Berner Phone - Kara Loewentheil: How To Unf*ck Your Brain & Change Neural Patterns

Episode Date: March 31, 2021

Kara is the first MASTER Certified life coach to come to hell. She has a B.A. from Yale and a J.D. from Harvard Law. Her coaching is rooted in cognitive psychology-based techniques and feminist theory and she blew my mind!!!   GET TICKETS TO MY STAND UP SHOW IN LONG ISLAND HERE: https://www.hannahberner.com/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/appSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/berninginhell/support Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I would feel guilty if I told myself I was going to go to the post office and then I didn't go to the post office. Even though nobody cared and it didn't need to happen. And then I get to the post office and I feel guilty because I don't know how the post office work. Yeah. Welcome to Burning and Hell. What's up, guys? We have a very special episode of Burning and How. She may be the smartest person to ever grace hell.

And I think I actually might learn some shit today. I'm very excited. Kara Lowenthal is here to party with the devil. Kara, welcome to hell. How are you? I'm fine. I really like the idea that generally you don't learn anything when you interview people on your podcast. You're like, well, usually this is a waste of time.

But I think today I might learn something. Normally we hear some traumatic bullshit. no we we learn from experiences on this podcast but we've never had someone who has like actually i think there was one guy who maybe had harvard in somewhere on his resume but you're harvard j d yel b a master coach host of unfuck your brain podcast we love a bitch with a curse in her podcast name creator of the clutch a feminist mindset revolution i went to your website and like you really put it all out there kind of what you stand for what you educate women about and what you do and um i can't wait to dig deep into this let's do it i'm ready deep's where

i i'm not that good at small talk so let's just go hell yeah same i'm like let's go what keeps you up at night it makes you cry but i do think that um i go to comedian's website who have an update their website in like six years but yours is updated and beautiful it says yes i'm a life coach a master certified one at that and no that doesn't mean i'm a woo woo divine feminine channeling goddess seer who spins law of attraction BS. I love that. Because this industry is tough. There's a lot of woo-woo shit happening.

There's a lot. There's a lot of talking about vibrations by people who have never taken a physics class. A lot. And I do think that when people are definitely in search of, like, change in their life, they are in a vulnerable place. So it is easy to, like, go on Instagram and see a beautiful grid aesthetic of someone with, like, perfect waves in their hair and be like, she can help my life. And I'll give her a lot of money. Yeah. I mean, I think my goal, it's so funny. People think that when people think here, I'm a coach, like, oh, so you like give advice and you have good advice and you tell people what to do. I'm like, no, it's the opposite. I have no idea what you should do. I teach people how to think more clearly. Like, that is really my job. So because I think we do all know truly deep down, like what we want, what we need to do, what the next step is, whatever the question is. We have the answer, but there's just a lot of bullshit that gets in the way. Like your brain has evolved to have a lot of bullshit. You've and socialized to think a lot of unhelpful ways. So my job is really just to teach people how to

clear out all the bullshit so that they can actually hear what they want and how to go after it, which for women in particular can be such a challenge. I love that so much because it took me years to even understand that the voice in your head was just society or past bullying or it wasn't you. And once I discovered that things really changed. But you're interesting too because you're if you basically use insights from feminist theory what the hell is feminist theory I mean that is a big question what is feminist theory but I think so when I sort of started learning about coaching it was like okay so I know you know traditional talk therapy it's a lot about your childhood your formative relationships like that's kind of what you go back to to understand yourself right

and then there's sort of some more modern branches of psychology are kind of more behavioral focus like we have cognitive behavioral theory that's sort of about your brain, your cognition. And then when I sort of discovered coaching, it was like there was a lot of that kind of cognitive stuff. There was a lot of talk about how evolution had impacted our brains to be a certain way. So like evolutionary biology. And then you have that kind of fit. We all grow up immersed in a society where we are kind of in that therapy narrative

of like our families cause everything. And then I was sort of like, okay, but something's still missing here. Like this explains part of it of how my brain works and like why I think the way. way I do and why I have the insecurities I do and all of that. But like, there's something missing. And what I saw was missing was we weren't taking into account how being socialized as a woman or being socialized as a woman or being socialized as a white person or a person of color, being socialized as a fat person or a thin person, like all these different kind of value hierarchies in society, being socialized as whatever identities you have impacts the way your brain

things. So we were like trying to understand how women's brains work just based on like their childhood and evolutionary biology and not taking into account people you grow up in a society that's giving you messages about what it means to be a woman and what your value is and all of that your whole life. We're just like not going to talk about that part and how that might impact your brain. So that's really what I mean. It's not that like when you work with me, we're like doing a PhD program in critical theory, right? It just means that like I'm bringing a kind of feminist and intersectional and really social justice lends to this to teach people, you know, how can, if we want to work towards social liberation, how do we do that work on our brains

first? It's like we've all been impacted by society. And it's funny how the word like, she's crazy is such a rampant thing when it's, it's like an ex-boyfriend being like, oh, I'm a boyfriend being like, my ex was crazy. And it's like, yeah, well, things happen to maybe get her to that point. And it's interesting for you to be like, there's a reason why sometimes you're sitting there so insecure about yourself for no reason, even though you've a great job or great family. And it's like, there is a reason. And I love that you talk about social conditioning, yes, and self-critical talk.

And I feel like, especially for successful women, this is a big issue. Yeah. I mean, everybody you meet has impostors. Like, when was last time you met a woman who didn't have imposter syndrome, right? Like that whole, yeah, women are just always socialized to think that they are not doing enough, aren't smart enough right somehow tricked everybody to get where they got right we're always acting like which is my favorite thing about imposter syndrome is that this is what your brain is saying to you your brain is like you're too stupid and bad to have this job on your own worth but you're incredibly clever to be

able to trick everybody the whole time so funny well Nikki Glazer is one is an incredible comedian one of my good friends who talked about this because she suffered from it and she said her therapist was like so you think you're so slick that you were able to trick everyone right right right you were funny when you're really not like don't give yourself that much credit and when she put it that way i like immediately was like this is some bullshit but also as someone i was a tennis player and then i was in stand-up like they're in very male dominated fields and it's so easy to succumb to like the pressure cooker of you're the girl on the show everyone's watching you or everyone's not watching you because you're the girl right and no one cares how has your own experiences affected your

in getting into this line of work. Yeah, I had a real mix because I originally came up in the reproductive rights movement. And so I was doing reproductive rights and reproductive justice work, which is a heavily female field, as you can imagine. And then I became an academic and legal academia, especially I was working on a topic that basically had been like a kind of like relevant big topic in the 60s and 70s. So a bunch of people had gotten become specialists in it then. And then it had kind of not been a big deal for 30 years as working on kind of religious

accommodations. Like if somebody, you know, if you work for an organization that doesn't want to provide insurance for birth control. So anyway, that part is not so relevant to your audience necessarily. But basically like the field was just starting to heat back up. So it was like me and a bunch of 70 year old white dudes. It was like, that's who were already the experts because nobody had really specialized in this for the last 30 years. And there were a couple of other young women too. But so I had like this very different experience of going from this like very female dominated industry that was pretty much all women or you know some obviously some men, some gender non-conforming people or non-binary people, but like pretty much heavily cis women.

And then academia where it was like everybody was 30 years older than me and a like a straight white man. And I would say the attitudes were slightly different in those two industries. But actually for me like what was so striking, when I started thinking about it through this lens was I was, when I was working at reproductive rights organizations, I was working around like, we were the experts in the world, in this field. Nobody knew more than we did. And still you'd be sitting around in a meeting and people would be like apologizing for their ideas and saying like, doing that prefacing of like, well, maybe this is stupid. And, you know, so it was like such a good example to me of like, it's the calls coming from inside

the house is what I always say, right? Like I love that. I love that so much. But it's inside. Like we're sitting in this meeting. The president of the organization is a woman. The director of the departments are women. There's actually like one man in this meeting. And that's the administrative assistant. Like this is not any kind of disclaimers or whatever we're doing here.

It's not because the men in the room are intimidating us. Right. And that doesn't mean that it's not like we made it all up. We were crazy. Right. The point is just like we're socialized this way. And then that's how your brain works. It really is like a cult because I feel like society.

tells you what to think. And then other women to each other are like trick to be like enforcing societal standards. Right. Because we're all, it's just how you learn to think. And so we're all, we're all doing it. Right. And it doesn't really matter. I mean, this is what I always say like when people having come from spending 20 years working on more like policy solutions of like, you know, how do we change the structures? How do we? You know, at this point, understanding the brain, I'm like, okay, we could pass a lot of morrow that 50% of every board seat and see. CEO suite, it has to be women or it has to be, you know, whoever. And if we haven't changed the mental situation, right, if we haven't changed how we think, that's not really going to

solve our problem. We're still going to have the 50% of women apologizing for their thoughts and thinking it's not good enough and taking on all the unpaid additional administrative labor and the 50% of the men still running things. So why are we doing this to ourselves? Because we don't understand how the brain works. Like that thing you said in the beginning that you, you know, got to be like and wasn't for a long time that you were like, wait, what I'm thinking isn't necessarily true. Yes. Like I learned that when I was like 32 and I was like, hold the phone. What?

Because that's like the call is coming from inside the house and the call is not you. I was like, I don't understand. What are you saying? Like, why did no one, when I first learned this work? I was like just, why didn't know and tell me this before? What do you mean? Like, did everybody else know that your thoughts are not necessarily true and that like you can change them I think it's important as a feminist I was reading on your website like we know I don't think

I should have a boyfriend to accept myself but then secretly you're worried that you're unlovable with that one you're like I need to love my body but then you're just criticizing it all the time and it's like I guess women we also and men you don't always realize how those little thoughts that no one can hear actually affects your reality because you're not saying it out loud yeah those people aren't aware of how like you know when I when you join my um the clutch, which is my feminist coaching community, one of the first things we teach you to do is how to, like, learn what you're actually thinking, right? How to start to pay attention to it. People are shocked. Like people come in being like, I think I, I, you know, obviously they signed up.

So they're like, yes, I'm anxious about this thing. But they're like, I think I'm pretty nice to myself. And then when they write down all their thoughts, they're like, oh my God. Like, I had no idea that that was going on in there. But you are subconsciously, like constantly criticizing and evaluating yourself. And because of the way we're socialized, we also just think we're being like women will say things to me like no i'm not self-critical i just know that i'm lazy and stupid oh right you're like no no no you're like okay we need to unpack that even further let's step back this is not right because we're just like that's just accurate i'm just explaining it to you right we like think that we're not being self-critical because we think that our self-critical thoughts are

true and so we're just explaining reality we're just describing ourselves yeah we're just just like the weather report we're just like no i'm fat and disgusting i mean it's fine i'm not being mean to myself it's just like it's snowing outside i mean you like have actual PhDs or whatever you have like real shit that you've done i saw on instagram there was a test with like plants have you heard the plant thing where like two plants are growing and one plant you like yell at every day and the other plant you like give love and it said like the energy that one plant like didn't grow as well who knows there could have been variables but it's like that's kind of how you talk to yourself and i was i'm so good at putting on a poker face and like being the class clown and being so funny

and I'm like yeah I'm great but I was not real I was aware of everything I'd say to other people but I literally didn't care what I said to myself and the next thing you know you're in spirals right and that impacts how you feel next thing you know you're speaking a language that's just not positive at all so for girls out there who are like strong fucking feminist and they know what they want to be and they're like I don't need a boyfriend but like secretly they think they're unlovable what what kind of little piece of advice do you have for that kind of love situation Yeah, I think the advice is actually the same for anything. Like so many women have the same gap that we're talking about right there, right? Which is like, well, I want to believe this.

Yes. I think I do believe this, but like somehow it doesn't apply to me. Right? Or like, and so I think what's going on there. Like my situation's a little bit worse. Yeah. Or what people will often say is like, oh, I believe it intellectually, but I don't feel it emotionally. Like that's the way people talk about it a lot. I think that's a misunderstanding, which is totally normal of how the brain works. What's actually going on is you believe both things. You believe the thought that like a woman shouldn't need to be married to feel okay about herself. And you believe the thought if I don't have a boyfriend or something wrong with me. And so it's not an emotional intellect split. You believe two different thoughts, one of which is much older and more powerful because

you've been learning that thought since you were six months old and people started saying like, oh, she's a heartbreaker. Like she's going to have to keep the boys away, right? That socialization starts so early. So what I always want to teach people is to like, first of all, just understand that's what's happening. When you tell yourself like, I believe it, but I don't feel it, you have no idea how to resolve that problem. Like, that just seems mystifying and like there's nothing you can do. And so we want to understand really what the problem is. The problem is in the most basic terms, I have thought this one thought six million times. And I've only thought this other thought like 2,000 times. So it's just not as strong yet. And the good news is you don't have to get to six

million with, I mean, I'm just making up these numbers, but right, it's like we've thought one a lot and we've only started thinking the other one since we were like, 23. It's very, it's much more recent. And so what we, and most of us don't know that you actually can change what you think just by practicing thinking something new on purpose that you can believe. That's like the secret to the universe right there. So it's not working the way people are trying to do it because they're trying to think the thought, I don't need to be able to feel okay about myself. Yeah, it's way too far, right? So if in this example, like if your, if your thought is, you know, if I don't have a boyfriend, there's something wrong with me, you can't, you don't yet believe truly the thought

there's nothing wrong with me no matter what, right? So trying to think that, which is like positive thinking or like affirmations, like a lot of people don't have success with those because it's too big of a gap. And it becomes like performative. Yeah. Or then you just feel bad about yourself that that's not working. You're like, I can't even do positive thinking, right. Affirmations don't even love me. Yeah, exactly. You're like, I'm bad at this. Now I'm not, now I'm failing at loving my body in addition to, right? So what I really teach is to practice what I call like a ladder step thought, which is just like a little bit of a better thought. So we're not, if we're talking about the dating example, we're not going to go from there's something wrong with me

because I don't have a boyfriend to like I love my single life and feel like an amazing goddess when you don't yet. But we can practice believing something like lots of people. find a partner later in life. Or it's possible that my brain is not being accurate about this whatever, right? Or what if I met that person tomorrow? Would that mean I was worthy tomorrow and not today? Right? You can start to play with like little steps you can believe. And this is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy. Yeah. And this is how you change your thoughts. This is why I think if anyone listening, it's super important to speak to someone like whether it's a professional or even like I know I'll call my mom sometime and I'll be like, I'm having this crazy.

thought about myself and she will like see it in her perspective that will help me change that thought because I know I will spiral deep but sometimes it just takes one other person being like hey okay let's take a step back you don't mean that um like for this thought for example I've definitely had this thought being single and then thinking like no I actually could get a boyfriend if I wanted and I'm waiting to meet the right person I'm not not lovable there's plenty of people who love me. So that's like a great first step. Oh, I love this. I always say to people, like, if you truly wanted to be married more than you cared who you were married to, you could be married by now. Right? You could be in an unhappy relationship at any time if that's going to

make you feel better. 100%. Right. Like there's always, yeah. So exactly. And I think that like little bit of you have to practice believing something where you get a physical change in your emotional state, like you feel a little bit different. And most people don't know that that's what they should be looking for it and they expect it to be like magic they you know it's like i always say like going to the gym and being like okay well i've decided i want to like deadlift 400 pounds and i so i'm just going to do that you're like no no no you're so right because the affirmations they don't work unless you like really do believe it that's i really think anyone's capable of anything like i wonder like oh how come riana became such a you know famous singer like she really did

want it and also believed she should and who knows the steps it took her to get to that believe Right. And you got to work your way up the belief. Like we think the nice thing, you can't pick up 400 pounds if you haven't trained. So you don't fool yourself into thinking you can. But with thinking, you can say a thought to yourself in your brain. And if you don't know to check and see, do I actually believe it? How does it feel in my body? It's like we don't know. We just think we're doing it. We think we're delifting the 400 pounds. And then we're like, this isn't working. And the way you believe something is by, yes, starting out slow, like, okay, I might want to be a singer. And then getting, like, like fighting societal norms being like you can't do it you're not pretty enough you're not talented enough and do that for a step of learning how to sing and like really taking the steps um not to put you on the spot but what kind of societal messages are we getting as women at a young age that is fighting against us in terms of like looks like every possible can you give us some examples of everywhere i think like so for the dating one i think one of this is another thing that women this is why i think this perspective is so important because women often end

up also like beating themselves up for having these insecurities or having these anxieties. And there's like, you know, one of the stereotypes about women in general is that they're like overly emotional or they're irrational or whatever. And we've learned those too. So when we are feeling super anxious about some dude we met on Tinder two weeks ago not texting us back, right? Like then we're telling ourselves that we're being unreasonable and we're being great, we're being irrational. And it gets us all like fired up to this fevered pitch, right? the truth is society has been telling you since you were born that the most important thing about a woman is romantic acceptance by a man like that's it it doesn't matter how evolved we think we are

like yes things are better we are now also told we can have jobs like it's just you know a little bit better than 100 150 years ago and like and I say this as somebody who was raised in a family that was like very focused on my professional and academic success I was not being told at home like you need to get a husband. So I had like a pretty professional academic, you know, focused family. And still I absorb so much of it, right? Like it's just everywhere that the most important thing in a woman's, you know, in a woman's life that determines her value and her worth is male sexual and romantic approval. So yeah, of course you're going to. And then knowing that, then it's so easy for society to be like, want a man, these are these blowjob tips. You have to conquer.

Right. You have to lose. Your waist has to be this small to your butt ratio. That's what all that advertising is. One of a man, you need this $400 serum. And the next to, you know, you're just like in this spell. And it's like, that's why I think I started this tweet thing of like, do I actually like him or? And it's like a lot of the time with women, it's like, are you quick to just want to be in a situation with someone? Or do you actually like this person? Or do you find out seven months later after you've gotten what you wanted, you tricked him or whatever you're to do?

And then you're like, I don't even like the way this person like. forms a sentence. I'm going to punch myself in the face. Also, when girls are growing up, I think there's a lot about being pretty. Oh, yeah, totally. These things are both related, right? Women are socialized to think that their appearance is the thing that will get that male acceptance, that's supposed to be the most important thing. And women are socialized to think of their bodies as objects that they're supposed to manipulate and trade to get that male approval, right? Whereas, exactly, whereas men are not. It really makes me nauseous. Yeah, but that's what it is, right? Women are so alienated from their bodies because we don't

think of our bodies as being like the animal that we live in or the home that we live in, right? Yeah. And we don't think of our bodies as being like men are socializing. Yeah. It's like this object that you're supposed to like sculpt and whittle and wax and whatever, die and whatever so that you can trade it. Badazzle. Yeah, bedazzle. So you can trade it for the currency. of male sexual acceptance. And like, this sounds extreme, but this is actually what is underlying so much of the way that women are in relationships.

And like there's, it's not a coincidence that a lot, I mean, when you look at women later in life who have gotten divorced or gone through menopause, obviously this is a generalization. But like a lot of them are like, no, why the hell would I want to get married again? It's like I'm sort of like,

I got that thing that was supposed to make me feel happy forever and accepted forever. And then I was like, wait, no. Like, so many women, I think literally, like get their checklist done and then they're like then how can I feel so lonely and empty inside right but I do know that when I was first dating in my 20s everyone heard about like girls are crazy and you know um girlfriends it could be so annoying and like I just wanted to be the least annoying cool girlfriend I'm just so cool and like I'm like what am I doing I have to be myself at

some point like I wasn't bothered by anything and the next thing you know you don't have boundaries and you're not respecting yourself and you can't even find the right person for you even though everyone's trained to be like we want Prince Charming when it's like I'm sorry Prince Charming is probably a narcissist let's be honest And there's also your socialized I mean it's not all one way right like women are also socialized Because women are socialized to believe that their worth is dependent on their romantic status yes that means then They want a certain kind of man yep to like validate that they're good enough right so like at this point now everybody's just being objectified Nobody is like no in that scenario is dating for the love of

of the other person. You're trying to trade like your looks and your agreeability and your whatever for the status of a certain kind of job or certain kind of money. Is that equate to real happiness? Right. Of course not. That's how you end up like three years later, right, with post-wedding depression because now you're like, oh, now I'm just actually married to this person and it didn't magically change my life. And what I do love about what you do is you have a great humor to it. I mean, obviously you have curse words and you have the F-bomb in your title, so I knew I loved you. But you really a good sense of humor about it. But I also think women having a sense of humor is has been hard for society to really accept. People say that it's a typical like masculine quality, which

again is a social construct. I only want to listen to it. I mean, if I'm like listening to stand up, I want to like a woman, a person of call like anybody with an outsider perspective, that's what's funny. I'm like not at all interested in what jokes like a straight cis white dude has to tell me if they're all like blowjob jokes i just i'm like i don't care for men it's it's hard to they're trying not to come and girls are trying to oh my god my mother so my mother was a lawyer for many years and then she took up doing stand-up comedy as her like late in life hobby oh my god i love that she's hilarious and adorable she refuses to like she's not like trying to you know go make a career out of it obviously but i like go to so i go to all these showcases she's in and it is always like

there's like five or 10 straights as white dudes in their 30s living in Brooklyn whose jokes are all about like oral sex and you know I just am like a fucking snooze fest and then all the people who are kind of weird right like they're humor it's so much funnier because humor is an outside perspective but if you look at stand up as a business and you wonder like why are there no not more women or like um different sexuality is and diversity and stand up it's because when it's run by like one kind of person totally you don't always feel funny yeah but you but you don't always feel comfortable like as a girl going into a bar at 11 p.m. because you got a spot in green point Brooklyn and it's all just full of straight guys judging you and you're kind of like I don't want to do this

and there's so much talent that has been has quit because they don't feel comfortable in that cis white male world but this is but I think this is the core of like the work for me is that I totally believe we need to change society. But right now, here's where we are. Right. So for me, I'm like, okay, if you want to be a stand-up comic and the thing keeping you from doing it is like those thoughts and feelings about going into that bar, then we got to work on changing those. Yes. We have to change. I don't know where people think the social change is going to come from if we don't change people's minds first. Like we have to make the social change. So we have to liberate ourselves from the inside first if we want to go be able to make that change.

And I think because I grew up playing tennis in a male dominated field, like I weirdly felt comfortable in that space. And I think like I was able to then get like some girlfriends who were like, oh, I don't like going to spots at night. And then being like, guys, let's go together. Like, because we come in and we're more confident together. And that's been fun. But also I've realized over time that women just taking up space can really trigger men. being the funny one in a conversation can trigger men being a loud laugher for whatever reason like just I love I just fucking love taking up space and it makes people men sometimes very uncomfortable around me yeah and then it's just the question is like what kind of life do you want

to live right like I just can't imagine getting to end of my life and being like man I'm glad I didn't make any white men that any men uncomfortable you know like I'm going to be like I wish that I didn't hold in all those great laughs that I could have had my whole life like i just i mean you told women they have to giggle like yeah right yeah you can't be too right i mean there's i mean we could have a whole other conversation there is right such a thing about women sort of like being restrained and not taking up space and being small and being meek and like not right not laughing loud not talking not and there's a study showing that you know if women talk a quarter of the time in a meeting men will say they're talking more than 50% of the time

in the meeting like literally our brains don't process it accurately because of all this internalized bias. But I think, you know, I spent a lot of years in the world of like, both social change, but also like, okay, men need to change get better. And I'm like, that's true. But this is what I can do. Like, I'm here for this amount of time on this earth. Yeah. Like, I'm going to teach the women how to change their thought processes so that they're like, I don't care that this man thinks I'm talking too much in the meeting. I'm going to talk in the meeting anyway. And if this, if there's a negative repercussion on the line, I'm going to be ready to deal with that and if I this turns out to not be the job for me then I'm going to feel confident that

I can get another one like it's so funny because I've felt like a crazy person because I'm currently I'm on a TV show and there is a guy on the show who literally is like you talk too much and in my head I'm like but he talks 10 times more than I do so how come like what is he what I'm like if so no first of all I don't think anyone talks too much but if you think I talk too much then how what it was very hard for me to comprehend and people would be like yeah like you talk too much it became a thing and i'm in my head like but i don't talk as much as him but that it's so and then it's just so easy to always be like i'm currently in the middle of kind of a twitter drama of something happened to a show where the misogyny is just rampant that um in relationships of just so

easily being like yeah the girl's crazy and and the girl like she just wants to be with a hot guy and I'm like actually I kind of want a guy who's smart and funny and kind so let's not like just assume that I just wanted that but anyway enough about me spinning back to you since I think that's true and there is such a like that's you know I think one of the most insidious things about kind of a lot of these socialization patterns is that they like flip whatever's really true right so it's like women are taught that their appearance is the thing that matters most about them and then men will and then like but then also we're being told that women only care about how handsome a man is or something right you're like no no no it's the other way around like it's actually

the last thing I care about this point of my life been there done that I just want someone who's soul connects to mine in this work that you've been doing how has it helped you understand yourself more throughout oh I mean I think everything that I teach is like came from doing the work on myself. I mean, I really think, obviously I like read books and stuff too, but I'm not like making it all up. But I really do that. I think with any kind of, you know, like how does a meditation teacher learn something? Of course, they can study what has been written in the past, but also their meditation practice, right? Like you could never be a good, you could be, I would never go to a meditation teacher. It was like, oh, no, I don't meditate. But I've read a bunch of books

about it, right? You'd be like, no, no, kind of need you to have a serious meditation practice if I'm going to trust you with this. And the same I think is true for coaching. And the same I think is true for coaching like most of my all I think everything that I have sort of like added to the world of coaching that has been really unique from my perspective has come from doing my own work and like seeing it and myself and of course I get coached I'm a big proponent of like never get there we're all yeah it's there's not a final destination yeah exactly so like I always have coaches and I get coached and you know like it's not like oh I'm on the mountaintop and I've achieved enlightenment and things are always changing too like it's never a final answer I

I'm always like, I want to be an example of how much your life can change with a half managed mind. Yeah. Because like all my students are total perfectionists who think they have to get it all perfect. And I'm like, no, no, I'm just 50% less crazy than I used to be. And my life is so much better. So do you find a certain type of woman that is, that ends up in your course? Yeah. I would say women with high, I mean, this describes a lot of women, but like self-critical, high anxiety. Often they don't know that they're self-critical, right? But it really, it's They think they're just really observant. Yeah, exactly.

They think they're just realistic. This is what I would have said, too. Like, I'm just being realistic about myself, right? I think women who feel like, like what I used to feel like before coaching, I just felt like, I never felt good enough. I always felt like there was something wrong with me. I was always trying to fix the next thing about me to finally feel okay about myself. Yep.

Like that would check and bring the happiness. Yeah. And I felt, and I just felt like I was living under this like miasma of guilt and shame. all the time. Like, I say I would, guilt is the worst emotion. Like, I would feel guilty if I told myself I was going to go the post office and then I didn't go to the post office. Even though nobody cared and it didn't need to happen.

And then I get to the post office and feel guilty because I don't know how the post office works. Yeah. Right, right. It's just that constant, I just was like living under that constant cloud. And I felt so emotionally volatile. I mean, this is the thing, right? It's like, yeah, why do you like, you know, there's the stereotype of women being crazy

and irrational. and then it's like a feedback loop where on the one hand then we just think anything a woman you know a man having a strong emotion is just like being forceful and a woman having a strong emotion is crazy but also like i was quite emotionally volatile because not because there's something genetically crazy about women but because i've been socialized to think in these ways that were all about you know basically being constantly mean to myself and like being totally dependent on external validation and so you're constantly swinging between external validation and feeling shitty about yourself and yeah of course you're all over the place i i do think it's why i didn't really last in

corporate america i like couldn't handle having a boss and like dealing with the situations that i was observing in the office and i was like i just need to do this on my own because it's it's really difficult to oh my god we had unlimited vacation days which turned into no vacation yeah it's like that's the kind of thing that would because none of the girls in the office would take it because it would look bad at some point i was like we were all just abusing ourselves and and being abused and it's just this sick cycle and when do we stop the pain yeah what i've discovered is like you have to change the way you think it's like the key to at all and i think my people my students might tend to be women who are yeah so often what you describe of like okay

well i've done a couple of these things that i thought were supposed to make me feel good like i did get married or i did get the job or i did get the whatever and like that's what happened to me for sure I mean, I spent 10 years being like, okay, I'm going to get the next gold star. Like, I'm going to get, you know, I'm going to go to this law school and then I'll feel smart and good enough. And then, okay, I'm going to get this clerkship and I'm going to get this fellowship. And then eventually I was running a think tank at Columbia Law School. And I was like, I don't think the job's going to do it.

I have enough evidence now. I think maybe it has to come from inside my brain. Well, it's funny because I've always talked about plastic surgery. And I was thinking about it last night how like materialistic stuff. stuff with women has become so important, especially with social media and, like, the Kardashians and what they've normalized. Like, it's literally been normalized to be 18 and get lip fillers. So it's like, I always tell people, before you, like, do something to your face or your body, like, why don't we think within first? Like, why do you want to do that if you could fix that?

Because I think what I'm hearing you say is kind of like, I don't think the nose job is going to solve all your problems. No. And if you've, I mean, this, you see this with weight loss all the time, right, people want to lose weight to feel confident, but then they do it and they don't feel confident. And that's because if you have been thinking the thought, I'm fat and disgusting the whole time you're trying to lose weight, it's like we think the minute the scale flips to that last number, all of a sudden we're going to have a different brain that says nice things to us. It's because people don't understand how the brain works, right?

People think outside things cause how I think and feel. So it's my, it is the number causing my feelings. And as soon as it's the right number, it'll cause a positive feeling. But that's not how it works. Your brain is much more, it's not really a muscle, but it's the right metaphor, right? Your brain is like a muscle. You've taught it to think a certain way. It's not going to change just because a number changes or your nose changes in the mirror or whatever.

And I think what you see with plastic surgery a lot is people will, people will, and the plastic surgery industry will tell you, oh, people do report increased satisfaction after blah, blah, blah, yeah, with their nose. Now they've switched to, now I need a chin lift, right? Now I need a whatever. It's like switch to the next thing. And I'm not here to, you know, I don't guilt or shame anyone. Obviously, it would be maybe a terrible coach. We're all complicit in different ways. I wear makeup and high heel sometimes.

Like I'm not, you know, telling anybody that they're, you know, that they shouldn't do whatever they're doing. But I do, I totally agree with you that I think like the normalization of, like, we have got to like pump on the brakes and think about, right, why are we doing this? And especially with beauty and constantly trying to stay young, this is a losing fight you're going to get older like this is just you like ageing gracefully is a thing the point of age aggressively is not fighting it and looking like a reptile midway because

you're fighting it right and you can't like okay with weight loss some small percentage of people are able to lose and keep weight off long term okay nobody has successfully stopped aging no matter how hard they try right like it's not an option and the and I you know like there are ways in which growing up as a, like, living life in a fat body and a fatphobic society, like, yeah, there's a lot of downsides. But one of the plus sides is, like, I had to learn to love my body from myself. And also, I haven't based my entire sense of well-being on fitting into society's, you know, conventional attractive boxes. Like, I actually really feel for people who are conventionally very beautiful because I think that they start to lose their shit when, like,

you know, you start to like, when that's been your currency and then eventually, that currency goes away and it's wild that a typical person who has kind of a societal accepted body you don't see the like fat shaming or like the lack of acceptance for diverse body types because you're in that privileged body and you still don't feel good though you know it's like no no no model and they still are like I'm too fat because the photo of her that she's jealous of herself could it's because it's photoshopped right there's no there's no one winning, right? This is also such a misconcerate. It's like, yeah, when we talk about, you know, body privilege, we're saying you get, there's a difference in like, you're in society, but of course

it's not saying everybody experiences the emotional pain because we've all internalized the same things that we can't live up to. So if you're a size 24 and you haven't done this work, then you're trying to be a size 18. If you're a size 18, you're trying to be a size 14. If you're size two, you're trying to be a size zero, right? It's like a woman can never be good enough. Or if your, your boobs might be too small for an ideal plus-size model. Right, right. So it's funny because thinking about this, as I'm getting older and I might have children one day, it's like, I want to, I'm like, what do I want to teach my kids?

Like, what's the goal? Like, is it success? Is I want to be super good-looking? Or is it like I want them to understand how to be happy? What advice would you give to mothers on, you know, you have a daughter? What are some, like, words or praise or things you want the daughter to understand that society doesn't want her to understand? I mean, I think you have to do the work yourself because your children, we know, kids are smart.

They don't listen to your bullshit if they can tell you don't believe it. They don't listen to your performative affirmations. Yeah, they see what you do. The crystals are not doing it. Right. They see what you do, not just what you say, right? So you can't be like, you know, staring in the mirror criticizing yourself and then telling your daughter that her body's beautiful and think that's what she's going to hear, right?

So I think like for moms or parents of any kind, the most important thing you can do is to do your own work. because that's what you're going to model for your kids. That's so much more important than like what you say to them. Kids are like little weather veins. They pick up on the emotions behind it and like what's actually going on and not like whatever bullshit you try to feed them if they can tell you don't believe. You're so right. And you will break even if you're trying to be a type of way.

If that's not earnestly how you feel, they'll see right through it. Are you right to play The Seven Deadly Sins? I think it's time. I'm ready. Let's go because I feel enriched. I feel motivated. I want to kick the patriarchy and the balls. seven deadly sins what are you greedy about i'm greedy about these are going to be like such

annoying life coach answers uh i think that i'm greedy about uh i think like self knowledge i just like always i think like like i get asked all the time like you know like what do you do for fun and i'm like i think about myself like not in a like i'm like self inquiry like that is fun like when I think about is there anything in the world I can't have too much of maybe orgasms also like I can't but you can have too much of those actually it can become painful like self knowledge and like that's yeah if you were going to give me like one wish that was like you could have unlimited something that's what I would pick amazing who are you envious of I used to be envious of like literally everybody I have done like a ton of work on it so I actually

think one of the greatest gifts coaching has given me I promise they won't all be this coachy, but this is who I am, is like that I don't feel envious anymore. So I used to like walk around New York and every time I saw a thin woman, I just assume that her life was perfect, right? Even though like in New York, people are like crying and breaking up on the street. She's literally crying and you're like, and I'm like, look, her work is, her life is amazing. So one of the things I did when I was doing a lot of body image work was like, I think like I teach my clients to do, you have to delink the idea that a certain body is going to bring you happiness. Yes.

So I spent like a whole summer walking around Manhattan, which, you know, is full of literal fashion models being like everybody suffers like I would like see a beautiful woman but that's how you have to it's sad to be like everyone's sad but like everyone's sad that's what you know that's what buddhist tradition teaches us right every humans all suffer suffering comes from our human attachment yes everyone is living in this world where we're all going to die and we all have you know thoughts about just what our purpose is and no one knows right right we all feel happy we all feel sad like yes There's no one body that's going to make you only feel happy. But you can control your thoughts and, like, your reactions to things.

Yeah. And also part of that is, like, accepting that you're supposed to feel both happy and sad because you're a human, not a robot. I know. That's hard for me. My friend earlier today was like, it's okay to not be okay. And I'm like, but is it? Yes, it is.

It's okay. I concur with your friend. What do you gluttonous about? So what do you like to overindulge in besides self-exploration? Before, besides self-expiration, yeah. I think sex more than food. Like, I'm not particularly glutinous about food, but I think, like, yeah, I'm, I don't get tired of having sex. And it's funny because sex is not just an easy thing that women immediately find pleasure in.

And it's, I mean, that's what you could write a whole. Yeah, we can have a whole other episode about that. But it's great that you have to, like, really feel sexy and be out of your own head to, orgasm and enjoy your partner so well i think that's yeah that's why since i'm so cerebral like that's one of like that and dancing those are like the physical things where i'm like outside of my head and in my body yes yes because you can't ignore that your body is a part of you have to be in your body to have that experience yeah when was the last time you experienced extreme wrath or anger oh my earlier today i almost lost my mind because this is like such a funny

I started doing this coaching work and I learned how to like stop basically losing my shit about other people. I started losing my shit about inanimate objects not working. And so like that's like I don't really get angry yet. I don't think anything wrong with anger. And I certainly when anger comes up, I allow it. So I'm not saying like, I'm not saying like enlightened people don't get angry. But I just generally like the place that I still have like intense irrational rage is when like so I had like had bought a new microphone and we couldn't figure out how to get it to work.

and I was like, I'm going to throw my computer out the window. Like, I just, I had to, like, take a few minutes and, like, process the emotion because I was, like, having such an intense thing about it. Are you very anti, like, attachment to anger or, like, holding grudges? Because I'm Sicilian. I hold grudges. I'm always, like, people should do what works for them. But generally, I think, like, holding a grudge doesn't feel great to you and it doesn't

really punish the other person. That's why that old saying, you know, it's like, you think you take the poison and you think they'll die. Yeah. Like, that's not what's happening. Yeah. So find a safe way to hold a grudge. It's not affecting you, but you just know, you forget, but you don't forget.

I won't call it a grudge. Like, so you can decide, okay, I'm not going to have, I'm not going to like keep lending this person money if they don't ever pay it back. A hundred percent. Yeah. So it's just, it's a note in your head. Keeps, keeps a notes. When was the last time you were a sloth?

So just, like, didn't do anything all day. Oh, I'm a big fan of that. I like lay down between like two and four every day. If I can, this is my, same. I have a whole podcast that. we came out recently where I'm talking to another seven-figure coach and we're talking about how like lying down in the middle of the day is the secret to our success. So I am a hundred percent in favor. I definitely yesterday. I did go on a walk, but that was the only, I went on a walk

and then I sat on my couch. So I love that. I think. I'm thoughtful all the time. When you get like shape magazine and the people do like what they do in a day or like, and they're like, wake up, go to yoga. Have an egg. Stop reading those things. Like, oh my gosh. I answer. I was described from that shit 10 years ago, and it was a real positive development. The only time I'd ever do it is like if I'm in the airport and I'm kind of bored. And I'm like, who are these robots? But then it's also sad because it's like, you don't do that every day. Yeah, that's just also just not true.

It's just not, you're a liar now. Yeah. Or you're just describing your eating disorder to me. Yeah. And we're publishing it in the magazine. Yeah. Or your workout addiction. Yeah.

When was the last time you let your pride or your ego get in the way of something? This is something I still work on in romantic release. relationships. So I definitely, within the last week, I've had to coach myself through my brain kind of wanting to, my brain telling me that something was wrong and feeling hurt and then wanting to withhold or wanting to punish. And like, that's a, that's a pattern that I have to keep a very close eye on myself. By withhold, do you mean like ignore? Yeah, I'm not like a, you know, it's all relative. I would never like, you know, literally ignore somebody I was involved with or get them the cold shoulder. It's not that dramatic. But yeah, like sort of, you know, make up a

story about why somebody should have done something a different way, get attached to that story, and then like, yeah, take a little bit longer to text them back or like not be as friendly. It's like that kind of nonsense, which is like people call that playing games and some of what is what we have to understand. We have a whole other pockets about this. People aren't doing that because they want to play games. It's just when your emotions aren't regulated. So this is like a place where I have to watch myself because my instinct is to like shut down and kind of be like yeah like be in pride as opposed to love to love somebody means for me I think to like be in vulnerability and openness even when you feel that way and and and really be empathetic

it's I'm like that where if I I will shut down also you said play stories in your head that was that's really powerful because I think I am very guilty of like even someone will tell me something that I didn't see in a certain way and suddenly I have the story in my head of like how could they have done that? But it's like I feel like things aren't really as black as white as like the story you're hurting your own feelings. It's like I made up a story about what this means and then I decided I was hurt by it and then I decided to act on it. I'm like I made all that up. None of that was actually happening. Well it's funny being on a reality TV show like you have a story in your head and then you get to watch other people's perspectives play out too and you're like, wait, I didn't know that what they were

mad about that too or that they were affected by their mom and that and you're just like oh my god it's never as simple as i made up in my head sometimes it's worse but anyway um when was the last time you lusted over someone so are you like do have a celebrity crush or is there a barista that you're you have your eye on what's happening over there uh i am dating and um and not i'm non monogamous so uh so i would say the last time i lusted was this morning i think one of the one of the one of the One of the things people don't understand about the, well, I mean, I don't know if my cat's now screaming. If you're familiar with Esther Peral is this kind of sex therapist and emotional therapist.

Anyway, she writes a lot about how mystery is what creates desire, like distance is what creates desire and kind of how that's at odds with our idea about companion at love, which is like, okay, well, when you love someone, you spend all your time with them and know everything about them and like it's this very enmeshed intimacy. Yes. And so I, one of the things that I think is one of the positives for me of ethical non-monogamy is that you generally are not like totally enmeshed with all your partners and living with all of them all the time. And right, there is that like distance that allows you to create some. And then there's like you get to have that sort of anticipation all the time that most people only get in early dating because

you're not spending all your time with someone. So what's the difference between ethical non-monogamy and non-monogamy? Oh, I was just specifying because I guess if you cheat on somebody, it's non-monogamy. But ethical not-monogamy, meaning everybody knows and consents to what's going on. So when you see a guy, you're basically like, I'm seeing other people and that's just how I am, kind of. Yeah, and they are too. I mean, you generally, people like that generally date each other. Okay.

And then are you ever looking to be monogamous? I think some people are, some people feel like they're monogamous. or non-monogamous in the same way they feel like they're straight or buyer or gay, which is like it feels like this orientation. I don't feel that way personally. For me, like it has varied in my life depending on the relationship and where I was in life. But I think I tend towards that. Like I don't feel the kind of jealousy and possessiveness that, not that doesn't ever come up,

but like that a lot of people feel. I mean, I think this is a whole other episode too, but like a lot of the desire for monogamy, not saying all of it, but a lot of it comes from. just the desire to be able to stop worrying about it, like stop feeling insecure, stop feeling anxious, feel safe, all of these feelings we want a relationship to provide, which of course the relationship isn't providing. It's how you're thinking about it. So, like, I don't think, I don't think everybody should be any particular way, but like doing the kind of work you have to do on that stuff to be non-monogamous is valuable if you're going to be, whether you're monogamous or not so that you sort of aren't just expecting monogamy to solve all your problems. feeling anxious or insecure or whatever yes well it's also like when people are like I don't know if he's my boyfriend and I always be like you kind of just know when you're dating someone and you're not like it's not like a label that necessarily will make you feel that much better it either is it or it's not oh my god so fascinating so yeah we literally touched on so many things but everyone

listen to unfuck your brain it is incredible it is one of the top mental health podcast and I feel so lucky to have Kara on my pot now. My final question for you, you're not done yet. Yes, I'm ready. Is what advice would you give to people on how to cope with their hell when they're going through it? The most suffering we create is our resistance to suffering, right? So we feel sad or we feel angry or we feel overwhelmed or we feel hopeless,

whatever we're feeling. And that feeling is like having a headache. Yeah. And then we start to tell ourselves, I don't want to feel this way. shouldn't feel this way. There's something wrong with me. I need to make this feeling go away. And that is like trying to saw your head open without anesthetic to get the headache out. It's so much of the suffering is caused by the resistance. And I think especially in America, we have this idea that you should kind of always be happy. We were just talking about this, right?

It's possible to always be happy. Some people over there are always happy. If you looked a certain way or you had a certain partner, you had a certain job or your parents had been different, you'd always be happy. No one is always happy. I would say like my teacher always says and what I teach from her as like, life is 50-50. And so the single easiest thing you can do to reduce your suffering in any situation is to stop resisting that you're suffering and just be willing to feel shitty for a little while and like know that it will pass. Yeah, I always feel guilt when I feel upset about something or something caused me anxiety.

Then you go in that guilt, shame spiral that you're being human. It's making it so much worse. It makes it so much worse. And yeah, just that's in. credible perspective of life has been like look your days are going to be 50 50 on this planet so go live it yeah like just allow nobody is living life totally happy unless they've had a stroke so oh my god that's your new bio for your life coached um kara you are so informative such a little light of life please let me know where people can follow you give me the goods where they can listen to you

watch you everything yeah you can find me uh my podcast is called unfuck your brain you can find it wherever you get your podcasts uh or you can always go to unfuckyourbrain.com that's the easiest ways to find me amazing well thank you guys so much for coming to hell wow i hope you took notes um and i will talk to you guys later bye Thank you.