Scott Gornto

and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Scott gorn Too, a licensed marriage and Family therapist, certified sex therapist, and expert on relationships

and personal development. Scott works with individuals, couples, families, groups and businesses. He is the author of The Stories We Tell Ourselves and a frequent Huffington Post contributor. Here's the interview. Hi, Scott, Welcome to the show. Great. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. I'm happy to have you on. Your book is called The Stories We Tell Ourselves. Stop jumping to conclusions, free

yourself from anxiety, transform your relationships. And I'm really happy to have you because that's one of the things we talked about on this show a lot, is the fact that we're always telling ourselves stories and that we have some degree of of choice. So when I saw the title of your book, I was like, well, we've got to have this guy on as a guest, a whole book about this topic. So um happy to have you.

Let's start off with the parable um Our show is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the Parable of Two Wolves, where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. What is a good wolf which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,

which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. That's great. I love that parable. Um.

You know. The first thing that comes to mind is the term duality that we all have this internal duality inside of us around a number of things, whether it's you know, I love my job, and then there's another part of me that's frustrated with my job, right or I love my my my wife or my husband, and there's another part of me that can't stay in them right there. There's that internal duality that we face as human beings constantly, and I think in terms of the

parable specifically. Another piece that speaks to me around it is when I think about, you know, I do a lot of work with folks dealing with trauma or early childhood trauma of some kind, whether it be abuse or you know, some type of bullying or physical or emotional or sexual type abuse growing up or an event that took place, and then going into adulthood and doing behavior that is addictive in nature. Um, whether it's food or sexuality, or drugs or alcohol or a number of different escapism,

numbing behaviors. Um So, these these behaviors end up, you know, coming out in a variety of ways and and and you know, I think that's you know, if we talk about that world, when we're talking about addiction, you know, in particular, whether you feed the addict or whether you feed the healthy part of you depends on what's going to grow and and take over. And so that's so it kind of hits me on a couple different levels.

One is the internal duality that we all face. There's two parts of us that wrestle with decisions in life, and when those decisions become more complex and the love and the hate are mixed together about fifty each, then the anxiety and the depression could kick in. Right. But then, but then on the addiction side, when you know that part of us that we feed different parts of us that are either unhealthy or healthy, so we have some choice in that. So Fan, it's just it's it's a

fantastic parable and concept. And you guys got something like you've got a great thing going there, So it's good. Well, thank you. Um So your book is called The Stories We Tell Ourselves. Will you for the listeners describe what what you mean when you say that. Yeah, you know, I think that UM, our perception or the way that we view the world has a lot to do with our behavior. UM. So you know, I think I like

to think of UM. You know, a belief system is as a as a a you know, a group or a set of opinions we develop loyalty to over time. So if you know, I I believe, or I create an opinion that my wife means X when you know by what she just said, or my boss gives me a look and I interpret that through my own lens, is my own perception. Or if my friend doesn't text me back, you know, and it's been a day since

I've texted, are going go on on and on? Right, sixteen year old daughter doesn't text when she's on her date with her boyfriend and she's past her curfew, and you know, so we tell ourselves narratives. So there's these internal narratives that we play out, and I think that we have a tendency many times to tell ourselves more negative stories that end up not being true. In fact, most of us is human beings, and some people do it stronger than others and more intensity, but most of

us is human beings. You know, we end up doing this um quite a bit, and I would say a good ninety percent of the stories, maybe higher don't ever come true, but we we we would tell ourselves these sort of anxious or anxiety the written stories. And so that's a bit about you know, the narrative, the story within the book. But that's what I mean when I've talked about the stories we tell ourselves, these negative anxiety

written stories that we make up and create. Yeah, I think one of the things that one of the one of the teachings that I learned that I think fundamentally changed me more than any other was the Buddhist nun Pema children talks about drop the storyline and feel the emotion. And your book, your book talks an awful lot about that, about getting um more into your body, out of your brain. But one of the things that you said is that when we're writing the stories in our head, we are

the screenwriter, the director, and the star of our own movie. Yes. Yes, you know, if I create an internal narrative about a text I sent over to a friend and they have not responded, you know, I'm the star because it's about me. I'm not considering that they have another lot. They have their own life and and maybe there's something else going on, right, They've got their family, or they've got something else that

they forgot, right. But I'm the star and then I'm producing it and directing it because I'm I'm I'm walking through the path and my brain of what's going on and making up a narrative. And like I said, most of the time, it's not true. So, um, you know what, I I love what you said earlier about dropping the storyline and feel the emotion it is. That's exactly what I'm trying to get at, is that I'm I'm a real big believer on trying to pay attention to your

internal experience. But when you get into your head, and I'm not talking about the anxious narrative of your brain, I'm talking about getting into your body a bit more. And so you know, when we tell ourselves these these negative anxiety written stories, one of the things that we have to do is catch ourselves doing it. And the other thing is that we catch ourselves by noticing what

we feel in our body. The better we become aware of that, the more we can pull our brain back into our body and not let it float away somewhere and take us into fantasy land. And the fantasy is the movie, the script that we create over here, rather than living in real life with what we know to be true, what we need to be false, and actually

having a conversation with the person. Yeah, And it's remarkable to me how much those stories, what they are, the content of them, um, really affects how we feel about a situation, and how if we get different information we can feel dramatically different in uh um. I don't know if you ever read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

It's a book I love. But he tells the story, you know, Covey tells a story of being on a train with a couple of kids who are running all around on on the subway, running all around the subway, just creating havoc, yelling, screaming, driving everybody crazy, and he's getting more and more irritated, and he finally turns to the father and he says, sir, you know you're could you you know, could you deal with your children? You know,

everybody on the car is really upset. And the guy looks up at him and says, oh, I'm so sorry. You know, we just came from the hospital. We we just lost their mother, and in that instant everything changed for him. I'll try you know, his whole everything he thought about that man, all the stories that he was telling himself changed. And I think that's a lot of what you are you're stressing is if we can get away from whatever story we're making up and try and

find out the reality that's exactly it. I also think that there is something to be said about us telling ourselves more positive stories. You know, if I'm driving down the road and I cut somebody off on accident on the freeway and they pull up next to me and they decided to flip me off because they're angry, Right, I can tell myself a story that I'm the bad guy. I could tell myself a story that guy has had

a bad day. I could tell myself a lot of stories, but a positive story I might tell myself as Hey, you know what, who knows what's going on that guy's life. You know, he might be struggling. You know, who knows what what what situation he's in. And so if I'm able to live with a little bit of empathy and compassion rather than anger, and revenge, you know, talking about the duality there and that those two parts of us, then perhaps I'm able to give that guy the benefit

of the doubt. And many times, you know, in relationships, if we've been burned, or if we've lost trust, or if we've been wounded in our past, or there's been some traumatic situation, or there's a lot of things that influence us. Certainly, but that we have a tendency to go more towards the negative. And you know, I wish it wasn't the case, but I think it is for for most people. And like I said, some people do this more than others in terms of the intensity, you know,

in terms of the negative narrative. So yeah, if you if you recognize that you're making it up, then you can choose to try and make it, you know, make it a little bit more positive. You say that, Um, much of the pain in relationships can be traced back to the stories that we tell ourselves. Can you elaborate

on that a little bit? Yeah? Absolutely, you know I think that, Um, you know, think about you know, I'll do a lot of work with with couples in my practice as a as a therapist, and um, you know practitioner, you know, working with folks dealing with a range of issues, and certainly you know the these narratives that we play out are in the context of relationships. I mean, you know, if if they aren't in isolation, they aren't in a vacuum.

There in the context of relationships. You know, each one of those stories that I shared earlier, the examples, the the teenage daughter that's on a date, the boss who gives a certain look, you know, or the boss who sends an email at you know, three thirty on a Friday afternoon and says, we gotta talk Monday morning. First thing, important news, you know, and the narrative you play yourself in your brain all weekend, right, these these are these are stories that we play out from a not knowing

when we don't have all the information. We tell ourselves stories. But we can even play that in terms of friendship or or or a dating or committed partnership. You know, I think about with my own marriage. I'm married, and you know, my wife will say something and I'll commit to a certain opinion about what she meant by that. I'll jump to conclusions react, you know, get angry. So

I've done you know, all sorts of steps. I've I've digested what she said, I've developed some loyalty to a certain opinion, I've created a belief around that, I've solidified that belief, and then I've reacted all in about one second, right, and and so if you break that down and you begin to think about, you know, how is this you know, you know, you know, what's the context here. It's in the context of relationships. So much of the pain that we struggle with internally has to do in this anxiety

has to do with that. It's it's it's really in the context of relationships because because as human beings were relational people, we we are meant to be in some level of community, whether that's in a small group, a partnership, a friendship, family, a community, uh you know something, you know,

business that we're we're relational creatures. So that's what I mean by the pain, is that we end up jumping to conclusions and living more in our head sometimes and we do actually engaging with the person and having a conversation. And here's the rest of the interview. You say that anxiety and ignorance, our vacuums, and our imagination rushes in

to fill the space. So I think I think what you're saying is that as people, we um we have a desire to understand what's happening, what something means, and if we don't know, we're gonna we're gonna fill it in. Um. And you also say that assumptions reek havoc in our relationships. So what are some things that we can do in those moments where we get something that sends us off into creating the stories? Maybe we don't have Let's maybe two situations. One would be we can't go find out

the truth right away. So what are some things like the example you gave. Okay, my boss sends me an email three thirty on Friday says we gonna talk Monday morning, and I can't get an answer till Monday morning. What can I do with myself? You know? How can I how can I work with those stories over that long weekend? Well? You can first run for the hills, right, you don't

you don't know? You know there? Um? I mean there's all sorts of options people do, right they you know, they turn to alcohol, um, right, or some escapism or numbing um. Some people make choices to turn to a friend to talk about it. Other people bottle it up and go inward and internalize it and try to you know, um,

not think about it. Right. There's all sorts of reactions, sort of a fight or flight reaction from a from a healthy standpoint, when I talk about in the book is that, you know, I think the first step is trying to get a little more information, you know, sending an email back and saying, hey, you know, give me heads up on what we what, what we're gonna be talking about. I'd like to have a little more information, you know. And and and well, say the ball sends

some more information, you got a little more information. If if he or she doesn't send more information, then you've got to sit with the not knowing. And I think there is something to be said about sitting with the not knowing. Um, it's hard to do. Um. Most of us want to control, most most of and we want to control because we want to feel safe. And when we don't feel safe, we look to a lot of things to try to calm us. And and so I

think healthy ways of doing that is learning. I'll walk through a seven step process on how to manage anxiety. A very simple way of managing different aspects of anxiety. It's certainly not comprehensive to all anxiety that's out there, but some of the circumstantial anxiety we're talking about, UM, it can be helpful. UM. And so you know, and part of that process is learning to define what you know, literally writing down you know, what is it that I

can control in this situation? What is it that can't with the situation with the balls, I can't control if he or she hasn't given me more information, I can't control getting more information. It's out of my hands. So if I'm learning to say, you know what, I've got to learn to surrender to what I can't control. Now, that's easier said than done. At the same time, it's part of what it means to be human. I mean, you know, I was on a flight recently and, um,

the turbulence was just terrible. I mean, I've I've I've been on a lot of flights over the years, and it was the worst turbulence I've ever been on and been in rather and it it lasted for an hour and we were thirty five thousand feet and so I kept reminding myself that, you know, no flights are very few flights. I've every come down out of the sky from thirty five thousand feet. Um, you know I'm everybody in the flight attendants flying up and down, you know,

hitting the ceiling, hitting the floor, people are yelling. You know. Of course, I've got a twelve year old sitting next to me on his iPad, smiling, watching a movie the whole time. You know, it doesn't It doesn't help things. And I'm making myself anxious over here, right, he's all calm. But I literally said to myself, with all the anxiety I was feeling, I said to myself, you know I can either I'm making up stories. I have no idea. But you know what, I can't control this. I'm up

in the air. I have no power over what happens next. And I made a decision to over about twenty minutes to work on literally thinking in my brain, I've got to surrender to this. If if I'm if this is my opportunity, if this is what I'm going, then this is it. And I can't make myself hold on that now. That's fighting against every part of me as a human

that wants to fight for life. Um. At the same time, I had to come to a place of surrender and spirituality is important to me, so I leaned into that a bit and and I gotta be honest, I was able to get to that place after probably fifteen twenty minutes and then that and I was able to call myself for that that next ten or so minutes fifteen minutes of of of turbulence, and I was and then it stopped. But you know, the turbulence stopped. And so you know, I think that that's just one small way.

I mean, I think it's something that we have to work at, is learning how to surrender. And um, some of us want to hold onto life really really tight, me included. And you know that's something I'm contending to learn to put into practice. Even what I put down on paper and what I've seen in clients over the years. Yeah, the less tight your hold on life, often the better

it is. And I think a lot of that what you described there, and you talk you spend a lot of a lot of the later part of the book talking about this is is the awareness of that what's even happening. So Okay, now I'm telling myself a story, and the story I'm telling myself is that this plane is going to go down. And then once you have that awareness, then you can you can work with trying to soothe yourself or find other things. Got it, You've got sort of an awareness spectrum and you spend a

lot of time talking about that. Can you go a little deeper into some of your thoughts unawareness? Yeah, you I really appreciate you bringing that up a moment ago to about awareness. Yeah, sometimes I forget about that piece. That's that's certainly a step one in the process is just the recognition, and it gives you a little power when you can name it and have an understanding of it. Um, It's kind of like, you know, I remember a buddy

of mine in graduate school. He had a brother that spent three or four years trying to find a diagnosis for some physical symptoms he was having that we're so so painful for him and they and they went from doctor to doctor, to doctor to doctor and finally kind of diagnosis and in the in the freedom and just knowing what it is, you know. So I think there's a level of the note having an awareness of what you're feeling that gives you a little bit of power

in that dynamic. So in terms of just awareness in general and in my own journey, um, you know, as a as a therapist, um, and just as a person. You know, I like to have an understanding of things, um, and not just trying to control things or or manipulate not not that, more of an understanding of a level of awareness. So I try to start with my body and my emotions and what's going on inside of me.

And I find to be one of the most important pieces to being grounded in conversation, whether I'm talking with my my wife or my kids, that I've got to get grounded first and notice what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking, so I'm not just reacting. And I think a will awareness is power because it gives me the option to be proactive. So those are a few things

to come to mind. But yes, a lot of my work with clients, and certainly a lot of the language in the book is about awareness, and I think it's you know, there's certainly a lot of Eastern thought and an awareness and paying attention to your body and your

breathing and yourself. And over the last you know, let's say plus years in the States, we've gotten a little more of a I think that's that is UM begin to weave its way in a healthy way into a lot of different fields, whether it's in medicine or psychotherapy or certainly yoga or an exercise. UM. So it's it's sort of weaved its way in a number of different

fields more than probably it ever has. Yeah, you describe kind of the one of the results of doing this type of work is becoming a person of presence, and you talk about what a lot of those benefits are. What are some of the benefits of you know, doing this thing where we where we work on our awareness and we train ourselves and we become UM more of like you say, a person of presence. What comes to

bind Number one is peace. Um, when I'm functioning in those attributes and I'm noticing a sense of peace in my own life, and I think other people recognize that there's a sense of centeredness or groundedness in me, and UM, I think other people when I recognize that in someone else, when they're living out qualities like humility and having good boundaries in their life with others, and they're able to have a sense of self confidence, and you know they're

able to have those different You know, there's six different sort of ingredients or um points that I make there and those are three that I'm named um. There there's really a level of peace um and I think, you know, isn't that what a lot of people would like to have in their life is more more peace and and uh and I don't mean a piece like, you know, just momentary peace, but a sense of contentment or grounded nous that you know, different different different philosophies and religions

sort of speak to it, I know. And Judaism, you know, the word is shalom. It's you know, this this essence of being um, you know, having a full sense of peace or an embodiment of um calmness. So it's more than just one word. It's sort of an embodiment. So that's what comes to mind. I mean, I think there are other things as well, but that's really what I'll highlight.

What are some practical steps that we can take to increase our awareness you know that that if you think if we would think of as a muscle, you know, our awareness muscle, how do we how do we practice that? How do we strengthen that? I think first and foremost it's starting with your with your body and your breathing. You know, everybody can pay attention to their breathing. Everybody can pay attention to noticing what their body is doing. Where I'm feeling tension, What part of my body am

I feeling it in? How big is it? Right? I'm asking a client today she was feeling a lot of anger, tremendous amout of anger and her parents and says, you know, a woman in her sixties and her mom's still living and she has a lot of anger towards her, and she said she could. I said, where do you notice it? You know? She said, I'm in the middle of my chest. That's how big is it? You know, it's about the

size of my fists? What color is it? Just really getting clarity about, you know, what is the anger saying? So it's just it's really kind of narrowing in on what you physiologically feel because your body teaches us things and it's not just let me try to think more about it, you know, it's it's an awareness of body. So that's one I think. Also what can increase awareness is by practicing learning how to be more present, which I focus on two key elements. One is breathing, taking

deep breaths. And the second is letting your senses come alive. So as I'm sitting in this room talking with you, I can look around the room and I could see a painting across the room right, and I can notice the colors and the texture. I can fill the chair that I'm sitting in right, or I could smell the air and that that's around me candle burning, you know. So allowing myself to be in the moment can increase

awareness because I'm paying attention to my senses. So those are a couple of things, and so talk more about this in the book, But those are a couple of things that come to mind. And if you're if you're say one other thing, if you're talking with someone else in your relationship, you pay attention to what you're you're noticing.

You know, what do you notice in their hand expressions, their facial expressions, their words, their body posture, you know, just paying attention to let that be something that speaks to you. So I think awareness coming a lot of shapes and sizes, but that's just initially what what comes to mind. One of the things I like that you do in the book that I think is important to stress is that we're not very good at this when we start, yea, and but that we can definitely get

better at it by continuing to do it. And I think there's a real tendency. I think I was this way for a while when I would try and you know, be in the present moment, and I would find that that was really hard, and I would do it for a second, or I would you know, I think I just can't do this, And the tendency is to give up,

whereas if you if you keep working on it. My experience has been you you move closer, and you talk about that that's a continue um um of of becoming you know, becoming a person's at presence kind of is at the far end of having spent a lot of time and energy to get there. Yeah, that's true. That's true. The awareness continuum increases, and so you're able to catch yourself while you're doing it or in the very act to be a choice with behavior. Um, yes, I'm aware

that there, you know. That's that's the great thing about this is it's not just okay. There's some people who are born with this and some people aren't. You know, Oh well, you know, so sorry for you you know, you were weren't born with this, No, this is this

is something you can develop. Some people do have a more natural ability of this because they're intuition, or their family they're raised in, or the training that they've done, but we certainly can all grow in this and it is if you don't know how to do it at first,

it is something that you can learn over time. And I do think there's a level of awareness that comes with with getting older, you know, I think that I think there is a level of you know, experience and history that teaches us things that, uh, there's awareness there, but yeah, it is. It's a skill that can be developed. You had a line in the book that really struck me, and it says, people who can't control themselves try to

control other people. Can you expound on that? You know, if I can't control my anxiety, then I'm going to try to control my external environment so I can feel us anxious. And anxiety in my mind is one of the most significant aspects are ingredients that are in committed relationships. People feel anxious because the person is pulling away. People get anxious because they're in conflict. People get anxious because

they've got to talk with their partner about something that's difficult. Um, this level of anxiety is you know, And I'm using anxiety in a broad sense, not just people who get nervous about something, but I'm using in a broader sense. So, yeah, when we when as human beings, when we can't you know, we can't control our sells mean, we don't know how to self soothe or manage your own emotions. They're gonna try to control our environment. That's our best, next best thing,

and usually it's the people around us. So you know, you could think about that. You know, I'm sure if you spent some time thing about that in your own family, right, you could probably come up with scenarios that stand out to you. I know I could for me, you know, in my family and in my own life that I've done, um, you know, clients. I could think of stories over and

over again. I was listening to story today. He and his adult and his forties, you know, mom staying with him and her sixties or seventies, and she was you know, she she gets anxious because you know, he doesn't do what she wants. Um when she comes to visit, and so she tries to control him what does he do? He gets anxious about her trying to control him, and so he tries to control her. Right this, this is what they do, and they drive each other crazy, and

I want to spend time together. Right, No one want No one wants to be controlled, and so people typically pull back in those kind of relationships. So, you know, learning how to balance emotion in yourself as a big it's important factor in terms of friendships and professional relationships and committed partnerships because you know that will that will become problematic and you know, like I said, people don't like it. So so one last question, we're kind of

at the end of time or observation. But you had another line that really struck me. And this one really struck me um as like really pertinent to to me in certain cases, and it said, when we fail to share our deeper experiences about life's events, we're actually providing

right material for the other person to create stories about us. Yeah. Yeah, you know, one of the most significant areas that I do work with with clients is helping them learn how to talk about their heart and their mind because that that breeds intimacy. You've got to have a level awareness first though, right, I've got to know what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling and be able to share that with you. Now, people who do that well and are

proficient at that, you get to know them. People who don't do that, you don't get to know them, and they're harder to know and or they're harder to know rather and as a result, people the person on the other side of of that makes up more stories because they're they're not they're not given material. You know, there's plenty of couples in relationship who don't know one another.

They may know things about each other, but they don't know their day to day personal experience like hey, I'm struggling with this, or I'm happy about this, or this is what was difficult for me, or that hurt really hurt when you said that, or I'm really angry at you about that decision you've made, you know, and this is what's going on for me, or I heard this song and it started up this emotion of this experience

where I wanted to share it with you. Right, those are letting people in, and when you do that, people are Most people are able to say, oh gosh, wow, okay, um, that's pretty vulnerable number one, But number two, um, I feel like I know you. You You know um So that's what I mean by that. If you if we're not showing up and letting the real, authentic US show up,

then then it becomes problematic on terms of people knowing us. Yep. Well, I definitely think I have probably produced a bunch of stories in people's heads based on based on that sentence thinking back over some of my past. So that was really really helpful for me to to read. Um So, I think that brings us to the end. But thanks so much, Scott. I really enjoyed, enjoyed talking with you. I enjoyed the book. Um. Have links to all your stuff on our show notes at one you feed dot

Net and us again you're beat. Really enjoyed it. Thanks, uh, thanks for having me. All right, take care okay, okay, bye m You can learn more about Scott Gorto and this podcast at one you Feed dot Net slash Scott