Next Level University
Confidence, mindset, relationships, limiting beliefs, family, goals, consistency, self-worth, and success are at the core of hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros' heart-driven, no-nonsense approach to holistic self-improvement. This transformative, 7 day per week podcast is focused on helping dream chasers who have been struggling to achieve their goals and are seeking community, consistency and answers. If you've ever asked yourself "How do I get to the next level in my life", we're here for you!
Our goal at NLU is to help you uncover the habits to build unshakable confidence, cultivate a powerful mindset, nurture meaningful relationships, overcome limiting beliefs, create an amazing family life, set and achieve transformative goals, embrace consistency, recognize your self-worth, and ultimately create the fulfillment and success you desire. Let's level up your health, wealth and love!
Next Level University
#1582 - 1 Of The Most Important Things To Know About Yourself
In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros discuss the intricacies of our responses to trauma, which are essential for personal growth, empathy, and healthy relationships. They emphasize the significance of self-awareness in understanding why we react in specific ways, which can help us support those around us better. It’s about uncovering the layers of our emotional needs and confronting the habits developed due to our coping mechanisms.
Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
Next Level Monthly Meetup #26: "Three Words You Need To Remember If You Want A Next Level Relationship" on February 1st, 2024, 06:00 PM EST -
https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
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For more information, please check out our website at the link below. 👇
Website 💻 http://www.nextleveluniverse.com
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Next Level 5 To Thrive (free course) - https://bit.ly/3xffver
Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
Next Level Monthly Meetup: https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
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Show notes:
(1:35) Knowing what you do when you feel a particular type of way
(2:58) Little "T" and Big "T"
(6:38) The four labels
(9:53) Alex highlights how Next Level Business Solutions helped him optimize his time for maximum productivity.
(10:42) Perceive and identify
(13:23) It's an opportunity
(15:38) Choose the proper response
(17:18) Outro
Next level nation. Welcome back to another episode of next level university, where we help you level up your life, your love, your Health and your wealth. We hope you enjoyed yesterday's episode, episode number 1581. What do your expectations say about you today? For episode number 1582?
Kevin:One of the most important things to know about yourself? Alan mentioned this in the Previous episode. He was talking about when Kevin is hungry, kevin gets dominoes. That was a joke in that episode, but I am definitely someone who I would consider myself an emotional eater. When I am stressed out, I am Running to food. It's just. It's one of those things for me. I don't know if I ever want to get rid of it. I can be disciplined and and and do that and enjoy really good food. I like to believe that, but I I Didn't always know that about myself.
Kevin:I didn't always have that level of self-awareness. Now more than ever, I have this new realization that when I get super overwhelmed, it's really hard for me to seek feedback. So if I'm super overwhelmed with everything going on in life and I look at my whatsapp right now I have 23 messages in whatsapp I Get it's. It's sometimes it's very hard and maybe you have that too, or you're just looking for certainty and the last thing you want to do is is get more uncertainty. So today we're gonna talk about trauma responses and what that means, and those two examples again. Maybe being overwhelmed isn't necessarily your, your typical Definition of trauma, but knowing what you do when you feel a certain type of way. I guess this is gonna be a big week of self-awareness episode. So, alan, take it away, good sir my Therapist, carol.
Alan:She talked to me about little tea trauma and big tea trauma and there's a lot of research underneath this. Little tea trauma is day-to-day trauma, like what you just referred to. It's Feeling unseen, unheard, overwhelmed, whatever you know. Insert thing here that is stressful, stress response. And then big tea trauma would be like car accident, death in the family. You know that kind of thing.
Alan:So so we, we coach a couple and the mail in the relationship said, oh, I don't have any trauma. And I knew in that moment I was like, ah, we're in trouble. We're in trouble because this person has a misbelief that they've never been hurt. I mean, every human's been hurt, right. And so again, at the end of the day, we all have trauma and we have little tea trauma on the daily, daily. And you've heard me talk about micro and macro. If you're a long-term listener, if you're a short-term listener, we Are a new listener, short-term listener, if you're a new listener, I talk micro and macro all the time and and I think that's a good start. So the two examples Kevin gave are obviously not big tea trauma.
Alan:You know, being hungry is not a big tea trauma and his trauma response is Lord of Domino's. And, by the way, I do want to say this too, just because I think it's valuable. Everyone's an emotional eater to an extent. It's just to what extent that's fair. You know, if you've ever heard someone, I have an addictive personality. Every human being has an addictive personality. It's just to what extent right and what what?
Kevin:What's the quality of the goodness of the thing you're addicted to?
Alan:Yeah, exactly, you can be addicted to books, or you can be addicted to something like alcohol exactly.
Alan:Yeah, exercise. Human beings in general are naturally addictive and I think that we get a little confused and we can do episodes in the future about that if you're interested, kev. But To bring it back to this, the framework is simple the four F's fight, flight, freeze and fun. Kevin and I are fond of a book that we read way back called the four tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, and this is sort of our own next level university I flavor of our own sort of four tendencies and at next level, live and in group coaching we talk about these trauma responses. Again, fight and flight are the common ones. Everyone knows. The two less common ones are freeze and fawn, and I'm gonna go through each and then label them, and the label is to help you understand what your go-to is.
Alan:I was on the phone with a client and we were talking about how in his childhood he had a very overly dominant alcoholic father and his trauma response to his alcoholic father was to fawn. And fawning is the rarest of the four, I shouldn't say rarest, it's the least known in the psychology, and so fawning was mine. That's the one where when someone else is in distress, you do whatever you can to make them feel better. And so if you had a childhood where one parent being in distress meant there was gonna be fighting or arguing or physical abuse or any kind of abuse whatsoever, you would basically do whatever you can to like stay small and like get them their coffee or get them their cigarette or get them their drink or whatever you need to do to make sure they're good, because when they're not good they make everyone not good. You ever meet those people where when they're not good, they just take it out on everybody. Yeah, my least favorite kind of people, but anyways.
Alan:So this client of mine is a fawner and that's not the label. The label is this so fight is self-explanatory. I call that the aggressor, okay, and so everyone listening, please think of people in your life, please think of yourself, please understand and try to label people based on their go-to trauma response. So the aggressor bullies tend to be aggressors. They tend to love confrontation. They tend to fight every time they get a chance. So the fight response is aggressor, the aggressor. The flight response is the avoider. I would say that would be you, kev.
Kevin:I avoid it like I'm allergic to it.
Alan:You know what I'm saying, because I am allergic to it.
Alan:So if you feel like you avoid confrontation like Kev, then again we're not making this wrong. None of these are wrong. We all have one of these, if not all of these, actually, okay, and we all have these trauma responses. So this is not a shame or guilt thing, all right. So the aggressor is number one. Number two is the avoider. Number three is the faunaer, which is actually the appeaser. That's mine, mine is definitely to appease. So if Emilia's not good, I have to kind of be okay with her not being good and not immediately try to make everything better for her. I do that Sometimes.
Kevin:I go right into caregiver and I'm immediately yeah, I'm gonna do that Okay yeah, it's a thing Now.
Alan:It can be a really positive thing. See how it can be really nice.
Kevin:But the frame I've used before that I think has landed with people is self-sacrifice. If you're appeasing and it's like a sacrifice of self for others, it's probably not sustainable. Slash healthy.
Alan:Exactly, and a lot of times what happens is the appeasers, like me, will self-sacrifice at the expense of their own core values and then eventually become aggressors. And that's when you suppress yourself for so long, or appease for so long, that eventually you're like what the F? And then you become an aggressor. And then you swing the pendulum back, because then you get in shame of being an aggressor and now you're going back to fawning. So it's just this pendulum that keeps swinging. So, anyways, hopefully a lot of people are seeing themselves and others in this just an awareness that matters. And then the last one is freeze, which I called the disassociators, which Jerry Ann shout out to you if you're listening. Jerry Ann's my executive admin and she said the other three begin with A, we need an A. And I was like okay, we got this, so now we're gonna call these people the anxious. So the anxious are the people that when you're so overwhelmed, you just do nothing.
Kevin:I have that too.
Alan:Yeah, I mean again, we all have all four, it's just what percentage?
Kevin:Yeah, I feel like I have 100% of each. I think you know what I mean.
Alan:I feel like I would say your go-to is almost never aggressor.
Kevin:That's fair. Yeah, I try not to.
Alan:You've only ever tried to fight me in Onkin. There's only ever been one time where Kevin and I got aggressive with each other and we were in strong disagreement, but we immediately went to one of the other ones?
Kevin:Yes, and it was. Both of us were feeling very unseen, probably, and disconnected, and we just got our lines crossed and then I beat you and I won.
Alan:Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a physical altercation and Kevin won. No, we didn't. We ended up actually crying in a yoga.
Kevin:Quite the opposite. There was no physicality. There was a lot of tears, though.
Alan:And so what is the solution? So, number one, identify which Kevin told you all in advance this is going to be an Allen Heavy episode.
Kevin:It's easy for me. I could just kind of sit back, have my coffee, you know.
Alan:And just say, hey, I have all of these right, yes. So number one identify which one's your go-to. So we all have all four, because we're all human beings, but which one's the go-to? For me, the go-to is fawning. Which is the appeaser? Okay. And for Kevin, it's probably the avoider most likely avoid when avoiding doesn't work, then order food. You know, that's funny. When the other three don't work, then you get aggressive. That's funny, but anyways.
Alan:So step one is understand which one you are. So again, the aggressor, the appeaser, the anxious or the avoider okay. Which one of those are you? And then, number two what do you do about it? And what you do is you identify when it's happening and then you can respond instead of react.
Alan:This is emotional intelligence, in a nutshell. Instead of just react automatically with your central nervous system and your trauma responses, you actually take a minute or a couple seconds and you just, oh, I'm appeasing, I'm doing what I do, I'm appeasing right now. Is that the best solution? And then you can decide okay, yeah, getting her coffee or whatever is actually what I want to do. That's aligned. Or, oh, let me just be okay for a minute, let me self soothe and give her a moment. You can choose. Now, now that you're aware that this is your tendency, now you can choose. Now Kev can say you know what? I normally would order Domino's. But I'm going to choose not to do that because that's avoiding the real problem, which is a tough conversation with Teran or whatever right, or avoiding telling Alan that he talks too much.
Kevin:Yeah, you're going to see the order come through for Domino's going to be bigger than usual for me. Now I'm getting empanadas, so we're recording this on Saturday. There's UFC on tonight I found a place that delivers empanadas.
Alan:I don't even know what that is, but it's true.
Kevin:Empanadas are like a I don't even know how to explain it it's a dough filled pastry that has meat in it. So there's buffalo chicken empanadas, there are taco empanadas, broccoli and cheese empanadas. It is the best ever.
Alan:It's like a calzone, like a mini calzone, but a mini calzone yeah.
Kevin:Yeah, pretty much, and I'll get about an eight of them.
Alan:I'll get about an eight of them.
Kevin:So that's what's gonna happen tonight. Do I have anything else of value to add to this episode? Probably not, I think. See your point, alan, and this is really what we're always talking about in a nutshell. But awareness, awareness is an opportunity. There can be a time between the trigger and the response and when you're aware, I know, labels can be dangerous. I'm shy, I'm this, I'm this, but labeling feelings, I think, is very important.
Kevin:And labeling responses is very important, because if you don't label them, you don't really, maybe you don't have the same level of control. So my next level nugget for this episode would be number one don't beat yourself up for whichever one you're experiencing, because that's shaming yourself, for it is not gonna make it any better. It's not gonna make it any more constructive. That would be number one. And then next time you feel it happening, just take a breath and that might be a new level of progress and then from there we can figure out okay, what do we do next? But yeah, small steps that's my hashtag small steps for 2024. That's gonna be my thing. So hopefully I'll try to make a lot of my next level nuggets, the small tactics that we can take.
Alan:My next level nugget is yeah, identify which one is your go to and then stop, drop and roll, so to speak, when you are triggered and try to take a couple of breaths. To Kevin's point. And then there are times when being aggressive is important. I always joke. I say if there's a bear in the woods, don't zen out. You either avoid running away, you get aggressive and make it, you scare it. I think you're supposed to do different things with different bears.
Kevin:I don't know, yes, so here's the thought.
Alan:If it's I have bear spray, so I'm gonna pull that out.
Kevin:If it's and again I don't know, I read this somewhere If it's, brown lay down.
Alan:A bear lay down, play dead If it's black If it's brown, flush it down. If it's brown, flush it down.
Kevin:If it's black, fight back. So if it's a black bear, fight back. And then I think the rule for a polar bear is you're just kinda screwed because they're just they're not normal bears.
Alan:For a polar bear, you better have a weapon.
Kevin:You're probably in trouble. Again, please do not take that as professional survival advice. I heard it somewhere. I don't know if it's true or not. Please do your own research.
Alan:If it's brown lay down, someone gets-.
Kevin:I don't know.
Alan:Next level university told me, you know we don't have our bear expertise. Yes, yes, but at the end of the day, the point is is sometimes you do have to stick up for yourself, and sometimes you do have to fight back. I think it's all about choosing the right response instead of just reacting. Yeah, that's it.
Kevin:Boom. Next level nation. If you have not joined our appropriately named Facebook group, Next Level Nation, please do. It is a great place to meet like-minded people. If you've been looking for an accountability partner, if you've been looking for a peak performance partner any of those things, it's a great place to find them. Link will be in the show notes, as always. We would love to have you there.
Alan:Two super quick things. Number one we have a new book in Book Club. If you're not in Next Level Nation yet, please join. We have a poll that's coming up with the next book, so please vote. Please vote for the book that you are the most excited for. And we also have a Next Level Monthly Meetup, the 26th one. Three words you need to remember if you want a Next Level relationship. Again, I coach a lot of relationships at this point. I'm very blessed for that. I'm very grateful, because I learned so much, and when these three things aren't present, the relationship is just doomed. And that includes my relationship, that includes Kevin's relationship. This is a the three things to remember in a relationship, and I actually have my own little check-in I call it an ego check where I'm checking in with these three things. Okay, so that is February 1st 2024 at 6 pm Eastern Standard Time, and the registration link will be in the show notes.
Kevin:Tomorrow for episode number 1583 is the thing you're running from, the thing you need the most. Do I remember the story? Not in this moment. Will I remember it before we do the episode? I do hope so. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU, we do not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.
Alan:Stay self-aware. Next up on Nation.
Kevin:What's wrong work? Look over here. You've got seven minutes to yourself. Do whatever you want with it.
