Dhru Purohit Show - Firing Toxic Friends & Family Members and How to Lean Into Tough Conversations with Dr. Omid & Alexis Naim

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and AirDoctor. Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru welcomes Dr. Omid and Alexis Naim to discuss how we can begin to create a culture based on connection and a shared human understanding. They share the core issues going on in society today, like unresolved family trauma and how it plays into separation, resentment, labeling, and black-or-white thinking.   Dr. Omid Naim is a Western-trained psychiatrist who came to see the need for more holistic, spiritual, and community-based approaches to health care by seeing the limitations of the conventional model firsthand. He is the founder of Hope Integrative Psychiatry and the cofounder along with his wife, Alexis, of the nonprofit La Maida Project, which designs new models for families, communities, and organizations to become ecosystems of optimal health and well-being based on our innate human nature. Alexis Naim is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) specializing in the treatment of couples and family systems. She has been in private practice in psychotherapy for over 20 years, working with individuals and families through an attachment and trauma-based lens.  Dhru, Dr. Omid, and Alexis share the meaning of developing true sovereignty in our lives, which means setting boundaries around our values and beliefs while still being vulnerable to having conversations with the people who disagree with us.  In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Omid and Alexis Naim dive into:    -What we miss out on when we don’t recognize the role we play in our problems (3:00) -What parts of firing the toxic people in your life are not healthy (14:58) -The core issues going on in today’s world that make it difficult to engage in “dangerous conversations” (17:22) -How to know when it's time to set up a boundary versus lean into the discomfort (29:45) -How to create more empathy in our lives and the world (36:03) -What does it mean if you’re always the person who can’t handle people? (43:30) -Why we’re so unkind to ourselves (46:40) -Common themes of people who set good boundaries in their lives (53:24) -Dr. Omid and Alexis’s vision for a new future (1:06:50) -The radical honesty movement and where it’s gone wrong (1:20:43) -Final thoughts on toxic relationships (1:26:40) -Where to follow Dr. Omid and Alexis Naim’s work (1:29:32) For more on Dr. Omid and Alexis Naim, follow them on Instagram @lamaidaproject, and through their website, lamaidaproject.org.  InsideTracker provides detailed nutrition and lifestyle guidance based on your individual needs. Right now, they’re offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to insidetracker.com/DHRU to get your discount and try it out for yourself. AirDoctor is an affordable and efficient way to create clean air in your home. Right now, AIR Doctor Pro is offering $300 off of their air purifier to my community. That's 50% off their normal price! Visit drhyman.com/filter to redeem today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Half of what I do with people has helped them develop boundaries, become self-empower. And the other half, how to actually go beyond yourself to experience love and to see those deeper qualities of character emerge. You know, sometimes when you look at popular social media advice, they'll tell you, fire all your toxic friends and family, and then the world will be better. Well, we're stress testing that advice

and seeing if it's actually true by talking to two incredible therapists, and practitioners on today's conversation. Welcome to the Drew Proet podcast. Each week we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds and wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest are Dr. Omid Naim and Alexis Naim. Dr. Omid Naim is a Western trained psychiatrist

who came to see the need for a more holistic, spiritual, and community-based approach to healthcare by seeing the limitations of conventional medicine. He is the founder of Hope Integrative Psychiatristian. psychiatry and the co-founder, along with his wife Alexis, of the nonprofit LaMeda Project, which designs new models for families, communities, and organizations to become ecosystems of optimal health and well-being based on our innate human nature. Alexis Naim is a licensed clinical social worker, specializing in the treatment of couples

and family systems. She's been in private practice in psychotherapy for over 20 years, working with individuals and families through an attachment and trauma-based Lentz. On today's conversation, we're chatting with our two guests who are a husband-wife and have a very unique take on some of the modern advice that we see out there in the world today on the topic of firing your toxic friends and family. When is it actually needed and when does firing everybody around you actually make your life worse? We're also talking about the importance and the need and the how of having tough conversations. Sometimes you have to have a tough conversation in your life

and the thing is most of us are not good at it. You might get some courage to have a tough conversation after listening to today's conversation. Lastly, we're chatting about when to set boundaries. You know, we talk so much about boundaries today, but the thing is that sometimes we might be setting too many boundaries when what we really need is we need the leaning into more interdependence. There's a lot of nuance in all these subjects.

It's not a black and white approach, but sometimes the advice that's out there makes it feel black and white. I'm excited to have today's guest on the conversation who will dive into the nuance with me. We're friends, so it's a lot of fun conversation, a lot of back and forth. I think you're going to enjoy this podcast. Stay tuned for a fascinating conversation with Dr. Omeid Naim and Alexis Knightley. Alexis, Omead, thank you guys for both being on the podcast. I'm excited about today's conversation.

I'd love to jump right in. You know, we were chitch chatting a little bit before, and I was sharing that today's conversation, really for me, kind of comes back to our first question here, which I'd love to jump into. And that question is, what do we miss out on in life, in our growth, in our development? When we constantly, I think that's the word, when we constantly feel that the other, other people are the problem or the source of problems in our life. So I'd love to start there. Yeah. You know, I think you're missing out on reality. out on a lot of reality that you need for your own growth and for your own health. Because the, you know, most, I mean, most of human evolution, we would have to compromise way, way more.

And what's happening right now is there's just so many ways in which life doesn't challenge us that I think we're defaulting to like also being able to just push people away with like, well, it's your fault or it's, you know, my own theory. And without that, you know, that challenge without having to kind of go beyond your own perspective, you're missing out a lot of the truth of what might be happening. I mean, for me, like, as a psychiatrist and as a therapist, at some point, it felt like a really great question to ask, like, what would that other person that we're talking about say if they were here? I started to feel like individual therapy has a risk of colluding with their clients and also,

not maybe even being honest to the bias of that, that like I may be, you may be here with me a year, two years, three years from now because we're agreeing and we kind of get each other. And you're a paycheck. You're a $150, $200 a week source of income too. It's like, you know, just feeling like my colleague's not always being honest about that either. But the collusion, it's like people in therapy were mostly sitting and talking about what happened, which meant other people were there. And I just kept wondering, like, but what would that person say if they were here, right? Well, were their side of the story?

Yeah. And then usually the person then defaults to their opinion about what the person would say, their analysis of it. They're, you know, well, you know, they would just say this because they think that. And I said, well, I get, that's your hypothesis. And it might be true. That might be exactly, you might be exactly right. But that's your theory of what, that's your belief about their intention.

But I'm actually saying, actually, if they were here, what would they what is their argument can we just hear what do they see that you might not see i'm actually that's even just the level of theory just i just want to know like what are they actually saying what is it they're saying and then to see what is their argument exactly the benefit is what comes up for yeah i mean the benefit there's so many benefits um to to looking at oneself um introspection allows us to uh be flexible mental health providers know that flexibility is, I believe, the number one trait that creates good mental health is the ability to have flexibility.

In your viewpoints, in your ways of thinking about yourself, in your ways of thinking about how you want to solve a problem, how you want to relate to another person, so that flexibility is huge. So if the other person is always at fault, you're going to lose the capacity for self-introspection. you're going to lose the capacity for the flexibility of viewpoint and staying kind of agile in life, you know, the ability to, you're going to close a lot of doors. You're going to close a lot of doors. I think that if we think about the fact, and this is something I say a lot, and it's not my quote,

it's pain that is not transformed is transferred, right? Pain that is not transformed is transferred. And I would challenge anyone to, you know, argue against that. Because if I'm holding something inside that I'm not working with in some way, it's going to be transferred elsewhere. Or maybe inwardly, right, if I'm not really working with it. So I think the really big picture here is am I going to have the opportunity in life to look at how I can grow? Yeah. And what does that bring me?

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like, the number one protection against mental illness and mental health is when you say flexibility, the word resilience, like, that's the academic word. And people talk a lot about resilience. And I think it kind of turns in default into, like, being strong, being able to endure a lot. But actually, the word resilience means to be able to tolerate change. That's the definition of it. And so the degree. of flexibility you have. And, yeah, and life is struggle, right? Life is struggle.

And there's so many, you know, there's, there's, you know, I see on your bookshelf, the book Tribe, which is one of the biggest, big influences on me. And what Sebastian Unger's talking about is that we actually, we're, we, the fact, the resilience factors that we need in order to face hardship, whether it's patient, or endurance or compassion or temperance, these are all traits that only come out through relationships. They're factors within us that kind of like the signals we need, like the way a plant grows when the sun and the water and the timing of the season and the flower blooms. Well, for us actually having a struggle with each other, be there for others where we have to go

beyond ourselves, try and learn something new, understand something, go into some difficult terrain with a human being. Those processes are what bring out these deeper virtues and these deeper resilience factors. And without having to struggle, you don't bring those out. And then you deprive yourself of then cultivating that in yourself. And that's like, you know, the word character. It's a word people don't really use that much. But it's like you're born, you're born with a particular genetic, you know, code and we call

a personality. It's like, you know, anybody who's had a child knows within the first, sometimes days, if not, you know, months and years, a few years, you see the kids' personality, right? But that's like just the, it's like the canvas and the paint. What you then do over time is what builds character. And it's, it's the choices you make in order to endure, struggle, try things, you know, all of those things. And the degree of flexibility you are willing to have, I think brings out those deeper, capacities inside you. So I think you're depriving yourself of yourself in a lot of ways because I think that's what's really exciting about life is like what am I going to become with what I have,

not what I am, and then I stay that way. Can I say one more thing? Please, please keep going. Because I think like there's, you know, there's something intoxicating about being right, you know, being, you know, anger and self-righteousness that comes with being able to judge another person. It's a highly intoxicating state. It's a very high adrenaline state. It's a state of moral righteousness in which I can say, I'm right and you're wrong. And there's a power dynamic we can set up and there's an intoxicating feeling.

And people don't often think about that. but actually anger has an addictive quality because adrenaline, it's like speed. It's our natural speed. And so being able to judge others and have that self-righteousness, it's a very intoxicating state. And so you're kind of limiting yourself, but it may take you a long time to realize that. And then you wind, but you maybe wind up lonely because you can't be vulnerable anymore. Yeah. Well, one area where, speaking of intoxicating, one area where the idea of being,

right and the idea of making somebody else the other is a little bit of this trend of talking about toxic relationships in life. So I'd love to start off there and chat about that for a second. Often the social media sort of fly-by-night quick advice is to truly be happy, you need to remove all the toxic people in your life, which really means to truly be happy you need to distance or fire the toxic people in your life. When you hear that, right? What parts of that show up as healthy and what parts of that show up as not as healthy? Yeah. I think we have to define what happiness is first, right? So is authentic happiness about gratification or is authentic happiness about well-being that's really rooted in your

values, your core values and your core needs? And I think we get confused a lot about that in today's world. I think that the idea of a toxic person, you know, is, I often hear from people, I don't feel supported by this person, I feel misunderstood, I feel demeaned, I feel attacked, or being in relationship with this person damages my sense of self, my self-esteem. And I think there's a useful question there, which is, are we talking about feeling hurt or are we talking about feeling wronged? And those are different things. And if our well-being is really being threatened in some way, again, when it comes down to those things that create our core sense of self, you know, our values and our needs that are around core sense of self,

and if my well-being is really being threatened around those things, then I think the word toxic makes sense and it's a toxin that I can't allow in, you know, if it's if I'm really threatened in that way. But I think that what is happening a lot with people I work with is that there's more of this sense of being hurt and feeling misunderstood, feeling unsupported. and the quick reflex, quick response to just slam the door, you know, to have a true wall go up, as opposed to working through that seems to be on the rise. That seems to be kind of the go-to. You know, that brings up a really great question for me, which is what are some of the root issues that are going on today that make it more difficult to engage in what you're calling a dangerous conversation, right? a conversation where you can lean into somebody who might have a different view of something,

try to see their perspective. And even if you disagree, which oftentimes we do, you walk away with a sense of, I understand how they arrive there. And I still feel maybe sometimes strongly in how I feel, but there's still a human being. Like, why is that tougher or it seems tougher for people to do? What's going on today that plays into that? Yeah, I think there's a lot. I mean, I think this brings in the conversation about trauma and about developmental

mental trauma. And I think this conversation we're having today really should be informed by by that, you know, that we all are going through a lot. You talk about how we don't have as much challenge in life. You're talking about certain specific ways that we're not challenged like we used to be when we were, you know, living out in the, right? I mean, but there's plenty of challenge in our tremendous challenge in our sense of being. well because we're living in such a way that we're so disconnected from what it really has meant and looked like to be human, you know. We're disconnected from nature. We're disconnected from the basic things that nourish us, you know, whether that's good food, you know, whether that's

silence, whether that's, you know, the ability to stay connected in our relationships. And so people are very stressed. There's a tremendous amount of stress just in survival right now. And there are, there's much more, this is a positive, there's a lot more understanding about how we are all impacted in some way by trauma. Yeah, that's, mm-hmm. And that we've all had experiences that have caused disconnection within ourselves or within our relationships. You know, that's, that's one way of talking about trauma. We've all had experiences

that, um, that have, that have, um, overwhelmed our capacity to stay connected inside, connected in relationship. And so I think that people right now are feeling that they have permission in a way to know that, which is, I think, a really positive thing. They have permission and more cultural availability to say, you know, of these understandings that, you know, I've been through stuff and I've had, I have pain. I have things that are not, that I have not been able to sort through or work through inside of me. And I think that that's a positive. I think that the pandemic and the disconnection in the pandemic, the recognition, the reckoning of the pandemic, the kind of search for how to get through and how to get by and what really matters and what doesn't.

I think there's a huge amount of reckoning in people. And so there's a heightened sensitivity perhaps to needing to feel the ground underneath us. I think there's really high levels of stress. You're asking about what is it right now that's kind of creating more of this perhaps brittleness or, or desire to push people away, push people out, other people. So I guess I'm starting by saying I think there's some important things that we can validate, that we've all been through a lot recently, and that we're all holding a bit more awareness about the pain that's inside.

Yeah, no, I think like panning out broader than that is like, and maybe almost kind of reiterating what you're saying, is it's a really interesting time we're in because there's a trauma you can see you know in in our field there's a trauma informed movement trauma informed movement which is to really understand that trauma is at the root of most mental health issues and I mean just as an example like when I was going to become a psychiatrist you know 20 years ago you would not say to somebody I'm in therapy. You know, today it's like you're almost kind of validated for talking about being in therapy and like having issues and talking about them and suddenly, you know,

really come full circle. And I think what you're talking about is that a lot of things are coming to roost, you know, is that like there's been, I would say since the 1950s were like, we've just been in this binge of growth and there's been many generations. of denial of like trauma. And it's really coming to bear because people are allowed to talk about it and it's becoming understood. So we're like in this moment in history that on the one hand, there's a uncovering happening of like, you know, I mean, we live in a society that one third of women have been sexually

assaulted. And a lot of it happens within the family, right? there are there's there's many generations of emotional psychological as well as physical and sexual abuse that was buried and it's coming to the surface now it's coming to the surface now and so on the one hand that's like necessary and critical but on the other hand we're also this other wave is happening in which we're we're because of technology we just have less and less interaction that is risky, that is uncomfortable. I mean, I remember when text messaging, what email started out, it's like the ability to

pause and be able to decide what I want to say, rewrite that. So there's a better way to say that or I want to say, that's a wonderful thing, you know, that ability to reflect. But like there's a way where like that kind of narrowing over the last 10, 20 years, if you don't say the right thing, you're a bad person, right? And so this empowerment that's happening, I think is also bringing is making us also more entitled. You know, it's like self-empowerment, I think is what you're talking about. And then like how is it the way that we're living is actually also making us much and more, more and more entitled.

Yeah, I think there's the really positive thing happening that we're more aware of trauma. and that a person you're speaking with on the other side of a table is more likely than not to have had some form of trauma. And that could just, it doesn't have to be, you know, some awful, terrible, you know, single incident. You know, trauma can be the experience of being raised in a family system where something about... Just even a divorce. Divorce, there you go. As basic as that, right? Yeah.

Illness in the family, divorce. 50% of people in our, I mean, divorce rate is about 50%. Yeah. I mean, that's the number one thing about the trauma-informed movement is the recognition that most, if not everybody, has had some form of trauma in their life. And then that coinciding with what isn't new in our culture, but is a very strong, you know, sense of individualism, you know, that sense of I get to, you know, create my own path. I, you know, that kind of self-empowerment, very American idea also of, you know,

the individualistic rights. And I'm not saying that's all negative, but I think there's a collision of these things. And so if I have a lot of pain and I've been through a lot, and I've been through a lot, and I also am in a culture that is kind of enforcing this idea that like I am, you know, it's about me. It's not so much about my community or the conversations I'm in or the bridges I'm making between me and other, but it's about me and my. Then that's a really, you know, potentially brittle place. Yeah. That's a very vulnerable place. Yeah.

And I think that's, and I think that's kind of why it's, in a way, in a way, it's spiraling because I think it's creating this actually loop because what's happening is we are becoming self-empowered to say no and push each other away when we feel we have to set a boundary. And that's like it's almost like I could say like half of what I do with people has helped them develop boundaries to become self-empowered. And the other half is how to actually go beyond yourself to experience love, to experience interdependence and to see those deeper qualities of character emerge. And because then what's, so what I'm saying about the, like the negative feedback loop is we're

cutting each other off. I mean, like there's the study say like six, over 60% of people in America don't have a single person to turn to in crisis, right? So we're becoming more separate, which then means we're cutting ourselves off from like, like, like what water is to a plant, like like the most core basic. need we have is to feel connected to somebody. And I think we're cranky. I think it's kind of like, you know, sometimes I say to you, like our daughter is starting to become a teenager and like, I need to keep my door closed. I need that separation. But I can see she actually gets cranky.

When she does. When she does, you know. And because we're told so much. She's saying that she needs to get her door closed. Yes. She's saying she needs to give her door closed. Yeah. And if you look in the media, it's a huge story is like, you know, who you are based on who you cut off, you know, who I am based on, you know, how I'm not like my parents, you know, and like, you know, I need to close my door because I have to become an individual, but I'm becoming cranky that way. So then that crankiness actually brings out, I think that's, it's like when I see people who are turning on each other and crank you in that way, like I feel like just, God, we are in this interesting time because I both really understand what.

you're saying about what your mom was like and the need to do something about that. I mean, at some point, if I could say my journey with my dad, it just went really full circle. But like, I don't see you as done yet in terms of feeling fulfilled and at peace with yourself. There's something in that, like, you stuck, you know, when we stay stuck in resentment. You were saying your work is like to help people, and obviously the patients you're working with, when to take a left, when to take a right, right? And how to find that gray area in the middle. And I almost think of it as like,

there was a book written a few years ago by this gentleman named Seth Godin, not in this topic, but he was helping people understand like, when do we stick something through and when do we quit? And also quitting sometimes as a negative connotation, but you're taking on.

But sometimes there are moments where you might have to quit or put your direction elsewhere. And navigating, I think, is tough for people because often when you share that you've cut somebody out in your life in the past election that was there

and we'll probably go through that cycle again coming up when you cut off somebody who's the other side of an opinion you were celebrated by your community people said great amazing good for you and again those are all individual choices and different reasons why people would arrive to that conclusion so I don't want to group everybody together but there is celebration happening on all sides of the aisle

of people saying like great good for you good for you writing off that other person. So going back to the question, I think people are looking for really, how do I navigate that? When do I set up a boundary and how do we go about that process? And then when do I go in a different direction

and actually lean into whatever life lesson is there? How do you think about that just big picture? Big picture. Yeah. I mean, I think it's good to ask the question internally. Is there a gray zone that actually I want to expand. Is there a gray zone here? Meaning, is this black and white? Is there something here, something that has been an injury, a difference, something that feels so black and white that I,

in my body and in my heart, when I really do the introspection, I know for sure I can't incorporate this way of being or believing into my life. It will. It will. harm me in some way. It is counter to my well-being. Or is there a gray zone here? Meaning, can there be an agreement to disagree, right? Can we agree to disagree? Can we learn from each other still? Is there something to be gained in leaning in and asking questions and being curious? I I think it's important to think about the implications in our lives when we're cutting somebody off in terms also of the, what are we, I mean, as parents, for example, what are we, what is the impact on our children if we become brittle and inflexible, right? Do you have a more like concrete narrative or example of something like that? Yeah.

Yeah, I'm working with somebody who is clear that her own mother cannot be in her life anymore because they have different political perspectives, exactly as you're naming. And I just can't tolerate anymore that, you know, all she wants to talk about is, and I don't even want to name which side it is because it could be either. But, you know, all she wants to talk about is is her belief in this political figure that I think is just awful. That's all she wants to talk about. Okay. And I'm done.

I don't want her around anymore. I don't want my kids hearing about that anymore. Okay. All right. So what is the impact then on the family system of deciding that that grandmother is no longer in your life, you know? Is there another way to navigate that such that there are boundaries put in place around the things that we do and don't talk about, around the things that we do and don't, you know, the paths we take with one another? But can we keep that grandmother in these children's lives? You know, what are the benefits to looking at this through a lens that isn't just about myself, but about the, you know, the trickle down of that boundary that I'm putting up?

Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that the practical, like, the, I'd like five different things I wanted to say. The gray zone? No, the gray zone, you know, there's a sequence to me. There's actually a sequence that are human nature. If you look at how the brain operates and then you look at cultures that have traditions and codes, rights of passage. There is a sequence to me, but that has to do, that is about self-empowerment first. Like, if you look at most wisdom traditions, cultures that have take you through rites of passage, like at some point it's, or if you know the hero's journey, which I think most people know now, you know, at some point when you're young, you know, there's kind of these stages where you,

you first grow into the community by learning, what do I do, how do things work, right? How am I supposed to act? And then at some point you have to transition to adulthood, right? And when that happens, the hero's journey story really is about becoming going, becoming an adolescent and early adult. There's a call where you go out, you go out in the dark. You know, you go out into the wild and you have to go alone because you have to face yourself and you have to find out you have to face your own fears.

You have to become self-empowered. If anybody's ever been through any crisis, all alone, any situation, any situation, in which you experience that imminence of life. You know who you are. You know what you're not. You know what you're capable of. You know what you're not capable of. You know what you can run on yourself.

And I think that's when you face trauma. You face what you're holding in. You face what power you do have to solve problems. And you also find your gifts. The hero's journey, the rites of passage, you then come back to the village now. Now you contribute. you right now.

And so you bring that back. You bring that back. You know, in the nonprofit that we form, we have, we talk about this code, this formula. You know, authenticity is what emerges first when you're self-empowered. You have to be able to know your authentic self, to know your core values, to know your values that come from you and not what you took on from your society or your parents to fit in, to get attention, to impress others, to feel good about yourself. that aren't really gonna be fulfilling,

and then you seek out through finding people that you share values with that deeper relationship. But you can't have a real relationship with integrity, unless you know your authentic self. Otherwise it's codependency. But you also can't have real sense of belonging and deep connection without authenticity. You really can't have, they need each other.

It's one, circuit. But the sequence is first, I think, self-empowerment and then going beyond yourself. How do we create more empathy? And for people who feel like, you know what, it's actually very difficult for me to put myself in somebody's shoes. How do we actually create more empathy inside? Yeah. It's a really, really good question. Yeah. I want to start? Well, it's on, my first reaction is like, we don't have a culture that values maturity. Like, that was my, yeah, Yeah, like it seems like the starting point would be that you're, you believe that being mature is something important to accomplish because that's what maturity is about is the beginning,

is the decision to be more conscientious and thoughtful. Now, if you start going down that path, then you realize that it's something that I need to accomplish. I think it starts there as like, you know, to, because the way you said it, I thought of people who say it that way. and there is an attitude there of like, no, you know, I don't have to. And I don't want to, but that's not what life for most of human history was about, which is that you have that much choice.

You don't make it on your own. I think, go ahead, you had a question. Oh, no, I was almost saying, like, to sort of set that up, because I'm laying out the land, I'm hearing from you, is that we don't have a culture that sort of celebrates stepping in empathy. We also are living in a time in a day and age where we don't necessarily have to, to get along with the people that are there to live our life, to get water, to fetch food, to keep the electricity on, to do the basic things that we need to do.

And so there's no motivation and it's also not celebrated. In fact, sometimes it's the opposite of celebrated. It's like discouraged in society. So is that a little bit of what you're saying? It is. It is. You know, to me it's like I can go back to back with a client, one client at three and four o'clock where at three o'clock it's helping the person.

and see that the depression, the anxiety, the substance abuse is related to childhood trauma that has not been understood and grief that has not been resolved and that these things are living inside them and to inform them to help them see that and then that they can heal from that. And then I'm, you know, just last week then working with another client that's so often with younger people I find in their 20s that when I say to them, I think this is trauma. I find that there's a pushback because younger people are starting to say, I don't like this label because my peers are using these labels as like vitriolic statements or I can't do that because I have anxiety or it's like a form of identity.

I have trauma. And so it's like it's so interesting this time we're at where it's like on one level it's coming to bear in a way that's needed to, but it's also turning into a greater weapon. To me, like when you say compassion is I think when you, like our fathers, our mothers, our cousins, our friends, whatever behaviors when you say that's human, right, they're experiencing mental health issues too. That's coming from their unresolved trauma and unresolved grief. So if we're going to use this amazing knowledge of trauma and grief and understand its real meaning, it naturally would lead to compassion. it means that we begin to understand what it is that's making us turn on each other, what it is that's making us mistreat each other, and what it is it's making us not feel fulfilled.

And that's like, I think, where we have to go as a society is that it's not enough to just be personally safe. We're then lonely. We have to begin to figure out how are we going to start being there for each other. And I would argue that to get there, to develop empathy, that we are. actually have to look at our relationship with our self, that we are not going to be capable of really being generous and tolerant and compassionate outwardly if we haven't figured out how to do that inwardly. And as a mental health, you know, as a clinician, I'll tell you something I think

we all know if we really think about it, most people walk around feeling not good enough. most people walk around feeling some sense of not measuring up, not worthy, not lovable, somewhere in there, somewhere in there. And when you do the work we do, it's right at the surface a lot of the time or right below. They don't know why they're coming in to see you. But really, it's about some core sense of lacking a sense of self-love. And I do think that if we want to become more empathic, if we want to become more empathic, if we want to become more generous, if we want to become more tolerant, we have to really be willing

to close our eyes and feel inside to how do I talk to myself? How do I relate to myself? When I struggle, when I do something that embarrassed me, when I don't feel like I'm measured up, you know, when I'm looking on my social media and I see this person's life compare to mine or whatever, all the compare and despair and everything that's going on out there, how do I speak to myself inwardly? Do I have tolerance? Do I have compassion? If I'm shaming and blaming myself inwardly a lot of the time, I'm going to be practicing that in my life.

People don't even have empathy for themselves. That's why it's hard for them to give to somebody else. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes. Well, I would say, like, you named it really well. It's like how to actually motivate it. You said, how do I say to somebody? Because if you, it's like what my friend said about if you don't find a way to come to

peace with your dad and relate to him, and I said, I don't get that. is like if I'm saying, if I can't have compassion for my father or for my friend, what that means is I can't have compassion for a part of them. Their quirks or their, you know, like this part of them I can't have compassion to. But we're all human, which means I have that part in myself. If I can't have compassion, then I can't find that for myself. And so like when I was saying earlier that when I see people who cut somebody off and are kind of like, and I'm not even going to bother with it to think about it,

and I feel that kind of self-righteousness. If it's a friend, I don't know what I would say, but if it's a client, I have that, that's my role, is to say, you know, you probably are doing that to yourself. And that's what you made me think of is. How are you cutting off yourself inside? Yeah, it's like ultimately, you're sitting with me right now,

and we're talking about that issue, but I know it's what you just described is that otherwise privately, you're judging yourself just as much. Is that what we, and this is the thing about, it's relationships that cultivate those deeper virtues and resilience factors that we need. And then we have it for ourselves. It's like it's having to be patient with somebody else that leads me to develop that patience

and myself. So like with my father, accepting there's a lot of things that we're just not going to solve. But how can I make this lunch really pleasant? And that's an act of patience and kindness and temperance. And then as I did that, I found that I develop patience and temperance with those parts that are in myself that I privately may not show it anybody, but I'm beating myself up. So we're talking about it's the circle, you know, from within outward or outward within, you know, the same virtues being applied inwardly and outwardly. The more likely are to just rush to cut somebody off, it's like that's actually a good smoke signal. It's a smoke detector.

That if you are doing that regularly. Yeah. What's the meaning of this? Something's going on inside of you. What's the meaning of this? And I don't have to, therefore, think I'm awful and terrible and start, but I can say, huh, can I be curious about this? You know, there's a common denominator here in my life that I tend to be the person in these circumstances where no longer talking to you, no longer talking to you, can't deal with you, can't listen to that. What's the meaning of that? Yeah. I mean, there's an age old wisdom that if you have a charge around something, it's something within yourself. You know, now if somebody is actually abusive, I mean, I feel like that's kind of the disclaimer we have to say. Of course. And probably we should spend some time. It's like there is, we live in, there's a lot of abuse. There's abusiveness. But aside from that, there's, you know, if you have a charge around something, it's like I have a kid I was working with with parents who I hate my parents.

and I said, you must really love them or you must really want more love from them. I don't want anything from them. You can't be that upset if you don't care. It's like, if I was saying about that person across the street, you wouldn't have any charge around that. It's almost like the opposite of hate is apathy. Yeah, you're just apathetic about them.

Yeah. Well, right, you know, it's not apathy. The opposite of hate is not apathy. Actually, the opposite of hate is love. If I hate something, it's like the opposite of hate, Like, joy is the resolution of pain. Pain is the loss of happiness. Hate is the loss of something that you deeply cherish.

And, you know, these things are intertwined. You can't have one about the other. You're saying if it matters enough to me, if the stakes are high enough that I'm willing to cut this person out because it means that much, it's triggering me that much. It's upsetting me that much. There's something really in there. Yeah, I said you must feel deeply, deeply let down in some way. and you can only feel deeply, deeply let down because of how much you care about that person, right?

And so it's... Can we be vulnerable and look at that? We might still decide we have to cut them off. The age old wisdom is just like, you know, if I'm sitting with somebody, if I'm sitting with you, Drew or like, you know, there's like a quirk you have that's like, but I have no problem with that quirk in myself, you know, I have no charge around that, right? But if I have a charge around it, it's actually because I'm not at peace with my... myself about that issue in some way. And yeah, I misspoke. I said the opposite, but I met like the parallel.

People often think like if somebody really hated you and they had like no interest at all, it would look like apathy, right? Like if they wasn't a charge that they're like, oh, I'm indifferent. Exactly. That's what one way or another. That's what like total disinterest looks like. It's like you could care regardless of the way that it goes. And most people, it's actually a sign of exactly what you said.

There's a charge. There's something that needs to be looked at. discovered. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because it really brings up this larger idea, which is that why are we so unkind to ourselves? Yeah. It really kind of comes back to that. Yes. Yes. Yes. Our need and willingness to want to fire the toxic people in our lives, and there could be good reasons. We've already put that disclaimer in and everything like that. But our need to write people off, our need to discount the other is a reflection of maybe what's going on internally and there are some times where if you could read people's thoughts about themselves like

little thought bubbles above their head it would be that dialogue yeah you suck you literally cannot do anything right yeah you how dare you think that you could show up in this situation yeah how dare you think that you were better for more how dare you get your hopes up that's the internal dialogue that's there is a heavy unkindness towards ourselves and many people we could see this in the stats with mental health, suicide rates, etc., other stuff, just a genuine sense of, I don't like myself. Yeah.

Yeah. And one thing we can say about that is that for a child who's in an environment that is painful, that is not meeting his or her needs in some way, that is abusive or just really a bad fit for their temperament, a child that's suffering to feel connected or cared for, the turn against the self will always happen as opposed to the turn against the caregivers. Because the turn against the caregivers is a turn into total chaos, an internal sense of despair.

you know, if I'm going to set up a belief early on, conscious, subconscious, unconscious belief that you guys don't know what you're doing or you're scary or you're unsafe or I don't, I can't be safe here. That is a terror zone. So the young child will always create the internal. There must be something wrong with me. That's why you're acting that way. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think to... And that imprint can last and last and last. Yeah, and it's... Sorry, it's dangerous to turn that outwards when we are fully dependent on our environment. Later in life, we can have more clarity of, oh, I turned against myself there.

But really, that person was unsafe or that scenario was scary or... So that's one of the imprints, I think, is why so many adults are watching. around because it's not a choice we have. We will always choose to think there's some, choose unconsciously, to think there's something wrong with us rather than feel the terror of our caregiving environment being unsafe or unwell.

Yeah. Yeah. So you, I mean, that's like the, the need for the trauma-informed movement is that we have a lot of adults walking around with deep, sense, deeply imprinted trauma abandonment. and that it must have been me and shame-inducing environments in which we don't love ourselves. And then, you know, the other side in which I think the other reason why, you know, we have this problem is like a culture that is breeding entitlement. Like, we know that the self-esteem movement that started in the eight, in the 90s really creates more insecurity and creates more of a sense of perfectionism. because then the solution, starting in the 80s and 90s

that came from this false idea that like babies are blank slates. The solution was. That we then have to, then whatever, you know, you have to feed this kid with self-esteem because then they're going to feel good about themselves, which I think was, you know, born of a lot of things in the 80s and 90s, like, but a lot of I think being our own unresolved trauma of like that I grew up feeling unloved.

So I'm going to infuse this kid. with love, right? Everybody gets the award and that's what you're talking about. Yeah, and like all of that praise good, but what that does is, is it actually sets you up to feel like if, then if something goes wrong, there must be something really wrong with me. Because it actually creates brittleness in which we actually,

we actually build our confidence through solving things that we don't do well. It's like the whole thing like it's not courage unless you have fear, right? You actually don't build self-esteem without, problems. Unless I'm telling my daughter, you're an amazing artist. You're an amazing, every time she's drawing something, look at how you draw. Oh my God, you're an amazing. Look, you know how today? She's less likely to take risks and do other things that she won't get praise for. Because nothing, yeah, because you're, which creates a sense inside of I'm not really so good. I just have this one little. Yeah, because you're not, anything you do, you have to start at the

bottom. But if you grew up learning that you're great, then when you do something and you're not good at it right from the beginning, you think there's something wrong with you. So it's kind of like either I'm great or I suck. You know, we once, remember once we had a dinner party where we had this thing of like every, do you feel like you're too much or not enough? And like everybody either feels like they're too much or not enough. And I sat back and I said, so basically we all think that it's not okay to just be ourselves, you know. And so I think there's a lot. Comes from a lot of places. I think there's a lot.

Yeah, I think there's a lot in our culture, this outer display, which it just keeps creating this, there's a separate person I show than what I really am. And the thing is you really feel good about yourself by accomplishing things and by feeling connected with people. And real connection happens through vulnerability. And you connect around, like that feeling of connection happens around our jagged edges. That's where connection happens. is through human connection, like feeling of human, right? And to be human is to be imperfect.

Real good laughter or real good, like real good laughter happens after something silly, which means something went wrong. Or vulnerability. It's a vulnerability. Real love happens when that like those, those jagged, weird, you know, all those things that are not constructed for perfection, right? And so we're really. removing that. We're removing that way. And I think then part of what happened is we're getting crankier and crankier. But yeah. You know, on the opposite side of people who do a good job of setting boundaries in their life, one of the themes that I see when I look at at my friends, and I'm lucky to be surrounded by a lot of them, is that those people are the most forgiving

to themselves. So they also feel like it's okay to be. Yeah. This is Brunei Brown's work, right? That boundaries really create the capacity for compassion. The better we are at the boundaries, the more compassion we're capable of. And that's inward and outward. Well, if I have become skilled at knowing how to take care of myself with the boundaries that are necessary, then I'm not in a kind of life or death kind of struggle with what's going to happen next. I have a sense of self. I have a sense of my needs.

I have looked inwardly enough to value and accept those needs. I've created boundaries that match. And then I'm free. I have a lot of freedom then. It's not going to bother me what you're saying or you're doing. I'm pretty stable. I'm pretty anchored here. I have a lot of freedom.

And with that freedom is a lot of ability for tolerance and compassion and curiosity. And I think what's happening right now is that the boundary movement, and by the way, that that's the same thing about, that I'm saying about the, it's like self-empowerment first, then you can relate. You first have to be able to be a sovereign person and to feel that sovereignty, right? So, but it's like that's, but what's happening right now, I think, is that people are using boundaries as a weapon of self-righteousness. So it's like you're trespassing on my boundaries, and I'm going to now lecture you on that and feel like I'm the morally righteous person. Whereas I feel far more fulfilled by my doing my healing work. I'm going to go back to my dad, like doing my healing work, right?

So I'm not charged inside with my own stuff. And a boundary to me is like I'm going to make sure my cousin gets invited to lunch. That's a boundary. That's me constructing a situation which I can sit with my dad. and just really enjoy it for what it is. A boundary might be not bringing up certain topics. So it doesn't have to be something that you are explicitly weaponizing on somebody. It's about the way you describe it.

So it's like kind of just knowing who I am, knowing it works for me and what doesn't. And that to me is maturity. And that to me is also just like age, it's like old fashioned. That's maturity. It started with your capacity, though, to value your own injuries. Yeah. You said something's happened here in this relationship with my father that actually has impacted me. And I'm not going to judge that in myself. I'm not going to kind of, you know,

just push against it. I'm actually going to be willing to do a little bit of work internally or a lot of work internally and say, there's an injury there. There's a wound there. And I come by it, honestly, and I want to know it in myself and bring love to it in myself. I want to nurture myself in that place. I want to reparent myself perhaps in that place. When I've healed that a bit, I have compassion. I have the ability to say, bring the cousin to lunch. Let's do it. I'm not going to just shut all the doors in it. Because you started there. And I get to claim my family and my heritage because I love my father. My father's also the person who busted his ass day and night to bring us here. I have a million things to be grateful for. And I also get to not cut myself from my

family's history. I get to understand my father. It makes me think about what my father went through, that trauma and grief and that he couldn't at 40, I'm 48, he couldn't afford it 48 to go get help. Yeah. Right? Because he was working 12 hours a day so that we can grow up having a better life. And he, you know, all those things. And what happened to him and what happened to the people who took care of him? So, you know, to me, the richness of being human is. also our stories and to really understand our stories. It's reductionistic in black and white where you ended with, you did, you know, you did this, I don't have to take it anymore, here's my boundary. And now I get to just be kind of a compartmentalized human being versus it's really

been a lovely, meaningful journey to me to really understand our story, multiple generations. When you look at these behaviors that are now coming to Roos, they date back to. to major events in which people were victims of history. What happened in the Depression, World War II? And how that's been carried forward? For us, the Iranian revolution, the, you know, these made, the pandemic, these, it often goes back to major historical experiences in which humans as a whole were just struggling together

and not everything can be done well. And when it's unresolved, it just keeps alive through generations. If we're going to really heal, I believe in healing in that larger way, you know, versus these stories in which I think often people feel like there's a lot of victimhood now, right? And that's what my younger clients is. I don't like that label. I think it's because it's like this awareness that this is turning into victimhood. And I don't like that, you know, because it makes me limited in some way versus

understanding the larger human story that we're all in. And that's what it really means to be human, is that we struggle together. to have health, right? And so that's, I think, an American limitation that I think we hopefully will evolve from. It's like the self is the final thing versus family or history. You know, it isn't just crossing the ocean and starting fresh. We bring with us a lot of baggage. But those are meaningful stories that we can uncover if we can not,

if we can move through the stages of the process. You know, there's like stages of grief. There's stages of healing from trauma. Anger is, you know, one of the most accepted understanding of stages of grief, which is what do you do with a loss? So ending a toxic relationship is a loss. It's an end. We have to grieve that.

Now, there's stages of grief. First is usually denial, then bargaining, then anger. We're staying stuck at anger very often because I think it's a very safe, intoxicating place to whereas the next stage is acceptance. And then you come to peace. And the beauty of coming to peace is that you don't have a charge anymore. You're now a free person, as you said. Now I can actually lean in with people and be now a source of health for them.

Because I've moved through something. You know, we're not becoming adults and elders. Talk about grief. I think grief is very important. You mentioned something previously, which is that we're sort of in the space. right now where we've lost the elders in the community. How much of that plays a role on transfer of wisdom through generations. It feels like everybody's kind of just having to figure it out for themselves for the first time. There's a lot of beautiful things on that. You know, we romanticize

the past, but in the past, if your last name was blacksmith, your entire family had to be a blacksmith and you were sort of ruled in that tradition. So there was challenging things in the past. If you were suffering from sexual abuse as a young girl you know there's no you know visibility awareness things don't people don't talk about stuff not that that's completely changed now but there's more awareness there so there's a lot of challenges in the past yeah but what we're missing today seems to be a little bit of the component of that wisdom that de-escalation that ability to not immediately always react yeah yeah i just you know I like that.

Yeah. The space between the stimulus and the response, right? Because as you were talking, I thought the solution is just slow down. It's like, just slow down. We're very reactive. It's like, you said that? No, never again. Like, people are, and it's like the gray zone for me, you know, the dangerous conversations,

the grief work, the turning inward, the trying to find empathy inwardly so that we can, you know, also shine that outwardly. it takes slowing down. It takes saying something happened. There was a stimulus that provoked me, that hurt me even, maybe that I didn't like. Fair. Can I slow down with it now? Yeah.

And not be so certain that I know what it means or that I know what I have to do or that there's only one answer or that it's black and white, like slowing down. That's why introspection comes back in a lot to this conversation. Just that commitment to to influence. word exploration, you know, that is, that I understand is a luxury and a privilege for all of us living these lives, but without it, you know, kind of screwed. Yeah, and slowing down, like, elders are slower, right? And, you know, I have a thing, like, I cringe when I see some parents, when a grandparent says or does something,

either in front of them corrects them or afterwards talks about, I can't believe grandpa said this because there's like a right way to act and what to say. And I'm not talking about like grandpa's abusive. I'm talking about like grandpa. It's like my grant, my recently heard of a grandfather like, you know, a girl said, you know, I love art and he said, you're not going to make any money on art, right? And it was like, I can't believe he said that. We should talk to him.

and, you know, it's like, that's what a grandparent's going to be like. And we don't need to create these perfect environments. So first of all, I think we're alienating each other with these like, what's the right way to be? And then we lose on like, we need challenge and support, right? So we were in Italy recently. And it was so with her mom. And it was so enjoyable because I often have felt anxious for her mom because she tries

so hard to connect with the kids sometimes trying to be entertaining and interesting and they're not really into it. And then we were in Italy and first of all in Italy it was much more family oriented. It was like just so moving to see like how her mom was treated, you know, younger people like the concierge or whatever, like opening chairs and she goes first and that thoughtfulness. And then her mom kind of settled into being in a culture in which is actually recognizing her as somebody important, which is something I know growing up in terms of my family as a traditional family. And it was like she no longer was making an effort to connect with the grandkids in a certain way. She became a presence in these kids ecosystem. And then you saw how the kids were getting

to experience her and absorb her as this institution in our field, not meaning in our professional field, like in the field, in the ecosystem, in the environment. It was this like respected entity, right, like a pillar in your presence, that that was the ecosystem, that was the, situation in which you really saw her value come alive. And then because she felt value, she began to just tell her own stories, telling her own stories, what was life like and tell all these stories, right? And so then it became medieval. And it was not because she was trying to connect with her grandkids, because she needed to be

interesting and figure out what they needed. right? So there's a whole way in which we're living that's kind of like just removing parts, right? It's like, you know, we, we, we're, you're in the healthcare field like me where, you know, like medicines are often like extracting a certain part of something, right? Like, you know, like right now the psychedelic movement, like, you know, what if you extract just this chemical that seems to be the most important part of it will be okay? Well, there's something about the way this plant evolved. It's the whole thing.

Like we're cutting out whole things. And younger people growing up not even know it's there. It used to be there, right? And so I'm unhappy. I'm unfulfilled. I'm cranky. I'm brittle. But I'm also, there's a lot of trauma and all this stuff.

And, you know, we don't really see the whole picture, I think. A disconnection. Yeah, the level of disconnection and like how we are living extremely differently. You know, if this were, if we had a card. that said how to care for the human being, the way we get a card for how to care for a human plant, like a plant that you buy at a store, if we had that kind of a thing,

like it just, it's not that it was wonderful in the old days, but just this is not normal. This is like the nuclear family is totally a new invention for about 70 years as an experiment, you know, and most reads on it would say it's like a colossal failure.

It is not working. So within that reality and with you talking to patients and what's unique about you guys, you also work with families as well too, right? You'll often work with multiple people that are there. What's a vision for the new future look like? And it's not that necessarily it's coming from one group or one party. But what are some of the things that you've been seeing or even been trying to implement in your own life?

So if that's kind of the world right now and this sort of system has designed a little bit of toxic culture, so to speak. How do we create a new framework? And what are some threads that we can pull on inside of there? I mean, it starts with each of us. Start small. So for me, working with people and certainly in my own family life, can I slow down enough to get in touch with the values that really matter to me?

and bring goodness in my life and around me. Often it's the simple things and it's remembering connection, right? So can we start to, or not start to, we've been good about this. Can we keep the family dinners, you know? Can we sit down at the table together? Can we make sure that we're calling grandma, grandpa, every Sunday? You know, the kind of rituals of connection, I think are really important.

and teaching our children, those rituals of connection. You know, in clinical work for me, it's having the rule that I don't want you to tell me about him or her. I want you to tell me about you. I think that's a good way to approach clinical work. So self-responsibility. Don't come in and tell me all the ways he needs to change or she needs to change for you to feel happy. Tell me about yourself. Tell me what makes you challenging.

Tell me where you could grow. So I think on the smallest scale, it's getting back in touch with the value of self-accountability, self-responsibility, mercy, tolerance, and forgiveness. How is a whole other question. But let's put those values back in the mix. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think the pattern that you just described for clients, for yourself and us, it's like it starts with you, right? And like our family dinners, but like, you know, your practice, you know,

I want to say your practice, you know, yoga, you know, for you. And I have my practice. It's like it starts with your own self-care. And then you can build on that, you know. And there it is boundary. So the boundaries first. So it's like I had to, it's like, which includes dealing with what was traumatic or what is grief inside you.

you. So it does start with, yeah, it does start with what's happening right now, you know, ending toxic relationships, ending toxicity, ending the silence around trauma or grief that's unresolved in the family, like addressing the moral injuries. So it starts, that's about starting with myself. Like I have to say what isn't working for me. I have to say, you know, I can't give without first being a sovereign person. but I think to do that with caution, to do that with humility, to do that with patience, to do that knowing that this is just the first step in the journey. All right.

So doing that with like that kind of conscientiousness means you can say, hey, I need to end this toxicity. Maybe I need to not talk to you for a week or a month or look, I want a relationship, but I need to figure this out. That's a different tone. That's a different tenor. Slowing down. Yeah, there's a different energy.

to that. That's allowing, there's openings left there, right? You're not saying you're bad and I'm the morally righteous one. You're not cutting something off. You're talking about the need to address something. I have to figure out how to take care of myself, right? This isn't working. I'm hurting or whatever it is, you know, you start there and then you introspect, you change your life. You know, how many times have I experienced, like, you know, I haven't swam, my morning, my morning practice is swimming, I don't do it two, three days in a row, you know, I'm suddenly experiencing you as being toxic, right? Because I'm misinterpreceiving the meaning and the value and the texture of something. You know, I take care of myself. I come and go, oh, wow, I completely

see it differently. And then evolving beyond that, it's like the next step is relate. I really believe that we have a drive to be whole. Just like an acorn has a drive to become that oak tree. We have something in us that's trying to evolve. And a human being as a whole person doesn't experience being whole without becoming a part of something and having a purpose in their life. So it starts with you, become a sovereign person, but that's just basically becoming an adult. Now as an adult, designed to find your tribe, build your relationships, find out what it is you're here to contribute.

You know, what role can you play in other people's lives? Where do you have purpose? So I think seeing your life and as an arc as being on a journey of fulfilling yourself and fulfilling your potential means seeing like the first stage is just becoming a sovereign person. That's just the beginning. That's just becoming really an adolescent and adult. And that you're, you, it's just the beginning. And so it's having that kind of larger goal, I think, that we don't, you know, when you said earlier, happiness, what's happiness? You know, happiness is a great emotion. It's, it's a somewhat superficial one. It's a temporary one.

It's like I, somebody once said, you know, joy is a far more valuable state. Joy requires other people. Joy is something that's shared. Joy has a deeper kind of nourishment to it. So I think where we go from here, maybe the bigger thing is like just to become more of a wisdom-oriented culture, like to think bigger, to think about like not just I want to feel safe, but I also want to like have trust. I want to like have meaningful relationships, which means I have to be vulnerable, which means I have to be human, which means I have to be imperfect, which means that all those things that I might have judged that other person for, I actually have them in myself. and if I don't reconnect with them, I don't get to have that moment of getting to laugh at myself, you know, getting to cry about something. I mean, we went through something recently.

It's like, I couldn't believe I was sharing that, you know, and crying so embarrassed. But then it was like, what a gift. Like I don't have to hide that anymore. And all the people I judged over the years for that side of them, right? But I'm 47. At 48 I went through that. And I'm an expert and thought leader of helping other people.

So if I at 48 have had to go through humiliating, oh my God, it was me also. And I was judging others. It's like, you know. We're all there. We're all there. It looked like you were going to chime in on something earlier. I mean, I just think it's starting with the self. It's just starting with the self.

It's we might not have time to go do yoga. or swim in the morning, right? And we often don't either. But I probably can spend a minute somewhere in my day feeling into something that I'm tight about or judging or not bringing, you know, kind, curious awareness to. I can often spend just a minute, just turning inward and deciding to soften inwardly by virtue of making a choice to do so. I'm going to make a choice to cultivate my well-being. So I'm going to make a choice to spend a minute in cultivation of that well-being by saying, I'm going to let that go, or I'm going to put my hand on my heart and say it's okay. So that moment that I've spent with myself has a direct impact on the next moment I'm going to

spend with my husband or with my child or with my coworker or whomever else. So I think we have to just start with ourselves. You know, going back to this idea, of how to bring things up with the folks and connecting that back to the idea of over labeling people as toxic as a way to write them off. It seems that one of the things that I'm getting from you guys, and I'd love you to expand on this before we like talk about your world and what you guys are up to and the nonprofit and everything is that the more likely we are to write people off, the more that that increases this likelihood of also ghosting.

We often talk about ghosting in sort of the dating culture, but we're seeing a lot of ghosting in just everyday conversations. We're hurt by something, but we're not willing to tell somebody directly through a dangerous conversation that, hey, actually, this thing that you said earlier, it kind of hurt my feelings. And I'd like to talk about it a little bit because and having a healthy conversation from there. So I'm seeing this uptick in fire all toxic people from your life, which is also a way to distance ourselves from other people and avoid having a difficult conversation, which is a version of ghosting.

Do you guys think that's correct? Anything you want to add to that? I think that's correct. I think it's an unbelievable phenomenon that, you know, just I don't feel like I grew up with that. And to see people suffering from the ghosting thing is just so profound because it's such a, it's such a slap to one's sense of self and dignity, you know, for someone to just disappear. You even see it in families.

sometimes like I'm not even in a I'm not even going to I'm not even going to honor them as a person and tell them what they did wrong yeah it's just know yeah we've set it up though because we're setting it up with this thing is like why we're so lonely and isolated because we've we're setting it up where we have to like really agree we have to be on the same page you have to see me and I have to see you and it's got to be right so in that situation if I have a problem I can't say it to you we're not practicing there's no practice. Like people don't have practice with just disagreeing and saying, you know, I think you're wrong. And that's not the end of the world. Or like, and that doesn't mean I'm right.

I just right now think you're wrong. It's like that kind of humility. Like it takes so many qualities to be able to do that that we used to need because we had to communicate. You couldn't just move off. You lived in a village. You lived in a town. You had to have conversations because you couldn't just goes. Because you're going to see the person the next day at the corner story. You're going to see them at church. But we're the same people inside as we were. And so the injury is real. You know, we think that it's like, but the injury is real. Being ghosted or doing the ghosting, it's deeply impactful to our sense of, you know, integrity,

which means being integrated also. You know, it's like I think about some of the people I work with, the young people who have had these ghosting episodes. And it's like I see this book where the pages are just floating in the air. They never get to put them all in, the narrative of life that these pages just float and some just fly off into the wind. And that's not integration. The integration of kind of being able to tell a story and put it all together is valuable. It's valuable to our sense of self and what we're capable of. So it matters and we're acting like it doesn't in a way.

And it's just I don't really have much more to say other than, you know, be wary of the impact on yourself and others of something that counter. to human nature, you know? And really probably connecting into the thought previously that you both were sharing is that a lot of people just don't have role models because of the way that our society is set up. You haven't seen a lot of people have a healthy, difficult conversation. I mean, that's one of the beauties of things like podcast and the beautiful part of social media and YouTube and other stuff is that there's so much dialogue around this.

It's in the small part, but there's more and more people that are looking for what actually it looked like to healthily, healthy, in a healthy way, disagree with somebody, push back and just still say like, I still love you, I still care about you. People are hurting and they're looking for answers and I'm glad that there's more opportunities to be able to find that because those role models and situations aren't necessarily that everybody has had the luxury of growing up. Yeah, very much so. I think there's very little modeling for holding restraint. And that means not saying everything you feel you need to say because it's on the top of your mind and you believe it for holding restraint, but also, you know, conveying what you need to convey and being respectful

and gracious enough or graceful enough in being able to fundamentally understand. We don't have to agree. We don't have to see this the same way. We come honestly by our own experiences, by our own sense of self and, you know, being other and having, you know, diversity and viewpoint, shouldn't be so, it doesn't have to be so threatening. Yeah. This is a little bit random. I'm just going to toss it in there. Are you guys, have you ever seen the whole radical honesty movement that kind of like really

and I totally disagree with it? Yeah. So I was going to use it as opportunity to chat about it. So for those that are not familiar, there was a gentleman. his name was Brad Blanton. He kind of had a little bit of notoriety. He was working in the place of, I think he was a therapist in Washington, D.C., and he had arrived to the conclusion that most of the suffering that people come through in life

is primarily because they're not willing to be honest with the people. Okay, great. You know, there's some merit that's there. There's some components that are there. That turned into kind of a book and a little bit of a movement and retreats and other things. And there was some documentaries. He had one point in time ran for Congress. I think it was he ran for like Congress in his local area.

And it was like a, he was a Democrat running in like a highly Republican area. And he actually got like a significant amount of votes and everything. And then people found out that he does these crazy workshops for at the end of it. Everybody takes off their clothes because it's part of the radical honest. And then the whole movement kind of went away. That's here nor there. Just giving a little bit of background. But he wrote a book and I had a few friends back in the day that like really got into it.

Because I think that you see this idea. And you're like, that's what I need. I just need to be radically honest with people. there are moments where we do, moments, right? Right. And part of the setup that I was getting into for that is that it can seem so simple that just speaking your truth. Yeah.

But what people often forget is that your mind is like popcorn. Your thoughts aren't you. Yeah. You can literally have a thought one day that you want to kill your husband or wife because they're annoying the shit out of you. Does that make it real? Right. Does that idea that you're going to follow every single little thread,

every pinball that goes in one direction or another? is that, and also too, are you showing yourself as somebody who's trustworthy and vestible and is willing to make progress with people? Right, right. And if we jump with the first idea or thought that comes in our brain, that is our honest reflection or others, does honesty actually lead to the greater good and getting a chance to build together? Yeah.

I think sometimes it does. Yeah. And I think it's radical honesty. I think sometimes you have to be radically honest. there are relationships, you know, and moments in family life and, you know, where you do need to be able to look someone in the eye and say, look, here's what I really think, here's what I really believe. And radical in the sense that this may hurt you, this may, you know, hurt us, but it needs to be spoken because it's a truth that my body is living, my actions are living, I just haven't

said it out loud yet, or maybe, you know, it just is towards the greater good for that honesty to be there. But I really do believe in restraint. I believe that being authentic doesn't mean we say everything that comes across our monkey mind, right? And that there's a virtue in responsibility in, again, slowing down and really feeling into the purpose of the communication. What is the purpose of this communication, you know? Yeah, I think starts with the self. I think you have to be honest with yourself. That level of honesty, radical honesty inwardly.

Yeah, I think radical honestly with yourself. That's interesting that you say that if I could jump in. Because a lot of people, they see radical honesty and they think that, oh, I need to tell somebody else. But really what I'm hearing the distinction from you is you're saying, are you even honest with yourself? Now, then what you tell other people, that can have different levels of restraining or other stuff, but are you really being honest with yourself?

Yeah. And then that thing that we talked about earlier around space and that automaticity, it's like that reactive thought, what you're saying, popcorn versus like deeper knowing that only comes about when you can pan out, which means you have to be able to let go of the charge, not be charged to really be present, to like recognize the truth. And then the wisdom to know what do you do with the truth? Like, how do you deliver that? Like, how do I want to deliver that? I want to think about how I want to deliver that. Like, what is my purpose in delivering that? What am I trying to accomplish, not develop a strategy and tactics and thoughtfulness? It's like, you were saying a moment ago, you know, my body is saying, you know, my behavior is saying, but I need to say it.

It's like, I mean, you turn towards me and I thought about the number of, you know, times, like, I was really getting it wrong by saying, say what you. you think, say what you think. And I was saying what I think. And I was just thinking to myself, the pleasure I've developed in actually paying attention to you where I watch your behavior and I look at your body language and I attuned to you with sensitivity and say, this is what she's feeling. And then I decide, what is my wife need? And then I may not even tell you anything. I may just accomplish it. And I'm like, and that's, I'm like, that's, I'm like, that, And then as I get that right, I'm like, I think I'm becoming a gentleman.

You know, and it's like, that's a beautiful thing. Now, that's a really beautiful thing to attune to each other. Now, that requires deep, deep honesty, right? But that's different than saying everything you think and expecting the other person to say everything they think. And then experiencing, as I attuned to you better, when I do, because I still don't get it right, but that you actually then wind up saying more. Sure.

Because it's like, but there's like a far deeper thing that we merge from you than just like, you know, what would have been a superficial conversation potentially. About the thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Before we chat about your guys ecosystem and a little bit of the world and everything because I want our listeners to be able to, you know, have knowledge of that and you guys are doing a lot of really cool stuff. Anything else in this topic of toxicity, firing people, rushing. being reactionary, anything that you feel like we didn't get a chance to pull on?

I'll say, yeah, two things. One is that I think what's happening in the world of ending toxic relationships is happening mostly with non-family relationships. And we are people who are working with people who are dealing with their family stuff mostly, right? and so for us this conversation was like a lot about family estrangement. I think the way they're linked is actually that a lot of people are unleashed, beware that you're not unleashing your unresolved family trauma on your friend. Beware that your anger that this person and that person is not doing something right or is doing

something wrong and the vitriol and charge you have around it is because actually something you haven't dealt with. because it's really our family that causes those charges, right? And we might resolve that and realize like, oh, that's just Drew and that quirky has. But like I said, like, you know, I swim a few days in a run. I realize, oh, that charge is totally different, right? So I think that's, I think that the family stuff is where a lot of the pain and vitriol is really coming from. The other thing I was going to say is because we talked so much about like, don't get, I did,

don't get stuck in the anger and those. stages of grief is also beware of spiritual bypass or emotional bypass, which is people deciding that I want to be that noble person who doesn't feel anger, decide I want to be that person who doesn't, and I'm going to just be compassionate, but I'm skipping over my anger. It's like that sovereignty, that self-empowerment, that comes first. You have to get in touch with that anger first. Everybody's doing the best they can, so I don't even need to do it. deal with this. They're just doing the best I can. Let's all move on. And we all might know people like that, which is like they're amazing people, you know, but you can sound amazing. They sound amazing.

They can often be amazing, but like they might feel a little patronizing at times. There's something kind of missing there. And it's like they never get angry. And it's like, yeah, so it's like there, there's an arc. We're, we are a whole person. We're on a journey. You know, that maybe is my, like, final thing. It's like that all the parts together in the right order is what makes you human the middle way we don't want to be on one end we don't want to be another we don't want to spiritually bypass it yeah we don't want to just reuse it as an opportunity to write off and you know set off a nuclear bomb for everybody yeah disagrees with us yeah yeah anything for you i don't think so i think i think i've said most of it all right all right give us a little bit

of the world the non-profit the the the practice a little bit some of the work that you guys are doing um so i'm i'm an integral creative psychiatrist. I developed an approach that really is rooted in people becoming self-empowered and then the need for relationships. So what we do is really help people really heal, repair relationships once you are a sovereign person and then rooted in purpose and meaning that we need lives that are purposeful, meaningful. We really believe in people being able to recover completely from mental illness. That that's the core of what hope is about is that. that we should be able to recover completely

from most of the things that we struggle with. These are not chronic illnesses. And then with Alexis site, we founded a nonprofit called Lameda project. Our mission is to rewrite the story of mental health and well-being. We think that a lot of, you know, the purpose of it is to generate methods and approaches in which people can heal themselves

through the power of community, through self-empowerment, through purpose and meaning, believing that the story, stories that the theories that we have about mental illness have been reductionistic and actually been telling a story that is too narrow about what is really the cause and what do humans really need. And so the need to really rewrite our stories and to see our lives as a story that we're trying to fulfill that wholeness I've been talking about, the arc, authenticity, then belonging, then purpose, you know, becoming an elder that these ecological

and we call it an ecological lens that if we see ourselves the way we do every other organism, like a house plant, and then we give ourselves everything we need and we see ourselves on a path of, you know, like an acorn becoming an oak tree, like fulfilling a whole person, then you get all the conditions in which we really mostly wouldn't get sick, which is what the data actually supports. And that's the message we're trying to put out. what's the most fulfilling part of it for you and you have your own whole very very successful practice yes um to speak to the non-price i do private practice work with families and couples which i

which i love i'm very passionate about um i think the most me did you say most meaningful meaningful piece um i'm going to make it really simple the non-profit really is about helping bring back connection, places that are disconnected, and creating ecosystems of healing for people that are about feeling connected again. So it's, it's, it just feels really good to see people healing in community. I love seeing my individual clients and couples and families in my clinical practice, but I'd much rather see people out in their workplaces, in their schools, in the places they go every day to kind of make meaning in their lives

developing the skills and the tools together to feel good, to feel cared for, to co-create a sense of health and purpose together. So that's really meaningful. Yeah, yeah. And both clinics are open for new patients at the moment? Well, you're pretty packed,

but we're a clinic. It's a tough time. It's a tough. A lot of people hurting. There's so much need. All the great practitioners are kind of booked up. There's so much need. But yeah, we always help people find a good home with somebody who will help them do the work that they need to do.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to make a plug, I guess that, yeah, when we do it well, most people are able to also come off of medication. This whole chronic illness is not based in reality. It's a false story. You sent me that recent article in The Guardian that she said. shows the chemical imbalance theory has no backing at all.

And that's a story that is widely accepted that I have a chemical imbalance. Whereas when you look at the data, when you look at the resilience research, and when you look at the work we're doing in the nonprofit to create different approaches that organizations, corporations can implement, if we supply ourselves with the conditions that we evolve to thrive in, we heal, we go through hardship, we, we, we, overcome trauma and we also build fulfilling lives that become bulwarks and become preventative for mental health issues. You mentioned something previously, Omead, you said joy is so underrated, right? We don't talk about joy. You know, you were mentioning that we focused so much on happiness,

but really there's a lot of energy and joy. We don't talk enough about joy. So I'd like to conclude on this, which is that individually for both of you, Lexus, if you want to start a first, What's something simple in your life you do on a weekly or daily basis that brings you a strong level of joy? Yeah. That's easy. For me, it's my kids. And it's putting the phone away and connecting with them. I always say like on the floor.

They're not so little anymore that I'm really on the floor anymore. That doesn't really apply. But it does mean making eye contact. It does mean being in that proximity. of face to face, you know, and I get real close. Our eight-year-old son is maybe going to age out of this soon. But, you know, doing something creative, whether it's, whether it's art or nature or cooking or something silly at home, just doing something creative and spontaneous.

Technology totally put out of the way and even just five minutes of that kind of connection. Sometimes that's all it's going to be before they want this screen or I have a call or whatever it's going to be. But five minutes of real connection, like face-to-face eye-to-eye, that's joy for me. Love it. For you? You know, my kids say I'm corny when I talk this way. But I think the truth is if I'm taking good care of myself, which includes some things that give me joy, especially for me just being in nature and also conversations in which we're laughing, laughing, authentically laughing, belly laughing.

But like nothing is more joyous than, yeah, like just kind of orchestrating experiences where you're like nourishing your kids or my friends or my wife or... Good meal. Yeah, whether it's cooking a meal, but just, yeah, it's like, honestly, nothing feels better than giving. But not as a bypass of taking care of myself first, which means giving to myself. but like it's like if you do that and then to me like the orchestra nailing it or the touchdown is like where it's then I'm producing in some purposeful way that like and I might not actually be in

the background I would say that's kind of the most joyous is to like even kind of be the scene for a family connection yeah and be in the background yeah set the scene yeah swim first thing in the morning come back yeah yeah or I'm like on a hike with with our kids and like actually seeing Sam just kind of have a quiet moment on the hike where like I see he registers something because he had peacefulness inside himself and that I'm not a part of it. It's like that's really beautiful. Yeah, I love it. Beautiful. Alexis Omead, thank you both for coming back on. Thank you, first time for me. Thank you so much. This is your third time on. So this is great. Yeah. We'll have the links for Hope, Psychiatry and also Lameda Project. And is your clinic under your

name? Alexis Naim. So we'll have the website for that as well, too, inside of the show notes. Thank you both for being on. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thanks a lot.