In a world of instant gratification and outside validation, one thing that can really help you through your daily struggles is to have better self-esteem. We know this is easier said than done. To get a good idea of what that entails, we look at what self-esteem means. How previous situations in your life can damage your self-esteem. We then wrap up the show by talking about how you can build or rebuild your self-esteem.
Tune in to see Better Self Esteem Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- Where does self-esteem come from?
- When did life damage my view of self… how many times?
- How do I build self-esteem?
- Self-confidence versus Self-esteem.
- To compare leads to despair.
- Clinical issues can affect a persons self-esteem.
- Check out Episode 218 on Feeling Empowerment.
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Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
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Episode #220 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello there and welcome to Through a Therapist’s Eyes. We have a special episode 2220 on March the ninth, right? This is March the ninth. March 9th, where we have our very first YouTube live. Folks that have already been hanging out with us for a little bit on the cameras before we pull the mic. So we have made the switch from Facebook to YouTube.
So you’ll find us on YouTube live now. Pretty cool, pretty excited about that. Go check us out. You can see us as we’re actually recording the show most, most days, Thursdays at about six o’clock to six 15, we fire up and, and record this, this show. So welcome to what we do. So this is through a therapist’s eyes where you get insights from a panel of therapists in your home and in your car.
But Victoria, it is not what.
Victoria Pendergrass: It is not offering therapy services of any
Chris Gazdik: kind. There you go. That was so bland though. We need some excitement. What’s
Victoria Pendergrass: [00:01:00] on top? Oh, I’m sorry. What’s up? You? And this is not offering any therapeutic services of any kind? No,
Chris Gazdik: no therapeutic services. Oh, is that It was like, this is not delivering therapy services.
Anyway, we have John Pope that is with us over there. Hey, good evening, sir. Good evening. And we have Miss Victoria Pendergrass, not too confused with Pendergrass,
Victoria Pendergrass: who is related by marriage to pen. Teddy Pentegra. Pendergrass. Really?
Chris Gazdik: Yep. Who’s that? The singer. Oh, the singer. Oh, Teddy Pendergrass. I live under a rock, guys.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, he’s even before my time.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s right. He’s, he’s not Vince Gill.
Chris Gazdik: Got the book through a therapist size re-understanding emotions and becoming your best self out, I guess, for two years now. That was shocking to me. Wow. The marriage book is coming out this year. I have made a decision. It needs to be pumped out for sure.
Definitely help us outgrow the show, apple, iTunes, wherever you find your podcasts, we really need to ask you to help us because it really helps us get [00:02:00] found, helps us in this industry with the, the, the star reviews and it helps the algorithm, the algorithms. Yes, the typing is a big deal on, on Apple iTunes spec specifically, so help us out and then contact at through a therapist.
eyes.com is where you can find us to interact with us. And this is guys, the human emotional experience and we do endeavor to figure this thing out together. Check out the hat. By the way, you folks on YouTube, you got a little merch here going on. We cover the matching. Was that on Facebook Live or was that on the podcast?
I think that was on, I think that was on YouTube live. It was on YouTube live, right. So, right. So yes. Before we turn the mics on, I
John-Nelson Pope: will say, yep. Unlike Victoria . Yep. . Go baby. That, that you match. Thank you. Okay. You are
Chris Gazdik: exquisite.
Victoria Pendergrass: Maybe I should just resay it and say that I personally would not wear that hat with your outfit, but you know, to each his
Chris Gazdik: own.
Well, I was told y’all [00:03:00] to take it off after we started, so I don’t think I’ll fidget with it either. I mean, it, I mean, I’ll
Victoria Pendergrass: call you out if you start to fidget with it. I’ll just tell you to take it off.
Chris Gazdik: Oh wow. Well, now I think I need to take it off now or keep it on or take it off. What’s the vote? Keep on, keep it on.
Keep it
John-Nelson Pope: on. Keep it on. You. Remind me of of that old Twilight Zone where the guy had the third. Oh, he was in a diner and it was an alien invasion.
Chris Gazdik: Oh dear. Goodness. . Yes, Neil. I was told we need shirts cuz somebody wanted the eye on the front of their their shirt. They thought that would be cool.
Where, where’s our shirts? Do we not have shirts there? Shirts? There are no shirts on our merch thing. Really? Okay. What’s up with the shirts? I
John-Nelson Pope: remember just, I know we’re off topic a little bit, but I remember aggressively when you showed me all the different types of eyes that
Chris Gazdik: you wanted Oh, yeah. That we were looking to Yeah.
When you were trying to pick here. Right. We cover, cover, de development and and you kept
John-Nelson Pope: going back to this one. . You even did a Oh, did I? Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s [00:04:00] very captivating. Catches, catches your eye.
John-Nelson Pope: I’ve got my
Chris Gazdik: eye on you. I’ll give a prompt out to Morgan James publishing my publisher that I am pr very appreciative and humbled to be a part of.
They did all of that. I kind of chose and helped out a little bit, but that’s, that’s on them. They did a good job. So, yeah. I don’t even think I said the topic yet. I’m so sorry. This title is I crave self-esteem, right? I, I crave better self-esteem. So we’re gonna be talking all about self-esteem, but we have a cool new thing first today.
A new, you know, we’ve done current events, you know, from time to time. When stuff comes up, we’ll pop that out. Have a first segment that we wanna do with, what are we calling it? Victoria Mentor moment. That sounded like a raised pitch voice in question. Let’s get more. Like I looked at
Victoria Pendergrass: Neil when I said it.
I wasn’t, wasn’t sure he came up with it. Mentor moment. Mentor moment. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And you’re the
Victoria Pendergrass: mentee? I’m the mentee. Yeah. They’re, I’m
Chris Gazdik: the, I mean, we might all have a from time to time, but
Victoria Pendergrass: I’m a mentee. The freshest the newest,
Chris Gazdik: but we all are [00:05:00] mentees, that’s for sure. So Victoria with the mentor moment mm-hmm.
this was born out of a moment when I just couldn’t get to her. She was asking a question, something I was kinda like, look, I, sorry. I always
Victoria Pendergrass: have questions for Chris throughout the day. . So what’s up? Okay, so my question today is about couples therapy. . So what do you do or how do you manage when couples seem to argue the entire session?
John-Nelson Pope: I’m not very good at it. .
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean that’s
Chris Gazdik: awesome. Yeah. You know what I’m gonna tell you? I’m gonna tell you a quick story. Yeah. You’re not in it. Yeah. I have a lot of thoughts about it. I, I’m sure you do too, John. But very earlier in my career, I, I learned that this was a thing when, you know, I’m doing a couple session and, you know, the couples come in and they start doing their thing and they get a little bit elevated, heated.
One person says this, the other person says that, and they start going back and forth and they’re doing it, and they’re, they’re on their thing. And I’m like, wow, okay. You know, and it gets elevated and a little bit more elevated. Mm-hmm. and elevated. You know, next thing I [00:06:00] know, she gets up, walks out the room, slams the door, and he looks at me, he says, well, you know, I’m, I’m really glad we’re here.
I mean, that was good. And, and you know, I’m really hopeful about this and, and he looks at me, he says, well, do you, do you think you’d be able to keep her in the room next time, ? It’s just like, it was one of those moments that I’m sure maybe you, you’ve had Victoria that stems this, this idea. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, it’s just, I’m still very new to, I mean, I’ve only been doing therapy about four and a half years now.
Yeah. Ish. Yeah. And so, I mean, and I only started seeing couples when I came here to Metro line psychotherapy. And so, you know, it’s still very. fresh. I mean, I see a good number of couples now, but
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. What do you think, John? I got a lot of thoughts. What do, what do you, what are you thinking? Well, I
John-Nelson Pope: I think part of it is ex experience, right.
then you’re gonna get that. Yeah. And, and part of that is, is that they’re gonna be couples where they’re [00:07:00] intractable and you can’t seem to to reason with them. I think that’s sometimes, and I think you mentioned that where you had the co where the, where the woman just arch, she bailed. She bailed, they’re gonna do that.
Mm-hmm. sometimes, most, most of the time is that you would establish some rules. Okay. To begin with that you
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t give me an example of some rules.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, there’s you’re gonna be direct and, and polite to one another that you will use the I statements. Okay. And you will not use any defamatory or name calling, any type of let’s say one of the, the, the clients, one of the couple.
Mm-hmm. members of the comp, a couple. They can’t call each other names. Okay. And you stop it then and there. And then you do a reset. You’re polite, you’re
Chris Gazdik: butt firm. Okay. And I think those things happen, you know, in the course of [00:08:00] developing the therapy experience. So it’s not like, okay, we’re doing couples counseling, I’m gonna get my rules list out.
Will you agree to this, this, this, this, and this. Right. It’s more, it’s more just like, you know, the art of what it is that we’re doing when you begin to, to identify, yeah. Somebody’s getting E E elevated, somebody’s escalating and I’m going to, we use our inside voices. Yeah. Right. . Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: And d we use our inside voices.
I guess I just don’t wanna be passively just sitting there while Yeah. And you don’t, you know, while they go at it. And you know, cuz I feel like that’s, I mean, maybe that’s what they need cuz they don’t, can’t get that, they can’t do that at home. But I don’t like how
Chris Gazdik: do old school therapy in couples counseling, I feel like you ended up falling into being a referee sometimes.
Mm-hmm. and, and we don’t want to do that. I’ll tell you post. Gottman’s material, emotion focused therapy. Right. I was much more adept at what I was trying to do prior to that. Mm-hmm. . And so my little journey with this Victoria was I just wanna know the [00:09:00] foundations, I wanna know the patterns that you have.
Right. And if, if I see somebody getting elevator escalated prior, I would kind of be like, okay, how does this fit into, like, what typically happens? And then I’m taking the topic off the board. Mm-hmm. , because that’s usually what happens. Mm-hmm. , well you said this, well I said this, you know, and then he just, right.
Yeah. He said, she
Victoria Pendergrass: said, right, right.
Chris Gazdik: All of that they, he said, they said, so I take that off the board. Mm-hmm. . And I want to go into like understanding, well, what happens when you engage on a topic, let’s forget the topic, we’ll come back to that as needed. Mm-hmm. . And then you do this and you do that. But now with eft, the patterns are much more like ingrained.
And I can go into a description of emotion focused therapy, you know, the abandonment and the engulfment, and really get that foundation put into place. And before they even really get escalated on a topic, they’re kind of like, oh my God, this is what we do. This is, this is the way, like, are you in our house?
And I’m, you know, I, I get responses like that all the time. All the time. And I tell ’em like, no, I’m not at home, obviously. Yeah. I don’t have any video [00:10:00] cameras up. The other thing I’ll add real quick, but I know the patterns that typically, you know, can, can be profound. And then I’ll also add that humor’s a great way if you can get mm-hmm.
you know, the rapport built and humor engaged in
John-Nelson Pope: de deescalating this thing. I think, I think that’s key is using humor hum humor. Yeah. Because I think what happens is, is that you, by engaging in humor, you allow people to, to step out, relax, and step. It’s disarming outside, outside of themselves. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. .
Victoria Pendergrass: So then for what I’m hearing from you is that, I mean, I know we’ve talked about Gottman a few times on here and conversations that I’ve participated in myself, but I think maybe I’m hearing that I might need to do a little bit of my own side research into.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, absolutely. You get, you get an EF FT conference, man, go.
Mm-hmm. on unequivocally. You need that, that would be five stars. Fantastic. Okay. But let’s move into our topic and we can talk more obviously anytime. No, this is great. Thank you. I [00:11:00] crave better self-esteem. Think about it. Where does self-esteem come from? When did life damage my view of myself, events or people?
When did life damage my view of myself and, and how many times has that happened over the course of your life? And lastly, how do I build self-esteem? I mean, that’s, that’s what everybody wants to know. And you know, we, we, we talk a lot about that, but boy, it’s interesting. We’re doing a round two of this, right?
That’s
John-Nelson Pope: right. But hey, here we go. It’s gonna be a lot more intense and a lot better.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I have a lot more energy than I did last week. I, I, I think, and so my reference is, we, we actually recorded this episode. I don’t know where we’re at with shows. If we missed a week, I apologize. We just, we just had a blow up of the machine.
Man. Neil’s, Neil’s machine went to, what, how should we say it? Crater. Yeah. Boot popped. He says, so we, we, we recorded a whole episode and now we’re rerecording the whole episode. So these should be well thought out thoughts, [00:12:00] right? Mm-hmm. . Yep. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: that was a week ago. So I’m, I’m not gonna promise anything.
Chris Gazdik: also, there might be a bunch of new stuff. Yeah. So what is self-esteem Really? Confidence in one’s own health or well worth or abilities. Right. Having a sense of self-respect. The, the article that I kind of leaned on and used I thought was really pretty neat because it, it gave. you kind of like a, a sense of like what this is like to experience rather than really what it is.
So, so check this out and I’ll see with you guys how, how you think about and work with self-esteem. But self-esteem can affect whether you like and value yourself as a person. Well, that was interesting. Can make decisions and assert yourself. Okay, recognize your strengths or feel able to try new or difficult things.
These are all like, what is what? How, what do you experience with self-esteem? How [00:13:00] does this operate? Right? How you show kindness toward yourself or move past mistakes without blaming yourself unfairly. Take the time that you need to be yourself, for yourself, believe you matter, and are good enough. And lastly, they pointed out, really believe that you deserve even a sense of happiness.
Whether you have high self-esteem, these things are gonna go well or. If you have low self-esteem, you know, these things are gonna struggle. So I don’t know. This show prep, I remember commenting guys was like really easy to do. Yeah. And I think it was really easy to do cuz I just like flew through it. Cuz don’t we deal with this like all the time in a therapy
Victoria Pendergrass: experience.
Yeah. I mean a lot of root issues come down to self-esteem. Yeah. And I think, I think our last time I pointed this out, someone pointed out again, there you go. That I
Chris Gazdik: think she remembered one of her good
Victoria Pendergrass: points I did. That there is a difference between self-confidence and self-esteem and [00:14:00] self. Oh, did that last week.
And so yeah, she did point that out. And so self-confidence is your abil the ability that you can do things like, like basketball or math or, you know, Those types of things where self-esteem work comes from like your
worth. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: So in other words, you would say that self-esteem is something that is always going on in the background Yeah.
That you want to and self-confidence is for is more Yeah. Skill-based or
Victoria Pendergrass: like your qualities kind of thing.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, that’s interesting John. I didn’t really think about that differential. So you kind of pulled out of what Victoria said that self-confidence might be kind of what you show. Mm-hmm. . But self-esteem is the, it’s a of being piece in the background that’s, that’s operating.
Right. Oh, I like that. That’s pretty cool. I like the internal versus the external. Right. Self-confidence versus self-esteem. [00:15:00] Oh, that’s cool. Oh, I’m gonna, I wanna play around with that in my head for a little bit. I don’t have time right now, but it’s a unique perspective.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. That raised my self-esteem.
what did, just what you just said because of that idea that, oh, I mean, it’s the background.
Chris Gazdik: Isn’t that interesting? Yeah. How, which is a, a cool way to make a, a point. Your self-esteem can go up or it can go down how many times throughout the course of a day?
Oh. It’s like,
John-Nelson Pope: it’s a good number. It’s like the ocean waves coming in. Yeah. Coming
Chris Gazdik: in right. Coming in. Yeah. Title, title forces, waves, constantly in motion. Experience of what somebody says something nice or something terse. Or if they say nothing at all and you’re kinda like, wait a minute. What did they do?
What did they do wrong? You know? I mean, this is, it is John, isn’t it? It’s in the background. Self-esteem [00:16:00] is very different. Mm-hmm. than self-confidence. Victoria.
Victoria Pendergrass: I hadn’t really thought about that. Well, I mean, and usually when I have clients that come in that say, you know, I wanna work on my.
Self-esteem or self-confidence, I usually try to clarify the difference between the two because they might actually, they might have good esteem, good self-esteem, but they just wanna be able to project that in their abilities, which would be the self-confidence. And so then, then I can kind of help them understand what exactly is they’re looking for to help improve.
Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: absolutely. You know, I, I think, so let’s go to a little segment of understanding a little bit about where, where does this really come from? And, you know, I, I, I ran down through a list and whatnot, but in my list, well, let, let me just open it broadly actually. First. , where self-esteem come from? John, what do you, what says you, oh,
John-Nelson Pope: I think it comes from your, your earliest days.
Yeah. And about nurturing [00:17:00] and the environment that you’re raised in. Basically the, I I, I did a little homework. All right. Okay. And does anybody recognize this?
Chris Gazdik: Yes. Yeah. Would It’s Maslows Maslows the hierarchy of needs? Oh,
John-Nelson Pope: I think that self-esteem comes from the fact that you would have your, your needs taken care of at the very beginning.
And then you are, in other words, do you, are you, are you safe? Are you fed? Are you loved? Mm-hmm. unconditionally. And that it’s not transactional. And so there’s a sense, I think a person’s self-esteem increases exponentially to how much they, they are loved unconditionally. and
Chris Gazdik: that would be a probably highly correlated of, of
John-Nelson Pope: course.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So my, my sense of it is, is that just as a child is, is hugged [00:18:00] or loved, or is esteemed by others,
Chris Gazdik: safe, secure attachments. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , safe, secure attachments. Can we say that? Safe, secure attachments create, I like that. A high level of self-esteem. There’s a quote, Neil. Yeah. Safe, secure attachments create a high level of self-esteem.
I think that’s a true statement.
John-Nelson Pope: And I think that builds now the, the problem is, is that we live in a, in a world where people are not so nice sometimes, and sometimes kids
Chris Gazdik: are, we don’t have safe, secure attachments.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. . And so your self-esteem takes hits, hits, and you’re
Chris Gazdik: hits plura.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. So are, so you’re saying, for example, if you had a kid who came out to his parents or her parents or whoever to their parents as gay, your Okay.
And their parents, the parent, you have two scenarios where the parents are, do the B make them still [00:19:00] feel safe, make them feel love and belonging. They might feel, have a potential higher self-esteem. Exactly. Than if parent, if you had another set of parents who. I don’t know, kick the kid out, you know, said, okay, you’re not my child anymore.
Reject, deny, rejecting. And I mean, that person might still be able to recover from their self-esteem, but they’re taking that hit
John-Nelson Pope: as far as multiple hits, and that’s to the very core of their being because the place that they’re to feel the most secure and safe mm-hmm. and feel and belonging. They’re not getting it.
And so they start looking for their, their self-esteem on external things. In other ways. In other ways. Yeah. And then they start, let’s, which
Victoria Pendergrass: can’t be unsafe. Right. Potentially. Right. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: You know what’s curious, I don’t even think that it popped on my list, but as we’re talking mm-hmm. Oh man. How did that, I know it was [00:20:00] on prior shows and, and list and stuff.
I, I was just listening to you guys’ dialogue and I’ve made the point before, and as a matter of fact, I think we have a quote somewhere about it that. having a critical or highly critical person in your life destroys prob probably at the top of the list.
John-Nelson Pope: Self-esteem. I’m not clapping because I approve, I it, it’s, you agree?
It’s, I would agree wholeheartedly. Yeah. And they could be subtle, very subtle. Like even subtle
Chris Gazdik: criticism, but yes. Do you really want to eat that constant and chronic criticism? Yeah. Is horrible to the development of self-esteem. . I feel
Victoria Pendergrass: like any millennial that is listening to this uhoh is able to understand this.
Their parents, cuz a lot of times, Yeah. I mean, and probably other gen generations. But
Chris Gazdik: I was gonna say, listen, I remember being in the eighties and Gen X. It’s like, oh my God, these crazy stupid kids. John, you probably said it back then. These [00:21:00] people were gonna be the leaders of the world and it’s gonna be so terrible.
And I mean, we’re fine. Even thinking in the
John-Nelson Pope: 1960s there was a commercial, and it was Ed McMahon doing the commercial , and it was about Socrates. He quoted Socrates. Okay. . Yeah. Said, what is this generation? They’re his like 350 years bc, you know, or 400 years bc Yeah. And they were talking about how, how disrespectful and how terrible the kids are.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I mean, but you know, it’s funny to this point, I didn’t mean to cut you up, you Victoria. No, you’re fine. Fine. But that, that is like a generational redo over mm-hmm. and over. Yeah. You’re, I mean, over again, it’s horrible. Well, what we do to young people in the criticisms we deliver.
Victoria Pendergrass: And I’m just thinking kind of what John said as an example.
The subtleties of it, I think is what, it can be a really killer like, like the example he used was, are you sure you want to eat that? Yeah. [00:22:00] Like little things like that, that necessarily, and then you’re like, you may not realize it in the moment, but later on you’re like, wait.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, absolutely. I mean, yeah, like not that men don’t worry about this either.
So I don’t mean to be sexist, man. I’m not in boy, I’m in boy world, not in girl world. But you know, if you say that to a girl, are you sure you want to eat that? Victoria? You know, what is girls gonna do like, What on my fat, my image. My body
Victoria Pendergrass: image. Yeah. My thoughts are gonna spiral. .
Chris Gazdik: This is good to go and go and go.
Yeah. Wait, wait, I have, clothes are too
John-Nelson Pope: big. You’re a tween and your body’s changing and already acne all that and all of that. So you’re very self-conscious. And of course I don’t know what it means to be a tween girl, but I was a tween boy. Yeah, an adolescent. And I got zits and everything. And
Chris Gazdik: Oh dude, I was a stick.
I was like a people called me pencil neck, you know, . That’s what I was called. Pencil neck . I’m like, it’s okay. I’m certainly not anymore. That’s what, just look at me. But you know you’re a fine [00:23:00] specimen. Thank you. I appreciate that. My self-esteem or do you think a lot of
Victoria Pendergrass: hun of humanity, . Do you think a lot of the cri criticisms also come when you say something about yourself and someone else like agrees with you?
Oh yeah. Like, oh, this Dr. Like I feel like I’ve gained a lot of weight and someone is like, Well, yeah, like ,
Chris Gazdik: well, there’s probably a plethora of ways to deliver criticisms, but again, you know, the reality of it is if you have a highly critical person in your life that at the top of the list we need to highlight crushes self-esteem.
And I’m gonna jump and look at the camera and say, if you’re doing that, stop. Because that’s, that is such hardcore destruction to the development of young people especially. But people that are full grown adults have that going on and in a full blown way, have the same crushing experience with their [00:24:00] self-esteem.
So stop it. Be nice. Compliments are better.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, no, some people may not even realize that they’re
Chris Gazdik: doing it. Yeah, that’s a good point too. Go little with that. Well, I mean, Well, I
John-Nelson Pope: think it, I it could be generational. Yeah. And I’m, I’m, I’m thinking that as wonderful as my own childhood was and that there were some subtle things that actually came from generations past.
Yeah. Subtle criticisms, thoughts. Did
Chris Gazdik: I distract you, Victoria? Yes, you did. Let’s take, let’s take a break in the middle of our show. We got merch. You can see on you too. This is the through therapist eyes cup. We got the writing on the back, on the back of it. You know the, it’s actually my handwriting, right?
Yeah, no, what did you say? What did I just destroy your focus and concentration with? No,
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean you just totally interrupted John, but continue. I guess that’s .
Chris Gazdik: Did I apo apologize. No, no, no, this is fine. I’m, it says in my handwriting. Let’s figure this thing out together. Pretty cool. Coffee cup. Just to highlight to our merch.
Listen, we are growing show in 2023 and we [00:25:00] really do wanna ask your help to grow the show. And one of the ways to do that is go to our website and you know, get some merch. Got the cool hat there, get the cups going. Neil swears we have, or we’ll have shirts, we got quotes coming out, really is the pretty cool stuff that I wanna ask you to check out.
Great gifts, nice little trinkets, cool stuff. Not too expensive. And it does really help the show cuz we get a percentage of that sale. So a direct ask on my part to you. Let’s get back to our topic though. Yeah, yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, I mean, I was just saying that some people may not realize that. , what they’re saying is criticism to others.
And then John made the comment that a lot of it’s generational, which I completely ag agree with. If, you know, if a a, a mother heard her whole life growing up, oh, well you better lose the weight before you get pregnant because once you get pregnant, it’s hard to lose the weight. And then so then she now is more likely to pass that on to her daughter and so on and so forth, because until [00:26:00] someone’s right mm-hmm.
until someone breaks that cycle. Cycle.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s from generation to generation to generation. And so you have to, and so it, it takes a, a real sense of self-awareness, right. And not self-centeredness, but in a sense of healthy. Esteem or to to be able to say, I’ve got to break this cycle so I don’t give this to my children or my grandchildren.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and I think sometimes it also helps by speaking up and letting that person know like, Hey, , you know what you’re saying is very critical and has a really big impact on my self-esteem and potentially others self-esteem. Cuz if they don’t, sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. And so, but then once you know it, then you have the power that, that’s
John-Nelson Pope: assuming that person is sensitive.
To be able to sensitive.
Chris Gazdik: Yes, that is also true. . You know, I think, I think a lot of times, John, they are to, to, to the, to, to a large extent. Yeah. I think Victoria’s thought is, is really [00:27:00] an important one because I think a lot of times people really are being critical and don’t, and don’t know that they, that they are as much.
So it, it is, it is a bit of a, a needed awareness. Mm-hmm. to be mindful there’s another word about Right. So, yeah. That’s, that’s cool. I appreciate that dialogue. So let, let’s go a little bit to, you know, we’re already in this section of like, you know, what, what life events create damage, which Criticalness is at the top of the list.
I didn’t even have it, I think the last time we recorded this show, but, but here’s a question I think that we’ve already answered to a certain extent. Is it normal to have low self-esteem? Like people are listening out, there’re like, yeah, I think of myself negatively all the time. How normal. Is
Victoria Pendergrass: that really?
Well, I mean, it’s a lot easier to think of the negatives than it is the positives in your life or in anything. So I think
John-Nelson Pope: we’re wet wired,
Chris Gazdik: ooh. Wet wired. What’s that mean? Yeah. In other words,
John-Nelson Pope: you’ve heard a [00:28:00] hardwired, but this is our brain and so it’s a soggy mass of cholesterol . Yeah. But, but when we’re on the planes and we’re in the African Savannah and we’re all hunters and we have to be careful or we have children and they’re out there, you want to be able to watch for the danger.
And so you will see the danger. more likely than you will hear, you’ll see the positive, the good things. So I don’t know if I’m
Chris Gazdik: making sense then. No, I I think that in, in, in several things psychologically that we talk about, you know mm-hmm. and that we work within our therapy offices. We, we are wet wired.
I, I, I think of it as hardwired to see the things that are a risk to be aware. I was just being clever. Problems. Yeah. Well you are super clever John Pope and the wet wiring is a cool thought. It’s a cool concept because you really are geared that way. You know, I didn’t how Yeah, we’re can time cuz I didn’t say it [00:29:00] earlier.
I guess I’ll circle back cuz it fits here. You know, I think of the o overview of mental health and I’ve talked about it on our show many. You know, I call it the tale of two tapes. Mm-hmm. , and it’s, it’s biological genetic realities. On the one side of the equation, your, your genetics, nutrition your exercise body, body drives how it is that we feel.
But then on the other side, you have the social and emotional, and those are your life experiences, your primary life’s relationships, daily stress, the grind. That also drives how we feel. And so there’s this dynamic mixture between what it is that we experience in the world and then what we genetically have going on.
And I’m gonna submit to you, and I think you’re all’s conversation really highlighted that that this comes really on, primarily that side of the equation. , the social and emotional side. Mm-hmm. , JOhn, that’s what you started with, right? From, from way back. The life experiences and the life’s relationships and the daily events and the grind that we’re in, that’s really what’s driving self-esteem, isn’t it?
Way more than,
John-Nelson Pope: and you’re [00:30:00] reaff and whether you’re not exclusively, but way more. But whether you’re doing it consciously or not, you do reinforce those negative self images or, and so you have low self-esteem. It’s, you had some events that occurred as you were growing developing. And even though that might be a relatively short period of time, it might be as long as you’re in a house but you could reinforce that in your narrative of life.
Until you’re in your sixties and seventies and even eighties. And so it’s, it’s very, I think it’s very important to be able to, to try to nip that into bud as, as, as soon as possible, and do it quickly and, and rewrite the, the program or the wiring so that it can rewire so that you would look more positively about yourself.
Chris Gazdik: Which interestingly leads us to a little [00:31:00] bit of an issue that we haven’t talked about yet. Perception, mm-hmm. , right? I mean, you can perceive all sorts of things that are around you, and we do have a bend and a slant towards the perception that you have. Mm-hmm. . Is it possible, Victoria, that people might be saying something along the lines of very innocuous statements, but you might perceive them as a criticism and whatnot?
Does that happen?
John-Nelson Pope: You know? Yeah. So what you’re saying is, so let’s say somebody has a, a negative self image or self self-esteem. Yeah. When somebody later on comes around, you’re saying that that might be perceived by the person that, let’s hears that comment that it’s it reinforces the, the negative self-image.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. That, that said it much better, much more eloquently. Right. It’s almost like we could filter out the positive things that are heard [00:32:00] or said and really hear back to your wet wiring. Right. You know, only the negative things that are either perceived or very rarely put out in that space. There’s a lot of things moving around in this, you know, your, your, your whole psychological system is kind of geared in a certain way based on a lot of this biological or this emotional.
And social stuff that you’ve experienced for such a time. Now I am gonna give a little bit of a tip towards the biological component isn’t just void here cuz I wanna do a segment in a little bit about the biological system with diagnostics as being a really important factor. Mm-hmm. also, it’s just a heavy lean on, on, on that side.
But listen to this list, right? So how commonly do you experience this through a life cycle? This was just a glancing list. I’m curious what you guys think about it. Firstly, realize that, you know, this is what we mean by living is, is is what came up in my mind. You know, living these [00:33:00] experiences. . And of course we know living to be growing, right?
Mm-hmm. . So you have a lot of growing experiences. You have a lot of living experiences, and man, there could be a lot of challenge. How about a high school breakup or a middle school breakup, or an adult breakup, or, you know, part of the thought here is that don’t you really experience the emotions at any point in your life cycle when you have a breakup?
That’s a tough, Hmm, tough spot. Job loss or parents? Oh, I did have it on my list. I forgot. Parents being critical on the many times that they’re, unfortunately are a, a car accident or a police ticket. What a police ticket’s gonna hit you. Or, or having an accident. It’s like, you know, that, that, what does that do to yourself as esteem?
John-Nelson Pope: Don’t, then don’t go through Barnardsville, Tennessee.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, dear God. What happened? John? Let’s, let’s, let’s, I got, I got, let’s heal. Let’s heal here. What happened? Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: I was 18 years old, 19 years old. I was long-haired. This is back in the seventies.
Chris Gazdik: [00:34:00] Wait a minute. You had long, long hair.
John-Nelson Pope: I had no, I had long hair.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. That’s awesome. I need a picture, bro. Yes, you
John-Nelson Pope: have to. I was a cutie guy, . It’s, I was cute. But anyway, and so it’s, it’s late and I it’s like 12 o’clock in the, in the morning. And I’m driving from Florida up to North Lake where my cousins were, they, and to, to spend a week with them. And I get stopped at the first place, the on the outskirts of town.
And it’s it was a, a sheriff’s deputy. And so, you know, I’m, I’m nervous of course, all of that. My hands are shaking. Oh yes. And of course I had long hair in this early 1970s there got me hippie. Yeah. Yeah. And they said we got a light out. So I said, where you going? I said, I’m going to Norris Lake. And he said, okay.
Just be careful and we’ll see ya. Okay. Went down a couple of, and that’s not so bad. No, not [00:35:00] too bad. I don’t think
Chris Gazdik: he’s done with a story. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: A couple of miles later now, this is a long town Maynard is, and I get pulled over again, flashing red lights, and it’s the, it’s this town police, geez, pull me over.
And I’m like, I’m, I’m starting to shake. Okay. I’m really, really getting a little nervous, all that. And he said, what are, where are you going? I said, well, your light’s out. And I said, well, I know I, I got pulled over before by by a sheriff’s deputy and he said, okay, make sure that you, you drive carefully and safely and you get into to Norris Lake.
Okay. I’m. Get back in the car. Okay. , third time. . I go out right at the edge of the, of the town. Are you serious? It’s State Trooper pulls me over shit, Lord. Okay. And now by this time my voice is quavering . I’m shaking like [00:36:00] this. I get out of the car and all of that, and I’m thinking, I’m going to jail. I’m going to jail.
And, and the. And he said, okay. He looks at my license and all of that, and he says, you’re, you’re a little nervous there, son. I said, yeah,
Chris Gazdik: I have a pound of cocaine in the backseat, ,
John-Nelson Pope: you know, so get, get in the car, get back in the car, . And I’m driving out like I’m in. I just said, why didn’t I get a ticket?
And this guy just rolled over laughing. He’s got his, his radio in his, and he’s talking about me. Oh. So why did they, they had, they had all called, evidently, this is what I’m taking. They had all called ahead. They
Chris Gazdik: wanted his, this guy I scared. Crap outta you.
John-Nelson Pope: We got a nervous one
Chris Gazdik: here, . That’s terrible.
John-Nelson Pope: I didn’t sleep for a day.
I mean, it was like . No. Okay. That hurt my
Chris Gazdik: self-esteem. I think [00:37:00] I just snorted . I
John-Nelson Pope: that
Chris Gazdik: hurt myself. Oh my gosh. That’s terrible. Well, John, I’m so sorry those officers were so mean to you. I’m trauma.
Victoria Pendergrass: I, I would, I’d like to think that they were maybe a little bored.
Chris Gazdik: They were like, Hey, let’s, middle of the night.
Yes, for sure. The donuts and coffee went well. I had
John-Nelson Pope: Florida license and tags and, and you had long hair. I had long
Chris Gazdik: hair for. But you know what’s, what’s funny about that truly is, and, and thank you for sharing that story, and I, and I, and I experience you really saying like, no, I, that, that did bother me.
That was like a factor, you know? And, and the thing that I would point out and, and part of what I’m, I’m doing with this list is these are so prominent on our lives. These are the things that we really remember. I had a police pull me over and I ended up having three police cars around me as a teen. And most, a lot of young men particularly have had that.
It was intimidating beyond all get out. And I’m like, there’s all three cruisers.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s, that’s a ride of passage for being a male, teen teenager. [00:38:00]
Chris Gazdik: Imagine
Victoria Pendergrass: getting in into a really bad car accident. And I know a lot of people can under like, sympathize, empathize with this and then being scared to. To get back in a car again or am I, I like, I rear ended someone one time on not on purpose, but like, I remember, I remember for a, a while, I mean, I slammed on brakes and like stuffed still hit ’em.
But I remember for a while after that like it was hard for me to be a passenger in a car because if someone was driving and they got a little like too, and it was even hard for me to get in the car, I would brake like so. Oh, yeah. Much more frequently than, oh yeah. Right. You know, someone was five cars linked.
How old
Chris Gazdik: were you then? Start, you already tapping. How, how old were you? When
Victoria Pendergrass: I got in the, when I, when walk? Gotten in several wrecks, but,
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. The one that This scarred you.
Chris Gazdik: That scarred
Victoria Pendergrass: you? I, in graduate school. Okay. In my internship, so I was probably. 24. [00:39:00] 23.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. So a couple of years younger than you are now.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. A couple. Let’s move on a little bit. with this list right, is, is how, how commonly these things happen, right? One of many life’s, many failures perceive failures in parenting choices. You know, our spouse, I just wrote our spouse. Mm-hmm. , right? Facebook and social media comparisons. Mm. You know, I, a recent quote that I think I.
To compare leads to despair. Mm-hmm. , it’s a hit constantly. Every, every time we’re looking at stuff, the, the trauma or to a lesser degree drama that’s in our life, bullying, loss of a friend, loss of a loved one, loss of any kind, really. You know, I could, we could go on and I think that we’ve kind of given a good, you know, handle on this is what we’re up against.
Like this is a, social
John-Nelson Pope: media is so much more brutal mm-hmm.
Chris Gazdik: Than, yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. I mean, we still had our , our moments, but it’s 24 7.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and doesn’t, well, I think I made this comment last time is that, you know, a lot of [00:40:00] times we have to, and I work with this with my clients too, is we have to remind ourselves that what we see on social media is never real.
Like, I mean, that’s kind of how you have to approach it. Is anything you see on there? It’s fake. Is fake. Yeah. Fake book is what’s called, yeah. And even from like someone like me who, I mean the only people that follow me are like my friends and family, you know? Like I don’t, and so, but I’m not gonna post a picture with like mascara running down my face.
No. Having a meltdown or having a panic attack, or having anxiety attack or like doubt fear moments. Yeah. And it’s nice when you can see that from people, but still, like, sometimes it’s hard to question like, well then why are they doing that? You know? And so,
Chris Gazdik: and people are trying to be fake, but it’s just a, the way that we try to present ourselves packaged, the packaged face mask that we put on for the world, and it’s, it’s okay.
It’s not bad. It’s what you said,
Victoria Pendergrass: self-confidence. [00:41:00] Well, and I know there’s, so there’s some social media places now where you can turn off, I can’t remember which specifically. Which ones do I wanna say? Like Instagram or like TikTok or something where you can turn off your likes where you don’t see when someone likes your photos.
Oh, that’s brilliant. Well, so then that way you’re not tempted like, oh, I’m not posting this. I’m clipping you out. And then you can’t use that as like a comparison of, oh, well I only got like five likes on this photo, or I only got a hundred. There
Chris Gazdik: was a
John-Nelson Pope: south park that was done on that. Oh really? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Cause I don’t watch
John-Nelson Pope: that much. And, and one of the boys got he got because he liked somebody that was not popular. Mm-hmm. Everybody unliked him, unfollowed him. And so his self-esteem just absolutely cratered.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And so imagine if things would’ve been different if he wasn’t able to see Uhhuh , that all those people, this was Facebook.
Yeah. But I mean, imagine if he wasn’t able to see [00:42:00] that.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So because of time, I’m gonna give an honorable mention segment here to the biological realities, right? Because I think this is a significant factor. God bless you, producer Neil, if you heard that in the background. , the, the diagnostics that we get in our field of mental health are really important.
I think, as a matter of fact, I would make the point firstly, directly to my fellow clinicians, that oftentimes I find a, a sort of a paranoia, worry about diagnosing. And for a very long time in my practicing, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve never understood that, John, like, why are we so worried about that? Because I, I have found that really having a clinical issue and not knowing that we have a clinical issue in the first place is terribly destructive to our social and emotional self-esteem.[00:43:00]
Right. And so, because you don’t know where he stands, you don’t know what’s going on. Yeah. Like, you know, something’s not quite right,
Victoria Pendergrass: but you can’t, you don’t have a name to attach to
Chris Gazdik: it. Right. . And I think this is part of our duty and obligation to the public because we specialize in diagnostics, the art and the science.
Mm-hmm. of diagnostics is really important in our field. Can I, can I make that bold statement? Yes. Well, yeah, I agree. So, a note to clinicians, I really kind of wanna point out that I have found that the insight about people’s diagnostic situation is strongly liberating for people and for sure. And with my insight style of therapy that I feel like I kind of do.
That’s a key piece in the beginning. Rapport development. Mm-hmm. , you know, with somebody. I just, I wanna get us away from the fear that this stuff creates. Well, I mean,
Victoria Pendergrass: no go. No, you go back. I. Just kind of what you mentioned earlier, like if someone’s experiencing the symptoms of depression, but [00:44:00] they don’t quite know that, that’s the word to put with it.
Right. By telling them like, Hey, you have depress, like this is the thing, depressive disorder, , like, and it’s moderate or severe, or whatever the case may be. I mean, that gives them a name, something to grasp
John-Nelson Pope: on, you know, that actually gives some hope Yeah. To be able to do that. But you do it and and that’s why it’s, it behooves the, the clinician to be very accurate.
Oh, yeah. And to be, it’s important. Absolutely. Even handed in in this description and also very gentle and empathetic and compassionate. Yeah. Boy, those are person, part of the science or the argument. The person, yeah. And the person who says, well, like I, I, I, I think I’ve used this illustration before, but I, I was teaching a class and it was a diagnosis of all things.
Oh, wow. And I had the. I had one of the students said, well, my name is Joe, so-and-so, and I’m bipolar. And I’m saying, oh [00:45:00] yeah. Wow. Okay. Well that’s, that was a label that he took on to himself. And so, so the way that could have been is he, he is, how would you, how would you re, how could you guide that student in, here’s a little mentor thing,
How can you guide him into saying, you know, well, it’s not that you’re Oh, oh,
Chris Gazdik: oh, oh, oh. I’m raising my hand. Can I, can I get this one? Yes, yes you can. Yeah. Ask him where he is from. Yeah. Ask him what he likes to do for, you know, fun. Ask him, you know, who he hangs out with. Uhhuh . Ask him like all these other things.
And they’re like, make the point, like, dude, are you serious? Like, this is, does not own you . Exactly.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, it’s just like someone who gets a cancer diagnosis. I’m not Victoria with cancer. I’m right Victoria, which I don’t actually have cancer. Just putting that out there. Okay, that’s good. But But you say like, I am someone living with cancer, or I am someone living with depression.
I am someone,
John-Nelson Pope: but, but so cancer is the reality. [00:46:00] Right? But that’s not defining who, who I am or who. Who you are.
Chris Gazdik: You are. Yeah. Right. So check this out, really, with some of these things, right? Oh, I like how you did
John-Nelson Pope: that, huh?
Chris Gazdik: I like how you did that adhd. . Mm-hmm. diagnostic issues. They lead to self-doubt. They lead to critical self-talk, like galore.
You know, Victoria, I think you shared on the show, you know, with a d d Yeah. I mean, you could probably speak to that, right? Like, I, I see this a lot with our youth. I don’t wanna spend too much time on each one of these diagnostics, but that’s a good one to uses. An example, like, you see a kid acting out, you see a kid defocused, you see a kid like not able to sit still and, and, and moving around and moving from topic top, getting up outta their seats.
Like, what do you believe they are? Well, they’re the lazy kid. The on, on motivated kid. They’re the, they’re doesn’t even, they’re the, they’re the problem in their head. Yeah, they’re the problem. And I, and I, and that’s the way I see that. What does that do diagnostically? to the emotional development. Yeah.
And largely the [00:47:00] self-esteem to that kid.
John-Nelson Pope: But you get, you can explain with, with the A D H D diagnosis. Yeah. And to be able to say, okay, yeah. And then you can identify areas where that person, that kid could actually start building her or his self-esteem. Right. And it’s crucial. Crucial. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’s crucial.
So I wasn’t sure if you had comments, Victoria? I I,
Victoria Pendergrass: no, I think y’all, I mean, I just agree that, you know, instead of becoming the kid who can’t focus now you have a name for it. And then you can actually work towards strategies to retrain your, and retrain your brain to, and
John-Nelson Pope: recruit. The, the person for his
Chris Gazdik: or her own treatment.
And now we’re moving a little bit into, into like what do we do to build self-esteem? But real quick, again, honorable mention depression. Why am I feeling this way? You know, things are essentially fine around me, but I am feeling all of these symptomologies that we have with depression. [00:48:00] You know, lack of motivation, lack of interest, you know, the, the, the lack of a drive sex, drive, appetite, all these things.
Hard to focus. Concentration gets foggy brained, you know, why do I feel this way? But yet the world is fine. So the self-esteem just takes a dive. Same thing with anxiety and clinically worrying about things and you know, bipolar where you’re manic and you’re making impulsive decisions. You know, these are real things.
Addiction. Mm-hmm. , dramatic. Pause. The shame. And guilt that comes from having an alcohol drug. You know, sex food, gambling or online video gaming addiction. And then when
Victoria Pendergrass: you’re in recovery and then you
Chris Gazdik: relapse. Huge relapsing. Yes. You know, and then personality disorders and the feelings that you get with all that.
Like there is a space, I’ll say this, and then we’ll move to more focus for the rest of the time on how do we build this. But there is a space for understanding your self-esteem and the [00:49:00] psychological system around self-esteem through the biological component. Mm-hmm. of diagnosing. And I think that’s an important piece.
Did a pretty good job with the honorable mention. I think so. How do we do this? Man? We’ve started to talk about it, but
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, I’d give you first
Chris Gazdik: prize. How do we build self-esteem? First prize with what? Oh, oh that? Yeah. Yeah. So how do we build self-esteem? What do we do?
Okay. Why y’all looking at me? , I think we just went to you. I don’t know.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s I mean, you do things by, you can do things by self-reflecting meditation therapy, right? There’s a plug right there. I mean, you can do things like practice gratitude, you know, pr journaling. Like there’s lots of different
Chris Gazdik: ways that you can do, so you’re, you’re literally doing now what I did with my show prep and it was like, you know, when I started thinking about this, you know, you, you, you, you brainstormed.
Yeah, you brainstormed. You take a minute and it’s kind of like, okay, let me get my brain. Set it and then what you did Victoria was like, boom, [00:50:00] boom. Yeah. Boom, boom, boom, boom. It’s really only cuz
Victoria Pendergrass: I’ve been working with it, I worked with this pharma client, it’s huge earlier, but .
John-Nelson Pope: So this is the thing is also with, if you’re an adult, then if you are working and you’ve developed your self-esteem and it’s improved, then you are, when you have children yourself, that would be a, a great opportunity to start at even an earlier age.
Mm-hmm. , where your children won’t have those self-esteem issues. Yeah. And they’ll feel very, they will not just feel very self-confident. They will know their self-confidence.
Chris Gazdik: So what you’re doing is talking about modeling, modeling, modeling. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s funny, I’ll share an interesting moment that I was trying to have with, you know, my younger son very recently actually.
And I would, I was really wanting to help him understand, because there was something he was doing. I, I [00:51:00] honestly forget what it was. , but he was like, look, I don’t know how to do this. You know, just like, ah, what do I do? And I really wanted to work with him to help him understand like, you know, there are so many times I told him, Adam, that we, I have come across things that I don’t know what to do.
And I’ve really had to learn this as a more confident person ladder in my life than earlier in my life. I, I, I really wasn’t in a lot of ways, and I would get really down on myself like, I should know this, and I gotta tell you, you know,
As a high percentage of the time that you’re going to figure it out. Mm-hmm. rather than know prior to doing the human emotional experience. We figure this out together. There’s a lot of reasons why I love that phrase, and this is one of them. If we understand to give ourselves some grace and we understand to give ourselves some, some peace in mind, if we, if we give ourselves the the space to just [00:52:00] experiment, to try something to figure it out, boy, that’s a big self-esteem builder when you realize that’s
Victoria Pendergrass: the case.
Well, and I think also accepting the fact that self-esteem is a lifelong. I don’t wanna say that. Up
Chris Gazdik: and down journey. Journey up and down journey. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: And so, you know, people like LeBron James or Steph Curry or people like, I mean, they don’t just stop practicing basketball, right? No. I mean, they practice it for as long as that’s their career.
Like they just, you know, and so same thing with any other sport or any other career. You know, we take continuing education classes like blah, blah, blah, blah. Self self-esteem is basically the same thing. You, you have to, it’s gonna be there all the time. You have to practice it. Yeah. Because you’re gonna always have things that hit that try to knock you down.
That all, all those things that we listed Yeah. Earlier have spend a lot of time like that. Those don’t just stop once your self-esteem is good and on the up and up, you know? I mean, so you, it’s a [00:53:00] constant, this is
Chris Gazdik: crafted journey every day and recrafted and redrafted and redone like chronically. Yeah, absolutely.
Victoria Pendergrass: And I mean, I don’t mean, I don’t say that to be like, Intimidating or like, you know, oh, it’s a bummer that, you know, oh my gosh, I have to do this. It’s, it’s, I say it in more of an empowering way of that this is something you can choose, like you can choose to work on your self-esteem every day. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay, so we’re off to see the wizard,
Chris Gazdik: the wonderful wizard, eyes,
John-Nelson Pope: It’s also like, I guess an inverted corkscrew and, okay,
Chris Gazdik: an inverted corkscrew. What do you mean? Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, you start at the very beginning as a little, a little human and you grow up to be a bigger human, but you’re revisiting some of the issues, all of life all the time. Am I loved, am I loving? Am I accepted?
Am I enough? Mm-hmm. , am I enough? Yeah. And so you, the. The, your world becomes bigger and [00:54:00] bigger and bigger, but you’re spiraling upwards to a higher level of development, but you revisit some of the, the same things all throughout your life. And that’s, I guess I recapitulated what you were saying.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, no, I mean, I, I, and can I, and can I add to that metaphor?
Yeah. And, and when you go through a really tough life stance, like I have anecdotally begun to really realize, in a life cycle, when you go through a separation and or divorce mm-hmm. or a lost relationship, even in middle school or whatnot, you can really cycle down that little thing. Mm-hmm. pretty quick.
Mm-hmm. . Right. You know, you’re inverted what you call it, cork, screw. Mm-hmm. , you can, the air can come out like mm-hmm. , boom. And suddenly like, I’m thinking of somebody I’m working with now. It’s like suddenly at this point in life, I have doubts about everything. Like, you know, yeah. I went through this now and I don’t know if I am lovable, if I’m good at what I do, [00:55:00] if everything was a lie.
Right. If I’m not cute, if I’m not, you know, it’s like you can, yeah. You revisit things, John. Mm-hmm. , and when things really, really hit you, it is normal. Mm-hmm. , by the way, keyword word, normal and manageable. To rewind up that
John-Nelson Pope: quirks group. Exactly. And you’ve got to be able to, to, to talk to someone to be able to do that.
And I think that’s why therapy, therapy is very important. And you know what,
Chris Gazdik: besides therapy, I would say friends, man. You know, supportive people in your life. Oh boy. How about this for a point contrary to destructiveness, that criticism creates people that are supportive in your life, that could be friends or family are a huge factor in building yourself up.
You are like the five closest relationships that you have. We have said that before. Mm-hmm. somebody else’s quote. But that’s absolutely true. If you have five supportive [00:56:00] people. I mean, it’s one of the things I love about Metrolina, our group, honestly, guys, and I mean this as a compliment to those of us that are here, you know, we have a supportive environment.
Mm-hmm. , how important is that Right to clinician development to your day to day? It’s huge. Conversely, if you work at banks such and such, or agency such and such that are nailing you for this and nailing you for that, like, oh, it’s crushing. It’s just crushing.
John-Nelson Pope: And I think we’ve all been in jobs. Yeah, I have.
We have. I have .
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So you’ve heard this before many times. I love this activity where you choose one thing that you like about yourself, one thing that you don’t like about yourself. Only one thing that you don’t like about yourself, and you celebrate the one that you do you work on and manage the one that you don’t, and that becomes two that you like and you choose one more that you don’t like.
I know I’ve said that several times becomes four and so on and so forth. Build it grows and you build up that cork [00:57:00] screw. John was talking about, you know, correcting past actions with apologies. Well, how about that for building self-esteem, take responsibility feels. Hard, scary, but really good and more integrity and grounded stability gets created when you apologize and then learn from whatever you have done, cuz we all do it.
I don’t know that we think of apology as being an emotional self-esteem builder, but I think that it is learning about self by gaining insight of emotional experience. Can I, can I repeat on that a little bit? Sure.
John-Nelson Pope: Saying Go ahead. No, apologizing to others for, for the past also allows you to forgive yourself and that sets you free.
Okay. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Just, yeah, go a little further with that.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, it’s the idea that what the person that you may apologize to, that other person may not accept it. [00:58:00] True. That’s unfortunate. But you, that doesn’t have to stifle you. That doesn’t have to be another kick in the shins or kick in the butt. It can also be an opportunity for you to say, okay, I’m, I did my part, I did what I needed to do in forgiving.
Chris Gazdik: So it’s huge. It’s a big, yeah. I, I I love that. Thank you for adding to that, John. You know yeah. Let, let me go a little further and add, right, like, I, I thought of the idea of celebrating yourself. Do people give themselves permission to celebrate ourselves? I, you know, I probably not often enough. Yeah.
Like, I find people in job interviews. Like, I was weird. I loved going on job interviews. I, I really. And, and, and, and I, and that was just because it gave me a chance to like, experiment with, is this job a fit for me? Do you, do you think I would fit into there? Let me tell you why I think I do. And I don’t th I don’t mean to say think that I’m arrogant about it, but it was just like, Hey, let’s talk about some new creative thing that we could do together.
And that’s exciting. Can you mm-hmm. , [00:59:00] can you celebrate your skills in a job interview, man? Like, yeah. Give yourself permission to do that and
John-Nelson Pope: allow yourself to enjoy that you learned something new that you widened your world. I’m, I, I’m about ready to burst out and song. I’m, I don’t wanna do it, do it. I just want to celebrate another day of living.
Chris Gazdik: Oh yes. Remember that? It took me, I needed a second line to, to get it. Yeah man. Let’s, yeah, let’s just celebrate. It’s totally cool to be able to do. Right. Yeah. And then learning about emotional experience. I, I, I, I made a joke. I’m like, yeah, buy the, buy the book, the, you know re-understanding emotions and becoming your best self.
Right. I think learning about this though, really like, takes the mystery out of, in the emotional realm. Like, I don’t know about y’all, but I feel like people are really terrified oftentimes to dive into a therapy experience [01:00:00] and learn about the emotional realities and my emotional real, I mean, it feels, yeah.
They don’t wanna
Victoria Pendergrass: scary is that confront the truths about themselves. So they are, you know, what’s really going on?
Chris Gazdik: Is it okay to learn about that? Yeah. Again, give yourself permission. Right? So
John-Nelson Pope: unstrap the straight jacket and allow yourself to be who you are.
Chris Gazdik: Really? Ooh, I love it. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Take the straight jacket off.
and be willing to, to explore.
Chris Gazdik: It’s an awesome metaphor as well. Boy, you’re the metaphor man today. How about accepting things? It’s like compliments, for instance, but thank you. Stop fighting to change things that you cannot change. That is another aspect. You will drive yourself a bit crazy. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. If you try to change things that you cannot change and your self-esteem in trying to do the impossible will probably take a hit.
Right. Fair to say. [01:01:00]
John-Nelson Pope: Fair to say. You know, so live the serenity
Chris Gazdik: prayer, which is, I gotta quote it all the time, my friend hit it. No, you do
John-Nelson Pope: it. I don’t remember things. God grant me a serenity to accept the things I can change and, and ex what? And accept
Chris Gazdik: courage. Accept
Victoria Pendergrass: the things I cannot
Chris Gazdik: change. Courage.
Courage to change the things that I can. Yeah. And the wisdom to know the difference. Yeah. No, it’s. absolutely sound. Whoever wrote those words together, I thank you. Cause I quote that man or woman all the time. And you
John-Nelson Pope: don’t have to be religious to, to live by that.
Chris Gazdik: No, no, it’s definitely not. It’s almost not even really a prayer, is it?
I mean, it’s like a, it’s almost a escap it’s kind of a zend thing. It’s just thing the way he says that. That’s awesome. So, so I, oh, and I wanted to highlight, like if you’re looking at this segment of like, how do I build, build this man, we just did a show and I want to feel empowered, right? Episode.
What? Yeah, you’re listening to it. 2, 2 15, 2 17 That I can’t remember nails. It takes [01:02:00] another deep dive on maybe this whole deal. I think Neil said two 18, right? Like that that really gets a lot is cuz you know, if you’re building empowerment, you’re gonna have a positive self-esteem. Yeah. I think they linked together rather well.
Did you? I would agree. Yeah. And then I got lazy here. I just added things. There’s another cool article on our show notes, but recognize what you’re good at. Build a positive self relationships. Be kind to yourself. Learn to be assertive. Start saying no, give yourself a challenge. That was some of the things they quoted on that article,
Victoria Pendergrass: but, and I remember that No is what no is a complete sentence.
Is it?
Chris Gazdik: It is. Is it? It is, yes.
Victoria Pendergrass: How is that? So you can say no and that’d be it. And not have to explain and not have to give a reason why. Oh,
Chris Gazdik: I see what you’re saying. Capital n o no exclamation point. No is grammatically a cool sentence. Okay. Okay. I could take
Victoria Pendergrass: that. Well, not just [01:03:00] No was a
Chris Gazdik: complete sentence.
Yeah. And, and so is yes and yes is also a complete sentence. You know, when I’m doing assertiveness stuff, I like to say, you know, in boundaries per se, you know, that could I, I think honestly, we could, we could do. The whole month on shows on boundaries, of course, but boundaries are say yes when you mean yes and no.
When you mean no, let your yes be yes. Let your no be no. Right. Right. Like it’s been said way before me. Right. That’s solid and that’s feels empowered, which we just said connects to self-esteem.
John-Nelson Pope: I, I got a little list here, which is similar to what I think. I love it. Okay. Self-esteem is the confident person are, are for self, self-esteem.
Knows the difference between confidence and arrogance. Is not afraid of feedback. Does not people please or seek approval? It’s not afraid of conflict. Is able to set boundaries. Is able to voice needs and opinions is [01:04:00] assertive but not pushy. It’s not a slaved to perfection. Is not afraid of setbacks. Does not fear failure.
Does not feel inferior, accepts who they are now. That’s
Chris Gazdik: a process. What a powerful way to take us out, John, I think in building up yourself, celebrating yourself, and engaging yourself in the ways that John just poetically read. Listen, we hope you’ve enjoyed this episode to dive deep with us on what it is that we all struggle with and what it is that we all crave.
John, you said it beautifully there. Listen, y’all are enough. Celebrate that. Build yourselves up, and we’ll continue to be figuring this thing out with you together. Listen, have a great week. Stay well, and we’ll see you next week. See
John-Nelson Pope: you next week.