a good day and taking it day by day to eventually I started to realize that, hey, you're great, I'm proud of you. You know, it became gratitude. It became me using that situation as a positive of okay, this happened and without this happening, I wouldn't be kind of doing the things that I am today of, you know, taking care of myself, the routine, really looking deeply at myself in my childhood and my background. It became. It honestly became something that um was a positive for me. Um, now, obviously, in a moment it was tough, but I had to just get back to the fundamentals of doing the small things to kind of create that evidence for me.
Speaker 2:That's how I remember doing it um for myself you mind if I pull something out of what you said, which I think is great yeah you said.
Speaker 2:You said you started doing the things to take care of yourself, which is hugely important. So, number one, if people are listening and they're really down and having a hard time just pulling themselves up, start doing the basic self-care right Eating, right, sleeping, all that. So you did that. But then you said, and then I said to myself I'm proud of you and for me it's all about relationship. That's where the healing, the growth comes in. It's relationship.
Speaker 2:We are not one solid self. We tend to say, like myself, as if there's one self, there's not. We are social creatures, and that's true even inside of ourselves. So once you can recognize that you have a relationship within you, there's different like parts of you then you can move from like I feel so rejected, I'm like everything's horrible. Then you feel like it's all of you. But once you can step back and say, well, I can see that I am feeling so rejected and now I can see that I'm having trouble getting off the couch and I think that what I need to do to help myself is to start eating or sleeping or working out or whatever. Now you're starting to relate to yourself, right, yeah, when you can separate that out, that gives some space for a healthier part of you to start giving some feedback, some positive reinforcement, some validation, and you can grow from there.
Speaker 2:When people are merged into that feeling really low place. It's like their whole being is an anchor. They have no way of pulling themselves up. So, recognizing that's a part of you, if you can recognize a part of you that feels sad about what you're going through, or a part of this having a reaction to it, you start growing that part to have some empathy and compassion and and you can make a lot, of, a lot of growth in in doing that. Um, that split, that, that recognition of the different parts.
Speaker 2:yeah, I think that's part of what you did you at first, at least I. I'm doing this with very little information so I could be off base, but my sense is is like when that relationship broke up, you took it hard. All of you went down like you know an anchor, and then you were able to separate out and start relating and helping yourself. You became your own best friend right. Your own best friend to help you, and that's a very powerful tool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that I think that's what hurt the most was that you talk about your relationship with yourself and how I was able to kind of look at myself from outside in, and you, you talk about this in your book too, um, where you take a step outside of yourself to look at yourself and become your own best friend.
Speaker 1:But I think we can also do that in a critical way as well, and so I think what hurt me most, why I was kind of stuck for a little bit, was because I was so critical of myself little bit was because I was so critical of myself, right, no matter what my friends told me, no matter what the closest people in my life told me, like, hey, nothing is wrong here, you did nothing wrong. We still love you, you're great, you're amazing. For some reason, until I did it for myself is when it became something. Now, it helped, right, to have people talk to me and build me up, it definitely helped. But until I actually flipped the switch for myself is when it actually started to turn around for me, and so I think it's so huge to take a step out and look at yourself almost as if you're playing like a video game or watching a movie in first person.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's hard if the message back to what you were saying earlier messages you you took in whatever was sent, if the messages you took in where you're not enough, in whatever way you take that in, then that's what you're carrying forward and you have to in order to free yourself to feel happier in your life or more fulfilled. You have to change and heal that self-perception. And even with that, I encourage people to look inside and if you can see that you have a self-critic, then you can also see that you have a victim. Now there's almost like three parts, right. There's the part that's watching, the part that sees that you're being a bully to yourself and the part that recognizes the victim. Right, and you can have empathy and compassion for the victim.
Speaker 2:And sometimes it can help to be like, okay, you can be angry with yourself for beating yourself up, or you could say what's going on, that I'm beating myself up like that, where is that bully coming from? And it's like, oh, wow, he was fed with all this nonsense about him not being enough, like, wow, how hard that is. Because he's really that bully, is really trying to help, he's trying to make you do better so that you can be worthy, not recognizing. It's just he's got it wrong because it's just the way he was taught. It's like, oh man, he's just, it's an unintended, but he's hurting you in the misguided that's the word I'm looking for the misguided attempt to help you get better, and then you can have empathy and compassion for that and this is obviously an ongoing dialogue and then you feel better.
Speaker 2:But you have to help the inner bully, if you will too, or it just keeps coming back trying to help you by beating you up, which is a little problematic.
Speaker 1:It is, and so, with you saying that, now I'm thinking about even myself, right, and we talk about being self-aware and you have an acronym or domains that you call is with STEM, right.
Speaker 2:Right STEAM Yep.
Speaker 1:STEAM. I'm sorry, steam, can you go through STEAM and what that looks like, because you're essentially that's kind of what we're talking about with STEAM and essentially that's kind of what we're talking about with STEAM.
Speaker 2:Yeah, talk about that. And then I want to kind of open up about some of my things that I found within STEAM. This is we need to develop a better relationship with ourselves and others. But to develop a relationship you have to really know the person. If you want to make a change, you have to know what's going on. So it always starts with knowledge. So we can say, well, develop greater self-awareness, that's great, but what does that mean? So people sit down, they introspect and come up with whatever they come up with.
Speaker 2:And when I looked through the literature and in my experience in different areas, what I found was relatively mostly all types of therapy or help start with an awareness of the problem. I say, okay, what's the problem? I want to determine the problem and different approaches start in different areas. And what I found is there were I came up with five areas of awareness and the acronym is STEAM. First one is sensations. So that is, what do you sense in your body? And that could be a tightness in your belly or your chest. You might feel tears welling up, a lump in your throat, those kinds of things. So what do you sense in your body, and this could be when something's happening or later when you're thinking about it. This is important because all of our emotional experiences are based are body-based, so our physical sensations are telling us a whole lot Sensations.
Speaker 2:The T is for thoughts what are you thinking and what do you think about what you're thinking? So we have thoughts running through our head all the time. I'm not good enough is a thought. I'm such an idiot for thinking that I'm not good enough. There's your thought about your thought. So we have the thoughts, but just because we have them doesn't mean we've recognized them. So the T is for what are you thinking, or what are your thoughts about what you're thinking.
Speaker 2:Then we have the E, and that's for emotions. We have lots of emotions and one of the things I've learned is a lot of people haven't been taught the emotions. Or we confuse our emotions with our thoughts, or we have a very limited awareness of our emotions. Or we confuse our emotions with our thoughts, or we have a very limited awareness of our emotions. So we really want to explore our emotions. So what are you feeling? I'm feeling like such an idiot. Okay, that's a thought. So you're thinking you're an idiot. But what are you feeling? I'm feeling angry with myself. And then you want to say what are my feelings about my feelings? So it might be I'm feeling really insecure and jealous about my girlfriend going out and doing whatever, and then the feeling about the feeling might be I'm so angry with myself for being jealous when she's just going to hang out with some friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So emotions, s-t-e-a is actions. What are your actions? What are your actions? What are your reactions? In the example I just gave, your actions or reactions might be texting the person a whole lot because you're worried about what they're going to do, or they're worried that they're going to think that you're not thinking of them. I think that was your example. Yeah, and those are the basic areas of awareness.
Speaker 2:And then we have M for mentalizing, and it is jargony I'm not thrilled with the word. I always say that because it's just not but it's an important concept and it really takes the other areas of awareness all in together and you weave them together. And so mentalizing is understanding someone's actions based on their mental states, their thoughts, their feelings, their fears, their fantasies, whatever their experiences are. If you can really get all of that, if you get the person, you understand their actions. You don't just get it from your head, but also your heart. This is, this is a.
Speaker 2:It would be pseudo mentalizing to just think it. You have to feel it and resonate with it. Then you have empathy, you have compassion. In relationships, you very much need forgiveness. You have that and we can mentalize ourselves and we can mentalize other people. So we can use steam really when we think about others or we think within ourselves. So it's a lot of pieces and I'll just tell people listening. If you want to make use of this, you could just, even without looking at my books or my videos or whatever, just write S-T-E-A-M on a piece of paper sensations, thoughts, emotions, actions, mentalizing, think about a situation and write in whatever your sensations, thoughts, emotions for each of those things and you can see where maybe you're struggling. You know you may not know what's in your body, what's happening. You can be like, oh wow, I need to attend to my body or my thoughts or whatever, and that could be just a loose structure for how to help yourself become more self-aware and connect with yourself.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, no, that was was. That was an amazing explanation. And I think people talk, you know, you hear the word trigger, like, what are your triggers? Right, sensation, maybe, you know, chest, you feel some tightness in your chest. You start to think like, oh, you know, I'm not good enough. So you, you have feelings of nervousness, anxiousness right, I'm feeling anxious, or. But I like how you separated the two of like, hey, I feel, you know, stupid, I feel unworthy. That's a thought, right, separating thoughts from emotions.
Speaker 1:Um, and how you can become aware of yourself and certain, and it goes back to certain environments of feeling these sensations. Okay, I feel this sensation. How can I start to handle this in a healthy way? Right, I know for me, right, and you know I have friends, you know they feel a sensation. So what do they do?
Speaker 1:They go, you know they get a cocktail, right, to try to take the sensation away. Right, try to take the thoughts, to try to take the sensation away. Right, Try to take the thoughts away, try to take the emotions away. And what I found, you know, for me, it's been about six months since I've had alcohol and what I found is that, in certain environments, these sensations that I feel it does make me aware of like, oh okay, my chest kind of tightens up when I go into a room where I'm unfamiliar with people, right, and understanding that it is a natural experience, and I'm able to have peace with that and say, oh, this is natural, I can understand it and realize this is why I'm having it. I can understand it and realize this is why I'm having it, and so I'm able to actually have a healthy reaction to it, as opposed to a negative reaction to it.
Speaker 2:To learn to be accepting of all of our experiences is huge and can help you get through so much in life. So that's great, you go into this environment. It's uncomfortable. It doesn't mean there's a problem with you. What it means is it's an uncomfortable situation.
Speaker 2:That's what it means, and it's not going to kill you, you're going to be okay and yeah. So that is key. That's really key to know when, yeah, what you're experiencing is an understandable thing and, frankly, once you really get or mentalize someone, pretty much anything that they're doing is understandable Doesn't mean it's okay, doesn't mean we're approving of it. It just means you can understand where the person's coming from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:And I think one thing for me, and I've seen in myself, is especially with thoughts.
Speaker 1:I think thoughts are huge because a lot of times my radar is off, and I think a lot of our radars are off, meaning that I can see a facial expression or body language or, like you mentioned before, maybe somebody's 10 or 15 minutes late, or I didn't get a call back, or you know, I haven't heard from somebody, and so I'm overreacting, just naturally in my mind, I think that something is wrong, Right, or I think I'm interpreting something that is not real, something that is not true, and so my radar can be off when I see certain things, um, and the only way I've realized that is by just talking to myself of like, hey, you know it's, you know, let's calm down here, let's think about this for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Um, so with STEAM, right, how can folks start to have, I guess, better reactions? Is it just the awareness? It takes time to become aware of these certain things, and then they can have better reactions. Maybe they actually act out in a way that they weren't proud of, and then they are able to look back on it and get better of, and then they are able to look back on it and get better? How can folks start to, I guess, with the awareness that they have, have better reactions to some?
Speaker 2:of these thoughts and feelings that they experience. So very good question. Just having the awareness by itself is sometimes enough to settle us down, because then you see it and it becomes very clear like, oh, wow, I'm really overreacting. And then you see it, you feel it, you calm down. So if you have a sensitivity to rejection, your friend's late, you start getting all upset and then you're like, well, wait a second. It's been like 15 minutes, chill out already because they've been a reliable friend and there really isn't anything to worry about. Sometimes just the awareness is enough. But even when that's not the case, once you have the awareness you can see where the struggles are, you can see where you need to put your focus.
Speaker 2:I've worked with people who get really irritable and they're really upset. We can't figure out why. And then, with awareness, what become? What becomes apparent is they don't really eat. They're like, don't eat all day and they're having, you know, a little trouble with their blood sugar levels. So once they start eating regularly, wow, they even out. Or um, people, I've worked with a lot of people. They explode, explode Like they're. They say, you know, I've got a really long fuse, I'm totally okay, and then I explode. We talk about that and what becomes apparent usually is that they're not so totally okay. They're suppressing all, whatever different feeling, feelings or thoughts are, whatever the suppressing everything till they, the pressure, is so built up, it explodes out.
Speaker 2:Once you know that and you can be aware of the building thoughts or feelings and the escalation, then you can be like oh, wow, okay, I'm kind of bothered, I'm annoyed, I'm irked. Now I'm getting really frustrated. You know, the next step is to get angry. You're not going to think straight. You're like okay, let me pause on frustration. What can I do now to deal with the situation? And when people start being able to monitor that and take action, they're not doing the blowing up they used to do.
Speaker 2:So that is just examples. But the self-awareness opens you up to all kinds of ways of recognizing where different problems are and giving you space to to address them. So that's that's what the steam does, is it gives you that space so that you can then address what you need to. Either, you know you have a harsh self critic where's it coming from? Can you understand it? And kind of working with that? Or, like I said, not eating, or somebody who's you know, drinking 15 cups of coffee a day and it's really surprising that they're anxious. Maybe there's something we could do about that. You know a zillion different scenarios.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, no, I agree, and I think that, like you said, the main thing is just breaking it down. Think that, like you said, the main thing is just breaking it down. I think the first step is just the awareness right and then going from there.
Speaker 2:So what's interesting, what I found, is I talk about a healing agent being compassionate. Self-awareness, wow. So, and it's not, people will talk about self-compassion. They say, oh, you have to have self-compassion. I don't know if you've heard that before.
Speaker 2:It's kind of a thing and self-compassion is wonderful. But here's the problem. If you are someone who's naturally beating yourself up and you say, okay, I just need to have self-compassion, what's my problem? I just need to have self-compassion. You beat yourself up over not having self-compassion. Exercises you do and you can't quite get there. This brings us back to the beginning of the interview when you said what got me into this? It's like what if you can't get there? The self-awareness. When you open your self-awareness and then we do that with STEAM Remember the M is mentalizing. So with the mentalizing, you're able to have empathy for your experience. You're able to have compassion for your experience. Now you have compassionate self-awareness, yeah, and with compassionate self-awareness you can be more supportive and caring and nurturing growth, as opposed to being harsh with your self-awareness yeah. So compassionate self-awareness is key in my mind and you get there with with becoming more self-aware, and STEAM helps with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And, like you mentioned, empathy, right, right, hey, you are experiencing this because of this, and so it's okay, give yourself grace through it, but here's how we can you know, not even, but and here's how to grow from it, right, this is why you feel this way, this is why you have these thoughts, these sensations, these emotions, and this is how we can grow from it.
Speaker 2:And very importantly, I talk about compassionate self-awareness, because everything we see in the world we interpret through ourselves, so that's the place we start is getting clear within ourselves, but really compassionate other awareness, so that if you can really understand where other people are coming from, have empathy, have compassion, have forgiveness If you can do that with others, then your relationships will also flourish.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And with that then you have, like this, fuller life. And this is a little kind of off script or off to the side, but I, through all these years, what I firmly believe is that it's all about connection, and whether it's within ourselves, in our relationship. I think a lot of religion it's about connection. What do people believe God is right? It's this bigger connection. So there's something about connecting on a full, whole, open level. I think that's probably a pretty damn good definition of kind of love, right? Really seeing someone accepting them openheartedly. That's it. That's to me any sense of wellness on whatever level, where it stems or comes from.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So talking about connection, how, feeling connected, Right, and I've even heard this before it's like being more connected with yourself, being more connected with others. I think in today's world we talk about connection, how we? We say that we're more connected than ever because we have, you know, technology, we have social media, but in a way it's. It's not as connected as we see in studies, where folks are more lonely or probably than ever With connection. What do you think the key to connection is?
Speaker 2:I think we have to be careful how we define it. So it's interesting you and I are talking and we see each other, so we are connected on this visual level. There's been a couple of times I'm aware that you've responded to the way that I have like my facial expressions or something like that, and people who are listening don't have that. Now they're connected in. Hi everybody, People who are listening don't have that Now they're connected in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hi, everybody we're connected in, but one they're not talking with us. Yeah, also, they're not seeing us. So there's levels of connection. And then you know I am enjoying this conversation. But I imagine this would be different if I had known you for the last five years. It would be a deeper level of connection, right. So we let people in, hopefully deeper level of connection, right. So we let people in, hopefully everybody listening. You don't let everybody in totally deeply in your first conversation, like not healthy. So there's a levels of connection right, and to me that the connection that people are feeling it's very helpful. Worldwide we are connecting more, but on a certain level and we're losing sometimes the deeper connections If people are only connecting on those more superficial levels or the more superficial the level yes, you could have more connections.
Speaker 2:It's like on Facebook you can 500 friends, but let's face it, you don't really have 500 friends or a thousand friends or whatever it is. Some people feel good like, oh, I have this many friends, but if you just had one good friend, like somebody who really knows you and you know them and you're good with each other, that means so much more On a superficial level you could say well, I'm connected with one person and you're connected with 500 people. You cannot equate those two. Yeah, you can't, and I think that's a big struggle we have Some of. It is just the definition of connection, cause if you break it down now, it's a totally different ball game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so different. It's so different and I think even building relationship and having and I guess, even understanding people, accepting people and now I'm starting to realize, is you kind of have the formula of of accepting, being a accepting of people for who they are and being aware of who they are same with ourselves? How can we be a little bit more connected with ourselves and develop a positive relationship with ourselves? Is through awareness, through accepting who we are, and, um, I think it's so much to learn from that to build a better relationship with ourselves and others, and when we do that we feel really good about the life that we're living.
Speaker 2:Right, and what's another piece that's beautiful about this is if you can really get to know other people and accept them. You don't have to agree with them, you don't even have to like them. You can feel like, oh my God, I really don't like what they're doing. But if you can come to a place where you had have some compassionate awareness for them, then you can have a better way of relating Again. It doesn't mean you have to accept them into your life as a part of your every day, but you don't carry so much anger and hostility and you have the best possible relationship you can with those other people who might be in your life but very different and people you don't want to let in. But you don't have to be hostile toward them.
Speaker 2:And I think there's a lot of that that's missing in this world. There's this whole thing of flipping to the other. You're othering others, right? People talk about it that way, and I'm talking about reversing that and not othering others, but like making them more, really connecting more with them so that you can have a civil and even maybe deep conversation or relationship or at least greater acceptance. If we could do more of that in the world, this world would look very, very different 100 percent.
Speaker 1:100 percent, it definitely will. It definitely will. So last question I want to ask you is bouncing back right and I know we've been focusing on your second book Bouncing Back from Rejection, right, Right, what made you go with that? Bouncing back from actually building resilience after getting rejected versus hey, how can you be okay with rejection before? Right, it's called bouncing back, Right. What made you go, I guess, with that angle as opposed to how to not be afraid of rejection?
Speaker 2:Right. There's probably different answers to that. One is my first book was Insecure Love, so we talked about the insecurity. And now another facet is if you are struggling with having been rejected, how do you bounce back? But it's really, it's a different way of looking at how do you develop greater sense of security in yourself and relationships?
Speaker 2:And, like you said, we all struggle with rejection. It's not like how to not be rejected. In fact you don't want to go through life not being rejected Because you pretty much would never leave your house and not get on the computer or anything else, because that would be, you know, so you can not be rejected. So it's more about how, when you are rejected, you can handle that in a healthier way. And the book really focuses on when people kind of self-identify that rejection is a big struggle for them. So then it speaks to those people like how can you bounce back from it? I just I think that that's an important way to think. It's also a shift in mindset, right. Rather than just like they feel totally knocked down, it's like, okay, but how do you come back? There's a and I think it's like a chinese or japanese proverb fall down six times, get up seven.
Speaker 1:you know how do you get back up same same concept you know, improving your relationship with rejection almost is. It's almost, as if, um, it becomes easier to bounce back from it. It becomes you become. You see it in a different light. You know you're not afraid of it.
Speaker 2:People who struggle a lot. They want to not get knocked down. Often we go wait, cause if you're already hurting so much, you're like how can I just not get knocked down Cause I can't take it anymore? And to really to reframe that, it's like it's not about not getting knocked down.
Speaker 1:It's about being able to, when you are knocked down, getting back up, yeah, and not letting the feelings of rejection stop you from exactly living life.
Speaker 2:Exactly I love it.
Speaker 1:Leslie, where can people find you Right To continue to follow your work? Right Um to continue to follow your work and then also to um you?
Speaker 2:you have other work um that you've done, um, that I would love for you to kind of share and, um, let people know about. Sure, absolutely, thanks. Thanks for asking that. Um, you know, the truth is I am a therapist who just wanted to find different ways of getting stuff out there. So I'm a therapist and I like to write.
Speaker 2:So, as you pointed out in the beginning, I have my YouTube channel, the three, like three, four minute videos on different topics and it's all swirling around the stuff we've been talking about in relationships. So that's a great way for people to just get little bite size information and then you can, you know, chew on that for a bit. And the videos are. Most of them, if you look in the descriptions are connected to articles I've written. So if you like the video, you can like go to the article. So there's great stuff there with that, and at this point, I have a blog on psychology today called Making Change. I have a blog on psychology today called making change. I have a blog on my website called authentically you. So you can, you know, check out the the articles there, and you can certainly subscribe to my newsletter where I give information about the latest law, the latest blog article or the latest video or like the podcast, like this will be on the newsletter, those kinds of things, and you just go to my website and you can sign up. And my website, just so people know, is drbeckerphelpscom. That's D-R-B-E-C-K-E-R, hyphen, p-h-e-l-p-scom, so you can sign up there. Just poke around. I have information on compassionate self-awareness and there was some other thing, but oh, I know there's also on the books pages. If you go to each books page there's a download so you can download the material, some of the materials from each book and they're just free, and so things like there's a. I want to bring this up before we some of the materials from each book and they're just free, and so things like there's a. I want to bring this up before. We were talking about emotions.
Speaker 2:I have an emotions list, which I think is great. It's really helped a lot of people and I have there's categories of emotion, so it'd be like happy, afraid, those kinds of things, and then under each category is like a whole bunch of words that you can use and it's amazing when you learn more emotions or to be able to articulate more emotions, it makes your self-understanding so much richer. It's like imagine drawing a picture with three colors or having the whole box of crayons. It's so much fuller, right. So that's what we want to do, is help you be so much more aware. So go in.
Speaker 2:I think my first book is Insecure in Love. There's a word list there, bouncing Back from Rejection. You'll know Bouncing Back from Rejection. And then my most recent book that just came out was the Insecure in Love workbook which, to be honest, is a combination of the first book, insecure in Love, and the second book, bouncing Back from Rejection, which introduced the concept of STEAM. All three of them offer the emotions list. They're slightly different. Each time I'm like, oh, let me change this or that, essentially the same, but if your listeners go on there and print that out, that by itself can be like a game changer in people's lives. So there we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll definitely link all of those links to the show notes. But yeah, you have some amazing even just reading bouncing back from rejection. You have some amazing exercises to really help folks, especially in those especially in those, you know, building that relationship with themselves, with self-acceptance, and then you know self-compassion. You have a lot of different exercises that people can journal about, really great journal prompts that you have for folks. And so I think you know it's some amazing work that you're doing and this is big. I think this is the work. When people say the work, we don't know what that means. Right, this is the work that people can can start with and start to take a look at and get you know a better relationship with themselves and better relationship with others. And I just knew I had to talk to you, I had to reach out to you and I appreciate you taking the time to add value not only to me but to my audience as well.
Speaker 2:So thank you, dr Litton. Thank you so much and, yeah, thanks for having me on 100%.
