Shift: Managing Your Emotions So They Don’t Manage You by Ethan Kross - Virtual Couch Book Club w/Marla Christiansen, APCC

I wanna share something that I witnessed recently that it absolutely gave me hope in humanity. I was walking outta a store and I saw a parent coming out with a toddler in full meltdown mode, and I am talking red-faced tears and snot streaming, throwing themselves on the ground kind of tantrum that made every parent within a 50 foot radius either feel just tremendous empathy or start mentally scrolling through their own greatest parenting hits and misses. And my immediate thought was.

Oh man, this kid is about to hear about it. They're about to get in trouble and I couldn't help it. Maybe it's like driving by an accident, but I found myself bracing for the inevitable. I'm ready to hear a stop that right now. Or You're embarrassing me, or I can't take you anywhere, or you're grounded when we get home. Or maybe. Counting to two outta three and staying at two for a long time.

Some sort of version of an emotional shutdown that so many of us have experienced is parents, but what happened next caught me off guard. This parent gets down to their child's eye level and wrapped them in the biggest, most genuine hug and said something like, Hey buddy, I can see you're having some really big feelings right now, and that's okay. How about we take some deep breaths together? And the kid did, and I, I stopped in my tracks.

Here was a parent who was actually welcoming their child's emotions instead of trying to shut them down or fix them immediately. And I was so moved by this touching beautiful moment that I apparently became completely unaware of my surroundings. 'cause suddenly the mom was looking up at me and saying, can I help you with something? And that, that is when I came back to the present moment, I realized I had been standing there staring at them a little bit creepy.

And I wish I was making this part up, but there was standing there holding a bag of candy that I had just purchased, and it was all I could do to stop myself from saying how moving that was and then asking her son if he would like some candy from me, the complete stranger. But thankfully I caught myself and I just said that was really special to see the way that you handled that with your son. I hope that you have an amazing and wonderful day.

So, hey everybody. Welcome to the virtual couch. I'm Tony Obba. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and today I have another exciting what I am thinking.

We can now call a book club episode with my associate, Marla Christiansen, where we dive deep into Ethan Cross's. Fascinating book shift Managing your Emotions so they don't manage You.

Now while the tantrum is completely normal in parts of human development, I'd have to be honest with you, I have seen about as many of those emotionally validating parent moments as I have purple Ferraris over the last year, and I'm being completely literal about the purple Ferrari count, which stands at two, by the way. So I've seen two of those experiences and two purple Ferraris. So I really hope that the emotional experiences win.

While that might be the perfect number of purple Ferraris in my lifetime, I. Definitely hope that we see more parents modeling healthier relationships with emotions for their children.

I believe that for most of us, and I'm talking about adults, that we are only beginning to scratch the surface of what to do with our emotions or quite frankly, what they even are. I did a, an episode recently that is semi broke my brain. It's another one of those concepts that you can't unsee or unhear where I'd realized how incorrectly. Most of us use the concept of emotion in our everyday language.

So we say things like, see if you can tell the difference. We say things like, I feel like they weren't even interested in having a relationship. Instead of, I feel frustrated because I don't think that they were interested in a relationship, or, I feel like you're angry with me. I. Instead of, I feel sad because I think that you're angry with me. 'cause the difference here, if you caught that, is crucial. And the first examples, I'm not actually describing feelings at all.

I'm describing thoughts or assumptions. I feel like they weren't interested is really a thought disguised as a feeling. The actual emotion might be disappointment. Frustration, sadness. So when we say things like, I feel like you are angry, we're making an assumption about someone else's emotional state, we're not identifying our own feeling. So the more accurate version is, I feel sad because I think that you're angry.

'cause that actually names the emotion that I am experiencing in response to my perception. So they're me things. But they're keeping me connected. And hopefully we can have a mature adult conversation from there. And this linguistic confusion is not just about semantics. It isn't something that somebody can just say, yeah, whatever. It's not a big deal.

I think it reflects how disconnected we become from our emotional lives if we're even aware of 'em at all. And I think that there's a reason for this disconnect because most of us, if darn near all of us, I don't want to go completely all or nothing. Weren't modeled healthy relationships with emotions from our parents. And before anybody starts feeling defensive, I really am not trying to parent bash this is a absolutely bless their heart kind of a thing.

I don't think they knew what they didn't know. 'cause I'm barely figuring it out because I think even well-meaning loving parents often said things like, don't worry about it, or It's not a big deal. Or, Hey, this really isn't something that you need to feel bad about. Those statements, especially said with a caring tone might sound positive and supportive on the surface, and I think that they most likely came from a really good place.

But they're also subtly communicating that our feelings or our concerns aren't accurate or valid or even welcome. So over time we learn to stop externalizing our emotions and we start to keep them internal. They become uncomfortable. Then when we have them and all of a sudden. We're not even sure if our emotions are accurate, valid, or especially not welcome, and that causes us to need somebody else to give us permission to be able to feel them or share them.

This is why I think Marla's book Choice today is so perfect.

Dr. Ethan Cross's Shift offers us a completely different framework for understanding emotions, not as things to be controlled or suppressed, or even always expressed, which is a really cool part that we'll get to in the interview. But our feelings are. To be viewed as information and as Marla shares in the conversation, emotions are like a superpower when we really do understand how to work with them.

If you are not familiar with Marla, she's been on a couple of episodes in the past, one about. Betrayal trauma that I think is really powerful. Marla's a registered associate marriage and family therapist and an associate professional clinical counselor, and she's currently under my supervision until she becomes licensed. She holds a master's in clinical psychology from Pepperdine University and a bachelor's in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Chico State.

And what I really like about Marla is she's fairly new in her therapy career, but you wouldn't know that and. As a clinical supervisor, you do weekly supervision with your associates, formerly known as interns, and you get a chance to know that person well and go over cases with them. And it is wild to think that Marla has just been doing this for a few years.

I. Because she's already diving really deep into the, I think, the most important aspects of mental health, like understanding our emotional lives. She's dealing a lot with trauma and betrayal, and she's doing some work with Somatic Healing right now. And it is honestly almost embarrassing how long it took me into my own career as a therapist to really start to grasp. What our emotions are there for. I love that she's already on this path.

In our conversation today, you are gonna learn some fascinating concepts from Schiff. So for instance, little sneak preview. Did you know that we're experiencing one or more emotions at least 90% of the time? That's a lot.

Or that 33% of the time we're actually feeling both positive and negative emotions simultaneously. No wonder it is a complex world inside of our heads. It is so much easier to go to the black or white or all or nothing. Because that's a lot of mental calories being spent, especially if we're trying to manage emotions that we don't even know what to do with.

So Marlon and I explore Cross's framework for shifting emotions, which includes shifting from the inside out, using our attention and perspective and even the way that we talk to ourselves. And this next part is something that Tony really appreciated and Tony has been doing quite a bit lately, and Tony thinks has been working.

Marla introduced us to this concept called distanced self-talk, where instead of saying, I can do this. You actually say, Tony can do this, or You've got this Marla, and it sounds a bit silly, but the research shows it's incredibly effective because it's easier to give advice to someone else. Even if that person is you.

We're also gonna dive into shifting from the outside in how our environment, our relationships, and even our cultural context can either help us regulate our emotions or they can actually send us spiraling. And then Marla shares some really powerful insights about emotional contagion, meaning how emotions are literally contagious. And we talk about why then it matters a lot, who we surround ourselves with. And we're gonna discuss the importance of body awareness.

Where do you actually feel your emotions physically? Most of us, I think, again, are so disconnected from our bodies that we miss crucial information that our emotions are trying to give us a lot throughout the day.

And we're gonna explore when it's healthy to approach difficult emotions versus when avoidance might actually be the wise choice. Because being aware of that can be empowering.

We're also gonna touch on how comparison affects our emotional lives, especially in the social media age. How cultural factors, including faith transition, can create enormous emotional upheaval that I think it's really important to get the tools to navigate.

I think more importantly, you'll come away with a deeper appreciation for your emotions as information rather than inconveniences. They're not. Good or bad, they're data about what matters to you and what threatens you and what excites you and what you need to pay attention to.

So whether you're somebody who feels regularly overwhelmed by your emotions or disconnected from them, or you're just curious about how to work with them more effectively, stay tuned because this conversation is gonna give you some powerful tools and perspectives, and Tony thinks you're really gonna enjoy this discussion.

Let's see what I did there, because just like spotting that rare purple Ferrari, I think finding practical research-based approaches to understanding our emotional lives is something well worth your time.

So let's jump into this book club discussion about emotions and shifting and understanding these internal experiences and how those might just be one of the most important skills we can develop as human beings.

Let's get to this interview with Marla Christensen. So Future me self when I'm editing this, I wanna know if it caught me asking you what happens if you don't hit? Okay. Because that would've recorded it without your permission. Huh? Fascinating. I don't know. Marla Christian and violations. See, look, I just did it right there.

I, I told Marla off air that I'm gonna do my very best not to interrupt her, but the last time that we, I think that a couple of times we've been on, I've been very excited. We've had a nice flow. We talked about things like betrayal, trauma, things like that last time that episode's done really well. I appreciate you there. So no pressure to make this yet Another giant virtual cast sensation. Do my best.

I told Marla that I have a for if you don't watch this on YouTube, I have an auctioneers paddle. I will lift it when I want to ask a question. Sounds good. I like it. That would be, that would be kind of fun. Do you want me to just raise my pin? Right. Okay.

But I'm so excited because we're talking about emotions. Yeah. I'm hopefully, I just did a big intro before I welcomed you about my thoughts on emotions. Okay. So that's how I feel about them. There we go. And now, but I get, I like it. I think we were joking. This is book club and Marlo. Yeah. What book are we talking about today and why?

Okay, so first we're talking about a book today. 'cause I have an obsession. Books. My husband has told me no more books and I don't even know how to do that. I've always loved books. This book I came across just off off of another podcast, Huberman Labs, really love to listen to them and he was on talking about his book and so I actually pre-ordered this book. I was super excited for it. It came out in February and it's called Shift. It's by cross. I think it's just phenomenal.

Anytime we can talk about how do you move your emotions, how do you help your emotions, I'm all over that. Mm-hmm. You know, as therapists, that's what we love. Look at my first slate. Oh yeah. Yeah. What I really like about this is that Marla's associate of mine. That sounds funny 'cause I feel like Marla's been in the field for a long time. I really like that you're already going here toward emotions and you are fairly new in your therapy career.

Yeah, because I am, I think I embarrassingly am admitting that it's only been the last few years where I've really understood what emotions are there for. So I love that you're already jumped on this now. Well, I wouldn't feel bad, Tony. I, I don't think that they've studied emotions all that much. So having the technology to study it has been a problem.

I would say a lot of the other things that I've read, we haven't had FMRI machines and things like that to look at, like what the brain is doing. And so we, it's, we're kind of, it's kind of mystical, like what are these emotions, what are we doing with them? So a lot of it, I think the really good research is coming out. Just now. Okay. With like, I feel better. What are our emotions doing? Yeah. And then I, and then I think, and honestly inside out the movie one and two. Love it.

I really think that that has us thinking more about emotions. Oh definitely. Definitely. And I love that they externalized your emotions. Like they're all just different little monsters. That's a fun thing I like to do with my kiddos. So where are we going today with emotions? So book club time. So this was, I thought, a really great book. I was excited because it was more about how do you take your emotions and how do you use them to shift, which is what the topic was.

You know, you can't get rid of them. Everybody's, oh, I don't want emotions. It's about incorporating it into your life and having it not control you. But how do I control them in some ways, and even that, I'm like, okay. There's the whole control issue here that we could talk about. What I like is that we know you can't not think them or not feel them, which is rule number one when people say, mm-hmm well, I just don't want to feel this way anymore. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it's embracing it.

It's okay, I'm an emotional. B. And that's okay. So what do I do to not like hook into 'em and have 'em go crazy on me or, and what do I do to help them or like maybe even make 'em my superpower? So the goal is to learn how to shift your emotions and not have 'em control you. So it's like a big takeaway and it goes through four different parts of the book. So it felt fairly organized. Sometimes you just get into 'em and just a whole bunch of opinion and you're like, oh, but wait, what is that?

At the end of it is a thick section of evidence-based articles you can go look at, and I thought, great. This is all evidence-based stuff. It's not an opinion of some person out here. I appreciate that there is science to back some of the things that he is saying, but he talks about it like, why do we even care about this? Why do we care about emotions and emotional regulation? Hmm. I mean, what would you say, Tony? Okay, great question.

Because the deal so much with the people that let those emotions, they've been stuffing 'em for so long that when they finally come out, I do think that they all just say, this might be our only chance. And then they just make a run for the, the door. I. And now all of a sudden we've got elevated heart rate and cortisol levels off the charts, and we are in this amygdala hijack state. And then you can't access the part of your brain that can think logically. So when Oh yeah.

I think if we don't know what to do with them, they're going to find their way out at some point. And probably not in the most mature way. Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. And it was interesting, he talked about like just how much we are emotional. He talked about one study where we are experiencing one or more emotion at least 90% of the time. Wow. So I'm like, ah, 90% of the time we're having emotions. That's a lot. And I'm thinking, okay, what are you feeling right now, Tony?

You know, I mean, I mean, most of the time we're feeling something. Okay. And I love, like I'm trying this with clients more and more, but when people say, I don't even know how I'm feeling or thinking, and a simple, I. Exercises, whether you have to set an alarm Yeah. Or every, every time you stand up from a chair or whatever it is, to just do what you just said. What am I thinking? How am I feeling? I guess we're talking about emotions. Yeah. How am I feeling?

And it might be I'm feeling hungry, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling sleepy, I'm feeling anxious. And just to acknowledge it, you're right. 'cause when you even just said that right there, I thought, first of all, I thought, oh, I don't wanna get this wrong. Oh no. Yeah, we're not doing that. No black or white thinking. No. And it's interesting, you know, even to take a step further, can I scan my body and figure out where I'm feeling it in my body? My clients would roll their eyes.

I'm always like into the body scan, like, okay, you're feeling that right now, but let's figure it out where you feel it in your body. And they're like, oh, Marla. But you feel it in your body a lot of different places, and I think that we are so disconnected. From our body, our emotions. You feel something and you're like, get me outta my body. I don't wanna feel this present. Your Marla, where do you feel the majority of your emotions, because that's a great point. Oh yeah.

I would say neck, shoulders, stomach, heart, lungs, even. Mm-hmm. Head jaw. If you go through it and people are like, I what? But you have to take him and say, start with your toes. Are your toes feeling anything? Are your feet feeling anything? And work all the way up your body. And if they do that, like most of the time, they'll start with like, oh, I only feel it one place. But if you can do the scan, you'll feel it at least. Four or five different places, if not more.

Just really fascinating. We're so disconnected. Get connected I think a little bit more with your emotion and where you feel it in your body. What I think is fascinating about that is I just had spinal fusion surgery that is nothing to sneeze about and actually I couldn't sneeze for two weeks. That was maddening as well. 'cause I was worried I'd rip the nuts and bolts outta my neck. But I have realized, and my physical therapist said that he believes that.

It was probably more of a casualty of stress. And so even when you did that, I noticed constantly now how often my shoulders, I'm clenched, I'm hunched up and I have to mm-hmm. Release and open up. And so I never knew that that's where I carried so many of my emotions, my stress. Mm-hmm. So I, I didn't think about that till right now. Yeah. I was not a good body scanner for sure. Yeah. And then we're complicated with our emotions. So there's this process of we're not just feeling one emotion.

We might be feeling positive and negative emotions. Mm-hmm. And he had a study in there that showed that 33% of the time we're feeling a positive and a negative emotion at the same time. So talk about confusing. Yeah, I'm happy and I'm angry all at the same time. Or I'm tired and I'm sad or all this stuff all at once and I'm annoyed. And I'm irritated, but all of this at once, so like I'm happy here to be here with you, but I'm also anxious, you know? Yeah. So it's.

It's all of it at once by dealing with one thing. No, and I'm going so big on emotional immaturity on my own podcast right now. Yeah. So one of those is all or nothing, black or white thinking. Mm-hmm. And this is where people will think that they're doing something wrong, which is the black or white thinking, right or wrong. Yeah. When they are, well, I'm kind of upset.

I'm also, I think something's kind of funny or I am, I'm angry, but I can also understand, or I appreciate, and that is part of this whole object relations of being able to view ourselves or others as a, as an entire object full of emotions, which that's, I'm making a lot of little connections here that I hadn't thought about before. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I love that he put, what emotions are, he just said emotions are information. Well, that's good.

They're how we respond to our experiences both imagined. What is actually happening around you and, and you're, that are meaningful to you. If it's not meaningful to you, you're not really having a emotional response to it. But if it's meaningful, the emotions can heighten quite a bit. They're instruments for us just to see how like we're responding to the world. And things around us. Okay? It's not a truth, it's just a response. It's information for us to kind of digest.

So we have different responses and he talks about that we have a physiological reaction, so our nervous system and our body are responding, which we kind of talked about. Can I scan my body? Can I figure out how my nervous system is responding to this emotion? Then I have a cognitive appraisal. How am I making sense of this? What am I thinking? What are the thoughts that come with these emotions?

And then I have outward facing motor behaviors, which is really fancy talk for how am I communicating with other people? What are my facial features, doing? What is my body doing? 'cause that is all communication and that is we respond. Like you have those micro responses to disgust and your nose kind of goes up. That's all driven by emotion. I'm laughing because I just said earlier today, I had a couple and one of them just said, the spouse said, I'm not angry.

I'm fine, and then we have good rapport, and then he just said, well, can you remind your face that's what's going on for you? It was pretty funny. It was pretty funny in the moment, but it was very true. I. Yeah. And sometimes we're not aware of it. And that's the thing, like we're not aware how much our face is communicating. Yeah. Our emotion and things like that. So I, I liked that he went through that in the book and I thought that was really great. He also talked about emotions vary.

There's variation in, um, with intensity, some emotions we feel subtly others are really huge and overwhelming. And then there's duration. Which there's a lot of stuff about duration and emotions, you know, as far as primary and secondary emotions. But how long do our emotions last? Some of us are a little more dramatic and we're like, our emotions last forever. And then we have, we get triggers for our emotions. We all have a, you smell something and you're like, Ooh, what was that?

That reminds me of this, and oh, I'm sad all of a sudden. You know, I have to tell you, I, my office here in Arizona is in a set of salon suites. There's a few other therapists in here, and boy, I probably, I think I mentioned this before, but I. Nothing says therapy like the smell of burn hair and a perm. And when I smell that permanent solution, I go right back to when I would be at my mama's in Tennessee in the summer and everybody would be getting a perm. Not me.

I didn't have hair even back then, but it is wild to think about. I can just, all of a sudden I'm thinking about my grandma 'cause of a permanent solution. Mm-hmm. And then this morning somebody was. Somebody's, there was a kid screaming out in the hall and then it just caused this visceral reaction. Mm. And I was even checking in with myself of, okay, what are, what are my thoughts? And it was empathy toward the mom. Thank goodness.

It wasn't like a tell that kid to pipe down, but it's funny because you're feeling something, and I wasn't even sure what caused that. At first, right. That, that visceral gut reaction. Yeah, and he, he talks about there's a last variation variable that we can kind of control, which is trajectory. We get to figure out if we hook into that emotion, kind of like an act principle and go somewhere with it, or if we just shut it down. So there's different ways that you can do those things.

And that's what this whole book is about. What do I do once I start to feel that visceral reaction? Okay, what am I gonna do? And so he talks about these different kind of shifters. And so the second section of this book is, how do I shift from the inside outward? Which I thought, okay, that's interesting.

He talked about the law of least work. Do you know this law term? No. But I like the way I think it sounds good already. Tell more. Well, it does sound good because we're an organism that tends to choose the path of least physical and mental effort. Sure. We're lazy by nature. Yes. We're like, can we do this in 10 step thing in five steps? That would be great. You know? Or, or do it tomorrow. I mean, why not? Yes. Yeah. Or get somebody else to do it for me kind. You know?

So we don't like a lot of work, so even in therapy, I see that with my clients. They're like, do I really have to do that? Mm-hmm. Like, just modify that a little bit, or, I really don't wanna do that. That's a lot of work. They talk about homework sometimes, and they're like, oh no, I'm outta here. My kiddos are really cute. They're like, I just came from school. I don't want therapy to be school too, so law of least work here.

So he talks about that, but he talks about we have sensory experiences, you know, what are your five senses? Think about that. You know, you were talking about smelling. Mm-hmm. The perm in your office. It causes emotion. Yeah. Our sense of touch causes emotion, our sense of smell. Of taste, all of the emotions bring all of our senses, bring up emotion. And so it's super powerful, but we can use those things to kind of shift our emotions too.

And I think one of the biggest shifters that I see in therapy is food, our sense of taste. How many times did somebody say to you, oh, I was just feeling really sad and I went and I like ate that whole thing of ice cream and I felt so much better. Or I'm just gonna rip out this box of chocolates, that kind of thing. It shifts our mood. It does. It helps us. So the question that he extended was this, we have these five senses. What is the biggest impact for you? And then at what lowest cost?

So me using that ice cream or my sense of taste to shift my emotion has a huge impact or cost to me. I'm gonna put on weight. Okay, I'm gonna like hurt my health and all kinds of things. So it may not be the smartest way to shift.

Some of my emotions. Hmm. Like music might be a better one. It might come at a little bit less of a cost to my waistline. Yeah. So I appreciated thinking about that and it got me thinking like, what do, what can I use that comes at a low cost, but has a big impact to helping me shift out of some of these emotions that I don't want to be in? I, I am literally playing with my now probably decade old pitch cube, but, and I know that that is, it is funny.

It helps me shift from this desire to be impulsive and jump in. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like it. And it's good that you know that. And it's a low kind of cost impact thing for you. High impact, low cost.

So the other thing is he talks about our attention. Our attention is what we look at. He talks also about perspectives. And perspectives are like how we look at something. So attention is what we look at. So do I want to avoid this emotion or approach this emotion? So we have a choice there. And I think sometimes we wanna avoid a lot of things. Sometimes we wanna approach 'em and we can get in trouble with both. And so it's, there's not one that is the best here.

It's, how do I use them both wisely?

My wife and I were watching a TV show last night. We knew that it was gonna, it was gonna bring up someone that had taken their life. And there'd even been a warning at the beginning of the TV show and we were both watching it. I think we were folding laundry and, and it was interesting because it got to that point and then I actually was the one that said, I don't want to do this tonight. I'm not up for this right now.

And so I can appreciate that because there would be other times where I can, I know I would think, okay, I can face this head on. I'm curious about this story. I know that this is what we're dealing with, but there was just, whatever it was, it was the. Culmination of a long day. There was a whole bunch of other things that had been in my mind, I had to acknowledge the fact that I don't think that was the time to Yeah. To deal with that.

Yeah. And he goes into some really interesting information, and I'm not gonna give it on the podcast 'cause I want people to go and buy this book, support Ethan Cross and, and this endeavor. But at talking about like, when am I being avoidant here? Like, and he had some really good information about that. And when is it healthy to actually approach it? I like that. And what can I do when I approach? So I, I think that's really great.

And therapy is a great way of, even I sit with some clients and I'm like, okay, it's not healthy when I work with trauma to approach it too much. You don't wanna re-traumatize, let's be healthy about it. So it, it's this delicate dance between when do I avoid and when do I approach and learning that skill.

So the other part of like how we look at it, what is our perspective on it, and this is where the therapy term, the reframe. Kind of comes in and, and reframing is really, really a powerful tool, especially like in cognitive behavioral therapies. He talks about this formula of like A, B, C, A is adverse effect. We all have things that happen in our world, some to us, and in this case, let's take like a loss or something that's. Impactful on the negative side, and we can't control that.

We can't control the negative things happen to us, but we can't control the B of this A, B, C. We can control the belief. Mm. If something negative happens, do I have a belief that's built in that's, oh, everything's gonna be harmful, everything's gonna, you know, of course, yeah. The whole day is gonna go wrong because that will affect my C, which my C is the consequence if I believe that everything is gonna go wrong. Then everything is gonna go wrong. Yeah. Like my bias is gonna show up here.

Yeah. And so he said if you can control the B, then you can control the c. So we can't control a, it's kind of like that we can't control our emotions, but you can control what your belief is. Yeah. About the emotion. There's a from Budha brain, which your husband mades the one that recommended that one to me back in the day. Yeah. But he, that was where I was first introduced to the first and second dart reactions that mm-hmm. The first dart is the emotion. It's the what?

The dart that the life throws at us. And then the second dart is the one you throw at yourself. So something happens, I stub my toe, but then can I still just remain present and accepting or do I get angry? Yeah. So there is that choice point. I guess we call it an act at times. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And and that's like ties into that belief.

Yeah. Also of things, but he talks more about the reframe and things and, and I'm also reading like Mel Robbins book, the Let Them Vary and she talked about the frame of reference. How we understand what kind of lenses we use are gonna really shift. How we believe about certain things. And so if I can just shift it over so slightly, keep it true, but shift it in a more positive way, it's it's gonna help. Yeah. That consequence part of it isn't gonna be as impactful.

And then you thought, talked about something that I thought was really, really interesting and I've really enjoyed it and I've started using with my clients, and it's this concept of distanced self talk. Tony likes this. Tony likes this. Okay. I remember we talked about this a little bit, and you're doing it. It's great. Like Tony really appreciates this because Tony used to make fun when Tony would talk in third person. But talk about what Marla talk about this. Yeah. So it was fascinating.

He talked about how referring to yourself as you or using your own name when giving yourself that pep talk. So like if I have to get in front of doing this podcast or whatever, not, yeah. I'm not saying, oh, I can do this. This is great. I got this. And we teach our kids to say that. We're like, okay, you got, but what we're saying to them is, you've got this and it feels different when we say to ourself, Hey Marla, you got this. Exactly. I love it. Like, you're gonna do a great job.

And so he said, that is what distance self-talk, you're changing just the wording on it. You're using you to like give yourself that pep talk. And so yeah, you're, you might feel a little bit. Weird about talking to yourself in third person kind of thing. But it does help because it's easier to give advice to other people. Yes. Rather than to yourself. And that's kind of what you're doing. You're giving advice to somebody else. You're giving to. I love it. To yourself. It's silly else.

Well, as silly as it is though, it does. I believe it. And it's, and I now, now Tony thinks that he always did it and joked about it, but secretly I think he enjoyed it. So now Tony has an excuse to do it. So let's do this, Tony. Yeah, and I was sitting there and I'm like, I hope I'm not like helping people dissociate or create another personality here. Yeah. This is interesting. I'm gonna see the evidence on that one later, but, okay.

But those are the suggestions for shifting from the inside and now we have shifting outside in. Okay. Which is all about like, how do I control my environment? How does my environment control me and my emotions? He talks about place, like our environment really affects us. I had my husband talking to me about this when he was like. I need it clean. Like I need three things in my office. And I'm like, oh, okay. And so it, for him, like having too much clutter for his A DHD is just a no go.

And so keeping it simple helps his mood. I. Kinda lighten and not be so chaotic. So it's more about like, what can I switch? What can I modify in my environment to help me? And I really appreciated that. Like I can add to my environment and I can remove from my environment. Those two things will also help shift. He talked about the fact that we have a place attachment, and I've talked about attachment theory a lot, but I've never heard it in the context of a place. Okay, attachment.

And I thought that was really interesting. And we have what we call, they call a positive place attachment, and that's kind of like where is your place that you feel safe? I like that. And a lot of people, it's home. Or whatever not. But it's a place that emotionally resonates with you. And it could be just like a little nook where you like cozy up or in your bed or wherever, or on a bench at a park, but it's the place that you just feel safe.

So. Understanding, is there a place that I can go also when I'm emotional, that helps me free? Mm-hmm. Like in the case of like my divorce, I was up by the ocean and also by the redwoods, and I thought this is the perfect place for my heart to break. Like out in the middle of nature. Yeah. And, and it was true, it was really true that like a place could shift my mood. In a really great way.

So he talks about this space audit and when I talked to my husband about it, he was like, that sounds really weird, Marla, like you're going to space. And I said, no, we're not gonna space, but we're looking at our space like what can I do right now that will change, that I can change in my space to help me? So what can I remove that will bring down the volume of the emotional. Capacity there and what can I add that would like maybe bring up the volume?

Hmm. So do I need some something that smells good or do I need to take the trash out? 'cause it also stinks. Things like that. Those are gonna shift your mood also. And then he talks about just finding that emotional oasis, that spot that is really healing for you. So I appreciated that. So. All of that said the last part of this book is about shifting by design. How do I use all of this now to become like a master of shifting my emotions in really great ways?

And he talked about relationships. You can't get through a book without talking about relationships and shifting emotions. 'cause relationships are sticky. And he talked about the idea of emotional contagion. Emotions are kind of contagious. Yeah. If you're around somebody who's. Depressed it, it kind of brings you down. Yeah. If you're around somebody who's angry, you know, you might get scared. We shift to the emotion that is present. We also do what we call mimicry, where we mimic emotions.

Children are really great at that, so if you've got a parent that's super bubbly and always go, go, go, their kids tend to be that way. Somebody who's more sad, their kids might be more stolen. They're mimicking what is going on. I really like this part because my mind is racing with the concept of being differentiated where I need to mm-hmm. Figure out who I am within a relationship.

And I think often one of the stumbling blocks of that is this mimicry, or I am mad that you made me feel a certain way, so now you need to fix it. So we're, we're diffusing our emotions onto someone else and saying, now what are you gonna do about it? Or we're mm-hmm. Uh, guilty managing someone else's emotions. But I do find it interesting that if somebody shuts down in a session, I often see the spouse trying to figure out what's the way, how do I co-regulate this situation now?

Because yeah, I think I'm okay, but I don't know if that's right for me to be okay. And, and so I think we do often play to the crowd of whatever that emotional experience is, even if we feel like we're selling ourselves out or betraying our own ourselves. And that can be difficult. Yeah. And when your best friend is sad, is it appropriate for you to be like, that's the best day ever. Like, I, I'm so happy.

Yeah, you, you don't, you, the emotion is contagious and you start to mimic what's going on around you. He talks about how important it is to picked really good friends, which is interesting. He said, your friends. Can't either help you spiral or they can pull you out in a good way, which I totally appreciated because he said, you know what you really wanna do is pick friends that they listen, they empathize, and then they brought in your perspectives. Oh, that's good.

And I appreciate that because a, oftentimes we pick friends that listen. They empathize. They empathize, they empathize. And then they let you spiral. Yeah. And they join you in the misery, and then they feed it. And you're like, we all have those friends that you sit with and you're like, man, I walked in mad, but now I'm really mad. And, and I'm gonna, you know, burn the world down. And then you have the other ones that you talk to him and you're like, ah, I just feel so much better.

Yeah, this is great. Thanks. And so he, he talked about how picking friends that do that, you know, will help you broaden your perspective and help you shift automatically are important. It's interesting too when one finds themselves and they start to recognize that they are okay and it's okay to feel mm-hmm. And think that the way they do, we fall into these patterns in relationships or family dynamics.

And when one person steps out of it, it isn't like everybody else applauds and says, I'm so proud of you for stepping out of the role you play. And then other people will then I think, emote or push buttons or try to get people back into that role. So if you have somebody that is typically the family scapegoat and they're trying to have a solid sense of self. That's gonna, it's gonna disrupt the entire family system. So we get to say things like, oh, look at you.

You think you got it all figured out? Or, yeah, mis Mr. Perfect, and all of a sudden you're angry. And then I'm just trying to get better and now all of a sudden, oh, they got me and I'm back in. And it, it can be very discouraging also for somebody who's trying to be more differentiated. They kind of give up sometimes because it's the whole rest of the system. It's like, whatcha doing Mario? You're too holy for us. And all of this stuff. So it's really hard.

You have to get everyone, almost everybody on board in order for it to that mimicry. Yeah. Again, getting everybody there so that you know it, it can succeed in a really positive way. 'cause it is, it's very difficult.

He talked about cultural shifters too, which is really interesting. We don't talk about a lot how culture affects us. And a lot of things. I went through a program that was heavy into the cultural aspect, so it trained me to look at what is the cultural impact, and culture can be a lot of things. Culture's based on beliefs, values, norms, and practices. It permeates. A lot of your life, I mean, even your own family is culture. Okay. In some ways they do it a certain way.

Yeah. Not every family functions the same way, but there's religious components, there's socioeconomic component. Where do I live? Living in Northern California looks different than living in New York. Living on the equator looks different than living in Alaska. So all of these things are bringing culture, and those can be shifters too. So looking at, yes, do I need to step outta my culture?

I. To help my emotions in some ways, and that's where you get some people who come in with faith crisis looking at that and saying, do I need to shift here somehow in order to be happier or more authentic to what I feel aligns with me, my values? I like that. Bringing up that one in particular. I was trying to wrap my head around what cultural aspects that I would be working with, but that one is somebody who works a lot with the faith journey. Faith crisis. Yeah. That the person does feel lost.

Mm-hmm. And they often feel like they are now on their own left, the drift. And then that brings up big emotions as well. And I think often people don't know what to do with those emotions. They want to go back to the safety of their norm, but at that point it they, they can't. That is a real. Tough place for somebody to be. Yeah. And that's a lot of emotion to shift through. Yeah. So I like that word shift in there is a, that is what's happening, isn't it?

It's how do I rectify my own belief and value and, and the emotion and the safety. Mm-hmm. Because there's safety in your culture. Absolutely. It's the norm. And so breaking out of that is incredibly, does not feel safe at all. You're trying to rewrite a major part. Of your life in, in, in a lot of ways. It was a smaller section of this book, but it was like, yes, thank you for acknowledging that culture impacts us. Yeah. You know, and how we behave and how we feel about ourself.

And then he talked about a huge one comparison and how we get in trouble with that. And there was a quote in there, and I'm gonna read this, that says, how we feel about ourselves hinges not just on whom we compare ourselves with, but how we think about that comparison.

Hmm. So I can compare myself to somebody who's lesser than me, and it's not gonna hit me as hard as if I compare myself to somebody who is maybe greater than me, that's gonna hit a little bit harder for me because I'm gonna be like. The shame area then at that point, or the guilt, or I should be doing better. And I was just talking to my daughter about this. She was asking me about something, is it normal? That phrase, and I forget at times that we sit with people all day, every day.

We hear similar stories, but then to each individual going through life, they often think that they're. Situation, their feelings, they're so unique that something must be wrong with them. Yeah. And I do think being able to normalize that because then it does naturally devolve probably into comparison. Yeah. Where people, people come in and they will often say things like, I'm sure you've never worked with anybody like this.

And I almost feel guilty sometimes saying kinda like the third or fourth person today, but I don't want it to sound like you're not special, but. But you're normal. It's part of the human process or existence and, but people are so isolated and probably a big part of that is the fact that we don't share emotions and we have people that are trying to pretend that everything is fine and I'm, yep, I'm not upset and everything is great.

Yeah, and that's a huge problem, you know, as far as when you sit with a client maybe for infidelity or even abuse as far as like, how do we think about these things sitting with somebody who has been abused and how do I share that? Then I don't share it and not knowing what looks normal in that journey. I always like to really normalize it and maybe it doesn't make 'em feel special, but you know, just letting 'em know this is very normal with what your body is experiencing.

Yeah. What you're feeling, these emotions, it's okay. Your, the way that you are doing it in your perspective is always unique and I'd love to hear about that, but the response and what you're dealing with. Is very normal. Mm-hmm. Like this is, this is a good thing. Yeah. I, I appreciated the comparison. 'cause comparison is a huge thing, especially with social media. Yes. Like I saw this last week, an influencer who completed suicide over a drop in followers even Wow.

There is this emotional component to how we're living in a social world. And so comparison is definitely something that, you know, helping our children with. How to do that. 'cause it's not only about who we're comparing to, but how we think about that comparison. Because I can compare it in a really healthy way. It can actually motivate me to compare, right? I could be like, oh, I'm not as great as Tony, but man, that's making me wanna be greater, you know?

Okay. And it makes me wanna get up in the morning and do more things like that. And so that can be a good thing also. It can be a healthy thing. And so I appreciated that perspective also, that it's not a negative thing always. It's how we view it. It's our own perspectives on it.

And then the last little nugget that he gave was an acronym of how do you put this all together? And it was this acronym of Whoop. W what is my wish? O what is the outcome? O, what is the obstacle? Np, what's the plan? And I appreciated like giving some sort of checklist because I'm, I can be very checklist oriented, okay? So I was like, okay, I can do this. So I've got this issue or this emotion, you know, what's my wish? What do I want out of this? And then what do I gotta overcome?

Uh, to achieve that wish. And then, what's my obstacle? Let, let's be real. What's my challenge here that I gotta get over? And then what's the plan of it? And he talked about Navy seals in this book, which was really interesting. You know, this whole idea of if and then, which. I find fascinating because a lot of times we talk about some people are really plan driven and how that can be unhealthy to plan everything and not be flexible in your thinking.

But he talked about how Navy seals are taught to always look at the if and then so if this happens, we're gonna do this. If this happens, and they go through every scenario, like a million of 'em, so they don't have to think about it when it comes up, they just already know. Which circles back to that like law of least effort. You know, they're in a situation where they cannot seconds can get them killed. Yeah. And so they don't have the luxury of thinking it through like the rest of us.

And so it makes sense that they would have a million if and then scenarios to get it better. But the rest of us, I think we can, I. Make a plan and still be flexible on what we're doing.

That I appreciated like the list of how to get it done and that is pretty much the summary. Well, that was good of the whole book. Yeah. I have all kinds of emotions about this making me want to do better. The comparison really stood out a lot. And then that whole body scan concept and where are you feeling things. I think if maybe a takeaway for the listener is just try to be aware that you have emotions. I like what you were saying about there. Mm-hmm. It's information.

They're there for a reason. They're trying to tell us something. Whether we go with what they're telling us is completely up to us. But let's first see if we can identify 'em. I think that's helpful. Hey, Marla, you've come on. You've talked about grief and loss. We've talked about, yeah. Betrayal, trauma. Now we're talking about emotions, big things. Mm-hmm. Uh, you've been doing some training with the somatic healing and Yep. Somatic therapy. Yeah. Hey, I, I dig it.

And then you do brain spotting. Yes, I do. Okay. Yeah, I'm trained in doing brain spotting, so I really enjoy like working with clients that are definitely at a point of I want to learn and grow. Yeah. But I just need some tools and how to do that, and whether it's like I've had trauma in my life, or I've been betrayed, or I'm just kind of stuck. Or this anxiety is overwhelming.

I think it's really important to understand emotions, understand the body connection to it, and how we really take on a lot of these emotions in unhealthy ways. And then how, what can I do to move through it? Okay. I love it. There's a, a Marla section on a meet the team on my website. Tony over.com. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And you can get a ahold of her through there or email me at [email protected] because you do have some space available if somebody is looking for a good therapist.

Thank you so much Marla. We'll give it another month or two and then let's do another book. Sounds good. Book Club is on. It gives me a reason to buy more books. Okay. This is good. And let me know whatever that book is that I will then not read and then at the last minute chat, GPT, and we'll talk about it again. Okay. Sounds great. Hey, all right. Thanks Marla. Thanks.