In today’s society, where we are in a constant state of stimulation and activities, we have a problem where we get to a point of numbness. We go through our day-to-day life following our routines and living our life doing the bare minimum. Today we look at how you can break through the cycle of numbness, develop a new pattern to live by and get back to being involved in every moment you experience.
Tune in the see why you should Stop Numbing and Start Living Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- Why do people seem to be afraid of their emotions and feelings?
- Chris goes over some ways people try to numb out our feelings.
- What are some things you do to numb when feelings get uncomfortable?
- What does it mean when we are really living?
- You can’t enjoy the highs without experiencing the lows.
- Mindfulness is how you start living by being in the moment.
- You need to take a second to “stop” before you do that destructive or avoidance behavior.
- Chapter 16 in his book…the value of working through life events is high.
- When we have unresolved issues, they can be harmful to us leading us to numb.
- Chapter 26 in his book…life is one big learning event with many opportunities to learn.
- We tend to lose the open mindedness that leads us to growth.
- Psych Central has 8 steps to help you to stop numbing.
- BONUS: How to stop songs that are stuck in your head.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode #194 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another edition of through a therapist’s eyes where I like to say you get personal insights from a therapist directly in your car or in your home. So being aware, this is not to delivery of therapy services in any way, but you get to see the world through the lens of a therapist, which I don’t know.
Is that scary or cool? Adam sounds cool. To me. Sounds cool. Sure. Through the eyes of a therapist, got the show out the book out the shows out, we got a lot of shows out. That’s probably something to kind of highlight. We, we started putting a couple shows out a week. This one’s coming out. We probably still have that format going.
We haven’t changed anything about our format. It’s just, just been we’ll go ahead. Neil’s got the, the
Neil: mic after we’re done with these, these random shows. I think we need to have a show
on procrastination, maybe so, so you can show me, you know, help me [00:01:00] learn to not procrastinate. So there was no format change. It’s just, I got behind. He owns it now. Wasn’t that
Chris Gazdik: in your honor, we will do a show on procrastination. I make that pledge. We’ll get to it
Neil: later, right? Wasn’t that episode 25 though. Already. I’m
Chris Gazdik: I’m maybe. So I’m joking. So thank you for listening. Thank you for being with us. It definitely helps us to take ownership of the through therapist eyes community.
So five star reviews are very important. Apple iTunes and helping us out by making actual comments and review on that that is really make a big difference in the algorithm. So please help us out, grow the show. If, take a little bit of ownership, we can all do that together. So this is the human emotional experience, and we do endeavor to figure this out together.
So off we go with this idea, Adam, you’re back with us for the last time this month, I guess. And then we’ll be yes. Transitioning on. So welcome back from Mexico. He was in a whole nother country, I guess recently. Yeah.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah. I was looking to see if I could do something I can’t so, oh, [00:02:00] with
Chris Gazdik: the, the live yeah, it’s hype.
We’ll do it later. We had him distracted. Yeah. Distracted. Welcome back to the state’s my friend. Did everything go? Okay. Yep. Everything went fine. Yep. Welcome back
Adam Cloninger: some hiccups, but
Chris Gazdik: we’re good. So as we started talking about when the live kicked off, which just remember on the show, you know, we do a YouTube channel as well, and we do a Facebook live and you can actually see us that way.
And I just think that people can understand it, cuz this is the audio only version on the, the podcast platforms, wherever you get your podcasts. That’s what everyone says anymore. Isn’t it? It’s funny social media phrases that we’ve developed love, you know, thoughts of prayers, thoughts of prayers and all these others.
I don’t know. That’s
Adam Cloninger: you ne you never know you might be being broadcast on some network that you’re not aware of.
Chris Gazdik: That would be cool, but it better not happen. you need to talk to our promotional guy Neil over there anyway, so, alright, listen. So this is, this is an interesting topic. I think you know, the title here, stop numbing and start living.[00:03:00]
So I, I had some weirdness interacting with you before we started recording. The show you’re like, not yet. Yeah. And what I, what I meant by that is like, you know, so I think about these types of phrases, just in my own personal life, you know, with my friends or just non-clinical people mm-hmm as, as you are and family and, and what, whatever, and you start talking about emotional healing.
I don’t even know what some of these phrases are, but, you know, living, you know, being emotionally free, like these are phrases that make total sense to me given what I do, but I recognize from a nonclinical perspective, I just, I just wonder what, how people hear those types of things. And, and here’s an example.
When I was a young clinician, very, very early on in my career, I remember somebody actively saying, blah, blah, blah, come to this agency, whatever. And, [00:04:00] and it was talk and the phrase was let the healing begin. And I, as, as a clinician young, as it may be green and not knowing much, but I thought like, that’s a weird phrase, like let the healing begin.
What, how do we say these things? And so this seems almost sort of in that vein to me. So I was just, that’s the way I’m trying to set up. Like, what did you think about the title? Stop numbing and start living? Well, the start
Adam Cloninger: living part is kind of, you know, self explanatory. The stop numbing thing is the thing I was wondering how you’re gonna go about this. What, what exactly you had to talk about?
Chris Gazdik: Holy cow, that’s actually opposite that really? I would, I was thinking, yeah, really well.
Adam Cloninger: I mean start living. I think, you know, this is your life. You only got one to make the best of it. That’s what I’m thinking, but to stop numbing, really know what you mean.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
That’s yeah. That’s, that’s so cool because I see where you came up with the start living component because people do [00:05:00] maybe talk about. in normal nonclinical talk, I guess mm-hmm and make it your best life, you know, I don’t know. How did you just put it? You, you got one life, make the best of it one life.
Yeah. You know, that, that type of thing. Yeah. It actually means different to me. You know, what do we mean by living there? There’s some different pieces to that, but the start, the stop numbing is an easy, is the easy part to me, you know, the, the emotional skills that we use, you know, the negative coping mechanisms.
I mean, if, think about,
Adam Cloninger: you mean like stop being numb to this stop being numb,
Chris Gazdik: right. Okay. Yeah. You know, we, we have pain, we have emotional pain and we’ll just numb out of it. We won’t want to experience. And, and so we’ll do the negative coping mechanisms to not feel the emotion. Right? That, that to me is the easy part, but the start living part I thought was possibly weird.
And I, and it’s not weird, but it is different than the cultural. I see. Where you, where you, where you took it,
Adam Cloninger: it’s like a nine inch
nail song. [00:06:00] Is it
a nine inch nail song? Johnny cashed it too comfortably numb. Yeah, we no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Well, that’s not nine inch inch nails. That’s not Atica but am I wrong?
But the no that’s Metallica, right? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Comfortably numb. Come on. You’re the music guy.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah. But I’m thinking about nine inch nails right now and you totally got me off. I’ll think about, you know, hurt myself today to see if I still feel, you know, Johnny Cash did that too. I’ve not, it’s a nine inch nail song and he got permission.
Johnny Cash got permission from nine inch nails from Trent Rener to
really, yeah. I thought Johnny Cash was back in the day in 19, he was, did a, he
did a remake of a nine inch nail
Chris Gazdik: song and it was, oh, wow. That sounds fascinating. How old is he? How, when was this? Been a long time ago. Okay. Well, we do have a lot of songs about being numb and, and I guess one of the points I’ll put out right off the get, go when you’re listening to this and realizing, like stop numbing, you know, one of the Casey really [00:07:00] likes to drive this point home on the show and, and she’s totally right, I guess I always knew it, but I never really highlighted it like she does.
You know, when you have uncomfortable emotions or things that you’ve been through that you don’t want to think about, you just kind of don’t want to feel anymore. People will try to just forget and then numb things out as the way that you express it. But when you, when you try to shut all that down, there’s a big, big problem with that.
And people will live a long time. being, or trying to be numb. And the reality of it is you can only numb all emotions. You cannot just numb the, you know, the negative things that you don’t want to experience anymore. You will also numb out the joy and you’ll numb out, you know, loving somebody, you you’ll you’ll shut it all down.
Or none of it down. This is very few rare instance where it’s really kind of an all or nothing deal. There’s no way to just numb out selective life [00:08:00] experiences or selective, you know, emotions that you have tied to something. The only way that I can think of that that happens is psychological repression where you actually forget trauma that happened to you, but that’s the subconscious doing something crazy that we don’t, we don’t have the ability to do in the, like,
Adam Cloninger: putting that little thing in the box, putting your attic and not bringing
Chris Gazdik: up again, it’s gone, but you cannot really numb out emotionally from those things that you’re trying to compartmentalize that way.
So that’s, that’s why that’s a big part of why we don’t wanna numb out. But I have, I have an interesting question. I wanted to start out with you mu much in the same vein of like our, the cultural expression of these things. Right? So I have the impression maybe I’m wrong, but I want to ask you directly, like, why do people like straight up just flat fear, emotions and feelings,
Adam Cloninger: right?
Why, why they straight out? What fear
Chris Gazdik: it avoid it, feelings and [00:09:00] emotions. I
Adam Cloninger: pass things that’s happened bad.
Chris Gazdik: Even just like being emotional. I, I feel like people are afraid of that.
Adam Cloninger: You’ve heard straight past things that happened bad. You know, if you’ve been through some kind of traumatic experience and you’re like, I’m not doing that again.
I’m not opening myself up
Chris Gazdik: to that. Maybe I’ll ask you, are people afraid of emotions in your mind? And then kind of why, like, you’ll hear this expression. People are like, oh yeah, you know, I don’t have emotions as though that’s like something, a badge to hang on. Right. Or like, you know, I got my Cape on my back, you know, it’s like, eh, nothing bothers me.
I, I think that actually comes from like a place of fear RA or UN just avoidance uncomfortability, like not wanting to have feelings and emotions. So the question is, do you think, do you agree? I agree. Yep. You do agree. Yeah, I agree. Yep. Yeah. I’m curious why. Because as a therapist, it’s like, I do this all day.
Of course I’m [00:10:00] desensitized to it. I don’t necessarily get, I mean, I get uncomfortable with my own. Don’t get me wrong. But you know, just to deal with an emotional issue with somebody, either in a friendship or something that’s going on or acknowledge the emotion that’s people having. Well, I mean,
Adam Cloninger: everybody has emotion, even not having emotion is an emotion.
It is so to speak. It is. I mean, not, not, I should say, not reacting, not reacting or reacting is that’s all depending on emotion. So I mean, everybody has emotions.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Part of, part of the whole through therapist size is taking the mystery out of all this stuff, taking the, the fear out of all this stuff, blowing up stereotypes and myths about it.
You know, I think that we are much more progressive nowadays in the way of it’s okay to be an emotional person. Like I think we’ve made great strides with that. Culturally, at least here in the states around the world, I guess I can’t really. I don’t really know cuz there’s so many cultures that we’re speaking to.
Well, what do you mean [00:11:00]
Adam Cloninger: to great strides and
Chris Gazdik: for being able to be an emotional person, allowing ourselves to feel allowing ourselves to be genuine and real with whatever to let your
Adam Cloninger: emotions be known. Yes. So I mean
Chris Gazdik: to yourself as well as
Adam Cloninger: to other, I don’t know about that. Cause you, you have emotions, you’re gonna have the emotions either way.
Yeah. So we might have great strides on being able to share those emotions or let those emotions be known, but it’s not like the people didn’t have those emotions before. Right. Or
Chris Gazdik: right. That’s what I was getting at the human emotional experience. Hasn’t changed in a lot of ways. I feel like. Right. So is that what you’re saying?
Yeah. Okay. I mean, E
Adam Cloninger: even if we’re, you know, things have changed around the world, they’re still, you they’ve had emotions the whole time. Just, they might not be able to share what their emotions are about certain things.
Chris Gazdik: and we’ve made strides with that, right? Right. Yeah. Before we weren’t able to really even share, I guess, to a certain extent, honestly, like we never really [00:12:00] knew what a lot of this stuff was.
They were just straight up flat out crazy people, you know, in the dark ages or middle ages or, you know, 1050 BC, we had schizophrenia, we had these emotional things, but we didn’t know about it. So I guess we’ve learned a lot, obviously science has advanced our knowledge of neurotransmitters and brains and various functions of, you know, hormones and, and chemicals that create the way that we feel.
So, I mean, we’ve made strides scientifically, and maybe we just, you know, catching up culturally to what we’ve learned scientifically about it. But I think steep are still very fearful. You know this whole process. And I don’t know, like I said, I wanna take some of the fear out of it so that it’s so that it’s not so bad.
So let’s dig in a little bit. We, we talked about numbing, like, you know, what are we talking about when we say stop numbing and start living? And this is good, cuz I think that you said that’s more complicated to stop numbing. And I thought that was the easier part. So you know how I’ve talked about self-care being the cornerstone of mental health, right?
Yep. Heard that. Mm-hmm so fun, [00:13:00] relaxing, enjoyable activities that aren’t self-destructive in any way, we’ll numb out with those. We don’t want those, but self-care is also not work related tasks cause we’ll work ourselves to death. So that’s another way of numbing out. This destructive things or working ourselves to death self-care can actually also as positive as it is.
And as much as the cornerstone of mental health that it can be, we can also really use that destructively right. To get compulsively into
Adam Cloninger: or something. Huh? Like being compulsive about working out constantly or right.
Chris Gazdik: Whatever. Any, any of the activities games. Yes. Yes. I mean, you know, listen, I love a good Netflix binge.
I’m not picking on that. It’s it’s wonderful. But, but when we’re avoiding things and doing things that even aren’t destructive, that compulsivity to it, you know, can really create disruption in you being aware, just [00:14:00] aware of ourselves. Right. Being able to be in tune with what we’re experiencing or feeling kind of at any given point.
So that’s part of how we can numb. But interestingly enough, I got to thinking about this too. So I’m glad I did this because it gives an answer to you and probably many people thinking what the hell does it mean to be numbed out? Think about how we will cut conversations short, right? Or we’ll give limited answers.
You know, when people ask us tough questions, maybe your spouse does and, and maybe more the engulfment person in the abandonment, but they’ll just give very simple, small answers and wanna, you know, get out of this as quickly as possible. Right. Yep. Right. This is all sort of numbing behaviors, changing the topics.
It’s kinda like, okay, well, we got that covered. Let’s move on to something else or, or having a, a, a strong resident resident to revisit. , you know, a topic that we just, you know, this happened last night. Some people were like, well, that was yesterday. Well, somebody literally said that to me in a counseling session today in a couple’s counseling session.[00:15:00]
Well, that was last week. We don’t need to do that. Me and the lady laughed cuz she’s in the abandonment role. Right? So, so there’s all of these little ways that, you know, when we begin to feel, we’ll begin to employ all of these short circuits or end arounds or cutoffs or straight up destructive coping mechanisms or self care gone compulsive or, or work in ourselves to death.
Right? Like this is why I said, I think people are fearful of emotion and wanna numb it out. Does that make totally better sense? Mm-hmm yep. I think this happens all the time. I know I’ve done it when I’m just wore out or don’t want to be emotional. You know, we have these skills that we’ve built up. That can be so bad.
Adam Cloninger: Don’t wanna fight. I’m not gonna talk about it.
Chris Gazdik: Stuff like that. Yes. Yeah. All, you know, conflict avoidant [00:16:00] conversation or, or communication patterns, you know, it’s like, I just don’t want to have a problem. How many people avoid politics? Now? I used to have the ability of having conversation about politics with my buddies and stuff, you know?
And now it’s like, my brother’s like, dude, I don’t talk to anybody about this anymore. And I’m like, wow. Cause you’re
Adam Cloninger: gonna make somebody mad no matter what.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. People can’t handle what they feel with stuff. And there’s intense feelings about it just gets avoided. It just say
Adam Cloninger: something I avoid. Huh? Tell you something.
I avoid when somebody comes up to me and they have like some kind of outlandish opinion about something. Right. And you, you have to, you know, sit there for a minute. I avoid shaking my head. Yes,
Chris Gazdik: really? Yep. You have to do that. Why? That’s an, it’s an interesting idiosyncrasy. Well, but a [00:17:00] perfect example of what I’m talking about with like daily living.
Adam Cloninger: If, if you’re shaking your head. Yes. The person’s talking to you, what is that person
Chris Gazdik: reading from you? I guess you’re agreeing, right? Is there a difference between a head nod like that or
Adam Cloninger: yeah. Yeah. Well, no, I’m saying I avoid doing that because I don’t want them to think that I’m agreeing with them. Yeah.
Because I’ve been in a situation before where someone has some kind of outlandish opinion about something and you’re listening to ’em you’re like, yeah, yeah. I know. Then that person goes, oh, me and Adam were talking and you know, , that happens. Cause you’re, you’re giving them confirmation that you agree with them.
So that’s something I avoid.
Chris Gazdik: That’s funny. Cuz the cultural head nod acknowledgement gone away. Well,
Adam Cloninger: I just be aware if you’re noting. Yes. You’re telling that other person you agree with
Chris Gazdik: me, you might. because that’s a funny thing about perception. You don’t really know how the other person is taking what you say and what they’re filtering emotionally, psychologically, and what they’re actually receiving, because I wouldn’t receive that at all.
That’s why I was confused. I bet you would. I, I don’t think that
Adam Cloninger: I, I be [00:18:00] you wouldn’t. I, I, well, you just said you did. I said if you’re shaking your head. Yes. Well you, well, you’re green with him, so, well,
Chris Gazdik: by, in, by intuition. I came to that conclusion, but I think in natural conversation, I, it might
Adam Cloninger: be subconscious.
I really think people, if you’re shaking your head, when the other person’s talking, they’re, they’re thinking, oh, we’re we’re, we’re like, we’re thinking the same. We’re we’re on the same now. I guess you could do that to your advantage too, if you want them to think that you’re yeah. A like yeah. Shake your head.
Yes. Yeah. Oh yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’s just, it’s just cool. You know, we would need to research that. Honestly, I would love to, I mean, I’m not a studies person. I’d like to get, receive the studies rather than do the studies, but to, to get that the, the cultural perception of people with it used to be a knowledge of yes, I acknowledge you had none, but we’ve done all sorts of things.
Women probably too. I was gonna say particularly men, but that’s, that’s probably not a, an accurate statement. Will nonverbally [00:19:00] communicate, I’m done talking, taking a step backwards or, you know, beginning to lose eye contact, you know, start doing something else, looking down to topic changing. Yeah. All of these things are all of what I’m talking about.
About numbing out, numbing out or avoiding, or just trying to shut down emotion. Like how much of your day operates with all of these little cultural idiosyncrasies, interactional patterns and, and straight up strategies to deal with. Like, I don’t want to be emotional with you, right? It happens a lot. And again, the big part about all of this is when you’re doing that, you’re numbing out both the positive connections.
You wanna numb out the negative connections, but you’re numbing them. You can’t numb only one. You’ve gotta go. You’re, you’re shutting both down and times that’s appropriate. I’m not saying that’s never appropriate, but you know, you really gotta be aware of how often that’s happening, that’s happening for you.
Let’s let’s switch gears to the other side of it. [00:20:00] What do I mean by living? We, we were talking about that a little bit. Think about it. So when you’re really living, you’re having feelings. I mean, that’s. A part of our human emotional experience. Mm-hmm, feeling leads to intuition. It leads to the experiences that you’re, that you’re having.
There’s a phrase that they say in 12 step circles, living life on life’s terms, it’s a cool phrase. It means a lot. So when you’re talking about living, you’re talking about being on life’s terms, you’re living in life’s terms and that is ups and downs. That’s experiencing what’s what’s happening, having a full breath of these experiences.
See, you’re not trying to choose how this conversation you and I are having are going you’re you’re going [00:21:00] with it. That’s living right. Mm-hmm for instance, the pandemic especially has robbed us of a lot of these experiences that previous we would take for grant. I think a lot of the kids in schools developmentally we’ve talked about on other episodes before you were here, but I mean, they’ve been rocked.
Yeah. It’s messed up. They have been just rocked and robbed of basic life experiences, like going to the prom. I’m I look at my kids. I don’t have a picture of my oldest kid graduating. Neither kid I think, is gonna be going to the prom could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. Next year. One kid didn’t go to football games.
It’s like, what about
Adam Cloninger: students who graduated and never met their, their, any of their teachers?
Chris Gazdik: right. All of that is just the we living is being in and engrossed in the experiences. And I think that. I’m glad I’m doing this topic after the pandemic, rather than before the [00:22:00] pandemic, because I think people can grab onto this a whole lot more because we really didn’t realize how much we missed those experiences.
Now people might not want their commutes back in going to work, but I think people are sort of realizing, oh, I can do my job at home. And I love that. But loneliness has gone through the roof. Like people are feeling alone in all of this anxiety, through the roof, depression and substance abuse, child abuse and neglect.
I mean, all of these things have been through the roof. And I think a large part of that is because we haven’t been living, connecting between you and other people is part of like living. I didn’t even have that on my pre-thought list. Learning about ourselves and learning about other people like living and learning.
You’ve heard that expression. You know, that’s all really a part of what I think, I [00:23:00] mean, in the mental health realm by living, it, it, it, a lot of it comes down to mindfulness, which will kick around in the next, in the next section. But there’s a, there’s a lot in this title of stop numbing and start living.
Right. Do you take all of that from the
Adam Cloninger: title? No, I did not. It’s
Chris Gazdik: a lot. Yep. You know, and when we’re focused on all of the psychological aspects of this, I think a lot of that stuff, we, we don’t realize we’re dealing with it, but just in a natural way, we’re dealing with all of it. So in a therapy experience, we really, we kind of sometimes get, you know, kind of picked right directly on that stuff so that we could be clear about, you know, what it is that we’re coping with, what it is that we’re doing.
How is this all working? How is our behavior in that? And this is how a lot of people can just live a lifetime of numbing out and never even know it. and consequently, they’re kind of really not living their [00:24:00] fullest
Adam Cloninger: life. Well, I mean, if you don’t want everything to be easy. Yeah. I mean, you, something you can relate to if video game is too easy.
Well, what fun is
Chris Gazdik: that? Gosh, that’s so true. Go further with that. That’s a great point.
Adam Cloninger: Well, I mean, if everything’s so easy, there’s no, there’s no, there’s no reward.
Chris Gazdik: You cannot enjoy the ups. If you don’t have the downs,
Adam Cloninger: if you watch a football game and they’re blowing ’em out, what makes it so passionate?
It’s a close game the whole time. And your team wins the end, like yeah.
Chris Gazdik: To Ian, like, yeah. Right. So, you know, same way it creates that emotion. It creates that experience. Yeah. I, I couldn’t agree anymore. As a matter of fact, I remember we was watching a football game. One point you’re like, oh, they’re never gonna win.
They’re never gonna lose this. You’re fine. They’re fine. You know, guess what happened? I think they actually did lose that game. Did they? Or did they win it? You probably don’t even remember.
Adam Cloninger: Well, there was a baseball game we went to and I was ready to go. Oh [00:25:00] yes. But the bases got loaded. That’s right.
And if the guy would’ve hit, hit a home run and been grand slam and tied game. Yes. But he struck out, so it didn’t happen but it could have, it could have, and then I was ready to go. Is it ready to go?
Chris Gazdik: Dude. Never wants to stay for the whole sporting event. What’s up with that, you know, it’s it’s can we say that living is, is struggling with the anticipation struggling with the, the, the, the discomfort, the, the, the internal, emotional dysregulation to use a clinical term, right?
The, the being up and down emotionally, when you don’t know what to expect, you’re going, you’re living when it’s predictable or easy. You’re right. They purposely make video games that way, you know, just to. Get people sucked in. It’s very easy in the beginning to learn the skill. And then once you get a skill of a button or an angle or an option, and then they give you harder to hit that angle harder to hit that button quickly enough.
And your skill [00:26:00] in the game gets more and more and more. And it’s never, it’s always just like one more thing that you gotta do. One more thing that you have to master one more angle that you have to think about one more strategy piece that comes into play and they just build like, life it build it just like life.
It really is just like life it video games as a mirror for living mindfulness. You know what mindfulness is, right? Yes. Yeah. Living in the present and thus, you know, about living feeling the ups and downs for what they, what they are. So here’s, here’s a big point that came to my head. Is that paying attention?
So, so what we wanna do. how do we use this is the question, right? So a big takeaway, right? At this point to think about when we’re talking about stop numbing and start living, just pay attention. I’m not gonna spend a whole lot of time on mindfulness, but [00:27:00] if you, if you think about it to pay attention to why am I striving towards the beer that I’m wanting to hit?
Why am I striving towards the candy at the candy aisle? After a day’s worth of work, right? The, those arguably could be destructive coping mechanisms. And you just ask the question, like, just instead of continuing to what you normally would do. Hey, I just can’t wait till I get home and I can watch four episodes of the Netflix thing.
I’m. I guess said I should give some Ulu some love, right. Or, you know, Amazon Piam
Adam Cloninger: yes. He’s like prime. Yeah. What’s that new one? There’s got new service.
Chris Gazdik: Is there a new one? Oh, oh Paramo plus actually I was thinking that I was saying another
Adam Cloninger: one. There’s another one peacock. That’s the one I was peacock.
Chris Gazdik: That’s the one I was thinking of. Oh my God. They got awesome country thing on there. That’s where Yellowstone is on. Ah, yes. Yeah. Four or five of ’em instead of like saying God can’t, I can’t wake it home till I could just drop out of all this stuff and get there, just stop before the candy bar, before the [00:28:00] wine, you know, and, and ask yourself this very, very simple question.
What am I experiencing? I think people avoid to the Dickens asking that simple question, put that to the test. How many times have you asked yourself that or a similar kind of question in the. Week
Adam Cloninger: or so? No, I don’t it. No, but I think people are trying to get their reward just like you would again, on a video game.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Well, there’s a difference. What do you mean by that? Well, tell you what I think is a difference just
Adam Cloninger: during life. You know, you, you have things you deal with and then as you, as things come out, I’ll say, good, not great, but as things come out, come out good. You should get some kind of enjoyment outta that, just by experiencing it and things come.
And that, that should be the reward. But if you’re numbing away from stuff and avoiding stuff, you’re not getting [00:29:00] that satisfaction of dealing with that. And maybe you’re needing that candy bar needing
Chris Gazdik: that beer. Yeah. That’s the, yeah, I think you just laid it out. There’s there’s a difference between the reward for.
You know, hitting the candy bar at the gas station on the way home versus the, I I’m stressed out from work and it’s not a reward for getting through work. It’s a coping right. Very big difference between those two. And we are talking about not, I’m setting up a reward for myself. I’m going to give myself a three, you know, 30 minute walk at the end of my day that that’s my reward to unwind.
I enjoy that. Like we’re talking about, I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to have this conversation that I anticipate coming. So I’m going to go somewhere anywhere.
Adam Cloninger: Right, man, Neil and I are both smiling and we know exactly where this is going.
Chris Gazdik: so just ask that question instead, stop and get into the, what am I experiencing?
Get get [00:30:00] used to just maybe, maybe you get a little post-it note and put it in your car just to get into a reminder simply to ask yourself that question. If you ask yourself that question and you’re operating then from mindfulness, you’ll be amazed at what you come up with. Now, you talking
Adam Cloninger: about doing something like it.
There’s something that you do that you really know. It’s not always the best thing for you to do. Maybe ask yourself why you’re doing that. Is that what you’re
Chris Gazdik: saying? In addition that that’s a little bit more pattern, you know, you might have a pattern of something that you’re doing that way. Okay, great.
You know, and by the way, this isn’t a show about how to change your behavior. But if you wanna change your behavior, here’s a little tip. Ask yourself what you’re experiencing before you do that behavior deal with what you’re experiencing. You might not have that behavior. So that’s a extra piece. So it’s just about being ingrained into like, I don’t want to be destructive.
I don’t want to numb out. Let me go ahead, give yourself permission. Let me just be in [00:31:00] the moment of what it is that I’m experiencing. And I think you’ll be amazed at what you find out, what you figure out, what you resolve the self-esteem that builds the confidence that builds. Like I really can handle my emotions.
I think a lot of people don’t know if they can or if they can, part of the reason why people avoid it. I think that’s huge. I, I think, I think that’s huge. So going a little further with mindfulness, right? When we feel uneasy, we can begin to make a contract with ourself, a challenge. If you will, again, what is this feeling for and what do I need to do about it?
That’s what we’re talking about. Even combining that with asking, what am I experiencing? So then it’s, what is this feeling for and what do I need to do? About it, what I I’m all about action points. Right? So I’m very curious [00:32:00] if you think about cultural change, the fast pace that the world lives by, as I was thinking about this, how to change to get into living from the numbness, do you know?
We don’t have hardly any dead time in our day. Oh yes. I know. right. We used to, I, I noticed people in my lobby, it, when I started practicing, I would go out into the lobby with multiple clinicians at whatever company I was at in any given point. And you know, what I would see is people just sitting there, literally nothing just sitting there you’d have the magazine racks.
Remember when we actually used to have magazine racks in lobbies, I actually still have one, believe it or not. I don’t think we have had a new magazine in there for a while. People might grab the magazine. They might not the vast majority of people in a [00:33:00] doctor’s office waiting room or a therapist’s office waiting room or doing nothing, but now’s on the phone.
It’s always something. We have no spaces where we allow ourselves maybe a commute in a car, but you know what I do in my commute for my car, I’m listening to podcasts. That’s where I get my sports news. That’s where I get my information. That’s where I get the science that I’m interested in. Right. We don’t have any dead spaces in my question is sort of rhetorically.
What’s the effect of that? Have we actually stopped living as much as we used to live, given what we’ve talked about? I think so, you know, we’ve stopped experiencing emotion, even though I guarantee you, as you said, we all have it all the time and we all did back then we all still do. Are we literally walking around, numbed out unaware of what the heck it is that we’re dead.
I’m experiencing
Adam Cloninger: because we’re not having downtime.
Chris Gazdik: No downtime, no [00:34:00] thoughtful time, no exploration of that. No conversation with other people about that. It’s just, boom, boom, boom. We are moving. We gotta go too much going, you know, something’s gotta be going on till we sleep. And then guess what happens with sleep?
You know, get it. we got a lot of sleepness out there. I presenting hypthesis with this thought that just popped in my head. I, I bet insomnia is way higher now than it used to be. I would bet could be. Yeah, could be. I would bet anything on that. I think I put my house on it. Maybe even my car and my house and my retirement program, which isn’t much, but I do digress.
Yeah. Think about that. Think about that. Okay. So where are we at?
chapter of my book. I thought that was cool. There’s actually two chapters. Believe it or not that I thought I’d highlight through a therapist’s [00:35:00] size re understanding emotions and becoming your best self. And I thought, wow. I talk about this concept a lot in my book, which is really about kind of, as it says, becoming your best self, like understanding what you’re experiencing.
So check this out chapter 16. I know you’ve already read it, Adam Neil. Yes. I know you’ve over and over again. Memorized, right? This is all he’s like, not even nodding. That’s why I’m not even looking at the, you don’t even need the notes. No, I, you got it. Chapter 16 of the book, Adam would be title.
Adam Cloninger: Ah, the value of working through life events is high.
Chris Gazdik: Do be aware and move through life events. Don’t forget life events and go forward blindly. Right? So I, I, I, I thought those. Concepts were pretty neat because it it’s, it’s right online with what it is that we’re talking about. You know, living, working out, how do we manage life events? How do we experience what we’re [00:36:00] experiencing?
And, you know, the value, understanding the value of this. And, and my quote, there was like the value’s high. Okay. Not the best quote that I had in the book, but, you know, that’s, that’s hugely important for our emotional health without it. I don’t think you can have it honestly. So in, in the concepts, in that particular chapter, I, I really talked about like the, the understanding, the power in realizing when you, when you have issues in your life, we all have them.
We all like to make the joke, right? Oh, I got issues, man. You don’t know issues. and it’s true. We all have issues. right. Do we really understand how powerful they are in our life when they become unresolved? Now? I don’t think we really get it. Like when we avoid things, when we numb things out, [00:37:00] you know?
Yeah. You don’t wanna numb things because you numb the positive and the negative. But the, the second big piece there that I think I would add to Casey’s list is this unresolved, emotional stuff comes directly up in today’s life. When you’re having conversations about a hot dog with your partner, and they’re pissed off with you about something or whatever you get into something, those unresolved issues, those unresolved emotions, those unresolved experiences that unresolved psychological stuckness that’s, there just has a nasty habit of coming, popping, its head out when you don’t want it to.
so that, can we really understand that you, you follow? Yeah. Yeah.
Right.
I don’t
Adam Cloninger: think, well, everybody you meet is dealing with
Chris Gazdik: something. Right. But you know, nothing about, and you can’t read their mind, you, you know,
Adam Cloninger: and even they tell you, you still don’t understand
Chris Gazdik: it. You can’t get [00:38:00] it. Yeah.
Adam Cloninger: Even if you’ve been through something similar, it’s not the same thing
Chris Gazdik: you are so on point.
And so you gotta understand within yourself with what we just talked about with living. Gosh, like the emotional freedom is another term, the emotional freeing reality of being able to allow what you emotionally experience to come to the surface. Like, wow. If I could just say that sentence again. That would be golden for the human emotional experience.
If we can really get into developing that ability, I don’t know how many people really have that ability. Healthy people really do people that are really secure people that are really confident people that are really comfortable in their own skin. People that really seem grounded. I could go on. I, I think they do a lot of this.
I think they really engage this so much and realize there’s not a lot of unresolved feelings and emotions now. [00:39:00] What do I mean by unresolved? I’ve got a perfect metaphor that I’ve developed over the years. Right. So if you take, you know, what a litmus test is, mm-hmm, really, yeah. Very few people know what a litmus test is.
What is a litmus test?
Adam Cloninger: It’s a test you do with paper, right? Yeah. To check like the, I think, well, like pH or
Chris Gazdik: something like that. Right. Checking chemical compounds and water or solutions, and you dip the litness test in and it comes out. I had a fish aquarium, man. Come on. Yes. And you’re an engineer, you know?
So my litness test for resolved emotions as this, right. It’s unresolved. If you have the same amount of emotion now in intensity level, as when something just happened, obviously that’s like, it’s still there and it’s still the same intensity, but equally unresolved, if you have little to no connection today now, then when something just happened, right.
That means it’s unresolved. Also, [00:40:00] you can understand that a resolved emotion. Comes when you have the level of emotion intensity, when something just happens. And then as time goes on, and as you’re thinking about it, talking about it, journaling about it, working about it, whatever, in a natural way, you, you gradually experience that intensity level decreasing as you go through the days, weeks, months, and years to where now I have the same emotions.
It never really goes away, but it’s just so much less intense than when it first experienced. That’s my lit test for what is a resolved emotion. Right. Did you ever think of it that
Adam Cloninger: way? So you’re saying something that you used to bother. You doesn’t bother you as much now
Chris Gazdik: that’s your test as much? Well, yeah, as much it’s still there.
When you grieve you, mom dies. Whatever you, you know, you don’t just shut it down. You know, a couple of months after three months after. [00:41:00] And I would feel that no more. now a year or two or three later. I don’t really feel anything about that. That’s unresolved. You’re gonna feel sad when you think of your mom, who’s not here.
Even if you didn’t have a good relationship with her, you’re gonna feel feelings. And there are the same feelings is when it first happened. It’s just been gradually decreased over time. That’s what we try to do in therapy. That’s what we’re really trying to work with with emotional health. So that’s resolved emotions.
That’s really what we’re after, but
sometimes
Adam Cloninger: it may not actually be better. And I’m gonna try to reference show with the two or three shows back. Okay. You’ mentioned about kids at a funeral.
Chris Gazdik: Oh yeah. And as, as time goes on, oh, we were talking about grief and loss. Yeah. Right.
Adam Cloninger: I was just talking about, you know, as you, as time goes on, you take those with you.
You take those emotions to the next, the next
Chris Gazdik: funeral. Okay. Yes. The stacking effect that happens. So even though it might be a
Adam Cloninger: [00:42:00] resolved emotion doesn’t mean it’s gone away. It’s just, you’re dealing with it better.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I like to think about this as energy. You have emotional energy when your energy is high, you’re really feeling intensely, happy about something or ha intensely sad about something.
That intensity level is what we’re really looking at later on the intensity level is just a whole lot less. It’s a whole lot less intensely sad. It’s a whole lot less intensely fearful because you’ve worked through it. That’s the gauge that we’re trying to, to, to use. And it’s, it is an interesting point that whatever energy it remains does come back up, but I’d rather have it come back up when it’s resolved, when I’ve worked through it a lot.
And it’s a whole lot less intense than when it comes back up. And it’s freaking intense Verno. That’s like freaking me out right. In a new situation. That’s, that’s kind of the, the point there Craig’s thought actually made it into my book. I didn’t know this shout out to Craig [00:43:00] my the cohost from before he he made the point that, you know, it may take five years to recover from a divorce.
I think he did some research. He was, he’s always researching stuff and finding cool facts. And I thought that’s, that’s really actually very true. Right? So his thought demonstrates like that. We’re not talking about a short term process here. We’re talking about gradually decreasing the emotional experience quote from the book, I find that the most dangerous, emotional matters that detract from our emotional health are those that we are not even aware are there.
Right? Say that again. I F I find that the most dangerous, emotional matters that detract from our emotional health are those that are not even aware that they’re there. And that’s all about numbing. Like if you’re just numbing out and avoiding emotion, I guarantee you, the emotional stuff is still there.
And I [00:44:00] guarantee you also, Lou, that it’s just. destroying your ability to engage in, in current life with trauma, with big things like that, that’s a big impact. And that’s where the value of therapy can really come into. So I thought that was cool. Chapter 16, but I also thought chapter 26 was pretty cool.
So check this out. The, the chapter is entitled. Life is one big learning event with many opportunities to learn. I think that’s totally true. Not many people can argue with that. Do remain open to things around you. Don’t close yourself off and remain dogmatic. So do you know what dogmatic really kind of means?
That’s a weird word. Mm-hmm right. We tend to lose the open-mindedness that leads to growth. You’re just stuck in a rut. You’re just sort of. In a pattern, same thing day after day after day, you know, the drab and [00:45:00] drug of a routine, right. That you’re not enjoying that. You’re not that you’re not enjoying. Go ahead with your pattern.
What’s good
Adam Cloninger: about that. No, no. I mean, if it’s something, if you’re doing something you’re enjoy, that’s fine. Routines. If you’re just doing a routine, that’s just because you’re kind of numbing out as
Chris Gazdik: your episode is I like you, I like that. You just brought that up, cuz I’ve always thought, you know, people kill routines, you know, and, and talk like that.
And I’m glad you, you caught that. Cuz I, I usually am the guy that did what you did. Like routines are fine. We do the same thing every day because it works like you brush our teeth and then we do this and then we do that. We have our routines and that’s good.
Adam Cloninger: As long as it works and you’re enjoying it.
Chris Gazdik: Exactly. That is the qualifier. I totally AB down with that same thing with working
out.
Correct. What do you mean?
Adam Cloninger: I almost like air quote routine. Because if you’re doing a routine after, while it doesn’t work anymore, cuz you’re doing the exact same thing. Okay. So as long as it’s working, it’s fine. But if it doesn’t work, you do something else, [00:46:00]
Chris Gazdik: switch it up.
Yep. Just it working out and let live is another expression they say in the 12 step program. So you wanna, you know, let other people do what they’re doing, but you do what you’re doing and you switch it up and you learn. That’s a nice transition. Cause that’s something else I talked about in this chapter.
Right? Is it not quite possibly an answer to the age old question? What’s the purpose of life? Why are we here anyway? What is this? What is this really all about? I’m supposed to you that maybe it’s about learning. Do we not want to learn? Do, do we ever want to stop learning? You know, another reason why we wanna say, you know, be careful about numbing out and live instead because you stop learning, you stop growing.
You, you. Get stuck. And so, Hmm. If you’re stuck, by the way, we’ve done an episode on that before you take that in an opposite fashion, maybe you end [00:47:00] up allowing your emotion and really paying attention, asking yourself that question. What am I experiencing? What am I feeling? How is this operating right now for me?
You know, that gets you unstuck probably more times than not, if not a hundred percent of the time. So that’s just a thought a quote from the book I said, said in chapter 26, life is one big learning event with many opportunities to learn, quote unquote, openness doesn’t mean you have no control over things around you or the decisions you need to make.
And I, I was, I, I was thinking about this topic and I was glad to pull that out, you know, to me, I think why I wrote that. And part of what my purpose was in that, in that chapter was to really like, highlight like. is dealing with your emotion. Scary can be, can it not also be so super rewarding? Yes. That even though it’s uncomfortable, right?
You don’t lose control. [00:48:00] I can’t tell you how many times in therapy people in part will shut things down and not want to engage in trauma, recovery of memory or whatever, because they feel like, you know what dude, people, so many people have literally said this to me. You don’t understand Chris. If I start to talk about this, I won’t be able to stop crying.
I won’t be able to stop. And it’ll, it’ll take me down this cravass, this sometimes a what they
Adam Cloninger: need though,
Chris Gazdik: to, to my death.
Adam Cloninger: Huh? Sometimes that’s what people need to, to
Chris Gazdik: get past something. I think almost always. Yeah, I it’s,
Adam Cloninger: I’m gonna use that. I, I use that long time ago. Songs that get stuck in your head.
Do you remember me telling about that? I don’t. Okay. So everybody gets this song. Okay. Achy breaky, heart. You’ve heard it. Oh my God. I hate that song. Okay. You hate that song. so let’s terrible. Let’s say you’re going down the road, then you hear achy breaky. Heart. Yes. Okay. Or any, any song that gets in your nerves?
Cause you’ve
Chris Gazdik: [00:49:00] heard it a million times. People around the world now are going to be singing, achy, pretty art .
Adam Cloninger: But you know, it’s been so long ago now people are probably Googling that true. What song is that? But say you get some song in your head that you just wanna get outta your head thing is you need to finish it in your head to get it out of your head.
Same thing as emotions you need to get ’em you need to go work through it, get through it, to get it outta
Chris Gazdik: your head. And like, is that a psychological fact? If you sang the whole song only know the refrain, it does work.
Adam Cloninger: That’s awesome. Get a song next time. A song it think, ah, man, can’t get it outta my head, go through the song.
Start to finish best you can. Humans want to him. And it’s not. Humans want to finish things as soon as you finish it. It is. Not a big deal.
Chris Gazdik: I try it to totally see that. Try it. Same thing,
Adam Cloninger: emotions. I think
Chris Gazdik: you’re, that’s, that’s fascinating actually, cuz you’re, we’re programmed to want to have, you know, that level of closure control and closure is, is really important.
Yeah. No, that’s, that’s [00:50:00] awesome to those of you that hear this though, and can identify with you. I don’t wanna deal with this because it’s gonna be too much and it’s not gonna be able to stop feeling all of this. I would tell you you’ve literally spent 30, 40, 50, sometimes even more years than that.
Suppressing this and controlling this, that when you allow it to come to the surface, you are still very much empowered to do that again, to control it, to suppress it again. Right? And you exercise your skill and ability and your emotional muscle to bring it up for a moment. Put it back down, let it come to the surface again, put it back down.
and you might be amazed at how much that little itty bitty break in emotional energy that you afford yourself from constantly holding it down. Whether you know, you’re doing that or not even when trauma has been repressed and you don’t remember it. The fact of the matter is you’ve been spending [00:51:00] so much emotional energy and nothing’s left over for parenting.
Nothing’s left over for your spouse, or nothing’s left over to Excel into new stages of learning and, you know, anxiety with career and change. And it’s all, not all it’s vastly spent on keeping things down, keeping things suppressed. And man, I, you know, I’ve had so many people in therapy have gone. Like it’s amazing to watch people allow this stuff come up and then, you know, you ever hear the weight off your shoulders.
You know, get things off my chest. They’ll sometimes come in after a few sessions even, and just like, God, I feel so much less anxious. Like this is weird. Like, I didn’t know that I could relax like that. Right. I, I hear these kind of things and I want more and more people to experience that. Chris gonna use
Adam Cloninger: that thing about the song next.
Oh, I’m
Chris Gazdik: totally gonna do that. I’m gonna go listen to the song on the way home. No, I mean, and
Adam Cloninger: there’s [00:52:00] gonna be a session and somebody somebody’s like scared to you
Chris Gazdik: bring her song. Oh, I’m gonna use the metaphor if it, well, I have to test it to make sure it’s true first. No, no. Okay. I mean, I’m sure that it is.
I have to Google and see if there’s like psychological studies to that or something, man. Anyway, it’s super cool. I think that’s, I’ll be willing to bet. There he is. Ah, should we do a $5 on it? Oops. Now I dropped my sheet.
Adam Cloninger: Neil’s on it. Neil’s doing
Chris Gazdik: research right now. Oh, he is. There you go, Neil. Yes. Awesome.
Pop it a, pop it, a Google quote or search and see what, see what we got. See, I wonder if he’s Googling
Adam Cloninger: how to get a song outta your head.
Chris Gazdik: so I guess the last segment that we’ll do here is just an article that I thought was kind of cool that I kind you know, checked myself with and they came up with, you know, how all these articles are eight steps to stop numbing your emotions.
I thought that’s, I swear if I ever get cajoled into writing, you know, like a column or something, and I start writing titles like [00:53:00] that, Neil, I want you to throat punch me. I just I’m telling you that right now. I hate those, but they’re so catchy people love ’em. It is a reason why they do it. So. Here’s the eight name, the feeling carve out time to feel, accept the experience accept that experiences may be confusing, acknowledge that your feelings are worthy.
Notice if you’re taking on other people’s feelings, get curious about your feelings, talk about your feelings and then let learn to trust your feelings and yourself. So let’s I, I thought, I thought it would be cool to hit down through this and actually we may have spent a little bit of time on ’em, but let, let let’s hit ’em and gimme your comment or thoughts about it.
Name the feeling. Does that sound weird? It
Adam Cloninger: does sound weird. Yeah, because you might not realize what feeling
Chris Gazdik: it is. I can’t tell you how many times, oddly enough, people in my [00:54:00] therapy experience respond to me all the time. I have no idea what I’m feeling. None. And, and what’s funny about this. I remember being in a con in a, in a, a conference and the guy made fun of therapists, right?
He’s like pulls out this sheet that we all had in the audience. And it’s this, you may have seen it that now it’s emoji. So it was way before emojis came out. I think emojis got started from actually these psychological sheets that would have like all these faces and would have different facial expressions and would try to have the labeled emotion on each one of ’em and he’s like, throw that dang thing away, man.
Get rid of it, forget about it. Because people are sitting there trying to figure out if I’m happy, mad, sad, or glad, that’s it. That’s what people’s level of understanding in what their emotion is. So yeah, when you practice this whole thing about [00:55:00] trying to name the feeling. Yeah. You’re right, right. Are people gonna struggle that badly with
Adam Cloninger: it?
I, I think that’s gonna be the most difficult
Chris Gazdik: of this list. Do you really? Yes. Of, of all of ’em. Yeah. Carve out time, accept the experience.
Adam Cloninger: You can’t do any of that until you do the first one.
Chris Gazdik: Talk about your feelings. Yeah, definitely. You know what? You’re absolutely right. I don’t know. I don’t really understand.
I’m not, I’m gonna, I’m gonna be
Adam Cloninger: well, okay. Okay. I’m gonna do a little bit of a test ever had this ever had this. Somebody comes in they’re depressed. Yeah. What are you depressed for? I don’t know. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: definitely. Mm-hmm
Adam Cloninger: I’m just saying name, your name, your feeling, you know, saying depressed. That’s not it that’s, that’s just the top part of it. So
Chris Gazdik: my, my suck it drawing. I can’t draw for, for crap. I mean, I it’s, it’s like pathetic, I’m like stick figure, you know, it’s, it’s kind of bad and I will never forget having a conversation with an art therapist.
And she’s like, oh [00:56:00] yeah, of course. Most people suck at drawing and, and she said, you, you wanna know why that is now. You’re, you’re pretty good at drawing. You, you do that pretty well, but when’s the last I’ll test this out. When’s the last time you sat down for 20 minutes and drew it’s been a while. Mm-hmm , I’m sure I’ve got you beat weeks, months or years
Adam Cloninger: when you say draw.
I mean, like draw something because I needed to or draw something
Chris Gazdik: either. Well, art wise years. Okay.
Adam Cloninger: I’m gonna say
Chris Gazdik: seven or eight years, dude. I was 12. right. Not making up a number a little bit, but this art therapist made the point that like, look, most people are on the level of drawing at the point at which they stopped. And for me that was art class. [00:57:00] I didn’t have any art classes in high school. I didn’t have any art classes in junior high is what we called it now, middle school.
I don’t think maybe sixth grade. We had this art teacher that I kind of remember, and we did some things. Yeah. Almost 50 years old. It’s been almost 40 years ago that I tried to really draw. So of course my level of skill is actually going to be on that level where I stopped doing it. So I ask you, when did you start asking yourself the question, what am I feeling?
Because you might have the ability to answer that. on that level of where you started. maybe your question is, did you ever start to ask yourself that simple question? And so I think you’re dead on, right. I think a lot of people really never really [00:58:00] trained themselves learned how it was to be involved in that question for themselves, be involved in that for yourself is my point.
Right? Like take the time. I think that’s he, this, this author spins out a few
Adam Cloninger: of them. Hmm. Carve time out. Yeah. Or carve out time
Chris Gazdik: and then talk about, ’em carve time out to do that. Accept that the experience is maybe confusing. Boy. Actually, if we really analyze this, that they came up with a lot of it relates to what you said.
You know, you can’t do any of those. All of those things are actually wrapped around this idea. And I think that we talked about it in our conversation earlier, right. That, you know, to have emotional freedom, to be able to live, you have to really spend that mindfulness time, ask yourself before you go to what you do to cope, which is a candy bar or a beer, or it’s 10 beers.
Right. What am I experiencing? [00:59:00] Right. And that’s where they, they landed on. I love how they said, get curious about their, about your, your feelings. Are there many things you get curious about? Yes.
Adam Cloninger: Right.
Chris Gazdik: Unfortunately , I’m curious about black holes. Yes. I think they’re fascinating. I, I was, what was it? I was stupidly curious about the other day.
I’m not gonna pull it back quickly enough, but. I’ll just sit there, like, how does this pen work? Like, no, I go over deep end on stuff.
Adam Cloninger: I just gotta know. Don’t go over what I go over the deep end on stuff. Yeah. I have to, you know me, I know you do. I like I’ll get interest on something. I have to know everything about that particular thing.
Right. And it’s kind of annoying sometimes for me too. It,
Chris Gazdik: it would be, it would be so you can go too far with it, but so you really understand the idea of what happens when you get curious. Mm-hmm you go all into it. And so that’s, what’s cool about this. Like, get [01:00:00] curious about your feelings, get curious about your emotions.
Get curious about your psychology, because you’re going to know you almost like create a compulsion, you know, to, to dive into that. Don’t you wanna understand
Adam Cloninger: yourself? It’s like school you’re the, the, the classes in school anybody’s best at is the ones they were curious
Chris Gazdik: about. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah, mine was science.
I just, me too loved the science class and math. Oh God. How did you get curious about math? Well, everything’s
Adam Cloninger: tough. Everything works on math. Yeah. Formulas and stuff though.
Chris Gazdik: On math, I can’t stand that junk. That shit will drive you crazy, but you know, that’s two each his own live and let live. Right. so, yeah, I don’t know.
I, and then it goes to, to, you know, unnatural follow up, talk about your feelings and, and, and all that goes on with pings. I mean, you know, I, Mr. Rogers came up Casey did a current event [01:01:00] last time. Hope people that are still experiencing the effects of that terrible earthquake, by the way when the show comes out, that’s probably been largely known.
This is a terrible earthquake in, in where did she say that was? I forget Afghanistan, Afghanistan. That’s right. Yeah. And, and boy, you know, when you, oh, so the quote was Mr. Rogers and, and he said, you know, look for the helpers. It was a cool quote. And when you, when you really think about Mr. You remember Mr.
Rogers, mm-hmm he was before his time, man, I didn’t realize how much he was talking about this. He was talking about your happy feelings and what you do with them and your mad feelings and how that makes you behave. And, you know, and it, it was just, he, it was so refreshing teaching children that it’s okay to feel, figure out what you’re feeling, identify you’re feeling.
He put names on it for people, and then helped people move [01:02:00] through and live with the way that they’re feeling. And I would submit to you that that is that’s living. Way way cooler than numbing out and living a pretty unemotional life. I would submit. Does that sound fair? Mm-hmm I don’t think that’s an abrupt end.
I think that’s a perfect ending. Guys, I hope you had, I guess I will say happy 4th of July for us at recording time, that’s coming up and those around the world with your various independence days I hope you celebrate them and everyone does so safely, so take care and we will see you guys next week.